The nuance of the 0.25 DPR increase is that it's so tiny it's not even worth thinking about
Is it? No one talks smack about Lucky even though it "only" affects 2 of your many, many dice rolls, because people understand the value of needing this particular roll to not suck. I sincerely believe there's a framing problem here. Why are we framing this as "0.25 DPR" and not "bad damage roll insurance?" Why doesn't anyone frame Lucky as like...0.5% of your rolls get better?
At first level with a primary stat of 16, AC 16, and attack bonus +4 enemies, the effectiveness of the fighting styles are
Archery: hit chance 70% to 80% is +14% (becomes better if cover is common). Drops off marginally at higher levels.
Blind: in situations where it applies, chance to hit goes from 70% to 91% (+30%), enemy chance goes from 45% to 20.25% (+122%). Actual power level depends on how often it comes up.
Defense: chance to be hit drops from 45% to 40%, for a 12% increase in survivability. Effectiveness is extremely inconsistent at high levels -- at level 1 enemies are rarely outside of the +3 to +5 range, at level 20 likely enemy attack bonuses range from swarms of low CR monsters with attack bonuses of +6 or so, to CR 30 mythics with a +19.
Dueling: 7.5->9.5 = 26.7%. If you're weapon juggling to exploit the light property, 13->17 = 30.7%. Drops off somewhat faster than archery, as damage per attack scales faster than hit chance.
Great (with a greatsword): 10->11 = 10%. Same type of dropoff as dueling.
Great (with a greataxe): 9.5->9.75 = 2.6%. Same type of dropoff as dueling.
Interception: only applies to teammates to hard to value. 1d10+PB is pretty amazing in tier 1 but drops off fast.
Protection: it's a whole lot better than it was in 2014 but only applies to teammates, so hard to directly evaluate.
Thrown: it's the same as dueling if you're throwing tridents, better if you're using less clunky thrown weapon options.
Two-Weapon (with two d6 weapons): 10->13 = 30%. Generally scales worse than dueling -- yes, your ability score modifier increases, but it applies to only one attack per round, whereas dueling applies to multiple.
The nuance of the 0.25 DPR increase is that it's so tiny it's not even worth thinking about
Is it? No one talks smack about Lucky even though it "only" affects 2 of your many, many dice rolls, because people understand the value of needing this particular roll to not suck. I sincerely believe there's a framing problem here. Why are we framing this as "0.25 DPR" and not "bad damage roll insurance?" Why doesn't anyone frame Lucky as like...0.5% of your rolls get better?
Many many dice rolls? At level 1-4, you're probably making fewer than 20 die rolls per day, so it's 10%, and because you can pick and choose which rolls you care about, in practice it's better than that. Also, new Lucky is competing with origin feats, not fighting style feats (and is a whole lot worse than old lucky).
The nuance of the 0.25 DPR increase is that it's so tiny it's not even worth thinking about
Is it? No one talks smack about Lucky even though it "only" affects 2 of your many, many dice rolls, because people understand the value of needing this particular roll to not suck. I sincerely believe there's a framing problem here. Why are we framing this as "0.25 DPR" and not "bad damage roll insurance?" Why doesn't anyone frame Lucky as like...0.5% of your rolls get better?
The problem is that it doesn’t provide much insurance against poor rolls: for the Great Axe, getting a three is only a little better than a one or two. It will be very nice for the odd occasion when your opponent’s remaining HP are equal to 3 + your Strength modifier + whatever other damage bonuses you have and then you roll a 1 or 2.
The nuance of the 0.25 DPR increase is that it's so tiny it's not even worth thinking about
Is it? No one talks smack about Lucky even though it "only" affects 2 of your many, many dice rolls, because people understand the value of needing this particular roll to not suck. I sincerely believe there's a framing problem here. Why are we framing this as "0.25 DPR" and not "bad damage roll insurance?" Why doesn't anyone frame Lucky as like...0.5% of your rolls get better?
Lucky is usable on saving throws, advantage on saving throws is a HUGE deal and actually meaningful since unlike gains more Damage, there are not many ways to get advantage on saving throws. Early on it's usable to get advantage on attacks (or disadvantage on attacks against you) and as you go further in against creatures where saving throws become more common, you have enough a day it's definitely going to make a huge difference, 0.25 is making virtually no difference. But the ability to get advantage on 4 saving throws at level 10? That's a pretty big deal.
Additionally for Rogues, Lucky can enable getting a sneak attack in a situation you otherwise would not be able too. What is a 0.25 average DPR increase going to do for anybody? At least the +2 of Duelling is likely resulting in some creatures dying faster but a 0.25 is so unlikely to be causing that. For a Greatsword or Maul, of the 36 potential dice rolls, GWF affects 20 of them or over half of them. Thus as I say, GWF is only good on Greatsword or Maul and even then it's still behind Duelling but at least not by much.
As has been noted already in the thread, it is impossible to add 0.25 points of damage to an attack
DPR calculations have their place, but they aren't the be-all end-all, and they are completely irrelevant to a significant percentage of people who play D&D
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i miss the days when people would just make cool characters and jsut have fun instead of worrying about statics of damage output.
