D&D 5E What's your ideal Fighter damage ratio?

[ren1999]

Let's say the high level fighter is 25th level.

Her strength is 20 natural because of ability level-ups and she has a strength enhancing pair of gauntlets that increase her strength to 25.

I would like her bonuses to be equally divided between both of these.
Right now, I'm toying with a few formulas for bonuses.

I'm ditching the martial damage dice and bonuses and just dividing her level of 25 / 5 = a level bonus of (+5).

Then I'm lowering the ability bonus by using the formula 25 - 10 / 3 to get a strength bonus of (+5). Why? Because 5 is a good metric number that is easy to remember and low enough to reduce the math but high enough to make a difference.

Now I would say that this level bonus not only could replace MDD and MDB but could also replace feats and feat taxes for a better to hit bonus. But people will just ignore that and add house rules for feats.

So feats would also add to her chances to hit. +5 for weapon training, weapon proficiency, weapon speciality, weapon expertise and weapon mastery. These can be chosen when the character gains a level-up power.

Then there is the magic of the weapon. Because every bonus I have set is +5, then I'll set the magic to a maximum of +5.

If she uses a dagger that is 1d4.
If she uses a small sword, "I'm renaming all the weapons, small, large, and two-handed" she will do 1d8.
If she uses a large sword, she will do 1d10.
If she uses a two-handed sword, she will do 1d12.

Let's say she chooses a large sword as her main weapon and a small sword as her off-hand weapon.

To Hit would be
1d20+
abi mod+5+
lvl mod+5+
feat mod+5+
magic mod+5+
As a situation modifier we'll either have advantage, disadvantage, or a normal roll.

Main Damage would be
large sword 1d10+
abi mod+5+
lvl mod+5+
feat mod+5+
magic mod+5+

Off-Hand Damage would be
small sword 1d8+
abi mod+5+
lvl mod+5+
feat mod+5+
magic mod+5+

Let's say she does maximum damage in 1 turn.
That is 30 damage main.
That is 28 damage off-hand.

But wait. If we keep the latest play-test packet's additional action at 5th level, the damage would be more.

Let's say she gets an additional main attack at 8th level and an additional off-hand attack at 15th level.

That maximum damage would now be --
60 main damage, 56 off-hand damage
That is 116 damage in 1 turn.

But, she is 25th level and has maximum possible strength.
The npc has 100 hit points.
Asmodeus has 250 hp at level 20.
Would it be possible to kill his avatar inside of 2 turns with maximum damage?
Sure. But she is higher level.
We'll need to alter his stats.
Asmodeus at 25th level would have 25d12 hit points
He would also get the same number of attacks per turn as she would.

 

[ren1999]

In other words, two evenly matched opponents could kill each other inside of 2 turns if they did maximum damage. That seems about right to me. And sure, Asmodeus' Avatar could be defeated by the greatest human hero in the world. But he would still be alive on his home plane -- so, somewhat undefeatable.

 

[GX.Sigma]

Assuming he's using a 1d8 weapon and has a +5 strength bonus:

1d8 of it should come from his weapon. 5 of it should come from his strength. The rest should come from his training, skill, and experience. It's not like the sword gets bigger as he gains levels--it's still a 1d8 sword, and he still has 20 strength.

The important thing for me is that training and experience are far, far more important than physical strength or weapon type. A level 11 fighter with 15 strength should be better than a level 10 fighter with 20 strength.

 

[delericho]

My first thought was to weigh strength and weapon choice equally, and have them modulated by skill.

So I would say that your damage output ought to be your weapon plus your strength, multiplied by a skill factor.

I like this.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

Skill is 85% or 90%

When you get to high levels, and you are fighter that can fight with any weapon, the weapon damage shouldn't matter much, it is all in the skill of the fighter. If weapon choice is almost unimportant at high levels, I am fine with that. This makes weapon choice more of a flavor/style choice than a mechanical one.. and I think that is just fine.

 

[Markn]

So a broad question then. If skill is the largest percentage of damage, what is the best way to display that? IMO, I think multiples of the weapon dice make sense - such as 2w, 3w and so on.

Taking this further, what if the standard weapon was 2w damage at first level? I think there could be a lot of benefits boosting it over the 1w as it is now. First, unlike previous editions where a class was not proficient with a weapon it was displayed as a penalty to hit. In the bounded accuracy DDN it could now be expressed a 1w less than usual. I was thinking also that the weapons dice could be added at level 6, 11, 16 so that it would end at 5w. WotC stated they were hoping to make the fighter the baseline damage and wizards for example could spike above that. This being the case, at first level it is easy to design spells that do less damage,near equal damage or more damage since you now have a higher average to work with. It seems to scale pretty nice as the baseline and seems to work with the opinion that skill should be the largest component.

Don't get too hung up on the actual numbers or how fast/slow they scale but are there any better ways to express skill and is there a downside to starting weapon damages at a higher amount than has been seen in the past?

 

[A'koss]

So a broad question then. If skill is the largest percentage of damage, what is the best way to display that? IMO, I think multiples of the weapon dice make sense - such as 2w, 3w and so on.

