Battle Master is a Classic in Dnd 5e! - Advanced guide to Battle Master 

But Kobold! What about proficiency in Gaming Kits!? Surely Yugioh never lied to me, about the importance of a children's card game! D: ...But yeah. One fun build I slapped together, using Battle Master, involves pairing it with Inquisitive Rogue and (as a Variant Human) picking up Shillelagh, using Magic Initiate. After that, I pretty much just grabbed an Expertise in Insight, and maxed out Wisdom (ft. Observant). Character-wise, my guy's an old Veteran Flagbearer who may or may not be missing half his limbs, but by reading the opponents movements, and relying on decades of battle experience, he can still do more with one hand than most adventurers can do with two. Strategy-wise, this build is basically a Wisdom Fighter who is heavily reliant on Shillelagh, Insightful Fighting (from Inquisitive Rogue), and careful use of just about every trick in Battle Master's book ( _especially_ Tactical Assessment and Trip Attack). Shillelagh essentially turns Wisdom into my main attack stat, so long as I'm using a Quarterstaff or Club (Luckily, a flagpole, or "Flagstaff," is likely close enough, so long as it's made of wood). Using Insightful Fighting, I can essentially gain advantage to attacks for a minute straight against most enemies, due to contesting their Deception check with what's pretty much a maxxed-out Insight check (further buffed by Tactical Assessment, if need be), and I can do so as a bonus action as many times as I want. This feature, paired with Battle Master being... well... _Fighter,_ ensures that you can get off your Battle Maneuvers a lot more effectively. To be fair, this build sucks at range, although Frostbite, Produce Flame, and Thorn Whip can probably help with that. What this build _does_ excel at, however, is pushing the Insight skill to its absolute limits, especially if the Observant feat is picked up. With Expertise, your passive Perception/Insight is going to be _insane._ The DM will have to throw enemies at you that are literally invisible, if he wants anyone to sneak up on you, and proficiency with Thieves' Tools (from Rogue) means that traps become practically useless (as you'll passively see them coming). Also, picking up a background that gives you access to Artisans Tools (such as Folk Hero or Inquisitor) will allow you to pair Mason's Tools with Carpenter's Tools, thus allowing you to passively perceive just about any form of secret door and/or passageway (if the DM bothers with them). ...And yes, that much insight can probably allow you to give Seto Kaiba a run for his infinite money, if you're proficient in Gaming Kits. XD

Dear Pack Tacktics, I'd like to build a character with the fastest movement speed possible in my campaign. A lot of different classes give movement buffs, but what order should I do things in to maximize survivability? I think I will have to be a Elk Totem Barbarian with some levels in Monk and Bladesinger, but somehow I also need to get longstrider and haste. What's the best way to get all of these things in the long run without sacrificing survivability in the short run? (I want my character to live through a difficult campaign while they become the fastest known creature in the entire universe.) Thank you, A D&D Player.

@@lightning_11 My recommendations: Start with Bladesinger 4/Druid 2, with the Mobile feat. Among your starter spells, grab Longstrider and Expeditious Retreat. After casting both, your base speed is going to be 30 +10 (Bladesinging) +10 (Longstrider) +10 (Mobile Feat) +10 (Monk), for a total of 70 movement speed. Dash as both an Action and Bonus Action, and you'll be able to move 210 feet in a turn. If you buy a pair of Boots of Speed, that doubles to a grand total of 420 movement speed. If you're still not fast enough, _then_ you can go for Barb 5, and even three levels in Scout Rogue, to both eliminate the need for Expeditious Retreat (via Cunning Action), and also to allow you to move half your speed as a reaction, if an enemy ends its turn close to you. Without the need for Expeditious Retreat, you can *then* level up Bladesinger a bit, in order to access Ashardalon's Stride, for an extra 20 movement speed. Haste lets you be more expedient, yes, but it has its issues. I'd ordinarily also recommend 2 levels into Druid, so you can Wild Shape into a Riding Horse, in order to change your base speed to 60+. HOWEVER, due to the fact that Boots of Speed exists, and the fact that most DMs won't allow your sneakers to turn into horseshoes, the core of this build kinda ruins such an option, as you'll obviously be running much faster with Boots of Speed. Also, as good as Haste may be, I'd actually recommend _against_ using it, or at least casting it yourself. After all, if you drop Concentration on it, then all that movement speed drops to a big fat zero. Meanwhile, if you have an ally cast it on you, and they're able to keep themselves safe, then you'll be able to concentrate on your _own_ speed spells, while still gaining the benefits of Haste. Instead of stopping you in your tracks, losing Concentration will now only slow you by a bit, until you can re-cast whatever spell you just dropped. For Race, I'd recommend Tortle. Sure, there are faster races out there (Tabaxi, Centaur, Swiftstride Shifters, etc.), but Tortle gives you 17 AC, which stacks with Bladesinger's AC boost, which really helps with survivability. Plus... speedy turtles are funny. XD Also, I should probably mention that this build takes a couple turns to get completely revved up, due to the spells, Bladesinging, and other prepwork tossed in. Once it gets going though... well... good luck stopping it.

Hey pack, you got bots in your comments

Heyy Idk if you played fable one buuut that adventurers' guild hall loos suspiciously familiar

Technically... Disarming is an optional rule and Prone is already possible. But more sandwiches are nice.

Yo anything's possible with Tavern Brawler

Make mine with prone-valone.

@@absolstoryoffiction6615 OOOhhhh! I should add enchanted sandwiches to my campaign that give bonuses when using them as the weapon for certain maneuvers. You could also eat the sandwich to gain extra superiority dice.

