So I was talking with a buddy about the fighter/paladin feature Great Weapon Fighting. It looks good, because who doesn't want to reroll a 1 or 2 for damage? However on closer inspection it's actually quite crappy.
To take a closer look at this mechanic, let's look at it applied to the smallest die, the d4. To quote my friend:
"You have a fifty fifty chance of rolling 3+ on one dice. If you're over, you have an expected outcome of 3.5 ((3+4)/2). If you roll under, you have an expected outcome on the reroll of 2.5 ((1+2+3+4)/2). So the expected value of your throw is .5*3.5 + .5*2.5 = 3."
So on a d6, the math is: (0.66×((3+4+5+6)÷4))+(0.33×((1+2+3+4+5+6)÷6)) = 4.125
2d6 = 8.25
d12:
(0.833×((3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10+11+12)÷10))+(0.166×((1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10+11+12)÷12)) = 7.3265
d10: (0.8×((3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10)÷8))+(0.2×((1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10)÷10)) = 6.3
So fighting style-wise, GWF is worse than Dueling for fighters and paladins bc at best (w/ 2d6 greatsword) it gives +1.25 damage while Dueling gives +2 damage and +2 shield ac. At worst it gives +.8 or .83 with glaive or greataxe.
A GWF fighter/paladin with Polearm Mastery feat benefits the most. With this feat a glaive does on average 6.3+3+str vs 5.5+2.5+str w/ diff style. But that is still only +1.3 damage. Is this any better than +1ac w/ Defense style in the world of bounded accuracy?
A Dueling fighter/paladin with a d8 weapon gets 4.5+2+ability and +2 ac from shield, and if you go the dex/finesse/rapier route you also get better init, ref saves (which are better than str saves) and more skills get improved. Even if you go strength Dueling, +2 flat damage and +2 ac is not only superior, but also easier/faster as you roll less dice.
Thoughts?
You missed the fact that GWF works on every extra die, including crits, battlemaster dice, and paladins smites.
mellored wrote:
Macv12 wrote:
There are 16 possible maneuvers, 9 max known, most playing will be done with ~5 known, and about 6 of them won't benefit from GWF (not sure about sweeping attack). So IF you pick Battlemaster, IF you have superiority dice left, and IF you use a relevant maneuver, you'll get an extra 0.75 damage increase from GWF on your superiority dice (0.8 at 10lvl).
It does work better with Smite as it is 2d8, or a +1.5 increase in damage, and with either a greatsword or Polearm Mastery you finally beat the +2 damage (2.75-2.8 increase) from Dueling while still missing out on +2 ac. Smite is also limited by spell slots until lvl11, where you get a 1d8 on all attacks, so an additional .75 increase with GWF.
I guess crits would be nice, for the 5% of the time they happen.
Still, GWF is quite disappointing to me as is. It would be worth it if you could change any rolled 1 or 2 to a 3 instead. No rerolling. That equals to a +1 increase per die (ie +2 increase on 2d6). Or make it even more powerfull and just reroll all 1s or 2s until you get a 3+.
mellored wrote:
Gee, you mean a damage bonus that gets applied to what are already the most damaging weapons in the game, and has the feat support for even more damage, and scales with critical hits is less than a static bonus for a less damaging weapon type that doesn't get scaled on a crit?
Almost sounds like it's intentional.
Clutchbone wrote:
mellored wrote:
Lord_Ventnor wrote:
mellored wrote:
GladiusLegis wrote:
Clutchbone wrote:
mellored wrote:
I think 5E has been inoculated somewhat against alpha strike and you have to look at the complete combat package to really gauge effectiveness. As an example of the other half of the equation, here's a level 7 Strength 18 Fighter in plate+1 fighting a dire wolf:
Greatsword: 3.85 hits taken in average round, 0.0875 percent chance of prone
Longsword and Shield: 2.85 hits taken in average round, 0.0625 percent chance of prone
That's 35% more damage received and 40% more chance of receiving a debuff. Admittedly these ratios are going to narrow vs more powerful opponents and conversely get a little wider if the DM loves throwing hordes of fractional CR enemies at the party. But +2 AC is a big deal, especially when coupled with a nice +2 to damage.
Also, I suspect some percentage of DMs will read GWF as only applying to the weapon's own dice. I do think it needs to apply to rider effects e.g. Smite to be competitive, but I wouldn't call it a given.
