Me:"Granny! Dael made a fix for the fighter!" My Gran(I suppose):"Thank you my dear, but I stick with my Palabarbmonk of the open bear paw of venegance, the current meta supports it better and I wont take second place after Gladys."
It's also funny to worry too much about bounded accuracy, when lvl 11-20 rogues have Reliable Talent and Expertise. Expertise makes certain skills have modifiers that are on the upper range of the expected modifiers, which would be okay if it was just that in a few skills for these classes, and other classes had a chance to at least have expertise in some of their signature skills, like a wizard should have the chance to get expertise in Arcana, if a bard or rogue can. But with Reliable Talent's turning any Skill Check's d20 roll that is below a 10 to 10, all their skill checks have a base, a bare minumum, of 10 plus their attribute modifiers and their proficiency modifier, which is doubled for Expertise skills. So an 11th level rogue could easily have a bare minimum Stealth of say 22 (10, +4 from Dex, +8 from doubling your Prof). Tier 3 Rogues literally cannot get less than a 20 skills they have Expertise in, unless they have a low Ability Score with it, and even then, by Tier 4, Expertise will give them +12 in those skills, making it a minumum of 22 in any skill they are experts in but only have a 10 for the Ability Score. It's also absurd to worry too much about bounded accuracy or game balance between non-magical things in the game, when most damage dealing spells, outside of cantrips, automatically do at least half damage. Which would be okay if spellcasters didn't get more and more spell slots until it slows down around tier 3, but because spell casters by level 10 have 15 spell slots, but subclasses like battlemaster only have 4 superiority die, which are used for combat manuevors that don't automatically hit like spells, and their effects pale in comparison to spells, and you get less of them. I really hate the game imbalance between spellcasters and non spellcasters in DnD, btw. Seriously, you could have an elf wizard, rolling for stats, and have a 20 dex, which with mage armor, would give them an 18 AC at level one, and a high elf would give them Rapier proficiency and a +5 Dex Bonus, so they'd have a higher AC than the fighter until the fighter adventures enough to buy plate mail and catch up to the Wizard's AC, and unless they have a +2 Racial Bonus to either Strength or Dexterity, they won't even be as accurate with their weapon attacks as that Elf is with their Rapier or Longbow. You can effectively out fight a fighter at low levels, simply by having good Ability Scores. If you have enough of a lead in Constitution, spellcasters can even have more hit points than fighters, or even barbarians, after the first 2 levels. This is partially because of bounding accuracy, which caused them to chicken out at the last minute from giving fighters a boost to their attack rolls or defense from a floating die or dice they could choose how to use on their turns, that would boost their attack rolls if they use this die to add to an attack roll, but they recycled that into the Battlemaster, but made it a limited use thing, which nerfed it, and it's also a subclass feature, so it doesn't even help the base class's ability to fight. And none of this matters as much as the fact that at level 5 and beyond, primary spellcasters, such as the wizard and sorceror, start dominating the game with spells like Fireball. And then Polymorph and Banishment, which swing combats in powerful ways the non caster classes are barren of. Most of DnDs challenges can be poofed away by the right spells, and if the challenge is straight forward enough, such as a group of enemies who aren't immune to fire damage, then they just be poofed by the same Fireball spell, regularly. And spells like Fireball undermine and foil one of the game developers' goals with bounded accuracy, which is to have low level monsters be still viable at higher levels by increasing their numbers, but it doesn't pan out because of the over-powered area of effect spells, especially Fireball, which obliterate low Hit Die monsters en masse. Spells in DnD have always been a problem, in every addition outside of 4th, granting roughly exponentially growing power to some characters, and thus players, while others are left with linear progression, or more accurately, linear progressions in things like Thac0/Attack Bonuses and Extra Attacks, which are counter balanced by a rough linear progression from the monsters having things like higher Attack Bonuses, Multi-Attack, and more hit points, effectively countering the effects of their gains as they level. Also, the schools of magic give spellcasters like wizards a lot of versatility which gives them more chances to do useful things. Their is information hidden from the party? The wizard can cast the right Divination spell to obtain more information. The wizard can cast abjuration spells to protect from strange and dangerous things like elemental damage, or hostile being from a good or evil realm. Or they can just cast Evocation or Conjuration spells, and do more damage then the 'combat' classes, which is the main way non spellcasters contribute in combat, by doing damage, which spellcasters out do them in, regularly. Even the healer Cleric can cast Spirit Gaurdians, and deal damage each round to all the enemies in it's radius. A Cleric with Spirit Guardians is like a Fighter ... if that Fighter automatically hit with all their weapon attacks, and they had as many weapon attacks as their are enemies within 30 feet of them, and they don't have to worry about making a ranged attack when an enemy is within melee of them. Spells also mock the 'action economy'. Want to hit the enemies more times than a high level fighter, cast Spirit Gaurdians. Want to do more Melee attacks than the classes who are supposed to be specialized in Melee Attacks? Cast Animate Objects on 10 small objects, and get more melee attacks than a level 20 fighter using action surge. And since it's a spell, the animate objects are magical, so they bypass immunity to non magical damage. Which is a stupid feature by the way. Making a creature immune to non-magical damage, but take normal damage from magical damage simultaneously fails to make the creature any tougher to fight (not even slightly) for most of the players, while rendering some characters totally useless in that combat, outside of maybe performing the Help action or something.
@@Tiyev You're on it, mate. But it's worse than that - just the basic progression of monsters and PCs makes a mockery of bounded accuracy. The developers succeeded in limiting bonuses to AC, but by the time you're level 10 things rarely miss no matter what the AC is. You just have to hope you have enough hit points. If you're going to make the Fighter bad at everything but fighting, he should put everyone else to absolute shame on the battlefield. But they didn't. Just about every other class has fun ways to interact with exploration and social challenges; only a Battle Master who's gone so far as to spend one of his very limited maneuvers learned on a social/exploration based maneuver can do it ... and then only 4 times. And then only if he just wants to roll to hit in combat. It's ridiculous.
@@Tiyev I'm also really glad you pointed out the problem of 4 superiority dice vs. 15 spell slots without saying the short rest balances the difference. It really, really doesn't.
@@fardareismai4495 ehhh, i mean arguments can be made either way. legolas *has* shown that he has some level of ranger abilities. not quite to the extent that aragorn has, but he still does. Thats kinda the problem. it can be difficult to tell a fighter from a ranger, because flavor wise, its *Really* easy to make a fighter that looks like a ranger through skill selection (in 5e). *disclaimer*: im not saying that that rangers don't exist in fantasy, or that they don't have a place in fantasy, they absolutely do. im just saying that the differences between a ranger and a fighter (from a narrative perspective) are very subtle.
@@Answerisequal42 on the contrary, you even the movies show aragorn communing with animals. or...did you forget abouthte scene in Rohan with the horse that he ordered freed....that later came back to rescue him? that is absolutely a ranger/druid talent (and i don't think its possible to make the case teat aragorn is a druid). as far as magic, well, 'magic' as it exists in DnD is incredibly uncommon, and typically subtle in LoTR, but delaying frodos infection certainly qualifies, and its even more clear in the books when he spends a lot of time working at the healer's house in Minas Tirith after the battle of pelenor fields. Specifically because he was able to use athelas (king's foil) as a medicine. Which was certainly shown as being superhuman in the books remember, even sam considered it a weed, not something with healing properties, and in the books, again, its even more clear. finally, if you look at DnD deeper than just 5e, you can have rangers that also don't use magic. for legolas, well, its harder to make the case in either direction. He was never more than a supporting character in either medium. So we saw less of what he could do. And so much of what we did see was a result of his heritage more than anything. However, his heritage, by itself, greatly favors ranger. druid/ranger as a class just too neatly lines up with wood elf culture (in LoTR i mean). However, he was obviously more martial focused which means he too wasn't a druid. But its unlikely he completely abandoned his natury heritage. ergo, a ranger. remember, when you're making these comparisons, you have to keep in mind that dnd as a system assumes there are certain things true about the world. And most of those assumptions, particularly when it comes to magic, don't translate perfectly into Middle Earth. a great example of that is Wizards. they largely don't exist in Middle earth. Wormtongue was technically a wizard (he actually learned some magic from saruman, according to the books). But saruman and gandalf? they were canonically basically Solar's, not wizards (at least, not by dnd standards)
I think that one of the most fun ways to play a fighter is to really take advantage of the fact that they are good with every combination of weapon and armor, and I think molding their abilities around that would be a really cool way to do things. So instead of specializing in a weapon, maybe instead of an extra attack or crit-range extension, a fighter gets to choose one quality out of like... thrown, versatile, light, finesse, and reach and apply it to a broader selection of weapons they pick up. They're good at lunging, so they've got reach with daggers, or they do the rad anime thing and throw their greatsword. I like 'thrown' for this the most 'cause I like encouraging fighters to get rid of the weapon they're holding and grab a new one. Or maybe let them swap in the damage dice for those of a different weapon - so a fighter who usually has a greatsword gets to use 2d6 as the damage for any two-handed weapon. Let them pick up and equip weapons easier than other classes. For a level 7 ribbon ability, maybe give them explicit mechanical bonuses to disguise checks to wear other people's armor and the ability to change armor really fast, so that when they bop the evil king's soldiers, they can grab the mooks' arms and armor and go pretend to be in their ranks. D&D is _usually_ optimal when you've got one weapon that you always use for everything forever, and I'd like to see that mold broken a little bit.
These are some fun ideas, especially giving the fighter the option to apply weapon qualities to weapons that don't normally have them. Back in 3.5, and later in Pathfinder, I would allow fighters who take weapon focus in a weapon to apply the weapon finesse feat to that weapon to represent training for precision and grace with that weapon over raw power. In 5e, I could see the champion, who should be deadly with any weapon they pick up, getting an option like this.
Lol, it's actually a combination of an old username of mine from way back when and an old username of one of my friends - this was originally a joint account. I don't remember what his was - something hammer though - and mine was shadow fae. Gotta love edgy teenage usernames :)
@@faehammer Go for it! It worked well for my group. While I've mostly switched to D&D 5e, if I ever go back to Pathfinder, the other thing I will probably do is give people using Weapon Finesse or other Dex based weapons Dex to damage. I don't think it will cause any balance issues.
I am going to bite the bullet and say it: Make Indomitable a limited legendary resistance. Once (or twice, or thrice, depending on the level) per short rest, the fighter does not fail a physical saving throw. You could even have the capstone ability be that this applies to all saving throws so you can truly have that behemoth of battle whose will and presence cannot be bent and their genius is shown only when wielding weapon
Indomitable comes back on a long rest not a short rest. If it came back on a short rest or automatically succeeded on the saving throw it would feel like a 9th 13th and 17th level ability. There is no guarantee that you will succeed on the saving throw... it counts as advantage which numerically comes down to plus 3.5. An additional 3.5 to a single saving throw per long rest just makes me want to play a paladin with a plus three to every saving throw, the ability to cast spells, and class ability healing. Thankfully I dislike how rigid the paladins flavor and how moldable fighters are with any background.
Amen. When I first saw Indomitable, I thought it's a LegRes, but I still wasn't really impressed. Imagine my dissappointment, when I saw that it's just a reroll.
Make it once per day LegRes. But let them also nope out of a mental save as well. Powerful, yes. But I reckon that's ok. They are Indomitable. That's the point. They aren't just a bit tougher than the other guy, they are Indomitable, in mind and body. That Mind Flayer's Mind Blast might cripple the Barbarian, but the Fighter just pushes through. Hold Person stops that Monk, but once per day, no matter the roll, the Fighter just doesn't care and whacks that mage anyway, breaking her concentration, saving the monk, and the whole party, in the process. Sounds like a Fighter to me. Re-rolling a save that might still fail sounds like a chump.
"I just keep hoping they will be what they are supposed to be, and not what they are". Damn. Why you gotta do them dirty like that. I mean. It's true, but still.
I can totally see the players going and buying a rabbit/chicken/newt/whatever small creature to sacrifice to their fighter who's just happened to miss any killing blows in the last three encounters.
@@pentbot They can just borrow some of the animals the necromancy wizard keeps around for grim harvest health. Really though, if someone in my game wanted to do a skeet-shooting training montage to practice with their new weapon I would certainly allow it; brushing it off without any RP fluff would make it seem very dumb however.
I'd just say 'when you level up.' In most cases that means you'll have been using it for a while, and even if not, you gain affinity with it at some climactic moment after having won some encounter. I'd add the soft proviso 'you know, if you've been using it' but that's hard to write concisely (how much? What about fighters that use lots of weapons? What about a legendary weapon that was taken from a boss that pushed you over the line? etc)
@@pentbot Reading this comment my first thought was that the rabbit/chicken/newt was going to be the favored weapon by using it to bludgeon another creature to death.
For a player in my game, I augmented Indomitable to be like legendary resistance but with STR, DEX, and CON only. Same recharge rate, same number of uses, just auto-success instead of re-roll.
I really like this idea, though there are two things I'd change to really sell it. 1) I don't see a problem with making it all saves. D&D being steeped in "yes, and..." culture, anytime a player gets to flat out say "no" is a powerful moment and curbing that to just physical saves feels unnecessary. 2) The wording should be that of changing the roll to a 20 on the die. Why this difference? Because now you can automatically crit a death saving throw to get back up. The down but not out moments in stories throughout history are far too numerous to count, so why not afford the Fighter the ability to remember that promise, those kids, their loved one, the fire in their heart, and the fate of the situation, and just get back up to win the day.
man, she gets it. it's not about the numbers or the balance, as a DM you can literally just say "no" whenever those things get in the way. but the "feel" of gameplay matters a lot, and that's what she's tackling here. love it.
Yanno with how she breaks down the other marshal classes by fun (Monk Attacks, Paladin Damage etc) it makes you wonder why they didn't make the Fighter or the Ranger a crit-fisher. It would have fit one of those classes really nicely
I've just been introduced to you through Brennan Lee Mulligan's Adventuring Academy, and I'm super glad I was! It's so refreshing to find DnD content creators who talk about balancing classes for FUN instead of just for power level. My players and I don't play this game to win - we play it to FEEL.
I’ve never played a fighter but I love the flavor that your fighter changes add! It has he inspired for a future character, even if the DM doesn’t allow it. And hearing you sing I Will Always Love You reminded me that I’m supposed to like videos on TH-cam, so 👍
I don't even play D&D so I mostly had no idea what you were talking about, but the concept that mechanics should build and deliver **fun**: that's beautifully put and is equally valuable for any system.
Me and a friend are making at the moment a system for battles and little fights for a d&d like game. Because we don't like the fighting and battle system of d&d. He never played it but he don't like the rules of d&d. Because we are both HEMA fighters. The reach is way more for weapons and shields are now good. Because you can block at every time an enemy hit and make a counter attack. And the enemy is allowed to block this attack but not to counter. But this is only because of the other players who also want to play.
@@jarlnils435 That sounds really cool. Just be careful, a lot of attempts to make realistic combat in RPG's turns out super complicated, slow, and a bit unfun. But if there was/is a system that allows dynamic, realistic combat while still being fast-paced and not extremely rules-heavy.
Another ability that would give the champion fighter more "fight": Whenever you make an attack with your favored weapon, you can treat a d20 roll of 6 or lower as a 7. Similar to the Rogue's Reliable Talent, but focuses on fighting instead of rogue'ing.
@9:40 I find it refreshing that you make suggestions and flat out say you're not decided on the best approach/tweak/etc. Makes the video seen more like friend sharing thoughts.
Fun-balanced is such a good way to describe it! I've just never wanted to play a fighter and you are right, it's because they're not fun-balanced. Multiple extra attacks just doesn't feel innately fun to play like the other classes do. Also, just wanted to say thank you for all your videos; they always make me smile and your ideas are always so inspiring.
Eldritch Knight and Battlemaster are really fun! EK gets cool spells AND is probably the best tank in the game (shield spell +platemail is SO strong) and battlemaster can do just as many crazy fun things as monk! They can push people off ledges as give their buddies movement as a reaction and all kinds of cool stuff! But Dael is right about Champion
True true. One part of me wants to fix the champion with damage bonuses and such, (compare Kensai or Life Cleric) but on the other hand that lacks flash or pizzaz.
@@CountsDigGraves Champion for sure lacks flash and pizzaz. And im not sure it can really be fixed without a whole rework like Dael did. But EK and BM are great!
