level 5 Champion Fighter with a Greatsword and GWM in 2014: 2*(2d6*.5+(3+10)*.4) = 17.4
level 5 Champion Fighter with a Greatsword and GWM in 2024: 2*(2d6*.75+4+3*.65) = 22.4
Now, I'm not arguing against your point (it definitely isn't double - I'm pretty sure that was an exaggeration), but if the dual wielding works the way I think it does, then Great Weapons are no longer the best choice for DPS for the Champion Fighter.
I don't exactly follow your math, but this is what I get assuming a 0.7% base hit chance:
2024 5th level Champion Fighter with +4STR, GWM, GWF, and Greatsword: 24.1 average damage per turn
2024 5th level Champion Fighter with +4STR, TWF, DW, a Scimitar and a Shortsword: 25.05 average on the first turn and 26.76 on each following turn (due to Vex chaining)
The math for that is actually quite complex, so it's hard to write down exactly how I got there. For the dual wielder, the Extra Attack with a Vex weapon increases the hit chance of the Bonus Action attack which is also done with a Vex weapon, which then affects the hit chance of the first attack of the next turn...
Of course that's purely optimized for DPS. The Greatsword wielding Fighter still has a bonus action to drink potions and such, while the Dual Wielder uses their bonus action to attack each turn.
Edit: Just for fun, I calculated it over various hit chances, and also included the 2014 Greatsword Champion Fighter. Look at this cool plot: https://imgur.com/a/bAlMNnv
And this plot assumes that the 2014 Fighter makes the perfect decisions about when to take the -5 to hit for the extra 10 damage.
The concern I have is that 2024e classes tend to be stronger than 2014e ones, and 2024e statblocks, from what I've seen (that's admittedly a very limited selection) tend to be weaker than 2014e ones. With 2014e encounters from published adventures, I'm finding that the enemies are already having to be buffed to provide substance to the fights. This makes me concerned that if I run 2024e rules across the board, they're going to be even more trivialised.
I'd hoped that they'd buff the statblocks to make them more challenging so I don't have to buff them anymore, rather than weakening them.
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
I don't have time to go full spreadsheet right now but Dual Wielder isn't better than TWF damage-wise for Fighters. At 8.33 per damage roll (due to GWF style) and adding your PB to damage (GWM), every Greatsword swing at 5th level works out to about the same as two 1d6 + MOD attacks before you factor in Graze or GWM's Hew. They're fairly close with Extra Attack, but it's absolutely no contest with Two Extra Attacks.
TWF is also competing against Polearm Master builds that can make reaction attacks and reliable bonus attacks that can still add damage from Dueling FS or GWM (at 8th level), and can also make use of either Cleave or Graze.
level 5 Champion Fighter with a Greatsword and GWM in 2014: 2*(2d6*.5+(3+10)*.4) = 17.4
level 5 Champion Fighter with a Greatsword and GWM in 2024: 2*(2d6*.75+4+3*.65) = 22.4
Now, I'm not arguing against your point (it definitely isn't double - I'm pretty sure that was an exaggeration), but if the dual wielding works the way I think it does, then Great Weapons are no longer the best choice for DPS for the Champion Fighter.
I don't exactly follow your math, but this is what I get assuming a 0.7% base hit chance:
2024 5th level Champion Fighter with +4STR, GWM, GWF, and Greatsword: 24.1 average damage per turn
2024 5th level Champion Fighter with +4STR, TWF, DW, a Scimitar and a Shortsword: 25.05 average on the first turn and 26.76 on each following turn (due to Vex chaining)
The math for that is actually quite complex, so it's hard to write down exactly how I got there. For the dual wielder, the Extra Attack with a Vex weapon increases the hit chance of the Bonus Action attack which is also done with a Vex weapon, which then affects the hit chance of the first attack of the next turn...
Of course that's purely optimized for DPS. The Greatsword wielding Fighter still has a bonus action to drink potions and such, while the Dual Wielder uses their bonus action to attack each turn.
Edit: Just for fun, I calculated it over various hit chances, and also included the 2014 Greatsword Champion Fighter. Look at this cool plot: https://imgur.com/a/bAlMNnv
And this plot assumes that the 2014 Fighter makes the perfect decisions about when to take the -5 to hit for the extra 10 damage.
