D&D 5E Fighting Style Balance: Offense vs. Defense

[FrogReaver]

Dead enemies are the ultimate defense...

Actually the goal is not to maximize not how fast you kill them - as offense will always win there. But instead to maximize resources left after killing them.

 

[FrogReaver]

So if you think about it, no amount of defense will ever end a fight. And fights must end.

All fights end, the question is how many resources the party exhausted in doing so. If defensive abilities cause the party to expend less overall resources then defensive abilities were better than the offensive ones.

Most people want an easy answer to this tactical analysis but it's not a simple question.

 

[Garthanos]

Actually the goal is not to maximize not how fast you kill them - as offense will always win there. But instead to maximize resources left after killing them.

If they are dead they cannot steal a resource hit points by harming you so deading is still contributing to the reduction of maximizing retention of resources. Its an ultimately final one.

 

[FrogReaver]

If they are dead they cannot steal a resource hit points by harming you so deading is still contributing to the reduction of maximizing retention of resources. Its an ultimately final one.

No doubt, but that doesn't mean that using your resources to dead them was a maximization of resources at the end of the fight.

 

[Garthanos]

No doubt, but that doesn't mean that using your resources to dead them was a maximization of resources at the end of the fight.

There are devils in the details indeed but when we are doing defensive maneuvers the resource part on them are the same or mostly. Which makes it much more easy to compare. If your Rally results in an ally lasting longer when they would have gone down you have just done the same with a defense as take out the enemy one round earlier. However I think unless your battles are typically 50 50 danger level ummm ouch... the offense is better.

 

[clearstream]

All fights end, the question is how many resources the party exhausted in doing so. If defensive abilities cause the party to expend less overall resources then defensive abilities were better than the offensive ones.

Most people want an easy answer to this tactical analysis but it's not a simple question.

You're right from a tactics perspective. However, my point was rather more fundamental. Perforce HP loss must outweigh any recovery or mitigation over whatever timeframe a designer feels is right for resolution.

If the converse were true, fights ordinarily would not end. There is also the matter of volatility: fights are experientially more exciting if defences can sometimes be suddenly overwhelmed. These considerations lead to attacks being typically favoured in the mechanics. When designers get it wrong, and defenses are stronger than attacks, the game feels bad.

The consequence is that usually, before analysis, it is safe to assume it will be better to optimise attacks. Not always, of course!

 

[Garthanos]

I am wanting to do some fairly dramatic tweaking of maneuvers some like Lunging attack and sweeping attack I feel like may need straight up improved others I think deserve minor tweaks.

Like minor scales better thoughts (if its balanced at one end... umm then why did it fade) when you barely get more of these things.

I think Parry can use improvements making it situationally better and more useable by other style fighters.

 

[Stoutstien]

You're right from a tactics perspective. However, my point was rather more fundamental. Perforce HP loss must outweigh any recovery or mitigation over whatever timeframe a designer feels is right for resolution.

If the converse were true, fights ordinarily would not end. There is also the matter of volatility: fights are experientially more exciting if defences can sometimes be suddenly overwhelmed. These considerations lead to attacks being typically favoured in the mechanics. When designers get it wrong, and defenses are stronger than attacks, the game feels bad.

The consequence is that usually, before analysis, it is safe to assume it will be better to optimise attacks. Not always, of course!

Generally, offense is easier to optimize than defense. Look at the number of ways that you can choose to increase and augment attack/damage compared to AC/HP/Saves. it doesn't help that a lot of the ways that you can increase your offense also don't interfere with action economy E.g. divine smite or battle master maneuvers.

The best form of defense is action denial. Death is one way but anything that takes away the enemies ablity to effectively do damage works.

Look at the ancestral guardian Barbarian. They can provide the whole party resistance to any damage dealt on top of giving them disadvantage for those attacks. How much damage would the party need to do to make up for that amount of defense?

 

[FrogReaver]

Generally, offense is easier to optimize than defense. Look at the number of ways that you can choose to increase and augment attack/damage compared to AC/HP/Saves. it doesn't help that a lot of the ways that you can increase your offense also don't interfere with action economy E.g. divine smite or battle master maneuvers.

The best form of defense is action denial. Death is one way but anything that takes away the enemies ablity to effectively do damage works.

Look at the ancestral guardian Barbarian. They can provide the whole party resistance to any damage dealt on top of giving them disadvantage for those attacks. How much damage would the party need to do to make up for that amount of defense?

Yep. And most importantly - offense also has a greater flexibility in applying it to where it is most beneficial. Many defensive abilities don't have that (but the ancestral barbarian does - which makes it fantastic). I would never highly optimize self defense at the expense of offense - even though tactically I may trade some resources for self defense if I'm the one being focused. I would optimize party defense though just as much as I optimize party offense.

 

[FrogReaver]

Consider an ability that gives you 7.5 extra temp hp. An enemy that does 10 damage and has a 25% chance to hit will take 3 rounds on average to deplete the temp hp.

An extra attack ability probably kills the enemy a round - maybe 2 earlier. Which essentially spares 1-2 attacks from that enemy. In this scenario the temp hp was a more efficient resource than one that gave an extra attack.