"When you roll a 1 or 2 on a damage die for an attack you make with a melee weapon that you are wielding with two hands, you can reroll the die and must use the new roll, even if the new roll is a 1 or a 2. The weapon must have the two-handed or versatile property for you to gain this benefit."
Now the average roll on a D10 is 5.5. This is calculated by adding all the possible rolls together and then dividing that by the number of possible rolls, so 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10=55. 55/10=5.5. The Great Weapon Fighting style allows us to reroll any 1 or 2 on the die and we 'must' use the new result. The average result of this new dice roll will again be 5.5. So the average result of the first roll by a character possessing the Great Weapon Fighting style will instead be 5.5+5.5+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10=63. 63/10=6.3.
The average damage roll of someone possessing the Great Weapon Fighting style will be 6.3 instead of 5.5. This is a benefit of 0.8 extra damage points per hit. Frankly I find this to be sadly lackluster compared to being able to up the armor class by one or when compared to the whopping +2 damage bonus of the Dueling fighting style.
A better rule perhaps might be someone possessing the Great Weapon Fighting style should be permitted to reroll their damage die for 'any' roll if they choose. That actually does not bump it up all that much more really, making the average roll instead 5.5+5.5+5.5+5.5+5.5+6+7+8+9+10=6.75. So the style would confer a damage bonus of 1.25 damage points, making it marginally more competitive with the other styles.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Bookworm, martial artist, repentant psychic, dried out drug addict, paramedic, pseudo-apostate libertarian, debater, knife maker, SCA basher, professional gamer, speculator, pornographer, and nascent social commentator. ...and I want an uncomplicated life.
If you're using great weapon fighting style you'll probably be using either 2d6 or d12.
The math on it isn't incorrect. I read on another forum a similar post (perhaps where the OP was inspired because it is nearly identical) about this but it wasn't so cut-and-dry on making Great Weapon Fighting being a "bad" choice. It is a less optimal choice but it isn't meant to be mind blowingly powerful; if you couple it with Great Weapon Master feat and Savage Attacker Feat, it does a little better over time.
EDIT: Although it looks like the math was done for Versatile weapons using their two-handed variant damage property, and in that case Great Weapon Fighting is woefully inadequate.
this was your mistake, your not thinking of the correct weapon it is meant for.
2d6 has a higher minimum dmg at a less of a chance at hitting that max dmg over a d12 roll.its average dmg is also slightly higher because of this though.
now with great weapon fighting we increase that max damage chance and decrease the minimum chance greatly. And then your also increasing the average greatly.
With 2d6 the improvement is 1.33*. Changes an average result of 7 into 8.33*. It's nearly a 20% improvement. On a 1d12 it's 6.5 to 7.33*. About 13% improvement.
Basically the smaller the die you use the better simply because more of the results will be a 1 or a 2.
Which is also an easy thing to fix if your player really wants that d12 attack dice (because they like using their d12, or because they think the weapon look cool), and finds GWF underwhelming.
You're also forgetting by RAW (I know there is a big debate on this via RAI) this also affects Smite damage or anything else related to the weapon hit. Such as the extra damage some clerics do at lv 8 Holy weapon / Divine Favor
While it doesn't increase the average damage that much, it DOES increase the average damage when a 1 or 2 is rolled by a good amount.
It takes a 1 and turns it into an average of 5.5 in the d10 case you described. That's an increase of 4.5! Worth losing 1 AC or whatever else? Hard to say. Maybe!
You're also forgetting by RAW (I know there is a big debate on this via RAI) this also affects Smite damage or anything else related to the weapon hit. Such as the extra damage some clerics do at lv 8 Holy weapon / Divine Favor
No, it doesn't. The wording of the feat is "an attack you make with a melee weapon..." Divine Smite is separate from and in addition to the attack you make with the weapon. The War Cleric's Divine Strike would be affected by RAW, because of how it's worded: "you can cause the attack to deal an extra 1d8 damage..." The attack itself is dealing extra damage, so GWF applies. This is not the case for Divine Smite: "you can expend one spell slot to deal radiant damage to the target..." You are dealing the extra damage, not the weapon attack, so no GWF bonus.
