D&D 5E Low levels: Offense vs. Defense

[Horwath]

Victory is achieved by killing faster, not dying slower!

 

[Kinematics]

Assume you start with an AC where the mob can hit you by rolling a 2. In order to reduce the damage you take by half (also factoring in the double dice from rolling a 20), you have to increase your AC by 10, to where the mob has to roll a 12.

In order to reduce the damage you take by half again, you need to increase your AC by 5, to where the mob needs to roll a 17.

In order to reduce the damage you take by (almost) half again, you need to increase your AC by 2, to where the mob needs to roll a 19.

In order to reduce the damage you take by another third, you need to increase your AC by 1, to where the mob needs to roll a 20.

So AC is more and more valuable the more of it you already have.


Assuming you're starting at 16 Str, and you're comparing axe+shield (1d6 + 3 = 6.5) to greataxe (1d12 + 3 = 9.5) for damage, you're increasing your damage output by 50%. That means that if it took 3 rounds to kill a mob with the axe, it would take 2 rounds with the greataxe. You'd be reducing your damage taken (in terms of time) by 33%, but you'd be losing 2 AC to do so.

If you dropped from 19 to 17 to-be-hit, you'd be doubling your damage taken. If you dropped from 17 to 15 to-be-hit, you'd be increasing your damage taken by 40%. If you dropped from 15 to 13 to-be-hit, you'd be increasing your damage taken by 30%.

In both of the latter two cases, you'd be taking roughly the same or less damage than before, but only with respect to a single target.

If you were fighting two enemies at once, and each took 3 rounds to kill with an axe (ignoring your accuracy), and 2 with a greataxe, but you'd drop from either a 17 to a 15 to-be-hit, or a 15 to a 13 to-be-hit:

Axe 17: 35 dice per 20
GAxe 15: 28 dice per 20

Axe takes 25% more damage.

Axe 15: 49 dice per 20
GAxe 13: 36 dice per 20

Axe takes 36% more damage.

This assumes you have initiative advantage on the enemy, so the mob doesn't get to swing at you on the last round of attacks. If the enemy had initiative advantage on you:

Axe 17: 45 dice per 20
GAxe 15: 42 dice per 20

Axe takes 7% more damage.

Axe 15: 63 dice per 20
GAxe 13: 54 dice per 20

Axe takes 17% more damage.


Now, factoring in your hit rate, assuming 65% (Str 16 + 2 Prof vs AC 13), and back to having initiative:

Axe 17: 64 dice per 20
GAxe 15: 49 dice per 20

Axe takes 30% more damage.

Axe 15: 90 dice per 20
GAxe 13: 63 dice per 20

Axe takes 43% more damage.


And enemy having initiative:

Axe 17: 69 dice per 20
GAxe 15: 63 dice per 20

Axe takes 10% more damage.

