D&D 5E Consensus about two-weapon fighting?

[Gladius Legis]

Because you can't know how many rounds of combat you will have between short rests and therefore you can't average out the bump in DPR. In a similar fashion, I am not factoring in critical hits. At higher levels, the sneak attack bonus dice on a critical hit far outweighs what a fighter might get from his bonus for an extra weapon die of damage. Since some tables have more combat rounds, the action surge boost would not be great because it has to be averaged out over all the combat, in groups with less combat, action surge will stand out more.

You can't control when critical hits happen. You can absolutely control when you Action Surge. A critical hit in the mop-up phase of combat is mostly meaningless. An Action Surge on the first round of a big battle, on the other hand, makes a huge impact right when you want it.

My issue is that this is one area where they should NOT be so close together. Sure, a fighter has a bit more hit points, will often have a better AC, and in those way IS better in combat than the rogue. On the other hand, the rogue has other areas where it will excel out side of combat and THAT is where it should excel.

Fighters get their damage all the time, without any ally help. Rogues need help from their allies to get their Sneak Attack. Said ally often being, ironically, the Fighter you seem determined to take a unilateral dump on.

 

[DND_Reborn]

You can't control when critical hits happen. You can absolutely control when you Action Surge. A critical hit in the mop-up phase of combat is mostly meaningless. An Action Surge on the first round of a big battle, on the other hand, makes a huge impact right when you want it.

Fighters get their damage all the time, without any ally help. Rogues need help from their allies to get their Sneak Attack. Said ally often being, ironically, the Fighter you seem determined to take a unilateral dump on.

It isn't a matter of controlling when it happens, it is an issue of what sort of impact it has over the long run. It would be like including archetypes and trying to estimate how much extra damage the assassinate feature could do. It simply isn't practical to include nova abilities, of which action surge is one. Something like action surge would double the expected damage for a single round, but how many rounds of combat are there? How much expected value can you place on it.

At best, you can try to estimate it, say on average 2 combats per short rest averaging 3 rounds each. Then, the boost in damage from action surge would be divided by 6 to spread it out over all rounds involved. In that case, the average damage boost to DPR would be about 2.65. But, if you decide maybe there are 4 combats per short rest averaging 5 rounds each. Now, action surge is used in only 1 round out of 20, brining its average boost to less than 0.80, in which case the Fighter would still average less than the Rogue.

As far as critical hits are concerned, they only add about 0.225 DRP for a Fighter since only the weapon dice is doubled, but for the Rogue it is a boost of 0.4 at level 1 and jumps up to 1.975 at level 20. So, with sneak attack critical hits are very important to the rogue.

Sure, fighters get there damage all the time, but 5E is a team-oriented game and the rogue in our group adds his sneak attack damage well over 90% of the time. The party recognizes his damage potential, including the battler-types in our group, and so we work together to try to get that sneak attack damage in every possible round. In a like fashion, our casters buff our fighter to keep him tanking, etc.

Finally, as to my "unilateral dump on" fighters, I love fighters and they are one of my top three classes to play in all editions of D&D as I wrote in post (#143). However I have always, in all editions, found them to be lacking compared to other battlers and we have always house-ruled them to make them the best at what they should be best at: damage with weapons.

 

[Gladius Legis]

It isn't a matter of controlling when it happens, it is an issue of what sort of impact it has over the long run. It would be like including archetypes and trying to estimate how much extra damage the assassinate feature could do. It simply isn't practical to include nova abilities, of which action surge is one. Something like action surge would double the expected damage for a single round, but how many rounds of combat are there? How much expected value can you place on it.

And yet you spent half your posts fawning over the Paladin's Smites, also a nova ability. And now you're saying it's not practical to include them. You're being inconsistent in your argument.

Also, comparing Action Surge to Assassinate is ridiculous. The auto-crit part of Assassinate is very situational and tough to set up in a typical party. Action Surge, on the other hand, you bust it out when you feel it's best to.

At best, you can try to estimate it, say on average 2 combats per short rest averaging 3 rounds each. Then, the boost in damage from action surge would be divided by 6 to spread it out over all rounds involved. In that case, the average damage boost to DPR would be about 2.65. But, if you decide maybe there are 4 combats per short rest averaging 5 rounds each. Now, action surge is used in only 1 round out of 20, brining its average boost to less than 0.80, in which case the Fighter would still average less than the Rogue.