The GWM fighter also has a chance to proc the ability to make a bonus action attack (19% from critical chance alone for Champion at level 5) and Action Surge favours GWM, since that is another two attacks with PB and more chance to trigger a critical. Then reducing a creature to 0HP (which can't be modelled) can also proc the BA attack.
At level 9 PB goes to +4 and then level 11 goes to 3 attacks per action which leaves GWM vastly in front.
The maths was done off of a 65% hit chance, 10% crit chance. I didn't add GWF into the mix.
As it currently stands, I'd say Halberd has the highest DPR possible for any weapon, with GWM and PAM, it has cleave, pole strike and reactive strike but it does rely on having two targets to hit, it's possible to get up too 5 attacks without extra attack or action per round with Halberd currently.
I don't have time to go full spreadsheet right now but Dual Wielder isn't better than TWF damage-wise for Fighters. At 8.33 per damage roll (due to GWF style) and adding your PB to damage (GWM), every Greatsword swing at 5th level works out to about the same as two 1d6 + MOD attacks before you factor in Graze or GWM's Hew. They're fairly close with Extra Attack, but it's absolutely no contest with Two Extra Attacks.
TWF is also competing against Polearm Master builds that can make reaction attacks and reliable bonus attacks that can still add damage from Dueling FS or GWM (at 8th level), and can also make use of either Cleave or Graze.
The thing is, I did the spreadsheet and you see the result in my post above. If the base hit chance is 50% or more, then Dual Wielding performs better than Greatsword.
At least at level 5, the perks of Dual Wielding and Two Weapon Fighting are completely balanced against the perks of GWM and Great Weapon Fighting Style. Note that GWM in 2024 is 8 damage per attack roll, not 8.33 (that was 2014 rules). With STR=4 and PB=3:
TWF+DW = 4x3.5+4*STR = 30
GWF+GWM = 2x8+2*STR+2*PB = 30
So, the only things left to consider is the weapon mastery. Graze gives you +4 damage for every miss. Vex turns 3 of the 4 attacks to advantage.
According to my math, the extra damage from advantage increasing hit chance and crit chance (with the Champion fighter from 10%% to 19%) outperforms the Graze damage, unless you're fighting monsters that are really hard to hit (18 AC or more in our example).
I have rarely used the 5e monsters personally, I have always either made my own monsters or more frequently used 3e stuff like Tome of Horror which without conversion works awesome and things like that, more recently Flee Mortals which I think works really well and more importantly is a lot of fun. So I'm not up to speed on the official 5e monster book, but from what I have gathered from this and other conversations on this forum, the problem might actually not be monster design or class design (even though I still think it might be to some degree, monster design, as I solve it by using other monster manuals) but actually the issue is with Bound Accuracy. Maybe?
What I mean is that bound accuracy creates a pretty light power balance that can be easily broken by optimization and magic items or spells. Basically unless you have really low stats in prime attributes (which normally you wouldn't have with 4d6 and certainly not array or point buy), with the various bonuses you can create through optimization selection (which I do agree is now even more likely to happen with feats being core), you can, especially if combined with certain spells get crazy bonuses to hit and damage.
Personally I have found that in games where players are either not tactically minded or not optimizers, 5e D&D is absolutely lethal. I ran LMOP for a group of non-optimizers and they TPK'ed 3 times in a row, and I mean like properly.. round 2 TPK's, not a chance in hell kind of TPK. They called the adventure "mathematically impossible". I helped them with some optimization and offered some tips on spells on the 4th try and they absolutely crushed it, as in the game was easy mode and I literally changed absolutely nothing about the adventure, ran it RAW each time. Much of the reason is that it was with certain combos and spells possible to win what seem like mathematically unlikely fights. Bound Accuracy in a sense is pretty easy to break.
My point is that wether or not the 2014 or 2024 classes are or are not slightly more or less powerful, the core mechanics of the game and the methods of optimization, namely the way you can break the power curve still exist. So when we have these mathematical conversations, I mean, I can setup an attack roll with a +15 modifier pretty easily with 1st-level characters that will do 20+ damage per round. Its a very specific set of class and optimization choices you have to setup to make that happen, not really in the realm of "likely to happen" unless you are actually crunching math and doing hard-core optimization.
Anyway, I guess what I'm saying is that the game is as easy to break now as it was in 2014 and basically you should just... not do that.
At least at level 5, the perks of Dual Wielding and Two Weapon Fighting are completely balanced against the perks of GWM and Great Weapon Fighting Style.
