All the guides I've read here have said that Protection Fighting Style is relatively weak because it is mutually exclusive with the Sentinel feat, and because the allies you want to protect are unlikely to be within 5 feet of you. What if this ability were added to the text of Protection Style?
"Once per round, when you are within 5 feet of the path of a ranged attack, you may move up to 5 feet, interjecting yourself into the attack's path (applying disadvantage to the attack as per the PHB). The attacker may choose to change their target to you instead of the original target."
This ability would be much more widely applicable, and wouldn't use your reaction, but would have a significant downside. What do you think? Is this worth a fighting style? Too strong? Too weak?
Strill wrote:
13th Age has an intercept mechanic I quite like. As long as you're not otherwise engaged in melee, when a monster moves "past" you, you can move and engage with them.
In D&D terms, you'd use a reaction and move up to your speed and then make an attack. Quite powerful. But the prerequisite of not being in melee already evens it out a bit.
Nevvur wrote:
Strill wrote:
Strill wrote:
The whole phrasing of within 5 feet of the path of a ranged attack makes me not like this.
Because now you're introducing something mechanical called "the path of a ranged attack" which doesn't currently exist in 5e D&D.
Oraibi wrote:
Protection style does add versatility, I like that you do not actually have to be in reach of the attacking creature to use it and that it is very hard to use sneak attacks against your ward since you strip away advantage (which would have allowed SA) or allows an attack to be made with disadvantage (which cancels a possible SA). So to SA with that particular attack an attacker needs to have advantage and threaten your ward with another attacker.
Sentinel is great when they actually have to move past you to attack your companion but this is not always the case, certainly not every battle. Since often they can simply avoid you or choose to attack you instead, most cretures arent too fond of provoking reaction attacks.
Making an attack when creatures disengage is nice, but often they are already defeated when they do. It is nice against rogues though.
Making an attack against a creature within 5 ft if it attacks another creature.. that is nice though you would need to have freedom to move to make the most out off it. Usually this means dispatch your own direct enemy first then go to aid the wizard and lay down some pain if he dares ignore you.
Both certainly useful, some overlap is there but you will not use sentinel every round, the combination of the two feats will guarantee you uses for your reaction in most rounds of combat with multiple foes, if you want to be really good at what you do you take both.
EzechielDantan wrote:
There will still be situations where the enemy will want to eat the Sentinel reaction attack if it means landing a hit on the sentinel's ally, e.g. the monster can finish the ally with one hit, but the monster can survive multiple hits from the sentinel. True, the threat of the feat is greater than the fighting style, but doesn't force the enemy's hand.
Oraibi wrote:
Your 2nd-level party has encountered and Ogre and your Sentinel/Protection Fighter moves in to attack and lock it down. With nowhere to Hide, your party's Rogue moves up for a Sneak Attack on the Ogre you're fighting, but misses with his first shortsword attack. Instead of Disengaging, and knowing you're able to Protect him, he decides to try his bonus action attack to damage this challenging foe. His attack is successful. The Ogre, stung and enraged, turns to the Rogue and attacks. Now... what's more important, Protecting your Rogue or attacking the Ogre?
Danny_Montanny wrote:
Nevvur wrote:
If you want to be able to move to intercept an enemy, you could always say that you can move as part of your reaction tothe extent that you have movement left unused from your turn. That would mean that if you only moved 15 feet on your turn that you could move up to 15 feet as part of your reaction.
Psikerlord wrote:
IMO protection works well with sentinel.
#1 Protection requires sword and board so let's compare it with other sword and board fighters.
#2 Let's assume the fighter has a 60% chance to hit. Let's assume the monster is 15ft away from the fighters squishy ally and the monster has a 50% chance to hit that ally. Protection doesn't help in this situation at all. But let's compute what sentinel allows the fighter to do. The monster tries to move away. 60% of the time the fighter will do a little bit of damage to the monster and stop it's movement. 40% of the time it will get to go attack the ally with it's 50% chance to hit. The ally only get's damaged about 20% of the time. Sentinel protects ranged characters very well.
#3 So far sentinel sounds better than protection. Let's examine further. 1d8+5 dmg on a fighter's sentinel attack that only connects about 60% of the time (average dpr 7.35 assuming 1 additional crit range and duelist fighting style from champion) That's the most dmg the sentinel reaction attack does for the sword and board fighter for the whole game. It's not bad early. But late game 7.35 average damage upon attacking your ally just isn't a deterrant.
Let's see how much better protection fares. I'm assuming the monster has a 50% chance to hit. If you use your reaction to use the protection disadvantage action your ally suddenly drops 25% to a 25% chance to be hit. On average this will casue your ally to take 50% damage. That's a much better deterrent than the measly 7.35 dpr you can do with sentinel. (Admittedly this is the best case for protection but even typical cases will lower a monsters chanced to hit by 15% to 20%.
In other words... Sentinel is better for keeping enemies from attacking your ranged characters. Protection is better for helping other melee characters take alot less damage (which may deter the DM from attacking them anyways). The use space for sentinel and protection doesn't overlap for the late game sword and board fighter (sword and board is a requirement for protection). Admittedly I think protection is a little weak on it's own. However if abused by the right party protection could be very strong.
For examle assume there are two fighters each with sentinel and protection. Both approach the solo boss and stay adjacent. If the boss targets either fighter the other one makes the attack have disadvantage. If he tries to run toward any ranged character both have a chance to stop him with sentinel. That's pretty powerful. Or your great weapon wielding barbarian friend might have sentinel and you protection. If you are attacked he inflicts alot of pain to the enemy. If he is attacked you give that attack disadvantage. It's fun to put the enemy in a lose-lose situation!!!
I think the biggest problem with protection is not that sentinel competes with it. As I've stated above, Sentinel doesn't compete with it. It's biggest weakness is that it only ever gives disadvantage to 1 attack targeting your ally. So if there are two enemies or a single enemy that can multiattack then it loses alot of it's effectiveness.
Our Houserule was to apply Disadvantage to ALL attacks on that character until the start of Protector's next turn. This allows Fighters to "Shield Wall" each other as well.
FrogReaver wrote:
Strill wrote:
Strill wrote:
bawylie wrote:
Psikerlord wrote:
MechaPilot wrote:
Psikerlord wrote:
Just a recent update/anecdote on this topic.
In the game I'm playing in, our DM (for the moment at least) allows me to see the dice roll before deciding if my half-orc fighter uses his reaction to invoke protection. It makes the ability quite awesome indeed. If anyone is looking for an easy ruling to make protection "more competitive", I highly recommend this approach. I don't think it's OP given the 5' requirement and you only get one reaction, and not much of a stretch to make the ruling, given the flavour of the ability. Also I'm generally in favour of being slightly more generous in rulings concerning "support/team play" abilities (especially in a new group).
Plus it's much less of a pain in actual play to have time to process the dice roll and then declare I'm invoking protection, rather than try and split second interrupt the DM between "OK I'm attacking xxxx" and the physical dice roll.
cheers 
Why not just houserule the Sentinel feat so that if the PC has both the Sentinel feat and the Protection Fighting style, then the protection fighting style happens as part of the OA from Sentinel? That way, you are not modifying a base class feature and you are not introducting anything too game breaking.
Thermatically, you are attacking the enemy and causing them to lose their focus on your ally just enough to cause their attack on your ally to have disadvantage.
Problem solved. Next?
MechaPilot wrote: