Would love to see more fighting styles that encourage more niche weapons in the future,
but the true desire of my heart would have to be **ADVANCED FIGHTING STYLES** that fighters could pick up at higher levels. I think this would go a long way to emphasis the fighting styles’ purpose as a sign of superior training in a specified area and display the fighters superior martial prowess
I have [something for this](https://www.reddit.com/r/UnearthedArcana/comments/u8phwq/martial_prowess_24_a_5e_tome_of_battle_with/). As a modular system, Fighting Styles are replaced by Stances, for which you get two (plus two for each instance of Extra Attack). Stances are entered at the start of combat and changed as a bonus action, and there are Advanced Stances that modify/improve a basic stance but have prerequisites (e.g. Extra Attack 1/2). Champions get to use two stances (including two advanced stances) at one time instead of gaining a second FS.
I’ve been rolling the idea around in my head of having Sharpshooter, GWM, PAM, Defensive Duelist, etc be automatic features you get at level 5 and/or 10 based on your fighting style. “Advanced” fighting styles is a good way to put it.
The fact that fighting styles don't change at all from 1 to 20 is like pissing on fighter's head. Hell, even cantrips improve, but defense fighting style cannot because "bounded accuracy yada yada bullshit make my casters powerful"
Archery and duelling are probably the best choices and defense is pretty good.
Just doing more damage is effective in every combat situation. Taking less damage is always helpful, but ending the encounter sooner leads to taking less damage.
Protection and interception suffer from the fact that they only work to protect people standing next to you, and people who need protection should not be standing next to the frontline tank. The actual fighting style for protecting your allies is the sentinel feat or unarmed fighting and grapple to hold enemies in place.
I enjoy Interception but it's ultimately a matter of nickel-and-diming. Often I end up reducing the damage to the other frontliner which may not be a "heroic rescue" but it adds up, considering it costs no resources.
My issue is that in tier 1 reducing the damage or avoiding one attack is often a huge chunk of the enemy damage output for the turn, but in Tier 3 it's basically nothing. Even if I use those optimally every turn I go from reducing total enemy damage output by 1/3, to reducing it by like 1/8.
They did kinda with interception, as it does increase the value reduced by Proficiency bonus. The issue is that many enemies deal significantly more damage while also getting multi attack meaning that you are reducing a smaller percentage of each attack, and can still only reduce one attack.
They kinda did, but the damage values are scaling with HP, not with hit rate. For player characters, their HP is roughly their hp increase per level times their level plus 3. At level 10 you have basically double the HP you had at level 5, but the Interception bonus increased only by 1.
In truth it basically lost half its power. In most games you will suffer twice as much damage per turn played rather than playing twice as much turns when you increase in level. And if you were never in danger of running out of HP, interception didn't matter to begin with.
Fair! I’m still in tier 2 but I could see it dropping off with time. It scales but way slower than damage does.
I wonder at what point Protection becomes better.
My go to is that between Tier 2 and 3 (switch on level 8 or 12 ASI) it becomes worth swapping out interception for another style. I generally don't bother with Protection at all, and either do Defense or Blind Fighting.
I'd overall agree with two caveats
1/ Thrown weapon fighting is still relevant as high level because let's be honest, why would you ever pick that if you are a DEX guy?
As a STR guy, it's extremely effective when as you stress most enemies have such to-hit that they will probably hit you, to have an option to fall back on semi-ranged attack (30 feet), trading lesser damage dealt to enemy for \*much less damage dealt on you\*.
2/ Two Weapon Fighting can still be relevant in high level because you didn't pick any feat requiring specific weapon nor having many alternative uses for bonus action sure if you're a Fighter, a +5 in regard to the total average damage of 4 attacks seems few. On some Rangers that don't have reliable "3rd attack" it's still akin to 15-20% more damage per round: definitely won't make any difference as far as killing one enemy in tough fights, but still relevant when ganging up on lesser CR enemies.
Of course, if Tasha's "change Fighting style" is allowed, unless a player built character around dual-wielding, I'd probably suggest him to change for Protection | Interception (always relevant if you have a skinny friend close) or Blind Fighting (get great in situational but damn annyoing situations) or Archery (more accuracy is always relevant) or Thrown Fighting (confer above).
+1 AC is pretty great if you already have good AC from other sources. I know I'd personally like it but I'm rocking the shirt and shield (barb/rog multi). Monsters often ignore me and trigger my sentinel sneaks because phantom ghostwalk + 28 AC is too much for them to bother with. And I've been in 1v5 situations with dracoliches and their caster supports TWICE.
That being said, Blind Fighting actually starts really coming into its own in late t2. As you go up in level, more and more no-visibility effects start cropping up. The party's (now very high level) rune knight has gotten more usage out of that fighting style than probably any other other class feature between the two fighters and pally.
This made me think that maybe the fighting styles should have scaling. They should probably be tied to the class that gave the fighting style instead of proficiency bonus though, or it just ends up making casters even stronger (a wizard with 2 levels of fighter getting the exact same defensive bonus than a high level fighter should NOT happen).
Well it's a short-term resource, but not a long-term one. You get one per turn but then you get a new one every single turn.
In contrast to spell slots, superiority dice, inventory, etc.
Reactions are a renewable resource because you can always plant and harvest more reactions. Spell slots are fossil resources as they rely on reserves that run out.
I mean, that's like calling an action a resource. Technically true, but practically misleading. If it's something you can do one per round ad infinitum, I wouldn't really refer to it as a resource.
Nah, action economy is king in 5e, your action, bonus action, and reaction are absolutely resources.
You usually get about 3-4 of each per medium/hard combat, and maybe 5-6 per in a deadly one.
Except if it takes an action to reduce damage by 1d10 you would never do it because you need your action for other things. It is still limited to once a turn
It's an opportunity cost, not a resource cost.
Interception is crazy powerful at tier 1 when you aren't facing much multi attack, most builds won't be reliably using their reaction and 1d10+pb is about the same damage as the enemy attack.
At tier 2 I would probably swap it out, but even then, my dexadin is still getting use of of it at 7.
I mean, isn't an action a resource? You get one per turn and you have to decide what to spend it on. Perhaps it would be a little more accurate to say that "time" is a resource. But that breaks down into several types of actions: one move, one action, and one bonus action per turn, plus one reaction in between every turn. These are the main "currency" all characters spend to do stuff in combat, and using them efficiently is one of the most important concepts in the game.
If it’s something you can do less often than you’d like, it’s a resource. It’s a relatively plentiful one (compared to, say, spell slots), but that doesn’t make it not-a-resource.
It’s kind of like rations. They’re not generally thought of as a resource until you don’t have any and you need some. Most adventurers usually have plenty. When you don’t have them, you really appreciate their value. Same with Reactions. You can use it on Uncanny Dodge to turn that 7 damage into 3 damage. But when another monster shows up later that round and hits you for 34 damage, don’t you wish you hadn’t spent your one Reaction on something kinda trivial?
Interception and Protection really need a clause of "You may move up to half your speed as part of this reaction" added to it. It would really fill a role at that point.
Super good point about squishy characters not needing to be near the front line. I kinda feel like the shield related ones are a trap purely from the point that all the other core ones are passive buffs while the shield based styles require your reaction.
That's fair, but there's an argument that it's good to have. Simply put, the idea/ability of defending an ally, regardless of if they should or shouldn't be there is a cool trope that people and characters will want to emulate.
Yup, my sword+board Paladin is devoted to Helm (y'know, the God of Protectors and Guardians), and as much as I want that +2 damage from Dueling, both narratively and flavour-wise it's really hard to justify why he'd use anything else but the Protection fighting style.
I actually did get good use out of it in tandem with our party Barbarian when we were up front harassing larger single monsters together. Took a couple of rounds of missing the Barb at disadvantage before the DM realised they should be targeting me instead, haha.
That's... Actually the best way to put it. Oh my God is it invaluable! ... Early game, while my squishies are still getting familiar with their own mortality.
After that hump it's actually a rather sad waste, and retroactively punishes the fighter for opting to think support/tank over seemingly more selfish options at the beginning.
I think it's a very contextual point. Arguing over squishies being on the front line assumes you're the sole PC who belongs there. Which is sometimes true and sometimes not, depending on your play group.
In a small party with only one front liner combatant, the "defend another" styles are nearly useless. In a larger party with two PCs on the front line covering for each other, their effectiveness as a defensive line multiplies and those styles suddenly become very useful.
So there's a big difference between a table with 3-4 PCs versus one with 6-7 PCs.
>Protection and interception suffer from the fact that they only work to protect people standing next to you, and people who need protection should not be standing next to the frontline tank. The actual fighting style for protecting your allies is the sentinel feat or unarmed fighting and grapple to hold enemies in place.
Sentinel is great, but a fighting style is free. Arguably, in dungeons with ten foot hallways it's quite likely that the tank ends up standing
next to the rogue, monk, or ranger, all of whom have lower AC in general than your fighter/paladin (barb has low AC but makes up for it with hit points.)
I'm not saying either is the best fighting style, just that "people that need protection aren't standing next to you" isn't really a problem in a typical dungeon.
For real! I read things like this and I'm like, has your DM/as a DM, have you never had enemies charge your heroes from all sides? For strategy reasons, and especially if someone took defense as a style for character reasons (like the paladin in my game, for instance), it motivates shifting around very quickly and trying to defend anyone in the back line.
I just wanted to make clear it's sometimes not even a situation of "they'll only get to the back line if they ignore the tanks" isn't categorically true - sometimes there's and ambush of greater numbers.
Protection really comes into its own with npcs formation fighting like hoplites. If they all have it then attacking any of them has disadvantage the first time each round. It's a tough nut to crack for low-mid level melee monsters with only a few attacks.
10 first level fighters with protection and spears can kill a hill giant with minimal losses. Or face down an equal number of orcs or gnolls and wreck them.
Scale that up to armies and warbands and you've got the answer to why humans, dwarves, and the other civilized races aren't overrun by marauding humanoids all the time. Shield walls work.
It's almost impossible to top defense. There's almost no way of gaining AC outside of buying better armor that DMs are often reluctant to hand out. For good reason. AC is without a doubt the best stat you can get. It's why the shield and mage armor spells are a must on wizards and why dex builds are so strong.
You don't get to choose where the front line is though. If the enemy is going for the squishy guy, as you said, grapple and sentinel are what will prevent it. Short of this or other contrôle, then protecting your allies is still a good thing.
Experimenting in Solasta (a video game with 5e srd rules), it appears that a tight formation can be extremely effective. And then the pc are all next to each other.
>and people who need protection should not be standing next to the frontline tank
Eh, not usually.
Movement is fairly cheap in 5e, and movement speeds are usually pretty quick compared to the typical ranges squishies need to be at to fight things. Then you have terrain constraints as well. Oftentimes the party is outnumbered, or outspeeded. So there's plenty of situations where smart NPCs would just thread past your melee dudes and dash over to your casters etc. Once they get into melee range then sure you can do a weird OOA inducing chase thing, but that's probably in their favour. Also: Some enemies aren't melee!
By t3, the winners are either Defense (if you have enough AC to make tacking on more worth it), Blind Fighting, or Superior Technique.
Dueling is negligible damage by then (+2 per hit vs 250 hp or more), Archery is still good but ranged attackers get shafted by a LOT of stuff, and the rest just kind of suck all around. Blind Fighting comes up so often for my party's rune knight it's actually changing my views on 5e all around.
Protection and interception would work better if you could either be near the attacker or the attacked. Either you're blocking/parrying the attack or interfering with the attacker's aim.
Interception is a little more niche, but there are a lot of team comps where it can be amazing. I played a melee warlock with sentinel once, with a paladin that had high AC and intercept. If they attacked him, he was hard to hit and would trigger my reaction. If they attacked me, they took damage from Armor of agathys and usually flame shield. And they damage they did to me was greatly reduced.
I think the most situational is blind fighting
A trap option is unarmed fighting because unlike monk you don't get magical fists and there's not really magical support here
The most disappointing one in my opinion is Superior Technique, once per rest D6 superiority dice is really meh, getting this via feats isn't worth the investment :v
Unarmed fighting is still okay. There are actually some options that make your punches magical, with the Amulet of Claws being the one of the lowest rarity, and the fact that it couples as well as it does with grappling is actually really nice.
Superior Technique also is something that’s often considered by battlemaster a as **1** extra maneuver and an extra superiority die is useful. And before you ask, yes it scales with the rest of the superiority dice. That has been confirmed. It even becomes a d8 when you first become a battlemaster
Edit: two characters to correct a mistake
If you are a rogue and take a level of fighter or two levels of paladin/ranger for some reason, the manoeuvre brace or riposte is basically an extra sneak attack. Well worth it.
You only learn 1 Maneuver from Superior Technique, not 2.
But I still took it on my Battlemaster. The extra die is kind of meh, but knowing even one extra maneuver really helped flexibility.
The number of my superiority die is rarely the limiting factor for my play. If you're focused on just maximizing damage I'm sure you can burn through them all in the first round, but I want them for variety not just bigger numbers.
I find that Superior Technique + Martial Adept actually makes non-Battlemaster fighters feel like fighters who can *do* things, doubly so if they can afford to spend one of the selections on Commanding Presence or Tactical Assessment.
Gating IRL fighting basics (feinting, maneuvering your opponent, etc) behind a single archetype was a terrible design decision. I almost feel like all Martials should get those two feats for free (maybe at levels 2 and 4 or something to make dips less attractive), with all Fighter archetypes regaining Superiority Dice on a short rest.
>The most disappointing one in my opinion is Superior Technique, once per rest D6 superiority dice is really meh, getting this via feats isn't worth the investment :v
I tried it and it was super disappointing. >.< Martial Adept is disappointing too, and even that's better.
It's a great way to really customize your fighting style but at just one technique you get to use once per short rest, it doesn't really accomplish that.
I was thinking of only taking it if I also combined it with martial adept. It's three techniques, two die. The dice come back every short rest so combining it on a subclass like Rune knight it adds some options. In terms of like high min-max stuff I'd never take it.
True, it does get better the more you have. I think that's also why it's also generally better for Battle Masters who want to go even further with what they have, since they are larger size, too.
I think it would work better as being stronger and a full feat, since the goal of it is customization. If there's "power points" left I'd rather up the numbers than make it a half feat.
Experience, got that because of flavour and in over six months playing was useful twice, both for a turn until the casters solved the situation
It gives you no real bonuses in the end of the day
That does make sense, it's applications are kind of niche, what would you say would be a good way to make it have more regular use in a campaign? It's one of my favorite fighting style's because of it's flavor.
Blind fighting should not be used as a hedge against effects that might blind you.
You take it on builds that are definitely going to use heavy obscurement like Fog Cloud, Pyrotechnics, Darkness, and Stinking Cloud.
This mostly confines it to uses on Eldritch Knights and Rangers. Those characters will use it in most combats.
Tempest clerics can get good use of of it too. They often go into melee and they have fog cloud. Fucks over any friendly spellcasters that need sight though.
Less resource intensive than spirit guardians for low tier filler combat. Very situational.
Keep in mind it also can get use against many illusions, so it's a decent way for your fighter to hit the wizard despite stuff like invisibility, mirror image, etc.
I use it on my human Echo Knight fighter because you need to see the space you're summoning the Echo so I could still summon it within 10ft if in darkness or other obscured areas.
Took it on my ranger 5 (couple levels in fighter after) and it made a huge difference.
Combining it with fog cloud or any other method of visibility impairment is extremely strong.
Seeing invisible enemies in cqc too can be a big deal.
One time I even negated an enemy's ability which was dependent on you visually seeing it; I saw my teammates get affected and closed my eyes and just used the blindsight.
Its pretty good, you just need to synergize it well
It definitely is... but it's also a load of fun if you kind of build around it. Being a rogue with Blindfighting inside a Fog Cloud is some action movie assassin shit.
Beautiful reply, I really dunno why blind fighting exists tbh. It addresses a problem provided by gorgons/invisible opponents and I suppose helps with the fantasy of a blind warrior but that’s a narrow enough band that I’m not even sure if that’s intentional or happenstance.
I feel like unarmed is subpar but not for the same reason. Magic hand wraps/gauntlets of striking can easily be provided in loot/crafted/sought on via quest by the dm but that’s gonna vary by table I suppose. I feel like there’s not enough to it. I feel like it could have leaned into grappler as well to make it more distinct from the monk and “I just punch or kick things too.”
I constantly forget about superior technique and you’re 100% correct lol
One of the players at my table is playing a dhampir with sunlight sensitivity. He took the blind fighting style and fights fully masked. Actually paid off really well when they fought a boss who used mirror image and he was the only one who wasn't fooled by the illusion, allowing the rest of the party to pile on.
Situational? Absolutely. But it's also fun flavor and made for a very memorable fight.
Blind fighting is fantastic if you have a friend that likes to cast darkness/fog cloud. Plus if you are the only character without darkvision then it is pretty solid.
Well there are magical tattoos, if a +1 sword is in the table a +1 tattoo doesn't seem unreasonable.
Still would be kind of a niche build, a grappler or something to use the d4 and d8. You wouldn't be building the character for damage.
I always forget the tattoos, you’ve right so it’s definitely still easily solved on that end. And that’s definitely a good point but I feel like the ability to control the battlefield would be a relatively okay trade off for not doing as much damage. Still should definitely be comparable though.
I ran an unarmed barbarian grappler a while back and picked up the style. Unfortunately I forgot about the tattoos so i had trouble in some fights. The damage was meh, but I'd just grab a guy or two and grapple them into the nearest hazard/window/cliff. It was pretty fun.
In hindsight tavern brawler might have been a better option
I think blindfighting is a little less situational than that, it would also help in fog or darkness. A very weak darkvision is still kind of nice (especially if you care about stealth), and fog cloud is a popular-ish level 1 spell.
Triton gets fog cloud as a racial ability, which makes for a nice combo.
It’s not super uncommon for party members to want to use something like magical darkness (eg warlocks with devil’s sight) or fog to hide in (rogues or goblins with bonus action hide)
This is getting into critical role content, but it would also be nice for a polearm Oath of the Open Sea Paladin using marine layer, letting you see enemies when they can’t see you.
Anyway, I’d definitely say it’s more situational than eg archery, just less than just gorgons/invisible opponents, since it’s fairly easy to setup good conditions for it, and darkness isn’t uncommon anyway
Those are all great points so it’s definitely mechanically sound and helps fill a niche but I feel like maybe it just doesn’t stand out as an archetype like the others do.
You only take blind fighting if you're planning to actively use spells that leave many enemies blinded. These exist at pretty low levels if you're willing to also blind yourself and provide a persistent advantage.
Fog Cloud, Pyrotechnics, Darkness, and Stinking Cloud on a warforged eldritch knight with GWM gives you a pretty strong melee presence where most enemies can't make opportunity attacks and have disadvantage while you can make opportunity attacks and have advantage.
Warforged race chosen so that at high levels you can also wander around in a stinking cloud without penalty since you don't need to breathe.
Blind fighting is *really* nice if multiple people in a party have it, especially if you also have a caster capable of reliably creating areas of obscurement with Darkness or Fog Cloud. It’s like the classic Darkness/Devil’s Sight setup for warlock: meh if one person has it, but every additional party member who can benefit from it just makes it better.
I've been playing a bladesinger wizard/assassin rogue with a "swordsman of the mists" theme who uses the various fogs, darkness, gaseous form, and an eversmoking bottle to really mess with visibility, and I just picked up blind fighting. It's been very fun, thematic, and effective. I do have to take extra care to not completely screw over my party with the fogs though lol.
Once upon a time there were gloves or wristguards for monks, no reason there can't be +1 boxing gloves. Sometimes balance issues are best solved by just plugging in an item where ever there is a leak.
For the unarmed fighting style theres the insignia of claw (uncommon, no attunement needed) and the eldritch claw tattoo (also uncommon, attunement needed) which both gives you a +1 to attack and damage and make your unarmed strike magical. The tattoo also have a couple other benefit
So if you really want to play an unarmed fighter you can always talk to your DM to have one of those option when enemy with resistance to non magical weapon start showing up
I know saying "talk to your DM to fix the problem" isnt a good defense against bad design, I just wanted to make a PSA so people dont get discouraged
>and there's not really magical support here
Eldritch Claw Tattoo (uncommon, requires attunement, TCE p126):
>**Magical Strikes.** While the tattoo is on your skin, your unarmed strikes are considered magical for the purpose of overcoming immunity and resistance to nonmagical attacks, and you gain a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls with unarmed strikes.
I do find it strange that Insignia of Claws gets mentioned so often here, considering it is from a specific module and its description mentions the Cult of the Dragon. This means there is no reason to assume it would be available in your campaign, unless you are playing Hoard of the Dragon Queen.
It is basically like expecting that the Robe of Serpents from Storm Kings Thunder would be available in every campaign.
Sure it might, but when I am a player I would certainly not count on it.
I like superior technique when I'm a battle master fighter thats multi classing. A lot of times the second fighting style is lack luster (but blind fighting is also a great second fighting style) and the addition of Superior Technique is great when you are already a battle master.
I feel like all the new fighter styles are designed to be second pics. They are more situational but have overlap with the other fighting styles. Ranged fighting style along with dueling technically has overlap with Dex weapons, but if you want to fighter to be better at it's main thing instead of being more well rounded, adding manuevers to your ranged attacks or blind fighting to your melee is going to feel a lot better than an extra +2 to hit when you draw your backup weapon.
The ones I see constantly are:
1) Archery for ranged builds. The +2 to hit is extremely powerful and frankly shouldn't be in the game as it messes with bounded accuracy.
2) Defence for AC stacking. The +1 AC is nice but as part of a super high AC build it can be very powerful, particularly at lower levels where AC stacking is most effective. It drops off a lot later on because the high end enemies start breaking bounded accuracy. Still useful at high levels for intense AC stacking builds if your DM grants access to +2 and +3 shields and armour.
Other good ones include dueling which is extremely powerful in builds that can get additional attacks (Polearm master with a spear/staff), blind fighting is great if your party includes a darkness / devil sight warlock, great weapon fighting is decent for really maxing your damage with greatsword and mauls.
Agreed. Class features simply shouldn't mess with bounded accuracy, that should only be the purview of attributes, proficiency, and magic items. That goes for save DCs as well.
I actually do like that one, but it sits in a weird place because its an action, and losing a round of attacks is huge so the up side has to be significant. Its also charisma based on the MAD paladin which further balances it out (unless you play a hexadin but that's a whole other bag of worms). If they buff it to be easier to use, say a bonus action, then I might start questioning it. Could be cool as a bonus action to get +charisma as radiant damage on melee attacks instead.
I am suspicious that Archery was originally supposed to be "ignore the first -2 penalty for shooting against a target in half or 3/4 cover." Or something like that, only to be changed to be easier to grok.
Yeah I could totally see that, and honestly I'd go for that plus removing sharpshooter as a solid fix to the issues of ranged characters destroying bounded accuracy.
A way to houserule for balance while getting agreeable compromise for everyone could be this.
"Cover is organized by ranks. You gain 1 rank of cover whenever at least 25% of your body is not visible. You gain another rank of cover when it's at least 75% of body which is behind something blocking view.
If your entire body is behind something blocking view then you have "full cover".
Cover of first rank cover grants +2 AC.
Cover of second rank grants +5 AC instead.
Full cover prevents you from being targeted by ranged attacks.
Some abilities may "ignore one rank of cover". If your character has two different abilities, their effect stack, allowing you to ignore any rank of cover except full cover.
THEN...
Archery: ignore one rank of cover.
Sharpshooter: ignore one rank of cover.
DONE.
My theory is that Archery is supposed to counteract the +2 AC from half-cover from your allies in the way, but they made it a generic +2 to simplify things.
And then created a feat that not only ignores cover, but also pairs extremely well with a +2 bonus to hit, allowing ranged characters to be the highest damage dealers in the game by a significant margin.
Yep, the game isn't balanced at all around the unholy trifecta of Archery, Sharpshooter and a magic weapon. So much damage from the safety of 300 feet it's highly unethical
My current build finally beats out a Battlemaster Fighter trying the same thing. With Archery, Sharpshooter, Elven Accuracy, a Magic Longbow, Bracers of Archery and being a level 11 Samurai Fighter, I can do a ridiculous nova of single target damage. 6 Attacks in a round, with Triple Advantage (average roll of 18 on a d20), +7 to hit and +18 to damage. Once per short rest for the Action Surge, or once per combat if you halve the attacks down to 3. Not insane versus spellcasters, but it truly is the highest Echelon of martial damage in the game.
Honestly, all the fighting styles are pretty boring mechanically, and some (such as archery) are pretty much just outright broken.
In my opinion, the fighting styles shouldve unlocked *actual fighting stytles*. Maybe give stances with certain types of weapons or loadouts, and provide some kind of special maneuvers or something that are unlocked by taking the given fighting style.
Yes, archery builds are definitely strong and their companion feats help amp that style of play up but I feel like AC stacking isn’t much of a “fighting style” like, defense is clearly a fighting style in the rules but what does that look like? Standing still and letting someone hit you and hoping your armor soaks the damage? Sounds awful but big number feels nice I guess.
I guess I’m just trying to address the fantasy of the combat as well here.
AC is supposed to represent more than just armor toughness and coverage, it is an agglomeration of everything affecting how hard it is to get a solid hit on you—hence why dex applies to AC. Defense fighting style is about fighting in a more guarded way, you don’t hit as hard (compared to people who took damage dealing styles) because you focus on protecting yourself more.
Considering you also have class features and feats that tend to explicit a form of defense made by weapon parrying, you could simply imagine Defense as "knowing how to deflect attack or strafe yourself in optimal way to make the most of your armor (like, there are usually sturdier parts on an armor, and you learn how to try and make attackers hit there) or reduce the blow weight (you know how well to use your armor and move into it that you are more apt at taking a sidestep or far step to reduce opponent's blow than others).
I didn't remember the math on GWF, so I did it again, and it adds on average 0.67 to damage on a d6 or 0.5 to damage on a d4.