Those days never went away, don't worry
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At first level with a primary stat of 16, AC 16, and attack bonus +4 enemies, the effectiveness of the fighting styles are
Archery: hit chance 70% to 80% is +14% (becomes better if cover is common). Drops off marginally at higher levels.
Blind: in situations where it applies, chance to hit goes from 70% to 91% (+30%), enemy chance goes from 45% to 20.25% (+122%). Actual power level depends on how often it comes up.
Defense: chance to be hit drops from 45% to 40%, for a 12% increase in survivability. Effectiveness is extremely inconsistent at high levels -- at level 1 enemies are rarely outside of the +3 to +5 range, at level 20 likely enemy attack bonuses range from swarms of low CR monsters with attack bonuses of +6 or so, to CR 30 mythics with a +19.
Dueling: 7.5->9.5 = 26.7%. If you're weapon juggling to exploit the light property, 13->17 = 30.7%. Drops off somewhat faster than archery, as damage per attack scales faster than hit chance.
Great (with a greatsword): 10->11 = 10%. Same type of dropoff as dueling.
Great (with a greataxe): 9.5->9.75 = 2.6%. Same type of dropoff as dueling.
Interception: only applies to teammates to hard to value. 1d10+PB is pretty amazing in tier 1 but drops off fast.
Protection: it's a whole lot better than it was in 2014 but only applies to teammates, so hard to directly evaluate.
Thrown: it's the same as dueling if you're throwing tridents, better if you're using less clunky thrown weapon options.
Two-Weapon (with two d6 weapons): 10->13 = 30%. Generally scales worse than dueling -- yes, your ability score modifier increases, but it applies to only one attack per round, whereas dueling applies to multiple.
Forgot a few:
Dueling (two attacks w/ Dagger): 8 > 12 = 50%.
Unarmed Fighting (shield in off hand): 4 > 7.5 = 87.5%
Unarmed Fighting (no shield): 4 > 8.5 = 112.5%
Unarmed Fighting (grappling): 0 > 2.5 = divide by zero error
I'm being cheeky but it is perhaps valuable to consider that percent damage increases don't tell the entire story.
The other problem with great weapon fighting is that it requires relatively high effort to track, because unlike static bonuses which you can just write down on your character sheet and forget about until you have to adjust it (e.g. for dueling style you just write 1d8+5 instead of 1d8+3 and forget about it until you change favored weapon or gain attribute points) you have to remember to use it every time you roll damage.
I'm being cheeky but it is perhaps valuable to consider that percent damage increases don't tell the entire story.
Unarmed is a special case because it's a style no-one would consider using without the fighting style. Two attacks with a dagger is just "weapon juggling to exploit the light property" with a bad weapon (though looking back, I did calculate that incorrectly, as I applied both dueling and two weapon fighting).
I did the numbers for average damage increase for 2014 vs 2024 GWF:
D4: +0.5 vs +0.75
D6: +0.67 vs +0.5
D8: +0.75 vs +0.375
D10: +0.8 vs +0.3
D12: +0.83 vs +0.25
2D6: +1.33 vs +1
So, generally worse for additional damage. However, the new GWF will always improve your damage, when triggered, whereas the 2014 version could result in no improvement or even a worse result.
As has been noted already in the thread, it is impossible to add 0.25 points of damage to an attack
DPR calculations have their place, but they aren't the be-all end-all, and they are completely irrelevant to a significant percentage of people who play D&D
They maybe irrelevant to most people playing but here in a discussion of the viability of GWF it is very important.
I did the numbers for average damage increase for 2014 vs 2024 GWF:
D4: +0.5 vs +0.75
D6: +0.67 vs +0.5
D8: +0.75 vs +0.375
D10: +0.8 vs +0.3
D12: +0.83 vs +0.25
2D6: +1.33 vs +1
So, generally worse for additional damage. However, the new GWF will always improve your damage, when triggered, whereas the 2014 version could result in no improvement or even a worse result.
While this is true, it can also result in a significant increase. Turning a 1 into a 12 is an 11 damage increase. While it is still possible to roll low on 2 d12s, A 3 is still a low result for a d12 anyways, it is just not as low as a 1 or a 2.
As for the worst result, that is a what? 1 in 144 chance to occur on a d12. It more affects the lower dies like d6 (1 in 36) and d4 (1 in 16) where 2d6 definitely got the best benefits anyway.
My broader point here is that this is, in fact, a conversation about DPR, and as such the Greataxe shouldn't even factor. You can use Dueling on a Dagger, but nobody is using that math in this discussion when they talk about Dueling. They're not even using the math for a Shortsword, which a Dueling user might more reasonably use, because of course in a conversation about DPR you're only talking about the optimal case. So Greataxe is (and to a lesser degree Glaive and Halberd are) a distraction when comparing GWF to Dueling; it's unreasonable to compare Dueling's best-case to GWF's worst and expect that to mean anything. Comparing best-case to best-case, it's clear that GWF is doing fine; it doesn't add as much damage as Dueling because Greatsword users are already dealing plenty of damage and don't really need the help.