I agree their baseline performance is closely matched at 5th level. However when you consider all the other things R3sistance pointed out, spells like Haste and other sources of Advantage the party might be using, there's still a lot of ways it can fall behind. And once you hit 11th level, it's no contest.
Note that GWM in 2024 is 8 damage per attack roll, not 8.33 (that was 2014 rules.)
Thanks for pointing this out, I had missed this change.
Anyway, I guess what I'm saying is that the game is as easy to break now as it was in 2014 and basically you should just... not do that.
I don't think it's useful to think in terms of "can I min/max a party for a specific encounter" because the answer to that is always yes. The problem with the 2014 rules was that there were a handful of really simpledominant strategies you could execute to break any encounter. I listed them out in a previous post and I've seen most of them play out as both a player and a DM. Playing without feats you didn't really have a lot of ways to customize your character in low level games, but if you did use them, you'd be stupid not to pick the best ones, so you ended up with players doing the same things every fight and rehashing the same small number of broken builds.
The 2024 rules definitely have fewer loopholes and trap options (Witch Bolt and True Strike bordered on useless) and everyone is encouraged to take feats, instead of them being this supposedly "optional" feature but if you choose to use them you have a massive advantage over everyone that isn't.
Certainly, some of the classes have got a damage tuneup, but I think in practice what it means is more consistency across classes rather than significantly increased firepower. 2014 monsters will fare just as well or poorly as they ever did. (Mostly poorly.)
If it's really a problem in your game, add another monster or two.
Yeah if things feel too easy, just treat the encounter budget like there's an extra PC or something. I'd much rather have the higher/more consistent floor.
At least at level 5, the perks of Dual Wielding and Two Weapon Fighting are completely balanced against the perks of GWM and Great Weapon Fighting Style.
I agree their baseline performance is closely matched at 5th level. However when you consider all the other things R3sistance pointed out, spells like Haste and other sources of Advantage the party might be using, there's still a lot of ways it can fall behind. And once you hit 11th level, it's no contest.
Note that GWM in 2024 is 8 damage per attack roll, not 8.33 (that was 2014 rules.)
Thanks for pointing this out, I had missed this change.
Anyway, I guess what I'm saying is that the game is as easy to break now as it was in 2014 and basically you should just... not do that.
I don't think it's useful to think in terms of "can I min/max a party for a specific encounter" because the answer to that is always yes. The problem with the 2014 rules was that there were a handful of really simpledominant strategies you could execute to break any encounter. I listed them out in a previous post and I've seen most of them play out as both a player and a DM. Playing without feats you didn't really have a lot of ways to customize your character in low level games, but if you did use them, you'd be stupid not to pick the best ones, so you ended up with players doing the same things every fight and rehashing the same small number of broken builds.
The 2024 rules definitely have fewer loopholes and trap options (Witch Bolt and True Strike bordered on useless) and everyone is encouraged to take feats, instead of them being this supposedly "optional" feature but if you choose to use them you have a massive advantage over everyone that isn't.
Its a good point, it actually reminds me of conversations about 3e. Often fans of 3e will claim that because 5e bound accuracy CAN be broken, its a bad mechanic, but the reality of 3e was that you did not need to optimize, you didn't have to do anything but pick things at complete random and you would usually end up with a horribly OP character. Basically the game, played RAW and even without any thought to optimization or tactics you could end up with a character that was completely and utterly out of control.
I don't know that its "good design" if clever players can still find ways to break 5e, perhaps not, but to me, if the "secrets" of breaking it are hard to find and limited to a few combos here and there that result in OP combinations... I think that means you came bloody close enough.
Most of my beefs with modern D&D have to do with the fact that I have a style I prefer and modern 5e doesn't really cover it, but that is about preference vs. intention of design. You can hardly blame a game for not being what you wished it was if it never had any intention to be that. Though I would make the argument that D&D should be what I wish it was given that my preferred style of play was a core and fundamental part of the game for the first half of the franchise's history.
But I digress, my point is that I think that they have closed a lot of the gaps in 2024 that they had in 2014 and I can see that even though the changes are quite subtle, the changes have made a big difference. That and its a really good edit of the game and I think presentation matters a lot.
I don't agree that 2014 monsters are useless in the 2024 edition, but I think its a fair argument that 5e monsters have always been pretty weak in a 5e game, regardless of wether your talking about 2014 or 2024 edition. Like I said. Tome of Horrors... Flee Mortals... There are quality options that fix it out there.
