I Love Cheeeeeeeese (proceeds to watch Wallace & Grommet).
Would adding +1 to hit be too much? I kinda wonder. I think SA FEELS good which might be more important in mind just getting to avoid poop low rolls on a greataxe feels so much better.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
Savage Attacker and Tough are incredibly boring feats, when compared to feats like Alert and Magic Initiate. Alert is so strong, if everyone has it, you can set up the order in which the party goes as you want.
Depending on how good the initiative goes, if it’s a big fight:
Big control spell user goes first.
Support spell user goes second (though they might have to go last if the initiative goes badly to allow the tanker if possible to interpose themselves between the party and the enemy).
Small controller or tanker goes third.
DPR goes fourth, especially if small controller gives them advantage.
At this point it would be better to just do Side Initiative, it would save time.
I don’t see any competition between Savage Attacker and Alert. I don’t think I would ever take it.
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.
I think this is the main question, and of those listed the only one I don't think it competes with is Musician. Musician is strong because of the amount of advantage it can generate. Magic Initiate CAN be good with the right build, but a one time use first level spell, even with all the spell presented is not always going to be AS useful to a character that would consider Savage attacker, same with skilled and Crafter. A character considering Savage attacker is probably using a big weapon and his real competition is lucky, tough, skilled, alert, and tavern brawler. I am honestly not sure that savage attack competes with these, but it is definitely close in my opinion.
Savage Attacker and Tough are incredibly boring feats, when compared to feats like Alert and Magic Initiate. Alert is so strong, if everyone has it, you can set up the order in which the party goes as you want.
Depending on how good the initiative goes, if it’s a big fight:
Big control spell user goes first.
Support spell user goes second (though they might have to go last if the initiative goes badly to allow the tanker if possible to interpose themselves between the party and the enemy).
Small controller or tanker goes third.
DPR goes fourth, especially if small controller gives them advantage.
At this point it would be better to just do Side Initiative, it would save time.
I don’t see any competition between Savage Attacker and Alert. I don’t think I would ever take it.
Might be 1 way to do it to try and control initiative, tho Musician feat and Lucky Feat are also pretty impressive, Musician. Technically by RAW initiative is a D20 test since it is an ability check; which means both lucky and inspiration can be used to gain advantage on initiative rolls.....
I think SA is suppose to be the Simple Fighter option. Something that works with the mindset of "I just want to smash things, options are bad, keep it simple so-and-so."
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.
Disagree, as you will have an ASI in 3 more levels. While presumably there will be level 4 feats, many of the other feats would still be worthwhile to grab at level 4 even vs a ASI. Unless at level 4 its alert but better you could still take alert and not feel like you wasted your ASI(assuming its still pulls from the same ASI pool and doesn't have a separate feat allotment), people currently still take toughness at level 16 as its a good feat at any level once your build is done, people would still take magic initiate at 4 if it fit their build etc. So savage attacker does need to look at ASIs as well.
I'm not as convinced its bad as others are as if you are using a great axe you will probably see a lot of swing, but we do also have to look at it the context of later levels and ASIs.
It's a level 1 feat and it's power level is in keeping with this. It might seem like a big damage difference, but that is how things that effect damage in combat need to be if they don't use any extra action econ or resources.
On thing that I really like about it is that it makes it so the great sword isn't automatically the best 2 hander for damage, by allowing d12 weapons to shine a little bit more.
It's a level 1 feat and it's power level is in keeping with this. It might seem like a big damage difference, but that is how things that effect damage in combat need to be if they don't use any extra action econ or resources.
On thing that I really like about it is that it makes it so the great sword isn't automatically the best 2 hander for damage, by allowing d12 weapons to shine a little bit more.
Erm, I did the maths on page 1, it makes very little difference, Great Axe gains 1.99 average damage on the attack it is used on, Greatsword gains 1.94 average damage on the attack it is used on. The 0.05 average DPR difference is really not much, basically you need brutal critical 3 still before Greataxe beats out Greatsword on Barbarian, else wise Greatsword always wins.
Also the damage increase really does not seem that big compared to the lucky feat, where you can turn a miss into a hit after rolling the hit. If you do say 1d12+4 average damage at 65% chance to hit, on a miss you could turn that into 7.15 average damage, which would take Savage attacker over three uses to catch up to. If you were a level 9 Raging Barbarian with a +2 greataxe for 1d12+9... at 65% chance to hit 10.725 average damage, meaning it now takes 5 uses. Lucky also gets more uses with proficiency but at level 9 it's already basically the same as ~23.5 rounds of combat of Savage Attacker over the course of a day. This is ignoring all the other ways that the lucky feat can actually be used.
