Minimalist Champion rework: Combat Focus

[johnbragg]

EDIT: Updating the OP after feedback. Still very much in flux.

Combat Focus. By paying special attention, you can choose to increase your AC, your to-hit rolls or your damage rolls by +2. As a bonus action, you can change your Combat Focus between defense, accuracy and damage. This bonus increases to +3 at 7th level, +4 at 10th level and +5 at 15th level.

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The original idea of the Champion class was to give an option to the new-ish players, or the player who just doesnt' want to track a lot of resources and wants a streamlined class. The reality is, that player has been steered into Barbarian, which only has to track a couple of Rages. But power creep has left the Champion far behind.

Back to the premise of the class--simple to operate, minimal resource tracking.
(Also trying to stay with the new fashion that the designers are playing with where you use existing character-sheet numbers to do other things.

Not sure yet if this is in addition to or replacing the existing Champion features.

3rd level. Combat Focus. You are a highly trained warrior blah blah. By paying special attention, you can choose to increase your AC, your to-hit rolls or your damage rolls by your proficiency bonus +2. As a bonus action, you can change your Combat Focus between defense, accuracy and damage.

This is the heart of the rework. Nice boost at low levels, player still has something to do in terms of making tactical choices. Scales a bit with proficiency bonus.

7th level. Improved Combat Focus. You can switch your Combat Focus to an ability score for Ability Checks and/or Saves if you do not already add your proficiency bonus to this roll

At first I didn't have the limitation, and it would pretty much give free-floating Expertise.

[Rukelnikov]

Combat Focus sounds extremely OP when applied to AC or Att bonus. Half prof would be really good, but probably not too OP.

EDIT: Half prof may still make champion too good of a dip if gotten at high levels (at least 9+), but I'm having trouble deciding on the matter.

[johnbragg]

Combat Focus sounds extremely OP when applied to AC or Att bonus. Half prof would be really good, but probably not too OP.

EDIT: Half prof may still make champion too good of a dip if gotten at high levels (at least 9+), but I'm having trouble deciding on the matter.

Hmmm. At high levels, if a 3-level dip into fighter to get a Fighting Style, Second Wind, Action Surge, crit on a 19 and a +6 Combat Focus, I think the problem is your base class's high-level features.

(Then again, I multiclassed out of Barbarian after 5 levels, so YMMV)

Is a Druid 3, Barbarian 5, Fighter 3 with Combat Focus broken, or just good? Action Surging, in beast form, with a +4 bonus to all damage rolls? It's good, but Barbarian 8 gets an ASI, Druid 6 gets 3rd level spells and more beast form.

[Yakk]

A 2 level dip for Action surge is already worth it for most classes. Even spellcasters.

This turns the already pretty good 2 level action surge dip into: +1 level for +6 to hit or +6 to AC or +6 to damage and 19-20 crit range.

That is way stronger than most single levels "good dips".

[quindraco]

3rd level. Combat Focus. You are a highly trained warrior blah blah. By paying special attention, you can choose to increase your AC, your to-hit rolls or your damage rolls by your proficiency bonus. As a bonus action, you can change your Combat Focus between defense, accuracy and damage.

This is the heart of the rework. Nice boost at low levels, player still has something to do in terms of making tactical choices. Scales a bit with proficiency bonus.

7th level. Improved Combat Focus. You can switch your Combat Focus to an ability score for Ability Checks and/or Saves if you do not already add your proficiency bonus to this roll

At first I didn't have the limitation, and it would pretty much give free-floating Expertise.

You don't seem to have written your rules with an understanding that pb can't stack with itself for any roll, and you've given this ability far too much power, as others have pointed out. There should still be a reason to take other subclasses, and what you've written is so good, e.g. Battle Masters would become completely obsolete and no-one would ever make one.

[Argis13]

Hmm... interesting. Completely over tuned, but interesting.

Try changing it to a flat +2 that doesn't stack with shields, shield, or your fighting style.

Would make GWM builds more tanky, and XBE builds more damage-y.

Maybe it progresses to a +3 at level 7, but that kind of fine-tuning would come out in the playtest.

Also, perhaps it also improves your indomitable dice by that same amount by default, give that feature a little more kick.

[Kane0]

Hmm... interesting. Completely over tuned, but interesting.

Try changing it to a flat +2 that doesn't stack with shields, shield, or your fighting style.

Would make GWM builds more tanky, and XBE builds more damage-y.

I don't think those two style specifically need additional support.

