Swordsage: The Complex Fighter

[Juriel]

UTILITY:

More to do outside of combat?. I know, there's mega-Perception from Diamond, and a stance like Hunter's Sense, but something more varied (not just bigger numbers) for the higher levels... Class features like developing fame, being able to leap epic distances when it matters (when everything flies, just double jumping distance doesn't look too hot), get flashes of insight about the choice ahead of you based on your deep meditative mind...

LONG TERM EFFECTIVENESS:

While Swordsage looks interesting and fun to play, only one focus forever will start to sting in the long run (I know, Iron Heart gets free boost/counter at 14th, but that's only one archetype), and you have to start contending with stuff that can create Walls of Stone to imprison you, Forcecage you out of anything, your target keeps teleporting across the place... I mean, you're not putting out even the damage a Fighter does, and you only have that one trick per turn. General warrior issues, but here's an opportunity to actually tackle them.

 

[pemerton]

A +2 AC to you and your allies may prevent you from getting damaged at all.

<snip>

If you (inflicting 5 points average with 20 hp) are fighting an orc (inflicting 5 points average and has 20 hp), and you always go first, you will kill the orc in 4 rounds taking 15 points yourself. If you increase your average damage by 3 points, you still take 3 rounds to kill it and take 10 points yourself (3 attacks to its 2). However, if you reduce the amount of damage on average you take by 3 points (say the hit% goes down due to better AC), then after 4 rounds, you kill it and you take 6 points (since it's only inflicting 2 points per round, for 3 attacks). In the second scenario, you didn't kill it any faster than you would have if you chose to do more damage, but by the end of the battle you lost less HP.

To reduce expected damage per round from 5 to 2, a bonus to AC would have to reduce the orc's chance to hit from X in 20 to .4*X in 20. That is a huge reduction.

Assuming the AC bonus is +2, then we have X-2 = .4*X, so .6X = 2, so X = 2/.6 which is approximately 3. That is, you would need the orc to be hitting on an 18, with the +2 reducing that to a 20 to hit.

But for an orc to deal 5 hp per round while hitting only on an 18, its average damage on a hit would have to be very high: (3/20)*D = 5, so 3D = 100, so D > 30.

How many monsters are there in the MM that are able to hit only on an 18+, yet average greater than 30 hp of damage on a hit? My guess is none.

The numbers I used is not relevant to the overall point, but were just an example to illustrate the point.

The numbers you used are pure fantasy, and have no bearing on the actual design of the actual game under discussion, namely 5e.

More realistically: let's suppose that an orc hits on 13+ (ie AC 18) for 9 hp of damage on average. (Basic DM's supplement, p 39). That is expected damage of a 3.6 per round. A +2 to AC would make the to hit requirement 15+, or expected damage of 2.7 per round. So spending a round will cost you a round's damage (3+ hp) and save you < 1 hp per round thereafter. So you break even if it takes you 4 rounds to kill the orc. To actually benefit, it has to take you 5 rounds to kill the orc.

That's not utterly pointless, only mostly pointless. It's certainly not very powerful. I think a lot of players might hope to kill the orc in two rounds, certainly if their PCs are 5th level or above.

 

[Ashkelon]

Ashkelon, quick question:

Will you be working up subclass entries for Tiger Claw and White Raven, or do you intend those simply to be "extra" maneuvers for everyone?

Related: I notice that Tiger Claw Legendary Strikes require level 15 rather than level 9. Is that deliberate?

Thanks!

I hope to have subclasses for Tiger Claw and White Raven soon. It takes a lot of work to even get a rough draft of these though, so soon is a relative term.

As to legendary strikes requiring level 15, I actually made that change across the board. I want legendary strikes to truly be representative of a high level warrior's capabilities. I felt that having access to them at level 9 cheapened them. I want them to make players go "Wow, that is an awesome ability that represents a high level warrior from myth and legend!" I might increase their capabilities to represent this as well.

 

[Sacrosanct]

**snip*.

Once again, you're letting your tunnel vision of a specific example lead you to over analyze when the main point is completely passing you by. The specific #s of that example are not relevant. The point:

Always doing more damage is not always the best option.

How many resources you have at the end of the encounter, regardles if it takes 5 rounds or 3 rounds, is more important. If you can end the encounter after 3 rounds but use more spells and lose more HP than you do if you ended it in 5, then I would suggest that is not better.

that example is just like choosing a heavy armor master feat over a feat that grants extra damage. Or maybe you use a spell to increase AC or grant damage reduction instead of direct damage to a monster?

