"You have trained to deal particularly damaging strikes. When you take the Attack Action and hit a target with a Weapon as part of that Action, you can roll the Weapon’s damage dice twice and use either roll against the target. You can use this benefit only once per turn."
The way it's worded now, it is no longer limited to only melee weapon attacks. Which is nice.
Still, it's just not enough. The decision-making part doesn't help as well. Say, I roll a 4 on 1d12, do I reroll now or keep it for my second attack which might be a 1? Any ideas to augment this feat or change it? Extra weapon damage die on a crit? Maximized crit damage (barbarians will love the synergy)? Automatically rerolling 1s on weapon damage dice, but more than once per turn (redundant with great weapon fighting style)? Adding flat [PB] damage each time you roll maximum on weapon damage dice? Any other ideas?
I don't think Savage Attacker is as bad as people make it out to be. I remember playing a dexy rapier paladin in a one-shot a while back, with the Piercer feat. Piercer is basically the same thing as Savage Attacker, save only for piercing weapons - reroll a damage die once per turn. In a vacuum, that effect sounds so much lamer than things like GWM giving you a whole ass extra swing when you crit or kill...but the thing is? It's every turn, without limit or restriction. Every last single turn, you can reroll a borky damage roll and try to save it. Sure, sometimes you'll reroll a middling-low roll, like a 4 on a d12, into a worse one, but Savage Attacker says you can use whichever roll you like. I remember saving at least half a dozen different dodgy damage rolls on that paladin with my Piercer rerolls and being quite impressed with the feat.
Yeah, Piercer comes with a bunch of extra bonuses, but that experience taught me that frequency of use is a big counterweight to Effect Magnitude. GWM might give you an extra attack once or twice a session; Savage Attacker is used multiple times per combat every combat. It makes a Damage Bro whose primary job is hitting things with a hitting stick better at consistently dealing solid damage with that hitting stick - especially since I'm reasonably sure you can use Savage Attacker to reroll a dodgy crit as well and avoid the whole Snake Eyes thing.
I would just cut this from it, making it work better with extra attack and such, especially when using some automations. such once per turn features are super annoying when having multiple attacks
> Piercer comes with a bunch of extra bonuses
Exactly Piercer also gives +1 dex and an extra die on a crit, the dex alone + the reroll makes it powerfull.
Savage Attacker could really benefit from just removing the once-per-turn clause.
Honestly, it's a good feat for low level characters. Once a turn is great since everyone just attacks once.
It's great against low HP targets and you just rolled a 1. A good roll insta kills, a bad one let's the enemy kill you.
The fundamental problem is that it scales terribly and doesn't work with Unarmed. Tavern Brawler for unarmed attacks has the same scaling issue, though less pronounced.
So, let's compare. T.B. has four effects. 1d4 punch, furnature-as-clubs, reroll 1s, and attacks shove.
The first two are.... Eh. Being able to do more damage with a punch is just a tax to make non-monk brawlers work, and it's worse than a dagger. Improvised weapon rules really should let you do the furnature thing anyways; arguably doesn't benefit from rest of feat. It's a big fat nothing.
Rerolling 1s is nice, though scales badly for monk. On the other hand, it's every attack, not just once, and non-monk brawlers will always like it. Savage Attacker is roughly equal to this ability then?
Lastly the push is.... It's a way to merge the Unarmed rules shove with damage. Battlefield control is hard to quantify and a bit of damage with anti-grappling (maybe) move. Situational, but good to have.
Yeah, SA does feel weaker even if we just consider the last two. Perhaps every weapon attack and roll side-by-side, ala advantage? Doesn't feel that powerful to me...
I would just cut this from it, making it work better with extra attack and such, especially when using some automations. such once per turn features are super annoying when having multiple attacks
> Piercer comes with a bunch of extra bonuses
Exactly Piercer also gives +1 dex and an extra die on a crit, the dex alone + the reroll makes it powerfull.
Savage Attacker could really benefit from just removing the once-per-turn clause.
The monk in me is salivating at the thought of being able to reroll every damage die every time and choosing whichever damage is higher.
Honestly, Savage Attacker just needs to remove the once per turn, then it scales like all the other 1st level feats do. Do not know why they limited it to once a turn, it's limited to just the weapon's damage die.