Since everyone is commenting on the different types of damage dice and how GWF works with it... here!
Rolling a 1:
1d12 - average increase of 650%!
1d10 - average increase of 550%!
1d6 - average increase of 350%!
Rolling a 2:
1d12 - average increase of 330%!
1d10 - average increase of 280%!
1d6 - average increase of 225%!
Average across all rolls:
1d12 - Average increase of 5%
1d10 - average increase of 6%
1d6 - average increase of 9%
Conclusions:
Average damage increase from GWF is relatively small.
Average damage increase is inversely proportional to the size of the dice.
On a roll of 1 or 2, the average damage increase is substantial.
On a roll of 1 or 2, the average damage increase is highest with higher damage dice.
I guess it's up to you to decide if this is worthwhile. If you're using a two handed weapon, your alternative is to take 1 extra AC. So a 5-9% average damage increase from the damage dice or a 5% decreased chance to be hit. Neither are amazing or build defining but they're both nice to have.
You're also forgetting by RAW (I know there is a big debate on this via RAI) this also affects Smite damage or anything else related to the weapon hit. Such as the extra damage some clerics do at lv 8 Holy weapon / Divine Favor
No, it doesn't. The wording of the feat is "an attack you make with a melee weapon..." Divine Smite is separate from and in addition to the attack you make with the weapon. The War Cleric's Divine Strike would be affected by RAW, because of how it's worded: "you can cause the attack to deal an extra 1d8 damage..." The attack itself is dealing extra damage, so GWF applies. This is not the case for Divine Smite: "you can expend one spell slot to deal radiant damage to the target..." You are dealing the extra damage, not the weapon attack, so no GWF bonus.
"...,in addition to the weapon's damage." This part feels relevant to the opposing argument.
The issue has been answered in SA compendium (which is RAW) and agrees with you. So, RAW: Great weapon fighting style only lets you reroll the weapon's damage dice, not extra damage from spells or features.
I guess it's up to you to decide if this is worthwhile. If you're using a two handed weapon, your alternative is to take 1 extra AC. So a 5-9% average damage increase from the damage dice or a 5% decreased chance to be hit. Neither are amazing or build defining but they're both nice to have.
Actually increasing your AC is 'not' a 5% decreased chance to be hit. If your AC was such that a particular enemy needed to roll a 19 or 20 to hit, increasing your AC by just one more such that they could now hit on only a roll of 20, would translate to a 50% decreased chance of that hit connecting! The higher your AC already is, the more effective an increase in AC becomes.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Bookworm, martial artist, repentant psychic, dried out drug addict, paramedic, pseudo-apostate libertarian, debater, knife maker, SCA basher, professional gamer, speculator, pornographer, and nascent social commentator. ...and I want an uncomplicated life.
I guess it's up to you to decide if this is worthwhile. If you're using a two handed weapon, your alternative is to take 1 extra AC. So a 5-9% average damage increase from the damage dice or a 5% decreased chance to be hit. Neither are amazing or build defining but they're both nice to have.
Actually increasing your AC is 'not' a 5% decreased chance to be hit. If your AC was such that a particular enemy needed to roll a 19 or 20 to hit, increasing your AC by just one more such that they could now hit on only a roll of 20, would translate to a 50% decreased chance of that hit connecting! The higher your AC already is, the more effective an increase in AC becomes.
[Obi-Wan]... from a certain point of view... [/Obi-Wan]
From the other, a change from, say, a 30% chance to be hit to a 25% chance to be hit is a change of 5% overall. It just depends whether you're talking about the delta-change in the percent itself, or the ratio between the old %-chance and the new % chance. Either way, we're arguing over terminology describing exactly the same effect.
[Obi-Wan]... from a certain point of view... [/Obi-Wan]
From the other, a change from, say, a 30% chance to be hit to a 25% chance to be hit is a change of 5% overall. It just depends whether you're talking about the delta-change in the percent itself, or the ratio between the old %-chance and the new % chance. Either way, we're arguing over terminology describing exactly the same effect.