I would be fine with the alternative GWF proposed here, but I also wouldn't hold my breath. We have the version we have, and it's really just Greataxe that suffers for it. If you're hellbent on using a d12 weapon, then yeah, probably don't use GWF. There are other good options for you to take. Those options don't increase your damage, but if we're talking about a d12 weapon we're already outside the optimal DPR conversation, so I really don't see what the problem is.
Let me bottom line this so it's very clear what I'm saying: if we're going to talk about optimal DPR, let's talk about optimal DPR. If we're not talking about optimal DPR, what are we doing quibbling over fractional average damage?
I am sorry, but it seems to me too much of a cut-and-dried argument. Based on your reasoning, a player either chooses according to their tastes and suffer the consequences balance-wise, or they choose according to character optimization, implicitly agreeing to give up their personal preferences. If we accept that the game has obvious imbalances, then why talk about game balance at all?
A game should at the very least strive to offer equality between comparable choices. Choosing a Shortsword over a Dagger is pretty obvious: the first is a Martial weapon and has a larger damage die, the other one is a Simple weapon with a smaller die. If you still choose a Dagger over a Shortsword, you are aware that you are making a suboptimal choice. But why choosing a Greatsword over a Greataxe would be equally obvious, at least damage-wise? They're both Martial, two-handed, heavy, slashing weapons. Yes, the Greatsword costs more, but that rarely matters after character creation. Some players don't even understand that on average, 2d6 is better than 1d12- and GWF further increases the gap (we're talking a minimum damage roll of 3 vs 6, that's literally twice as powerful). So what's the point of making one choice so much better than the other?
I mean, at least the two-handed 1d10 weapons have Reach - probably not enough to justify the smaller damage die, but you can feel there's a tradeoff. But what's the tradeoff between 1d12 and 2d6 weapons?
(Note: at least now we have the Masteries, and Cleave is arguably better than Graze. Maybe THAT is the tradeoff? But is it enough to bridge the gap?)
However, I agree with you and other commenters that players rarely care about the DPR. They usually make a choice based on their personal preferences, then try to make the most out of it (or they don't). But again, this should not justify the existence of such obvious imbalances. It's not the player who should make the optimal choice, it's the game that should offer comparable choices that are as equal as possible in terms of efficacy/power/whatever. We wouldn't even have revised rules in the D&D 2024 edition if that wasn't a key principle of game design - just a better-looking, shinier version of the old handbooks. Just my two cents, of course.
As has been noted already in the thread, it is impossible to add 0.25 points of damage to an attack
See it from another perspective, then: for 1d12, sometimes (1 in 12, 8.3%) it's a +2 to damage, sometimes (again 1 in 12, 8.3%) it's a +1 to damage, most of the times (10 in 12, 83.3%) it's a +0 to damage.
Compare with Dueling: +2 to damage, all the times.
(or, compare with 2d6: +2 damage 33% of the times, +1 damage another 33% of the times, and +0 to damage for the remaining 33% of the times).
I am sorry, but it seems to me too much of a cut-and-dried argument. Based on your reasoning, a player either chooses according to their tastes and suffer the consequences balance-wise, or they choose according to character optimization, implicitly agreeing to give up their personal preferences. If we accept that the game has obvious imbalances, then why talk about game balance
at all?
A game should at the very least strive to offer equality between comparable choices. Choosing a Shortsword over a Dagger is pretty obvious: the first is a Martial weapon and has a larger damage die, the other one is a Simple weapon with a smaller die. If you still choose a Dagger over a Shortsword, you are aware that you are making a suboptimal choice. But why choosing a Greatsword over a Greataxe would be equally obvious, at least damage-wise? They're both Martial, two-handed, heavy, slashing weapons. Yes, the Greatsword costs more, but that rarely matters after character creation. Some players don't even understand that on average, 2d6 is better than 1d12- and GWF further increases the gap (we're talking a minimum damage roll of 3 vs 6, that's literally twice as powerful). So what's the point of making one choice so much better than the other?
I mean, at least the two-handed 1d10 weapons have Reach - probably not enough to justify the smaller damage die, but you can feel there's a tradeoff. But what's the tradeoff between 1d12 and 2d6 weapons?
(Note: at least now we have the Masteries, and Cleave is arguably better than Graze. Maybe THAT is the tradeoff? But is it enough to bridge the gap?)
However, I agree with you and other commenters that players rarely care about the DPR. They usually make a choice based on their personal preferences, then try to make the most out of it (or they don't). But again, this should not justify the existence of such obvious imbalances. It's not the player who should make the optimal choice, it's the game that should offer comparable choices that are as equal as possible in terms of efficacy/power/whatever. We wouldn't even have revised rules in the D&D 2024 edition if that wasn't a key principle of game design - just a better-looking, shinier version of the old handbooks. Just my two cents, of course.
You and I actually broadly agree on how the game ought to be, I think. I'm just more of a fatalist in terms of the game we actually get. In regards to D&D, I really only talk about game balance in order to avoid pitfalls and help others do the same; the holes are never getting fixed, in my opinion, and if you want to keep playing this game your best bet is to just put up a sign so that people don't fall into them. If someone sees the sign and decides to climb down anyway, they know what they're getting into. That's just my two cents, of course.
