D&D 5E On GWF and a versatile fighting style

Ok, I'm thinking out loud here and would appreciate your input.

About a versatile fighting style...
Versatile is a cool concept that evokes many heroic fiction characters like Aragorn, Mad Martigan, Conan, Wulfgar, or Thor to name a few, as well as archetypes such as the katana wielding samurai or the battleaxe swinging dwarf. Unfortunately, from an optimizing point of view*, you’re better off pretending that Narsil/Anduril is a two-handed sword and that Mjolnir is a maul. While this works, I wish there would be more support specifically for versatile weapons.

Versatile weapons are just that: versatile. Therefore, let’s play on the theme of flexibility:

Versatile Weapon Fighting
When you are wielding a versatile weapon with two hands, you gain a +1 bonus to damage rolls. In addition, at the beginning of your turn, you gain a +1 bonus to AC or a +1 bonus to attack rolls (your choice) until your next turn.

The +1 to damage only brings the average of a d10 versatile weapon on par with a d8 weapon with dueling fighting style (1d10+1 = 1d8+2). At 6.5, the average is still equal or under that of a great axe/sword.

The +1 to AC somewhat compensate for the loss of a shield. It's still inferior to dueling + shield, so the compensating power is an optional +1 to hit should you choose to lower your AC. A flexible style for a flexible weapon; sounds fitting.

The defense fighting style does not lose its niche since defense alone allows that +1 bonus to AC to stack with shields, with this new fighting style, with heavy and two-handed weapons, with range weapons, and with the dual wielder feat.

Alternatively, instead of borrowing from multiple styles, we could look for a mechanical effect not yet represented by existing fighting styles. Archery increases accuracy on attack rolls (archery), dueling increases total damage, great weapon fighting increases the reliability of damage rolls (without increasing damage maximum), two-weapon fighting enhances an option for your bonus action, protection give an option for your reaction, and defense increases your AC. That pretty much only leaves reliability on attack rolls (without increasing total) as the only unused avenue.

(alternate) Versatile Weapon Fighting
When you are wielding a versatile weapon with two hands and roll a 1 on the d20 for an attack roll, you can reroll the die and must use the new roll.

About GWM and Sharpshooter
The TWF thread had me thinking how this combat style is often seen inferior because, among other things, it monopolizes your bonus action. Now in itself that is not a bad thing – there wouldn’t be any tactical choices if you could do everything all the time – but it does have to compete, some would say unfairly, with other combat styles that do not require that bonus action.

So building on the (debatable) parental principle that “when you can’t make them equally happy, make them equally unhappy”, let’s see if what would happen if Great Weapon Master and Sharpshooter feats also required a bonus action to be activated:

Great Weapon Master
* Once on each of your turn, when you score a critical hit with a melee weapon or reduce a creature to 0 hit points with one, you can make one additional melee weapon attack as a bonus action.

* Before you make a melee attack on your turn with a heavy weapon with which you are proficient, you can use a bonus action to choose take a -5 penalty to any of your attack rolls until your next turn. Anytime you do so and the attack hits, it deals +10 damage.

Sharpshooter
* Attacking at long range doesn't impose disadvantage on your ranged weapon attack rolls.

*Your ranged weapons ignore half cover and three-quarters cover.

*Before you make a ranged attack on your turn with a ranged weapon with which you are proficient, you can use a bonus action to take a -5 penalty to any of your attack rolls until you next turn. Anytime you do so and the attack hits, it deals +10 damage.

This makes the power attack part of GWM incompatible with the bonus attack granted by Polearm Master, which cuts a bit on the cheese that devalues TWF so much. On the other hand, it enables the cleave part of GWF to work with the butt-end attack of Polearm Master (and TWF for what it’s worth).

This works pretty well... until the berserker barbarian shows up.

*I know not everything is about optimization. Still, it is satisfying to know that your character is not handicapped by a mostly cosmetic choice, especially one that is rather iconic in fantasy.

I'll have to think some on your GWF and SS solution but at first glance I'm liking it. Good Job!

Versatile fighting style:

When you wield one-handed, non-light, non-finesse melee weapon in two hands, you deal +2 damage.

You can wield two-handed, non-reach melee weapon in one hand by taking -2 penalty to damage.


As for GWM and SS I would remove -5/+10 part and turn it into half-feat with +1 str or dex bonus.

The best solution I've seen for a versatile fighting style is one that relies on the character switching between 1H and 2H each round. An example would be:

At the start of your turn you may shift your grip on a versatile weapon you're holding. If you are now holding it 1 handed, you deal +1 damage with it until the start of your next turn (or until you change your grip). If you are now holding it 2 handed, you gain +1 on attack rolls with it until the start of your next turn (or until you change your grip).

The problem with any "versatile" style is that there are too many members of the party around you fighting to make "switching forms" unnecessary. Once you get into combat, attack bonuses, damage rolls, and AC all just meld together into whatever melange the entire party has... and no monster you fight is so distinct in what they can do that a player can accurately determine at the drop of a hat "Oh, yeah, for this creature I definitely need the extra AC point, rather than the bonus damage point!"