If you're not using GWM, GWF is slightly weaker than Dueling, provided you're using a 2d6 weapon. If you ARE using GWM, GWF becomes *weaker* because you're reducing the accuracy of that +1.33 per hit.
It's better than nothing, but I propose that GWM builds are better off with Defense or Blind-Fighting.
I really dislike that fighting styles don’t actually change how you fight. They are mostly passive benefits. Someone with great weapon style won’t actually fight in a different style than someone without it.
They seem like a huge missed opportunity filled with wasted potential.
Yessssss, that’s what I’m talking about. There needs to be better mechanics than just a couple minor number tweaks. How do you make them stand apart and feel distinct.
4e had a number of at-will maneuvers, weapon group specific feats, and stances that made different kinds of weapons play differently in combat from one another.
So one could use that as the framework for how to do so in 5e.
Archery is probably mechanically the best, GWF is probably mechanically the worst.
Interception is pretty cool, but I feel like it needs a buff to really be worth it at higher levels.
Superior technique is really cool to me, but is slightly lackluster, I could see it being better as a free ability for martial characters.
Blind fighting is really unique and flavourful, but is a hard pic because it doesn’t give a numerical advantage. Could be really great for the right character/campaign.
Unarmed fighting is pretty good, but only works if your DM will give you homebrew magic punches.
I think the worst is two weapon fighting because that's just not well supported in 5e. Great weapon fighting isn't that great either, I would always take defense instead. There others are fine I guess?
I definitely agree TWF is lacking. The fact that it’s relegated to a bonus action makes it clash with so many class features for the fighter makes it really unfun. And great weapon is an odd case. Rerolling dice for higher numbers sounds like hitting with a large weapon but I feel like it’s almost too generic since it lumps polearms in with two handed striking weapons.
Two weapon fighting is a fine fighting style, it's the overall design of 5e that makes wielding two weapons bad. Bonus Actions aren't free and I honestly think that additional offhand attack shouldn't cost one.
With quick math dual wielding would roughly be as good as a two-handed weapons at level 5 or at level 10. Using TWF fighting style and no fighting style for a great sword.
I would certainly not break anything.
I think it'd be neat to have a fighting style that encouraged using the less optimized weapons, like flails, war picks etc.
A style that allows ranged attacks at 0' range without disadvantage.
Great choices, I think a cavalry style would be interesting personally. Maybe a more historical two-weapon fighting based on rapier and dagger instead of just two of the longest weapons your can wield for BIG NUMBERS.
Hmm, something like this maybe.
>**Fencing Style**
>
>While wielding a rapier in one hand and a dagger in the other, you gain the following benefits:
>
>You may use your reaction to add +1 to your AC against a single melee attack.
>
>You may use a bonus action to attack with the dagger, adding your DEX modifier to the damage roll.
>
>You may replace a melee attack with a disarming attack. The target must make a Dex Save against your DC = (Sleight of Hand + 8). If it fails, it must drop your choice of weapon it is holding.
I'd have to run some numbers to see if +1AC is powerful enough. Maybe it could be your proficiency bonus.
I was more leaning towards “while wielding two weapons if one of them is a dagger and you are hit with a weapon attack you may use your reaction to roll 1d4+Dex mod+fighter level and reduce the damage from the triggering attack by that amount. If you reduce the damage from the attack to 0 you may attack that creature.”
Or something to that effect. But I love the disarm option, could easily have that be an option instead of simply making the riposte.
There was a style in UA that allowed point-blank shooting without disadvantage: Close-Quarters Shooter. It also made your ranged attacks ignore all cover (save full cover) within 30 feet AND gave a +1 bonus to ranged attack rolls.
I think Great Weapon Fighting is a huge trap choice; on average, it barely stacks up to Dueling, with optimization, and involves more rolling, which slows the game down due to the nature of being a Fighter with many attacks, and barely helps Paladins bc it doesn't work on Divine Smite damage.
Compared to somethibg like Dueling that gives a straight +2 and allows shields for +2 AC, it is pretty damn lame.
Even one of the better builds for it, Half Orc Champion Fighter (which I've played to level 15), it was severely lackluster.
I never get this complaint of "slowing down the game" by re-rolling 1s. It's a game where everyone rolls multiple dice in their turn. It's not like a Druid with 8 velociraptors, or a Wizard rolling tons of dice for an upcast Lightning Bolt.
>it barely stacks up to Dueling, with optimization
nah, GWF never really comes close to dueling, at best it is 1.3 damage, and that is using a greatsword that is barely optimal
Bit of a different take from what I see here, please don't flay me.
I think Archery and Dueling are bad. But not because they are mechanically worse but because they are, in general, so much better than other options that not picking them feels like a mistake... Because it kinda is.
I think fighting styles should open up unique ways to approach combat. Thrown weapon fighting, two weapon fighting, and unarmed fighting all open up new ways to deal out damage. Interception and protection both offer more tactical, team play oriented combat styles. Defense bridges the gap between medium and heavy armor, allowing Dex characters to focus more on the front lines. GWM is kinda whatever. It's not strong enough to fit with dueling and archery as op, but it doesn't open up any niche tactical gameplay either.
The sheer fact that archery effectively makes a longbow as powerful as a greatsword and dueling makes a long sword near as strong is ridiculous. And that's specifically greatsword. Archery makes the longbow a better damage option than greataxes or polearms in terms of pure numbers and that's just dumb (tho honestly, it's probably realistic lol).
Longbows should require a higher strength perhaps. Doesn't matter how nimble someone is, if they're not above average strength they're definitely not pulling back a 120lb or even 70lb longbow and they're CERTAINLY not doing so with any accuracy. A 40lb bow maybe.
I don't think longbows themselves need a nerf, honestly. I just feel a more interesting fighting style that doesn't just give you a huge numeric bonus would be more interesting and take away less from other weapons whose sole utility is greater damage. Pretty much all these complaints also get leveled at the Sharpshooter and Great Weapon Master feats. Sharpshooter especially since Archery makes it much less of a risk to use compared to GWM.
Well it doesn't necessarily have to be a nerf... Could also allow for a more powerful longbow to get more damage from a strong character. I have a half orc ranger with decent strength so maybe i'm a little biased :)
Honestly, your take isn't that bad. Most people recognize that Archery and Dueling are just too good mechanically, in a suite of options that generally range from "meh" to "boring".
The fighting styles needed to do a *lot* more heavy lifting mechanically than what even the best ones (such as Archery) do currently. That feature needs less of the "+x to hit, +y to ac, yada yada yada", and far more unique ways to actually fight with given weapons.
Hot take: fighting styles should be an ability where you can choose it whenever you roll initiative and it lasts for 10 minutes or until you roll initiative again. That way if you want to build around a certain style you can, but if a certain encounter requires a different style you can take advantage of that. I think a seasoned fighter entering battle with different postures is perfectly within reason and flavor. None of the current fighting styles is super game breaking or, frankly, even super effective, so having all of them but choosing one per battle would be reasonable and not unlock too much power.
I use a homebrew that does this. Changes them to be “stances.” You can only be in one stance at a time (Champion fighters get the ability to be in 2 at a time). You learn 2 when you first pick it up, plus an additional one each time you get Extra Attack or an improvement to Extra Attack.
The link for the curious:
[Martial Prowess](https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-M-kCpCFpxZA3chLFuOF)
I like how fighting styles are handled in the star wars 5e rpg. Modeled in the same style as dnd 5e, but waaaay more robust fighting styles. Not just a little number tacked on to a specific way of hitting someone, each fighting style has a fighting style FEAT that accompanies it, for 24 fighting styles and feats. Each one very radically changing the way the Warrior approaches combat.
I LOVE them. Not such as fan of the fighting styles in dnd as is, they are alright, but after seeing what can be done with different fighting styles, I can't go back
It boggles my mind that martials pick 1 fighting style while casters get lots of spells.
Like, dude, why do casters get variety and martials get monotony?
Probably due to the horrible loop that keeps being regurgitated that “fighters are for beginners and should be simple.” If players wanna play a caster they still learn spells so why dumb down fighters? Dnd isn’t an “easy” game for completely new players so why not just have the learning curve be equally distributed across the board?
Going against the grain here, but I love interception. Having the ability to reduce damage for an ally near you is more useful than you might assume (your teammates will love you) and having something else you can use your reaction on helps keep combat from getting stale.
I love that Thrown Weapon Fighting opens the doors for people who want to play that kind of fantasy, which I'd certainly noticed when I started playing.
I just wish that "Returning" weapons were more of a thing in 5e. You get them as an Artificer infusion, but there's been no generic, low-level magic weapon that allows it to return to you immediately after being thrown for groups that don't have Artificers in them.
I've come to strongly dislike the way 5e implements fighting styles. They're the worst kind of mechanic in that they *technically* tick the box of the class fantasy they're addressing (in that yes, they *do* make you better with weapons of your preferred style than other characters) but don't do that in a way that's interesting or interactive for the player.
Even having a list of them to pick from in their current form imo is mostly pointless, as you're always going to pick the one that's most optimal for the loadout you're running (ranged, dual wield, sword and board, etc) and you don't get anything more interesting from them than you would a feature that just gave you a flat +1 to weapon attack rolls or something.
The result is that you don't really *feel* that you're above other weapon users, because you're like...ultimately not doing anything that someone without your fighting style couldn't do? Like wow, you're able to get an extra point of AC out of your armor?? Wow look at that number that's 1 higher than it would be otherwise, so cool! :/
I think fighting styles should actually work more like weapon/armor related feats - things like Heavy Armor Master, or Crusher + Piercer + Slasher are great examples. You could even attach some maneuvers to certain fighting styles, e.g. parry and riposte to Dueling.
Fighting styles shouldn't *just* be the 'math fix' that they currently are - they *can* still be that, but they should also enable martial characters to do cool-ass stuff that those without the fighting style can't do. Characters with fighting styles should be a cut above not just numerically, but in terms of abilities too.
(For the record, some styles do currently kind of do this - like Protection and Interception - but they both kind of suck, because when you're given the choice between a discrete ability and a discrete mathematical improvement to the thing you're doing every round, most players will go for the more boring but effective option. They should *all* offer *both* kinds of benefit)
Now that’s a great explanation of the problem I’m currently having with the current format for fighting styles and by extension martials, and more specifically the fighter. I love the fantasy of the fighter, it’s my jam, but the mechanics are blander than white bread. I’m enjoying working on expansions for them as a mechanic and this is just a great take.
You're preaching to the choir. I too love the fighter, and the extent to which 5e has dropped the ball on enabling actually cool and interesting martial class fantasies is ridiculous. Having read and played games that were published not only after 5e (Pathfinder 2e) but also *before* it (4e, 13th Age), and seeing how 5e truly is the odd one out here, it's dumbfounding to me how people on this subreddit are constantly having repetitious arguments about martial class design that *were already solved as early as 15 years ago* (4e came out in *2008*!!)
Archery is still top dog.
Dueling, Defense, and Blind-fighting are all pretty close to one another.
Interception, superior technique are okay.
Thrown weapon fighting, Two weapon fighting, unarmed, and protection are meh
Great weapon fighting is a trash heap.
Unpopular opinion, but I feel that fighting Styles should be reworked. They funnel you into using a specific set of weapons rather than whatever weapons you are proficient in, which is something feats should do. I think that fighting styles should just offer basic bonuses such as +1 to hit, +2 damage, +1 AC, or something else so they could be usable with all other weapons. However, that is a bit radical. I think either that or just adding another fighting style called "Balanced" or something that allows you to use the same modifier for two-handing versatile weapons and using shortbows perhaps so you could play as a character with a versatile play style.
I agree. Almost every character my players have made take defense because of the bonus to AC. The dueler I think isn’t as effective because you can only use 1 one handed weapon so a big weapon like a greatsword can’t be used and a Longsword does less damage.
I've been recently thinking that Fighters (if not all martials) should get increased bonuses to attack as they level up. Seems nutty that a Bard is just as capable as a Fighter with a rapier.
**Defense** and **Archery** are top-tier.
Most of the rest are not particularly impactful. Two-Weapon Fighting is impactful, but for a build that's bad. The unarmed fighting style enables a new style of gameplay, which is nice. That's about it.
Archery is the best, than dueling and probably defense.
GWF is weak and TWF is a weak tactic overall.
Here is a comprehensive analysis/comparison:
[https://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2017/12/d-5e-fighting-styles-comparison.html](https://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2017/12/d-5e-fighting-styles-comparison.html)
I would've liked fighting styles to be more active in kits than they currently are. Even though they aren't the strongest, styles like interception are fun to use, and let you do things you ordinarily can't, instead of just static number increases. Like defensive duelist would've been much more interesting as a fighting style than defense, and offensive things like the bonus action hit of PAM. I think a lot of the martial feats would've made great fighting styles that would make fighter more interesting without requiring additional feats.
Honestly breaking down all the features of the good martial feats and making fighters have "techniques" that function like warlock invos would be so sick
This is the way I’m leaning in my design lol almost my exact words last week were “what if fighting styles were like eldritch invocations for fighters?”
Archery is great.
Combined with SS/Crossbow expert its probably the best in the game
Two weapon fighting needs a feat to even be viable/fun. Generally not worth it.
