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Fixing the Champion Fighter Subclass: D&D 5e Martial Archetype Revision ft. Shard
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Sep 30, 2022
Visit our article to find all the notes you need on this revision of the Champion Fighter: https://www.flutesloot.com/champion-fighter-fixed-dnd-5e-subclass-revision?utm_source=youtube The Champion Fighter subclass is as basic and bland as they come, so we're going to breathe new life into this martial archetype with the power of homebrew and amateur game designing! We focused on Second Wind, critical hits, and apex athleticism for this revision. Did we fix the Champion? #DND #DNDFighter #DND5e Check out Shard's channel and subscribe to him: https://www.youtube.com/c/ShardDnD ⏰Time Stamps: 00:00 Premise of our Champion revision 02:34 Level 3 06:07 Level 7 10:30 Level 10 16:28 Level 15 21:54 Level 18 24:45 Our next revision project --------- 🎈 Shop our loot on Redbubble: flutesloot.redbubble.com 🎈 Cast Friendship on Flutes Loot:
View Video Transcript
0:00
Hey everyone, Flutes and Shard today, we're going to take a crack at revising the Champion Fighter
0:05
come along with us for the ride. Here we go. Yeah, it's good. My name's Tim. My channel is called Shard. And Flutes and I have done a few collaborations now
0:12
So I write a few articles for Flutes Blute as well as a guest author. And I think this is the third time we've sat down and collaborated on a video as well
0:21
I think quite looking forward to seeing what we can do to make the champion fighter a bit more interesting
0:26
Yeah, we've been enjoying doing these revision projects together. So we said, what's the next one
0:31
And another underloved subclass is definitely the champion fighter from the player's handbook
0:37
There's just not a lot to it. It's very bland. We want to make it more exciting
0:41
Yeah, I was going to say, I think it would be nice for the fighter, the champion fighter to actually have something to do in combat in particular, because a lot of their features
0:50
are very passive. And so, you know, I think it would be nice for them to have a bit more interesting stuff to do
0:55
As I was considering what I might do with the champion, I ended up, and you, and, you
0:59
you know that I kind of like to emulate what's already there and you like to do the same
1:04
And so I kind of latched on to like, okay, so they've got this critical hit range that improves
1:10
And I decided a champion, they also have that level 18 survivor feature where they can regain hit points if they're low, just passively
1:17
Maybe that's a good theme to latch on to. So they just have a lot of endurance in battle
1:22
And also the fact that they get an extra fighting style is pretty benign
1:27
But I decided maybe we could do something where we give them. like a greater fighting style, like a true mastery of it. And so a lot of my ideas feed into
1:35
those concepts that I latched on to. What are kind of your overarching thoughts on it before we get
1:41
into the specifics? Yeah, I was thinking about leaning into the critical hit, adding a bit more
1:46
So when a fighter lands, when a champion lands a critical hit, to actually get a bit more out
1:51
of it than just the crit itself. So some kind of minor debuff or a buffer themselves. So I was
1:57
looking at that. So to get a little extra benefit from the the fact that they have this expanded critical hit range compared to all the other fighters
2:04
And yeah, I had some ideas about the fighting style that you get at 10th level as well
2:08
So I think we'll probably have some fun looking at that feature, what we can do to make that a bit more interesting
2:15
So we're going to go basically, the champion gets features at level 3, 7, 10, 15, and 18
2:23
So we're going to go through each of these one at a time and just kind of give our thoughts. And we're going to workshop
2:27
Based on this call, I'll probably publish an article about our own champion fighter revision
2:33
Yeah, okay, so we've got the improved critical, which is where we start with the champion
2:38
So when you first choose this archetype the third level, you get a critical, you can score a critical hit on a role of 19 or 20
