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I'm not debating MonsterEnvy's specific numbers at all, but just to keep the design discussion going, a Champion's damage would have be a A LOT stronger than the baseline, to make up for the fact that you can't control where it goes/when it happens, to account for overkill, to account for the low number of swings per combat, and to account for how people might or might not obey encounter pacing rules. Basically, even if the Champion theoretically dealt more "average damage", it's still likely to be behind in practical terms from the Battlemaster getting more Short Rests than they should, from critting things that were going to die anyway, and from not being able to swing often enough for an average to really form. You would almost have to set it to a level that feels intuitively too high to be right.
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Oct 20, 2018 12:06
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gradenko_2000 posted:...a Champion's damage would have be a A LOT stronger than the baseline, to make up for the fact that you can't control where it goes/when it happens, to account for overkill, to account for the low number of swings per combat, and to account for how people might or might not obey encounter pacing rules. This is what I was working towards, with a focus on the "consistent" thing. The first-glance makes-sense damage numbers are way too low, and the miss chances way too high, and the average combat way too short for Champion-type abilities to ever do "consistently" higher damage without the actual damage numbers looking crazy high.
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Oct 20, 2018 12:13
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The Champion’s improved critical hit range goes well with the Half-Orc’s Savage Attacks feature as well as the bonus attack from the Great Weapon Master feat. And it’s “always on” not just 4 times per short rest. Personally I prefer the tactical choices of BM but Champion is a great choice if you don’t want to think too much.
nelson fucked around with this message at 14:51 on Oct 20, 2018 |
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Oct 20, 2018 14:32
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No no it isn't. The Champion is terrible at what it is supposed to do. I have played Champions before and I have pretty much never had the expanded crit range actually matter. I either roll a 20 or roll 18 or below. At least on attack rolls with a Champion. But even if I did roll 19s more often it wouldn't matter. The Champion would be better on a class like Rogue or Paladin that get extra damage dice, or the Barbarian which gets at will Advantage as early as 2nd level and eventually adds extra damage dice on a Crit. Yes getting 4 attacks, eventually, increases the odds of rolling a single crit in a round. The other classes would still benefit from Champion more. Now the Brute? That actually did a decent job of what the Champion was supposed to be, was it great? No, but it was better than Champion and much closer to the Battle Master numbers. That said it doesn't sound like we are going to get an official version of Brute, and instead are more likely to get the exact opposite, a daily based fighter archetype.
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Oct 20, 2018 15:09
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the Brute was unfortunately the victim of a Champion-type needing so much better numbers that it's going to look and sound wildly overpowered to anyone who's not taking a close look at the design
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Oct 20, 2018 15:28
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Ryuujin posted:The Champion would be better on a class like Rogue or Paladin that get extra damage dice, or the Barbarian which gets at will Advantage as early as 2nd level and eventually adds extra damage dice on a Crit. Toplowtech fucked around with this message at 15:33 on Oct 20, 2018 |
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Oct 20, 2018 15:29
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Adamantine only gives critical hits against objects, not creatures.
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Oct 20, 2018 15:35
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The Champion (and Brute and whatever) are interesting rhetorical devices/measuring sticks but never should have been included in the game and are not worth salvaging. If the Champion actually did good enough damage that it was tempting to play one for damage optimization purposes that would probably be worse than the situation we have now.
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Oct 20, 2018 15:40
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I don't know why the Champion needs to exist. It's the same autoattack fighter that has literally never worked in any edition of D&D, it's boring to play, and it's obviously the noob trap fighter for people who think that tracking superiority dice is too hard or something. It seems to be a callback to those early articles about opt-in complexity that never materialized because it's difficult and rulings not rules. There is no good way to balance bigger numbers against abilities really, either your numbers are big enough that the abilities are garbage or having the abilities makes you better enough that numbers are a suckers game.
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Oct 20, 2018 15:42
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TheGreatEvilKing posted:I don't know why the Champion needs to exist. It's the same autoattack fighter that has literally never worked in any edition of D&D, it's boring to play, and it's obviously the noob trap fighter for people who think that tracking superiority dice is too hard or something. It seems to be a callback to those early articles about opt-in complexity that never materialized because it's difficult and rulings not rules. An honest to god literal outgrowth of the "There needs to be a class your little brother can play" thing. Which is a trope that somehow exists only around D&D. Even the other big old dinosaur games never bother with this one, because they rightly recognized it as some weirdly phrased narcissism from old grogs. You never see the "Punches and punches alone man" in Shadowrun. I mean, you can build one, but you have to know how to use all the tools everyone else is using to do it. It's probably also got a touch of Mearls being regressive about old school fighters in it. Would certainly fit the progression from Essentials.
