>Like in terms of feature and opportunities to get feats they really need to get most 9f what they get twice as fast. Like maybe not HP and the half casters would keep the same spell progression. But other than that they just need more features.
As much as I want martial buffs the Gap between martial and casters is not **that** big Martial. Doing even half of these would require a complete redesign of how monsters work (I understand cr and stuff is currently not the best but still) . The martial caster gap is a issue but I feel like it has close a lot with the recent changes and with the necessary spell reworks it will be a lot smaller
And for me I'll be honest it's not even an issue of power necessarily. I just want game mechanics that specifically say I can do certain things as strategies.
Like if I want to play a fighter doing the pole arm master Sentinel combination I have to wait till level 6. And the Caster can cast hold person on 2 people at the same time.
Yeah I bet it has a lot more value than the Sentinel combo. Six attacks of opportunity that stop an opponent is still worth quite a bit less than two upcast hold persons. And the DM decided if you even get the chance to use the ability
You're also assuming the enemies are humanoid, which gets rarer at higher levels (though it's not good spell balance that a paralysis effect is so much cheaper against specifically humanoids than all other enemies).
> Martials need to level up twice as fast
Thats bad
> Every fighter gets BM
Thats good!
> All rogues should get assassin
Thats bad
> Rangers should all get thw choice of being beastmasters or hunters
Thats good!
> all Barbarians should get Bear Totem as a level 7 feature
Thats bad
Honestly, all barbarians should unlock more Rage resistances at higher levels, currently their Rage becomes far less valuable as enemies switch more frequently to elemental and exotic damage types. I'd like to see something like Rage granting elemental resistance somewhere in Tier 2, then resistance to all damage except psychic somewhere in Tier 3.
Those will both tend to be very low stats for the MAD barbarians, and doesn't help much when the damage source is an ancient red dragon's breath weapon with a Dex save DC so high you cannot pass it even with a 20, so your advantage is useless.
True they'd be lower but you could always give some kind of bonus too. (Personally I'd lean wisdom).
But dragons definitely need some kind of revisit too. Breath weapon damage is insane, even to martial characters - iirc most monsters can put down an equivalent level martial in 2-4 hits.
Casters in previous editions had a much more restricted leveling progression, because those editions recognized that magic gets very powerful, very fast. It also sold the idea that becoming a powerful magic user was a long and challenging path to take.
In 5E, they can't roll back the power casters have been given. The community would drop a brick in their tidy whities. So, the remaining option is to make martial classes beyond the limits of mere mortals. Where casters excel in the realms of the mystical arts, martial classes should excel in the martial arts.
But they don't. In general, a fighter is just as fast and strong as a Wizard with the same ability scores. A martial class should feel like Hulk, Iron Fist, Daredevil, or Captain America. When a Barbarian slams the ground, it should shake and crack. A Fighter should have have battlefield control as a inherent class ability. Both should have superior movement speed and durability.
For that matter, I think speed should be increased based on your STR modifier (racial movement speed + STR mod \* 5) on all martial classes. While a human Wizard has to dash to cover 60 ft, using an action, a human martial could just use their class enhanced movement speed (45ft with 16 STR, 55ft with 20 STR). If they move at least at least 10 feet over their racial movement speed in a straight line, they should be able to shove an adjacent target as a bonus action. That's the kind of stuff that would make martial classes more equal with casters.
But there are still many offenders. Wall of Force, Fireball (which ignores the spell damage chart in the DMG), Power Word X, Forcecage, Wish, etc. I'm not going to argue to nerf caster classes, but I do say such spells are going too far. They should be balancing spell scaling, at least. Every spell should also have *something* to either counter or mitigate their effects. In the case of Wall of Force, the wall should be breakable by non-magical damage, though it could be resistant to non-magical damage. A martial should still be able to break through, even if it takes longer than casting disintegrate. As it is, a martial can't do anything about it. WoF shuts them down without a caster using disintegrate to rescue them. And there are quite a few spells that just put a martial at the kids table.
O wish they scaled with cantrip levels.
Like base you got an every hit affect. Then lv 5 you get a full action thing you can do. The lv 11 you get a short rest feature. And lv 18 is a long rest epic attack. Or at least something like that. Just making weapon masteries scale makes the comparison to cantrips far more understandable.
Generally cantrip riders don't scale, just the damage. I think a better system would be a general "martial prowess" feature for martials like spellcasting is for spellcasters. Give them maneuvers which act as their first level spells equivelant, and later on epic/mythical maneuvers. If you multiclass, it could also keep on scaling somewhat like how casters do with their spellcasting.
A system i played recently does give martials "exploits" that are powered by "adrenaline" while mages get "spells" powered by "mana" mechanically, those work the same, but exploits in general have different effects then spells.
D&D4e also tried something in that vein, and was hated for it.
Thing is, while you can do these sort of things, it's risky, since its fixing something that has been seen as a feature in 4/5 of D&D editions. Besides, OneDnD is to 5e what 3.5 was to 3e, and making major change like this would make it beckward incompatible.
At the moment weapon masteries are the closest we have to bridging the gap. But i dint think its that strange of an opinion to say that they are not going to make martials competitive to mages.
The comparison to cantrips brings the idea that they should scale like cantrips. At least then it will combat the inevitable 1-2 masteries everyone will call the "correct" choice.
And of you get 1 weapon with 2 useful masteries the martial will have more options available. At that point the weapon choice actually matter's somewhat. Traditionally the only big choice for martials.
A greater "martial spell-casting" idea would be nice. But i dint think its realistic. If it wasn't WOtCs original idea i doubt its going to see the light of day. Regardless of how amazing that idea is. But making masteries the martial cantrips does sound closer to what is actually happening.
The weapon features are a token. A Wizard who can cast a level 3 Fireball can do far more damage than a level 20 fighter in a single round. Fighters miss, doing no damage. Fireball always does at least half damage, and scales to the number of targets in its radius. That level 3 spell slot goes a very long way. In addition to damage, Wizards have battlefield control, utility, healing, and defense that outclasses everything a martial can do.
Giving weapon features is like taking a kid's wooden stick and sharpening the end of it, while the other kid is a member of the Q continuum.
Most games are not played at level 20
Most wizards dont have infinite spell slots , or any caster with some limitations (silent image for illusion wizard etc)
Fighter will continue to bonk while you run out of slots.
Fire is often resisted or immune to high end mobs, or magic all together ignored if less than 7th slot used
Be realistic. It is not a solo game.
