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View Full Version : D&D 5e/Next Fighter Reworks (Second Wind, Desperation Moves, Champion as The Fast Guy)



Lord Von Becker
2018-12-25, 05:42 PM
I had posted these with my Two-Weapon-Fighting rework (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?577321-Two-Weapon-Fighting-Weapon-Upgrades-Poison-and-a-Paladin-Fea), but the supplements to that wound up bloating a lot further than I'd expected, so I split it off. (Actually, I split this off, then realized that it was actually what most of the existing thread commentary was about. :smallredface: So I swapped them.)
Here they are; feedback would be much appreciated.

Second Wind (Reworked level 1 feature)
While in battle, you may take an action to concentrate on steeling your resolve. (This follows the same rules as concentrating on a spell (https://www.dndbeyond.com/compendium/rules/basic-rules/spellcasting#Concentration), but isn't necessarily supernatural.)
If you are still in battle at the beginning of your next turn, and you have maintained your concentration, you regain a number of hit points equal to your fighter level times 10 (discarding any extra).

After regaining hitpoints with this feature, you can’t use it again until you’ve completed a short or long rest.

Commentary: I really like the 'interrupt this guy before he does something really powerful' dynamic, and I enjoyed the 'leaning on the sword to rest' imagery in the final boss of Teslagrad. So I combined them. It's gone through several reworks - psuedo-hit-dice for healing, psuedo-hit-dice as five-minute temporary HP, and finally this; a risky go at full heal. I like the idea, at least.

Action Surge (Reworked level 2 feature)
You may take a second action on your turn. If you use this feature again before taking a short or a long rest, you gain three levels of exhaustion at the end of your turn. You take these exhaustion levels even if you would normally be immune to the condition.

Starting at 17th level, you may use this feature twice between rests without gaining Exhaustion. You still can't use it more than once per turn.

Commentary: Hey, a way to nearly kill yourself doing something cool! I don't think the base game has enough desperation moves.

Indomitable (Reworked level 9 feature)
As a free action, you may end one condition which applies to you and become immune to that condition for a minute. This feature may not remove more than one level of Exhaustion per day, but it may suppress any number of Exhaustion levels for its duration.
After using this feature, you can't use this feature again until you finish a long rest.

Starting at 13th level, you regain use of this feature after a short rest.

Commentary: I've checked the 0HP rules, and using this to stave off unconsciousness is both really cool and not at all gamebreaking - you'd still need to make death saves, but you could actually do something about it.

Extra Attack (Reworked capstone progression, replacing third Indomitable)
Beginning at 17th level, you can attack four times when you take the attack action.

Commentary: I don't know why they made it the capstone rather than the Tier 4 feature, but this should leave some room for multiclass shenanigans without making Fighter 20 boring. It scales with cantrips now, anyway.

And, of course, here's my attempt at fixing the Champion subclass. (If you don't know why the Champion needs a rework, it's because the class appears to have been built to interact with rules which no longer exist, and hence behaves very strangely in the modern system. It also has quite a lot of weird, unique, refer-to-other-rules bookkeeping for the archetype which is supposed to be a low-crunch introductory class.)

Martial Mastery (New Level 20 capstone)
At 20th level, you know your limits inside and out. Your uses of Second Wind, Action Surge, and Indomitable features become interchangeable, and you may gain another use by pushing yourself, taking two levels of exhaustion at the end of your turn.

Kind of a spur-of-the-moment design that came with the latest revision, but I kind of like it. It fits the Fighter being the combat nerd, and it makes your situational abilities much more reliable. You can nova, you can heal, you can power through stuff. I doubt it's more broken than the Cleric, at least.

These were considered for extra Level 3 Champion Features. I wanted something that incentivized dueling and played well with Improved Criticals, but these aren't there yet. Maybe something to maximize all damage dice? (Update: I had a better idea.)

Combat Rhythm
You know how to batter through defenses. If you have attacked an opponent since the beginning of your last turn, you gain a +5 bonus to attack rolls against them.

Power Strike
Through deft maneuvering or simple overwhelming force, you deal a vicious blow. Make a single weapon attack as an action. It deals an additional 2 damage.
The additional damage increases to 4d6 at 5th level, and increases by another 4d6 at 11th level (8d6) and 17th level (12d6).
If the attack is a critical hit, maximize all damage dice.

After some feedback downthread, and a glance at the canonical Extraordinary Athlete feature, I realized that the Champion makes a lot of sense as the Strongman Monk.
So I came up with these.