With that perspective declared, I hope it's clearer why I don't dismiss your math demonstrating that Great Weapon Fighting is bad for Greataxe, I just dismiss the conclusion that this represents a balance problem with GWF. GWF is usable; it's not a trap Fighting Style. It's just not good for much on Greataxe. So you can homebrew GWF--I think this is a bad idea, for what it's worth--you can homebrew the Greataxe, or you can accept that GWF Greataxe is a bad combination and see what's down that road anyway.
Here's something to consider: average damage with Savage Attacker at 5th level for a Fighter with +4 strength with:
Great Weapon Fighting, Great Weapon Master, Savage Attacker, Greatsword: 8.47 (SA + GWF) + 8 (GWF) + 8 (STR) + 6 (GWM) = 30.47
Defense, Great Weapon Master, Savage Attacker, Greataxe: 8.49 (SA) + 6.5 + 8 (STR) + 6 (GWM) = 28.99
A 5% difference. If you round to the nearest integer (and I honestly think you should in all but the sweatiest DPR conversations), it's down to 3%. (This gap fluctuates slightly with level but never gets above 6%) When we were talking about the damage increase that greataxe gets from Great Weapon Fighting, we had no problem calling these kinds of numbers "trivial" or "worthless". This is the kind of damage difference we're actually looking at in live play. GWF Greataxe is a trivial damage increase, that's an undeniable fact. But in being trivial it opens you up to take a different Fighting Style and gain those non-damage benefits. The same is generally true of Greatsword and Savage Attacker; the increase in damage from a reroll is minimal for the more reliable 2d6, so Greatsword users are generally going to be better served by a different origin feat.
Greatsword doesn't really benefit from Savage Attacker, Greataxe doesn't really benefit from Great Weapon Fighting, Heavy weapons generally should always take Great Weapon Master, and Fighters should build Strength (unless they're building Dexterity). These are just facts about how the game works; this is system mastery. To me, talking about the percentage differences between fighting styles in a vacuum while ignoring the broader game isn't a particularly valuable way to talk about balance. Dueling increases damage by much more than GWF, particularly GWF on Greataxe, but all these things function in the broader context of a game in which GWM and SA and Weapon Masteries also exist.
Bottom line: when I'm telling you that Greataxe is never going to top the DPR charts, I'm giving you a gift. You don't need to milk every little bit of damage out by taking Great Weapon Fighting on your Greataxe user: you can try Defense or Blind Fighting or Interception and you will do fine. Quibbling over what the percentage value of one aspect of a complete build should be is not system mastery; looking at all the options available to you and making informed choices about how your character works as a whole is system mastery. I hope this approach gives you some peace.
Addendum: you don't have to trust me on my Savage Attacker averages; I used this Any Dice Program to generate a best of 2d12 distribution then added together the outcomes multiplied by their probabilities to get expected return; then repeated with 2 groups of 2d6. Feel free to check my work.
Addendum: you don't have to trust me on my Savage Attacker averages; I used this Any Dice Program to generate a best of 2d12 distribution then added together the outcomes multiplied by their probabilities to get expected return; then repeated with 2 groups of 2d6. Feel free to check my work.
You make a valid argument, and indeed offer a very interesting point of view by adding Savage Attacker into the reasoning, which benefits 1d12 way more than 2d6.
(A slight correction to your calculations, though: the first damage of the Greatsword should be 8.91, not 8.47 [for a total of 30.91] - it seems you're not counting GWF for the first attack. Here's the correct calculation: 2 groups of 2d6, replace 1s and 2s with 3s. However, your reasoning still stands in full - the final difference is only 6%).
Still, since Savage Attacker is an Origin Feat, the same reasoning leads to conclude that if you choose to wield a Greataxe, you're somehow forced to take Savage Attacker only to keep up with players who chose a Greatsword. Even without SA, a Greatsword wielder in your example would land at 30 DPR, still on top compared to the Greataxe and with the added freedom of taking any other Origin Feat they like. I concur that these differences are hardly noticeable (if at all) during actual gameplay, but they do show that even in a broader context and not in a vacuum, some choices are undeniably (albeit sometimes only marginally) better than others.
Speaking about the broader context, it gets worse. Since we're talking about Savage Attacker, with that Feat the effects of Great Weapon Fighting become even less noticeable. With Savage Attacker but no GWF, your average weapon damage roll is 8.49 (on your first hit of the round, same calculation as above). With Savage Attacker and GWF, your first-hit damage roll only rises to 8.52, a pretty much infinitesimal 0.03 difference in dpr. At level 5 with Strength 4 and GWM (same as your example), that's less than a 0.1% difference. In other words, if you have SA, taking GWF will basically grant nothing to your character.
All these reason stack up to show the problems in GWF's design. 1) It benefits 2d6 way more than 1d12 (+1 damage per hit vs +0.25 damage per hit); 2) unless you're also taking GWM, wielding a Greataxe while having GWF will give you a negligible bonus (+0.25 per hit) compared to wielding a Battleaxe with Dueling and a shield (+2 AC); 3) if you take Savage Attacker as your Origin Feat, taking GWF will basically give you nothing.
I'm with you in the reasoning about "system mastery", but if system mastery is recognizing that in 99% (100%?) of cases Great Weapon Fighting with any weapon that is not a Greatsword (or a Maul) is a bad choice, this only endorses the OP's argument.
