D&D 5E Why do people think elven accuracy is so great?

[Benjamin Olson]

I've played one character with this feat - a ranged-specialised Battle Master fighter. The first fight I got into, I was hidden at range, and made my attack with super-advantage.

And rolled a triple 1.

I suppose that is the experience of every 8000th person who takes the feat.

But it feels like a level of fumble where your character should just spontaneously combust or something.

 

[ECMO3]

People have mentioned the crit-fishing benefit, but the simple accuracy benefit is also sizable. If you normally hit 60% of the time, with triple-advantage you hit over 93% of the time. If you would normally only hit 30% of the time, triple-advantage gives you more than a 65% chance to hit. IOW, Elven Accuracy can turn battles that should be "just run, you have no hope in hell" into "this is reasonably achievable," so long as you still have any chance at all of hitting in the first place. And, as noted, you can push yourself up to over 14% chance to crit, so not only are you hitting far more often, more of your hits will be crits, too.

This is overstating the benefit, because any time you can use eleven accuracy you would not be hitting "normally". You have to have advantage for Elven accuracy to do anything at all so it is not correct to compare 93% to 60%.

If you hit 60% of the time "normally", most of the time Elven accuracy will be useless and you will still hit 60%. If you have advantage it will increase it from 84% to 93% as you noted. To elaborate a little further if you assume you have advantage on 25% of your attacks (which is more than typical in my games) you overall hit rate is 69% with elven accuracy and 66% without elven accuracy. So out of every 100 attacks you will hit 3 more times with elven accuracy if you need a 9+ to hit and have advantage 25% of the time.

If you "normally" hit 30% of the time when you have advantage your accuracy will increase from 49% to 66%. Again if you have advantage 25% of the time your overall accuracy is 39% with Elven accuracy and 35% without elven accuracy. Again out of 100 attacks you hit 4 more times when you need a 15+ to hit and have advantage 25% of the time.

 

[Bill Zebub]

This is overstating the benefit, because any time you can use eleven accuracy you would not be hitting "normally". You have to have advantage for Elven accuracy to do anything at all so it is not correct to compare 93% to 60%.

If you hit 60% of the time "normally", most of the time Elven accuracy will be useless and you will still hit 60%. If you have advantage it will increase it from 84% to 93% as you noted. To elaborate a little further if you assume you have advantage on 25% of your attacks (which is more than typical in my games) you overall hit rate is 69% with elven accuracy and 66% without elven accuracy. So out of every 100 attacks you will hit 3 more times with elven accuracy if you need a 9+ to hit and have advantage 25% of the time.

If you "normally" hit 30% of the time when you have advantage your accuracy will increase from 49% to 66%. Again if you have advantage 25% of the time your overall accuracy is 39% with Elven accuracy and 35% without elven accuracy. Again out of 100 attacks you hit 4 more times when you need a 15+ to hit and have advantage 25% of the time.

You do need to include the crit thing, too, though. Elven accuracy isn't just about hitting. A normal hit has a 5% chance to become a crit through EA.

(And, to be fair, my earlier analysis comparing EA to Lucky left out the crit thing, too.)

 

[TwoSix]

If you "normally" hit 30% of the time when you have advantage your accuracy will increase from 49% to 66%. Again if you have advantage 25% of the time your overall accuracy is 39% with Elven accuracy and 35% without elven accuracy. Again out of 100 attacks you hit 4 more times when you need a 15+ to hit and have advantage 25% of the time.

To be fair, Elven Accuracy really shouldn't be your choice unless you anticipate a lot more than 25% of your attacks having advantage. It really isn't worth it unless you have almost on-demand advantage.

 

[Mort]

Edit : double post

 

[Mort]

Something not yet mentioned:

EA's interaction with Sharpshooter.

A few levels of rogue (for steady aim) and then fighter or ranger (fighter is easier here because of the extra ASIs) and the mid level damage will get pretty serious.

 

[ph0rk]

I've played one character with this feat - a ranged-specialised Battle Master fighter. The first fight I got into, I was hidden at range, and made my attack with super-advantage.

And rolled a triple 1.

And you'll probably remember that for decades.

A bit like rolling a double 20 when attacking with disadvantage; they're just dice but the table erupts in reaction in ways they just don't with the use of a luck point.

 

[MarkB]

And you'll probably remember that for decades.

A bit like rolling a double 20 when attacking with disadvantage; they're just dice but the table erupts in reaction in ways they just don't with the use of a luck point.

Absolutely. My reaction was just an exclamation of "holy crap!" and gesturing at my dice bowl, and the GM taking a picture of the dice for posterity.

 

[NotAYakk]

EA with "free"-advantage and a -5/+10 feat is really strong.

It is also strong with crit-fuel like smites, and with 19-20 crit ranges.

Each attack grants 0.05 crit chances.
19-20 makes it 0.1 (19-20 grants 0.05 crits/attack)
"Free" advantage also makes it 0.1 (Adv grants 0.05 crits/attack)
EA+A makes it 0.14 (EA+A grants 0.09 crits/attack)
A+19-20 makes it 0.19 (each grants 0.09 crits/attack)
EA+A+19-20 makes it 0.27 (EA grants 0.08 crits/attack)

The return on the 2nd of any of these features is more than the first, and it in turn multiplies with crit-fuel abilities.

We are comparing this to a +1 to hit and damage.

If advantage has 90% accuracy on an attack with 5 dice and 5 static damage does 9.5 damage per round.

Adding +1 to hit and static damage is 94% to hit for 5+6, or 10.8 damage per round.

Adding EA instead gives 97% hit 14% crit for 5+5, or 10.4 damage per round. And EA added +1 to your attack stat as well.

This is the bad case for EA. If you leverage EA it gets better.

Assume you have a -5/+10 feat, that becomes 5 dice 15 static at 70% hit/10% crit, or 14.5 DPR without EA.

Add +1/+1 it becomes 75% hit/10% crit for 5+16, or 16.25 DPR.

Add EA and it becomes 83%/14% crit for 5+15, or 17.3 DPR. EA pulls ahead.

And then you can start leveraging this even more.

EA is not bad without optimizing, and you can leverage it to give better results than the naive one with synergy.

 

[ECMO3]

To be fair, Elven Accuracy really shouldn't be your choice unless you anticipate a lot more than 25% of your attacks having advantage. It really isn't worth it unless you have almost on-demand advantage.

You are right. In my games no one really has on demand advantage, although Rogues can come close ... maybe 50% on a ranged Rogue.

As I noted earlier though flanking is not used in the games I DM or most of those I play.