D&D 5E Why do people think elven accuracy is so great?

[Paul Farquhar]

I would play a bladesinger as a striker rather than a tank, using Misty Step or Invisibility to withdraw. So I would consider "avoiding critical hits" a low priority. I would only bother increasing intelligence via ASIs - too many good feats to choose from (e.g. Quickened Invisibility with Metamagic Adept). I would look for magic items that increase dexterity or strength. Alternatively, leave intelligence at it's starting value and choose spells that don't have saves or hit rolls.

If you did want to tank, a tasha-variant goliath might be an option, using Stone's Endurance to reduce the odd critical.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Because accuracy is the most important stat in the game, as far as combat is concerned. It takes significantly more damage, often at least a 2:1 ratio, to be worth taking an accuracy penalty.

You see a similar phenomenon in video games (particularly MMOs) that include an accuracy stat. Accuracy is the most important stat, up until the moment when you hit 100% accuracy. At which point, literally anything further spent on accuracy is totally worthless, contributing nothing. Some games (such as FFXIV and WoW) eventually removed* accuracy/"hit rating" as stats, because they didn't contribute anything to the play experience (but tended to do weird/bad things to stuff like raid progression groups).

People have mentioned the crit-fishing benefit, but the simple accuracy benefit is also sizable. If you normally hit 60% of the time, with triple-advantage you hit over 93% of the time. If you would normally only hit 30% of the time, triple-advantage gives you more than a 65% chance to hit. IOW, Elven Accuracy can turn battles that should be "just run, you have no hope in hell" into "this is reasonably achievable," so long as you still have any chance at all of hitting in the first place. And, as noted, you can push yourself up to over 14% chance to crit, so not only are you hitting far more often, more of your hits will be crits, too.

Part of the benefit of Elven Accuracy is that 5e's designers ended up doing exactly what I predicted they'd do: they've handed out Advantage like candy. When Advantage is commonplace, Elven Accuracy is undeniably powerful. And there are plenty of ways to either finagle Advantage from your DM, or just create it via mechanics--there have to be, because of stuff like how Rogues depend on it to get their bonus damage. Can't have balance-critical benefits that simply fail to trigger most of the time. Advantage tried to serve as both the "big benefit you hand out for fun ideas" option, AND the "first-resort so we can keep things simple" option, and those two things don't mesh together in game design. Having them be one and the same means the thing is going to show up everywhere, yet be a big deal.

Elven Accuracy is one of the only things that improves on normal Advantage, it's available to every character of two of the most popular (and strongest) races in the game, it's stupidly under-priced as a half-feat (especially one that can apply to any one of 3 stats), and it as noted applies to accuracy, the most important thing to optimize for combat.

Using your comparison to Lucky, OP: Lucky gives you 3 rolls per day, no more and no less. It provides no stat bonuses and can't be used more than three times before a long rest. Elven Accuracy is on 24/7, so long as you have advantage--and it's quite easy to get advantage on more than three attack rolls in a given adventuring day, thus exceeding the benefit of Lucky and getting +1 Dex/Int/Cha as well. The one benefit Lucky has that Elven Accuracy does not is that Lucky is both offensive and defensive. But overall, EA is just a stronger feat.

*AIUI, WoW just baleeted Accuracy entirely. FFXIV replaced Accuracy with Direct Hit, which is sort of like a mini-crit, that can stack with an actual crit. Mathematically, this was equivalent to juggling the numbers, but the vital difference is that there is no "cutoff" value for DH; it continues to be useful no matter how much you get. Instead of creating un-fun perverse incentives, they actually encouraged analysis and nuance.

 

[ph0rk]

oof. Thanks, but I disagree with this.

Unless you roll abilitles, bladesinger should not have an odd dexterity (or intelligence). Bladesingers more than any other subclass need to take ASIs and if they have a spare feat it needs to be lucky to counter crits against them.

Seems pretty likely to end up with an odd score as one of various elves; Dex of 17 to 18 at 4th makes plenty of sense. Eladrin for int to 16, and res:con to get con to 16 at 8th or 12th.

I'm not saying it is something I would go out of my way to get, but even with customized origins, you can't get dex, con, and int all to 16 at level 1 with an elf subrace. If you're picking between half-feats, EA is a pretty ok one, assuming you can reliably generate advantage.

Res:con is quite lackluster until prof bonus is +3 or +4, in my opinion, so if you're building in a half feat at 4th or 8th, I'd take something else.


Again, it isn't great. I'd never go out of my way to build around it, but it's got some pretty good combat applications. It isn't bad at all.

Plus, as mentioned elsewhere, rolling three dice is fun. Somehow more fun than lucky. It just is.

A lucky crit-denier is a lot more generally robust as a fighter, anyway.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Using your comparison to Lucky, OP: Lucky gives you 3 rolls per day, no more and no less. It provides no stat bonuses and can't be used more than three times before a long rest. Elven Accuracy is on 24/7, so long as you have advantage--and it's quite easy to get advantage on more than three attack rolls in a given adventuring day, thus exceeding the benefit of Lucky and getting +1 Dex/Int/Cha as well. The one benefit Lucky has that Elven Accuracy does not is that Lucky is both offensive and defensive. But overall, EA is just a stronger feat.

*AIUI, WoW just baleeted Accuracy entirely. FFXIV replaced Accuracy with Direct Hit, which is sort of like a mini-crit, that can stack with an actual crit. Mathematically, this was equivalent to juggling the numbers, but the vital difference is that there is no "cutoff" value for DH; it continues to be useful no matter how much you get. Instead of creating un-fun perverse incentives, they actually encouraged analysis and nuance.