Point is, is that there are an almost incalculable number of possible scenarios where PCs may find themselves in during combat, and "more damage = always better" is not always the case.

 

[Ashkelon]

Once again, you're letting your tunnel vision of a specific example lead you to over analyze when the main point is completely passing you by. The specific #s of that example are not relevant. The point:

Always doing more damage is not always the best option.

How many resources you have at the end of the encounter, regardles if it takes 5 rounds or 3 rounds, is more important. If you can end the encounter after 3 rounds but use more spells and lose more HP than you do if you ended it in 5, then I would suggest that is not better.

that example is just like choosing a heavy armor master feat over a feat that grants extra damage. Or maybe you use a spell to increase AC or grant damage reduction instead of direct damage to a monster?

Point is, is that there are an almost incalculable number of possible scenarios where PCs may find themselves in during combat, and "more damage = always better" is not always the case.

While you are technically correct, you are also very wrong. Nine times in ten, doing more damage is the best option. You can easily do the math to calculate this. The only exception to this is spells because spells can produce wonderous effects far more potent than imrpovisation could ever hope to match.

None of the examples people have given of "out of the box" thinking have actually lead to more efficient combat resolution. That alone should be telling. Improvised actions are typically much morse than 2+ attacks. The higher the level the fighter is, the worse the trade off is for using an improvised action instead of an Attack.

On top of that, some people don't want to rely on the DMs whimsy for performing mechanically interesting abilities. Furthermore, most of the maneuvers I have suggested could never ever be replicated through improvisation. So improvisation really falls flat for players who want abilities that are both reliable and beyond the scope of mere improvisation.

Remember: just because you have a few codified abilities, it doesn't mean you can't still improvise for all of those basic things (like flipping a table if you really felt that was a tactically sound decision)/

 

[Sacrosanct]

While you are technically correct, you are also very wrong. Nine times in ten, doing more damage is the best option. You can easily do the math to calculate this.

You can? Then do it. "Easily" do the math that accounts for all the possible encounter scenarios PCs may find themselves in.


Sorry man, but this claim is absurdly bogus. For one, maybe you get that opinion based solely on your personal playstyle. I won't presume to know exactly what that playstyle is despite having an idea from your other posts.

Secondly, where do you get 9 out of 10 times from?

If you can get something like the heavy armor master feat, which gives your resistance to non magical B/P/S damage, right? (it used to be -3 but I'm sure it's changed and I don't have my book in front of me) or you can increase your STR by 2 to get a +1 to hit and damage, when fighting monsters that use non m agical weapons, that resistance probably results in you having more HP left over after combat then you would if you went the STR option, and would probably apply to a lot more than 10% of the time.


Seriously, you all really need to pull yourself out of this white room DPR calcuation mindset, and understand that there are thousands of scenarios that PCs encounter that impact or outright render white room analysis useless. Who the combatants are, where the combat takes place, do you have any allies and who are they, how many resources do you currently have, how many more encounters will you end up having before the next long rest, etc, etc.

 

[Ashkelon]

You can? Then do it. "Easily" do the math that accounts for all the possible encounter scenarios PCs may find themselves in.

Let us look at the shove action for example. Given the typical monsters ACs, having advantage will give you +25% damage on melee attacks. So, as a level 11 fighter, is it worth shoving an enemy with one of your attacks if there is another level 11 fighter in your party?

You are giving up 1 attack, to make 5 other attacks at advantage. That seems like a good trade off, but your shove won't always work. Typically it will be resisted about 50% of the time. So you now trade one attack to make 5 attacks with a 50% chance of 25% additional damage.

Expected results 5.63 attacks worth of damage vs 6.00 attacks worth of damage by simply attacking. You can do this for many different examples of various abilities to find out when things are worthwhile. I have done this already in my analysis and it shows that the majority of the time, attacking is the best course of action.

Sorry man, but this claim is absurdly bogus. For one, maybe you get that opinion based solely on your personal playstyle. I won't presume to know exactly what that playstyle is despite having an idea from your other posts.

Secondly, where do you get 9 out of 10 times from?

The 9 times in 10 is a made up number, but it is fairly close to the reality of the matter here. Give me 10 examples of improvised actions being goo, and I will prove to you with math how they are worse than simply attacking.

If you can get something like the heavy armor master feat, which gives your resistance to non magical B/P/S damage, right? (it used to be -3 but I'm sure it's changed and I don't have my book in front of me) or you can increase your STR by 2 to get a +1 to hit and damage, when fighting monsters that use non m agical weapons, that resistance probably results in you having more HP left over after combat then you would if you went the STR option, and would probably apply to a lot more than 10% of the time.