I was thinking about adding proficiency to damage would be too much for dual wielding as an additional option.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
It's a level 1 feat and it's power level is in keeping with this. It might seem like a big damage difference, but that is how things that effect damage in combat need to be if they don't use any extra action econ or resources.
On thing that I really like about it is that it makes it so the great sword isn't automatically the best 2 hander for damage, by allowing d12 weapons to shine a little bit more.
Erm, I did the maths on page 1, it makes very little difference, Great Axe gains 1.99 average damage on the attack it is used on, Greatsword gains 1.94 average damage on the attack it is used on. The 0.05 average DPR difference is really not much, basically you need brutal critical 3 still before Greataxe beats out Greatsword on Barbarian, else wise Greatsword always wins.
Also the damage increase really does not seem that big compared to the lucky feat, where you can turn a miss into a hit after rolling the hit. If you do say 1d12+4 average damage at 65% chance to hit, on a miss you could turn that into 7.15 average damage, which would take Savage attacker over three uses to catch up to. If you were a level 9 Raging Barbarian with a +2 greataxe for 1d12+9... at 65% chance to hit 10.725 average damage, meaning it now takes 5 uses. Lucky also gets more uses with proficiency but at level 9 it's already basically the same as ~23.5 rounds of combat of Savage Attacker over the course of a day. This is ignoring all the other ways that the lucky feat can actually be used.
You math isn't wrong, but your application is.
Savage attacker is most useful when rerolling a low roll. You specifically only look at the average damage of weapons. At levels 1-4 this is fine, but once you get muti attack it stops being meaningful. Instead of using it every swing, you are only going to use it if your weapon damage is below average, or on the 2nd swing, if it was not used on the first.
The reason why I mention greatswords is that the way the math works out, you are way more likely to be around the average damage than to be at a high or low extreme because of the 2 dice. You'd only have a <3% chance of rolling max or min damage, and a ~50% chance of rolling a 6-8.
You also are applying the "advantage" incorrectly to the 2d6 if I understand it correctly. "You can roll the Weapon’s damage dice twice and use either roll against the target" Meaning you roll two sets of 2d6 and use the higher. It looks like you just doubled the average increase of rolling 1d6.
On a d12 you have an equal 1/12 chance of rolling any number. The chance of rolling low is greater, the chance of rolling high is greater too, meaning the chance to reroll is much more advantageous to a d12 than a 2d6.
Basically a d12 is more spikey and savage attacker allows you take advantage of that to avoid the lows and get more highs. While with a 2d6 you are way more likely to get an average roll and and average reroll.
Savage attacker is most useful when rerolling a low roll. You specifically only look at the average damage of weapons. At levels 1-4 this is fine, but once you get muti attack it stops being meaningful. Instead of using it every swing, you are only going to use it if your weapon damage is below average, or on the 2nd swing, if it was not used on the first.
The reason why I mention greatswords is that the way the math works out, you are way more likely to be around the average damage than to be at a high or low extreme because of the 2 dice. You'd only have a <3% chance of rolling max or min damage, and a ~50% chance of rolling a 6-8.
You also are applying the "advantage" incorrectly to the 2d6 if I understand it correctly. "You can roll the Weapon’s damage dice twice and use either roll against the target" Meaning you roll two sets of 2d6 and use the higher. It looks like you just doubled the average increase of rolling 1d6.
On a d12 you have an equal 1/12 chance of rolling any number. The chance of rolling low is greater, the chance of rolling high is greater too, meaning the chance to reroll is much more advantageous to a d12 than a 2d6.
Basically a d12 is more spikey and savage attacker allows you take advantage of that to avoid the lows and get more highs. While with a 2d6 you are way more likely to get an average roll and and average reroll.
Indeed you can use savage attack when your roll is low but that also adds to the issues, first off you can't actually be certain you'll hit on the next attack. From this perspective, I'd still say Savage Attacker is still playing a clear second place to Lucky since you're potentially turning a low roll into a medium or high roll where lucky is potentially turning a miss into a hit, or even a critical in rare cases.
Yes, the Greatsword normalizes damage more, I will admit that which I didn't fully calculate, I might look to redo that later, as that is an important factor.