Dael..you are the best. I hope you are aware that you are the best. I also wish you had shared this treasure trove of genius before I took my Champion from 1 to 20. You touched on so many, if not all the design flaws of my favorite class. I shouldn't constantly question "why do I still love this class if this is how it was designed?!"
Ive thought about giving fighters the ability to trigger action surge as a reaction resulting in being able to take another go in the literal middle of something elses turn. Wizard gets his by an enemies first attack, enemy is going to land the killing blow with the second attack fighter gets to shout hold up !
I love this! In my own brew for fighters, I added to all the fighting styles a "after 4 lvls" rule, meaning after 4 levels with this fighting style you get a subtle buff, mostly equaling to an advantage on attacks on enemies who haven't gone yet, if the attack is related to or falls under the conditions of the fighting style. Defense for example, removes disadvantage on stealth after 4 lvls with that fighting style. Gives "time spent with a fighting style value too
I personally like the defense fighting style as a generalist style- it is the only one that doesn't dictate what weapons and fighting techniques you use, rather it gives a passive bonus, allowing you to switch your playstyle to better suit the situation. A defense fighter might not be as good at dual welding as a two-weapon fighter, but because of the passive AC bonus, they will be better at everything else. The +1 ac does seem fairly low-impact (what are the odds they get the exact number that changes it from a hit to a miss) but so are most of the other fighting styles (what are the odds the +2 damage will be the difference between a kill and survival) I would be okay with making the change be +2 instead of +1, but I wouldn't require them to use a shield to get it.
The AC doesn't stack though, like you are dependant on getting attacked a bunch of times. With Duelist, you add +2 to every attack, so as you gain more attacks you can deal more damage per turn. Also, it feels more interesting, because its something proactively used, rather than reactive. Personally I think a good fix would have been that the champions extra fighting style was available to every subclass, and that there were ones you had to reach level 10 to pick. Like defense, but you can dodge as a bouns action, or maybe Perfect Strike: once per short rest you can maximise your damage dice with a hit. Those would feel like your fighter has improved as they level up, and its options to use rather than just a minor passive buff
@@christopherfloody5555 I like your idea to improve fighting styles, giving a few higher level styles, and giving every fighter a second style. You could step that up even further with a subclass that focuses on versatility in combat and slowly adds more and more fighting styles so the can fight effectively in nearly any circumstance. I think that was their intention with the champion, a generic fighter with no extra active abilities (as compared to the battle master and eldritch knight in the players) just passive buffs. If you round it out with more styles, and give some of those higher level styles more active abilities, a subclass that focuses on getting more styles as they level would slowly add more combat options to the class. Something like a battle master that doesn't rely on a resource mechanic.
@@christopherfloody5555 but by fifth level it's pretty likely that you will (as the fighter) be attacked more than once per turn. And in most of the situations where you aren't then the enemies you face are likely to deal massive damage if their attack hits.
@@mme.veronica735 its actually better than that, the way AC works, the higher your AC is, the better a +1 to AC is (until you hit the cap where an enemy needs to roll a crit in order to hit). the reason for this is that you gotta look at the total pool of *possible rolls that can actually hit* rather than *pool of possible rolls.* for example: someone has a +6 attacking a 20 AC target. they only hit 7 times out of every 20 rolls. giving that same target a +1(defense fighting style) AC means now they only hit 6 times out of every 20. which is a 14% reduction in number of hits. another +1 (instead of defense, shield of faith) means its 5 out of every 20. which is an additional 16.5% decrease in hits taken (30% decrease compared to 20ac). combine shield of faith with defense fighting style and its another 20% decrease (50% total). obviously there's a different curve for every accuracy level, but *all* of them are higher than 5% (unless the creatures to-hit is high enough that they need to roll a 1 to miss obviously). tldr: while technically its a 5% decrease in incoming hit rate, it adds up to a much more significan decrease in damage taken
I really like this Home-Fix, as someone that is constantly home-brewing fighter subclasses features and fghting styles, this sounds really fun. I can see a champion with a giant montante as his favored weapon, a fluted mirror-polished armor and a spanish accent. "Don Bernardo Campeador del Valle is my name, prepare now to die, bellaco!"
I lost it at "I don't care I'm not a coward". I mean what can anyone say against that? Nothing that's what Also I feel it's necessary to say that I think this is the first homebrew I've seen where I want to just adopt it into my game with no changes. I've consistently felt inspired by your homebrews and take elements of them into my own house rules and philosophy, far more often than with other creators, but this is the first time that I don't even feel the need to tweak things from any homebrewer in order to make it fit into my approach, it's just perfect as is. Bravo
Only when you jump lengthwise, only when you have a 10 foot long run up, and when you or no one controls Sietch Tabr or Habanya Sietch, and neither the Emperor, House Atreides or House Harkonnen controls Tueks' Sietch...
Your protection works more like Tasha's "interception" My Protection remake is that you can add your shield bonus to a creature that is within 5ft of you. My alternative to it is that you can reaction give half cover to one creature within 5ft of you.
I ran a fighter with the protection fighting style, and what I found as we went up in level is that it just didn't feel worth it to use my reaction anymore when the person I was trying to protect routinely had 3+ attacks incoming a round. I don't think the problem is really the nature of the bonus, disadvantage is arguably better than the +2 that a shield will usually provide (though less predictable), the problem is that it only applies to one attack. So if what your suggesting is that you can choose for someone within 5ft to have that benefit all the time or that the half cover you grant with your reaction lasts for more than that one attack, thats awesome, but if its just a different flavor of bonus in that one instance, I don't think that makes much of a difference.
@@kennethfender3518 its legit that a creature your size or smaller benefits from your shield bonus (including a magical bonus if it has it) but it can only be one creature. The reaction one is that 1 creature your size or smaller can gain half cover until the start of your next turn. Both of them state that you have to be wielding a shield & that the other creature cannot be wielding a shield.
FYI, one thing that people rarely realize is that as a move action you can say that you chose to get half cover using your fighter or any other character in the party that is 5ft of you. "A target with half cover has a +2 bonus to AC and Dexterity saving throws. A target has half cover if an obstacle blocks at least half of its body. The obstacle might be a low wall, a large piece of furniture, a narrow tree trunk, or a creature, whether that creature is an enemy or a friend." Look at the end description.
As someone who holds monk near and dear to my heart, I'm glad your comparison wasn't just "MONKS ARE SO OP" and instead focused on making fighter better.
After looking into 4e after Matt Coville recommendation, the fighters there were awesome! Basically every fighter was a battle master and caviler mixed together. I think I'll steal some abilities from there and let fighters learn from other fighters during down time.
If you like that idea, I recommend checking out the Variant Fighter by Vorpal Dice Press. It gives every fighter access to a few Maneuvers that can be used all the time, and then a limited-use Superiority for each Maneuver to make it even better for that use. I've used it a few times myself and I feel it makes the Fighter significantly more fun. You no longer just swing your weapon for the 20th time today, and instead can choose from several special moves
I have been singing the praises of the 4e Fighter since 5e released and everybody just tells me "if that's what you want just play a battle master" and it is _so_ not the same thing I can't help but think nobody has played 4e Fighters. They were _so good_ (strictly from a fun perspective) and the options in 5e feel like an enormous step back and always makes me sad.
Flight of Dragons! My goodness, I have been trying to find that movie for ages and could not for the life of me find it. I love you. I finally know the name. Rankin Bass Hobbit and Flight of Dragons are pretty much what formed my ideas of fantasy when I was a kid. I absolutely loved these movies. Thank you so much!
How about hitting more often is handled like reliable talent for the rogue? For example, once per turn you may choose to replace a failed attack for a natural 10 (or less if it's too op, say 8)
Yeah, this was my thought. Due to Bounded Accuracy, if you're rolling high, you're already hitting most everything. To feel like you hit more consistently, you need to mitigate the effect of low rolls.
This is why I feel only the battlemaster subclass fits the "fighter" theme the best and lets you sort of compete with magic stuff your allies do. Like being able to knock the bosses weapon out of their hand or frighten them is pretty badass.
Have you considered playing a battle master? You get to do the 'fighter spends resource to fight good' thing a lot, and can get the 'wide array of fighting skills with focus on one thing' flavor that you might want from being a fighter. A lot of their maneuvers overlap with the stuff your revised champion does (like precision attack just being a better favored weapon), especially if you use the stuff in Tasha's for the new less-boring fighting styles and new maneuvers that scale battle masters into higher level play. Champion in my experience has been the subclass specifically for people who don't want to worry about resources, and just want simple easy fun.
Battle Masters are absolutely the best for that whole versatile non magical fighter feel. Maneuvers give a lot of flexibility in the options department (Not just combat either!) and because superiority dice are short rest based you're able to get a lot mileage out of them when you need it. The subclass can have a maximum of 12 Maneuvers and 8 Superiority Dice, that's a big pool of options for non magic caster, and its incredibly flavorful. So much so that in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything they made little build blocks that show the different ways you could play a Battle Master.
@@ashleyhoughton8592 Battle Master's Maneuvers are worse than Smites in every single way. You have less of them, they cause a LOT LESS damage and they aren't as versatile as the Paladin's spell slots in any way.
this is the most adhd channel ever, and I'm absolutely in love with it - out of context quote at the beginning that never gets explained - "I will always love you" cuz, why not - creative spirals and random rule ideas - rants and stories - dialogue between dael as the audience/her players and dael as Dael - Changing everything because goddamnit, why the hell not
"People on the internet get a little cranky." Psh, the internet is just jealous 'cause you make great and entertaining videos. Thanks for your thoughts on Fighters, and I've taken away several ideas for story building to up the fun-balancing of the class.
Super cool and inspiring video! After watching it the fighter was on my mind for days. When I think of a fighter I don't think of Legolas (how was he trained? What are his weaknesses?) I think of the *mighty warrior Boromir* (or the less known Guts during his time with the Band of The Hawks in Berserk). I think of a soldier, someone who acquired his skill in war, involving many battles, someone who survived not because some super power or becuae they are choosen by destiny but because of their raw physical prowess, their expirence and skill. They don't have any special recources, they just make the most out of what everyone has. Thinking about that I came up with three class features that would reflect that. 3rd level - *Go in for the kill* Everytime you take the attack action you can spen a d10 or a d12 hit die to add +5 to your attack role. You have to declare this before you roll. 7th level - *physical prowess* You ignore one point of exhaustion. When taking a long rest you recover one additional point of exhaustion. 10th level - *die standing* You can take an additional action surge. If you do you take one point of exhaustion at the end of your turn. You still can't use more than one action surge per turn. If you already have 6 points of exhaustion you will die at the end of your turn. In that case all your hits from the action surge will count as critical hits. Maybe this would be a different subclass though...
While I can't agree from a pure math point of view with Fighters < Monks (I think monk weapon attacks need to go d6-d8-d10-2d6 to be anywhere near on par numbers wise to a well made fighter), I do agree that in terms of fun monks far outstrip fighters. I like the idea that monks get more attacks, paladins get to choose to do big damage on the hits they make with smite, and fighters get to hit with their attacks more often. Not missing is honestly a big deal especially in a big party where it might be ten minutes before your next turn. To miss two rounds in a row is the pits, and having a class that won't do that it very helpful. I think what you've come up with works well! I want to play a Champion who feels like a champion rather than going three levels in champ for the crits and then slamming my face into tree trunks as a barbarian for all remaining levels. I do think the level 20 capstone is rather weak with 5% more likelihood to crit. Maybe 10% for a capstone? Like you said, no one gets there! Why make it weak? It should slap.
@@anthonynorman7545 They hadn’t really come up mentally, so good call. Feats do have a break point from what I’ve seen, though. Two maybe three feats and most of the time you have everything you need for the fun of the spec! You can get that at level four with a human of any class. I will say that feats can likely help make a fighter be good at skills. That could help make a fighter more than just the guy who shoots bows or swings great swords. For me that’s more the issue. Monks, while pretty bad in terms of numbers, have some great flavor and mechanics. I’ve never had more fun than teleporting every turn with a shadow monk even if it really didn’t help me do that much mechanically in combatsZ
@@kolskit every time I've seen someone play monk they stopped having fun as they slowly realized how ineffective they were compared to the rest of the party.
@@anthonynorman7545 I let a player in my most recent campaign get flurry of blows without using any ki. He still ran out of ki in a combat or two failing mostly to get stunning strike to actually land with his low saving throw, and his damage was about on par with the rest of the party. I convinced a friend DM to give his Way of the Elements monk a buff where all the ‘spells’ cost one less ki than advertised on the tin. It’s still kind of mediocre, but at least it isn’t ridiculously weak.
When you name dropped the knight from Flight of Dragons at the beginning of the video, I just about lost it. I've never found another person who has actually seen the movie. I remember, as a kid, getting emotional chills during his death speech. It's been a long time since I've seen the movie. Thanks for bringing back memories! Regarding fighters, I agree with your criticisms. Every time I roll a new character that might be a fighter, I quickly get dissatisfied just reviewing the class abilities, and I've never even considered a champion for more than a second because it feels absolutely underwhelming.
I really dig your approach of trying to stray away from the regular "roll attack, roll attack, roll attack". It can get pretty powerful, but it can also fall into boredom. Also, Champion for me is the archetypal fighter, the epitome of the what fighter represents and it deserves more cool options than just more extra attacks.
I would highly recommend if you haven't read it already the adventures of middle earth book especially for the non magical classes the favorite weapon ability you described is the foundation for the warrior (fighter) subclass weaponmaster. It really combines what should make the champion cool but with the customization and versatility of a battlemaster it is my favorite subclass and the idea is that you are so good with your specific weapon that it is treated like a +1 to start and each level you add on abilities to it. I love this video and great work as always.
Your Two-Weapon fighting fix is the same one I use for the feat, lol. The way it works in my game is the fighting style lets you add the bonus to damage (normal RAW); upgrades the bonus action attack into part of your attack action so you can use your bonus action for other things; and then, if you also have the 11th-level extra attack, lets you make a second offhand attack as a bonus action. The Dual-Wielder feat has its normal RAW stuff and also lets you make an extra offhand attack when you make an opportunity attack.
These are pretty good. For discussion's sake, I went further. *I've made Battlemaster Maneuvers part of the base class and given them faster-regenerating Superiority Dice (renamed Combat Dice because we're fighters and don't need six syllables). Those Combat Dice are also used to power subclass abilities, like Arcane Shots and such. And you can switch out your maneuvers on a Long Rest (so you maybe get to try new ones or give some of the specialized ones a chance, or MAYBE EVEN mentally prepare for a social or exploration encounter a bit). *Indomitable is, "ignore the effects of one spell or effect on you so long as you can maintain concentration." But I might change it to Dael's, it's pretty good. *Second Wind is a number of d10s equal to your level. *I'm slowly reworking Remarkable Athlete and Know Your Enemy into an either-or choice that'll give you something fun to do in exploration or social encounters. As written these are garbage so it's taking a while. *I'm adding an "Aggressive Warrior" (name in program), like a rogue's Cunning Action but it lets them do a Grapple, Shove, Disarm, Tumble, or some other non-damaging-attack-type maneuver as a bonus action. Really push the, "combat specialist" feel and get 'em used to doing that stuff. Given all this I've considered dropping Action Surge and maybe even extra attacks beyond the one at 5th level. Because Fighters, the class to embody some of the greatest heroes in fiction, deserve better than a "simple class" for your little brother to play until he gets gud.
Oh Flight of the Dragon's I used to watch that movie religiously as a kid. Also the way they made dragons fly in that movie was super cool and kinda more practical with the hydrogen gas.
