Is Battle Master rfeally this good? And what about getting Martial Adept Feat?

[Spo]

Looking at creating a goblin fighter and was pouring over the different subclasses when I really started studying Battle Master. The maneuvers look pretty sweet and I can think of many scenarios in which to employ them. Is this subclass really the cat's meow?

Additionally, is the Martial Adept feat useful for this subclass? The two extra maneuvers and one more superiority dice seems to add more variety goodness to this class.

Thanks in advance for your opinions :).

[Frozenstep]

Yes, it's one of the best fighters. Versatility, power, and some nasty tricks if you have the right party/build (commander's strike your rogue to get another sneak attack off, riposte if you have rogue levels yourself to get a possible sneak attack on someone else's turn, and of course precision attack to make great weapon fighting more reliable). All on a short rest, meaning if your DM doesn't block short rests you can be doing this every combat on multiple rounds.

Martial adept is useful if you go longer between short rests, and it does offer a bit more variety, but you already end up with so many maneuvers if your campaign reaches level 7 that I don't think it's a big deal. Before then it's certainly nice.

[LudicSavant]

Looking at creating a goblin fighter and was pouring over the different subclasses when I really started studying Battle Master. The maneuvers look pretty sweet and I can think of many scenarios in which to employ them. Is this subclass really the cat's meow?

Additionally, is the Martial Adept feat useful for this subclass? The two extra maneuvers and one more superiority dice seems to add more variety goodness to this class.

Thanks in advance for your opinions :).

Yes, Battle Master is one of the best Fighter subclasses in the game. No, I wouldn't bother with the Martial Adept feat (other choices tend to add more value).

[ShikomeKidoMi]

of course precision attack to make great weapon fighting more reliable.

I usually make archer Battlemasters, since it lets me reliably apply my maneuvers against foes across the battlefield or even flying, but the same principle applies to Sharp Shooter attacks.

[CTurbo]

Yes to Battlemaster. Very good.
No to Martial Adept. Not ever worth it.

[PastorofMuppets]

Since we are discussing the battle master, do the maneuvers he uses exclude others from trying creative things in combat? His powers are the only apparent mentions for things like tripping or disarming opponents. In old editions we were fine with taking some penalties for tougher to pull off stunts like that but is that no longer allowed?

[LudicSavant]

Since we are discussing the battle master, do the maneuvers he uses exclude others from trying creative things in combat? His powers are the only apparent mentions for things like tripping or disarming opponents. In old editions we were fine with taking some penalties for tougher to pull off stunts like that but is that no longer allowed?

Every character can shove someone prone (e.g. trip them). And Disarming is covered in the DMG.

[qube]

Since we are discussing the battle master, do the maneuvers he uses exclude others from trying creative things in combat? His powers are the only apparent mentions for things like tripping or disarming opponents. In old editions we were fine with taking some penalties for tougher to pull off stunts like that but is that no longer allowed?you can still use the shove (https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Combat#toc_44)attack action to trip someone. Battlemaster just do with as part of their attack, and with extra damage.

[djreynolds]

I like martial adept, it scales with your battlemaster, (according to sage advice)

So in time it will become a 1d12. So at 18th level, you would have 7d12 instead of 6d12... so I think it is a strong feat for a battlemaster specializing in great weapon master or sharpshooter.

But on the flip side I have played 4 battlemasters, and I have found you can burn through them in 2 rounds or forget to use them.

Everyone says take trip, precision, and menacing... but sometimes I'd like to have sweeping attack (melee only)

So humbly, IMO, grab sharpshooter, max dexterity out, grab lucky, really consider resilient wisdom... that's 5 feats and places you at 14th level, so at 16th... it may not be bad to grab martial adept.

[SociopathFriend]

I personally enjoy Battle Master and it allows for some really neat scenarios you won't normally get a chance to deal with and the ones you can do, as mentioned already, are made better.

For example, Shove vs Pushing Attack.
Shove moves the enemy 5 feet away or knocks them Prone depending on what you want. No damage by itself.
Pushing Attack you can pin on an existing hit (deals damage) adds damage itself (more damage) and sends them farther away at 15 feet.
It's not hard to see which is superior.

But you also get stuff practically nobody else gets such as Maneuvering Attack. Ally needs to get the heck away from the big bad? Use Maneuvering Attack- no attack of opportunity and a free move out of harm's way.

Ever have that scenario where you desperately need to reach someone and fall 5 feet short? Lunging Attack- 5 feet farther.

It's a lot of good and useful stuff, allowing you to craft a Fighter that fits the needs of the party.
I don't think Martial Adept is worth it however. Particularly if you use point-buy as you very much need those ASIs.

[djreynolds]

If you have a cleric in your party spamming bless, or you are in melee next to a wolf barbarian... this changes stuff

But for me, IMO, around 8th level with point buy you should have max stat and SS/GWM

I actually took this feat for 2 different characters, once at 12th and once at 6th... in each case we lacked someone with the bless spell

If you advocate for yourself and short rest, the feat becomes very strong.... but if your a doing a battle a day... I would grab lucky

[Phoenix042]

Looking at creating a goblin fighter and was pouring over the different subclasses when I really started studying Battle Master. The maneuvers look pretty sweet and I can think of many scenarios in which to employ them. Is this subclass really the cat's meow?

Additionally, is the Martial Adept feat useful for this subclass? The two extra maneuvers and one more superiority dice seems to add more variety goodness to this class.

Thanks in advance for your opinions :).

My experience is that, as fun as the battlemaster looks on paper, it is several times MORE fun in actual play.

While I understood the theory well enough before hand (having thought through all the math) I found that during play my character always felt like he had a card to play, some move or resource or action to put down on top of an already very effective character. And in several really big moments, having those maneuvers handy was a really big deal.

So yea, it's as good as it looks. Definitely my favorite fighter subclass. I'm not unhappy that they included the champion fighter in the game, I just can't understand why anyone would play one.

[Phoenix042]

Yes to Battlemaster. Very good.
No to Martial Adept. Not ever worth it.

This is an oversimplification. My human, single-classed battlemaster is going to approach high levels soon and may well grab the martial adept feat around level 14 or so, if we make it that far.

The extra maneuver per rest is nice, if not especially powerful, and I already have all of the important feats and ASIs for my build.

[djreynolds]

This is an oversimplification. My human, single-classed battlemaster is going to approach high levels soon and may well grab the martial adept feat around level 14 or so, if we make it that far.

The extra maneuver per rest is nice, if not especially powerful, and I already have all of the important feats and ASIs for my build.

I think I would grab lucky first, but yes it is a good feat. Its an extra 1d10 at 14th level, and 1d12 after that.