It was an example not that I'm saying sorcerer can defeat a balrog at level 1 I was saying that damage outputs for 24 classes outpace the hp stats for 14 monsters in general. Sorcerer was just the first example on my mind
Point of order but when you use something as "an example" the example should be true and not made up.
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Now, I'm not arguing against your point (it definitely isn't double - I'm pretty sure that was an exaggeration), but if the dual wielding works the way I think it does, then Great Weapons are no longer the best choice for DPS for the Champion Fighter.
I don't exactly follow your math, but this is what I get assuming a 0.7% base hit chance:
The math for that is actually quite complex, so it's hard to write down exactly how I got there. For the dual wielder, the Extra Attack with a Vex weapon increases the hit chance of the Bonus Action attack which is also done with a Vex weapon, which then affects the hit chance of the first attack of the next turn...
Of course that's purely optimized for DPS. The Greatsword wielding Fighter still has a bonus action to drink potions and such, while the Dual Wielder uses their bonus action to attack each turn.
Edit: Just for fun, I calculated it over various hit chances, and also included the 2014 Greatsword Champion Fighter. Look at this cool plot: https://imgur.com/a/bAlMNnv
And this plot assumes that the 2014 Fighter makes the perfect decisions about when to take the -5 to hit for the extra 10 damage.
The concern I have is that 2024e classes tend to be stronger than 2014e ones, and 2024e statblocks, from what I've seen (that's admittedly a very limited selection) tend to be weaker than 2014e ones. With 2014e encounters from published adventures, I'm finding that the enemies are already having to be buffed to provide substance to the fights. This makes me concerned that if I run 2024e rules across the board, they're going to be even more trivialised.
I'd hoped that they'd buff the statblocks to make them more challenging so I don't have to buff them anymore, rather than weakening them.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
I don't have time to go full spreadsheet right now but Dual Wielder isn't better than TWF damage-wise for Fighters. At 8.33 per damage roll (due to GWF style) and adding your PB to damage (GWM), every Greatsword swing at 5th level works out to about the same as two 1d6 + MOD attacks before you factor in Graze or GWM's Hew. They're fairly close with Extra Attack, but it's absolutely no contest with Two Extra Attacks.
TWF is also competing against Polearm Master builds that can make reaction attacks and reliable bonus attacks that can still add damage from Dueling FS or GWM (at 8th level), and can also make use of either Cleave or Graze.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
The GWM fighter also has a chance to proc the ability to make a bonus action attack (19% from critical chance alone for Champion at level 5) and Action Surge favours GWM, since that is another two attacks with PB and more chance to trigger a critical. Then reducing a creature to 0HP (which can't be modelled) can also proc the BA attack.
At level 9 PB goes to +4 and then level 11 goes to 3 attacks per action which leaves GWM vastly in front.
The maths was done off of a 65% hit chance, 10% crit chance. I didn't add GWF into the mix.
As it currently stands, I'd say Halberd has the highest DPR possible for any weapon, with GWM and PAM, it has cleave, pole strike and reactive strike but it does rely on having two targets to hit, it's possible to get up too 5 attacks without extra attack or action per round with Halberd currently.
The thing is, I did the spreadsheet and you see the result in my post above. If the base hit chance is 50% or more, then Dual Wielding performs better than Greatsword.
At least at level 5, the perks of Dual Wielding and Two Weapon Fighting are completely balanced against the perks of GWM and Great Weapon Fighting Style. Note that GWM in 2024 is 8 damage per attack roll, not 8.33 (that was 2014 rules). With STR=4 and PB=3:
So, the only things left to consider is the weapon mastery. Graze gives you +4 damage for every miss. Vex turns 3 of the 4 attacks to advantage.
According to my math, the extra damage from advantage increasing hit chance and crit chance (with the Champion fighter from 10%% to 19%) outperforms the Graze damage, unless you're fighting monsters that are really hard to hit (18 AC or more in our example).
I have rarely used the 5e monsters personally, I have always either made my own monsters or more frequently used 3e stuff like Tome of Horror which without conversion works awesome and things like that, more recently Flee Mortals which I think works really well and more importantly is a lot of fun. So I'm not up to speed on the official 5e monster book, but from what I have gathered from this and other conversations on this forum, the problem might actually not be monster design or class design (even though I still think it might be to some degree, monster design, as I solve it by using other monster manuals) but actually the issue is with Bound Accuracy. Maybe?
