Battle Master (Core Mechanic Question)

[SpawnOfMorbo]

I noticed something recently that is a subtle mechanic of the Battle Master and may be part of why I hate the class outside of the maneuvers not being worth the refresh mechanic they are given.

When you use a maneuver that has a rider effect that specifically inflicts some sort of issue to the target, that target gains a saving throw.

When using magic, you get two choices for attacks. You either get to make an attack roll and something happens or the target gets a saving throw and stuff happens. If you miss or they make their save then either nothing happens or something might happen.

Not too many spells, let's use fireball as an example, offer both an attack roll and then gives the target a save. Fireball isn't *attack roll versus AC* + *Dex save or take damage*

Now I get that the fighter can choose to use the maneuver after hitting with a weapon attack, but it still seems odd they would essentially give two defenses to the maneuvers whereas spells give one defense (usually, contagion gives you multiple saves). Is being able to choose after hitting to apply a maneuver worth giving the target a second defense?

I think if maneuvers were +dmg +rider effect with no save the class would be a lot better and the maneuvers become closer to actually deserving a refresh mechanic (closer, but still lacking the OOMPH that classes with refresh mechanics get).

I've heard that people like to give double the number of dice but if the maneuvers aren't worth it, I'm not sure if just doubling the dice will make it nice enough.

So what would be the consequences versus the game of doing each of the following.

Normal #Dice + Auto Rider (Making all maneuvers work off just the attack roll)

Double #Dice + Auto Rider (Making all maneuvers work off just the attack roll)

Normal #Dice + Auto Rider (Making the attack and maneuvers work off just the save)

Double #Dice + Auto Rider (Making the attack and maneuvers work off just the save)

Normal #Dice + Auto Rider + Must choose to use maneuvers before attack roll.

Double #Dice + Auto Rider + Must choose to use maneuvers before attack roll.

Is being able to choose after hitting to apply a maneuver worth giving the target a second defense?

Thanks

Obviously if you think the BMF is fine the way it is, then that is fine. I'm not here to debate if the current system is good or not, I would just like to get some insight on what these changes would do.

[Giant2005]

Having the rider occur after the attack and having separate hit rolls is a huge advantage for the Battlemaster. Someone else doing something similar loses both the damage and the effect on a successful save, the Battlemaster has the ability to keep his damage even if the save is made.

[Gwendol]

Yeah, being able to pick the maneuver after the hit is an advantage, and not all maneuvers require a save.

I don't think it would be a huge rush to play battlemasters if you allowed the rider effect with no save, since the number of dice are so few and the DM can pace encounters to fit the increase in power.

[DualShadow]

Would have been better IMO if spells had some kind of attack roll. Say a fireball with an attack roll to prevent your flaming ball of arcane power to scatter away and explode 5 ft off the target damaging your friend the fighter that was fighting just off the radius of the original targetted spot.

Sure would make the mages a little bit less omnipotent in a way. Should not be that easy to eyeball the spell's radius in the middle of a fight anyway.

[CrusaderJoe]

Would have been better IMO if spells had some kind of attack roll. Say a fireball with an attack roll to prevent your flaming ball of arcane power to scatter away and explode 5 ft off the target damaging your friend the fighter that was fighting just off the radius of the original targetted spot.

Sure would make the mages a little bit less omnipotent in a way. Should not be that easy to eyeball the spell's radius in the middle of a fight anyway.

Good way to bring that back under the existing rules is to add the following.

Whenever you cast a spell with a range other than touch that offers a save and you are threatened by a creature, the target of your spell has advantage on their save.

[JoeJ]

Would have been better IMO if spells had some kind of attack roll. Say a fireball with an attack roll to prevent your flaming ball of arcane power to scatter away and explode 5 ft off the target damaging your friend the fighter that was fighting just off the radius of the original targetted spot.

Sure would make the mages a little bit less omnipotent in a way. Should not be that easy to eyeball the spell's radius in the middle of a fight anyway.

If you're playing with miniatures and no grid (i.e. by measuring distances on the map) just have the player designate where the center of the spell is and measure all distances from that spot.

[CrusaderJoe]

If you're playing with miniatures and no grid (i.e. by measuring distances on the map) just have the player designate where the center of the spell is and measure all distances from that spot.

That doesn't change anything...

Though getting rid of the square maps and using just a surface and measuring sticks (I prefer a chop stick with marks) to judge distance and such might *but they can still eyeball it pretty well and aren't having the same issues as a person in battle would be. This fixes a lot of wonky stuff with movement.

Lol totally accidently deleted part of a sentence.

[OldTrees1]

Since you are choosing a maneuvers after connecting, their AC is was not really a defense against your limited number of maneuvers/rest. Sure it is not as free as if they were independent events. However since you choose after the point of knowledge(hit or miss), your chance of landing your maneuvers(when used) is much better than fighting through 2 defenses.

Thus any change that reduces it to 1 defense but has the choice before the point of knowledge would be very close in accuracy to what we have already.


So options 1 & 2 are a significant accuracy boost, options 3-6 are a negligible accuracy boost. If you like one of options 3-6 I would suggest letting each BM choose between 3&5 (or between 4&6).

[Ashrym]

It isn't 2 defenses against maneuvers. It's an extra benefit option available on top of a successful hit. The fighter attacks and does damage against AC, and can do additional actions that might have saves. A good time to do it is on a critical hit because superiority die damage doubles. There is only one roll for the actual maneuver when there is a save, and it doesn't necessarily lose the superiority die if the save is made. For example, the push maneuver adds the superiority die in damage regardless, and then the save is against that push effect.

The nice thing about superiority dice is that choosing when to add extra damage is better than random damage, and the effects are per attack. A high level battlemaster can action surge and use all 6 dice on one turn in several permutations of consecutive maneuvers for interesting peak moments. Some maneuvers are pretty decent, and fun with an archer battlemaster. The fighter class starts with a lot given the attacks and bonus feats, and I expect that's why there are not more superiority dice given out considering it's a short rest mechanic and 2 short rests are the standard. That's 18+ per adventuring day when relentless is included. That's 2-3 manuevers per encounter; even at 3rd level it's 1-2 maneuvers per encounter if spaced out and better than casters with 0-1 per encounter at the same level spamming poor damage cantrips.

It's an attack plus a maneuver when normally a caster just has the spell, and either damage or an effect instead of both for spells with the exception of some really poor damage cantrips compared to multiple attacks. Doing 13 damage with a ray of frost and slowing a target down one round sucks compared to doing 45 damage and costing the target half it's movement to stand up from prone even if the bonus effect from ray of frost is done at will, and prone will give everyone who goes between the fighter and target advantage on attacks if they close to give another increase in damage. If the fighter is using great weapon mastery and uses trip on the first attack he's more likely to succeed on 2 more attacks at -5/+10 by giving himself advantage. Fireball won't have any extra effects and will do 28 (14 on a save) and not a single target will take 45 damage or have an extra effect; good for AoE but not good for direct damage.

Just the trip maneuver can have a lot of impact. Spacing out superiority dice or playing with combo moves is a lot of the fun, and it is an effective subclass.