Combat Styles comparison

[Deadandamnation]

That's a pure logical an mathematical comparison of combat styles feature gained from Ranger, Fighter and Paladin.

But since you can multiclass you can still use them with others classes (if multiclassed or dipped)

I'll rate them with stars since i dunno how to add colours :)

☆☆☆☆= Supreme
☆☆☆= Good
☆☆= Normal
☆= Bad

Two-Weapon Fighting: ☆☆
That style let you add your stat bonus to your off-hand attack (that number can range from 3 to 5).
If you want to shine at early levels and build the best possible DPR character that's actually good but simply not impressive, the difference between 2d6+3 (10) and 2d6+6 (13) start to fall down when you get damage from other sources like smite, extra attack, hex, bonus action powers. And it start as 30% more damage but fall down pretty fast.

Great Weapon Fighting: ☆☆
It get you the chance to roll for better damages when you roll poorly. It's probably badly written as it should let you reroll just your weapon dices but what you get is just that: A d6 average is 3.5 normally and near 4 with GWS so it can range from (1 to 5/6 more damage depending on how many dices you roll).
I'm still not impressed, it's just more damage.

Archery: ☆☆☆☆
Now archery is pretty huge as it gives you +2 to hit rolls. From a damage prospective that's not so much damage but it increase your chances to succede and that is just awesome. If a similar feature was made for a melee weapon anyone would love that.
Sometimes you will wanna land some kind of powers like a distracting shot or whatelse and that will help you do that.
(Additionally remember that Sharpshooters gives you +10 damage and archery mitigates the drawback)

Duelist: ☆☆☆
The sword and board style is one of the best, with duelist you are gonna deal the same damage of a Two Handers but with the protection of a Shield. The damage you gain range from (2 to 10) and it's pretty huge.

Protection: ☆
It depends on two factors: 1st if you don't care about your reaction action. 2nd if you have another melee that like to stay near you. In any case it works only for one attack and never on yourself.

Defender: ☆☆☆
A mere +1 AC. So why you rate it so high? Well firstly don't underestimate the power of AC bonuses that edition since you are gonna avoid both magical and physical attacks.
It's simple: having higher AC gives you a higher virtual HP pool.
But anoher thing to factor in is that is usable in any stile making you a more versatile fighter.

Mariner: ☆
Unless you are a monk that style is usless.

So in conclusion there are only 3 styles that worth using in my opinion:

- If you plan to fight from range take the awesome Archery style.

-If you plan to fight with a Great Weapon consider the Defender Style (it's worst than Sword and Board but it let you use some cool feats like Polearm Master)

-If you plan to fight Sword and Board consider Duelist or Defender.

-If you plan fighting with two weapons consider Archery or Defender (why archery?) Well it should work with thrown weapons too.

[Kane0]

Out of curiosity, how would you rate a theoretical style for versatile weapons that grants +1 to hit and damage when using a versatile in both hands?

[Deadandamnation]

Out of curiosity, how would you rate a theoretical style for versatile weapons that grants +1 to hit and damage when using a versatile in both hands?

Versatile Fighting: ☆☆☆
It gives you the same damage as a Two Hand Weapon but with +1 to hit. (The +1 to hit is great even if you trade 2 AC for it).
(The limitating factor will be that there aren't feat tailored for that style like Polearm Master, Shield Mastery but anyway there are cool moves like Ensnaring Strike, Battlemaster Moves, Smites and so on that gain great benefits from that +1)

[Gwendol]

What about Close Quarters Shooter and Tunnel Fighter (both from the November UA)? As written it looks like the +1 bonus from CQS stacks with that from Archery...

[Malifice]

I couldn't disagree more wkth your ratings. 1 star for protection? 2 for GWS?

[Daishain]

duelist does the same as great weapon? uh, no. It does help close the damage gap between the two weapon categories by a little, but two handed still wins out by a not insignificant margin.

Longsword base average damage 4.5, goes up to 6.5 with duelist style
Greatsword base average damage 7, goes up to 8.333 with great weapon style

with the styles in play, there's still a 1.8 per hit difference in damage, as opposed to the normal 2.5. Better than before, but not quite eliminated.

That's also not including the extra damage gained from using the great weapon feat, which one handed weapons do not have an equivalent for. 10 damage in exchange for 25% less chance to hit makes a huge difference. As does extra attacks such as those gained from polearm master.

Now, don't get me wrong. I like the duelist style, I like sword and board as well. But claiming that duelist makes two handers unilaterally worse than S&B is not remotely accurate. Frankly, I have similar problems with most of your ratings.

P.S. I don't want to come across as a grammar nazi. My own prose isn't perfect either. But if you're having that much trouble, I suggest at least running your posts through microsoft word or an equivalent program.

[Deadandamnation]

I'm not saying that using a Great Weapon is worse than Sword And Boarding.

I'm saying that Great Weapon Fighting is worse than Defender.

For a Sword And Board fighter both Duelist or Defender are good.

For an Archer the Archery stile (and Close Quarter Shooter) is better than Defender.

Protector is rate low because:
A: You need to be near the target you want to protect.
B: You have to give up your reaction.
C: You can only stop an attack.
D: It does nothing for you.

Against a single powerful enemy it can be good or will get you killed :)

[Deadandamnation]

Anyway your math is incomplete:

Assume to fight an Orc Warchief (CR 4) 16 AC 93 HP +6 to hit (29) 2d12+16 (2 attacks)

That should be a pretty usual fight at mid levels.