Juggernaut (replaces Improved Critical)
Your speed increases by 10 feet, and increases by another 10 feet at 9th and 17th levels.
Whenever you take at least 40 feet of movement, you gain advantage on your next attack roll. Whenever you defeat an opponent, you gain advantage on your next attack roll.
Advantage granted by this feature expires at the beginning of your next turn.

Commentary: Monk speed, but for Fighters. Feel like a big mean American Football player! (Or a little jerk who runs with knives, but you already had options for that.)
The second part has grown a bit since I first built this. It still works out a little better for bow-strafing than for melee, but a bit less than it did - and the bow/maul choice for fighters is already a striker/tank choice, anyway.

Extraordinary Athlete (replaces Remarkable Athlete)
You gain climb and swim speeds equal to your walking speed, and you count as one size larger for purposes of grappling, carrying capacity, and ability to push, drag, or lift things.
When a creature provokes an opportunity attack from you, you may attempt to grapple them instead.

Commentary: Big Bad Jock intensifies. But Obnoxious Little Goblin still makes sense.

Swath of Destruction (replaces Extra Fighting Style, which I may go turn into a Feat)
When you take the Dash action, you gain the following benefits until your next turn:
*You cannot provoke opportunity attacks by moving.
*You may make one weapon attack against every opponent who enters or exits your reach due to your own movement, as part of your Dash. If an opponent attacked this way is Large or bigger, you may attack it once more for each size it is above Medium.

Commentary: I started off with Great Cleave, remembered that hordes work better as swarm creatures (http://javascript<strong></strong>:void(0)), and wound up adding the so-iconic-I've-actually-seen-it dragonslaying scene from Metal Gear Rising. The 'exits reach' bit is so it you can run through a crowd and fire ranged attacks behind you, if that wasn't clear. There might be a better way to implement that, though.

Incisive Critical (replaces Devastating Critical)
You may make a single weapon attack as an action. It is a guaranteed critical hit.

Commentary: While this does a bit less damage than four attacks if you assume peer AC, it should remain relevant against Wizards and very-high-AC monsters, and combines well with multiclassing.

Survivor (https://www.dndbeyond.com/characters/classes/fighter#Champion)... is tricky. It's a decent capstone, cool and scary and powerful while not completely overpowered. But it doesn't fit the theme I have going here, which is speed and mobility and unreasonable skill. I don't have a good substitute as yet, but I'll think on it.
Current prototype:

Devastating Speed (replaces Survivor)
If you are surprised at the beginning of combat, you roll initiative and take your turn during the surprise round.
If you are not surprised when combat begins, you get a special surprise round. No other characters may act during this surprise round, unless they have this feature or a similar one.

Commentary: Very flavorful, very powerful. Fits the same approximate niche as Survivor in that it increases endurance, but it's more relevant in boss fights, reduces bookkeeping, and meshes better with the rest of the class.

Dragons_Ire
2018-12-25, 10:33 PM
Hey! I have a whole bunch of Fighter reworks, a TWF rework, and a Feat to make sure paladins have a competitive option for DPS-optimizing which is more on-theme than dual wielding. Feedback much appreciated!

Two-Weapon Fighting (Base Rule)
If you are holding a Light weapon in each hand, then immediately after making an attack with one of them, you may take a bonus action to attack with the other. Do not add your base ability modifier to the damage of this second attack.
(To be very clear, this applies to Strength, Dexterity, and things like shillelagh which substitute a casting stat for them, but not to things like Aura of Hatred or Lifedrinker.)
If you have the Extra Attack feature, you may attack as many times with this bonus action as you could with a regular one, but you still don’t add your ability modifier to the damage.
If you have the Action Surge feature, then on any turn you use it to take two attack actions, you may make a second (set of) bonus attack(s) as a free action.

Dual Wielding (Replaces the Fighting Style confusingly called Two-Weapon Fighting)
You may treat any one-handed weapon as a Light weapon. Light Crossbows count as one-handed weapons for you, and you may choose to treat a Quartertaff as two weapons instead of having the Versatile property.

Commentary: I'm not the only one to have come up with this fix (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22980216&postcount=5), but I did come up with it independently. It very slightly outdamages Great Weapon Fighting - an average of 2/3 of an HP per attack - but it does lock up the bonus action.

Two Weapon Mastery (Replaces the Feat I can't see because I don't have PHB access right now)
You can draw and/or drop as many weapons in as you can make attacks one action.
You gain the following benefits when you are holding a Light weapon in each hand:
*When you miss an opponent with a melee weapon attack, you have Advantage on your next attack roll against them. If you haven’t attacked them by the end of your next turn, this Advantage expires.
*You may spend a bonus action to enter a defensive stance until your next turn. While in the defensive stance you have +1 AC, and if an opponent misses you with a melee attack, you may use your reaction to make a single melee attack against them.