In hindsight, this is a lot longer than I thought it'd be. Disclaimer I guess, I agreed with a lot, if not most of what you said. And I guess this is my opinion party contributions? TLDR, I agree, some balance suggestions, and then my personal fix for Fighters. I think one of the problems with the flavour is the world "versatile". Fighters are not. They are diverse. Each fighter can be very different to the next, but they are quite limited in what they can do. They do it better than anyone else - hit the thing - and I actually do mean anyone else, but they tend to lack flexibility outside of the subclass options that provide some of it. You have things like the Eldritch Knight that makes them super, super, hard to kill. You have the Echo Knight, that basically means they don't give a damn about mobility anymore. You have the battlemaster that is just better than all the others combined and is actually flexible and versatile and can make unique and interesting choices and... You're right when you say the fun of the monk is the versatility and the onslaught; they are able to get to whoever they need to fuck up, and are also generally very resilient vs spells. If you want to kill a caster, throw a monk at the problem. The fun of the Fighter to me has always seemed to be like "I'm the mundane of this group, the Hawkeye if you will, but you need me because I do what I do better than anyone else. And that's brutally fuck something up." I like the change to Protection Fighting Style btw. I think you could bring it up to 1d8 cause advantage/disadvantage tends to be weighed around 5 in 5e. I'm on the same page about Champion, the whole way. Remarkable athlete is absolute trash. "I am truly a remarkable athlete, the top of my field, peerless, this means I *checks notes* am slightly better at... hiding and pick pocketing?" I would want it to give me expertise with Athletics and/or Acrobatics. Let the Champion Fighter Athlete actually be the best at Athletics! Not a *checks notes* muscle bard! I like the idea of the favourite weapon. But in practice that means at level 3 "I get to add +1 to my attack roll 2/LR" and that feels a little underwhelming. I almost would like it to feel a bit more signifanct. Like, you get to roll a d4, and you get more d4s as you level up. More dice, more fun. Players love rolling dice. I think personally, what I would like to do is kill action surge, and move the battlemaster maneuver dice to replace it. And then make the battlemaster even better at doing those maneuvers. I think every fighter should be able to do them. That's what you trained for. You're a peak warrior, you can all try to disarm someone. The battlemaster can just do it much better than everyone else, like, increasing the number of usages, the number they can know, the size of the dice, maybe even 1/LR improvising and using 1 that they actually don't know.
Can I keep the "fighter hot takes" train going? Yes? Ok, so here's what it is for me: fighter in general and champion in particular work as they do, I think, because they're supposed to be the simplest class to play. It doesn't fulfill a fantasy because the only fantasy it's meant to fulfill is "doing the basics, but better". Some of the mechanics and class abilities really are underwhelming, sure, and I agree with the idea of fixing them. But the heart of the issue, for me, is quite different. I think the fighter is missing something. So what do I think the fighter is missing? A stronger way to tie specific fantasies of the fighter to cool mechanics that reinforce that theme! So how to go about fixing that? Well, either give them a much larger pool of available subclasses, or a subclass that gives a lot of options to mix and match to represent various concepts - or preferably both! Imagine, for instance, you have this idea of playing a freed gladiator - cool, right? Does that sound like a battle master? To me, no, not without further justification. Does it sound like any of the other subclasses available? No, they're all too specific. Except Champion - but that one's so bland it hurts! Same goes for a number of other fantasies. Can I make my guy feel like a gladiator with feats? Maybe, but I shouldn't have to rely on these "optional" rules (sidebar, does anyone really make feats off-limits in their games? Fighters become even worse, then, because Ability score improvements have diminishing returns after you max your most important attributes). So either give me a subclass that says "gladiator" and gives me cool abilities connected to that fantasy, or give me a generic subclass that allows me to customize my fighting abilities to match. Make 'em synergize well with the core fighter abilities to make them more effective and we're golden: the class will be fun to play again!
@@Raphir I think that Gladiator might not be a great example. In Tasha's they demonstrated like 15 different fighter builds that were all battlemasters and one was a Battlemaster. But, I think that's the problem. Battlemaster has the fun toys that the rest of the fighters don't get to play with. Imagine if every fighter could trip, disarm, shove, get temp hp - all very gladiator things - right? I personally think if you put that into the base class, and retweaked Champion like Dael's, you could build a real solid Gladiator that feels like a Gladiator, and I still think it'd be relatively simple compared to the other classes.
I am totally on board with making Battlemaster Maneuvers the core Fighter shiny thing, and then I say cancel the Battlemaster subclass entirely and give me a Warlord subclass instead. Then, for the streamlined, simple option of Champion, let them use their BM dice to turn misses into hits or choose to make saves they just failed, cancel an enemy's critical hit, etc. I guess those could all be BM maneuvers, too, but the idea would be to turn BM dice into something automatic, something they don't have to choose among many options.
Great video, I've been trying to think of a way to bring in actual fighting techniques into games a bit more for a variation of actions available and to make it a little easier for people that don't live and breath fantasy to visualise things! Re-watching your making realistic holidays video recently got me so inspired I'm releasing a CoC one shot/campaign next week with a lot of your philosophies in mind! Thank you for being such a big influence over the last couple of years, your content takes D&D to the next level of craftwork. Edit to say: A flight of Dragons! I think the book is called the Dragon and the George, the idea of dragons eating rock to fuel their flames was a big impression on me as a kid that things should make sense.
My general experience with 5E is, if you're not a caster you're underpowered by around level 5-6ish. Listening to Dael's description of what she would like fighters to be... are 4th edition fighter classes. Hrm. Favoured weapon would mean that sometimes you can have a +3 to hit at 17th level. OR... Archery fighting style is just a flat +2 always and forever. You could combine them I guess, but ... like, AC in 5E is just blerg anyway. Nothing is that hard to hit (but yes dice are bad). Now, if I can choose to add that 50% proficiency bonus AFTER the roll... worth considering. All IMO, YMMV, etc. etc.
Id say you’re undervaluing how powerful extra attack and uncanny dodge are. Sure, fireball is strong but id say the real place where magic characters pull away is something like 9-10 and most campaigns are starting to wrap up then. But, i tend to value ‘consistency’ over ‘versatility’ when determining power so ymmv as well lol
@@DOOMsword7 Sleep alone is ridiculous. 3rd level spell for 9d8, if I meet or exceed your current HP, no save. You're asleep. Scorching Ray gives a caster at 3rd level 3x 2d6 attacks with every additional spell level adding a 2d6 attack. Like, sure uncanny dodge is great, but all 3 of those base attacks can crit and uncanny dodge only applies to 1 of them. And don't even muddy everything with multiclassing.
@@thebpphantom spells shouldnt sneak attack unless youre using some homebrew (which is fine! Just not RAW). And sleep is powerful but situational. Sure, it can take out a whole room of twig blights but most cr 5 encounters have monsters with HP way higher than the 30 or so you get on a base lvl sleep. Im not saying spellcasting isn’t powerful its just not ‘more consistent’ than what fighters and rogues get. Youll use uncanny dodge multiple times a fight every fight
@@DOOMsword7 True, it has to be with a finesse or ranged weapon, but thanks to class interactions now that there are sourcebooks out that's not all too difficult to arrange. Sleep was just a great example because it starts with the creature most susceptible to it. Lowest HP first. So take out the minions. Or take out the 1 or 2 targets that have taken any damage at all placing them in the "lowest" category. It has nothing to do with consistency though. If a class is consistently less effective than the rest of the party, why would anyone take them? *shrug* Lots of ways to play and lots of systems out there. That's the beauty of it all :)
@@thebpphantom sure! I agree! Im just saying sleep isnt any more powerful than stunning strike. Or just picking up a dude and tossing him off a ledge. Spell casters tend to be the best at crowd control because that’s sort of the place they were built to shine, right? I think we’re sort of losing the thread lol. My point was that i think spellcasters are reasonably balanced with the melee and ranged fighters in 5e through most of the game that most people will play
From now on, when I come across people I consider a weak link in something I'm doing that are trying to help me, I will now refer to them as "squishy people" thanks to this video :P
I think Fighters get the benefit of Feats to expand in ways other classes don't and that helps balance Fighters more. Edit: With Two-Weapon Fighting, I made it so you can use both hands per Attack Action. Why? Math-wise Monks do more potential damage than a Dual Wielder even if all crits. Monk damage scales where DW weapons max at 1d8. This change puts them within 10 damage. This change also helps Rangers.
I always had the same issue. My way of dealing with it was to give fighters "on miss" abilities and health threshold abilities. So when a fighter misses their attack they can do things like push the target, give the target a penalty, deal a small amount of damage based on other features, and a few other things (there was a list of 20 things to choose from kind of like warlock abilities). The other things were at bloodied and at single digits (both recharge at long rest) you get adrenaline rush which increases your movement speed, saves and all physical skills for the fight.
I will say something about action surge that people don't seem to think about, and improvised actions too. At least 40% of the time, I'll use action surge to give me a boost in action ecnonomy to improvise an action. Important npc just got pushed off an airship? Ask the DM: "can I use my action and action surge to pull out my boomerang, quickly tie a knot around it, and throw it around their leg so it catches them?" It'll be a pretty high dc/ attack roll, but that's what precision attack/ lucky is for. Use action surge to pull off that cinematic/ cool moment that no other class can (action economy wise) afford to do. You'll feel a lot more useful than just getting a few extra attacks out. Most classes have a feature that lets them do more damage. There are less "do more things on your turn" features. Which is also why I'm hyped to play an echo knight, since they let you pull off more things in a turn by freeing up mobility. Sidenote- fighters are perhaps the most dependant on magic items out of all the classes. It is up to the dm how powerful you are. So seduce the dm.
It’s just a nit pick, but I don’t think an ability called second wind should have multiple uses per rest because then it would be the third wind! Or the fourth wind!
First video of yours I've ever seen, really enjoyed it and you made really great points plus awesomely presented. It's good to share criticism so we all improve but I got none, thanks for your hard work :)
I feel your beef with the fighting styles. I’ve played a two weapon fighter and the thing that pissed me off the most I think is the fact that your off hand attack will ALWAYS require the use of a bonus action, regardless of whether you’re level 5 or 20. Imagine how sad those few extra damage points seem once you near level 10. It’s absolutely not worth sacrificing a whole bonus action for it past a certain point, especially when you get cooler bonus actions from spells and items you pick up along the way.
I like that disclaimer where you put in that you're looking to balance the fun of the class rather than the power level of the classes. As a monk main I've always thought that the class was restrictive in potential since its easily the least tanky melee class, while also having less room for growth of damage output due to lack of magic items and feats that achieve that goal (compared to the a level 5 fighter whose damage can go up by 28 points on the first turn of combat just by handing them a flame tongue greatsword) But that said as an actual player I've had a lot of boredom as a fighter despite being tankier and higher damage which has never been true for playing a monk. Power level aside the monk is crazy fun to play especially once you get the verticle mobility of wall running at level 9 and can really use the enviornment to your advantage.
Omadon is a gold standard villain! Him chanting "doom" as the dragons flight out is /chef's kiss/ Also, I did go for the high note - trust me, you would not want to hear it, hahaha
You could always get more favored weapons as you level up, or maybe picking two or three when you get the feature Also, could you choose your unarmed strikes as you favored weapon?
Definitely a nice idea, that way you can be more *versatile*. The obvious choice would be to take whichever of melee or ranged you don't already have, or if you're a two-weapon fighter then now you can have both of your weapons be favored.
@@Myzelfa I was thinking more in the lines of versatility, and also for the fact that someone could train their entire lives with only a few weapons, not the whole catalogue.
@@GeneralAceTheAwesome or someone that was only trained for long distance battle, using javelins, longbows, and the like, perhaps only carrying a pocket knife when the going gets rough
@@hansolobutimdead The fluff, as Dael reminds us, mentions both versatility and specialization. I personally think it fits the Fighter's ouvre better if they are generally good with weapons, but really good with one in particular.
I dont play D&D (although i want to) but i watch all your vids and the home brew stuff you come up with is always really cool sounding. i think my favorite is the fire prince video, dope idea for a boss.
I'm not even convinced that it needs a fix but I'm here with an open mind! My fix for the fighter has always been just give them all the fighting styles. That sells me on their versatility far more. Most of the fighting styles can't be used at the same time anyway, because they are keyed off of what weapons you're using and so on. it's not a problem for all fighters to just get plus one ac, plus two to attack roles with range weapons, and the ability to reroll damage dice on great weapons. It's actually overall a very marginal power level increase but it goes really far in showing just how great of Marshall prowess you should have as a fighter. the other classes that choose a fighting style aren't focused on being a master's of all the weapons and so on, they have some training but they're more focused on things like you know being a holy man, or nature and survival skills. I guess my replacement for the extra fighting style feature that champion would get would be the sorts of buffs that Dale is talking about in this video. A champion enhances all of their fighting styles by like plus one at level 10. their archery gets a little better, their defense gets a little better, their two weapon fighting they get a bonus of plus one. instead of just imposing disadvantage on an attack of a Target next to him it's also an attack by a Target next to them to a Target other than them. Etc.
Tbh to "Fix" the fighter I'd just give all fighters (some of) the battle master manouvers and give BMs either more superiority dice, or better versions of the manouvers. Assuming a fighter is a "knight" figure, someone who spent much of their life training for combat, why would they have to specialize in one kind of fighting in order to be able to do stuff like trip, lunge, and parry? those all sound like basic requirements someone should learn as part of learning to fight.
@@MCXL1140 Superior technique? that's only 1 maneuver and 1 per short rest. Lame. In my view someone whose whole gig is supposed to be fighting should be able to do more than "i swing my sword at the enemy", and "i swing my sword at the enemy EXTRA HARD" (but only once because the effort takes so much out of them they have to have a snack and a nap before they can do it again). Like the wizard is the master of magic, the fighter should be the master of the down & dirty melee.
@@Gstrangeman96 the subclass is all give various stuff if you want with the idea of champion escalating all the files fighting styles they're really good at ***all the fighting***
I think part of the problem is that when you consider the history of the class, these better more interesting combat classes like Ranger, Monk, and even Paladin to some extent used to be wrapped up in Fighter. Imo, the real fix to Fighter (and many other classes for that matter) would be to add all those distilled classes back in as subclass options / specializations.
Growing up, I played second edition with my dad, and (along with a mess of other things) the classes had a limited number of weapons they knew how to use; rangers knew two or three, paladins knew like three or four, and the number scaled with level. Fighters always knew how to use the most weapons, so while other people might be stuck with a longsword until fifth level (or whatever it was), the fighter could use a longsword, dagger, mace, halberd, and crossbow. An interesting addendum that could be converted into the Favored Weapon idea where instead of replacing your favored one, you could add more.
Note: Phew, this is a lot of text, sorry! Just wanted to add at the top that I loved the video and especially enjoyed the Fighting Style fixes. My issue with the Fighter comes from a slightly different angle, but I think our goals are similar (to make it more fun to play). I think that in contrast to Wizards, who get new "features" every second level, currently the Fighter gets a bunch of features upfront that (almost) never improve. A better balance for this (and also one which avoids making Fighter one of the best 2-3 level dips) is to have Fighters get a select few features but to have them improve in versatility and power over time. To that end what I wrote was a "Knight" class, which tried to focus on having an actual theme to its abilities. What do Knights do (in fantasy)? They lead the peasants! They charge into battle! They protect the innocent! So they get three abilities, Protect, Charge and Leadership, from Levels 1-4 (skipping 3 to get their subclass) that each gradually improve all the way to Level 20. So whereas at Level 1 "Protect" is just the current Protection Fighting Style, by Level 16 you can 1) use your movement as part of the reaction to desperately lunge in the way of the attack, 2) make an attack against the foe as part of the reaction, and 3) cause the attack to automatically miss instead of just giving it disadvantage. This feels, to me, like what a Fighter should be. Every turn, all day, you can do Something Cool. At higher levels, that cool thing is easier to do, more impactful and more reliable.
I honestly like the idea of there being either a fighting style or a Fighter class feature that lets them deal half damage on a miss. Sort of like how Evocation Wizards can get Potent Cantrip, and how so many save spells deal at least some damage if they fail. If Barbarians get Reckless Attacks, and Rogues get Sneak Attacks, Fighters should get Reliable Attacks. Maybe not the most bursty or chaotic attack boost, but it would make them always feel useful. It would make Fighter damage seem inevitable. This guy is a master of his art. Even if you block him, you'll be shaken by the blow. Even if you dodge, he anticipates this and still grazes you slightly.
I think that this is definitely the way the class should be composed, as the superiority dice are definitely the fighter mechanic that is the most fun. The problem is that Eldritch Knights become insanely unbalanced. As someone who enjoys waltzing around in full plate with a shield, and who saves spell slots to cast "Shield" as a reaction, having the awesome abilities of the Battlemaster in addition to being able to cast spells in armor would tempt me to never play another class. I think Champion is just bad compared to the other subclasses.
I generally take the Battle Master as the 'default' fighter type as opposed to the champion anytime I do tweaks. Mostly because given the option you can make a simple battle master that is a better champion than the champion.
No, but I'd rather it wasn't because I like having options that aren't just a pool of expendable resources. The current kit of Champion should just be folded into Fighter basic and Champion should be reworked to actually be something useful.
