Honestly great weapon fighting plus Graze really are good for the "I just hate feeling like i wasted my turn" players and i don't dislike them for that.
@@derektom14 The thing I don't like about Graze is that it's worse the better you are at actually hitting. Like for Devotion and Vengeance Paladins, for example, it's almost a non-factor since they'll be hitting pretty much all the time.
@derektom14 Planning for failure is rarely if ever good, and the Mastery only gets worse mathematically as you progress. In comparison to most of the ohers it's just pathetic.
@malmasterson3890 Graze improves as you progress, it starts as +3 on a miss and eventually gets to +5 on a miss. You're going to miss some attack rolls, that's an inevitable part of dice games. It's also rather nice on a glaive with PAM, the bonus attack is guaranteed to deal Str damage and you're only rolling for the 1d4.
About great weapon fighting, I feel like it's better than it looks, as it doesn't specify weapon damage, so for every single die you roll, you get the boost. Like someone else pointed out, great sword having a minimum roll of 6 is pretty good, doesn't raise the ceiling at all but definitely raises the floor by a amount
@@lukenator115 And if you add the Revenant Blade feat, it gets finesse, so you can take rogue levels to sneak attack with it AND the base 3 damage applies to those buncha d6s too.
I think Two Weapon Fighting does work with the Dual Wielder feat because of the wording in Dual Wielder. You gain an extra attack that is the result of using a weapon that has the Light Property. The Bonus Action attack with a weapon that lacks the two-handed property is a result of making an attack with a weapon that has the Light property. It should absolutely work.
I'm inclined to agree. If it said "as a result of the Light property of a weapon you're using" then it wouldn't work (and I think this is how many people are interpreting it). But since it's as a result of "using a weapon that has the Light property," it should work. Having said that, it would be nice if they spelled it out explicitly. I have a feeling different DMs will rule this different ways, which will lead to a lot of confusion.
I'm kind of glad that melee is getting more damage then ranged. Melee gives a risk vs reward structure since you have to run up to monsters while ranged provides a safer way to deal damage but will deal a little less
Hmm I dont entirely agree. Imo they should similar outputs. Ranged has the advantage of attacking from a safe distance, but the disadvantage of being less useful once you forced to be in melee
@@MaMastoastI understand your point of view, but the benefit of “I don’t get hit nearly as often because I’m 60ft away” vs the risk of “but I might do a lil less damage once they get to me” works out HEAVILY in the favor of a ranged combatant. Ranged needs to be less damaging, or else it invalidates melee damage dealers. Why put your characters neck on the line if your party member can do the same damage from across the map?
On the comparison between Great Weapon Fighting and Duelist you didn’t even mention that Duelist also allows you to equip a shield giving you more damage AND defense!
My only possible thought is that they considered Great Weapon Master still adding damage with the big two handed weapons, so they took that into account when "balancing" the fighting styles vs each other. Sword and board is more consistent and defensive when incorporating things like Shield Master and/or Defensive Duelist (and ability to wield a shield in general), whereas heavy weapon users get the damage edge (even if slight) from Great Weapon Fighting and GWM. Sword and board can also utilize Polearm Master with a spear or quarterstaff, but illustrating it more the heavy weapon PM user has the damage edge with higher hit die than the d6 spear/staff as well as Reach from their polearm.
Dueling is such a good fighting style. I had a dex paladin with a Rapier and Shield (wanted to be stealthy for the infiltration campaign). The style increased base damage and AC, and when I needed big damage, Smiting was ready to go. It was so fun.
@@bruhschwagg490 Well, Chris did the math in the video, with the average damage of a Greatsword/Maul only going from 7 points average damage to 8 - a +1 damage buff on average compared to the +2 from Dueling. And he mentioned that, even compared to the old GW FS, the +1 is even less of an average damage buff than the statistical average damage increase of rerolling which was a tiny bit higher than +1 but even then still less than the +2 from Dueling.
A Paladin with Protection next to a Rogue with Sentinel becomes a tricky problem for the enemy. If they attack the Rogue, they get disadvantage on every attack. If they then switch to the Paladin and hit, bam, reaction Sneak Attack!
The Protection change makes me wonder about Mounted Combatant now. Forcing all attacks to target one character, while the other provides all those attacks with disadvantage seems pretty nice.
The new Mounted Combatant only redirects hits, so you no longer benefit accuracy-wise from redirecting attacks from a low-AC mount to a high-AC or protected character.
If someone tries to hit your mount, you can give the attack disadvantage. If your mount still gets hit, you can take the damage. Protection just helps offset the mount's low AC.
Ok, so, here's the thing If you are a paladin on a mount, you redirect hits against your mount to you With protection, you can make attacks against your mount have disadvantage, meaning enemies don't benefit from attacking your mount, since if they hit, they hit you, but they are more lively to miss than just attacking you directly, if your mount has barding.
The easier way to do the average of a die roll is (lowest result + highest result) / 2. So a d10 would be (1+10)/2 = 11/2 = 5.5. This works if youre adding modifiers to the damage as well.
The real full formula is sum(each outcome * probability of that outcome) So 1*1/10+2*1/10+3*1/10.... Which if you factor is 1/10*(1+2+3+...) With the feat it is 3*3/10+4*1/10+5*1/10+6*1/10... Factoring... 3*3/10+1/10*(4+5+6+7+8+9+10) Or... 1/10*(9+4+5+6+7+8+9+10) For a d10. ... Signifies more terms as a shorthand
@@michaeldeucalion9283 It was not about stacking. It was about treantmonk saying it is now very difficult to pick up blindfighting for non-martial characters. I guess he forgot the skulker feat exists while going over this part
Great Weapon Fighting might apply to additional damage dice. It was clarified before that it was supposed to be just for weapon damage dice, but from what i've heard that was so it didn't slow down the game. Now that it's faster, you might be able to use it for additional damage die, like divine favor, smite, hunter's mark, frenzy dice, sneak attack dice, etc, might make it more worthwhile overall, ontop of its very unique benefit that it's the only fighting style to benefit crits, although that's very niche.
@@mcsherman18 I don’t. There hasn’t been an official statement if this was the intent or not. I’m assuming though because they didn’t clarify this from the 2014 version this might be the case, although they might’ve very realistically forgot to clarify it again.
It’s really hard to imagine how something like Great Weapon Fighting makes it past whatever QA they have in place. This is not hard math. Features that are more about the subjective experience than the math have their place, but ideally they should have both, and it’s not like this fighting style is a super niche thing.
Yes, but some features are a lot more about feeling good than actually being good. I believe it was done so that a Greatsword Champion Fighter is a perfect beginner character. Easy to understand, gets frequent rerolls, if they miss an attack they still deal damage, if they hit they deal at least 6 extra damage, it makes sure that no turn feels like a waste and it's easy to understand, even if it's never going to be as strong as the optimal choices.
The designers should know better than to put something as bad as Great Weapon Fighting into the game. I’m a math teacher, and this is middle school math. I don’t see how it “feels good” or is “beginner friendly” to pick something that fits your character concept and get something that makes you so much weaker than every other option.
They could easily make it feel good and actually be fine tho. If it was "you can treat any damage die you roll as half the maximum" it'd be fine. This wording makes it feel like they thought all big weapons are greatswords.
2024 PHB version of Giant Spider doesn't have blindsight. It does list a few beasts that do (like constrictor snake and giant crab) but we'll have to wait for the 2024 Monster Manual to get a full picture of the wildshape options for Moon druid
If you really want to get Blindsight to 10 feet without the Fighting Style class feature, you can just take Skulker feat which now gives 10 feet of Blindsight as well as more features than Blind Fighting.
I think the value of Great Weapon Master is not the damage, but the reduction in variance. It makes critting better, and makes each hit feel equally meaty. That said,, Great Weapon Master could be buffed to improve the variance on the damage die even more than how it is currently.
Also makes double-bladed scimitar into a 2d6 damage weapon with a 1d6 damage bonus action. Interesting what mastery the weapon may have the team totaly forgot it existed. A cleave, nick or vex mastery would make it bonkers.
I remember trying the UA version of this, which if I remember correctly was essentially having advantage at damage. It was busted. The straight reroll it had previously just sucked. It always felt horrible to reroll and get another one (which seemed to happen way too much). The really bad thing is I think this really centered around Great Swords and trying to not make them OP while still having GWM still do somewhat decent damage, and like Chris said, still make everything faster. As GS get so much more out of this then any other weapon. As with GS you can only roll a 6-12, but with everything else you roll a 3-?. However they could've just gone the Duelist route and said if you're attacking with a two handed weapon, you just do a straight +2 damage. Or I'd be happy with a +2 to hit to put it on a level playing field as Archers. Or just give Archers the same bonus as GWM... There's a lot of good ways they could've gone to avoid the GS trap, while still making this better, but in the end it's really not horrible and still makes your damage more reliable.
@@purpleniumowlbear2952 Issue is that you can't use many long range characters like that. However, since range is nerfed a bit, it might work out anyway. Still an issue for spellcaster attacks.
Also looks like protection continues to protect your ally until the end of your next turn regardless of what happens to you. Your friend might be dragging your corpse with him for the next turn, Weekend at Bernie's style.
Or at the very least, two front-liners with shields imposing disadvantage on attacks against each other. Plus, with the change to what “attack” means in 5.24, that means melee, ranged and spell attacks. Holding a doorway or other pinch point becomes much better, tactically.
Adding a smite or any sort of additional dice to a weapon makes great weapon fighting significantly better. It just says damage die, not weapons damage
10:00 it seems to me it doesn't circumvent the restriction. I think that one of the design goals for the 2024 phb was to limit some of the easy ways to get most of the goodies of a class with a dip or a feat. They've not always been successful, but I think that's the intent.
Or you could make it anything below a 4 is treated as a 4. Same essence but a little stronger. Great sword ends up at a +2 damage Only a .6 increase for a Longsword but it would be the preferred choice for some builds.
My take on it: Great Weapon Fighting that does not suck (Prerequisite: Fighting Style Feature) While holding with two hands a weapon that has the Two-Handed or Versatile property: - The first time you miss a weapon attack on your turn against a target that is within 5 feet of you, you can choose to deal damage to the target equal to your proficiency bonus; the damage's type is determined by the weapon you're holding. - When you roll damage for a weapon attack, you can treat any die you roll as half the maximum of that dice. There. Now we have reasonable averages, it still works with Longbow, and has a clear niche of flavor for reliable, unstoppable damage
Since GWF doesn't limit the benefit to WEAPON dice, and instead implicitly allows rider dice to do so, I think the optimal level 20 GWF build now is Elf (for Revenant Blade in combination with the Double-Bladed Scimitar -which doesn't have a Mastery yet, but I think we could give it Cleave as a placeholder-) Fighter 1/Scout Rogue 19, since it basically makes your average sneak attack 40, instead of 35, but your base damage is 30, instead of 10, and the Scout subclass allows you to do it again on a bonus action against another creature. Just gotta make sure your allies help you gather 2 or more enemies within 10 feet of each other so that you can get in the middle and shank'em two at a time for an average total of 103 damage (combined), before weapon bonuses and assuming 20 DEX, and again as a reaction if any of them run without disengaging (or take Sentinel and do it anyway when they disengage or attack an ally in the melee, too). A potential 154 damage per round, sustained and without resource expenditure, is insane, I think. This new version also helps Paladins, STR rangers and Battlemaster/Psi Warrior fighters, in that it allows them to slightly increase the minimum and average damage of their Smites, Hunter's Mark and Superiority/Psionic Energy dice, so that expending them is less of a gamble (and critting with them is juicier).
