D&D 5E Evaluating Range versus Damage (SS vs GWM) - putting a price on range

[CapnZapp]

I miscalculated how useful Precision is.

I'll check at the end how many superiority dice we are expending.

As a general comment (I'm not really following along with the number-crunching) this is a very good idea.

The power of Precision lies precisely in how seldom you actually need to use it.

Most maneuvers have a 1:1 relationship between usage and benefit. Spend a superiority die, gain advantage and d8 damage, that kind of deal. This sounds great, but it does mean that to gain the benefits five times you need to expend... wait for it: 5 superiority dice. This means your nova burns out fast indeed.

The GWM/SS Battlemaster build is so good precisely because it leverages the probability curve of advantage to minimize the number of Precision dice you actually need to spend. And instead of using the superiority dice to add damage directly, we're turning misses into hits, using GWM/SS to deliver the damage instead.

The end result is that you use far fewer Precision dice, allowing you a significantly more robust nova. And when you do use one, each provides a greater bonus than the d8 itself

 

[clearstream]

As a general comment (I'm not really following along with the number-crunching) this is a very good idea.

The power of Precision lies precisely in how seldom you actually need to use it.

Most maneuvers have a 1:1 relationship between usage and benefit. Spend a superiority die, gain advantage and d8 damage, that kind of deal. This sounds great, but it does mean that to gain the benefits five times you need to expend... wait for it: 5 superiority dice. This means your nova burns out fast indeed.

The GWM/SS Battlemaster build is so good precisely because it leverages the probability curve of advantage to minimize the number of Precision dice you actually need to spend. And instead of using the superiority dice to add damage directly, we're turning misses into hits, using GWM/SS to deliver the damage instead.

The end result is that you use far fewer Precision dice, allowing you a significantly more robust nova. And when you do use one, each provides a greater bonus than the d8 itself

I wouldn't like anyone to assume a - *cough* - precision, that isn't warranted. Double-checking superiority die expenditure, GFB is expending 1 or 2 per combat, and SS/GWM are expending 3 or 4. When we pull the latter back they shed a couple of points. A bigger reduction is that I neglected to account for the fact that a Riposte is only available to GFB when the foe misses. Revised SS uses 2 or 3 per combat.

With that, and correcting superiority die expenditure, we have

GWM = ~43
PHB SS = ~40
Revised SS = ~32
GFB = ~62 corrected so Riposte is only upon foe missing

At this point we get a clear sense that PHB SS is too strong compared with melee. Revised SS is about right against GWM, based on a 1.3 factoring. And I personally feel that GWM defines the edge of correct balance. It's about precisely (heh) where it should be.

Splatbook content remains OP.

 

[CapnZapp]

Could you point me to the specific post where the op-ness of GFB was explained, vonklaude?

If it truly beats GWM/SS by 50% it's a huge miss by my players...

Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app

 

[Tony Vargas]

Yes...?

Your point, Tony?

Someone brought up the 'power of melee' in genre, I was thinking out loud about what that power was. "It's a display of courage, an ability to stand up to danger that most cannot. The hero gets others to rally around him and fight on. The hero draws the ire of the greatest enemies. The hero breaks the morale or coordination of the enemy."

That's not exhaustive, either, and it seems a lot for even D&D to squeeze into just making more attacks/round for a faster race to 0 hps.

Breaking (the morale or coordination of )the enemy is done by causing him hit point loss in D&D. This needs to be done better, faster, stronger by melee builds, or the quality of range becomes decisive.

Very abstractly, sure. That doesn't mean it's the only way it could be done, or that the only way for a melee character to do so is in subtracting hps from the enemy on his turn.

But, that's all theoretical. It might be nice to have a more fantasy-genre depiction of 'melee power,' but D&D didn't got there in general, and 5e in particular, even less so than the other WotC eds....

Not going for melee viability. You make it sound like a neutral choice to make.

Clearly it's not, or they'd've felt comfortable putting forth a more balanced design.

Do *you* think the game is better off with melee builds being relegated to new or nostalgic players that don't see or care their slow axe dwarfs have been essentially made obsolete by 5E?