@@bskec2177 Legendary resistances don't have to be used on a failed saving throw If you look in monster stat blocks, it's always optional: "If the tarrasque fails a saving throw, it can choose to succeed instead."
Yes. Love it. This has been in my ideas folder for a while, "Favorite weapon." but was never sure how to implement it. I dont think it should be changed over a long rest, I like the idea of: "I have fought wars, killed beasts, defended my home and avenged my wife. all with a spear in my hand. I know spears better than I know myself." +half of proficiency to any spear attack. and it takes a year to change favorite weapons. Because now you have interesting dilemmas. Magic axe? more damage? but I loose my spear bonus...
I like the idea of making fighter attacks "modular". Being able to put hit bonuses into damage or vice versa, maybe getting some penalty for extra range. I think that's an interesting concept to make a whole subclass around. Especially when fighter like most martial classes has a problem in how repetitive it can become.
Personally I brought the Manouvers into the base fighter class (Long Rest recharge) in place of Second wind (nerfed down into a Manouver) Then fused Champion with the remnants of Battlemaster This means the Fighter gets his own pseudo-smite: a non magical paladin TLDR: Manouvers part of the base class, so even the Champion has something to do
Checking in on this after a few days, I actually did a double take at the mention of favored weapons. Having been developing a tabletop game of my own for the last several years, one of the early decisions was to grant fighter-types a Favored Weapon, which is defined by your actions and you by it, exchangeable whenever you gain a level. There's a lot more to it than that which would sound like absolute gibberish without context, but rest assured, the sentiments are eerily similar. I didn't spend a half decade being bored of 5e for nothing.
Inspired me to start a discussion. Take it or leave it as is your prerogative, but hopefully this also sparks some ideas. Regarding Champion: I like the cut of your thrust... or jib, or whatever. Here are the thoughts that leapt (+3-5 feet more) on the Champion. Improved Critical feels pretty signature so I wouldn't remove or change it. Remarkable Athlete should plain and simply allow you to re-roll Athletics checks and Strength Saves. This is wonderful as it synergizes with, as you pointed out, the fact that a champion fighter is almost certainly already trained in Athletics and it doesn't stomp on expertise from other class combinations such as from Bard or Rogue nor fight with spell boosts such as from Enhance Ability. It also clears up the constant confusion I see of people trying to use Acrobatics to do feats of Athleticism (they are not the same). Additionally your champion now has great options of grappling and resisting grapples, and the re-roll on Strength saves gives them awesome resistance to some of the monster ability BS that grapples you without giving you an Athletics or Acrobatics roll to counter it. (I'm looking at you, Grell). My mind races with imagery of the Champion Fighter holding open the maw of the Purple Worm daring to try and devour them whole, mighty thews and bulging triceps rippling with corded muscle as they dig deep and with one last push break free, a defiant morsel now with sword drawn... or something like that. Additional Fighting Style is good for options, but it feels more appropriate for the Battlemaster though who is more likely to have different tools for different battlefield jobs. The level 10 ability should build upon the other aspects of the subclass, which it accomplishes for the Battlemaster and Eldritch Knight. Thus, the Champion should, as you pointed out, gain "Deadly Perfection" at this point. their signature ability isn't combat superiority dice or spell casting, it is inflicting devastating blows. It is them achieving Deadly Perfection. The Champion rolls damage dice twice, choosing the result. Example: Great Weapon Fighting Champion with a Great Sword - Rolls 2d6 gets 1 + 6, chooses to re-roll the 1 and gets a 2. Re-rolls 2d6 using Deadly Perfection and gets a 4+5. Chooses the 4+5. - This is fun because rolling dice is fun. Magic click-clack math rocks are joy. Let players roll lots of dice. - This doesn't massively increase their damage output, it just shaves off the low end making them consistently deadly when they hit, and absolutely devastating when they crit. - Also, the look on the face of the party sorcerer when the Champion fighter is rolling 4 dice for each great sword attack is worth it. - Lastly, critical hits are epic dice rolling affairs. Let the Champion shine with the thing they are intended to do; Crit like a mo-fo. Superior Critical is good with all the love from Deadly Perfection Survivor is alright. It leans into the 6 encounters per day mechanic that D&D hasn't been for probably 20 years, but it is effectively a constant cure wounds spell being cast on you each turn when below half HP (which is annoying because it results in arguments where the Champion is telling the Life Cleric NOT to heal them). Probably not going to keep you alive against BBEG. Rather than only allowing it to trigger when you are in that terribly perilous position of being below half HP (and well within the prerequisite for a Power Word Kill spell to end you permanently) I would allow it to trigger under the following conditions as well so that you aren't mad at the Life Cleric for stopping your level 18 feature from ever happening. - Whenever you inflict a critical hit - When you are struck by a critical hit or by an attack that would drop you to 0 HP you can trigger this using your reaction. These two additions give you "versatility" and could potentially keep you up and fighting like, I dunno, a gods damned Champion.
I really like the remarkable athlete change. It makes so much sense that the grapple subclass should be the one that's supposed to be the beat at athletics.
This is a really interesting discussion. In saying that I love Simon the Slayer, my Goblin Champion Fighter who only takes feats at ASIs and runs into battle casting hex and duel wielding his magical longswords.
Fighters kit as it stands is incredible, you can't give fighter even the smallest taste of a magical item or they become a monster. Monk on the other hand is an extremely weak class (unless rolling stats or using arrays with extremely high stats which makes any discussion of this nature pointless) and has hard time performing in a frontline role as they don't have AC to be in melee usually or if they do they don't have the health with their reliance on three scores compared to fighters two. The fighter also has a stronger nova with action surge, heavy weapons, versitility from being able to switch gear to go fron front to back (even middle of the fight) and good combat steroids from pretty much every subclass. I think your bad experiences might just stem from high stats or less standard way of playing, but fighter is definitely stronger as far as statistics are concerned.
I know you’re probably not looking for a debate about the monk, but I do feel the need to defend my fast guys at least a little bit. The monk isn’t an extremely weak class just because some issues come up when trying to play one effectively. Yes, monks typically do less damage than fighters after 5th level, but they still possess enough utility and power to hold their own even if stats aren’t rolled or arrayed high (which isn’t irrelevant at all when it comes to actually playing the game. Plenty of people play with higher stats). Not enough people use the mobile feat as a way to completely get around the monk’s AC and HP difficulties. It combines with the monk’s speed to almost always allow monks to attack then move out of enemy melee range. I’ve played monks several times, and I’ve ended a large number of combats having taken 0 damage while all the other martials are seriously hurt because no enemy is going to risk opportunity attacks from stationary targets to chase down a fast guy. I know relying on a feat to overcome a large issue seems kind of like a cheap argument from an optimization standpoint, but it’s not like people don’t use tons of feats like GWM, PAM, sharpshooter, or Sentinel to argue for how great the fighter can be. Also, if a monk really wants to nova, they can just spam stunning strike until all but the most powerful creatures are practically guaranteed to fail. It’s not a typical damage nova, but unless a fighter is going to outright kill an enemy by action surging (in which case nova-ing probably wasn’t necessary) stunning strike has way more ability to actually turn the tide of a battle. Even though I am able to defend the monk, I agree that they should be more powerful. There isn’t really any reason they should have to do less damage after 5th level or rely on a feat to fix a big issue. But I don’t agree that the core monk class is automatically inferior. Instead, it’s clear that the monk is really let down by it’s (current) subclasses. You’re right that the fighter has some killer subclass options, while I can think of at least 4 monk subclasses that functionally do nothing for the monk in a standard combat turn. However, with Tasha’s it seems that the design team is at least making an effort to close the gap between monk subclasses and those of other classes. It seems like eventually the monk will have some subclasses that significantly improve its damage output or add enough buff/debuff abilities that the difference barely matters. Overall though, the the monk’s two or three decent subclasses allow the monk to generally keep pace in terms of effectiveness when played intelligently. Really, it seems that monks just get a bad rap because optimizers automatically discard options that do less damage even when very significant workarounds and utility abilities exist.
Maybe I just like the fighter class too much but the idea of Favored Weapon shakes me to my core. What an ingenious idea. I feel like every class has a gimmick that is meant to give the player a taste of what the class is meant to feel like but that Fighter’s has always been fighting ie. Doing what anyone else can do but having it as a personality. Tasteless. It’s like being really into drinking water. But this THIS is the perfect sentiment. It nails it home. It reminds me of that one episode of the venture brothers. Brock Samson has to fight a guy who wields an expensive katana that was made in a complicated way and he was bragging about it and Brock says “oh my god you katana guys are always talking about your swords”. THAT’S IT! This gives people a chance to say, I didn’t pick fighter because I’m boring or dumb, I picked it because I love fighting. I don’t just “like” fighting, I LOVE IT!! This is MY sword, MY bow, MY glaive, MY greatclub. There are many like it but THIS one is MINE! You’re not just some dingus with a hunk of steel anymore. You’re Link with the Master Sword, you’re Aragorn and Anduril, you’re heavy weapons guy and his weapon. A fighter isn’t a hero because they can swing a weapon. Anyone can swing a weapon. A fighter is good because they are they are great with that weapon, and their weapon is great-magical or not- because it is wielded by them. And a new player doesn’t have to go into the game feeling like they have to own up to that sentiment. It just means that one day, their character has or will pick up a weapon, and that weapon was their favorite. There may even be several times when that happens, but in that moment, their character had a special interaction that they wouldn’t get anywhere else or with any other class. Their character could be a villain/warrior/adventurer/hero that is KNOWN!! for using a sword. And when they hit you, you will. Know. Why. Sorry. I went off a bit there. Whew. I just really like this concept.
There’s a feat in 3.5 called Weapon Focus which, if I’m not wrong, gives a +1 to attack rolls and damage. That’s basically your Favored Weapon. There’s a few other Weapon Focus feats that slowly stack up to make the 3.5 Fighter really, really good at hitting things with their preferred weapons.
"They were designed for the six encounter adventuring day which we can all agree, doesn't really happen" *Looks at the multiple times I've run 4+ sessions for a single in game day, while hitting 6-8 encounters
@@MackDnD Everyone actually enjoyed it. When I realized that the multi encounter day was how 5E was designed I tried to figure out how facilitate that type of day in the narrative. D&D is about killing monsters and taking there stuff. That's what the rules and the core gameplay loop reinforce. That is done through decision making and resource management, and I think when you lean into that, in a narratively interesting and consistent way, that's where D&D shine.
@@legomacinnisinc That's good. I'm glad it works for your group. Are the encounters strictly combat that you mentioned? I find have 1 combat is enough for me in a 4 hour session. How long are your sessions that you can fit so many in?
I’ve found (from both sides of the table) that squeezing that many encounters (combat or not) into one in game day works real well in a dungeon or other environment where the DM can force players into constant danger, but outside that it can feel like the DM is being a jerk and throwing bad guys at the players for no reason or not allowing a rest when rest would be reasonable. In general, most DMs (even TH-cam DMs) agree that it’s hard to pull off consistently in a way that feels fun
@@MackDnD I normally run a 4-5 hour session, depending on the day, but remember I am not running 6+ combat encounters in one game session. I am covering one in game day in multiple game sessions. And yes, I'll run 6+ combat encounters in one game day, but there are still plenty of other "encounters" that are exploration or RP. I normally don't go over three combats in one session, but each combat is not a deadly encounter. Often they are over in less than an hour, are only 2-3 turns long, and don't pose much of a physical threat to the party. They are there to drain resources (hp, spell slots, abilities), or are an "easy" fight but have a hard to achieve objective that may help the party if they get it or hinder if they don't. A classic is the party being discovered by scouts. Easy to kill them, but can you stop them from running away and alerting the enemy?
I started playing dnd well over a year ago in a online group. I'm having a lot of fun and I created a dwarf Champion fighter. He is level 10 now and quite enjoy playing him but can understand that it can feel like it lacks something. Personally the improved critical has helped quite a bit. With that character I roll crits quite often so I like that part of the champion, hitting hard. I do feel like it could use a ability where you can either induce fear in the hearts of your enemies or master close combat so well that once a battle/day/long rest you could stun or knock a opponent prone.
In a future edition I'd like to see fighters have a set of modular properties that they can add to their weapons as they level up. A weapon in the hands of a high level fighter should be scary. Doesn't even need to be damage related. Reach on a longsword? Armour bonus representing your ability to parry? Being able to swap damage types by using your weapon in a different way (murder stroke with your greatsword?)? Liquidate battle master, add more, and make weapons cool for the weapon expert class.
In comparing the fighter and monk, you made me think about maybe incorporating battle master maneuvers into the base class of fighter. They could be d6s like the fighting Initiate feat, so there’s still a benefit to going full battle master. That way it’s like having the versatility and fun choices to make that a monk has but still feeling different. Thanks for sharing!
Me:"Granny! Dael made a fix for the fighter!"
My Gran(I suppose):"Thank you my dear, but I stick with my Palabarbmonk of the open bear paw of venegance, the current meta supports it better and I wont take second place after Gladys."
Gladys' mole in the design team is working, I see...
"But bounded accuracy, Dael! You've lost your mind!"
"I don't care, I'm not a coward."
(Kingsmill, 2020)
"I know DMs who worry too much about bounded accuracy, and they're all cowards."
It's also funny to worry too much about bounded accuracy, when lvl 11-20 rogues have Reliable Talent and Expertise. Expertise makes certain skills have modifiers that are on the upper range of the expected modifiers, which would be okay if it was just that in a few skills for these classes, and other classes had a chance to at least have expertise in some of their signature skills, like a wizard should have the chance to get expertise in Arcana, if a bard or rogue can.
But with Reliable Talent's turning any Skill Check's d20 roll that is below a 10 to 10, all their skill checks have a base, a bare minumum, of 10 plus their attribute modifiers and their proficiency modifier, which is doubled for Expertise skills. So an 11th level rogue could easily have a bare minimum Stealth of say 22 (10, +4 from Dex, +8 from doubling your Prof). Tier 3 Rogues literally cannot get less than a 20 skills they have Expertise in, unless they have a low Ability Score with it, and even then, by Tier 4, Expertise will give them +12 in those skills, making it a minumum of 22 in any skill they are experts in but only have a 10 for the Ability Score.
It's also absurd to worry too much about bounded accuracy or game balance between non-magical things in the game, when most damage dealing spells, outside of cantrips, automatically do at least half damage. Which would be okay if spellcasters didn't get more and more spell slots until it slows down around tier 3, but because spell casters by level 10 have 15 spell slots, but subclasses like battlemaster only have 4 superiority die, which are used for combat manuevors that don't automatically hit like spells, and their effects pale in comparison to spells, and you get less of them.
I really hate the game imbalance between spellcasters and non spellcasters in DnD, btw.
Seriously, you could have an elf wizard, rolling for stats, and have a 20 dex, which with mage armor, would give them an 18 AC at level one, and a high elf would give them Rapier proficiency and a +5 Dex Bonus, so they'd have a higher AC than the fighter until the fighter adventures enough to buy plate mail and catch up to the Wizard's AC, and unless they have a +2 Racial Bonus to either Strength or Dexterity, they won't even be as accurate with their weapon attacks as that Elf is with their Rapier or Longbow. You can effectively out fight a fighter at low levels, simply by having good Ability Scores. If you have enough of a lead in Constitution, spellcasters can even have more hit points than fighters, or even barbarians, after the first 2 levels. This is partially because of bounding accuracy, which caused them to chicken out at the last minute from giving fighters a boost to their attack rolls or defense from a floating die or dice they could choose how to use on their turns, that would boost their attack rolls if they use this die to add to an attack roll, but they recycled that into the Battlemaster, but made it a limited use thing, which nerfed it, and it's also a subclass feature, so it doesn't even help the base class's ability to fight.
And none of this matters as much as the fact that at level 5 and beyond, primary spellcasters, such as the wizard and sorceror, start dominating the game with spells like Fireball. And then Polymorph and Banishment, which swing combats in powerful ways the non caster classes are barren of. Most of DnDs challenges can be poofed away by the right spells, and if the challenge is straight forward enough, such as a group of enemies who aren't immune to fire damage, then they just be poofed by the same Fireball spell, regularly.
And spells like Fireball undermine and foil one of the game developers' goals with bounded accuracy, which is to have low level monsters be still viable at higher levels by increasing their numbers, but it doesn't pan out because of the over-powered area of effect spells, especially Fireball, which obliterate low Hit Die monsters en masse.
