D&D 5E Thoughts about the Protection Fighting Style

[GlassJaw]

Here's a take on making Protection passive instead of active:

Protection
On your turn, you can use your reaction to protect a creature. While within 5 feet of you, that creature gains a +2 bonus to their AC until the start of your next turn. You must be wearing a shield.

 

[Tony Vargas]

@Tony Vargas That would certainly work. But I think I'm starting to lean towards not using reactions for this Fighting Style. Each fighting style seems to focus on providing a passive bonus in some way. Dueling give +2 to damage, GWF gives rerolls on 1 or 2, Archery is a flat +2 to attack... none of them seem to require any additional effort from the player outside making attacks.

Protection does stand out as more nearly interesting or dynamic, that way (in theory, in practice, I've not seen player's get too excited about it).

Likewise the Defense Fighting Style gives a flat +1 to AC. That one doesn't scale with level, but I'm thinking it probably doesn't need to. If bounded accuracy is maintained, it is always relevant and it actually does scale

Yep. It doesn't scale, but it stays equally useful as hit/damage &c scale around it. If you stop the same proportion of damage you'd otherwise take at high level, when that damage has scaled, a lot, that's like scaling.

On the other end of the spectrum, forcing full disadvantage on attacks against allies within 5ft seems too powerful for a fighting style (even if limited to only one ally within 5ft), especially if we maintain that a Fighting Style ability should be passive and not require action economy expenditure aside from what a fighter is already going to do.

You could just un-couple it from the Reaction. You impose disadvantage on the first attack against an adjacent ally after you take your turn, each round.

-Protection should have a passive bonus to an action a fighter would naturally take during combat, even if they did not have the fighting style
-Should not require action economy to activate aside what a fighter will already be doing (thus should not require a reaction or other type of action to activate)
-Should likely scale based on number of attacks directed at a target, rather than number of attacks the fighter can make

You could grant an adjacent ally a point or few of resistance?

 

[Hawk Diesel]

I like where you're headed, @Tony Vargas. One thing I think is important to consider is that Protection is the only fighting style that requires conditions that may be outside of the player's control. Generally a player will have control over the type of weapon they use. But if someone take the Protection fighting style, it requires them to be next to someone to be effective. This means it will be more effective in parties with other frontline fighters, but significantly less effective if you are the only frontline fighter. This becomes even more true if you require uses of a shield, which then prohibits the fighter from using conventional ranged weapons (still may use thrown weapons or repeating crossbows, but you are now getting into the territory of increasing system mastery to get the full benefit of the fighting style).

This means in parties with other frontline fighters, it would be active most during combat encounters. But for parties without other frontline fighters, it would come online most often outside of combat (ie when traps go off, surprise attacks, ect).

Based on this, I think I'm leaning to the Protection Style either providing resistance or damage reduction as you suggested, or making it straight cover for allies within 5ft.

I like the damage reduction/resistance angle. If damage reduction, I think I would have it a flat DR that applies to all attack made against allies within 5ft. This causes it to scale based on number of attacks, similar to the Defense fighting style. Alternatively, you could have it be the first ally within 5ft that is successfully struck by an attack has resistance to that attack's damage. This I like less, because it is clunky. You must single out a particular ally, and it gets more complicated if the attack has multiple damage types (like with green-flame blade or magic weapons).

But I also really like the idea of just providing half cover to allies within 5ft. It is clean, a flat bonus that scales similarly to the Defense fighting style.

Maybe we don't have to choose though.

Protection Fighting Style
Allies that you can see within 5ft of you are considered to have half cover. You must be using a shield to benefit from this fighting style.

Disruptive Fighting Style
Whenever an ally you can see within 5ft of you is hit by an attack, you reduce the total damage of the attack by 3.

After all, we can have multiple defensive fighting styles.

 

[Tony Vargas]

This means it will be more effective in parties with other frontline fighters, but significantly less effective if you are the only frontline fighter.

A party with only one frontliner is still not going to be a party with only one character being attacked in melee, not unless there's a stunning quantity of 5' wide corridors & doorways in their future.

The way disadvantage works, the closer the enemy is to hitting the ally you protect 50/50, the bigger the benefit. So super-squishy allies that are even easier to hit than that, and super-tanky fellow-front-liners who are much harder to hit, actually benefit less from it. Of course, how easy your ally is to hit depends a lot on who's hitting them. If you go in against swarms of lower-CR baddied, it'll hardly matter (disadvantage on 1 attack per round), if you often face a single higher-CR foe, it might matter more with a tanky ally.
Conversely, a flat, even if small, bonus to an adjacent ally all the time will generally matter about the same. It'll just be less dynamic, so less interesting to some players.

 

[Hawk Diesel]

A party with only one frontliner is still not going to be a party with only one character being attacked in melee, not unless there's a stunning quantity of 5' wide corridors & doorways in their future.

Very true. Thanks for pointing it out (dontcha hate blind spots!).

The way disadvantage works, the closer the enemy is to hitting the ally you protect 50/50, the bigger the benefit. So super-squishy allies that are even easier to hit than that, and super-tanky fellow-front-liners who are much harder to hit, actually benefit less from it. Of course, how easy your ally is to hit depends a lot on who's hitting them. If you go in against swarms of lower-CR baddied, it'll hardly matter (disadvantage on 1 attack per round), if you often face a single higher-CR foe, it might matter more with a tanky ally.
Conversely, a flat, even if small, bonus to an adjacent ally all the time will generally matter about the same. It'll just be less dynamic, so less interesting to some players.

A fair point. But then, Dueling and Archery provide flat bonuses and lots of people seem to be pretty happy with them.

I guess it just boils down to play style. Do you want more dynamic or even active fighting styles (the question of a new thread that I'll definitely be watching), or do you prefer flat bonuses and passive abilities? Or should both be incorporated and let the players decide which play style they prefer?

 

[Tony Vargas]

A fair point. But then, Dueling and Archery provide flat bonuses and lots of people seem to be pretty happy with them.

Sure, they're fairly juicy bonuses, and goose DPR, which is what always gets analyzed.

I guess it just boils down to play style. Do you want more dynamic or even active fighting styles (the question of a new thread that I'll definitely be watching), or do you prefer flat bonuses and passive abilities. Or should both be incorporated and let the players decide which play style they prefer?

I do belive Dnd4vr just started a thread about that. It's an interesting question.

Oh, in terms of what's already out there, the BM is the fighter for more-active/less-choice-poor options in a non-casting fighting-style-using sub-class (sounds like a really lame award show category now that I type it out), so looking for synergies between your (passive) style and (active) maneuvers would be something to think about.