Commentary: This is a really good trick for Rogues, as it should be. The idea of enabling ripostes came from this post by Lalliman (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22985928&postcount=9), but its implementation is my own.

Onto the Fighter changes!

Second Wind (Reworked level 1 feature)
You may take an action to concentrate on recovering. If your concentration hasn’t been interrupted by the beginning of your next turn, you may roll a number of d10 equal to your fighter level and regain HP equal to the result.
After successfully recovering health with this feature, you can’t use it again until you’ve completed a short or long rest.

Starting at 20th level, you can use this twice between rests.

Commentary: I really like the 'interrupt this guy before he does something really powerful' dynamic, and I enjoyed the 'leaning on the sword to rest' imagery in the final boss of Teslagrad. So I combined them.

Action Surge (Reworked level 2 feature)
You may take a second action on your turn. At the end of each turn that you do so, you take two levels of exhaustion. You take this exhaustion even if you would normally be immune to the condition.

Tireless Fighter (New level 2 feature)
Fatigue doesn’t affect you as easily. When one or more ‘Exhausted’ conditions are applied to you, reduce their total effective level by two. If this would bring your effective Exhaustion level to zero or less, you suffer no penalties and remove them entirely at the end of your next short or long rest.

Commentary: Hey, a way to nearly kill yourself doing something cool! I don't think the base game has enough desperation moves.

Moment of Rest (New level 5 feature)
When you recover health with your Second Wind feature, you may also recover one level of Exhaustion. At 17th level, you may recover up to two levels.

Commentary: Makes your desperation move slightly less costly. I might wind up tweaking this some more, depending on how it works out in actual play.

Indomitable (Reworked level 9 feature)
As a free action, you may end one condition which applies to you and become immune to that condition for a minute. You can’t use this feature again until you finish a long rest.

Starting at 13th level, you regain use of this feature after a short rest.

Commentary: I've checked the 0HP rules, and using this to stave off unconsciousness is both really cool and not at all gamebreaking.

Extra Attack (Reworked capstone progression, replacing third Indomitable)
Beginning at 17th level, you can attack four times when you take the attack action.

Commentary: I don't know why they made it the capstone rather than the Tier 4 feature, but this should leave some room for multiclass shenanigans without making Fighter 20 boring.


These were considered for extra Level 3 Champion Features. I wanted something that incentivized dueling and played well with Improved Criticals, but these aren't there yet. Maybe something to maximize all damage dice?

Combat Rhythm
You know how to batter through defenses. If you have attacked an opponent since the beginning of your last turn, you gain a +5 bonus to attack rolls against them.

Power Strike
Through deft maneuvering or simple overwhelming force, you deal a vicious blow. Make a single weapon attack as an action. It deals an additional 2 damage.
The additional damage increases to 4d6 at 5th level, and increases by another 4d6 at 11th level (8d6) and 17th level (12d6).
If the attack is a critical hit, maximize all damage dice.

Soulfire (New Feat)
Prerequisite: Divine Smite feature
As a bonus action you may wrap a weapon you are holding in spiritual flames. If the weapon uses ammunition, the flames spread to it as it is loaded.
The flames last for one round and shed bright light for five feet and dim light for another five feet.
When make an attack with a weapon wrapped in these flames, it deals an additional amount of fire damage equal to to your Charisma modifier (minimum 1) on hit, and counts as two melee weapon attacks for purposes of your Divine Smite feature.

Commentary: I like both the fluff and the crunch here. Also, paladin archers and slingmen! Very biblical aesthetic.

Love the two-weapon fix.

Love the second wind change.

I personally dislike the action surge change. I'm not really a fan of class features involving exhaustion in general.

Not a fan of the Indomitable change. Seems really strong, especially considering how it would stack with similar features (Half-orc, Samurai's Strength Before Death feature).

I like the idea of allowing a fighter to get their 4th attack at 17th, where casters get 9th level spells. I'd have to do some math to see if that's overly abusable.


With one caveat, I'm a HUGE fan of the feat for paladin, it's AWESOME! I've always wanted paladins to be able to be archers. As a feat it seems balanced, especially since you'd need a fighter/ranger dip to get the archery fighting style. The one caveat is that I'd remove the ability to 'count as two melee weapon attacks' to prevent 2 smites on one attack - that increases the already ridiculous ability of a paladin to nova.