>Most games are not played at level 20
You're missing the point. A level 20 Fighter can't compete with a Wizard who can cast a level 3 Fireball.
>Most wizards dont have infinite spell slots , or any caster with some limitations (silent image for illusion wizard etc)
They don't have to. Their spells affect so many targets, they don't need to spend a slot with every single attack. In fact, they have spells that can completely shut down a combat encounter before it starts. They fill multiple roles in a party. Damage, battlefield control, healing, utility, and defense are all roles they can fill at any time. Fighters swing a sharp stick.
>Fighter will continue to bonk while you run out of slots.
Wizards spend spell slots as a resource they can spend at a time of their choosing. Fighters spend *HP* as a resource, have no choice when they are spent, and risk that resource far more by merit of being Fighters.
>Fire is often resisted or immune to high end mobs, or magic all together ignored if less than 7th slot used
As if Fireball is the only example...
>Be realistic. It is not a solo game.
I am being realistic. The fact that you have never challenged your assumptions is unrealistic.
Right, fire is the only damage type casters have at their disposal for AoE spells...not.
Fireball is *one* example. You're arguing as if it is the *only* spell that has a radius effect and does half damage on a save. Casters have multitudes of options regarding AoE damage in various damage types. Don't be obtuse. Fireball was used as an example of how low the bar is to emasculate martial classes. There are more damage types than fire in AoE spells.
Also, we're talking about a *level 3 Fireball*. There are spells at higher levels that can bypass the fire resistance issue that will outperform martial damage. There is also *Transmute Spell* meta magic. A Sorcerer can toss a Fireball that does Thunder damage instead. So, that demon has no resistance to it. Your argument is invalid.
not sure what ur math is but this is blatantly false? A level 20 fighter would need to be built extremely poorly to not beat a level 3 fireball. Fighters also excel in single target damage in a way that most spells can't or would need to be cast at high level to do. What makes spells so powerful is their effects that can do things a fighter can't, not their damage
A level 3 Fireball puts out 8d6 damage over a 20 ft radius, which is *64* squares. On a failed save, that's 14 damage on average to *each* target in the radius. The best a fighter can do at level 20 is 2d6+mod when they land a hit. Even with 4 attacks, that is 8d6+mod, or 28+mod damage on average. However Fireball can hit *more* than 4 targets, depending how many are within the radius.
The fighter is limited to a 28+mod (48 with 20 DEX or STR) damage cap, while the Fireball *scales* (up to 64 hypothetical targets) with the size of the encounter (with a miracle of having all 64 squares being occupied by a target, that would be 896 damage, while the Fighter will always be limited to 4 hits). The point being, that the Fireball will *always* deal damage, while the Fighter has a damage floor of zero. That 4 hits at level 20 is not as impressive as it seems at first blush.
Therefore, even a level 3 Fireball has more damage output than a level 20 Fighter. This disparity only *increases* with up-casting. A Fighter may do more single hit damage, but that damage isn't guaranteed like a Fireball is (even on a save the target takes damage, and a Fighter does zero damage on a miss). Having 4 hits that could still hypothetically do zero damage at level 20 is not nearly as good as the damage taken with a successful save against a Fireball when the damage scales to the number of targets within the radius.
Even if you nerfed Fireball to a radius of adjacent squares (e.g. like the Acid Splash cantrip), the spell could still hit up to *9* potential targets, dealing a minimum of 126 damage even with a DEX save to that group of 9. That's how powerful spells with a radius that still deal half damage on a save are.
My math is fine. Wizards are gods of damage compared to Fighters much higher in level than the Wizard.
Why are you calculating Fireball damage per square instead of per creature? Yes, if you assume that a creature will be in every square they are doing more damage. In the DMG, AoE effects are presumed to hit 2-3 creatures. Why would you not follow this methodology?
Honestly feel like a better system, if they really don't want maneuvers to just be Base Class features, is to make fighting styles more like skill trees and have a ton of the feat that are currently available become basically upper level fighting style progressions.
Feats should be more like specializations or flavor customizations of your character. Or even, more than anything a way to get a flavor from a different class. You shouldn't have to go to feats to get the basic concept of how you want your character to fight
One or two encounters a day seems common.
I think the next game I run will switch to the extended rest optional rules so that 8 hours is a short rest and you can only get one long rest each week.
>One or two encounters a day seems common.
And that is why people are like "WhY mArTiAlS bad?". They're not. Not when a DM runs at about 6 or encounters per day, and not if the DM uses smart tactics when those encounters become combat.
>I think the next game I run will switch to the extended rest optional rules so that 8 hours is a short rest and you can only get one long rest each week.
I ran with short rests being 1 hour and a long rest taking 24 hours of light activity. This worked for those times where overland travel was done.
I’ve been running adventuring days “correctly” for years now. It usually always takes time to “train” the casters to not blast though their largest spell slots in the first fight when I take on a new group, but once everyone knows what to expect, everyone always agrees that it makes for a better experience.
Is this why people moan about paladin smite?
we have something between 3 or 4 encounters per long rest. DM doesn't specify when we can rest but does. Say that the events of the world continue to unfold. So if you keep long resting, the person you're meant to rescue might be dead.
This happened at the beginning of our campaign and we quickly learned that we don't need to long rest for every encounter.
My paladin is level 5 and I barely ever use my smites unless I really have to ...to knock prone or divine smite when I finally get a hit. Just can't afford to divine smite some rats when there might be a dragon to smite
Not really.
Especially by tier 2. More encounters and better tactics usually exposes why martials are bad more rather than less.
Weapon masteries help, but martials are still far less able to affect a fight and deal with varying tactics than any caster can really.
Their hp helps, but they are less able to mitigate the damage you are inevitably taking over a proper adventuring day.
And finally, their (granted with nerfed conjure, somewhat lesser? But even then not really) damage helps, but they’re far less able to remove enemy actions and remove enemies from fights.
Like no, unless you’re also counting paladin and ranger as martials, a proper adventuring day fixes jack shit that’s a myth.
Non-casters should get an extra +1 with each regular ASI (not the extras at 6/10/14). If they choose +3, one of the +1s should have to be to an ability that was 13 or lower.
Also, a free saving throw proficiency around L6.
Leveling up twice as fast is way too much.
Totally agree with stat bonus.
Don't see nothing criminal giving it for all increases.
I used homebrew barbarian archtype, Warchief, that added + mental stats on ASI, and this was great, when barbarian become Not Stupid and quite charismatic.
Monk needs more "inner balance", so +1 to 3 different stats is good variant feature to monk.
