I'll be rolling up a fighter in the near future and considering there's a dearth of strength in the party, I'm going to use a greatsword.
Now, it seems like the wider community seems to believe the GWF style to be sub par, but I expect magical equipment to feature prominently in the campaign. With that in mind, does the GWF style become much better when the likes of flametongue dice are included? Or should I just go defence anyway?
GWF style is fine even without magic weapons, I'm not sure why you've been told it's sub par. It gives a decent damage boost to great swords (the average damage goes up from 7 to 8.33) and makes them even more consistent; you're very unlikely to roll anything lower than a 5.
I'll be rolling up a fighter in the near future and considering there's a dearth of strength in the party, I'm going to use a greatsword.
Now, it seems like the wider community seems to believe the GWF style to be sub par, but I expect magical equipment to feature prominently in the campaign. With that in mind, does the GWF style become much better when the likes of flametongue dice are included? Or should I just go defence anyway?
I myself just rolled up a GWF char, due to my sorcerer losing out to an orb of dragon kind, and failing resistances to suggestion spells, and planarly Being transferring away when fighting something, to help bbeg.
I have same philosophy regarding greatswords, sentient swords, etc.
The new char I have, to be vague with you so you can try and see/guess where he went.
Rolled 18/13/17/8/15/11.
char needs to be level 11 at this stage of campaign. I chose Goliath race and folk hero background.
i chose a multi class route. I went fighter 3. Rogue 3. Cleric 5.
end game is fighter 6. Rogue 3. Cleric 8. Barbarian 3. And rather than the 4 magic items I was allotted to stay scaled with group i bartered dm to trade all 4 to him for 1 legendary greatsword of his choice. He looked at my char up and down. And gave me Black Razor.
which direction do you think I went for a GW fighter?
GWF is a good option, but if you’re going to be tanking, defense might be better. Let other do the damage while you keep them safe. It’s not as flashy, but tanks rarely are.
GWF is an excellent choice, just make sure your Strength is sufficient to improve your odds of landing hits as much as possible. Pick up the associated feat for even more fun.
GWF = 8.3 vs 7 Avg Damage with 2d6 TwoHander. (So no Shield) But much less with a 1d12 2hander, from avge 6.5 to 6.83.
So if you are going to use it you absolutely want to use a two die weapon. The single die weapons are garbage paired with it. But to compare it with another damage booster style:
Dueling is +2 to single hander, bringing 1d8 weapon avge 4.5 to 6.5 damage. (Plus you get to still use a shield, so +2ac)
So the real comparison is 1 hander at 6.5 average damage plus +2 AC or 2 hander for avg 8.3 damage. Pretty obvious which is better, but at least it isn't so much better that it isn't even a choice. There is some merit to maximum damage output if that is your thing.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
GWF style is fine even without magic weapons, I'm not sure why you've been told it's sub par. It gives a decent damage boost to great swords (the average damage goes up from 7 to 8.33) and makes them even more consistent; you're very unlikely to roll anything lower than a 5.
GWF = 8.3 vs 7 Avg Damage with 2d6 TwoHander. (So no Shield) But much less with a 1d12 2hander, from avge 6.5 to 6.83.
So if you are going to use it you absolutely want to use a two die weapon. The single die weapons are garbage paired with it. But to compare it with another damage booster style:
Dueling is +2 to single hander, bringing 1d8 weapon avge 4.5 to 6.5 damage. (Plus you get to still use a shield, so +2ac)
So the real comparison is 1 hander at 6.5 average damage plus +2 AC or 2 hander for avg 8.3 damage. Pretty obvious which is better, but at least it isn't so much better that it isn't even a choice. There is some merit to maximum damage output if that is your thing.
Yeah as mentioned here its sub-par due to the other options just being better on average. Ultimately you get about 1 extra damage per hit at the cost of +2 AC or +1 AC.
1 point of damage pales in comparison to these advantages unfortunately.
Yes its viable somewhat I guess but the style is for sure is weaker than the others.
I'll be rolling up a fighter in the near future and considering there's a dearth of strength in the party, I'm going to use a greatsword.
Now, it seems like the wider community seems to believe the GWF style to be sub par, but I expect magical equipment to feature prominently in the campaign. With that in mind, does the GWF style become much better when the likes of flametongue dice are included? Or should I just go defence anyway?
GWF style is fine even without magic weapons, I'm not sure why you've been told it's sub par. It gives a decent damage boost to great swords (the average damage goes up from 7 to 8.33) and makes them even more consistent; you're very unlikely to roll anything lower than a 5.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
I myself just rolled up a GWF char, due to my sorcerer losing out to an orb of dragon kind, and failing resistances to suggestion spells, and planarly Being transferring away when fighting something, to help bbeg.
I have same philosophy regarding greatswords, sentient swords, etc.
The new char I have, to be vague with you so you can try and see/guess where he went.
Rolled 18/13/17/8/15/11.
char needs to be level 11 at this stage of campaign. I chose Goliath race and folk hero background.
i chose a multi class route. I went fighter 3. Rogue 3. Cleric 5.
end game is fighter 6. Rogue 3. Cleric 8. Barbarian 3. And rather than the 4 magic items I was allotted to stay scaled with group i bartered dm to trade all 4 to him for 1 legendary greatsword of his choice. He looked at my char up and down. And gave me Black Razor.
which direction do you think I went for a GW fighter?
(edit: I’ll link him after some guesses)
Blank
GWF is a good option, but if you’re going to be tanking, defense might be better. Let other do the damage while you keep them safe. It’s not as flashy, but tanks rarely are.
GWF is an excellent choice, just make sure your Strength is sufficient to improve your odds of landing hits as much as possible. Pick up the associated feat for even more fun.
GWF = 8.3 vs 7 Avg Damage with 2d6 TwoHander. (So no Shield) But much less with a 1d12 2hander, from avge 6.5 to 6.83.
So if you are going to use it you absolutely want to use a two die weapon. The single die weapons are garbage paired with it. But to compare it with another damage booster style:
Dueling is +2 to single hander, bringing 1d8 weapon avge 4.5 to 6.5 damage. (Plus you get to still use a shield, so +2ac)
So the real comparison is 1 hander at 6.5 average damage plus +2 AC or 2 hander for avg 8.3 damage. Pretty obvious which is better, but at least it isn't so much better that it isn't even a choice. There is some merit to maximum damage output if that is your thing.
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
Yeah as mentioned here its sub-par due to the other options just being better on average. Ultimately you get about 1 extra damage per hit at the cost of +2 AC or +1 AC.
1 point of damage pales in comparison to these advantages unfortunately.
Yes its viable somewhat I guess but the style is for sure is weaker than the others.
It's not a bad option if you go with a half-orc champion and multi into barbarian for reckless attack with a 2d6 weapon.
Crit fishing all day! It'll be better than some think.