D&D 5E Official D&D Basic Discussion Thread

Thaumaturge

Wandering. Not lost. (He/they)
So I noticed something in the basic rules.

Several backgrounds will give proficency with the Tool: Vehicles (Land), or Animal Handling

Nowhere do I see riding as a skill. Has riding been folded into Animal Handling, or are all horses tools in 5e?

And if horses are tools, what does that make centaurs?

Thaumaturge.
 

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jadrax

Adventurer
Nowhere do I see riding as a skill. Has riding been folded into Animal Handling, or are all horses tools in 5e?

Basically it's Wisdom (Animal Handling), which under other things is to:
  • keep a mount from getting spooked
  • control your mount when you attempt a risky maneuver.
 

KarinsDad

Adventurer
Yeah, it seems kinda weak and fiddly now.



That's a good point. I was focused on how bad this was for greataxe-wielders, but it's pretty lame even for greatsword/maul-wielders. An average increase of 1 1/3 point of damage on a roll of 2d6 (which is the best case scenario for this ability) doesn't compare well to the Dueling Fighting Style.

EDIT: I should note that the extra damage from Great Weapon Fighting gets doubled on a crit while the +2 damage from Dueling doesn't, but still.

I don't quite understand your analysis.

Dueling gives you +2 damage on a max D8 weapon.

Great Weapon gives you reroll 1 or 2 on a max D12 or 2D6 weapon.

So the first one is D8+2 or 6.5 average points of damage (pre-Str) which is 2 points of damage over someone who does not have this ability.

The second one is the equivalent of D10+2 or 7.5 avarege (1 extra point over 6.5 of D12) or the equivalent of 2D4+4 (2 extra points over 7 of 2D6)

Dueling: Going from 4.5 to 6.5 damage vs.
Great Weapon: Going from 6.5 to 7.5 damage with a D12 weapon (or going from 7 to 9 points with a 2D6 weapon)

Yeah, the Greataxe only gets one extra point of damage compared to dueling getting 2, but it still does more overall average damage, especially on a crit. The dueling weapon guy gets to use a shield. Pros and Cons.


The real potent fighter is the two-weapon fighter with a short sword in each hand doing D6+2 in each hand (pre-Str). He averages 11 points of damage plus 2x Str mod if both hit. And if he downs a foe with one attack, he can still attack another foe with the off hand attack. Lot of love there.

Granted, once Fighters gets Extra Attack at level 5, it becomes 9+Str plus 9+Str for the Greatsword wielder and 5.5+Str plus 5.5+Str plus 5.5+Str for the two short sword wielder. The two handed wielder starts to catch up and actually passes the two weapon wielder at level 11. But, that's balanced. The one fighter style was better at levels 1 to 10, the other style better at levels 11 to 20. Criticals affect this as well, but the two weapon wielder gets slightly more criticals on average which helps.
 

Nagol

Unimportant
I don't quite understand your analysis.

Dueling gives you +2 damage on a max D8 weapon.

Great Weapon gives you reroll 1 or 2 on a max D12 or 2D6 weapon.

So the first one is D8+2 or 6.5 average points of damage (pre-Str) which is 2 points of damage over someone who does not have this ability.

The second one is the equivalent of D10+2 or 7.5 avarege (1 extra point over 6.5 of D12) or the equivalent of 2D4+4 (2 extra points over 7 of 2D6)

It's not quite as high as a d10 + 2 since you keep the result of the reroll even if it is a 1 or 2.

Dueling: Going from 4.5 to 6.5 damage vs.
Great Weapon: Going from 6.5 to 7.5 damage with a D12 weapon (or going from 7 to 9 points with a 2D6 weapon)

Yeah, the Greataxe only gets one extra point of damage compared to dueling getting 2, but it still does more overall average damage, especially on a crit. The dueling weapon guy gets to use a shield. Pros and Cons.

Dueling guy using a shield loses his damage. Dueling requires your off hand to be empty. *edit* it looks like you can wield a shield at the same time after all.

The real potent fighter is the two-weapon fighter with a short sword in each hand doing D6+2 in each hand (pre-Str). He averages 11 points of damage plus 2x Str mod if both hit. And if he downs a foe with one attack, he can still attack another foe with the off hand attack. Lot of love there.

How is he getting +2 pre-STR? Dueling requires your off hand to be empty not have a weapon in it.
 

jadrax

Adventurer
Dueling guy using a shield loses his damage. Dueling requires your off hand to be empty. *edit* it looks like you can wield a shield at the same time after all.