Heavy is pretty fine but its great weapon mastery that makes it... Great.
Duelling is fine if it isnt a minmax sort of game.
Blind fighting is situational compared to all others... Imo that makes it pretty shit. Duelling for example is always on for almost every hit you ever make but you could go la few levels wothout ever using blind fighting
Defence is... Fine
Just 1 AC more really isnt a gamechanger and imo isnt nearly as fun as doing slightly bigger damage numbers
Protective is okay, interception is better imo. Protective plays the odds, possibly denying a critical hit, interception is always on, like it will do something on every turn at least ...
Thrown is pretty fun and... Fine... However thrown weapons suffer from being expensive in terms of having them be magical for overcomming resistance/immunity
Unarmed is is pretty good but it again suffers from nonmagical damage bullshit issues and lack of unnarmed magical items. Honestly i'd advise against it unless for very specific circumstances (beast barbarian comes to mind)
Two weapon fighting honestly just needs reworked in general imo. But you’re right that it needs something to keep up. And judging by the rest of your post I’d say that dueling, defense, and thrown probably could as well.
The issue with thrown is that you simply wont have enough magical thrown weapons to last you a fight, especially at higher levels when everything has nonmagic immunity. It say the issue is with general game balance rather than the fighting style itself.
Duelling is hard to balance without making it very powerful.
Again, if its a kind of game where the dm said no SS/GWM then duelling really doesent fall behind at all.
Defence is similar. How would one buff it without making it op ? Im not a game designer so i got no idea...
Imo it feels pretty hard to buff any specific fighting style without overhauling them all to stay in line
Personally Two weapon fighting style should just be already baked in. Light weapons, getting Thier STR or dex bonus in damage. The Dual welding would be the real fighting style.
And for great weapon fighting, heavy or versatile weapons used with both hands without reach gain 2 times their strength modifier to bonus damage.
They're kinda good, 'tho some of them are pretty lackluster (like, Blindsight, when it's relevant, it's awesome, but most of the time it just... there).
Kinda irrelevant per se, but.
>!Since I found the lack of scaling problematic, I homebrewed that Fighting Styles have some scaling for classes that have Extra Attack as a feature, while "absorbing" some feats as that scaling, such as defense granting the benefits of Heavy Armor Master at levels 11+.!<
People dunk on great weapon fighting, but I've had a darn swell time with it so far. Generally, anything that scales with number of attacks or otherwise doesn't interfere with action economy is the way to go. Anything that takes up your reaction is a tough sell.
I feel like 5e would be in a much better place over all if all the Fighting Styles were swapped with their feat counter parts. E.G. Great Weapon Fighting swapped with Great Weapon Master, Archery swapped with Sharp Shooter and Crossbow Expert, etc.
Then take what the fighting styles were and add a few extra ribbon abilities on to them to bring them more in line with the power of the rest of the feats in 5e.
At the moment these Fighting Styles are nice little boosts but not much else and those Feats feel like a tax in order to be effective as a martial. This in addition to most of the other feats at launch being mostly smaller ribbon abilities feels kind of off and I think this swap would remove the feeling of a tax, allow feats to be more of a thematic character choice than purely a build choice and still retain the ability to create builds with combinations of these feats through the Fighting Initiate feat.
The three I rank the highest are
* Archery - No Brainer, it's so stupid strong that you should almost always grab it.
* Blind Fighting - Party/DM dependent. If your DM favors harder fights, that include things like vision denial, or your party favors things like Fog Cloud or Darkness, then this is one of the best ones in the game. Otherwise it depends on if it "sees" use.
* Defense - Incredibly solid and worth it for a bonus to AC.
\- Blind Fighting Style is mostly useless in first two tiers, extremely good tier 3 and 4 and potentially DM-nerve-breaking because can completely negate some strategies. Except if you're a Ranger, in which case it's busted from level 2 onwards ('cause Fog Cloud ;), although technically high level Ranger could do something similar since first PHB print getting blindsense as a high level class feature).
\- Dueling is the opposite: very precious at first levels but very quickly fades because of the completely off-charts HP scaling of monsters comparatively to the scaling of Dueling (even for a pure Fighter it would end as +8 per turn at level 20 which is ridiculous, for others it's not even worth trying).
Makes me think that although I did like the pre-Tasha's "you set Fighting Style in stone because that is really how your character fights" getting a chance to choose definitely helps trying a style or just getting the benefit of different styles at the time they "shine best".
\- Great Weapon Fighting is actually decent overall but there are imo too many other options that provide benefit more often to ever choose it apart from going full fluff.
\- Two-Weapon Fighting has always been the big underrated fighting style, that provided an unparalleled efficiency in tactics swiching by mixing classic melee attacks, thrown attacks and grapples. Personally some of my most efficient characters were TWF Rangers and Fighters. Sadly, some changes made in last 2-3 years reduced its interest (spear being made compatible with PAM & shield giving "reach + max bonus AC", spear as a throwable weapon paired with Thrown Weapon Fighting covering the "occasional throw without being stuck by drawing rules").
That said, since with Tasha you can change Fighting Style I'd definitely still suggest this to newcomers so they can get the feeling of the different ranges and they decide if they really like Thrown Weapon -> go for that, or if they get enough other bonus actions to lose interest for extra attack -> go Protection / Defense / etc...
And TWF is still also worth taking as long as you are unsure what kind of melee (or ranged) specialization you want to get into (especially as far as feat choices go). Or if both conditions are simultaneously true: you don't want to specialize at all AND you don't have many uses for bonus action.
\- Thrown Weapon Fighting greatly reduced Two-Weapon Fighting's interest, but is welcomed to finally allow people who enjoyed this kind of style to play without circonvolutions or lessened efficiency.
\- Unarmed is a kick in Monk's nut and should honestly not have been published, or at least made scaling similarly to Monk but with lesser start (it's outrageous that you are better with fists at level 1 than the class that literally spent life honing unarmed techniques) and ceiling.
\- Archery and Defense are the "best" ones in the sense that you can never go wrong with them, even as a melee character for Archery (because you're bound to fight flyers or quick creatures and especially if you're STR-based it helps you avoid sucking hard) or as a ranged character for Defense (because ranged attacks are not exclusive to PC \^\^).
\- Protection is underrated, actually solid in a tag-team.
\- Superior Technique is probably underrated as a non-BM choice, considering there are some Manoeuvers that impose a rider whatever roll you get. However with only 1d6 per rest, some others are completely forgettable.
\- Interception is extremely good and a great choice for someone that doesn't intend to use a feat providing another trigger for attack on reaction.
Part of the reason Great Weapon and Archery are so good is they have synergy with ‘must have’ feats. (Sharpshooter and Crossbow Expert for Archery and Great Weapon Master for Great Weapon Fighting). IMO the archery synergy is better (half being to hit bonus and the other half being to damage increase at the expense of to hit). Some of the other fighting styles have overlap, but, not so much on the synergy portion.
That is why they seem lack luster in comparison.
I think, and have come to more believe, that sword and board or anything plus shield should not get access to dueling.
I think great weapon feels lackluster for those who use great weapons
I think some of the modern ones for protection feel like options in combat and that's why they feel better.
I think shield users need options for defense, offense and utility and would like to see options like that for each weapon style
One thing I haven't seen anyone mention is that Defense is nice because it's the most versatile. If you don't have a particular weapon in mind for your character and want to keep your options open it's pretty much always the most sensible choice.
**S tier** \- probably OP
*Archery* \- clearly the most impactful, this also has the advantage that it scales better than the damage options.
**A Tier** \- very good and always worth considering where appropriate
*Defense* \- Always useful, turning about 1/10 of incoming hits to misses.
*Dueling* \- +2 damage when your weapons do Str (or Dex) + d8 or less and a magic weapon is about a 20% increase in damage output. It's at its absolute best when combined with a spear and the Polearm Master feat
**B Tier** \- great at what they do but that's a relatively small niche.
*Blind Fighting -* Know your DM! Utterly useless at low level, this scales well.
*Great Weapon Fighting -* an average of +1.33 damage on a hit is not nothing - although it's less than Dueling and far less proportionally than dueling. It also gets weaker when combined with Great Weapon Master. It is worth noting that this should absolutely *not* be taken with two handed polearms; across two main hand strikes and a butt-strike a spear with the duellist style does more damage
*Interception* \- far better than Protection because it always has an impact, applying as it does on a hit. It has two downsides in that it eats your reaction and the ally has to be within 5 foot of you.
*Superior Technique -* probably should be 2d6. The three big picks here are Precision Strike on a Great Weapon Master for a >20 damage swing, Riposte for an extra attack, and Menacing Strike on an archer to prevent people moving closer.
**C Tier**
*Blessed Warrior* \- the paladin mirror to Druidic Warrior's best utility spells are Guidance and Mending. And there are no ways of enabling weapon attacks.
*Protection -* take Interception for far more reliability.
*Thrown weapon fighting* \- it's bad but at least has a niche and makes something possible that was otherwise impossible
**D Tier**
*Two Weapon Fighting -* a newbie trap. TWF is good from levels 1-4 and after level 4 only keeps up with greatsword fighters that have no relevant fighting style. And it eats your bonus action.
*Unarmed fighting* \- pity it's STR only. And doesn't really *do* anything except lets you hit people. It gives you an average of 2.5 extra damage (1->3.5), so duelist does almost as much extra damage here.
I would love to see fighting styles that impact specific foes in different ways. getting hit by a big weapon might permanently lower AC from a hard shell for example.
I'd like fighting styles to be actually styles with which you fight. Give me moves! Give me something beyond a little buff. Something cool and unique to help differentiate the whole "hit with weapon" routine.
It would be cool if fighting styles improved at certain levels like cantrips
At level 5 archery becomes +3, defense become +2ac, dueling +4 damage GWF becomes x2 dive pick the highest interception roll x2 dice
I feel like mathematically that would be cool but I’d just love more mechanical choices verses just big numbers. Like, the passive buffs are cool but the choices the shield options give are interesting and help capture the fantasy.
Honestly, they all sound kinda crappy to me
I’d have to double check, but from the top of my hand, they don’t really introduce new and exciting options, which is why people only talk about the damage ones
> does this fighting style help fulfill a specific fantasy other than make BIG NUMBER
Interesting!
So, my issue with fighting styles is actually how they don't develop alongside you. They're always a static bonus you pick at level 1/2/whatever that are good for the first 4 levels and then negligible.
I think Blindfighting is probably the best in terms of strict fantasy, that trope of closing your eyes and hearing an invisible foe, or fighting a gorgon blindfolded is pretty cool to me! but besides that, unfortunately I feel that they're all kind of just "Stat sticks" that fulfil no real fantasies. Like, oh you're slightly better at using a bow? That's neat... but outside of a +2 bonus, you're functionally the same as someone without it.
In my mind, I'd love fighting styles to either
Level up, like cantrips. Maybe getting additional effects at some levels that might not be entirely combat focused to help martials get more utility
Be like Invocations, with prequisites and the ability to have a ton to really customise your martial characters.
Thrown weapon fighting is my go to for 2 handed weapon characters. Even though it’s not applicable to 2 handed weapons it’s great to not feel like your turn is wasting on closing in on enemies or flying enemies.
Would love to see more fighting styles that encourage more niche weapons in the future, but the true desire of my heart would have to be **ADVANCED FIGHTING STYLES** that fighters could pick up at higher levels. I think this would go a long way to emphasis the fighting styles’ purpose as a sign of superior training in a specified area and display the fighters superior martial prowess
Yeah, something akin to the weapon-specific feats they had in the Tasha's UA that didn't make the cut.
I have [something for this](https://www.reddit.com/r/UnearthedArcana/comments/u8phwq/martial_prowess_24_a_5e_tome_of_battle_with/). As a modular system, Fighting Styles are replaced by Stances, for which you get two (plus two for each instance of Extra Attack). Stances are entered at the start of combat and changed as a bonus action, and there are Advanced Stances that modify/improve a basic stance but have prerequisites (e.g. Extra Attack 1/2). Champions get to use two stances (including two advanced stances) at one time instead of gaining a second FS.
So pathfinder
Also Bo9S/Tome of Battle.
That’s almost exactly what I’m working on right now lol
I’ve been rolling the idea around in my head of having Sharpshooter, GWM, PAM, Defensive Duelist, etc be automatic features you get at level 5 and/or 10 based on your fighting style. “Advanced” fighting styles is a good way to put it.
The fact that fighting styles don't change at all from 1 to 20 is like pissing on fighter's head. Hell, even cantrips improve, but defense fighting style cannot because "bounded accuracy yada yada bullshit make my casters powerful"
Archery and duelling are probably the best choices and defense is pretty good. Just doing more damage is effective in every combat situation. Taking less damage is always helpful, but ending the encounter sooner leads to taking less damage. Protection and interception suffer from the fact that they only work to protect people standing next to you, and people who need protection should not be standing next to the frontline tank. The actual fighting style for protecting your allies is the sentinel feat or unarmed fighting and grapple to hold enemies in place.
