D&D 5E Do Rage Bonus to Damage and Bonus Damage derived from Fighting Styles stack?

[Strider1973]

Do rage bonus to damage and bonus damage derived from Fighting Styles such as "Duelist" stack? I think so, just want to be sure...
Many thanks!

 

[Mistwell]

Yes, they stack.

 

[Leatherhead]

Only if you are attacking with a melee weapon using STR.

 

[Voort]

Yes, they would stack as long as you meet all the restrictions for both. So Rage and Duelist would apply to a one-handed, strength-based melee weapon attack when you are not holding another weapon.

 

[Blue]

As people have said, these stack.

The rules for when they don't stack are pretty straightforward. The original bit in the PHB was just that spells of the same name do not stack. This was expanded in the most recent DMG errata (Nov 2018):

Combining Game Effects (p. 252). This is a new subsection at the end of the “Combat” section:
Different game features can affect a target at the same time. But when two or more game features have the same name, only the effects of one of them—the most potent one—apply while the durations of the effects overlap. For example, if a target is ignited by a fire elemental’s Fire Form trait, the ongoing fire damage doesn’t increase if the burning target is subjected to that trait again. Game features include spells, class features, feats, racial traits, monster abilities, and magic items. See the related rule in the “Combining Magical Effects” section of chapter 10 in the Player’s Handbook.

So basically, if it doesn't have the same name, it stacks.

 

[Caliburn101]

It comes as a surprise to some as the big Barbarian with the great axe is so iconic that an battle axe and shield or longsword and shield comes a very close second in damage with this style and means the Barbarian is even more tanky when raging.

Take a Con 14, Str 16 1st level Barb/1st Fighter. +5 to hit, 1d8+7 (8-15; Av. 11.5) damage.
2nd level Barb. with Great Axe - +5 to hit, 2d6+5 (7-17; Av. 12 but you should consider the 1-2 re-roll so it is closer to 13+) damage

For me, there isn't nearly enough in it for a loss of 2 AC.

If playing a Barbarian I wouldn't take anything else. Even when facing another Barbarian with GWF that extra +2 AC is an interesting wrinkle statistically when thinking about that -5 to hit... so a GWF Barb/Fighter facing the same with a Battleaxe/Shield shouldn't expect to win by repeated hard swings necessarily.

 

[Leatherhead]

It comes as a surprise to some as the big Barbarian with the great axe is so iconic that an battle axe and shield or longsword and shield comes a very close second in damage with this style and means the Barbarian is even more tanky when raging.

Take a Con 14, Str 16 1st level Barb/1st Fighter. +5 to hit, 1d8+7 (8-15; Av. 11.5) damage.
2nd level Barb. with Great Axe - +5 to hit, 2d6+5 (7-17; Av. 12 but you should consider the 1-2 re-roll so it is closer to 13+) damage

For me, there isn't nearly enough in it for a loss of 2 AC.

If playing a Barbarian I wouldn't take anything else. Even when facing another Barbarian with GWF that extra +2 AC is an interesting wrinkle statistically when thinking about that -5 to hit... so a GWF Barb/Fighter facing the same with a Battleaxe/Shield shouldn't expect to win by repeated hard swings necessarily.

Barbarians don't get Fighting Styles without multiclassing (and multiclassing itself has many downsides with it, such as delayed extra attacks or subclass features). However, they do get Brutal Critical, which allows them to multiply damage dice, which is nice when your damage die is a d12.

 

[Kurotowa]

The default case in 5e is that things stack. The catch is that you have to check the wording and make sure it's something stackable, because certain things were specifically designed to disallow it.

For example, if your Barbarian takes the Magic Initiate feat they can stack Mage Armor with Unarmored Defense for a crazy high AC, right? Wrong. Unarmored Defense is "Your AC equals 10 plus Dex mod plus Con mod" and Mage Armor is "Your AC equals 13 plus Dex mod". You can use one or the other, but there's nothing to stack. Compare that to Bracers of Defense, which is a bonus of "+2 to AC when unarmored and not using a shield" because it is intended to be combined with Unarmored Defense or Mage Armor.

Another example is the Extra Attack feature many classes have. It doesn't add a bonus attack but stipulates that you can attack twice with the Attack action, specifically to prevent multi-class PCs from stacking it. The only way to get a third or fourth attack is to be a high level Fighter whose version of Extra Attack has an extra clause.

So, don't expect there are rules against stacking (except temporary HP), but always make sure you read the actual text and don't go off a summery or memory.

 

[Jacob Lewis]

If you let the barbarian go first,and the fighter hits the same target after, then all damage should stack (provided the barbarian didn't rage-kill the fighter in the process).

 

[Caliburn101]

Barbarians don't get Fighting Styles without multiclassing (and multiclassing itself has many downsides with it, such as delayed extra attacks or subclass features). However, they do get Brutal Critical, which allows them to multiply damage dice, which is nice when your damage die is a d12.

I know that's why my example was a Barb1/Fighter1.