Weapon-specific fighting styles

[Gavin O.]

I dislike specific weapon styles. Actually let me clarify. I like crunching them and using them to come up with interesting builds and trying to figure out which is better and being pleasantly surprised when I realize one I discounted is useful for something. But while I like them for character building I dislike them in play, in character concept etc. Once you include styles and choose one then you have suddenly declared that your fighter can only ever excel at one style. I like fighters that can excel with a broader range of weapons and so I dislike weapon based styles.

I understand that, but what exists in the PHB isn't describing fighter than can excel with a broader range of weapons, it's describing a fighter that can use a bunch of identical weapons equally well. If you're a fighter with dueling Style, then you're using a weapon that deals 1d8+2+your stat damage, or you're playing suboptimally. Sure, you can hit a monster equally as effectively wielding a Battleaxe, Flail, Longsword, Morningstar, Rapier, or War Pick, but since there's no difference between any of them, you're effectively still using the same weapon. What's the good at excelling with the use of seven different weapons if none of them are any different from one another?

 

[FrogReaver]

I understand that, but what exists in the PHB isn't describing fighter than can excel with a broader range of weapons, it's describing a fighter that can use a bunch of identical weapons equally well. If you're a fighter with dueling Style, then you're using a weapon that deals 1d8+2+your stat damage, or you're playing suboptimally. Sure, you can hit a monster equally as effectively wielding a Battleaxe, Flail, Longsword, Morningstar, Rapier, or War Pick, but since there's no difference between any of them, you're effectively still using the same weapon. What's the good at excelling with the use of seven different weapons if none of them are any different from one another?

A battleaxe is still different than a longsword even if the game doesn't provide enough resolution to show any mechanical differences in the numbers.

 

[Gavin O.]

A battleaxe is still different than a longsword even if the game doesn't provide enough resolution to show any mechanical differences in the numbers.

I guess this is where we have to agree to disagree, because in my opinion, no it's not. The same way that if WOTC came up with a new class that was completely identical to the fighter class in every way, only having a new name, that wouldn't really count as a different class.

 

[BookBarbarian]

Okay, let's do that then:

Shield Master + Dueling: using the shield bash to shove your target prone: Adult Red Dragons have a strength bonus of +8. With Expertise in Athletics (which you can get from 1 level in Rogue) you can get your check up to +18, which means the dragon would have to roll 10 points higher than you to resist being knocked prone. The odds of that happening are 55/400, or 13%. So 87% of the time, we'll have advantage on our 4 attacks. Note that this is against a creature who's best ability score is Strength, against a creature with +0 strength, you'd have to roll exactly 1 while they roll exactly 20 in order for them to resist your shove.

Using a Longsword with Dueling, our damage output is 1d8+7, or 11.5. Using a longsword without Dueling, our damage output it 1d8+5, or 9.5.

With +11 to hit, we need to roll a 7 or higher, and since we have advantage, our odds of rolling at least one 7+ in 2 d20s is 92% as per the hypergeometric distribution calculator View attachment 95115. So our average damage per attack is 10.58 with dueling and 8.74 without. With 4 attacks per round again, we'd need just over 6 rounds to kill the dragon with dueling and just over 7 rounds to kill it with defense. We've still saved over a round worth of attacks.

in the 13% chance that the dragon makes his check vs our shove, our odds of hitting fall to 14/20, or 70%. With Dueling, our damage per attack would drop to 8.05, and with Defense, it would drop to 6.65. That means we'd need 8 rounds of attacks with dueling and 10 rounds of attacks without.

going sword and board with Shield Master, dueling style saves you at least one round.

How about with Great Weapon?

Your chance to hit is now 40% (same math as for sharpshooter) in both cases.

A maul with Great Weapon Style deals on average 8.33+15 = 23.33 damage (the 3 repeats forever), where without great weapon, you're dealing 7+15 = 22 damage. Your damage per attack is 9.332 in the first case, and 8.8 in the second. Still using 4 attacks per round, it would take us 6.87 rounds to kill the dragon with Great Weapon Fighting, and 7.27 without. That's not as much as the other cases, but technically, we have saved one round of attacking.

Technically we can't shove the Dragon unless we are size Large or larger, so we can safely ignore that.

