Fighters 2nd level combat style: What did you pick?

[BackHandOfFate]

What have you tested out either with Lae'zel or your own character. How did it work out?

Archery
Defense
Dueling
Great Weapon Fighting
Protection
Two-Weapon Fighting Style

I'm very interested to know if anyone has used the Protection option and if it made a tangible impact in game? Did it help you defend your squishies? The AI does seem hell bent on attacking the low AC party members.

[Foolswalkin]

Messaggio originale di Frederik:

great weapon fighting is really good, and it stays good as you level up. two weapon fighting starts out strong, but gets weaker once you get multiple attacks since you still only have 1 off hand attack. dueling is still my favorite though.

I would broadly agree that as levels get higher great weapons favor fighters, since they get multiple extra attacks and so improving the quality of each attack matters more, and two weapon favors characters who have large damage bonuses to attacks (such as Rangers with Mark) since additional attacks matters more. In neither case would I choose great weapon or two weapon purely on their own merits, but rather in consideration with other build factors. In full game release, this would include the quality of available weapons of each type, but that knowledge is a long way off.

[ChipBit]

Havent actually gotten to play BG3 yet, but with countless hours of playing as a fighter in 5e i can say im going defense. in fact im probably going to run my favorite build of all time in BG3 as well.

Fighter (eldritch knight) 6 - Wizard (abjuration) 14 (if i even manage to hit level 20)

its so tanky given the heavy armor as well as reaction shield spell and bonus HP from abj spec im gonna be trying to do a mostly solo run as it and see just how well it can hold up here.

[cary2010haha]

Messaggio originale di ayrtep:

* Shield Master - I don't think dexterity saving throw affects combat? so looks useless.


* Duel wield hopelessly bugged with exploits ATM.

shield master is very good if you focus on dex and with best light armor.
nearly OP, it give you 19 ac with +6 to 8 on dex save
dex save use against all AOE damage.
and shield master will -100% damage on aoe if you passed the check (normal only -50%)


duel wield is OP too (no, i wont tell you why this one)

[GinReaper]

Two weapon fighting style is a lot better if you were able to take the Brute option instead of Battle Master or Eldtrich Knight because you can roll the extra dice of damage on top of the weapon damage. I think it also applies to crit damage.

[Nalkor]

Messaggio originale di ChipBit:

Havent actually gotten to play BG3 yet, but with countless hours of playing as a fighter in 5e i can say im going defense. in fact im probably going to run my favorite build of all time in BG3 as well.

Fighter (eldritch knight) 6 - Wizard (abjuration) 14 (if i even manage to hit level 20)

its so tanky given the heavy armor as well as reaction shield spell and bonus HP from abj spec im gonna be trying to do a mostly solo run as it and see just how well it can hold up here.

I doubt you'll be hitting level 20, maybe closer to level 15 or even 17, but Larian would need to make the later acts have some truly difficult/epic encounters to justify level 20 in a 5e setting. As it stands now my guess is BG3 will be a mid-high-level adventure module. Not exactly a mid-level module, but not exactly on the high end either, probably somewhere in the middle.

[atempi52]

Messaggio originale di Leynok:

Messaggio originale di Zanarkand:

I did defense for the extra 1 AC.

I'm melee so i would never use Archery unless i REALLY need to but mobility isn't an issue.

I use a two handed weapon so didn't need Dueling.

Great Weapon Fighting is only useful if you roll a 1 or 2 so i didn't think twice about it since the chances are so slim making it the worst to chose.

Protection is good if you can position around it. ( 1.5 m ) so it's really good for party play if you use a shield

I do solo adventuring so the bonus 1 AC is huge and allows me to counter attack with Riposte easier.

Hope this helps :)

I think you've underestimated Great Weapon Fighting. A greatsword rolls 2d6 (plus modifier) for damage, which means each attack you have 2 dice with a 1/3 chance to roll a 1 or 2. Being able to reroll those low numbers keeps your average damage much higher.
Though granted if you're using a d10 or d12 2 handed weapon, the odds of rolling a 1 or 2 are much lower, but even so I've played a few fighters/paladins (in pen and paper D&D) who took it and never regretted it, since rolling a low damage sucks when it does happen.

