D&D 5E The Fighter Extra Feat Fallacy

[Tony Vargas]

I don't think you realize what a +10 damage a round actually means. +10 damage a round is huge!!!

It certainly would've made a difference any time a monster you've been beating on takes it's turn with only single-digit hps left.

(Which, IMhX as a DM, is a bit more often than one might think...)


But, yes, hypothetically/theoretically huge in one pillar makes up for suck in two. (I don't buy it, myself, I think balance should be w/in each pillar, but I'm distinctly in the minority, AFAICT.)

 

[Ovinomancer]

It's +/- 2-3 DPR.

You didn't read carefully. It's 2-3 DPR if you assume the ranger has a perfect day. The assumptions made were all that the ranger gets both mark and colossus slayer every attack. Just the later assumption increases DPR by 2-3. So, with more realistic assumptions the DPR margin is, in fact, closer to 10 than 2. Especially since the advantage on the first round is playtest ranger and not book ranger.

Again, any other points you wish to make isn't affected by this -- just making sure we're all on the same page about what that analysis showed. And it wasn't that fighters eek out a 2 DPR improvement over rangers, it was that an average day fighter still eeks out a 2 DPR bonus against a great day ranger.

 

[FrogReaver]

His analysis is correct, its been done on many threads by many other people before, but like I said the damage per round difference between a fighter and ranger should be 10+ round at level 5 and then go up from there to balance out the other things the ranger gets compared to the fighter. Same thing goes for other martial classes, the Fighter will out damage them all in static competition, but not by enough to really matter compared to the other things the other martial classes get.

For example, build an optimized fighter compared to an optimized Paladin at a level, say levels 5-11 where most games are. Both get weapons and armor and a fighting style. The base Paladin chassis gets self healing with Lay on the Hands (takes an action by still good,) Smites (fun and useful and adds a lot of spike damage), immunity to disease (always useful,) bonuses to saving throws for you always and the party sometimes, immunity to fear for you always and your party sometimes, and then improved divine smite, adding more damage to your base attacks (but not as much as an additional attack.) The base fighter chassis gets an extra feat and an extra attack at 11th level, Second Wind (less effective but more action efficient then Lay on the Hands) Action Surge, and a reroll on a failed save. I would argue Divine Smite is better than Action Surge since its impossible to miss using it and it also gets doubled on a crit, but Action Surge is still good. Rerolling a failed save is not all equivalent to getting bonuses to all save for you and party plus immunity to disease and fear. Both get a subclass, BM is good but so are Paladin Oaths.

The real difference is the Paladin gets so many good and useful base abilities to its class that a fighter can't compete unless they are significantly buffed. The same goes for the other martial classes too.

The idea here is make the fighter base chassis better. The more I think about it the more I think the Champion subclass should just be melded into the fighter base chassis and then go from there.

That's the big-picture point that I made several times but somehow got lost in argument over numbers.

I'm going to calculate a SS CE Battlemaster Fighter's damage per day under my standard set of assumptions (6 combats, 4 rounds each, 2 short rests per day).

I'm going to look at level 6.


The fighters damage at level 6 vs many different AC values:
11 | 42.9
12 | 40.21875
13 | 37.5375
14 | 34.85625
15 | 32.175
16 | 29.49375
17 | 26.8125
18 | 24.13125
19 | 21.45
20 | 18.76875

All I'm doing here is using Action Surge and Precision attack and the -5/+10 and archery style.

Please find me one Ranger or Paladin build that overtakes that or even gets close in the adventuring day I described. If you are going to go through this exercise at least give me some realistic assumptions. Please don't assume 100% uptime on colossus slayer, give me some reasonable expectation on how often you will get to use it. Please don't assume you can bonus action attack from CE or Two Weapon fighting every round while keeping hunters mark on every enemy. Please make some realistic assumptions on how the paladins channel divinity powers can be used as well.

Please show me these high damaging ranger and paladin builds. I'd love to see them!

 

[FrogReaver]

It certainly would've made a difference any time a monster you've been beating on takes it's turn with only single-digit hps left.

(Which, IMhX as a DM, is a bit more often than one might think...)


But, yes, hypothetically/theoretically huge in one pillar makes up for suck in two. (I don't buy it, myself, I think balance should be w/in each pillar, but I'm distinctly in the minority, AFAICT.)

I agree more with you here. However, I can see a certain point where if you are soo much better than everyone else at 1 pillar that you can suck at the others. But you need to be like twice as good at that pillar as anyone else IMO. That's not really what I see happening in 5e.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I agree more with you here. However, I can see a certain point where if you are soo much better than everyone else at 1 pillar that you can suck at the others. But you need to be like twice as good at that pillar as anyone else IMO. That's not really what I see happening in 5e.

The trade-off there is 'netrunner syndrome' - everyone else essentially sits that pillar out. It's how the Social & Interaction pillars have generally tended to work in D&D, anyway - party face (or even Diplomancer) is the only one that plays when social comes up (mercifully brief as a single triple-digit success might make diplomacizing), ranger guides you through the wilderness, thief does all the skulking around the dungeon getting killed by traps - not that that's a good thing in theory, but D&Ders can't hate it that much...

 

[MichaelSomething]

How about making those -5\+10 feats fighters only? I think it would balance out both those things.

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[FrogReaver]

The trade-off there is 'netrunner syndrome' - everyone else essentially sits that pillar out. It's how the Social & Interaction pillars have generally tended to work in D&D, anyway - party face (or even Diplomancer) is the only one that plays when social comes up (mercifully brief as a single triple-digit success might make diplomacizing), ranger guides you through the wilderness, thief does all the skulking around the dungeon getting killed by traps - not that that's a good thing in theory, but D&Ders can't hate it that much...

