Fighter Martial Archetype: Champion 5e

Review by Sam West, Twitter:@CrierKobold

If you’re here from a buddy pointing to Champion and saying “It's an easy option for new players, you should try it!” I’d really encourage you to instead check out the Samurai or Cavalier martial archetypes for the fighter class instead. If you’re learning the game for the first time and want a character that gets new things to do as the game goes on, Champion fighter is not that. It does one thing, and does it well: fishing for critical hits. If you want opportunities to shine and use a variety of abilities without needing to do a deep dive into a giant list of potential features, either of the other two subclasses I pointed to will serve you better.

If you’re here because all you want to do is turn your brain off, roll 10d20s and pick out the 18s, 19s, and 20s, you’ve come to the right place.

3rd Level: Improved Critical

Improved Critical does what it says on the tin: it improves your critical hit range from 20 to 19 and 20. With advantage, this more than doubles the quantity of times you're going to crit, but that’s all it does. If you’re going Champion fighter, you should be approaching it with the goal of getting advantage as often as possible and maximizing the effectiveness of critical hits for this reason.

7th Level: Remarkable Athlete

Remarkable Athlete is almost a non-feature, giving you a Jack of All Trades bonus to a handful of ability checks that you decided to not take. Seeing as Athletics and Stealth are some of the most commonly taken abilities on fighters, either through the class or your background, you’re ultimately getting a tiny bonus to Acrobatics and Sleight of Hand. Increasing your long and high jump distances is fine and all, but by 7th level other characters have had access to flight and teleportation in a whole bunch of different forms, making this minor improvement feel close to meaningless.

10th Level: Additional Fighting Style

Additional Fighting Style will often feel like a +1 AC or Blind Fighting, with whatever your main fighting style you’ve been attacking with this whole time being the other. You’re probably not picking up a fighting style for a weapon type you’re not regularly using, and seeing as most are pigeon holed to work with a very specific weapon, you’re left with a handful of mediocre options. I’d probably choose Blind Fighting more often than not, especially given the goal of getting advantage as often as possible and it being a way to contribute to that.

15th Level: Superior Critical

Superior Critical amps up the range of your crit range to 18, 19, and 20. Want to feel like you’re critting like crazy? With a nearly 30% chance to hit an 18 or higher with advantage and three attacks each round, you’ll be more likely to crit in a round than not, and it only gets better with more attacks with off-hand attacks or spells like Haste.

18th Level: Survivor

Survivor closes out the Champion subclass with a Regenerate like passive buff on yourself, which is honestly pretty solid. Between fights you’ll auto-heal up to half your maximum hit points, which is pretty cool, and gaining 8-10 HP a round can quickly add up to soaking two to three enemy hits every fight.

All Together

Champion is predominantly a subclass for people who want to build a character whose entire identity is critting. The bulk of the power of this subclass is baked into how critical hits function with advantage, and the rest of the build around it probably seeks to get that advantage however it can with feats, races, and magic items. Remarkable Athlete is nearly a non-feature, and the Additional Fighting Style and Survivor are entirely fine additions to the subclass whose entire identity is “Crit for big number”.

If you’re new to the game, I would highly encourage you to look towards another fighter subclass that offers you more choices. Champion fighter is for people who know they want to do the same thing every fight, and that thing is make it as likely as possible they can crit over and over again. If you enjoy doing the same thing over and over again, fight after fight after fight and know that’s what you enjoy out of D&D, Champion will serve you for that. If you want expanded ways to engage with the world or even just tools to shake up your play pattern fight to fight, Champion fighter isn’t for you.

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