What I mean is that bound accuracy creates a pretty light power balance that can be easily broken by optimization and magic items or spells. Basically unless you have really low stats in prime attributes (which normally you wouldn't have with 4d6 and certainly not array or point buy), with the various bonuses you can create through optimization selection (which I do agree is now even more likely to happen with feats being core), you can, especially if combined with certain spells get crazy bonuses to hit and damage.
Personally I have found that in games where players are either not tactically minded or not optimizers, 5e D&D is absolutely lethal. I ran LMOP for a group of non-optimizers and they TPK'ed 3 times in a row, and I mean like properly.. round 2 TPK's, not a chance in hell kind of TPK. They called the adventure "mathematically impossible". I helped them with some optimization and offered some tips on spells on the 4th try and they absolutely crushed it, as in the game was easy mode and I literally changed absolutely nothing about the adventure, ran it RAW each time. Much of the reason is that it was with certain combos and spells possible to win what seem like mathematically unlikely fights. Bound Accuracy in a sense is pretty easy to break.
My point is that wether or not the 2014 or 2024 classes are or are not slightly more or less powerful, the core mechanics of the game and the methods of optimization, namely the way you can break the power curve still exist. So when we have these mathematical conversations, I mean, I can setup an attack roll with a +15 modifier pretty easily with 1st-level characters that will do 20+ damage per round. Its a very specific set of class and optimization choices you have to setup to make that happen, not really in the realm of "likely to happen" unless you are actually crunching math and doing hard-core optimization.
Anyway, I guess what I'm saying is that the game is as easy to break now as it was in 2014 and basically you should just... not do that.
I agree their baseline performance is closely matched at 5th level. However when you consider all the other things R3sistance pointed out, spells like Haste and other sources of Advantage the party might be using, there's still a lot of ways it can fall behind. And once you hit 11th level, it's no contest.
Thanks for pointing this out, I had missed this change.
I don't think it's useful to think in terms of "can I min/max a party for a specific encounter" because the answer to that is always yes. The problem with the 2014 rules was that there were a handful of really simple dominant strategies you could execute to break any encounter. I listed them out in a previous post and I've seen most of them play out as both a player and a DM. Playing without feats you didn't really have a lot of ways to customize your character in low level games, but if you did use them, you'd be stupid not to pick the best ones, so you ended up with players doing the same things every fight and rehashing the same small number of broken builds.
The 2024 rules definitely have fewer loopholes and trap options (Witch Bolt and True Strike bordered on useless) and everyone is encouraged to take feats, instead of them being this supposedly "optional" feature but if you choose to use them you have a massive advantage over everyone that isn't.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
Yeah if things feel too easy, just treat the encounter budget like there's an extra PC or something. I'd much rather have the higher/more consistent floor.
Its a good point, it actually reminds me of conversations about 3e. Often fans of 3e will claim that because 5e bound accuracy CAN be broken, its a bad mechanic, but the reality of 3e was that you did not need to optimize, you didn't have to do anything but pick things at complete random and you would usually end up with a horribly OP character. Basically the game, played RAW and even without any thought to optimization or tactics you could end up with a character that was completely and utterly out of control.
I don't know that its "good design" if clever players can still find ways to break 5e, perhaps not, but to me, if the "secrets" of breaking it are hard to find and limited to a few combos here and there that result in OP combinations... I think that means you came bloody close enough.
Most of my beefs with modern D&D have to do with the fact that I have a style I prefer and modern 5e doesn't really cover it, but that is about preference vs. intention of design. You can hardly blame a game for not being what you wished it was if it never had any intention to be that. Though I would make the argument that D&D should be what I wish it was given that my preferred style of play was a core and fundamental part of the game for the first half of the franchise's history.
But I digress, my point is that I think that they have closed a lot of the gaps in 2024 that they had in 2014 and I can see that even though the changes are quite subtle, the changes have made a big difference. That and its a really good edit of the game and I think presentation matters a lot.
I don't agree that 2014 monsters are useless in the 2024 edition, but I think its a fair argument that 5e monsters have always been pretty weak in a 5e game, regardless of wether your talking about 2014 or 2024 edition. Like I said. Tome of Horrors... Flee Mortals... There are quality options that fix it out there.
Point of order but when you use something as "an example" the example should be true and not made up.