It's a level 1 feat and it's power level is in keeping with this. It might seem like a big damage difference, but that is how things that effect damage in combat need to be if they don't use any extra action econ or resources.
On thing that I really like about it is that it makes it so the great sword isn't automatically the best 2 hander for damage, by allowing d12 weapons to shine a little bit more.
Erm, I did the maths on page 1, it makes very little difference, Great Axe gains 1.99 average damage on the attack it is used on, Greatsword gains 1.94 average damage on the attack it is used on. The 0.05 average DPR difference is really not much, basically you need brutal critical 3 still before Greataxe beats out Greatsword on Barbarian, else wise Greatsword always wins.
Also the damage increase really does not seem that big compared to the lucky feat, where you can turn a miss into a hit after rolling the hit. If you do say 1d12+4 average damage at 65% chance to hit, on a miss you could turn that into 7.15 average damage, which would take Savage attacker over three uses to catch up to. If you were a level 9 Raging Barbarian with a +2 greataxe for 1d12+9... at 65% chance to hit 10.725 average damage, meaning it now takes 5 uses. Lucky also gets more uses with proficiency but at level 9 it's already basically the same as ~23.5 rounds of combat of Savage Attacker over the course of a day. This is ignoring all the other ways that the lucky feat can actually be used.
You math isn't wrong, but your application is.
Savage attacker is most useful when rerolling a low roll. You specifically only look at the average damage of weapons. At levels 1-4 this is fine, but once you get muti attack it stops being meaningful. Instead of using it every swing, you are only going to use it if your weapon damage is below average, or on the 2nd swing, if it was not used on the first.
The reason why I mention greatswords is that the way the math works out, you are way more likely to be around the average damage than to be at a high or low extreme because of the 2 dice. You'd only have a <3% chance of rolling max or min damage, and a ~50% chance of rolling a 6-8.
You also are applying the "advantage" incorrectly to the 2d6 if I understand it correctly. "You can roll the Weapon’s damage dice twice and use either roll against the target" Meaning you roll two sets of 2d6 and use the higher. It looks like you just doubled the average increase of rolling 1d6.
On a d12 you have an equal 1/12 chance of rolling any number. The chance of rolling low is greater, the chance of rolling high is greater too, meaning the chance to reroll is much more advantageous to a d12 than a 2d6.
Basically a d12 is more spikey and savage attacker allows you take advantage of that to avoid the lows and get more highs. While with a 2d6 you are way more likely to get an average roll and and average reroll.
The are a number of other level 1 feats that remain useful throughout the tiers, with some even scaling up as you progress. Lucky, Alert, and Musician for example; they scale with your proficiency bonus. Then there are feats like Magic Initiate which don't far off (granted Magic Initiate does depend on the Spells you pick; using Magic Initiate to grab Shield as a Paladin for example).
As it stands, Savage Attacker is incredibly lackluster mechanically and in any group that enjoys even the slightest mechanical optimization, I see Savage Attacker as a feat that people will seldomly pick. The math for it just doesn't work out; other level 1 feats are stronger from the get go and will scale as you progress in levels.
It's a level 1 feat and it's power level is in keeping with this. It might seem like a big damage difference, but that is how things that effect damage in combat need to be if they don't use any extra action econ or resources.
On thing that I really like about it is that it makes it so the great sword isn't automatically the best 2 hander for damage, by allowing d12 weapons to shine a little bit more.
Erm, I did the maths on page 1, it makes very little difference, Great Axe gains 1.99 average damage on the attack it is used on, Greatsword gains 1.94 average damage on the attack it is used on. The 0.05 average DPR difference is really not much, basically you need brutal critical 3 still before Greataxe beats out Greatsword on Barbarian, else wise Greatsword always wins.
Also the damage increase really does not seem that big compared to the lucky feat, where you can turn a miss into a hit after rolling the hit. If you do say 1d12+4 average damage at 65% chance to hit, on a miss you could turn that into 7.15 average damage, which would take Savage attacker over three uses to catch up to. If you were a level 9 Raging Barbarian with a +2 greataxe for 1d12+9... at 65% chance to hit 10.725 average damage, meaning it now takes 5 uses. Lucky also gets more uses with proficiency but at level 9 it's already basically the same as ~23.5 rounds of combat of Savage Attacker over the course of a day. This is ignoring all the other ways that the lucky feat can actually be used.
