In Defense of the Champion

[Chronos]

Quoth Fwiffo86:

I'm responding here because this argument is silly. You are correct, telekinesis can lift more. Tenser's can carry more. Now, next question. Does the fighter need to prepare either of these? No. Why? Because his abilities don't require preparation. He just does them.

Two points, here. First of all, wizards don't need to prepare Tenser's Floating Disk, either. Second, even if they did need to prepare it, that's still a choice that they have. A wizard could, if he liked, prepare Tenser's and Telekinesis every day. Why don't they? Because they usually have even better options that they're choosing to prepare instead. A fighter can't wake up one morning and decide that it's time for a change, he'll prepare something else in place of Lifting Heavy Objects today. That's what he can do, and he's stuck with it.

[SharkForce]

It is ironic that the same people are in one hand saying that the Champion's ability to keep fighting at full strength forever is irrelevant because it is a team game and everyone else needs to rest; while on the other hand they are saying the Rogue is better because in battle he doesn't get hit because he can spend two-thirds of his turns running and hiding and staying out of trouble (Which would absolutely piss off anyone in a team game - the Rogue getting a full share of the XP while contributing almost nothing at all to the fight: not taking hits or dealing out even marginally acceptable DPR).

the only way to meaningfully benefit from your theoretically infinite resources is if you can go on alone, without the party. that strategy is basically for rogues that are soloing.

in a fight with the party, the rogue doesn't have to do all of that, and most likely won't. any enemy next to a target can be sneak attacked. rogues can fairly easily hide (in some cases with no more cover than another ally can provide) as a bonus action. furthermore, the rogue has a variety of straightforward defensive abilities that can reduce incoming damage (in some cases, to zero).

on a side note, someone claimed that champions get half proficiency on dex saves a few posts back... saves are not the same thing as checks. they're different kinds of rolls.

[Osrogue]

They get to reroll one save via indomitable.

They get to add half proficiency to all STR, DEX, and CON checks they are not yet proficient in via remarkable athlete.

[CrusaderJoe]

They get to reroll one save via indomitable.

They get to add half proficiency to all STR, DEX, and CON checks they are not yet proficient in via remarkable athlete.

Indomitable looks nice but doesn't really help unless you have a good chance of passing the save to begin with. Indomitable is a horrible choice of names for the ability. Very meh ability.

One house rule I've seen that helps the fighter be awesome is making Indomitable work as a legendary save. By level... 18 or 19 or whatever they get 3 legendary saves just like legendary creatures (they refresh on short rest). This makes the ability fit the name Indomitable.

[Easy_Lee]

Indomitable looks nice but doesn't really help unless you have a good chance of passing the save to begin with. Indomitable is a horrible choice of names for the ability. Very meh ability.

One house rule I've seen that helps the fighter be awesome is making Indomitable work as a legendary save. By level... 18 or 19 or whatever they get 3 legendary saves just like legendary creatures (they refresh on short rest). This makes the ability fit the name Indomitable.

A legendary save is certainly better, but let's examine some percentages. The indomitable chance is the chance of succeeding at the save after rolling twice, meaning 1-(chance of failing twice in a row):

If you need to roll 6 and up to make the save: 75% chance, with indomitable it's 93.75%
If you need to roll 11 and up to make the save: 50% chance, with indomitable it's 75%
If you need to roll 16 and up to make the save: 25%, with indomitable it's 43.75%

So that's really quite handy. Legendary makes it better, but this ability keeps more in line with the champion just having better numbers / math than everyone else.

If I were going to houserule it, I would probably edit indomitable such that you add your constitution mod to the second roll:

If you need to roll 6 and up to make the save: 75% chance, with max-con-indomitable it's 93.75% 98.75%
If you need to roll 11 and up to make the save: 50% chance, with max-con-indomitable it's 75% 87.5%
If you need to roll 16 and up to make the save: 25%, with max-con-indomitable it's 43.75% 62.5%

Edit: for the above, I assumed the Con save is +5 higher than the other save. Depending on the situation, this could be much different. My estimates would be conservative at high levels.

[MeeposFire]

I would have liked it to work on a short rest which would allow you to sue it more often. That would make you feel more like the ADD fighters who had great saving throws and were hard to put down regardless of what type of attack was used.

Would it be too powerful? Maybe but it would be quite nice.

