D&D 5E Have we misunderstood the shield and sword fighter (or warrior)?

[TwoSix]

A silly statement, but there is something deep underneath it. Sure doing more damage is great and can ensure victory, but manipulating events is so much more potent than damage. You might not even need to fight!

Gosh, that makes it seems like spellcasters might be even stronger than fighters then!

 

[FitzTheRuke]

So PAM+spear+shield makes some logical sense and helps the modest-but-dependable spear finding a niche (for whoever isn't a monk). But PAM+staff+shield... Put me in the camp of "cheese".

Yeah, I think the problem comes from the fact that while you can certainly thrust with a staff, its not it's most effective attack. A solid shot will hurt, but it would be hard-pressed to KILL. Even if a spear is just a staff with a pointy bit on the end - the pointy bit is important. You pretty much really do need to swing a staff to do much damage with it.

A martial artist friend of mine worked hard to get good at the pairing of a sword and a staff after watching Gandalf do it. He was pretty good. As a person that sparred with him, it was a scary thing to face. However, it wasn't exactly hard to disarm him of the staff. It's not so much that he couldn't effectively attack with it, he could - but he couldn't hold onto it if you blocked really hard.

That's actually one of the unsung benefits of wielding a weapon in two hands. It's really much easier not to lose it.

 

[Neonchameleon]

(I'm going to be using the term fighter, but also applies to a paladin and some other "warrior" concepts).

There has been a lot of discussion how in 5e the shield and weapon using fighter is a bit... underwhelming... when compared to other options. This is mainly due to limited feat support: I'm doing 1d8+7 with my sword and dueling fighting style fighter, while the PAM/GWM is doing massive damage.

What if this was... on purpose? Or if it's not on purpose, what if this was a "happy accident?"

If we look at a featless game, sword and board is actually somewhat better - if you take dueling fighting style, your damage output is basically the same as a 2 handed weapon and you have a shield!

So in a game with feats, because you really can't take things to improve your fighting style (there is shield master but it's... decent, not great?), you can take... whatever feat you want! Or just increase your stats if you don't like feats. You don't feel the "pressure" to take those "important" combat feats because they are simply not meaningful to you.

I once made a dex-built melee fighter with shield and sword, and for feats by the end of the campaign I had ritual caster, chef, lucky ... was my PC as hard hitting as he could have been? No, but he was very versatile - a better rounded adventurer vs a mere DPS machine. I'm sure there are many other example of fun and useful combos a PC could have when they aren't "forced" to take PAM/GWM or SS/CE....

EDIT: to be clear: Sword and Shield is a bit better to compensate for the lack of feats

This IMO isn't the problem at all. The problem is threefold:

• Sword and Board combat basically caps when your Str hits 20
• Str sword & board is no better than Dex sword & board at hitting people thanks to the rapier being as good as the longsword. And it's worse >90% of the rest of the time.
• Synergies and anti-synergies apply

First increasing your strength bonus by +1 has roughly the combat effectiveness of either Great Weapon Master or Polearm Master assuming you have no other relevant bonuses - and no other feat comes terribly close (not even Sentinel). I can't be bothered to go through the math here - but what this means in practice is that there are three ASI equivalents possible for either greatweapon or polearm fighters and only two for sword & board fighters. This means that the sword & board fighter lags behind badly at level 8 when you get your third ASI unless you switch to one handed spear & shield/polearm master (and see below for why that doesn't always work).

Second the Versatile ability of the Longsword is a ribbon ability that almost no one uses (especially with duelist style). What this means in practice is that if you assume equivalent stats a Dex based sword & board fighter with a rapier will do exactly the same damage as a Str based fighter with a longsword. But (even assuming heavy armour) Dex applies to initiative, one of your best saves, and multiple skills including stealth. Dex >> Str. Further if you want Dex-melee there's a good case for going ranger not fighter for a whole lot of interesting choices.

Finally there are synergies - with sword & board being the basic "nothing to see here".

• Great Weapon Master really gains from easy attack modifiers, so it's awesome for reckless barbarians and for battlemasters
• Polearm Master requires bonus actions and benefits from static damage boosts so it's best with Paladins. The Barbarian uses a bonus action to enter Rage and the Fighter for Second Wind. And subclasses like Echo Knight and Rune Knight use bonus actions for their class features a lot
• Polearms (and especially PAM) work better with duelist than with Great Weapon Fighter. It's one of the many things that leads to the spear-and-shield combination.

But I think the big thing is that the sword & board fighters stop scaling with ASIs at level 6 for fighters and 8 for anyone else - and the great weapons and polearms at 8/12. And they don't just stop but might as well be dex based.

 

[CleverNickName]

There has been a lot of discussion how in 5e the shield and weapon using fighter is a bit... underwhelming... when compared to other options. This is mainly due to limited feat support: I'm doing 1d8+7 with my sword and dueling fighting style fighter, while the PAM/GWM is doing massive damage.

What if this was... on purpose? Or if it's not on purpose, what if this was a "happy accident?"

Since feats are "optional" according to the Player's Handbook, I think it's safe to assume that lack of feat support was intentional.

Maybe the design intent back in 2014 was to add more "sword and board" flavored feats, fighting styles, etc., in later books. But there certainly hasn't been much added since.

 

[Horwath]

Simple feat to help sword&board type:

Shield basher:
+1 str, dex or con

as a Bonus action you can make one attack with a shield or make one shove attempt.

