Fighter improvements

[MarkVIIIMarc]

I've played wargames before where you have an option to bid for a side. A, player one says, "I'll be team red if I can have $10 game bucks." Countered by player 2 saying, "We'll shucks, I'll be team red if I can have $9 of game bucks."

My goal here is to create a character who does physical damage without relying on magic and can keep up with the magic gods.

So, would this be enough to "balance the perceived martial deficiency"?

Level Proficiency Bonus Features
1st +2 Fighting Style, Second Wind
2nd +2 Action Surge, Maneuver of your choice
3rd +2 Martial Archetype
4th +2 Ability Score Improvement, Martial Versatility
5th +3 Extra Attack
6th +3 Ability Score Improvement, Maneuver of your choice
7th +3 Martial Archetype feature,
8th +3 Ability Score Improvement, Maneuver of your choice
9th +4 Indomitable, Maneuver of your choice
10th +4 Martial Archetype feature, Melee master, Grapple as a Bonus Action
11th +4 Extra Attack (2), Battle survivor, advantage on death saving throws
12th +4 Ability Score Improvement, Maneuver of your choice
13th +5 Indomitable (two uses), Double Proficiency added to damage
14th +5 Ability Score Improvement, Maneuver of your choice
15th +5 Martial Archetype feature, Armor Master (heavy armor no longer imposes any disadvantage)
16th +5 Ability Score Improvement, Maneuver of your choice
17th +6 Action Surge (two uses), Indomitable (three uses)
18th +6 Martial Archetype feature, Maneuver of your choice
19th +6 Ability Score Improvement, Maneuver of your choice
20th +6 Extra Attack (3), Veteran Mage Warrior (advantage on spell saving throws)

[Unoriginal]

I've played wargames before where you have an option to bid for a side. A, player one says, "I'll be team red if I can have $10 game bucks." Countered by player 2 saying, "We'll shucks, I'll be team red if I can have $9 of game bucks."

I don't get that part.



My goal here is to create a character who does physical damage without relying on magic and can keep up with the magic gods.

So, would this be enough to "balance the perceived martial deficiency"?

Most of the Fighter subclasses can keep up with the spellcasters. And spellcasters are far from gods.



Level Proficiency Bonus Features
1st +2 Fighting Style, Second Wind
2nd +2 Action Surge, Maneuver of your choice
3rd +2 Martial Archetype
4th +2 Ability Score Improvement, Martial Versatility
5th +3 Extra Attack
6th +3 Ability Score Improvement, Maneuver of your choice
7th +3 Martial Archetype feature,
8th +3 Ability Score Improvement, Maneuver of your choice
9th +4 Indomitable, Maneuver of your choice
10th +4 Martial Archetype feature, Melee master, Grapple as a Bonus Action
11th +4 Extra Attack (2), Battle survivor, advantage on death saving throws
12th +4 Ability Score Improvement, Maneuver of your choice
13th +5 Indomitable (two uses), Double Proficiency added to damage
14th +5 Ability Score Improvement, Maneuver of your choice
15th +5 Martial Archetype feature, Armor Master (heavy armor no longer imposes any disadvantage)
16th +5 Ability Score Improvement, Maneuver of your choice
17th +6 Action Surge (two uses), Indomitable (three uses)
18th +6 Martial Archetype feature, Maneuver of your choice
19th +6 Ability Score Improvement, Maneuver of your choice
20th +6 Extra Attack (3), Veteran Mage Warrior (advantage on spell saving throws)

If I understand what you mean, you want advice for an homebrew?

[JNAProductions]

This is a couple of number upgrades.

The maneuvers are nice, but you don't actually give them superiority dice, so without that, they can't be used.
Grappling as a Bonus Action is nice for Strength Fighters, but not particularly for Dexterity Fighters.
Advantage on Death Saves is mostly ribbon.
Level 13, though-that is BONKERS. +10 (later +12) damage on everything? That's GWM or Sharpshooter, with no penalty, and stacks with it. See math below.
Armor Master, again, Strength Fighters get a minor perk, no one else does. And screws over Medium Armor users, since they'd still have disadvantage in Half-Plate!
Advantage on spell saves is pretty powerful... If you run into spellcasters. Otherwise useless.