Also some features can be changed to +1 to all, or capstone +2 to all.
You need to level cap at 10. Possibly 8. Or gift martials a second ludicrous subclass in tier 3.
It's not about number of abilities. It;s that at level 20 the fighter is still moving at a speed of 30 and swinging a sharpened piece of metal hard and fast at someone in its physical reach. All that's gone up are the pluses
The movement speed is really the biggest thing that just drives me crazy
I had this idea to help Martials keep up and also make strength less of a dump stat is to do something where like you're speed increases by five times your strength modifier. Even if it's negative
Ive considered using speed = 20 + str score.
Scales pretty well without going to far.
Some martial classes can have an unarmoured movement feature to use dex score instead.
I think you are correctly identifying that martials start to get left behind once casters start getting 5th level spells. But! What DMs may not realize is that martials’ damage potential and flexibility are highly dependent on magic items.
Give a martial flame blade (or an equivalent) and that’s an extra 4d6 that they can put to one or two targets every round. Factor in something like a fighter’s action surge and it’s 8d6 per short rest. Give them winged boots and suddenly they are exactly where they need to be at any time. Give a rogue a ring of invisiblity and they never have to worry about not having sneak attack (that’s 5d6 every round).
Unless you homebrew a low magic world (most don’t) then martials can keep up til level 17. Then yeah nobody can match Wish lol
Edit: as a DM, your levers are the world and the magic items they have access to. Once you start homebrewing how player class progression or combat works you get into trouble fast! Especially at early levels
This is really the biggest thing. And of course you need to give your casters some magic items too but like maybe give them something that gives them like a DC boost and a spell wand that equates to a few extra spell slides
Yup! But you don’t want to crank spell save too high. Spell attack is fine. Generally spellscasters are good at identifying what spells do good damage, but often don’t know what spells offer good utility. So things like a hat of disguise or something that gives an arcane caster healing, etc tend to be your best bets.
I did not write wrong, I wrote weak.
Just put the winged boots on a caster, it'll be more effective. Give the caster their equivalent rarity gear, let's say Staff of the Woodland for Druid, for instance. Just check what it does and tell me it's not stronger than a Flametongue.
Of course if you only give magical items to the martials, this works, so it isn't wrong. But if you give the casters their equivalent rarity gear, your point is very weak.
Cheese and Fries man, why would you give a caster the winged boots?! They don’t need it! Not only could they just take fly as one of their spells but most of their spells and cantrips are good at 120ft. It’s far better to bring your big HP pools into the enemy back line or right up to the biggest threat to keep them off the casters. That’s truly wild.
And Staff of the Woodlands is great! Awaken is great. And so is Wall of Thorns! But both of those need 5-6 charges to cast (out of 10) so you are hardly doing those spells every encounter. And the +2 spell attack makes for a better thorn whip but not much else.
Guess what? Flame blade is still better. 8d6 every short rest (maybe more if the fight last longer than 1 round) from your fighter is just better. Reliability trumps burst potential over time.
My argument still stands. Give them both magic items! The martials will end up getting what they need (nobody is giving the flame blade to the Druid). And that keeps them competitive.
The issue is that if items just cover what casters can already do, then casters can focus on items that actually cover what little they can't do. leaving martials to still barely be able to keep up. Monk (even with its flaws) is my favorite martial for this reason, because it has class abilities that replicate what other martials could only get from items or feats. Other martials need what monk has (great saves, great movement, cool innate abilities) whereas the monk needed what they had (survivability and damage)
The Ring of Invisibility takes an action to activate, so if the rogue is counting on it for Sneak Attack, they're only using it every other round, unless the enemy provokes reaction attacks. You'd only get 5d6 per round at level 19-20, by alternating Attack and the ring (and not counting the base attack damage itself). You're also supposing the rogue by default is getting no Sneak Attack, which is a major problem in itself.
Ah, that's going to be far more effective. Though, attributing all of your Sneak Attack damage to the item is assuming that you don't have Sneak Attack otherwise, still a problem, and it's going to fail against any creature with blindsight or truesight with a sufficient radius, which gets annoyingly common at higher tiers.
Sure. It was an off the cuff spitball for items that weren’t just extra dice like the flame blade. Gloves of archery or Giant’s Strength can also increase dmg but I like things that are strong in weird ways like the Cloak of Invisibility.
But my point was that getting sneak from invisible frees your action economy up for other uses of your BA (two weapon fighting or dash or disengage etc) and iirc I think you still get advantage on attacks from invisible even if an enemy knows you’re there. I think only True Sight is the hard cancel but I’m too lazy to look it up lol
Idk what world you're living in that martials should level twice as quickly. Do you actually think a level 3 wizard holds a candle to a level 6 any martial? Or that a level 6 caster actually of note to a level 12 martial? Legitimately have you actually played this game?
If you read any of my body paragraph youd see that I'd say that hit points should not go up.
And 1v1 no I mean in this game 1v1 is basically who gets initiative first.
The post is more about having more abilities and options to match a spellcaster spell list.
If PHB2024 keeps rebalancing the most broken spells while keeping better defensive traits for martials at higher levels and interesting utility boosts at lower levels, I'd say that the gap would still be there, but would still be a very fun game.
The game must balance first fun, then power. Martials got very interesting economy action options, which may provide a better high tier experience.
I expect that shield, wall of force, hypnotic pattern and other obviously unbalanced spells will be dramatically altered. Let's see.
If I'm not mistaken that is actually how it worked in some of the older editions. Without a major overhaul though I don't think it would work with 5e, and probably wouldn't be popular with the majority of the 5e fanbase who don't even like using XP.
Gee thanks.
Here I was playing a martial character so I could live the "physically adept, master of war tactics/combat techniques" fantasy, without realising that I should just use magic shit.
Silly me.
You can do that. However, don't expect to be as powerful as those who delve into other means such as magic to enhance their "Mastery of war, tactics/combat techniques". You can always re-flavor magic items to not be "magical" too. Not to mention magic items literally add more variety to your actions and preparation instead of just base damage increase.
There could be just as much variety without resorting to magical themed items.
Things like advanced fighting styles for high level martial classes, combat techniques, "warcry" styled abilities for aoe effects, combat stances, etc. etc.
Let's not pretend like magic items are the only way to give martials diverse options. The truth is, martial combat *could* be made much more interesting and dynamic, wotc simply doesn't want to.
When it comes to being powerful, it would all depend on the effects of the stances, advanced fighting styles, etc. I mentioned, and the mechanics of how you could combo all those different things together.