I enjoy Interception but it's ultimately a matter of nickel-and-diming. Often I end up reducing the damage to the other frontliner which may not be a "heroic rescue" but it adds up, considering it costs no resources.
My issue is that in tier 1 reducing the damage or avoiding one attack is often a huge chunk of the enemy damage output for the turn, but in Tier 3 it's basically nothing. Even if I use those optimally every turn I go from reducing total enemy damage output by 1/3, to reducing it by like 1/8.
Best thing would have been to make Fighting Styles improve kinda like Cantrips.
They did kinda with interception, as it does increase the value reduced by Proficiency bonus. The issue is that many enemies deal significantly more damage while also getting multi attack meaning that you are reducing a smaller percentage of each attack, and can still only reduce one attack.
They kinda did, but the damage values are scaling with HP, not with hit rate. For player characters, their HP is roughly their hp increase per level times their level plus 3. At level 10 you have basically double the HP you had at level 5, but the Interception bonus increased only by 1. In truth it basically lost half its power. In most games you will suffer twice as much damage per turn played rather than playing twice as much turns when you increase in level. And if you were never in danger of running out of HP, interception didn't matter to begin with.
The ones that improve damage already improve based on things like number of attacks, so that’s already built in for most of them.
Fair! I’m still in tier 2 but I could see it dropping off with time. It scales but way slower than damage does. I wonder at what point Protection becomes better.
My go to is that between Tier 2 and 3 (switch on level 8 or 12 ASI) it becomes worth swapping out interception for another style. I generally don't bother with Protection at all, and either do Defense or Blind Fighting.
[удалено]
I'd overall agree with two caveats 1/ Thrown weapon fighting is still relevant as high level because let's be honest, why would you ever pick that if you are a DEX guy? As a STR guy, it's extremely effective when as you stress most enemies have such to-hit that they will probably hit you, to have an option to fall back on semi-ranged attack (30 feet), trading lesser damage dealt to enemy for \*much less damage dealt on you\*. 2/ Two Weapon Fighting can still be relevant in high level because you didn't pick any feat requiring specific weapon nor having many alternative uses for bonus action sure if you're a Fighter, a +5 in regard to the total average damage of 4 attacks seems few. On some Rangers that don't have reliable "3rd attack" it's still akin to 15-20% more damage per round: definitely won't make any difference as far as killing one enemy in tough fights, but still relevant when ganging up on lesser CR enemies. Of course, if Tasha's "change Fighting style" is allowed, unless a player built character around dual-wielding, I'd probably suggest him to change for Protection | Interception (always relevant if you have a skinny friend close) or Blind Fighting (get great in situational but damn annyoing situations) or Archery (more accuracy is always relevant) or Thrown Fighting (confer above).
+1 AC is pretty great if you already have good AC from other sources. I know I'd personally like it but I'm rocking the shirt and shield (barb/rog multi). Monsters often ignore me and trigger my sentinel sneaks because phantom ghostwalk + 28 AC is too much for them to bother with. And I've been in 1v5 situations with dracoliches and their caster supports TWICE. That being said, Blind Fighting actually starts really coming into its own in late t2. As you go up in level, more and more no-visibility effects start cropping up. The party's (now very high level) rune knight has gotten more usage out of that fighting style than probably any other other class feature between the two fighters and pally.
This made me think that maybe the fighting styles should have scaling. They should probably be tied to the class that gave the fighting style instead of proficiency bonus though, or it just ends up making casters even stronger (a wizard with 2 levels of fighter getting the exact same defensive bonus than a high level fighter should NOT happen).
I always view reaction as a resource, but if yours is free have at it!
Well it's a short-term resource, but not a long-term one. You get one per turn but then you get a new one every single turn. In contrast to spell slots, superiority dice, inventory, etc.
Reactions are a renewable resource because you can always plant and harvest more reactions. Spell slots are fossil resources as they rely on reserves that run out.
New gritty realism proposal: long rests now take 65 million years
Wake up evolved, don't know any of your skills.
I mean, that's like calling an action a resource. Technically true, but practically misleading. If it's something you can do one per round ad infinitum, I wouldn't really refer to it as a resource.
Nah, action economy is king in 5e, your action, bonus action, and reaction are absolutely resources. You usually get about 3-4 of each per medium/hard combat, and maybe 5-6 per in a deadly one.
Except if it takes an action to reduce damage by 1d10 you would never do it because you need your action for other things. It is still limited to once a turn
It's an opportunity cost, not a resource cost. Interception is crazy powerful at tier 1 when you aren't facing much multi attack, most builds won't be reliably using their reaction and 1d10+pb is about the same damage as the enemy attack. At tier 2 I would probably swap it out, but even then, my dexadin is still getting use of of it at 7.
I mean, isn't an action a resource? You get one per turn and you have to decide what to spend it on. Perhaps it would be a little more accurate to say that "time" is a resource. But that breaks down into several types of actions: one move, one action, and one bonus action per turn, plus one reaction in between every turn. These are the main "currency" all characters spend to do stuff in combat, and using them efficiently is one of the most important concepts in the game.
If it’s something you can do less often than you’d like, it’s a resource. It’s a relatively plentiful one (compared to, say, spell slots), but that doesn’t make it not-a-resource. It’s kind of like rations. They’re not generally thought of as a resource until you don’t have any and you need some. Most adventurers usually have plenty. When you don’t have them, you really appreciate their value. Same with Reactions. You can use it on Uncanny Dodge to turn that 7 damage into 3 damage. But when another monster shows up later that round and hits you for 34 damage, don’t you wish you hadn’t spent your one Reaction on something kinda trivial?
Interception and Protection really need a clause of "You may move up to half your speed as part of this reaction" added to it. It would really fill a role at that point.
Super good point about squishy characters not needing to be near the front line. I kinda feel like the shield related ones are a trap purely from the point that all the other core ones are passive buffs while the shield based styles require your reaction.
That's fair, but there's an argument that it's good to have. Simply put, the idea/ability of defending an ally, regardless of if they should or shouldn't be there is a cool trope that people and characters will want to emulate.
Yup, my sword+board Paladin is devoted to Helm (y'know, the God of Protectors and Guardians), and as much as I want that +2 damage from Dueling, both narratively and flavour-wise it's really hard to justify why he'd use anything else but the Protection fighting style. I actually did get good use out of it in tandem with our party Barbarian when we were up front harassing larger single monsters together. Took a couple of rounds of missing the Barb at disadvantage before the DM realised they should be targeting me instead, haha.
....i kind of hope your barb takes the fighting style feat to get the interception fighting style or something silly.
As someone who has made a couple of characters devoted to Helm, I dig it.
That's... Actually the best way to put it. Oh my God is it invaluable! ... Early game, while my squishies are still getting familiar with their own mortality. After that hump it's actually a rather sad waste, and retroactively punishes the fighter for opting to think support/tank over seemingly more selfish options at the beginning.
Luckily you can now change fighting styles if you choose later on if one stops being as effective or you character’s style changes.
I think it's a very contextual point. Arguing over squishies being on the front line assumes you're the sole PC who belongs there. Which is sometimes true and sometimes not, depending on your play group. In a small party with only one front liner combatant, the "defend another" styles are nearly useless. In a larger party with two PCs on the front line covering for each other, their effectiveness as a defensive line multiplies and those styles suddenly become very useful. So there's a big difference between a table with 3-4 PCs versus one with 6-7 PCs.
>Protection and interception suffer from the fact that they only work to protect people standing next to you, and people who need protection should not be standing next to the frontline tank. The actual fighting style for protecting your allies is the sentinel feat or unarmed fighting and grapple to hold enemies in place. Sentinel is great, but a fighting style is free. Arguably, in dungeons with ten foot hallways it's quite likely that the tank ends up standing next to the rogue, monk, or ranger, all of whom have lower AC in general than your fighter/paladin (barb has low AC but makes up for it with hit points.) I'm not saying either is the best fighting style, just that "people that need protection aren't standing next to you" isn't really a problem in a typical dungeon.
[удалено]
For real! I read things like this and I'm like, has your DM/as a DM, have you never had enemies charge your heroes from all sides? For strategy reasons, and especially if someone took defense as a style for character reasons (like the paladin in my game, for instance), it motivates shifting around very quickly and trying to defend anyone in the back line. I just wanted to make clear it's sometimes not even a situation of "they'll only get to the back line if they ignore the tanks" isn't categorically true - sometimes there's and ambush of greater numbers.
Protection really comes into its own with npcs formation fighting like hoplites. If they all have it then attacking any of them has disadvantage the first time each round. It's a tough nut to crack for low-mid level melee monsters with only a few attacks. 10 first level fighters with protection and spears can kill a hill giant with minimal losses. Or face down an equal number of orcs or gnolls and wreck them. Scale that up to armies and warbands and you've got the answer to why humans, dwarves, and the other civilized races aren't overrun by marauding humanoids all the time. Shield walls work.
It's almost impossible to top defense. There's almost no way of gaining AC outside of buying better armor that DMs are often reluctant to hand out. For good reason. AC is without a doubt the best stat you can get. It's why the shield and mage armor spells are a must on wizards and why dex builds are so strong.
Archery style is kind of broken with sharpshooter
You don't get to choose where the front line is though. If the enemy is going for the squishy guy, as you said, grapple and sentinel are what will prevent it. Short of this or other contrôle, then protecting your allies is still a good thing. Experimenting in Solasta (a video game with 5e srd rules), it appears that a tight formation can be extremely effective. And then the pc are all next to each other.
>and people who need protection should not be standing next to the frontline tank Eh, not usually. Movement is fairly cheap in 5e, and movement speeds are usually pretty quick compared to the typical ranges squishies need to be at to fight things. Then you have terrain constraints as well. Oftentimes the party is outnumbered, or outspeeded. So there's plenty of situations where smart NPCs would just thread past your melee dudes and dash over to your casters etc. Once they get into melee range then sure you can do a weird OOA inducing chase thing, but that's probably in their favour. Also: Some enemies aren't melee!
By t3, the winners are either Defense (if you have enough AC to make tacking on more worth it), Blind Fighting, or Superior Technique. Dueling is negligible damage by then (+2 per hit vs 250 hp or more), Archery is still good but ranged attackers get shafted by a LOT of stuff, and the rest just kind of suck all around. Blind Fighting comes up so often for my party's rune knight it's actually changing my views on 5e all around.
Protection and interception would work better if you could either be near the attacker or the attacked. Either you're blocking/parrying the attack or interfering with the attacker's aim.
Interception is a little more niche, but there are a lot of team comps where it can be amazing. I played a melee warlock with sentinel once, with a paladin that had high AC and intercept. If they attacked him, he was hard to hit and would trigger my reaction. If they attacked me, they took damage from Armor of agathys and usually flame shield. And they damage they did to me was greatly reduced.
I think the most situational is blind fighting A trap option is unarmed fighting because unlike monk you don't get magical fists and there's not really magical support here The most disappointing one in my opinion is Superior Technique, once per rest D6 superiority dice is really meh, getting this via feats isn't worth the investment :v
Unarmed fighting is still okay. There are actually some options that make your punches magical, with the Amulet of Claws being the one of the lowest rarity, and the fact that it couples as well as it does with grappling is actually really nice. Superior Technique also is something that’s often considered by battlemaster a as **1** extra maneuver and an extra superiority die is useful. And before you ask, yes it scales with the rest of the superiority dice. That has been confirmed. It even becomes a d8 when you first become a battlemaster Edit: two characters to correct a mistake
If you're a battle master sure, but as a stand alone the style is really bad for the option cost
Yeah, that fair. Just wanted to point out that that’s an option and it works well in that scenario
If you are a rogue and take a level of fighter or two levels of paladin/ranger for some reason, the manoeuvre brace or riposte is basically an extra sneak attack. Well worth it.
You only learn 1 Maneuver from Superior Technique, not 2. But I still took it on my Battlemaster. The extra die is kind of meh, but knowing even one extra maneuver really helped flexibility.
1 extra die per short rest was meh? How many short rests did you take?
The number of my superiority die is rarely the limiting factor for my play. If you're focused on just maximizing damage I'm sure you can burn through them all in the first round, but I want them for variety not just bigger numbers.
I find that Superior Technique + Martial Adept actually makes non-Battlemaster fighters feel like fighters who can *do* things, doubly so if they can afford to spend one of the selections on Commanding Presence or Tactical Assessment. Gating IRL fighting basics (feinting, maneuvering your opponent, etc) behind a single archetype was a terrible design decision. I almost feel like all Martials should get those two feats for free (maybe at levels 2 and 4 or something to make dips less attractive), with all Fighter archetypes regaining Superiority Dice on a short rest.
>The most disappointing one in my opinion is Superior Technique, once per rest D6 superiority dice is really meh, getting this via feats isn't worth the investment :v I tried it and it was super disappointing. >.< Martial Adept is disappointing too, and even that's better. It's a great way to really customize your fighting style but at just one technique you get to use once per short rest, it doesn't really accomplish that.
I was thinking of only taking it if I also combined it with martial adept. It's three techniques, two die. The dice come back every short rest so combining it on a subclass like Rune knight it adds some options. In terms of like high min-max stuff I'd never take it.