Math
Elven Accuracy and Sharpshooter Samurai Archery Fighter, at level 20, with a +3 Bow and lots of arrows.
Each attack is 3d20b1+16 for 1d8+20 damage, or 3d20b1+11 for 1d8+30 damage.
Hitting the Tarrasque happens 72.54% of the time. Of those, a decent chunk are crits, but crits barely add anything.
Over two rounds, you have 16 attacks. That's 11 to 12 hits, with Sharpshooter, each dealing 34.5 damage, for a total of 379.5 damage. WITHOUT any maneuvers.

This solitary Fighter deals with the Tarrasque in five rounds. Thirty seconds. With one magic item. If you have d10 Superiority dice, you can probably net three-five extra hits, and deal more damage on the ones that hit normally.

Put simply, that damage boost is INSANE.

[MarkVIIIMarc]

I don't get that part.


The first part, in some historical board games there is a perceived weak side. You can bid for non historical advantages.


Most of the Fighter subclasses can keep up with the spellcasters. And spellcasters are far from gods.

I'm in the middle here but given a lot of recent posts some of our forum mates don't. I'm inclined to think there is some merit to the idea Wizards are more powerful at high levels. Maybe some DM's don't run the same tables we play at by having shorter adventuring days or fewer enemies with Counterspell or Silence areas. Maybe melee combatants need more nifty things to do which feel like meaningful upgrades, think of the fire spells which are sorta different versions of Fireball.



If I understand what you mean, you want advice for an homebrew?

Correct. In this case I think your opinion is it isn't needed because most of the fighter subclasses keep up and I appreciate the feedback that it is overkill.

[JNAProductions]

Wait, I assumed Advantage on rounds 4 and 5. That's my bad.

Damage boost is still insane, though.

[JackPhoenix]

None of that solves actual problem with martials, which is lack of out of combat utility.

[strangebloke]

None of that solves actual problem with martials, which is lack of out of combat utility.

Some maneuvers grant bonuses to ability checks, which is good, but still just skills. So even with that caveat I agree with you. There's no mechanism to say intimidate a group of weaker foes in combat.

My larger problem here is, you're picking maneuvers from a limited list over and over. How exciting is the maneuver you're learning at level 14, when you've passed over five times before? Beyond that, yeah, lots of damage. Woooooooh. Who cares? Fighters are good at damage, they've always been good at damage.

[MarkVIIIMarc]

None of that solves actual problem with martials, which is lack of out of combat utility.

Ah. So maybe I'll pull that damage buff which people think is too much and replace it with something.

Could you clear up your definition of out of combat utility? For me that means better skill checks in persuasion, deception, entertaining, something. Is the effect of not picking the Soldier background and replacing it with Entertainer or Charlatan or something not enough? I'm thinking about soldiers coming back from war with skills in bridging or medical checks or a number of other things.

Backgrounds are on my mind given some of the recent talk from the producers of the game.

[J-H]

Aside from AOEs and a few edge builds (nuclear something or other magic missile wizard), martials usually out-damage casters. I did back-of-the-envelope for a samurai with Elven Accuracy and Sharpshooter yesterday and it was something like 175 damage against a single target out to 600' when action surging, with triple advantage on 7/9 attack rolls, twice per short rest. That beats out Disintegrate or Harm or any of the other high-end single target spells, and at longer range with more replicability.

Luckily, fighters have extra ASIs/feats to help them be Inspiring Leaders, excellent Chefs, as Skilled as a rogue, or even Initiated into various spellcasting traditions.

[Dr.Samurai]

Yeah but... samurai sharpshooters are like... a gimmick. It's hardly assumed that when someone thinks "fighter" they're thinking "elf samurai wielding a crossbow".

