D&D 5E TCoE - Rogue's Steady Aim

[Ovinomancer]

I'll crunch the numbers later if you want, but a base 65% hit chance is an 87.5% hit chance. The extra increase for double advantage isn't that high (95.88), but the crit jump might be (9.75 to 14.26). It's a gain, but not a huge gain. Definitely a strong combo, though.

I'm not sure about your numbers, here. If you're rolling three dice take the best, then the odds of missing at a base 65% chance is the same as one minus the chance all three dice roll a miss, or 1-(miss^3). That's 1-(0.35^3) = 1 - 0.043 = 0.957 = 95.7% chance you'll hit, not 87.5%.

You did the crit chance right, though. This is also simply done by checking 1 - chance no dice roll a twenty, or 1 - (0.95)^3.

 

[Charlaquin]

I think there's a reward for the melee rogue: the possibility to land an out-of-turn sneak attack through an AoO or an ally's features is more probable than for ranged rogues. And with the mix of defensive features (uncanny dodge, evasion etc) and having Dex as a main (almost) mono-stat means that rogues arent that much of a glass canon in 5e.

They certainly aren’t as squishy in this edition as people are used to thinking of them, but I still don’t think the chance of opportunity sneak attacks is enough of a benefit for the additional risk you take by going into melee range. In general, attacking from range is always safer when it’s an option, and it is generally optimal to have your tankiest party member hold the line while other party members attack from range. If you’re voluntary mixing it up in melee instead of keeping a safe distance, I think you should be rewarded with better, or at least more consistent, damage output. That goes for all classes, IMO.

 

[R_J_K75]

and pizza.

Gotta have beer with pizza!!

 

[Dausuul]

Combined with Elven accuracy feat, isn’t this a significant damage boost for higher level rogues?

Eh, not really.

Let's say you're an 8th-level rogue with Dex 20 and a shortbow. Your base damage, with SA, is 5d6+5 (average 22.5), up to 10d6+5 (average 40) on a crit.

If your normal chance to hit is 65%, that is a 60% chance for a regular hit and 5% chance for a crit. Your average damage is 15.5.

With advantage, you have a 78% chance for a regular hit and a 9.75% chance for a crit, with average damage a bit under 21.5.

Now add Elven Accuracy. You're up to an 81.45% chance for a regular hit and a 14.2625% chance for a crit, with average damage a hair over 24.

Compare dual wielding shortswords to attack an enemy with one of your allies nearby. The math on this is a little more complex, but it comes out to... a hair over 24*.

So you're using the new feature, plus a feat, plus your movement for the round, to get back to where you were in the first place. What you get is not more damage but greater tactical flexibility, since you can stay in the back and shoot at targets who don't have your allies next to them.

*And less of it comes from crits, so your damage output will be more consistent with less chance of overkill.

 

[Xeviat]

I'm not sure about your numbers, here. If you're rolling three dice take the best, then the odds of missing at a base 65% chance is the same as one minus the chance all three dice roll a miss, or 1-(miss^3). That's 1-(0.35^3) = 1 - 0.043 = 0.957 = 95.7% chance you'll hit, not 87.5%.

You did the crit chance right, though. This is also simply done by checking 1 - chance no dice roll a twenty, or 1 - (0.95)^3.

That's what I said. 65% goes to 87.75% with advantage and 95.7% (I got 95.88, but I was doing it on my phone and I've never taken statistics) with double advantage. My point is the gain from 65 to 88 (23) is a big jump, but from 88 to 96 (8) is less noticable.

Deminishing returns.

A beast master ranger in my group had built for elven accuracy thinking tripple advantage would be great, using his hawk to gain advantage, but it ended up being better to redo the character options.

 

[Flamestrike]

Huh.

Too bad using Booming Blade every single round just feels so...cheesy.

But an elven Swashbuckler with Elven Accuracy and Booming Blade could dance in, attack with triple advantage (15% chance of crit, including the initial damage from BB at levels 5+), then skip away, daring the target to follow.

You cant move on the turn you use steady aim.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

With a 50% hit chance, TWF gives 7.5% crits/attack, while Advantage gives 10%.

TWF delivers 1.0 static damage, Advantage delivers 0.75.
TWD delivers 1.1 weapon dice, advantage delivers 0.85 weapon dice.
TWF delivers 0.825 sneak attack dice, advantage delivers 0.85 sneak attack dice.

0.025 sneak attack dice is rarely as good as 0.25 static plus 0.25 weapon dice, even if you add in the bigger weapon die on advantage.

As hit rate goes up, the sneak attack gap grows to 0.05, but the static and weapon dice gap grows to 1.

As hit rate goes down, the sneak attack gap collapses. But at a 20 to hit, the TWF case still beats the Advantage choice.

So if you want to trade TWF for Advantage and win, you need something more; like a rapier vs a short sword and booming blade.

Eh, not really.