Attack deals 1d6 B damage, or P if you add spikes to the shield.
you add STR to attack and damage.
any +X bonus to AC from shield adds +X to attack and damage of this attack or Athletics check to Shove.

 

[Laurefindel]

Simple feat to help sword&board type:

Shield basher:
+1 str, dex or con

as a Bonus action you can make one attack with a shield or make one shove attempt.

Attack deals 1d6 B damage, or P if you add spikes to the shield.
you add STR to attack and damage.
any +X bonus to AC from shield adds +X to attack and damage of this attack or Athletics check to Shove.

That sounds inherently much better than Two-Weapon fighter with Dual Wielder feat. And by the time you get a feat at level 4, you're not far off from your extra attack at level 5 so i'm taking this in consideration too.

You get a +1 to one ability score
Shield in itself is +1 AC over TWF+DW
Since you get to use your Str bonus without spending a fighting style, you can use dueling for +2 damage on your main attack (so that's +4 assuming extra attack)
your magical "off hand weapon" also gives bonus to AC and Athletics checks
all that for a drop from 1d8 to 1d6 for your off-hand weapon.

And yes, TWF+DW is fully dex-compatible while this imposes Str on the bonus action attack (main attacks can still use Dex). Still, too powerful for 2014 benchmarks. The Shield Master feat is actually not bad, even with the erratum that bonus action shove/trip must be done after attacks.

[edit] even if the problem lies with TWF, it's still powerful compared to Polearm Master and other feats/abilities allowing attack on bonus action.

 

[Argyle King]

This IMO isn't the problem at all. The problem is threefold:

• Sword and Board combat basically caps when your Str hits 20
• Str sword & board is no better than Dex sword & board at hitting people thanks to the rapier being as good as the longsword. And it's worse >90% of the rest of the time.
• Synergies and anti-synergies apply

First increasing your strength bonus by +1 has roughly the combat effectiveness of either Great Weapon Master or Polearm Master assuming you have no other relevant bonuses - and no other feat comes terribly close (not even Sentinel). I can't be bothered to go through the math here - but what this means in practice is that there are three ASI equivalents possible for either greatweapon or polearm fighters and only two for sword & board fighters. This means that the sword & board fighter lags behind badly at level 8 when you get your third ASI unless you switch to one handed spear & shield/polearm master (and see below for why that doesn't always work).

Second the Versatile ability of the Longsword is a ribbon ability that almost no one uses (especially with duelist style). What this means in practice is that if you assume equivalent stats a Dex based sword & board fighter with a rapier will do exactly the same damage as a Str based fighter with a longsword. But (even assuming heavy armour) Dex applies to initiative, one of your best saves, and multiple skills including stealth. Dex >> Str. Further if you want Dex-melee there's a good case for going ranger not fighter for a whole lot of interesting choices.

Finally there are synergies - with sword & board being the basic "nothing to see here".

• Great Weapon Master really gains from easy attack modifiers, so it's awesome for reckless barbarians and for battlemasters
• Polearm Master requires bonus actions and benefits from static damage boosts so it's best with Paladins. The Barbarian uses a bonus action to enter Rage and the Fighter for Second Wind. And subclasses like Echo Knight and Rune Knight use bonus actions for their class features a lot
• Polearms (and especially PAM) work better with duelist than with Great Weapon Fighter. It's one of the many things that leads to the spear-and-shield combination.

But I think the big thing is that the sword & board fighters stop scaling with ASIs at level 6 for fighters and 8 for anyone else - and the great weapons and polearms at 8/12. And they don't just stop but might as well be dex based.

I can't entirely tell if you're saying "sword & board" is good or bad.

I would agree that being Dex-based tends to be better.

Personally, I almost always go sword & board when playing a fighter (or paladin). Despite the various forums saying GWM and two-handed is better, I haven't seen that be the case very often.

In the long run, I've found that consistent damage while not getting hit tends to be better than higher potential damage combined with being hit more. For a DEX-based sword & board fighter, you also have the option of switching to a ranged weapon when needed -continuing to output consistent damage in scenarios during which the enemy can't even attack you.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Simple feat to help sword&board type:

Shield basher:
+1 str, dex or con

as a Bonus action you can make one attack with a shield or make one shove attempt.

Attack deals 1d6 B damage, or P if you add spikes to the shield.
you add STR to attack and damage.
any +X bonus to AC from shield adds +X to attack and damage of this attack or Athletics check to Shove.

Too strong.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I can't entirely tell if you're saying "sword & board" is good or bad.

That's because I'm not. I'm saying that sword and board is fine while you have up to two ASIs. It's not especially inspiring but it's decent and some people like the lack of frills. Great weapons and polearms on the other hand both have a feat that is competitive with an ASI in your primary stat (GWF and PAM) so they pull away at the third ASI. However 90% of games don't go above level 10 meaning it only really matters for fighters (and barbarians who have massive synergy with GWF).

I'm also saying that dex based > str based for sword & board.

In the long run, I've found that consistent damage while not getting hit tends to be better than higher potential damage combined with being hit more.

In the long run AC isn't that useful at high levels - and at low levels barbarian damage reduction is really useful. The only barbarian build I wouldn't go great weapon with is the shifter with claws.

For a DEX-based sword & board fighter, you also have the option of switching to a ranged weapon when needed -continuing to output consistent damage in scenarios during which the enemy can't even attack you.

And this is why for a STR based fighter you carry javelins.

 

[fluffybunbunkittens]

Dex + Shield synergizes with the Dex save part of the Shield Master feat, but not with the bonus action shove part of it. There's just no winning.