2:46
I think this is probably the most popular feature of the champion at the moment. The champion does feature quite a lot in sort of multi-glassing builds where people will dip three levels just for this
2:57
so that they can get critical hits more often. There's a few of critp fishing, critical hit fishing builds
3:04
built around this, being able to land crits more often and then do something impactful when you get it
3:10
My idea for that, I think it's over here, was that after a critical hit against a creature
3:18
you could gain a plus two bonus to your next attack roll against that creature and a plus two bonus to damage
3:25
if that attack hits. So the idea is you kind of staggered the creature a bit with this critical hit that you're so good at
3:31
And then you get a bonus fee in next attack against the same creature if you're able to attack it again
3:37
So that was my idea for that feature. I kind of decided I was going to lean into second wind for the champion
3:44
What I did was I said, all right, what if we take second win and say, okay, at level three
3:50
in addition to your critical hit range expanding, let's also say you get two uses of second
3:56
second wind and I threw in this bit where when you score a critical hit, as part of that hit
4:02
you can activate your second wind so you can heal yourself without having to use a bonus action
4:06
But also the D10 that you roll as part of the second win becomes part of your weapon attack
4:13
And so one of the things that's a bummer about the champion is you can score critical hits
4:17
but you don't do a lot of damage with critical hits, right? You're not like a paladin who can smite when they crit
4:23
And so I figured throwing in an extra D10, which becomes two. 2D10, right, for the sake of the damage and a 1D10 plus your fighter level for healing yourself
4:33
I thought that was cool because it's like you're keeping your endurance. I mean, you score a critical hit. It's kind of like you gain your second wind as you gain the advantage over people
4:39
And then it also makes it so you're free to use your bonus action for their things too. So I thought that was a cool way to do it
4:44
And then additionally, remarkable athlete is such a almost non feature that I just made it part of level
4:51
three. So basically I thought it'd be cool to give the champion expanded uses for second win to empower
4:57
their attacks and heal themselves when they crit and then just make remarkable athlete third level
5:02
ability. Additionally, I made remarkable athlete also apply to high jumping, not just long jumping
5:10
but that's all. I thought about giving them like a dexterity saving throw proficiency at this level
5:16
but I actually ended up incorporating that later than level three because I didn't want people to
5:21
multi-class just to get decks saving throws from this one. Not that's like game-breaking or anything, but I just didn't feel like doing that
5:27
It's one of the big three, isn't it really, the dexterity saving throw? So you're saying with second wind, you're basically saying we should have two
5:34
two uses for short rest now. Yeah, two uses per short rest
5:38
And then have a choice to be able to include that with your critical hit instead
5:43
Not just that, but both. Like you heal yourself. Like you roll your second win like usual and heal yourself
5:49
Yeah. you also add a D10 to your weapon attack for the sake of the crit
5:53
So it ends up being like an extra 2D10 when you crit. If you want to use your, if you have a second win charge to use and you want to use it in that moment
6:00
Okay. Yeah, I like that. I think that's really nice. I think it, and he says it feeds into this kind of athlete
6:05
yeah, for the champion. I did rework the remarkable athlete as well
6:09
Because it didn't feel very remarkable to me. It felt like, you know
6:12
you a bit of an all Yeah Not really remarkable So my idea was to choose either athletics or acrobatic And then from now onwards you can make all checks for that chosen skill with advantage
6:25
So whether you're either a strength-based or a deck-based champion, I guess to actually get a bit of a boost to your..