Lord Von Becker
2018-12-26, 01:56 AM
Okay, the reason for the double-smite thing is because with my TWF fix, a Paladin who wants to go nova can get four attacks per turn just by grabbing two scimitars, and that's pretty far off-theme for them. Also because I don't love that their best option for nova right now is Polearm Master.

This looks interesting. I think most of the stuff is okay balance-wise, but don't take my word for it.
That's basically my opinion of it. :smallwink:


1. The whole thing with indomitable being able to stave off unconsciousness could end up pretty weird. I dropped to 0 hp, but I can't fall unconscious. So, I'm conscious at 0 hp. ??? You might want to just explicitly say that you can use this to regain 1 hp as well. This should probably require your full action to do this specific thing though.
You are conscious at 0 HP, but you aren't stable. You can be killed if you fail three death saves. I should maybe clarify that.

2. This version of second wind looks extremely overpowered. FIghters already have proficiency in Con saves. Also, a battlemaster with frightening attack against only one opponent lose enough to hit him basically guarantees this and even then, the healing is insanely high. Fighter hit dice are also d10's, so once per short rest, if you use this after a combat, you can, on average, heal heal almost half of your hit points. Or, put it this way: A 5th level fighter with +3 Con has 49 hit points. After a tough battle, just use this feature, recover on average 27.5 hp (over half of your hp) and then take a short rest to recover this ability and spend hit dice. I just think that you might be neglecting the out-of-combat usage of this feature.
I actually did consider it, but decided it probably wasn't an issue. Fighters get a load of ASIs so maxing CON will be pretty common, which would make it closer to a third of their HP per short rest. It's hard to say more without playtesting, but it's a really cool image and it's not obviously better than Rage, so I'm hoping it's reasonable.

All in all though, this looks cool. I've tried to rework the fighter as well and it always intrigues me to see what other people come up with.

Thanks! I do the same.

Love the two-weapon fix.

Love the second wind change.
Glad to hear it. I'm proud of them. :smallsmile:

I personally dislike the action surge change. I'm not really a fan of class features involving exhaustion in general.
They are a bit janky, but I do like desperation moves. The Indomitable change might fill that niche enough, though.

Not a fan of the Indomitable change. Seems really strong, especially considering how it would stack with similar features (Half-orc, Samurai's Strength Before Death feature).
I only have the Basic Rules right now, so I can't evaluate the Samurai. The Half-Orc thing basically adds one more hit to your 'three hits and you die', but never recharges on short rest. Plus, like using Indomitable for immunity to Unconsciousness, it only comes up if you're losing.

...Honestly, my biggest issue with using it that way is that the Barbarian should also get to, and I haven't looked at the Barbarian hard enough to know how to balance that.

(It may help to know that I houserule saves as always adding your Proficiency bonus, and having Proficiency in them as granting advantage. RAW Indomitable is kind of boring in that context.)

I like the idea of allowing a fighter to get their 4th attack at 17th, where casters get 9th level spells. I'd have to do some math to see if that's overly abusable.
Compared to Agonizing Blast progression, it only makes sense. It does give enough room to grab Divine Smite, though, and if you go Eldritch Knight you get the slots to power it. The nova is kind of insane - TWF or Soulfire or plus Action Surge means you can probably Smite at least eight times, twelve if you can get them under Fairy Fire or Hold Person, and they do double damage if you use the latter.
So I think I'm going to errata in a maximum number of smites per turn, though I'm not sure how many. Four sounds reasonable, but I could be talked up to six.

Lalliman
2018-12-26, 07:42 AM
I approve of the two-weapon fighting changes, naturally. Good call treating the quarterstaff as two weapons.

The mastery feat is a little odd though. The wording allows weird shenanigans like missing an attack, running away from your opponent with Cunning Action, then running back to him the next round and getting your attack at advantage. Both of these attacks can also be made with the same weapon (which you may have incentive to do if only one of them is magical, or if they have different damage types), thus undermining the intended fluff. I think it should be more restrictive, e.g. when you miss an opponent with a melee weapon attack and make another melee attack with a different weapon against the same target immediately after, that attack has advantage. May need easier phrasing.

The second benefit of the mastery feat is also really... inconsistent. It's excellent for rogues. It's situationally useful for other martials of levels 1-4, granting the AC bonus and slightly better damage at the risk of wasting your bonus action if there are no missed attacks that round. But it's crappy if you have Extra Attack, because you're sacrificing two attacks and your reaction to get +1 AC and a single stronger but unreliable attack. It may have its uses at level 5 and beyond, but it's the kind of thing that's so situational that you'd forget to use it even when the situation presents itself. Maybe add extra damage dice to the counterattack for every Extra Attack you have.

