5E Why Not? A Variant Captain Fighter

[GlassJaw]

Giffyglyph | Class Compendium

Create bold heroes for your D&D 5e campaign with Giffyglyph's Class Compendium.

giffyglyph.com

Check out the variant Fighter on this page. It has exactly this.

Side note: Giffyglyph has some of the best variant rules I've seen on the interwebs.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

So, I just realized a couple days ago, having never paid attention to the PDK, that a lot of my basic variant fighter ideas are subclass features for the PDK...

 

[Garthanos]

True, but it reflects experience.

it has occured to me that in 4e the expected advancement of your secondary and your primary stat are almost exactly like 5e stats + proficiency. So in this use case one might do both.

 

[Garthanos]

Giffyglyph | Class Compendium

Create bold heroes for your D&D 5e campaign with Giffyglyph's Class Compendium.

giffyglyph.com

Check out the variant Fighter on this page. It has exactly this.

Side note: Giffyglyph has some of the best variant rules I've seen on the interwebs.

New class resources—use your fighter's resolve to help control the battlefield.
Martial maneuvers—overwhelm your enemies in combat with new, martial actions.
New subclasses and subclass options—choose your specialty from the very first level.
Consistent resting—recover your strength with a long rest and take control of your adventure. Conserve your power or go all-out, it's your choice.

 

[Garthanos]

So, I just realized a couple days ago, having never paid attention to the PDK, that a lot of my basic variant fighter ideas are subclass features for the PDK...

So which are you rolling back into the core class? It looks like plenty of them are take the core feature and make it benefit allies around you too.

 

[Garthanos]

Predators Stare: Searching for vulnerabilities your unnerving focus drives your enemy to overcompensate inducing it to have disadvantage on its first attack during the following turn. Additionally you discover its vulnerability and your next attack against that enemy has a bonus damage equal to a superiority die + your wisdom modifier.
Special as a bonus (re)action you may perform a help action to help an ally attack the subject of your stare if you do they also gain a superiority die as extra damage on the helped attack.

Dramatic Form: if you forgo an additional attack enemies within 30 feet of the target enemy are also induced to have disadvantage if they fail a saving throw.

For balance one might compare to a trip which also impairs an enemy and delivers damage immediately etc .???

 

[Garthanos]

Looking at things that should be core to the Fighter - > The Hero from chainmail increased the number of hit dice of allies nearby. He also was immune to morale effects ( fear? ) and induced them in enemies with whom he drew as near as a charge distance. Basically a fear aura.

 

[Garthanos]

The fighter has more resources than we give it credit. Not just those extra attacks but also the great tankish defense. A bravura or barbarian or battlerager etc are playing off of trading in exactly that. They take extra risks to gain benefit. There was a particular noteworthy Warlord maneuver which supported the idea of taking risks to aid in inspiring an ally it makes more sense actually in the context of a well defended fighter than perhaps a less so 4e Warlord the original is called fearless rescue. The flavor of it is defender fighter but the effect was very warlord and bravura.

 

[Garthanos]

Additionally there may be explicit ways to convert that fighter robustness like making extraordinary exertions risking strain which might injure self just as provoking opportunity attacks risk it. They might be used to gain an extra attack which might be used on a scan for openings to perform a maneuver when the situation isn't ideal and similar things.
Straining or performing risky movement becomes a cash in on one fighter resource to gain another.

The general idea is the class has resources they just need unlocked from the striker domain and be allowed to combine for greater effect, and we can do that in naturalistic ways I think

Scanning for Openings, Straining, Risk taking all being real things someone might do to gain benefits and more climactic effects.

 

[Garthanos]

Meta maneuvers could be ones that could be compounded with other maneuvers for greater effect.

 

[Garthanos]

Looking at things that should be core to the Fighter - > The Hero from chainmail increased the number of hit dice of allies nearby. He also was immune to morale effects ( fear? ) and induced them in enemies with whom he drew as near as a charge distance. Basically a fear aura.

The Hero from Chainmail was also called a one man army.... so ways to fight larger numbers of enemies seems core too.

 

[Garthanos]

Additionally there may be explicit ways to convert that fighter robustness like making extraordinary exertions risking strain which might injure self just as provoking opportunity attacks risk it. They might be used to gain an extra attack which might be used on a scan for openings to perform a maneuver when the situation isn't ideal and similar things.
Straining or performing risky movement becomes a cash in on one fighter resource to gain another.

The general idea is the class has resources they just need unlocked from the striker domain and be allowed to combine for greater effect, and we can do that in naturalistic ways I think

Scanning for Openings, Straining, Risk taking all being real things someone might do to gain benefits and more climactic effects.

