D&D 5E Support oriented Fighting Styles

[Krachek]

No more micro bonus management.

 

[Garthanos]

Say you have Dueling and Defense, and are carrying a shield and a longsword while wearing armor...you get Defense's "+1 bonus to AC" AND Dueling's "+2 bonus to damage rolls". I also might know Archery for a +2 bonus to hit or not when the enemy is escaping or approaching or similar. Of course I cannot use the shield while shooting the bow.

I thought fighting styles in 5e were all about minor bonus management

 

[Tony Vargas]

I thought fighting styles in 5e were all about minor bonus management

Just having bonuses, not managing them.

Standard Bearer
You carry a banner or other symbol, attached to a pole-arm you wield, that carries special meaning for your allies, it's exact nature can change over your career, with different allies, or when your party takes up a new cause. While you are conscious and able to act, allies who can see the Standard have advantage of WIS & CHA saves. When you use your Second Wind ability, allies who can see the Standard gain temporary hps equal to the hp you regain.

 

[NotAYakk]

Tony, I'm going to try a balance pass on your stuff.

White Raven
When an ally who can hear you hits an enemy, you may as a reaction permit that that ally to Dash or Disengage. When use your Action to Dash on your turn, allies who can see you may use a Reaction to move, as long as that movement ends closer to you.

Change: allies bonus action for your reaction.
Why: makes it your decision (you grant it). Restricts it to one ally per round. And is super awesome (as they lose nothing).

Striking Viper
When you use your action for any purpose other than making attacks, you can use your bonus action to make a melee weapon attack. When you or an ally are adjacent to a target and it moves away from either of your threatened regions, as a reaction you may make a melee weapon attack and grant that ally the ability to make a melee weapon attack as a reaction. This even occurs if they disengage or otherwise prevent opportunity attacks.

This makes the triggered attack not an opportunity attack (ie, it won't trigger sentinal), and simplifies wording.

Hammer & Anvil
If an ally attacks a creature adjacent to you, as a reaction you can grant that ally advantage on a melee weapon attack. If both of their attack rolls hit, you can make a melee weapon attack with advantage against the same target. If you attack an enemy with advantage and both attack rolls hit, as a reaction you may let an ally make a melee weapon attack on the same target with advantage.

I added in reaction costs here as well.

Bravura Spirit
When you use the attack action, you can choose to grant Advantage to an enemy you attack until the start of your next turn. If that enemy attacks you with Advantage, as a reaction you may permit an ally to make a melee weapon attack on it. If an ally has an opportunity to use a reaction and has none left, you may use your reaction to grant your ally their reaction back; if you do so, all attacks on you have advantage until the start of your next turn.

I ramped this down from "every" in both cases. Now you get 2 ways to burn your reaction to grant single attacks. Still strong (reliably turning reactions into attacks is great), but not crazy strong.

The theme I'm following is "it costs your reaction". This helps keep these from stacking insanely and making a Fighter 1/Ranger 2/Paladin 2 build into a super-strong one.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Tony, I'm going to try a balance pass on your stuff.

Cool! I hadn't given half a thought to balance...

White Raven
Why: makes it your decision (you grant it).

Not really balance, and, you-grant-it has it's downsides, too.

Striking Viper

This makes the triggered attack not an opportunity attack (ie, it won't trigger sentinal), and simplifies wording.

5e has opportunity attacks, so I figured it should otherwise conform to them.

Hammer & Anvil

I added in reaction costs here as well.

Yeah, I was concerned about it being 'free,' too.

Bravura Spirit

I ramped this down from "every" in both cases. Now you get 2 ways to burn your reaction to grant single attacks. Still strong (reliably turning reactions into attacks is great), but not crazy strong.

I'd rather find some other way to ramp it down that going to reactions again. The idea is that your recklessness leaves you open, but taking advantage of it leaves the enemy open, so you're not reacting...