The first martial charachter chose GWF:

-Greatsword +4 4d6+30 (2 attacks with GWM and GWS) (Average of 48, more or less)
-Full Plate 19 AC

The orc hit him with a 13+ or 40% of the time for (11.6 DPR)
He hit the orc with 12+ or 45% of the time making is actual DPR 48*0.45 (21.5) he takes 5 rounds to kill the orc.

The second chose S&B
-Longsword +9 2d8+14 (2 attacks 20 Str Duelist) (Average of 23)
-Full Plate and Shield 21 AC

The Orc hit him with a 15+ or 30% of the time for (8.7 DPR)
He hit the orc with a 7+ or 70% so his DPR is (16.1) he takes 6 round to kill the orc.

In the end:
-GWF have taken 58 Damages and killed the orc in 5 rounds.
-S&B have taken 52.2 Damages and killed the orc in 6 rounds.

But we haven't assumed that the S&B got a bonus action to shove in any of his 6 rounds that is not only useful for him but for the others party members.

Now let's do the last math.

Great Weapon user with Defender
20 AC
4d6+30 (44 Average)

To kill the orc 44*0.45 (19.8) still 5 rounds (WTF?)
The orc damages you 35% of the time (10.5 DPR) so you take 52.5 damages.

Since monsters are more than your attack Defender will always be > than Great Weapon Fighting imho

[Malifice]

Anyway your math is incomplete:

Assume to fight an Orc Warchief (CR 4) 16 AC 93 HP +6 to hit (29) 2d12+16 (2 attacks)

That should be a pretty usual fight at mid levels.

The first martial charachter chose GWF:

-Greatsword +4 4d6+30 (2 attacks with GWM and GWS) (Average of 48, more or less)
-Full Plate 19 AC

The orc hit him with a 13+ or 40% of the time for (11.6 DPR)
He hit the orc with 12+ or 45% of the time making is actual DPR 48*0.45 (21.5) he takes 5 rounds to kill the orc.

The second chose S&B
-Longsword +9 2d8+14 (2 attacks 20 Str Duelist) (Average of 23)
-Full Plate and Shield 21 AC

The Orc hit him with a 15+ or 30% of the time for (8.7 DPR)
He hit the orc with a 7+ or 70% so his DPR is (16.1) he takes 6 round to kill the orc.

In the end:
-GWF have taken 58 Damages and killed the orc in 5 rounds.
-S&B have taken 52.2 Damages and killed the orc in 6 rounds.

But we haven't assumed that the S&B got a bonus action to shove in any of his 6 rounds that is not only useful for him but for the others party members.

Now let's do the last math.

Great Weapon user with Defender
20 AC
4d6+30 (44 Average)

To kill the orc 44*0.45 (19.8) still 5 rounds (WTF?)
The orc damages you 35% of the time (10.5 DPR) so you take 52.5 damages.

Since monsters are more than your attack Defender will always be > than Great Weapon Fighting imho

Add in extra damage dice for smites, Crits, magic weapons, superiority dice etc. They also get rerolled.

Also; compare having an AC 1 higher vs imposing disadvantage on an attack roll.

A shield wall of Fighters with protection are much better than a line of them with defence.

[Kane0]

If anybody is interested, could some numbers be run on that versatile fighting style above? Seems good, especially if a DM were to allow GWM to apply (it doesnt by raw does it?)

Edit: Did some myself, can someone verify?

You: Str 18, Prof +3, 2 Attacks/Round
Target: AC 16, 80 HP

Dueling (+2 damage one handed)
+7 to hit = 60% hit rate vs AC 16
1d8+6 damage averages 10.5
7.619 hits to kill, taking 3.8 rounds
Factoring 60% hit rate ends up being 6.34 average rounds to kill

Versatile (+1 Hit and damage using versatile in two hands)
+8 to hit = 65% hit rate vs AC 16
1d10+5 damage averages 10.5
7.619 hits to kill, taking 3.8 rounds
Factoring 65% hit rate ends up being 5.86 average rounds to kill

Great Weapon (Reroll 1s & 2s using two handed)
+7 to hit = 60% hit rate vs AC 16
2d6+4 damage averages 12.32 after rerolls
6.49 hits to kill, taking 3.2 rounds
Factoring 60% hit rate ends up being 5.41 average rounds to kill

Not bad, is indeed the midpoint between the two, assuming the math is right.

[TekDragon]

Going to have to agree these ratings are missing the mark.

I especially liked how +1 AC gets 3 stars (which I agree) because a TINY bit of mitigation is SUPER POWERFUL (again, I agree) but Protection's ability to turn a hit into a miss pretty reliably once a round is given 1 star. What?

Likewise GWF.

Yeah, rerolling 2d6 is pretty meh, but that's not why you take GWF. You take it so you can combine it with something like Divine Smite and Gish cantrips.

A 2 Pally/18 Sorcerer can twin Booming Blade, smiting on each, on 2 separate targets.

That's 2d6+5d8+3d8+Str+Cha(if specced) TWICE and every single one of those dice count as "weapon damage dice" for reroll purposes. Hold out for crits and things get really crazy. That's 4d6+10d8+6d8+Str+Cha, rerolling a 1 and 2 off every one of those dice.

Tell me that's worth 2 stars, lol.

[MeeposFire]

Going to have to agree these ratings are missing the mark.

