The idea of granting an attack bonus of +1 to each person in "flanking" position has me thinking of making a simple flanking rule that avoids the zig zag positioning and repositioning that tends to happen.
I'm thinking that when 2 or more creatures are in melee and within their reach they get a +1 flanking bonus for each creature that is in melee with the target but not adjacent to them.
So this would mean that 2 characters attacking a single creature would each get a +1 so long as they weren't next to each other.
If you had two characters on one side right next to each other and one on the opposite side. The single character would get a +2 and the characters standing together would each get a +1. This is to account for the fact that the side with the larger number of opponents would tend to have more focus. And it's relatively easy to determine what the bonus is. Just could everyone who is in melee reach of the target but not next to you.
There is a problem with that when facing huge creatures (3x3). The "front" of the creature can hold 3 medium-sized opponents not adjacent to one another.
I don't know that I would consider it a "problem". It would give a +2 bonus to hit for each character. But a +2 bonus isn't game breaking. And how often are you going up against huge creatures.
But beyond that it can be viewed as the ability to "hit the broad side of a barn" because after all. It's a HUGE creature. And it can also be viewed as the difficulty a huge creature has in defending itself from 3 tiny little creatures. Imagine 3 little dogs nipping at your toes. A huge creature has to look down at their feet to target creatures that are within reach to attack it. Which makes its field of view smaller and it's own body is blocking its ability to see those who are attacking it.
I set the level cap at level 23 before epic level so that players don’t feel restricted if they want to dip their characters. Most campaigns never get that high, but knowing that option potentially exists can lead to some rather interesting combinations.
I set the level cap at level 23 before epic level so that players don’t feel restricted if they want to dip their characters. Most campaigns never get that high, but knowing that option potentially exists can lead to some rather interesting combinations.
We use negative hit points. This helps to bolster lower level characters so that they are less squishy and provide a bit of drama.
A character can go as far negative as their Constitution score. When they hit negative 1 they must make a Constitution saving throw. The DC is 10 plus however negative their hit points are. If they succeed on the save they remain conscious. If they fail then they pass out.
They continue to make the save anytime they take damage and at the end of their turn. Additionally while negative they have been wounded and are bleeding out. So a fail on the save also results in a loss of 2 hit points. A success on the save means a loss of 1 hit point. A natural 20 stops the bleeding.
If they drop below their Constitution score in negative hit points then they make a death saving throw. Failure means death.
changed the low level spells who affects hit points like sleep. to affect hit dice instead, like they used to. but now i have cut the dice in half. exemple... Sleep affects normally 5d8 worth of hit points. now it does 5d4 worth of hit dice. i think 5e killed voluntarily some classic low level spells in order to make them less abusive, but in doing so, they just killed those spells entirely.
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DM of two gaming groups. Likes to create stuff. Check out my homebrew --> Monsters --> Magical Items --> Races --> Subclasses If you like --> Upvote, If you wanna comment --> Comment
Play by Post Games --> One Shot Adventure - House of Artwood (DM) (Completed)
The combination of bounded accuracy and the much higher hit points of many of the creatures in 5e they have mostly nerfed the strength based character. They have created parity in melee combat between Dexterity and Strength based fighters. But the Dex based fighters get the advantage of better saves for most AOE spells and bonus to initiative. So there is little reason to build a strength based melee fighter over a dex based one.
So we've adjusted to damage bonuses for strength based melee attacks. Versatile weapons used 2 handed get 1.5 times the strength damage bonus and 2 handed heavy weapons get 2 times the strength damage bonus.
I allow the use of a bonus action as an action. This is explicitly not RAW and not RAI, but I prefer it. You still are limited to one leveled spell per turn and other restrictions, but if you spend a bonus action to move your spiritual weapon, you can still cast healing word by using your action at my table.
I allow the use of a bonus action as an action. This is explicitly not RAW and not RAI, but I prefer it. You still are limited to one leveled spell per turn and other restrictions, but if you spend a bonus action to move your spiritual weapon, you can still cast healing word by using your action at my table.
It's interesting how that would work... I'm reminded of my Bard Character, who had Arcane Hand as a spell. But I eventually dropped it because I had too much other stuff I needed to be able to do with my Bonus Action. I actually swapped it for Animate Objects... that also takes up a bonus action, but animated objects will continue to follow a simple command without needing to consume a bonus action each round.