Instead, the players are going to do what they always do... decide on a single form and just play it-- expecting and relying on their fellow players who use different forms to be the ones to pick up the slack for those forms. If a monster is hitting really well... it's not going to be the "versatile" PC stepping up to it while boosting their AC a point... it's going to be the dedicated tank PC in platemail and shield with the high CON mod doing it. So what does that versatility actually bring? Very little.

You know what "versatile" fighting is? It's the Bard of 2E.

Fairly good at lots and lots of roles... which would be wonderful if they were the only one available to do those roles. But as soon as you have enough others in the group to have a specialized person for those roles... the jack-of-all-trades become less and less necessary and they fall further and further behind everybody else. Specializing in versatility means you are always second-best. So you end up having to hope you're the only one who's there, because at least then you're second-best to nobody else.

I would prefer something like Shiroiken's example. I'd want a versatile fighting style to promote using it one-handed and two-handed, depending on the situation. Rather than just giving a bonus when it's used with both hands.
My first draft would be +1 damage when using it with 2 hands and +1 AC when using it with 1 hand. Something along those lines.

Nice. We added a lot of features for weapon properties.

Versatile Weapon: when you wield a versatile weapon with both hands, you can grant it the finesse property or the heavy property. You can change which property you choose at the beginning of your turn.

Finesse: you can choose to use your Dexterity modifier for your attack rolls instead of your Strength modifier.
Heavy: when you wield a heavy weapon with both hands, you add half your Strength modifier (round down) to your damage (in addition to your normal Strength modifier)// basically it is 1.5 x Str Mod.

I'm a little confused as to how the cleave and -5/+10 part play nicely together. You have to take the bonus action before the attack action to gain the -5/+10 bonus. The extra cleave only triggers on a kill or crit, but requires the bonus action as well. Is it intended to be an either/or thing, or is the intent that the kill/crit allows you to take an additional bonus action?

DEFCON 1 said:

The problem with any "versatile" style is that there are too many members of the party around you fighting to make "switching forms" unnecessary. Once you get into combat, attack bonuses, damage rolls, and AC all just meld together into whatever melange the entire party has... and no monster you fight is so distinct in what they can do that a player can accurately determine at the drop of a hat "Oh, yeah, for this creature I definitely need the extra AC point, rather than the bonus damage point!"

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I'm not sure if this was meant as an answer to my OP or to another poster, but I was suggesting +1 to AC or to hit, and weapon must be held two-handed. Otherwise I agree with you that choices, if any, must be equivalent and relevant. I'm not convinced about the irrelevance of having a choice, but I hear you about +1AC/to hit not being significant enough to be worth the question. By curiosity, what's you opinion on the alternate versatile style?

DEFCON 1 said:

Instead, the players are going to do what they always do... decide on a single form and just play it-- expecting and relying on their fellow players who use different forms to be the ones to pick up the slack for those forms. If a monster is hitting really well... it's not going to be the "versatile" PC stepping up to it while boosting their AC a point... it's going to be the dedicated tank PC in platemail and shield with the high CON mod doing it. So what does that versatility actually bring? Very little.

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You can't use a shield if you hold a versatile weapon two-handed. The party's dedicated tank takes defense fighting style instead because that's the only style that stacks with a shield and isn't dependent on specific weapons. Otherwise, the intention behind a versatile weapon style is to make the handling of a versatile weapon on its own as attractive as heavy weapons or 1-handed weapons. Not every single weapon need its little special niche, but I believe that versatile weapons are so present is fantasy culture and iconography that they at least deserve an honorable mention in the optimisation guides. Or at least not feel that it is suboptimal to everything else.

DEFCON 1 said:

You know what "versatile" fighting is? It's the Bard of 2E.

Fairly good at lots and lots of roles... which would be wonderful if they were the only one available to do those roles. But as soon as you have enough others in the group to have a specialized person for those roles... the jack-of-all-trades become less and less necessary and they fall further and further behind everybody else. Specializing in versatility means you are always second-best. So you end up having to hope you're the only one who's there, because at least then you're second-best to nobody else.

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I hear you, but like the bard who does shine in some situations, I wish there would be an occasional advantage to weapon versatility. Many of the "real-life" advantages of a shorter, lighter weapon are moot in D&D (probably for the better), but right now, Conan, Aragorn, Wulfgar and Thor are commiserating at their club. I heard they have cookies, but The GWF and dueling clubs have better ones. And bigger ones.

TwoSix said:

I'm a little confused as to how the cleave and -5/+10 part play nicely together (snip) or is the intent that the kill/crit allows you to take an additional bonus action?

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I understand the confusion, the strike-through didn't transfer like the bold and italic. I corrected the OP

Here's the intent:

On your turn, as you make an attack roll, you can use your bonus action to enable the "power attack" feature until your next round. You are not bound to use it on all (or any of) your attacks, but that would be the only way to use the -5/+10 on a reaction attack.

The cleave feature is free however, with a limit of once per turn