I tried putting together a table of how advantage like this would affect the different weapon damage dice (included D20 even tho no weapons use it)
dice sides
normal chance of top roll
average roll
advantage average (rounded)
4
25.00%
2.5
3.13
6
16.67%
3.5
4.47
8
12.50%
4.5
5.81
10
10.00%
5.5
7.15
12
8.33%
6.5
8.49
20
5.00%
10.5
13.83
Basically it mostly helps the D12 (no surprise), at an increase of 1.99 average damage per use assuming I did the maths right. Altho a Greatsword would not be far behind at an increase of 1.94 damage per use, so greatsword still keeps it's spot as the highest damage weapon since a 0.05 difference isn't changing much.
Then this is limited to once per turn? the only increase it gets is that making more attacks, you are less likely to have rounds where you miss every attack, it's a minimal increase. It definitely shouldn't be limited to once per turn
Savage Attacker is once per turn because letting someone roll all their damage twice on every attack is intensely annoying. Doubling every roll made in a fight is a time bog nobody really wants. Yes, the math works out, but the actual at-the-table experience is just frustrating for everyone but the Savage Attacker.
If someone truly wants to fix it, finding a way for its once-a-turn effect to be a bit punchier is the way to go. I don't want players fiddling with rolling damage for the same attack six times a turn, thanks.
Savage Attacker is once per turn because letting someone roll all their damage twice on every attack is intensely annoying. Doubling every roll made in a fight is a time bog nobody really wants. Yes, the math works out, but the actual at-the-table experience is just frustrating for everyone but the Savage Attacker.
If someone truly wants to fix it, finding a way for its once-a-turn effect to be a bit punchier is the way to go. I don't want players fiddling with rolling damage for the same attack six times a turn, thanks.
With the exception of something like a greatsword, just roll both dice at the same time. It doesn't take any longer to figure out which of two dies has the higher face value. Only greatswords would be an issue since it would be 4 6-sided dice...
It's not difficult, no. It's just time consuming. It's a few dozen extra rolls to chew through in combat, which already has a tendency to slog if DMs don't put a lot of work into avoiding that. And all for an effect that's honestly less interesting and engaging that "choose whether or not to punch up this damage roll." Saying 'you have advantage on all damage rolls" is just a passive thing you do. It's not an ability you can deliberately invoke, which tend to be the fun ones.
I mean, I'm salavating over Musician and Tavern Brawler here, so not sure I can disagree. Just need something for a warlock and my trifecta will be complete!
I mean, I'm salavating over Musician and Tavern Brawler here, so not sure I can disagree. Just need something for a warlock and my trifecta will be complete!
Musician gives the highest DPS increase tho, since attack is better than +damage for overall damage :p. Just imagine, you give inspiration to the rogue and to the fighter/ranger with sharpshooter, it's a great damage boost on their first attacks! I am not being serious in this comment, just encase anybody misconstrues it.
Savage Attacker is once per turn because letting someone roll all their damage twice on every attack is intensely annoying. Doubling every roll made in a fight is a time bog nobody really wants. Yes, the math works out, but the actual at-the-table experience is just frustrating for everyone but the Savage Attacker.
If someone truly wants to fix it, finding a way for its once-a-turn effect to be a bit punchier is the way to go. I don't want players fiddling with rolling damage for the same attack six times a turn, thanks.
Could always roll both dice at the same time when using Savage attack to speed things up. Only an additional split second to see which one is the higher roll. I honestly find it hard to make once per turn effects feel as good as effects that don't have that restriction; so honestly, removing the once per turn restriction is probably the best way to fix it.
It's not difficult, no. It's just time consuming. It's a few dozen extra rolls to chew through in combat, which already has a tendency to slog if DMs don't put a lot of work into avoiding that. And all for an effect that's honestly less interesting and engaging that "choose whether or not to punch up this damage roll." Saying 'you have advantage on all damage rolls" is just a passive thing you do. It's not an ability you can deliberately invoke, which tend to be the fun ones.
As the others said, it's not difficult to accommodate and the feat really is awful if it only applies to one attack.
Because it doesn't have any other benefits you're giving up an ASI or half feat and thus +1 to hit (i.e. one more hit out of every 20 w/o advantage or a bit under one in ten with advantage) and +1 damage on every hit (which also raises the floor for your damage rolls.) In exchange you have a 50-50 chance at a better damage roll (if your damage roll is above average, odds are the reroll won't help.) That's already an iffy trade when the feat is benefiting 100% of your attacks.
Once it only applies to half or less of your attacks, you're certainly losing more than you're getting back from the feat and it's also possible for you to squander what little advantage it gives you. Now it's no longer a clear-cut decision that you reroll that 5 on a d8 on your first attack. The probability that you'll benefit are clearly low, but you have to weigh that against the odds that your second hit won't miss (if it does you lose your chance to reroll) but still it rolls lower than 5 (if it rolls higher, you were better off rerolling the first hit.)