Two Weapon Fighting says "as a result of using a weapon that has the Light property". Dual Wielder provides an attack that is the result of using a weapon with the Light property. It absolutely applies. If it didn't want Dual Wielder to apply it would say "using the Light weapon property"
Interception that scales better (Prerequisite: Fighting Style Feature) When a creature you can see hits you or another creature within 5 feet of you with an attack roll, you can take a Reaction to reduce the damage dealt to the target by 1d6 plus your Proficiency Bonus. The damage reduction increases by 1d6 when you reach levels 5 (2d6), 11 (3d6), and 17 (4d6). You must be holding a Shield or a Simple or Martial weapon to use this Reaction.
My thoughts on the Fighting Style feat prerequisite are basically just that it’s a limiting factor for Fighters, Paladins, and Rangers. Like, a class feature that gives you a feat, but it has to be one of these, as opposed to something like Sharpshooter or Great Weapon Master. So, the Fighting Initiate feat gives you the “Fighting Style Feature” prerequisite for the Fighting Style feats. At least, that’s how I plan to run it for my own table.
I would just rework Great Weapon Fighting to instead have the damage die explode on any maximum die roll. So in the case of a longsword, a damage roll of 10 lets you roll another d10, and if that nets you another 10 result, you roll again. That feels more in keeping with the "swing for the fences" nature of the feat.
I got the same idea but I would only put it on the greataxe because it’s a d12 and it really needs a different style than the 2d6 weapons So the 2d6 weapons get to increase their lowest die up to their strength score or reroll once and have a minimum of three And the 1d12 gets to possibly turn their hit into a crit if they roll a 12 I don’t know which one would be the d10 but I also don’t know why would anybody actually use a versatile weapon with two hands
Nah, I think Lasarllama had the best idea. Just have it never be blow half on the damage for Great Weapons, then give Versatile weapons their own fighting style.
That's still only 0.55 average damage increase (with the longsword example), greatsword remains on top but it's weaker than the 2014 GWF (+1.17 compared to +1.33). Lasellama version is also horrible, idk why anyone recommends that; it makes greataxes strictly better than greatswords just to change up the usual balance of that, but makes the style itself WORSE than both 2014 and this new weaker 2024! Greatsword without a style is 7 damage, 2014 GWF it goes to 8.33, 2024 GWF it goes to 8 flat, and llama GWF takes the greataxe to 7.7. It's fucking awful, no one should use it. If you simply make GWF a sort of savage attacker; roll one extra damage die and drop the lowest. So greataxe gets advantage on damage rolls, and greatsword is 3d6 drop one. Way more elegant than any of these and a bit better than the 2014 in terms of strength. Greatswords and axes will be at 8.5 and 8.49 average damage - 0.01 differential, with a +1.5 damage instead of the usual 1.33. I've never seen any other alternative even remotely close to that.
Actually, you could ADD that to the current GWF bonus and it STILL would be underpowered on average: for a halberd, average damage would increase by 0.3 for the 1 or 2 = 3 rule, and the exploding dice would add an average of 1.1, so 1.4 total. Still way less than Dueling, but boy oh boy would it FEEL awesome when that damage die exploded!
Shouldn't Great Weapon Fighting scale with the amount of dice you are attacking with? It doesn't qualify 'weapon damage,' it just says, "When you roll damage" which would also apply to berserker frenzy dice, or to magical damage associated with an enchanted or magical weapon. Combat superiority dice. Sneak attacks. Sentinel triggered strikes. It's bad if you don't have access to more damage dice, but seems strong when you start stacking them on.
Sneak attack requires finesse weapon gwf requires you to hold the weapon with two hands. I don’t think there are any that fit both. But true it scales with smites or battle master or whatever extra dice you have. Paladin smite is probably the best use but re-rolling would be so much better than treating as a 3… that’s just so bad.
Great weapon fighting is actually pretty good on the double bladed scimitar since that thing does 2d4 damage for some reason. So your guaranteed to be doing 6 damage minimum. Your average would be 6.5 instead of 5, which is still less then the boost from dueling but the consistency is nice.
Just to play devil’s advocate for Great Weapon Fighting, would knowing you had a higher minimum damage affect how you attack in combat advantageously? Like, if you have a +3 STR and a greatsword, does knowing that on a hit it’s impossible for you to deal less than 9 damage allow you to more consistently one-hit kill 9hp enemies, and leave the ones at partial HP for your other party members to finish off with less consistent attacks? Dunno how the math plays out, but in concept, it seems like I’d be able to play with a kind of benefit in knowing I have a damage range of 9-15 instead of 4-15. This would be most relevant at low levels when clearing lots of small enemies, but worth pointing out if someone is doing a low level 1-shot or something.
i think it might benefit you, if you know the hp of every enemy at all times. if your DM communicates enemy hp, then this fighting style is actually takeable at low levels i think.
If you are playing a Paladin in DnD 2024 you can now pick up Magic Initiate as an origin feat for the Shield spell and pick up Protection as your fighting style at level 2. At level 6 you're now potentially boosting your allies' saving throws by up to +5, and can use your reaction to give yourself a +5 to AC for a whole round or give disadvantage to attacks against an ally for a whole round. I hope DMs will have fun trying to hit anyone in a party with a Paladin now. Also worth noting that Defensive Duelist only requires you to hold a Finesse weapon but still works if you are wearing a shield, so you can even boost your whole party's defenses AND your own without expending any resources at all.
Great Weapon Fighting may make a Berserker barbarian nuts on its first attack because it looks like it allows you to reroll all those bonus d6s for rage.
Good point, though I think you meant "automatically get a minimum of 3" instead of re-roll. We need a new verb for that. How about "I min-3'd the damage"?
Berserker barbs or barbs in general don’t get a fighting style, so you would need multi-classing for it. But critting as a berserker using a greatsword deals 8d6. the more dices with smaller dice size, the more value it gives.
I don't think it works, at least intentionally. The text is very similar to 2014, and it was stated that the intention on that one is that it only affects the weapon dice, not extra damage such as sneak attack or the new berserker feature
@@marcos2492 Actually, it was stated that the intent of that ruling was that re-rolling too many dice were slowing the game down. You're no re-rolling anything, so that errata is invalid twice over (once for being old, once for being irrelevant). Besides, are you really trying to argue that GWF should only do .25 to .3 extra damage per attack with the vast majority of 2h weapons, when every other damage boosting fighting style is doing 2+ damage? That's weird.
@@GangurEXE it says 5 feat from your mount. Since your mount Warhorse is a large creature and you are sitting in the middle of it on it's back, the reach of the lance reaches to the 5 feat from the outer base of the warhorse's base. Which means in my interpretation that you still get advantage against unmounted oponents smaller than your mount.
Hey treantmonk, excellent video as always. Glad to see your subscriber count is closer to your goal every time I click on your latest post. Saw your 3.5 god wizard handbook 15 years ago and glad you are recognized for your ability to analyze game mechanics as well as you do.
It is fantastic that you are doing these videos and giving people a forum to discuss and hash out the pros/cons of things in preparation for the new rule changes. Thank you.🎉
I'm pretty sure the dual welder feat is impacted by two weapon fighting because it says when you get an extra attack as a result of an attack with a light weapon and dual wielder is still meets that requirement. I also think that Jeremy Crawford literally said that and I'm pretty sure you posted it
Great Weapon fighting applies to smite and sneak attack, that is the only times it increases damage with like a Greataxe or 2d6 weapon Or poisoner feat
Something to remember about Greatweapon Fighting is that it at least avoids really disappointing rolls. You'll always roll the middle result on a d6 with it. So it helps avoid things like rolling a crit and then bombing all 1s on the damage. On the note of crits, they, along with any other damage modifications to your attack, will be effected by Greatweapon Fighting. That means if you roll a crit you're applying a damage range of 12-24+stat instead of 4-24+stat. It doesn't improve your average damage much, but it does make it so that your consistent. With it a Greatsword fighter realistically cannot do less then 9 damage. And that's avaialble at level 1.
If you’re using a greataxe, your roll of 2 gets upgraded to a 3. I’d still call that disappointing. With the 2014 version, you at least had a real chance of turning things around.
I guess with Great Weapon Fighting it’s nice knowing your greatsword will always do a minimum of 6+str damage on a hit. They could have at least let us reroll first and then treat any 1s or 2s as 3.
Could a double bladed scimitar used by a sneak attack rogue or paladin smiting be the exception? Asking in anticipation of Colby's inevitable takes on this.
Regarding Eldritch Adept: That's one feat that ... I won't say I would ban it, but I'd definitely want a player to chat with me first before telling me they're taking Eldritch Adept and the Pact of the Blade invocation to get those benefits without even slowing down their spellcasting as, say, a Valor Bard.
Honestly, since they changed the pact boons to be all level 1 Invocations and nothing else except Lessons of the Old Ones (I think), I've thought about homebrewing Eldritch Adept to choose any invocation with only the prerequisite of second level.
Paused at 14:20 (in case Chris mentions this later in the section), this is a buff in the niche use of the Double Bladed Scimitar. Since it uses 2d4, your average roll is now 3.25 per d4. 7.5+mod+feat+etc is consistent damage. That being said, if this weapon is not in 5.24 and does not have masteries, who knows if you will be able to use it.
Hi, I'm a giganerd, here's a fast way to intuit GWF's effect on a die: the average damage of a die is the sum of the results over the number of results. GWF always adds three to the sum (+2 when you roll a one, +1 when you roll a 2), so GWF adds 3 divided by the size of the die. A d4 adds 0.75, a d6 adds 0.5, and so forth.
14:21 i really feel like wotc really should have hired just any kind of mathematician to calculate this sort of thing for the new phb because it feels like they have no idea how to balance damage and they havent improved on that in 10 years
Fighting initiate is not repeatable. it allows you to get one fighting style without the feature. To be fair about great weapon master, It is designed to push up the minimum damage, not the average. It does not really increase the average, but it greatly boosts the efficiency of Greatswords and Mauls, making it much better off of paper than on when using those weapons.
depends what you mean with half. half would be 3.5 for a 1d6, so if you round up like with hit dice when rolling for hp you would deal 2 extra damage on avarage for greatswords, 1.75 for greataxes and 1.5 for halberds. i think thats a very balanced fighting style. of course if you round down then you are absolutly correct.
