The Four Swordsmen

[Naanomi]

Anytime I start seeing mechanical or thematic trends in character options, I start thinking about a 'full party' consisting of those characters.

Now, looking over the revised subclasses, I was struck with the fact that we have at least four ways to show a 'master swordsman': a battle-master fighter, a swashbuckler rogue, a college of swords bard, and a kensai monk

A melee heavy party with only minimal magic support... what would the best options be to make this party functional (assume no multiclassing, standard point buy, and since I am already tapping UA material for stuff we might as well keep it up)?

[Corran]

Well, for starters, since they are all meleeing it up, someone should take the shield master feat.

I am very tempted to give it to the swashbuckler, instead of the battlemaster (since there will be no multiclassing, thus the battlemaster will eventually hit level 20, I feel it is a shame not to have him be a GWM), and the rogue gets expertise and also reliable talent -have the bard pick enlarge as one of his magical secrets at level 10- ).
Scratch that, I just re-read commander's strike and how it requires the battlemaster to give away one attack.

Lets do this from the start:
1) The battlemaster will use S&B, pick shield master as a feat, and pick the maneuvre commander's strike (to allow the rogue do some off-turn sneak attack damage) and trip attack (for more shoving, thus more advantage to everyone) too.

2) The bard will pick enlarge as one of his magical secrets (maybe hex too), as well as the shield master feat (haven't read college of swords, but I am assuming they get shields; if not, the bard takes moderately armored as a feat and equips a shield in order to take the shield master feat too). Expertise in athletics.

3) The swashbuckler optimizes the way they normaly do. Maybe have him grab the tough feat, since they are the main source of damage and we dont want them to go down easily.

4) Dont know anything about monks.

General tip: Have the battlemaster be dex based, so that everyone can use stealth well. Stealth party!

That's all I've got for now.

ps: Name them D'Artagnan, Athos, Porthos, Aramis.

[Potato_Priest]

Anytime I start seeing mechanical or thematic trends in character options, I start thinking about a 'full party' consisting of those characters.

Now, looking over the revised subclasses, I was struck with the fact that we have at least four ways to show a 'master swordsman': a battle-master fighter, a swashbuckler rogue, a college of swords bard, and a kensai monk

A melee heavy party with only minimal magic support... what would the best options be to make this party functional (assume no multiclassing, standard point buy, and since I am already tapping UA material for stuff we might as well keep it up)?

I've played stuff like this before, like the time we had 2 paladins, a melee-oriented war cleric, and a melee ranger in the party. All you really have to do is have a DM who sets up fun encounters for you. I actually think that having a fairly uniform but powerful party makes the GM's job easier, they can easily know how many of which enemies to throw at you, and the appropriate circumstances. I ran a game for 2 barbarians, a ranger, an assassin rogue and a sharpshooter fighter, and it was the easiest DMing I've ever done. The party was a group of raiders specializing in wanton slaughter, and I was very easily able to play their strengths and weaknesses and set up good encounters in a way I haven't been able to do before with more diverse parties. I tend to run a fairly sandboxy game, so the party was pretty free to pick their fights: where, when, and with whom they will engage, and so with them playing up their strengths and me throwing in a few surprises we had a great time.

One difficulty you might have with your party makeup is that the battlemaster and swashbuckler may often feel overshadowed by the others. Kensai monk is pretty darned devastating in battle and requires minimal gear, and the bard just has vastly more utility than the rest of them, complemented with on-par combat power.

[EvilAnagram]

snips.

I believe the College of Swords is geared towards two-weapon fighting.

[Naanomi]

I believe the College of Swords is geared towards two-weapon fighting.
As written it doesn't play well with TWF actually, its main ability of Flurry takes a bonus action and (at level 6) get a second attack when doing so

I'm somewhat tempted to make the whole lot of them Variant Humans to take the UA 'Blade Master' feat at 1st level

[EvilAnagram]

As written it doesn't play well with TWF actually, its main ability of Flurry takes a bonus action and (at level 6)

Yeah, it's not terribly coherent, but the original version only allowed for TWF, so it seems pretty central to the concept.

[MeeposFire]

Yeah, it's not terribly coherent, but the original version only allowed for TWF, so it seems pretty central to the concept.

Yea and the original did not play well with 2 weapon fighting either with its abilities so it is like a theme. Having TWF tied to the attack action and a bonus action means that a lot of the mechanics they design do nto work with TWF unlike the other styles and further even class mechanics that probably should work with it (like these college of swords versions) do not work with TWF.