Without necessarily trying to argue that Lucky is better, I do think your analysis misses a couple of things:

1. Lucky gets used after the roll, which means it doesn't get wasted on rolls that would otherwise succeed. And although Elven Accuracy applies to all rolls with Advantage, a lot of them will have succeeded anyway. So the question is really how many attack rolls with advantage do you make that miss, per long rest? I would guess for some characters on some days the answer is "more than 3", but it's more complicated than just "Elven Accuracy works on all rolls; Lucky only on 3".

2. You mentioned in passing that Lucky can be used defensively, but I think this is pretty significant since that can include saving throws. I would argue that, on average, succeeding at saving throws is more important than landing weapon attacks.

And combining those two things, the question is: do you miss on attack rolls with advantage more than 3 times a day, and is getting a chance to re-roll those additional misses worth not being able to re-roll saving throws or attacks that hit you?

(Ok, the +1 Dex makes Elven Accuracy win, though.)

 

[ECMO3]

So you'd prioritize V-Human getting Lucky at 1st, +2 Dex at 4 to be at 18/16 rather than Elf/Half-elf starting at 17 and getting an 18 with Elven Accuracy?

Yes, every time. If I was going to take a half-feat for a boost I would take the +1 intelligence and Fey touched with Hex or shadow touched with false life.

Bladesingers in particular do not get advantage enough to make it worthwhile.

Valid, but I guess I favor offense over defense. You do have infinite characters, after all. That's why I don't fret over keeping my character alive. Live fast and leave a beautiful corpse and all that.

Ha Ha! good point. If I want more offense on a bladesinger I would cast an offensive spell, or get metamagic adept so I can quicken mirror image or blur.

A bladesinger with lucky feat at level 11 is unstoppabl. With lucky and greater invisibility, blur or PGE and an enemy would need 3 20s to crit and that is generally the only way to even seriously damage a bladesinger. Add a 5th-level false life on a contingency and you will never have to worry about replacing your character.

 

[MarkB]

Plus, as mentioned elsewhere, rolling three dice is fun. Somehow more fun than lucky. It just is.

I've played one character with this feat - a ranged-specialised Battle Master fighter. The first fight I got into, I was hidden at range, and made my attack with super-advantage.

And rolled a triple 1.

 

[ReshiIRE]

I've played one character with this feat - a ranged-specialised Battle Master fighter. The first fight I got into, I was hidden at range, and made my attack with super-advantage.

And rolled a triple 1.

0.01% chance. Some absolutely horrible luck.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

I've played one character with this feat - a ranged-specialised Battle Master fighter. The first fight I got into, I was hidden at range, and made my attack with super-advantage.

And rolled a triple 1.

This might be the best reason for EA in the whole thread: a very memorable epic fail or success is possible. Very unlikely, but possible!

 

[ECMO3]

Odds of a crit on 19-20:

1d20: 10.0%
2d20: 19.0%
3d20: 27.1%

That is good, but it is a specific build to get there and the classes that would benefit the most (Rogue) you have to multiclass with to get the extneded crit range, losing SA dice in the process. Half-Orcs would like this as well, butthen they don't qualify for elven accuracy.

Still, on an Elven Rogue-Champion this could be a real winner when combined with steady aim.

 

[ECMO3]

I would play a bladesinger as a striker rather than a tank, using Misty Step or Invisibility to withdraw. So I would consider "avoiding critical hits" a low priority. I would only bother increasing intelligence via ASIs - too many good feats to choose from (e.g. Quickened Invisibility with Metamagic Adept). I would look for magic items that increase dexterity or strength. Alternatively, leave intelligence at it's starting value and choose spells that don't have saves or hit rolls.

If you did want to tank, a tasha-variant goliath might be an option, using Stone's Endurance to reduce the odd critical.

I don't think that is the best use of the class. There are better strikers, including EKs and ATs if you want to mix magic with powerful melee attacks. A Bladesinger's forte is the ability to avoid damage and at high levels take damage. It does this better than any other class. Misty step is a heavy price to pay to land an attack and a cantrip, especially when an AT can do more damage on a cantrip SA without spending a spell slot. You could take mobile, but again you still would be doing more damage as an AT without the need for the feat.

Most of the time, when playing a bladesingder you want to force enemies to attack the bladesinger instead of a more squishy character (which at high level includes every other class). You can't do that well if you are backing out of combat. If you back away then someone else will take the attacks, and that someone will not be able to take it as well as you considering bladesong, blur/PGE/GI, contingency and a reaction like shield, song of defense or absorb elements. Because of this, the DM is usually going to try to target other characters and if you are backing away you make that easy instead of making the DM work for it.

If you really want to hit hard as a bladesinger you put away your weapons and let loose with offensive spells (which you should have in your book). Regardless of how you make your build, a bladsinger is always going to do more damage slinging fireballs and cone of cold than swinging her Rapier. Casting offensive spells is effective, like it is for any wizard, but usually as a bladesinger you want to do that from the front so others like Rogues and reach fighters/barbarians can stay behind you and take fewer attacks (and so you can more effectively manage the AOE). Put a bladesinger in front as a blocker with a Bugbear barbarian or a barbarian with a polearm and GWM and the barbarian can go reckless without worrying about getting attacked and suffering from the disadvangtage.

I agree on metamagic adept, that can be really fun, especially if you want to run shadowblade (or hex from your race) as the concentration with mirror image as the defense. You will usually need to bring back your images during the battle and quicken spell is the key to that (or use it on a lucky strike that disrupts concentration on something else). It is only once a day though, so that is not an every combat thing. I also have misty step usually as a good "get out of here" if things go bad and my defenses break down.