As far as critical hits are concerned, they only add about 0.225 DRP for a Fighter since only the weapon dice is doubled, but for the Rogue it is a boost of 0.4 at level 1 and jumps up to 1.975 at level 20. So, with sneak attack critical hits are very important to the rogue.

And you just showed that you have no clue how burst damage affects combat in a given round of a given combat. An Action Surge in Turn 1 that can remove a more dangerous enemy from the battle is going to have much more practical effect than a lucky Rogue crit in Turn 4 when you're mopping up.

Sure, fighters get there damage all the time, but 5E is a team-oriented game and the rogue in our group adds his sneak attack damage well over 90% of the time. The party recognizes his damage potential, including the battler-types in our group, and so we work together to try to get that sneak attack damage in every possible round. In a like fashion, our casters buff our fighter to keep him tanking, etc.

So? The point still remains that you cannot replace a Fighter with a Rogue in the same combat role and expect the Rogue to perform at the same level. The Fighter having those higher hit points, higher AC, and consistent damage output regardless of anything makes the Fighter better at fighting.

 

[Xeviat]

I think reworking the fighter is a discussion for a different thread, besides trying to patch their TWFing output. The fact that a duelist exceeds a TWFer's damage and gets a shield at higher levels is unacceptable to me, not to mention getting vastly outstripped by the great weapon fighter.

But, for fighter vs rogue and the other weapon users, I think we should be thinking of how to patch up the fighter in other aspects of the game, not making the fighter a better combatant across the board. They already have the highest AC (matched by paladin, eventually matched by monk), highest HP when second wind is taken into account, highest raw action damage potential (2d6*+5 x4 is 53.33; rogue is 12d6+5 is 47, barbarian is 2d6+11 x2 is 36 ...), and action surge allows for a big Nova (53.33 compared to a Paladin dropping 2 4th level spells if both attacks hit for 10d8, or 45 damage; they can push higher by tossing a smite spells in too, but then the fighter has subclass abilities too).

The fighter needs some exploration and social toys, not better combat.

 

[Zardnaar]

Better combat low levels is the big problem.
Ye olde weapon specialization in 2E enabled this.

Action surge as an encounter type power would be a Jon magical buff.

 

[Fenris-77]

The fighter needs some exploration and social toys, not better combat.

I couldn't agree more. There's no reason the fighter shouldn't have a little more breadth to his role. I like to see them with a Shop Talk rule that would allow them to hobnob with others "in the business" - guards, city watch, stuff like that without it being CHA dependent. The fighter seems like the class most likely to do this, and there are a ton of examples in fiction. Fighters could also be good at things like scrounging. Just throwing out some ideas, I'll reign in my off topicalness now.

 

[DND_Reborn]

And yet you spent half your posts fawning over the Paladin's Smites, also a nova ability. And now you're saying it's not practical to include them. You're being inconsistent in your argument.

Also, comparing Action Surge to Assassinate is ridiculous. The auto-crit part of Assassinate is very situational and tough to set up in a typical party. Action Surge, on the other hand, you bust it out when you feel it's best to.

And you just showed that you have no clue how burst damage affects combat in a given round of a given combat. An Action Surge in Turn 1 that can remove a more dangerous enemy from the battle is going to have much more practical effect than a lucky Rogue crit in Turn 4 when you're mopping up.

So? The point still remains that you cannot replace a Fighter with a Rogue in the same combat role and expect the Rogue to perform at the same level. The Fighter having those higher hit points, higher AC, and consistent damage output regardless of anything makes the Fighter better at fighting.

Several uses of Divine Smite is more damaging than, at most, 3 action surges, dealing on average roughly 100 hp more damage throughout its use at maximum. Divine smite is not a nova ability IMO with up to 15 uses per long rest. This allows a paladin to use divine smite practically every round at higher levels. At lower levels it is more useful, but not at higher ones. Granted at tier 4 when a Fighter gets two action surges per rest, it would likely be significant.

I am not going to get into an argument with you about the benefits of action surge. Feel about it as you like. Our table has seen it work well, but at lower levels it is hardly that great. I never said a fighter wasn't better at fighting, just at outputting damage, which for others seemed the standard for what makes a fighter better at fighting. What I don't understand is why you seem to be taking offense to all this when I am encouraging making fighters better at dealing damage. Hardly the act of someone who doesn't like fighter, you know.