We do the same with bonus actions. I look at them as a restricted action. All bonus actions are a subset of actions. So by using an action to perform a bonus action you are only restricting yourself.
Bloodied: When you are knocked below half of your HP- attacks and concentration checks are @ disadvantage, speed is halved.
I use something with a similar trigger, generally about half total HP...any injury below that threshold triggers it, and any amount of healing removes it even if they're still lower than half. I used the word "Wounded" instead of Bloodied to prevent it getting confused with "Bleeding".
Wounded: While wounded, if you take a bonus action on your turn, you may not take a reaction until the beginning of your next turn.
But... I also pair it with various homebrew defensive reactions, so that choice has some serious weight to it. Eg. Having a shield doesn't do you any good unless you take a Block Reaction, which lets you add its bonus to your AC. There is also a Parry reaction and several others. The idea of almost everyone having the only real default reaction being an AoO seems silly to me, since blocking or parrying is quite literally "a reaction to an enemy attack". Edit: Also these defensive reactions totally fix flanking without having to specifically give flanking a bonus.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
armor tearing is cool, but if you look at say a rust monster or a black pudding. you already see wear and tear rulings which seems, to me, much better then yours. both monsters says that each hits gives the weapon -1 to its AC or touch. the armor, if reduced to its base 10, is destroyed. the weapons are destroyed once it reaches -5. minds you this if because of acid damage to the weapon or armor. but what i would say is that wear and tear depends on armor type. light would take less hits to lose that -1. my problkem is that you lose the benefits entirely in one shot after some times. i dont like that. i'd preffer a system that loses the benefits and the players can see it coming as they literally loses their blade or armor slowly. but overall i like the idea.
I use this gradual decline and it works great. Stacking -1 penalty on armor that builds up until repaired and if the total ever hits the same as essentially what AC the armor provides it is entirely scrap. I'll hand these penalties out, judiciously, in the thematically appropriate situations like massive damage spikes, large amounts of acid damage, or even just critical hits and the like. Easy, not too hard to track, makes some semblance of sense.
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I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
armor tearing is cool, but if you look at say a rust monster or a black pudding. you already see wear and tear rulings which seems, to me, much better then yours. both monsters says that each hits gives the weapon -1 to its AC or touch. the armor, if reduced to its base 10, is destroyed. the weapons are destroyed once it reaches -5. minds you this if because of acid damage to the weapon or armor. but what i would say is that wear and tear depends on armor type. light would take less hits to lose that -1. my problkem is that you lose the benefits entirely in one shot after some times. i dont like that. i'd preffer a system that loses the benefits and the players can see it coming as they literally loses their blade or armor slowly. but overall i like the idea.
I use this gradual decline and it works great. Stacking -1 penalty on armor that builds up until repaired and if the total ever hits the same as essentially what AC the armor provides it is entirely scrap. I'll hand these penalties out, judiciously, in the thematically appropriate situations like massive damage spikes, large amounts of acid damage, or even just critical hits and the like. Easy, not too hard to track, makes some semblance of sense.
This leads me to a simple question though... what about mage armor and the warlock invocation ? what about Monks and Barbarian Unarmored Defense ? doesn't your way of doing it, render these a must and thus makes fighters and clerics a liability ?
By the way, i really love the idea of bringing strength back to its 3e counter part, which was 1.5x your strength bonus in damage and 2x your bonus in damage on 2 handed weapons. definitely be bringing that back into my game. but i feel like, i should always let it be at 2x though, for simplcity sake.
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DM of two gaming groups. Likes to create stuff. Check out my homebrew --> Monsters --> Magical Items --> Races --> Subclasses If you like --> Upvote, If you wanna comment --> Comment
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Yeah the strength bonus to damage was an issue for me with 5e. Because they really ****** strength builds and tipped the balance on dexterity. So under RAW a Dex based fighter using 2 short swords will do more damage than a strength based fighter using a great sword. Assuming 16 for dex and strength. 1d6+3/1d6+3 for the dual wielding short swords vs 2d6+3 with the great sword.
It's pretty easy to set up 1.5x for weapons used 2 handed and 2x for 2 handed heavy weapons.
Yeah the strength bonus to damage was an issue for me with 5e. Because they really ****** strength builds and tipped the balance on dexterity. So under RAW a Dex based fighter using 2 short swords will do more damage than a strength based fighter using a great sword. Assuming 16 for dex and strength. 1d6+3/1d6+3 for the dual wielding short swords vs 2d6+3 with the great sword.