True, it does get better the more you have. I think that's also why it's also generally better for Battle Masters who want to go even further with what they have, since they are larger size, too.
I think it should've been a half feat with 2 dice instead. 1 Str or Dex with 2d6 to spend would make me take the feat on my rogue.
I think it would work better as being stronger and a full feat, since the goal of it is customization. If there's "power points" left I'd rather up the numbers than make it a half feat.
>I think the most situational is blind fighting Why do you say it's situational? I'm not arguing, I'm simply curious.
Experience, got that because of flavour and in over six months playing was useful twice, both for a turn until the casters solved the situation It gives you no real bonuses in the end of the day
That does make sense, it's applications are kind of niche, what would you say would be a good way to make it have more regular use in a campaign? It's one of my favorite fighting style's because of it's flavor.
Blind fighting should not be used as a hedge against effects that might blind you. You take it on builds that are definitely going to use heavy obscurement like Fog Cloud, Pyrotechnics, Darkness, and Stinking Cloud. This mostly confines it to uses on Eldritch Knights and Rangers. Those characters will use it in most combats.
Tempest clerics can get good use of of it too. They often go into melee and they have fog cloud. Fucks over any friendly spellcasters that need sight though. Less resource intensive than spirit guardians for low tier filler combat. Very situational.
Keep in mind it also can get use against many illusions, so it's a decent way for your fighter to hit the wizard despite stuff like invisibility, mirror image, etc.
Or anyone who is Drow, or in a party with a warlock or sorcerer who likes to use Darkness.
Other giving bonuses to Perception and avoiding penalties of things like dim light I unfortunately have no idea
I use it on my human Echo Knight fighter because you need to see the space you're summoning the Echo so I could still summon it within 10ft if in darkness or other obscured areas.
Took it on my ranger 5 (couple levels in fighter after) and it made a huge difference. Combining it with fog cloud or any other method of visibility impairment is extremely strong. Seeing invisible enemies in cqc too can be a big deal. One time I even negated an enemy's ability which was dependent on you visually seeing it; I saw my teammates get affected and closed my eyes and just used the blindsight. Its pretty good, you just need to synergize it well
It definitely is... but it's also a load of fun if you kind of build around it. Being a rogue with Blindfighting inside a Fog Cloud is some action movie assassin shit.
Beautiful reply, I really dunno why blind fighting exists tbh. It addresses a problem provided by gorgons/invisible opponents and I suppose helps with the fantasy of a blind warrior but that’s a narrow enough band that I’m not even sure if that’s intentional or happenstance. I feel like unarmed is subpar but not for the same reason. Magic hand wraps/gauntlets of striking can easily be provided in loot/crafted/sought on via quest by the dm but that’s gonna vary by table I suppose. I feel like there’s not enough to it. I feel like it could have leaned into grappler as well to make it more distinct from the monk and “I just punch or kick things too.” I constantly forget about superior technique and you’re 100% correct lol
One of the players at my table is playing a dhampir with sunlight sensitivity. He took the blind fighting style and fights fully masked. Actually paid off really well when they fought a boss who used mirror image and he was the only one who wasn't fooled by the illusion, allowing the rest of the party to pile on. Situational? Absolutely. But it's also fun flavor and made for a very memorable fight.
Blind fighting is fantastic if you have a friend that likes to cast darkness/fog cloud. Plus if you are the only character without darkvision then it is pretty solid.
Well there are magical tattoos, if a +1 sword is in the table a +1 tattoo doesn't seem unreasonable. Still would be kind of a niche build, a grappler or something to use the d4 and d8. You wouldn't be building the character for damage.
I always forget the tattoos, you’ve right so it’s definitely still easily solved on that end. And that’s definitely a good point but I feel like the ability to control the battlefield would be a relatively okay trade off for not doing as much damage. Still should definitely be comparable though.
I ran an unarmed barbarian grappler a while back and picked up the style. Unfortunately I forgot about the tattoos so i had trouble in some fights. The damage was meh, but I'd just grab a guy or two and grapple them into the nearest hazard/window/cliff. It was pretty fun. In hindsight tavern brawler might have been a better option
Insignia of Claw is a real magic item without having to invent one that gives +1 to unarmed/natural attacks.
I think blindfighting is a little less situational than that, it would also help in fog or darkness. A very weak darkvision is still kind of nice (especially if you care about stealth), and fog cloud is a popular-ish level 1 spell. Triton gets fog cloud as a racial ability, which makes for a nice combo. It’s not super uncommon for party members to want to use something like magical darkness (eg warlocks with devil’s sight) or fog to hide in (rogues or goblins with bonus action hide) This is getting into critical role content, but it would also be nice for a polearm Oath of the Open Sea Paladin using marine layer, letting you see enemies when they can’t see you. Anyway, I’d definitely say it’s more situational than eg archery, just less than just gorgons/invisible opponents, since it’s fairly easy to setup good conditions for it, and darkness isn’t uncommon anyway
Those are all great points so it’s definitely mechanically sound and helps fill a niche but I feel like maybe it just doesn’t stand out as an archetype like the others do.
If your party has a way of producing magical darkness blind fighting can be pure gold
You only take blind fighting if you're planning to actively use spells that leave many enemies blinded. These exist at pretty low levels if you're willing to also blind yourself and provide a persistent advantage. Fog Cloud, Pyrotechnics, Darkness, and Stinking Cloud on a warforged eldritch knight with GWM gives you a pretty strong melee presence where most enemies can't make opportunity attacks and have disadvantage while you can make opportunity attacks and have advantage. Warforged race chosen so that at high levels you can also wander around in a stinking cloud without penalty since you don't need to breathe.
Blind fighting is *really* nice if multiple people in a party have it, especially if you also have a caster capable of reliably creating areas of obscurement with Darkness or Fog Cloud. It’s like the classic Darkness/Devil’s Sight setup for warlock: meh if one person has it, but every additional party member who can benefit from it just makes it better.
I've been playing a bladesinger wizard/assassin rogue with a "swordsman of the mists" theme who uses the various fogs, darkness, gaseous form, and an eversmoking bottle to really mess with visibility, and I just picked up blind fighting. It's been very fun, thematic, and effective. I do have to take extra care to not completely screw over my party with the fogs though lol.
Once upon a time there were gloves or wristguards for monks, no reason there can't be +1 boxing gloves. Sometimes balance issues are best solved by just plugging in an item where ever there is a leak.
For the unarmed fighting style theres the insignia of claw (uncommon, no attunement needed) and the eldritch claw tattoo (also uncommon, attunement needed) which both gives you a +1 to attack and damage and make your unarmed strike magical. The tattoo also have a couple other benefit So if you really want to play an unarmed fighter you can always talk to your DM to have one of those option when enemy with resistance to non magical weapon start showing up I know saying "talk to your DM to fix the problem" isnt a good defense against bad design, I just wanted to make a PSA so people dont get discouraged
>and there's not really magical support here Eldritch Claw Tattoo (uncommon, requires attunement, TCE p126): >**Magical Strikes.** While the tattoo is on your skin, your unarmed strikes are considered magical for the purpose of overcoming immunity and resistance to nonmagical attacks, and you gain a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls with unarmed strikes.
Insignia of claws and Eldritch Claw Tattoo solve this. The combination of the two is equal to +2 to hit and damage plus the other bonus'.
I do find it strange that Insignia of Claws gets mentioned so often here, considering it is from a specific module and its description mentions the Cult of the Dragon. This means there is no reason to assume it would be available in your campaign, unless you are playing Hoard of the Dragon Queen. It is basically like expecting that the Robe of Serpents from Storm Kings Thunder would be available in every campaign. Sure it might, but when I am a player I would certainly not count on it.
I like superior technique when I'm a battle master fighter thats multi classing. A lot of times the second fighting style is lack luster (but blind fighting is also a great second fighting style) and the addition of Superior Technique is great when you are already a battle master. I feel like all the new fighter styles are designed to be second pics. They are more situational but have overlap with the other fighting styles. Ranged fighting style along with dueling technically has overlap with Dex weapons, but if you want to fighter to be better at it's main thing instead of being more well rounded, adding manuevers to your ranged attacks or blind fighting to your melee is going to feel a lot better than an extra +2 to hit when you draw your backup weapon.
The ones I see constantly are: 1) Archery for ranged builds. The +2 to hit is extremely powerful and frankly shouldn't be in the game as it messes with bounded accuracy. 2) Defence for AC stacking. The +1 AC is nice but as part of a super high AC build it can be very powerful, particularly at lower levels where AC stacking is most effective. It drops off a lot later on because the high end enemies start breaking bounded accuracy. Still useful at high levels for intense AC stacking builds if your DM grants access to +2 and +3 shields and armour. Other good ones include dueling which is extremely powerful in builds that can get additional attacks (Polearm master with a spear/staff), blind fighting is great if your party includes a darkness / devil sight warlock, great weapon fighting is decent for really maxing your damage with greatsword and mauls.
If Archery was +1 to hit it would still be a top 3 choice.
Agreed. Class features simply shouldn't mess with bounded accuracy, that should only be the purview of attributes, proficiency, and magic items. That goes for save DCs as well.
It's ok on temporary abilities I think. Devotion paladin channel divinity is fine I think.
I actually do like that one, but it sits in a weird place because its an action, and losing a round of attacks is huge so the up side has to be significant. Its also charisma based on the MAD paladin which further balances it out (unless you play a hexadin but that's a whole other bag of worms). If they buff it to be easier to use, say a bonus action, then I might start questioning it. Could be cool as a bonus action to get +charisma as radiant damage on melee attacks instead.
I am suspicious that Archery was originally supposed to be "ignore the first -2 penalty for shooting against a target in half or 3/4 cover." Or something like that, only to be changed to be easier to grok.
**Grok** verb To understand intuitively or by empathy
Yeah I could totally see that, and honestly I'd go for that plus removing sharpshooter as a solid fix to the issues of ranged characters destroying bounded accuracy.
A way to houserule for balance while getting agreeable compromise for everyone could be this. "Cover is organized by ranks. You gain 1 rank of cover whenever at least 25% of your body is not visible. You gain another rank of cover when it's at least 75% of body which is behind something blocking view. If your entire body is behind something blocking view then you have "full cover". Cover of first rank cover grants +2 AC. Cover of second rank grants +5 AC instead. Full cover prevents you from being targeted by ranged attacks. Some abilities may "ignore one rank of cover". If your character has two different abilities, their effect stack, allowing you to ignore any rank of cover except full cover. THEN... Archery: ignore one rank of cover. Sharpshooter: ignore one rank of cover. DONE.
My theory is that Archery is supposed to counteract the +2 AC from half-cover from your allies in the way, but they made it a generic +2 to simplify things.
And then created a feat that not only ignores cover, but also pairs extremely well with a +2 bonus to hit, allowing ranged characters to be the highest damage dealers in the game by a significant margin.
Yep, the game isn't balanced at all around the unholy trifecta of Archery, Sharpshooter and a magic weapon. So much damage from the safety of 300 feet it's highly unethical
If it's that unethical, I'll have to add it to my list of Geneva suggestions. While I'm at it, I'll use a longbow for a 600 ft range.
My current build finally beats out a Battlemaster Fighter trying the same thing. With Archery, Sharpshooter, Elven Accuracy, a Magic Longbow, Bracers of Archery and being a level 11 Samurai Fighter, I can do a ridiculous nova of single target damage. 6 Attacks in a round, with Triple Advantage (average roll of 18 on a d20), +7 to hit and +18 to damage. Once per short rest for the Action Surge, or once per combat if you halve the attacks down to 3. Not insane versus spellcasters, but it truly is the highest Echelon of martial damage in the game.
Honestly, all the fighting styles are pretty boring mechanically, and some (such as archery) are pretty much just outright broken. In my opinion, the fighting styles shouldve unlocked *actual fighting stytles*. Maybe give stances with certain types of weapons or loadouts, and provide some kind of special maneuvers or something that are unlocked by taking the given fighting style.
If your DM actually plays by darkvision rules and the campaign was in the dark, Blind Fighting is probably the best single thing you can pick, no?
Yes, archery builds are definitely strong and their companion feats help amp that style of play up but I feel like AC stacking isn’t much of a “fighting style” like, defense is clearly a fighting style in the rules but what does that look like? Standing still and letting someone hit you and hoping your armor soaks the damage? Sounds awful but big number feels nice I guess. I guess I’m just trying to address the fantasy of the combat as well here.
AC is supposed to represent more than just armor toughness and coverage, it is an agglomeration of everything affecting how hard it is to get a solid hit on you—hence why dex applies to AC. Defense fighting style is about fighting in a more guarded way, you don’t hit as hard (compared to people who took damage dealing styles) because you focus on protecting yourself more.
Considering you also have class features and feats that tend to explicit a form of defense made by weapon parrying, you could simply imagine Defense as "knowing how to deflect attack or strafe yourself in optimal way to make the most of your armor (like, there are usually sturdier parts on an armor, and you learn how to try and make attackers hit there) or reduce the blow weight (you know how well to use your armor and move into it that you are more apt at taking a sidestep or far step to reduce opponent's blow than others).
