D&D 5E A tweak for the Battlemaster fighter

[dave2008]

Yes, Fighters do more damage as long as you don't factor in the attacks from Bonus Actions or Reactions. As soon as you figure in those, Fighters drop behind. As I said in my OP:

Fighter gets reactions too, so isn't that a wash? Also, you should still figure in battlemaster bonus damage and action surge bonus damage. Those are important parts of the class. The spreadsheet doesn't account for these. If you are basing you analysis off the spreadsheet, it is going to give you false results.

 

[dave2008]

What we see is that a level 10 Ranger does a slightly higher DPR than a level 10 Fighter (subclasses excluded).

Ya, I realize it is more work, but excluding subclasses really under bakes the fighter. I would be it closes the gap or beats out the ranger with that damage added in.

 

[dave2008]

The problem is without feats, all the other classes keep up in damage relatively well with the fighter, and the fighter has nothing to offer out of combat that they can't already provide along with lots of extra goodies. (I think after level 11 the fighter will step ahead of the ranger and barbarian in terms of damage in such a game, but paladin is still better and monk still offers the best utility.

Ya, I do wish fighters were the #1 damage dealers since that is basically their thing. Unfortunately, there are lots or easy ways to do that!

 

[FrogReaver]

Fighter gets reactions too, so isn't that a wash? Also, you should still figure in battlemaster bonus damage and action surge bonus damage. Those are important parts of the class. The spreadsheet doesn't account for these. If you are basing you analysis off the spreadsheet, it is going to give you false results.

Ranger's attacks have a slightly higher damage than a fighters and so OA's will favor them (assuming your OA is against your hunter's marked enemy, not always the case I guess and so maybe it is more of a wash than otherwise anticipated).

I did figure in action surge.

The ranger subclass also adds damage. I didn't figure that in either. Suffice it to say that the battle master subclass is better than the ranger subclass for damage. How much depends on a lot of complex calculations and tactical situations and your valuation of damage now vs damage later etc.

If you want a ballpark for the fighter you could add roughly 82.5 to the fighters daily value. A hunter ranger with colossus slayer could add 79 to his daily value (maybe a bit lower since sometimes there won't be an injured enemy). It's close enough to a wash when it comes to sheer numbers. The benefit is being able to front load or gain effects from the battlemaster, or plan on using precision attack in a way that maximizes the amount of damage you can do per dice. The exact effect of all that is either difficult to calculate, or very ally dependent etc.

So, I really don't think I needed to account for maneuvers vs colossus slayer in numeric form. Just suffice it to say that the small benefit the ranger gets on consistent DPR is overshadowed by the battlemaster's ability to decide when to do DPR and what additional effect to attach to it.

 

[Esker]

Overkill is not a thing to be concerned with.
1. Damage is a variable range and so having enough damage to guarantee your next hit kills an enemy also naturally produces a higher overkill value
2. Dead is the best condition and guaranteeing (or greatly increasing your chance for dead) by increasing the amount of overkill you can do is still a good thing.
3. Thus all reports that overkill is damage your not doing, while true misses the bigger picture. We aren't actually concerned with damage, we are concerned with dead. Higher overkill causes the dead condition more often than lower overkill (Exception is on exactly equal DPR PC's). Higher DPR correlates to the dead condition being afflicted to the enemy faster. That's why we care about DPR, not because the number is bigger.

I think this is missing the point that people are making when they talk about overkill damage. Obviously overkill damage is never a bad thing, but if comparing the damage output of two builds with similar averages but different variances, the lower variance build is preferable every time. One reason being that if you are achieving your average by combining a lot of misses with a lot of overkill damage, your average is overstated compared to the character that hits reliably and does near average damage most of the time.

The flexibility of the fighter's damage is a big part of their value: they can attack the same target multiple times, or kill several mooks in a turn, and, as you note, use action surge when it is most tactically advantageous. It makes them better than the rogue or the paladin at effective killing, even if their average DPR numbers might be the same.

It also means, by the way, that -5/+10 builds aren't quite as good as the average suggests.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Ya, I do wish fighters were the #1 damage dealers since that is basically their thing. Unfortunately, there are lots or easy ways to do that!

I would dispute that.

At least historically, the role of the fighter has been to defend the team, not to be the main damage dealer. And I haven't heard any announcement that 5e intended to change that.

I play an Eldritch Knight, and my abilities are selected on the basis of defending, not dishing out damage.

 

[dave2008]

I would dispute that.

At least historically, the role of the fighter has been to defend the team, not to be the main damage dealer. And I haven't heard any announcement that 5e intended to change that.

I get your point in terms of game history. I speaking of general assumptions. When I started playing in the 80s we assumed the fighter was the damage dealer and anyone I have introduced to the game in the 30+ years sense makes the same assumption.

Personally, since we have subclasses, I think it would make sense for 5e to have a tank/defender version, a damage/striker version, a commander/controller version, and something between a defender/striker. We actually have at least 2 of those 3 covered. I am not completely familiar with the samurai subclass (is that what it is still called) but at one point it seemed like a good striker to me. Who knows if we will get a proper warlord. There are, after all, other ways to get that feel.

 

[dave2008]

I did figure in action surge.

FYI, I was quoting Quartz, not you. I noticed you included action surge

 

[Quartz]

However you wash it, "No feats" is a de facto fighter nerf.

Agreed.

 

[Quartz]

That's actually hilarious. His own math shows the fighter doing more after he repeatedly told me to "check his spreadsheet".

He didn't account for action surge or superiority dice in any way.

Because I'm looking at just the base damage. As I mentioned in my OP. Action Surge gives ONE extra action (set of attacks) pwer short rest. Superiority dice are 4 per short rest. And I didn't account for Smites either.

He didn't account for OA's (rare as they are in many games) at all, despite proclaiming they were in his spreadsheet.

Actually, I do account for OAs - they're covered under Reaction.

I think I'm going to fix his spreadsheet and repost.

Keep digging.

What we see is that a level 10 Ranger does a slightly higher DPR than a level 10 Fighter (subclasses excluded).

Try looking at 11th level+ You know, when Fighters get their third attack, when Paladins get bonus damage, and so on.