Not that Defence is a bad choice, I've used that before as well for more tank based characters and it sounds like you've gotten it to work well for you.

You know, I totally misread Great Weapon Fighting. I thought it meant you re-roll for your attack roll, not your damage.

[B Rad Mojad]

I've always given Lae'zel Great Weapon Fighting. I chose Protection for my Eldritch Knight Fighter and Two Weapon Fighting for my Hunter Ranger. I never did notice if Protection actually did anything.

[Arlen]

doing some napkin math here - sword and board fighter taking the dueling style, 1d8+3str+2 for a max output of 13 and has +2 to AC - great wep does 2d6 or 1d12 + 3 str for a max output of 15 - is that 2 points of damage worth the tradeoff in AC - taking it a bit further down the line, and say the Greatweapon fighter takes the feat, -5 to hit +10 damage - some more napkin math, it stands to reason that as you level up, your enemies become more powerful, part of that powerup is AC. Great wep with the feat die roll + 4 str + 3 prof - 5 from feat = +2 to hit - an enemy with an AC of 16 means you would have to roll a 14 or better to hit. dueling feat +4 str +3 prof = +7 to hit and the damage is steady 1d8+4str+2 - overall, the dueling style gets more bang for the buck, while the GWM gives you great burt damage on a hit, but will hit less frequently.

[wendigo211]

The people who like the Great Weapon Fighting feat are counting on having advantage all the time to offset the penalties. To be fair, it's not that hard to get advantage in 5e, using the Shove (Prone) action, help action or the optional flanking rules, it's pretty easy to get advantage without expending any exhaustable resources. However, a lot of the time advantage does come at the cost of an action for either the player or one his party members. Advantage won't completely negate the hit penalty (unless you have exactly a 75% chance to hit without GWF), but as long as your target number is between a 7 and a 15 it's giving you at least a +4 or better to hit.

In BG3 there is backstab, which gives you a bonus to hit and doesn't count as advantage so you can get both advantage and backstab to offset the -5 penalty. That makes it a more attractive ability in this game than PnP.

So, without advantage, when is using GWF better than not using GWF? It depends on how much extra damage were getting from ability modifiers, weapon enhancements etc. We can calculate our average damage per attack as the product of the chance of hitting the target and the average damage per hit. Let's assume a character with a greatsword, +4 damage modifier (say a 16 strength and +1 weapon or 18 strength) and a bonus to hit of +6 (4+proficiency modifier). Without GWF, our average damage per hit from 2d6+4 is 11; with GWF our average damage is 10 points higher (21). That leaves us with the following inequality to solve: (x-0.25)*21>=x*11. The solution to that is x>=0.525. For the Fighter in our example, if our target has an AC of 16 or lower he should use GWF if the AC is 17 or higher he shouldn't use GWF, although if the target has an AC of 26 or higher he should activate it again.

A bit of a messy calculation, but it does show that the +10 to damage isn't always worth the -5 to hit. Generally speaking, if your chance to hit increases without increasing your damage, GWF gets better and as your average damage per hit increases GWF gets worse. For a character like a Paladin who has smites and damage enhancement spells, it's probably not an ability he's going to want to activate a lot.

[Arlen]

Messaggio originale di wendigo211:

The people who like the Great Weapon Fighting feat are counting on having advantage all the time to offset the penalties. To be fair, it's not that hard to get advantage in 5e, using the Shove (Prone) action, help action or the optional flanking rules, it's pretty easy to get advantage without expending any exhaustable resources. However, a lot of the time advantage does come at the cost of an action for either the player or one his party members. Advantage won't completely negate the hit penalty (unless you have exactly a 75% chance to hit without GWF), but as long as your target number is between a 7 and a 15 it's giving you at least a +4 or better to hit.

In BG3 there is backstab, which gives you a bonus to hit and doesn't count as advantage so you can get both advantage and backstab to offset the -5 penalty. That makes it a more attractive ability in this game than PnP.