@@lukasmayer9041 I ment half the weapon damage not half the damage average of multiple rolls. Your max weapon damage is 12 your minimum weapon damage is 6 you always get half the weapon damage with a Great Sword on each hit.
I feel like the damage bonus from Great Weapon Master could've gone here. Adding proficiency to your damage would start as good as dueling and then gotten progressively better, which feels fair for an damage specialized style. Though it also begs the question of why GWM is limited to the attack action on your turn and dueling isnt.
@iolair1973 The Great Sword Fighting Style, lol. That's really the only way it appears to be a good style. Add in GWM and minimum damage is even higher with the added proficiency bonus damage.
Good point about the two handed weapons fighting style! With the +2 to the one handed weapons I will probably homebrew the TH style like: you double your strength bonus as modifier
Great Weapon fighting produces RELIABLE damage. Yeah if you've got a big dumb sack of hitpoints you need to hack through, an average damage increase of
@@derektom14 It does create an odd kind of quirk where the style is most effective the closer an enemy's HP is to a multiple of your minimum damage. So the hypothetical 13 min damage fighter is highly effective against enemies with HP around 13, 26, 39, 52, etc, with reduced efficacy the further you get from those numbers.
I don't see why they have to restrict all these feats to only classes that have the "Fighting Style Feature", it seems multi-classing isn't going anywhere after all
@@darklight9450 Rogue is only peripherally a martial class. I don't think they should have a fighting style and generally the only one they ever wanted was Archery (I guess actually the one that gave you Brace and Riposte but that's now intentionally subclass locked amd considering weapon mastery I think with good reason). Just put your ASI in Dex. It's better.
@@apjapki I mean I think should the Archery and two weapon styles and the Dark vison but none of the others. The main reason is that they are light weapons and for their background it doesn't make sense for criminals or special agents of the government to have bad aim. While the 2-hand weapon style makes sense for them since how a second attack would do less damage with same weapon alone. Note losing sneak attack make since you are no longer surprising the enemy and are more aware of you and gameplay balance. While for dark vision in real life most criminals rob during nighttime since it is harder to get recognize, and most people are asleep at this point.
I hope these aren't taken as normal feats. Why would anyone take blind-fighting over Skulker if so? I assume these are still freebies for a couple of classes. Great weapon fighting, I think, shines on those 2d6 weapons like Maul and Great sword. You have a much greater chance to roll 1 or 2 on a d6 and the results are doubled. I run an Echo Knight Bugbear that uses a maul and I have to say that those rerolls produce quite a bit of damage for me... Im not sure what the math would say for the rerolls, but they were definitely better than a fixed 3.
the calculation would be the same as chris mentioned in the video actually, only instead of flat 3 you take the average weapon damage. in this case (3.5+3.5+3+4+5+6)/6 this means your maul would deal an avarage of 8.33 (repeating) damage instead of 7, or a damage bonus of 1.33... on avarage.
5.24. I like that name for this version. I always learn from the Treantmonk! I'm sharing all these videos with my discord channels. Really great resource!
Who would have predicted that 2024 rules would bring the return of the 2nd Ed. Dart-Master? Honestly though, I think the dethroning of Ranged Combat is a bit exaugurated. The biggest advantage of ranged combat is at the tactical scale, where you are effectively getting an extra turn or two of DPR compared to a Melee-only bruiser who has to run over to engage the enemy. Or alternatively, you could use your range to prevent the enemy from doing damage, which often times has a greater impact.
The text on Two-Weapon Fighting says "as a result of using a weapon that has the light property", not "as a result of the light property". That is why I would argue it does work with Dual Wielder.
Thanks for getting all this information out! @15:00 Great Weapon Fighting - OK, I know I shouldn't say this but I am so jealous of people that have the connections and opportunities to work at jobs that they LOVE. SO JEALOUS!!! It's stuff like this that basically tell me these people are not really working as hard at their game as I am, and that pisses me off. SO many things that should have been changed over 10 years of feedback on the internet. GWF that should have at least been checked for basic math logic. Or just say it straight up that we were trying to lower the damage gulf between Monks and Barbarians and this is an intentionally bad feat. That there was a reason for this (and so many other things that don't seem to make sense - like the spells that should have changed but didn't). OK I have to admit they did change and catch some things that I didn't expect them to catch. That thing about the Check for Traps spell for instance, but how did this get missed?
I think GWF is great for the 2d6 weapons but horrible for the 1d12 weapons. They should do something like Reliable Talent where you always do at least half damage.
12:14 would it have killed them to make Dueling deal your proficiency bonus as damage instead of a flat +2? That would have been in line with features like the new Great Weapon Master feat. Too good to allow it to scale?
Great Weapon Fighting only seems to be alright with Greatswords. If you also consider that some class features and spells add to your weapon damage like Divine Favor, it might be better if it works.
Chris @Treantmonk's Temple, actually Light property + TWF + Dual Wielder feat + Nick mastery = lvl 5 fighter = 2 weapons one nick and another non-nick but light= 3 attacks with your action, one must be from the Nick weapon, and a bonus action attack from DW feat, that adding your mod to the damage due to TWF that states that all off-hand attacks get mod damage
Your assessment of great weapon fighting is missing a very important detail. Minimum guaranteed damage. A minimum damage roll on a long-sword goes from 1 + your modifier to 3 + your modifier. Not that impressive, but a guarantee of +2 (the same as Dueling). For 2d6 weapons such as Greatswords or Mauls this is goes from 2 + your modifier to 6 + your modifier. This is twice as good as the dueling fighting style. Averages do not matter that much because dice do not actually adhere to averages at the gaming table. Minimum damage matters so much more.
Idk where this comes from, average damage certainly matters more than minimum damage. If you're hitting for 5 damage on 2 attacks, you're still doing less damage than someone who did 2 on one attack and 15 on the next.
For those that want the math for the alternative proposed by Treantmonk; the numbers should be correct (except last one). Hope the formatting is good. GREAT WEAPON FIGHTNING Treantmonk’s Temple 1. When you roll damage for an attack you make with a Melee weapon that you are holding with two hands, if the damage roll on a dice is less than half the dice maximum, you can treat is as half. LONGSWORD 1d10 average 5.5 with GWM average 6.5 +1 min-max 5-10 HALBERD / PIKE / GLAIVE 1d10 average 5.5 with GWM average 6.5 +1 min-max 5-10 GREATAXE 1d12 average 6.5 with GWM average 7.75 +1.25 min-max 6-12 GREATSWORD / MAUL 2d6 average 7 with GWM average 8 +1 min-max 6-12 2. When you roll damage for an attack you make with a Melee weapon that you are holding with two hands, if the damage roll on a dice is less than the dice average (rounded up), you can treat is as average (rounded up). LONGSWORD 1d10 average 5.5 with GWM average 7 +1.5 min-max 6-10 HALBERD / PIKE / GLAIVE 1d10 average 5.5 with GWM average 7 +1.5 min-max 6-10 GREATAXE 1d12 average 6.5 with GWM average 8.25 +1.75 min-max 7-12 GREATSWORD / MAUL 2d6 average 7 with GWM average 9 +2 min-max 8-12 BEST AND PROBABLY WHAT TREANTMONK SUGGESTED, GOOD PLUS AVERAGE 3. GREAT WEAPON FIGHTNING from Laserllama Fighter (modified to work with longsword and non-heavy weapons) When you roll damage for an attack you make with a Melee weapon that you are holding with two hands, you can treat a TOTAL roll of 5 or lower on the weapon's damage dice as a 6. LONGSWORD 1d10 average 5.5 with GWM average 7 +1.5 min-max 6-10 HALBERD / PIKE / GLAIVE 1d10 average 5.5 with GWM average 7 +1.5 min-max 6-10 GREATAXE 1d12 average 6.5 with GWM average 7.75 +1.25 min-max 6-12 GREATSWORD / MAUL 2d6 average 7 with GWM average 7.55 +0.55 min-max 6-12 Not sure of this one is correct
The Best weapon for great weapon fighting IS The double bladed scimitar giving you +0.75 average per die twice. As such from 2.5 X 2 becomes 3.25 X 2 resulting in a 1.5. However i think its main aplication is dice stacking. Picking that up on a rogue or palla Great stuff IMO
Chris out here giving us full wording on mechanics, looking out for our wallets by letting us know if it's a swap and purchase we want to make 😍 if you aren't subscribed, do it! Wish I had the extra cash flow to become patron, those pesky bills though! Thank you as always for your hard work and giving us superb videos and analysis! Much love 💜 see you in the next vid!
With 2024 rules, you can MC 1 level into Barb from Monk to get Weapon Mastery for Daggers and one other weapon. You take Dagger, because it has thrown and the nick property, which lets you attack with an offhand as apart of the main action, allowing you to keep your bonus action for your monk unarmed hit. So level 6, you can attack 4 times a turn. And have range with them
This is a comment I have seen on reddit, but part of the value of Great Weapon Fighting might be the ability to one-shot weaker enemies. Like if you have a Great Sword and are dealing a minimum of 9 damage on a hit, if you are tier 1 character against a group of enemies using the 2014 RAW stat blocks for enemies like the "Cultist", "Diseased Giant Rat", "Giant Rat", and "Goblin", you would be 100% guaranteed to one-shot them. Then if you have a Flame Tongue Greatsword at level 5, you would be dealing a minimum of 16 damage, which would be 1 damage point shy of being able to 100% take out a CR 2 "Cult Fanatic" (33 HP) with two attacks that hit, but would be able to take out a CR2 "Priest" (27 HP) with 2 hits 100% of the time.
Never thought I'd defend Great Weapon Fighting, but credit where credit's due, a Great Weapon Fighting, Great Weapon Master, greatsword or maul user will have a very high minimum damage. Still not a great fighting style overall, but for example: 3 + 3 (d6s) + 4 (Str) +2 (GWM) = 12 minimum damage at level four (18 maximum). That'll fully kill plenty of things you fight at low levels, and in one more level you're doing it twice (+1 GWM damage too).
Great Weapon Fighting is okay if your playing Eberron or you DM lets you use a double-bladed scimitar which uses 2D4. GWF takes the average damage from 5 to 6.5, not quite as big a boost as dueling, but if you wanted to use a double bladed scimitar for flavour or any of it's other benefits it's a solid choice
I would like this raised up if we can so Chris can see but the New great weapon master while being worse generally is a flat upgrade for the Double bladed scimitar. Raising the minimum damage to 6+ or a 3+ on a bonus action. For everything else it’s worse but in this niche case this might be a auto include for the double bladed scimitar for making such reliable damage.