Clutchbone wrote:
First, I think your math is off by a little bit, OP:
Great Weapon Fighting adds ~0.67 damage to a d6, or ~1.33 damage to a greatsword (2d6).
The easiest way for me to figure this is:
(n-2)/n
where n = the number of sides on the die.
Thus, you get:
d4 0.5
d6 0.67
d8 0.75
d10 0.8
d12 0.83
If you account for a 5% critical hit rate, this gives the great sword about 1.4 bonus damage.
Secondly, as previously stated, I think you need to compare the relative value of the features:
Duelist gives you about 6.5 damage per weapon attack (base) and you are hit 45% of the time.
Great Weapon Fighting gives you about 8.4 damage per weapon attack (base) and you are hit 55% of the time.
Great Weapon Fighting increases your base damage by 8.4/6.5 or 29%.
If you factor in a damage bonus from abilities, let's use +4, it increases your damage by 12.4/10.5 or 18%.
Great Weapon Fighting increases your damage taken (or status effects applied) by 55%/45%, or 22%.
So they're pretty close, 18% more damage (with a +4 modifier) for 22% more damage taken (with an AC that is roughly 50/50).
The value of this trade-off can change based on things such as other bonus damage dice, other static damage modifiers, and how hard you actually are to hit.
I think Great Weapon Fighting is reasonable for players who want to dish out a lot of damage, but depending on the class and desired goal Duelist may be more valuable.
Macv12 wrote:
Great Weapon Fighting is worth taking if you are going to take the Great Weapon Master Feat. +10 damage is pretty damn nice, especially if you have a way of gaining advantage to offset the -5 to your attack. Duelist doesn't get an equivalent option to deal such a massive amount of damage.
This is wierd to me, on every other thread everyone talks about how powerful Great Weapon Fighters are and how they outclass every other style (duelist and dual-wielding) and know I find a thread about how weak it is compared to duelist...
These forums are an odd place for me at times
My Great Weapon fighter (human variant) took the Sentinel feat. It's thematic. She has had no problem with dealing damage. Theorycrafting, like this thread it doing, is what gets things nerfed unnecessarily. Please stop.
Chaosmancer wrote:
Silly question:
My fighter is a Defensive Two handed. +5%dmg done, +10%dmg taken than duelist. -13% dmg done, -10%dmg taken than GWF. Mathwise, did I pick the single worst combination?
Or maybe more balanced? I enjoy playing fighters as versatile battle commanders. My dwarf can switch between two weapons and sword'n board without losing his core bonus (though I plan to invest on Great Weapon Master feat, huge power attack fan here, and great combos with riposte, AoOs, feintint attacks etc).
GWF looks like it has a lot of potential if you build for it, whereas dueling can only really be exploited with multi-attacking.. Which works for GWF too anyways. I think it's important to look at GWF as part of a whole package, especially with the existence of Smites and such.
Chaosmancer wrote:
GuruMaux wrote:
2Chlorobutanal wrote:
Thoughts_My_Aim wrote:
2Chlorobutanal wrote:
Thoughts_My_Aim wrote:
2Chlorobutanal wrote:
2Chlorobutanal wrote:
I'm confused by this. The duelist class JUST adds +2 to your damage roll. It doesn't include +2 to your AC. It just gives you the option of carrying a shield, which would add that. But if you do that, you can't use two-handed weapons. Thereby lowering your DPR significantly.
With the two-weapon fighting class, you get to attack twice and add your ability modifier to the damage roll of your second attack. As you level up that modifier will grow, while the duelist class will always stay at a static +2. Combine that with the LVL 5 extra attack and you can attack 4 times in one round!
So doesn't that make two-weapon fighting better?
Ansbach wrote:
Undrhil wrote:
Madmarrik wrote:
Madmarrik wrote:
The appeal of the Greatweapon Fighting style is that you get a damage-boosting feature that you can use with 2H weapons, which do a lot more damage than 1H weapons. So yes, Duelist is a bigger boost, but your overall damage output is still going to be smaller than a 2H weapon user. So if you absolutely need to maximize your damage output, Greatweapon Fighting is the best option.
The real reason a player in my game chose Great Weapon Fighting is that he gets to roll more dice (and as mentioned by Novacat) more absolute damage. 
I think it is a bit like scimitars in 3.5 or the Keen feat, arguably they are both a waste of space but I frequently saw them used.
Chaosmancer wrote:
Chaosmancer wrote:
Zardnaar wrote:
7he_professor wrote: