Greywander
2022-04-15, 08:20 PM
I was inspired by this thread (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?644795-Champion-fighter-fixed-(not-my-idea)-Please-rate-how-good-bad-it-is) to write up a simple revision of the Champion fighter subclass. My goals here are to acknowledge that the Champion isn't quite as powerful as most other fighter subclasses (though I think this is partially down to fewer decisions to be made, meaning less opportunities to optimize) while also respecting the Champion as the "noob class" designed to be simple and easy to use for new players. With this in mind, I want to mostly stick to what's already there and just make the Champion a bit stronger while also keeping them simple and straightforward.
Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lBWG7GkotlAfpXTJX7_HUxqtb5c7A3sOTHCqoWmpLLM/edit?usp=sharing
Forum-quotable version:
Anything in blue is an addition/modification.
Improved Critical
Beginning when you choose this archetype at 3rd level, your weapon attacks score a critical hit on a roll of 19 or 20.
In addition, whenever you score a critical hit, you deal additional damage equal to your proficiency bonus.
Remarkable Athlete
Starting at 3rd level, you can add half your proficiency bonus (round up) to any Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution check you make that doesn't already use your proficiency bonus.
Mythical Athlete
Once you reach 7th level, your carry weight is doubled, your jump distance is doubled, and your speed increases by 5 feet.
Your athletic conditioning also causes you to gain proficiency in Dexterity saving throws. If you already have this proficiency, you instead gain proficiency in another saving throw of your choice.
Fighting Mastery
At 10th level, you master every fighting style found on page 72 of the Player’s Handbook, gaining the benefits of all of them at once. If you already know one of those fighting styles, you may replace it with a different fighting style available to fighters. (Formerly gave every fighting style.)
In addition, you can draw or sheathe a weapon as part of making an attack with that weapon.
Superior Critical
Starting at 15th level, your weapon attacks score a critical hit on a roll of 18-20.
Survivor
At 18th level, you attain the pinnacle of resilience in battle. At the start of each of your turns, you regain hit points equal to 5 + your Constitution modifier if you have no more than half of your hit points left. You don't gain this benefit if you have 0 hit points.
Alright, so lets go over this. Improved Critical adds a bit of extra damage to your crits. This scales as you level, meaning that no additional bonus is needed for Superior Critical. This makes the crit bonus a bit more significant of a damage boost, closing the gap with more optimized builds.
For Remarkable Athlete, I streamlined the jump bonus and made it stronger, and added a bonus to carry weight and move speed. This should go a long way toward making your character actually feel more athletic and physically fit than other characters. For good measure, you get DEX save proficiency (compare to the Samurai), giving you proficiency with all physical saves. Remarkable Athlete is now an actually strong feature, maybe even stronger than the 7th level features of other fighter subclasses.
Additional Fighting Style was replaced with Fighting Mastery. So, the issue is that any time you're given a choice of several options, you'll always take the best choice first, so getting to choose a second choice means getting a worse benefit. Plus, if we imagine this subclass is for new players, then having to choose between options can be difficult (though by this level, hopefully not). We can kill two birds with one stone by simply giving all fighting styles, which is both a significant buff to the feature and removes the need to make a difficult choice. This isn't as strong as you might think; it mostly comes down to always having Defense + Blind Fighting + whichever weapon style applies to your current weapon. For good measure, we also make it easier to draw and sheathe weapons, which again makes it easier for new players, and also allows you to get the most benefit out of all your new fighting styles.
Survivor is already pretty strong, the problem is that most campaigns don't get to this point, so you never get the Champion's best feature. This feature doesn't need any buff or tweak, we just needed to make the Champion more appealing all the way leading up to this point. Once you get here, you should have a pretty solid fighter already.
What do you think? I kind of expect to get the most pushback on Fighting Mastery, and admittedly it will become stronger and stronger as new fighting styles are released, particularly fighting styles that can be more easily used simultaneously with other fighting styles, e.g. styles like Defense, Blind Fighting, or Interception.
Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lBWG7GkotlAfpXTJX7_HUxqtb5c7A3sOTHCqoWmpLLM/edit?usp=sharing
Forum-quotable version:
Anything in blue is an addition/modification.
Improved Critical
Beginning when you choose this archetype at 3rd level, your weapon attacks score a critical hit on a roll of 19 or 20.
In addition, whenever you score a critical hit, you deal additional damage equal to your proficiency bonus.
Remarkable Athlete
Starting at 3rd level, you can add half your proficiency bonus (round up) to any Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution check you make that doesn't already use your proficiency bonus.
Mythical Athlete
Once you reach 7th level, your carry weight is doubled, your jump distance is doubled, and your speed increases by 5 feet.
Your athletic conditioning also causes you to gain proficiency in Dexterity saving throws. If you already have this proficiency, you instead gain proficiency in another saving throw of your choice.
Fighting Mastery
At 10th level, you master every fighting style found on page 72 of the Player’s Handbook, gaining the benefits of all of them at once. If you already know one of those fighting styles, you may replace it with a different fighting style available to fighters. (Formerly gave every fighting style.)
In addition, you can draw or sheathe a weapon as part of making an attack with that weapon.
Superior Critical
Starting at 15th level, your weapon attacks score a critical hit on a roll of 18-20.
Survivor
At 18th level, you attain the pinnacle of resilience in battle. At the start of each of your turns, you regain hit points equal to 5 + your Constitution modifier if you have no more than half of your hit points left. You don't gain this benefit if you have 0 hit points.
Alright, so lets go over this. Improved Critical adds a bit of extra damage to your crits. This scales as you level, meaning that no additional bonus is needed for Superior Critical. This makes the crit bonus a bit more significant of a damage boost, closing the gap with more optimized builds.
For Remarkable Athlete, I streamlined the jump bonus and made it stronger, and added a bonus to carry weight and move speed. This should go a long way toward making your character actually feel more athletic and physically fit than other characters. For good measure, you get DEX save proficiency (compare to the Samurai), giving you proficiency with all physical saves. Remarkable Athlete is now an actually strong feature, maybe even stronger than the 7th level features of other fighter subclasses.
Additional Fighting Style was replaced with Fighting Mastery. So, the issue is that any time you're given a choice of several options, you'll always take the best choice first, so getting to choose a second choice means getting a worse benefit. Plus, if we imagine this subclass is for new players, then having to choose between options can be difficult (though by this level, hopefully not). We can kill two birds with one stone by simply giving all fighting styles, which is both a significant buff to the feature and removes the need to make a difficult choice. This isn't as strong as you might think; it mostly comes down to always having Defense + Blind Fighting + whichever weapon style applies to your current weapon. For good measure, we also make it easier to draw and sheathe weapons, which again makes it easier for new players, and also allows you to get the most benefit out of all your new fighting styles.
Survivor is already pretty strong, the problem is that most campaigns don't get to this point, so you never get the Champion's best feature. This feature doesn't need any buff or tweak, we just needed to make the Champion more appealing all the way leading up to this point. Once you get here, you should have a pretty solid fighter already.
What do you think? I kind of expect to get the most pushback on Fighting Mastery, and admittedly it will become stronger and stronger as new fighting styles are released, particularly fighting styles that can be more easily used simultaneously with other fighting styles, e.g. styles like Defense, Blind Fighting, or Interception.