Honestly, the fact that we're comparing to savage attacker (a notably bad origin feat) doesn't help. Though the math is more complicated because savage attacker is something you decide to do when you roll damage, rather than when you attack, so at 70% hit chance when making two attacks, the average is
You make a valid argument, and indeed offer a very interesting point of view by adding Savage Attacker into the reasoning, which benefits 1d12 way more than 2d6.
(A slight correction to your calculations, though: the first damage of the Greatsword should be 8.91, not 8.47 [for a total of 30.91] - it seems you're not counting GWF for the first attack. Here's the correct calculation: 2 groups of 2d6, replace 1s and 2s with 3s. However, your reasoning still stands in full - the final difference is only 6%).
Still, since Savage Attacker is an Origin Feat, the same reasoning leads to conclude that if you choose to wield a Greataxe, you're somehow forced to take Savage Attacker only to keep up with players who chose a Greatsword. Even without SA, a Greatsword wielder in your example would land at 30 DPR, still on top compared to the Greataxe and with the added freedom of taking any other Origin Feat they like. I concur that these differences are hardly noticeable (if at all) during actual gameplay, but they do show that even in a broader context and not in a vacuum, some choices are undeniably (albeit sometimes only marginally) better than others.
Speaking about the broader context, it gets worse. Since we're talking about Savage Attacker, with that Feat the effects of Great Weapon Fighting become even less noticeable. With Savage Attacker but no GWF, your average weapon damage roll is 8.49 (on your first hit of the round, same calculation as above). With Savage Attacker and GWF, your first-hit damage roll only rises to 8.52, a pretty much infinitesimal 0.03 difference in dpr. At level 5 with Strength 4 and GWM (same as your example), that's less than a 0.1% difference. In other words, if you have SA, taking GWF will basically grant nothing to your character.
All these reason stack up to show the problems in GWF's design. 1) It benefits 2d6 way more than 1d12 (+1 damage per hit vs +0.25 damage per hit); 2) unless you're also taking GWM, wielding a Greataxe while having GWF will give you a negligible bonus (+0.25 per hit) compared to wielding a Battleaxe with Dueling and a shield (+2 AC); 3) if you take Savage Attacker as your Origin Feat, taking GWF will basically give you nothing.
I'm with you in the reasoning about "system mastery", but if system mastery is recognizing that in 99% (100%?) of cases Great Weapon Fighting with any weapon that is not a Greatsword (or a Maul) is a bad choice, this only endorses the OP's argument.
Ah, you're correct about the calculation error: I just combined the probability of all 6-and-below rolls into one probability-of-6 rather than individually replacing dice. Your calculation is more accurate.
You really do not have to convince me that Great Weapon Fighting is a bad choice for Greataxe; that was largely the thrust of the post you're quoting. In fact, your entire post here seems to be largely following the same premise as mine, but reaching the conclusion "this state of affairs is unacceptably bad!" instead of, "you are never going to notice these differences in a real game where you build even a little bit correctly." This is our fundamental point of difference: I have seen all the same math as you--barring my .44 calculation flub, on which I can take the L--and I still do not see the problem. Of course some choices are better than others, that's how games work. If all of your choices are equally good then there is no point in making a choice.
This is what I'm talking about in regards to system mastery. The fact that you can identify bad character builds does not make those builds problems with the game. All of the issues you have presented are easily sidestepped by making choices. Great Weapon Fighting and Savage Attacker are redundant? Only take one of them. Heavy Weapons don't have enough damage advantage over Dueling? Take Great Weapon Master. Great Weapon Fighting isn't good on Greataxe or Polearms? Don't use GWF with those weapons. And yes! I realize that means Great Weapon Fighting is not optimal on 5 of the 7 Heavy Melee Weapons! That does make the style quite a niche choice! I still do not think this a problem, because you are not randomly assigned weapons and Fighting Styles! You can simply make better choices.
This is really the last thing I have to say on the subject; if you really feel that Great Weapon Fighting math is so complicated that players won't notice it's designed for (the two highest DPR weapons in the game), then change it. If you think Heavy Martial Weapons need +2 damage per attack to keep up with the lowest DPR fighting style in the game Dueling users, then give it to them. I think you're going to end up causing more problems than you solve, but it's not my circus and not my monkeys.
Also, whether or not I might want to take the greataxe over the greatsword (or other weapons to be honest) might also depend on what class and subclass I am playing. If, for example, I was playing a World Tree Barbarian, I'd much rather have a greataxe over a weapon with Push or Topple, since the level 10 subclass feature gives me those things in addition. 3 options is better than 2 options, even if that third option is situational. And to be honest, very few weapon mastery options excite me as little is Graze does. While Great Weapon Fighting might work better on a greatsword from a pure DPS perspective, you will NEVER be able to use that fighting style and the weapon mastery for the greatsword on the same attack.
The Greataxe is misunderstood. You have over 3x the likely hood of getting max damage with the Greataxe than the Greatsword, for that advantage you pay by having a worse average. It is only a trap weapon if you are adding up all your damage every game and finding the average.
Yes I'm late to the party, but lets not forget the Weapon Mastery of most 2H weapons. Cleave and Graze are pretty awful.