This happens often. Every fighter benchmark in these threads is battlemaster crossbow expert/sharpshooter.

It's like... that's the last thing I'd choose to play if I was playing a fighter, but it's the first thing trotted out in fighter threads...

All to say, does a sword and board fighter beat out disintegrate and harm? Genuinely asking.

[strangebloke]

Yeah but... samurai sharpshooters are like... a gimmick. It's hardly assumed that when someone thinks "fighter" they're thinking "elf samurai wielding a crossbow".

This happens often. Every fighter benchmark in these threads is battlemaster crossbow expert/sharpshooter.

It's like... that's the last thing I'd choose to play if I was playing a fighter, but it's the first thing trotted out in fighter threads...

All to say, does a sword and board fighter beat out disintegrate and harm? Genuinely asking.

Depends on saves and AC. But disintegrate isn't even that good here since against targets worth disintegrating, they often have legendary saves, and disintegrate does nothing for legendary saves.

The real issue is something like an EB-focused warlock or a cantrip-spamming bladesinger, who get to keep up with S&B fighters and also be full leveled demon summoners. Specialized martial DPR idiots do tend to be on the high end for pure single target DPR but casters can get close within that niche and also dominate everything else.

[JackPhoenix]

Ah. So maybe I'll pull that damage buff which people think is too much and replace it with something.

Could you clear up your definition of out of combat utility? For me that means better skill checks in persuasion, deception, entertaining, something. Is the effect of not picking the Soldier background and replacing it with Entertainer or Charlatan or something not enough? I'm thinking about soldiers coming back from war with skills in bridging or medical checks or a number of other things.

Backgrounds are on my mind given some of the recent talk from the producers of the game.

Skill proficiencies mean nothing. As you've pointed out, anyone can get a proficiency in any skill, if they want to.
The problem people have is that fighters (martial in general) can't charm people, fly, teleport, conjure a fortification out of thin air, divine what lies ahead, summon help and ton of other things casters can do (nor should they IMO) or in general be exceptional (i.e. better than most other characters who can just pick the same proficiencies) at anything other than "stab/shoot/smash enemies in combat". And even in combat, they usually lack means to counter caster tricks (i.e. being trapped in Forcecage, hordes of summoned minions, various forms of control) beyond "keep hitting the bastard in the face until he drops concentration, assuming you can reach him".

[Dr.Samurai]

Depends on saves and AC. But disintegrate isn't even that good here since against targets worth disintegrating, they often have legendary saves, and disintegrate does nothing for legendary saves.

The real issue is something like an EB-focused warlock or a cantrip-spamming bladesinger, who get to keep up with S&B fighters and also be full leveled demon summoners. Specialized martial DPR idiots do tend to be on the high end for pure single target DPR but casters can get close within that niche and also dominate everything else.
Agreed.


Skill proficiencies mean nothing. As you've pointed out, anyone can get a proficiency in any skill, if they want to.
The problem people have is that fighters (martial in general) can't charm people, fly, teleport, conjure a fortification out of thin air, divine what lies ahead, summon help and ton of other things casters can do (nor should they IMO) or in general be exceptional (i.e. better than most other characters who can just pick the same proficiencies) at anything other than "stab/shoot/smash enemies in combat". And even in combat, they usually lack means to counter caster tricks (i.e. being trapped in Forcecage, hordes of summoned minions, various forms of control) beyond "keep hitting the bastard in the face until he drops concentration, assuming you can reach him".
I think the issue, for me at least, is that fighters are generally locked into Strength/Constitution and have few features that interact with skills. Strength only influences Athletics. Con doesn't influence any normal skill use. This is compounded by treating Intelligence and Charisma as dump stats because you have to select some abilities as dump stats. So fighter interactions with skill checks is generally lackluster and ruled by the dice. Unique and interesting ways to use skills would be awesome as well.

[strangebloke]

If you really want to fix martials as a whole, you need to give them all new features that give them lots of customizable powers at mid-high levels. I've tried to do it myself but... yeah. There's no substitute for hard work. The lack of interesting options and/or utility is the real killer here, and there's no fix other than hand-writing loads of features.

But for a quick and dirty fix? Give all noncasters maneuvers in t2. Just 1 or 2 maneuvers and a couple of wimpy d6 dice, but its at least enough to add a little variety. Then in t3 give whirlwind attack or volley to all martials so they can finally deal with more than 2 people at once. This still makes them pigeonholed combat characters, but at least they have a bit more in the way of flexibility.

[MarkVIIIMarc]

Some maneuvers grant bonuses to ability checks, which is good, but still just skills. So even with that caveat I agree with you. There's no mechanism to say intimidate a group of weaker foes in combat.

My larger problem here is, you're picking maneuvers from a limited list over and over. How exciting is the maneuver you're learning at level 14, when you've passed over five times before? Beyond that, yeah, lots of damage. Woooooooh. Who cares? Fighters are good at damage, they've always been good at damage.

Perhaps more of a system where stronger mystic maneuvers become available at later levels?

What else do you want them to be good at let me know. Imagination is not my strong suit.

Also that damage thing is not to be discounted. Removing the life from an enemy does some good.

[JNAProductions]

Perhaps more of a system where stronger mystic maneuvers become available at later levels?

What else do you want them to be good at let me know. Imagination is not my strong suit.

Also that damage thing is not to be discounted. Removing the life from an enemy does some good.

Yes, but it's not something that martials tend to have issues with. Or at least, not the raw numbers bit.

Moreover, it'd make anyone who WANTS to do damage a fool to not pick Fighter, if you're gonna reach level 13. +10 to all damage rolls is bonkers.

[MarkVIIIMarc]

Yeah but... samurai sharpshooters are like... a gimmick. It's hardly assumed that when someone thinks "fighter" they're thinking "elf samurai wielding a crossbow".

This happens often. Every fighter benchmark in these threads is battlemaster crossbow expert/sharpshooter.

It's like... that's the last thing I'd choose to play if I was playing a fighter, but it's the first thing trotted out in fighter threads...

All to say, does a sword and board fighter beat out disintegrate and harm? Genuinely asking.

I haven't done the math but I'll bet on a long adventuring day he sure does. That leads to a DM/game play style debate though.

Fighters are stronger in silenced areas or where the Matron Mother just may have Counterspell handy. As a DM I forget about dispelling effects so next time I'll keep that trick handy.

[strangebloke]

Perhaps more of a system where stronger mystic maneuvers become available at later levels?

What else do you want them to be good at let me know. Imagination is not my strong suit.

Also that damage thing is not to be discounted. Removing the life from an enemy does some good.

shadow monk'd:smalltongue:


If you really want to fix martials as a whole, you need to give them all new features that give them lots of customizable powers at mid-high levels. I've tried to do it myself but... yeah. There's no substitute for hard work. The lack of interesting options and/or utility is the real killer here, and there's no fix other than hand-writing loads of features.

But for a quick and dirty fix? Give all noncasters maneuvers in t2. Just 1 or 2 maneuvers and a couple of wimpy d6 dice, but its at least enough to add a little variety. Then in t3 give whirlwind attack or volley to all martials so they can finally deal with more than 2 people at once. This still makes them pigeonholed combat characters, but at least they have a bit more in the way of flexibility.

[J-H]

Yeah but... samurai sharpshooters are like... a gimmick. It's hardly assumed that when someone thinks "fighter" they're thinking "elf samurai wielding a crossbow".

This happens often. Every fighter benchmark in these threads is battlemaster crossbow expert/sharpshooter.

It's like... that's the last thing I'd choose to play if I was playing a fighter, but it's the first thing trotted out in fighter threads...

All to say, does a sword and board fighter beat out disintegrate and harm? Genuinely asking.

Harm does 14d6, which is an average damage of 49 with save for half, and is (per the text) blocked entirely by disease immunity.
Disintegrate is higher at an average 75 damage, but is entirely negated on a successful save.

