D&D 5E Fighting Style choice for a Ranger?

[MindxKiller]

Hello all, I will be playing in an Out of the Abyss campaign in november and decided that a ranger would be fun to play. (Favored Terrain: Underdark sounds like it might be VERY useful.) Now I know I want to make him a dual wielder, and that's where the question actually comes in. Two Weapon Fighting Style is really bad, at least from my understanding, at most it adds 5 damage to your turn, would I be better off taking Defense or for those of you familiar with the Waterborne Adventures UA, Mariner? +1 AC seems strong in comparison, and mariner even has the added bonus of giving me a swim and climb speed.

Bit of Character Info:
Variant Human: Took the Dual Wielder feat
STR-10
DEX-16
CON-16
INT-8
WIS-14
CHA-8

Will likely multiclass Fighter 3 after Ranger 5 to get battlemaster maneuvers, action surge, and Archery Fighting Style

DM has said that I may be able to find lightened mithril longswords which will have the finesse property and allowed the use of the Tempest Ranger Archetype (For those of you unfamiliar, it basically buffs dual wielding for rangers, gives them an extra attack when they hit with at least 2 attacks, allows them to cast spells with somatic components while dual wielding, and gives them the ability to burn a spell slot to stun a creature for a number of rounds equal to the level of spell slot if you hit with 3 attacks.)

So will I be gimped if I don't take the Two Weapon Fighting Style? Should I pick it despite my (admittedly uninformed) opinion? What Fighting Style would you suggest?

 

[Herobizkit]

Pick what's fun. You won't be gimped; 5e's math sees to that.

 

[Megalith]

If you're going to multiclass in fighter, go all the way to 5. That extra feat and attack is very important. By 10th level, that will be 4 attacks a round with a possible 5th attack and 3 total feats. The two weapon fighting style gives you the extra damage on your off hand. Combined with the dual wielding feat that lets you fight with bigger weapons, it's quite good. That's important if you're going to be primarily melee focused. We have a fighter in our group who took the +1 defense and she wishes she took the extra damage instead. It's easy to buff AC. It's harder to buff damage. If caught in a fight where you need more AC, just grab a shield for the extra +2 AC and sacrifice the 1 offhand attack when needed. If you're wearing plate, this situation shouldn't come up that often. Also, look hard look at mobility for your 2nd or 3rd feat. The extra 5' of movement is nice, but being able to walk away from combat without incurring a AOO is potentially game changing. Does the DM have you surrounded with 4 thugs to keep you away from the low hp evil cleric in the back? Attack each one, you don't even need to hit, and walk right by them all to engage the bigger threat.

 

[MindxKiller]

If you're going to multiclass in fighter, go all the way to 5. That extra feat and attack is very important. By 10th level, that will be 4 attacks a round with a possible 5th attack and 3 total feats. The two weapon fighting style gives you the extra damage on your off hand. Combined with the dual wielding feat that lets you fight with bigger weapons, it's quite good. That's important if you're going to be primarily melee focused. We have a fighter in our group who took the +1 defense and she wishes she took the extra damage instead. It's easy to buff AC. It's harder to buff damage. If caught in a fight where you need more AC, just grab a shield for the extra +2 AC and sacrifice the 1 offhand attack when needed. If you're wearing plate, this situation shouldn't come up that often. Also, look hard look at mobility for your 2nd or 3rd feat. The extra 5' of movement is nice, but being able to walk away from combat without incurring a AOO is potentially game changing. Does the DM have you surrounded with 4 thugs to keep you away from the low hp evil cleric in the back? Attack each one, you don't even need to hit, and walk right by them all to engage the bigger threat.

Extra Attack features don't stack so its redundant with the ranger extra attack.

 

[Megalith]

Didn't see that. You wouldn't get the 3rd extra attack until you hit 11th level fighter.

 

[Eubani]

How about creating a Ranger specific fighting style? Something like an Ambush fighting style that gives a bonus for attacking whilst hidden or a fighting style that is more of a mobility add or rewards mobility?