Axe 15: 97 dice per 20
GAxe 13: 81 dice per 20

Axe takes 20% more damage.

~~~

So axe gains relative to greataxe with:
1) Higher accuracy
2) Higher existing to-be-hit value (ie: higher AC)
3) Fewer enemies attacking you
4) Having initiative over the enemy

However even with all that considered, for typical low-level stuff, you're probably going to be better off with a greataxe. Note, however, that if you went with, say, a two-handed longsword with 1d10 damage, expected damage taken goes up by about 20% compared to the greataxe, making the comparisons much closer, and possibly in favor of the axe.

And in fact, if you were going with a longsword that you could switch between one and two-handed use, instead of axe vs greataxe, I would say that if you have initiative, go with two-handed, but if the enemy has initiative on you, pull out the shield and go one-handed.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

It depends. If monsters tend to engage you and leave your other party members alone or attack them significantly less then ac / hp is more important for you.

If not then offense so you kill them before they kill your squishier party members is more important for you.

Of course, how the monsters act may also depend on your choice. If enemies mostly attack you instead of your teammates, so you armor up to be harder to kill, then enemies may decide to stop attacking you as much since they can't hurt you.

If enemies already like to spread their attacks around, so that you feel justified in switching to a heavy weapon, then actually switching might turn you into more of a target since you're easier to hit and you're more of a threat to them.

 

[abirdcall]

The party's defence is only as strong as its weakest member.

It doesn't help much to have 20 AC when the rest of the party members have 14. Being the last one standing still means you're toast.

 

[5ekyu]

As a general rule of thumb i go preferring defense at tier-1 and iffense for tier-2 and beyond.

Tier-1 you have low enough HP that a crit here or there can be lethal plus healer is limited in slots.

By 5th, you have more significant buffer of HP, stronger healer and choice of gear *plus* a significant uptick in offense to make use of.

Now any given situation can shift the priorities so be able to do several once you have the gear to support different rigs.



Sent from my [device_name] using EN World mobile app

 

[FrogReaver]

Assume you start with an AC where the mob can hit you by rolling a 2. In order to reduce the damage you take by half (also factoring in the double dice from rolling a 20), you have to increase your AC by 10, to where the mob has to roll a 12.

In order to reduce the damage you take by half again, you need to increase your AC by 5, to where the mob needs to roll a 17.

In order to reduce the damage you take by (almost) half again, you need to increase your AC by 2, to where the mob needs to roll a 19.

In order to reduce the damage you take by another third, you need to increase your AC by 1, to where the mob needs to roll a 20.

So AC is more and more valuable the more of it you already have.


Assuming you're starting at 16 Str, and you're comparing axe+shield (1d6 + 3 = 6.5) to greataxe (1d12 + 3 = 9.5) for damage, you're increasing your damage output by 50%. That means that if it took 3 rounds to kill a mob with the axe, it would take 2 rounds with the greataxe. You'd be reducing your damage taken (in terms of time) by 33%, but you'd be losing 2 AC to do so.

If you dropped from 19 to 17 to-be-hit, you'd be doubling your damage taken. If you dropped from 17 to 15 to-be-hit, you'd be increasing your damage taken by 40%. If you dropped from 15 to 13 to-be-hit, you'd be increasing your damage taken by 30%.

In both of the latter two cases, you'd be taking roughly the same or less damage than before, but only with respect to a single target.

If you were fighting two enemies at once, and each took 3 rounds to kill with an axe (ignoring your accuracy), and 2 with a greataxe, but you'd drop from either a 17 to a 15 to-be-hit, or a 15 to a 13 to-be-hit:

Axe 17: 35 dice per 20
GAxe 15: 28 dice per 20

Axe takes 25% more damage.

Axe 15: 49 dice per 20
GAxe 13: 36 dice per 20

Axe takes 36% more damage.

This assumes you have initiative advantage on the enemy, so the mob doesn't get to swing at you on the last round of attacks. If the enemy had initiative advantage on you:

Axe 17: 45 dice per 20
GAxe 15: 42 dice per 20

Axe takes 7% more damage.

Axe 15: 63 dice per 20
GAxe 13: 54 dice per 20

Axe takes 17% more damage.


Now, factoring in your hit rate, assuming 65% (Str 16 + 2 Prof vs AC 13), and back to having initiative:

Axe 17: 64 dice per 20
GAxe 15: 49 dice per 20

Axe takes 30% more damage.

Axe 15: 90 dice per 20
GAxe 13: 63 dice per 20

Axe takes 43% more damage.


And enemy having initiative:

Axe 17: 69 dice per 20
GAxe 15: 63 dice per 20

Axe takes 10% more damage.

Axe 15: 97 dice per 20
GAxe 13: 81 dice per 20

Axe takes 20% more damage.

~~~

So axe gains relative to greataxe with:
1) Higher accuracy
2) Higher existing to-be-hit value (ie: higher AC)
3) Fewer enemies attacking you
4) Having initiative over the enemy

However even with all that considered, for typical low-level stuff, you're probably going to be better off with a greataxe. Note, however, that if you went with, say, a two-handed longsword with 1d10 damage, expected damage taken goes up by about 20% compared to the greataxe, making the comparisons much closer, and possibly in favor of the axe.

And in fact, if you were going with a longsword that you could switch between one and two-handed use, instead of axe vs greataxe, I would say that if you have initiative, go with two-handed, but if the enemy has initiative on you, pull out the shield and go one-handed.

A few considerations. While the numbers you are throwing out are correct as far as I care to tell I think there's maybe some more important considerations that need mentioned before any real analysis can be complete.

1. Monsters always hit on a 20 due to critical hit rules. Once we start looking at really high values of AC this is going to have a huge impact, especially on any attack where the dice makes up 2/3 or more of the average damage. Means instead of doing half damage the monster is doing around 71% of the damage it would be doing to you if you didn't increase your ac from a 90% chance to be missed to a 95% chance to be missed.

2. Killing enemies faster also lowers the amount of damage you take by reducing the number of attacks you take. This is hard to quantify as there are so many variables involved but I think a good guess would be that it should reduce the number of attacks you take around 10%. If that's the case then that's essentially 10% party wide damage reduction

3. Lower level players rarely have enough of an hp buffer to take more than 2-3 hits from anything. In other words, your hp isn't going to get slowly whittled down over the course of the day during low level play. It's going to drop and likely drop suddenly. As such it's probably more accurate to look at probabilities of being hit multiple times in a "short" timespan than looking at "effective hp" as you are.