As a DM, I find that static damage from ability scores, some class have levels, and GWM/SS rule the day. If that extra SD for martial adept helps to land sharpshooter or GWM, its worth it

I also like mage slayer for archers, the second stanza doesn't mention any range of 5 feet requirement, so an archer with sharpshooter could be very annoying to enemy casters

[T.G. Oskar]

I'm not unhappy that they included the champion fighter in the game, I just can't understand why anyone would play one.

There's reasons why to play the Champion, but mostly, it's for "simplicity". That is, if what you want to do is simply "attack" and "not get killed", it's pretty fair.

It has four things going for it: boosted chances of critical hits, boost to initiative and skills you haven't chosen, the second fighting style, and survivability. As you can see, it's not unified, like most other subclasses, and very few of the features have synergy with each other or are surprisingly well alone to make it worthwhile, but if chosen carefully, you can actually pull off pretty nice things. Just...not as showy.

For example: aside from the Hexblade and the Oath of Conquest (off my mind), the Champion is the only way to get a crit on a roll of 19 (and pretty much the ONLY one that can pull off a crit on a 18). Now, critical hits are a fun boost when they land, but they don't land very often, so you need things that work off critical hits. Something like, say, SA, or smites, also gets doubled...but you don't get those unless you MC. Curiously enough, superiority dice used to boost damage rolls also gets boosted, so Martial Adept gets a minor boost from it (plus, it lets you pull off one of the Battlemaster's tricks at least once, in case you want some complexity added in). Likewise, abilities that work off a crit, such as the Barbarian's Brutal Critical or the Half Orc's Savage Attacks, have a higher chance to activate. If you find a way to get advantage on all your attacks, you have a much higher chance to pull off critical hits, meaning you can get some surprisingly high damage. On the other hand; a crit-fisher build is, by nature, unreliable, and depends greatly on advantage.

Remarkable Athlete works for 4 skills (Acrobatics, Athletics, Sleight of Hand, Stealth), plus miscellaneous ability checks (which, mind you, include initiative checks). You'll probably choose Athletics (after all, it's the only Strength skill, plus it helps if you use Shove or have the Shield Master feat), and depending on your backgrounds, you'll probably snatch one of the other two. Note that Acrobatics is a skill a Fighter can choose, so it's really only good if you don't choose Stealth or Sleight of Hand, and the former is a pretty sweet skill. So, for the most part, Remarkable Athlete is a ribbon skill that works best when you make creative uses of ability checks, since you'll pretty much always have a bonus to it. Break bonds? Burst open doors? Bend bars? Those are legitimate Strength checks that you can take advantage off. Plus, once again: half your proficiency to initiative.

The second Fighting Style...it depends on what you want with it. Going by the PHB styles alone, you can do a switch-hitter (GWF and Archery, or TWF and Archery, so you can do melee and ranged at the same time) or balanced offense and defense (GWF/TWF/Archery/Duelist and then Defense). You can also choose Protection (if you want...), which gives you something to do with your reaction other than Opportunity Attacks. With UA fighting styles, you can do a pretty vicious lockdown build (Tunnel Fighter + GWF with a Polearm; add Polearm Master and Sentinel and you'll be a vortex that swallows enemies into your spot), or take advantage of throwing weapons (say, Duelist + Close Quarters Shooter, and then use Javelins), or get a much better defense while having a solid offense (GWF/TWF/Archery/Duelist + Mariner). Since Fighting Styles are so few and far between, you can't really maximize that much (other than, say...maybe Archery and Close Quarters Shooter, and get half the benefits of Sharpshooter and a +3 to hit with ranged weapons?)

As for survivability...well, there's the Survivor feature, and you can choose Defense to amp up your AC. That counts, right?

Anyways, the Champion is mostly overshadowed, because the Battlemaster is just that good. I mean: you only get a handful of Superiority Dice, but the amount you get is actually enough. If battles are spread, most of the time you won't use more than one of them, and if you do the 2 short rests per adventuring day as recommended, and have two battles in between, that's about 2-3 maneuvers used per combat, which is more than enough considering the bonus damage you get. If, on the other hand, you get only One Big Fight per day, you can still go nova and contribute a lot. And, since the superiority dice keeps getting better, you definitely contribute a lot more. Heck, even if you get surprised without Superiority Dice, the last feature you get allows you to recover at least one use, which is pretty snazzy. The Champion hardly can compare to the combination of additional damage and/or special effects that maneuvers can grant you, other than getting the Martial Adept feat (YMMV with it, but do note that everyone here is basically badmouthing it, since it's only one die and that's it), so it definitely gets overshadowed. If you could say the Champion was more consistent, it'd be better, but the Champion isn't as consistent; the Battlemaster is more consistent because you have the choice of when to use your maneuvers (most of them apply when you hit, so you don't have to call their use beforehand). It's more complicated to use because you're adding bookkeeping, but on the other hand, it's not as much as the Eldritch Knight with its spells.

In short: I can see why you could use a Champion (you can literally do it for fun, provided you have a degree of system mastery and have a build for it previously made that takes advantage of one of the four spots a Champion provides), but I can understand why a Battlemaster is a better choice. Because, yeah, the Battlemaster is pretty good.

[R.Shackleford]

Looking at creating a goblin fighter and was pouring over the different subclasses when I really started studying Battle Master. The maneuvers look pretty sweet and I can think of many scenarios in which to employ them. Is this subclass really the cat's meow?

Additionally, is the Martial Adept feat useful for this subclass? The two extra maneuvers and one more superiority dice seems to add more variety goodness to this class.

Thanks in advance for your opinions :).

The maneuvers are great at level 3 and good at medium levels (up to about 8-10 ish), but you really start to feel how they don't grow once you get past that level (one of the reasons my groups stopped playing past 10).

The martial adept feat is better for the battlemaster than others, but still sucks as the options aren't great past what you already would have taken and more dice really just means more damage.

The battlemaster is presented as someone with options but it falls into a damage dealer and the options are forgotten.

Red: Very Niche, not useful, or can be replicated easily elsewhere, not useful at higher levels.

Blue: Not exactly niche, useful, can't be replicated easily elsewhere, might fall off in usefulness at high levels.

Green: Awesome. Not niche at all, very useful, can't be replicated easily, doesn't fall off the face of the cliff.

Commander's Strike: Takes an attack action, loose one of your attacks, must use a bonus action, ally must use a reaction... To make a weapon attack + superiority dice damage... Unless it's a rogue or paladin, your attack will be better so you might as well not give up so much in order for your ally to *maybe* hit.

Disarming: It's disarming... Very niche. Very, very, niche.