So, without advantage, when is using GWF better than not using GWF? It depends on how much extra damage were getting from ability modifiers, weapon enhancements etc. We can calculate our average damage per attack as the product of the chance of hitting the target and the average damage per hit. Let's assume a character with a greatsword, +4 damage modifier (say a 16 strength and +1 weapon or 18 strength) and a bonus to hit of +6 (4+proficiency modifier). Without GWF, our average damage per hit from 2d6+4 is 11; with GWF our average damage is 10 points higher (21). That leaves us with the following inequality to solve: (x-0.25)*21>=x*11. The solution to that is x>=0.525. For the Fighter in our example, if our target has an AC of 16 or lower he should use GWF if the AC is 17 or higher he shouldn't use GWF, although if the target has an AC of 26 or higher he should activate it again.

A bit of a messy calculation, but it does show that the +10 to damage isn't always worth the -5 to hit. Generally speaking, if your chance to hit increases without increasing your damage, GWF gets better and as your average damage per hit increases GWF gets worse. For a character like a Paladin who has smites and damage enhancement spells, it's probably not an ability he's going to want to activate a lot.

Shove is an action not a bonus action, same as disengage unless you take a feat (shieldmaster is one of them) or its a class ability (like rogue) - I agree with you that in this game, many of the things that normally take an action to do, have become bonus actions, thus trivializing certain feats or class abilities removed altogether (disengage from the rogue class) I am of two minds about this, the D&D player in me dislikes these homebrewed features, especially since attack of opportunity removes a player's action on a hit but not on enemies, thus forcing you to use your bonus action - there are times when it is tactical to take an Opportunity attack to move without utilizing your bonus action. The video game player in me thinks its rather silly.

[cary2010haha]

Messaggio originale di wendigo211:

In BG3 there is backstab, which gives you a bonus to hit and doesn't count as advantage so you can get both advantage and backstab to offset the -5 penalty. That makes it a more attractive ability in this game than PnP.

wrong, back stab also count as adv.
only 1 adv can active pre attack.

5e rules

[BW022]

Messaggio originale di Leynok:

I think you've underestimated Great Weapon Fighting. A greatsword rolls 2d6 (plus modifier) for damage, which means each attack you have 2 dice with a 1/3 chance to roll a 1 or 2. Being able to reroll those low numbers keeps your average damage much higher.

Not really. On average, 2d6 rerolling 1 and 2s is 1.74 more damage per hit (factoring in critical hits) It is 1.15 on a 1d12, and 1.12 on a 1d10.

Statistically you are far better off just increasing your strength by 2, if your strength isn't already 20. The damage difference per hit is only 0.74 but you'd be hitting 15-30% more often vs. typical armor classes. Plus shoves, carrying capacity, athletics checks, etc.

[schuggerbaby]

Has someone checked the log if the dice are rerolled for Great Weapon Fighting?
When I played with my Dwarf Fighter I never have seen 1s or 2s being rerolled.

[Martin]

Messaggio originale di billybobtexan1000:

Messaggio originale di Diablerie:

Protection in this game sounds good on paper, but the way BG is designed it's usually best to get your ranged squishies to higher elevation. In this respect having your fighter up there with them means the fighter isn't down on the ground dealing damage. 1.5m range means you have to be hugging them pretty close. This is kinda bad when most enemies have pockets full of alchemist's fire and other aoes, bunching up just tempts them way too much.

Funny that you point that out - typical fight is - Goblin throws grenade, gobiie archer shoots fire arrow or acid arrow, next gobbie throws grenade at barrel - this is especially apparent and frustrating in the blighted village, where the only way to trigger the cutscene is to enter the windmill area in the absolutely worst tactical way possible, whoever you send is an instant death sentence. Believe me, I tried every way possible to trigger that scene using different means of entering, and they all result in no cut scene, and having to kill everything there, and wyll getting pissed.

Just ambush them. Simples. See goblins.. kill goblins.

As to op, protection all the way.

[wendigo211]

Messaggio originale di cary2010haha:

Messaggio originale di wendigo211:

In BG3 there is backstab, which gives you a bonus to hit and doesn't count as advantage so you can get both advantage and backstab to offset the -5 penalty. That makes it a more attractive ability in this game than PnP.

wrong, back stab also count as adv.
only 1 adv can active pre attack.

5e rules

Not in this game, test it out.