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Oct 20, 2018 16:02
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I've played games with people where they 100% didn't really get things like character creation, the math behind characters, or remember anything about their character sheet. They would, on their own, usually find some way of either being extremely creative in combat, or narrow down what they did to 1 or 2 extremely simple decisions. They didn't play optimally, but really didn't do worse than if they used a Simple Character. And, if you're pretty good at making Good Characters, all you really need to do is support them and cheer like hell when they succeed. Give'm a paladin, make sure they understand smite, go nuts in game when they get a crit, tell NPCs that this guy is super badass. Everyone has a good time!
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Oct 20, 2018 16:12
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nelson posted:The Champion’s improved critical hit range goes well with the Half-Orc’s Savage Attacks feature as well as the bonus attack from the Great Weapon Master feat. And it’s “always on” not just 4 times per short rest. Personally I prefer the tactical choices of BM but Champion is a great choice if you don’t want to think too much. Barbarian does it better. Champion's niche is, at most, a 3-level dip for other classes.
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Oct 20, 2018 16:37
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The only way I can think of to have two different melee flavors of the same class is to give the battlemaster and champion identical abilities but have the champion just get a flat +1 damage/level to each attack, and the battlemaster get +1 to hit on each maneuever And even that would have absolutely horrible balancing issues. Trying to balance such a tiny niche while also being a balanced member of a group is really tough. Why would you want to be super good vs mooks when a fireball can clear them with ease, especially when your alternative is being able to burst down a boss in two rounds by yourself? Edit: greatevilkings second paragraph hits this exact same point mastershakeman fucked around with this message at 16:42 on Oct 20, 2018 |
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Oct 20, 2018 16:39
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A "Not think too much" class is in itself, not an issue, but it's also real bad at what it actually doing damage and killing things. A battlemaster outdamages a champion easily, and their "Jack of all trades, but bad" ability is just  The other problem is there's no way to elegantly segue out of not thinking too much. The warlock is a great not think too much class. Grab a familiar, grab Agonizing Blast, take some generic spells (that scale automatically! No thinking about it!), just roll to attack every turn. But later when you get a better handle on things you can start swapping out for fiddlier invocations that do more interesting things. Do weirder stuff with your familiar. Grab more exotic spells. Or you can just keep rolling EB every turn, it's all good. If you're a champion fighter and decide hey, I'd like to maybe participate in the rest of the game, well, tough poo poo. You either completely rebuild your character or suck it up as Mr Combat (but boring and bad at it) forever.
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Oct 20, 2018 16:42
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mastershakeman posted:The only way I can think of to have two different melee flavors of the same class is to give the battlemaster and champion identical abilities but have the champion just get a flat +1 damage/level to each attack, and the battlemaster get +1 to hit on each maneuever Give them different out of combat benefits. The lantern-jawed Champion gets +cha to damage and hp and gets training in two social skills. The grizzled old Battlemaster gets +wis to damage and two bonus wisdom skills. The learned Eldritch Knight gets +int to damage and initiative and training in Arcana +one other Int skill. Also unfuck ability scores so putting points into these is actually possible.
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Oct 20, 2018 16:48
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Splicer posted:Give them both maneuvers, but give them different maneuver lists and built in maneuvers. Champion and only Champion gets Precise Strike. Battlemaster gets an actually good version of Commanders Strike. Eldritch Knight gets to crunch maneuver dice into spell slots and vice versa. Ability scores are fine, I don't know what you're complaining about! *only plays Half-elf Charisma-based classes*
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Oct 20, 2018 17:06
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Splicer posted:Give them both maneuvers, but give them different maneuver lists and built in maneuvers. Champion and only Champion gets Precise Strike. Battlemaster gets an actually good version of Commanders Strike. Eldritch Knight gets to crunch maneuver dice into spell slots and vice versa.  That's the good stuff.