It's pretty easy to set up 1.5x for weapons used 2 handed and 2x for 2 handed heavy weapons.
Well, you only get to add your ability modifier to the offhand attack's damage if you have the two-weapon fighting fighting style, at which point a great weapon fighter is rerolling on a 1 or 2 for damage from their fighting style, so their average damage is going to be higher anyway.
Also, you can't even use your second weapon until the second round (unless you're just walking around with weapons drawn) unless you have the Dual Wielder feat, which would also allow you to use two non-light weapons which will up the damage die to 1d8 (maybe 1d10? Idk, I'd have to look through the weapons table to see what all qualifies.) If you're factoring in feats though, Great Weapon Master adds a static +10 damage to your attacks with a 2-handed weapon, with the tradeoff that you're effectively rolling at disadvantage (advantage/disadvantage are mechanically equivalent to +/- 5).
Even if you're using just the average damage rolls, a two weapon fighter with the appropriate fighting style and Dual Wielder feat wielding two longswords is going to be doing (4.5 + 3) x 2, or 15 damage per round. A Two-Handed weapon fighter with a 1d12 is going to do on average ~17 damage (you reroll 1s and 2s) per round. This is assuming you hit with all attacks, of course, so with the Two-Handed fighter's effective disadvantage, it more-or-less evens out.
However, the Two-Handed fighter has the advantage that they aren't using their Bonus Action every round to attack with the second weapon, leaving them open to use other abilities, features, or items that can increase their power or alter the battle in other ways. If they take the Polearm Master feat later, they can use their bonus action to do another attack with a 1d4 weapon, further increasing their damage output.
All of this is to say, the two fighting styles are more balanced than you think.
The two handed weapon fighter in your example is averaging about 17 points per round ONLY if they take a -5 to hit penalty from the feat. Otherwise both their average and max damage is going to be less than the 2 weapon fighter. And a -5 to hit is effectively attacking at disadvantage.
Without feats the average damage for two characters with 16 dex wielding 2 short swords vs 16 strength with a great axe is:
1d6+3/1d6+3 = 13 points avg
VS
1d12+3 reroll 1s and 2s once only = 10 points avg
The great weapon fighting style is extremely weak it only adds about 0.8 points to the avg damage with a 1d12 weapon and slightly better 1.33 points to the avg with a 2d6 weapon. So the avg goes up about a point and the max damage doesn't go up. With 2 weapon fighting the average damage goes up by whatever your dex modifier is so 1-5. So even if your DeX is only a 12 the avg damage is already as good as the great weapon style. And the max damage actually increases.
But the major point is that with the current balance their is littlenreasonnto build a strength based fighter because the DeX based fighter can deal essentially just as much damage in melee but because they have a higher dexterity they have further advantage on AC and initiative as well as dex based saving throws with are most AoE spells.
The two handed weapon fighter in your example is averaging about 17 points per round ONLY if they take a -5 to hit penalty from the feat. Otherwise both their average and max damage is going to be less than the 2 weapon fighter. And a -5 to hit is effectively attacking at disadvantage.
Without feats the average damage for two characters with 16 dex wielding 2 short swords vs 16 strength with a great axe is:
1d6+3/1d6+3 = 13 points avg
VS
1d12+3 reroll 1s and 2s once only = 10 points avg
The great weapon fighting style is extremely weak it only adds about 0.8 points to the avg damage with a 1d12 weapon and slightly better 1.33 points to the avg with a 2d6 weapon. So the avg goes up about a point and the max damage doesn't go up. With 2 weapon fighting the average damage goes up by whatever your dex modifier is so 1-5. So even if your DeX is only a 12 the avg damage is already as good as the great weapon style. And the max damage actually increases.
But the major point is that with the current balance their is littlenreasonnto build a strength based fighter because the DeX based fighter can deal essentially just as much damage in melee but because they have a higher dexterity they have further advantage on AC and initiative as well as dex based saving throws with are most AoE spells.
I mentioned the -5/disadvantage in my post, but thanks for reiterating it. A level-1 16 STR character using a two-handed weapon they're proficient in, is getting a +5 bonus to attack rolls from their proficiency and STR bonuses. This bonus only increases over time as their proficiency bonus improves and/or their STR increases. So taking a -5 to do 10 extra damage just makes it a straight roll at the lowest levels, and a reduced positive bonus at higher ones. Even if it means you miss half the time, doing that extra +10 damage when you do hit is still an average of 10 damage per turn, so you're breaking even.