6:34
And that feels remarkable to me and not a bit of an all-rounder
6:39
And another thing I thought about was that had a little... little feature, sort of an exploration feature
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that has a bonus action for up to one minute. You can either increase your movement speed by 10 feet
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or you can gain a climbing or swimming speed equal to your walking speed. You gain the use of this ability after a short or long rest
6:58
So you can kind of, for a minute, you can push yourself to move around faster
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or to climb or swim. But you can only do it once for a short rest
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But it just gives you that little bit of extra stamina on the battlefield
7:13
months per short best. So I thought that was, that's how I thought I would bump up the remarkable athlete
7:18
But I do, I do quite like this idea of kind of merging it in with the third level feature
7:23
We could maybe include some of my stuff in. I just thought I think it's game breaking
7:28
Yeah. I like what you came up with because it really feels like, like you said, they actually are remarkable
7:34
And not just like a high school, mediocre athlete. Being able to gain that climbing or swimming speed as a bonus action is kind of like a nice
7:43
ace up your sleeve and just becoming faster. It's like this is your moment where you're
7:47
really going to use your athleticism and not burn out. You can't do it for a minute
7:53
It just gives you that ability to just chard around for one minute
7:56
before your stamina runs out basically. But that again sounds slightly remarkable compared to what
8:03
your average character can do. That's why I thought about that as a
8:07
addition. I like that. I like that a lot. It kind of reminds me
8:11
a little bit of the beast barbarian. get something like this. That's where I thought of to. Yeah, where they can choose to
8:17
game whichever form they want. That's why I thought I made it a choice. So you can
8:22
you know, you can choose one of these three things. So situationally, it can be quite
8:25
useful. The walking speed, the movement speed one. Actually, I did leave it as a movement speed
8:32
So I quite like that idea. If you happen to have a flying speed, I think it would be nice
8:37
to be able to boost that as well. So if you were playing an Ara Cockra champion, you'd get
8:42
to boost your flying speed by 10 feet as well. That's for a minute. Yeah
8:46
So, yeah, so I deliberately didn't make it a little bit of speed. For level seven, so since we're talking about remarkable athlete for your level seven
8:54
I ended up moving the bonus fighting style concept from level 10 to level seven
8:59
I went through each fighting style that a fighter can choose. I basically said you can choose to get a second fighting style
9:07
or you can choose a new upgraded fighting style based on the one you've already chosen
9:12
and replace it. So an example would be archery as a fighting style
9:17
Right now, it gives you a plus two to your attack rolls when you make ranged weapon attacks
9:22
So your accuracy gets plus two essentially. My upgraded version of that is master archer, and that becomes a plus three bonus to attack rolls
9:30
and a plus two bonus to damage rolls. And then I kind of just, I went through each one
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I won't go through each one, obviously, because there's like 10 of them after Tosh's gave
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a bunch of new ones. But some notable ones were like two weapon, fighting, the upgraded version is two weapon fury, and you can choose to do your, the weapon
9:48
attack that you usually do with two weapon fighting, you can do it, but it won't require your
9:52
bonus action to do it, or you can choose to still use your bonus action, and you make two
9:56
attacks with it instead. So it's a bonus action for two attacks. Two weapon fighting is notoriously
10:01
weak in 5E, and it doesn't have any feats that really bump it up, like some of the other weapons
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like pull arms and great weapons, and ranged weapons in general. So I thought that was a fun one. And so
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champion can really shine with those sorts of fighting style upgrades to become more reliable with
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some of these like general well used well known martial class combinations of feats and weapons and
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everything yeah so i actually came up with something somewhat similar so uh in terms of because i got
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stuck i got stuck with this speech for ages it's additional fighting style as to what to do to make
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it a bit more interesting and um so i actually came up with the idea of giving you know giving the champion
10:39
another set of fighting stars. And so it's kind of complementary, but also aiming at some of the weapons
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that just don't get a lot of features at the moment. And so just to introduce some other bits and bobs
10:53
So I introduced an arcade fighter, so proficientity with improvised weapons. And if you've already got that
10:57
you just gain a plus two to your attack roles instead. So if you already picked up Taven brawler
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and he's already got this proficiency, and he can actually boost it. And then a plus two bonus to damage
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when you're doing improvised weapons. And then I had one for, finesse weapons, so plus two to attack rolls when using a finesse weapon
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Because a lot of these will feed in, they've got to be like complementary if you're dual wielding
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finesse weapons. And you're going to get a plus two with each of your finesse weapons. So you kind of
11:21
work that way. I want to do something for light weapons. So I called it the light, fantastic. If you hit a creature with a melee attack with a light weapon, you're wielding, you can immediately
11:27
attack the same creature again with the same weapon. And you can use this ability once per turn
