D&D 5E (2024) The Versatile STR Fighter: Melee with a Real Ranged Option

[W'rkncacnter]

IMO Blind fighting is by far the best fighting style. I used to believe in Dueling and Two-Weapon Fighting and I would take defense if I did not want to lock myself into one of them, but after playing a PC with blind fighting I think it is clearly the best in effectiveness at the table.

im not sure if this is a joke but if it's not i'd say it's really situational. if you're in a lot of situations where your vision on the enemy is hindered for some reason (e.g. they're invisible or you're playing a human and there's a lot of dark areas and not a lot of light) and you're a melee character, then yeah, blind fighting is second to none. but otherwise it's pretty useless, or will only occasionally come up at best. it's arguably the coolest style conceptually, though.

personally i think archery is the best for builds that can make use of it by far. +2 to all ranged weapon attacks forever is absolutely ridiculous. defense is a good option if you're not super interested in anything else, because even if it only increases the odds of not getting hit by a small amount...you're a martial. you're probably getting attacked a LOT. twf just exists to make duel wielding viable, and dueling is gwf but objectively better (only held back by the weapons it applies to doing less base damage).

 

[Minigiant]

We are speaking of 3d6 damage at level 20.
Lower AC. Lower classical rogue skills. No way to dual wield. Which lowers the damage gap significantly.

So this whole optimizer thing is way overblown in 5e.
Good that people are doing the math. But even their conclusion is that every class is playable. Even when unoptimized.

The ceiling in 5e is lower. The floor inn5e is higher.
The real issue is the look.

 

[TwoSix]

Archery increases a GW Fighter's DPR by 10%. The extra damage at range likely prevents more damage with 5.5e easy weapon swapping.

Pedantic, but Archery is a much bigger boost to DPR than 10%. It turns 10% of attacks from misses to hits, and since the customary hit rate is generally in a 40-70% range, the DPR increase is going to be closer to 15-25%.

 

[TwoSix]

im not sure if this is a joke but if it's not i'd say it's really situational. if you're in a lot of situations where your vision on the enemy is hindered for some reason (e.g. they're invisible or you're playing a human and there's a lot of dark areas and not a lot of light) and you're a melee character, then yeah, blind fighting is second to none. but otherwise it's pretty useless, or will only occasionally come up at best. it's arguably the coolest style conceptually, though.

I think the argument here is that the situations where Blind-Fighting is useful can be engineered in relatively trivial ways, and those methods provide ancillary benefits beyond enabling Blind-Fighting.

 

[CreamCloud0]

I think the argument here is that the situations where Blind-Fighting is useful can be engineered in relatively trivial ways, and those methods provide ancillary benefits beyond enabling Blind-Fighting.

the thing about blind fighting is that it doesn't ever make your character better at attacking it just mitigates some situations where they'd be worse at it.

i'd love taking blind fighting on my character...if i had 2-3 other fighting styles before it.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Charisma skills are classic Rogue skills but you don't have to give up your dex. You can push Dex first, go straight to 20 Dex first and Truestrike on a 16 will still outrun a Rogue who is making attacks using dexterity at most levels. Don't get me wrong, if damage is your priority you would go with the casting stat first, but you don't have to and you still stay near or above the Rogue baseline.

3d6 iat 20th level is nothing to sneeze at. It is 6 Rogue levels worth of dice. It is essentially a free Obscure every single turn or a free Daze+trip/poison/withdraw, it is half the cost of knock out.

3d6 is significant, but it is actually a lot more than 3d6 if you go hard into optimization. On a maximum optimized PC (Thief using ready action, fast hands and spellfire adept); at 20th level it is 2 extra Sneak attacks on the first round of combat (4 total) and one extra sneak attack per round after that with +3d6 on every one of those sneak attacks. Additionally, if you are going full Nova you add another 2d8 on every sneak attack from spellfire adept until you run out of hit dice. So in terms of base improvement on a full nova with all your hit dice it is an extra 32d6+8d8+2xweapon+2xcasting stat extra damage on the first round of combat and an extra 16d6+4d8+weapon+casting stat for the next 3 rounds and an extra 16d6+weapon+ casting stat every round after that as long as you have Cantrip Scrolls available (which you usually do at this level). That is an optimized single class build, but you can do even better than that with a 2-level Sorcerer or Warlock dip.