Eh, probably not. Fighters do tend to be a bit more gear-specific (+2d6 weapons) than the other martials (barbarian, ranger, monk, paladin). A typical 20th level fighter is going to have 4-5 attacks per round, with a 5th attack coming from PAM (slightly smaller), Haste, or averaging out Action Surge over a few rounds. 1d8 (4.5) + 5 (str) +2 (dueling) = 11.5 damage per hit. At 4 hits per round, that's 46 damage, or at 5 hits, 57.5 damage.

This excludes magic weapons from the calculations. A +3 weapon is +12-15 damage per round, a Flaming weapon (2d6) is +28-35 damage per round, etc.

So yes, against a single target, a high level fighter's damage output is comparable to a single-target 6th or 7th level spell, all day long.

It doesn't stack up as well against, oh, Feeblemind (save or no casting for a month) or Circle of Death against a huge group of mooks, though.

Where fighters fall behind the casters and other martial classes is lacking native mobility and tactical options (monk speed & wall-run, ranger self-buffs and natural movement aids, barbarian speed plus flight (eagle totem) climb (beast) or AOE slows and shielding (ancients) etc.), and skills (monk gets out of combat things like speaking all languages, barbarians get extra skills, rangers have a lot of nature stuff).

I think the design intent is that you can use 2-3 of those extra ASIs to pick up feats to help either in combat or out of combat or both... and as long as everyone is aware of this and does it, it works okay. One fighter is forcing a CON save or inflicting the poisoned status on an enemy each round; another fighter is buffing his party with +20 temp HP every short rest; etc. Is it great? No. Is it okay enough? Yes.

[JackPhoenix]

Harm does 14d6, which is an average damage of 49 with save for half, and is (per the text) blocked entirely by disease immunity.

The latter actually doesn't matter that much, as disease immunity isn't really a thing... only paladin's Divine Health and monk's Purity of Body does that (there may be more sources in other classes too). No monster does have it by RAW... Harm works fine on skeletons, air elementals or iron golems.

[Kane0]

The maneuvers that apply to ability checks are a good start, perhaps also add some maneuvers that replicate ritual spells or other noncombat functions. Things like being able to replicate the powerful build racial trait or the eagle totem barbarian being able to see over long distances.

[strangebloke]

Something like a blaster warlock doesn't get that much ahead of most martials despite being one of the best resourceless damagers, and something like a minmaxed samurai will blow that out of the water. Martials do end up doing better here in general, but its not a huge difference, and single target damage is also not the game in town. In most other niches, casters get WAY ahead of noncasters even against specialists.

Battlefield control? Noncasters can be dedicated grapplers, but that's somewhat limited, and is going to cut into your damage output heavily, while its pretty easy for a caster to just have hypnotic pattern or spirit guardians or something. Monks can stun, but even that's pretty mediocre compared to something like forcecage.
soaking damage? You'd almost always rather have a summon taking the hit as opposed to the party right?
healing? Lol.

This is the problem. Some noncasters can get ahead in skill use or single target damage, but everything else is the domain of casters. And even in the case of single target damage, it becomes a lot harder to keep up with something like a hexblade blaster if you factor in that he can summon a demon to smack on people while he's blasting, and that demon refreshes on a short rest so it barely even feels like resources are really getting used.

[MarkVIIIMarc]

Something like a blaster warlock doesn't get that much ahead of most martials despite being one of the best resourceless damagers, and something like a minmaxed samurai will blow that out of the water. Martials do end up doing better here in general, but its not a huge difference, and single target damage is also not the game in town. In most other niches, casters get WAY ahead of noncasters even against specialists.

Battlefield control? Noncasters can be dedicated grapplers, but that's somewhat limited, and is going to cut into your damage output heavily, while its pretty easy for a caster to just have hypnotic pattern or spirit guardians or something. Monks can stun, but even that's pretty mediocre compared to something like forcecage.
soaking damage? You'd almost always rather have a summon taking the hit as opposed to the party right?
healing? Lol.

