D&D 5E Fighting Styles seem to be an afterthought rather than integral..

[Tony Vargas]

But there does seem to be a real difference in emphasis between AD&D/OSR and 5E in how they seek originality. I see OSR DMs talking about ways to make elves or trolls new and weird, or novel kinds of traps or curses; I see 5E DMs talking about new feats and character classes and new ways to gain slightly different kinds of mechanical bonuses that play out differently at the metagame level (i.e. what players do).

Nod. There was a trend towards more player options that peaked in 3.5, and towards more carefully balancing those options, which peaked in 4e. 5e has pulled back from both of those, but not all the way back to AD&D, when characters were largely defined by what magic item they picked up or what magic pool they drank from or whatever changed them in some unique/memorable way.

I thought they should have all been "bonus action" or "reaction" for something new... dueling could get "parry" (bonuses to face one opponent).. and defense ... I don't know.

Though it seems more like a dueling thing, Defense could have given you a 'riposte' reaction to being missed (perhaps missed by a big enough margin, or missed due to disadvantage, or while you have Advantage but the reaction attack doesn't benefit from it, or somethingorother to keep it in check).

So, what do I think? I'd like them all to be bonus action or reactions to use (I'd prefer all bonus actions, actually). Active, character defining, fun stuff.

Sounds cool.

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

Protection can be weak, if the DM meta-games. I've seen the monsters focus fire on the warrior that has this (making the style worthless) because the DM doesn't want the monsters to suffer disadvantage.

In my own experience, if that happens, protection is working exactly the way it wants to work...

 

[thethain]

Two Weapon Fighting Style - seems reasonable

Keep in mind this is applying your STR/DEX Mod as damage once per turn.

My fix to this:
Great Weapon Fighting Style: add 2x STR to damage rather than 1x STR.
What do you think?

You are granting the same bonus of Two Weapon Fighting Style (Adding ability mod to damage) to Great Weapon, except rather being limited to once per turn, you are applying it to every single attack.

This means as say a hasted 20th level polearm master fighter you could apply it... 11 times in a turn? (4 attacks, 4 action surge, 1 bonus, 1 haste, 1 reaction).

Even with a far less optimized exploitation, you would be applying it at least 2x a turn at level 5.

Also you designed the new Great Weapon Style to work fantastically with the feat for great weapons, but designed the archery style to be worthless with the feat. Fighters have lots of bonus ASIs, they will be getting appropriate feats.

GWF is finicky and weak, but it shouldn't be 2-11x better than the other option.
Archery style is too good at negating the penalty of Sharpshooter feat, but it shouldn't be reduced to non-existence. (most archers would likely take defensive since they would be getting the feat anyways)

 

[Gladius Legis]

The problem with Archery IS the Sharpshooter feat's -5/+10. It's OK, otherwise.

GWF is OK if you actually allow it to apply to all damage dice done with the attack. Which RAW would be the right thing to do, anyway, but Sage Advice gave it an ad hoc nerf to weapon dice only.

 

[LapBandit]

Keep in mind this is applying your STR/DEX Mod as damage once per turn.

You are granting the same bonus of Two Weapon Fighting Style (Adding ability mod to damage) to Great Weapon, except rather being limited to once per turn, you are applying it to every single attack.

This means as say a hasted 20th level polearm master fighter you could apply it... 11 times in a turn? (4 attacks, 4 action surge, 1 bonus, 1 haste, 1 reaction).

Even with a far less optimized exploitation, you would be applying it at least 2x a turn at level 5.

Also you designed the new Great Weapon Style to work fantastically with the feat for great weapons, but designed the archery style to be worthless with the feat. Fighters have lots of bonus ASIs, they will be getting appropriate feats.

GWF is finicky and weak, but it shouldn't be 2-11x better than the other option.
Archery style is too good at negating the penalty of Sharpshooter feat, but it shouldn't be reduced to non-existence. (most archers would likely take defensive since they would be getting the feat anyways)

Two-Weapon Fighting Style explicitly says to add your stat modifier to your offhand attack. 1st level (without feat) you are doing 1d6 + stat twice if you hit both times by RAW.

Level 20 is not a meaningful measure of efficacy as 99% of campaigns never see it, and even then, so what? That's one nova round.

Yes, at 5th level it is intentional of course for it to be applied twice.

I agree that Sharpshoot would need to be reworked to accomodate the change.

After talking it over with my group, a static modifier will be tried out next campaign +4 to damage to double Dueling.

 

[LapBandit]

All right I feel dumb, why are you doubling the weapon damage?

Because at 5th level a fighter gets a second attack. If Dueling, two longsword swings, if GWF two greatsword swings, if TWF two mainhand one offhand swing.

 

[LapBandit]

I'm also okay with the fighting styles changing completely to be as Xeviat described, active and reactive, less flat bonuses.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Protection can be weak, if the DM meta-games. I've seen the monsters focus fire on the warrior that has this (making the style worthless) because the DM doesn't want the monsters to suffer disadvantage. While sometimes this makes sense, when the Rogue can deal a crapload of damage in melee this feels wrong. The same DMs never have the monsters attack a character that's Dodging either.

When I was running my 5E campaign, my general guideline for playing monsters was that they would avoid attacking at disadvantage if they had any other alternatives. That seems like common sense, right? If one guy is dodging around like a ninja, then you ignore them and focus on the one who is just standing there. If something is hard, then do something easy instead.

The kind of weird part is just that the fighting style only works to protect other people. For some reason, your exceptional skill with a shield doesn't benefit you in any way. Given that it is the case, though, it makes sense for a monster to attack the fighter instead of the rogue, once they figure out that they can't hit the rogue while the fighter is protecting them.

So really, the actual benefit of the Protection fighting style is that it causes enemies to attack the tank rather than the rogue - which is exactly the sort of ability that a tank would want in order to be effective at their role!

 

[dave2008]

Because at 5th level a fighter gets a second attack. If Dueling, two longsword swings, if GWF two greatsword swings, if TWF two mainhand one offhand swing.

Got it - it was how you wrote it that threw me off.

 

[Hussar]

Being able to force rerolls like that makes it better than any other style by a large margin. In fact, I find that way too powerful.

Having seen it in play for the better part of two years, I would have to disagree. Unlike the other styles, it's entirely situational. In order for it to come into play the following conditions must be met:

• The DM has to target a PC other than the fighter.
• It requires that the player not take any opportunity attacks since this eats his reaction.

Those two factors greatly limit how useful this style is. Add to that, as originally written, it's entirely possible to "waste" the action on an attack that would have missed anyway. As originally written, it's far too weak. It's not going to come up every round in the first place and then making it unreliable to boot, at the cost of all opportunity attacks, is just not worth it.

Turning it into a reroll mechanic, with a limit of at most 1/round (which almost never comes up), that doesn't actually guarantee failure - creatures can still hit with disadvantage after all - makes it about par with the other styles. Otherwise, it's a fools bet. It's situational AND unreliable. There's almost no reason to take it as originally written.