[CrusaderJoe]

A legendary save is certainly better, but let's examine some percentages. The indomitable chance is the chance of succeeding at the save after rolling twice, meaning 1-(chance of failing twice in a row):

If you need to roll 6 and up to make the save: 75% chance, with indomitable it's 93.75%
If you need to roll 11 and up to make the save: 50% chance, with indomitable it's 75%
If you need to roll 16 and up to make the save: 25%, with indomitable it's 43.75%

So that's really quite handy. Legendary makes it better, but this ability keeps more in line with the champion just having better numbers / math than everyone else.

If I were going to houserule it, I would probably edit indomitable such that you add your constitution mod to the second roll:

If you need to roll 6 and up to make the save: 75% chance, with max-con-indomitable it's 93.75% 98.75%
If you need to roll 11 and up to make the save: 50% chance, with max-con-indomitable it's 75% 87.5%
If you need to roll 16 and up to make the save: 25%, with max-con-indomitable it's 43.75% 62.5%

Oh certainly Con to save would work fine, there was a very nice 3.5 feat that allowed Con to Will Saves.

I would say that the secondary save is a Constitution Save. Not just adding your con mod. You push through the effect with pure physical determination. If the other save is higher you don't have to do a Con Save.

I would have liked it to work on a short rest which would allow you to sue it more often. That would make you feel more like the ADD fighters who had great saving throws and were hard to put down regardless of what type of attack was used.

Would it be too powerful? Maybe but it would be quite nice.

As written Indomitable wouldn't be too powerful like that. Even my proposed change that replaces the Save with a Con Save it wouldn't be game breaking but it would make getting it fantastic and give them a real defensive ability.

[Chronos]

For what it's worth, re-rolling the save if it fails is functionally equivalent to getting advantage on the save, aside from the fact that it can stack with actual advantage.

[CrusaderJoe]

For what it's worth, re-rolling the save if it fails is functionally equivalent to getting advantage on the save, aside from the fact that it can stack with actual advantage.

Indomitable is 1/day though. Is that really that great that 1/day you can get advantage on a save. Hell, you can get inspiration more times per day and use it for that instead. Just do inspirational things.

[Easy_Lee]

Indomitable is 1/day though. Is that really that great that 1/day you can get advantage on a save. Hell, you can get inspiration more times per day and use it for that instead. Just do inspirational things.

On the other hand, there aren't too many ways to reroll a failed save. I do agree with you that it ought to have allowed using the fighter's Con save on the second roll, though. That just makes more sense to me given the name.

[Ashrym]

Indomitable is 1/day though. Is that really that great that 1/day you can get advantage on a save. Hell, you can get inspiration more times per day and use it for that instead. Just do inspirational things.

Indomitable starts at once per day and increases to 3 times per day. It's not at good as the monk ability to spend ki to reroll plus proficiency by any stretch of the imagination but it's not bad. Not what I would consider a good ability but has it's uses.

[CrusaderJoe]

Indomitable starts at once per day and increases to 3 times per day. It's not at good as the monk ability to spend ki to reroll plus proficiency by any stretch of the imagination but it's not bad. Not what I would consider a good ability but has it's uses.

Monks become proficiency in all saves at level 14. When we ran a higher level one shot the monk never needed to reroll a saving throw. Part of that is luck but the other part is being built around the strong saves (Con/Dex/Wis) and having that juicy +6 to the save compliment each other very well.

Indomitable is bad because you will only have proficiency in two saves. One good and one meh. These two saves you will have a good chance of succeeding in normally, so if you fail indomitable works. But for the other 4/6 saving throws this becomes bad. Maybe not utterly useless but it is still bad.

2/3 of the time indomitable won't be a good enough help for you and the other 1/3 of the time you most likely won't need it... Makes it a bad class feature.

Best fix?

The reroll saving throw is a Con Save (unless the save you would make is higher). Now this does what indomitable is supposed to do. You reroll with a good chance or at the very least decent chance if passing a save. Plus it gives the fighter something special, tons of things give rerolls and the paladin adds cha... But from my knowledge nothing gets to replace a save with a new one.

Easy Lee did some math earlier on. If you need to see why indomitable is meh.

[Vogonjeltz]

So in a fantasy world a noncasters should have less options than in real life? I thought this was fantasy and in fantasy characters can do things that normal people can't.

Just because it isn't magic and does awesome things doesn't mean that magic is any less special. People need to get over this issue.

The thing is, Casters are strictly limited by the spells they have in terms of what they can do. Martials on the other hand get to basically do anything they can imagine a character being able to do. Casters get buttons to push. Martials get to write macros.