I especially liked how +1 AC gets 3 stars (which I agree) because a TINY bit of mitigation is SUPER POWERFUL (again, I agree) but Protection's ability to turn a hit into a miss pretty reliably once a round is given 1 star. What?

Likewise GWF.

Yeah, rerolling 2d6 is pretty meh, but that's not why you take GWF. You take it so you can combine it with something like Divine Smite and Gish cantrips.

A 2 Pally/18 Sorcerer can twin Booming Blade, smiting on each, on 2 separate targets.

That's 2d6+5d8+3d8+Str+Cha(if specced) TWICE and every single one of those dice count as "weapon damage dice" for reroll purposes. Hold out for crits and things get really crazy. That's 4d6+10d8+6d8+Str+Cha, rerolling a 1 and 2 off every one of those dice.

Tell me that's worth 2 stars, lol.

Well to be fair protection has a lot of caveats. IF you are in the right position, if you have a reaction available, if you have a shield ready, and if one of the rolls is bad enough then it will make a difference. Otherwise you wasted your style and reaction for nothing. That is a lot of caveats while defense has one extremely minor caveat in that you have to wear some kind of armor. I can see that being worth a star.

As for great weapon it does have the "problem" of being merely a way to increase your average damage. It does not increase your maximum or minimum damage (though it makes the minimum much less likely). Unlike most other styles it really only becomes good in specialized situations such as smiting. Your example is an extreme way of showing you can make it give you a lot but in most cases it will not be anywhere near that good. I would say without something special like smiting it is not as good as dueling generally speaking.

[Malifice]

Well to be fair protection has a lot of caveats. IF you are in the right position, if you have a reaction available, if you have a shield ready, and if one of the rolls is bad enough then it will make a difference.

No thats not how you accurately assess the probability.

Thats like saying defence is only worth it 1/20.

The benefits of advantage are huge. Particularly when the monster needs a 10+ to hit you. It also turns the chance of a critical from 1/20 to 1/400. It also negates advantage (which is good to stop sneak attacks and similar).

There is a chart around somewhere, but its better than a +5 percent chance to negate a hit.

Of course, it uses your reaction, but it needs to to balance it out.

[silveralen]

I couldn't disagree more wkth your ratings. 1 star for protection? 2 for GWS?

GWS is really only great for paladin. For any other class, the actual style itself is fairly mediocre, even worse if you use a polearm (at which point it is .7 damage extra per attack). At that point defensive is generally a better choice, it just offers more in the long run. It's better in extremely specific situations (divine smite and maybe the new cantrips depending on DM) but for an average user it's among the worst offered. I'd say it's probably a 1 star for most classes, the niche cases are the only justification for any improvement.

Protection burns your reaction for disadvantage to an attack directed against an adjacent ally once per turn. So it is less likely to come into effect compared to every other style and has an action cost, and you are either shielding another frontline character most of the time, in which case they can likely take hits already, or for some reason your fighter/paladin is standing shoulder to shoulder with the wizard.

The question I always ask in regards to protection is, which is normally better for a character trying to defend his party: being able to smack enemies who try to run towards the squishy party members on his turn, or being able to mitigate some damage for another frontliner? This is why, generally, I find protection a thing to be avoided.

I think these look about right tbh.

[Deadandamnation]

I've rated Protection ☆
I'll try to illustrate why with a pretty long answer:

Firstly let's read the protection text:

Protection: When a Creature you can see attacks a target other than you that is within 5 feet of you, you can use your reaction to impose disadvantage on the attack roll. You must be wielding a shield.

So we can summarize that into:

1) You need to see the target
2) You have to be adiacent to the target
3) You have to wield a shield
4) You have to be able to take the reaction
5) You have to use your reaction
6) You can't use that on yourself
7) You have to declare to impose disadvantage before any roll were made
8) The attack have to involve a to hit roll

A Standard Party is composed by 4 players and the iconic party is composed by:

1) Melee (Fighter)
2) Skilled (Rogue)
3) Caster (Wizard)
4) Priest (Cleric)

For sure anyone can play whatever he like and nothing stops a party to be made only of fighters or any combination of classes.
But that's not the point i'll use the iconic party as an exemple.

So in our generalized party we got:

1) The protector (Is the guy that have choose protection)
2) The swift (It can be melee or ranged, a monk, a rogue, a dex fighter a ranger, we don't care)
3) The caster (Any squishy caster you can think of)
4) The gish (Any non-squishy caster you can think of like Cleric, Druid, Bard, Eldritch Knight and so on)

Our party take a journey into a dungeon and fight.
The protector choose to demonstrate the power of his combat style devoted to save them.

First Round (He choose to protect the caster first)

He take his place near the caster and send "the swift" in the front line with the gish.

They get ambushed, the swift see them coming but the protector don't (just to give an example).
An arrow hit the caster but the protector can't stop it coz he is surprised and can't actually see the enemy.

The initiative get rolled and we got that:
- Swift
- Enemy (1)
- Caster
- Enemy (2)
- Protector
- Enemy (3)
- Gish
- Enemy (4)

The swift try to hold down Enemy 1 in a melee fight. Enemy one fight the swift.
The Caster do his stuff against Enemy 2 but fail, now he should move but he got his personal tank so decide to stay near him. Enemy 2 choose to fight the swift and go helping Enemy 1.

