Well for starters, Larian has buffed GWF in that it rerolls ALL dice made during an attack. This includes maneuver dice and fire/poison as well. This is bananas on Paladins but its still decent on Battlemaster Fighters. In tabletop the best you could get with this fighting style was a 1.3333 average damage increase on a 2d6 weapon; now with an additional D8 maneuver dice that is going to be a roughly 2+ average damage increase. This average increases by 0.5 by every d4 you can add to your weapon.
Laezel is unoptimized for sure, but it's not that bad. She could have 18 AC from the get go if she was built properly (14 Dex and Defense fighting style), but 16 AC is not that bad. Go to the goblin camp and mark your crew and then kill Gut to get her shield and you can give your party a +2 AC. This brings Laezel to 18 AC. At level 4 you can get +1 Str +1 Dex to bump her AC up to 19. Give her haste potions for tough fights to bring it up to 21 AC. Also not having the top AC of the party is kinda good for Battlemaster because it entices AI to attack you more, for more riposte opportunities.
People run 2 handed Paladins with 8 Dex with a meager 13 AC to start.