A mean increase of nearly 2 DPR is more than Great Weapon Fighter and Sharpshooter could accomplish on their own. And most fighting styles, as only Dueling got close. The next closest was with a greatsword or maul at 1.33. And, technically, they can stack.
It's a level 1 feat and it's power level is in keeping with this. It might seem like a big damage difference, but that is how things that effect damage in combat need to be if they don't use any extra action econ or resources.
On thing that I really like about it is that it makes it so the great sword isn't automatically the best 2 hander for damage, by allowing d12 weapons to shine a little bit more.
Erm, I did the maths on page 1, it makes very little difference, Great Axe gains 1.99 average damage on the attack it is used on, Greatsword gains 1.94 average damage on the attack it is used on. The 0.05 average DPR difference is really not much, basically you need brutal critical 3 still before Greataxe beats out Greatsword on Barbarian, else wise Greatsword always wins.
Also the damage increase really does not seem that big compared to the lucky feat, where you can turn a miss into a hit after rolling the hit. If you do say 1d12+4 average damage at 65% chance to hit, on a miss you could turn that into 7.15 average damage, which would take Savage attacker over three uses to catch up to. If you were a level 9 Raging Barbarian with a +2 greataxe for 1d12+9... at 65% chance to hit 10.725 average damage, meaning it now takes 5 uses. Lucky also gets more uses with proficiency but at level 9 it's already basically the same as ~23.5 rounds of combat of Savage Attacker over the course of a day. This is ignoring all the other ways that the lucky feat can actually be used.
A mean increase of nearly 2 DPR is more than Great Weapon Fighter and Sharpshooter could accomplish on their own. And most fighting styles, as only Dueling got close. The next closest was with a greatsword or maul at 1.33. And, technically, they can stack.
Are you certain about this? remember this feat only works on 1 attack a turn. So if you land two hits with a greatsword/maul that is an expected ~2.67 damage increase for GWF and fighting styles aren't meant to be as strong as feats in the first place, Dueling EASILY beats out Savage Attack once you're doing two plus attacks.
Savage attacker is most useful when rerolling a low roll. You specifically only look at the average damage of weapons. At levels 1-4 this is fine, but once you get muti attack it stops being meaningful. Instead of using it every swing, you are only going to use it if your weapon damage is below average, or on the 2nd swing, if it was not used on the first.
To revisit this point, the Wording in Savage Attacker in UA does not permit this usage.
When you take the Attack Actionand hit a target with a Weaponas part of that Action, you can roll the Weapon’s damage dice twice and use either roll against the target.
To me this wording implies you roll both weapon damage dice rolls together, not that you can re-roll when it's low (like you could in 5E). So you do in fact just use it on the first attack that lands as I was going with, with my earlier numbers. If you could decide to save it for potential lower rolls on following attacks then It'd be much more powerful. Given there is usually more chance to miss than crit, I wouldn't hold it for future attacks in the turn, unless you have more than one since the chance to lose that extra damage is there.
My Maths isn't fully up to the task of accurately figuring out the exact damage increase of greataxe vs greatsword but I think it's around 1.99 vs 1.37 respectively for taking this feat and taking the normalization into consideration. So when you're at 1 attack around, greataxe would likely win DPS, but 2+ attacks around then it's a harder call... would need more maths and I have exhausted myself on those two numbers. If you could reroll, instead of roll twice, then you could get higher increases than either of these two.
It's a level 1 feat and it's power level is in keeping with this. It might seem like a big damage difference, but that is how things that effect damage in combat need to be if they don't use any extra action econ or resources.
On thing that I really like about it is that it makes it so the great sword isn't automatically the best 2 hander for damage, by allowing d12 weapons to shine a little bit more.
Erm, I did the maths on page 1, it makes very little difference, Great Axe gains 1.99 average damage on the attack it is used on, Greatsword gains 1.94 average damage on the attack it is used on. The 0.05 average DPR difference is really not much, basically you need brutal critical 3 still before Greataxe beats out Greatsword on Barbarian, else wise Greatsword always wins.
Also the damage increase really does not seem that big compared to the lucky feat, where you can turn a miss into a hit after rolling the hit. If you do say 1d12+4 average damage at 65% chance to hit, on a miss you could turn that into 7.15 average damage, which would take Savage attacker over three uses to catch up to. If you were a level 9 Raging Barbarian with a +2 greataxe for 1d12+9... at 65% chance to hit 10.725 average damage, meaning it now takes 5 uses. Lucky also gets more uses with proficiency but at level 9 it's already basically the same as ~23.5 rounds of combat of Savage Attacker over the course of a day. This is ignoring all the other ways that the lucky feat can actually be used.