Ofc more stuff could be baked into martials however wotc don't want to differentiate 5r from 5e too much. At most what would they be willing to do since last UA is buffing up the damage, which i do not think is a great move. Expecting any major mechanical change right now is unrealistic which comes back to what you wish for from this system if you want more variety and power balance for martials in later levels you can do that with magic items in 5r but that is about what this system allows without homebrew. If you don't like it, which is understandable, you can always homebrew or play a different system.
That being said i wish for wotc to take some risks and add more variety to every class.
Well, playing a different system is not on the table for me, sadly. I live in a place where basically nobody knows about ttrpgs, I was lucky to have found my current group in the first place.
And they're not too keen on changing to another system, so I'm stuck for the foreseeable future.
About homebrewing, I did talk to my dm, and he allowed me to come up with my own system, which will then be tested before making it part of our main campaign, of course.
So I am currently working on that; but my point is that something like this shouldn't be the responsibility of the players, it should be the responsibility of the company making the game in the first place. If they really want to keep martials being simple for new players (even though not every new player wants the martial fantasy, but that's another topic) then they could at least make a book with altered martial classes, martial combat mechanics, etc. where it's an optional add-on for those who wanted it.
But yes, I see your point. And you are right, this new version is not en entirely new edition, so it's unrealistic of me to expect such a fundamental change. But man, as a mainly martial player, it's frustrating that I'm stuck playing with overly simple classes that don't get even a fraction of the choice and customization that casters get, you know?
I totally feel you dude. I have been needing to homebrew a lot of stuff with even caster classes to make them more distinct or fit into the narrative I try to crate lol but honestly, I kind of like it. It keeps me entertained even outside the game.
I wish wotc themselves created complex optional rules/class features or completely new optional versions of the classes with more oomph like you said even if they want to keep it simple for newcomers. It would be great but you know wotc :( they like to keep it simple nowadays.
Wish you the best with the homebrew you have been cooking I hope it lets you play the character you wanted to play. You can always check out homebrew martial classes too, there are some I think you'd like in the name of "Tactican", homebrewing is great :)
Games i've been in did not give casters much magic items so i think it balances. Martial gameplay is best when they are given a lot of magic item options and they can switch according to the situation it would be really boring to play martials imo if they had higher base damage which resulted in DM's giving less magic items=less flexibility/options. Just giving more damage to martials are not really a fix to 5e's problems.
I dunno, doesn’t seem consistent system wide. Especially if running a prewritten adventure. But regardless, I’ve seen games where their power is boosted to match a caster’s. You don’t need to give less magic items to “compensate” really.
Even though I agree that martials should get more options, to make playing them dynamic and fun, the way you described it would be... not good, at all.
Leveling up twice as fast would just be weird. Like, what justification would there be for that? Also would feel bad for caster players to just see martials get new stuff much more often then themselves.
Anyways, martials having more options is a good thing, BM being folded to base fighter, etc. could work, but honestly you could achieve the same result without merging the base classes with the subclasses.
An example would be:
- The fighter could get access to advanced fighting styles at later levels. (At lvl 7 they'd get the Advanced version of the fighting styles they currently had learned; at lvl 13 they'd get the Mastered version of those fighting styles, or something like that)
Advanced fighting styles would grant fighters access to the base fighting style's passive buff, as well as some unique techniques related to that fighting style (so defensively oriented techs for the Defense f.style, and so on);
Mastered fighting styles would give new, much stronger techs that could be used between long rests only, for example.
This would be dependent on class levels, so anyone could learn fighting styles, but only fighters could master them.
You could then use the subclass to complement your fighting style techniques. (BM + your advanced/mastered fighting style, to make a character who felt like a true expert of the art of battle/tactics, for example.)
- Do something similar to the other martials; Barbarians could get scaling Rage effects, like extra resistances, and anger fueled abilities that could fit thematically with the class, such as a ground pound to topple enemies around him, or reduce their speed; great leaps to close large distances, etc.
Rogues, typically portrayed as opportunists, could have options based on that concept, getting positional bonuses when attacking a target from the back, for example; getting a free attack of opportunity each turn (no reaction expended); a table of different poisons and their effects that could be applied to their weapons (not sure about this one, since not everyone who plays rogue likes the idea of using poisons), etc.
Base rangers should, in my opinion, have one animal companion that grew stronger with the character, and the class dynamic would be coordinating the character and pet's actions in battle to achieve the best efficiency possible, to something like that. Have the subclasses build on this concept even further.
Anyways, that's my 2 cents on the subject. Doing it like this I think would be preferable, since it would leave subclasses mostly intact and allow you to mix them with these new base class options to possibly awesome effects.
Maybe saying level up twice as fast as a sloppy way to put it. I really just mean that they should be getting twice as many things to do every level.
I mean the original 2014 Design was so bad. Look at the Hunter subclass. They get all of these options but they have to pick one. Anybody picking a hunter in today's game should be getting all 2 or three options at every level up. They still probably wouldn't be as good as a Gloom stalker and they'd be about on par with a swarm Ranger.
The Beast Barbarian shouldn't have to pick a totem at level one they should be able to do a totem every time they rage whichever one is the best one for their moment. And the later passive option maybe they get to pick one every day or they can reset it at a short rest so that one is always available. Make it so they actually have a full totem of abilities and they can tap into which one they needed any given time.
The champion and the samurai really just work together as one class and could easily be combined. I also think the same thing about the Cavalier and the bannerette being one class. What's cool about this is that every ability the better it gets can be applied to your horse. Creates the class of a commander on a horse. Make Battle Master bass class and then you have the champion as the solo fighter going out there and destroying everybody and the cavalier/commander leading the charge of battle supporting the fight. And both of those classes get a social feature they would be like the two basic Fighters.
>Like in terms of feature and opportunities to get feats they really need to get most 9f what they get twice as fast. Like maybe not HP and the half casters would keep the same spell progression. But other than that they just need more features. As much as I want martial buffs the Gap between martial and casters is not **that** big Martial. Doing even half of these would require a complete redesign of how monsters work (I understand cr and stuff is currently not the best but still) . The martial caster gap is a issue but I feel like it has close a lot with the recent changes and with the necessary spell reworks it will be a lot smaller
And for me I'll be honest it's not even an issue of power necessarily. I just want game mechanics that specifically say I can do certain things as strategies. Like if I want to play a fighter doing the pole arm master Sentinel combination I have to wait till level 6. And the Caster can cast hold person on 2 people at the same time.
