D&D 5E Savage Attacker Feat + Great Weapon Fighting...

[JohnnyNitro]

Hey Gang! Rolling a Barbarian/Ranger (I think) for CoS and was curious if there's been a thread/official ruling on Savage Attacker + GWF, i.e, how many Rerolls can occur/how effective has this been to others out there on the ether--net, that is...

 

[Icharbezol]

I would think that GWF would occur first in the chain of events, rerolling 1s and 2s on your first damage roll. Then SA would allow you to roll again and take whichever total you choose. I have not seen any official errata or clarifications on this pairing; I am guessing that the intent would be that the second roll gains the benefit of GWF as well.

 

[Unwise]

I'd agree with Icherbezal, that's how I'd run it.

The last time I saw that in a game, the DM just said, add +3 damage to your damage roll and ignore both of those features. He hated rerolls and I can't fault him for that. If the net effect is pretty much the same and it speeds things up, I guess it is fine.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

The way I handle the interaction of these two features is thus:
1) non-conditional re-rolls like savage attacker should be rolled on a different set of dice, especially when you can use either result.
2) conditional re-rolls like Great Weapon Fighting are handled separately for each of these different sets of dice - making each set of dice functionally the same as if that set had been the only set rolled.

 

[WarpedAcorn]

Hey Gang! Rolling a Barbarian/Ranger (I think) for CoS and was curious if there's been a thread/official ruling on Savage Attacker + GWF, i.e, how many Rerolls can occur/how effective has this been to others out there on the ether--net, that is...

I *briefly* did this with a character. We did it just the way it read, I rolled 2 sets of damage dice and rerolled any 1's or 2's on either set.

If my memory serves me correctly, the majority of the rolls were pretty close to begin with and Style + Feat didn't make as big of a damage impact as I had hoped. I think Unwise's anecdote of a DM just giving a flat +3 Damage is fairly accurate to the general gain.

 

[Rowenoake]

I worked out all the numbers for Savage Attacker on a thread in the "Builds & Optimization" forums. Here's a quick link: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?477385-The-importance-of-being-a-20/page3 It technically focuses on whether it's better to take +2 Str or Savage Attacker, but the numbers should help out regardless.

Also, it's important to note that Savage Attacker greatly favors the 1d12 weapons, while GWF favors the 2d6 weapons. Taking both more or less balances out, but if you decided to drop the Ranger, Savage Attacker would give a bigger flat boost to damage than GWF:

[table="class: grid"]
[tr]
[td][/td]
[td]1d12[/td]
[td]2d6[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Savage Attacker[/td]
[td]6.5000[/td]
[td]7.0000[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]GWF Style[/td]
[td]7.3333[/td]
[td]8.3333[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Savage Attacker[/td]
[td]8.4861[/td]
[td]8.3596[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Both[/td]
[td]9.0552[/td]
[td]9.4649[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]

 

[JohnnyNitro]

Thanks for all the feedback, y'all! ¡Mucho appreciado!

 

[ninjayeti]

Hey Gang! Rolling a Barbarian/Ranger (I think) for CoS and was curious if there's been a thread/official ruling on Savage Attacker + GWF, i.e, how many Rerolls can occur/how effective has this been to others out there on the ether--net, that is...

Rangers don't have GWF as one of their fighting style options so you would have to go fighter or paladin.

 

[FrogReaver]

In that thread Did you ever investigate the math for multiple attacks?

I worked out all the numbers for Savage Attacker on a thread in the "Builds & Optimization" forums. Here's a quick link: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?477385-The-importance-of-being-a-20/page3 It technically focuses on whether it's better to take +2 Str or Savage Attacker, but the numbers should help out regardless.

Also, it's important to note that Savage Attacker greatly favors the 1d12 weapons, while GWF favors the 2d6 weapons. Taking both more or less balances out, but if you decided to drop the Ranger, Savage Attacker would give a bigger flat boost to damage than GWF:

[table="class: grid"]
[tr]
[td][/td]
[td]1d12[/td]
[td]2d6[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Savage Attacker[/td]
[td]6.5000[/td]
[td]7.0000[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]GWF Style[/td]
[td]7.3333[/td]
[td]8.3333[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Savage Attacker[/td]
[td]8.4861[/td]
[td]8.3596[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Both[/td]
[td]9.0552[/td]
[td]9.4649[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]

 

[Rowenoake]

In that thread Did you ever investigate the math for multiple attacks?

I'm still waiting for your math on it.