The theme I'm following is "it costs your reaction". This helps keep these from stacking insanely and making a Fighter 1/Ranger 2/Paladin 2 build into a super-strong one.

Part of the problem is that there's too much use for reactions, already, they're a very limited resource compared to OAs in 4e or AoOs in 5e. I actually considered making one style grant you extra reactions for specific purposes, corresponding to Extra Attack, but I figured I'd leave that a separate issue...


...and as long as I brought that up, I think it'd be nice to append something like this to Extra Attack:

When you use the Attack Action to take an Extra Attack on your turn, you can also make an attack when allowed to do so as a Reaction before the start of your next turn, without expending your Reaction. If you are entitled to make two or three extra attacks, you may do so a second or third time. Once you expend your Reaction for any other purpose than attacking, however, it is gone.

 

[NotAYakk]

Cool! I hadn't given half a thought to balance...

Not really balance, and, you-grant-it has it's downsides, too.

Well, it reduces mental load on allies and moves it to the Warlord. You say "hey, have a toy".

5e has opportunity attacks, so I figured it should otherwise conform to them.

There are already powerful riders on opportunity attacks, like Sentinal. Granting an opportunity attack is more powerful than granting an attack.

Striking Viper in this model, you burn 1 reaction to grant two attacks, and do so even if they disengage (or even teleport!), and if they leave your allies zone (not only yours). So it grants a non-trivial amount of power.

Note that it doesn't consume your allies reaction.

It doesn't, however, also trigger Sentinal on you or your ally, which could completely shut down an enemies ability to flee.

I'd rather find some other way to ramp it down that going to reactions again. The idea is that your recklessness leaves you open, but taking advantage of it leaves the enemy open, so you're not reacting...

By placing a constant reaction cost on the Warlord, I am trying to prevent these all from going off on a given turn if you stack them.

I'm trying to grant 1 melee weapon attack from the reaction (from someone), and have it be a more common trigger than usual, and some other bonus.

So Viper gives 2 attacks for your reaction, and easier trigger.

Hammer and Anvil gives 1 attack for your reaction, and advantage on the triggering attack (and/or grants advantage for the price of a reaction, with maybe a bonus attack).

Part of the problem is that there's too much use for reactions, already, they're a very limited resource compared to OAs in 4e or AoOs in 5e. I actually considered making one style grant you extra reactions for specific purposes, corresponding to Extra Attack, but I figured I'd leave that a separate issue...

Breaking the action economy is very powerful in 5e.

"It is easier to convert a reaction to an attack" is a strong ability in 5e. It is also self-limiting, as many of those abilities naturally collide with each other; so the ability to get 7+ abilities that all give reaction triggers "doesn't stack".

Boosting what happens on a reaction trigger, or an OA, has the potential of stacking in a balance-dangerous way. You can see this with Polearm Master + Sentinal; they multiply together. If PAM just let you make an attack as a reaction, this multiplication wouldn't happen.

And getting more reactions could be crazy strong. It multiplies with PAM and Sentinal, which in turn multiplies with tap +damage or warcaster.

And once you permit multiplying power boosts from features, you end up having to balance the ability taking that multiplication into account. OTOH, if you avoid that multiplication with subtle word changes, you can have it be stronger baseline; so instead of a corner-case OP build, you get a fun pick.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Well, it reduces mental load on allies and moves it to the Warlord. You say "hey, have a toy".

Not a Warlord, just a combat style.

There are already powerful riders on opportunity attacks, like Sentinal. Granting an opportunity attack is more powerful than granting an attack.

Cool. But, OK, yeah, there's a potential balance issue, but if it's just an issue with a feat, I'm not too concerned...

Striking Viper in this model, you burn 1 reaction to grant two attacks, and do so even if they disengage (or even teleport!), and if they leave your allies zone (not only yours).

Well, it does have to be adjacent to both you, but, the idea was that if it left only one of your zones, only that one would get the OA.

It doesn't, however, also trigger Sentinal on you or your ally, which could completely shut down an enemies ability to flee.