Dual Wielding does not lower the damage gap significantly in play because you get less out of Vex. You need to give up Vex on one of your weapons to take Nick, meaning you lose Vex entirely in melee or lose it entirely on ranged attacks. Further if you take it on a Short Sword you lose the advantage when you make the light attack. Often if you land Sneak attack with your sword it is often better to give up the paltry dagger or scimitar damage to keep the Vex until next round or for an opportunity attack. It does give you a second chance to land your sneak attack, so there is that, but that is not going to overcome the Cantrip damage boost and more effective use of Vex at most levels.

As much as I appreciate your numbers. There are a lot of assumptions I don't share.

1st: you can use two vex weapons. Nick is nice. But not at all needed. Except when you want to do ready/scrolls exploits (I don't want to go into a legal or not discussion. It is exploiting some lenient reading of rules... and you give up your regular reaction...).

2nd: I somewhere said: not overly optimized characters.

For average play, true strike is not a must.

 

[W'rkncacnter]

I think the argument here is that the situations where Blind-Fighting is useful can be engineered in relatively trivial ways, and those methods provide ancillary benefits beyond enabling Blind-Fighting.

what, like, fog cloud or darkness? i mean i guess if you want to screw with the rest of the party, too.

 

[TwoSix]

what, like, fog cloud or darkness? i mean i guess if you want to screw with the rest of the party, too.

Fog Cloud and Darkness are tactically strong options, unless the encounter is primarily a melee scrum and most of the PCs use ranged attacks. Being in a heavily obscured area is net-neutral for melee range, unless the PC build was strongly dependent on gaining advantage or imposing disadvantage as a defense.

 

[ECMO3]

im not sure if this is a joke but if it's not i'd say it's really situational. if you're in a lot of situations where your vision on the enemy is hindered for some reason (e.g. they're invisible or you're playing a human and there's a lot of dark areas and not a lot of light) and you're a melee character, then yeah, blind fighting is second to none. but otherwise it's pretty useless, or will only occasionally come up at best. it's arguably the coolest style conceptually, though.

personally i think archery is the best for builds that can make use of it by far. +2 to all ranged weapon attacks forever is absolutely ridiculous. defense is a good option if you're not super interested in anything else, because even if it only increases the odds of not getting hit by a small amount...you're a martial. you're probably getting attacked a LOT. twf just exists to make duel wielding viable, and dueling is gwf but objectively better (only held back by the weapons it applies to doing less base damage).

Blind fighting is situational, but those situations come up frequently enough and when they come up this fighting style is a complete game changer. Pretty much any time there is heavy obscuration, magical darkness or invisibility it more or less completely bypasses it. RAW it is impossible to hide from a character with blindsight so things like Shadow Demons or Goblins or Assasins are severely nerfed.

Further in those cases with obscuration, you are getting advantage and your enemies are getting disadvantage, further they don't get opportunity attacks when you move, but you get them with advantage when they move. Close with an enemy caster and cast Fog Cloud or Darnkess or have an ally cast it and now that enemy can't cast a spell that requires sight, they can't misty step out of it. If they try to walk out without disengaging you can grapple them or if they do disengage you can walk out grapple them and drag them back in.

Blind Fighting is not something you are going to use every fight, but it is huge when you do use it.

An extra 2 points of damage per attack is nice, it almost always works and it is there every fight, but it is not game changing in the same fashion. Same with two-weapon fighting, same with Defense.

This is not a theory I came up with it is from in game experience with multiple 1-20 campaigns

If you are playing a range-only character who is going to get sharpshooter, I would agree Archery is the best.

 

[ECMO3]

As much as I appreciate your numbers. There are a lot of assumptions I don't share.

1st: you can use two vex weapons. Nick is nice. But not at all needed. Except when you want to do ready/scrolls exploits (I don't want to go into a legal or not discussion. It is exploiting some lenient reading of rules... and you give up your regular reaction...).

On a Rogue you give up cunning action to use two Vex weapons without nick.

You do have to give up your reaction if you make the sneak attack off-turn, but you have the option not to, you have a reaction available until your ready action goes. So you would pick a trigger event you expect to occur right before your next turn and then if you have reason to use your reaction before that you do and lose the extra sneak attack.

For average play, true strike is not a must.

I agree with that.