D&D General What is your favorite Fighting Style in 5e?

[Corinnguard]

I use TWF a decent amount, but i hate it because it is just a patch on a penalty invented so that dual weilding needs the patch. Ugly design.

Down below is Laser Llama's take on Dual Wielding. It presents a solution to the whole Bonus action problem typically associated with Dual Wielding. It's sort of like picking up a weapon with the Nick Weapon Mastery property. But instead of getting to use the Bonus Action for another attack, you can use it for another class feature that also requires the use of a Bonus Action.

Here's how Level Up handles Dual Wielding:

When you take the Attack action and attack with a weapon that does not have the heavy property that you are wielding in one hand, you can use your bonus action to attack with a different dual-wielding melee weapon that you are holding in your off-hand. You do not add your ability modifier to the damage roll of the bonus attack, unless that modifier is negative. If a weapon has the thrown property, you can make a ranged weapon attack with it instead If you have the Extra Attack feature, you can use your bonus action to make two attacks with the weapon in your off hand

Dual-Wielding has replaced the Light Property when it comes to wielding two weapons in either hand.

Dual-Wielding†. This weapon is designed to be wielded in concert with another weapon. When wielding another weapon in your main hand that does not have the heavy property, you can use your bonus action to make an attack with this weapon (see Two-Weapon Fighting on page 446 in Chapter 8: Combat).

honestly i think base fighter ought to of just gotten four fighting styles naturally,

Laser Llama's Alternate Fighter does you allow to pick up four fighting styles at 1st, 6th, 12th and 18th level. Some of the Fighting Styles come with an Expert version. For instance, with my favorite:

Dual Wielding​

Prerequisite: Strength or Dexterity of 13 or higher
While two-weapon fighting, you make your off-hand attack as part of your Attack action instead of your bonus action, and you add your ability modifier to the damage of this attack. You cannot also make an attack with your bonus action that turn.

Dual Wielding Expert​

Prerequisite: 6th-level Fighter, Dual Wielding
One-handed melee weapons are considered to have the Light property for you, and when you are wielding a melee weapon in each hand, you gain a +1 bonus to your Armor Class.

The Expert version of Dual Wielding is sort of like the Dual Wielding Feat. If I was using Laser Llama's Alternate Fighter, I probably would pick up Dual Wielding and Dual Wielding Expert in order to get an ASI or another feat in at 4th level.

 

[NotAYakk]

Protection, 100%. Though when Interception came into being, I started using that more.

I want to go with one of those, but who fights adjacent to another PC as a melee character? You are usually running off to pin someone down, and the people you want to protect are elsewhere in cover.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Maybe I'm wrong, but whenever I've done class DPR comparisons it always seems to me that having one of the basic at-will damage increasing styles is considered part of the DPR scaling for those classes that get fighting styles. Because of that, it's a real hard sell for me to take any of the defensive or more interesting ones as a first choice. Some are interesting enough to take a second style for though.

I've house ruled some rebalances to a few styles (all 5.0).

I didn't change TWF style, but I changed how TWF works so that if you get the Extra Attack feature you get the same number of extra off-hand attacks, and you only need to use a bonus action for the last one. So a 5th level fighter can make 1 off-hand attack without using a bonus action, or 2 if they use it. For a 20th level fighter that's 3 or 4. I did this because it places their damage a little above a great weapon style, which it should since it requires more investment (including things like drawing/sheathing/item using economy and the need for 2 magic weapons rather than 1). This does make it significantly better for fighter than other classes.

For Great Weapon, I just changed it to a flat +2 damage, because I hate that it is better for a greatsword than a greataxe and couldn't figure out a reasonable way to fix the imbalance. That also makes sure it balances with Dueling. I did nerf the Great Weapon Master feat, and mine looks more like the non ASI portion of 5.5 than 5.0.

For Dueling style I changed it to make keeping an open hand not as useless, and to fit the visual aesthetic of switching back and forth between 1 and 2 handed useage. Instead of its benefit being based on being wielded in one hand, it is now based on wielding only one weapon that lacks the two-handed property. So you can use a versatile weapon in two hands. I also have it give you a +1 AC if you are not wielding a shield. Comparing the AC, damage bonuses and hand investment in all its different modes to themselves and great weapon fighting, it looks pretty balanced. It has more flexibility now, but any particular way of using it should be more or less on par with any other.

If you want maximum damage and are willing to heavily invest and limit your round to round options for it: Two-Weapon style. If you want second highest damage and minimum investment with the most round to round freedom due to free-hand economy: Great-Weapon style. If you want to still get assumed damage scaling, but focus more on defense than the other options, or you want to regularly do something with your off-hand (such as use a spellcasting focus or grapple), or you just want to be able to flavor your attacks as being either one or two-handed so you can look cool (I will let you describe it either way and still get the versatile damage if your other hand is free): Dueling style.

 

[ART!]

I made the mistake of running a thri-kreen fighter weapon master (using 5.5E's weapon masteries/properties) with the two-weapon fighting style. I mean, I learned a lot - mostly that I will never do that again. Too complicated - I had to make a combat flow-chart for that guy.

That said, he royaly kicked ass.

 

[Stormonu]

I want to go with one of those, but who fights adjacent to another PC as a melee character? You are usually running off to pin someone down, and the people you want to protect are elsewhere in cover.

I do, standing either next to the cleric or wizard. Enemies either have the choice of attacking my high AC or have disadvantage attacking my ally, and the ally is close enough to use touch spells on me if needed.

Opportunity attacks are not enough to pin down enemies at a distance with the nerf bat damage the fighter puts out.

 

[Tigris]

I do, standing either next to the cleric or wizard.

But then the bad guys can walk around you without opportunity attacks to hit them?

 

[Voadam]

Interception. My paladin was able to bodyguard and support other characters using their reaction to get more done most rounds. The visual of parrying incoming blows was great and it viscerally felt like I was actively helping others (often the rogue, sometimes the warlock, or others). Much better flow at the table than the original give someone disadvantage before they roll one.

I would occasionally find myself solo in melee and not able to use it, but I was able to maneuver around a bunch for it to come into play fairly often and fellow PCs adapted to maneuver to be next to me as well. At higher levels it feels less impactful as the numbers diverge between how much is prevented and how many attacks and how much damage they do goes up, but it is still good.

 

[Minigiant]

I still kinda wish fighting styles were more like modified how you fought with all weapons and armor.

So you could have 2 swordsman using the same weapon but fighting differently.

This is why Protection and Interception are my faves.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Pretty much exclusively GWF if I care about doing damage, and Defensive if I don't. While I like certain kinds of dual-wielding (especially lightsabers in KotOR 1 and 2!), in D&D itself I often feel it is just...either lackluster or frustrating to work with.

Nearly all others just flat suck unless you're on some weird niche build, or know that you're going to be in unusual conditions. Blindfighting, for example, is useful if you know you're going to be in darkness a lot, especially magical darkness. But other than that, it's....very weak. The styles meant to capture some of the tactical combat of previous editions are even worse, being woefully inadequate at what they're supposed to do.

 

[Basic Expert]

I still kinda wish fighting styles were more like modified how you fought with all weapons and armor.

So you could have 2 swordsman using the same weapon but fighting differently.

This is why Protection and Interception are my faves.

I agree. And I dislike fighting styles so much it's pretty much a deal-breaker for me running 5E.

I loathe design that forces characters into one-trick pony silos. Fighting styles compound that problem of being limiting by also being boring. And, in some cases, like great weapon fighting, actually annoying ("oh wait, Bob has to roll his greatsword damage again....").