11:31
So they're really, really quick these, you know, daggers. And so I thought that was cool a nice one
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I added one for blow guns. there's not much help for blowguns
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So there we go. You get a plus two damage, so we're all attacked with a blow gun. And once you're
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once per turn, you get an additional bonus equal to your constitution modifiers an extra hard with the blow
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Your con is like how well you breathe and how hard you can blow the dart
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How hard you can blow the dart. I thought that one was fun
11:59
That's clever. Yeah. And then my idea for the dual wielder was to say if you managed to hit
12:05
with one of your one-handed weapon, You can gain advantage on your next attack, as long as it's made of a different one-handed weapon
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So the idea is it's really hard to defend against somebody who's wielding two one-handed weapons
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So if you manage to hit them with one, it's going to make you more likely that you're going to be able to hit them with the other one as well
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And so I thought that was quite a nice boost for your jewel wielders as well. And then I got parry more
12:28
But parry more. Yeah, paramo. Yeah, parry more. So as a reaction you can parry an attack directed at you or another creature within five feet of you So it another kind of reaction But this one is for one weapons that lack the heavy and special properties right
12:43
And then the armatoss of the target creatures increased by plus three
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It might be you. It might be somebody on the front lines with you. But it's one for you kind of sword and board type defenders
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They don't want, yeah, or again, if it's a dual-wielder, you could also have to communicate this one as well
12:59
And then I've got Lance a lot. So you get a plus one bonus to attack roles and a plus two bonus to damage
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when attacking a creature with a lance, providing that creature is not within five feet of you
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because it's already difficult to hit people with lances in close combat. But if you are mounted and you're wielding a lans
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you actually gain something that helps you to boost your lancing ability
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And the last one is called verse or tail. And this one is for versatile weapon users
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So plus one to armor class and plus one to attack rolls when wielding a versatile weapon in both hands
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So via long sword wielders, basically, or you know, the battle axis. But I sort of created a, I think it's about eight, eight or so
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new ones to fuse from at this level. And as I said, I think you can also choose to replace any fighting styles you already have
13:47
I think fighters can now do that anyway when they get to an ASI. Yeah. But this way, if you want to pick two of the new ones, you can be
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It felt a bit late to me at 10th level. So your idea of moving this up to seventh level sounds quite interesting
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And I like the idea of having upgrades available as well. So you can choose an upgraded one
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Or potentially you can choose one of these new ones as a complementary one
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So I think it would make, you know, dips into other buses that get fighting styles
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Quite interesting. You know, a couple of levels of Ranger to get a fighting style or a paladin
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Yeah. Plus two from your fighting, you get up with three fighting styles. Yeah
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So three or even four, if you did both. So it could be quite good fun to combine these together
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That was my thoughts on that one. Yeah, I like that a lot. Clever names. My favorite one's the con mod for the blowhard, the blowgun one
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That's really clever. I think it'd be great to take this feature
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And yeah, just like you can do an upgraded fighting style or you can do these, like
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brand new ones that only the champion gets. So it's a champion exclusive. It's, I think that's really cool
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Yeah, I kind of like both ideas. I think maybe between us, we could maybe boil that down to a list that has a few of them in
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Level 10, since it's now very, vacant. I moved everything down a level. I made up a new one called
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Unwavering Poise. You master defensive footwork and positioning in battle, so foes cannot get the drop on you. So I took inspiration from this. Well, first of all
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the Dex saves was based on the champion, just being like this premier athlete
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Apex specimen, and it kind of builds off remarkable athlete, because I didn't
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want to give it then. So I give it level 10, you get Dexterity saving throws. And then
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if you, so if you hit someone with an attack, and they attack you, but
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you've just, you've damaged them since their last turn, their previous turn
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So basically it lasts for a round. They can't get advantage on you because you're just so good at being defensive with your footwork