Distracting: The rogue does this better with a bonus action and no loss of expendable dice. Yeah, the fighter gets a damage boost... But there are better extra features to use it on than this.

Evasive Footwork: Your AC is going to be pretty high and you have high HP, very niche.

Feinting: So far this is the best maneuver you can get. I like that you get advantage on your attack... But... That's it, you get advantage on your next attack. If this was upgraded to more attacks or even two attacks I would like it more but no, just your next attack. Yeah, you get some damage boost but you're already going to hit most of the time. Good for getting rid of disadvantage, I guess.

Goading: This is the creme of the crop when it comes to maneuvers. The only downside to this ability is that it doesn't get better with levels and creature's saving throws can get a bit high at later levels (the type of creatures you WANT to use this on). However, working off a weapon attack hit, and not the attack action, makes this pair very, very, well with something like a weapon attack cantrip.

Lunging: If you look up the synonym of "niche" you will find this maneuver.

Maneuvering Attack: This falls in the slot of having a lot of potential of being awesome and just plain sad. It's a good option to have to get your squishy out of danger... But it's still a bit niche... Would have been gold if the no provoking clause applied to any creature and not just the one you attacked.

Menacing: This one is all over the map and ask your DM. Frighten can be very useful based on the campaign, very useful. However the fact that this falls off the map really fast means it can be a waste of a choice. There's a lot of creature that are outright immune to fear. Also the effect doesn't last very long so really

Parry: Not bad for a dexterity based fighter. To be honest you're more likely to use this than an OA. This has the potential to negate damage so that's always good. This is the one of the only abilities whose "feature" actually improves as you level up due to being able to soak up more damage on average.

Precision: For the most part you won't need much help with hitting AC. I do give it points for stacking with advantage and helping when you have disadvantage... But I think being able to add more dice than one would have actually made this a very useful feature instead of a niche feature (advantage is easy to get in 5e).

Pushing: Target needs to be large or smaller. Strength saving throws are going to be a bit easier for the type of creature you want to push back. This sort of thing could have been implemented much easier. Also, did I mention the target needs to be large or smaller? Yeah, you don't even get to go beyond normal measures with this ability.

Rally: This right here is more like it! Temp HP without concentration, no practical duration, and scales? Dang son. The only downside to this is that you need a good charisma modifier and many fighters tend to go toward wisdom as that's the better saving throw... But still, this can be a very helpful ability early to mid levels.

Riposte: Good for doing something with your reaction but as you get to higher levels the enemies you really want to hit don't tend to miss as much. Ends up becoming a minion killer, so that's something.

Sweeping: The damage is too low to be worth giving up a superiority die. If this damage was higher, so that of the attack + SD, then I would give it a blue.

Trip: Large or smaller creatures so this can fall off the face of the world sooner or later. Strength saves means that the enemies you will primarily target are going to be good at that. Even as a ranged fighter this is a very meh option past low levels.

Ranged Battlemasters do have it better than melee ones but not enough to really make the maneuvers that much better. So many classes can replicate or invalidate what you see here.

If you want to be a fighter that has abilities that effect enemies, go with a paladin, bard, cleric, or whatever else. If you want to be a fighter that boosts allies... Go with a paladin, bard, cleric, or whatever else.

The battle master is designed in such a way that it looks like it once was an awesome subclass but then someone forgot to actually submit the correct one and they just said "oh well". These maneuvers can be better as-is, but it relies more on your DM than it does for casters or other classes to do their cool things.

I really love that they tried to give the fighter cool things, but really all they did was give the fighter a way to boost their damage and then maybe have something else happen.

[bid]

Precision: For the most part you won't need much help with hitting AC.
Except when you have GWM/SS, when it adds a hit every 3 misses or so. Then it's golden.

[stoutstien]

Precision is arguably the strongest maneuver. The fact you get to see the roll before it is used means you can reliable turn a miss into a hit. Bounded accuracy means this is always relevant.

[bid]

Precision is arguably the strongest maneuver. The fact you get to see the roll before it is used means you can reliable turn a miss into a hit. Bounded accuracy means this is always relevant.
Exactly.
When you can turn a miss into ~20 damage, that's better than the 4d8 of a 3rd slot paladin smite.

[Talionis]

In my experience there are too few maneuvers per short rest. I felt like I either burned through them too quickly or would save them and not use them. I wish they would’ve divorced the damage from the maneuvers and just allowed you to use a maneuver once on a creature per day.

I generally agree with the general view that Feat is nice but even though Fighters get more ASIs, you probably need/want other feats and ASIs before you take the feat and that the feat generally doesn’t quite do enough to justify taking the feat.

[R.Shackleford]

Except when you have GWM/SS, when it adds a hit every 3 misses or so. Then it's golden.

Only helps with doing "more damage". Damage is the least optimal path one can take as everyone has access to damage (decent to good). Combat doesn't last very long in 5e since, for the most part, players don't miss often (low target numbers and later high attack bonuses... Plus advantage is easy to get).

Damage is the easiest thing to mitigate in the game when a DM wants to challenge the players and you can do 1,000 HP worth of damage and still be easily challenged.

Plus, precision doesn't let you do anything new. It's boring and for the most part is replicated, easily, by other features that last much longer. Bless or magic weapon gives you a more consistent and longer lasting buff to attack, plus can be spread around to multiple players.

A single player doing damage just isn't a huge deal in 5e. Especially when the fighter is going to be hitting a lot to begin with.

Precision is one of the worst maneuvers to ever be created and is a waste of space during actual game play.

[Frozenstep]

Only helps with doing "more damage". Damage is the least optimal path one can take as everyone has access to damage (decent to good). Combat doesn't last very long in 5e since, for the most part, players don't miss often (low target numbers and later high attack bonuses... Plus advantage is easy to get).

Damage is the easiest thing to mitigate in the game when a DM wants to challenge the players and you can do 1,000 HP worth of damage and still be easily challenged.

Plus, precision doesn't let you do anything new. It's boring and for the most part is replicated, easily, by other features that last much longer. Bless or magic weapon gives you a more consistent and longer lasting buff to attack, plus can be spread around to multiple players.

A single player doing damage just isn't a huge deal in 5e. Especially when the fighter is going to be hitting a lot to begin with.

Precision is one of the worst maneuvers to ever be created and is a waste of space during actual game play.

As boring as it is, it's effective. In the end, the best and most reliable crowd control is death. The other CC options all come with some sort of problem. Goading attack is great stuff, but not only can enemies succeed on the saving throw, they can also decide to cast a spell or use something that forces a saving throw, which goading attack does nothing about (though it depends on how mean your DM plays...)