Spells in DnD have always been a problem, in every addition outside of 4th, granting roughly exponentially growing power to some characters, and thus players, while others are left with linear progression, or more accurately, linear progressions in things like Thac0/Attack Bonuses and Extra Attacks, which are counter balanced by a rough linear progression from the monsters having things like higher Attack Bonuses, Multi-Attack, and more hit points, effectively countering the effects of their gains as they level.
Also, the schools of magic give spellcasters like wizards a lot of versatility which gives them more chances to do useful things. Their is information hidden from the party? The wizard can cast the right Divination spell to obtain more information. The wizard can cast abjuration spells to protect from strange and dangerous things like elemental damage, or hostile being from a good or evil realm. Or they can just cast Evocation or Conjuration spells, and do more damage then the 'combat' classes, which is the main way non spellcasters contribute in combat, by doing damage, which spellcasters out do them in, regularly. Even the healer Cleric can cast Spirit Gaurdians, and deal damage each round to all the enemies in it's radius. A Cleric with Spirit Guardians is like a Fighter ... if that Fighter automatically hit with all their weapon attacks, and they had as many weapon attacks as their are enemies within 30 feet of them, and they don't have to worry about making a ranged attack when an enemy is within melee of them.
Spells also mock the 'action economy'. Want to hit the enemies more times than a high level fighter, cast Spirit Gaurdians. Want to do more Melee attacks than the classes who are supposed to be specialized in Melee Attacks? Cast Animate Objects on 10 small objects, and get more melee attacks than a level 20 fighter using action surge. And since it's a spell, the animate objects are magical, so they bypass immunity to non magical damage. Which is a stupid feature by the way. Making a creature immune to non-magical damage, but take normal damage from magical damage simultaneously fails to make the creature any tougher to fight (not even slightly) for most of the players, while rendering some characters totally useless in that combat, outside of maybe performing the Help action or something.
@@Tiyev You're on it, mate. But it's worse than that - just the basic progression of monsters and PCs makes a mockery of bounded accuracy. The developers succeeded in limiting bonuses to AC, but by the time you're level 10 things rarely miss no matter what the AC is. You just have to hope you have enough hit points.
If you're going to make the Fighter bad at everything but fighting, he should put everyone else to absolute shame on the battlefield. But they didn't. Just about every other class has fun ways to interact with exploration and social challenges; only a Battle Master who's gone so far as to spend one of his very limited maneuvers learned on a social/exploration based maneuver can do it ... and then only 4 times. And then only if he just wants to roll to hit in combat.
It's ridiculous.
@@Tiyev I'm also really glad you pointed out the problem of 4 superiority dice vs. 15 spell slots without saying the short rest balances the difference. It really, really doesn't.
Yup, bounded accuracy went out the door with Expertise
"I am not a coward!"
Doesn't go for that high note in 'I Will Always Love You'.
ಠ_ಠ
She was afraid she was going to be Copyright Strike'd if she went any further. :)
I did go for it. I may not be a coward but I do have shame.
MonarchsFactory POST THE CLIP
@@MonarchsFactory I figured you'd tried and went with a modesty edit. No shame there.
"Legolas is a fighter!" Thank you for my life... I can't tell you how many times I've had to defend this opinion
How could he not be? It's very obvious. People are just blinded by his natury camouflage I guess, tricking people into thinking he's a ranger.
@@fardareismai4495 ehhh, i mean arguments can be made either way. legolas *has* shown that he has some level of ranger abilities. not quite to the extent that aragorn has, but he still does. Thats kinda the problem.
it can be difficult to tell a fighter from a ranger, because flavor wise, its *Really* easy to make a fighter that looks like a ranger through skill selection (in 5e).
*disclaimer*: im not saying that that rangers don't exist in fantasy, or that they don't have a place in fantasy, they absolutely do. im just saying that the differences between a ranger and a fighter (from a narrative perspective) are very subtle.
Aragorn is so too. None of them uses magic nor do they commune with nature/animals. All the other skills come form their background.
@@Answerisequal42 on the contrary, you even the movies show aragorn communing with animals. or...did you forget abouthte scene in Rohan with the horse that he ordered freed....that later came back to rescue him? that is absolutely a ranger/druid talent (and i don't think its possible to make the case teat aragorn is a druid).
as far as magic, well, 'magic' as it exists in DnD is incredibly uncommon, and typically subtle in LoTR, but delaying frodos infection certainly qualifies, and its even more clear in the books when he spends a lot of time working at the healer's house in Minas Tirith after the battle of pelenor fields. Specifically because he was able to use athelas (king's foil) as a medicine. Which was certainly shown as being superhuman in the books remember, even sam considered it a weed, not something with healing properties, and in the books, again, its even more clear.
finally, if you look at DnD deeper than just 5e, you can have rangers that also don't use magic.
for legolas, well, its harder to make the case in either direction. He was never more than a supporting character in either medium. So we saw less of what he could do. And so much of what we did see was a result of his heritage more than anything. However, his heritage, by itself, greatly favors ranger. druid/ranger as a class just too neatly lines up with wood elf culture (in LoTR i mean). However, he was obviously more martial focused which means he too wasn't a druid. But its unlikely he completely abandoned his natury heritage. ergo, a ranger.
remember, when you're making these comparisons, you have to keep in mind that dnd as a system assumes there are certain things true about the world. And most of those assumptions, particularly when it comes to magic, don't translate perfectly into Middle Earth. a great example of that is Wizards. they largely don't exist in Middle earth. Wormtongue was technically a wizard (he actually learned some magic from saruman, according to the books). But saruman and gandalf? they were canonically basically Solar's, not wizards (at least, not by dnd standards)
Well, in 5e he's a fighter, in 4e he's a ranger, and in 3.5 he's a warblade
I think that one of the most fun ways to play a fighter is to really take advantage of the fact that they are good with every combination of weapon and armor, and I think molding their abilities around that would be a really cool way to do things.
So instead of specializing in a weapon, maybe instead of an extra attack or crit-range extension, a fighter gets to choose one quality out of like... thrown, versatile, light, finesse, and reach and apply it to a broader selection of weapons they pick up. They're good at lunging, so they've got reach with daggers, or they do the rad anime thing and throw their greatsword. I like 'thrown' for this the most 'cause I like encouraging fighters to get rid of the weapon they're holding and grab a new one. Or maybe let them swap in the damage dice for those of a different weapon - so a fighter who usually has a greatsword gets to use 2d6 as the damage for any two-handed weapon.
Let them pick up and equip weapons easier than other classes.
For a level 7 ribbon ability, maybe give them explicit mechanical bonuses to disguise checks to wear other people's armor and the ability to change armor really fast, so that when they bop the evil king's soldiers, they can grab the mooks' arms and armor and go pretend to be in their ranks.
D&D is _usually_ optimal when you've got one weapon that you always use for everything forever, and I'd like to see that mold broken a little bit.
These are some fun ideas, especially giving the fighter the option to apply weapon qualities to weapons that don't normally have them. Back in 3.5, and later in Pathfinder, I would allow fighters who take weapon focus in a weapon to apply the weapon finesse feat to that weapon to represent training for precision and grace with that weapon over raw power. In 5e, I could see the champion, who should be deadly with any weapon they pick up, getting an option like this.
Thanks! And I really like that weapon finesse idea - I mostly play Pathfinder, and I might actually steal that for some of my players!
Is your name a reference to Halo:CE, Lord of the Rings or something else I don't know about? Oh, and cool idea btw :)
Lol, it's actually a combination of an old username of mine from way back when and an old username of one of my friends - this was originally a joint account. I don't remember what his was - something hammer though - and mine was shadow fae. Gotta love edgy teenage usernames :)
@@faehammer Go for it! It worked well for my group. While I've mostly switched to D&D 5e, if I ever go back to Pathfinder, the other thing I will probably do is give people using Weapon Finesse or other Dex based weapons Dex to damage. I don't think it will cause any balance issues.
I am going to bite the bullet and say it: Make Indomitable a limited legendary resistance. Once (or twice, or thrice, depending on the level) per short rest, the fighter does not fail a physical saving throw. You could even have the capstone ability be that this applies to all saving throws so you can truly have that behemoth of battle whose will and presence cannot be bent and their genius is shown only when wielding weapon
Indomitable comes back on a long rest not a short rest. If it came back on a short rest or automatically succeeded on the saving throw it would feel like a 9th 13th and 17th level ability. There is no guarantee that you will succeed on the saving throw... it counts as advantage which numerically comes down to plus 3.5. An additional 3.5 to a single saving throw per long rest just makes me want to play a paladin with a plus three to every saving throw, the ability to cast spells, and class ability healing. Thankfully I dislike how rigid the paladins flavor and how moldable fighters are with any background.
Yes! Indomitable should be a “legendary resistence” and at 20lv a true legendary resistence! That would be awensome
Amen. When I first saw Indomitable, I thought it's a LegRes, but I still wasn't really impressed. Imagine my dissappointment, when I saw that it's just a reroll.
That's what it was in the playtest, they nerfed it, because they can't let fighters have nice things that aren't feats
Make it once per day LegRes. But let them also nope out of a mental save as well. Powerful, yes. But I reckon that's ok.
They are Indomitable. That's the point. They aren't just a bit tougher than the other guy, they are Indomitable, in mind and body. That Mind Flayer's Mind Blast might cripple the Barbarian, but the Fighter just pushes through. Hold Person stops that Monk, but once per day, no matter the roll, the Fighter just doesn't care and whacks that mage anyway, breaking her concentration, saving the monk, and the whole party, in the process.
Sounds like a Fighter to me. Re-rolling a save that might still fail sounds like a chump.
I feel silly for not connecting 'monarch's factory' to 'kingsmill' before
WAT
It’s a part of the journey
I was now years old when I realised that.
@@rossburton8775 I only recently figured out that Eminem = M&M = Marshall Mathers so...
Oh my god
Obscure reference incoming: playing a stock champion fighter feels like being the BMX Bandit to the Angel Summoner
Mitchell and Webb are such legends! :)
But you can do four BMX flips in a round! Surely you can't complain
accurate
Not that obscure. It's a common comparison on EN World. :)
Yup one of my players felt exactly like this alongside the paladin player
Dael: "I am not a coward"
Also Dael: *cuts the singing out just before the high note*
"I just keep hoping they will be what they are supposed to be, and not what they are". Damn. Why you gotta do them dirty like that. I mean. It's true, but still.
I like the idea of the champion getting new favored weapon when they make a kill with the new weapon.
I can totally see the players going and buying a rabbit/chicken/newt/whatever small creature to sacrifice to their fighter who's just happened to miss any killing blows in the last three encounters.
@@pentbot They can just borrow some of the animals the necromancy wizard keeps around for grim harvest health. Really though, if someone in my game wanted to do a skeet-shooting training montage to practice with their new weapon I would certainly allow it; brushing it off without any RP fluff would make it seem very dumb however.
I'd just say 'when you level up.' In most cases that means you'll have been using it for a while, and even if not, you gain affinity with it at some climactic moment after having won some encounter. I'd add the soft proviso 'you know, if you've been using it' but that's hard to write concisely (how much? What about fighters that use lots of weapons? What about a legendary weapon that was taken from a boss that pushed you over the line? etc)
@@pentbot
Reading this comment my first thought was that the rabbit/chicken/newt was going to be the favored weapon by using it to bludgeon another creature to death.
@@digitalbrentable Exactly what I was thinking as well.
For a player in my game, I augmented Indomitable to be like legendary resistance but with STR, DEX, and CON only. Same recharge rate, same number of uses, just auto-success instead of re-roll.
I really like this idea, though there are two things I'd change to really sell it.
1) I don't see a problem with making it all saves. D&D being steeped in "yes, and..." culture, anytime a player gets to flat out say "no" is a powerful moment and curbing that to just physical saves feels unnecessary.
2) The wording should be that of changing the roll to a 20 on the die. Why this difference? Because now you can automatically crit a death saving throw to get back up. The down but not out moments in stories throughout history are far too numerous to count, so why not afford the Fighter the ability to remember that promise, those kids, their loved one, the fire in their heart, and the fate of the situation, and just get back up to win the day.
@@BraveryBeyond ...this is some weeb ass shit... I love it
My grandma only plays barbarians Dael, everyone knows that.
I played a character based on your profile pic I love it
@@joeyrobson3677 I first found this profile pic because I wanted to play a druid monk xD.
man, she gets it. it's not about the numbers or the balance, as a DM you can literally just say "no" whenever those things get in the way. but the "feel" of gameplay matters a lot, and that's what she's tackling here. love it.
Yanno with how she breaks down the other marshal classes by fun (Monk Attacks, Paladin Damage etc) it makes you wonder why they didn't make the Fighter or the Ranger a crit-fisher. It would have fit one of those classes really nicely
"Piss-weak" will be added forevermore to my lexicon
Australian English is best English
8:20 was a coward's cut Dael!
I've just been introduced to you through Brennan Lee Mulligan's Adventuring Academy, and I'm super glad I was! It's so refreshing to find DnD content creators who talk about balancing classes for FUN instead of just for power level. My players and I don't play this game to win - we play it to FEEL.
"I don't care, I'm not a coward" oh my gosh, what a mood. XD
Kingsmill more like Queensmill 😍😍
I’ve never played a fighter but I love the flavor that your fighter changes add! It has he inspired for a future character, even if the DM doesn’t allow it.
And hearing you sing I Will Always Love You reminded me that I’m supposed to like videos on TH-cam, so 👍
I don't even play D&D so I mostly had no idea what you were talking about, but the concept that mechanics should build and deliver **fun**: that's beautifully put and is equally valuable for any system.
Me and a friend are making at the moment a system for battles and little fights for a d&d like game. Because we don't like the fighting and battle system of d&d. He never played it but he don't like the rules of d&d. Because we are both HEMA fighters. The reach is way more for weapons and shields are now good. Because you can block at every time an enemy hit and make a counter attack. And the enemy is allowed to block this attack but not to counter. But this is only because of the other players who also want to play.
@@jarlnils435 That sounds really cool. Just be careful, a lot of attempts to make realistic combat in RPG's turns out super complicated, slow, and a bit unfun. But if there was/is a system that allows dynamic, realistic combat while still being fast-paced and not extremely rules-heavy.
@@benbailey3106 thats why you can't counter a counter attack. It would last to long for the other players.
@@jarlnils435 Have you checked out Riddle of Steel or its successor game Blade of the Iron Throne?
@@khpa3665 no not yet. But I want to do it.
That plant that moved into the screen at 22:39 made me pretty happy
It isn't even uploaded yet and I've already liked it, that's how confident I am...
That thumbnail is AMAZING. You absolutely gave me a small chuckle in an otherwise boring day.
Another ability that would give the champion fighter more "fight": Whenever you make an attack with your favored weapon, you can treat a d20 roll of 6 or lower as a 7.
Similar to the Rogue's Reliable Talent, but focuses on fighting instead of rogue'ing.
@9:40 I find it refreshing that you make suggestions and flat out say you're not decided on the best approach/tweak/etc. Makes the video seen more like friend sharing thoughts.
Fun-balanced is such a good way to describe it! I've just never wanted to play a fighter and you are right, it's because they're not fun-balanced. Multiple extra attacks just doesn't feel innately fun to play like the other classes do. Also, just wanted to say thank you for all your videos; they always make me smile and your ideas are always so inspiring.
Eldritch Knight and Battlemaster are really fun! EK gets cool spells AND is probably the best tank in the game (shield spell +platemail is SO strong) and battlemaster can do just as many crazy fun things as monk! They can push people off ledges as give their buddies movement as a reaction and all kinds of cool stuff! But Dael is right about Champion
True true. One part of me wants to fix the champion with damage bonuses and such, (compare Kensai or Life Cleric) but on the other hand that lacks flash or pizzaz.
@@CountsDigGraves Champion for sure lacks flash and pizzaz. And im not sure it can really be fixed without a whole rework like Dael did. But EK and BM are great!
Dael..you are the best. I hope you are aware that you are the best. I also wish you had shared this treasure trove of genius before I took my Champion from 1 to 20. You touched on so many, if not all the design flaws of my favorite class. I shouldn't constantly question "why do I still love this class if this is how it was designed?!"
Ive thought about giving fighters the ability to trigger action surge as a reaction resulting in being able to take another go in the literal middle of something elses turn.