A mean increase of nearly 2 DPR is more than Great Weapon Fighter and Sharpshooter could accomplish on their own. And most fighting styles, as only Dueling got close. The next closest was with a greatsword or maul at 1.33. And, technically, they can stack.
Are you certain about this? remember this feat only works on 1 attack a turn. So if you land two hits with a greatsword/maul that is an expected ~2.67 damage increase for GWF and fighting styles aren't meant to be as strong as feats in the first place, Dueling EASILY beats out Savage Attack once you're doing two plus attacks.
Yes, I'm certain. After factoring in the miss chance, Great Weapon Master and Sharpshooter only add about +1 mean damage per attack. For a single weapon attack, being able to add nearly +2 is impressive. Only Duelist does it better, and just barely.
You can also combine the two, and every little bit of damage helps. Especially at lower levels. Plus, fighting styles are absolutely feats. There's literally a feat to grant a fighting style. Not a half-feat, with a +1 to an ability score, but a full feat. It's called Fighting Initiate, and it's found in Tasha's.
Again, this is a 1st-level feat that can only be used with the Attack when everyone only has one attack they can make. It can't even be used with the monk's bonus action Martial Arts if they pick a race with natural weapons. If it doesn't scale well past 5th-level, that's okay. It's only limited by how many times they try and Attack a target. It also might be a prerequisite for another feat. And if you think it's too weak, then suggest an improvement like adding a bonus weapon die on a critical hit. Because, I'm going to be honest, I miss having that along with the half-orc. It was fun when it came up, even if it wasn't often.
Yes, I'm certain. After factoring in the miss chance, Great Weapon Master and Sharpshooter only add about +1 mean damage per attack. For a single weapon attack, being able to add nearly +2 is impressive. Only Duelist does it better, and just barely.
You can also combine the two, and every little bit of damage helps. Especially at lower levels. Plus, fighting styles are absolutely feats. There's literally a feat to grant a fighting style. Not a half-feat, with a +1 to an ability score, but a full feat. It's called Fighting Initiate, and it's found in Tasha's.
Again, this is a 1st-level feat that can only be used with the Attack when everyone only has one attack they can make. It can't even be used with the monk's bonus action Martial Arts if they pick a race with natural weapons. If it doesn't scale well past 5th-level, that's okay. It's only limited by how many times they try and Attack a target. It also might be a prerequisite for another feat. And if you think it's too weak, then suggest an improvement like adding a bonus weapon die on a critical hit. Because, I'm going to be honest, I miss having that along with the half-orc. It was fun when it came up, even if it wasn't often.
I edited that post since I missed some other information but I don't think it affected this part. I would still say GWM beats out savage attacker, I've done a bit of more maths and by my calculations, if you're making two attacks without advantage you would expect the following results, assuming you use Savage Attacker on first attack (since UA isn't reroll)
Expected damage of GWM on a Maul/Greatsword 1.867 (round up)
Expected damage of Savage Attacker on a Greatsword (assuming 1st hit usage) = 1.288 (round down)
Expected damage of Savage Attacker on a Greataxe (assuming 1st hit usage) = 1.872 (round up)
These numbers might give the win to Savage Attacker when used with a Great Axe, but definitely not when used with a greatsword, also if you get into advantage... advantage does more for GWM than it does for Savage Attacker.
Your numbers depend entirely on the variables used: ability score, proficiency bonus, and the AC of the target being the big three. The challenge rating of the enemy makes a difference.
You say you've done "more maths," but we haven't seen the work. We haven't actually seen any of your work. We still only have your results, posted in your table on the first page. If you're assuming two attacks, then let's assume a +7 to hit, +4 ability modifier to damage, and the target has AC 15. That's a CR 5 creature, and if everyone has advantage, then it's a 78% chance to for a base hit and a 9.75% chance for a critical hit. The -5 from GWM reduces that base hit chance to 54.25.
So, our control, 11(2d6+4) / 18 (4d6+4) and no modifiers is 8.58+1.755=10.335
GWM increases that to 21/28 to 11.3925+2.73=14.1225. That's an increase of +3.7875
Savage Attacker means 12.94 and 21.88 for 10.0932+2.1333=12.2265 for an increase of +1.89
And the greataxe will be a little lower. But, this is with advantage. When I said the mean was +1, I wasn't counting advantage, and I can do those numbers a little further down. Yes, advantage should give a little more damage. After all, you're increasing your odds of landing a blow. That is going to increase your effective DPA (damage per attack). And SA is worth about half of GWM, but you can combine them.