Sorry if it's a missunderstading from my part, but when you compare great weapon fighter VS dueling, you calculate a d10 from long sword with two hands WITH the duelist style, but it's not possible, because on descrition it says: "...In one hand..." so you cannot use any weapon with two hands and add the +2 bonus. So to do the correct calculation you must considerar 1d8 instead of 1d10. For example let me compare an attack with a Maul (2d6) and a long sword or any weapon with 1d8 dmg: Scenario Number of Combinations Sum of Results Average 2d6 (no modification) 36 252 7.0 2d6 (1 and 2 replaced by 3, GWF) 36 288 8.0 1d8 (no modification)) 8 36 4.5 1d8 (+2 from duelism) 8 52 6.5
Great Weapon Fighting: It does apply to all damage rolls. Including hunters mark, battlemaster dice, Conjure Minor Elemental, magic items, ect... So if you get lots of attacks, and add dice to your damage, it all starts to stack up.
2 points of note about great weapon fighter: - The heavier weapons like greatsword or greataxe have great weapon masteries like cleave or graze will significantly increase your average damage, so that will still make them better than a longsword I think - it seems that great weapon fighting applies to all damage dice? so when you have extra damage from like Flametongue or smites or some other spell, then those will revert to 3's too when you roll 1 or 2 on them... or at least that's how I always have interpreted the rules. when you also factor in crits then you will always have a higher average damage output than the flat +2 that dueling has to offer...
The new rules for familiars give an interesting angle on the darkness blind sight combo, I thought I heard you can look through their senses as a free action, so you could have a bat familiar and effectively get blind sight out to 60ft…
One key difference for interception is that it no longer states that you can't use it on yourself like in Tasha's. Not every build will make great use of reactions, so being able to lower damage you take even at higher levels is better than nothing. Consistent 7-10 damage reduction per turn, especially if you mix it with Heavy Armor Master, is really good. You're averaging 16ish damage reduced per turn if it's B/P/S at Tier 4.
If anyone hasn't seen the community note- TWF **does** add your ability modifier to the attack from DW. (Confirmed by JC when the DDudes asked him) As for _why_ it works, the DW feat gives you an extra attack that you can take when you attack with a weapon that has the Light property as part of the attack action. The extra attack from DW is **as a result** of using a weapon that the Light property. So it applies.
With your discussion of Great Weapon Fighting, maybe a simple fix (or at least an improvement), is to say that if you roll a 1 or a 2, you add 2 to the damage. That makes the average damage for 1s and 2s together equal 3.5. That gives the same results as the average reroll while being simple to calculate.
I've had an idea kicking around for a while but haven't had a chance to homebrew it with friends. I'm also unsure if someone else smarter than me has already thought of this. But I've always liked the idea of a 3 tier weapon system. Tarnished, Normal, and Keen. It's essentially giving disadvantage or advantage on the damage rolls. A Tarnished weapon (I didn't want to go with rusted because of the existence of wooden weapons) gives disadvantage on the damage dice. If you roll 2 dice like 2d6 for a greatsword, then roll 3 and take the lowest 2. A Normal weapon is just that, normal. No extra rolls. And then a Keen weapon you get advantage. Same scenario with 2d6 where you'd roll 3 and take the highest. I just like it as a way to spice up weapons a little bit more. And I think the current version of Great Weapon Fighting as Chris talked about could sorely use it. It is a bit of a damage boost if Great Weapon Fighting just became my Keen idea, but it solves the issue of rerolling dice and taking up time while also not being an astronomical damage bump.
I can't thank you enough for going through the new PHB. You've convinced me that the 2024 rules are not for me, but I am still gonna buy it as I want to use the new spell versions for the 2014 version of the game. Just too much that doesn't align with my view of how DnD should be in this version :)
We optimizers are too focused on the MEAN average when comparing results and fail to account for other probabilities in our calculations. Longsword + dueling - 12.5% chance to roll any value between 3-10. Mean 6.5 (no mode). But if we just look at the mean, we fail to consider the fact that we have a 37.5% chance of rolling 3-5 damage, and a 62.5% chance of rolling 6+ (50% chance of a 7+) A greatsword has a bell curve with a 27.76% chance of rolling 2-5, and a 72.24% chance of rolling 6+ (58.33% of a 7+). It has a mode of 7 with 16.66% chance. So without any fighting style, you still have a higher probability of rolling those higher damage numbers. A greatsword with GWF has a 100% chance of rolling 6+, a mode of 6 with 41.66% chance, and the same odds of rolling 7+ as a greatsword (58.33%). GWF looks much better once you actually compare them properly, instead of being tunnel visioned on MEAN damage. Lets look at some other numbers. The average monster HD is a d8. So let’s look at the odds of rolling 8+. For the duellist longsword - that’s a 37.5% chance. For either greatsword, those odds are 41.66%. Clearly the greatsword is going to down things more frequently than the duellist longsword even though the MEAN result favours the duelling fighting style. And these odds are substantially higher with GWF than without since you guarantee a 6+. And these numbers don’t take into account any other source of damage which would skew the bell curves even further. No, it’s not as good as an entire extra attack from a nick weapon (TWF with a nick weapon is leagues better than any single weapon combat style when it comes to raw damage output). But it is far more powerful than using a longsword with duelling once buckets of dice are involved. Again, we optimizers are too hyper focused on MEAN averages. The reality is, dice are swingy. You can’t just white room mean averages and call it a day. You need to look at your VARIABLES IN CONTEXT.
In the videogame Solasta there's a Wizard subclass that give Shield proficiency + Protection, i must say having a wizard close to other pc casters or just behind the melee fighter and protect them is so fun to play, with this change a build like that is even better
The reason for the prequisite is for 1 main reason, It makes it so they dont have to list every single feat that you can get from fighting style every time they write the fighting style feat Another thing to note is that blind fighting is strictly worse than skulker if you aren't getting it from a class feature
2014's Protection has worked OK for my fighter, but only because he's typically next to our PAM paladin. The paladin's good-not-great armor class has helped the imposed disadvantage make a difference against bigger enemies, but it's so hard to justify at higher levels when the attacks keep coming. Glad to see Protection getting a boost because it'll help a ton as levels progress in a campaign.
In my homebrew, the Intercept feat reduces the damage by a Power Die + modifier. The Power Die is used for many feats, and it scales up nicely with the Intercept feat.
I was trying to figure out the average bonus from Great Weapon Fighting myself, and I was sure I had to have screwed up the math when I came up with 5.5 to 5.8 myself. I thought there was no way they could have screwed up that badly. I'm glad to have it confirmed here. I'll just take Defense instead.
Honestly great weapon fighting plus Graze really are good for the "I just hate feeling like i wasted my turn" players and i don't dislike them for that.
Both of them just do it in a mathematically dissapointing way.
@malmasterson3890 Graze is mathematically still decent, only GWF is utterly terrible here.
@@derektom14 The thing I don't like about Graze is that it's worse the better you are at actually hitting. Like for Devotion and Vengeance Paladins, for example, it's almost a non-factor since they'll be hitting pretty much all the time.
@derektom14 Planning for failure is rarely if ever good, and the Mastery only gets worse mathematically as you progress. In comparison to most of the ohers it's just pathetic.
@malmasterson3890 Graze improves as you progress, it starts as +3 on a miss and eventually gets to +5 on a miss. You're going to miss some attack rolls, that's an inevitable part of dice games. It's also rather nice on a glaive with PAM, the bonus attack is guaranteed to deal Str damage and you're only rolling for the 1d4.
“We’re in the midst of hangin’ out!” is a great new intro line.
Agreed 😆
~_~
it was so sweet :D
About great weapon fighting, I feel like it's better than it looks, as it doesn't specify weapon damage, so for every single die you roll, you get the boost. Like someone else pointed out, great sword having a minimum roll of 6 is pretty good, doesn't raise the ceiling at all but definitely raises the floor by a amount
This is my problem with it on first reading. The feat now seems to disproportionately favor great swords over weapons like great axes.
@@Grakor456 Greataxes have a MUCH better Weapon Mastery property, though. (Cleave >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Graze.)
Also the double blades scimitar now does a lot more damage thanks to being a d4 weapon.
@@lukenator115 And if you add the Revenant Blade feat, it gets finesse, so you can take rogue levels to sneak attack with it AND the base 3 damage applies to those buncha d6s too.
@@tiradegrandmarshalMaul is the superior one to both
Topple>>>>>>cleave>>graze
I think Two Weapon Fighting does work with the Dual Wielder feat because of the wording in Dual Wielder. You gain an extra attack that is the result of using a weapon that has the Light Property. The Bonus Action attack with a weapon that lacks the two-handed property is a result of making an attack with a weapon that has the Light property. It should absolutely work.
I totally agree and was about to write the same thing :)
THIS. I have gotten flamed for saying exactly this! And it’s just a careful reading of the language! 100% agree
Yep. They changed the wording of TWF style to make it work with Dual-Wielder.
I'm inclined to agree. If it said "as a result of the Light property of a weapon you're using" then it wouldn't work (and I think this is how many people are interpreting it). But since it's as a result of "using a weapon that has the Light property," it should work. Having said that, it would be nice if they spelled it out explicitly. I have a feeling different DMs will rule this different ways, which will lead to a lot of confusion.
@@fortunatus1 Oh, by the way, Jeremy Crawford also agrees. And by that, I mean he has reportedly recently confirmed that this is the correct reading.
I'm kind of glad that melee is getting more damage then ranged. Melee gives a risk vs reward structure since you have to run up to monsters while ranged provides a safer way to deal damage but will deal a little less
Hmm I dont entirely agree. Imo they should similar outputs. Ranged has the advantage of attacking from a safe distance, but the disadvantage of being less useful once you forced to be in melee
@@MaMastoastIf I'm remembering correctly Crossbow Expert and other feats eliminate that weakness though.
@@MaMastoastI understand your point of view, but the benefit of “I don’t get hit nearly as often because I’m 60ft away” vs the risk of “but I might do a lil less damage once they get to me” works out HEAVILY in the favor of a ranged combatant. Ranged needs to be less damaging, or else it invalidates melee damage dealers. Why put your characters neck on the line if your party member can do the same damage from across the map?
On the comparison between Great Weapon Fighting and Duelist you didn’t even mention that Duelist also allows you to equip a shield giving you more damage AND defense!
My only possible thought is that they considered Great Weapon Master still adding damage with the big two handed weapons, so they took that into account when "balancing" the fighting styles vs each other.
Sword and board is more consistent and defensive when incorporating things like Shield Master and/or Defensive Duelist (and ability to wield a shield in general), whereas heavy weapon users get the damage edge (even if slight) from Great Weapon Fighting and GWM. Sword and board can also utilize Polearm Master with a spear or quarterstaff, but illustrating it more the heavy weapon PM user has the damage edge with higher hit die than the d6 spear/staff as well as Reach from their polearm.