In my experience there's often a story impetus that dissuades the party from doing short rests even when they've expended a substantial (>50%) of their short-rest resources.

For this set of cases, the Champion is simply a better performer. It's only when rests are plentiful that those classes reliant on short rests are capable of catching up and, maybe, pulling ahead.

I get why the champion is what it is. It's a good bland class for the casual player who doesn't want to think about their choices. That doesn't make it a bad subclass, but it definitely isn't good.

Do you mean not think about choosing things within the subclass or choosing things to do in combat? Because this is simply erroneous on both counts.

Most subclasses themselves have no choices, but the Champion at least lets you pick a 2nd Fighting Style, so it's actually one of the few that does offer the player a decision point within the subclass.

subclasses with no choices: (22)

Spoiler

Show

Berserker
College of Valor
Life Domain, Light Domain, Tempest Domain, Trickery Domain, War Domain
Circle of the Moon
Way of the Open Hand, Way of Shadow
Oath of Devotion, Oath of the Ancients, Oath of Vengeance
Beast Master
Thief, Assassin
Wild Magic
All wizard schools except potentially Illusion and Transmutation.

If you meant choices in combat, the Champion gets a bonus on all str/dex/con checks, so their plausible choices are increased vis-a-vis everyone else.

I came back to post this cause I forgot to add it... You beat me too it.

People think the champion can go all day but they forget... He stops when the group stops. Unless the champion has the ability to continue without a group... Hahaha....

Which has always been an issue in 3e, stopped being a problem in 4e, and now it has resurfaced in 5e.

The rogue however can go on without the group, at least they have the chance to scout ahead. Heck, they can snipe and take out quite a few enemies along their way. Risky? Yes but no where near as risky as the champion going alone.


Edit

@Madbear

It means that if the rest of the party as on a specific schedule, say /long rest so is the champion. This isn't a niche problem. In a group that recovers their abilities on a long rest (wizard, cleric, bard, etc...) Then the champion takes the same rests as them and essentially becomes bound to the per long rest, without getting anything from the long rest except their allies back.

The Champion can go on all day with or without a group. Long Rests aren't a thing that can happen on demand they are clearly time limited. Short rests are more reasonable but they aren't always feasible (enemies are around, time sensitivity, etc...).

[Ghost Nappa]

Indomitable is bad because you will only have proficiency in two saves. One good and one meh. These two saves you will have a good chance of succeeding in normally, so if you fail indomitable works. But for the other 4/6 saving throws this becomes bad. Maybe not utterly useless but it is still bad.

The Fighter has the most number of opportunities to pick up the Resilient Feat. DEX, INT, and WIS are likely picks depending on the character/player.

Additionally, how is having the choice to reroll ANY saving throw bad? STR and CON maybe the most devastating saves and the Fighter's already proficient in them, but Indomitable allows you to reroll any saving throw.

ANY SAVING THROW. You aren't too likely or often going to face an INT or CHA save but in the one or two cases you do, and you screw it up, you get a re-do. Over the course of your career, the majority of your roll is going to be coming from the die and not your proficiency. Even with maxed mods (+11: something impossible before Level 17) your roll is going to represent - on average - more of your saving throw's result than the proficiency. Improving the cumulative probability distribution of you succeeding is in general better served by re-rolling the die even in cases where your modifier is a depressing +1.

None of this even begins to assume you're smart and you realize that at the point where you're waving that +11 around you can get up to four chances to make a save. Didn't Easy_Lee say something akin to "more chances beats better modifier" somewhere earlier in the thread (the context was Rogue SA Vs. Fighter's multiple attacks for damage)?

[Osrogue]

I find it hard to believe that advantage three times a day on saves is meh. What I find meh is that there's a feat that already does that, called lucky. what's interesting though, is that indomitable stacks with lucky, allowing you up to three chances to roll for a saving throw 1-3 times a day.


With the essential advantages granted by lucky and indomitable,

75% chance of success becomes 98.4%
50% chance of success becomes 87.4%
25% chance of success becomes 57.8%


With a single support feat, which is already a good feat on its own, it becomes arguably better than the suggested homebrew.


Granted, that's because lucky is essentially a more versatile, level 17 version of indomitable, available at level 1. While entirely overshadowing a level 9 class feature with a single feat is not something I like, I don't think there's another combination of feat and class feature that, by level 9, gives a PC a triple roll for anything, let alone saving throws.