22.94 and 31.88 comes to 12.44495+3.1083=15.55325. That's an overall increase of +5.21825. But to go back to my initial point...
Our control is now (11*0.6)+(18*0.05)=6.6+0.9=7.5
GWM2d6 is (21*0.35)+(28*0.05)=7.35+1.4=8.75
SA2d6 is (12.94*0.6)+(21.88*0.05)=7.764+1.094=8.858
Savage Attacks is better than GWM in a vacuum. It's just limited to once per turn. And you can still combine them, provided GWM survives the new edition.
Your numbers depend entirely on the variables used: ability score, proficiency bonus, and the AC of the target being the big three. The challenge rating of the enemy makes a difference.
You say you've done "more maths," but we haven't seen the work. We haven't actually seen any of your work. We still only have your results, posted in your table on the first page. If you're assuming two attacks, then let's assume a +7 to hit, +4 ability modifier to damage, and the target has AC 15. That's a CR 5 creature, and if everyone has advantage, then it's a 78% chance to for a base hit and a 9.75% chance for a critical hit. The -5 from GWM reduces that base hit chance to 54.25.
So, our control, 11(2d6+4) / 18 (4d6+4) and no modifiers is 8.58+1.755=10.335
GWM increases that to 21/28 to 11.3925+2.73=14.1225. That's an increase of +3.7875
Savage Attacker means 12.94 and 21.88 for 10.0932+2.1333=12.2265 for an increase of +1.89
And the greataxe will be a little lower. But, this is with advantage. When I said the mean was +1, I wasn't counting advantage, and I can do those numbers a little further down. Yes, advantage should give a little more damage. After all, you're increasing your odds of landing a blow. That is going to increase your effective DPA (damage per attack). And SA is worth about half of GWM, but you can combine them.
22.94 and 31.88 comes to 12.44495+3.1083=15.55325. That's an overall increase of +5.21825. But to go back to my initial point...
Our control is now (11*0.6)+(18*0.05)=6.6+0.9=7.5
GWM2d6 is (21*0.35)+(28*0.05)=7.35+1.4=8.75
SA2d6 is (12.94*0.6)+(21.88*0.05)=7.764+1.094=8.858
Savage Attacks is better than GWM in a vacuum. It's just limited to once per turn. And you can still combine them, provided GWM survives the new edition.
you know what, Disregard what I said, for some reason i thought we were talking about GWF and went with entirely the wrong things. Long DAY. Apologies.
I Love Cheeeeeeeese (proceeds to watch Wallace & Grommet).
Would adding +1 to hit be too much? I kinda wonder. I think SA FEELS good which might be more important in mind just getting to avoid poop low rolls on a greataxe feels so much better.
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
Savage Attacker and Tough are incredibly boring feats, when compared to feats like Alert and Magic Initiate.
Alert is so strong, if everyone has it, you can set up the order in which the party goes as you want.
Depending on how good the initiative goes, if it’s a big fight:
Big control spell user goes first.
Support spell user goes second (though they might have to go last if the initiative goes badly to allow the tanker if possible to interpose themselves between the party and the enemy).
Small controller or tanker goes third.
DPR goes fourth, especially if small controller gives them advantage.
At this point it would be better to just do Side Initiative, it would save time.
I don’t see any competition between Savage Attacker and Alert. I don’t think I would ever take it.
I think this is the main question, and of those listed the only one I don't think it competes with is Musician. Musician is strong because of the amount of advantage it can generate. Magic Initiate CAN be good with the right build, but a one time use first level spell, even with all the spell presented is not always going to be AS useful to a character that would consider Savage attacker, same with skilled and Crafter. A character considering Savage attacker is probably using a big weapon and his real competition is lucky, tough, skilled, alert, and tavern brawler. I am honestly not sure that savage attack competes with these, but it is definitely close in my opinion.
Might be 1 way to do it to try and control initiative, tho Musician feat and Lucky Feat are also pretty impressive, Musician. Technically by RAW initiative is a D20 test since it is an ability check; which means both lucky and inspiration can be used to gain advantage on initiative rolls.....
I think SA is suppose to be the Simple Fighter option. Something that works with the mindset of "I just want to smash things, options are bad, keep it simple so-and-so."