The big issue with the two handed DEX fighter is that they have to use their Bonus Action to make that second attack. So if you've got a STR-based fighter with bonus actions available (Like a Cleric who's cast Spiritual Weapon, for example), they're going to be MUCH more versatile while still maintaining significant damage output, if not outright stacking extra damage on from their Bonus Action abilities. In a vacuum where attacks are the only things you can do, your point absolutely stands up, but tying up the Bonus Action is a much bigger deal than you're giving credit to.
If your dual-wielder runs into a situation where they need to use their bonus action for literally anything other than attacking (casting/moving hex/hunter's mark, controlling Spiritual Weapon, using any number of magic items, etc) then they're cutting their damage in half for that round. Heck, if they miss with either attack, the same thing happens, and just because they're not taking a -5 to the attack roll doesn't mean they're going to be hitting every time.
In all instances the heavy weapon fighter is worse off than the 2 weapon fighter. They have to take a massive penalty that the 2 weapon fighter doesn't in order to put out the same damage. But even then it's not as flexible because the 2 weapon fighter can target 2 seperate opponents. And it gets even worse when magic weapons come into play.
All of your examples with regards to the bonus action use case are spell casters, most of which won't be using a heavy weapon anyway.
The original point still stands. 5e has borked strength based martial characters. 5e has balanced the damage output of strength and dex based melee characters. So they are equal in damage output but left being worse off in every other way. The heavy weapon fighting style does very little and is the worst of all the options, it increase avg damage by about 1. The dueling fighting style give both a +2 to avg damage and max damage and has the added benefit of allowing the use of a shield. Dexterity based characters can do the same or more damage in melee as strength based characters but have all the other added benefits of being dex based on AC and saving throws.
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The idea of granting an attack bonus of +1 to each person in "flanking" position has me thinking of making a simple flanking rule that avoids the zig zag positioning and repositioning that tends to happen.
I'm thinking that when 2 or more creatures are in melee and within their reach they get a +1 flanking bonus for each creature that is in melee with the target but not adjacent to them.
So this would mean that 2 characters attacking a single creature would each get a +1 so long as they weren't next to each other.
If you had two characters on one side right next to each other and one on the opposite side. The single character would get a +2 and the characters standing together would each get a +1. This is to account for the fact that the side with the larger number of opponents would tend to have more focus. And it's relatively easy to determine what the bonus is. Just could everyone who is in melee reach of the target but not next to you.
There is a problem with that when facing huge creatures (3x3). The "front" of the creature can hold 3 medium-sized opponents not adjacent to one another.
I don't know that I would consider it a "problem". It would give a +2 bonus to hit for each character. But a +2 bonus isn't game breaking. And how often are you going up against huge creatures.
But beyond that it can be viewed as the ability to "hit the broad side of a barn" because after all. It's a HUGE creature. And it can also be viewed as the difficulty a huge creature has in defending itself from 3 tiny little creatures. Imagine 3 little dogs nipping at your toes. A huge creature has to look down at their feet to target creatures that are within reach to attack it. Which makes its field of view smaller and it's own body is blocking its ability to see those who are attacking it.
I set the level cap at level 23 before epic level so that players don’t feel restricted if they want to dip their characters. Most campaigns never get that high, but knowing that option potentially exists can lead to some rather interesting combinations.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
You can do lvl 23 on D&D Beyond?
If you want sugar coating, go buy a dessert....
Nope, but we use pen and paper so it doesn’t matter. I use DDB, most of them do not and the ones that do print and paper for games.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
We use negative hit points. This helps to bolster lower level characters so that they are less squishy and provide a bit of drama.
A character can go as far negative as their Constitution score. When they hit negative 1 they must make a Constitution saving throw. The DC is 10 plus however negative their hit points are. If they succeed on the save they remain conscious. If they fail then they pass out.
They continue to make the save anytime they take damage and at the end of their turn. Additionally while negative they have been wounded and are bleeding out. So a fail on the save also results in a loss of 2 hit points. A success on the save means a loss of 1 hit point. A natural 20 stops the bleeding.
If they drop below their Constitution score in negative hit points then they make a death saving throw. Failure means death.
changed the low level spells who affects hit points like sleep. to affect hit dice instead, like they used to.
but now i have cut the dice in half. exemple... Sleep affects normally 5d8 worth of hit points. now it does 5d4 worth of hit dice.
i think 5e killed voluntarily some classic low level spells in order to make them less abusive, but in doing so, they just killed those spells entirely.