@@ClericOfPholtus Yeah, why use a sandwich when you can disarm your opponent with his own arm.

💯

Laser Llama's alt fighter does the maneuver bit. I hope wotc considers something like that for the classes of the warrior group.

100%

Tack on the "Trade To-Hit for damage" function of Sharpshooter and Great Weapon Master to that list, IMO. (I mean, all martials should get that, not just fighter, but still)

Considering how reworked early features of the Bard are in One D&D, that may actually happen.

I'd kinda want both, they are each really Cool and unique aspects of the fighter.

Lower battle master dice to d6, move action surge further up in character progression and make maneuvers second level. Then make the dice progress properly. Remove either an action surge use, an indomitable use or an ASI though fighters are a bit feat hungry so even less indomitable is preferable to ASI.

I am working on a Battle Master Homebrew Feature for the martials. The Feature dice are d4/6 unless you have a martial (sub)class die like Monks, proper battle masters, etc. Different classes get a different number of maneuvers per in-class leveling, as well as dice per proficiency. Not all maneuvers are available.

I agree, Maneuvers look like the simplest way to bridge the gap between melee martials and ranged/spellcasters

It should have been every martials core mechanic. If casters get spells, martials should get maneuvers and hybrid classes should get both but less of each.

If you treat 5e as a video game... Yeah... Martials (not half casters) are gimped.

@@absolstoryoffiction6615 5e is still 90% combat in mechanic's. Combat should be fun. I found myself never wanting to play martials after years of play because i just tone out of combat whan its happened. And that just snow balled to toning out of the session

@@yuvalgabay1023 Thank you for mentioning the that the VAST majority of rules are actually combat related. DnD has its roots in war gaming, so its natural. Heck, early DnD was more dungeon crawling, there wasn't much role play as many think of it. Heck, the reason why so many DnD RU-vidrs talk about mechanics is because you don't really need that much for role play. There are plenty of other systems that are much more rules light that 5e.

"Beware of old men in a profession where most die young."

@@paulcoy9060 where is this quote from? That's very cool

@@ryanrulesbro Terry Pratchett, talking about his elderly warrior, Cohen the Barbarian, in the Discworld series. But I'm sure he adapted it from an original source. His crew are also very old. Cohen himself said something like, "The trick to swordfighting is to put yourself where the other guy's sword isn't."

And Flourishes to that and you have smart and skilled martial here,lol

I also like Brace! Reverse Opportunity where you attack if they enter your range.

Brace/ Riposte combo's really well with Pushing Attack if a creature used up most of or all their movement to get to your character. My own Battle Master Fighter regularly denies or forces enemies to use the Dash action on their turn. It's a bit costly, but can be worth it to more or less take a heavy hitting enemy out of the Action Economy for a turn.

For the Eldritch Knight. You don't need Int, really. Leave Int related Spells to the Wizard and pick up Utility, Illusion, and guaranteed damage Spells. Otherwise... Dex Int Eldritch Knights are deadly.

@@absolstoryoffiction6615 I can agree, there are enough useful spells that don't need saves or to hits that really make it ok to basically dump Int for that subclass. But of course you have the Int anyhow, all the better. Its not like say Pathfinder 1e where having a high in on an Int caster gave bonus spell slots.

"A bit not conservative " fixed.

My problem with rune knight is that at higher levels you need multiple rounds to come online because almost everything costs a bonus action. However the additional boni that the runes give you are great out of combat.

Yes, especially when you have Uncanny Dodge: enemy hits? - halve the damage; enemy misses? - riposte with sneak attack. Make sure you don't get slowed though then it doesn't work.

Battlemaster's existence detracts from the Fighter class as a whole, since it takes features that should be standard for Fighter, but can't easily be granted to it because then you would severely hobble players who pick Battlemaster as their subclass in comparison to the players who picked other subclasses, I agree. Deleting Battlemaster and granting the Superiority dice and Maneuvers to every fighter is a good idea. Alternatively, if you don't want to give Fighters additional damage through superiority dice, you can use Bob World Builder's Mighty Deed homebrew. I plan to use that in my next campaign.

Check out hero points in the DMG

@@seekingfurtherlight34 Hero points just give you 5 + half your character's level in d6s that you can add to rolls once per turn before you know if you succeeded or failed. And you can spend them to turn a failed death saving throw into a success. That's not the same thing as allowing fighters to use their attacks to manipulate their enemies, allies and surroundings.

Um... Actually... You can prone the target with your hammer. Or grapple the target then throw them 10ft in the air to instantly prone them. But sadly... 5e doesn't have Throwing Rules outside of Thrown Weapons, the DM will have to intervene. Unless you know how to juggle the target in the air with Shove, if your RNG is good.

@@absolstoryoffiction6615 But only at the cost of doing damage. There's currently no mechanical way of doing damage to a creature _and_ making them fall prone without a maneuver.

It's a great trick. We used this combo in one of my current games a lot. This is especially useful when the rogue is rolling 5d6 or 6d6 of sneak attack damage. This could also be useful with a Paladin that can smite and do a lot of nova damage with the extra attack.

More uses and/or a select few maneuvers they know are more effective/stronger

Can depend on party composition but absolutely. The more martials or people with spell attacks in your party the better.

Tell the DM to read the feature, not the title of the feature. Reading the feature they will notice it causes the prone condition. Then you show them chapter 9 and find "Flying Movement". After that, you've won the argument that shouldn't have been an argument to begin with. I really don't like DMs who only read the title. Also "make sense", It also doesn't make sense that you can cast spells. You can't do that in the real world. This is a fantasy game.

Because Herbalism Kit isn't an artisan tool, but only a tool proficiency. So you can't choose it as far i'm aware.