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Oct 20, 2018 17:32
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the funny thing is that the whole "simple class to play" arguably didn't quite exist before: even if you were playing a 3e Fighter, you still had to figure out things like avoiding trap options, taking Power Attack, Shock Trooper, Robilar's Gambit, maybe begging your DM to give you access to Pounce, and picking the right items. And sure, that all just boils down to letting you hit like a mack truck, but you still needed some level of system mastery to get there
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Oct 20, 2018 17:56
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Does danger sense literally allow a barbarian to sense danger or is it purely something that affects saving throws? Because I DM'd my first session recently and there's 2 barbarians in the party who are basically using it as a spidey sense at all times. It's making it a little annoying to set up encounters because they both just ask "do I sense danger" literally every time they walk into a new area.
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Oct 20, 2018 18:04
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Fresh Shesh Besh posted:Does danger sense literally allow a barbarian to sense danger or is it purely something that affects saving throws? Because I DM'd my first session recently and there's 2 barbarians in the party who are basically using it as a spidey sense at all times. It's making it a little annoying to set up encounters because they both just ask "do I sense danger" literally every time they walk into a new area. It's just for saving throws.
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Oct 20, 2018 18:06
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Fresh Shesh Besh posted:Does danger sense literally allow a barbarian to sense danger or is it purely something that affects saving throws? Because I DM'd my first session recently and there's 2 barbarians in the party who are basically using it as a spidey sense at all times. It's making it a little annoying to set up encounters because they both just ask "do I sense danger" literally every time they walk into a new area. By the rules, it only applies to things that cause a Dexterity Saving Throw, and only if the character can see (or is aware of? I forget the exact rule) the cause of the saving throw. Spidey Sense, explicitly, is not part of it. Edit: Sensing Danger the way those players want to would be a Perception roll, if anything.
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Oct 20, 2018 18:07
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gradenko_2000 posted:the funny thing is that the whole "simple class to play" arguably didn't quite exist before: even if you were playing a 3e Fighter, you still had to figure out things like avoiding trap options, taking Power Attack, Shock Trooper, Robilar's Gambit, maybe begging your DM to give you access to Pounce, and picking the right items. Go back to AD&D and Fighter makes basically no choices whatsoever, and I think that's what Mearls thinks fondly of. There weren't even kits or dart specialization. You just used whatever weapon was the most magical and rolled a D20. Plus all that stuff you're saying here about 3.5 charop was never intended by the designers. I mean, 3.x is still an era where the designers thought strength was the most heavily weighted stat so the half-orc had to take two penalty stats to get it. Players learning to cobble together little jenga towers of magazine feats to stay competitive was just hobos figuring out how to make mulligan stew.
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Oct 20, 2018 18:20
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AlphaDog posted:You didn't mention resources, but if you were to extend the scenario out over the BM's refresh, how does that work out? In short, when you're talking about burst vs consistent, who does more damage in total over a short rest? Over a long rest? Sorry about that. I just assumed you would know there would be resources. Because if there is not, there there is not reason not to burst at all times. Will try to fix the than and then thing. gradenko_2000 posted:/when it happens, to account for overkill. For this I would like it if the Champion had a stronger version of the cleave rules from the DMG always on. Which is pretty much that if you kill something any leftover damage goes into a nearby enemy, if the attack would have hit them. The DMG version is limited by the fact, that both the target of the initial attack and whoever you cleave into, have to be undamaged. MonsterEnvy fucked around with this message at 18:27 on Oct 20, 2018 |
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Oct 20, 2018 18:22
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Toshimo posted:It's just for saving throws. Admiral Joeslop posted:By the rules, it only applies to things that cause a Dexterity Saving Throw, and only if the character can see (or is aware of? I forget the exact rule) the cause of the saving throw. Well then I won't feel bad when I clamp down on this for our next session. It really killed any tension or mystery I was trying to create. Both of them have been playing D&D a lot longer than I have so I just kinda took their word for it.