I feel GWF was nerfed to get people away from the sentinel/PAM that everyone was using, but at this point with all the benefits of Vex, Sap, Nick outside of Topple it just feels bad playing it.
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Is it? No one talks smack about Lucky even though it "only" affects 2 of your many, many dice rolls, because people understand the value of needing this particular roll to not suck. I sincerely believe there's a framing problem here. Why are we framing this as "0.25 DPR" and not "bad damage roll insurance?" Why doesn't anyone frame Lucky as like...0.5% of your rolls get better?
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At first level with a primary stat of 16, AC 16, and attack bonus +4 enemies, the effectiveness of the fighting styles are
Many many dice rolls? At level 1-4, you're probably making fewer than 20 die rolls per day, so it's 10%, and because you can pick and choose which rolls you care about, in practice it's better than that. Also, new Lucky is competing with origin feats, not fighting style feats (and is a whole lot worse than old lucky).
The problem is that it doesn’t provide much insurance against poor rolls: for the Great Axe, getting a three is only a little better than a one or two. It will be very nice for the odd occasion when your opponent’s remaining HP are equal to 3 + your Strength modifier + whatever other damage bonuses you have and then you roll a 1 or 2.
Lucky is usable on saving throws, advantage on saving throws is a HUGE deal and actually meaningful since unlike gains more Damage, there are not many ways to get advantage on saving throws. Early on it's usable to get advantage on attacks (or disadvantage on attacks against you) and as you go further in against creatures where saving throws become more common, you have enough a day it's definitely going to make a huge difference, 0.25 is making virtually no difference. But the ability to get advantage on 4 saving throws at level 10? That's a pretty big deal.
Additionally for Rogues, Lucky can enable getting a sneak attack in a situation you otherwise would not be able too. What is a 0.25 average DPR increase going to do for anybody? At least the +2 of Duelling is likely resulting in some creatures dying faster but a 0.25 is so unlikely to be causing that. For a Greatsword or Maul, of the 36 potential dice rolls, GWF affects 20 of them or over half of them. Thus as I say, GWF is only good on Greatsword or Maul and even then it's still behind Duelling but at least not by much.
As has been noted already in the thread, it is impossible to add 0.25 points of damage to an attack
DPR calculations have their place, but they aren't the be-all end-all, and they are completely irrelevant to a significant percentage of people who play D&D
Active characters:
Green Hill Sunrise, jaded tabaxi mercenary trapped in the Dark Domains (Battle Master fighter)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Those days never went away, don't worry
Active characters:
Green Hill Sunrise, jaded tabaxi mercenary trapped in the Dark Domains (Battle Master fighter)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Forgot a few:
Dueling (two attacks w/ Dagger): 8 > 12 = 50%.
Unarmed Fighting (shield in off hand): 4 > 7.5 = 87.5%
Unarmed Fighting (no shield): 4 > 8.5 = 112.5%
Unarmed Fighting (grappling): 0 > 2.5 = divide by zero error
I'm being cheeky but it is perhaps valuable to consider that percent damage increases don't tell the entire story.
The other problem with great weapon fighting is that it requires relatively high effort to track, because unlike static bonuses which you can just write down on your character sheet and forget about until you have to adjust it (e.g. for dueling style you just write 1d8+5 instead of 1d8+3 and forget about it until you change favored weapon or gain attribute points) you have to remember to use it every time you roll damage.
Unarmed is a special case because it's a style no-one would consider using without the fighting style. Two attacks with a dagger is just "weapon juggling to exploit the light property" with a bad weapon (though looking back, I did calculate that incorrectly, as I applied both dueling and two weapon fighting).
I did the numbers for average damage increase for 2014 vs 2024 GWF:
D4: +0.5 vs +0.75
D6: +0.67 vs +0.5
D8: +0.75 vs +0.375
D10: +0.8 vs +0.3
D12: +0.83 vs +0.25
2D6: +1.33 vs +1
So, generally worse for additional damage. However, the new GWF will always improve your damage, when triggered, whereas the 2014 version could result in no improvement or even a worse result.
They maybe irrelevant to most people playing but here in a discussion of the viability of GWF it is very important.
While this is true, it can also result in a significant increase. Turning a 1 into a 12 is an 11 damage increase. While it is still possible to roll low on 2 d12s, A 3 is still a low result for a d12 anyways, it is just not as low as a 1 or a 2.
As for the worst result, that is a what? 1 in 144 chance to occur on a d12. It more affects the lower dies like d6 (1 in 36) and d4 (1 in 16) where 2d6 definitely got the best benefits anyway.
I am sorry, but it seems to me too much of a cut-and-dried argument. Based on your reasoning, a player either chooses according to their tastes and suffer the consequences balance-wise, or they choose according to character optimization, implicitly agreeing to give up their personal preferences. If we accept that the game has obvious imbalances, then why talk about game balance at all?