Having precision attack as a back-up plan can be what enables a SS/GWM user to use their -5/+10 option against a relatively high AC target. As boring as it is, a big enemy dying one round earlier can be the difference between victory and defeat. It's not a huge deal, but it's a reliable tool that is helpful to bring in to a fight, regardless of how boring it plays out.

[Hytheter]

Commander's Strike: Takes an attack action, loose one of your attacks

Loosing an attack is almost the literal opposite of what you mean, which is losing an attack.

[Xetheral]

Only helps with doing "more damage". Damage is the least optimal path one can take as everyone has access to damage (decent to good). Combat doesn't last very long in 5e since, for the most part, players don't miss often (low target numbers and later high attack bonuses... Plus advantage is easy to get).

Damage is the easiest thing to mitigate in the game when a DM wants to challenge the players and you can do 1,000 HP worth of damage and still be easily challenged.

Plus, precision doesn't let you do anything new. It's boring and for the most part is replicated, easily, by other features that last much longer. Bless or magic weapon gives you a more consistent and longer lasting buff to attack, plus can be spread around to multiple players.

A single player doing damage just isn't a huge deal in 5e. Especially when the fighter is going to be hitting a lot to begin with.

Precision is one of the worst maneuvers to ever be created and is a waste of space during actual game play.

I disagree with this completely. Precision lets you turn a near-miss into a hit when the stakes are highest. Do you need to take down (or at least distract) an enemy right now to stop it from auto-critting a fallen ally? Do you need to stop an enemy from fleeing to warn reinforcements before he turns a corner and breaks line of sight? Do you need to break the enemy's concentration so that Cloudkill stops killing your allies?

I don't know about your games, but in mine these sorts of situations happen all the time. Turning a pivotal miss into a hit can change the course of a battle or even an adventure. And since you can declare Precision Attack after you attack, it's simple to save it and use it exactly when it matters most.

[Aquillion]

Plus, precision doesn't let you do anything new. It's boring and for the most part is replicated, easily, by other features that last much longer. Bless or magic weapon gives you a more consistent and longer lasting buff to attack, plus can be spread around to multiple players.
Precision stacks with all of those.

More importantly, though, it has excellent action economy; it costs nothing but the die itself. (And given how many you have and how you can get them back with a long rest, having lots of ways to spend them is good.)

It's also an extremely efficient way to spend them, since you only need to actually use it when it's clear you need it (ie. you've just missed an attack that could reasonably end or debilitate a dangerous enemy.)

There's lots of ways to boost AC or reduce damage, but Cutting Words is still one of the best powers in the game because it lets you reactively wreck enemy attacks at a crucial moment. Precision is valuable for similar reasons - it gives you insurance for when you absolutely need to hit, without having to spend anything at all beforehand.

Bless and Magic Weapon have an opportunity cost. Most of the other stuff that would make it easier to hit does, too. (And you still might miss at a key moment.) Precision means that you can go for more "risky" attacks, relying on Precision to cover the difference only when needed.

Also, Sharpshooter and GWM are major components of the strongest Fighter builds. Anything that lets you offset them is worthwhile. And, again, Precision Attack offsets them in a very efficient way, because you only have to spend it for attacks that miss and which it's reasonably likely to turn into hits. It lets you take risky Sharpshooter / GWM power attacks and only have to pay a superiority die if they don't pan out.

As a general rule, any die-manipulation or result-altering effect that you can use after the attack is rolled is far more powerful than it appears at first. Granted, yes, defensive ones are more powerful (because players need to survive every fight), but ultimately, dropping an enemy a turn sooner spares your party that much damage from the enemy, and Precision Attack helps with that.

[bid]

A single player doing damage just isn't a huge deal in 5e. Especially when the fighter is going to be hitting a lot to begin with.
And then you praise parry as good damage mitigation while dissing the ultimate damage mitigation, death itself. Because I guarantee you that an early kill can mitigate damage on all the following rounds.

We'll have to agree to disagree here, your minority opinion has no convincing argument.

[R.Shackleford]

And then you praise parry as good damage mitigation while dissing the ultimate damage mitigation, death itself. Because I guarantee you that an early kill can mitigate damage on all the following rounds.

We'll have to agree to disagree here, your minority opinion has no convincing argument.

You don't have to agree, but plenty of people thought the 3e fighter was balanced, but it's ok that they thought so too.

Parry uses your reaction, and I only rated it blue. The Fighter has poor use of reactions and this helps give you something to do with your reaction. Especially if you don't/can't pick up Sentinel. Between giving you something to do with your reaction and actually getting better with age... Yeah, blue.

It isn't great, it's good, but definitely better than precision. Parry also works after you've been damaged so you can decide so you can really save yourself.

Parry actually works really well in conjunction with Second Wind (which is pretty underwhelming and gets worse as you level). 1d8 (damage mitigation) + 1d10+ 3 (healing) at level 3 is a lot better (average 14, which is about half of your health at level 3). It still isn't great, but it's something that people don't really think about (doubling parry mitigation with second wind the next turn).

I wouldn't take parry, I wouldn't suggest anyone take parry, but if you have a dex based battlemaster you could do much worse with your limited resource.

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As boring as it is, it's effective.

Only effective as long as you actively make sure you don't counter said tactic. Put even a little bit of effort into combat at direct damage gets shut down fast and hard and said fighter (champion, battlemaster) has not much else to do.

[Phoenix042]

Commander's Strike

One of the most underrated maneuvers in the book. People are quick to point out that it's situational, but fail to notice exactly HOW it is situational; it's a matter of build decision, not arbitrary circumstance. Saying "it's only good if you have a rogue, paladin, or other strong striker in the party" and then rating it red is a little like saying "archery fighting style is only useful if you use bows, and I mean, how often does your greatsword weilding fighter use THOSE?!?!

You have to consider the ways in which it is possible to build an optimized party comp. In many cases commander's strike is a powerful maneuver that allows a fighter the flexibility to leverage the powerful attacks of his allies when it is advantageous to do so.



Distracting: WOW you're just handing out reds here aren't you? It's like you have a single, ideal fighter build in mind and can't imagine a situation where your team doesn't already have at-will advantage.

This isn't about giving your team another source of advantage; it's about getting to decide exactly when they have advantage on their attacks. Combo this with commander's strike for a pretty effective nova that involves the party striker getting to do massive damage (plus possibly other effects) off-turn.



Goading: It figures that you'd rate this one so high. Goading is decent in certain circumstances, but those circumstances are rarely under the control of the player characters. More to the point, Menacing attack is MUCH better at the low - mid levels when not much is immune to fear. At the high levels I imagine this gets better.



Lunging: Your words aren't strong enough here. Lunging attack adds essentially nothing to anyone's toolkit. It really, really shouldn't have existed in this form.