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Oct 20, 2018 18:40
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theironjef posted:An honest to god literal outgrowth of the "There needs to be a class your little brother can play" thing. Which is a trope that somehow exists only around D&D. Even the other big old dinosaur games never bother with this one, because they rightly recognized it as some weirdly phrased narcissism from old grogs. You never see the "Punches and punches alone man" in Shadowrun. I mean, you can build one, but you have to know how to use all the tools everyone else is using to do it. The "Little Brother" argument also falls apart pretty quickly because, in my mind at least, if you're building a class designed to ease inexperienced players into the game that same class should probably get more mechanically complex as they level up and progress through the game. Having a character whose only option for the entirety of their career is "I attack" isn't easy your hypothetical little brother into the game, it's giving Little Timmy a rubber ball and telling him to go bounce it in the corner while the big kids do things. Beyond that, if you take away the Champion, 5e already has another class with a low baseline of mechanically complex: It's called The Barbarian*. The only difference is that they have the one extra option of "I go into a rage" and I somehow don't think Little Timmy's little brain is going to be overloaded if you also introduce that mechanic to him. * - Fix Berserkers, Crawford!
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Oct 20, 2018 18:40
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The HP numbers in 5th ed are too "small" overall, particularly in early combats for a mechanic I wish was in more games to be A Thing for Champ fighters. "If you hit a monster but don't quite kill them, gently caress it they only have *STR MOD* HP left, they still die." But this would make you a loving monster in low level and then essentially never happen ever again once the campaign gets rolling. But I do know that overall I am incredibly  any time I'm playing a tabletop or video game, and your big attacks merely almost but not quite kill poo poo. "Let's action surge and flatten this prone ogre with a maul 4 times... Oh he's got 4 HP left" "Aw yeah, double tap to the dome with a sniper rifle-oh the slightly above trash enemy still has a sliver of health left." "Eat leaping demon axe, rear end in a top hat-oh the beast skeleton had a sliver of health". Even if a follow up attack to finish the job is a guaranteed safe bet, that still gets old.That new Fist of the North star game on that note will just give you "Eh, close enough" if you do a secret technique. Right as Kenshiro is shouting his attack name it turns out random mowhawk dude still has 1/20th of a health bar. The game just says "Eh, close enough" and they die unless you're fighting stuff notably above your level trash or properly tough enemies. Section Z fucked around with this message at 18:55 on Oct 20, 2018 |
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Oct 20, 2018 18:48
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I don't know if this has been discussed, but I'm reading the Eberron magic items UA, and the optional two-handed arcane focus rule for cantrips made me think. If I grab Eldritch blast, increase the range to 300 ft. with eldrich spear and use a two-handed staff, would that give EB an effective range of 450 ft.?
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Oct 20, 2018 20:08
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Psychedelicatessen posted:I don't know if this has been discussed, but I'm reading the Eberron magic items UA, and the optional two-handed arcane focus rule for cantrips made me think. If I grab Eldritch blast, increase the range to 300 ft. with eldrich spear and use a two-handed staff, would that give EB an effective range of 450 ft.? Probably, though "effective" is a misnomer for that kind of range in this game.
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Oct 20, 2018 20:33
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Admiral Joeslop posted:Probably, though "effective" is a misnomer for that kind of range in this game. According to the PHB, EB doesn't have the same long range disadvantage as a normal ranged weapon. It still has to deal with half & 3/4th cover, unless you add the Spell sniper feat, which also doubles the range of all spells with an attack roll. This would give EB a 900 ft. range. Multiclass in to a SorLock and you can use the Distant spell metamagic and double that range to 1800 ft. This is just a weird, little thought experiment, I know that any sane DM wouldn't allow a warlock to spell snipe from a quarter mile away with no disadvantages.
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Oct 20, 2018 21:05
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Psychedelicatessen posted:According to the PHB, EB doesn't have the same long range disadvantage as a normal ranged weapon. It still has to deal with half & 3/4th cover, unless you add the Spell sniper feat, which also doubles the range of all spells with an attack roll. This would give EB a 900 ft. range. Well one reason it would not work is that you normally have to see your target.
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Oct 20, 2018 21:06
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Psychedelicatessen posted:According to the PHB, EB doesn't have the same long range disadvantage as a normal ranged weapon. It still has to deal with half & 3/4th cover, unless you add the Spell sniper feat, which also doubles the range of all spells with an attack roll. This would give EB a 900 ft. range. Oh yeah. It's cool, in theory, to have an 1800' range on an attack. It's just not something that will ever matter in game more than maybe a couple times.