DM of two gaming groups.
Likes to create stuff.
Check out my homebrew --> Monsters --> Magical Items --> Races --> Subclasses
If you like --> Upvote, If you wanna comment --> Comment
Play by Post Games
--> One Shot Adventure - House of Artwood (DM) (Completed)
The combination of bounded accuracy and the much higher hit points of many of the creatures in 5e they have mostly nerfed the strength based character. They have created parity in melee combat between Dexterity and Strength based fighters. But the Dex based fighters get the advantage of better saves for most AOE spells and bonus to initiative. So there is little reason to build a strength based melee fighter over a dex based one.
So we've adjusted to damage bonuses for strength based melee attacks. Versatile weapons used 2 handed get 1.5 times the strength damage bonus and 2 handed heavy weapons get 2 times the strength damage bonus.
I allow the use of a bonus action as an action. This is explicitly not RAW and not RAI, but I prefer it. You still are limited to one leveled spell per turn and other restrictions, but if you spend a bonus action to move your spiritual weapon, you can still cast healing word by using your action at my table.
It's interesting how that would work... I'm reminded of my Bard Character, who had Arcane Hand as a spell. But I eventually dropped it because I had too much other stuff I needed to be able to do with my Bonus Action. I actually swapped it for Animate Objects... that also takes up a bonus action, but animated objects will continue to follow a simple command without needing to consume a bonus action each round.
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We do the same with bonus actions. I look at them as a restricted action. All bonus actions are a subset of actions. So by using an action to perform a bonus action you are only restricting yourself.
I use something with a similar trigger, generally about half total HP...any injury below that threshold triggers it, and any amount of healing removes it even if they're still lower than half. I used the word "Wounded" instead of Bloodied to prevent it getting confused with "Bleeding".
But... I also pair it with various homebrew defensive reactions, so that choice has some serious weight to it. Eg. Having a shield doesn't do you any good unless you take a Block Reaction, which lets you add its bonus to your AC. There is also a Parry reaction and several others. The idea of almost everyone having the only real default reaction being an AoO seems silly to me, since blocking or parrying is quite literally "a reaction to an enemy attack". Edit: Also these defensive reactions totally fix flanking without having to specifically give flanking a bonus.
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
I use this gradual decline and it works great. Stacking -1 penalty on armor that builds up until repaired and if the total ever hits the same as essentially what AC the armor provides it is entirely scrap. I'll hand these penalties out, judiciously, in the thematically appropriate situations like massive damage spikes, large amounts of acid damage, or even just critical hits and the like. Easy, not too hard to track, makes some semblance of sense.
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
This leads me to a simple question though... what about mage armor and the warlock invocation ? what about Monks and Barbarian Unarmored Defense ? doesn't your way of doing it, render these a must and thus makes fighters and clerics a liability ?
By the way, i really love the idea of bringing strength back to its 3e counter part, which was 1.5x your strength bonus in damage and 2x your bonus in damage on 2 handed weapons. definitely be bringing that back into my game. but i feel like, i should always let it be at 2x though, for simplcity sake.
DM of two gaming groups.
Likes to create stuff.
Check out my homebrew --> Monsters --> Magical Items --> Races --> Subclasses
If you like --> Upvote, If you wanna comment --> Comment
Play by Post Games
--> One Shot Adventure - House of Artwood (DM) (Completed)
Yeah the strength bonus to damage was an issue for me with 5e. Because they really ****** strength builds and tipped the balance on dexterity. So under RAW a Dex based fighter using 2 short swords will do more damage than a strength based fighter using a great sword. Assuming 16 for dex and strength. 1d6+3/1d6+3 for the dual wielding short swords vs 2d6+3 with the great sword.
It's pretty easy to set up 1.5x for weapons used 2 handed and 2x for 2 handed heavy weapons.
Well, you only get to add your ability modifier to the offhand attack's damage if you have the two-weapon fighting fighting style, at which point a great weapon fighter is rerolling on a 1 or 2 for damage from their fighting style, so their average damage is going to be higher anyway.
Also, you can't even use your second weapon until the second round (unless you're just walking around with weapons drawn) unless you have the Dual Wielder feat, which would also allow you to use two non-light weapons which will up the damage die to 1d8 (maybe 1d10? Idk, I'd have to look through the weapons table to see what all qualifies.) If you're factoring in feats though, Great Weapon Master adds a static +10 damage to your attacks with a 2-handed weapon, with the tradeoff that you're effectively rolling at disadvantage (advantage/disadvantage are mechanically equivalent to +/- 5).