Maneuvering Attack:
Maneuvering is especially nice for fighters with a decent ranged attack option; note, that doesn't only apply to archers. Plenty of melee fighters can hurl a handaxe to make good use of a maneuver at a short distance every now and then. I don't use this one much, but having it in my toolkit has been nice on occasion.



Menacing: I don't understand the whole "the effect doesn't last that long" pitch. It lasts longer than every other maneuver available to the battlemaster. It's like you're comparing BM maneuvers to spells and marking the maneuvers down if they don't hold up.
Menacing is, without question, cyan at least. It's an absolutely devastating maneuver when circumstances are right, and very useful most of the time. Note that "can't move closer to you" is a form of hard crowd control, and that frightened creatures have disadvantage on all attacks while you're around. This means against you and your allies.

Very strong.



Parry: I don't understand your rating system. On the one hand, you rate maneuvers with the potential to add TONS of damage to your team red, and then you go and praise THIS hunk of crap.

Parry is mildly useful in some cases at the low levels, but the cost of using it is STEEP when compared to other maneuvers that may well cause enemies to miss, fail to reach you to make their attacks, or be dead instead of doing damage next turn. The fact that it lets you wait until you are actually taking damage is its saving grace. I'd give it a solid purple.



Precision: I can't even begin.

This might as well be an extra attack most of the time that you use it.

It's often better.

Saying "it just amounts to a little extra damage" is like saying sneak attack sucks for the same reason.

Precision attack is useful for most fighter builds, and solid gold in the hands of a decent striker. You get to decide to use it AFTER you see your roll. It's not usually hard to figure out a rough ballpark for the enemys AC, so when you use this, it'll usually have about the same chance of turning your hit into a miss as you had of hitting in the first place; essentially, then, an extra attack whenever you use it. Mind-numbingly strong, and I'm sorry, but objectively so.



Pushing: My games feature a LOT of dynamic terrain; bridges, dangerous locations, etc. Some creatures can't be targeted by this, but plenty can. I've found it both useful and, sometimes, obscenely fun.



Rally: You're one of the only people I've seen rate this one highly. I took it on my support fighter build, actually. I have no idea how you decided to rate it well given your criteria. It's benefits fall off VERY dramatically at the mid levels and it becomes near enough worthless at the high levels.

I like having it because it lets me efficiently spend maneuvers outside of combat, but not everyone agrees that you can even do that. I consider this one very DM and build dependent, and would rate it purple at best, but I admit this one's a tiny bit more subjective.



Riposte:
What kinds of games are you playing? Why does it sound like in your games, no one misses each other ever?

When you're fighting a hydra and he attacks you 8 times, odds are pretty good one of those attacks is going to miss. Dragons have like 5 attacks too. A lot of high level threats do.

I find this maneuver gets a lot of mileage on my 7th level fighter, and maybe even more on the 13th level fighter playing in a campaign I dm. I consider it cyan. Extra attacks are amazing.



Sweeping: Yea this one's just bad, even at what it is supposed to do. The benefit is, I suppose, that you can kill two ultra-weak mooks at once with it, but I mean... how much is that ever likely to matter? If they're that weak, why are you investing build resources into killing them more efficiently? I agree with your rating here.



Trip: This one gets a lot better if you have a few melee strikers in your group. Still, the size restriction does reduce the usefulness for exactly the reasons you point out.


I really love that they tried to give the fighter cool things, but really all they did was give the fighter a way to boost their damage and then maybe have something else happen.

Wow, I just...

Fighters, and especially battlemasters, are one of the most elegant and well designed classes in 5e. They feel powerful and effective at all levels, scale up well into the high levels, and their maneuvers and other resources make the versatile and satisfying in and out of combat. Combined with this systems background and racial bonus systems, it's not only possible but absolutely easy to build a fighter who can participate in the other major pillars of gameplay and contribute admirably.

Honestly your analysis has simply left me wondering if there isn't something wrong with your group. Like, who DMs for you? These maneuvers really aren't that subject to DM fiat unless he's actively nerfing them and breaking the class. Simple rulings aren't going to break these.

[qube]

in my view,

disarming should also get a much better rating. " It's disarming... Very niche. Very, very, niche" - yes, but in those niche cases, it can make a world of difference. "What's that, evil-king-arthur? your damage output without excalibur is ... 1+STR mod?" making it a FANTASTIC ability once you already covered your core tactic.

And, having played a battlemaster from 1 - 14 , I can say Rally is absolutely not worth it. ya got more feats then anyone else. if you want to be secondairy healer, take inspiring leader insead.

Precise strike ... yeah, sorry, but that should get quite the decent rating. If you don't hit, you don't do anything.


Only effective as long as you actively make sure you don't counter said tactic
... which is true for any tactic.

[Deleted]

One of the most underrated maneuvers in the book. People are quick to point out that it's situational, but fail to notice exactly HOW it is situational; it's a matter of build decision, not arbitrary circumstance. Saying "it's only good if you have a rogue, paladin, or other strong striker in the party" and then rating it red is a little like saying "archery fighting style is only useful if you use bows, and I mean, how often does your greatsword weilding fighter use THOSE?!?!

You have to consider the ways in which it is possible to build an optimized party comp. In many cases commander's strike is a powerful maneuver that allows a fighter the flexibility to leverage the powerful attacks of his allies when it is advantageous to do so.

WOW you're just handing out reds here aren't you? It's like you have a single, ideal fighter build in mind and can't imagine a situation where your team doesn't already have at-will advantage.

This isn't about giving your team another source of advantage; it's about getting to decide exactly when they have advantage on their attacks. Combo this with commander's strike for a pretty effective nova that involves the party striker getting to do massive damage (plus possibly other effects) off-turn.

It figures that you'd rate this one so high. Goading is decent in certain circumstances, but those circumstances are rarely under the control of the player characters. More to the point, Menacing attack is MUCH better at the low - mid levels when not much is immune to fear. At the high levels I imagine this gets better.

Your words aren't strong enough here. Lunging attack adds essentially nothing to anyone's toolkit. It really, really shouldn't have existed in this form.


Maneuvering is especially nice for fighters with a decent ranged attack option; note, that doesn't only apply to archers. Plenty of melee fighters can hurl a handaxe to make good use of a maneuver at a short distance every now and then. I don't use this one much, but having it in my toolkit has been nice on occasion.

I don't understand the whole "the effect doesn't last that long" pitch. It lasts longer than every other maneuver available to the battlemaster. It's like you're comparing BM maneuvers to spells and marking the maneuvers down if they don't hold up.
Menacing is, without question, cyan at least. It's an absolutely devastating maneuver when circumstances are right, and very useful most of the time. Note that "can't move closer to you" is a form of hard crowd control, and that frightened creatures have disadvantage on all attacks while you're around. This means against you and your allies.

