The battlemaster fighter is often regarded as the most popular fighter subclass in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Dungeons & Dragons due to its inclusion in the original Player's Handbook as well as its unique access to a retinue of maneuvers that modify your attacks. As opposed to other fighters that simply make attacks time and time again, the battlemaster fighter presents you with a choice of whether to use a maneuver every single turn.

RELATED: Dungeons & Dragons:🎃 The Best Uses Of A Bonus Action

In other words, it's the most interactive and hands-on fighter subclass in the game. However, the large amount of choices available to battlemaster fighters also makes them susceptible to pitfalls when trying to properly build and play one. This article will cover some of these pitfalls and explain how to properly build an ideal melee-based battlemaster fighter.

Species

One of the greatest things about fighters is that there are so many species that mix well with the class. Dwarves, Half-Orcs, Goliaths, and just about any other Strength-based species will do perfectly well.

However, there is an important consideration to be made here based on your dungeon master's rules. Many dungeon masters (DMs) allow their players a free feat at level one; however, this is an optional♑ rule that not all DMs ꧋abide by.

If your DM allows a free feat at level one, feel free to play any species that provides a +2 strength bonus.

If they don't, though, you'll likely want to settle on a species that provides you with a feat at level one, such as the Variant Human or Tasha's Custom Lineage option.

If you want the most optimal build, take advantage of the Mountain Dwarf species if your DM allows you a free feat, as the Mountain Dwarf gives +2 to CON and STR.

Ability Scores

Speaking of ability scores, you'll want to maximize your strength score as soon as possible to incr🌊ease the accuracy and damage of your atta🅘cks.

Once your strength is maxed out, you'll spend the rest of your ASIs (Ability Score Improvements) either to max your Constitution or pick up new feats.

If you happen to get a +1 magic weapon early on, there's an argument to be made for taking feats instead of bumping your Strength score from 18 to 20, but that's up to you.

While fighters function perfectly fine when focusing on just Strength and Constitution, it's also important to try and get your Wisdom as high as possible as well.

Although none of the fighters core features function off of Wisdom, it's the most common save you'll have to make against enemy spells and abilities.

Often, failing these saves will mean your character is temporarily incapacitated from a fight, which is something you sincerely wish to avoid.

To make things concise, maximize your Strength, then Constitution, then Wisdom. The last thing to note about ability scores is that you will want to put an odd number in Strength, Constitution, and Wisdom if you can.

Some feats you want to pick up are "half-feats" that provide a +1 bonus to an ability score in addition to other benefits.

To take advantage of this +1 bonus, the ability score effected by the half-feat needs to be odd.

Feats

Feats are arguably the most important part of building any fighter. Your feat selection not only defines what kind of battlemaster fighter you're playing but provides you with benefits that are nearly as important as your very own class features.

If you're interested in dishing out as much damage as possible, consider either Great Weapon Master or Polearm Master for your first feat.

Polearm Master is better at earlier levels, while Great Weapon Master allows for incredible, if somewhat unreliable, single target burst damage. It also beats🎐 out Polearm Master at higher ꦺlevels.

If you're interested in filling the role of tank, instead look to feats such as Sentinel, Shield Master, Crusher, Mobile, Tough, or Alert.

These feats will either help you control where enemies are located on the battlefield or provide you with extra defenses against enemy tactics.

For combos, consider taking both Polearm Master and Sentinel together to trigger tons of opportunity attacks, while also preventing enemie🦩s from reaching you or your allies.

The last important feat to mention here is Resilient. Especially at higher levels of play, picking up Resilient (Wisdom) gives you the best chance at making saving throws against debilitating enemy status effects, including Frightened, Paralyzed, In🅺capacitated, and more.

It's not a bad idea to pick up Resilient (Wisdom) as early as level nine, but you should definitely have it by level 14 at the latest.

Fighting Style

Your fighting style is another important choice you'll make at very early levels. While it may appear that any fighting style provides a nice benefit, some are certainly more worthy of consideration than others.

Damage-based fighters should look to Great Weapon Fighting in order to maximize damage rolls, while tanks should either take Defense if you're the only melee attacker in the party, or Protection if there are additional melee party members.

If your DM allows the optional fighting styles from Tasha's, it may also be worth taking Interception or Superior Technique.

Any fighting styles listed in the books that aren't mentioned here are suboptimal choices. There are niche character builds that may want to take advantage of other fighting styles, but they simply don't bring as much to the table.

Battlemaster Maneuvers

Like the fighting styles, it may appear that every maneuver provides a cool benefit. However, some of them are a lot more useful than others.

Once you unlock your first three maneuvers at level three, you'll want to pick up Trip Attack, Pushing Attack, and Precision Attack.

These three maneuvers give you all the utility you need to disable enemies, save your allies from attacks, and ensure a high damage output.

That being said, there are some other maneuvers worth considering at third level depending on extenuating circumstances.

If you happen to have a rogue in your party, for example, Commander's Strike gives you the ability to trigger the rogue's sneak attack a second time by providing them with an opportunity attack outside of their turn.

In case you didn't take a feat that lets you make use of your bonus action often, you may consider picking up Quick Toss to give you a reliable bonus action each turn.

If your main concern is keeping your allies safe, you might want to take Bait and Switch from Tasha's as one of their first maneuvers.

This maneuver allows you to remove one of your allies from melee combat with another creature, while also giving you the choice of buffing their AC or your own by a d8 until your next turn. Now that's tanking.

At levels seven, ten, and 15, you'll unlock even more battlemaster maneuvers to add to your repertoire.

Feel free to take whichever maneuvers interest you the most.

NEXT: Dungeons & Drago🦋ns: Story Hooks You Always See In D&D And Why They Work