The protector than say "Don't worry swifty I'll come to help you" and go near the swift to protect him fighting enemy 1 or 2.
Enemy 3 shoot at the caster.
The Gish fight enemy 4.
Enemy 4 fight the gish.

Round 2:

The swift fight enemy 1. He could move away since he got mobility but choose to stay there since he got his tank near him.
Enemy 1 attack the Swift and the protector say: "ta-dan here is my shield", Enemy one attack again (he got 2 attacks) and Shove the Swift prone than move away.
Caster incinerate enemy 3, but isn't dead yet.
Enemy (2) charge the gish (no reaction from the protector), and strike him.
Protector than go helping the Gish against enemy 2 and 4.
Enemy 3 go to assassinate the swift, swifty is prone and "near death experience".
The Gish than choose to take Aoo from both the enemies to go healing the swift.
The protector say "ta-dan and block one of the attacks"..."nice i've blocked so many attacks today".
The gish heal the swift.
Enemy 4 follow the gish and backstab him.

Round 3:

Swift stand up, run away, hide and drink a potion.
Enemy 1 charge the protector strike him and retreat.
Caster do something and go near the tank (protect me tank).
Enemy 2 charge the caster and strike him ("protection already used sorry") than move away.
Protector don't have enemies at range so try to stay there protecting the caster.
Enemy 3 push the caster away 10ft and strike him. He is near death. ("Too far sorry mate" say the protector).
The Gish go healing the caster.
Enemy 4 follow him up.

Round 4:

Swift (have decided that the tank is usless and dash in and out thanks to mobility striking with no retaliation).
Enemy 1 move and strike the caster (that's still far from protector) and move away.
Caster stand up but he is low on HP so he dash away.
Enemy 2 than strike the gish and stay there.
Protector go near the gish and fight.
Enemy 3 strike the protector.
Gish heal the protector.
Enemy 4 strike the protector.

Round 5:

Swift do the same.
Enemy 1 strike the protector.
Caster do some magic from a safe place.
Enemy 2 strike the protector.
Protector near the gish and fight.
Enemy 3 strike the protector.
Gish fight.
Enemy 4 disarm the protector from his shield and strike the gish (Protector say: "no shield sorry, I can't ta-dan you)

Round 6:

Swift dash away and go home.
Enemy 1 strike the gish (still no shield)
Caster teleport to home searching a new party.
Enemy 2 strike the gish (still no shield)
Protector take a new shield up and fight.
Enemy 3 disangage and run away.
The gish kill enemy 4.

Round 7:

Enemy 1 shove the protector and strike the gish.
Enemy 2 strike the gish and kill him.
Protector stand up...("I'm immortal" and kill enemy 2)

From now on he have nothing left to protect except his life.

End of the story.

I know that a fake fight is not so realistic but the point was that:

1) The protector can't protect a squishy because they tend to act and move (like the swift and the caster) and try to protect them will usually fall to putting them in danger instead.

2) The protector can't protect himself better with that feature but instead become a magnet.

3) The protector can only protect another like him that usually don't need protection at all (like the gish) and doing so make them vulnerable to aoe spells.

4) If your goal is to be hitten (instead of others) than protection will work...but an aggressive style that use tunnel fighter+sentinel can gives you better results.

5) If you intend to use that as "an option"...it's a pretty situational one.

6) The worst part of that feature is that is totally DM dependant: he will choose when you get the possibilty to use protection and when you don't simply by let his enemies act in a way or another.

7) If enemies are smart they know that you don't do so much damage with an Aoo and just move away from you, ignoring you and focus on a lone party members.

Anyway I really like the idea behind the Protection Feature and I'd take it if it fit my char concept (for example a Paladin Devoted to protect the weakers) but since that post was created with the idea of rating the features in a generic situation I can't rate it higher than Bad.

As always that's a personal opinion and anyone have rights to disagree :)

[mephnick]

It would be kind of cool if you could spend your reaction and any remaining movement you have to reach an ally.

Like you haven't moved this turn, you're going toe to toe with an orc, and you see your ranger buddy about to get clobbered and you rush 10 feet to put your shield in front of him.

I guess free movement in between turns is too powerful for a fighting style?

[Deadandamnation]

Going to have to agree these ratings are missing the mark.

Likewise GWF.

Yeah, rerolling 2d6 is pretty meh, but that's not why you take GWF. You take it so you can combine it with something like Divine Smite and Gish cantrips.

A 2 Pally/18 Sorcerer can twin Booming Blade, smiting on each, on 2 separate targets.

That's 2d6+5d8+3d8+Str+Cha(if specced) TWICE and every single one of those dice count as "weapon damage dice" for reroll purposes. Hold out for crits and things get really crazy. That's 4d6+10d8+6d8+Str+Cha, rerolling a 1 and 2 off every one of those dice.

Tell me that's worth 2 stars, lol.

I don't have the exactly math about GWF and correct me if I'm wrong:

1d6= +0.5
1d8= +0.6
1d10=+0.7
1d12= +0.8

It should be something like that right?

So IF you are a level 20 as you say:

2d6 from the Greatsword
5d8 from the Smite
3d8 from something (booming?)
+10 from strength and cha

The total average damage is (7+36+10= 53)
The damage that GWF gives you is (1+4.8=5.8)

So you will averagely deal 6 more damage each strike when you choose to drain your resurces to do an already pretty high damage. (Increasing your damage by 10%)

A sword and boarder with Duelist doing the same:

1d8 Longsword
5d8 Smite
3d8 Booming
12 Cha+Str+Duelist

The Total Average Damage is (9*4.5+12=52.5)

Probably at that point even Duelist as become a 2 star since the difference from 50 and 52 is nothing.