Very strong.

I don't understand your rating system. On the one hand, you rate maneuvers with the potential to add TONS of damage to your team red, and then you go and praise THIS hunk of crap.

Parry is mildly useful in some cases at the low levels, but the cost of using it is STEEP when compared to other maneuvers that may well cause enemies to miss, fail to reach you to make their attacks, or be dead instead of doing damage next turn. The fact that it lets you wait until you are actually taking damage is its saving grace. I'd give it a solid purple.

I can't even begin.

This might as well be an extra attack most of the time that you use it.

It's often better.

Saying "it just amounts to a little extra damage" is like saying sneak attack sucks for the same reason.

Precision attack is useful for most fighter builds, and solid gold in the hands of a decent striker. You get to decide to use it AFTER you see your roll. It's not usually hard to figure out a rough ballpark for the enemys AC, so when you use this, it'll usually have about the same chance of turning your hit into a miss as you had of hitting in the first place; essentially, then, an extra attack whenever you use it. Mind-numbingly strong, and I'm sorry, but objectively so.

My games feature a LOT of dynamic terrain; bridges, dangerous locations, etc. Some creatures can't be targeted by this, but plenty can. I've found it both useful and, sometimes, obscenely fun.

You're one of the only people I've seen rate this one highly. I took it on my support fighter build, actually. I have no idea how you decided to rate it well given your criteria. It's benefits fall off VERY dramatically at the mid levels and it becomes near enough worthless at the high levels.

I like having it because it lets me efficiently spend maneuvers outside of combat, but not everyone agrees that you can even do that. I consider this one very DM and build dependent, and would rate it purple at best, but I admit this one's a tiny bit more subjective.


What kinds of games are you playing? Why does it sound like in your games, no one misses each other ever?

When you're fighting a hydra and he attacks you 8 times, odds are pretty good one of those attacks is going to miss. Dragons have like 5 attacks too. A lot of high level threats do.

I find this maneuver gets a lot of mileage on my 7th level fighter, and maybe even more on the 13th level fighter playing in a campaign I dm. I consider it cyan. Extra attacks are amazing.

Yea this one's just bad, even at what it is supposed to do. The benefit is, I suppose, that you can kill two ultra-weak mooks at once with it, but I mean... how much is that ever likely to matter? If they're that weak, why are you investing build resources into killing them more efficiently? I agree with your rating here.

This one gets a lot better if you have a few melee strikers in your group. Still, the size restriction does reduce the usefulness for exactly the reasons you point out.



Wow, I just...

Fighters, and especially battlemasters, are one of the most elegant and well designed classes in 5e. They feel powerful and effective at all levels, scale up well into the high levels, and their maneuvers and other resources make the versatile and satisfying in and out of combat. Combined with this systems background and racial bonus systems, it's not only possible but absolutely easy to build a fighter who can participate in the other major pillars of gameplay and contribute admirably.

Honestly your analysis has simply left me wondering if there isn't something wrong with your group. Like, who DMs for you? These maneuvers really aren't that subject to DM fiat unless he's actively nerfing them and breaking the class. Simple rulings aren't going to break these.

You're way too nice to the battlemaster maneuvers :smallbiggrin:.

I will never understand why people want to defend such badly designed classes/class features. I think way too many people give this class a pass just because it's a legacy class or people just want a good fighter and will take what they get.

[Frozenstep]

edit

Only effective as long as you actively make sure you don't counter said tactic. Put even a little bit of effort into combat at direct damage gets shut down fast and hard and said fighter (champion, battlemaster) has not much else to do.

This reasoning feels pretty flawed. I could counter any tactic a player does. Uses charm? Immunity to charm, or magic resistance. Uses goading attack? Uses spells or other saving throw-based attacks to ignore it. But how easy or difficult it is to counter said tactic doesn't really tell you anything about how useful the tactic is in a more general situation, or in niches where it's best, or how often those niches come up.

In general situations, being able to turn a miss into a hit is a useful and reliable tool. It's not going to break combat on its own, but it's pretty much always useful (unless you're forever fighting things with 10 AC). It's a reliable way to get good use out of superiority dice. Other people have given examples, but again, sometimes you just need to hit something, and the situation isn't giving you advantage and sometimes you just roll low.

Fighters are good at direct damage, and fighters being better at direct damage is a useful tool to have in the party. Battlemasters do get access to other tricks and they're very useful, but that doesn't mean being better at their original job isn't useful or isn't what will save the day sometimes.

[Willie the Duck]

Looking at creating a goblin fighter and was pouring over the different subclasses when I really started studying Battle Master. The maneuvers look pretty sweet and I can think of many scenarios in which to employ them. Is this subclass really the cat's meow?

The Battlemaster class is expressly as good as you design and play your character and how readily your DM facilitates short rests (If other SR classes suffer under your DM, the BM will be no different). The Battlemaster is the class for someone who wants to play a fighter, but wants to make decisions and balance limited resources.


There's reasons why to play the Champion, but mostly, it's for "simplicity". That is, if what you want to do is simply "attack" and "not get killed", it's pretty fair.

It has four things going for it: boosted chances of critical hits, boost to initiative and skills you haven't chosen, the second fighting style, and survivability. As you can see, it's not unified, like most other subclasses, and very few of the features have synergy with each other or are surprisingly well alone to make it worthwhile, but if chosen carefully, you can actually pull off pretty nice things. Just...not as showy.


There is definitely room in the game for the broad concept of the Champion (expressly for the player who cannot or doesn't want to manage those limited resources). I'm not sure the Champion we got is the one I'd want--although honestly if the overall power curve were just a little lower because rest of the options were slightly less powerful, the only thing wrong with the Champion (to my mind) is that it incentivizes not taking fighter-esque skills and that improved crit is not a 'generic' boost (specific builds utilize it better than others) making the class not the 'generic AD&D-style fighter' that I think they were going for.


Since we are discussing the battle master, do the maneuvers he uses exclude others from trying creative things in combat? His powers are the only apparent mentions for things like tripping or disarming opponents. In old editions we were fine with taking some penalties for tougher to pull off stunts like that but is that no longer allowed?

No. All those options are in the DMG. The battlemaster replaces the tripping and disarming builds of earlier editions, but it does not interfere with others doing those options as situationally appropriate.


You're way too nice to the battlemaster maneuvers :smallbiggrin:.

I will never understand why people want to defend such badly designed classes/class features. I think way too many people give this class a pass just because it's a legacy class or people just want a good fighter and will take what they get.

