D&D 5E Level 11+: How do the Warriors compare?

[Xeviat]

So... balanced as long as you assume that 1 hit = 2 damage, which has it's own problems, but close enough.

Right! That's what I was missing. My understanding would be that the fighter would take his pool of dice, subtract one for doing multiattack, and then assign each of the remaining dice to different foes.

What you actually mean is "remove 1 die from the attack, add 1 target to the attack", right? Or even just "assign your [w] dice between as many targets as you want, add modifier once to each target".

So 2[w]+modifier becomes 1[w]+modifier+trip with the right cantrip? That seems like you're worse off than the stock fighter who doesn't need a cantrip, but sacrifices slightly more damage.

Oh, incidentally, how does this all impact opportunity attacks? Are they assumed to be the full multi-[w] version, or are they a single [w]?

"Multiattack" may be a stock maneuver or just one that's wide open to many classes that allows you to -1 weapon die to add +1 target, so at 11th level when you're at 3W you could 2W 2 targets or 1W 3 targets. Incidentally, it makes TWFing easier to balance because you just combine your dice, so two short swords are identical to one great sword.

If trip was -W to add trip (and I don't think it will be, as that's 4E at-will balance and 5E's initial balance point is weaker), it's comparable to the Fighter in be PHB. If the fighter wants to trip and then attack someone, they give up an attack to trip, then get an attack. My fighter gives up a weapon die (again, if that's where the balance point is) to attack which adds an on hit trip. The core fighter gets 1 attack at base damage, my fighter gets 1 attack with a higher to hit and damage with a trip rider. If the core fighter lands the trip, then their attack is with advantage, which is a bonus, so they're likely comparable.

If a Paladin devotes all of their spell slots to smite and paces them across six encounters, how does their damage compare to a fighter's. Will the paladin receiving a damage buff against a single target at 17th level be something they don't need? How does a non-great weapon mastery Barbarian compare to a Fighter at 11th and above? How does the Ranger do? These are things I don't know. I can white room them, but that won't tell me what experience does. Of course, I can just test my ideas in a game, and I will, but that takes years and I want to foresee what I'll need to address at the highest levels.


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[Tony Vargas]

"Multiattack" may be a stock maneuver or just one that's wide open to many classes that allows you to -1 weapon die to add +1 target, so at 11th level when you're at 3W you could 2W 2 targets or 1W 3 targets. Incidentally, it makes TWFing easier to balance because you just combine your dice, so two short swords are identical to one great sword.

You can split a greatsword into two 1d6 attacks?

If trip was -W to add trip (and I don't think it will be, as that's 4E at-will balance and 5E's initial balance point is weaker), it's comparable to the Fighter in be PHB.

Prone doesn't provoke like in 3e, nor use your whole move to stand up from like in 4e, and if you can't do an immediate follow-up attack like in 5e, tripping is actually pretty meh outside of carefully initiative-order-coordinated double-teaming (which is cool, but probably means it doesn't have to 'cost' as much).

 

[Ashkelon]

Check this out!

It is a damage analysis of fighter, paladin, and barbarian at levels 5, 11, 17, and 20 using various target ACs, feat choices, and other features (such as smites, rages, and action surge). Feel free to make a copy to alter some of the numbers and try out other combinations. Feel free to ask me if you have any questions.

The gist of it though is that fighter blows everyone out of the water at 20. The crossbow fighter is the best single target damage dealer in the game, except for a level 17+ wizard polymorphed into a CR 17 dragon.

Without feats the paladin and fighter are pretty close from 5-17. The barbarian suffers at 11+ as their bonus damage feature is lame (+a few dice on a crit compared to an extra attack or +1d8 on every attack).

With GWM all three classes are pretty close in terms of damage output from 11+, and barbarians reign supreme from 5-10.

With both polearm master and GWM barbarians are just brutal.

 

[Xeviat]

Check this out!

It is a damage analysis of fighter, paladin, and barbarian at levels 5, 11, 17, and 20 using various target ACs, feat choices, and other features (such as smites, rages, and action surge). Feel free to make a copy to alter some of the numbers and try out other combinations. Feel free to ask me if you have any questions.

The gist of it though is that fighter blows everyone out of the water at 20. The crossbow fighter is the best single target damage dealer in the game, except for a level 17+ wizard polymorphed into a CR 17 dragon.

Without feats the paladin and fighter are pretty close from 5-17. The barbarian suffers at 11+ as their bonus damage feature is lame (+a few dice on a crit compared to an extra attack or +1d8 on every attack).

With GWM all three classes are pretty close in terms of damage output from 11+, and barbarians reign supreme from 5-10.

With both polearm master and GWM barbarians are just brutal.

Thanks. I'll look these over. I love analysis like this.

I'd still like to hear any anecdotes about the performance of non-fighter/rogue warriors at the higher levels if anyone has stories to tell.


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[Xeviat]

You can split a greatsword into two 1d6 attacks?

Likely not, otherwise it would add another benefit to great Swords over great axes. TWFing will be adjusted so that the TWFing style and the GWFing style the warriors get will be balanced but different. I might even remove the Fighting Style abilities in place of the maneuvers to give me more design space.

Prone doesn't provoke like in 3e, nor use your whole move to stand up from like in 4e, and if you can't do an immediate follow-up attack like in 5e, tripping is actually pretty meh outside of carefully initiative-order-coordinated double-teaming (which is cool, but probably means it doesn't have to 'cost' as much).

Possibly. The double teaming is really where it is. Prone is like granting advantage to melee allies and slowing a target, but it ends on their turn and it hampers ranged. So it's at least as good as granting melee advantage.


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[hastur_nz]

Check this out!

It is a damage analysis of fighter, paladin, and barbarian at levels 5, 11, 17, and 20 using various target ACs, feat choices, and other features (such as smites, rages, and action surge).

All good, but it's just another paper-based look at one piece of the actual game as it might play out in real life. For example, Barbarian and Fighter are usually not that comparable, because your typical barbarian is more about taking the hits than avoiding them and dealing max damage; they are effectively designed to be playing different roles, and if you see a group of players where one is a Barbarian and one is a Fighter you actually see the vast differences and how each contributes in different ways (I had a group just like that recently). It's the same reason you can't compare a Monk or Rogue with a Fighter, on paper, because they are usually playing a different role in the party so yes there will be differences but that doesn't mean one is better.

That's why I come back to my basic premise, that yes 5e is definitely not perfect but in actual game play it runs really well for the Players as written all the way to 20th and beyond, and hence I totally recommend people actually give it a good go as written before they spend an age trying to fix stuff that isn't a big deal in 99% of cases. I mean, there is huge benefit in being able to say to players "use the PBH as written" vs "here's my huge document of house rules, that we might have to change as we go along".

And last thing I'm pretty sure of - as you head towards 20th level, there will be an increasing variance between different groups, as to exactly how things actually play out. That's always been the case in D&D, and 5e does an OK job but it's just a fact of life. Multi-classing may or may not contribute to that variance, I certainly don't remember any problems with multi-class PC's across a wide variety of levels, and I'm always DMing for at least one multiclass PC in combo with a few single classes, and I was recently playing my own multi-classed PC - as noted by others, multi-classing in 5e was very deliberately added as an optional extra for people who wanted to have fun with the additional complexity; it was never designed to work the same as 3.x or 4e (thank goodness), and it was never designed to allow optimal mixing and matching of any possible combination (why should you?).