D&D 5E Fighting Style Balance: Offense vs. Defense

Hawk Diesel · Sep 16, 2017

So when I look at balance, I don't think about too hard whether one player can beat another, but rather what a player can contribute, similar to what [MENTION=20564]Blue[/MENTION] said. Also, as mentioned a few times here, straight defense can be boring because it doesn't really add to the combat but rather drags it out.

What I might consider instead are defensive options that feel more active and can perhaps be used to the benefit of others.

TwoSix · Sep 16, 2017

Defense. As a player, it's easier to leverage your own offense, you're dependent on the DM's actions to take advantage of your defensive abilities. I'd prefer to see an offensive style increase your damage by about 20% over baseline, but a defensive style increase your survival time by about 50%.

Ancalagon · Sep 16, 2017

It should also be remembered that the DMG (... which edition?) warns about handing out too many defensive items. I know that in 5e magical armor is far rarer than magical weapons, and that is a good thing. Too much magical armor can lead to a situation where one character is nigh-invulnerable, and a fight that challenges said character will obliterate the rest of the party...

Mephista · Sep 16, 2017

Warbringer said:
Strange as it seems, the best defensive optimization in D&D is hit point opitimization

FrogReaver said:
I disagree. With all the healing anything that mitigates dms is better. Like ac.

Depends on the character, to be honest. A spellcaster is going to want to focus on AC and damage avoidance due to Concentration more than they'll want HP. Meanwhile, a fiend-blade'lock is going to want to work on damage resistance to get the most out of their Armor of Agyths; their defense is built on a hit-me-I-hit-you feeling. Barbarians and Fighters rock out the HP.

FrogReaver · Sep 16, 2017

Mephista said:
Depends on the character, to be honest. A spellcaster is going to want to focus on AC and damage avoidance due to Concentration more than they'll want HP. Meanwhile, a fiend-blade'lock is going to want to work on damage resistance to get the most out of their Armor of Agyths; their defense is built on a hit-me-I-hit-you feeling. Barbarians and Fighters rock out the HP.

Saying the same thing again doesn't make it true. You have no reasons why hp was more important on either fighter or barbarian than ac. I did. I'll repeat it because I don't think y'all really thought this through: Anything that mitigates damage makes every hp you have and every hp you are healed more effective. This damage mitigation is more important than hp.

Mephista · Sep 16, 2017

FrogReaver said:
Saying the same thing again doesn't make it true. You have no reasons why hp was more important on either fighter or barbarian than ac. I did. I'll repeat it because I don't think y'all really thought this through: Anything that mitigates damage makes every hp you have and every hp you are healed more effective. This damage mitigation is more important than hp.

I think you're missing my point - it depends on the character. I just tossed out some generalizations, but the point is that it really depends on what you make. There is no one perfect answer. AC isn't better than HP, HP isn't better than AC. There's too much that depends on the type of character. I just said Fighters and Barbarians rock out the HP because its literally true - they're the two classes with the most HP.

The point I'm making is that there's no absolute answer, because so much depends on individual and specific table tactics. I mean, hells. That's not even touching on the GM's metagame. In a game with an abundance of saving throws over attacks? HP will become more important than AC, because AC protects you less. Or level - AC is generally static, but both PCs and monsters ability to hit becomes much bigger at higher levels to the point that, if you don't heavy-focus on AC, its not that useful.

Tony Vargas · Sep 16, 2017

Blue said:
I'd like to make a small change to this that has a big impact on how I look at it: D&D is balanced more around Group vs the challenges of the world.

Both types of balance are critical.

'Balancing' challenges (having the difficulty of challenges be fairly predictable and close to the intent the DM had when designing them) is critical to the game being functional in even the basic sense, otherwise it degenerates into 'Monty Haul' or 'Killer' (or both) pathologies.

Balance among the PCs is critical to the game remaining participatory and engaging - and thus potentially fun - for all players.

Mephista said:
I think you're missing my point - it depends on the character. I just tossed out some generalizations, but the point is that it really depends on what you make.

There are some different strategies and some classes work better with some than others. But the high-volume damage-trader strategy puts a greater drain on healing resources.

How much that matter starts to depend on the campaign, and the party, not the character. A party that's light on healing resources can't afford to keep a party member like that up. A campaign that tends towards the 5MWD has no problem with it (thanks to full overnight healing).

Blue · Sep 16, 2017

Tony Vargas said:
Both types of balance are critical.

'Balancing' challenges (having the difficulty of challenges be fairly predictable and close to the intent the DM had when designing them) is critical to the game being functional in even the basic sense, otherwise it degenerates into 'Monty Haul' or 'Killer' (or both) pathologies.

Balance among the PCs is critical to the game remaining participatory and engaging - and thus potentially fun - for all players.

Respectfully I see this from a related but different angle. And that angle goes back to my comments on fighting style that encourage teamwork having an edge on those that only effect the character with them.

I have both played and DMed when people have run support characters that were vastly more efficiently built then other characters. Tanks, healers, buffers mostly. But the end result was that the other characters got to have more spotlight time and cool tricks - the other players didn't feel cheated or slighted at all.

So when it comes to enabling other characters, the balance concern for me is more about equal spotlight than about equal power.

Tony Vargas · Sep 16, 2017

Blue said:
So when it comes to enabling other characters, the balance concern for me is more about equal spotlight than about equal power.

Power that flows from one PC to another is not exactly a balance problem between the two - unless the 'support' character is obligated to send too much power to others (band-aid), or can divert it back to himself with excessive efficiency (CoDzilla).

Mephista · Sep 17, 2017

Tony Vargas said:
How much that matter starts to depend on the campaign, and the party, not the character. A party that's light on healing resources can't afford to keep a party member like that up. A campaign that tends towards the 5MWD has no problem with it (thanks to full overnight healing).

It also depends on how difficult the monsters are. AC is difficult to raise, while attacking accuracy increases fairly easily. At high levels, I find that AC becomes less useful in favor of other measures. I mean, hells. Its one of the major arguments centered around Great Weapon Mastery - at high levels, the -5 to hit is negligable compared to AC.

As such, AC becomes less less important at higher accuracy levels for many. Games do vary wildly enough that there's no standard answer, but even with as much standardization we can make between games, the answer is still going to change greatly depending on factors like level or preponderance of Saves versus Attack Rolls.

As such, white room benchmarks aren't very accurate.

D&D 5E Fighting Style Balance: Offense vs. Defense

Offense vs Defense

Offense should be better

Defense should be better

They should be as equal (lean offense)

They should be equal (lean defense)

Hawk Diesel

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TwoSix

Dirty, realism-hating munchkin powergamer

Ancalagon

Dusty Dragon

Mephista

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FrogReaver

As long as i get to be the frog

Mephista

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Tony Vargas

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Blue

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Tony Vargas

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Mephista

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