This is the problem. Some noncasters can get ahead in skill use or single target damage, but everything else is the domain of casters. And even in the case of single target damage, it becomes a lot harder to keep up with something like a hexblade blaster if you factor in that he can summon a demon to smack on people while he's blasting, and that demon refreshes on a short rest so it barely even feels like resources are really getting used.

Wizards are going to get Fireball. Fighters are going to get weapon attacks. Its the nature of the characters. I don't know how to get around that magically.

BUT, this is a setting with defendable castles and keeps where fellas with swords are the norm.

Perhaps the problem is over 40ish sessions last year I never provided the fighter with some piece of siege equipment only someone with a Soldier background would know how to operate. That 16 strength score just might come in handy also. What else should soldiers and martials be good at that Wizards just don't get into?

[strangebloke]

Wizards are going to get Fireball. Fighters are going to get weapon attacks. Its the nature of the characters. I don't know how to get around that magically.

BUT, this is a setting with defendable castles and keeps where fellas with swords are the norm.

Perhaps the problem is over 40ish sessions last year I never provided the fighter with some piece of siege equipment only someone with a Soldier background would know how to operate. That 16 strength score just might come in handy also. What else should soldiers and martials be good at that Wizards just don't get into?

well as I said, if volley/whirlwind attack is available to most noncasters at level 11+ that would let them do some amount of AoE at least. Beyond that....

Well, honestly, I'd just scale up some of their base features more. Fighters have healing it just doesn't scale well. Making it go up to 2d10 at 5 and 3d10 at 11 and 4d10 at 17 seems kind of like how it should be already yeah? Extra reactions/bonus actions could have a role here as well in making the fighter better at controlling space.

You won't ever be able to be better than summons, but IMO that's its own problem. Summons are too good compared to everything.

[MarkVIIIMarc]

Reworking this and killing the damage bonus. What I haven't figured out how to do succinctly is make a list of maneuvers which are available from levels 1 to 7 then others which unlock at 8 to 13 then 14 to 20.

Level Proficiency Bonus Features
1st +2 Fighting Style, Second Wind
2nd +2 Action Surge, Level 1 Maneuver of your choice (1 Die)
3rd +2 Martial Archetype
4th +2 Ability Score Improvement, Martial Versatility
5th +3 Extra Attack
6th +3 Ability Score Improvement, Level 1 Maneuver of your choice (another Die)
7th +3 Martial Archetype feature,
8th +3 Ability Score Improvement, Master of war weapons, you have a working knowledge of all military weaponry and have advantage on rolls to use or interact with military equipment.
9th +4 Indomitable, Melee Master, Grapple as a Bonus Action
10th +4 Martial Archetype feature, Level 2 (or lower) Maneuver of your choice (another Die)
11th +4 Extra Attack (2), Battle survivor, advantage on death saving throws
12th +4 Ability Score Improvement, Level 2 (or lower) Maneuver of your choice (another Die)
13th +5 Indomitable (two uses), Battlefield Medic, as a bonus action you can stabilize a character which has 0 hit points but hasn't died.
14th +5 Ability Score Improvement, Level 3 (or lower) Maneuver of your choice (another Die)
15th +5 Martial Archetype feature, Armor Master (heavy armor no longer imposes any disadvantage)
16th +5 Ability Score Improvement, Level 3 (or lower) Maneuver of your choice (another Die)
17th +6 Action Surge (two uses), Indomitable (three uses)
18th +6 Martial Archetype feature, Level 3 (or lower) Maneuver of your choice (another Die)
19th +6 Ability Score Improvement, Level 3 (or lower) Maneuver of your choice (another Die)
20th +6 Extra Attack (3), Veteran Mage Fighter (advantage on spell saving throws)

I'll have to make a list of Maneuvers as big as the sorcerer spell list or Warlock invocation list lol. I want Fighter players to feel special and have options to decide between on their turn without ever casting a spell.