D&D 5E Is Duellist style too good without feats.

[Don Durito]

In my house rules, I've gone the other way and buffed the GW and protection fighting styles to bring them in line with the other styles:

• Great weapon fighting: When you deal damage with a heavy weapon, you roll an extra damage die and drop the lowest result.
• Protection: While you are holding a shield, all allies within 5 feet of you gain half cover against attacks from enemies you can see.

So for GWF, greataxe becomes 2d12 drop lowest, and greatsword becomes 3d6 drop lowest. I like this solution because it brings both weapons to the same average damage (8.46 for greatsword and 8.49 for greataxe). To balance things out in combination with feats, I've also limited the +10 damage from GWF and SS to be usable only once per turn..

Well yes. That's why I'm asking. (Although you've only really meaningfully buffed them the Greataxe).

Do we keep the baseline and buff other things? Or go the other way.

 

[Don Durito]

To OP and most of the other posters : GWM and SS are NOT the uber feats because CONTEXT and you deal no damage if you MISS.

Don't care they're dead to me.

 

[Don Durito]

IIRC, GWM increases average damage for a 2d6 weapon by 1.33 points. Reducing Duelist to +1, but allowing it to work with a shield, is reasonable IMO.

Taking duelist away frmo S&B fighters limits them to either Defensive or Protective styles. Defensive is good and works well IMO, but Protective has always been lackluster.

All that being said, IME every table has used feats, and damage is the "cheapest" and most common boost, so the +2 of Duelist is good, but not over the top. I would find it more reasonable for you to reduce it to +1 damage but allow it with a shield, than require the second hand be empty.

Yes but what if you had the damage AND could choose another style. If that's the baseline, then why not give you the chance to choose something more interesting? (Like Interception style or Blindfighting or Superior Technique).

And if that's the baseline than probably two-Weapon fighters should get it too.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Yes but what if you had the damage AND could choose another style. If that's the baseline, then why not give you the chance to choose something more interesting? (Like Interception style or Blindfighting or Superior Technique).

And if that's the baseline than probably two-Weapon fighters should get it too.

Just depends on how much you want to "give" to fighting styles. When I first started 5E I boosted the styles a bit so they would also scale with proficiency. Since then, our table pulled back to nearly the RAW versions with only slight adjustments. As to the "more interesting" styles you mention don't appeal personally to me, but to each their own.

 

[Esker]

To OP and most of the other posters : GWM and SS are NOT the uber feats because CONTEXT and you deal no damage if you MISS.

I mostly agree... People tend to overrate the -5/+10 feats by failing to make apples-to-apples comparisons. At worst, they ignore the -5 part completely. One step above that they hand wave the -5 by saying that you can simply "offset" it (with advantage, or with archery style, etc.), failing to also give advantage or archery style to the character not using the -5/+10. Or they actually model the to-hit chance making some assumptions but don't account for the opportunity cost of not raising your attack stat (once it's maxed out, the opportunity cost in terms of damage is typically less, but apart from fighters that's usually level 12, when most campaigns are over or nearly so --- yes, there's variant human, but you typically don't want to take these feats until you have XBE or PAM already, since XBE and PAM are bigger boosts to damage in typical cases, and so by the time you're considering it you really are foregoing an ASI).

Taken in isolation, the -5/+10 option is, on its own, a net damage loss against the most common ACs, compared to raising your attack stat (SS fares better than GWM in this case, due to archery style shifting the window of the most common base to-hit chances, but even then the ASI is better against anything with above average AC).

Even having reliable advantage doesn't change the picture all that much --- it shifts the AC window where -5/+10 is a net winner, but the difference in average damage per attack is still relatively small at common ACs (again, SS would fare better, but it is also harder to get reliable advantage at range, since the easiest option for GWM --- Reckless Attack --- doesn't work).

You can get more out of the -5/+10 option when you combine it with "use-on-near-miss" mechanics like Precision Attack, Lucky, or Bardic Inspiration. Especially Precision Attack, since it doesn't cost yet another ASI like Lucky, and you can use it much more flexibly than Bardic Inspiration. Of course, since a character without GWM can also use Precision Attack, even that synergy mostly just shifts the AC window where you want to use -5/+10, so you're more likely to be in the good range, but you're still not necessarily gaining a ton of damage on average per attack (though on a fighter who also has XBE or PAM who is making a lot of attacks, it can be a decent chunk of overall DPR).