So in the end for a Smiter Paladin unless you want the range a Glaive can gives you is better to fight Sword and Board.

And in both cases I would rate a +1 AC higher at higher levels.

Duelist is good at low levels and when your damage is low.

GWF is good only when you smite and drain your resources and even than you gain only a little benfit and sometimes is overkill.

AC rocks all the time, all the adventure, in all the situations and avoiding that uber-smash done by an Ogre by just one will happen, thrust me.

As a side note I have to agree that rating GWF the same as TWF is wrong, probably TWF should be rated ☆ but in the end it gives you the same damage benefit of duelist @ lvl 5 so if the plan is to use TWF to deal more damage, the style gives you exactly what you was looking for and ☆☆ seems right to me.

I could rate Duelist ☆☆ but since you get an awesome +2 AC from the shield and your damage is lacking a bit behind, generally it's a great choice at low/mid levels.

I haven't rated yet Tunnel Fighter because I can't decide myself, it's pretty good I think for a Glaive fighter with Sentinel and PM but it's really specific.

Close Combat Shooter instead is good if you don't plan to take sharpshooter, if you don't like to switch to a melee weapon and in many other cases. It's a great alternative to Archery so probably worth 4 stars too.

Archery is rated so high because is the only style that exist for a dedicated Archer, not because Archery is better than Sword and Board or GWF.

[MeeposFire]

No thats not how you accurately assess the probability.

Thats like saying defence is only worth it 1/20.

The benefits of advantage are huge. Particularly when the monster needs a 10+ to hit you. It also turns the chance of a critical from 1/20 to 1/400. It also negates advantage (which is good to stop sneak attacks and similar).

There is a chart around somewhere, but its better than a +5 percent chance to negate a hit.

Of course, it uses your reaction, but it needs to to balance it out.

I never gave any probability. I cannot because I cannot know your enemy's attack bonus or your ally's AC. What i did say and is 100% true is that protection only does something if you fulfill all those requirements and one of which is it only works if one of the rolls is lower than the target's AC. Some targets that may happen often but on others it may not make much of a difference. I will admit that is actually the LEAST of the problems as the other ones are the ones that actually restrict you from using it. I was just listing all of the various things that you have to consider the worth of the ability over an ability that has few limitations and personally can help you a lot especially since many of these classes have excellent AC or like lots of damage. Protection has its place but I think it is fair to say it is a bit more situational than damage or AC.

[Malifice]

protection only does something if one of the rolls is lower than the target's AC.

Defence only works 1/20 of the time.

Protection is better.

[Walnut]

I think the draw back to defender is it relies on the ability of the party to make the enemies use their attack rolls against you. Any of the offensive styles only rely on you making an attack.

Also, high damage benefits more from to hit bonuses like advantage, bless, inspiration and battle dice.

Looking at the example with the Orc Warchief the GWF has a 45% chance to hit, so blessing him increases his damage by 27%, while blessing the S&B only gives an 18% increase.

There are several spells I think benefit from the high damage front liner. 5th edition save-or-suck spells don't last as long, so being able to deliver more damage during that time really helps.

There are other benefits to finishing off the Warchief faster, even without those buffs. Suppose the Warchief has a weaker friend who has gotten into your back line, or is using ranged attacks against them. Finishing off the Warchief one round earlier, is a round earlier you help finish off the others, which one less round they are making attack rolls against a AC:16 wizard with far fewer HP.

That's not to say I don't like defender, it depends on the build of the rest of the team. If your backline has good control the easier it is for them to funnel enemies to you. If they also have good damage they can handle the enemy that do filter through and the less your damage matters (doubling your damage output if you're only 10% of the total damage output doesn't mean as much as if you're 30% of the parties damage output).

[Raimun]

That's a pure logical an mathematical comparison of combat styles feature gained from Ranger, Fighter and Paladin.

But since you can multiclass you can still use them with others classes (if multiclassed or dipped)

I'll rate them with stars since i dunno how to add colours :)

☆☆☆☆= Supreme
☆☆☆= Good
☆☆= Normal
☆= Bad

Great Weapon Fighting: ☆☆
It get you the chance to roll for better damages when you roll poorly. It's probably badly written as it should let you reroll just your weapon dices but what you get is just that: A d6 average is 3.5 normally and near 4 with GWS so it can range from (1 to 5/6 more damage depending on how many dices you roll).
I'm still not impressed, it's just more damage.


Alas, how the mighty have fallen.

Great Weapon Fighting doesn't even give you more damage. It gives you greater average damage, which does nothing to your maximum damage. Which is lame.

[MeeposFire]

Defence only works 1/20 of the time.

Protection is better.

Nah it is far too situational to be considered the better option in general. There are far too many caveats to its use and if the enemy rolled low on the "first" roll you did not need to use it anyway. Seriously though it isn't bad but it is situational and I think its rating here is pretty fair.

I will give it that like many other abilities that you will notice when it works far more than the passive benefit even if the passive benefit ends up helping more.

[Malifice]

Nah it is far too situational to be considered the better option in general.


I disagree. The bonus is huge.


