BM maneuvers vs cantrips

[Skrum]

Forewarning, this is just my thoughts. I don't have a ton of hard math to make a case one way or the other.

Ok so the other day I got to thinking of spells vs maneuvers, and what level spell a maneuver would be.

Damage: maneuvers are bad at damage. Comparable to cantrips till level 5 when cantrips scale up and maneuvers don't. This basically continues till high levels when maneuvers are far outstripped by cantrips.

Opportunity: this is where maneuvers make their money. They are almost all rider effects, meaning they generally have no action cost of their own. This is in contrast to cantrips that are (all?) actions. It also means they can be opportunistically used on crits, which helps their abysmal damage a little.

Use: cantrips are at will, maneuvers aren't. Not much else to say here.

Effects: this is hard to parse. Maneuvers provide either very short term, limited effects (not unlike cantrips), or let you perform unusual actions, like attacking or moving when it's not your turn. Cantrips cannot do the latter things; this is much more inline with 1st level spells - though, on that comparison they're fairly weak. E.g compare riposte, brace, or parry to silvery barbs, absorb elements, or shield.

Conclusion: maneuvers are better than cantrips (mainly on the opportunity factor, but some maneuvers have very useful effects that cantrips absolutely cannot match).

And I think they're worse than 1st level spells.

[Bobthewizard]

They are definitely better than cantrips since they don't take an action. They are almost, but not quite as good as the 1st level paladin smite spells. Some might be better than searing smite, but a step below thunderous or wrathful.

So maybe 1/2 to 3/4 level. You could argue that they equal mediocre 1st level spells.

[Yakk]

I assume you are talking about Weapon Cantrips.

Weapon Cantrips don't stack with extra attack.

Maneuvers do.

Cantrips at level 1 do no extra damage to the primary target "by default". Either they deal it to a 2nd target (GFB) or require setup (BB) to use.

Their scaling at level 5 isn't enough to keep up with extra attack. 2 attacks for 1d8+4 beat out the single target damage of any of the cantrips.

It takes level 11 weapon cantrips to match level 5 attack action damage (again, without trigging riders, or secondary target damage), and level 17 to exceed it.

So the weapon cantrips are only really good for classes without extra attack, or (like bladesinger) can cheat and do both.

Maneuvers meanwhile are action-free, so they "stack" with extra attack trivially.

The best damage maneuvers aren't the +damage ones, quite frankly. The best damage ones are the reaction-attack and turn miss-into-hit ones. Only after you have used those and still have dice remaining do you start to first use the maneuver damage ones on critical hits.

The two of them, honestly, inhabit a different design space.

5e splits PC resources into at-will, per-short-rest and per-long-rest "pools". The value of a per-short-rest ability is how powerful it is, minus the at-will capability given up to use it. For maneuvers, that is minus 0, as you aren't giving anything up to use them (when you use them that is).

[Skrum]

I assume you are talking about Weapon Cantrips.

Weapon Cantrips don't stack with extra attack.

Maneuvers do.

Cantrips at level 1 do no extra damage to the primary target "by default". Either they deal it to a 2nd target (GFB) or require setup (BB) to use.

Their scaling at level 5 isn't enough to keep up with extra attack. 2 attacks for 1d8+4 beat out the single target damage of any of the cantrips.

It takes level 11 weapon cantrips to match level 5 attack action damage (again, without trigging riders, or secondary target damage), and level 17 to exceed it.

So the weapon cantrips are only really good for classes without extra attack, or (like bladesinger) can cheat and do both.

Maneuvers meanwhile are action-free, so they "stack" with extra attack trivially.

The best damage maneuvers aren't the +damage ones, quite frankly. The best damage ones are the reaction-attack and turn miss-into-hit ones. Only after you have used those and still have dice remaining do you start to first use the maneuver damage ones on critical hits.

The two of them, honestly, inhabit a different design space.

5e splits PC resources into at-will, per-short-rest and per-long-rest "pools". The value of a per-short-rest ability is how powerful it is, minus the at-will capability given up to use it. For maneuvers, that is minus 0, as you aren't giving anything up to use them (when you use them that is).

Weapon cantrips are the most direct comparison, but no, I'm comparing them to all cantrips. There are attack cantrips, and there are out of combat maneuvers. I'm attempting to compare their overall impact/effect and thus "power."

And yes, you have a point about design space. But that doesn't mean they are incomparable. All characters still have the same action economy, and are still facing the same enemies. Some vague notion of effectiveness can be applied.

[Thunderous Mojo]

Bowel Movement Maneuvers….alas that is what my initial thought was upon reading the thread title…BM Maneuvers.

I think there needs to be a new acronym for the Battle Master.