Disagree, as you will have an ASI in 3 more levels. While presumably there will be level 4 feats, many of the other feats would still be worthwhile to grab at level 4 even vs a ASI. Unless at level 4 its alert but better you could still take alert and not feel like you wasted your ASI(assuming its still pulls from the same ASI pool and doesn't have a separate feat allotment), people currently still take toughness at level 16 as its a good feat at any level once your build is done, people would still take magic initiate at 4 if it fit their build etc. So savage attacker does need to look at ASIs as well.
I'm not as convinced its bad as others are as if you are using a great axe you will probably see a lot of swing, but we do also have to look at it the context of later levels and ASIs.
Mechanically I like the feat.
It's a level 1 feat and it's power level is in keeping with this. It might seem like a big damage difference, but that is how things that effect damage in combat need to be if they don't use any extra action econ or resources.
On thing that I really like about it is that it makes it so the great sword isn't automatically the best 2 hander for damage, by allowing d12 weapons to shine a little bit more.
Erm, I did the maths on page 1, it makes very little difference, Great Axe gains 1.99 average damage on the attack it is used on, Greatsword gains 1.94 average damage on the attack it is used on. The 0.05 average DPR difference is really not much, basically you need brutal critical 3 still before Greataxe beats out Greatsword on Barbarian, else wise Greatsword always wins.
Also the damage increase really does not seem that big compared to the lucky feat, where you can turn a miss into a hit after rolling the hit. If you do say 1d12+4 average damage at 65% chance to hit, on a miss you could turn that into 7.15 average damage, which would take Savage attacker over three uses to catch up to. If you were a level 9 Raging Barbarian with a +2 greataxe for 1d12+9... at 65% chance to hit 10.725 average damage, meaning it now takes 5 uses. Lucky also gets more uses with proficiency but at level 9 it's already basically the same as ~23.5 rounds of combat of Savage Attacker over the course of a day. This is ignoring all the other ways that the lucky feat can actually be used.
I was thinking about adding proficiency to damage would be too much for dual wielding as an additional option.
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You math isn't wrong, but your application is.
Savage attacker is most useful when rerolling a low roll. You specifically only look at the average damage of weapons. At levels 1-4 this is fine, but once you get muti attack it stops being meaningful. Instead of using it every swing, you are only going to use it if your weapon damage is below average, or on the 2nd swing, if it was not used on the first.
The reason why I mention greatswords is that the way the math works out, you are way more likely to be around the average damage than to be at a high or low extreme because of the 2 dice. You'd only have a <3% chance of rolling max or min damage, and a ~50% chance of rolling a 6-8.
You also are applying the "advantage" incorrectly to the 2d6 if I understand it correctly. "You can roll the Weapon’s damage dice twice and use either roll against the target" Meaning you roll two sets of 2d6 and use the higher. It looks like you just doubled the average increase of rolling 1d6.
On a d12 you have an equal 1/12 chance of rolling any number. The chance of rolling low is greater, the chance of rolling high is greater too, meaning the chance to reroll is much more advantageous to a d12 than a 2d6.
Basically a d12 is more spikey and savage attacker allows you take advantage of that to avoid the lows and get more highs. While with a 2d6 you are way more likely to get an average roll and and average reroll.
Indeed you can use savage attack when your roll is low but that also adds to the issues, first off you can't actually be certain you'll hit on the next attack. From this perspective, I'd still say Savage Attacker is still playing a clear second place to Lucky since you're potentially turning a low roll into a medium or high roll where lucky is potentially turning a miss into a hit, or even a critical in rare cases.
Yes, the Greatsword normalizes damage more, I will admit that which I didn't fully calculate, I might look to redo that later, as that is an important factor.
The are a number of other level 1 feats that remain useful throughout the tiers, with some even scaling up as you progress. Lucky, Alert, and Musician for example; they scale with your proficiency bonus. Then there are feats like Magic Initiate which don't far off (granted Magic Initiate does depend on the Spells you pick; using Magic Initiate to grab Shield as a Paladin for example).
As it stands, Savage Attacker is incredibly lackluster mechanically and in any group that enjoys even the slightest mechanical optimization, I see Savage Attacker as a feat that people will seldomly pick. The math for it just doesn't work out; other level 1 feats are stronger from the get go and will scale as you progress in levels.