Then it wouldn't be fair to compare two percentages, when one is multiplicative, and the other is additive.
I guess it's up to you to decide if this is worthwhile. If you're using a two handed weapon, your alternative is to take 1 extra AC. So a 5-9% average damage increase from the damage dice or a 5% decreased chance to be hit. Neither are amazing or build defining but they're both nice to have.
Actually increasing your AC is 'not' a 5% decreased chance to be hit. If your AC was such that a particular enemy needed to roll a 19 or 20 to hit, increasing your AC by just one more such that they could now hit on only a roll of 20, would translate to a 50% decreased chance of that hit connecting! The higher your AC already is, the more effective an increase in AC becomes.
[Obi-Wan]... from a certain point of view... [/Obi-Wan]
From the other, a change from, say, a 30% chance to be hit to a 25% chance to be hit is a change of 5% overall. It just depends whether you're talking about the delta-change in the percent itself, or the ratio between the old %-chance and the new % chance. Either way, we're arguing over terminology describing exactly the same effect.
What Obi-Wan said.
Only thing I'll add is on a twenty sided dice the odds of any number being rolled is 5%. Adding one AC effectively removes one number from those numbers that would be a hit, decreasing your chance to be hit by 5%. Discussing this in terms of Delta change is a more precise way of discussing it because it doesn't require any knowledge of existing AC or enemy attack bonus. Those two are unknown variables. Assuming numbers for those variables that cause the ratio to be huge is cheating!
Back to the merits of GWF! Discussing averages, GWF is probably the weakest of the offensive fighting styles. However, in the case when a one or two is rolled, it's the best.
The idea of a big bad warrior with a giant sword or axe is an iconic fantasy depiction and that makes it a great choice at the table for someone who wants to evoke that imagery.
You're also forgetting by RAW (I know there is a big debate on this via RAI) this also affects Smite damage or anything else related to the weapon hit. Such as the extra damage some clerics do at lv 8 Holy weapon / Divine Favor
No, it doesn't. The wording of the feat is "an attack you make with a melee weapon..." Divine Smite is separate from and in addition to the attack you make with the weapon. The War Cleric's Divine Strike would be affected by RAW, because of how it's worded: "you can cause the attack to deal an extra 1d8 damage..." The attack itself is dealing extra damage, so GWF applies. This is not the case for Divine Smite: "you can expend one spell slot to deal radiant damage to the target..." You are dealing the extra damage, not the weapon attack, so no GWF bonus.
"...,in addition to the weapon's damage." This part feels relevant to the opposing argument.
The issue has been answered in SA compendium (which is RAW) and agrees with you. So, RAW: Great weapon fighting style only lets you reroll the weapon's damage dice, not extra damage from spells or features.
I personally still would say it works by how it's written in the book but for the moment I will abide by the SA article. However, let's look at what they said in the sage advice Colum about this fighting style as this whole discussion is about the underpower feeling of this fighting style.
If you use Great Weapon Fighting with a feature like Divine Smite or a spell like hex, do you get to reroll any 1 or 2 you roll for the extra damage? The Great Weapon Fighting feature—which is shared by fighters and paladins—is meant to benefit only the damage roll of the weapon used with the feature. For example, if you use a greatsword with the feature, you can reroll any 1 or 2 you roll on the weapon’s 2d6. If you’re a paladin and use Divine Smite with the greatsword, Great Weapon Fighting doesn’t let you reroll a 1 or 2 that you roll for the damage of Divine Smite.
The main purpose of this limitation is to prevent the tedium of excessive rerolls. Many of the limits in the game are aimed at inhibiting slowdowns. Having no limit would also leave the door open for Great Weapon Fighting to grant more of a damage boost than we intended, although the potential for that is minimal compared to the likelihood that numerous rerolls would bog the game down.
So by the clarification, they even admit that it is probably not the end of the world for this method to work and I can safely say I've had it ruled this way at my table since day one. And I can totally agree it does bog down combat more than anything else. Damage wise it hardly feels broken, I mean on-demand smite is silly enough as it is this is just a sweet bonus to it. But I do recommend it as a rule for anyone feeling like the style doesn't offer them enough of a boost compared to the others. That said if your on something like Roll 20 that can do this math for you, it won't slow the game down at all if you use the correct rolling macro.