Anyways, yeah this is overshooting the mark. If you'd like a reference on what I do (based heavily on some crowdsourcing from others here at GitP):

Spoiler: Champion

Show

Level 3: Improved Critical
Your weapon attacks score a critical hit on a roll of 19 or 20, and you can roll one additional weapon damage die when determining the extra damage for a critical hit with a weapon attack.

Level 3: Remarkable Physique
- Your speed increases by 5 feet
- You are always considered to have a running start when jumping
- Standing from prone only costs you 5 feet of movement

Level 7: Remarkable Athlete
You add half your proficiency bonus (round up) to any Strength, Dexterity or Constitution check you make that doesn't already use double your proficiency bonus.
In addition, you gain proficiency in Dexterity saving throws, or another type of saving throw of your choice if you are already proficient.

Level 10: Fighting Style Mastery
You can choose a two additional fighting styles from the Fighter list, and at the end of a short or long rest you can choose to exchange any one of your fighting styles for another on the Fighter list.

Level 15: Superior Critical
Your weapon attacks score a critical hit on a roll of 18, 19 or 20, and you can roll two additional weapon damage dice when determining the extra damage for a critical hit with a weapon attack.

Level 18: Survivor
While conscious and at no more than half your maximum hit points you regain hit points equal to 5 + your Constitution modifier at the beginning of each of your turns.

[Yakk]

If you run the numbers, a Level 20 Champion and a Level 20 low-optimization Battlemaster are not that far apart.

At level 3, the Level 3 Champion is far apart from a level 3 Battlemaster.

Solving the Champion problem by providing it with features that scale to being more powerful at later levels, or adding features in the back end, is like fixing a leaking boat by stapling it to an airplane.

Champion's most lackluster period is T1, followed by T2. Improvements should aim at T1/T2. Most gameplay happens in T1/T2.

Adding features in T3/T4, or features that are far more powerful in T3/T4 (like +prof to hit, or +prof to AC, or extra [W] on a crit) is solving the wrong problem.

Per-hit damage scales with attacks; Champion gets 1 attack per tier. So adding damage by +crit% or +crit damage of +flat or whatever scales higher when the problem is smaller.

To balance Champions damage output with a naive unoptimized BM, the Champion needs more damage added at level 3 than they need at level 20, not the other way around. As features that get worse at higher level are counter intuitive, about the best you can aim for is the same damage at level 3 as level 20, scaling as little as you can in terms of damage per round.

The prof solution is worse. +X to attack or AC is roughly as good at level 1 or level 20 due to how 5e scaling works (affine); by giving +2 in T1 and +6 in T4, you just made a feature with the smallest impact when the champion has the biggest problem, and the biggest impact when the champion has the smallest problem.

BM can trivially get +1.5 damage/attack in T1/2; the Champion has +0.4 with a greatsword. They aren't even that good at raw numbers.

[Bardbarian91]

My thoughts for this maybe, just my two cents:

Level 3: Weapon Specialization - When you select this Subclass at 3rd level, you may select one weapon you have Proficiency with. Whenever you successfully deal damage with a weapon of the chosen type, you deal an additional 3 damage of the weapon's damage type, or 6 on a critical success. (You may refocus your attention to a different weapon during a Long Rest. If you want some flexibility, even if it doesn't make that much sense.)

Level 7: Weapon Focus - Beginning at 7th level, whenever you take the Attack action with your chosen weapon from Weapon Specialization, you may make an additional attack. You may use this feature a number of times equal to your Proficiency Bonus and regain all uses on a Short or Long Rest. Additionally, when you land a critical success with your chosen Weapon, you now deal an additional 9 damage instead of 6. (That should probably just be baked into the text of the first ability, feel free to make it a different level if you think it works better.)

Again just my two cents, wording isn't super clean but I feel like it's not bad for on the spot, I might implement this one myself actually.

[johnbragg]

If you run the numbers, a Level 20 Champion and a Level 20 low-optimization Battlemaster are not that far apart.

At level 3, the Level 3 Champion is far apart from a level 3 Battlemaster.

Solving the Champion problem by providing it with features that scale to being more powerful at later levels, or adding features in the back end, is like fixing a leaking boat by stapling it to an airplane.

This is a really good point. The idea is that you have a Fighter subclass for starting players--the fix is (should be) aimed at T1 and T2 where most of those players are playing.

My current campaign, I brought a Warforged Artificer to the table, with the character goal of discovering the secrets of creating intelligent life, his (its?) own origin and the ability to reproduce Warforged.

My guy got engulfed by a Shambling Mound, out of line-of-sight of the party healer. So I had to make a new character while the party returned to base--Bear Totem Barbarian, let's keep this moving.