 

[FrogReaver]

Of course, how the monsters act may also depend on your choice. If enemies mostly attack you instead of your teammates, so you armor up to be harder to kill, then enemies may decide to stop attacking you as much since they can't hurt you.

If enemies already like to spread their attacks around, so that you feel justified in switching to a heavy weapon, then actually switching might turn you into more of a target since you're easier to hit and you're more of a threat to them.

DM's run things differently. I personally don't see the in game justification for such behavior. Then again I find it boring to assign typical AI to my monsters or to have them try to adapt to the players. Some groups fill focus fire the cleric. Some will spread out. Some will beat on the fighter. It's all about variety because I can come up with a backstory to explain the NPC's decisions, whether they are goblins or orcs or men. Even beasts may react differently though I suppose I run them a bit more consistent than regular monsters.

Anyways, the point is that a change in player tactics doesn't mean a change in monster tactics.

 

[Kinematics]

1. Monsters always hit on a 20 due to critical hit rules. Once we start looking at really high values of AC this is going to have a huge impact, especially on any attack where the dice makes up 2/3 or more of the average damage. Means instead of doing half damage the monster is doing around 71% of the damage it would be doing to you if you didn't increase your ac from a 90% chance to be missed to a 95% chance to be missed.

I did account for crit dice in my counts. That's why I give [X dice of 20] as the comparitive measure. If you need to roll a 19 or 20 to hit, that's 3 dice, not 2. And it's out of 20 because the other 18 rolls miss.

It's not perfect, as the non-dice additions will skew the results some, but it seemed to work well enough.

I also just gave approximations on the higher AC reductions — "(almost) half", and "another third" — because exact calculations at that point seemed like they weren't needed. The point was just to show that the scaling rate increased as AC increased.

2. Killing enemies faster also lowers the amount of damage you take by reducing the number of attacks you take. This is hard to quantify as there are so many variables involved but I think a good guess would be that it should reduce the number of attacks you take around 10%. If that's the case then that's essentially 10% party wide damage reduction

That's exactly what my comparisons between the one-handed weapon and the two-handed weapon were about.

If the enemy has initiative over you, and it takes 2 rounds to kill one mob, and there are two mobs attacking you, then in the first two rounds you spend killing the first mob, you're hit 4 times, and then in the next two rounds killing the second mob, you're hit an additional 2 times, for 6 hits total. If it takes 3 rounds to kill a mob, you take 9 hits total. If you had initiave, then each mob doesn't get to attack you on the round that you kill it, so you get hit 4 times and 7 times, respectively. And then scale it based on accuracy relative to AC to get the final damage dice totals.

3. Lower level players rarely have enough of an hp buffer to take more than 2-3 hits from anything. In other words, your hp isn't going to get slowly whittled down over the course of the day during low level play. It's going to drop and likely drop suddenly. As such it's probably more accurate to look at probabilities of being hit multiple times in a "short" timespan than looking at "effective hp" as you are.

I was comparing how much damage was taken by the character based on how often he was hit, which in turn was based on both AC and how many times the mob had a chance to attack before it was killed. I can't help what may happen in any specific circumstances, but I can say that on average, he will take less damage while using the two-handed weapon because the fights are shorter, despite the enemy having a better chance to hit him.

There are four or five different factors that swing the value between the defensive and the offensive setup, though, and you just need to see which way the fight is leaning.

As for statistical likelihoods...

Suppose you're 1st level, with like 12 HP. The enemy can hit you for 8. So getting hit once hurts, and getting hit twice (or getting critted) can kill you.

The 5% crit chance always exists.

Chance of being hurt is 15% when a 17 is needed, 20% when a 16 is needed, 25% when a 15 is needed, 30% when a 14 is needed, 35% when a 13 is needed, and 40% when a 12 is needed.

Assuming a cleric can heal you twice, what are your odds of death?

In all cases, the 5% crit will kill you, so we'll ignore that. A single hit is survivable, if the cleric can get to you. You're unlikely to take more than 3 total hits, under either hypothetical, though there's a small chance of 4. So the real question is, what are the odds of getting hit twice in the same round, before the cleric can heal you? This can only happen if two mobs are on you, so once you kill one of them, you're mostly safe. I'll only look at the time it takes to kill the first mob.

Assuming the enemy has a +2 Str and +2 Prof, for a total of +4 to hit, and the fighter has an AC of 16, or 18 with a shield:

1-handed, 18 AC (14 to-be-hit): 35%
2-handed, 16 AC (12 to-be-hit): 40%

Which is pretty substantial, though not much different between the two weapon types. So, yeah, don't fight two mobs at once.

