D&D 5E Is Savage Attacker worth it?

[Jefe Bergenstein]

I don't know about anyone else, but after reading this thread, I'm convinced Savage Attacker isn't worth a feat slot.

Same here. I'd actually thought it was on all attacks and had already written it off as both boring and weak. A once per turn "damage advantage" is just garbage.

 

[Ashrym]

No, it's just a small boost to damage and I wouldn't take it unless I ran out of other damage options and wanted to inch forward that last bit. It's not even worth replacing the ability score increase, in my opinion.

 

[sandvirm]

I consider the extra dice from Sneak Attack to be weapon dice because Sneak Attack only works with weapons, and the Sneak Attack damage does not have an explicit type, e.g. piercing, slashing, but inherits the type from the weapon used to make the attack.

Given Savage Attacker's once-per-turn limitation, and the interpretation that it does work with Sneak Attack dice, I refer to Savage Attacker as "the Rogue feat".

The increased accuracy from an ASI is strictly better than Savage Attacker. However if dexterity is at 20 and the Rogue wants to do more damage, then Savage Attacker is a good option. The expected damage increase on the 6d6 Sneak Attack dice of a level 12 Rogue is 2.37. The expected damage increase on 10d6 Sneak Attack dice is 3.05.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

I'd rather have 24 more HP as that rogue, proficiency in another save (and a stat boost), a battlemaster maneuver, etc. A little over 2 damage on a hit is pretty crummy ROI from hyper specialization at 12th level.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

EDIT: Erroneous reading

 

[Mephista]

I -think- that Savage Attack is meant to work with the Barbarian and his greataxe while crit fishing. Three attacks a turn with advantage, maybe with a reaction, means you're averaging one crit every 2.5 turns, and Savage Attack could give a nice boost to that... On top of the +2 damage boost on average...

 

[Celtavian]

No. It is a worthless feat. Waste of writing.

You're better off getting two extra stat points or a different feat.

 

[CapnZapp]

It's a fine feat. As always, simply averaging things doesn't tell the whole story. It is quite wonderful when you roll a 2 on damage, then reroll it as 8. Especially when you do it on multiple rounds over a combat. This feat protects you from sh*t damage rolls.

Sorry, all this tells us that player doesn't do math well.

 

[Psikerlord#]

Sorry, all this tells us that player doesn't do math well.

All i emphasize is only looking at the average is a mistake. In practice you can throw average out the window.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

It looks weak to me, but I want to make sure I'm not missing something.

It is weak, but it should be compared against the opportunity cost. I suppose if you are a variant human fighter with 8 feats to burn, once you've already got Great Weapon Mastery, Heavy Armor Master, Lucky, Alert, Tough and 20 STR, you might as well pick up Savage Attacks as well for an extra 3-4 points of damage per round with a greataxe. After all, some people get excited about Colossus Slayer, which is about in the same range in terms of effectiveness.

Edit: whoops, I forgot Mobile, Resilient (Wis), Shield Master, and Resilient (Dex)... hmmm, it may be that there is never a good time to take Save Attacks.