We are talking about improvised actions here. Why do you keep bringing up feats? Besides, while HAM is great at low levels, it is quite weak at higher levels.

Additionally, the fighter's HP is not the only consideration in party endurance. It doesn't matter if the fighter has 100 HP left if the rogue, cleric, and wizard all have 10 and are out of spells. Being resistant to damage only encourages monsters to attack the squishier targets shortening your adventuring day overall (especilly because the 5e fighter cannot protect his party at all). On top of that, HAM only reduces the damage you receive by about 5 to 10% at high levels. On the other hand, +2 Strength can lead to abut a 15% to 20% increase in DPR. Killing monsters faster means you will take less damage overall. Boom! Mathed!

Seriously, you all really need to pull yourself out of this white room DPR calcuation mindset, and understand that there are thousands of scenarios that PCs encounter that impact or outright render white room analysis useless. Who the combatants are, where the combat takes place, do you have any allies and who are they, how many resources do you currently have, how many more encounters will you end up having before the next long rest, etc, etc.

There are thousands of combinations, but most of them favor simply attacking. This is why every example of "out of the box thinking" has been proven inferior through math.

Besides, you never addressed any of my points of my actual argument. I'll lay them out again for you.

1. Some players want special abilities that are more reliable in application and not subject to DM whimsy.
2. Some players want special abilities that cannot be replicated through improvisation.
3. Just because you have a few limited use codified abilities, there is nothing preventing you from improvising. In fact, you can combine improvisation with your codified abilities.

 

[Ashkelon]

UTILITY:

More to do outside of combat?. I know, there's mega-Perception from Diamond, and a stance like Hunter's Sense, but something more varied (not just bigger numbers) for the higher levels... Class features like developing fame, being able to leap epic distances when it matters (when everything flies, just double jumping distance doesn't look too hot), get flashes of insight about the choice ahead of you based on your deep meditative mind...

Utility is probably the hardest thing to come up with for martial characters. I really miss 4e utility powers and skill utilities. 5e was going the right direction with "expert feats", but then scrapped that concept. If you have any ideas for increasing utility, I am all ears.

LONG TERM EFFECTIVENESS:

While Swordsage looks interesting and fun to play, only one focus forever will start to sting in the long run (I know, Iron Heart gets free boost/counter at 14th, but that's only one archetype), and you have to start contending with stuff that can create Walls of Stone to imprison you, Forcecage you out of anything, your target keeps teleporting across the place... I mean, you're not putting out even the damage a Fighter does, and you only have that one trick per turn. General warrior issues, but here's an opportunity to actually tackle them.

Any suggestions? I was thinking of including a strike that destroys magical barriers such as walls of force and forcecage. The real issue here, is that the only way to counter magic is with obviously magical effects.

 

[Sacrosanct]

We are talking about improvised actions here. Why do you keep bringing up feats? .

I'm going to reply to this part only, because it impacts all the rest of your sentences in this quote. The quote you quoted with your original response? Wasn't about improvised actions. The context of that branch off conversation was the claim that doing more HP damage is always the best option.

And it's not. As has been illustrated.

 

[Ashkelon]

Whatever your tactical mind could come up with. Flip the table to gain an AC bonus? Flank your enemy? Grapple your enemy while an ally stabs them? Smash the support beam to cause a cave in on the enemy?

Sorry to break it to you Sacrosanct, but you started the table flipping example when resonding to Jack_the_Lad about "tactically interesting choices" in combat.

The Heavy Armor Mastery feat has nothing to do with tactically interesting choices in combat.

I came in later and said that dealing damage is almost always the superior choice. Dealing damage requires your action, choosing a feat does not "deal damage". Clearly, I was also talking about tactically interesting choices in combat.

Furthermore, I also showed you how at high levels, HAM is worse at keeping the party alive than +2 strength, even if everyone chooses that feat. (If everyone can't choose that feat, it doesn't matter all that much as someone will be KOd or run out of spells before you anyway requiring the whole party to rest anyway).

Edit: besides, you still havent addressed the three ACTUAL points of my argument and you are instead focusing on non-issues that I really don't care about. If you find improvisation is good enough to give you tactically interesting choices in combat, more power to you. Don't let the math tell you otherwise. But some of us have actually done the math or actually care about having options that aren't at the whimsy of the DM.