If fighting just one mob, what are your odds? In this case, getting hit more times than the cleric can heal, or getting critted?

1-handed, 18 AC (14 to-be-hit): 20% (19% chance of crit, 1% chance of taking 4 hits, 2 of which are healed) or 31% from crit chance + 12% chance of taking 3-4 hits if the healer heals just once
2-handed, 16 AC (12 to-be-hit): 20% (14% chance of crit, 6% chance of taking 3 hits, 1 of which was healed) or ~14% from just the crit chance if the healer heals twice

Once you're not dying from a single crit, odds of survival skyrocket. In the 2-handed scenario, if the healer heals you twice, odds of death from normal hits is minimal.

You're far more likely to take hits using a 1-handed weapon, but not nearly at the rate that you're reducing the fight duration, which can actually reduce the chance of dying if the healer is otherwise stretched thin.

 

[FrogReaver]

I did account for crit dice in my counts. That's why I give [X dice of 20] as the comparitive measure. If you need to roll a 19 or 20 to hit, that's 3 dice, not 2. And it's out of 20 because the other 18 rolls miss.

It's not perfect, as the non-dice additions will skew the results some, but it seemed to work well enough.

I also just gave approximations on the higher AC reductions — "(almost) half", and "another third" — because exact calculations at that point seemed like they weren't needed. The point was just to show that the scaling rate increased as AC increased.


That's exactly what my comparisons between the one-handed weapon and the two-handed weapon were about.

If the enemy has initiative over you, and it takes 2 rounds to kill one mob, and there are two mobs attacking you, then in the first two rounds you spend killing the first mob, you're hit 4 times, and then in the next two rounds killing the second mob, you're hit an additional 2 times, for 6 hits total. If it takes 3 rounds to kill a mob, you take 9 hits total. If you had initiave, then each mob doesn't get to attack you on the round that you kill it, so you get hit 4 times and 7 times, respectively. And then scale it based on accuracy relative to AC to get the final damage dice totals.


I was comparing how much damage was taken by the character based on how often he was hit, which in turn was based on both AC and how many times the mob had a chance to attack before it was killed. I can't help what may happen in any specific circumstances, but I can say that on average, he will take less damage while using the two-handed weapon because the fights are shorter, despite the enemy having a better chance to hit him.

There are four or five different factors that swing the value between the defensive and the offensive setup, though, and you just need to see which way the fight is leaning.

As for statistical likelihoods...

Suppose you're 1st level, with like 12 HP. The enemy can hit you for 8. So getting hit once hurts, and getting hit twice (or getting critted) can kill you.

The 5% crit chance always exists.

Chance of being hurt is 15% when a 17 is needed, 20% when a 16 is needed, 25% when a 15 is needed, 30% when a 14 is needed, 35% when a 13 is needed, and 40% when a 12 is needed.

Assuming a cleric can heal you twice, what are your odds of death?

In all cases, the 5% crit will kill you, so we'll ignore that. A single hit is survivable, if the cleric can get to you. You're unlikely to take more than 3 total hits, under either hypothetical, though there's a small chance of 4. So the real question is, what are the odds of getting hit twice in the same round, before the cleric can heal you? This can only happen if two mobs are on you, so once you kill one of them, you're mostly safe. I'll only look at the time it takes to kill the first mob.

Assuming the enemy has a +2 Str and +2 Prof, for a total of +4 to hit, and the fighter has an AC of 16, or 18 with a shield:

1-handed, 18 AC (14 to-be-hit): 35%
2-handed, 16 AC (12 to-be-hit): 40%

Which is pretty substantial, though not much different between the two weapon types. So, yeah, don't fight two mobs at once.

If fighting just one mob, what are your odds? In this case, getting hit more times than the cleric can heal, or getting critted?

1-handed, 18 AC (14 to-be-hit): 20% (19% chance of crit, 1% chance of taking 4 hits, 2 of which are healed) or 31% from crit chance + 12% chance of taking 3-4 hits if the healer heals just once
2-handed, 16 AC (12 to-be-hit): 20% (14% chance of crit, 6% chance of taking 3 hits, 1 of which was healed) or ~14% from just the crit chance if the healer heals twice

Once you're not dying from a single crit, odds of survival skyrocket. In the 2-handed scenario, if the healer heals you twice, odds of death from normal hits is minimal.

You're far more likely to take hits using a 1-handed weapon, but not nearly at the rate that you're reducing the fight duration, which can actually reduce the chance of dying if the healer is otherwise stretched thin.

