The thing is that those shields do things. And the warlock can't. So either you should upgrade everyone's damage dice for the easy like with like comparison or accept that the warlock is getting things skewed in their favour.
Nerfing the warlock damage, in a damage comparison... is skewing things in their favor? I mean, that is literally what I did. I nerfed their damage die by assuming they were using a one-handed weapon, when they could have used it in two hands. Please explain to me how
WEAKENING the warlock's damage favors them?!
Wrong. Unless you're using the min-maxed point buy 15/15/15/8/8/8 array. And ... why would you? The Standard Array is 15/14/13/12/10/8 which with a floating +2 and +1 leads to 17/14/14/12/10/8.
A 17? Wow. Did you know 17 is an odd number? Crazy thing that. Good thing I didn't say "unless you want to start with odd numbers".
Oh. Wait. I did. Now, sure, you decided to go with changing the 13 to a 14 instead of the 14 to a 15, but at that point, it is kind of pettiness since it makes little practical difference to a damage comparision if your tertiary stat is 1 point higher.
A key thing to remember is the level curve. Given (a) that 90% of games end by level 10, and (b) levels 1 and 2 are deliberately ones you spend little time at I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that the average character in a campaign (i.e. not a one shot) that doesn't instantly fizzle spends roughly half of their time at levels 4, 5, 6, and 7. (Or in the fighter's case 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, and 11). And I don't think it's unreasonable to say that a +1 to your primary stat's bonus and one of the new half-feats are both significant bonuses. Therefore the 17 with the new feats is really useful in a way it isn't under 2014 rules.
You can make all those arguments, but it really doesn't matter. It isn't like my assumptions were completely unreasonable, nor is it like the Charger feat makes that big of a difference, as I pointed out.
And, while you could make the argument that those assumptions mean that it doesn't matter than the Blade pact is overperforming, I would disagree, because I think all the levels of the game matter and should be balanced.
A 14 con. And this is much more a matter of taste, but I really can't agree with a double 16 in Str and Con because your skills suffer and the fighter doesn't get much else to do out of combat. Between Str and Con you have a grand total of a single skill. that benefits from your two best stats. And there are three important stats for saves (Dex/Con/Wis) while adding to something else pretty important (Initiative, HP, Perception), and you're going to have to dump one of them if you only have three high stats. I don't think there's much between them in terms of importance and a +2 to one of these three stats (unless it's your primary stat) is pretty much worth a +1 to a different one. I therefore consider 14/14/12 to be almost exactly equal to 16/16/8 in terms of power for these three stats as long as they aren't your attack/casting stat.
On a tangent Monks I absolutely think should use the 17/16/14 array.
You are right. That is all a matter of taste and not pertinent to the discussion.
But Charger, Mounted Combatant, Sentinel, and Shield Master (or Defensive Duelist for dex based melee) are all good combat feats. As for being able to move again that depends what you've combo'd it with. Shield Master gives you the space for the follow up charge (or starts to give Advantage).
Mounted Combatant does absolutely nothing for a character who, you know, doesn't have a mount. So I don't know why you would even bring it up.
Sentinel can be a very good feat, but the entirety of the feat relies on off-turn attacks. Could be nice, but trying to account for reaction opportunities is a bit of a pain. And if you make the same assumptions for everyone, they really only offer more chances to do the damage you do per turn, so they don't really alter the situation in the majority of situations. Sure, you could assume that the enemy is constantly attacking a second target or trying to run away, proccing Sentinel every turn, but that seems a poor assumption.
Which just leaves Shield Master, and I will simply point out that I peeked ahead, and the Warhammer now has Push. Giving the exact same benefit of moving without the bonus action cost. But, the number of times you can utilize charger is still highly variable. I can attempt to account for it if you insist, but I don't really see it is needed when looking at the full picture at play.
If you're comparing two hands vs two hands then use two handed weapons ... and the two handed feats. If you're using one hand vs one hand and not taking into account that one side has a shield and the other doesn't then you are quite literally making the fighter fight with one hand tied behind their back.
The fighter, who is benefiting from the shield the warlock doesn't have, while the warlock is only using one hand... is the one with their hand tied behind their back? The hand holding the shield? Is the warlock holding the rope and that's why the shield arm is tied behind their back?
More seriously, I was simply pointing out that if we acknowledge the warlock is going to be constantly using a d10 weapon, then it makes sense to point out that the difference between them and a standard S+B fighter remains the same, even if I account for that one feat I didn't calculate in.
No you didn't. You made the fighter fight with one hand tied behind their back. You took away their best weapons and their best feats for options that gave them higher defence. I can tell you that the best DPR fighter will be a polearm + GWM fighter.
What I'm really not sure about to be honest is just what sort of impact the Vex-rapier has. I suspect given that they've stacked up 2d6 of extra damage on every hit (Thirsting + Hex) Vex is going to prove very very good. I'm also mildly curious now about a dex based warlock without Eldritch Blast or attack spells.
Great, there we go. You want me to pull out the PAM+GWM fighter and go to town. The very best fighter that ever fought! Cool. Let's do that. And you gave an array, so I'll use that.
Just doing the fighter, don't have the time or energy to do everything else.
1st level: Array is 17/14/14/12/10/8, 1st level feat is meaningless for this discussion. So, we end up with
[I want to note, that +1 is from the Heavy Weapon Mastery, this is an averaged result that has been found repeatedly, and I will be using it per attacl]
Fighter: 1d10+3+1 --> (9.5 x 1 x 0.65) + (5.5 x 0.05) --> 6.45
Warlock: 1d10+3 --> (8.5 x 1 x 0.65) + (5.5 x 0.05) --> 5.8
5th level: Okay, time to crank this up! Fighter gets... one feat. I'll give Polearm master though. And that raises him to that 18.
Fighter: 2d10+1d4+12+3 --> (10.5 x 2 x 0.65) + (7.5 x 1 x 0.65) + (5.5 x 2 x 0.05) + (2.5 x 1 x 0.05) --> 19.2
Warlock: 2d10+2d6+8 --> (13 x 2 x 0.65) + (9 + 2 x 0.05) --> 17.8
Still behind, which isn't unexpected. It is 11th level that is the problem after all.
11th level: Now, here is where things get a little tricky. I've got to give the Fighter both Great Weapon Master and Charger. But how do we assign Charger? Well, I'll give the benefit of the doubt. I'll just assume Charger happens 1/turn, every single turn. So, the fighter is sitting at a 20 STR. Warlock also at 20.
So, what are we looking at?
Fighter: 3d10+1d4+20+4 --> (11.5 x 3 x 0.65) + (4.5 x 0.65) + (8.5 x 0.65) + (4 x 0.9744)+ (5.5 x 3 x 0.05) + (2.5 x 0.05) + (4.5 x 0.05) --> 35.9476
Warlock: 3d10+3d6+3d6+15 --> (17.5 x 3 x 0.65) + (12.5 x 3 x 0.05) --> 36
So, there you go. The Best fighter who has ever fought, a PAM+GWM+Charger fighter who is able to charge every single round of combat, invested with three feats to increase is combat capability.... technically does 0.0524 less DPR than the Bladelock with only warcaster, and who is only using three of their seven invocation abilities.
So, let's get it out of the way. How did I gimp the fighter and completely discredit my entire set-up so that I can go ahead and prove this a third time?