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and how you position yourself and you don't make attacks that open yourself up to be punished
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So they just, they can't get advantage against you. It's not that they have disadvantage, they just can't get advantage
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And my, my inspiration for this was from the rogues feature, 17 or 19
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Elusive, this one? Level 18, yeah. So it's very simple. just no attack role has advantage against you while you aren't incapacitated
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So mine's a remix of that and it's based on you being like going toe to toe to
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with someone or hitting the range attacks to kind of put them at disadvantage
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while you are good at defending yourself. I don't know if there's a better way to word it. That's what I went with
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Yeah. Okay. I quite like it. I like the idea. Yeah. I think, you know, we have to word it in some way to make it a little bit easier
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But I get what you're saying. I quite like that concept there. I think I actually had something similar into the 15th level feature
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I have something. All right. Let's go. Level 15, Superior Critical. Superior Critical
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I think we'll have to think about the 10th level feature because if we do move the fighting styles up to seventh level
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that would leave me without a 10th level feature as well. So, yeah, for the superior critical
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I decided to apply a bit of a debuff. So after a critical hit against a creature
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that that creature gains disadvantage on all its attack roles until the start of you all next down
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So basically they can't attack anything. They get disadvantage on all attacks if you've critically hit them
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Again, just sort of leaning into, you're the best of doing quits
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and when you really hit somebody like this, you're going to knock them back. And so it's building on what I had originally at, I think, up at third level
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where I was getting a little bit of a buffed at third level, if I managed to critically hit something on my next attack
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But now they're getting debuffed as well. Well, I went with, and this feeds more into the second wind concept that I was using at level three
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As I said, when you score a critical hit with a weapon attack, you regain one use of second wind
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So assuming you've used one already, you have two, used one, you get one back
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If you want, as part of that critical hit, you can choose to immediately use it as well
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just like the level three feature. So you can heal yourself, and you can add the 1D10, which becomes 2D10, to the critical hit
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And so basically every time you land a crit, you'll be able to second wind now with this feature is what I went with
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And I think this is going to feed into Level 18 Survivor, where they just passively regain hit points
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And so maybe I've been watching a lot of Demon Slayer, the anime, where they focus a lot on breathing to increase their stamina and their power in combat
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But I was just picturing them, like being able to second wind, the more crits you land, the longer you're going to last in combat
18:10
And I just like that visual and that mechanic of it. Of my ideas I came up with, I think feeding into second wind and making that better and using it more is what I'm most excited about
18:20
Well, I like that. I like that as well. I do like that again. You're not going to learn to quit that often still
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Yeah. But it's going to be often enough that you'll be able to top yourself up with hit points
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You're going to be really hard to kill once you get to 18th level. Yeah. You're still not like a bare barbarian, like resisting almost all damage you take
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And so I think it's still within the realm of what the game already allows
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So I don't think it's a game-breaking concept. I have a fighter champion that is really hard to take down
18:50
Yeah I just thinking about an elven champion with element accuracy If you able to to get advantage on your attacks let say you shove somebody prone right And then you you know action surge and you go all in
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So I guess they'll need to be, I mean, maybe it's a once per turn limit on your, on your ability to use your second win
19:13
That's probably a good way to rein it in is just say once per turn. Yeah. Yeah, because otherwise, if you, if you've got like elven triple advantage
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and you're rolling quits on 1820 and you action surge for you know six attacks
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possibly a seven for the bonus action you're going to be landing a couple of those probably
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you'd be quitting a couple of times I think I'll know with the math on that so you know that would
19:34
really you're rolling a heck of a lot of dice on seven attacks we're running 21 dice
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yeah I'm putting that as a note in my my own revision notes as I'm going to consider that