Straining should be something you can do as you perform the maneuver in a way that Scanning for openings may not necessarily be.

Basically these ways of increasing tactical fluidity invoke things which are often part of the fighter meme so that doing maneuvers is not a once every other fight thing. Note not every fighter will want the Scan for openings.
1) Perceptiveness and Planning (Scan for Openings)
2) Extraordinary Physicality. (Straining)
3) Courage. (Risk Trade Off)

 

[Garthanos]

Meta-maneuvers

1) Scan for Openings - perceptiveness and predictiveness and trades on extra attacks - gain attribute bonus on superiority die.
2) Straining represents extreme physicality involves trading in hit points - trades on your durability
3) Risking - courage, another trading on fighter defense

3a) gives advantage to enemy or enemies (for a bigger effect)​

3b) opportunities for them to attack you​

The following is just an initial thought its a bit like a mirror of part of number 3 instead of conferring advantage to your adversary you drop advantage... ie you Risk Failure instead of injury when you currently have nigh certainty.

4) Advantageous Exploit
When you would have advantage on the attack roll, you can forgo that advantage to exploit the foe’s distraction/bad position to apply a maneuver to your subsequent attack against that enemy as though you had a combat superiority die.

(A subclass perhaps called Rogue might have a special ability to gain advantage or skip to gaining a superiority die to target an enemy that is simultaneously engaged by more than one)

@Tony Vargas -

Edit advantage is currently feeling too cheap I think perhaps for accomplishing anything but a very raw attacks combined in one stroke kind of maneuver. So 3b and 4 are kind of meh no lets not

 

[Garthanos]

Balance notes advantage seems a lesser thing than having an extra attack or granting an Opportunity Attack it can after all actually double up on the end effect so in that regards the meta-maneuvers need some adjustments. For instance if scan for openings added an attribute bonus to the subsequent Superiority Die roll so would Provoking an attack but the other two options that trade on advantage wouldn't.

 

[Garthanos]

Devil in the details
Straining make a con save to avoid loss of X hit points where the hit points are analogous to average at level adversaries (where do we get that). - or - maybe a superiority die worth of hit points. That may sound inverted but you are getting hit points much faster than this will be increasing. The amount spent might even just be average for the die.

 

[MacD]

What about a feature that lends extra attacks to one of your Party member?
Like
"Tactical leader: Everytime you roll Initiative, you may give one or more of your extra attacks to party members within 30'.
Until the next short rest, you cannot use extra attacks you gave away.
The gifted party members may use your extra attack a number of times equal to your Intelligence modifier (min. 1).
Every Party member can only get one of your extra attacks.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

What about a feature that lends extra attacks to one of your Party member?
Like
"Tactical leader: Everytime you roll Initiative, you may give one or more of your extra attacks to party members within 30'.
Until the next short rest, you cannot use extra attacks you gave away.
The gifted party members may use your extra attack a number of times equal to your Intelligence modifier (min. 1).
Every Party member can only get one of your extra attacks.

Simpler version would be to use the Heroic Actions I suggested before, and allow one of the Heroic Actions 1/short rest to be granting an ally an attack.
A warlord subclass could then expand that to more per rest or eliminate the limit, while granting a bonus.

 

[Garthanos]

Simpler version would be to use the Heroic Actions I suggested before, and allow one of the Heroic Actions 1/short rest to be granting an ally an attack.

My stuff on this thread is more about converting maneuvers into something with a cost you have as a fighter all the time mostly. So Functionally if you have Commanders Strike and Know the Meta Maneuver Scan for openings. At level 5 you can spend 2 attacks to let someone do a boosted extra attack (that is worth it hopefully) each round. I think the reaction usage on the target part needs to vanish on that you are already eating your actions but that might be a separate tweak.

 

[Garthanos]

Arguably adding a clause so maneuvers like Commanders Strike you can do it on the allies turn wouldnt have to be some separate mechanic action type.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

My stuff on this thread is more about converting maneuvers into something with a cost you have as a fighter all the time mostly. So Functionally if you have Commanders Strike and Know the Meta Maneuver Scan for openings. At level 5 you can spend 2 attacks to let someone do a boosted extra attack (that is worth it hopefully) each round. I think the reaction usage on the target part needs to vanish on that you are already eating your actions but that might be a separate tweak.

That could certainly work. I would definitely keep the Heroic Action function, though, as a unique thing that fighters can do, where anything that casts an attack, they can do off turn once they have Heroic Actions at level 5 and on.

so, they can burn (2?)Heroic Actions on their turn, or after another creature’s turn, to grant a boosted attack.