The new Second Wind is much cooler than the vanilla, but as others have said the out-of-combat benefit is both very powerful and thematically weird. Steeling yourself in the middle of a battle so you can keep fighting despite your injuries, sure. Doing the same after a battle to make your injuries almost entirely disappear? What are you, a paladin? I think there's a better way to do this. Maybe it grants temporary hit points that last until you take a short rest, but it can only be used when you're below half HP (to prevent stacking them on before the fight).

Action Surge, Tireless Fighter, and Moment of Rest. Maybe your experience is different, but I've never actually encountered exhaustion as an in-combat thing. Aside from a barbarian doing it to himself, I can't think of any creature or spell that inflicts it. Which means that the fighter's exhaustion-restoring features don't really make him better at fighting (aside from the interaction with Action Surge). What it does do is make him basically immune to hazardous weather, forced marches, and other such exhausting things. Given that at 5th level he regains three levels of exhaustion per short rest, no amount of those things will ever scratch him. Not only is this problematic for DMs who want to use those elements, but it's also silly that the fighter gets this and not the barbarian or ranger.

Generally, I don't really see the point in the exhaustion-restoring features. You could accomplish the core goal here a lot more easily: You can take one Action Surge per short rest, plus additional Action Surges at the cost of one level of exhaustion each.

Indomitable is fine, but you should add that it can't be applied to prone, grappled, and maybe restrained, since that just doesn't make sense. "You fool, you cannot trip me! My fighting spirit makes it physically impossible for my body to assume a horizontal position!"

Not sure what to say about the champion stuff. Combat Rhythm is absurd, for obvious reasons. Power Strike is fun but doesn't really make sense as a champion-exclusive feature. Why focus on duelling? While I appreciate the champion's existence as the deliberately simple class, I don't think making it forcibly more boring by disincentivizing them from doing anything else than repeatedly attacking the same target is the way to go.

Soulfire is thematically fun, but the double smite is absurd. I would never want that kind of swinginess in my games. I see the idea behind it now that dual-wielding allows more attacks than ever, but I'd be inclined to swing the other way and limit the paladin's nova potential. I strongly believe that excessive firepower is unfun for everyone involved, even if the player doesn't realise it.


So I think I'm going to errata in a maximum number of smites per turn, though I'm not sure how many. Four sounds reasonable, but I could be talked up to six.
Proficiency bonus could work. But frankly if you don't want dual-wielding to be the best offensive option, limiting it to 2 would be the way to go. It's the amount of attacks a normal paladin gets, so you won't even notice it unless you go out of your way to smite-spam. And if you do, the extra attacks still make you more likely to reach those two smites in the first place.

Dragons_Ire
2018-12-26, 10:03 AM
Okay, the reason for the double-smite thing is because with my TWF fix, a Paladin who wants to go nova can get four attacks per turn just by grabbing two scimitars, and that's pretty far off-theme for them. Also because I don't love that their best option for nova right now is Polearm Master.


Ah, okay. I recommend limiting Divine Smite to 2 smites per turn, then. That seems to handle pretty much all of the potential abuse.



You are conscious at 0 HP, but you aren't stable. You can be killed if you fail three death saves. I should maybe clarify that.

Okay, makes sense. I would definitely clarify, maybe specify 2 or 3 conditions instead of leaving it open ended?



I actually did consider it, but decided it probably wasn't an issue. Fighters get a load of ASIs so maxing CON will be pretty common, which would make it closer to a third of their HP per short rest. It's hard to say more without playtesting, but it's a really cool image and it's not obviously better than Rage, so I'm hoping it's reasonable.

Oh, didn't think about using it out of combat. I like Lalliman's solution of making it temp HP, and requiring you to be at less than half of your HP.



They are a bit janky, but I do like desperation moves. The Indomitable change might fill that niche enough, though.

Yeah, it's just a difference in taste, I think.



I only have the Basic Rules right now, so I can't evaluate the Samurai. The Half-Orc thing basically adds one more hit to your 'three hits and you die', but never recharges on short rest. Plus, like using Indomitable for immunity to Unconsciousness, it only comes up if you're losing.

True. The samurai ability is basically 1/long rest, you get a special interrupt turn if you are reduced to 0. Not quite the same, but I thought the interaction would be weird.



(It may help to know that I houserule saves as always adding your Proficiency bonus, and having Proficiency in them as granting advantage. RAW Indomitable is kind of boring in that context.)