The problem with this is that it makes a huge chunk of the weapon's list undesirable at higher levels as most will just gravitate to the highest die weapons they can use. This is why they went with skill bonuses being expressed with d6s regardless of weapon. That way, (especially at higher levels) *all* weapons are viable in your hands from dagger to greatsword and thus opening up more character concepts as viable.

 

[Markn]

The problem with this is that it makes a huge chunk of the weapon's list undesirable at higher levels as most will just gravitate to the highest die weapons they can use. This is why they went with skill bonuses being expressed with d6s regardless of weapon. That way, (especially at higher levels) *all* weapons are viable in your hands from dagger to greatsword and thus opening up more character concepts as viable.

So, in conjunction with that, make weapons limited by Str. One suggestion in another thread was:

Str <12 D4 weapons
Str 13-14 D6 weapons
Str 15-16 D8 weapons
Str 17-18 D10 weapons
etc

This means a fighter with 17 Str, for example, would be willing to use any d10 weapon he can get his hands on but that each weapon could be defined by the type of damage and/or other effects it could dole out. It leaves it open for the fighter to use whatever weapon he wants.

I would think the same could be done for Dex weapons (ranged/thrown).

Also, if someone wanted to use a higher damage weapon they could, but they would be doing 1W less than someone who had training and ability to use it.

Lastly, does the game benefit with a fighter being able to do effectively the same damage with a dagger as a greatsword? While its nice being able to pick up any weapon, should you be able to do almost the same damage? Apart from corner cases, where a different weapon is needed, does it really happen all that often that you wouldn't use the weapon you want to use anyways?

 

[A'koss]

So, in conjunction with that, make weapons limited by Str. One suggestion in another thread was:

Str <12 D4 weapons
Str 13-14 D6 weapons
Str 15-16 D8 weapons
Str 17-18 D10 weapons
etc

I saw this before and I'm not so sure about it. The thing is, with a low strength you're already doing less damage than a higher strength character so does it really make sense to doubly penalize them? And other than the fighter, the other classes have various weapon restrictions in place already. I don't know I'd really want to limit their choices even more...

Lastly, does the game benefit with a fighter being able to do effectively the same damage with a dagger as a greatsword? While its nice being able to pick up any weapon, should you be able to do almost the same damage? Apart from corner cases, where a different weapon is needed, does it really happen all that often that you wouldn't use the weapon you want to use anyways?

Well in true D&D fashion, you're often running across nifty enchanted weapons... which aren't the weapon you're used to (or wish it were). Mace of Disruption, Hammer of Thunderbolts, Maul of the Titans, Dagger of Soul Stealing, Short Sword of Sharpness, Wave, Whelm, Blackrazor, etc, etc.

So you can see the benefit of having skill trump specific weapon if you want to change your character style over the course of a campaign or you take a toolkit approach to weapons. The idea being you eventually become so skilled at how to kill, it matters little *what* you kill with. A dagger to a dragon's brain makes the dragon just as dead as if you lopped his head off with a greataxe.

But I can see that TH weapons could stand to have a little perk to offset the advantage of sword & board, etc. But I think all it would take is +1 to hit with TH weapons as +1 to hit goes a long way in 5e...

 

[Markn]

I saw this before and I'm not so sure about it. The thing is, with a low strength you're already doing less damage than a higher strength character so does it really make sense to doubly penalize them? And other than the fighter, the other classes have various weapon restrictions in place already. I don't know I'd really want to limit their choices even more...

I think in this case there wouldnt be a need to categorize weapons using simple and martial. The str limitation is what categorizes them. In play for example, few wizards have a str above 11. Clerics and rogues are a bit higher while fighters usually try to max the score out. So, in terms of the tropes we have seen over the years, this matches fairly well with the expected weapons a class would have. In fact, I think this provides additional incentive to have a wizard with a 14 str because now he can deal better weapon damage than the typical 10 str wizard. Additionally, I don't think non-fighter classes do any less damage, they pretty much do the same. Sure, there are some cases where a non fighter does a bit more or less than usual but that really is determined by str created at character creation time. Finally, with the advent of things like at will spells and such, the only time you rely on these attacks as a non-fighter is with opportunity attacks.

Well in true D&D fashion, you're often running across nifty enchanted weapons... which aren't the weapon you're used to (or wish it were). Mace of Disruption, Hammer of Thunderbolts, Maul of the Titans, Dagger of Soul Stealing, Short Sword of Sharpness, Wave, Whelm, Blackrazor, etc, etc.

So you can see the benefit of having skill trump specific weapon if you want to change your character style over the course of a campaign or you take a toolkit approach to weapons. The idea being you eventually become so skilled at how to kill, it matters little *what* you kill with. A dagger to a dragon's brain makes the dragon just as dead as if you lopped his head off with a greataxe.

But I can see that TH weapons could stand to have a little perk to offset the advantage of sword & board, etc. But I think all it would take is +1 to hit with TH weapons as +1 to hit goes a long way in 5e...

This is one area I can see some issues. I think there are ways around it but the community as a whole would have to be supportive of the answer.

A'koss, thanks for the detailed answers. I really want to learn the issues that come from this suggestion and it's posts like this that really help me!