19:44
maybe it's once per turn maybe there's some other limitation I give but I think you're right
19:48
it is a good idea. Once you start thinking of things like Elvin accuracy where you can really fish for crits
19:53
then might get a little out of hand. I still think that even as a once a turn ability
19:58
I think it would still be really strong. You could also, as it's a fighter, you can maybe make it once per pack action
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And then that way, if you do use your action surge, you get another use of it
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which kind of ties in really nicely with the action search feature. Yeah, I like that
20:14
Yeah. So I think that kind of complements the fighters. ability to do two attack actions
20:21
But it rains it in just a tiny bit because otherwise you might get it a bit too much
20:27
I mean, the other way to rein these things in is usually, you know, just to link them to like a, you know, proficiency bonus times per rest or something like that or a long rest or something
20:34
You can't use it all time. That's the other way that typically things get rained in
20:40
But, you know, action surge, you get, what do you get one or two of those for short rest
20:45
You get two of them at high levels. You get two of them high levels for a long time. I only have one
20:48
Yeah. So I don't think it's over the top to be able to do this twice and around in combat
20:53
Okay. And twice on your turn. Great. Good notes. Yeah. Yeah. I like that. I like that. I like that more than what I have
21:02
So for that, I think it's really nice. You really, I think you overshadowed my
21:07
Battle Rager Barbarian revision. So I tried to bring my A game for this one
21:14
No, no. I really like it. I love, I mean, I love this. idea of cleaning into the features that are already there. I think it's really nice and making
21:22
them better. I think the purple dragon night kind of trying to do that a bit. Yeah, it came to my
21:28
mind when I was thinking of these ideas. Yeah, yeah, but it didn't do it very well. So I like
21:34
I like this more, I did like this more, because you're getting more uses anyway of your existing
21:37
features and then you're using them for something else as well. So it also feels a bit like
21:43
them more, the newer druids, you know, all the new druids are getting used of different ways to
21:49
use their abilities. So, they're not sure. I quite like that. Yeah, yeah, that's great
21:55
Survivor, level 18. If you're below half your hit points, then you just passively start regaining
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hit points at the start of your turn. And it's equal to five plus your con modifier. So let's say
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maybe you have a plus three. It means you're regaining eight hit points at the start of each of your
22:10
turns, which at high levels, you're probably dying faster than that, but it's still nice to have
22:16
And it doesn't work if you're at zero hit points, so you don't just like regenerate when you're
22:20
dying. How did you change this, if at all? So this is the one feature that I felt was already pretty nice. So I think you've become pretty
22:28
tanky at this point. And, you know, you've got the ability to just drop back off the front line
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If that's an option, you know, tactically, you can drop off for a round, you know, and then by the time you come
22:38
back again, you've got 16 hit points, you know, returned to your award 20
22:41
If you've got a high constitution modifier, I think it really rewards you. I mean, the fighter gets so many ASRs anyway, and this really rewards you for putting some extra
22:50
prompts you can on top of all the extra hip points that you get anyway. So I didn't change this at all
22:55
I just thought it was really nice already. This speed to my left can't change
22:58
Let me see what I came up with. So I just added one more sentence to it, and I said, additionally, when you use your indomitable
23:07
feature because I think indomitable kind of has a similar like endurance feature for the fighter
23:13
like second wind does but it's based on saving throws. So when you use your indomitable feature and
23:18
you pass a saving throw because you used indomitable, you regain one use of second wind
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It's just another way to gain back your second wins when you pass a saving throw
23:28
I think these abilities that regain the second wins will obviously have to be somehow limited
23:32
so you can't have more than two uses available at any time. But it encourages you to use it
23:37
Right? And then you can get it back. Yeah, completely. Part of me is like this might have a bag of rats issue where someone could
23:45
not really bag of rats, but someone could like potentially use a weak spell on you
23:51
knowing you'll probably pass with indomitable so you can get second win. But that seems like a big cost to just get second win back when you already have ways to do it
23:59
So I don't think there would be an issue with that. Can you think of anything that this would be used
24:04
I mean, at the late 18th level as well. And so I'm pretty. high level gameplay at that point
24:09
I mean, you know, second wind is nice. And being able to add it to your critical hits is also very nice
24:14
So I think that's the one area you look at. But I can't see that
24:18
you know, somebody wasting their action to cast a spell on you. Yeah
24:21
At that level of play is going to be all that efficient, just to give you an extra like plus 10 or plus up to plus 20 damage you in one attack
24:29
Yeah. So compared to what, you know, your average spell cast we can do with that level
24:33
I think, I don't think it's going to be open to too much
24:37
abuse. Well, I feel good about it then. Thank you. Yeah, I like that one as well. I like that
24:42
So I think it's again, it's speeding into what's going on. So, you know, again
24:46
what the Purple Dragon Night kind of should have done. Maybe that's next. Yeah, maybe that is next
24:51
We're warmed up now. Warming up on the fighters. Yeah. Fantastic. Well, thank you, Shard. It's always a pleasure to do
24:59
this. We'll go ahead and say goodbye for now. Y'all have a good adventure this weekend. Bye
25:03
Bye, everybody
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