I figure Champion Fighter should be like that, except mechanically competitive.

Hmm... interesting. Completely over tuned, but interesting.

Try changing it to a flat +2

Yeah, I don't know how much it needs to scale at higher levels. Especially with multiclassing at play. The developers are trying to have character sheet numbers do double duty, but that's their problem.

that doesn't stack with shields, shield, or your fighting style.

Why not stack? You have the option of boosting your accuracy, your damage or your defense.
Usually, you'd want to boost a weak spot. But if, situationally, you'd want to boost your character strengths to extreme levels, that's an option you'd have.

Maybe it progresses to a +3 at level 7, but that kind of fine-tuning would come out in the playtest.

Maybe +3 at 7th, +4 at 10th, +5 at 15th. Close to + Proficiency, but without the big temptation for a 3 level dip in the late game.

But that might be completely overshadowing Battlemaster.........

You don't seem to have written your rules with an understanding that pb can't stack with itself for any roll,

Yeah, I was using proficiency just for the number--you already add Proficiency to your to-hit rolls. Adding it to damage or AC would be just adding Proficiency, but to-hit would be Expertise, but only sometimes.

and you've given this ability far too much power, as others have pointed out. There should still be a reason to take other subclasses, and what you've written is so good, e.g. Battle Masters would become completely obsolete and no-one would ever make one.

Maybe this replaces Improved Critical? Always-on is probably preferable to "relevant 5% of the time" anyway.

A 2 level dip for Action surge is already worth it for most classes. Even spellcasters.

This turns the already pretty good 2 level action surge dip into: +1 level for +6 to hit or +6 to AC or +6 to damage and 19-20 crit range.

That is way stronger than most single levels "good dips".

Yeah, using Proficiency Bonus as the number is a bad idea. If it's just a flat +2, or bumps up by 1 at each subclass-feature-level, it's not as tempting a dip.

[Yakk]

So, one partial approach is

Improved Second Wind: When you use your Second Wind, you can make a weapon attack. In addition, you may roll additional d10s equal to 1/2 of your Fighter class level (rounded down).

This does scale a bit more than I'd like, but it scales in durability (not damage). Which gives the Champion a niche at least (vs the BM) instead of competing.

The +1 attack/SR scales poorly with level. At low levels it is quite nice. It discourages you from using it as part of an alpha strike, because it heals (and at the start of fights, you tend to have full HP).

But it helps even the "between short rest" damage of the Champion 3 vs BM 3.

[Amechra]

My favorite minimalist rework is "if you take the Champion subclass, you also get the level-appropriate features from the Purple Dragon Knight subclass."

It makes the Champion less "here is the default, flavorless Fighter" and more of a champion (because you get stuff to pump up your allies and Expertise with Persuasion).

[johnbragg]

My favorite minimalist rework is "if you take the Champion subclass, you also get the level-appropriate features from the Purple Dragon Knight subclass."

It makes the Champion less "here is the default, flavorless Fighter" and more of a champion (because you get stuff to pump up your allies and Expertise with Persuasion).

But that stuff goes against the unspoken purpose of the Champion Fighter subclass, which is "Fighter option for new-ish or player who has enough to process with AC, HP, to hit, damage dice, 6 different saves, skills, HD, Second Wind, Action Surge".

I'm not sure this is a big problem--the Banneret features are things that another player will probably remind the newbie of when they Second Wind. Or not, it's 3-4-5 HP and the other players might forget too. (Past that point, most DMs will let the player take off the training wheels and retrain into something that fits the character's fluff).

Your idea has merit--gestalting two subpar Fighter subclasses, Champion and Purple Dragon Knight, into one better subclass.

[Snails]

There are a lot of good ideas floating around that make sense powerwise, but I hate most of them them because they are incongruous with the purpose/theme of the Champion: KISS for a player that does not want to think about options while playing.

Just give the PC a bonus Fighting Style at Fighter3 as part of their Champion subclass starting package, rewrite the F7 Remarkable Athlete (as per suggested above), and call it done. That adds to the robustness and flexibility to the PC, without really changing its best fighting tactics.

Practically speaking, this is easy on the novice player. "Oh, I can't decide; I want to try out both a bow and a rapier." "Whatever, just slap on +1 to my AC".

[Jervis]

Honest opinion here. I use to think champion being as bad as it is was a serious mistake but really I think champion fighter being, essentially, a subclassless fighter with a couple passives isn’t a bad thing. It’s the bad training wheels subclass you’re suppose to use once and never ever ever talk about it again.