The Great Weapon Fighting style is as follows:
"When you roll a 1 or 2 on a damage die for an attack you make with a melee weapon that you are wielding with two hands, you can reroll the die and must use the new roll, even if the new roll is a 1 or a 2. The weapon must have the two-handed or versatile property for you to gain this benefit."
Now the average roll on a D10 is 5.5. This is calculated by adding all the possible rolls together and then dividing that by the number of possible rolls, so 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10=55. 55/10=5.5. The Great Weapon Fighting style allows us to reroll any 1 or 2 on the die and we 'must' use the new result. The average result of this new dice roll will again be 5.5. So the average result of the first roll by a character possessing the Great Weapon Fighting style will instead be 5.5+5.5+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10=63. 63/10=6.3.
The average damage roll of someone possessing the Great Weapon Fighting style will be 6.3 instead of 5.5. This is a benefit of 0.8 extra damage points per hit. Frankly I find this to be sadly lackluster compared to being able to up the armor class by one or when compared to the whopping +2 damage bonus of the Dueling fighting style.
A better rule perhaps might be someone possessing the Great Weapon Fighting style should be permitted to reroll their damage die for 'any' roll if they choose. That actually does not bump it up all that much more really, making the average roll instead 5.5+5.5+5.5+5.5+5.5+6+7+8+9+10=6.75. So the style would confer a damage bonus of 1.25 damage points, making it marginally more competitive with the other styles.
Bookworm, martial artist, repentant psychic, dried out drug addict, paramedic, pseudo-apostate libertarian, debater, knife maker, SCA basher, professional gamer, speculator, pornographer, and nascent social commentator. ...and I want an uncomplicated life.
If you're using great weapon fighting style you'll probably be using either 2d6 or d12.
The math on it isn't incorrect. I read on another forum a similar post (perhaps where the OP was inspired because it is nearly identical) about this but it wasn't so cut-and-dry on making Great Weapon Fighting being a "bad" choice. It is a less optimal choice but it isn't meant to be mind blowingly powerful; if you couple it with Great Weapon Master feat and Savage Attacker Feat, it does a little better over time.
EDIT: Although it looks like the math was done for Versatile weapons using their two-handed variant damage property, and in that case Great Weapon Fighting is woefully inadequate.
Loading...
Watch DnD Shorts on youtube.
Chief Innovationist, Acquisitions Inc. The Series 2
Successfully completed the Tomb of Horrors module (as part of playing Tomb of Annihilation) with no party deaths!
greatsword
this was your mistake, your not thinking of the correct weapon it is meant for.
2d6 has a higher minimum dmg at a less of a chance at hitting that max dmg over a d12 roll.its average dmg is also slightly higher because of this though.
now with great weapon fighting we increase that max damage chance and decrease the minimum chance greatly. And then your also increasing the average greatly.
With 2d6 the improvement is 1.33*. Changes an average result of 7 into 8.33*. It's nearly a 20% improvement. On a 1d12 it's 6.5 to 7.33*. About 13% improvement.
Basically the smaller the die you use the better simply because more of the results will be a 1 or a 2.
Mega Yahtzee Thread:
Highest 41: brocker2001 (#11,285).
Yahtzee of 2's: Emmber (#36,161).
Lowest 9: JoeltheWalrus (#312), Emmber (#12,505) and Dertinus (#20,953).
So GWF is a bad choice because of incorrect build optimization? Easy enough to work around.
Which is also an easy thing to fix if your player really wants that d12 attack dice (because they like using their d12, or because they think the weapon look cool), and finds GWF underwhelming.
Click to learn to put cool-looking tooltips in your messages!
You're also forgetting by RAW (I know there is a big debate on this via RAI) this also affects Smite damage or anything else related to the weapon hit. Such as the extra damage some clerics do at lv 8 Holy weapon / Divine Favor
While it doesn't increase the average damage that much, it DOES increase the average damage when a 1 or 2 is rolled by a good amount.
