D&D 5E Non-Scaling Class Specialties: Why Choose Them?

[FormerlyHemlock]

It is a quirk of the maths that Defensive Style is not as good for giving an otherwise vulnerable character some extra defense as it is for making a great tank even better.

In one of my games there is a Paladin with 20 AC who often fights hordes of low level things. They need a 16 to hit normally, with defensive style making his AC21 they need a 17. So the style alone makes him take 25% less damage from mooks. That's an extreme example of course, but it shows the workings. Defensive style really only lowers your incoming damage by 5% if you are naked and getting picked on by a fairly scary creature.

And then he can use a bonus action to cast Shield of Faith on himself and hit AC 23. And then Dodge on top of that, so he winds up getting hit only 1% of the time unless/until somebody Grapples him successfully.

Defense-style Paladins make fantastic tanks in 5E, as long as there are ranged characters to inflict the actual damage.

 

[keterys]

You guys are in some strange games where DMs don't just bypass characters the monsters need 20s to hit. Especially someone Dodging who isn't actually making attacks anyways.

But, more power to ya

 

[keterys]

Where are you getting these absolute numbers from? I never said whether it was 3 Stygian Skeletons or 11. It could be the difference between 6 hits and 4 hits, or 60 hits and 40 hits.

No, you said 20 attacks. That's why I said "your example". But it carries throughout. You're going to go from 4 to 3 hits from the goblin, 6 to 5 hits from the minotaur, 10 to 9 hits from the dragon, whatever the magic # of hits per 20 attacks is per monster. 1 harder to hit is pretty useful no matter what, and is good at all levels in this system. Your method leads to it seeming to be disproportionately useful to the super-defensive character, when in actuality the group takes the same amount of damage whoever takes it as long as that character gets attacked as much.

In 3e/PF, it can be a lot more complicated, where things need 2s to hit, but maybe not for iterative attacks, or maybe it affects the amount they power attack.

And computing relative damage reduction is easy!

Okay, let's take a level 10 fighter with +1 plate, deciding between the different fighting styles. Assume that he'll fight a reasonable number of every foe up to CR 15, some of which will attack AC, some of which will call for saves, some of which will get advantage or not as appropriate, and some of which will just ignore the fighter. How much does +1 AC impact the damage he takes, for all those monsters, in some reasonable metric? How does it compare to how much less damage he'd take if he killed things faster? Did you take into account DM habits for focusing or spreading fire, or metagaming?

Cause, yeah, boiling it down to "If the enemy needs a 4 to hit, +1 makes that a 3 so they do 25% less damage" is certainly a statement you can make, much like "If the dragon needs a 10 to hit, +1 makes that a 9 so you take 10% less damage from its melee attacks. When it does those, instead of its wing claps and breath weapons." One is maybe more optimistic than the other.

It's not +1 AC is enemies hit you 5% less of the amount they already hit you. It's a 5% off the percentage they already did. So yeah, 20% goes to 15%, 50% goes to 45%. I think most people can cope with that, rather than "Well, he was hitting me for 20 damage a round so now he'll hit me for 19 damage a round?" - the people who do that level of math understand enough to follow through.

Your argument boils down to "computing advantage and disadvantage is too hard."

Well, it is, since you don't know whether you'll have them. Unless you're a halfling rogue/warlock with devil's sight in darkness in which case you can probably handwave it.

 

[Blue]

So, I'm still learning D&D 5E, and I'm reading through the classes in the PHB again. As I do so, I'm asking myself what choices I would make if I were going to play a fighter, cleric, etc. This leads me to ask: what would be the reasoning for taking a non-scaling class specialty? Let's look at the fighter, for example. In looking at the choices in fighting style, there are some choices that give you an absolute, non-scaling benefit (like a +1 to AC with Defense, or a +2 to damage with Dueling). In the case of Dueling, +2 damage seems pretty impactful at lower levels, but when you've significantly increased in level, is that increase really going to be as beneficial as a fighting style that isn't so dependent on an absolute number? Other classes have similar options, so my question is intended to apply more broadly to them, too.

Because these do scale in level, you need to look at them in context.

Defense +1 AC - scales with number of attacks against you, scales with damage per attack. So if at 1st a foe gets one attack for average 5 damage, it saves you 1/4 HP/rd per foe. At 20th when each foe is doing three attacks for average 40 damage (or whatever), that's 6 HP/rd per foe.