There are far too many caveats to its use and if the enemy rolled low on the "first" roll you did not need to use it anyway.

Thats... not how you assess the benefits of imposing disadvantage.

The effect of disadvantage is huge. There’s less than a 9% chance of rolling 15 or higher with disadvantage (there’s a 30% chance normally). You drop to a 1/400 chance of landing a crit when disadvantage is imposed also.

http://onlinedungeonmaster.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Advantage_Disadvantage_Probabilities.png

Compare it to defence which is a flat +5 percent miss chance.

Asuming youre protecting an AC of 16, and the attacker gets +5 to hit.

Normally his hit chance is 50 percent, with a 5 percent chance of a crit. With disadvantage imposed it drops to a 25 percent chance of hitting (equal to a +5 bonus to AC) and a 0.25 percent chance of landing a crit.

[Deadandamnation]

I disagree. The bonus is huge.



Thats... not how you assess the benefits of imposing disadvantage.

The effect of disadvantage is huge. There’s less than a 9% chance of rolling 15 or higher with disadvantage (there’s a 30% chance normally). You drop to a 1/400 chance of landing a crit when disadvantage is imposed also.

http://onlinedungeonmaster.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Advantage_Disadvantage_Probabilities.png

Compare it to defence which is a flat +5 percent miss chance.

Asuming youre protecting an AC of 16, and the attacker gets +5 to hit.

Normally his hit chance is 50 percent, with a 5 percent chance of a crit. With disadvantage imposed it drops to a 25 percent chance of hitting (equal to a +5 bonus to AC) and a 0.25 percent chance of landing a crit.

Disadvantage is HUGE, protection isn't that's all.

[Malifice]

Disadvantage is HUGE, protection isn't that's all.

Protection imposes disadvantage.

People dont rate it becuase it doesnt buff the user. Other than that, its benefits are much better than +1 to AC.

Ive seen a Fighter (protection), a Paladin (sentinel feat) use them to great effect before side by side with a Wolf totem barbarian.

If you attacked the fighter or barbarian, the paladin smacked you with his greatsword (and the Fighter riposted with a manouver and hit you also). If you attacked the paladin, the Fighter imposed disadvantage to hit. On their turns, the Paladin and the Fighter both got advantage to hit from the Barbarian.

[MaxWilson]

Going to have to agree these ratings are missing the mark.

I especially liked how +1 AC gets 3 stars (which I agree) because a TINY bit of mitigation is SUPER POWERFUL (again, I agree) but Protection's ability to turn a hit into a miss pretty reliably once a round is given 1 star. What?

If Protection actually worked that way, it would be awesome. But Protection doesn't trigger on a hit, it triggers on an attack, which is merely a potential hit. Unlike Shield or Defensive Duelist you can't save it for the attacks that matter, you have to choose only a single attack to use it on, so it is often wasted.


That's 2d6+5d8+3d8+Str+Cha(if specced) TWICE and every single one of those dice count as "weapon damage dice" for reroll purposes. Hold out for crits and things get really crazy. That's 4d6+10d8+6d8+Str+Cha, rerolling a 1 and 2 off every one of those dice.

Not in any game I run. Smiting is not part of the attack, it's just a free action following a hit (kind of like Horde Breaker), so it benefits from neither GWF nor smites. If you had to declare smites before an attack I might let you count them as part of the attack, but if you choose to smite on a crit and then claim that the smite benefits from your crit--that's just goofy. No.

[Malifice]

If Protection actually worked that way, it would be awesome. But Protection doesn't trigger on a hit, it triggers on an attack, which is merely a potential hit. Unlike Shield or Defensive Duelist you can't save it for the attacks that matter, you have to choose only a single attack to use it on, so it is often wasted.

Imposing disadvantage on an attack isnt 'wasting' an ability.

In the 'hoplite' thread , I had them all armed with spears and shields and the protection F/S.

The rear rank impose disadvantage on all incoming attacks v the front rank, who all ready actions to stab anyone who comes close.

For shield walls, protection style is the bomb.


Not in any game I run. Smiting is not part of the attack, it's just a free action following a hit (kind of like Horde Breaker), so it benefits from neither GWF nor smites. If you had to declare smites before an attack I might let you count them as part of the attack, but if you choose to smite on a crit and then claim that the smite benefits from your crit--that's just goofy. No.

How come man? The damage bump is fairly minimal (+1.5ish per d8) and its a corner case ability.

Seems a strange thing to nerf.

[MaxWilson]

Looking at the example with the Orc Warchief the GWF has a 45% chance to hit, so blessing him increases his damage by 27%, while blessing the S&B only gives an 18% increase.

On the other hand, if instead of Blessing the S&B for an 18% increase you cast Shield of Faith on him with a bonus action to drop his damage taken per round from 13.50 to 9.50, you are decreasing his damage by 30%, which is like increasing his HP by 40%... clearly better than the Bless. (Although Bless helps multiple characters in the party.)

GITP forum gets too hung up on DPR, but it is loss ratios that actually matter.


Imposing disadvantage on an attack isnt 'wasting' an ability.

In the 'hoplite' thread , I had them all armed with spears and shields and the protection F/S.

The rear rank impose disadvantage on all incoming attacks v the front rank, who all ready actions to stab anyone who comes close.

For shield walls, protection style is the bomb.