While you might consider that a more interesting decision than always rerolling, it's definitely not pulling its weight compared to an ASI and the decision is so complex it'll certainly slow down your game more than rolling twice the dice ever will.
It is, however, the context to view the feat in. Savage Attacker doesn't need to compete with Cheesebow Expert, Polearm Muenster, Gouda Weapon Master, and the like. It has to compete with Skilled, Crafter, Musician, Magic Initiate, and the like. Does it? Perhaps not. But it's not a complete waste of space the way it would be in place of an ASI.
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The text of the feat:
"You have trained to deal particularly damaging strikes. When you take the Attack Action and hit a target with a Weapon as part of that Action, you can roll the Weapon’s damage dice twice and use either roll against the target. You can use this benefit only once per turn."
The way it's worded now, it is no longer limited to only melee weapon attacks. Which is nice.
Still, it's just not enough. The decision-making part doesn't help as well. Say, I roll a 4 on 1d12, do I reroll now or keep it for my second attack which might be a 1? Any ideas to augment this feat or change it? Extra weapon damage die on a crit? Maximized crit damage (barbarians will love the synergy)? Automatically rerolling 1s on weapon damage dice, but more than once per turn (redundant with great weapon fighting style)? Adding flat [PB] damage each time you roll maximum on weapon damage dice? Any other ideas?
I don't think Savage Attacker is as bad as people make it out to be. I remember playing a dexy rapier paladin in a one-shot a while back, with the Piercer feat. Piercer is basically the same thing as Savage Attacker, save only for piercing weapons - reroll a damage die once per turn. In a vacuum, that effect sounds so much lamer than things like GWM giving you a whole ass extra swing when you crit or kill...but the thing is? It's every turn, without limit or restriction. Every last single turn, you can reroll a borky damage roll and try to save it. Sure, sometimes you'll reroll a middling-low roll, like a 4 on a d12, into a worse one, but Savage Attacker says you can use whichever roll you like. I remember saving at least half a dozen different dodgy damage rolls on that paladin with my Piercer rerolls and being quite impressed with the feat.
Yeah, Piercer comes with a bunch of extra bonuses, but that experience taught me that frequency of use is a big counterweight to Effect Magnitude. GWM might give you an extra attack once or twice a session; Savage Attacker is used multiple times per combat every combat. It makes a Damage Bro whose primary job is hitting things with a hitting stick better at consistently dealing solid damage with that hitting stick - especially since I'm reasonably sure you can use Savage Attacker to reroll a dodgy crit as well and avoid the whole Snake Eyes thing.
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I would just cut this from it, making it work better with extra attack and such, especially when using some automations.
such once per turn features are super annoying when having multiple attacks
> Piercer comes with a bunch of extra bonuses
Exactly Piercer also gives +1 dex and an extra die on a crit, the dex alone + the reroll makes it powerfull.
Savage Attacker could really benefit from just removing the once-per-turn clause.
Honestly, it's a good feat for low level characters. Once a turn is great since everyone just attacks once.
It's great against low HP targets and you just rolled a 1. A good roll insta kills, a bad one let's the enemy kill you.
The fundamental problem is that it scales terribly and doesn't work with Unarmed. Tavern Brawler for unarmed attacks has the same scaling issue, though less pronounced.
So, let's compare. T.B. has four effects. 1d4 punch, furnature-as-clubs, reroll 1s, and attacks shove.
The first two are.... Eh. Being able to do more damage with a punch is just a tax to make non-monk brawlers work, and it's worse than a dagger. Improvised weapon rules really should let you do the furnature thing anyways; arguably doesn't benefit from rest of feat. It's a big fat nothing.
Rerolling 1s is nice, though scales badly for monk. On the other hand, it's every attack, not just once, and non-monk brawlers will always like it. Savage Attacker is roughly equal to this ability then?
Lastly the push is.... It's a way to merge the Unarmed rules shove with damage. Battlefield control is hard to quantify and a bit of damage with anti-grappling (maybe) move. Situational, but good to have.
Yeah, SA does feel weaker even if we just consider the last two. Perhaps every weapon attack and roll side-by-side, ala advantage? Doesn't feel that powerful to me...
The monk in me is salivating at the thought of being able to reroll every damage die every time and choosing whichever damage is higher.
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Honestly, Savage Attacker just needs to remove the once per turn, then it scales like all the other 1st level feats do. Do not know why they limited it to once a turn, it's limited to just the weapon's damage die.