Dueling +2 damage per attack - scales as number of attacks increases. Scales as chance to hit increases (total modifiers vs. expected AC). So if you have a 50% chance to hit with one attach at 1st that adds 1 dmg/rd expected. At 20th with a 80% chance to hit with five attacks (four fighter plus an bonus action attack) that's 4 dmg/rd.

In other words, these provide a bonus to something that is scaled via other mechanisms. If these scaled as well, the scaling would be multiplied together leading to much higher total effect. And with the concept of bounded accuracy and wanting foes of varying levels (above and below) to stay challenging but not overwhelming that's important.

 

[Dausuul]

In the case of Dueling, +2 damage seems pretty impactful at lower levels, but when you've significantly increased in level, is that increase really going to be as beneficial as a fighting style that isn't so dependent on an absolute number?

Yes. Fighters mainly increase their damage output by getting more attacks per round, and the Dueling bonus applies to each attack. If you have three attacks per round, Dueling is adding a total of +6 (more precisely, 6 times your chance to hit) to your damage output.

The Two-Weapon fighting style is the one that doesn't scale, since you only ever get one off-hand attack per round. It's overpowered from levels 1-4, reasonably on par from 5-10, and starts to fall behind from level 11 onward.

 

[Bayonet]

In addition to what others had said, the +1 AC scales as well, just due to the nature of the game. At low levels, it is unlikely that someone from a fighting style is going to get surrounded by six opponents all getting an attack. At higher levels, each round the fighter is more likely to get hit multiple times due to hordes of opponents or creatures with multiattacks. That +1 may only help 5 percent of the time, but if it is five or six times per turn it is a lot more effective.

Most definitely. I recently played a HotDQ/RoT as a Fighter with the Defense style, and this is what I noticed most. That extra +1 to AC didn't seem like much when it stopped the single measly attack from some kobold, but when it lets me escape one or two of that dragons claws, it really feels like a superpower (and keeps me alive).

Btw, Defense Style, Battlemaster Fighter with Shield Master and Sentinel Feats, wearing plate, is a great way to frustrate your DM. "How many!? Ha, just kidding, I don't care!" (wades in and ruins the ambush)

 

[keterys]

For extra mathematical clarity, if you have a 4 PC party and goblin archers who deal 5 damage on hit, 8 damage on a crit, rain 80 attacks on the party over the course of the fight:

Fighter: 20% to be hit
Rogue: 30% to be hit
Bard: 40% to be hit
Sorcerer: 50% to be hit

If the goblins attack each 20 times (spreading perfectly), they take on average
Fighter: 23 dmg
Rogue: 33 dmg
Bard: 43 dmg
Sorcerer: 53 dmg

If you add 1 AC to _any_ of those 4 characters, they take 5 less damage. Doesn't matter which one. AC 20 fighter or AC 14 sorcerer.

Now, the goblins might actually choose to aim more intelligently once they've got a better idea of the party defenses. In that case, the +1 AC is _best_ spent on whoever is getting attacked most. If the PCs can somehow make that the fighter, great. Otherwise I suspect it's a bad day for the sorcerer and bard.

Not that the sorcerer and bard might not find other tricks, like diving behind full cover after one round of shots. The fighter might have heavy armor mastery, which would be a really good way to get the goblins to murder whoever else is on his team unless he has a locksolid way to keep them focused on him.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

You guys are in some strange games where DMs don't just bypass characters the monsters need 20s to hit. Especially someone Dodging who isn't actually making attacks anyways.

But, more power to ya

Do you mean always, or ever? Yes it would be weird if all monsters always went for the closest target; it would also be weird if swarms of giant ants overran and bypassed an obvious target in a chokepoint (taking opportunity attacks in the process) in their haste to reach a soft target beyond.

Choking is a capability. You use it where you can and rely on other capabilities when it doesn't fit the situation. It's still a nice capability to have.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Not that the sorcerer and bard might not find other tricks, like diving behind full cover after one round of shots. The fighter might have heavy armor mastery, which would be a really good way to get the goblins to murder whoever else is on his team unless he has a locksolid way to keep them focused on him.

There shouldn't be any "might" about it. Go prone and take half cover behind the fighter if you can't find anything better. The problem with your simplistic analysis is that it assumes zero agency for the players. Instead, the ones whose capabilities match the situation will lead out--so someone had better be suited to handle mobs.

Sent from my LS670 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Bayonet]

I agree with emdw45 on this. I like when monsters are fought to character.

A band of Hobgoblins led by a Hob Captain out-maneuvering PC's and concentrating fire on the wizard first? Most definitely.

A mob of zombies or twig blights accurately targeting the PC with the lowest AC? Not really gonna happen...