Nice. That was actually a synergy of the 4e Viper's Strike at-will when used with a Fighter ally.

By placing a constant reaction cost, I am trying to prevent these all from going off on a given turn if you stack them.

The possibilities of stacking Combat Styles are pretty limited. You'd need a Champion or a muti-fighter/paladin/ranger party for that, and compared to a multi-full-caster party layering concentration buffs, how bad could it be, really?

I'm trying to grant 1 melee weapon attack from the reaction (from someone), and have it be a more common trigger than usual, and some other bonus.

Another concern I had, and I've no real idea how to address it is that for most melee-oriented characters, a single attack doesn't really scale. It'll be quite good at low level, and, as Extra Attack provides more and more of the melee-types' DPR, it'll fall off.

And getting more reactions could be crazy strong. It multiplies with PAM and Sentinal, which in turn multiplies with tap +damage or warcaster.

Seems like a feat issue, more than a reaction issue.

 

[NotAYakk]

So your offensive output per round in 5e isn't supposed to be "feature A times feature B", it is supposed to be "feature A + feature B" for the most part.

There are some exceptions; for example, +2 damage from dueling style multiplies by the number of attacks you get. And +stat similarly, and +damage on a weapon.

So a feature that says "you get an extra attack" is a unit of power (damage per round); so is "you can trigger reactions more often" (instead of expected 0.1 per round, you are at 0.5 per round say; so "worth" 0.4 units of attack per round in power). If "you get an extra attack" also grants more reactions, then the two can multiply with each other. Which means if you don't want things to go gonzo, they each need to be utterly crappy when not multiplied together.

I'd rather have the power mostly delivered before multiplication. Which means, if you care about balance, that you actively avoid multiplication effects.

So if I want the reaction damage to scale faster for balance reasons, instead of saying "you get a full attack routine" or whatever I'd make it deal more damage at higher levels.

Seems like a feat issue, more than a reaction issue.

The feats are out there and widely played. Fixing things so we don't multiply together just requires replacing "opportunity attack" with "as a reaction make a melee weapon attack".

A very low cost for a good balance payoff.

The possibilities of stacking Combat Styles are pretty limited. You'd need a Champion or a muti-fighter/paladin/ranger party for that, and compared to a multi-full-caster party layering concentration buffs, how bad could it be, really?

L 1 Fighter/L5 Paladin/L2 Ranger has 3 combat styles. A triple-classed spellcaster doesn't have 3 concentration slots.

I mean, "every turn you can spend a reaction to get an attack" is already a ridiculously strong combat style compared to the existing ones. At level 20, 5 attacks * 2 damage per attack is 10 potential damage; meanwhile, a single attack can deal 15-25 damage. And at low levels, we are talking 2 potential damage vs 7-10 damage.

 

[Tony Vargas]

So if I want the reaction damage to scale faster for balance reasons, instead of saying "you get a full attack routine" or whatever I'd make it deal more damage at higher levels.

Scaling for a class with Extra Attack comes primarily from Extra Attack.

So a reaction that gives you a single attack is simply not scaling for them. Reactions thus become less potent, relatively speaking, as they level.

Seems like a balance issue in the other direction.

I mean, "every turn you can spend a reaction to get an attack" is already a ridiculously strong combat style compared to the existing ones.

For a low-level character who gets one attack, that's doubling his DPR, for a high-level one getting 4 attacks, it's +25%. I see a potential issue with that, but it's that it's dropping off in impact as you level.

 

[Garthanos]

Part of the problem is that there's too much use for reactions, already, they're a very limited resource compared to OAs in 4e or AoOs in 5e. I actually considered making one style grant you extra reactions for specific purposes, corresponding to Extra Attack, but I figured I'd leave that a separate issue...

Yeah it annoys me for some reason. Anti-heroic? For a fighter almost incongruous it seems this character can attack 4 bloody times moving in the middle between each even do an action surge to double down on the attacks, but he can react ummmm once...