Fighting Styles: One Weapon, No Shield, and the fighter and rogue

[Zalabim]

I don't think TWF gives rogues a better chance to crit on sneak attack, since no one's going to hit their first attack then decide to chance a second attack to see if they can crit. If your DM has you roll all your turn's attacks at once, then that is one boon.

The big consideration you overlooked is that attacking with advantage with a rapier (or light crossbow) is better than attacking twice using TWF. Attacking twice with a Hand Crossbow is slightly better than that. Assassins prefer the extra attacks for surprise rounds, but Arcane Tricksters and Thieves may be better off hiding or otherwise distracting for Advantage.

[sblock]Level 20, two short swords.
8.5*.65+3.5*.65+35*.8775+42*.05=40.6125.
Level 20, rapier, advantage
44.5*.8775+39.5*.0975=42.9

Level 1, two short swords.
6.5*.65+3.5*.65+3.5*.8775+10.5*.05=10.09625
Level 1, Rapier, advantage.
11*.8775+8*.0975=10.4325[/sblock]

 

[ExploderWizard]

Well, for starters the rogue does not even get a fighting style to choose, so adding a new style does nothing for the rogue. IMHO SA damage is already too high and easy to inflict as it is. I also disagree about damage parity. If you have a warrior archetype and a sneak thief archetype, then the warrior should be better at combat overall or it isn't much of a class. There are three pillars to the game and if every single class is more or less equal in the combat pillar, where does that leave warriors?

 

[AverageCitizen]

I worked on something similar here, and the numbers came out close but a little different:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...apons)/page2&p=6692879&viewfull=1#post6692879

 

[Wereox]

I understand what you're getting at, but I thought most of those actions (such as grappling) could already be done if you had a free hand. Also I'm pretty sure rogues don't get a fighting style. But interesting thoughts nonetheless.

 

[bganon]

Dual-wielding eats up the bonus action, which Rogues actually have other good uses for. I think a mobility/damage tradeoff is perfectly reasonable, especially for a melee combatant with d8 hit die and light armor. Dual-wielding Rogues should deal more damage - they're gaining it at the cost of becoming significantly easier targets.

 

[Xeviat]

I didn't say I was giving the rapier wielder Advantage; I said +2 to hit.

And yes, it does give them a tiny increase in their chance to crit with sneak attack; 35% of the time, they'll miss with their first attack and then 5% of those times they'll crit. That increases their sneak attack crit chance from 5% to 6.75%; basically negligible.

And the +2 to hit would be for anyone using a one-handed weapon and an empty off-hand, not as a Fighting Style; it would still work with duelist for the Fighters and such.

As I've shown, my revision still has the single weapon rogue dealing less damage than the TWFing rogue; it just isn't dramatically so. There's still a trade off.

 

[Yunru]

Where as a single raiper rogue can hide, have advantage, and then see if either roll crit, rather than taking the first roll that hits like a TWF Rogue has to (or risk losing SA at all if they miss the second attack).

 

[Xeviat]

Okay, that's where you were getting advantage. That requires a place to hide, and requires succeeding Hide vs. Perception checks (not hard, but another chance of failure). The TWFing rogue gets to just team up with the party meathead and get sneak attack all the time.

If I were convinced that single weapon rogues were getting off hide checks significantly frequently in a multitude of encounter types, I could be convinced to not modify sneak attack as well as granting +2 to hit when one has an empty off-hand. Remember, this is also to give the fighter (and paladin and ranger) an extra option compared to shield use; +2 to hit, or +2 AC. The rogue just really needs it to compare against TWFing.