Dueling is such a good fighting style. I had a dex paladin with a Rapier and Shield (wanted to be stealthy for the infiltration campaign). The style increased base damage and AC, and when I needed big damage, Smiting was ready to go. It was so fun.
it also forgot the good two handed weapons are 2d6 witch this version is a huge buff too
Historically rapier (makes swashy noises) and shield(buckler) was so common they named a whole archetype after it, the swashbuckler!
@@bruhschwagg490 Well, Chris did the math in the video, with the average damage of a Greatsword/Maul only going from 7 points average damage to 8 - a +1 damage buff on average compared to the +2 from Dueling. And he mentioned that, even compared to the old GW FS, the +1 is even less of an average damage buff than the statistical average damage increase of rerolling which was a tiny bit higher than +1 but even then still less than the +2 from Dueling.
A Paladin with Protection next to a Rogue with Sentinel becomes a tricky problem for the enemy. If they attack the Rogue, they get disadvantage on every attack. If they then switch to the Paladin and hit, bam, reaction Sneak Attack!
Oh shit this sounds like a fun combo!
I thought I read somewhere that you can't sneak attack as part of a reaction anymore?
@@theodorehunter4765that was UA
@@theodorehunter4765 That was true in UA2, but then reverted in UA6 due to feedback, people really like their reaction Sneak Attacks.
@@alexanderwizardjar9540It's even funnier if one (or both) also has the Defensive Duelist feat.
The Protection change makes me wonder about Mounted Combatant now. Forcing all attacks to target one character, while the other provides all those attacks with disadvantage seems pretty nice.
The new Mounted Combatant only redirects hits, so you no longer benefit accuracy-wise from redirecting attacks from a low-AC mount to a high-AC or protected character.
If someone tries to hit your mount, you can give the attack disadvantage. If your mount still gets hit, you can take the damage. Protection just helps offset the mount's low AC.
@@derektom14 but you can still give that attack disadvantage, then take the damage if they still hit.
@@derektom14 Ah see I hadn't seen the updated feat yet, and was just wondering about combination off old one.
Ok, so, here's the thing
If you are a paladin on a mount, you redirect hits against your mount to you
With protection, you can make attacks against your mount have disadvantage, meaning enemies don't benefit from attacking your mount, since if they hit, they hit you, but they are more lively to miss than just attacking you directly, if your mount has barding.
The easier way to do the average of a die roll is (lowest result + highest result) / 2. So a d10 would be (1+10)/2 = 11/2 = 5.5. This works if youre adding modifiers to the damage as well.
Sure, but that shortcut doesn't work for calculating things like "1s and 2s are treated as 3s" as Chris needed here
Yeah, in that case you would have to 3+3+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10/10 = 5.8 as opposed to 5.5
The easy way I remember is just, half the max, +0.5. Or half + 1 if it's something like HP
The real full formula is sum(each outcome * probability of that outcome)
So 1*1/10+2*1/10+3*1/10....
Which if you factor is
1/10*(1+2+3+...)
With the feat it is
3*3/10+4*1/10+5*1/10+6*1/10...
Factoring...
3*3/10+1/10*(4+5+6+7+8+9+10)
Or...
1/10*(9+4+5+6+7+8+9+10)
For a d10. ... Signifies more terms as a shorthand
@@mgssscrazy we could take the derivative to compute the value too.
8:44, skulker grants 10ft blindsight now, so this still can work.
Being a dwarf could work too.
I'll be that one guy and say they both state you have 10ft of blindsight, and there's technically nothing that says they stack
@@JugglingAddict Tremorsense does not make creatures visible in Darkness. You only learn their location. Read the ability.
@@michaeldeucalion9283 It was not about stacking. It was about treantmonk saying it is now very difficult to pick up blindfighting for non-martial characters. I guess he forgot the skulker feat exists while going over this part
And with skulker giving other advantages also why would you spend a feat for fighting style that only grants the blindsight
Great Weapon Fighting might apply to additional damage dice. It was clarified before that it was supposed to be just for weapon damage dice, but from what i've heard that was so it didn't slow down the game. Now that it's faster, you might be able to use it for additional damage die, like divine favor, smite, hunter's mark, frenzy dice, sneak attack dice, etc, might make it more worthwhile overall, ontop of its very unique benefit that it's the only fighting style to benefit crits, although that's very niche.
Do you know if this is the case? Does GWF apply to other dice added onto an attack roll.
Say for example, damage from a smite spell.
@@mcsherman18 I don’t. There hasn’t been an official statement if this was the intent or not. I’m assuming though because they didn’t clarify this from the 2014 version this might be the case, although they might’ve very realistically forgot to clarify it again.
It’s really hard to imagine how something like Great Weapon Fighting makes it past whatever QA they have in place. This is not hard math. Features that are more about the subjective experience than the math have their place, but ideally they should have both, and it’s not like this fighting style is a super niche thing.
Yes, but some features are a lot more about feeling good than actually being good. I believe it was done so that a Greatsword Champion Fighter is a perfect beginner character. Easy to understand, gets frequent rerolls, if they miss an attack they still deal damage, if they hit they deal at least 6 extra damage, it makes sure that no turn feels like a waste and it's easy to understand, even if it's never going to be as strong as the optimal choices.
@@dndelver you can also make people feel good AND actually make them good, though, so that if they do understand maths they don't feel bad...
The designers should know better than to put something as bad as Great Weapon Fighting into the game. I’m a math teacher, and this is middle school math. I don’t see how it “feels good” or is “beginner friendly” to pick something that fits your character concept and get something that makes you so much weaker than every other option.
They could easily make it feel good and actually be fine tho. If it was "you can treat any damage die you roll as half the maximum" it'd be fine. This wording makes it feel like they thought all big weapons are greatswords.
I think it because heroic inspiration let you reroll now so they didn’t wanted it to overlap with great weapon fighting
Giant spider Moon Druid is another way to participate in the blind fighting team.
2024 PHB version of Giant Spider doesn't have blindsight. It does list a few beasts that do (like constrictor snake and giant crab) but we'll have to wait for the 2024 Monster Manual to get a full picture of the wildshape options for Moon druid
If you really want to get Blindsight to 10 feet without the Fighting Style class feature, you can just take Skulker feat which now gives 10 feet of Blindsight as well as more features than Blind Fighting.
I think the value of Great Weapon Master is not the damage, but the reduction in variance. It makes critting better, and makes each hit feel equally meaty. That said,, Great Weapon Master could be buffed to improve the variance on the damage die even more than how it is currently.
Also makes double-bladed scimitar into a 2d6 damage weapon with a 1d6 damage bonus action. Interesting what mastery the weapon may have the team totaly forgot it existed. A cleave, nick or vex mastery would make it bonkers.
I remember trying the UA version of this, which if I remember correctly was essentially having advantage at damage. It was busted. The straight reroll it had previously just sucked. It always felt horrible to reroll and get another one (which seemed to happen way too much). The really bad thing is I think this really centered around Great Swords and trying to not make them OP while still having GWM still do somewhat decent damage, and like Chris said, still make everything faster. As GS get so much more out of this then any other weapon. As with GS you can only roll a 6-12, but with everything else you roll a 3-?.
However they could've just gone the Duelist route and said if you're attacking with a two handed weapon, you just do a straight +2 damage. Or I'd be happy with a +2 to hit to put it on a level playing field as Archers. Or just give Archers the same bonus as GWM... There's a lot of good ways they could've gone to avoid the GS trap, while still making this better, but in the end it's really not horrible and still makes your damage more reliable.
No longer re-rolling just to get another 1, it is a buff for players with cursed dice
8:37 You don’t need fighting initiate or eldritch initiate for darkness. Just use the new Skulker feat!!!
I was about to add this same comment! Skulker feat at Level 4 seems like the best way for much of the party to get Blind Sight to 10ft.
@@purpleniumowlbear2952
Issue is that you can't use many long range characters like that. However, since range is nerfed a bit, it might work out anyway. Still an issue for spellcaster attacks.
How often do PC's find them selves in total darkness or a darkness spell?
@@The_RealWilliam if you and/or your party are built for exploiting the darkness spell, then quite often I’d imagine.
Also looks like protection continues to protect your ally until the end of your next turn regardless of what happens to you. Your friend might be dragging your corpse with him for the next turn, Weekend at Bernie's style.
Protection:
The Dodge Action as a Reaction...
I'm visualizing a team of shield wielders all imposing disadvantage on every incoming attack.
Or at the very least, two front-liners with shields imposing disadvantage on attacks against each other. Plus, with the change to what “attack” means in 5.24, that means melee, ranged and spell attacks. Holding a doorway or other pinch point becomes much better, tactically.
A phalanx, lol.
You can only react to one attack per turn.
@@The_RealWilliam The reaction lasts until the start of the reactor’s next turn, just like the Shield spell. No need for multiple reactions per turn.
@@DukeTrout Uhm Shield only last until the start of your next turn, not the end.
Adding a smite or any sort of additional dice to a weapon makes great weapon fighting significantly better. It just says damage die, not weapons damage
10:00 it seems to me it doesn't circumvent the restriction. I think that one of the design goals for the 2024 phb was to limit some of the easy ways to get most of the goodies of a class with a dip or a feat. They've not always been successful, but I think that's the intent.
I’m ~92% sure I know how this works, but waiting for the actual PHB to voice my opinion so I look less like an idiot.
@@pw3829 restraint? on the internet? shocking! :P
I think I'm just going to house rule Great Weapon Fighting as a flat +2 to damage like Dueling and Thrown Weapon Fighting.
With GWM, this becomes one of the absolute best martial loadouts.
@@apjapki I think I'm okay with that. I like making my players strong.
So it's 1 point more wow so great
Or you could make it anything below a 4 is treated as a 4.
Same essence but a little stronger. Great sword ends up at a +2 damage
Only a .6 increase for a Longsword but it would be the preferred choice for some builds.
My take on it:
Great Weapon Fighting that does not suck (Prerequisite: Fighting Style Feature)
While holding with two hands a weapon that has the Two-Handed or Versatile property:
- The first time you miss a weapon attack on your turn against a target that is within 5 feet of you, you can choose to deal damage to the target equal to your proficiency bonus; the damage's type is determined by the weapon you're holding.
- When you roll damage for a weapon attack, you can treat any die you roll as half the maximum of that dice.
There. Now we have reasonable averages, it still works with Longbow, and has a clear niche of flavor for reliable, unstoppable damage
Since GWF doesn't limit the benefit to WEAPON dice, and instead implicitly allows rider dice to do so, I think the optimal level 20 GWF build now is Elf (for Revenant Blade in combination with the Double-Bladed Scimitar -which doesn't have a Mastery yet, but I think we could give it Cleave as a placeholder-) Fighter 1/Scout Rogue 19, since it basically makes your average sneak attack 40, instead of 35, but your base damage is 30, instead of 10, and the Scout subclass allows you to do it again on a bonus action against another creature. Just gotta make sure your allies help you gather 2 or more enemies within 10 feet of each other so that you can get in the middle and shank'em two at a time for an average total of 103 damage (combined), before weapon bonuses and assuming 20 DEX, and again as a reaction if any of them run without disengaging (or take Sentinel and do it anyway when they disengage or attack an ally in the melee, too). A potential 154 damage per round, sustained and without resource expenditure, is insane, I think.