Regardless of whether you want to view it as wastage of Protection or "free" uses of Shield/Cutting Words/Bend Luck/Defensive Duelist--Protection works against only a fraction as many attacks as the others. If I'm AC 21, facing four orc attacks at +5 for d12+3, Cutting Words is only 25% likely to be needed on any given attack, so it's effectively like +d8 to AC for ALL of them, cutting my damage taken by about 80%. Protection will cut my damage against one of them by 80%, which cuts my total damage by about 20%. You can call that "wasting" protection or you can call it "fewer uses of Protection," but either way it is indisputably worse than if you got to see the roll on the hit before choosing to use it, like you can with Lucky/Shield/Defensive Duelist/Cutting Words/Bend Luck.


How come man? The damage bump is fairly minimal (+1.5ish per d8) and its a corner case ability.

Because 1.) it's against the rules, 2.) it's gamist cheese that makes no descriptive sense. It's not a "nerf" for balance reasons, it's refusing to cooperate with an attempt to bend the rules in a ridiculous way. If it were in the rules I would sigh and put up with it, but it's obviously not RAI or RAW.

5E unfortunately has some RAW legal combos that also make no description sense (why can a bard simultaneously cast a spell using his flute as his arcane focus and inspire his comrades with a flowery speech and insult an enemy with cutting words, all in the same six seconds? how many mouths does he have?) but I don't have to add new ones.

[Deadandamnation]

Imposing disadvantage on an attack isnt 'wasting' an ability.

In the 'hoplite' thread , I had them all armed with spears and shields and the protection F/S.

The rear rank impose disadvantage on all incoming attacks v the front rank, who all ready actions to stab anyone who comes close.

For shield walls, protection style is the bomb.



How come man? The damage bump is fairly minimal (+1.5ish per d8) and its a corner case ability.

Seems a strange thing to nerf.

Throw a fireball at them and see what happen, Casters love to see fighters all standing one near the other.

[djreynolds]

My momma says "If everyone had the same opinion life would be boring,"

So I think the comparison's are cool. I like some of you ideas, and bravo on the good discussion it makes.

Obviously Archery is the best style. +2 to hit. It turns any archer into a powerhouse with sharpshooter. It is worth +4 dexterity and does affect hand axes and javelins and such. A great style for any champion to look into at 10th level to expand his/her options.

Defense, IMO, is great for a pole-arm master. But so is GWS, extra damage.

Duelist, which is cheesy that shield bearers can use this as well as a classic rapier wielding fighter, is good feat but it ties you to S&B and that is fine but it limits your combat well-roundness.

GWM is +10 damage on a hit, Mr Kryx did a spreadsheet wanting to ban this feat or fix it because people with advantage were churning up monsters.

Now for GWM you can take defense or GWS, either one is very good.

Fighting styles and feats are party dependent, and having played a champion I found the duelist style limiting, yes +2 damage is nice but the protection style really saved my buddies bacon on more than one occasion, it is like spamming the shield spell for your buddy that is what disadvantage gives you, it amounts to an average 5, same as the shield spells +5 to AC.

If you find yourself having to turtle up every fight, that's fine, but someone else better be laying down the hurt, i.e. rangers with a bow, wizards, warlocks.

In that "standard party of four", a rogue's sneak attack is huge, and his 16-17 AC means if he gets into melee to lay down that sneak attack, a hit or two can clean him out, protection style may mitigate that damage. You duelist style is +6 extra damage for 3 attacks at level 11, that is like just 1/6th that damage that rogue is going land with his sneak attack. But a good hit or two on that rogue can end his day, even with uncanny dodge.

So my point is if you are going S&B, you are not the party's main damage dealer and your job is to maintain the "line" and protect your party, with sentinel, and create advantage for them, with shield master, etc. So that +2 damage isn't really doing anything more because it is the ranger or rogue doing the big melee damage.

So I would rate combat styles in two ways, party archetypes like tank and striker and controller and enabler, and who is in the party. I find it tough to maintain being a tank and striker, especially for a fighter. Try out protection style, it is very good during lower levels when players lack uncanny dodge.

But GWS and archery are always relevant because they make damage, no one is stopping a sorcerer from taking elemental adept.

[Coidzor]

duelist does the same as great weapon? uh, no. It does help close the damage gap between the two weapon categories by a little, but two handed still wins out by a not insignificant margin.

Longsword base average damage 4.5, goes up to 6.5 with duelist style
Greatsword base average damage 7, goes up to 8.333 with great weapon style

The point about raising the damage was talking about the base damage of a two-handed weapon not taking into account the Great Weapon Fighting Style, by my reading. Also, compare the Battleaxe and Greataxe instead for 1d8 vs 1d8+2 vs 1d12.

Battleaxe: base average damage 4.5, goes up to 6.5 with duelist style
Greataxe: base average damage 6.5


Versatile Fighting: ☆☆☆
It gives you the same damage as a Two Hand Weapon but with +1 to hit. (The +1 to hit is great even if you trade 2 AC for it).
(The limitating factor will be that there aren't feat tailored for that style like Polearm Master, Shield Mastery but anyway there are cool moves like Ensnaring Strike, Battlemaster Moves, Smites and so on that gain great benefits from that +1)

Well, you'd be able to use Polearm Master with a Quarterstaff well enough, at least for the bonus action attack. The reaction attack when enemies enter your reach is less likely to trigger without, well, Reach, that's true, but it still will trigger sometimes.


Add in extra damage dice for smites, Crits, magic weapons, superiority dice etc. They also get rerolled.

