D&D General Is the "Heavy Hitter" archetype power-gaming?

[Greenfield]

I play 3.5 most of the time, but regardless of rules set, it's a simple question. Still, I'll spell it out.

The "Heavy Hitter" is typically a melee type with a two handed weapon (Great sword of great axe in 3.5), using the skills/feats/abilities to do a lot of melee damage.

The down side of the build is that the two handed weapon precludes the use of a shield, so they put out a lot of damage, but they take a lot of damage as well.

One player in my group has complained that this is "Power Gaming".

The more extreme version is a fighter/barbarian build: Fighters get more Feats, but Barbarians get Rage, which temporarily boosts both STRength and CONstitution (and thus hit-points).

A moderate example might be a Fighter with a STRength of 16, a Great Sword (2 D6 per blow), using Power Attack, Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization. In 3.5, this character will start off two AC points low, because of the lack of a shield. As they advance in levels that gap widens, as others start to get magic shields that would give a wider bonus. The HH build doesn't get it.

So at 10th level the build I described is +10 to hit from BAB, +3 from Strength, +1 from a Feat and maybe another +3 from magic. I'm seeing +17 or so to hit there.

If they Power Attack for +5, their attack bonus drops to +12, but their damage increases sharply: 2D6 (sword) +5 (STR from 2 handed weapon) +3 (Magic) + 10 for the Power Attack. Average damage is 25 per blow.

If they're using a Great Axe their average damage drops by 1.5 points, but they do triple damage on a Critical Hit. (Great Sword does double damage.)

Now, how often will they actually hit? That's the question.

Our general rule-of-thumb is that a critter's AC better be Level+14, at a minimum, to be in the fight at all. Let's presume a point higher, so a 10th level opponent will typically be AC 25.

Our power-attacking HH will hit on a 13 or better. Hits increase if they have a Bless, Prayer or Bard's Song on the field. As it is though, the fighter has about a 40% chance of hitting on the first blow, 15% on the second. It's a toss up whether you get those 25 points or not.

Without the power attack they hit on an 8 or better, and the 13 is for their second blow, but they do 10 points less damage, 15 per hit. So 65% 1st blow, 40% second, which means 15 per round, reliably.

Net-net, the power attack is a bad idea. Drop the enemy AC or add some buffs to the fighter and that changes.

But with or without the power attack, whether the enemy's AC is higher or lower, whether there are buffs on the field or not, the fighter's AC will be two or more points lower than their sword-and-board opponent, which translates as an average increase in the damage they take per round of 10%+.

We can observe that, in some versions of D&D, a 16 strength fighter at 10th level isn't simply "modest" or "moderate", he's downright wimpy. 3.* and Pathfinder both allow for stat increases as the characters level, so an 18 is more likely, and 20 + isn't out of reach, presuming a Giant's Strength item of some kind. That bumps not only the hit percentage, but also the damage per blow, which moves the tipping point in favor of the power-attacking fighter.

So, having looked at numbers, do you thing the "Heavy Hitter" is unbalanced?

 

[BookTenTiger]

It's as much power gaming as any other niche combat character. It is no more power gaming than a dedicated archer, a pyromancer, or a sneak-attacking rogue. They are all effective because D&D provides easy ways to make them effective.

 

[James Gasik]

Oh no, not even close. Melee damage can be built to be very high, true, but it's also the easiest kind of character to shut down. First of all, being in melee means they will draw the ire of most monsters and be vulnerable to a great deal of damage. Without serious mitigation, they will go down very quickly in combat.

Not to mention, they can be foiled by difficult terrain, ranged opponents, flying opponents, and often trivial uses of magic. Most melee classes have terrible non-Fortitude saves, so such a character can be easily affected by hold person, web, slow, sleet storm, spike growth, spike stones, etc. etc..

Plus, the ultimate expression of such a character (in 3.5 at least) is the ubercharger, who uses things like the Shock Trooper Feat and Leap Attack to run in and do hundreds of points of damage. Joe Greatsword with Power Attack has nothing on such wild builds.

 

[cbwjm]

It's as much power gaming as any other niche combat character. It is no more power gaming than a dedicated archer, a pyromancer, or a sneak-attacking rogue. They are all effective because D&D provides easy ways to make them effective.

Pretty much what I was going to say, the heavy hitter is a classic archetype and I think if they couldn't be done that DnD would be somehow missing out on a core character concept.

 

[Ancalagon]

I have a magus who's a melee monster in a 1e pathfinder game, but if he can't find a way to close to a foe, he's in trouble.

The Magus could be said to be OP arguably because he has much more "tricks" up his sleeves than just hitting really hard, beings a 2/3 caster - mine has a dex built and is also an excellent scout and a strong de-buffer.

But "power gaming" is a very nebulous terms. I once was accused of power gaming because I made a dwarven fighter with a good con...

 

[Minigiant]

No archetype itself is power gaming outside of the archetype "Power Gaming"

Power gaming is a level of focus towards an archetype. Typically done to an excessive amount to the norm or to a point of noticeable additional detriment.

1 tier under Min Maxing, 2 tiers under Munchkining.

 

[LordEntrails]

The real question is, what is the other player really complaining about?

Is every encounter one that can/is defeated by the heavy hitter and the other players feel ineffective and left out? Why not through in some combats where the HH is swarmed, grappled and restrained? Or ranged combats where they are ineffective? What about social encounters?

 

[tetrasodium]

Back in 3.5 that kind of character was trivially easy to shut down & rife with vulnerabilities left open in order to fit a particular niche. I'll say that there is certainly a line where it goes from mere optimizing to powergaming somewhere but it doesn't sound like you are crossing it. In 5e things are a little different

 

[Ancalagon]

In 5e in a way it's easier because you can move and get your full attack - but it's also harder because you are less "sticky" as a tank, and ranged DPS is just so good

 

[Shiroiken]

Building a high dpr character isn't power gaming by itself. Power gaming would be to take the concept to its most extreme concept. A 3E example is the spiked chain half-ogre fighter with combat reflexes, as seen in the Order of the Stick.