This new version also helps Paladins, STR rangers and Battlemaster/Psi Warrior fighters, in that it allows them to slightly increase the minimum and average damage of their Smites, Hunter's Mark and Superiority/Psionic Energy dice, so that expending them is less of a gamble (and critting with them is juicier).
Two Weapon Fighting says "as a result of using a weapon that has the Light property". Dual Wielder provides an attack that is the result of using a weapon with the Light property. It absolutely applies.
If it didn't want Dual Wielder to apply it would say "using the Light weapon property"
The extra attack from Dual Wielder is triggered by an attack with a Light weapon so i would argue that TWF does apply
Interception that scales better (Prerequisite: Fighting Style Feature)
When a creature you can see hits you or another creature within 5 feet of you with an attack roll, you can take a Reaction to reduce the damage dealt to the target by 1d6 plus your Proficiency Bonus. The damage reduction increases by 1d6 when you reach levels 5 (2d6), 11 (3d6), and 17 (4d6). You must be holding a Shield or a Simple or Martial weapon to use this Reaction.
Interesting, just take it straight out of the cantrips page which makes it easy to remember!
My thoughts on the Fighting Style feat prerequisite are basically just that it’s a limiting factor for Fighters, Paladins, and Rangers. Like, a class feature that gives you a feat, but it has to be one of these, as opposed to something like Sharpshooter or Great Weapon Master. So, the Fighting Initiate feat gives you the “Fighting Style Feature” prerequisite for the Fighting Style feats. At least, that’s how I plan to run it for my own table.
Agreed.
(I also think they should have just straight up given Barbarians a fighting style, so maybe I'll houserule that too.)
Monks also should have the option
If the Bait and Switch superiority maneuver from battle master is still a bonus action, that would go crazy with Protection fighting style.
bait and switch is a free action i believe
Edit: Yeah its a free action
I would just rework Great Weapon Fighting to instead have the damage die explode on any maximum die roll. So in the case of a longsword, a damage roll of 10 lets you roll another d10, and if that nets you another 10 result, you roll again. That feels more in keeping with the "swing for the fences" nature of the feat.
I got the same idea but I would only put it on the greataxe because it’s a d12 and it really needs a different style than the 2d6 weapons
So the 2d6 weapons get to increase their lowest die up to their strength score or reroll once and have a minimum of three
And the 1d12 gets to possibly turn their hit into a crit if they roll a 12
I don’t know which one would be the d10 but I also don’t know why would anybody actually use a versatile weapon with two hands
Nah, I think Lasarllama had the best idea. Just have it never be blow half on the damage for Great Weapons, then give Versatile weapons their own fighting style.
That's still only 0.55 average damage increase (with the longsword example), greatsword remains on top but it's weaker than the 2014 GWF (+1.17 compared to +1.33). Lasellama version is also horrible, idk why anyone recommends that; it makes greataxes strictly better than greatswords just to change up the usual balance of that, but makes the style itself WORSE than both 2014 and this new weaker 2024! Greatsword without a style is 7 damage, 2014 GWF it goes to 8.33, 2024 GWF it goes to 8 flat, and llama GWF takes the greataxe to 7.7. It's fucking awful, no one should use it.
If you simply make GWF a sort of savage attacker; roll one extra damage die and drop the lowest. So greataxe gets advantage on damage rolls, and greatsword is 3d6 drop one. Way more elegant than any of these and a bit better than the 2014 in terms of strength. Greatswords and axes will be at 8.5 and 8.49 average damage - 0.01 differential, with a +1.5 damage instead of the usual 1.33. I've never seen any other alternative even remotely close to that.
Actually, you could ADD that to the current GWF bonus and it STILL would be underpowered on average: for a halberd, average damage would increase by 0.3 for the 1 or 2 = 3 rule, and the exploding dice would add an average of 1.1, so 1.4 total. Still way less than Dueling, but boy oh boy would it FEEL awesome when that damage die exploded!
Shouldn't Great Weapon Fighting scale with the amount of dice you are attacking with? It doesn't qualify 'weapon damage,' it just says, "When you roll damage" which would also apply to berserker frenzy dice, or to magical damage associated with an enchanted or magical weapon. Combat superiority dice. Sneak attacks. Sentinel triggered strikes. It's bad if you don't have access to more damage dice, but seems strong when you start stacking them on.
Sneak attack requires finesse weapon gwf requires you to hold the weapon with two hands. I don’t think there are any that fit both. But true it scales with smites or battle master or whatever extra dice you have. Paladin smite is probably the best use but re-rolling would be so much better than treating as a 3… that’s just so bad.
Great weapon fighting is actually pretty good on the double bladed scimitar since that thing does 2d4 damage for some reason. So your guaranteed to be doing 6 damage minimum. Your average would be 6.5 instead of 5, which is still less then the boost from dueling but the consistency is nice.
Just to play devil’s advocate for Great Weapon Fighting, would knowing you had a higher minimum damage affect how you attack in combat advantageously? Like, if you have a +3 STR and a greatsword, does knowing that on a hit it’s impossible for you to deal less than 9 damage allow you to more consistently one-hit kill 9hp enemies, and leave the ones at partial HP for your other party members to finish off with less consistent attacks?
Dunno how the math plays out, but in concept, it seems like I’d be able to play with a kind of benefit in knowing I have a damage range of 9-15 instead of 4-15. This would be most relevant at low levels when clearing lots of small enemies, but worth pointing out if someone is doing a low level 1-shot or something.
i think it might benefit you, if you know the hp of every enemy at all times. if your DM communicates enemy hp, then this fighting style is actually takeable at low levels i think.
I've been known to ask players, "Can you do LESS than X damage?" if they can't, I ask them to describe the kill. :D
If you are playing a Paladin in DnD 2024 you can now pick up Magic Initiate as an origin feat for the Shield spell and pick up Protection as your fighting style at level 2. At level 6 you're now potentially boosting your allies' saving throws by up to +5, and can use your reaction to give yourself a +5 to AC for a whole round or give disadvantage to attacks against an ally for a whole round. I hope DMs will have fun trying to hit anyone in a party with a Paladin now.
Also worth noting that Defensive Duelist only requires you to hold a Finesse weapon but still works if you are wearing a shield, so you can even boost your whole party's defenses AND your own without expending any resources at all.
@@zootlend1750 You can't do both in the same round. You have one reaction.
Also why just Paladin? All martials with fighting style can do this?
I hear you Chris! *facepalm*
I immediately did the math in my head for a Maul/Greatsword, an optimal situation, and rolled my eyes. 🤦🏻♂️
Great Weapon Fighting may make a Berserker barbarian nuts on its first attack because it looks like it allows you to reroll all those bonus d6s for rage.
Good point, though I think you meant "automatically get a minimum of 3" instead of re-roll.
We need a new verb for that. How about "I min-3'd the damage"?
Berserker barbs or barbs in general don’t get a fighting style, so you would need multi-classing for it. But critting as a berserker using a greatsword deals 8d6. the more dices with smaller dice size, the more value it gives.
I don't think it works, at least intentionally. The text is very similar to 2014, and it was stated that the intention on that one is that it only affects the weapon dice, not extra damage such as sneak attack or the new berserker feature
@@marcos2492 Actually, it was stated that the intent of that ruling was that re-rolling too many dice were slowing the game down. You're no re-rolling anything, so that errata is invalid twice over (once for being old, once for being irrelevant).
Besides, are you really trying to argue that GWF should only do .25 to .3 extra damage per attack with the vast majority of 2h weapons, when every other damage boosting fighting style is doing 2+ damage? That's weird.
Here comes the Knight with his lance and shield with dueling and heavy weapons master.
And polearm master!
Too bad mounted combatant feat now has that 5ft restriction, it's a lot worse now with any reach weapon.
@@GangurEXE it says 5 feat from your mount. Since your mount Warhorse is a large creature and you are sitting in the middle of it on it's back, the reach of the lance reaches to the 5 feat from the outer base of the warhorse's base. Which means in my interpretation that you still get advantage against unmounted oponents smaller than your mount.
@@andrewmcmillan229
and piercer as a Champion fighter 😅
@@andreasstephan8301 Great point.
Hey treantmonk, excellent video as always. Glad to see your subscriber count is closer to your goal every time I click on your latest post. Saw your 3.5 god wizard handbook 15 years ago and glad you are recognized for your ability to analyze game mechanics as well as you do.
Great vid Chris. Let's push for 100,000k subs
Just 99,909k to go!
@@TreantmonksTempleyou’ve got this!
It is fantastic that you are doing these videos and giving people a forum to discuss and hash out the pros/cons of things in preparation for the new rule changes. Thank you.🎉
I'm pretty sure the dual welder feat is impacted by two weapon fighting because it says when you get an extra attack as a result of an attack with a light weapon and dual wielder is still meets that requirement.
I also think that Jeremy Crawford literally said that and I'm pretty sure you posted it
These videos were recorded before the NDA lifted. So these are more first impressions.
Great Weapon fighting applies to smite and sneak attack, that is the only times it increases damage with like a Greataxe or 2d6 weapon
Or poisoner feat
Something to remember about Greatweapon Fighting is that it at least avoids really disappointing rolls. You'll always roll the middle result on a d6 with it. So it helps avoid things like rolling a crit and then bombing all 1s on the damage.
On the note of crits, they, along with any other damage modifications to your attack, will be effected by Greatweapon Fighting. That means if you roll a crit you're applying a damage range of 12-24+stat instead of 4-24+stat. It doesn't improve your average damage much, but it does make it so that your consistent. With it a Greatsword fighter realistically cannot do less then 9 damage. And that's avaialble at level 1.
If you’re using a greataxe, your roll of 2 gets upgraded to a 3. I’d still call that disappointing. With the 2014 version, you at least had a real chance of turning things around.
The sheer quality of your videos and the detail you go into is properly sublime. You’re an absolute asset to the TTRPG community.
I guess with Great Weapon Fighting it’s nice knowing your greatsword will always do a minimum of 6+str damage on a hit. They could have at least let us reroll first and then treat any 1s or 2s as 3.
Could a double bladed scimitar used by a sneak attack rogue or paladin smiting be the exception? Asking in anticipation of Colby's inevitable takes on this.
@@JugglingAddictYes it can be. Average damage goes from 2.5 per die to 3.25.
@@MrSeals1000 I suppose that is actually more than some of the other potential increase on other weapons.
Love your content, dude. Friendly, informative, easy going. Your videos in general, and these in particular, have always been a highlight.