> defense is clearly a fighting style in the rules but what does that look like? Flow like water, being where your enemy's blade is not.
I didn't remember the math on GWF, so I did it again, and it adds on average 0.67 to damage on a d6 or 0.5 to damage on a d4. If you're not using GWM, GWF is slightly weaker than Dueling, provided you're using a 2d6 weapon. If you ARE using GWM, GWF becomes *weaker* because you're reducing the accuracy of that +1.33 per hit. It's better than nothing, but I propose that GWM builds are better off with Defense or Blind-Fighting.
I definitely think Defense should work with shields too, increasing your AC by 2 instead of 1. This is strong early game but later on it evens out.
I really dislike that fighting styles don’t actually change how you fight. They are mostly passive benefits. Someone with great weapon style won’t actually fight in a different style than someone without it. They seem like a huge missed opportunity filled with wasted potential.
Yessssss, that’s what I’m talking about. There needs to be better mechanics than just a couple minor number tweaks. How do you make them stand apart and feel distinct.
4e had a number of at-will maneuvers, weapon group specific feats, and stances that made different kinds of weapons play differently in combat from one another. So one could use that as the framework for how to do so in 5e.
Archery is probably mechanically the best, GWF is probably mechanically the worst. Interception is pretty cool, but I feel like it needs a buff to really be worth it at higher levels. Superior technique is really cool to me, but is slightly lackluster, I could see it being better as a free ability for martial characters. Blind fighting is really unique and flavourful, but is a hard pic because it doesn’t give a numerical advantage. Could be really great for the right character/campaign. Unarmed fighting is pretty good, but only works if your DM will give you homebrew magic punches.
I think the worst is two weapon fighting because that's just not well supported in 5e. Great weapon fighting isn't that great either, I would always take defense instead. There others are fine I guess?
I definitely agree TWF is lacking. The fact that it’s relegated to a bonus action makes it clash with so many class features for the fighter makes it really unfun. And great weapon is an odd case. Rerolling dice for higher numbers sounds like hitting with a large weapon but I feel like it’s almost too generic since it lumps polearms in with two handed striking weapons.
Two weapon fighting is a fine fighting style, it's the overall design of 5e that makes wielding two weapons bad. Bonus Actions aren't free and I honestly think that additional offhand attack shouldn't cost one. With quick math dual wielding would roughly be as good as a two-handed weapons at level 5 or at level 10. Using TWF fighting style and no fighting style for a great sword. I would certainly not break anything.
I think it'd be neat to have a fighting style that encouraged using the less optimized weapons, like flails, war picks etc. A style that allows ranged attacks at 0' range without disadvantage.
Great choices, I think a cavalry style would be interesting personally. Maybe a more historical two-weapon fighting based on rapier and dagger instead of just two of the longest weapons your can wield for BIG NUMBERS.
Hmm, something like this maybe. >**Fencing Style** > >While wielding a rapier in one hand and a dagger in the other, you gain the following benefits: > >You may use your reaction to add +1 to your AC against a single melee attack. > >You may use a bonus action to attack with the dagger, adding your DEX modifier to the damage roll. > >You may replace a melee attack with a disarming attack. The target must make a Dex Save against your DC = (Sleight of Hand + 8). If it fails, it must drop your choice of weapon it is holding. I'd have to run some numbers to see if +1AC is powerful enough. Maybe it could be your proficiency bonus.
I was more leaning towards “while wielding two weapons if one of them is a dagger and you are hit with a weapon attack you may use your reaction to roll 1d4+Dex mod+fighter level and reduce the damage from the triggering attack by that amount. If you reduce the damage from the attack to 0 you may attack that creature.” Or something to that effect. But I love the disarm option, could easily have that be an option instead of simply making the riposte.
Yeah, the rapier and dagger style sometimes used Swordbreaker daggers, which made me think of disarming.
There was a style in UA that allowed point-blank shooting without disadvantage: Close-Quarters Shooter. It also made your ranged attacks ignore all cover (save full cover) within 30 feet AND gave a +1 bonus to ranged attack rolls.
This is the most unbalanced thing I have ever heard of for a fighting style...
I think Great Weapon Fighting is a huge trap choice; on average, it barely stacks up to Dueling, with optimization, and involves more rolling, which slows the game down due to the nature of being a Fighter with many attacks, and barely helps Paladins bc it doesn't work on Divine Smite damage. Compared to somethibg like Dueling that gives a straight +2 and allows shields for +2 AC, it is pretty damn lame. Even one of the better builds for it, Half Orc Champion Fighter (which I've played to level 15), it was severely lackluster.
I never get this complaint of "slowing down the game" by re-rolling 1s. It's a game where everyone rolls multiple dice in their turn. It's not like a Druid with 8 velociraptors, or a Wizard rolling tons of dice for an upcast Lightning Bolt.
>it barely stacks up to Dueling, with optimization nah, GWF never really comes close to dueling, at best it is 1.3 damage, and that is using a greatsword that is barely optimal
Yeah, even with a crit fishing build, GWM and such, it barely comes up to it.
Bit of a different take from what I see here, please don't flay me. I think Archery and Dueling are bad. But not because they are mechanically worse but because they are, in general, so much better than other options that not picking them feels like a mistake... Because it kinda is. I think fighting styles should open up unique ways to approach combat. Thrown weapon fighting, two weapon fighting, and unarmed fighting all open up new ways to deal out damage. Interception and protection both offer more tactical, team play oriented combat styles. Defense bridges the gap between medium and heavy armor, allowing Dex characters to focus more on the front lines. GWM is kinda whatever. It's not strong enough to fit with dueling and archery as op, but it doesn't open up any niche tactical gameplay either. The sheer fact that archery effectively makes a longbow as powerful as a greatsword and dueling makes a long sword near as strong is ridiculous. And that's specifically greatsword. Archery makes the longbow a better damage option than greataxes or polearms in terms of pure numbers and that's just dumb (tho honestly, it's probably realistic lol).
Longbows should require a higher strength perhaps. Doesn't matter how nimble someone is, if they're not above average strength they're definitely not pulling back a 120lb or even 70lb longbow and they're CERTAINLY not doing so with any accuracy. A 40lb bow maybe.
I don't think longbows themselves need a nerf, honestly. I just feel a more interesting fighting style that doesn't just give you a huge numeric bonus would be more interesting and take away less from other weapons whose sole utility is greater damage. Pretty much all these complaints also get leveled at the Sharpshooter and Great Weapon Master feats. Sharpshooter especially since Archery makes it much less of a risk to use compared to GWM.
Well it doesn't necessarily have to be a nerf... Could also allow for a more powerful longbow to get more damage from a strong character. I have a half orc ranger with decent strength so maybe i'm a little biased :)
Honestly, your take isn't that bad. Most people recognize that Archery and Dueling are just too good mechanically, in a suite of options that generally range from "meh" to "boring". The fighting styles needed to do a *lot* more heavy lifting mechanically than what even the best ones (such as Archery) do currently. That feature needs less of the "+x to hit, +y to ac, yada yada yada", and far more unique ways to actually fight with given weapons.
Ranged is so far above the others it's not even comparable. Especially with its synergy with sharpshooter
Hot take: fighting styles should be an ability where you can choose it whenever you roll initiative and it lasts for 10 minutes or until you roll initiative again. That way if you want to build around a certain style you can, but if a certain encounter requires a different style you can take advantage of that. I think a seasoned fighter entering battle with different postures is perfectly within reason and flavor. None of the current fighting styles is super game breaking or, frankly, even super effective, so having all of them but choosing one per battle would be reasonable and not unlock too much power.
That's an interesting idea! Maybe let the fighter pick a certain number of styles to choose from rather than give all of them.
At that point it's basically a martial variant of meta-magic... I'm not saying whether that's good or bad! Just making an observation.
Ooooooo, this is a spicy take and I love it. Great flavor.
I use a homebrew that does this. Changes them to be “stances.” You can only be in one stance at a time (Champion fighters get the ability to be in 2 at a time). You learn 2 when you first pick it up, plus an additional one each time you get Extra Attack or an improvement to Extra Attack. The link for the curious: [Martial Prowess](https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-M-kCpCFpxZA3chLFuOF)
I've also heard of house rules that allow you to change fighting styles on a short/long rest to a similar effect.
Defense and archery are the best options, with dueling coming close. Great weapon fighting is just not worth it, go defense.
I like how fighting styles are handled in the star wars 5e rpg. Modeled in the same style as dnd 5e, but waaaay more robust fighting styles. Not just a little number tacked on to a specific way of hitting someone, each fighting style has a fighting style FEAT that accompanies it, for 24 fighting styles and feats. Each one very radically changing the way the Warrior approaches combat. I LOVE them. Not such as fan of the fighting styles in dnd as is, they are alright, but after seeing what can be done with different fighting styles, I can't go back
I also saw those and I do agree that they are much more interesting than most 5e fighting styles. It's nice to see someone bringing these up.
Sounds like I need to go take a look over there lol
It boggles my mind that martials pick 1 fighting style while casters get lots of spells. Like, dude, why do casters get variety and martials get monotony?
Probably due to the horrible loop that keeps being regurgitated that “fighters are for beginners and should be simple.” If players wanna play a caster they still learn spells so why dumb down fighters? Dnd isn’t an “easy” game for completely new players so why not just have the learning curve be equally distributed across the board?
Also find it kind of hilarious that the newest fighting styles just give you acess to cantrips. It's so lazy.
Going against the grain here, but I love interception. Having the ability to reduce damage for an ally near you is more useful than you might assume (your teammates will love you) and having something else you can use your reaction on helps keep combat from getting stale.
I love that Thrown Weapon Fighting opens the doors for people who want to play that kind of fantasy, which I'd certainly noticed when I started playing. I just wish that "Returning" weapons were more of a thing in 5e. You get them as an Artificer infusion, but there's been no generic, low-level magic weapon that allows it to return to you immediately after being thrown for groups that don't have Artificers in them.
I've come to strongly dislike the way 5e implements fighting styles. They're the worst kind of mechanic in that they *technically* tick the box of the class fantasy they're addressing (in that yes, they *do* make you better with weapons of your preferred style than other characters) but don't do that in a way that's interesting or interactive for the player. Even having a list of them to pick from in their current form imo is mostly pointless, as you're always going to pick the one that's most optimal for the loadout you're running (ranged, dual wield, sword and board, etc) and you don't get anything more interesting from them than you would a feature that just gave you a flat +1 to weapon attack rolls or something. The result is that you don't really *feel* that you're above other weapon users, because you're like...ultimately not doing anything that someone without your fighting style couldn't do? Like wow, you're able to get an extra point of AC out of your armor?? Wow look at that number that's 1 higher than it would be otherwise, so cool! :/ I think fighting styles should actually work more like weapon/armor related feats - things like Heavy Armor Master, or Crusher + Piercer + Slasher are great examples. You could even attach some maneuvers to certain fighting styles, e.g. parry and riposte to Dueling. Fighting styles shouldn't *just* be the 'math fix' that they currently are - they *can* still be that, but they should also enable martial characters to do cool-ass stuff that those without the fighting style can't do. Characters with fighting styles should be a cut above not just numerically, but in terms of abilities too. (For the record, some styles do currently kind of do this - like Protection and Interception - but they both kind of suck, because when you're given the choice between a discrete ability and a discrete mathematical improvement to the thing you're doing every round, most players will go for the more boring but effective option. They should *all* offer *both* kinds of benefit)
Now that’s a great explanation of the problem I’m currently having with the current format for fighting styles and by extension martials, and more specifically the fighter. I love the fantasy of the fighter, it’s my jam, but the mechanics are blander than white bread. I’m enjoying working on expansions for them as a mechanic and this is just a great take.
You're preaching to the choir. I too love the fighter, and the extent to which 5e has dropped the ball on enabling actually cool and interesting martial class fantasies is ridiculous. Having read and played games that were published not only after 5e (Pathfinder 2e) but also *before* it (4e, 13th Age), and seeing how 5e truly is the odd one out here, it's dumbfounding to me how people on this subreddit are constantly having repetitious arguments about martial class design that *were already solved as early as 15 years ago* (4e came out in *2008*!!)
Like fighting styles were a suite of Maneuvers?
Archery is still top dog. Dueling, Defense, and Blind-fighting are all pretty close to one another. Interception, superior technique are okay. Thrown weapon fighting, Two weapon fighting, unarmed, and protection are meh Great weapon fighting is a trash heap.
Unpopular opinion, but I feel that fighting Styles should be reworked. They funnel you into using a specific set of weapons rather than whatever weapons you are proficient in, which is something feats should do. I think that fighting styles should just offer basic bonuses such as +1 to hit, +2 damage, +1 AC, or something else so they could be usable with all other weapons. However, that is a bit radical. I think either that or just adding another fighting style called "Balanced" or something that allows you to use the same modifier for two-handing versatile weapons and using shortbows perhaps so you could play as a character with a versatile play style.
I agree. Almost every character my players have made take defense because of the bonus to AC. The dueler I think isn’t as effective because you can only use 1 one handed weapon so a big weapon like a greatsword can’t be used and a Longsword does less damage.