It takes a 1 and turns it into an average of 5.5 in the d10 case you described. That's an increase of 4.5! Worth losing 1 AC or whatever else? Hard to say. Maybe!
No, it doesn't. The wording of the feat is "an attack you make with a melee weapon..." Divine Smite is separate from and in addition to the attack you make with the weapon. The War Cleric's Divine Strike would be affected by RAW, because of how it's worded: "you can cause the attack to deal an extra 1d8 damage..." The attack itself is dealing extra damage, so GWF applies. This is not the case for Divine Smite: "you can expend one spell slot to deal radiant damage to the target..." You are dealing the extra damage, not the weapon attack, so no GWF bonus.
Since everyone is commenting on the different types of damage dice and how GWF works with it... here!
Rolling a 1:
Rolling a 2:
Average across all rolls:
Conclusions:
I guess it's up to you to decide if this is worthwhile. If you're using a two handed weapon, your alternative is to take 1 extra AC. So a 5-9% average damage increase from the damage dice or a 5% decreased chance to be hit. Neither are amazing or build defining but they're both nice to have.
"...,in addition to the weapon's damage." This part feels relevant to the opposing argument.
The issue has been answered in SA compendium (which is RAW) and agrees with you. So, RAW: Great weapon fighting style only lets you reroll the weapon's damage dice, not extra damage from spells or features.
Actually increasing your AC is 'not' a 5% decreased chance to be hit. If your AC was such that a particular enemy needed to roll a 19 or 20 to hit, increasing your AC by just one more such that they could now hit on only a roll of 20, would translate to a 50% decreased chance of that hit connecting! The higher your AC already is, the more effective an increase in AC becomes.
Bookworm, martial artist, repentant psychic, dried out drug addict, paramedic, pseudo-apostate libertarian, debater, knife maker, SCA basher, professional gamer, speculator, pornographer, and nascent social commentator. ...and I want an uncomplicated life.
Counterpoint: Great Weapon Fighting is an excellent choice if you play a character who enjoys swinging around giant weapons.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
[Obi-Wan]... from a certain point of view... [/Obi-Wan]
From the other, a change from, say, a 30% chance to be hit to a 25% chance to be hit is a change of 5% overall. It just depends whether you're talking about the delta-change in the percent itself, or the ratio between the old %-chance and the new % chance. Either way, we're arguing over terminology describing exactly the same effect.
Then it wouldn't be fair to compare two percentages, when one is multiplicative, and the other is additive.
Click to learn to put cool-looking tooltips in your messages!
What Obi-Wan said.
Only thing I'll add is on a twenty sided dice the odds of any number being rolled is 5%. Adding one AC effectively removes one number from those numbers that would be a hit, decreasing your chance to be hit by 5%. Discussing this in terms of Delta change is a more precise way of discussing it because it doesn't require any knowledge of existing AC or enemy attack bonus. Those two are unknown variables. Assuming numbers for those variables that cause the ratio to be huge is cheating!
That's horriblely off topic though.
Back to the merits of GWF! Discussing averages, GWF is probably the weakest of the offensive fighting styles. However, in the case when a one or two is rolled, it's the best.
The idea of a big bad warrior with a giant sword or axe is an iconic fantasy depiction and that makes it a great choice at the table for someone who wants to evoke that imagery.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
I personally still would say it works by how it's written in the book but for the moment I will abide by the SA article. However, let's look at what they said in the sage advice Colum about this fighting style as this whole discussion is about the underpower feeling of this fighting style.
So by the clarification, they even admit that it is probably not the end of the world for this method to work and I can safely say I've had it ruled this way at my table since day one. And I can totally agree it does bog down combat more than anything else. Damage wise it hardly feels broken, I mean on-demand smite is silly enough as it is this is just a sweet bonus to it. But I do recommend it as a rule for anyone feeling like the style doesn't offer them enough of a boost compared to the others. That said if your on something like Roll 20 that can do this math for you, it won't slow the game down at all if you use the correct rolling macro.