Wizard gets his by an enemies first attack, enemy is going to land the killing blow with the second attack fighter gets to shout hold up !
I love this!
In my own brew for fighters, I added to all the fighting styles a "after 4 lvls" rule, meaning after 4 levels with this fighting style you get a subtle buff, mostly equaling to an advantage on attacks on enemies who haven't gone yet, if the attack is related to or falls under the conditions of the fighting style. Defense for example, removes disadvantage on stealth after 4 lvls with that fighting style.
Gives "time spent with a fighting style value too
I personally like the defense fighting style as a generalist style- it is the only one that doesn't dictate what weapons and fighting techniques you use, rather it gives a passive bonus, allowing you to switch your playstyle to better suit the situation.
A defense fighter might not be as good at dual welding as a two-weapon fighter, but because of the passive AC bonus, they will be better at everything else.
The +1 ac does seem fairly low-impact (what are the odds they get the exact number that changes it from a hit to a miss) but so are most of the other fighting styles (what are the odds the +2 damage will be the difference between a kill and survival)
I would be okay with making the change be +2 instead of +1, but I wouldn't require them to use a shield to get it.
A plus one bonus to AC is an extra 5% chance to avoid an attack. Pretty good imo
The AC doesn't stack though, like you are dependant on getting attacked a bunch of times. With Duelist, you add +2 to every attack, so as you gain more attacks you can deal more damage per turn. Also, it feels more interesting, because its something proactively used, rather than reactive.
Personally I think a good fix would have been that the champions extra fighting style was available to every subclass, and that there were ones you had to reach level 10 to pick. Like defense, but you can dodge as a bouns action, or maybe Perfect Strike: once per short rest you can maximise your damage dice with a hit. Those would feel like your fighter has improved as they level up, and its options to use rather than just a minor passive buff
@@christopherfloody5555 I like your idea to improve fighting styles, giving a few higher level styles, and giving every fighter a second style. You could step that up even further with a subclass that focuses on versatility in combat and slowly adds more and more fighting styles so the can fight effectively in nearly any circumstance. I think that was their intention with the champion, a generic fighter with no extra active abilities (as compared to the battle master and eldritch knight in the players) just passive buffs. If you round it out with more styles, and give some of those higher level styles more active abilities, a subclass that focuses on getting more styles as they level would slowly add more combat options to the class. Something like a battle master that doesn't rely on a resource mechanic.
@@christopherfloody5555 but by fifth level it's pretty likely that you will (as the fighter) be attacked more than once per turn. And in most of the situations where you aren't then the enemies you face are likely to deal massive damage if their attack hits.
@@mme.veronica735 its actually better than that, the way AC works, the higher your AC is, the better a +1 to AC is (until you hit the cap where an enemy needs to roll a crit in order to hit). the reason for this is that you gotta look at the total pool of *possible rolls that can actually hit* rather than *pool of possible rolls.* for example: someone has a +6 attacking a 20 AC target. they only hit 7 times out of every 20 rolls. giving that same target a +1(defense fighting style) AC means now they only hit 6 times out of every 20. which is a 14% reduction in number of hits. another +1 (instead of defense, shield of faith) means its 5 out of every 20. which is an additional 16.5% decrease in hits taken (30% decrease compared to 20ac). combine shield of faith with defense fighting style and its another 20% decrease (50% total). obviously there's a different curve for every accuracy level, but *all* of them are higher than 5% (unless the creatures to-hit is high enough that they need to roll a 1 to miss obviously).
tldr: while technically its a 5% decrease in incoming hit rate, it adds up to a much more significan decrease in damage taken
I really like this Home-Fix, as someone that is constantly home-brewing fighter subclasses features and fghting styles, this sounds really fun. I can see a champion with a giant montante as his favored weapon, a fluted mirror-polished armor and a spanish accent. "Don Bernardo Campeador del Valle is my name, prepare now to die, bellaco!"
Monks hit fast, Barbarians hit hard, Fighters... hit?
More???
fighters jump long
Skilfully, I guess
Often
Fighters hit with feats ontop
I lost it at "I don't care I'm not a coward". I mean what can anyone say against that? Nothing that's what
Also I feel it's necessary to say that I think this is the first homebrew I've seen where I want to just adopt it into my game with no changes. I've consistently felt inspired by your homebrews and take elements of them into my own house rules and philosophy, far more often than with other creators, but this is the first time that I don't even feel the need to tweak things from any homebrewer in order to make it fit into my approach, it's just perfect as is. Bravo
Only when you jump lengthwise, only when you have a 10 foot long run up, and when you or no one controls Sietch Tabr or Habanya Sietch, and neither the Emperor, House Atreides or House Harkonnen controls Tueks' Sietch...
And then the Fremen win.
But the Bene Gesserit foresaw and preplanned that, so they win, instead.
Favored weapon is a slapper of an idea. Truly lit. A bop.
me, who has never played a fighter: mmhm, yeah, good points
Fun-balancing is something that more D&D TH-camrs ought to talk about. That is, after all, why the sensible among us play this game- to have fun.
Your protection works more like Tasha's "interception"
My Protection remake is that you can add your shield bonus to a creature that is within 5ft of you. My alternative to it is that you can reaction give half cover to one creature within 5ft of you.
Stealing this
I ran a fighter with the protection fighting style, and what I found as we went up in level is that it just didn't feel worth it to use my reaction anymore when the person I was trying to protect routinely had 3+ attacks incoming a round. I don't think the problem is really the nature of the bonus, disadvantage is arguably better than the +2 that a shield will usually provide (though less predictable), the problem is that it only applies to one attack. So if what your suggesting is that you can choose for someone within 5ft to have that benefit all the time or that the half cover you grant with your reaction lasts for more than that one attack, thats awesome, but if its just a different flavor of bonus in that one instance, I don't think that makes much of a difference.
@@kennethfender3518 its legit that a creature your size or smaller benefits from your shield bonus (including a magical bonus if it has it) but it can only be one creature.
The reaction one is that 1 creature your size or smaller can gain half cover until the start of your next turn.
Both of them state that you have to be wielding a shield & that the other creature cannot be wielding a shield.
FYI, one thing that people rarely realize is that as a move action you can say that you chose to get half cover using your fighter or any other character in the party that is 5ft of you.
"A target with half cover has a +2 bonus to AC and Dexterity saving throws. A target has half cover if an obstacle blocks at least half of its body. The obstacle might be a low wall, a large piece of furniture, a narrow tree trunk, or a creature, whether that creature is an enemy or a friend."
Look at the end description.
@@Saitoshiba page number for reference? Because all ive ever seen is that creatures can be used as cover, but line of sight still applies.
As someone who holds monk near and dear to my heart, I'm glad your comparison wasn't just "MONKS ARE SO OP" and instead focused on making fighter better.
After looking into 4e after Matt Coville recommendation, the fighters there were awesome! Basically every fighter was a battle master and caviler mixed together. I think I'll steal some abilities from there and let fighters learn from other fighters during down time.
If you like that idea, I recommend checking out the Variant Fighter by Vorpal Dice Press. It gives every fighter access to a few Maneuvers that can be used all the time, and then a limited-use Superiority for each Maneuver to make it even better for that use.
I've used it a few times myself and I feel it makes the Fighter significantly more fun. You no longer just swing your weapon for the 20th time today, and instead can choose from several special moves
I have been singing the praises of the 4e Fighter since 5e released and everybody just tells me "if that's what you want just play a battle master" and it is _so_ not the same thing I can't help but think nobody has played 4e Fighters.
They were _so good_ (strictly from a fun perspective) and the options in 5e feel like an enormous step back and always makes me sad.
Flight of Dragons! My goodness, I have been trying to find that movie for ages and could not for the life of me find it. I love you. I finally know the name. Rankin Bass Hobbit and Flight of Dragons are pretty much what formed my ideas of fantasy when I was a kid. I absolutely loved these movies. Thank you so much!
How about hitting more often is handled like reliable talent for the rogue? For example, once per turn you may choose to replace a failed attack for a natural 10 (or less if it's too op, say 8)
Yeah, this was my thought. Due to Bounded Accuracy, if you're rolling high, you're already hitting most everything. To feel like you hit more consistently, you need to mitigate the effect of low rolls.
This is why I feel only the battlemaster subclass fits the "fighter" theme the best and lets you sort of compete with magic stuff your allies do. Like being able to knock the bosses weapon out of their hand or frighten them is pretty badass.
Have you considered playing a battle master? You get to do the 'fighter spends resource to fight good' thing a lot, and can get the 'wide array of fighting skills with focus on one thing' flavor that you might want from being a fighter.
A lot of their maneuvers overlap with the stuff your revised champion does (like precision attack just being a better favored weapon), especially if you use the stuff in Tasha's for the new less-boring fighting styles and new maneuvers that scale battle masters into higher level play.
Champion in my experience has been the subclass specifically for people who don't want to worry about resources, and just want simple easy fun.
Plus battle master maneuvers are just mini smites and you get a lot more of them, plus the additional abilities they provide
The difference is that a battlemaster can add 4d8 over 4 attacks during their turn whereas the paladin can dump it on one attack.
Battle Masters are absolutely the best for that whole versatile non magical fighter feel. Maneuvers give a lot of flexibility in the options department (Not just combat either!) and because superiority dice are short rest based you're able to get a lot mileage out of them when you need it. The subclass can have a maximum of 12 Maneuvers and 8 Superiority Dice, that's a big pool of options for non magic caster, and its incredibly flavorful. So much so that in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything they made little build blocks that show the different ways you could play a Battle Master.
I could see using BOTH champion end battle master together.
@@ashleyhoughton8592 Battle Master's Maneuvers are worse than Smites in every single way. You have less of them, they cause a LOT LESS damage and they aren't as versatile as the Paladin's spell slots in any way.
this is the most adhd channel ever, and I'm absolutely in love with it
- out of context quote at the beginning that never gets explained
- "I will always love you" cuz, why not
- creative spirals and random rule ideas
- rants and stories
- dialogue between dael as the audience/her players and dael as Dael
- Changing everything because goddamnit, why the hell not
"People on the internet get a little cranky." Psh, the internet is just jealous 'cause you make great and entertaining videos. Thanks for your thoughts on Fighters, and I've taken away several ideas for story building to up the fun-balancing of the class.
Super cool and inspiring video! After watching it the fighter was on my mind for days.
When I think of a fighter I don't think of Legolas (how was he trained? What are his weaknesses?) I think of the *mighty warrior Boromir* (or the less known Guts during his time with the Band of The Hawks in Berserk).
I think of a soldier, someone who acquired his skill in war, involving many battles, someone who survived not because some super power or becuae they are choosen by destiny but because of their raw physical prowess, their expirence and skill. They don't have any special recources, they just make the most out of what everyone has. Thinking about that I came up with three class features that would reflect that.
3rd level - *Go in for the kill*
Everytime you take the attack action you can spen a d10 or a d12 hit die to add +5 to your attack role. You have to declare this before you roll.
7th level - *physical prowess*
You ignore one point of exhaustion. When taking a long rest you recover one additional point of exhaustion.
10th level - *die standing*
You can take an additional action surge. If you do you take one point of exhaustion at the end of your turn. You still can't use more than one action surge per turn. If you already have 6 points of exhaustion you will die at the end of your turn. In that case all your hits from the action surge will count as critical hits.
Maybe this would be a different subclass though...
While I can't agree from a pure math point of view with Fighters < Monks (I think monk weapon attacks need to go d6-d8-d10-2d6 to be anywhere near on par numbers wise to a well made fighter), I do agree that in terms of fun monks far outstrip fighters.
I like the idea that monks get more attacks, paladins get to choose to do big damage on the hits they make with smite, and fighters get to hit with their attacks more often.
Not missing is honestly a big deal especially in a big party where it might be ten minutes before your next turn. To miss two rounds in a row is the pits, and having a class that won't do that it very helpful.
I think what you've come up with works well! I want to play a Champion who feels like a champion rather than going three levels in champ for the crits and then slamming my face into tree trunks as a barbarian for all remaining levels.
I do think the level 20 capstone is rather weak with 5% more likelihood to crit. Maybe 10% for a capstone? Like you said, no one gets there! Why make it weak? It should slap.
Yes, someone mentioning some math! In terms of fun, did you account for fighters getting access to more feats?
@@anthonynorman7545 They hadn’t really come up mentally, so good call. Feats do have a break point from what I’ve seen, though. Two maybe three feats and most of the time you have everything you need for the fun of the spec! You can get that at level four with a human of any class.
I will say that feats can likely help make a fighter be good at skills. That could help make a fighter more than just the guy who shoots bows or swings great swords. For me that’s more the issue. Monks, while pretty bad in terms of numbers, have some great flavor and mechanics. I’ve never had more fun than teleporting every turn with a shadow monk even if it really didn’t help me do that much mechanically in combatsZ
@@kolskit every time I've seen someone play monk they stopped having fun as they slowly realized how ineffective they were compared to the rest of the party.
@@anthonynorman7545 I let a player in my most recent campaign get flurry of blows without using any ki. He still ran out of ki in a combat or two failing mostly to get stunning strike to actually land with his low saving throw, and his damage was about on par with the rest of the party.
I convinced a friend DM to give his Way of the Elements monk a buff where all the ‘spells’ cost one less ki than advertised on the tin. It’s still kind of mediocre, but at least it isn’t ridiculously weak.
@@kolskit we made step of the wind free(because rouges basically get it) and it was also ineffective
When you name dropped the knight from Flight of Dragons at the beginning of the video, I just about lost it. I've never found another person who has actually seen the movie. I remember, as a kid, getting emotional chills during his death speech. It's been a long time since I've seen the movie.
Thanks for bringing back memories!
Regarding fighters, I agree with your criticisms. Every time I roll a new character that might be a fighter, I quickly get dissatisfied just reviewing the class abilities, and I've never even considered a champion for more than a second because it feels absolutely underwhelming.
I really dig your approach of trying to stray away from the regular "roll attack, roll attack, roll attack". It can get pretty powerful, but it can also fall into boredom. Also, Champion for me is the archetypal fighter, the epitome of the what fighter represents and it deserves more cool options than just more extra attacks.
I would highly recommend if you haven't read it already the adventures of middle earth book especially for the non magical classes the favorite weapon ability you described is the foundation for the warrior (fighter) subclass weaponmaster. It really combines what should make the champion cool but with the customization and versatility of a battlemaster it is my favorite subclass and the idea is that you are so good with your specific weapon that it is treated like a +1 to start and each level you add on abilities to it. I love this video and great work as always.
I haven't watched yet but I'm so confident in Dael's ideas that I already liked.
Your Two-Weapon fighting fix is the same one I use for the feat, lol.
The way it works in my game is the fighting style lets you add the bonus to damage (normal RAW); upgrades the bonus action attack into part of your attack action so you can use your bonus action for other things; and then, if you also have the 11th-level extra attack, lets you make a second offhand attack as a bonus action. The Dual-Wielder feat has its normal RAW stuff and also lets you make an extra offhand attack when you make an opportunity attack.
Wait, hang on. Are you saying that "fight more" is not the same as "fight good?"
These are pretty good. For discussion's sake, I went further.
*I've made Battlemaster Maneuvers part of the base class and given them faster-regenerating Superiority Dice (renamed Combat Dice because we're fighters and don't need six syllables). Those Combat Dice are also used to power subclass abilities, like Arcane Shots and such. And you can switch out your maneuvers on a Long Rest (so you maybe get to try new ones or give some of the specialized ones a chance, or MAYBE EVEN mentally prepare for a social or exploration encounter a bit).
*Indomitable is, "ignore the effects of one spell or effect on you so long as you can maintain concentration." But I might change it to Dael's, it's pretty good.
*Second Wind is a number of d10s equal to your level.
*I'm slowly reworking Remarkable Athlete and Know Your Enemy into an either-or choice that'll give you something fun to do in exploration or social encounters. As written these are garbage so it's taking a while.
*I'm adding an "Aggressive Warrior" (name in program), like a rogue's Cunning Action but it lets them do a Grapple, Shove, Disarm, Tumble, or some other non-damaging-attack-type maneuver as a bonus action. Really push the, "combat specialist" feel and get 'em used to doing that stuff.
Given all this I've considered dropping Action Surge and maybe even extra attacks beyond the one at 5th level. Because Fighters, the class to embody some of the greatest heroes in fiction, deserve better than a "simple class" for your little brother to play until he gets gud.