I tried putting together a table of how advantage like this would affect the different weapon damage dice (included D20 even tho no weapons use it)
Basically it mostly helps the D12 (no surprise), at an increase of 1.99 average damage per use assuming I did the maths right. Altho a Greatsword would not be far behind at an increase of 1.94 damage per use, so greatsword still keeps it's spot as the highest damage weapon since a 0.05 difference isn't changing much.
Then this is limited to once per turn? the only increase it gets is that making more attacks, you are less likely to have rounds where you miss every attack, it's a minimal increase. It definitely shouldn't be limited to once per turn
Savage Attacker is once per turn because letting someone roll all their damage twice on every attack is intensely annoying. Doubling every roll made in a fight is a time bog nobody really wants. Yes, the math works out, but the actual at-the-table experience is just frustrating for everyone but the Savage Attacker.
If someone truly wants to fix it, finding a way for its once-a-turn effect to be a bit punchier is the way to go. I don't want players fiddling with rolling damage for the same attack six times a turn, thanks.
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How about a scalable +x damage per attack? I like rolling lots of dice but I can see how that might be a snooze for those watching.
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With the exception of something like a greatsword, just roll both dice at the same time. It doesn't take any longer to figure out which of two dies has the higher face value. Only greatswords would be an issue since it would be 4 6-sided dice...
Ducky for people at a physical table. Not so simple for folks on DDB, or those poor sorry damned souls forced to use Avrae.
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I use roll20 and it'd be super simple to make a macro for it....
I haven't used ddb or Avrae but I don't see how difficult it would be to just roll everything twice and take higher?
It's not difficult, no. It's just time consuming. It's a few dozen extra rolls to chew through in combat, which already has a tendency to slog if DMs don't put a lot of work into avoiding that. And all for an effect that's honestly less interesting and engaging that "choose whether or not to punch up this damage roll." Saying 'you have advantage on all damage rolls" is just a passive thing you do. It's not an ability you can deliberately invoke, which tend to be the fun ones.
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Tell that to the dps is king crowd.
I mean, I'm salavating over Musician and Tavern Brawler here, so not sure I can disagree. Just need something for a warlock and my trifecta will be complete!
Musician gives the highest DPS increase tho, since attack is better than +damage for overall damage :p. Just imagine, you give inspiration to the rogue and to the fighter/ranger with sharpshooter, it's a great damage boost on their first attacks! I am not being serious in this comment, just encase anybody misconstrues it.
Have to admit, the group I am in use foundry VTT and it's easy to modify these types of rolls and to macro them, pre-covid we were at physical table
Could always roll both dice at the same time when using Savage attack to speed things up. Only an additional split second to see which one is the higher roll. I honestly find it hard to make once per turn effects feel as good as effects that don't have that restriction; so honestly, removing the once per turn restriction is probably the best way to fix it.
As the others said, it's not difficult to accommodate and the feat really is awful if it only applies to one attack.
Because it doesn't have any other benefits you're giving up an ASI or half feat and thus +1 to hit (i.e. one more hit out of every 20 w/o advantage or a bit under one in ten with advantage) and +1 damage on every hit (which also raises the floor for your damage rolls.) In exchange you have a 50-50 chance at a better damage roll (if your damage roll is above average, odds are the reroll won't help.) That's already an iffy trade when the feat is benefiting 100% of your attacks.
Once it only applies to half or less of your attacks, you're certainly losing more than you're getting back from the feat and it's also possible for you to squander what little advantage it gives you. Now it's no longer a clear-cut decision that you reroll that 5 on a d8 on your first attack. The probability that you'll benefit are clearly low, but you have to weigh that against the odds that your second hit won't miss (if it does you lose your chance to reroll) but still it rolls lower than 5 (if it rolls higher, you were better off rerolling the first hit.)
While you might consider that a more interesting decision than always rerolling, it's definitely not pulling its weight compared to an ASI and the decision is so complex it'll certainly slow down your game more than rolling twice the dice ever will.
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Giving up an ASI? Hm?
I thought we were talking about the free level 1 feat?
Is confused
That is not the only time this feat exists.
It is, however, the context to view the feat in. Savage Attacker doesn't need to compete with Cheesebow Expert, Polearm Muenster, Gouda Weapon Master, and the like. It has to compete with Skilled, Crafter, Musician, Magic Initiate, and the like. Does it? Perhaps not. But it's not a complete waste of space the way it would be in place of an ASI.
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