[cZak]

The increase in die (d8 > d12), number of, and selection for maneuvers seems like it would mitigate

The short rest recovery keeps them back from at-will cantrips, but seems a pretty good benefit

Seems spell casters get more bang for their buck by using level spells as appropriate; using a cantrip is a nice fall back option, but Hypnotic pattern or Synaptic static seems a better use of Action
Fighters are primarily damage dealers, the bonus effect of a maneuver in a situation can be as game changing as that spell.

I think it's a very well balanced apple to orange comparison

[Yakk]

Weapon cantrips are the most direct comparison, but no, I'm comparing them to all cantrips. There are attack cantrips, and there are out of combat maneuvers. I'm attempting to compare their overall impact/effect and thus "power."

And yes, you have a point about design space. But that doesn't mean they are incomparable. All characters still have the same action economy, and are still facing the same enemies. Some vague notion of effectiveness can be applied.

But, why compare them?

It is like comparing chickens and tractors. Sure they are both on the same farm.

[4koboldsinacoat]

Maneuvers really can't be divorced from the actions they enhance. A damage maneuver deals much more than one superiority die of damage, since it is linked to at least one attack.

A first level chromatic orb deals 3d8 = 13.5 average damage

A second level scorching ray deals 6d6 = 21 average damage.

An average 3rd level fighter using menacing strike with a longbow deals 2d8+3 = 12 average damage, plus a chance to inflict frightened, plus an additional +2 to hit from archery, making it overall better than chromatic orb since the 1.5 damage loss is less impacful than a +2 attack bonus, so the superiority die is overall stronger than at least one first level spell, but not clearly superior to scorching ray, and is argueably weaker unless inflicting frightened is really important.

But at 5th level, the maneuver deals 3d8+4*2 = 21.5 average damage (two attacks and one maneuver), or 4d8+4*2 = 26 damage if the fighter uses it twice. So now it easily beats the second level spell scorching ray (6d6=21 damage) in damage, accuracy, and utility.

This is the case with a lot of martial features. A spell is largely self contained, and apart from a few outliers like twin spell, most class features that improve spells provide very modest improvements, the power of a spell comes primarily from the spell itself. Martial features on the other hand, are mostly improvements to the attack action, so to evaluate the power of a manuver, you have to consider it's interactions with extra attack, feats, etc to consider how powerful the final action is.

[Unoriginal]

Fun fact; the following BM Maneuvres can be used with Booming Blade and Green Flame Blade:

-Feinting Attack

-Grappling Strike

Not sure how useful it'd be, but it could make for fun tactics (or just boost the efficiency of the melee cantrips some).

[Rukelnikov]

Usefulness of maneuvers is very variable, and build dependant. I'm not gonna break them all down here, but the basic idea is the following:

Imagine if Riposte was a 2nd level spell, without damage rider, so:

2nd level Divination
Casting Time: 1 reaction, which you take when a creature misses you with a weapon attack.
Range: Self
Components: V, S
Duration: Instantaneous

You enter a state of flow for an instant and capitalize on the opening left by the failed attack. Make a melee weapon attack against the creature that missed you.

Do you think it would see play in some usual builds? In 1 or 2 encounters a day paradigm I think this would be a staple in GWM gishes, dice rider gishes, and ATs, and Divination gishes would become much more common. I think you'd need to be facing like 4 or more encounters per long rest for this spell to stop being worth a 2nd level slot, and for ATs it will always be worth a 2nd level slot.

So IMO riposte is comparable to a good 2nd lvl spell on the right build, equivalent or better than Misty Step.

I do not think it is 3rd level spell good though.

If you do this simple excercise I think there are a couple more that would see play as 2nd level, but most fall around 1st level.

[strangebloke]

Pretty comparable to first level spells. Much better action economy generally, since you can add them as actionless riders. So something like Smite deals 2d8 as an actionless rider for a single spell slot, yeah? Well trip attack has an actionless rider of 1d8+save vs. prone, which is arguably a fair trade. Same for menacing attack and such. Parry compares unfavorably to shield but shield is massively overtuned for 1st level so that checks out.

In a similar fashion, ambush is better than most of its peers by a pretty wide margin.

[AdAstra]

I think most give value pretty similar to 1st level slots, yeah. Having more dice and maneuvers that cost more than one would probably allow for interesting possibilities.

Quick Toss seems pretty useful on an archer, since it might be one of the only bonus action attacks that you can use to throw a Net (preferably with Sharpshooter to not have Disadvantage) and then make a complete Attack action. Being able to apply Restrained, as easy to remove as it is, with a bonus action is very solid, possibly 2nd level spell solid even.