Even if you're using just the average damage rolls, a two weapon fighter with the appropriate fighting style and Dual Wielder feat wielding two longswords is going to be doing (4.5 + 3) x 2, or 15 damage per round. A Two-Handed weapon fighter with a 1d12 is going to do on average ~17 damage (you reroll 1s and 2s) per round. This is assuming you hit with all attacks, of course, so with the Two-Handed fighter's effective disadvantage, it more-or-less evens out.
However, the Two-Handed fighter has the advantage that they aren't using their Bonus Action every round to attack with the second weapon, leaving them open to use other abilities, features, or items that can increase their power or alter the battle in other ways. If they take the Polearm Master feat later, they can use their bonus action to do another attack with a 1d4 weapon, further increasing their damage output.
All of this is to say, the two fighting styles are more balanced than you think.
The two handed weapon fighter in your example is averaging about 17 points per round ONLY if they take a -5 to hit penalty from the feat. Otherwise both their average and max damage is going to be less than the 2 weapon fighter. And a -5 to hit is effectively attacking at disadvantage.
Without feats the average damage for two characters with 16 dex wielding 2 short swords vs 16 strength with a great axe is:
1d6+3/1d6+3 = 13 points avg
VS
1d12+3 reroll 1s and 2s once only = 10 points avg
The great weapon fighting style is extremely weak it only adds about 0.8 points to the avg damage with a 1d12 weapon and slightly better 1.33 points to the avg with a 2d6 weapon. So the avg goes up about a point and the max damage doesn't go up. With 2 weapon fighting the average damage goes up by whatever your dex modifier is so 1-5. So even if your DeX is only a 12 the avg damage is already as good as the great weapon style. And the max damage actually increases.
But the major point is that with the current balance their is littlenreasonnto build a strength based fighter because the DeX based fighter can deal essentially just as much damage in melee but because they have a higher dexterity they have further advantage on AC and initiative as well as dex based saving throws with are most AoE spells.
I mentioned the -5/disadvantage in my post, but thanks for reiterating it. A level-1 16 STR character using a two-handed weapon they're proficient in, is getting a +5 bonus to attack rolls from their proficiency and STR bonuses. This bonus only increases over time as their proficiency bonus improves and/or their STR increases. So taking a -5 to do 10 extra damage just makes it a straight roll at the lowest levels, and a reduced positive bonus at higher ones. Even if it means you miss half the time, doing that extra +10 damage when you do hit is still an average of 10 damage per turn, so you're breaking even.
The big issue with the two handed DEX fighter is that they have to use their Bonus Action to make that second attack. So if you've got a STR-based fighter with bonus actions available (Like a Cleric who's cast Spiritual Weapon, for example), they're going to be MUCH more versatile while still maintaining significant damage output, if not outright stacking extra damage on from their Bonus Action abilities. In a vacuum where attacks are the only things you can do, your point absolutely stands up, but tying up the Bonus Action is a much bigger deal than you're giving credit to.
If your dual-wielder runs into a situation where they need to use their bonus action for literally anything other than attacking (casting/moving hex/hunter's mark, controlling Spiritual Weapon, using any number of magic items, etc) then they're cutting their damage in half for that round. Heck, if they miss with either attack, the same thing happens, and just because they're not taking a -5 to the attack roll doesn't mean they're going to be hitting every time.
In all instances the heavy weapon fighter is worse off than the 2 weapon fighter. They have to take a massive penalty that the 2 weapon fighter doesn't in order to put out the same damage. But even then it's not as flexible because the 2 weapon fighter can target 2 seperate opponents. And it gets even worse when magic weapons come into play.
All of your examples with regards to the bonus action use case are spell casters, most of which won't be using a heavy weapon anyway.
The original point still stands. 5e has borked strength based martial characters. 5e has balanced the damage output of strength and dex based melee characters. So they are equal in damage output but left being worse off in every other way. The heavy weapon fighting style does very little and is the worst of all the options, it increase avg damage by about 1. The dueling fighting style give both a +2 to avg damage and max damage and has the added benefit of allowing the use of a shield. Dexterity based characters can do the same or more damage in melee as strength based characters but have all the other added benefits of being dex based on AC and saving throws.