A mean increase of nearly 2 DPR is more than Great Weapon Fighter and Sharpshooter could accomplish on their own. And most fighting styles, as only Dueling got close. The next closest was with a greatsword or maul at 1.33. And, technically, they can stack.
Are you certain about this? remember this feat only works on 1 attack a turn. So if you land two hits with a greatsword/maul that is an expected ~2.67 damage increase for GWF and fighting styles aren't meant to be as strong as feats in the first place, Dueling EASILY beats out Savage Attack once you're doing two plus attacks.
To revisit this point, the Wording in Savage Attacker in UA does not permit this usage.
To me this wording implies you roll both weapon damage dice rolls together, not that you can re-roll when it's low (like you could in 5E). So you do in fact just use it on the first attack that lands as I was going with, with my earlier numbers. If you could decide to save it for potential lower rolls on following attacks then It'd be much more powerful. Given there is usually more chance to miss than crit, I wouldn't hold it for future attacks in the turn, unless you have more than one since the chance to lose that extra damage is there.
My Maths isn't fully up to the task of accurately figuring out the exact damage increase of greataxe vs greatsword but I think it's around 1.99 vs 1.37 respectively for taking this feat and taking the normalization into consideration. So when you're at 1 attack around, greataxe would likely win DPS, but 2+ attacks around then it's a harder call... would need more maths and I have exhausted myself on those two numbers. If you could reroll, instead of roll twice, then you could get higher increases than either of these two.
Yes, I'm certain. After factoring in the miss chance, Great Weapon Master and Sharpshooter only add about +1 mean damage per attack. For a single weapon attack, being able to add nearly +2 is impressive. Only Duelist does it better, and just barely.
You can also combine the two, and every little bit of damage helps. Especially at lower levels. Plus, fighting styles are absolutely feats. There's literally a feat to grant a fighting style. Not a half-feat, with a +1 to an ability score, but a full feat. It's called Fighting Initiate, and it's found in Tasha's.
Again, this is a 1st-level feat that can only be used with the Attack when everyone only has one attack they can make. It can't even be used with the monk's bonus action Martial Arts if they pick a race with natural weapons. If it doesn't scale well past 5th-level, that's okay. It's only limited by how many times they try and Attack a target. It also might be a prerequisite for another feat. And if you think it's too weak, then suggest an improvement like adding a bonus weapon die on a critical hit. Because, I'm going to be honest, I miss having that along with the half-orc. It was fun when it came up, even if it wasn't often.
I edited that post since I missed some other information but I don't think it affected this part. I would still say GWM beats out savage attacker, I've done a bit of more maths and by my calculations, if you're making two attacks without advantage you would expect the following results, assuming you use Savage Attacker on first attack (since UA isn't reroll)
Expected damage of GWM on a Maul/Greatsword 1.867 (round up)
Expected damage of Savage Attacker on a Greatsword (assuming 1st hit usage) = 1.288 (round down)
Expected damage of Savage Attacker on a Greataxe (assuming 1st hit usage) = 1.872 (round up)
These numbers might give the win to Savage Attacker when used with a Great Axe, but definitely not when used with a greatsword, also if you get into advantage... advantage does more for GWM than it does for Savage Attacker.
Your numbers depend entirely on the variables used: ability score, proficiency bonus, and the AC of the target being the big three. The challenge rating of the enemy makes a difference.
You say you've done "more maths," but we haven't seen the work. We haven't actually seen any of your work. We still only have your results, posted in your table on the first page. If you're assuming two attacks, then let's assume a +7 to hit, +4 ability modifier to damage, and the target has AC 15. That's a CR 5 creature, and if everyone has advantage, then it's a 78% chance to for a base hit and a 9.75% chance for a critical hit. The -5 from GWM reduces that base hit chance to 54.25.
And the greataxe will be a little lower. But, this is with advantage. When I said the mean was +1, I wasn't counting advantage, and I can do those numbers a little further down. Yes, advantage should give a little more damage. After all, you're increasing your odds of landing a blow. That is going to increase your effective DPA (damage per attack). And SA is worth about half of GWM, but you can combine them.
22.94 and 31.88 comes to 12.44495+3.1083=15.55325. That's an overall increase of +5.21825. But to go back to my initial point...
Savage Attacks is better than GWM in a vacuum. It's just limited to once per turn. And you can still combine them, provided GWM survives the new edition.
you know what, Disregard what I said, for some reason i thought we were talking about GWF and went with entirely the wrong things. Long DAY. Apologies.