Indomitable might be just okay. Indomitable + lucky makes indomitable much stronger than it needs to be, and can extend the uses lucky by substituting indomitable when applicable.

[Easy_Lee]

Granted, that's because lucky is essentially a more versatile, level 17 version of indomitable, available at level 1. While entirely overshadowing a level 9 class feature with a single feat is not something I like, I don't think there's another combination of feat and class feature that, by level 9, gives a PC a triple roll for anything, let alone saving throws.

Now that's a good point. The question in my mind: does that make lucky too strong or indomitable too weak? I think it's both. Lucky probably ought only be usable 1/long rest, since it can literally mean the difference between life and death. And I do think indomitable ought to allow the second roll to be a CON save.

Indomitable is slightly off-topic I suppose, since it's a fighter thing rather than champion-specific, but it's certainly related.

[Chronos]

OK, so let's say you get hit by a spell with an Int save. Unless you're an Eldritch Knight, there's a pretty good chance that you dumped Int, and you have no proficiency in it, so your modifier is -1. Meanwhile, if we're at a high enough level for Indomitable to be a factor, that spell probably has a DC of 19. That means that you literally only make that save on a natural 20. So, most likely outcome, you fail. But hey, that's OK, you get to re-roll it! Except, what's going to happen on the re-roll? Most likely, you'll still fail. Indomitable turned a 1/20 chance of success into a slightly less than 1/10 chance of success. It's literally giving you less benefit than a +1 to the save.

Changing the re-rolled save to a Con save, as others have suggested, instead of whatever it was originally would fix this. Now, when you get hit with a spell with one of your bad saves, you get a second chance with something that actually gives you a chance.

[Osrogue]

OK, so let's say you get hit by a spell with an Int save. Unless you're an Eldritch Knight, there's a pretty good chance that you dumped Int, and you have no proficiency in it, so your modifier is -1. Meanwhile, if we're at a high enough level for Indomitable to be a factor, that spell probably has a DC of 19. That means that you literally only make that save on a natural 20. It's literally giving you less benefit than a +1 to the save.

If you completely dump a stat, why would you assume you are going to have good saves in it? The reason intelligence is the most popular dump stat right now, is because it isn't used for much of anything at the moment. It saves against illusions atm.

Wisdom and con on the other hand, are both stats the fighter cares about. He gets con for free, and wisdom can be shored up by resilience or lucky (double advantage, anyone?)

Trying to bring this back to the champion, can anyone honestly say that with proper feat support, they will be easily taken down at high levels?

They have anywhere between 4 and 6 feats to burn, not counting any in the attack stat. That's about as many as most other classes get on the whole. With regenerating health and pretty much all of the feats they could ask for, it would be pretty hard to assail them physically and mentally. All it really takes is a positive wisdom score and resilience (Wis). Then there's stuff like shield master, mobile, inspiring leader, heavily armored, durable, and lucky (which I'm certain of more and more, is broken). take your pick. Shield master gives pseudo-evasion, mobile gives a way to avoid AoO, heavily armored gives DR, inspiring keader gives more healing, durable more hitpoints, and lucky is just great.

Most of these are solid abilities, that have an incredibly steep opportunity cost for other classes which have usually only 2-3 feats* they can buy outside of their fighting style feat.

And that's only those who don't want to pick up resilience wis/con.

Or are paladins.

*Rogues are SAD and 6 feats, so they have a bit more breathing room.

[Oscredwin]

OK, so let's say you get hit by a spell with an Int save. Unless you're an Eldritch Knight, there's a pretty good chance that you dumped Int, and you have no proficiency in it, so your modifier is -1. Meanwhile, if we're at a high enough level for Indomitable to be a factor, that spell probably has a DC of 19. That means that you literally only make that save on a natural 20. So, most likely outcome, you fail. But hey, that's OK, you get to re-roll it! Except, what's going to happen on the re-roll? Most likely, you'll still fail. Indomitable turned a 1/20 chance of success into a slightly less than 1/10 chance of success. It's literally giving you less benefit than a +1 to the save.

Changing the re-rolled save to a Con save, as others have suggested, instead of whatever it was originally would fix this. Now, when you get hit with a spell with one of your bad saves, you get a second chance with something that actually gives you a chance.

I think assuming a typical save DC at mid to high levels is a 19 is unreasonable. Can someone who has the MM put out some typical int save DCs? Maybe from a Mind Flayer?