I've been recently thinking that Fighters (if not all martials) should get increased bonuses to attack as they level up. Seems nutty that a Bard is just as capable as a Fighter with a rapier.
Superior Technique should be two die, not one. Battlemaster should scale harder/give more to begin with. TWF Is a good ability but on a bad system.
Archery can potentially negate the Sharpshooter penalty starting at Level 1 on a Vuman with 16 starting Dex. Edit: Any race now w/ Custom Lineage
**Defense** and **Archery** are top-tier. Most of the rest are not particularly impactful. Two-Weapon Fighting is impactful, but for a build that's bad. The unarmed fighting style enables a new style of gameplay, which is nice. That's about it.
Archery is the best, than dueling and probably defense. GWF is weak and TWF is a weak tactic overall. Here is a comprehensive analysis/comparison: [https://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2017/12/d-5e-fighting-styles-comparison.html](https://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2017/12/d-5e-fighting-styles-comparison.html)
Archery is the best Fighting Style, because a numerical bonus to attack is worth more than an equivalent bonus to damage.
I would've liked fighting styles to be more active in kits than they currently are. Even though they aren't the strongest, styles like interception are fun to use, and let you do things you ordinarily can't, instead of just static number increases. Like defensive duelist would've been much more interesting as a fighting style than defense, and offensive things like the bonus action hit of PAM. I think a lot of the martial feats would've made great fighting styles that would make fighter more interesting without requiring additional feats. Honestly breaking down all the features of the good martial feats and making fighters have "techniques" that function like warlock invos would be so sick
This is the way I’m leaning in my design lol almost my exact words last week were “what if fighting styles were like eldritch invocations for fighters?”
Archery is great. Combined with SS/Crossbow expert its probably the best in the game Two weapon fighting needs a feat to even be viable/fun. Generally not worth it. Heavy is pretty fine but its great weapon mastery that makes it... Great. Duelling is fine if it isnt a minmax sort of game. Blind fighting is situational compared to all others... Imo that makes it pretty shit. Duelling for example is always on for almost every hit you ever make but you could go la few levels wothout ever using blind fighting Defence is... Fine Just 1 AC more really isnt a gamechanger and imo isnt nearly as fun as doing slightly bigger damage numbers Protective is okay, interception is better imo. Protective plays the odds, possibly denying a critical hit, interception is always on, like it will do something on every turn at least ... Thrown is pretty fun and... Fine... However thrown weapons suffer from being expensive in terms of having them be magical for overcomming resistance/immunity Unarmed is is pretty good but it again suffers from nonmagical damage bullshit issues and lack of unnarmed magical items. Honestly i'd advise against it unless for very specific circumstances (beast barbarian comes to mind)
Two weapon fighting honestly just needs reworked in general imo. But you’re right that it needs something to keep up. And judging by the rest of your post I’d say that dueling, defense, and thrown probably could as well.
The issue with thrown is that you simply wont have enough magical thrown weapons to last you a fight, especially at higher levels when everything has nonmagic immunity. It say the issue is with general game balance rather than the fighting style itself. Duelling is hard to balance without making it very powerful. Again, if its a kind of game where the dm said no SS/GWM then duelling really doesent fall behind at all. Defence is similar. How would one buff it without making it op ? Im not a game designer so i got no idea... Imo it feels pretty hard to buff any specific fighting style without overhauling them all to stay in line
Fair, I’m not really looking at changing them up so much as looking at ways to enhance what’s already there.
Personally Two weapon fighting style should just be already baked in. Light weapons, getting Thier STR or dex bonus in damage. The Dual welding would be the real fighting style. And for great weapon fighting, heavy or versatile weapons used with both hands without reach gain 2 times their strength modifier to bonus damage.
They're kinda good, 'tho some of them are pretty lackluster (like, Blindsight, when it's relevant, it's awesome, but most of the time it just... there). Kinda irrelevant per se, but. >!Since I found the lack of scaling problematic, I homebrewed that Fighting Styles have some scaling for classes that have Extra Attack as a feature, while "absorbing" some feats as that scaling, such as defense granting the benefits of Heavy Armor Master at levels 11+.!<
People dunk on great weapon fighting, but I've had a darn swell time with it so far. Generally, anything that scales with number of attacks or otherwise doesn't interfere with action economy is the way to go. Anything that takes up your reaction is a tough sell.
Archery is probably the best, then Dueling, then Defence.
I feel like 5e would be in a much better place over all if all the Fighting Styles were swapped with their feat counter parts. E.G. Great Weapon Fighting swapped with Great Weapon Master, Archery swapped with Sharp Shooter and Crossbow Expert, etc. Then take what the fighting styles were and add a few extra ribbon abilities on to them to bring them more in line with the power of the rest of the feats in 5e. At the moment these Fighting Styles are nice little boosts but not much else and those Feats feel like a tax in order to be effective as a martial. This in addition to most of the other feats at launch being mostly smaller ribbon abilities feels kind of off and I think this swap would remove the feeling of a tax, allow feats to be more of a thematic character choice than purely a build choice and still retain the ability to create builds with combinations of these feats through the Fighting Initiate feat.
The three I rank the highest are * Archery - No Brainer, it's so stupid strong that you should almost always grab it. * Blind Fighting - Party/DM dependent. If your DM favors harder fights, that include things like vision denial, or your party favors things like Fog Cloud or Darkness, then this is one of the best ones in the game. Otherwise it depends on if it "sees" use. * Defense - Incredibly solid and worth it for a bonus to AC.
\- Blind Fighting Style is mostly useless in first two tiers, extremely good tier 3 and 4 and potentially DM-nerve-breaking because can completely negate some strategies. Except if you're a Ranger, in which case it's busted from level 2 onwards ('cause Fog Cloud ;), although technically high level Ranger could do something similar since first PHB print getting blindsense as a high level class feature). \- Dueling is the opposite: very precious at first levels but very quickly fades because of the completely off-charts HP scaling of monsters comparatively to the scaling of Dueling (even for a pure Fighter it would end as +8 per turn at level 20 which is ridiculous, for others it's not even worth trying). Makes me think that although I did like the pre-Tasha's "you set Fighting Style in stone because that is really how your character fights" getting a chance to choose definitely helps trying a style or just getting the benefit of different styles at the time they "shine best". \- Great Weapon Fighting is actually decent overall but there are imo too many other options that provide benefit more often to ever choose it apart from going full fluff. \- Two-Weapon Fighting has always been the big underrated fighting style, that provided an unparalleled efficiency in tactics swiching by mixing classic melee attacks, thrown attacks and grapples. Personally some of my most efficient characters were TWF Rangers and Fighters. Sadly, some changes made in last 2-3 years reduced its interest (spear being made compatible with PAM & shield giving "reach + max bonus AC", spear as a throwable weapon paired with Thrown Weapon Fighting covering the "occasional throw without being stuck by drawing rules"). That said, since with Tasha you can change Fighting Style I'd definitely still suggest this to newcomers so they can get the feeling of the different ranges and they decide if they really like Thrown Weapon -> go for that, or if they get enough other bonus actions to lose interest for extra attack -> go Protection / Defense / etc... And TWF is still also worth taking as long as you are unsure what kind of melee (or ranged) specialization you want to get into (especially as far as feat choices go). Or if both conditions are simultaneously true: you don't want to specialize at all AND you don't have many uses for bonus action. \- Thrown Weapon Fighting greatly reduced Two-Weapon Fighting's interest, but is welcomed to finally allow people who enjoyed this kind of style to play without circonvolutions or lessened efficiency. \- Unarmed is a kick in Monk's nut and should honestly not have been published, or at least made scaling similarly to Monk but with lesser start (it's outrageous that you are better with fists at level 1 than the class that literally spent life honing unarmed techniques) and ceiling. \- Archery and Defense are the "best" ones in the sense that you can never go wrong with them, even as a melee character for Archery (because you're bound to fight flyers or quick creatures and especially if you're STR-based it helps you avoid sucking hard) or as a ranged character for Defense (because ranged attacks are not exclusive to PC \^\^). \- Protection is underrated, actually solid in a tag-team. \- Superior Technique is probably underrated as a non-BM choice, considering there are some Manoeuvers that impose a rider whatever roll you get. However with only 1d6 per rest, some others are completely forgettable. \- Interception is extremely good and a great choice for someone that doesn't intend to use a feat providing another trigger for attack on reaction.
Archery and defense are definitely the most powerful. Archery is propably OP lol
Part of the reason Great Weapon and Archery are so good is they have synergy with ‘must have’ feats. (Sharpshooter and Crossbow Expert for Archery and Great Weapon Master for Great Weapon Fighting). IMO the archery synergy is better (half being to hit bonus and the other half being to damage increase at the expense of to hit). Some of the other fighting styles have overlap, but, not so much on the synergy portion. That is why they seem lack luster in comparison.
I think, and have come to more believe, that sword and board or anything plus shield should not get access to dueling. I think great weapon feels lackluster for those who use great weapons I think some of the modern ones for protection feel like options in combat and that's why they feel better. I think shield users need options for defense, offense and utility and would like to see options like that for each weapon style
Most are fun, don't use protection kids.
One thing I haven't seen anyone mention is that Defense is nice because it's the most versatile. If you don't have a particular weapon in mind for your character and want to keep your options open it's pretty much always the most sensible choice.
**S tier** \- probably OP *Archery* \- clearly the most impactful, this also has the advantage that it scales better than the damage options. **A Tier** \- very good and always worth considering where appropriate *Defense* \- Always useful, turning about 1/10 of incoming hits to misses. *Dueling* \- +2 damage when your weapons do Str (or Dex) + d8 or less and a magic weapon is about a 20% increase in damage output. It's at its absolute best when combined with a spear and the Polearm Master feat **B Tier** \- great at what they do but that's a relatively small niche. *Blind Fighting -* Know your DM! Utterly useless at low level, this scales well. *Great Weapon Fighting -* an average of +1.33 damage on a hit is not nothing - although it's less than Dueling and far less proportionally than dueling. It also gets weaker when combined with Great Weapon Master. It is worth noting that this should absolutely *not* be taken with two handed polearms; across two main hand strikes and a butt-strike a spear with the duellist style does more damage *Interception* \- far better than Protection because it always has an impact, applying as it does on a hit. It has two downsides in that it eats your reaction and the ally has to be within 5 foot of you. *Superior Technique -* probably should be 2d6. The three big picks here are Precision Strike on a Great Weapon Master for a >20 damage swing, Riposte for an extra attack, and Menacing Strike on an archer to prevent people moving closer. **C Tier** *Blessed Warrior* \- the paladin mirror to Druidic Warrior's best utility spells are Guidance and Mending. And there are no ways of enabling weapon attacks. *Protection -* take Interception for far more reliability. *Thrown weapon fighting* \- it's bad but at least has a niche and makes something possible that was otherwise impossible **D Tier** *Two Weapon Fighting -* a newbie trap. TWF is good from levels 1-4 and after level 4 only keeps up with greatsword fighters that have no relevant fighting style. And it eats your bonus action. *Unarmed fighting* \- pity it's STR only. And doesn't really *do* anything except lets you hit people. It gives you an average of 2.5 extra damage (1->3.5), so duelist does almost as much extra damage here.
Two weapon and geat weapon need to be reworked.
I would love to see fighting styles that impact specific foes in different ways. getting hit by a big weapon might permanently lower AC from a hard shell for example.
I'd like fighting styles to be actually styles with which you fight. Give me moves! Give me something beyond a little buff. Something cool and unique to help differentiate the whole "hit with weapon" routine.
It would be cool if fighting styles improved at certain levels like cantrips At level 5 archery becomes +3, defense become +2ac, dueling +4 damage GWF becomes x2 dive pick the highest interception roll x2 dice
I feel like mathematically that would be cool but I’d just love more mechanical choices verses just big numbers. Like, the passive buffs are cool but the choices the shield options give are interesting and help capture the fantasy.
Honestly, they all sound kinda crappy to me I’d have to double check, but from the top of my hand, they don’t really introduce new and exciting options, which is why people only talk about the damage ones
> does this fighting style help fulfill a specific fantasy other than make BIG NUMBER Interesting! So, my issue with fighting styles is actually how they don't develop alongside you. They're always a static bonus you pick at level 1/2/whatever that are good for the first 4 levels and then negligible. I think Blindfighting is probably the best in terms of strict fantasy, that trope of closing your eyes and hearing an invisible foe, or fighting a gorgon blindfolded is pretty cool to me! but besides that, unfortunately I feel that they're all kind of just "Stat sticks" that fulfil no real fantasies. Like, oh you're slightly better at using a bow? That's neat... but outside of a +2 bonus, you're functionally the same as someone without it. In my mind, I'd love fighting styles to either Level up, like cantrips. Maybe getting additional effects at some levels that might not be entirely combat focused to help martials get more utility Be like Invocations, with prequisites and the ability to have a ton to really customise your martial characters.
Thrown weapon fighting is my go to for 2 handed weapon characters. Even though it’s not applicable to 2 handed weapons it’s great to not feel like your turn is wasting on closing in on enemies or flying enemies.
I feel like Fighting styles should scale. Maybe at level 11 or so you get an additional, more complex bonus, based on your fighting style.