Regarding Eldritch Adept: That's one feat that ... I won't say I would ban it, but I'd definitely want a player to chat with me first before telling me they're taking Eldritch Adept and the Pact of the Blade invocation to get those benefits without even slowing down their spellcasting as, say, a Valor Bard.
Honestly, since they changed the pact boons to be all level 1 Invocations and nothing else except Lessons of the Old Ones (I think), I've thought about homebrewing Eldritch Adept to choose any invocation with only the prerequisite of second level.
Paused at 14:20 (in case Chris mentions this later in the section), this is a buff in the niche use of the Double Bladed Scimitar. Since it uses 2d4, your average roll is now 3.25 per d4. 7.5+mod+feat+etc is consistent damage. That being said, if this weapon is not in 5.24 and does not have masteries, who knows if you will be able to use it.
Great weapon fighting is great with a Great sword. I think this is tailored for that (minimum 6 damage). Also awesome with the Double-bladed scimitar.
As Chris mentions, it's still only +1 damage on average for a great sword. Not terrible but far from great
It's always been busted with that Scimitar!
And he complaining about what 1.5 to 2 damage different
@@d_andrews at least a +1 to average is still usable. if you care about damage you might take that.
@@d_andrews It`s not meant to increase damage, it`s ment to mitigate low damage rolls. Your minimum weapon damage become half your max weapon damage.
Hi, I'm a giganerd, here's a fast way to intuit GWF's effect on a die: the average damage of a die is the sum of the results over the number of results. GWF always adds three to the sum (+2 when you roll a one, +1 when you roll a 2), so GWF adds 3 divided by the size of the die. A d4 adds 0.75, a d6 adds 0.5, and so forth.
14:21 i really feel like wotc really should have hired just any kind of mathematician to calculate this sort of thing for the new phb because it feels like they have no idea how to balance damage and they havent improved on that in 10 years
Fighting initiate is not repeatable. it allows you to get one fighting style without the feature.
To be fair about great weapon master, It is designed to push up the minimum damage, not the average. It does not really increase the average, but it greatly boosts the efficiency of Greatswords and Mauls, making it much better off of paper than on when using those weapons.
18:25 "If you roll less than half on a damage die you get half".. that`s literally a Great Sword with Great Weapon Fighting
depends what you mean with half. half would be 3.5 for a 1d6, so if you round up like with hit dice when rolling for hp you would deal 2 extra damage on avarage for greatswords, 1.75 for greataxes and 1.5 for halberds. i think thats a very balanced fighting style.
of course if you round down then you are absolutly correct.
@@lukasmayer9041 I ment half the weapon damage not half the damage average of multiple rolls.
Your max weapon damage is 12 your minimum weapon damage is 6 you always get half the weapon damage with a Great Sword on each hit.
I feel like the damage bonus from Great Weapon Master could've gone here. Adding proficiency to your damage would start as good as dueling and then gotten progressively better, which feels fair for an damage specialized style. Though it also begs the question of why GWM is limited to the attack action on your turn and dueling isnt.
GWF: The 2d6 weapons now have a minimum damage of 6 instead of 2, so that's something.
@iolair1973 The Great Sword Fighting Style, lol. That's really the only way it appears to be a good style.
Add in GWM and minimum damage is even higher with the added proficiency bonus damage.
@@joshhobson8279 Mauls are better, as bludgeoning is less commonly resisted.
@@iolair1973 let me rephrase then. "2d6 weapon damage die fighting style" 🤣
Good point about the two handed weapons fighting style! With the +2 to the one handed weapons I will probably homebrew the TH style like: you double your strength bonus as modifier
Great Weapon fighting produces RELIABLE damage. Yeah if you've got a big dumb sack of hitpoints you need to hack through, an average damage increase of
However, if the enemies instead had, say, 33HP each, GWF is instead barely increasing your odds of KO-ing an enemy in two attacks at all.
@@derektom14 It does create an odd kind of quirk where the style is most effective the closer an enemy's HP is to a multiple of your minimum damage. So the hypothetical 13 min damage fighter is highly effective against enemies with HP around 13, 26, 39, 52, etc, with reduced efficacy the further you get from those numbers.
Thanks for all the effort you're putting into these man, it's hugely appreciated
I don't see why they have to restrict all these feats to only classes that have the "Fighting Style Feature", it seems multi-classing isn't going anywhere after all
To make martials feel like they "own" fighting....
@@apjapkiThe saddest part is the Rogue a martial class no longer can get a fighting style without multi classing.
@@darklight9450 Rogue is only peripherally a martial class. I don't think they should have a fighting style and generally the only one they ever wanted was Archery (I guess actually the one that gave you Brace and Riposte but that's now intentionally subclass locked amd considering weapon mastery I think with good reason). Just put your ASI in Dex. It's better.
@@apjapki I mean I think should the Archery and two weapon styles and the Dark vison but none of the others. The main reason is that they are light weapons and for their background it doesn't make sense for criminals or special agents of the government to have bad aim. While the 2-hand weapon style makes sense for them since how a second attack would do less damage with same weapon alone. Note losing sneak attack make since you are no longer surprising the enemy and are more aware of you and gameplay balance. While for dark vision in real life most criminals rob during nighttime since it is harder to get recognize, and most people are asleep at this point.
@@darklight9450 Characters who max out DEX ASI have excellent aim.
Great video, i wish you did your ranking using numbers like general feats and hope you use it for all these videos moving forward!
I hope these aren't taken as normal feats. Why would anyone take blind-fighting over Skulker if so? I assume these are still freebies for a couple of classes.
Great weapon fighting, I think, shines on those 2d6 weapons like Maul and Great sword. You have a much greater chance to roll 1 or 2 on a d6 and the results are doubled. I run an Echo Knight Bugbear that uses a maul and I have to say that those rerolls produce quite a bit of damage for me... Im not sure what the math would say for the rerolls, but they were definitely better than a fixed 3.
The damage for a maul or greats word would be +1 and some change.
the calculation would be the same as chris mentioned in the video actually, only instead of flat 3 you take the average weapon damage. in this case (3.5+3.5+3+4+5+6)/6 this means your maul would deal an avarage of 8.33 (repeating) damage instead of 7, or a damage bonus of 1.33... on avarage.
5.24. I like that name for this version. I always learn from the Treantmonk! I'm sharing all these videos with my discord channels. Really great resource!
Who would have predicted that 2024 rules would bring the return of the 2nd Ed. Dart-Master?
Honestly though, I think the dethroning of Ranged Combat is a bit exaugurated. The biggest advantage of ranged combat is at the tactical scale, where you are effectively getting an extra turn or two of DPR compared to a Melee-only bruiser who has to run over to engage the enemy. Or alternatively, you could use your range to prevent the enemy from doing damage, which often times has a greater impact.
I like your new sign off where you struggle a little to remember the words it feels much more natural and engaging. 🎉
According the pinned comment of your general feats video (1 of 3), shouldn't two weapon fighting work with the dual wielder extra attack?
It does
Yes. This video was recorded earlier.
@@TreantmonksTemple would it be possible to make a pinned comment about that here as well?
The text on Two-Weapon Fighting says "as a result of using a weapon that has the light property", not "as a result of the light property". That is why I would argue it does work with Dual Wielder.
Why did they actively make Great Weapon fighting worse?
Thanks for getting all this information out!
@15:00 Great Weapon Fighting - OK, I know I shouldn't say this but I am so jealous of people that have the connections and opportunities to work at jobs that they LOVE. SO JEALOUS!!! It's stuff like this that basically tell me these people are not really working as hard at their game as I am, and that pisses me off. SO many things that should have been changed over 10 years of feedback on the internet. GWF that should have at least been checked for basic math logic.
Or just say it straight up that we were trying to lower the damage gulf between Monks and Barbarians and this is an intentionally bad feat. That there was a reason for this (and so many other things that don't seem to make sense - like the spells that should have changed but didn't).
OK I have to admit they did change and catch some things that I didn't expect them to catch. That thing about the Check for Traps spell for instance, but how did this get missed?
Some of it, I'm sure, is just corporate realities. Gotta get the book out ASAP so we can lay you off and make bonuses -_-
I think GWF is great for the 2d6 weapons but horrible for the 1d12 weapons. They should do something like Reliable Talent where you always do at least half damage.
We love hangin out with you, Chris.🤩
12:14 would it have killed them to make Dueling deal your proficiency bonus as damage instead of a flat +2? That would have been in line with features like the new Great Weapon Master feat. Too good to allow it to scale?
Yeah that's too much. A fighting style is easier to get than a feat, and dueling you can also use with a shield
That's way too much. One handed weapons should deal less damage that great weapons
Having martials get more damage from levels in martial classes would actually have helped a ton for closing the gap.
@@crimfan They do now? Or you mean more?
Great Weapon Fighting only seems to be alright with Greatswords. If you also consider that some class features and spells add to your weapon damage like Divine Favor, it might be better if it works.
Would great weapon fighting trigger for additional dice, like hunters mark or the conjure minor elementals thingy?
Feels unlikely
Chris @Treantmonk's Temple, actually Light property + TWF + Dual Wielder feat + Nick mastery = lvl 5 fighter = 2 weapons one nick and another non-nick but light= 3 attacks with your action, one must be from the Nick weapon, and a bonus action attack from DW feat, that adding your mod to the damage due to TWF that states that all off-hand attacks get mod damage
I think he acknowledged this since making the video as there was a discussion when he covered dual wielding feat in general feats video 1 of 3
@@stritt7 Yeah now I saw that he recorded a bunch of videos at the same time
Your assessment of great weapon fighting is missing a very important detail. Minimum guaranteed damage. A minimum damage roll on a long-sword goes from 1 + your modifier to 3 + your modifier. Not that impressive, but a guarantee of +2 (the same as Dueling). For 2d6 weapons such as Greatswords or Mauls this is goes from 2 + your modifier to 6 + your modifier. This is twice as good as the dueling fighting style. Averages do not matter that much because dice do not actually adhere to averages at the gaming table. Minimum damage matters so much more.
Idk where this comes from, average damage certainly matters more than minimum damage. If you're hitting for 5 damage on 2 attacks, you're still doing less damage than someone who did 2 on one attack and 15 on the next.
Great weapon fighting doesn't elevate the peak, but it does alleviate the valleys. I think it has value to players.
For those that want the math for the alternative proposed by Treantmonk; the numbers should be correct (except last one). Hope the formatting is good.
GREAT WEAPON FIGHTNING Treantmonk’s Temple
1. When you roll damage for an attack you make with a Melee weapon that you are holding with two hands, if the damage roll on a dice is less than half the dice maximum, you can treat is as half.
LONGSWORD 1d10 average 5.5 with GWM average 6.5 +1 min-max 5-10
HALBERD / PIKE / GLAIVE 1d10 average 5.5 with GWM average 6.5 +1 min-max 5-10
GREATAXE 1d12 average 6.5 with GWM average 7.75 +1.25 min-max 6-12
GREATSWORD / MAUL 2d6 average 7 with GWM average 8 +1 min-max 6-12
2. When you roll damage for an attack you make with a Melee weapon that you are holding with two hands, if the damage roll on a dice is less than the dice average (rounded up), you can treat is as average (rounded up).