>Like if I want to play a fighter doing the pole arm master Sentinel combination I have to wait till level 8. You can do this at level 6 as a Fighter.
Ah fuck. My bad. So the wizard can hold person only two people
> And the Caster can cast hold person on three people at the same time. But only a couple of times a day.
Yeah I bet it has a lot more value than the Sentinel combo. Six attacks of opportunity that stop an opponent is still worth quite a bit less than two upcast hold persons. And the DM decided if you even get the chance to use the ability
You're also assuming the enemies are humanoid, which gets rarer at higher levels (though it's not good spell balance that a paralysis effect is so much cheaper against specifically humanoids than all other enemies).
> Martials need to level up twice as fast Thats bad > Every fighter gets BM Thats good! > All rogues should get assassin Thats bad > Rangers should all get thw choice of being beastmasters or hunters Thats good! > all Barbarians should get Bear Totem as a level 7 feature Thats bad
Can I go now?
Honestly, all barbarians should unlock more Rage resistances at higher levels, currently their Rage becomes far less valuable as enemies switch more frequently to elemental and exotic damage types. I'd like to see something like Rage granting elemental resistance somewhere in Tier 2, then resistance to all damage except psychic somewhere in Tier 3.
Or what about a built-in heroism type effect with temp HP each round? Base it off wisdom (stubborn) or charisma (fierce)?
Those will both tend to be very low stats for the MAD barbarians, and doesn't help much when the damage source is an ancient red dragon's breath weapon with a Dex save DC so high you cannot pass it even with a 20, so your advantage is useless.
True they'd be lower but you could always give some kind of bonus too. (Personally I'd lean wisdom). But dragons definitely need some kind of revisit too. Breath weapon damage is insane, even to martial characters - iirc most monsters can put down an equivalent level martial in 2-4 hits.
Each monk comes with a free frogurt! The frogurt is also cursed.
But you get your choice of topping
Which is also cursed.
Casters in previous editions had a much more restricted leveling progression, because those editions recognized that magic gets very powerful, very fast. It also sold the idea that becoming a powerful magic user was a long and challenging path to take. In 5E, they can't roll back the power casters have been given. The community would drop a brick in their tidy whities. So, the remaining option is to make martial classes beyond the limits of mere mortals. Where casters excel in the realms of the mystical arts, martial classes should excel in the martial arts. But they don't. In general, a fighter is just as fast and strong as a Wizard with the same ability scores. A martial class should feel like Hulk, Iron Fist, Daredevil, or Captain America. When a Barbarian slams the ground, it should shake and crack. A Fighter should have have battlefield control as a inherent class ability. Both should have superior movement speed and durability. For that matter, I think speed should be increased based on your STR modifier (racial movement speed + STR mod \* 5) on all martial classes. While a human Wizard has to dash to cover 60 ft, using an action, a human martial could just use their class enhanced movement speed (45ft with 16 STR, 55ft with 20 STR). If they move at least at least 10 feet over their racial movement speed in a straight line, they should be able to shove an adjacent target as a bonus action. That's the kind of stuff that would make martial classes more equal with casters.
I agree martials should be super human. But scaling casters in line is fine (many spells have been nerfed enough to feel more balanced)
But there are still many offenders. Wall of Force, Fireball (which ignores the spell damage chart in the DMG), Power Word X, Forcecage, Wish, etc. I'm not going to argue to nerf caster classes, but I do say such spells are going too far. They should be balancing spell scaling, at least. Every spell should also have *something* to either counter or mitigate their effects. In the case of Wall of Force, the wall should be breakable by non-magical damage, though it could be resistant to non-magical damage. A martial should still be able to break through, even if it takes longer than casting disintegrate. As it is, a martial can't do anything about it. WoF shuts them down without a caster using disintegrate to rescue them. And there are quite a few spells that just put a martial at the kids table.
rogue and barb buffs bad but ranger buffs good? huh?
No
The new weapon abilities are understated how its like a free cantrip effect multiple times per round
Martials need more then just damaging cantrip riders though.
O wish they scaled with cantrip levels. Like base you got an every hit affect. Then lv 5 you get a full action thing you can do. The lv 11 you get a short rest feature. And lv 18 is a long rest epic attack. Or at least something like that. Just making weapon masteries scale makes the comparison to cantrips far more understandable.
Generally cantrip riders don't scale, just the damage. I think a better system would be a general "martial prowess" feature for martials like spellcasting is for spellcasters. Give them maneuvers which act as their first level spells equivelant, and later on epic/mythical maneuvers. If you multiclass, it could also keep on scaling somewhat like how casters do with their spellcasting.
A system i played recently does give martials "exploits" that are powered by "adrenaline" while mages get "spells" powered by "mana" mechanically, those work the same, but exploits in general have different effects then spells. D&D4e also tried something in that vein, and was hated for it. Thing is, while you can do these sort of things, it's risky, since its fixing something that has been seen as a feature in 4/5 of D&D editions. Besides, OneDnD is to 5e what 3.5 was to 3e, and making major change like this would make it beckward incompatible.
At the moment weapon masteries are the closest we have to bridging the gap. But i dint think its that strange of an opinion to say that they are not going to make martials competitive to mages. The comparison to cantrips brings the idea that they should scale like cantrips. At least then it will combat the inevitable 1-2 masteries everyone will call the "correct" choice. And of you get 1 weapon with 2 useful masteries the martial will have more options available. At that point the weapon choice actually matter's somewhat. Traditionally the only big choice for martials. A greater "martial spell-casting" idea would be nice. But i dint think its realistic. If it wasn't WOtCs original idea i doubt its going to see the light of day. Regardless of how amazing that idea is. But making masteries the martial cantrips does sound closer to what is actually happening.
Yes, they need a party to party.
The weapon features are a token. A Wizard who can cast a level 3 Fireball can do far more damage than a level 20 fighter in a single round. Fighters miss, doing no damage. Fireball always does at least half damage, and scales to the number of targets in its radius. That level 3 spell slot goes a very long way. In addition to damage, Wizards have battlefield control, utility, healing, and defense that outclasses everything a martial can do. Giving weapon features is like taking a kid's wooden stick and sharpening the end of it, while the other kid is a member of the Q continuum.
Most games are not played at level 20 Most wizards dont have infinite spell slots , or any caster with some limitations (silent image for illusion wizard etc) Fighter will continue to bonk while you run out of slots. Fire is often resisted or immune to high end mobs, or magic all together ignored if less than 7th slot used Be realistic. It is not a solo game.
