Elven Champion

[Easy_Lee]

The Champion archetype is often derided and considered by many to be the second weakest Fighter archetype (better than Purple Dragon Knight). Let's see if we can use Elven Accuracy to fix that.

Elf Champion
Any Elf, starting Dexterity 15+2, Constitution 14, Strength 14
Fighter (Champion) / Rogue (Any)
1: Rogue: Expertise: Athletics + anything, Sneak Attack, extra skills
2-8: Fighter (Champion): Dueling, Elven Accuracy, Extra Attack, expanded crit range, Shield Master (bonus ASI), Remarkable Athlete (bonus to initiative among other things)
9+: Rogue

When you make an attack, you can use your bonus action to Shove a target via Shield Master. Expertise Athletics will give the build a scaling bonus to Expertise that should be plenty for most large or smaller creatures. You can use this bonus action before you actually make your attacks.

So we shove the target first. If successful, subsequent attacks have advantage. With advantage, we roll 6d20 for our attacks. Given Champion, that's almost a 50% crit chance per round. Sneak Attack dice double on a crit, and you can decide not to sneak attack with your first attack if it doesn't crit.

Thus, the build should critical hit with Sneak Attack every other round as long as it can shove the target prone. By level 12, with 18 dexterity, expected DPR is 1.5*(2d8+3d6)+12, or 41.25. Not the best, but not terrible either given that the character can also deal Sneak Attack on reactions, use Cunning Action, and has Uncanny Dodge by this point, in addition to the features of whatever Rogue archetype he chose. His attacks are also much more likely to hit than a standard GWM fighter meaning 41.25 DPR is better than it looks.

Things get funny if you find a Vorpal Scimitar in your travels. This character will have a one in four chance per round to decapitate succeptible targets. Tell that to the GWM barbarian.

[SirGraystone]

A vorpal weapon decapitate on a 20 not a critical hit,

[Easy_Lee]

A vorpal weapon decapitate on a 20 not a critical hit,

Go to anydice, type "output [highest 1 of 6d20]", and hit calculate. 26.49% chance of a natural 20. It's actually better than one in four.

[The_Jette]

Wouldn't this be more of a Rogue build, since you're only really dipping into Champion for the class feature then building up your Rogue levels? I could almost understand this if you were only taking one level of Rogue for the Expertise, and the rest was Champion in the build. But, this seems less like Champion is awesome, and more like Sneak Attack would be better if you could crit on a 19.

[EdenIndustries]

What about Half-Elf, Champion 20? You can pick up Elven Accuracy and Prodigy feats, giving you triple advantange and expertise in athletics, and then 4 attacks by Fighter 20. If you're trying to maximize crits (and the natural 20 with the vorpal sword) this could be better than adding Rogue levels.

[Easy_Lee]

Wouldn't this be more of a Rogue build, since you're only really dipping into Champion for the class feature then building up your Rogue levels? I could almost understand this if you were only taking one level of Rogue for the Expertise, and the rest was Champion in the build. But, this seems less like Champion is awesome, and more like Sneak Attack would be better if you could crit on a 19.

That's fair, but seven levels of champion means it's primarily a figher until level 14. Most games don't go into tier 4 in my experience.

Incidentally, you could make a quite similar build with Hexblade / Rogue using darkness instead of Shield Master.

[EdenIndustries]

That's fair, but seven levels of champion means it's primarily a figher until level 14. Most games don't go into tier 4 in my experience.

Incidentally, you could make a quite similar build with Hexblade / Rogue using darkness instead of Shield Master.

That's true, but at Fighter 11 you get your 3rd attack, which still seems like a great upgrade to the whole advantage/crit action happening. I mean Rogue and Sneak Attack are cool, no doubt about it, but triple advantage on 3 attacks as a Champion is pretty cool too!

[Easy_Lee]

That's true, but at Fighter 11 you get your 3rd attack, which still seems like a great upgrade to the whole advantage/crit action happening. I mean Rogue and Sneak Attack are cool, no doubt about it, but triple advantage on 3 attacks as a Champion is pretty cool too!

