Strider1973
Explorer
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!
Many thanks!
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.
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.