Yeah, that definitely changes things. In that context it makes more sense, but I think Indomitable is still a decent feature.



Compared to Agonizing Blast progression, it only makes sense. It does give enough room to grab Divine Smite, though, and if you go Eldritch Knight you get the slots to power it. The nova is kind of insane - TWF or Soulfire or plus Action Surge means you can probably Smite at least eight times, twelve if you can get them under Fairy Fire first, and they do double damage if you manage Hold Person too.
So I think I'm going to errata in a maximum number of smites per turn, though I'm not sure how many. Four sounds reasonable, but I could be talked up to six.Can you be talked down to 2? I don't like having another class be able to smite more times in a turn than a paladin who's not a specific build (TWF, or an archer using your feat). I think limiting to 2 smites/turn in general is better for limiting nova.

Lord Von Becker
2018-12-26, 03:32 PM
I approve of the two-weapon fighting changes, naturally. Good call treating the quarterstaff as two weapons.
Thanks, I'd been worrying about the quarterstaves. It had been kind of a spur-of-the-moment thing.

The mastery feat is a little odd though. The wording allows weird shenanigans like missing an attack, running away from your opponent with Cunning Action, then running back to him the next round and getting your attack at advantage.
True. Maybe key it off of leaving your target's reach? It needs not to interfere with the Twin Crossbows Man.
Maybe require the opponent to stay in reach? But that adds some conflict with Reaction use...
...Actually, you know what? That tactic just sounds like a more Rogue-flavored Charger. I'd leave it as-is.

Both of these attacks can also be made with the same weapon (which you may have incentive to do if only one of them is magical, or if they have different damage types), thus undermining the intended fluff. I think it should be more restrictive, e.g. when you miss an opponent with a melee weapon attack and make another melee attack with a different weapon against the same target immediately after, that attack has advantage. May need easier phrasing.
Actually, I think it suits the fluff just fine. Someone pointed out in another thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?576483-D-amp-D-5-5-Edition-(AKA-a-crazy-attempt-by-a-bunch-of-dreamers-to-fix-the-few-issues)) that giving a 'mainhand weapon counts as Light in melee' special rule to Daggers is a flavorful and balanced way to change them, and I wouldn't want dagger->miss->rapier->miss to force the next attack to be another dagger strike if they still want the Advantage.

The second benefit of the mastery feat is also really... inconsistent. It's excellent for rogues. It's situationally useful for other martials of levels 1-4, granting the AC bonus and slightly better damage at the risk of wasting your bonus action if there are no missed attacks that round. But it's crappy if you have Extra Attack, because you're sacrificing two attacks and your reaction to get +1 AC and a single stronger but unreliable attack. It may have its uses at level 5 and beyond, but it's the kind of thing that's so situational that you'd forget to use it even when the situation presents itself. Maybe add extra damage dice to the counterattack for every Extra Attack you have.
It was balanced around Polearm Master, and I was hoping the larger damage die would balance out the imperfect reliability of triggering it. But let's actually calculate it, shall we?
Default past level 5, at least for melee players, is two attacks at ~50% accuracy. (This isn't a great comparison, but it's the best I have.) So we can assume you get to attempt the riposte roughly three quarters of the time, multiply that by (1d8+[probably 5-ish], average of 9.5) and get an average of 7-and-one-eighth. Compare to (1d4+[probably also 5-ish], average 7-and-a-half), and it's very comparable, tipping back in favor of the riposte if the flat damage gets lower.
So is 1 AC worth being locked into one-handed weapons which you can't apply Dueling to, and a quarter of your bonus action attack? Probably not, even if it lets you trade your dagger attack for another rapier.
2 AC would mimic a Shield, and if that upgrades to 3AC if you also have Dual Wielder, it would mimic the Defensive style - a fair trade for the Fighter. Does that seem reasonable?

The new Second Wind is much cooler than the vanilla, but as others have said the out-of-combat benefit is both very powerful and thematically weird. Steeling yourself in the middle of a battle so you can keep fighting despite your injuries, sure. Doing the same after a battle to make your injuries almost entirely disappear? What are you, a paladin? I think there's a better way to do this. Maybe it grants temporary hit points that last until you take a short rest, but it can only be used when you're below half HP (to prevent stacking them on before the fight).
Temporary HP which can't exceed the HP you've lost, and if you take rest-based healing or get healed above your 'max', you lose an equal amount of the temporary HP. Check it for holes, please?
(Reasoning: Temporary HP made sense, but needing to be below half breaks verisimilitude for me. Also, the chance of a short rest actually hurting you bothers me from a design perspective.)
EDIT: I implemented it, but skipped the specific interaction with rest healing for simplicity. I'd still love to get feedback.