It doesn't match my preference, but I understand that I'm distinctly in the minority in many of my preferences.

Or do you have another reason for posting such a lenient closing remark?

D&D has not always done a lot to model this 'power of melee' we see in the fantasy genre (even if it may have done more at times than it is now with 5e), but it really deviates from genre a great deal, anyway.

Maybe the design this time around just didn't prioritize making melee an optimal choice?

 

[clearstream]

Could you point me to the specific post where the op-ness of GFB was explained, vonklaude?

If it truly beats GWM/SS by 50% it's a huge miss by my players...

Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app

Level 12
Battlemaster 4
Arcane Trickster 8
Shield Master (foe is prone for main attack about 80% of time based on Expertise in Athletics)
Sentinel
Variant Human (so you can have two feats and a level 20 main stat)
Green Flame Blade

One GFB attack in own turn = ~19.5 dmg + ~4.7 (bouncing half the time) + ~23.5 (SA 90% of time) = ~47.7
Either Sentinel trigger (half of time) = ~4.8 + ~9.8 (SA per ratio) = ~14.6
Riposte (other half of time * miss chance) = ~1.9 + ~2.7 (SA per ratio) = ~4.6

= ~67* damage / turn

Precision is used on (rare) main attack misses by 1-2, and Sentinel attack misses by 1-3 = about 1.5 superiority dice/turn
Riposte is used about 17% of the time (foe targets Trickster instead of ally, and misses) = about 1 superiority die/turn

@guacho proposed it. It's level 12, not 11, and breaches our "before magic" general assumption. SS/CEx can be brought up to 50 at the same level, via Magic Initiate (Hex), and GWM to 54 (Bless). In this case including only spells the character can provide for themselves.


*I noticed a missed opportunity to optimise use of Precision.

 

[CapnZapp]

Thank you, [MENTION=71699]vonklaude[/MENTION].

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

I'm pretty sure that you can't use Shield Master to prone someone and also use GFB in the same round.

 

[guachi]

D'oh!!!

It's not like I don't know this and it's not like I didn't already know this makes my GFB/Shieldmaster character impossible but... you have to take the Attack action in order to use Shieldmaster. GFB uses a weapon attack that's not part of the attack action. It uses, of course, the Cast a Spell action.

D'oh!!!

If you could use Shieldmaster without having to take the attack action and if you had a DM that allowed the spell-less Ranger (it's fun!) you could have Horde Breaker AND Precision. Horde Breaker doesn't require use of the Attack action, just a weapon attack. You have the Precision to ensure your GFB hits and can use Shieldmaster to reposition foes if needed so they are within 5 feet of one another to trigger GFB carry over damage and get that extra attack from Horde Breaker.

Alas, this is not possible or it would be even more broken.

 

[clearstream]

I'm pretty sure that you can't use Shield Master to prone someone and also use GFB in the same round.

Nice point. GFB is not an Attack action, it's a cast. I'll recheck the numbers and see what that produces. It'll be less. Not sure by how much.

Possibly switching to a Trip maneuver would make up the difference (Advantage and +d8 being possibly more telling than Precision).

 

[clearstream]

D'oh!!!

It's not like I don't know this and it's not like I didn't already know this makes my GFB/Shieldmaster character impossible but... you have to take the Attack action in order to use Shieldmaster. GFB uses a weapon attack that's not part of the attack action. It uses, of course, the Cast a Spell action.

D'oh!!!

If you could use Shieldmaster without having to take the attack action and if you had a DM that allowed the spell-less Ranger (it's fun!) you could have Horde Breaker AND Precision. Horde Breaker doesn't require use of the Attack action, just a weapon attack. You have the Precision to ensure your GFB hits and can use Shieldmaster to reposition foes if needed so they are within 5 feet of one another to trigger GFB carry over damage and get that extra attack from Horde Breaker.

Alas, this is not possible or it would be even more broken.

Trip Attack might work. For 11th level, what would you expect their save to be (against fighter's DC of 17)?