And while you can discuss this as much as you want, I have yet to see you post any analysis about it.

The fighter needs some exploration and social toys, not better combat.

I completely agree. I would like to see fighters getting more involved in other aspects of the game.

 

[5ekyu]

Care to point out specifically what "lot of assumptions" I'm making on something as basic as a Fighter's TYPICAL ATTACK ACTION? No? Then your words are empty platitudes.


Again, talking about the damage of a Fighter's typical attack action. There aren't really any "non-quantifiable factors" that effect the Fighter's attack action's damage compared to anyone else. The Fighter makes his attacks. Simple miss/hit probability and damage averages. Something that gives the Fighter disadvantage on attacks is going to do the same to the Paladin or the Rogue. Your "non-quantifiable factors" really aren't relevant.

If all you compare is one fighter's attack action vs another fighter's attack action, you have eliminated like 99.99999% of the factors in play in a combat and so any conclusions judgements have practically no value in terms of an assessment over which class does more damage?

You make this too easy when your last paragraph is a perfect proof of my point about assumptions and "non-quantifiable factors" and the flaws of claims to objectivity of white room warrior fu.

If you want to look at comparing how much damage beyond just the fighter attack action, say to rogue or pally and disadvantages etc then you run into factors like say how precision attack applies after the die/dice are rolled, how disadvantage doesnt just make the roll worst for the rogue but also cancels any chance at sneak damage even if they hit, etc.

"Your "non-quantifiable factors" really aren't relevant."

QED.

Objectively speaking, that is.

 

[5ekyu]

It isn't a matter of controlling when it happens, it is an issue of what sort of impact it has over the long run. It would be like including archetypes and trying to estimate how much extra damage the assassinate feature could do. It simply isn't practical to include nova abilities, of which action surge is one. Something like action surge would double the expected damage for a single round, but how many rounds of combat are there? How much expected value can you place on it.

At best, you can try to estimate it, say on average 2 combats per short rest averaging 3 rounds each. Then, the boost in damage from action surge would be divided by 6 to spread it out over all rounds involved. In that case, the average damage boost to DPR would be about 2.65. But, if you decide maybe there are 4 combats per short rest averaging 5 rounds each. Now, action surge is used in only 1 round out of 20, brining its average boost to less than 0.80, in which case the Fighter would still average less than the Rogue.

As far as critical hits are concerned, they only add about 0.225 DRP for a Fighter since only the weapon dice is doubled, but for the Rogue it is a boost of 0.4 at level 1 and jumps up to 1.975 at level 20. So, with sneak attack critical hits are very important to the rogue.

Sure, fighters get there damage all the time, but 5E is a team-oriented game and the rogue in our group adds his sneak attack damage well over 90% of the time. The party recognizes his damage potential, including the battler-types in our group, and so we work together to try to get that sneak attack damage in every possible round. In a like fashion, our casters buff our fighter to keep him tanking, etc.

Finally, as to my "unilateral dump on" fighters, I love fighters and they are one of my top three classes to play in all editions of D&D as I wrote in post (#143). However I have always, in all editions, found them to be lacking compared to other battlers and we have always house-ruled them to make them the best at what they should be best at: damage with weapons.

In terms of overall strength, I myself think the idea of a melee team of a pair of combat oriented rogues instead of the presumed fighter and rogue to be quite interesting. Not just looking at the whitecrokm warrior fu but the strength in overall campaign performance of that as your lead "grunts" (especially if you add in say a druid or bard and a wizard or sorc leads to some very different sets of "non-quantifiable factor" synergies.

 

[5ekyu]

I couldn't agree more. There's no reason the fighter shouldn't have a little more breadth to his role. I like to see them with a Shop Talk rule that would allow them to hobnob with others "in the business" - guards, city watch, stuff like that without it being CHA dependent. The fighter seems like the class most likely to do this, and there are a ton of examples in fiction. Fighters could also be good at things like scrounging. Just throwing out some ideas, I'll reign in my off topicalness now.

That is marrying more than a little bit of "background" into the class. Fighter doesnt have to mean soldier and vice versa.

For me, in the past, honestly some of my most hobnob with guards and soldiers were rangers and rogues (former scouts) and clerics (obviously healers and war god types but really, most any.)

"In the business" for guard, city watch and "stuff like that" ought not to be any class festure, imo in a fantasy gameceorld where these other classes are as common as a fighter.