Are champions more viable now with the piercer, crusher and slasher feats?

[Klorox]

I think so. I also don't think the class is quite as bad as most say it is, but it can be a bit boring to play.

[kazaryu]

I think so. I also don't think the class is quite as bad as most say it is, but it can be a bit boring to play.

hmm, slasher and crusher can definitely be pretty nice. particularly at higher levels when the champion actually gets more attacks. but at low levels even a 10% chance to crit doesn't make those abilities reliable enough. unfortunately though, piercer only takes champions expanded crit range from a 2.5-5% damage buff to 5%-7.5% which...still isn't good until you hit 18 at which point it goes up to...a little over 10%. which is at least...something.

but yeah slasher as a control ability and crusher as a teamwide buff could be nice at higher levels.

[Klorox]

hmm, slasher and crusher can definitely be pretty nice. particularly at higher levels when the champion actually gets more attacks. but at low levels even a 10% chance to crit doesn't make those abilities reliable enough. unfortunately though, piercer only takes champions expanded crit range from a 2.5-5% damage buff to 5%-7.5% which...still isn't good until you hit 18 at which point it goes up to...a little over 10%. which is at least...something.

but yeah slasher as a control ability and crusher as a teamwide buff could be nice at higher levels.

I'm trying to build a champion as best as I can, solely because I'm absolutely lost when it comes to playing on roll20. And I mean L O S T.

Other than starting half orc, and multiclassing 2 levels of barbarian for reckless attack, I'm really not sure where else to turn to make them better.

[MrStabby]

I can see crusher working. It can provide some of its own advantage giving a bit of a damage cascade. Also, it supports pole arm mastery on quarterstaves to get a bonus action attack of the bludgeoning type... plus of course you can be pushing it away to trigger atacks of opportunity if it closes again.

[kazaryu]

I'm trying to build a champion as best as I can, solely because I'm absolutely lost when it comes to playing on roll20. And I mean L O S T.

Other than starting half orc, and multiclassing 2 levels of barbarian for reckless attack, I'm really not sure where else to turn to make them better.

so the expanded crit range works really well with boosted crit damage. since crit damage is the thing that drags down the usefulness of crits. half orc actually helps quite a bit (relatively anyway) but going the barbarian route you really are gonna want like 9 levels to really help. reckless attack is ok, but generating advantage is fairly easy. you'd probably be better off doing a ranged build with 2 levels of rogue (assuming your DM allows you to do the BA aim thing) if all you're looking for is generating advantage.

however, other ways to pseudo boost crit damage would be to get limited use extra damage dice that you save for when you crit. for example paladin smites, battlemaster maneuvers. half orc+piercer does give you effectively like brutal critical 2 though, which when coupled with a pike means the champions expanded crit range feature becomes a 8.75% increase in damage. if you can get a flametongue pike it goes up to 12%. ironically having a 10 strength with the same overall build (without the flame tongue) means the feature is worth a 15% increase in damage...but its a 15% increase over basically no damage.


let me jump back a few steps. the way you calculate how effective a crit mechanic is is: crit-chance x crit-damage. so, for example, a pike wielder with 20 strength deals 10 (5.5+5) damge per hit and 16 (11+5) damage per crit. which means every time they crit, they deal ~60% more damage. but they only crit 5% of the time. so 5% of the time, they deal 60% more damage. 5%x60%= 3%. so for a d10 weapon weilding person with 20str (or more specifically with a +5 flat damage per hit) the crit mechanic as a whole only increases their average damage output by 3%. A champion crits 10% of the time instead. and so the crit mechanic increases their overall damage output by 6% (a 3% increase over what thery were already doing). You'll notice, what this means is that in part the critdamage% is based on the ratio of dice:flat damage in a given roll. however, even if all of the damage you deal is dice rolls (i.e. spells.) the crit mechanic *still* only gives you a 5% increase in damage.

So, there are 2 ways to increase crit damage.
1. increase the ratio of dicerolls to flat damage in your to-hit calculations. this can obviously be done by lowering the flat damage, but thats...well silly. but adding more dice rolls per-hit also does this (flame tongue). Problem is you get diminishing returns from this, as its an asymptotic curve up to a max of 100% of damage being dice rolls (which as we discussed still only caps out at a 5% increase in overall damage output).

2. get access to damages that only occur on a crit. great weapon master does this...but only through a BA attack that procs when you crit. which then needs to be compared to other methods of getting a BA attack, like PAM. and PAM is overall gonna do more BA damage. so GWM isn't actualyl good for this. obviously the piercer feat and the half-orc racial do this. vorpal weapons and uhhh...i think swift weapons do this.
-a sub category of this would be expendable dice like paladin smites or BM dice that you exclusively use on smites. the risk with this, is that if you ever end a day with any of your dice then you've 'lost' damage that you could have dealt that day. so while they can help make your crit damage ratio awesome, saving them for crits may end up reducing your overall DPR. kinda just depends on how many fights you do a day.

[KorvinStarmast]

One of the things that I like about crusher is that with a hit, you can push an enemy away far enough to move away if need be unless they have reach.
The other thing I like is that when you do get that crit, it acts like a "mini stun" as your allies all get advantage on attacks if they take advantage of it.

Handy features that leave shield master as a different kind of choice for a sword and board Champion.

[Kane0]

Well fighters do get more ASIs so yeah if you’d prefer one of these instead of or on top of the normal combat style feats its not a bad pick.

Edit: which incidentally is why i wasnt too thrilled with these feats. The martial control aspect is really nice, the moar damage aspect is done plenty elsewhere already.

[JediMaster]

Auto-advantage and Elvish Accuracy are both big boosts.

Sources of advantage vary. Some notables . . . Help action from minions. Illusionary heavy obscurement (party friendly). Or heavy obscurement plus blind fighting style (possibly party unfriendly).