Without providing a substantive argument, it's hard for us to react to this. What about the battlemaster and the maneuvers are bad? I've heard all the complaints about fighters and honestly both BM and EK are perfectly fine implementations of the class. If this is an more broad-theory argument about the fact that post-2e fighters don't have any great out-of-combat utility or a how paladins are better if the 5 minute workday is in effect or I don't know what, we could go into those sub-points. But this broad-brush denunciation with no detail is nearly impossible to interact with.


Only helps with doing "more damage". Damage is the least optimal path one can take as everyone has access to damage (decent to good). Combat doesn't last very long in 5e since, for the most part, players don't miss often (low target numbers and later high attack bonuses... Plus advantage is easy to get).

Advantage is easy to get if you pay the requisite costs, which are not dissimilar to precision plus a -5/+10 feat. And they are comparable in effect. A Champion-Strogue with Shield Master (and DM allowing the pushdown to occur first) do comparable amounts of damage for comparable investment. There are multiple avenues towards the same output. Precision-GWM and Precision-SS are decidedly not subpar options towards achieving that specific goal.


A single player doing damage just isn't a huge deal in 5e. Especially when the fighter is going to be hitting a lot to begin with.

One could say that combat in general is just a set piece in 5e, given how many people apparently find 5e to be 'easy mode' or whatever. That said, if you want to do combat at all, a Precision-using Battlemaster Fighter is highly optimized to dish out damage. If you've found precision to be suboptimal towards its intended goal in play, it would be interesting to dissect how that came about. I suspect we'll discover that the player you saw using it was making decisions which hamstrung its effectiveness.

[Chronos]

You say "gives you a use for your reaction" like it's a good thing. It's not. If Parry didn't require your reaction, it'd be absolutely unambiguously better.

And yes, damage is what everyone else in the party is doing, too. Which is what makes it good. It means that what you're doing stacks with what everyone else in the party is doing.

[OverLordOcelot]

IMO all three of the core fighter subclasses are really solid and really easy to pick between. Battlemaster is the 'here's the big toolbox of fancy maneuvers', Champion says 'I just hit stuff hard' and Eldritch Knight is the 'I want some magic mixed in'. It's easy to tell which one fits you, and they all pretty much do what it says on the package.

The idea that being able to do reliable damage is not good because all characters can do damage is... unique.

[Kurt Kurageous]

And my gripe with BM is the negative progression.

You chose your top 3 maneuvers when you started.

And when you advance, you get...your 4th choice. Not more or better, just your 4th choice. You can do more, but a less useful "more." And when you advance again...5th choice.

And that's what's meh about BM. At lower levels, yeah, especially for a winged tiefling with a longbow. In combat only. You fly just above the party and shape the battle. But there's more to the game than combat. A lot more.

How to improve it? I'm waiting for WotC to publish more.

[stoutstien]

And my gripe with BM is the negative progression.

You chose your top 3 maneuvers when you started.

And when you advance, you get...your 4th choice. Not more or better, just your 4th choice. You can do more, but a less useful "more." And when you advance again...5th choice.

And that's what's meh about BM. At lower levels, yeah, especially for a winged tiefling with a longbow. In combat only. You fly just above the party and shape the battle. But there's more to the game than combat. A lot more.

How to improve it? I'm waiting for WotC to publish more.

Agreed. Another option is to spend an maneuver pick to enhance one you already have. Additional target with sweeping, increase save DC, or maybe a reroll on some of them as examples.

[Chronos]

The usual solution to that problem is to make the abilities require different levels, like with spells. So a 3rd-level spellcaster isn't just picking yet another first-level spell that they passed up before, but a 2nd-level spell, which is better. Or the Elements Monk has abilities which require higher monk levels. But I'm not sure what a higher-level maneuver would look like, for the Battlemaster.

[Kurt Kurageous]

The usual solution to that problem is to make the abilities require different levels, like with spells. So a 3rd-level spellcaster isn't just picking yet another first-level spell that they passed up before, but a 2nd-level spell, which is better. But I'm not sure what a higher-level maneuver would look like, for the Battlemaster.

One painfully simple 'solution' like spells/cantrips, add another die to the damage at higher levels.

I'd like a nova strike option where you could roll ALL of your dice on one maneuver.

I wrote a battlemaster archetype called commander. Its not playtested, and I'm not even sure its good. But your maneuvers were scaled to your level and presumed scope of responsibility as a leader. Lowest level was squad platoon, higher you had company level impacts, etc. Generals could "seem" and entire army to march them into enemy territory, etc.

But it really wasn't a party member after a point.

[hboyce1]

Looking at creating a goblin fighter and was pouring over the different subclasses when I really started studying Battle Master. The maneuvers look pretty sweet and I can think of many scenarios in which to employ them. Is this subclass really the cat's meow?

Additionally, is the Martial Adept feat useful for this subclass? The two extra maneuvers and one more superiority dice seems to add more variety goodness to this class.

Thanks in advance for your opinions :).

What's up, man! I love the battlemaster sub-class. That being said, I think you would be getting diminishing returns if you also got the Martial Adept feat. I would maybe just grab another API instead.

[Chronos]

Kurt Kourageous, it already scales, with the size of the die increasing as you level. Maybe you could argue that it should scale faster, but that's not the issue.

The issue is that when you pick maneuvers, you're always picking from the same list. Everyone will have some maneuvers they like better than others (though obviously, which ones will vary). So, OK, at 3rd level, you pick your three favorite maneuvers. Great, you've got your three favorite maneuvers! Then, once you get your fourth maneuver, you pick your fourth-favorite one. Which is less exciting, because you like that one less than all of the ones you already have. And so on, for however many maneuvers you get.

Compare to spells. A 2nd-level ranger might pick up, say, Goodberry and Hunter's Mark: Great; those are both always useful. At 3rd level, maybe Ensnaring Strike, which is more situational. But at 5th level, you don't need to pick something less useful than those three; you can pick up Pass Without Trace, and be excited again, because you're getting something new that you didn't have the opportunity for before.

[Deathtongue]

I will not tolerate Disarming Strike being red. It completely screws over casters. A lot of spells suddenly become straight-up uncastable if you can't use the material component. You can either disarm the foci or component pouch. If a DM won't let you disarm the component pouch, you can always ready an action to attack and disarm the held material component if the enemy starts casting a spell.

It also screws over a lot of monsters. Fire Giants 'only' have a +7 to the strength saving throw (against the probable DC of 15-17 -- and it can go way higher!) and they're on the high end.

