D&D 5E Is Duellist style too good without feats.

[dregntael]

Yeah, most of the rest of the numbers seem to check out, but that one seems way off to me. I get a 17% increase in DPR gained by using the TWF style, compared to using TWF without the style. Of course, I also don't think that's the best measure to use, since the alternative to using TWF with TWF style isn't really using TWF with no fighting style, but rather using some other type of fighting.

Oh naughty word I screwed up the numbers for twf at high levels, you're right it's only 17%.

 

[Helldritch]

Right. But you should remember that some style gets better with the help of your team. A GWS with haste and bless is not to be ignored. With bless, archery is even more reliable than decency would dictate. TWs does benefit from these too! The only style that does not benefit from these two is protection. Defense will get an even better AC from the haste spell. Do not take into account only the character or the style. If you take into account the help comming from the team mates, it can skyrocket quite fast. Alone, some options are not OP. But combine these options with those of a team mate and you can get complains such as those we see on GWM, SS and so on.

But without feats, styles are not over powered.

 

[Zardnaar]

To OP and most of the other posters : GWM and SS are NOT the uber feats because CONTEXT and you deal no damage if you MISS.

Duelist is a strong thing, especially if combined with a shield. Is it overpowered? No, many things are strong in 5e, sneak attacks, smiting, sorcs and warlocks going nova, cleric with spirit guardians up etc etc.

You can doe loads of heavy hitting builds in 5e without to much system mastery.
There ill always be one monster which gets you into trouble:
e.g

• high AC cancels SS and GWM
• high HP cancels out severe base damage aka duelist
• casting cancels out melee
• very heavy hitting mobs can nullify casters and low AC squishies
• flying mobs vs melee experts
• invisible mobs sneaking up on archers and other ranged etc etc etc.

I hope you see the point.

MM average AC is less than 15. It's very easy to get advantage in 5E or a numeric bonus to hit.

Archery style reduces SS to -3 to hit.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

But it would be a straight nerf to sword and board fighters. So that's the question. Would taking duellist away from sword and board fighters weaken them too much? Do you feel that having that extra damage is important to the classes?

The thing about AC is that, the more you have, the more you benefit from any further increase. That's why the fighting style is so meaningful to a fighter with a shield. It's actually a tough choice, between that and the +2 damage. Especially when you consider that you're going to be on the receiving end of more attacks than you give, and the rest of the party is there to contribute damage. If you remove the damage option from tank fighters, then you've just made the decision easier for them.

The only one who really loses out is the Champion tank, who would otherwise take both great options. But if they see you're implementing this house rule that would nerf only that one specific build, then they can just choose to play something else in this one campaign.

Incidentally, AC scaling is also why they can get away with giving greatweapon fighters an inferior fighting style. They may only get +1.33 damage out of it, but their AC is low enough that +1 to AC wouldn't really help them much.

 

[Esker]

Archery style reduces SS to -3 to hit.

No, it doesn't. Because you can get the +2 from archery style with or without SS.

However, if your target would have had half cover, then relative to someone who takes a DEX bump with their ASI, the feat gives you a choice between +1/-1, or -4/+9.

 

[Zardnaar]

No, it doesn't. Because you can get the +2 from archery style with or without SS.

However, if your target would have had half cover, then relative to someone who takes a DEX bump with their ASI, the feat gives you a choice between +1/-1, or -4/+9.

Gives you the option +2 to hit or -3 , +10 damage.

Bless spell plus archery more or less negates the -5 part of the feat. Average AC MM is around 14.5 iirc.

I've seen it used up to AC 20. crossbow expert plus SS jandcrossbow if you hit more than 50% always use it.

Common buffs

Faerie Fire
Bard dice
Bless
Any spell that causes paralysis
Any spell granting invisability
Blindness

Uncommon
Mastermind Rogue

 

[Esker]

Gives you the option +2 to hit or -3 , +10 damage.

Not if you're comparing against boosting your DEX mod, since that gives you a flat +1/+1.

 

[Zardnaar]

Not if you're comparing against boosting your DEX mod, since that gives you a flat +1/+1.

20 Dex and arcery style. -1 to hit +10 damage.

Archer fighter vuman can get that level 6.

I've seet the feat being used level 2 or 3.

Rolled stats can give you 20 Dex level 1 and rolling is very common.

 

[Esker]

Bless spell plus archery more or less negates the -5 part of the feat. Average AC MM is around 14.5 iirc.

Against 15 AC, to completely negate the -5 you would need to achieve a +18 to hit (because 1 misses regardless, so if after -5 you still hit on a 2, it didn't do anything). Archery gives you +2, Bless gives you another +2.5. You would need a +13 or so before archery style to completely negate it, which is possible at high levels with a magic weapon.

But yeah, since the tradeoff is better the higher your natural bonus, due to the fact that 5 becomes a smaller percentage of the number of values that hit, you can get close to negating it with those things: if you're, say, level 13 with 20 DEX then you have a +10, up to +12 with archery style. Add Bless and now you still have a +9 or +10 even after the -5, so you only need a 5 or 6 to hit. So you're only removing 3 or 4 ways to hit out of 19, which is definitely a good deal to roughly double your damage on a hit.

Except of course once your high enough level for that, the Cleric doesn't want to be concentrating on Bless any more.

 

[Esker]

20 Dex and arcery style. -1 to hit +10 damage.

You can't just call it -1/+10 though. It's still -5/+10, just starting from a higher base chance to hit.

I've seet the feat being used level 2 or 3.

So have I -- it has quite the reputation as being powerful -- but that doesn't necessarily mean that those who took it that early were making a good decision.

Rolled stats can give you 20 Dex level 1 and rolling is very common.

Yeah, but if you're rolling for stats you don't care about balance.