LONGSWORD 1d10 average 5.5 with GWM average 7 +1.5 min-max 6-10
HALBERD / PIKE / GLAIVE 1d10 average 5.5 with GWM average 7 +1.5 min-max 6-10
GREATAXE 1d12 average 6.5 with GWM average 8.25 +1.75 min-max 7-12
GREATSWORD / MAUL 2d6 average 7 with GWM average 9 +2 min-max 8-12
BEST AND PROBABLY WHAT TREANTMONK SUGGESTED, GOOD PLUS AVERAGE
3. GREAT WEAPON FIGHTNING from Laserllama Fighter (modified to work with longsword and non-heavy weapons)
When you roll damage for an attack you make with a Melee weapon that you are holding with two hands, you can treat a TOTAL roll of 5 or lower on the weapon's damage dice as a 6.
LONGSWORD 1d10 average 5.5 with GWM average 7 +1.5 min-max 6-10
HALBERD / PIKE / GLAIVE 1d10 average 5.5 with GWM average 7 +1.5 min-max 6-10
GREATAXE 1d12 average 6.5 with GWM average 7.75 +1.25 min-max 6-12
GREATSWORD / MAUL 2d6 average 7 with GWM average 7.55 +0.55 min-max 6-12 Not sure of this one is correct
The Best weapon for great weapon fighting IS
The double bladed scimitar giving you +0.75 average per die twice.
As such from 2.5 X 2 becomes 3.25 X 2
resulting in a 1.5.
However i think its main aplication is dice stacking.
Picking that up on a rogue or palla
Great stuff IMO
Thank you for that massive work, Chris!
Chris out here giving us full wording on mechanics, looking out for our wallets by letting us know if it's a swap and purchase we want to make 😍 if you aren't subscribed, do it! Wish I had the extra cash flow to become patron, those pesky bills though!
Thank you as always for your hard work and giving us superb videos and analysis! Much love 💜 see you in the next vid!
With 2024 rules, you can MC 1 level into Barb from Monk to get Weapon Mastery for Daggers and one other weapon. You take Dagger, because it has thrown and the nick property, which lets you attack with an offhand as apart of the main action, allowing you to keep your bonus action for your monk unarmed hit. So level 6, you can attack 4 times a turn. And have range with them
This is a comment I have seen on reddit, but part of the value of Great Weapon Fighting might be the ability to one-shot weaker enemies.
Like if you have a Great Sword and are dealing a minimum of 9 damage on a hit, if you are tier 1 character against a group of enemies using the 2014 RAW stat blocks for enemies like the "Cultist", "Diseased Giant Rat", "Giant Rat", and "Goblin", you would be 100% guaranteed to one-shot them.
Then if you have a Flame Tongue Greatsword at level 5, you would be dealing a minimum of 16 damage, which would be 1 damage point shy of being able to 100% take out a CR 2 "Cult Fanatic" (33 HP) with two attacks that hit, but would be able to take out a CR2 "Priest" (27 HP) with 2 hits 100% of the time.
Never thought I'd defend Great Weapon Fighting, but credit where credit's due, a Great Weapon Fighting, Great Weapon Master, greatsword or maul user will have a very high minimum damage. Still not a great fighting style overall, but for example:
3 + 3 (d6s) + 4 (Str) +2 (GWM) = 12 minimum damage at level four (18 maximum). That'll fully kill plenty of things you fight at low levels, and in one more level you're doing it twice (+1 GWM damage too).
Great Weapon Fighting is okay if your playing Eberron or you DM lets you use a double-bladed scimitar which uses 2D4. GWF takes the average damage from 5 to 6.5, not quite as big a boost as dueling, but if you wanted to use a double bladed scimitar for flavour or any of it's other benefits it's a solid choice
I would like this raised up if we can so Chris can see but the New great weapon master while being worse generally is a flat upgrade for the Double bladed scimitar. Raising the minimum damage to 6+ or a 3+ on a bonus action.
For everything else it’s worse but in this niche case this might be a auto include for the double bladed scimitar for making such reliable damage.
I appreciate all the hard work man. You're a beast!
Sorry if it's a missunderstading from my part, but when you compare great weapon fighter VS dueling, you calculate a d10 from long sword with two hands WITH the duelist style, but it's not possible, because on descrition it says: "...In one hand..." so you cannot use any weapon with two hands and add the +2 bonus. So to do the correct calculation you must considerar 1d8 instead of 1d10. For example let me compare an attack with a Maul (2d6) and a long sword or any weapon with 1d8 dmg:
Scenario Number of Combinations Sum of Results Average
2d6 (no modification) 36 252 7.0
2d6 (1 and 2 replaced by 3, GWF) 36 288 8.0
1d8 (no modification)) 8 36 4.5
1d8 (+2 from duelism) 8 52 6.5
Great Weapon Fighting: It does apply to all damage rolls. Including hunters mark, battlemaster dice, Conjure Minor Elemental, magic items, ect... So if you get lots of attacks, and add dice to your damage, it all starts to stack up.
2 points of note about great weapon fighter:
- The heavier weapons like greatsword or greataxe have great weapon masteries like cleave or graze will significantly increase your average damage, so that will still make them better than a longsword I think
- it seems that great weapon fighting applies to all damage dice? so when you have extra damage from like Flametongue or smites or some other spell, then those will revert to 3's too when you roll 1 or 2 on them... or at least that's how I always have interpreted the rules. when you also factor in crits then you will always have a higher average damage output than the flat +2 that dueling has to offer...
The new rules for familiars give an interesting angle on the darkness blind sight combo, I thought I heard you can look through their senses as a free action, so you could have a bat familiar and effectively get blind sight out to 60ft…
One key difference for interception is that it no longer states that you can't use it on yourself like in Tasha's. Not every build will make great use of reactions, so being able to lower damage you take even at higher levels is better than nothing. Consistent 7-10 damage reduction per turn, especially if you mix it with Heavy Armor Master, is really good. You're averaging 16ish damage reduced per turn if it's B/P/S at Tier 4.
great videos so far, thank you very much
If anyone hasn't seen the community note- TWF **does** add your ability modifier to the attack from DW. (Confirmed by JC when the DDudes asked him)
As for _why_ it works, the DW feat gives you an extra attack that you can take when you attack with a weapon that has the Light property as part of the attack action.
The extra attack from DW is **as a result** of using a weapon that the Light property. So it applies.
With your discussion of Great Weapon Fighting, maybe a simple fix (or at least an improvement), is to say that if you roll a 1 or a 2, you add 2 to the damage. That makes the average damage for 1s and 2s together equal 3.5. That gives the same results as the average reroll while being simple to calculate.
I've had an idea kicking around for a while but haven't had a chance to homebrew it with friends. I'm also unsure if someone else smarter than me has already thought of this. But I've always liked the idea of a 3 tier weapon system. Tarnished, Normal, and Keen. It's essentially giving disadvantage or advantage on the damage rolls. A Tarnished weapon (I didn't want to go with rusted because of the existence of wooden weapons) gives disadvantage on the damage dice. If you roll 2 dice like 2d6 for a greatsword, then roll 3 and take the lowest 2. A Normal weapon is just that, normal. No extra rolls. And then a Keen weapon you get advantage. Same scenario with 2d6 where you'd roll 3 and take the highest.
I just like it as a way to spice up weapons a little bit more. And I think the current version of Great Weapon Fighting as Chris talked about could sorely use it. It is a bit of a damage boost if Great Weapon Fighting just became my Keen idea, but it solves the issue of rerolling dice and taking up time while also not being an astronomical damage bump.
I can't thank you enough for going through the new PHB. You've convinced me that the 2024 rules are not for me, but I am still gonna buy it as I want to use the new spell versions for the 2014 version of the game. Just too much that doesn't align with my view of how DnD should be in this version :)
We optimizers are too focused on the MEAN average when comparing results and fail to account for other probabilities in our calculations.
Longsword + dueling - 12.5% chance to roll any value between 3-10. Mean 6.5 (no mode). But if we just look at the mean, we fail to consider the fact that we have a 37.5% chance of rolling 3-5 damage, and a 62.5% chance of rolling 6+ (50% chance of a 7+)
A greatsword has a bell curve with a 27.76% chance of rolling 2-5, and a 72.24% chance of rolling 6+ (58.33% of a 7+). It has a mode of 7 with 16.66% chance. So without any fighting style, you still have a higher probability of rolling those higher damage numbers.
A greatsword with GWF has a 100% chance of rolling 6+, a mode of 6 with 41.66% chance, and the same odds of rolling 7+ as a greatsword (58.33%). GWF looks much better once you actually compare them properly, instead of being tunnel visioned on MEAN damage.
Lets look at some other numbers. The average monster HD is a d8. So let’s look at the odds of rolling 8+. For the duellist longsword - that’s a 37.5% chance. For either greatsword, those odds are 41.66%.
Clearly the greatsword is going to down things more frequently than the duellist longsword even though the MEAN result favours the duelling fighting style. And these odds are substantially higher with GWF than without since you guarantee a 6+. And these numbers don’t take into account any other source of damage which would skew the bell curves even further.
No, it’s not as good as an entire extra attack from a nick weapon (TWF with a nick weapon is leagues better than any single weapon combat style when it comes to raw damage output). But it is far more powerful than using a longsword with duelling once buckets of dice are involved.
Again, we optimizers are too hyper focused on MEAN averages. The reality is, dice are swingy. You can’t just white room mean averages and call it a day. You need to look at your VARIABLES IN CONTEXT.
In the videogame Solasta there's a Wizard subclass that give Shield proficiency + Protection, i must say having a wizard close to other pc casters or just behind the melee fighter and protect them is so fun to play, with this change a build like that is even better
The reason for the prequisite is for 1 main reason, It makes it so they dont have to list every single feat that you can get from fighting style every time they write the fighting style feat
Another thing to note is that blind fighting is strictly worse than skulker if you aren't getting it from a class feature
2014's Protection has worked OK for my fighter, but only because he's typically next to our PAM paladin. The paladin's good-not-great armor class has helped the imposed disadvantage make a difference against bigger enemies, but it's so hard to justify at higher levels when the attacks keep coming. Glad to see Protection getting a boost because it'll help a ton as levels progress in a campaign.
In my homebrew, the Intercept feat reduces the damage by a Power Die + modifier. The Power Die is used for many feats, and it scales up nicely with the Intercept feat.
I was trying to figure out the average bonus from Great Weapon Fighting myself, and I was sure I had to have screwed up the math when I came up with 5.5 to 5.8 myself. I thought there was no way they could have screwed up that badly.
I'm glad to have it confirmed here. I'll just take Defense instead.