[T.G. Oskar]

There is definitely room in the game for the broad concept of the Champion (expressly for the player who cannot or doesn't want to manage those limited resources). I'm not sure the Champion we got is the one I'd want--although honestly if the overall power curve were just a little lower because rest of the options were slightly less powerful, the only thing wrong with the Champion (to my mind) is that it incentivizes not taking fighter-esque skills and that improved crit is not a 'generic' boost (specific builds utilize it better than others) making the class not the 'generic AD&D-style fighter' that I think they were going for.

I thought the same, and I've seen enough Champions to reinforce that fact, but I've also noticed that tweaking the Champion isn't as easy as you'd think. Look at the Brute; it replaced Imp/Superior Critical and Remarkable Athlete with more damage and a boost to saving throws, and WotC is afraid of releasing it because it'd pretty much replace all other builds. (You'd forget about Battlemaster on a whim when "I move and Attack" suddenly becomes flashier than all the maneuvers they can do because they can pull it off every time; Eldritch Knight would only be worthwhile on what little versatility it applies, and it'd also hinder the Samurai. Only the Cavalier gets to survive, and that's because it's more of a tank than a damage dealer.) And it uses the same chassis as the Champion. Mixing and matching between the options can leave you with the same issue, or hinder all the other archetypes. Heck, just replacing Improved Critical or Superior Critical with either Brute Force or Devastating Critical suddenly makes the class a lot more dangerous.

Thing is, as I mentioned, the Champion has to be played to its strengths. Building around Imp. (or Superior) Critical may seem restrictive, but on the other hand, it makes all those options that boost critical hits a lot more worthwhile. Think of it the opposite way; a Half Orc Barbarian won't see either Brutal Critical or Savage Attacks apply as much as a Champion Fighter would. It makes the Half Orc a bit more relevant (though it's quite good from the get-go); thing is, it relies on luck more than anything, so it's not as consistent as, say, a fixed boost to damage dice (like the Paladin's Improved Divine Smite, or the Hunter Ranger's Colossus Strike). You don't have to drop Athletics or Acrobatics to make good use of Remarkable Athlete; you can still keep them, and have a decent Stealth while wearing anything but Heavy Armor (you can get Medium Armor Master to compensate, and have a Half Plate give you an AC just as high as that of a Full Plate while letting you do sweet Stealth checks; if you use Dexterity, it's a nice boost), and again, it applies to your initiative, and to any ability check that doesn't use skills. That means you can:

Force open a stuck, locked or barred door
Break free of bonds
Push through a tunnel that is too small
Hang on to a wagon while being dragged behind it
Tip over a statue
Keep a boulder from rolling
Control a heavily laden cart on a steep descent (note that you'd otherwise need proficiency with land vehicles)
Steer a chariot around a tight turn (same as above)
Pick a lock (you'd require Thieves' Tools otherwise)
Disable a trap (ditto)
Securely tie up a prisoner
Wriggle free of bonds (note that it doesn't apply to Acrobatics, and that you can use the better of your Strength or Dexterity in this case)
Play a stringed instrument (otherwise you'd need proficiency with the instrument)
Craft a small or detailed object (you'd require the proper artisan's tools to do so otherwise)
Hold your breath
March or labor for hours before rest
Go without sleep
Survive without food or water
Quaff an entire stein of ale in one go (this one is for bragging rights, though)

If you recognize them, those are the examples given for Strength, Dexterity and Constitution ability checks. For what it's worth, it gives you the benefit of several tools and lets you do a ton of stuff; considering the Fighter is treated as unable to do anything, any minor boost that uses its already solid ability scores is a plus. That said, it depends on whether the DM gives you the chance to do that.

Lastly, what you do with Additional Fighting Style can define your build, whether a little or a lot. As I mentioned, you can do a switch hitter properly (having the Fighting Styles for Melee and Ranged), or you can add some defense to your offense. Having no other official Fighting Styles (I'd kill for an official Tunnel Fighter release; many Tanks would give thanks for it), it diminishes the worth of this subclass feature.

In the end, the Champion feels underpowered because it underperforms compared to others. However, playing the game, you might notice that the Champion + feats is sufficient enough.

One thing I do want to point out away from the spoiler is this - it's not that the Champion is below the power curve. It's just that the power curve was designed with the Champion in mind as the average. A Champion with a good build will perform just as expected, but applying those same tricks to other builds will make them even better.

[Talionis]

You don't have to agree, but plenty of people thought the 3e fighter was balanced, but it's ok that they thought so too.

Parry uses your reaction, and I only rated it blue. The Fighter has poor use of reactions and this helps give you something to do with your reaction. Especially if you don't/can't pick up Sentinel. Between giving you something to do with your reaction and actually getting better with age... Yeah, blue.

It isn't great, it's good, but definitely better than precision. Parry also works after you've been damaged so you can decide so you can really save yourself.

Parry actually works really well in conjunction with Second Wind (which is pretty underwhelming and gets worse as you level). 1d8 (damage mitigation) + 1d10+ 3 (healing) at level 3 is a lot better (average 14, which is about half of your health at level 3). It still isn't great, but it's something that people don't really think about (doubling parry mitigation with second wind the next turn).

I wouldn't take parry, I wouldn't suggest anyone take parry, but if you have a dex based battlemaster you could do much worse with your limited resource.

edit



Only effective as long as you actively make sure you don't counter said tactic. Put even a little bit of effort into combat at direct damage gets shut down fast and hard and said fighter (champion, battlemaster) has not much else to do.

I don’t know anyone that thought 3E Fighter was balanced. 3E was awesome but each class was put into a tier and Fighters were very low. In 3E nothing compared to magic and Wizards and Clerics could do everything better.

In 3E Fighter got significantly more feats but ended up burning several to open up the Feat trees an buy a decent feat that would eventually payoff with a decent ability usually at too high a level for the ability. The Fighter would then feel like a one trick pony.

If you were referring to the Tome of Battleclasses from 3E that we’re not the Fighter base class but we’re Warblade, Crusader, and Swordsage. Those were much more balanced. Those classes were their own setup and not a Fighter Prestige class. What was good about those classes was the recharge mechanics that promoted the use of maneuvers because for the most part the recovery mechanics recharged the maneuvers even in combat so there was no reason to ration the maneuvers and there was also over 100 choices for maneuvers 5e has a paltry few choices in maneuvers.

[Kurt Kurageous]

Kurt Kourageous, it already scales, with the size of the die increasing as you level. Maybe you could argue that it should scale faster, but that's not the issue.

True. I was responding to the thought about how BM might scale as significantly as other RAW. Only bardic inspiration scales the same way, and bardic inspiration is not an entire archetype like BM is. BM die scaling is weak weak weak compared to spell scaling.