A few additional considerations.

1. You don't fight alone, you fight with a party. If the monsters are focusing alot more on you then the higher AC is likely better as your damage generally pales in comparison to the parties damage. As such surviving longer with slightly lower damage can make a big difference if this is the case.

2. The damage difference between a two handed weapon and a sword and a shield isn't that great once the duelist fighting style is considered. 11.33 average damage vs 9.5 average damage. (This likely greatly throws off your 2 turn kill for two handed weapons vs 3 turn kill for 1 handed weapons). Though your calculations do illustrate a point that most people don't realize. Killing things faster can be a better damage mitigation strategy than just increasing defenses. It's just I think the idea that a two handed weapon is going to consistently kill most monsters in 2 hits as opposed to a single handed weapon consistently requiring 3 hits is a bit of a stretch. The damage difference in a 1 and 2 handed weapon is closer to 20% to 25% more for the two handed weapon. (Assuming 16 str.) If this was factored in then it's likely the styles come out pretty evenly and the most important factor is enemy behavior.

3. I don't think we can assume the healer has healing slots left for any particular fight. Maybe look at both scenarios both with and without a healer?

 

[Kinematics]

A few additional considerations.

1. You don't fight alone, you fight with a party. If the monsters are focusing alot more on you then the higher AC is likely better as your damage generally pales in comparison to the parties damage. As such surviving longer with slightly lower damage can make a big difference if this is the case.

2. The damage difference between a two handed weapon and a sword and a shield isn't that great once the duelist fighting style is considered. 11.33 average damage vs 9.5 average damage. (This likely greatly throws off your 2 turn kill for two handed weapons vs 3 turn kill for 1 handed weapons). Though your calculations do illustrate a point that most people don't realize. Killing things faster can be a better damage mitigation strategy than just increasing defenses. It's just I think the idea that a two handed weapon is going to consistently kill most monsters in 2 hits as opposed to a single handed weapon consistently requiring 3 hits is a bit of a stretch. The damage difference in a 1 and 2 handed weapon is closer to 20% to 25% more for the two handed weapon. (Assuming 16 str.) If this was factored in then it's likely the styles come out pretty evenly and the most important factor is enemy behavior.

3. I don't think we can assume the healer has healing slots left for any particular fight. Maybe look at both scenarios both with and without a healer?

Good points.

1. There's no way for me to model the entire party. However adding more people fighting the same mob drastically reduces the difference in kill time between one-handed and two-handed weapons, and the higher AC gains much more prominence and value.


2. Yeah, duelist shifts things in favor of one-handed, but then great weapon fighting shifts things in favor of two-handed. Which one you took will certainly shift things in that weapon's favor.

Let's assume one-handed vs two-handed longsword, with 1d8 vs 1d10, and 16 Str. 7.5-9.5 damage for 1H; 8.5-9.5 for 2H. Rerolling 1s and 2s gives an overall boost to average damage of about +1.

Closer than I was thinking... Oh, right, I was using 1d6 weapons for 1H before, which would give 6.5-8.5. Depending on which 1H and 2H weapons you're considering, and which fighting style you're using, the shift could be anywhere from +60% (1d6 → 1d12/GWF) to -10% (1d8/Duel → 1d10) So that can definitely impact the overall results.

As far as consistently killing in 3 hits vs 2, that was only the baseline that assumed 100% accuracy. Once accuracy was applied, it was more like 4.5 rounds to 3. And if comparing the longsword switch-up while having the Duelist fighting style, one-handed will be better. It would be roughly the same as the 1d12 greataxe. Of course, if you're using Great Weapon Fighting, the two-handed versions will be notably better, at 25% (2H longsword) to 40% (greataxe) ahead.

All told, the one-handed longsword with Duelist style and a shield is probably your best combination. You're doing comparable damage to the two-handed weapons, but with a higher AC. GWF greataxe is only around 10% better than Duelist 1H longsword, which shifts survivability strongly in favor of the higher AC.


3. At 1st level, where two hits can kill, and ignoring crits, which are pretty much auto-kill in themselves, looking at the odds of taking two hits in N rounds with a 2 AC difference and no healing:

1 round: 0%
2 rounds: 16% @ 16 AC, 9% @ 18 AC
3 rounds: 35% @ 16 AC, 22% @ 18 AC
4 rounds: 52% @ 16 AC, 35% @ 18 AC
5 rounds: 66% @ 16 AC, 47% @ 18 AC

An extra 2 AC provides a fairly substantial improvement in your odds of surviving. 1 in 2 with an 18 AC would survive 5 rounds, while only 1 in 3 with a 16 AC would.