How is he getting +2 pre-STR? Dueling requires your off hand to be empty not have a weapon in it.

No it doesn't, as long as you don't have a second weapon you are fine.

Gah, you edited when I hit hit reply and I didn't notice!
 

occam

Adventurer
I don't quite understand your analysis.

Dueling gives you +2 damage on a max D8 weapon.

Great Weapon gives you reroll 1 or 2 on a max D12 or 2D6 weapon.

So the first one is D8+2 or 6.5 average points of damage (pre-Str) which is 2 points of damage over someone who does not have this ability.

The second one is the equivalent of D10+2 or 7.5 avarege (1 extra point over 6.5 of D12) or the equivalent of 2D4+4 (2 extra points over 7 of 2D6)

The benefit isn't that good, as Nagol noted. The math is here:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...pon-Fighting&p=6326329&viewfull=1#post6326329

The real potent fighter is the two-weapon fighter with a short sword in each hand doing D6+2 in each hand (pre-Str). He averages 11 points of damage plus 2x Str mod if both hit.

Like Nagol, I'm confused; where is the extra +2 damage coming from for a dual-wielder?

Granted, once Fighters gets Extra Attack at level 5, it becomes 9+Str plus 9+Str for the Greatsword wielder and 5.5+Str plus 5.5+Str plus 5.5+Str for the two short sword wielder. The two handed wielder starts to catch up and actually passes the two weapon wielder at level 11. But, that's balanced. The one fighter style was better at levels 1 to 10, the other style better at levels 11 to 20.

Great weapon fighters pass up two-weapon fighters with the first Extra Attack, at 5th level. That math is here:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...ghting/page4&p=6327824&viewfull=1#post6327824
 

KarinsDad

Adventurer
It's not quite as high as a d10 + 2 since you keep the result of the reroll even if it is a 1 or 2.

Thanks. I wasn't aware of that. 7.333 on average instead of 7.5.

Dueling guy using a shield loses his damage. Dueling requires your off hand to be empty. *edit* it looks like you can wield a shield at the same time after all.

Yup.

How is he getting +2 pre-STR? Dueling requires your off hand to be empty not have a weapon in it.

Not quite sure of your question. I was talking about two weapon in that sentence and you are talking about dueling.
 

Nagol

Unimportant
Thanks. I wasn't aware of that. 7.333 on average instead of 7.5.



Yup.



Not quite sure of your question. I was talking about two weapon in that sentence and you are talking about dueling.

You have the dual-wielder doing 1d6+2 with each hand, pre-STR mod. I'm curious where the +2 damage comes from. The only thing I saw in the previous post that it could be was the dueling bonus which shouldn't apply.
 

KarinsDad

Adventurer

Yes, I was unaware the the reroll was once.

Still, +0.833 for one weapon and +1.333 for another when we are talking larger weapons to begin with is still going to do more overall damage than +2 with a smaller weapon.

Like Nagol, I'm confused; where is the extra +2 damage coming from for a dual-wielder?

An error when I try to rush a message out and am simultaneously trying to rush out of work. ;)

Great weapon fighters pass up two-weapon fighters with the first Extra Attack, at 5th level. That math is here:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...ghting/page4&p=6327824&viewfull=1#post6327824

Yup. See error above. Counting hit chance (say 80% for a typical attack with Str 16) and criticals, the DPR difference is anywhere from about 0.4 to 2.6 depending on Str and it's a little higher still with Improved Critical once they get to level 5. A slight edge for the two handed weapon user.

At higher Str like 18 or 20, the two weapon wielder is actually still more effective though since the two handed weapon user wastes a lot of damage more often (e.g. attacking a foe with 3 hit points remaining and doing 14 points of damage). This is harder to measure in statistics since there will be times where the two handed user barely kills a foe and then seriously damages another foe with the next shot. Or times when either fighter kills a foe and then the Extra Attack is wasted if no other foe is still next to the fighter. All in all, though, three smaller damage attacks will do more overall damage averaged over many fights than two larger attacks with a similar total of damage. Kind of like many small objects can fill up a jar with more mass than multiple larger objects.

Btw, anything that boosts bonus damage for the fighter (like a buff or possibly a magic sword) keeps the two weapon wielder ahead (barely, by maybe 0.5 points) of the two handed user in DPR if they both have a Str of 20 pre-level 11 (course, other factors can change this if attacking foes with higher AC, etc.).
 
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