D&D General Fixing the Great Weapon Fighting Style

[Silam]

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.

Yeah, I’m not sure…

Certainly it is possible to play the game from levels 1 to 20 without ever getting any riders, but I wouldn’t assume it’s the norm…

Given that 2d6 (the damage of a Greatsword) yields an extra +1 damage on average, you would need 2d6 worth of riders on top of that to get to the magical +2 number that breaks even with Dueling (relative damage-wise, of course it is understood that Dueling allows for a shield so damage alone is not the whole story). So… what are some examples of common riders and how far do they take us towards getting that extra 2d6?

1. Hunter’s Mark gets you halfway there (+0.5).
2. Divine Favor gets you +0.75.
3. True Strike by level 11 gives it to you (+1), and at level 17 exceeds it (+1.5). So Eldritch Knights and Valor Bards, or most anyone else with Magic Initiate, could certainly take advantage of this.
4. A critical hit takes you there (+1). If you are a Champion you can increase crit odds. If you use True Strike or Pact of the Blade you can benefit from Elven Accuracy even though it’s a non-Finesse weapon, further increasing crit odds.
5. A Vicious Weapon gives you the +1 average directly on every hit.

All of the above are either at will or low cost/resource. They are not nova abilities like Divine Smite that you would burn through in a jiffy.

Of course, many characters don’t have access to any of the above, but there are still many options. And the above list is not exhaustive by any stretch… not to mention that all 5 points could theoretically stack, given the right build and gear…

 

[Minigiant]

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

I mean AC is only a 5% damage reduction per AC point until you fully eclipse monstef monster attacks. As as you level more and more of the damage is non-attack save or damage.

So shield AC matter less and less unless your DM hands our magical shields or attack only monsters more often.

 

[Tessarael]

I mean AC is only a 5% damage reduction per AC point until you fully eclipse monstef monster attacks. As as you level more and more of the damage is non-attack save or damage.

Let's assume monsters like PCs have a 65% chance to hit your AC. A nonmagical shield with +2 AC reduces that to 55% chance to hit your AC. Factoring in criticals as double damage on a roll of 20, the damage totals are 70% and 60%. So +2 AC reduces your damage taken by 14% on average - the calculation is 100% x (1 - 60/70).

A magical shield provides more benefit than that. In my experience, +1 shields are not that hard to come by in a typical D&D campaign, and for a +1 shield the damage reduction is 21% on average. But even without a magical shield, the damage reduction from a shield is quite significant for the party tank.

 

[Minigiant]

Let's assume monsters like PCs have a 65% chance to hit your AC. A nonmagical shield with +2 AC reduces that to 55% chance to hit your AC. Factoring in criticals as double damage on a roll of 20, the damage totals are 70% and 60%. So +2 AC reduces your damage taken by 14% on average - the calculation is 100% x (1 - 60/70).

A magical shield provides more benefit than that. In my experience, +1 shields are not that hard to come by in a typical D&D campaign, and for a +1 shield the damage reduction is 21% on average. But even without a magical shield, the damage reduction from a shield is quite significant for the party tank.

The issue is that by the time you have the attacks and feats to normalize damage, nonattack damage contributes to a quarter to a third of incoming damage.

So +2 AC averages about to ~ minus 10% incoming DPR. So the tradeoff is how much loss of off between GWF and Dueling is worth 10% less damage.

AC has increasing returns within classes but diminishing returns between classes. Thats why a Druid needs a ton of THP to make up the lower AC than can be 5 lower than the rest. But 2 fighters drift between 3 AC.

 

[NotAYakk]

The issue is that by the time you have the attacks and feats to normalize damage, nonattack damage contributes to a quarter to a third of incoming damage.

So +2 AC averages about to ~ minus 10% incoming DPR. So the tradeoff is how much loss of off between GWF and Dueling is worth 10% less damage.

AC has increasing returns within classes but diminishing returns between classes. Thats why a Druid needs a ton of THP to make up the lower AC than can be 5 lower than the rest. But 2 fighters drift between 3 AC.

No, +2 AC it isn't 10% less incoming DPR. It is 10% of the non-crit DPR if everything hit.

But if 40% of attacks are currently hitting, adding 2 AC drops non-crit DPR by 25%. Ie, instead of 40 damage you take 30 damage, which is 25% less.

This matters because we don't care how much damage a 0 AC target would take, you aren't a 0 AC target, that isn't in play. You are deciding between being a 20 AC and a 22 AC target.

A 25% drop in incoming damage means it takes 1/3 longer to drop you. You subtracting 10% of the damage a 0 AC target would take ... is not interesting information.

 

[Stalker0]

So +2 AC averages about to ~ minus 10% incoming DPR. So the tradeoff is how much loss of off between GWF and Dueling is worth 10% less damage.

You should also consider that many attacks carry riders of their own when its done by a monster. So its not just about damage, its about mitigating effects as well.

 

[Lord Twig]

Yeah, I’m not sure…

Certainly it is possible to play the game from levels 1 to 20 without ever getting any riders, but I wouldn’t assume it’s the norm…

Given that 2d6 (the damage of a Greatsword) yields an extra +1 damage on average, you would need 2d6 worth of riders on top of that to get to the magical +2 number that breaks even with Dueling (relative damage-wise, of course it is understood that Dueling allows for a shield so damage alone is not the whole story). So… what are some examples of common riders and how far do they take us towards getting that extra 2d6?