 

[Don Durito]

I think duelist is fine. If we're using the standard conversion math it would be archery style that's the biggest deal wouldn't it? Even without accompanying feats.

Is it? A quick back of the envelope calculation suggests that archery style is probably worth about 1 point of damage, even if it's not compensation for cover. If you can find a way to add a lot of extra damage to the attack then that would improve of course.

 

[Don Durito]

Can someone please start a new thread if they to discuss those feats?

The whole premise of this thread is that feats are not assumed. It doesn't really matter if they're OP or not, they're supposed to be optional anyway. And I want to discuss the fighting styles for once with the assumption that the option is turned OFF.

 

[dregntael]

Well yes. That's why I'm asking. (Although you've only really meaningfully buffed them the Greataxe).

Do we keep the baseline and buff other things? Or go the other way.

Ok, to answer this question we need to compare dueling with other fighting styles that are generally not considered "weak". So let's put duelist against archery, defense, and TWF. I'm also throwing in GWF to see if my claim that it's underpowered is actually correct. Assuming a level 1 character with a main stat of +3 (str or dex) and an AC of 18 (chainmail + shield):

• Dueling: increases damage from 1d8+3 to 1d8+5 for a 27% boost to DPR.
• Two-weapon fighting: increases damage from 2d6+3 to 2d6+6 for a 30% boost to DPR.
• Great weapon fighting: increases damage from average 9.5 to ~10.3 (greataxe) or from 10 to ~11.3 (greatsword), for a boost of 9% or 13% to DPR.
• Archery: increases chance to hit by 10%, which boosts DPR by something between 12% (against AC 8) to 33% (against AC 20). Duelist is stronger against AC 18 or below (of course this ignores the difference between melee and ranged completely).
• Defense: decreases chance to be hit by 5%, which increases survivability by something between 9% (vs enemies with +8 to hit) to 16% (vs enemies with +3 to hit). However, survivability is worth a lot more than DPR if you're the main tank (assuming enemies are actually attacking you).

At level 17 with a main stat of +5 and an AC of 20 (plate + shield) and 3 attacks, the numbers are:

• Dueling: 21% boost to DPR
• Two-weapon fighting: 26% boost to DPR
• Great weapon fighting: 7% (greataxe) or 11% (greatsword) boost to DPR
• Archery: between 0% (against AC 12 and below) to 29% (against AC 25) boost to DPR
• Defense: between 0% (against enemy with +19 to hit) to 14% (against enemies with +7 to hit) boost to survivability

So the GWF style is really weak compared to the others (and my buff is probably not even enough). Otherwise it mostly depends on the situation which one is better, which I like. Dueling is a bit better than archery against lowish AC's, but it really shines against high ACs. TWF seems to be the best choice at high levels, but that's mostly because the base damage is so low that any increase will be a large bonus (I have another houserule for TWF, but that's a change to the base mechanic and not to the fighting style).

So to answer your question: no, I do not think dueling is too powerful, it is really GWF (and protection) that need a boost.

 

[Don Durito]

I don't see how you're getting such large numbers for Two Weapon Fighting at higher levels.

It's a significant boost at low levels, but it fades rapidly and is two AC lower. By level 11 Duellist style is doing equivalent damage.

Duellist Ability 5, + 2 + 4.5 -11.5*3 = 34.5
vs
Tws Ability 5+3.5 = 8.5 *4 = 34.

 

[Esker]

I don't see how you're getting such large numbers for Two Weapon Fighting at higher levels.

It's a significant boost at low levels, but it fades rapidly and is two AC lower. By level 11 Duellist style is doing equivalent damage.

Duellist Ability 5, + 2 + 4.5 -11.5*3 = 34.5
vs
Tws Ability 5+3.5 = 8.5 *4 = 34.

Yeah, most of the rest of the numbers seem to check out, but that one seems way off to me. I get a 17% increase in DPR gained by using the TWF style, compared to using TWF without the style. Of course, I also don't think that's the best measure to use, since the alternative to using TWF with TWF style isn't really using TWF with no fighting style, but rather using some other type of fighting.