A game should at the very least strive to offer equality between comparable choices. Choosing a Shortsword over a Dagger is pretty obvious: the first is a Martial weapon and has a larger damage die, the other one is a Simple weapon with a smaller die. If you still choose a Dagger over a Shortsword, you are aware that you are making a suboptimal choice. But why choosing a Greatsword over a Greataxe would be equally obvious, at least damage-wise? They're both Martial, two-handed, heavy, slashing weapons. Yes, the Greatsword costs more, but that rarely matters after character creation. Some players don't even understand that on average, 2d6 is better than 1d12 - and GWF further increases the gap (we're talking a minimum damage roll of 3 vs 6, that's literally twice as powerful). So what's the point of making one choice so much better than the other?
I mean, at least the two-handed 1d10 weapons have Reach - probably not enough to justify the smaller damage die, but you can feel there's a tradeoff. But what's the tradeoff between 1d12 and 2d6 weapons?
(Note: at least now we have the Masteries, and Cleave is arguably better than Graze. Maybe THAT is the tradeoff? But is it enough to bridge the gap?)
However, I agree with you and other commenters that players rarely care about the DPR. They usually make a choice based on their personal preferences, then try to make the most out of it (or they don't). But again, this should not justify the existence of such obvious imbalances. It's not the player who should make the optimal choice, it's the game that should offer comparable choices that are as equal as possible in terms of efficacy/power/whatever. We wouldn't even have revised rules in the D&D 2024 edition if that wasn't a key principle of game design - just a better-looking, shinier version of the old handbooks. Just my two cents, of course.
See it from another perspective, then: for 1d12, sometimes (1 in 12, 8.3%) it's a +2 to damage, sometimes (again 1 in 12, 8.3%) it's a +1 to damage, most of the times (10 in 12, 83.3%) it's a +0 to damage.
Compare with Dueling: +2 to damage, all the times.
(or, compare with 2d6: +2 damage 33% of the times, +1 damage another 33% of the times, and +0 to damage for the remaining 33% of the times).
You and I actually broadly agree on how the game ought to be, I think. I'm just more of a fatalist in terms of the game we actually get. In regards to D&D, I really only talk about game balance in order to avoid pitfalls and help others do the same; the holes are never getting fixed, in my opinion, and if you want to keep playing this game your best bet is to just put up a sign so that people don't fall into them. If someone sees the sign and decides to climb down anyway, they know what they're getting into. That's just my two cents, of course.
With that perspective declared, I hope it's clearer why I don't dismiss your math demonstrating that Great Weapon Fighting is bad for Greataxe, I just dismiss the conclusion that this represents a balance problem with GWF. GWF is usable; it's not a trap Fighting Style. It's just not good for much on Greataxe. So you can homebrew GWF--I think this is a bad idea, for what it's worth--you can homebrew the Greataxe, or you can accept that GWF Greataxe is a bad combination and see what's down that road anyway.
Here's something to consider: average damage with Savage Attacker at 5th level for a Fighter with +4 strength with:
Great Weapon Fighting, Great Weapon Master, Savage Attacker, Greatsword: 8.47 (SA + GWF) + 8 (GWF) + 8 (STR) + 6 (GWM) = 30.47
Defense, Great Weapon Master, Savage Attacker, Greataxe: 8.49 (SA) + 6.5 + 8 (STR) + 6 (GWM) = 28.99
A 5% difference. If you round to the nearest integer (and I honestly think you should in all but the sweatiest DPR conversations), it's down to 3%. (This gap fluctuates slightly with level but never gets above 6%) When we were talking about the damage increase that greataxe gets from Great Weapon Fighting, we had no problem calling these kinds of numbers "trivial" or "worthless". This is the kind of damage difference we're actually looking at in live play. GWF Greataxe is a trivial damage increase, that's an undeniable fact. But in being trivial it opens you up to take a different Fighting Style and gain those non-damage benefits. The same is generally true of Greatsword and Savage Attacker; the increase in damage from a reroll is minimal for the more reliable 2d6, so Greatsword users are generally going to be better served by a different origin feat.
Greatsword doesn't really benefit from Savage Attacker, Greataxe doesn't really benefit from Great Weapon Fighting, Heavy weapons generally should always take Great Weapon Master, and Fighters should build Strength (unless they're building Dexterity). These are just facts about how the game works; this is system mastery. To me, talking about the percentage differences between fighting styles in a vacuum while ignoring the broader game isn't a particularly valuable way to talk about balance. Dueling increases damage by much more than GWF, particularly GWF on Greataxe, but all these things function in the broader context of a game in which GWM and SA and Weapon Masteries also exist.
Bottom line: when I'm telling you that Greataxe is never going to top the DPR charts, I'm giving you a gift. You don't need to milk every little bit of damage out by taking Great Weapon Fighting on your Greataxe user: you can try Defense or Blind Fighting or Interception and you will do fine. Quibbling over what the percentage value of one aspect of a complete build should be is not system mastery; looking at all the options available to you and making informed choices about how your character works as a whole is system mastery. I hope this approach gives you some peace.
Addendum: you don't have to trust me on my Savage Attacker averages; I used this Any Dice Program to generate a best of 2d12 distribution then added together the outcomes multiplied by their probabilities to get expected return; then repeated with 2 groups of 2d6. Feel free to check my work.
You make a valid argument, and indeed offer a very interesting point of view by adding Savage Attacker into the reasoning, which benefits 1d12 way more than 2d6.