Let's say you're an 8th-level rogue with Dex 20 and a shortbow. Your base damage, with SA, is 5d6+5 (average 22.5), up to 10d6+5 (average 40) on a crit.

If your normal chance to hit is 65%, that is a 60% chance for a regular hit and 5% chance for a crit. Your average damage is 15.5.

With advantage, you have a 78% chance for a regular hit and a 9.75% chance for a crit, with average damage a bit under 21.5.

Now add Elven Accuracy. You're up to an 81.45% chance for a regular hit and a 14.2625% chance for a crit, with average damage a hair over 24.

Compare dual wielding shortswords to attack an enemy with one of your allies nearby. The math on this is a little more complex, but it comes out to... a hair over 24*.

So you're using the new feature, plus a feat, plus your movement for the round, to get back to where you were in the first place. What you get is not more damage but greater tactical flexibility, since you can stay in the back and shoot at targets who don't have your allies next to them.

*And less of it comes from crits, so your damage output will be more consistent with less chance of overkill.

Thanks for the excellent analyses! This assuages my concerns about ranged rogues beating melee in damage.

Another downside to this feature that occurs to me is that not being able to move at all on turns when you use this feature means it probably isn’t something you can actually use round after round in battle, unless your battles have consistently bland setups and non-tactical opponents.

I was concerned that our swashbuckler might find herself incentivized to use her backup bow more often with this feature instead of as a backup, which would just make things less interesting and not fit her concept as well. But armed with the math it appears this will most likely instead mean that in those occasional rounds where she 1) can’t effective get into melee, and 2) can’t move sufficiently to position herself for good melee before the combat will likely be over, her bow attack won‘t be as bad. It should definitely see occasional use, but as long as I let her know what the math says, it shouldn't make her feel less effective with her actual intended melee concept. (Or at least, that’s my hope. We’ll have to see what happens in play.)

 

[Ovinomancer]

That's what I said. 65% goes to 87.75% with advantage and 95.7% (I got 95.88, but I was doing it on my phone and I've never taken statistics) with double advantage. My point is the gain from 65 to 88 (23) is a big jump, but from 88 to 96 (8) is less noticable.

Deminishing returns.

A beast master ranger in my group had built for elven accuracy thinking tripple advantage would be great, using his hawk to gain advantage, but it ended up being better to redo the character options.

Huh, must have read that wrong a few times, then, my bad.

I disagree about diminishing returns, though. Quite often we look at the difference and consider that, but I'd much rather have a 4% chance of failure than a 12% chance of one. That's three times less often I'll be failing -- from roughly 1 in 8 to 1 in 25. The difference between 65% and 88% chances of success, on the other hand, looks larger, but represents a reduction in failures of a different magnitude - 1 in 3 to 1 in 8.

I'm not entirely certain a beastmaster ranger build is the best to showcase elven accuracy, but I'm glad your player was able to find something more to their liking. I, personally, probably wouldn't invest in elven accuracy, not because of it's effectiveness (it's massively effective in the right use cases) but one of flavor -- it lacks any.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Eh, not really.

Let's say you're an 8th-level rogue with Dex 20 and a shortbow. Your base damage, with SA, is 5d6+5 (average 22.5), up to 10d6+5 (average 40) on a crit.

If your normal chance to hit is 65%, that is a 60% chance for a regular hit and 5% chance for a crit. Your average damage is 15.5.

With advantage, you have a 78% chance for a regular hit and a 9.75% chance for a crit, with average damage a bit under 21.5.

Now add Elven Accuracy. You're up to an 81.45% chance for a regular hit and a 14.2625% chance for a crit, with average damage a hair over 24.

Compare dual wielding shortswords to attack an enemy with one of your allies nearby. The math on this is a little more complex, but it comes out to... a hair over 24*.

So you're using the new feature, plus a feat, plus your movement for the round, to get back to where you were in the first place. What you get is not more damage but greater tactical flexibility, since you can stay in the back and shoot at targets who don't have your allies next to them.

*And less of it comes from crits, so your damage output will be more consistent with less chance of overkill.

I get either 22.5 or 22.9 for dual wielding, depending on if you're assuming sneak is applied to the first attack if both hit and one crits, or if you always apply sneak to the crit. Doesn't make much difference, either in how you handle a hit and a crit, or in the overall analysis.

I think you're adding the stat modifier to the offhand damage, which requires a fighting style from somewhere, in which can we should give the archer rogue archery style. That pumps normal damage average up to 17.75, advantage damage up to 22.8, and elven accuracy up to 24.6. Again, ultimately not much of a difference in effect.

The real impact of elven accuracy isn't in increasing DPR by a lot (it's a modest to small bump), but in dramatically reducing the number of times you miss. Also, average DPR hides the fact that elven accuracy does create crits almost three times more often over a normal attack, and that 40 average damage is a nice spike when it happens.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Technically. Although I wouldn't allow 'Steady Aim' on the back of a galloping horse.

Have you never seen Brave?