So we save 2 rounds with Dueling over Defense, and 1 with GWF over Defense if we have four attacks in the round. But what about 3? or 2? are we really getting the same mileage out of our damage dealing styles then?

 

[SkidAce]

...If you have the dueling style and find a +1 Longbow, or a +1 Maul, you can't use it effectively...

I would still keep the bow and use it when the flying creatures attack or for several rounds before melee range.


*emphasis mine.

 

[bedir than]

If we're talking about Defense combing with a feat why not combine with Heavy Armor Master. Not only am I hit less frequently, but they do less damage. That's the inverse of GWM/SS + appropriate style

 

[FrogReaver]

The point of this math wasn't to calculate specific DPR, it was to calculate the amount your DPR would increase by having or not having the Great Weapon fighting style. Yes the Precision attack will increase your damage, but it will increase your damage by the same amount if you had Great Weapon fighting style versus Defense Fighting style. This math also doesn't include Haste from an eldritch knight or the 18-20 crits from a Champion, because that's not the point. The point we were debating is whether the +1 AC from Defense was worth losing the damage bonus from a damage-boosting style.

I know what you were debating. The point is that unless you are factoring in nearly all damage features into that kind of analysis your results are going to be a bit shaky.

Here's what I know without trying a bunch of fancy calculations.

Being able to 1 hit kill enemies is really important if you can do that. Duelist gives you a very good chance of 1 hit killing enemies like goblins and kobolds. Without it you have a fairly low chance of killing a goblin or kobold in a single attack. Early on that makes dueling amazing and much better than +1 ac IMO.

Once you are past getting easy 1 hit or 1 turn kills then things get a lot more complicated and it's probably more dependent on your DM's tactics than any other single factor for what is better. If your DM puts a lot of enemy focus on the fighter regardless of fighting style then defensive may be better. In a 4 man party vs 4 enemy party the PC's have a decent chance of taking about 10 attacks in 4 rounds (assuming about 1 enemy dies per round). If all those attacks are directed at the fighter then the extra AC will save him from a hit ever 2 combats. Additionally and more importantly his higher AC than squishy party members will save the party a lot more hits than anything else.

However, if the DM spreads the monsters out and doesn't focus the fighter any more than any other player then dueling is probably better as it will probably take you the whole day to save 1 hit and if you kill monsters faster you have a good chance of making up that difference.

So basically, how's the DM play it, and what enemies will we be facing the entire campaign (etc), and what classes and abilities are our allies using, because that's the only way we will ever be able to answer the question in full.

 

[FrogReaver]

I guess this is where we have to agree to disagree, because in my opinion, no it's not. The same way that if WOTC came up with a new class that was completely identical to the fighter class in every way, only having a new name, that wouldn't really count as a different class.

Terrible analogy.

 

[FrogReaver]

If we're talking about Defense combing with a feat why not combine with Heavy Armor Master. Not only am I hit less frequently, but they do less damage. That's the inverse of GWM/SS + appropriate style

Honestly I think the better option is GWM and defense style or dueling and Heavy Armor Master. There's kind of a inverse synergy between being hit less and taking less damage when you are hit. There's also kind of an inverse synergy between hitting less (-5/+10) and doing more damage when you hit.

 

[Gavin O.]

Technically we can't shove the Dragon unless we are size Large or larger, so we can safely ignore that.

So we save 2 rounds with Dueling over Defense, and 1 with GWF over Defense if we have four attacks in the round. But what about 3? or 2? are we really getting the same mileage out of our damage dealing styles then?

When we have less attacks per round, the monsters also have less HP, so the static +2 damage means more. For the extreme case, let's look at level 1. Instead of an Ancient Red Dragon, we'll use a Zombie, which has AC 8 and 22 HP. our longsword attack deals 9.5 (1d8+5) damage with Dueling and 7.5 without, we have +5 to hit, so we hit on a 3 (90% chance). We're doing 8.55 average damage per round with dueling, and 6.75 without, which means we'll need 2.57 rounds to kill the zombie with dueling and 3.25 rounds without. The Zombie has +3 to hit and deals 4.5 damage on a hit, which means if we had AC 14 its DPR would be 2.25, while is we had AC 15 (from Defense) its DPR would be 2.025. In other words, Dueling Style would save us 2.25 damage (from the one round the zombie isn't attacking us), where Defense Style would save us 0.9 damage.