D&D 5E (2014) Passive or Active Fighting Styles?

[Esker]

@TwoSix , @Esker :

Since you both were looking to options for GWF, how about this:

If you roll a 3 or lower on a damage die, you can roll an additional die and add it to your damage. If you are rolling more than one dice, you only apply this benefit to one die.

If I got everything right, I think this will result in:

d8: 4.5 -> 6.1875 (+1.6875)
d10: 5.5 -> 7.15 (+1.65)
d12: 6.5 -> 8.125 (+1.625)
2d4: 5 -> 6.875 (+1.875)
2d6: 7 -> 8.75 (+1.75)

So, this grants a bonus a bit less than Dueling's +2. Of course the biggest gain is for the DBS since it does 2d4 and the one die will usually roll 1-3. In this way, it is almost effectively increasing the DBS to 3d4.

To me it feels a bit weird to make rolling a 1,2 or 3 lead to a better outcome than rolling higher numbers. Of course, GWF does that already with 1s and 2s compared to the other values that are below average, but at least rolling high values are better than rolling low values.

Your math is also off for 2d4 and 2d6. You seem to be assuming a 75% chance of rolling a 3 or below when rolling 2d4 and a 50% chance of rolling 3 or below when rolling 2d6, but since you're rolling two dice you have two chances to trigger a reroll, for a (1 - 0.25^2) = 0.9375 chance of rolling a 3 or below with 2d4, and a (1 - 0.50^2) = 0.75 chance of rolling a 3 or below with 2d6. That makes the expected values of these rolls

2d4: 5 -> 7.34 (+2.34)
2d6: 7 -> 9.63 (+ 2.63)

which makes 2d4 better than 1d10, and 2d6 even more better than 1d12 than it already is.

 

[DND_Reborn]

To me it feels a bit weird to make rolling a 1,2 or 3 lead to a better outcome than rolling higher numbers. Of course, GWF does that already with 1s and 2s compared to the other values that are below average, but at least rolling high values are better than rolling low values.

Your math is also off for 2d4 and 2d6. You seem to be assuming a 75% chance of rolling a 3 or below when rolling 2d4 and a 50% chance of rolling 3 or below when rolling 2d6, but since you're rolling two dice you have two chances to trigger a reroll, for a (1 - 0.25^2) = 0.9375 chance of rolling a 3 or below with 2d4, and a (1 - 0.50^2) = 0.75 chance of rolling a 3 or below with 2d6. That makes the expected values of these rolls

2d4: 5 -> 7.34 (+2.34)
2d6: 7 -> 9.63 (+ 2.63)

The wording is misleading and I can work on that, but the idea was you can't get the chance for both rolls, as otherwise it does increase the damage too much (matching your numbers).

 

[Esker]

The wording is misleading and I can work on that, but the idea was you can't get the chance for both rolls, as otherwise it does increase the damage too much (matching your numbers).

In order to make that work though you'd need the player to roll their dice sequentially, or earmark one of them in advance, which would slow down play, I think.

 

[DND_Reborn]

In order to make that work though you'd need the player to roll their dice sequentially, or earmark one of them in advance, which would slow down play, I think.

Yeah, I know, but it was the only way to keep the numbers reasonable IMO. I am not a fan of rolling extra dice as I also see that slowing things down. I like the original idea of if you roll a 1 or 2, treat it as max, but then as @TwoSix points out it raised a 2d6 weapon to an average of 10, which at +3 is pretty high.

 

[Fenris-77]

Or just make all the two handed weapons without reach 2d6 and explode the damage die when they have GWF. Everyone likes exploding dice.

Not versatile either, sorry.

 

[Esker]

@dnd4vr Are you specifically wanting to raise the ceiling for these rolls? If that's not an explicit design goal, what's wrong with my previous suggestion of just always rolling one additional damage die and dropping the lowest result? I think rolling extra dice automatically is faster than rolling extra dice conditionally.

That results in the following averages:

1d8: 5.8 (+1.3)
1d10: 7.15 (+1.65)
1d12: 8.49 (+1.99)
2d4: 5.94 (+0.94)
2d6: 8.45 (+1.45)

which evens out 2d6 and 1d12 weapons almost exactly, right between where they end up in your proposal, and is equivalent to your proposal for 1d10 weapons.

 

[DND_Reborn]

@dnd4vr Are you specifically wanting to raise the ceiling for these rolls? If that's not an explicit design goal, what's wrong with my previous suggestion of just always rolling one additional damage die and dropping the lowest result? I think rolling extra dice automatically is faster than rolling extra dice conditionally.

That results in the following averages:

1d8: 5.8 (+1.3)
1d10: 7.15 (+1.65)
1d12: 8.49 (+1.99)
2d4: 5.94 (+0.94)
2d6: 8.45 (+1.45)

which evens out 2d6 and 1d12 weapons almost exactly, right between where they end up in your proposal, and is equivalent to your proposal for 1d10 weapons.

You are basically talking about having the equivalent (for the most part) of advantage on damage rolls, right? I considered it, but yeah, I am more interested in raising the ceiling.

I've toyed with the following:

• Keeping RAW (pretty minimal impact IMO, so I don't like it)
• Advantage on damage (including only 1 dice on 2d4 and 2d6) (no raise in ceiling)
• Replacing 1 & 2 with average or with max. (Average isn't bad, but requires more thought, MAX I like for simplicity, but too much of a boost overall, also does't raise ceiling.
• Boosting die size (2d6 becomes 2d8, etc.)
• A flat +2 to damage (combining Dueling and GWF into one)
• A flat +1 to attack and +1 to damage
• and more LOL!

For this passive feature, I am leaning towards flat bonuses since that is what others do (+2 attack, +1 AC, +2 damage, and for GWF +1 attack and +1 damage is my preference), but I am always interested in examining alternatives.

In fact, if we think of average damage of 7 (2d6) + 4 (or so), the 5% increase in hitting results in about half a point. This would make the overall increase roughly 1.5 points. Not quite the +2 of dueling but decent enough and very simple to apply.

 

[Quartz]

"When you roll a total of 8 or higher on the damage dice for an attack you make with a heavy melee weapon, you can roll one additional die and add it to the result."

That's as good as a critical. Perhaps you could change the critical instead: "When you score a critical you roll one extra die."

 

[delph]

I can't read it all for now, but these fighting styles aren't from official resources, are they? Look great, but little OP, maybe as higher-level improvement.

 

[Li Shenron]

You absolutely need to have both active and passive characters options in the game. This is paramount, a key feature of 5e that enables different players at the same table, those who want to play a low-complexity game ("add this +1 here when levelling up, and it takes care of itself") and those who want a more tactical edge in having to choose what to use each turn.