Action Surge, Tireless Fighter, and Moment of Rest. Maybe your experience is different, but I've never actually encountered exhaustion as an in-combat thing. Aside from a barbarian doing it to himself, I can't think of any creature or spell that inflicts it. Which means that the fighter's exhaustion-restoring features don't really make him better at fighting (aside from the interaction with Action Surge). What it does do is make him basically immune to hazardous weather, forced marches, and other such exhausting things. Given that at 5th level he regains three levels of exhaustion per short rest, no amount of those things will ever scratch him. Not only is this problematic for DMs who want to use those elements, but it's also silly that the fighter gets this and not the barbarian or ranger.

Generally, I don't really see the point in the exhaustion-restoring features. You could accomplish the core goal here a lot more easily: You can take one Action Surge per short rest, plus additional Action Surges at the cost of one level of exhaustion each.
Yeah, okay. I'd assumed that was what the 5E Ray of Exhaustion dealt with, but I'll switch to your idea.

Indomitable is fine, but you should add that it can't be applied to prone, grappled, and maybe restrained, since that just doesn't make sense. "You fool, you cannot trip me! My fighting spirit makes it physically impossible for my body to assume a horizontal position!"
We disagree. "I will not fall, chains cannot hold me, the world itself will bend if necessary to let me punch you in the face!" :smalltongue:

Not sure what to say about the champion stuff. Combat Rhythm is absurd, for obvious reasons.
Not obvious enough, I'm afraid. It looks roughly equivalent to advantage which stacks with another source.

Power Strike is fun but doesn't really make sense as a champion-exclusive feature. Why focus on duelling? While I appreciate the champion's existence as the deliberately simple class, I don't think making it forcibly more boring by disincentivizing them from doing anything else than repeatedly attacking the same target is the way to go.
It was a 'way to distinguish fighters' that I knew about (and didn't realize was already filled by the Rogue). In retrospect, I should probably have taken inspiration from the Monk.

Soulfire is thematically fun, but the double smite is absurd. I would never want that kind of swinginess in my games. I see the idea behind it now that dual-wielding allows more attacks than ever, but I'd be inclined to swing the other way and limit the paladin's nova potential. I strongly believe that excessive firepower is unfun for everyone involved, even if the player doesn't realise it.


Proficiency bonus could work. But frankly if you don't want dual-wielding to be the best offensive option, limiting it to 2 would be the way to go. It's the amount of attacks a normal paladin gets, so you won't even notice it unless you go out of your way to smite-spam. And if you do, the extra attacks still make you more likely to reach those two smites in the first place.

Can you be talked down to 2? I don't like having another class be able to smite more times in a turn than a paladin who's not a specific build (TWF, or an archer using your feat). I think limiting to 2 smites/turn in general is better for limiting nova.
I think I'm going to go with 3, because that's the max you can actually get without multiclassing in vanilla 5E.

Okay, makes sense. I would definitely clarify, maybe specify 2 or 3 conditions instead of leaving it open ended?
What do you mean?

Oh, didn't think about using it out of combat. I like Lalliman's solution of making it temp HP, and requiring you to be at less than half of your HP.
I did worse than that - I thought I'd considered it, but I hadn't done so properly. Also, see my iteration above.

True. The samurai ability is basically 1/long rest, you get a special interrupt turn if you are reduced to 0. Not quite the same, but I thought the interaction would be weird.
Probably kind of weird, but cool.

Yeah, that definitely changes things. In that context it makes more sense, but I think Indomitable is still a decent feature.
It is, and one of the neat things is that the system is so modular that you can cherrypick these houserules and generally not break anything.
(I should probably make it explicit which of my houserules are mutually-dependent.)

Lord Von Becker
2018-12-27, 03:18 PM
Bumping this, because I've added a new overhaul to the Champion, and I've also realized that giving DEX builds a competitive melee option had the knock-on effect of making STR underpowered. This is a partial fix:

Hardened Body (Base Rule)
Any time you would add your Dexterity modifier to your AC, you may add your Strength modifier instead.

So after realizing that Extraordinary Athlete is basically a strongman version of a Monk feature, I came up with these. Feedback would be much appreciated.

Juggernaut (Champion feature, replaces Improved Critical)
Your speed increases by 10 feet, and increases by another 10 feet at 10th and 18th levels. Whenever you take at least 40 feet of movement, you gain advantage on all attack rolls until your next turn.

Commentary: Monk speed, but for Fighters. Feel like a big mean American Football player! (Or a little jerk who runs around with knives, but there are other options for that.)