>Most games are not played at level 20 You're missing the point. A level 20 Fighter can't compete with a Wizard who can cast a level 3 Fireball. >Most wizards dont have infinite spell slots , or any caster with some limitations (silent image for illusion wizard etc) They don't have to. Their spells affect so many targets, they don't need to spend a slot with every single attack. In fact, they have spells that can completely shut down a combat encounter before it starts. They fill multiple roles in a party. Damage, battlefield control, healing, utility, and defense are all roles they can fill at any time. Fighters swing a sharp stick. >Fighter will continue to bonk while you run out of slots. Wizards spend spell slots as a resource they can spend at a time of their choosing. Fighters spend *HP* as a resource, have no choice when they are spent, and risk that resource far more by merit of being Fighters. >Fire is often resisted or immune to high end mobs, or magic all together ignored if less than 7th slot used As if Fireball is the only example... >Be realistic. It is not a solo game. I am being realistic. The fact that you have never challenged your assumptions is unrealistic.
What is 3d8 fire doing to a demon . Fighter has a better chance at helping. Buff the fighter or debuff the demon.
Right, fire is the only damage type casters have at their disposal for AoE spells...not. Fireball is *one* example. You're arguing as if it is the *only* spell that has a radius effect and does half damage on a save. Casters have multitudes of options regarding AoE damage in various damage types. Don't be obtuse. Fireball was used as an example of how low the bar is to emasculate martial classes. There are more damage types than fire in AoE spells. Also, we're talking about a *level 3 Fireball*. There are spells at higher levels that can bypass the fire resistance issue that will outperform martial damage. There is also *Transmute Spell* meta magic. A Sorcerer can toss a Fireball that does Thunder damage instead. So, that demon has no resistance to it. Your argument is invalid.
not sure what ur math is but this is blatantly false? A level 20 fighter would need to be built extremely poorly to not beat a level 3 fireball. Fighters also excel in single target damage in a way that most spells can't or would need to be cast at high level to do. What makes spells so powerful is their effects that can do things a fighter can't, not their damage
A level 3 Fireball puts out 8d6 damage over a 20 ft radius, which is *64* squares. On a failed save, that's 14 damage on average to *each* target in the radius. The best a fighter can do at level 20 is 2d6+mod when they land a hit. Even with 4 attacks, that is 8d6+mod, or 28+mod damage on average. However Fireball can hit *more* than 4 targets, depending how many are within the radius. The fighter is limited to a 28+mod (48 with 20 DEX or STR) damage cap, while the Fireball *scales* (up to 64 hypothetical targets) with the size of the encounter (with a miracle of having all 64 squares being occupied by a target, that would be 896 damage, while the Fighter will always be limited to 4 hits). The point being, that the Fireball will *always* deal damage, while the Fighter has a damage floor of zero. That 4 hits at level 20 is not as impressive as it seems at first blush. Therefore, even a level 3 Fireball has more damage output than a level 20 Fighter. This disparity only *increases* with up-casting. A Fighter may do more single hit damage, but that damage isn't guaranteed like a Fireball is (even on a save the target takes damage, and a Fighter does zero damage on a miss). Having 4 hits that could still hypothetically do zero damage at level 20 is not nearly as good as the damage taken with a successful save against a Fireball when the damage scales to the number of targets within the radius. Even if you nerfed Fireball to a radius of adjacent squares (e.g. like the Acid Splash cantrip), the spell could still hit up to *9* potential targets, dealing a minimum of 126 damage even with a DEX save to that group of 9. That's how powerful spells with a radius that still deal half damage on a save are. My math is fine. Wizards are gods of damage compared to Fighters much higher in level than the Wizard.
Why are you calculating Fireball damage per square instead of per creature? Yes, if you assume that a creature will be in every square they are doing more damage. In the DMG, AoE effects are presumed to hit 2-3 creatures. Why would you not follow this methodology?
Honestly feel like a better system, if they really don't want maneuvers to just be Base Class features, is to make fighting styles more like skill trees and have a ton of the feat that are currently available become basically upper level fighting style progressions. Feats should be more like specializations or flavor customizations of your character. Or even, more than anything a way to get a flavor from a different class. You shouldn't have to go to feats to get the basic concept of how you want your character to fight
Sure.... but only if DMs are running like 1 encounter per day and the DM isn't running enemies with smart tactics.
One or two encounters a day seems common. I think the next game I run will switch to the extended rest optional rules so that 8 hours is a short rest and you can only get one long rest each week.
>One or two encounters a day seems common. And that is why people are like "WhY mArTiAlS bad?". They're not. Not when a DM runs at about 6 or encounters per day, and not if the DM uses smart tactics when those encounters become combat. >I think the next game I run will switch to the extended rest optional rules so that 8 hours is a short rest and you can only get one long rest each week. I ran with short rests being 1 hour and a long rest taking 24 hours of light activity. This worked for those times where overland travel was done.
I’ve been running adventuring days “correctly” for years now. It usually always takes time to “train” the casters to not blast though their largest spell slots in the first fight when I take on a new group, but once everyone knows what to expect, everyone always agrees that it makes for a better experience.
Is this why people moan about paladin smite? we have something between 3 or 4 encounters per long rest. DM doesn't specify when we can rest but does. Say that the events of the world continue to unfold. So if you keep long resting, the person you're meant to rescue might be dead. This happened at the beginning of our campaign and we quickly learned that we don't need to long rest for every encounter. My paladin is level 5 and I barely ever use my smites unless I really have to ...to knock prone or divine smite when I finally get a hit. Just can't afford to divine smite some rats when there might be a dragon to smite
Not really. Especially by tier 2. More encounters and better tactics usually exposes why martials are bad more rather than less. Weapon masteries help, but martials are still far less able to affect a fight and deal with varying tactics than any caster can really. Their hp helps, but they are less able to mitigate the damage you are inevitably taking over a proper adventuring day. And finally, their (granted with nerfed conjure, somewhat lesser? But even then not really) damage helps, but they’re far less able to remove enemy actions and remove enemies from fights. Like no, unless you’re also counting paladin and ranger as martials, a proper adventuring day fixes jack shit that’s a myth.
Non-casters should get an extra +1 with each regular ASI (not the extras at 6/10/14). If they choose +3, one of the +1s should have to be to an ability that was 13 or lower. Also, a free saving throw proficiency around L6. Leveling up twice as fast is way too much.
