Focus- Temporary Martial Damage Buff?

[WarrentheHero]

I've been thinking about low-effort ways to mitigate the martial/magic divide and I want to see what folk think about this idea, basically a martial equivalent to Concentration which I am calling Focus. I have two different versions in mind that both do the same thing. Both of these would be for Barbarians, Fighters, and Monks only.

Option #1:
Activate Focus as bonus action. You can activate Focus a number of times per day equal to your CON mod. (This might be better served to be Prof/day)

Option #2:
Activate Focus as a bonus action by spending and rolling a Hit Die. You gain Temporary HP equal to the HD+CON mod. No limits on per-day use.

Both versions:
While you are Focusing, your weapon attacks deal one additional die of damage. If you are wielding a weapon that does two dice of damage such as a Greatsword, this is two additional dice instead (so a Longsword gets +d8, or +d10 2h, and a Greatsword gets +2d6. If you Critically hit, bonus dice from Focus are doubled, like normal

You lose Focus in the following ways:
-After 1 minute.
-When you become Incapacitated.
-When you suffer a Critical Hit, make a CON save vs DC10 or DC=half the damage of the crit, whichever is higher. On a failure, you lose Focus.
-When you choose to end it (free action, which can be done upon being knowingly charmed/dominated/etc.)

Basically it turns all martial hits into crits and martial crits into supercrits. Possibly this should be level-locked in some way, but the HD burn for Option #2 might make it open to all levels as you don't have very many of those to jockey around at low levels.

[JNAProductions]

Two things:

1) Poor Rogues. An 11th level Fighter goes from 12 damage per hit, 36 in a turn; to 19 damage per hit, 57 in a round. (Assuming perfect accuracy, at least.) Rogue goes from 30.5 damage per hit and turn, to 35. Maybe 33 to 40, if they're TWF with Shortswords.

2) Do martial classes actually struggle to kill things? That's generally not the issue I've seen or heard with them. A Fighter or Barbarian will kill something dead-it's when that's NOT the answer that they're lacking.

[Aleroth]

I personally think this is a really bad idea. Beyond the fact that it's inherently clunky since the martials you highlighted often go into melee, and thus risk taking an inordinate amount of attacks (which risks breaking their focus and making a slog of the constant con checks), there's also just the general issue that combat efficiency has never been martials true weakness. A moderately optimized fighter can mulch through most if not all the monster manual has to offer with their action surges.

Martials biggest weakness is that they lack ways of interacting with the system outside of combat. They have skills, but so do casters, and it's seldom the case that a skill can do something better than a spell. What you could do if you want to boost martial combat variety/effectiveness is give everyone (that is, Rogues, Barbarians, Monks, spell-less Rangers) access to the fighter battlemaster maneuvers, effectively baking them into martial progression.

[Kane0]

Martials biggest weakness is that they lack ways of interacting with the system outside of combat. They have skills, but so do casters, and it's seldom the case that a skill can do something better than a spell. What you could do if you want to boost martial combat variety/effectiveness is give everyone (that is, Rogues, Barbarians, Monks, spell-less Rangers) access to the fighter battlemaster maneuvers, effectively baking them into martial progression.

Which themselves add to either combat numbers/riders or ability checks, so the same issue still applies.

[Amnestic]

I've been thinking about low-effort ways to mitigate the martial/magic

Typically, the martial/casters divide is not around single target damage - martials are already generally the superior ones at this. The issue is that typically they are pigeon-holed into just this, while casters can still deliver acceptable single target damage while also doing AoE, hard/soft crowd control, and have utility spells that go above and beyond what skill checks can accomplish - and casters can do the skill checks as well.

The suggested Focus mechanic won't break anything, but it doesn't seem to be addressing what most people consider to be the thing you say you want to address.

[Mastikator]

I think the way to close the gap between martials and casters is to nerf some of the more broken spells like heat metal (on armors), wall of force, healing word, conjure animals etc.

[Kane0]

Honestly a low effort way to do this would be once you hit tier 2 once per long rest you can declare an awesome feat of skill and might using your action, and it just works. Tier 3 it becomes once per short rest, and Tier 4 it becomes a bonus action.

Consult your DM on the specifics, but rule of thumb you should be able to accomplish something at the same scope/scale as a spell the full casters can do on a daily basis.

[Amnestic]

If I was aiming at a 'low effort' solution to the divide, it'd be to give the martials the ritual caster feat at 1st level for free. It wouldn't fix everything, but it would help. It's a quick and simple thing to add on.

[Aleroth]

Which themselves add to either combat numbers/riders or ability checks, so the same issue still applies.

Absolutely, you're definitely right. However, in the context of D&D 5e, I think it's a relatively simple, easy to do solution without getting heavily into homebrewing new systems. At least some of the maneuvers have some neat effects or encourage teamwork in ways that normal martial combat doesn't, and getting higher ability checks does make it more feasible for non-casters to toy around with skills that normally would be associated with a dump stat... but I agree that it isn't a solution to the problem by any means.

[KorvinStarmast]

Honestly a low effort way to do this would be once you hit tier 2 once per long rest you can declare an awesome feat of skill and might using your action, and it just works. Tier 3 it becomes once per short rest, and Tier 4 it becomes a bonus action.

Consult your DM on the specifics, but rule of thumb you should be able to accomplish something at the same scope/scale as a spell the full casters can do on a daily basis. While I like your thematic outline there, the details will need some work. :smallcool:

For the OP: If anything, I'd suggest you do the Temp HP one not the damage buff.