D&D 5E So Is The Dex Based Fighter Just Strictly Better?

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

I have never seen gauntlets of ogre/giant strength show up in a campaign. One time in a campaign when another player’s 11th level character died the DM let his new character start with them, and that’s the only time I’ve seen them in play.EDIT: I’ve fallen for the necro thread!

Once we're on the second page after the thread was revived, it's no longer thread necromancy but thread resurrection. Praise Lathander!

 

[jmartkdr2]

Did you miss the 20-year necro about the cost of hiring sex workers?

I was suppressing that one.

 

[Charlaquin]

Once we're on the second page after the thread was revived, it's no longer thread necromancy but thread resurrection. Praise Lathander!

My Raven Queen-simping ass doesn’t see much difference

 

[Oofta]

Since the attack and damage is going to be the same, and since heavy armor's AC bonus will more or less balance against a high Dex score, I think that these are more or less the same for Strength-based and Dexterity-based fighters. That leaves only two other advantages that Dexterity gives over Strength: initiative rolls and Dexterity saves (probably the most commonly-used save throw in the game.)

If this is an issue for you, you can make Initiative an Intelligence-based roll (to simulate quick thinking), and you can stock your dungeons with more harpies, quasits, specters, and other monsters that don't target Dexterity saves. Bards and rogues will be sad, though.

Bards being sad is bad ... how?

 

[Mort]

I might argue the only class that really feels the power of initiative is the god wizard, Aka a controller. When a controller goes before the enemy, it can completely change the dynamics of a fight. Initiative is always good of course, but it could be argued init is very important to a controller

Any Caster with controller spells, really.

Was in a Gencon game where the 10th level party had to take out a group of Fire Giants. The bard went before any of the giants (which were grouped together something like 7-8 of them). He cast Hypnotic Pattern and all but 1 or 2 failed the save. Encounter went from a likely difficult one to a trivial mop up scenario.

Now that particular situation was a case study in perfect hypnotic pattern setups, but there are plenty of others.

Just last week, the party wizard cast force cage on an Iron Golem and the party just ignored it (he was a guardian and they just needed to get past it). Now, they likely would have stomped the golem regardless, but it could have gotten some serious licks in - instead was bypassed by 1 (admittedly high level) spell.

But controllers aren't the ONLY big benefactors. Assassin rogues get a pretty big benefit. Was just witness to the Gloomstalker/assassin rogue 1st round (initiative winning) combo. As the player himself said "I've basically got one trick, but it's a pretty good trick!."

As for the fighter and Dex? As others have said, it can be better and needs the DM to ensure there are situations where it isn't. And yeah, that's a bit of system problem, but variance and adapting to the PCs IS something the DM needs to learn to do.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

With eight years of 5e under our belts, I think we can overall say that yes, the Dex Fighter is generally better than the Str Fighter. It's not "oh honey, no, don't hurt yourself like that" to play a Str Fighter, but you're definitely giving up more than you get as a whole, even if you're still getting something. Features like Duelling style close part of the damage gap, or you can specialize in defense, especially if you can bum a mage armor off of an ally spellcaster at higher levels. Str Fighters are much more dependent on feats and tend to be focused on their one trick, while Dex Fighters are naturally versatile, slightly mitigating some weaknesses of the class (dealing with flying enemies, for example.) Dex is straight up better as a defensive and offensive stat due to Initiative and saving throws, and is obviously far more useful as a utility stat.

So...yeah. Especially in a world where any sort of Strength-boosting item can be acquired, the Dex Fighter is pretty much just better. Even without that, while it may not be unequivocally better in all conceivable circumstances, it's certainly closer to "just better" than it is to "pure trade-off."

 

[Oofta]

With eight years of 5e under our belts, I think we can overall say that yes, the Dex Fighter is generally better than the Str Fighter. It's not "oh honey, no, don't hurt yourself like that" to play a Str Fighter, but you're definitely giving up more than you get as a whole, even if you're still getting something. Features like Duelling style close part of the damage gap, or you can specialize in defense, especially if you can bum a mage armor off of an ally spellcaster at higher levels. Str Fighters are much more dependent on feats and tend to be focused on their one trick, while Dex Fighters are naturally versatile, slightly mitigating some weaknesses of the class (dealing with flying enemies, for example.) Dex is straight up better as a defensive and offensive stat due to Initiative and saving throws, and is obviously far more useful as a utility stat.

So...yeah. Especially in a world where any sort of Strength-boosting item can be acquired, the Dex Fighter is pretty much just better. Even without that, while it may not be unequivocally better in all conceivable circumstances, it's certainly closer to "just better" than it is to "pure trade-off."

Not sure I understand. Dueling fighting style benefits dex based builds just as much as strength based. Otherwise I agree.

 

[Oofta]

Let's see for dex based we have better: ranged attacks by a large margin*; initiative; dex saves (far, far more common than strength saves); stealth. Similar damage if using 2 weapon or sword and board, same chance to avoid being grappled.

Strength based: you can get a +1 to AC; carry more if your group tracks encumbrance. You can sacrifice AC to get great weapon master which, on average, doesn't really add much to your total damage output in most cases. Better at grappling/shoving which I only see used rarely.

Disadvantages for dex based: probably not very good at athletics so don't fail those climb checks! Unless of course the DM just lets you use acrobatics instead. Theoretical encumbrance issues I've never actually seen come up in a game because most people don't track it or people have bags of holding.

Disadvantage for strength based (assuming heavy armor): disadvantage on stealth; 1 ranged attack per turn with very limited range and no sharp shooter option. Depending on DM I've seen additional penalties for wearing heavy armor (no penalties for "light" or "medium" armor of course). You automatically overheat when it's hot, you can't sleep in armor, you immediately sink like a rock in even calm water with no chance of swimming, penalty for climbing (because why not take away any bonus from athletics).

Despite all that I still prefer strength based fighters. But dex based fighters are better in virtually every way.

*In my campaign bows are versatile.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

Not sure I understand. Dueling fighting style benefits dex based builds just as much as strength based. Otherwise I agree.

I think it was in the context of the Duelling style helping Rapiers close the damage gap with Greatswords.

 

[Willie the Duck]

If the DM ignores grapple checks and does a lot of combats where switching between ranged and melee weapons is really useful, the dex fighter will feel like a god.

I've been surprised by not seeing as much of this switch hitting in-play as I expected. Since putting on or taking off a shield takes an action*, people tend to avoid it when possible (although, yes, once they have to rapier-fighter is going to have an advantage over the warhammer fighter in that bows are just better options, especially once multiattack comes online). The dedicated bow-fighter often doesn't bothers switching weapon, as they may well have Crossbow expert (or be a ranger with Zephyr Strike and just steps back, etc.). dedicated melee characters seem to try to not have to as well, be that with potions/boots of flying or picking up a combat cantrip.
*also not getting to leverage dedicated feats, fighting styles, and magic items.

Regardless, fundamentally people are generally on target. Dex-based fighting is generally going to look better excepting for the grapplers(offensive); people with high powered str-based builds like PAM (halberd or spear&shield), GWM, barbarians in general, etc.; campaigns where encumbrance is checked or lots of boulders need moving, etc.; or in the case where the the party already has a bunch of dex-based combatants and being the guy who can readily use the flametongue longsword and lance+3 and javelins of lightning helps (while everyone else is squabbling over the one magic rapier that has dropped).