(A slight correction to your calculations, though: the first damage of the Greatsword should be 8.91, not 8.47 [for a total of 30.91] - it seems you're not counting GWF for the first attack. Here's the correct calculation: 2 groups of 2d6, replace 1s and 2s with 3s. However, your reasoning still stands in full - the final difference is only 6%).
Still, since Savage Attacker is an Origin Feat, the same reasoning leads to conclude that if you choose to wield a Greataxe, you're somehow forced to take Savage Attacker only to keep up with players who chose a Greatsword. Even without SA, a Greatsword wielder in your example would land at 30 DPR, still on top compared to the Greataxe and with the added freedom of taking any other Origin Feat they like. I concur that these differences are hardly noticeable (if at all) during actual gameplay, but they do show that even in a broader context and not in a vacuum, some choices are undeniably (albeit sometimes only marginally) better than others.
Speaking about the broader context, it gets worse. Since we're talking about Savage Attacker, with that Feat the effects of Great Weapon Fighting become even less noticeable. With Savage Attacker but no GWF, your average weapon damage roll is 8.49 (on your first hit of the round, same calculation as above). With Savage Attacker and GWF, your first-hit damage roll only rises to 8.52, a pretty much infinitesimal 0.03 difference in dpr. At level 5 with Strength 4 and GWM (same as your example), that's less than a 0.1% difference. In other words, if you have SA, taking GWF will basically grant nothing to your character.
All these reason stack up to show the problems in GWF's design. 1) It benefits 2d6 way more than 1d12 (+1 damage per hit vs +0.25 damage per hit); 2) unless you're also taking GWM, wielding a Greataxe while having GWF will give you a negligible bonus (+0.25 per hit) compared to wielding a Battleaxe with Dueling and a shield (+2 AC); 3) if you take Savage Attacker as your Origin Feat, taking GWF will basically give you nothing.
I'm with you in the reasoning about "system mastery", but if system mastery is recognizing that in 99% (100%?) of cases Great Weapon Fighting with any weapon that is not a Greatsword (or a Maul) is a bad choice, this only endorses the OP's argument.
Honestly, the fact that we're comparing to savage attacker (a notably bad origin feat) doesn't help. Though the math is more complicated because savage attacker is something you decide to do when you roll damage, rather than when you attack, so at 70% hit chance when making two attacks, the average is
Ah, you're correct about the calculation error: I just combined the probability of all 6-and-below rolls into one probability-of-6 rather than individually replacing dice. Your calculation is more accurate.
You really do not have to convince me that Great Weapon Fighting is a bad choice for Greataxe; that was largely the thrust of the post you're quoting. In fact, your entire post here seems to be largely following the same premise as mine, but reaching the conclusion "this state of affairs is unacceptably bad!" instead of, "you are never going to notice these differences in a real game where you build even a little bit correctly." This is our fundamental point of difference: I have seen all the same math as you--barring my .44 calculation flub, on which I can take the L--and I still do not see the problem. Of course some choices are better than others, that's how games work. If all of your choices are equally good then there is no point in making a choice.
This is what I'm talking about in regards to system mastery. The fact that you can identify bad character builds does not make those builds problems with the game. All of the issues you have presented are easily sidestepped by making choices. Great Weapon Fighting and Savage Attacker are redundant? Only take one of them. Heavy Weapons don't have enough damage advantage over Dueling? Take Great Weapon Master. Great Weapon Fighting isn't good on Greataxe or Polearms? Don't use GWF with those weapons. And yes! I realize that means Great Weapon Fighting is not optimal on 5 of the 7 Heavy Melee Weapons! That does make the style quite a niche choice! I still do not think this a problem, because you are not randomly assigned weapons and Fighting Styles! You can simply make better choices.
This is really the last thing I have to say on the subject; if you really feel that Great Weapon Fighting math is so complicated that players won't notice it's designed for (the two highest DPR weapons in the game), then change it. If you think Heavy Martial Weapons need +2 damage per attack to keep up with
the lowest DPR fighting style in the gameDueling users, then give it to them. I think you're going to end up causing more problems than you solve, but it's not my circus and not my monkeys.Also, whether or not I might want to take the greataxe over the greatsword (or other weapons to be honest) might also depend on what class and subclass I am playing. If, for example, I was playing a World Tree Barbarian, I'd much rather have a greataxe over a weapon with Push or Topple, since the level 10 subclass feature gives me those things in addition. 3 options is better than 2 options, even if that third option is situational. And to be honest, very few weapon mastery options excite me as little is Graze does. While Great Weapon Fighting might work better on a greatsword from a pure DPS perspective, you will NEVER be able to use that fighting style and the weapon mastery for the greatsword on the same attack.
The Greataxe is misunderstood. You have over 3x the likely hood of getting max damage with the Greataxe than the Greatsword, for that advantage you pay by having a worse average. It is only a trap weapon if you are adding up all your damage every game and finding the average.
Yes I'm late to the party, but lets not forget the Weapon Mastery of most 2H weapons.
Cleave and Graze are pretty awful.
I feel GWF was nerfed to get people away from the sentinel/PAM that everyone was using, but at this point with all the benefits of Vex, Sap, Nick outside of Topple it just feels bad playing it.