Well, that's an issue for sure. I think it's more caused by how failure is handled. When you fail skill checks bad things generally happen. The game doesn't just return to the same place as it was before you attempted the check. As such you only ever want your best most specialized party member doing something. It may not be as fun but its more effective.

 

[FrogReaver]

How about making those -5\+10 feats fighters only? I think it would balance out both those things.

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Paladins and rangers get relatively little out of those feats as is compared to the fighter. Everything the fighter gets is more effective with those feats. Everything rangers and paladins get is less effective with them.

 

[Hussar]

You didn't read carefully. It's 2-3 DPR if you assume the ranger has a perfect day. The assumptions made were all that the ranger gets both mark and colossus slayer every attack. Just the later assumption increases DPR by 2-3. So, with more realistic assumptions the DPR margin is, in fact, closer to 10 than 2. Especially since the advantage on the first round is playtest ranger and not book ranger.

Again, any other points you wish to make isn't affected by this -- just making sure we're all on the same page about what that analysis showed. And it wasn't that fighters eek out a 2 DPR improvement over rangers, it was that an average day fighter still eeks out a 2 DPR bonus against a great day ranger.

Um, that's not an average fighter day. That's the absolute best fighter day - 2 short rests and a long adventuring day. Shorter days, or longer single fights will advantage the others. Note, you can't Colossus Slayer every attack - I actually only took either at about 75% of hits for my analysis and still came way out ahead for the ranger.

The only way the fighter pulls ahead is if he Precision Strikes every single chance he can, and takes nothing but combat focused feats. And it presumes that every action surge is used for nothing but attacks - a fair assumption for a ranged fighter to be sure.

A great day ranger would be one or two longer fights in a day - that way he gets hunters mark every round, plus additional spell damage.

The point is well made though, I think. Even giving the fighter every possible advantage, he's barely beating out the ranger. Yes, I did use the revised ranger, and I should have put that in the assumptions. I think once Xanathar's comes out, the revised ranger will likely be standard. PHB Ranger? Fair enough, the fighter is likely doing much better in comparison.

One question though, why do people think that things like the +5/-10 feats are best with fighters? That's only true after 11th level with the third attack. Otherwise, they are equally good for all fighter types. And, let's not forget, at 11th level, that ranged ranger has up to 13 attacks per round with volley, all of which can be sharp shootered. Not good for focus fire, to be true, but, it's going to be pretty regular that our ranger is going to get 3-5 attacks in a given round starting at 11th level. It's not that out of line to have at least 3 targets in a circle 25 feet in diameter. The ranger is basically getting a mini fireball by that level, and only has to spend one of his 11 spells per day to get hunters mark all the time.
[MENTION=2525]Mistwell[/MENTION] - ((and I'm sorry if I'm misattributing this) and others who actually are tracking damage - how many fighter types do you have in your party and are you including damage that isn't related to class? Things like the aforementioned flaming weapon - sure, that's great for a high level fighter who gets so many attacks, but, it's not really part of his class. There's no guarantee that it will be seen in a game.

 

[FrogReaver]

Um, that's not an average fighter day. That's the absolute best fighter day - 2 short rests and a long adventuring day. Shorter days, or longer single fights will advantage the others. Note, you can't Colossus Slayer every attack - I actually only took either at about 75% of hits for my analysis and still came way out ahead for the ranger.

The only way the fighter pulls ahead is if he Precision Strikes every single chance he can, and takes nothing but combat focused feats. And it presumes that every action surge is used for nothing but attacks - a fair assumption for a ranged fighter to be sure.

A great day ranger would be one or two longer fights in a day - that way he gets hunters mark every round, plus additional spell damage.

The point is well made though, I think. Even giving the fighter every possible advantage, he's barely beating out the ranger. Yes, I did use the revised ranger, and I should have put that in the assumptions. I think once Xanathar's comes out, the revised ranger will likely be standard. PHB Ranger? Fair enough, the fighter is likely doing much better in comparison.

One question though, why do people think that things like the +5/-10 feats are best with fighters? That's only true after 11th level with the third attack. Otherwise, they are equally good for all fighter types. And, let's not forget, at 11th level, that ranged ranger has up to 13 attacks per round with volley, all of which can be sharp shootered. Not good for focus fire, to be true, but, it's going to be pretty regular that our ranger is going to get 3-5 attacks in a given round starting at 11th level. It's not that out of line to have at least 3 targets in a circle 25 feet in diameter. The ranger is basically getting a mini fireball by that level, and only has to spend one of his 11 spells per day to get hunters mark all the time.

[MENTION=2525]Mistwell[/MENTION] - ((and I'm sorry if I'm misattributing this) and others who actually are tracking damage - how many fighter types do you have in your party and are you including damage that isn't related to class? Things like the aforementioned flaming weapon - sure, that's great for a high level fighter who gets so many attacks, but, it's not really part of his class. There's no guarantee that it will be seen in a game.

Precision scales off how much damage you do each attack and the -5/+10 feat adds a lot of damage to each attack. Action surge scales off how much DPR the attack action adds (which is helped by both precision and the -5/+10 feat). Fighter's don't have bonus actions to use to compete with Crossbow Experts bonus action attack.

Hunter's mark and colossus slayer both scale off your chance to hit which the -5/+10 feats hurt. Hunter's mark competes with the bonus action attack of Crossbow expert. Even then it takes more levels for the ranger to get both CE and SS.

It should be apparent why those feats are better for the fighter now.

(I find it weird you give Volley a 25ft diameter. I always give it a 20 ft diameter)