[pwykersotz]

I think assuming a typical save DC at mid to high levels is a 19 is unreasonable. Can someone who has the MM put out some typical int save DCs? Maybe from a Mind Flayer?

Mind Flayers are only CR 7, but their save is 15. A save of 18-19 is very reasonable at high levels.

Edit:
Psychic Gray Ooze 10
Intellect Devourer 12
Hag/Sea Hag 13
Night Hag 15

[Gwendol]

OK, so let's say you get hit by a spell with an Int save. Unless you're an Eldritch Knight, there's a pretty good chance that you dumped Int.

Unless you are a Wiz, EK, or AT, you will have dumped INT in this game. It is the dump stat of choice followed by Strength.

[Fwiffo86]

Two points, here. First of all, wizards don't need to prepare Tenser's Floating Disk, either. Second, even if they did need to prepare it, that's still a choice that they have. A wizard could, if he liked, prepare Tenser's and Telekinesis every day. Why don't they? Because they usually have even better options that they're choosing to prepare instead. A fighter can't wake up one morning and decide that it's time for a change, he'll prepare something else in place of Lifting Heavy Objects today. That's what he can do, and he's stuck with it.

Irrelevance. The wizard can only prepare or ritually cast what he has. There is no special training or prep time or activation time for the things a warrior does. That's the point. Learn that the wizard is ONLY as good as the spells he uses/preps/rit casts in any given situation, not because he can potentially cast something. Potential is meaningless to application.

[Chronos]

So, the fact that the wizard can make suboptimal choices makes him weaker than the fighter who can't make choices at all? I don't think that's a very good argument. Yes, the wizard can be crippled by poor choices. The solution to that is to make good choices. Which he can do. And which the fighter can't.

[pwykersotz]

So, the fact that the wizard can make suboptimal choices makes him weaker than the fighter who can't make choices at all? I don't think that's a very good argument. Yes, the wizard can be crippled by poor choices. The solution to that is to make good choices. Which he can do. And which the fighter can't.

Is it suboptimal to not take Floating Disk? It actually strikes me as the opposite. Useful, sure, but maybe not what most optimizers will select.

[Fwiffo86]

So, the fact that the wizard can make suboptimal choices makes him weaker than the fighter who can't make choices at all? I don't think that's a very good argument. Yes, the wizard can be crippled by poor choices. The solution to that is to make good choices. Which he can do. And which the fighter can't.

To address this specific statement, not having a choice prevents someone from making a bad one correct? The warrior has fewer options, yes. But his options are always available, and always reliable. Spells are neither of these things. Claiming that it is possible to do X, is a faulty argument. We are not dealing with possibilities. We are dealing with reliable and consistent results.

[CrusaderJoe]

Can't the wizard learn every spell on their list? Time and gold is all it takes but what else does a high level wizard have to do most of the time?

[hawklost]

Can't the wizard learn every spell on their list? Time and gold is all it takes but what else does a high level wizard have to do most of the time?

Also requires the DM to allow them to get access to the books/scrolls of other wizards. It is purely up to the DM if a Wizard character can have all the spells.

In Fact, most people on the Board would agree that giving a Wizard character the ability to copy every single spell into a Spellbook is a Bad Idea.

[CrusaderJoe]

Also requires the DM to allow them to get access to the books/scrolls of other wizards. It is purely up to the DM if a Wizard character can have all the spells.

In Fact, most people on the Board would agree that giving a Wizard character the ability to copy every single spell into a Spellbook is a Bad Idea.

From level 1 to 20 game I don't see how a DM could justify not allowing a player to do just that.

Isn't DM fiat hated on these boards?

I'm not saying it is a good idea but its hard to justify it not happening. If they could pick the spells in level up then that means that the spells do exist and if they exist... Yeah.

[Fwiffo86]

From level 1 to 20 game I don't see how a DM could justify not allowing a player to do just that.

Isn't DM fiat hated on these boards?

I'm not saying it is a good idea but its hard to justify it not happening. If they could pick the spells in level up then that means that the spells do exist and if they exist... Yeah.

Total up the spells received from only leveling. Basically is 38 spells + what the wizard started with. Personally (and this is just opinion), that's more than enough spells for the wizard's needs.

I tend to not give any spells out to wizards to copy into their book above 5th level. That's simply because they are the rare of the rare.

[Seppo87]

In defense of the developers

They made their math. They know the exact extent of the Champion's damage and durability and they concluded it was just as good as the other Fighter Options while simpler and less customizable (which is the point of the champion)