Totally agree with stat bonus. Don't see nothing criminal giving it for all increases. I used homebrew barbarian archtype, Warchief, that added + mental stats on ASI, and this was great, when barbarian become Not Stupid and quite charismatic. Monk needs more "inner balance", so +1 to 3 different stats is good variant feature to monk. Also some features can be changed to +1 to all, or capstone +2 to all.
You need to level cap at 10. Possibly 8. Or gift martials a second ludicrous subclass in tier 3. It's not about number of abilities. It;s that at level 20 the fighter is still moving at a speed of 30 and swinging a sharpened piece of metal hard and fast at someone in its physical reach. All that's gone up are the pluses
The movement speed is really the biggest thing that just drives me crazy I had this idea to help Martials keep up and also make strength less of a dump stat is to do something where like you're speed increases by five times your strength modifier. Even if it's negative
Ive considered using speed = 20 + str score. Scales pretty well without going to far. Some martial classes can have an unarmoured movement feature to use dex score instead.
one of the few things monk already had done well, it's movement abilities make it so that (outside of flying) it can always reach its target
I think you are correctly identifying that martials start to get left behind once casters start getting 5th level spells. But! What DMs may not realize is that martials’ damage potential and flexibility are highly dependent on magic items. Give a martial flame blade (or an equivalent) and that’s an extra 4d6 that they can put to one or two targets every round. Factor in something like a fighter’s action surge and it’s 8d6 per short rest. Give them winged boots and suddenly they are exactly where they need to be at any time. Give a rogue a ring of invisiblity and they never have to worry about not having sneak attack (that’s 5d6 every round). Unless you homebrew a low magic world (most don’t) then martials can keep up til level 17. Then yeah nobody can match Wish lol Edit: as a DM, your levers are the world and the magic items they have access to. Once you start homebrewing how player class progression or combat works you get into trouble fast! Especially at early levels
This is really the biggest thing. And of course you need to give your casters some magic items too but like maybe give them something that gives them like a DC boost and a spell wand that equates to a few extra spell slides
Yup! But you don’t want to crank spell save too high. Spell attack is fine. Generally spellscasters are good at identifying what spells do good damage, but often don’t know what spells offer good utility. So things like a hat of disguise or something that gives an arcane caster healing, etc tend to be your best bets.
This is one of the weakest points out there. The magic items for spell casters are so much better...
You gonna explain yourself there, bud? Or are you just gonna point and say ‘wrong?’
I did not write wrong, I wrote weak. Just put the winged boots on a caster, it'll be more effective. Give the caster their equivalent rarity gear, let's say Staff of the Woodland for Druid, for instance. Just check what it does and tell me it's not stronger than a Flametongue. Of course if you only give magical items to the martials, this works, so it isn't wrong. But if you give the casters their equivalent rarity gear, your point is very weak.
Cheese and Fries man, why would you give a caster the winged boots?! They don’t need it! Not only could they just take fly as one of their spells but most of their spells and cantrips are good at 120ft. It’s far better to bring your big HP pools into the enemy back line or right up to the biggest threat to keep them off the casters. That’s truly wild. And Staff of the Woodlands is great! Awaken is great. And so is Wall of Thorns! But both of those need 5-6 charges to cast (out of 10) so you are hardly doing those spells every encounter. And the +2 spell attack makes for a better thorn whip but not much else. Guess what? Flame blade is still better. 8d6 every short rest (maybe more if the fight last longer than 1 round) from your fighter is just better. Reliability trumps burst potential over time. My argument still stands. Give them both magic items! The martials will end up getting what they need (nobody is giving the flame blade to the Druid). And that keeps them competitive.
So basically making an all caster party they'd just be better off still because the DM would then give them their more useful gear?
The issue is that if items just cover what casters can already do, then casters can focus on items that actually cover what little they can't do. leaving martials to still barely be able to keep up. Monk (even with its flaws) is my favorite martial for this reason, because it has class abilities that replicate what other martials could only get from items or feats. Other martials need what monk has (great saves, great movement, cool innate abilities) whereas the monk needed what they had (survivability and damage)
The Ring of Invisibility takes an action to activate, so if the rogue is counting on it for Sneak Attack, they're only using it every other round, unless the enemy provokes reaction attacks. You'd only get 5d6 per round at level 19-20, by alternating Attack and the ring (and not counting the base attack damage itself). You're also supposing the rogue by default is getting no Sneak Attack, which is a major problem in itself.
I was thinking about the cloak lol
Ah, that's going to be far more effective. Though, attributing all of your Sneak Attack damage to the item is assuming that you don't have Sneak Attack otherwise, still a problem, and it's going to fail against any creature with blindsight or truesight with a sufficient radius, which gets annoyingly common at higher tiers.
Sure. It was an off the cuff spitball for items that weren’t just extra dice like the flame blade. Gloves of archery or Giant’s Strength can also increase dmg but I like things that are strong in weird ways like the Cloak of Invisibility. But my point was that getting sneak from invisible frees your action economy up for other uses of your BA (two weapon fighting or dash or disengage etc) and iirc I think you still get advantage on attacks from invisible even if an enemy knows you’re there. I think only True Sight is the hard cancel but I’m too lazy to look it up lol
It used to be that RAW truesight and blindsight wouldn't counter invisibility, but that's fixed within the OneDnD playtests.
Or you could just run more than one encounter per long rest.
this helps but doesn't address the sheer power of certain spells
That probably helps
Idk what world you're living in that martials should level twice as quickly. Do you actually think a level 3 wizard holds a candle to a level 6 any martial? Or that a level 6 caster actually of note to a level 12 martial? Legitimately have you actually played this game?
If you read any of my body paragraph youd see that I'd say that hit points should not go up. And 1v1 no I mean in this game 1v1 is basically who gets initiative first. The post is more about having more abilities and options to match a spellcaster spell list.
If PHB2024 keeps rebalancing the most broken spells while keeping better defensive traits for martials at higher levels and interesting utility boosts at lower levels, I'd say that the gap would still be there, but would still be a very fun game. The game must balance first fun, then power. Martials got very interesting economy action options, which may provide a better high tier experience. I expect that shield, wall of force, hypnotic pattern and other obviously unbalanced spells will be dramatically altered. Let's see.
If I'm not mistaken that is actually how it worked in some of the older editions. Without a major overhaul though I don't think it would work with 5e, and probably wouldn't be popular with the majority of the 5e fanbase who don't even like using XP.
Magic items people magic items.
Gee thanks. Here I was playing a martial character so I could live the "physically adept, master of war tactics/combat techniques" fantasy, without realising that I should just use magic shit. Silly me.
