D&D (2024) Fighting styles and how to balance them?

[RangerWickett]

Sounds like a higher level feat.

Combat in D&D has always been pretty flippin' boring compared to the kinetic and reactive way it works in video games. When all you do is take your turn and then hope your opponent doesn't kill you on their turn, it feels more like chess - where you have to take some hits - than fencing - where if you're good, you don't get hit.

I want the core of the combat in a game to somehow involve active defense.

 

[ECMO3]

For the run of 5E, fighting styles were a balance complete mess.

from Archery's OP and breaking bounded accuracy to complete trash of great weapon fighting?

How would you balance them out?

My few suggestions:

Archery: add proficiency bonus to damage instead of +2 attack
Defense: with +1 AC in proficient armor, add damage reduction of 1 when wearing proficient armor
Dueling: proficiency bonus to damage instead of flat +2
Great weapon fighting: damage die increase, 1d8 becomes 1d12, 1d10 becomes 2d6, 1d12/2d6 becomes 2d8, PAMs 1d4 becomes 1d6
Thrown weapon: in addition range of all thrown weapons becomes 60/180
Interception and protection becomes one style: you force a rerroll of attack roll that hits an ally withing 5ft, if the reroll hits, reduce the damage by 1d6+prof bonus
Two weapon fighting: in addition, if you have Dual wielder feat and Extra attack feature, make two attacks with your off hand

I don't think these are any more balanced than the original.
I think most of them are ok as is, here is what I would change:

1. Great Weapon Fighting: just get rid of Great Weapon Fighting, I don't think it is fixable and heavy weapon guys have other options available in blind fighting, protection or superior technique.

2. Thrown Weapon Fighting: Allow the +2 damage to apply when thrown weapons are used in melee.

I think your addition to Two Weapon Fighting would make it overpowered considering you get your extra attack without using a bonus action.

 

[W'rkncacnter]

Is great weapon fighting actually trash? It's slightly weaker than dueling but still adds about 10% damage.

no...? with a 2d6 weapon it adds just over 1 damage on average. on anything else it's less. that's not "about 10% damage" unless you have a negative strength mod, in which case why are you using great weapons?

Combat in D&D has always been pretty flippin' boring compared to the kinetic and reactive way it works in video games. When all you do is take your turn and then hope your opponent doesn't kill you on their turn, it feels more like chess - where you have to take some hits - than fencing - where if you're good, you don't get hit.

I want the core of the combat in a game to somehow involve active defense.

honestly i've wondered what might happen if you took pf2e's action system and then made it 3 actions/3 reactions and had reactions work like actions in that they take a certain number of reactions to use depending on the reaction, and designed a game around that. i remember reading through a generic system called JAGS that let you save your action points for off your turn so you could react to things, but that system was...well...it certainly existed.

also to be fair one of the most common things you'll hear about fighting in general from people who engage in anything fighting related (whether that be self defense classes or martial arts or fencing) is that if you get into a fight, odds are you're gonna get hurt. so in that sense the way dnd does things isn't exactly inaccurate.

 

[mellored]

Combat in D&D has always been pretty flippin' boring compared to the kinetic and reactive way it works in video games. When all you do is take your turn and then hope your opponent doesn't kill you on their turn, it feels more like chess - where you have to take some hits - than fencing - where if you're good, you don't get hit.

I want the core of the combat in a game to somehow involve active defense.

I always imagined hit points as stamina. Especially for dex characters.

You don't get "hit" for half your hit points, you have to put in half your stamina to avoid a hit.

I mean, how else would you describe getting slashes with a great axe 5 times?

That said, I am in favor of giving monks extra reactions.

 

[Stalker0]

That seems overly general to me - I think it feels better to have someone as specifically great weapon specialist, a two weapon fighting specialist, etc.

Also, this solution doubles the benefit for two weapon fighting (i.e. they get +4 to damage instead of +2). So at first level a person wielding, say, two short swords would be doing (1d6+(3+2))+(1d6+2)=14 damage on average, whereas a great axe wielder would be doing (1d12+(3+2))=11.5 damage on average.

And I like the suggestion of tying damage benefits to proficiency so that they scale.

Compared to what we have now, which is:
(1d6+3)x2 = 13
vs
1d12+3 (reroll) which is 10.333

So the gap you mention already exists, and my houserule actually closes the gap slightly.


What you call specialization my group would call inflexibility. Most of the fighters in my game still stick with one primary weapon even if they take offense as their style, but being able to switch up weapons in specific times and still be competitive makes the characters more flexible and able to do more interesting things, rather than just swing the same weapon every single time because otherwise they lose their combat bonuses.