D&D General Fixing the Great Weapon Fighting Style

[Minigiant]

Sorry, I still prefer Defense and Duelist. IMHO, needs to be at least +2 damage to be comparable to duelist.

If it granted +2 damage, it would be strictly better than Deulist.

 

[Tessarael]

If it granted +2 damage, it would be strictly better than Deulist.

Percentage damage wise increase no. It basically comes down to which fighting style, e.g. two-handed, sword-and-shield, or two-weapon-fighting, works most effectively. At high levels, getting say +5 AC from a shield +3 is huge. It becomes a must have to take the Great Weapon Master feat to boost two-handed weapon damage by your proficiency bonus to get to a similar level of effectiveness.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

If it granted +2 damage, it would be strictly better than Deulist.

No. It would not.
The +2 damage isn't just competing with the +2 damage from duelling fighting style, it is also competing against the +2 (or more) AC that using the duelling style also allows you to have.

 

[Minigiant]

Percentage damage wise increase no. It basically comes down to which fighting style, e.g. two-handed, sword-and-shield, or two-weapon-fighting, works most effectively. At high levels, getting say +5 AC from a shield +3 is huge. It becomes a must have to take the Great Weapon Master feat to boost two-handed weapon damage by your proficiency bonus to get to a similar level of effectiveness.

GWF's main advantage is damage. S&S has Defence.

But PC AC has diminishing returns. So if GWF gets a lot more damage, the AC bonus of shields in Dueling becomes less important.

 

[Silam]

With all this nickel and diming of +1.x damage this, +2 damage that, and so on, I wonder if I’m the only one that has actually played with GWF by the RAW? Is everyone hooked on the outdated 2014 Sage Advice ruling rather than playing RAW?

By the RAW, the GWF FS should in practice increase damage more than Dueling thanks to affecting rider damage as well.

Unless everyone assumes having no riders is the norm…?

 

[Minigiant]

With all this nickel and diming of +1.x damage this, +2 damage that, and so on, I wonder if I’m the only one that has actually played with GWF by the RAW? Is everyone hooked on the outdated 2014 Sage Advice ruling rather than playing RAW?

By the RAW, the GWF FS should in practice increase damage more than Dueling thanks to affecting rider damage as well.

Unless everyone assumes having no riders is the norm…?

The additional rider effects are few and far between in 5e. Although the additional dice that can be set to 3 by 2024 GWF are not limited in scope, they are limited in number.

Or in layman's terms, 5e doesnt have fiery, icy, and shock magic weapons throwing out +1d6 X damage everywhere.


My #1 gripe with 5e is that the "keep the number low" design gave designers and DMs practically no range to play with within the system.

If the Baseline of Fighting styles were +4 damage per hit, you could justify FSs that go from +1 to +7. 3 points up or down.

At +2, you hit 0 just by going down by 2.

 

[Tessarael]

Unless everyone assumes having no riders is the norm…?

There was a 5E campaign that I was in where damage riders were common at high level. In two other campaigns where we've gotten to level 8 and level 9, there's only one weapon in each with damage riders. The argument that Great Weapon Fighting style works because of damage riders really doesn't suffice, given that they're relatively rare, and certainly not typically available at low Fighter levels where the fighting style could be first taken and is subpar vs. other alternatives.

 

[Horwath]

With all this nickel and diming of +1.x damage this, +2 damage that, and so on, I wonder if I’m the only one that has actually played with GWF by the RAW? Is everyone hooked on the outdated 2014 Sage Advice ruling rather than playing RAW?

By the RAW, the GWF FS should in practice increase damage more than Dueling thanks to affecting rider damage as well.

Unless everyone assumes having no riders is the norm…?

only way that GWF style works is that eberron 2Handed scimitar with revenant blade feat, 1 level of fighter and rest rogue.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

GWF's main advantage is damage. S&S has Defence.

But PC AC has diminishing returns. So if GWF gets a lot more damage, the AC bonus of shields in Dueling becomes less important.

Hang on. What?
PC AC has increasing returns. Going from 15 to 16 has much less effect on your incoming damage than going from 19 to 20 for example.

With all this nickel and diming of +1.x damage this, +2 damage that, and so on, I wonder if I’m the only one that has actually played with GWF by the RAW? Is everyone hooked on the outdated 2014 Sage Advice ruling rather than playing RAW?

By the RAW, the GWF FS should in practice increase damage more than Dueling thanks to affecting rider damage as well.

Unless everyone assumes having no riders is the norm…?

Having no riders is the norm.

It is possible to get riders sometimes for some characters (eg Paladin burning their spell slots to smite, or Ranger's Hunter's Mark), or if the character is lucky enough to find one of a few specific magic items. But no class gets riders as a baseline without giving something up.

 

[NotAYakk]

Hang on. What?
PC AC has increasing returns. Going from 15 to 16 has much less effect on your incoming damage than going from 19 to 20 for example.

The diminishing returns is that enemies stop killing you with attacks, and kill you with save-or-pain. The save or pain stuff gets more and more common at higher levels as well.

And this happens much faster in my experience if you become infinite-AC-person. The DM starts having a lot more save-or-pain foes. Failing that, the DM just juices the monster's ATK value; your AC buff turns into an AC debuff for the rest of your party.

But the effect exists even with no DM adaptation. If half of your incoming damage is from attacks and the other half from save-or-pain, then getting perfect AC and crit immunity ... drops your incoming damage by 50%, and no more. The point where your increased AC makes you immune to attacks varies by opponent, and as your AC climbs you have already capped out on more and more foes.

The plate+shield, both +3, plus defensive fighting style and plenty of spell slots for shield, gives you an AC of 32. These diminishing returns show up before this point.

Oh, and the reduction in incoming damage? It does so by a percent, but the absolute amount of damage blocked for each point of AC is relatively constant.