Extraordinary Athlete (Reworked)
You gain climb and swim speeds equal to your walking speed, and your carrying capacity is doubled.
When a creature provokes an opportunity attack from you, you may attempt to grapple them instead.

Commentary: Big Bad Jock intensifies. But Obnoxious Little Goblin still makes sense.

Swath of Destruction (Replaces Extra Fighting Style, which I may go turn into a Feat)
When you use an action to Dash, you gain the following benefits until your next turn:
*You do not provoke opportunity attacks of any kind.
*You may make one melee attack against each opponent who enters your reach due to your own movement. If you use this to attack an opponent who is Large or bigger, you may make another attack against them for each size category they are above Medium.

Commentary: I started off with Great Cleave, remembered that I thought hordes work better as big, singular creatures (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?569045-Necromancy-Overhaul-(PEACH-of-course)), and wound up adding the so-iconic-I've-seen-it dragonslaying scene from Metal Gear Rising to the inspirations.

Incisive Critical (Replaces Devastating Critical)
You may make a single weapon attack as an action. It is a guaranteed critical hit.

Commentary: While this does a bit less damage than four attacks if you assume peer AC, it should remain relevant against Wizards and very-high-AC monsters, and combines well with multiclassing.

Their existing capstone (https://www.dndbeyond.com/characters/classes/fighter#Champion) should be fine as-is.
Thoughts?

Dragons_Ire
2018-12-27, 06:23 PM
I like the hardened body rule. Strength needs the buff.

I like the Champion fix. Nothing seems broken, I could be wrong though.

3 smites max per turn is fair. I'd probably still cap it at 2, personally, to limit paladin nova, but that's just preference.


By specify 2 or 3 specific conditions, I was thinking list 2 or 3 conditions that indomitable can remove, and it can only remove those conditions. Not sure if that's really necessary though, I'm thinking probably not.


Oh, one more thing. I'd reword the last clause of the Dual Wielder fighting style,

...and you may choose to treat a Quartertaff as two weapons instead of having the Versatile property.
I'd word it as follows: ...and when wielding a Quarterstaff in two hands you may treat it as two weapons.

This allows it to deal 1d8 with each attack, but that's what the fighting style is doing anyway.

Lord Von Becker
2018-12-28, 12:20 AM
I like the hardened body rule. Strength needs the buff.

I like the Champion fix. Nothing seems broken, I could be wrong though.
That's good to hear.

Oh, one more thing. I'd reword the last clause of the Dual Wielder fighting style,

I'd word it as follows: ...and when wielding a Quarterstaff in two hands you may treat it as two weapons.

This allows it to deal 1d8 with each attack, but that's what the fighting style is doing anyway.
Good point, thank you.
EDIT: Changed it back. Wording it clearly was awkward, and quarterstaves are more a Monk weapon than a Fighter one. I think I need to just post my weapon updates.

Lord Von Becker
2020-06-01, 01:39 PM
After, um, more than a year, I return to this because I have Improvements. These are the affected bits this time:
Second Wind (Reworked level 1 feature) While in battle, you may take an action to concentrate on steeling your resolve. (This follows the same rules as concentrating on a spell (https://www.dndbeyond.com/compendium/rules/basic-rules/spellcasting#Concentration), but isn't necessarily supernatural.) If you are still in battle at the beginning of your next turn, and you have maintained your concentration, you regain a number of hit points equal to your fighter level times 10 (discarding any extra). After regaining hitpoints with this feature, you can’t use it again until you’ve completed a short or long rest. Commentary: I really like the 'interrupt this guy before he does something really powerful' dynamic, and I enjoyed the 'leaning on the sword to rest' imagery in the final boss of Teslagrad. So I combined them. It's gone through several reworks - psuedo-hit-dice for healing, psuedo-hit-dice as five-minute temporary HP, and finally this; a risky go at full heal. I like the idea, at least. Martial Mastery (New Level 20 capstone) At 20th level, you know your limits inside and out. Your uses of Second Wind, Action Surge, and Indomitable features become interchangeable, and you may gain another use by pushing yourself, taking two levels of exhaustion at the end of your turn. Kind of a spur-of-the-moment design that came with the latest revision, but I kind of like it. It fits the Fighter being the combat nerd, and it makes your situational abilities much more reliable. You can nova, you can heal, you can power through stuff. I doubt it's more broken than the Cleric, at least. Hopefully they aren't completely unreasonable? Second Wind might need to be a long rest ability, though. I would greatly appreciate people checking this for me.