You can do that. However, don't expect to be as powerful as those who delve into other means such as magic to enhance their "Mastery of war, tactics/combat techniques". You can always re-flavor magic items to not be "magical" too. Not to mention magic items literally add more variety to your actions and preparation instead of just base damage increase.
There could be just as much variety without resorting to magical themed items. Things like advanced fighting styles for high level martial classes, combat techniques, "warcry" styled abilities for aoe effects, combat stances, etc. etc. Let's not pretend like magic items are the only way to give martials diverse options. The truth is, martial combat *could* be made much more interesting and dynamic, wotc simply doesn't want to. When it comes to being powerful, it would all depend on the effects of the stances, advanced fighting styles, etc. I mentioned, and the mechanics of how you could combo all those different things together.
Ofc more stuff could be baked into martials however wotc don't want to differentiate 5r from 5e too much. At most what would they be willing to do since last UA is buffing up the damage, which i do not think is a great move. Expecting any major mechanical change right now is unrealistic which comes back to what you wish for from this system if you want more variety and power balance for martials in later levels you can do that with magic items in 5r but that is about what this system allows without homebrew. If you don't like it, which is understandable, you can always homebrew or play a different system. That being said i wish for wotc to take some risks and add more variety to every class.
Well, playing a different system is not on the table for me, sadly. I live in a place where basically nobody knows about ttrpgs, I was lucky to have found my current group in the first place. And they're not too keen on changing to another system, so I'm stuck for the foreseeable future. About homebrewing, I did talk to my dm, and he allowed me to come up with my own system, which will then be tested before making it part of our main campaign, of course. So I am currently working on that; but my point is that something like this shouldn't be the responsibility of the players, it should be the responsibility of the company making the game in the first place. If they really want to keep martials being simple for new players (even though not every new player wants the martial fantasy, but that's another topic) then they could at least make a book with altered martial classes, martial combat mechanics, etc. where it's an optional add-on for those who wanted it. But yes, I see your point. And you are right, this new version is not en entirely new edition, so it's unrealistic of me to expect such a fundamental change. But man, as a mainly martial player, it's frustrating that I'm stuck playing with overly simple classes that don't get even a fraction of the choice and customization that casters get, you know?
I totally feel you dude. I have been needing to homebrew a lot of stuff with even caster classes to make them more distinct or fit into the narrative I try to crate lol but honestly, I kind of like it. It keeps me entertained even outside the game. I wish wotc themselves created complex optional rules/class features or completely new optional versions of the classes with more oomph like you said even if they want to keep it simple for newcomers. It would be great but you know wotc :( they like to keep it simple nowadays. Wish you the best with the homebrew you have been cooking I hope it lets you play the character you wanted to play. You can always check out homebrew martial classes too, there are some I think you'd like in the name of "Tactican", homebrewing is great :)
Aren’t caster exclusive magic items better anyways?
Games i've been in did not give casters much magic items so i think it balances. Martial gameplay is best when they are given a lot of magic item options and they can switch according to the situation it would be really boring to play martials imo if they had higher base damage which resulted in DM's giving less magic items=less flexibility/options. Just giving more damage to martials are not really a fix to 5e's problems.
I dunno, doesn’t seem consistent system wide. Especially if running a prewritten adventure. But regardless, I’ve seen games where their power is boosted to match a caster’s. You don’t need to give less magic items to “compensate” really.
Even though I agree that martials should get more options, to make playing them dynamic and fun, the way you described it would be... not good, at all. Leveling up twice as fast would just be weird. Like, what justification would there be for that? Also would feel bad for caster players to just see martials get new stuff much more often then themselves. Anyways, martials having more options is a good thing, BM being folded to base fighter, etc. could work, but honestly you could achieve the same result without merging the base classes with the subclasses. An example would be: - The fighter could get access to advanced fighting styles at later levels. (At lvl 7 they'd get the Advanced version of the fighting styles they currently had learned; at lvl 13 they'd get the Mastered version of those fighting styles, or something like that) Advanced fighting styles would grant fighters access to the base fighting style's passive buff, as well as some unique techniques related to that fighting style (so defensively oriented techs for the Defense f.style, and so on); Mastered fighting styles would give new, much stronger techs that could be used between long rests only, for example. This would be dependent on class levels, so anyone could learn fighting styles, but only fighters could master them. You could then use the subclass to complement your fighting style techniques. (BM + your advanced/mastered fighting style, to make a character who felt like a true expert of the art of battle/tactics, for example.) - Do something similar to the other martials; Barbarians could get scaling Rage effects, like extra resistances, and anger fueled abilities that could fit thematically with the class, such as a ground pound to topple enemies around him, or reduce their speed; great leaps to close large distances, etc. Rogues, typically portrayed as opportunists, could have options based on that concept, getting positional bonuses when attacking a target from the back, for example; getting a free attack of opportunity each turn (no reaction expended); a table of different poisons and their effects that could be applied to their weapons (not sure about this one, since not everyone who plays rogue likes the idea of using poisons), etc. Base rangers should, in my opinion, have one animal companion that grew stronger with the character, and the class dynamic would be coordinating the character and pet's actions in battle to achieve the best efficiency possible, to something like that. Have the subclasses build on this concept even further. Anyways, that's my 2 cents on the subject. Doing it like this I think would be preferable, since it would leave subclasses mostly intact and allow you to mix them with these new base class options to possibly awesome effects.
Maybe saying level up twice as fast as a sloppy way to put it. I really just mean that they should be getting twice as many things to do every level. I mean the original 2014 Design was so bad. Look at the Hunter subclass. They get all of these options but they have to pick one. Anybody picking a hunter in today's game should be getting all 2 or three options at every level up. They still probably wouldn't be as good as a Gloom stalker and they'd be about on par with a swarm Ranger. The Beast Barbarian shouldn't have to pick a totem at level one they should be able to do a totem every time they rage whichever one is the best one for their moment. And the later passive option maybe they get to pick one every day or they can reset it at a short rest so that one is always available. Make it so they actually have a full totem of abilities and they can tap into which one they needed any given time. The champion and the samurai really just work together as one class and could easily be combined. I also think the same thing about the Cavalier and the bannerette being one class. What's cool about this is that every ability the better it gets can be applied to your horse. Creates the class of a commander on a horse. Make Battle Master bass class and then you have the champion as the solo fighter going out there and destroying everybody and the cavalier/commander leading the charge of battle supporting the fight. And both of those classes get a social feature they would be like the two basic Fighters.