1. Hunter’s Mark gets you halfway there (+0.5).
2. Divine Favor gets you +0.75.
3. True Strike by level 11 gives it to you (+1), and at level 17 exceeds it (+1.5). So Eldritch Knights and Valor Bards, or most anyone else with Magic Initiate, could certainly take advantage of this.
4. A critical hit takes you there (+1). If you are a Champion you can increase crit odds. If you use True Strike or Pact of the Blade you can benefit from Elven Accuracy even though it’s a non-Finesse weapon, further increasing crit odds.
5. A Vicious Weapon gives you the +1 average directly on every hit.

All of the above are either at will or low cost/resource. They are not nova abilities like Divine Smite that you would burn through in a jiffy.

Of course, many characters don’t have access to any of the above, but there are still many options. And the above list is not exhaustive by any stretch… not to mention that all 5 points could theoretically stack, given the right build and gear…

Hunter's Mark benefits far more by having extra attacks. One extra attack would get you an extra 3.5 damage from Hunter's Mark vs. the 0.5 from using a larger weapon with GWF. A greatsword vs. two light weapons would both do 6d6 (2 attacks vs. 3 attacks), but the two light weapons adds the character's stat bonus a third time also. The same would go for Divine Favor, but with slightly different math.

True Strike would only happen once per round and a crit only happens 5% of the time. So very minor boosts.

A Vicious weapon or Flametongue would give you a +1, but now you need a Rare weapon just to break even with Dueling, and you would loose it if you just used a +2 or +3 sword, which would probably still be better.

This is assuming you even accepted that you could apply GWF to riders, which most people don't.

 

[Lord Twig]

Overall, it sounds like the majority of people think my house rule didn't go far enough or is too complicated. But I'm okay with that. Honestly the math for my house rule is super easy for me. Plus you only have to figure it out once and write it next to your weapon. If you don't just remember it because you are rolling weapon damage all the time and it will just become second nature.

I wanted to make the Great Weapon Fighting Fighting Style better than a trap option while still keeping the original intent of raising the average damage and damage floor, without increasing the max damage.

So with my rule if your 20 Str Barbarian hits with a greataxe and roll a 1 on damage, he will do a minimum of 6 + 5 = 11 damage instead of 3 + 5 = 8 damage. Which, in my opinion, just feels better. It makes big weapons hit harder all the time when they actually hit.

This also means that your Fighter with a greatsword will hit for a minimum of 7 + 5 = 12 damage instead of 6 + 5 = 11, which is a minor bump, but not so much better that it makes it the greataxe a trap.

Also notice that the damage calculation for the new greataxe damage is exactly the same as the old greatsword damage, or maybe even a little easier because you don't have to figure out the damage if you roll a 1 on one die and a 4 on the other. With my rule it is just always 7 if the total of the two dice is under seven.

It was great getting other people's insights on this though! So thanks for the comments!

 

[Silam]

Hunter's Mark benefits far more by having extra attacks. One extra attack would get you an extra 3.5 damage from Hunter's Mark vs. the 0.5 from using a larger weapon with GWF. A greatsword vs. two light weapons would both do 6d6 (2 attacks vs. 3 attacks), but the two light weapons adds the character's stat bonus a third time also. The same would go for Divine Favor, but with slightly different math.

True Strike would only happen once per round and a crit only happens 5% of the time. So very minor boosts.

A Vicious weapon or Flametongue would give you a +1, but now you need a Rare weapon just to break even with Dueling, and you would loose it if you just used a +2 or +3 sword, which would probably still be better.

All good points.

This is assuming you even accepted that you could apply GWF to riders, which most people don't.

Well… I would argue many people don’t pay attention to Sage Advice and just read the rules as written. If something is ambiguous, the DM makes a call on the fly (which is pretty much the same methodology as most of Crawford’s calls anyway). The RAW is quite clear in both editions: it applies to all damage rolls.

Beyond that, forum-goers and other Internet dwellers may pay heed to the tweeter-in-chief and that’s their business, if they even think to look for it (in my case, I’ve played a 2014 GWF user and never even thought to look it up since the RAW is unambiguous).

As for 2024, they reiterated that it applies to all rolls (albeit there is a slight average damage nerf along with it), so that clearly supercedes 2014 Sage Advices. It’s ok if people want to play with a house rule of nerfing GWF, but in my opinion it doesn’t need to be nerfed. The RAW is fine. And that in turn means it needs not be un-nerfed either.

But again, if the house rule you described works for your table, that is great, and you won’t hear me complain about how your table plays the game. It’s all good

 

[ECMO3]

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.

At high levels +5 AC is not huge. Most enemies you face in tier 6 will hit a 25 AC with no problem. A shield is a bigger deal at low level than at high level.

The best melee PC I have seen in 2024 was a 20th level Champion Fighter with a viscous Maul and he would have been even better with a Viscous Greataxe I think. The best one I have played personally was a multiclass Fighter 12/Warlock 8 that dual wielded a club(shillelagh) +2 and Scimitar +2.

The PCs I have played with a shield were good but not nearly as good at melee at high level.