 

[arashiko]

How about creating a Ranger specific fighting style? Something like an Ambush fighting style that gives a bonus for attacking whilst hidden or a fighting style that is more of a mobility add or rewards mobility?

Choose the fighting style Dueling (+2 damage on each hit) OR Archery (+2 to hit) at 2nd level and Gloom Stalker as your Ranger Subclass at 3rd.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

So will I be gimped if I don't take the Two Weapon Fighting Style?

Yes. You are unnecessarily gimping yourself as a "two weapon fighter". If you are going to actually regularly fight with two weapons then you should take the two weapon fighting style. The average damage the offhand attack will add with a d6 weapon is 3.5, so adding "at most 5 damage", is the bulk of the basic damage you will do offhand before damage added spells, abilities, and magic weapons.

The problem is not with the fighting style, it is with two weapon fighting itself, which limits your options for the main attack action and then sucks up your bonus action. This is particularly bad for a Ranger as they have a lot of spells and several subclass abilities that rely heavily on regular use of the bonus action. It's not truly terrible (except with certain subclasses that want to use up the bonus action every round) but it's not great. I had an archer gloomstalker who sometimes found himself in melee, and when he did he would two weapon fight, but even once both weapons were drawn half the bonus actions ended up spent on casting and moving Hunter's Mark or casting Zephyr Strike, so maybe one or two offhand attacks would actually be made in the combat.

So dueling (or better yet, archery) is a stronger choice for a Ranger than two-weapon fighting. But only if you are actually interested in fighting in those ways. If you are going to be a two weapon fighter then by all means use the two-weapon fighting style. Otherwise it just becomes weaker.

Defense (or Mariner) is a good fighting style if you want to alternate between multiple types of weapon set-ups (which can be a lot of fun), as are several of the other options added by Tasha's. But if you are committing to Two Weapon fighting take the fighting style for that. It'll be fun. Don't worry.

 

[Ace]

Hello all, I will be playing in an Out of the Abyss campaign in november and decided that a ranger would be fun to play. (Favored Terrain: Underdark sounds like it might be VERY useful.) Now I know I want to make him a dual wielder, and that's where the question actually comes in. Two Weapon Fighting Style is really bad, at least from my understanding, at most it adds 5 damage to your turn, would I be better off taking Defense or for those of you familiar with the Waterborne Adventures UA, Mariner? +1 AC seems strong in comparison, and mariner even has the added bonus of giving me a swim and climb speed.

Bit of Character Info:
Variant Human: Took the Dual Wielder feat
STR-10
DEX-16
CON-16
INT-8
WIS-14
CHA-8

Will likely multiclass Fighter 3 after Ranger 5 to get battlemaster maneuvers, action surge, and Archery Fighting Style

DM has said that I may be able to find lightened mithril longswords which will have the finesse property and allowed the use of the Tempest Ranger Archetype (For those of you unfamiliar, it basically buffs dual wielding for rangers, gives them an extra attack when they hit with at least 2 attacks, allows them to cast spells with somatic components while dual wielding, and gives them the ability to burn a spell slot to stun a creature for a number of rounds equal to the level of spell slot if you hit with 3 attacks.)

So will I be gimped if I don't take the Two Weapon Fighting Style? Should I pick it despite my (admittedly uninformed) opinion? What Fighting Style would you suggest?

Take TWF and use a pair of rapiers and you won't lose any damage. If generous your DM will let you reflavor them as something more like a Jian and let them do slashing damage.

Given you don't really need as many ASI's as most do to your high stats you might go All Ranger and take Fighting Initiate and grabbing the Archery style at L4 . You won't lag far behind on your DEX which you can boost at 8 and 12 making at 20.

 

[DeviousQuail]

If you plan to MC into fighter then I say stick with TWF and the associated feat. It's fun, you'll have no issue switching between melee and ranged, and in fights against high HP opponents it combos really well with hunter's mark and other sources of extra damage. Your bonus action economy is going to be fiddly but that's hardly the end of the world.