NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8126361" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Sure, but that requires that the Fighter never get any more than 3 rounds per SR. Yours scales up with proficiency, so by the time we hit 11th level, the Fighter is getting 4 rounds of double attacks while the Barbarian gets...one additional die when they crit. With your further suggestion to shift the "two uses per short rest" of Action Surge down to level 13 or 14, this would mean the Fighter can now (effectively) Action Surge for every round (5 rounds is a long 5e combat) of most combats (it should be rare to have more than 2 combats go by without a short rest). The Barbarian's only way of catching up is thus by getting the extra crit dice from Brutal Critical, but that's far and away not enough to keep up.11th level numbersBase damage increases for both characters; I will assume (though I did not before) that both characters have invested their two ASIs into Strength, giving both of them the max Strength of 20. Again, not assuming any magic weapons. Fighter base damage is now 12.33 per hit and 19.33 per crit, while Barbarian is 11.5 per hit (15.5 when raging) and 24.5 per crit (28.5 while raging).Champ dmg per combat (w/4 rounds AS): 24*(.55*12.33+.1*19.33) = 209.148Barb dmg per combat (w/Rage & RA): 8*(.78*15.5+.0975*28.5) = 118.95Champ dmg per combat (no AS): 12*(.55*12.33+.1*19.33) = 104.574Barb dmg per combat (only RA): 8*(.78*11.5+.0975*24.5) = 90.87Even going two extra rounds without the Champ having Action Surge but the Barb still having Rage, will not even come close to making up the difference--and a six-round combat would be shockingly long for 5e as I am given to understand things.Champ dmg per combat (4 rnds AS, 2 norm): 30*(.55*12.33+.1*19.33) = 261.453Barb dmg per combat (6 rounds Rage & RA): 12*(.78*15.5+.0975*28.5) = 178.425Crunching the numbers here (setting a floor of 4 rounds, plus X additional rounds for each side and solving for X) indicates that you would need 29 combat rounds in order for the Barbarian to merely catch up--except that Rage doesn't even last that long! Another way of saying this is, those 29 combat rounds could be split up over multiple combats....but that means every use of (4-round-long) Action Surge is equivalent to 3 daily uses of Rage. The Barbarian only has at most 6 uses before max level. Sure, the Fighter's damage output is more highly concentrated within those four rounds, but nova tactics are generally understood to be the better choice anyway.Once you get two uses per short rest it's over. The Fighter wins, hands down, all the time, by enormous margins--hundreds of damage dealt. By that point, they're getting two five-round chunks of double actions per short rest, meaning most combats they'll have double actions the entire fight. The Barbarian simply cannot keep up. Doing the math at level 13 or 14 (when you propose to make the 2 Action Surges per SR) would simply reveal just how thoroughly outclassed the Barbarian is, and (by implication) every other melee damage-dealing class.And this is with the Champion, well known to be the weakest Fighter subclass.</blockquote>

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