DAEL. CAN YOU HOMEBREW THIS IN D&D BEYOND? I'll name a town in my homebrew after you. wait. Nevermind I already did that.
The town of Kingsmill? The Kingsmill Dale? The Dalekings Mill? The King of Milldael? The rare herb known as Mingkale Dill?
Oh Flight of the Dragon's I used to watch that movie religiously as a kid. Also the way they made dragons fly in that movie was super cool and kinda more practical with the hydrogen gas.
In hindsight, this is a lot longer than I thought it'd be. Disclaimer I guess, I agreed with a lot, if not most of what you said. And I guess this is my opinion party contributions? TLDR, I agree, some balance suggestions, and then my personal fix for Fighters.
I think one of the problems with the flavour is the world "versatile". Fighters are not. They are diverse. Each fighter can be very different to the next, but they are quite limited in what they can do. They do it better than anyone else - hit the thing - and I actually do mean anyone else, but they tend to lack flexibility outside of the subclass options that provide some of it. You have things like the Eldritch Knight that makes them super, super, hard to kill. You have the Echo Knight, that basically means they don't give a damn about mobility anymore. You have the battlemaster that is just better than all the others combined and is actually flexible and versatile and can make unique and interesting choices and...
You're right when you say the fun of the monk is the versatility and the onslaught; they are able to get to whoever they need to fuck up, and are also generally very resilient vs spells. If you want to kill a caster, throw a monk at the problem. The fun of the Fighter to me has always seemed to be like "I'm the mundane of this group, the Hawkeye if you will, but you need me because I do what I do better than anyone else. And that's brutally fuck something up."
I like the change to Protection Fighting Style btw. I think you could bring it up to 1d8 cause advantage/disadvantage tends to be weighed around 5 in 5e.
I'm on the same page about Champion, the whole way. Remarkable athlete is absolute trash. "I am truly a remarkable athlete, the top of my field, peerless, this means I *checks notes* am slightly better at... hiding and pick pocketing?" I would want it to give me expertise with Athletics and/or Acrobatics. Let the Champion Fighter Athlete actually be the best at Athletics! Not a *checks notes* muscle bard!
I like the idea of the favourite weapon. But in practice that means at level 3 "I get to add +1 to my attack roll 2/LR" and that feels a little underwhelming. I almost would like it to feel a bit more signifanct. Like, you get to roll a d4, and you get more d4s as you level up. More dice, more fun. Players love rolling dice.
I think personally, what I would like to do is kill action surge, and move the battlemaster maneuver dice to replace it. And then make the battlemaster even better at doing those maneuvers. I think every fighter should be able to do them. That's what you trained for. You're a peak warrior, you can all try to disarm someone. The battlemaster can just do it much better than everyone else, like, increasing the number of usages, the number they can know, the size of the dice, maybe even 1/LR improvising and using 1 that they actually don't know.
“And that’s brutally fuck something up.”
Yeah, but Barbs get to *really* brutally fuck something up.
Can I keep the "fighter hot takes" train going? Yes? Ok, so here's what it is for me: fighter in general and champion in particular work as they do, I think, because they're supposed to be the simplest class to play. It doesn't fulfill a fantasy because the only fantasy it's meant to fulfill is "doing the basics, but better".
Some of the mechanics and class abilities really are underwhelming, sure, and I agree with the idea of fixing them. But the heart of the issue, for me, is quite different. I think the fighter is missing something.
So what do I think the fighter is missing? A stronger way to tie specific fantasies of the fighter to cool mechanics that reinforce that theme! So how to go about fixing that? Well, either give them a much larger pool of available subclasses, or a subclass that gives a lot of options to mix and match to represent various concepts - or preferably both!
Imagine, for instance, you have this idea of playing a freed gladiator - cool, right? Does that sound like a battle master? To me, no, not without further justification. Does it sound like any of the other subclasses available? No, they're all too specific. Except Champion - but that one's so bland it hurts! Same goes for a number of other fantasies. Can I make my guy feel like a gladiator with feats? Maybe, but I shouldn't have to rely on these "optional" rules (sidebar, does anyone really make feats off-limits in their games? Fighters become even worse, then, because Ability score improvements have diminishing returns after you max your most important attributes).
So either give me a subclass that says "gladiator" and gives me cool abilities connected to that fantasy, or give me a generic subclass that allows me to customize my fighting abilities to match. Make 'em synergize well with the core fighter abilities to make them more effective and we're golden: the class will be fun to play again!
@@RobertJW True, but I'd take the extra attacks over the rage damage for fucking something up =P
@@Raphir I think that Gladiator might not be a great example. In Tasha's they demonstrated like 15 different fighter builds that were all battlemasters and one was a Battlemaster. But, I think that's the problem. Battlemaster has the fun toys that the rest of the fighters don't get to play with. Imagine if every fighter could trip, disarm, shove, get temp hp - all very gladiator things - right? I personally think if you put that into the base class, and retweaked Champion like Dael's, you could build a real solid Gladiator that feels like a Gladiator, and I still think it'd be relatively simple compared to the other classes.
I am totally on board with making Battlemaster Maneuvers the core Fighter shiny thing, and then I say cancel the Battlemaster subclass entirely and give me a Warlord subclass instead. Then, for the streamlined, simple option of Champion, let them use their BM dice to turn misses into hits or choose to make saves they just failed, cancel an enemy's critical hit, etc. I guess those could all be BM maneuvers, too, but the idea would be to turn BM dice into something automatic, something they don't have to choose among many options.
Great video, I've been trying to think of a way to bring in actual fighting techniques into games a bit more for a variation of actions available and to make it a little easier for people that don't live and breath fantasy to visualise things! Re-watching your making realistic holidays video recently got me so inspired I'm releasing a CoC one shot/campaign next week with a lot of your philosophies in mind! Thank you for being such a big influence over the last couple of years, your content takes D&D to the next level of craftwork. Edit to say: A flight of Dragons! I think the book is called the Dragon and the George, the idea of dragons eating rock to fuel their flames was a big impression on me as a kid that things should make sense.
My general experience with 5E is, if you're not a caster you're underpowered by around level 5-6ish.
Listening to Dael's description of what she would like fighters to be... are 4th edition fighter classes.
Hrm. Favoured weapon would mean that sometimes you can have a +3 to hit at 17th level. OR... Archery fighting style is just a flat +2 always and forever. You could combine them I guess, but ... like, AC in 5E is just blerg anyway. Nothing is that hard to hit (but yes dice are bad). Now, if I can choose to add that 50% proficiency bonus AFTER the roll... worth considering.
All IMO, YMMV, etc. etc.
Id say you’re undervaluing how powerful extra attack and uncanny dodge are. Sure, fireball is strong but id say the real place where magic characters pull away is something like 9-10 and most campaigns are starting to wrap up then. But, i tend to value ‘consistency’ over ‘versatility’ when determining power so ymmv as well lol
@@DOOMsword7 Sleep alone is ridiculous. 3rd level spell for 9d8, if I meet or exceed your current HP, no save. You're asleep. Scorching Ray gives a caster at 3rd level 3x 2d6 attacks with every additional spell level adding a 2d6 attack. Like, sure uncanny dodge is great, but all 3 of those base attacks can crit and uncanny dodge only applies to 1 of them. And don't even muddy everything with multiclassing.
@@thebpphantom spells shouldnt sneak attack unless youre using some homebrew (which is fine! Just not RAW). And sleep is powerful but situational. Sure, it can take out a whole room of twig blights but most cr 5 encounters have monsters with HP way higher than the 30 or so you get on a base lvl sleep. Im not saying spellcasting isn’t powerful its just not ‘more consistent’ than what fighters and rogues get. Youll use uncanny dodge multiple times a fight every fight
@@DOOMsword7 True, it has to be with a finesse or ranged weapon, but thanks to class interactions now that there are sourcebooks out that's not all too difficult to arrange.
Sleep was just a great example because it starts with the creature most susceptible to it. Lowest HP first. So take out the minions. Or take out the 1 or 2 targets that have taken any damage at all placing them in the "lowest" category.
It has nothing to do with consistency though. If a class is consistently less effective than the rest of the party, why would anyone take them? *shrug* Lots of ways to play and lots of systems out there. That's the beauty of it all :)
@@thebpphantom sure! I agree! Im just saying sleep isnt any more powerful than stunning strike. Or just picking up a dude and tossing him off a ledge. Spell casters tend to be the best at crowd control because that’s sort of the place they were built to shine, right? I think we’re sort of losing the thread lol. My point was that i think spellcasters are reasonably balanced with the melee and ranged fighters in 5e through most of the game that most people will play
From now on, when I come across people I consider a weak link in something I'm doing that are trying to help me, I will now refer to them as "squishy people" thanks to this video :P
I think Fighters get the benefit of Feats to expand in ways other classes don't and that helps balance Fighters more.
Edit: With Two-Weapon Fighting, I made it so you can use both hands per Attack Action. Why? Math-wise Monks do more potential damage than a Dual Wielder even if all crits. Monk damage scales where DW weapons max at 1d8. This change puts them within 10 damage. This change also helps Rangers.
That is exactly where the flavor comes from in my mind. You get enough asi to be able to take feats easily and that gives you so many options
I always had the same issue. My way of dealing with it was to give fighters "on miss" abilities and health threshold abilities. So when a fighter misses their attack they can do things like push the target, give the target a penalty, deal a small amount of damage based on other features, and a few other things (there was a list of 20 things to choose from kind of like warlock abilities). The other things were at bloodied and at single digits (both recharge at long rest) you get adrenaline rush which increases your movement speed, saves and all physical skills for the fight.
bruh sir orrin is like my favorite "fighter" of anything
I will say something about action surge that people don't seem to think about, and improvised actions too. At least 40% of the time, I'll use action surge to give me a boost in action ecnonomy to improvise an action. Important npc just got pushed off an airship? Ask the DM: "can I use my action and action surge to pull out my boomerang, quickly tie a knot around it, and throw it around their leg so it catches them?" It'll be a pretty high dc/ attack roll, but that's what precision attack/ lucky is for.
Use action surge to pull off that cinematic/ cool moment that no other class can (action economy wise) afford to do. You'll feel a lot more useful than just getting a few extra attacks out. Most classes have a feature that lets them do more damage. There are less "do more things on your turn" features.
Which is also why I'm hyped to play an echo knight, since they let you pull off more things in a turn by freeing up mobility.
Sidenote- fighters are perhaps the most dependant on magic items out of all the classes. It is up to the dm how powerful you are. So seduce the dm.
It’s just a nit pick, but I don’t think an ability called second wind should have multiple uses per rest because then it would be the third wind! Or the fourth wind!
Depends on what your fighter had for dinner.
Haha, true, true
In 4e fighters literally had a "Third Wind" utility they could take. Because everyone had second wind.
First video of yours I've ever seen, really enjoyed it and you made really great points plus awesomely presented. It's good to share criticism so we all improve but I got none, thanks for your hard work :)
This comment made me happy, and I like your username
@@MonarchsFactory Thanks, you've got a pretty good one there yourself
I feel your beef with the fighting styles. I’ve played a two weapon fighter and the thing that pissed me off the most I think is the fact that your off hand attack will ALWAYS require the use of a bonus action, regardless of whether you’re level 5 or 20. Imagine how sad those few extra damage points seem once you near level 10. It’s absolutely not worth sacrificing a whole bonus action for it past a certain point, especially when you get cooler bonus actions from spells and items you pick up along the way.
I like that disclaimer where you put in that you're looking to balance the fun of the class rather than the power level of the classes.
As a monk main I've always thought that the class was restrictive in potential since its easily the least tanky melee class, while also having less room for growth of damage output due to lack of magic items and feats that achieve that goal (compared to the a level 5 fighter whose damage can go up by 28 points on the first turn of combat just by handing them a flame tongue greatsword)
But that said as an actual player I've had a lot of boredom as a fighter despite being tankier and higher damage which has never been true for playing a monk. Power level aside the monk is crazy fun to play especially once you get the verticle mobility of wall running at level 9 and can really use the enviornment to your advantage.
"the mill of the king."
* whoosh *
FLIGHT OF DRAGONS!!!!!! I loved that movie. James Earl Jones was an awesome villain in that.
Also I really wanted to hear you go for that high note XD
Omadon is a gold standard villain! Him chanting "doom" as the dragons flight out is /chef's kiss/
Also, I did go for the high note - trust me, you would not want to hear it, hahaha
You could always get more favored weapons as you level up, or maybe picking two or three when you get the feature
Also, could you choose your unarmed strikes as you favored weapon?
There'd be no need if you can change the main one on a rest.
Definitely a nice idea, that way you can be more *versatile*. The obvious choice would be to take whichever of melee or ranged you don't already have, or if you're a two-weapon fighter then now you can have both of your weapons be favored.
@@Myzelfa I was thinking more in the lines of versatility, and also for the fact that someone could train their entire lives with only a few weapons, not the whole catalogue.
@@GeneralAceTheAwesome or someone that was only trained for long distance battle, using javelins, longbows, and the like, perhaps only carrying a pocket knife when the going gets rough
@@hansolobutimdead The fluff, as Dael reminds us, mentions both versatility and specialization. I personally think it fits the Fighter's ouvre better if they are generally good with weapons, but really good with one in particular.
I dont play D&D (although i want to) but i watch all your vids and the home brew stuff you come up with is always really cool sounding. i think my favorite is the fire prince video, dope idea for a boss.
I'm not even convinced that it needs a fix but I'm here with an open mind!
My fix for the fighter has always been just give them all the fighting styles.
That sells me on their versatility far more. Most of the fighting styles can't be used at the same time anyway, because they are keyed off of what weapons you're using and so on. it's not a problem for all fighters to just get plus one ac, plus two to attack roles with range weapons, and the ability to reroll damage dice on great weapons. It's actually overall a very marginal power level increase but it goes really far in showing just how great of Marshall prowess you should have as a fighter. the other classes that choose a fighting style aren't focused on being a master's of all the weapons and so on, they have some training but they're more focused on things like you know being a holy man, or nature and survival skills.
I guess my replacement for the extra fighting style feature that champion would get would be the sorts of buffs that Dale is talking about in this video. A champion enhances all of their fighting styles by like plus one at level 10.
their archery gets a little better, their defense gets a little better, their two weapon fighting they get a bonus of plus one. instead of just imposing disadvantage on an attack of a Target next to him it's also an attack by a Target next to them to a Target other than them. Etc.
Tbh to "Fix" the fighter I'd just give all fighters (some of) the battle master manouvers and give BMs either more superiority dice, or better versions of the manouvers.
Assuming a fighter is a "knight" figure, someone who spent much of their life training for combat, why would they have to specialize in one kind of fighting in order to be able to do stuff like trip, lunge, and parry? those all sound like basic requirements someone should learn as part of learning to fight.
@@Gstrangeman96 well one of the fighting styles gives you a maneuver or two as of the Tasha's book.
@@MCXL1140 Superior technique? that's only 1 maneuver and 1 per short rest. Lame. In my view someone whose whole gig is supposed to be fighting should be able to do more than "i swing my sword at the enemy", and "i swing my sword at the enemy EXTRA HARD" (but only once because the effort takes so much out of them they have to have a snack and a nap before they can do it again).
Like the wizard is the master of magic, the fighter should be the master of the down & dirty melee.
@@Gstrangeman96 the subclass is all give various stuff if you want with the idea of champion escalating all the files fighting styles they're really good at ***all the fighting***
@@Gstrangeman96 echo knight with BM maneuvers? RIP all other pure martials
I think part of the problem is that when you consider the history of the class, these better more interesting combat classes like Ranger, Monk, and even Paladin to some extent used to be wrapped up in Fighter. Imo, the real fix to Fighter (and many other classes for that matter) would be to add all those distilled classes back in as subclass options / specializations.
That flight of dragons clip is amazing. Would have loved that as a kid.
It's an epic movie. I think you can stream it on Amazon, but you have to rent or buy it. You should give it a watch.
Growing up, I played second edition with my dad, and (along with a mess of other things) the classes had a limited number of weapons they knew how to use; rangers knew two or three, paladins knew like three or four, and the number scaled with level. Fighters always knew how to use the most weapons, so while other people might be stuck with a longsword until fifth level (or whatever it was), the fighter could use a longsword, dagger, mace, halberd, and crossbow.