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Oct 20, 2018 21:10
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MonsterEnvy posted:Sorry about that. I just assumed you would know there would be resources. Because if there is not, there there is not reason not to burst at all times. There are more ways to include burst damage than to make it cost resources.
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Oct 20, 2018 23:00
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AlphaDog posted:There are more ways to include burst damage than to make it cost resources. I mean, implicitly, it kind of does, because if your burst damage is available all the time, then it's not burst and just damage; burst implies it's somehow greater than your personal "baseline" damage, however you want to define that. The only exception I can think of is crits, but I'm not sure if that's something you should take into account as a part of your typical baseline performance. Honestly, I don't think it's unreasonable to just forget that Champion exists as an archetype and give its abilities to every fighter for free.
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Oct 20, 2018 23:14
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Potential sources of burst damage: -Whenever a creature (friend or enemy) within 5' of the Fighter is bloodied, the Fighter can make a free attack. -Whenever the Fighter kills an enemy, they can move up to half their speed and make a free attack against a creature. -Whenever the Fighter provokes an opportunity attack for moving out of a threatened square, the Fighter can perform an attack against that creature as a free action. -Whenever the Fighter makes an attack against a creature within 5', they can make it with Disadvantage. If they do, another ally within 5' can make a free melee attack against that same creature with Advantage. I'm not a game designer by any means but these seem like the type of thing a Champion would do in combat; not as nuanced or tactical as the Battlemaster but leads to extra damage without spending resources.
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Oct 20, 2018 23:58
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lightrook posted:
It's not super elegant but I could see that working, I was thinking of giving this a try in an upcoming game.
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Oct 20, 2018 23:59
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Admiral Joeslop posted:-Whenever the Fighter kills an enemy, they can move up to half their speed and make a free attack against a creature. On those two abilities. The first is actually kind of in the game already, as an ability granted by Great Weapon Master. Though it costs a bonus action instead. The second ability I would imagine more as a Battlemaster or Baneret ability. As the image of Champion I have is more self reliant and focused on themselves in combat. Rather then giving their allies extra attacks and such.
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Oct 21, 2018 00:07
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MonsterEnvy posted:On those two abilities. The first is actually kind of in the game already, as an ability granted by Great Weapon Master. Though it costs a bonus action instead.
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Oct 21, 2018 00:44
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Trying to balance burst damage vs. average damage is dumb, because the burst damagers will just use all of their resources and then insist on resting, while the average damagers end up being worse, except for the few times that rests get interrupted and the resource-depleted characters get to groan through a meatgrinder encounter with no useful abilities. Champion vs. Battlemaster should be Bigger Numbers (Champion) vs. Normal Numbers plus Special Effects (Battlemaster). The fact that the superiority dice end up turning the special effects into burst damage is the bad design, on top of the superiority dice being too far between. If the Champion's niche is going all day, he should have higher AC, better saves, more HP/free healing, hit more, and do more at-will damage than the characters who have short rest/long rest resources that will do more than the Champion's at-wills. Then it's actually a meaningful choice in the party's ability balance.
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Oct 21, 2018 00:53
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Infinite Karma posted:Trying to balance burst damage vs. average damage is dumb, because the burst damagers will just use all of their resources and then insist on resting, while the average damagers end up being worse, except for the few times that rests get interrupted and the resource-depleted characters get to groan through a meatgrinder encounter with no useful abilities. I used to do this when I ran 4e, because constant rests made no sense for the story. I think I also tried per session, which is nice if you want your players to use abilities more.
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Oct 21, 2018 01:24
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lightrook posted:I mean, implicitly, it kind of does, because if your burst damage is available all the time, then it's not burst and just damage; burst implies it's somehow greater than your personal "baseline" damage, however you want to define that. The only exception I can think of is crits, but I'm not sure if that's something you should take into account as a part of your typical baseline performance. The very simplest example of an ability that switches you from consistent to bursty without using resources is one that trades +hit for +damage. Another would be trading +hit for +critrange. Then there are things that consume no resources but require a setup. Sneak Attack is one example. There's a bunch of stuff you can do with situational and positioning triggers too (eg, "when you become bloodied..."). Then there's weirdo crap like "You take a -1 to hit, and an additional -1 to hit each round. When you do hit, calculate your damage X times where X is the number of times you missed before hitting" you could write if you wanted to.
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Oct 21, 2018 01:48
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