Yep, that build also has merit, especially if you find a vorpal scimitar. The extra fighting style doesn't hurt, either.

[MrWesson22]

I think you would get a lot more from 3 more levels of fighter, taking it to 11, than rogue 10-12.

[Easy_Lee]

I think you would get a lot more from 3 more levels of fighter, taking it to 11, than rogue 10-12.

Four more levels of fighter, actually, but your point stands. I considered the benefit of fighter 8-11 against earlier access to uncanny dodge and cunning action. My focus was on tiers before 4, as I've never made it to tier 4 in any of my games.

My suggestion is thus: Rogue 1, then Fighter 7, then Rogue 5, then Fighter 11, then Rogue 9. That setup should produce a strong character at every tier of play.

Note: by tiers I mean tiers of play as outlined in the PHB.

[MxKit]

The Champion archetype is often derided and considered by many to be the second weakest Fighter archetype (better than Purple Dragon Knight).

I don't know if I'd say Champion is the weakest or even second-weakest archetype. I think the biggest complaint is that it's boring and has way less utility. The Purple Dragon Knight/Banneret is probably "weakest" in those terms, but at the same time it has more utility and helps out the party more in really cool ways... So you have the problem that while many new players and people who don't want to have much to keep track of will be 100% down with choosing the Champion, more experienced players who want any options to play around with at all are going to pick it probably dead last.

I know I personally think of it as a strong subclass that I'll never pick because its features just don't interest me as much as any of the other subclasses.

That said, there are a couple other ways to build a really great crit-fishing Champion. Champion 16/Barbarian 4 (or Champion 17/Barbarian 3) is a good one. Half-Orc is a good racial choice, especially if combined with the former. Or, and here's a fun one, making a Stout Halfling Champion with the Lucky feat—maybe even dipping two levels into Divination Wizard if you can justify it, for the chance of rolling a 20 on your divination dice some days.

[Specter]

Good one.

For more damage, pick Magic Initiate (Warlock). Season with cantrips to taste.

[Spacehamster]

Champion 7 assassin 3 wood elf with long bow, elven accuracy and alert?
almost guaranteed to have advantage on the first round of combat on all attacks due to assassin, Finish it all off with
in total 11 Fighter, 3 Gloom stalker and 5 assassin, use 2 remaining ASI´s to max DEX and take sharpshooter.

Should make for a fun build.

Can also skip gloom stalker and make it an 11 fig / 9 rogue split for more sneak attacks and 1 more ASI.

[Easy_Lee]

Champion 7 assassin 3 wood elf with long bow, elven accuracy and alert?
almost guaranteed to have advantage on the first round of combat on all attacks due to assassin, Finish it all off with
in total 11 Fighter, 3 Gloom stalker and 5 assassin, use 2 remaining ASI´s to max DEX and take sharpshooter.

Should make for a fun build.

Can also skip gloom stalker and make it an 11 fig / 9 rogue split for more sneak attacks and 1 more ASI.

One might consider Assassin 3 / Hexblade (or any blade-pact warlock, really) for that concept as starting each fight with an Eldritch Smite crit is ludicrous.

[Crgaston]

I tried finding an online calculator for the math for this, but have been unsuccessful so far. A Wood elf Champ 11/ Rogue 2 for Expertise in Stealth and (Athletics or Perception) and the bonus action Hide while Lightly Obscured plus Elven Accuracy and Sharpshooter could be rolling 9d20 for hits. Then of course at F15, the 18=20 crit range kicks in.

[Easy_Lee]

I tried finding an online calculator for the math for this, but have been unsuccessful so far. A Wood elf Champ 11/ Rogue 2 for Expertise in Stealth and (Athletics or Perception) and the bonus action Hide while Lightly Obscured plus Elven Accuracy and Sharpshooter could be rolling 9d20 for hits. Then of course at F15, the 18=20 crit range kicks in.

I use Anydice, but it doesn't go up to 9d20. Did the math in excel and, assuming my math is correct, 9d20 at a crit range of 18-20 has a 23% chance not to critical hit. So that's pretty good.