D&D 5E Assuming no GWM/SS, are different fighting styles roughly balanced?

[Greg Benage]

Except Rogues with multiple attacks can't sneak attack more than 1.round without an outside source enabling them such as Commanders strike or the Dissonant Whispers Spell.

This is incorrect. While hasted, the rogue uses the haste action to attack and their standard action to Ready an attack on another creature's turn, thereby earning sneak attack twice in the round.

Also I meant Rogues do not deal that much damage when the -5/+10 feats are being uised. Even with the SCAG cantrips which look good a lot of the time you are cutting your sneak attack odds in half for a few more dice of damage.

A rogue built for DPR will do a bit less damage against low to mid-range ACs compared to martials using the -5/+10 feats. The corollary is that rogues will do more damage than other martials when the feats are removed or nerfed. This appears to be the right "balance" for some groups. I don't object to DMs making this choice, but it's not the right "balance" for me.

For me, that's what it comes down to. There's always going to be a highest single-target damage build, so what do you want that to be? I'm fine with that build being fighters and barbarians with big swords and axes, or fighters/rangers with longbows or heavy crossbows. That's "right" for my game. I do ban -5/+10 on bonus action attacks (with PAM or CBE). I do nerf CBE so the feat doesn't eliminate the penalty from firing in melee. That creates the "balance" I want. But having done this, there's still going to be a "best" single-target damage build, and the fact that it produces the highest DPR doesn't make it "OP."

 

[Ninja-radish]

Personally, I think Great Weapon Style is a joke compared to how good Dueling Style is. Unless you have the GWM feat, it's pretty much never worth using a two-handed weapon. Great Weapon Style should add a straight +4 dmg per hit, rather than the weak dice shenanigans it gives you. If it added +4 dmg, then deciding between sword & board and a two-handed weapon would actually take some thought.

As it is now, Dueling Style all day long.

 

[CapnZapp]

Personally, I think Great Weapon Style is a joke compared to how good Dueling Style is. Unless you have the GWM feat, it's pretty much never worth using a two-handed weapon. Great Weapon Style should add a straight +4 dmg per hit, rather than the weak dice shenanigans it gives you. If it added +4 dmg, then deciding between sword & board and a two-handed weapon would actually take some thought.

As it is now, Dueling Style all day long.

Do the math on the "shenanigans".

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[clearstream]

Why make that assumption?

I will reply in more detail later. However, I should have made clear that I use opponents with character-class abilities a lot in my campaigns. So with that in mind, the reason CX/SS archer is gimped inside is that they will be closed on and they will be worse in close than other fighter setups. They need a hand free for ammo so they must stop using the crossbow if they want a shield. I read your other thread and possibly you aren't playing ammo as tightly as me. Nothing in CX/SS obviates the need for a hand free to load. And between firing with their attack action and firing with their bonus action they must use their one free interaction with an object to load their crossbow (else, no bonus attack with it).

 

[clearstream]

Now, back to the build balance discussion: please don't pull the bad old "it's the DMs fault" blame game, it fixes nothing and only obscures the real issues. So, no, a DM isn't "naive" anytime a map favors ranged fire. Maps generally favors ranged fire, and no, the solution is not to go out of your way to make ranged fire hard to use. The solution is instead to do what every other fantasy game (and every other edition of D&D) has done: nerf ranged fire enough to make melee attractive.

But more to the actual point, vonklaude - why are we even having this argument? It is a fact 5th edition has removed/mitigated loads of restrictions on archery. Why don't you directly try to defend THAT instead of pulling the detestable blame game? Alternatively, and much more appreciated, you could concede 5e has done something bad with archery, probably unintentionally, and we could move on to discuss what limitations the edition needs to put back into the game. Thanks.

The reason is that I don't understand how your party full of Fighter 11th CE/SS archers - which is an incredibly narrow build - are dealing with a full range of challenges in all pillars? They lack expertise, so the first really securely locked door sends them home again. They can't remove curses or cast restoration. They're pretty much doomed against all kinds of things. I don't understand why they aren't encountering any of those? Even if most of their fights are set in open plains or spacious caverns, that one fight in close quarters is a likely TPK. I do feel that such a party is only functioning if a DM has chosen to accommodate them. I could certainly imagine a pretty cool campaign where they are all members of some kind of special guard - musketeers in a way - so it's not out of the question. But then... where are all the other musketeers? Or the foes with pavises?

Essentially, I agree that as written CE and SS can take games in a direction that they may not want to be taken. And that really is the motive for change. Not their power specifically. Concretely, a DM needs to enforce the ammo rule. And the tweaks I would favour are similar to yours - cut the freedom from disadvantage in close from CE. Make it that SS downgrades cover rather than removes it (half to none, three-quarter to half). That's about all that's needed. I am contemplating introducing a variant of Blade Master (as an update to Savage Attacker).

Savage Attacker
When using a melee weapon one handed you gain the following benefits.
You gain a +1 bonus to attack rolls you make with that weapon. Once per turn when you roll damage for an attack with that weapon, you can reroll that attack’s damage dice and use either total. And when you make an opportunity attack with that weapon, you have advantage on the attack roll.

 

[TwoSix]

Personally, I think Great Weapon Style is a joke compared to how good Dueling Style is. Unless you have the GWM feat, it's pretty much never worth using a two-handed weapon. Great Weapon Style should add a straight +4 dmg per hit, rather than the weak dice shenanigans it gives you. If it added +4 dmg, then deciding between sword & board and a two-handed weapon would actually take some thought.

As it is now, Dueling Style all day long.

GWS is +0.67 per d6, and +0.75 on a d8. For a bog standard fighter, probably not as good, but for a class that gets a fair amount of bonus dice (like a paladin), it's certainly competitive.

 

[Barolo]

GWS is +0.67 per d6, and +0.75 on a d8. For a bog standard fighter, probably not as good, but for a class that gets a fair amount of bonus dice (like a paladin), it's certainly competitive.

According to sage advice, the style should only affect the weapon dice, not the extra dice from smiting.

http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/rules-answers-april-2016

 

[TwoSix]

I'd urge you to remember that optimised martial characters throughout the history of D&D have been able to pose difficulties for the naive DM who sets up a battle map that favours them. For example, a clear map for an optimised archer. However, casters have always overshadowed martial characters - even in 5e -
and that should be borne in mind before nerfing martial feats.

My curiosity is for a project more extensive than just nerfing a few feats. I just want to make sure that a lot of the combinations of features that are widely used don't have some large deviation in effectiveness I'm not aware of.

 

[TwoSix]

According to sage advice, the style should only affect the weapon dice, not the extra dice from smiting.

http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/rules-answers-april-2016

I'm aware, but considering that GWS is weaker overall than Dueling, especially in a no-GWM setting, I don't use that ruling.

 

[Mistwell]

If all you play is the party opening doors with monsters behind them, yes, I can see why you would go melee there.

Okay, so let's leave Mistwell out of this:

For those of you *not* mucking about in dungeons (the kind where it's impossible to scout ahead and where there are no distances to speak of), you would do well not creating melee characters out of sheer tradition.

Before you do that, think about how an all-range party can shortchange much of the 5e content: trivializing encounters and neutering monsters.

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So, you don't want to vote in the poll?