An interesting addendum that could be converted into the Favored Weapon idea where instead of replacing your favored one, you could add more.
Note: Phew, this is a lot of text, sorry! Just wanted to add at the top that I loved the video and especially enjoyed the Fighting Style fixes.
My issue with the Fighter comes from a slightly different angle, but I think our goals are similar (to make it more fun to play).
I think that in contrast to Wizards, who get new "features" every second level, currently the Fighter gets a bunch of features upfront that (almost) never improve.
A better balance for this (and also one which avoids making Fighter one of the best 2-3 level dips) is to have Fighters get a select few features but to have them improve in versatility and power over time.
To that end what I wrote was a "Knight" class, which tried to focus on having an actual theme to its abilities. What do Knights do (in fantasy)? They lead the peasants! They charge into battle! They protect the innocent!
So they get three abilities, Protect, Charge and Leadership, from Levels 1-4 (skipping 3 to get their subclass) that each gradually improve all the way to Level 20.
So whereas at Level 1 "Protect" is just the current Protection Fighting Style, by Level 16 you can 1) use your movement as part of the reaction to desperately lunge in the way of the attack, 2) make an attack against the foe as part of the reaction, and 3) cause the attack to automatically miss instead of just giving it disadvantage.
This feels, to me, like what a Fighter should be. Every turn, all day, you can do Something Cool. At higher levels, that cool thing is easier to do, more impactful and more reliable.
I honestly like the idea of there being either a fighting style or a Fighter class feature that lets them deal half damage on a miss. Sort of like how Evocation Wizards can get Potent Cantrip, and how so many save spells deal at least some damage if they fail. If Barbarians get Reckless Attacks, and Rogues get Sneak Attacks, Fighters should get Reliable Attacks. Maybe not the most bursty or chaotic attack boost, but it would make them always feel useful. It would make Fighter damage seem inevitable. This guy is a master of his art. Even if you block him, you'll be shaken by the blow. Even if you dodge, he anticipates this and still grazes you slightly.
Am I the only one who feels like superiority dice and maneuvers should be a base feature for fighters?
I think that this is definitely the way the class should be composed, as the superiority dice are definitely the fighter mechanic that is the most fun. The problem is that Eldritch Knights become insanely unbalanced.
As someone who enjoys waltzing around in full plate with a shield, and who saves spell slots to cast "Shield" as a reaction, having the awesome abilities of the Battlemaster in addition to being able to cast spells in armor would tempt me to never play another class.
I think Champion is just bad compared to the other subclasses.
It was, in the playtest. Blame grognards.
Hell yeah. It would make fighters feel more like skilled combatants.
I generally take the Battle Master as the 'default' fighter type as opposed to the champion anytime I do tweaks. Mostly because given the option you can make a simple battle master that is a better champion than the champion.
No, but I'd rather it wasn't because I like having options that aren't just a pool of expendable resources. The current kit of Champion should just be folded into Fighter basic and Champion should be reworked to actually be something useful.
I never realized how both the monk and the fighter are trying to do auch similar things. That epiphany blew my mind.
Indomitable: Why not liken it to a legendary resistance? Once per long rest, if they fail a STR/DEX/CON save, they can choose to succeed instead?
That's worse than it is now. I would rather re-roll any save, than one auto-succeed on a save I'm usually going to make anyway.
@@bskec2177 Legendary resistances don't have to be used on a failed saving throw If you look in monster stat blocks, it's always optional: "If the tarrasque fails a saving throw, it can choose to succeed instead."
Yes. Love it.
This has been in my ideas folder for a while, "Favorite weapon." but was never sure how to implement it.
I dont think it should be changed over a long rest, I like the idea of:
"I have fought wars, killed beasts, defended my home and avenged my wife. all with a spear in my hand. I know spears better than I know myself."
+half of proficiency to any spear attack.
and it takes a year to change favorite weapons. Because now you have interesting dilemmas. Magic axe? more damage? but I loose my spear bonus...
She basically made a completely different subclass of fighter. And it’s better than The regular Champion
I like the idea of making fighter attacks "modular". Being able to put hit bonuses into damage or vice versa, maybe getting some penalty for extra range. I think that's an interesting concept to make a whole subclass around. Especially when fighter like most martial classes has a problem in how repetitive it can become.
Personally I brought the Manouvers into the base fighter class (Long Rest recharge) in place of Second wind (nerfed down into a Manouver)
Then fused Champion with the remnants of Battlemaster
This means the Fighter gets his own pseudo-smite: a non magical paladin
TLDR: Manouvers part of the base class, so even the Champion has something to do
Checking in on this after a few days, I actually did a double take at the mention of favored weapons. Having been developing a tabletop game of my own for the last several years, one of the early decisions was to grant fighter-types a Favored Weapon, which is defined by your actions and you by it, exchangeable whenever you gain a level. There's a lot more to it than that which would sound like absolute gibberish without context, but rest assured, the sentiments are eerily similar. I didn't spend a half decade being bored of 5e for nothing.
Inspired me to start a discussion. Take it or leave it as is your prerogative, but hopefully this also sparks some ideas.
Regarding Champion: I like the cut of your thrust... or jib, or whatever. Here are the thoughts that leapt (+3-5 feet more) on the Champion.
Improved Critical feels pretty signature so I wouldn't remove or change it.
Remarkable Athlete should plain and simply allow you to re-roll Athletics checks and Strength Saves. This is wonderful as it synergizes with, as you pointed out, the fact that a champion fighter is almost certainly already trained in Athletics and it doesn't stomp on expertise from other class combinations such as from Bard or Rogue nor fight with spell boosts such as from Enhance Ability. It also clears up the constant confusion I see of people trying to use Acrobatics to do feats of Athleticism (they are not the same). Additionally your champion now has great options of grappling and resisting grapples, and the re-roll on Strength saves gives them awesome resistance to some of the monster ability BS that grapples you without giving you an Athletics or Acrobatics roll to counter it. (I'm looking at you, Grell). My mind races with imagery of the Champion Fighter holding open the maw of the Purple Worm daring to try and devour them whole, mighty thews and bulging triceps rippling with corded muscle as they dig deep and with one last push break free, a defiant morsel now with sword drawn... or something like that.
Additional Fighting Style is good for options, but it feels more appropriate for the Battlemaster though who is more likely to have different tools for different battlefield jobs. The level 10 ability should build upon the other aspects of the subclass, which it accomplishes for the Battlemaster and Eldritch Knight. Thus, the Champion should, as you pointed out, gain "Deadly Perfection" at this point. their signature ability isn't combat superiority dice or spell casting, it is inflicting devastating blows. It is them achieving Deadly Perfection. The Champion rolls damage dice twice, choosing the result.
Example: Great Weapon Fighting Champion with a Great Sword - Rolls 2d6 gets 1 + 6, chooses to re-roll the 1 and gets a 2. Re-rolls 2d6 using Deadly Perfection and gets a 4+5. Chooses the 4+5.
- This is fun because rolling dice is fun. Magic click-clack math rocks are joy. Let players roll lots of dice.
- This doesn't massively increase their damage output, it just shaves off the low end making them consistently deadly when they hit, and absolutely devastating when they crit.
- Also, the look on the face of the party sorcerer when the Champion fighter is rolling 4 dice for each great sword attack is worth it.
- Lastly, critical hits are epic dice rolling affairs. Let the Champion shine with the thing they are intended to do; Crit like a mo-fo.
Superior Critical is good with all the love from Deadly Perfection
Survivor is alright. It leans into the 6 encounters per day mechanic that D&D hasn't been for probably 20 years, but it is effectively a constant cure wounds spell being cast on you each turn when below half HP (which is annoying because it results in arguments where the Champion is telling the Life Cleric NOT to heal them). Probably not going to keep you alive against BBEG. Rather than only allowing it to trigger when you are in that terribly perilous position of being below half HP (and well within the prerequisite for a Power Word Kill spell to end you permanently) I would allow it to trigger under the following conditions as well so that you aren't mad at the Life Cleric for stopping your level 18 feature from ever happening.
- Whenever you inflict a critical hit
- When you are struck by a critical hit or by an attack that would drop you to 0 HP you can trigger this using your reaction.
These two additions give you "versatility" and could potentially keep you up and fighting like, I dunno, a gods damned Champion.
I really like the remarkable athlete change. It makes so much sense that the grapple subclass should be the one that's supposed to be the beat at athletics.
This is a really interesting discussion. In saying that I love Simon the Slayer, my Goblin Champion Fighter who only takes feats at ASIs and runs into battle casting hex and duel wielding his magical longswords.
Fighters kit as it stands is incredible, you can't give fighter even the smallest taste of a magical item or they become a monster. Monk on the other hand is an extremely weak class (unless rolling stats or using arrays with extremely high stats which makes any discussion of this nature pointless) and has hard time performing in a frontline role as they don't have AC to be in melee usually or if they do they don't have the health with their reliance on three scores compared to fighters two. The fighter also has a stronger nova with action surge, heavy weapons, versitility from being able to switch gear to go fron front to back (even middle of the fight) and good combat steroids from pretty much every subclass. I think your bad experiences might just stem from high stats or less standard way of playing, but fighter is definitely stronger as far as statistics are concerned.
I know you’re probably not looking for a debate about the monk, but I do feel the need to defend my fast guys at least a little bit. The monk isn’t an extremely weak class just because some issues come up when trying to play one effectively. Yes, monks typically do less damage than fighters after 5th level, but they still possess enough utility and power to hold their own even if stats aren’t rolled or arrayed high (which isn’t irrelevant at all when it comes to actually playing the game. Plenty of people play with higher stats). Not enough people use the mobile feat as a way to completely get around the monk’s AC and HP difficulties. It combines with the monk’s speed to almost always allow monks to attack then move out of enemy melee range. I’ve played monks several times, and I’ve ended a large number of combats having taken 0 damage while all the other martials are seriously hurt because no enemy is going to risk opportunity attacks from stationary targets to chase down a fast guy. I know relying on a feat to overcome a large issue seems kind of like a cheap argument from an optimization standpoint, but it’s not like people don’t use tons of feats like GWM, PAM, sharpshooter, or Sentinel to argue for how great the fighter can be.
Also, if a monk really wants to nova, they can just spam stunning strike until all but the most powerful creatures are practically guaranteed to fail. It’s not a typical damage nova, but unless a fighter is going to outright kill an enemy by action surging (in which case nova-ing probably wasn’t necessary) stunning strike has way more ability to actually turn the tide of a battle.
Even though I am able to defend the monk, I agree that they should be more powerful. There isn’t really any reason they should have to do less damage after 5th level or rely on a feat to fix a big issue. But I don’t agree that the core monk class is automatically inferior. Instead, it’s clear that the monk is really let down by it’s (current) subclasses. You’re right that the fighter has some killer subclass options, while I can think of at least 4 monk subclasses that functionally do nothing for the monk in a standard combat turn. However, with Tasha’s it seems that the design team is at least making an effort to close the gap between monk subclasses and those of other classes. It seems like eventually the monk will have some subclasses that significantly improve its damage output or add enough buff/debuff abilities that the difference barely matters. Overall though, the the monk’s two or three decent subclasses allow the monk to generally keep pace in terms of effectiveness when played intelligently. Really, it seems that monks just get a bad rap because optimizers automatically discard options that do less damage even when very significant workarounds and utility abilities exist.
Maybe I just like the fighter class too much but the idea of Favored Weapon shakes me to my core. What an ingenious idea. I feel like every class has a gimmick that is meant to give the player a taste of what the class is meant to feel like but that Fighter’s has always been fighting ie. Doing what anyone else can do but having it as a personality. Tasteless. It’s like being really into drinking water. But this THIS is the perfect sentiment. It nails it home.
It reminds me of that one episode of the venture brothers. Brock Samson has to fight a guy who wields an expensive katana that was made in a complicated way and he was bragging about it and Brock says “oh my god you katana guys are always talking about your swords”. THAT’S IT! This gives people a chance to say, I didn’t pick fighter because I’m boring or dumb, I picked it because I love fighting. I don’t just “like” fighting, I LOVE IT!! This is MY sword, MY bow, MY glaive, MY greatclub. There are many like it but THIS one is MINE! You’re not just some dingus with a hunk of steel anymore. You’re Link with the Master Sword, you’re Aragorn and Anduril, you’re heavy weapons guy and his weapon.
A fighter isn’t a hero because they can swing a weapon. Anyone can swing a weapon. A fighter is good because they are they are great with that weapon, and their weapon is great-magical or not- because it is wielded by them.
And a new player doesn’t have to go into the game feeling like they have to own up to that sentiment. It just means that one day, their character has or will pick up a weapon, and that weapon was their favorite. There may even be several times when that happens, but in that moment, their character had a special interaction that they wouldn’t get anywhere else or with any other class. Their character could be a villain/warrior/adventurer/hero that is KNOWN!! for using a sword. And when they hit you, you will. Know. Why.
Sorry. I went off a bit there. Whew. I just really like this concept.
Could we get the changes written out in text format?
There’s a feat in 3.5 called Weapon Focus which, if I’m not wrong, gives a +1 to attack rolls and damage. That’s basically your Favored Weapon. There’s a few other Weapon Focus feats that slowly stack up to make the 3.5 Fighter really, really good at hitting things with their preferred weapons.
"They were designed for the six encounter adventuring day which we can all agree, doesn't really happen"
*Looks at the multiple times I've run 4+ sessions for a single in game day, while hitting 6-8 encounters
Sounds exhausting.
@@MackDnD Everyone actually enjoyed it. When I realized that the multi encounter day was how 5E was designed I tried to figure out how facilitate that type of day in the narrative.
D&D is about killing monsters and taking there stuff. That's what the rules and the core gameplay loop reinforce. That is done through decision making and resource management, and I think when you lean into that, in a narratively interesting and consistent way, that's where D&D shine.
@@legomacinnisinc That's good. I'm glad it works for your group. Are the encounters strictly combat that you mentioned?
I find have 1 combat is enough for me in a 4 hour session. How long are your sessions that you can fit so many in?
I’ve found (from both sides of the table) that squeezing that many encounters (combat or not) into one in game day works real well in a dungeon or other environment where the DM can force players into constant danger, but outside that it can feel like the DM is being a jerk and throwing bad guys at the players for no reason or not allowing a rest when rest would be reasonable.
In general, most DMs (even TH-cam DMs) agree that it’s hard to pull off consistently in a way that feels fun
@@MackDnD I normally run a 4-5 hour session, depending on the day, but remember I am not running 6+ combat encounters in one game session. I am covering one in game day in multiple game sessions. And yes, I'll run 6+ combat encounters in one game day, but there are still plenty of other "encounters" that are exploration or RP.
I normally don't go over three combats in one session, but each combat is not a deadly encounter. Often they are over in less than an hour, are only 2-3 turns long, and don't pose much of a physical threat to the party. They are there to drain resources (hp, spell slots, abilities), or are an "easy" fight but have a hard to achieve objective that may help the party if they get it or hinder if they don't.
A classic is the party being discovered by scouts. Easy to kill them, but can you stop them from running away and alerting the enemy?
I started playing dnd well over a year ago in a online group. I'm having a lot of fun and I created a dwarf Champion fighter. He is level 10 now and quite enjoy playing him but can understand that it can feel like it lacks something. Personally the improved critical has helped quite a bit. With that character I roll crits quite often so I like that part of the champion, hitting hard. I do feel like it could use a ability where you can either induce fear in the hearts of your enemies or master close combat so well that once a battle/day/long rest you could stun or knock a opponent prone.
Love the Flight of Dragons reference, though now I kinda want a bard that can logic things out of existence.
So like a college of words bard that "Well actually" things to death?
In a future edition I'd like to see fighters have a set of modular properties that they can add to their weapons as they level up. A weapon in the hands of a high level fighter should be scary.
Doesn't even need to be damage related. Reach on a longsword? Armour bonus representing your ability to parry? Being able to swap damage types by using your weapon in a different way (murder stroke with your greatsword?)? Liquidate battle master, add more, and make weapons cool for the weapon expert class.
Shout out to the "video is still processing" crew.
In comparing the fighter and monk, you made me think about maybe incorporating battle master maneuvers into the base class of fighter. They could be d6s like the fighting Initiate feat, so there’s still a benefit to going full battle master. That way it’s like having the versatility and fun choices to make that a monk has but still feeling different. Thanks for sharing!