Also; compare having an AC 1 higher vs imposing disadvantage on an attack roll.

A shield wall of Fighters with protection are much better than a line of them with defence.

And how often do you get a shield wall of Fighters with Protection? That's a pretty specific thing. Probably not all that common, really. Also, serves to encourage focus firing, either on the flanks or on the people who aren't the Fighters in the shield wall.


If you attacked the fighter or barbarian, the paladin smacked you with his greatsword (and the Fighter riposted with a manouver and hit you also). If you attacked the paladin, the Fighter imposed disadvantage to hit. On their turns, the Paladin and the Fighter both got advantage to hit from the Barbarian.

Again, that's a very specific set up where three people coordinated their builds in order to synergize from the get-go.

These niches are not general cases. Obviously if you can specifically work together to get a system going, Protection will shine. If you can't ensure that Protection will shine, however, then Defense will look much better in comparison.

[Malifice]

Regardless of whether you want to view it as wastage of Protection or "free" uses of Shield/Cutting Words/Bend Luck/Defensive Duelist--Protection works against only a fraction as many attacks as the others. If I'm AC 21, facing four orc attacks at +5 for d12+3, Cutting Words is only 25% likely to be needed on any given attack,

Apples with apples mate. Youre comparing a fighting style available at 1st level with cutting words (via lore bard 3).


Because 1.) it's against the rules,

No, its not.


2.) it's gamist cheese that makes no descriptive sense.

Cheese? Please. And makes no sense? It makes perfect sense that a smite delivered with a greatsword hurts more than one inflicted with a dagger.


It's not a "nerf" for balance reasons, it's refusing to cooperate with an attempt to bend the rules in a ridiculous way. If it were in the rules I would sigh and put up with it, but it's obviously not RAI or RAW.

Great Weapon Fighting

When you roll a 1 or 2 on a damage die for an attack you
make with a melee weapon that you are wielding with
two hands, you can reroll the die and must use the new
roll, even if the new roll is a 1 or a 2. The weapon must
have the two-handed or versatile property for you to gain
this benefit.

Looks pretty RAW to me. And as for RAI, its less clear. There is one tweet that says yes, and another that says no.


5E unfortunately has some RAW legal combos that also make no description sense (why can a bard simultaneously cast a spell using his flute as his arcane focus and inspire his comrades with a flowery speech and insult an enemy with cutting words, all in the same six seconds? how many mouths does he have?) but I don't have to add new ones.

Bonus actions and reactions take negligble time. A word or two at most.

[djreynolds]

I just got my but whooped by an hobgoblin captain, one hit, crit 33 damage on a 4th level rogue. It would have been nice if the fighter next to me had the protection style. But instead, he made an attack with 2 points of extra damage. Luckily the paladin took GWS and hurt baddies, and we only allow rerolls on the weapon, not the smite..... not my call, our DM's.

The fighter is just there and landing an attack here and there and taking some damage and giving it, but he in unable to create more damage because he is stuck with basically doing 1d8 +2 +5, not bad but not 2d6 +5 and possibly +10. And now the rogue, lucky to be alive but out of combat is not landing his extra 2d6 a turn.

Protection is a very good feat for a tank to take. It enables the paladin and rogue, in this party, to laydown smack on top of his consistent damage. Is that +2 damage or +1 AC really worth it? In time, one of the hobgoblins will land another critical hit, so killing them faster is better.

This is just my opinion, but with bounded accuracy, yes +1 AC is big but not game changing, because that big hit is still coming. Dice rolls are finicky is 5E, and but everyone has more hit points and damage out put is more important.

[Deadandamnation]

I just got my but whooped by an hobgoblin captain, one hit, crit 33 damage on a 4th level rogue. It would have been nice if the fighter next to me had the protection style. But instead, he made an attack with 2 points of extra damage. Luckily the paladin took GWS and hurt baddies, and we only allow rerolls on the weapon, not the smite..... not my call, our DM's.

The fighter is just there and landing an attack here and there and taking some damage and giving it, but he in unable to create more damage because he is stuck with basically doing 1d8 +2 +5, not bad but not 2d6 +5 and possibly +10. And now the rogue, lucky to be alive but out of combat is not landing his extra 2d6 a turn.

Protection is a very good feat for a tank to take. It enables the paladin and rogue, in this party, to laydown smack on top of his consistent damage. Is that +2 damage or +1 AC really worth it? In time, one of the hobgoblins will land another critical hit, so killing them faster is better.

This is just my opinion, but with bounded accuracy, yes +1 AC is big but not game changing, because that big hit is still coming. Dice rolls are finicky is 5E, and but everyone has more hit points and damage out put is more important.

It was a Rogue mistake not a Fighter fact...

Case 1) The Fighter was able to protect and take a crit in his face
Case 2) The rogue learn how to play and disengage after his sneack attack, the fighter gets the crit
Case 3) The Fighter Shove the hobgoblin, hit him and retreat (Shield Mastery feat), the rogue hit the hobgoblin and retreat, the gonlin stand up and don't crit anyone

There are many other cases for sure...

What makes Duelist so appealing to me is that you have a really low damage output 1d8+3 or 4 to 11 damages when you start your career and upping that to 6-13 is pretty good. You are not the DPR of the party but a costant damage dealer (on par with a featless/featureless Two Hander) and Shield Mastery gives you a really nice free Shove Move any turn on top of more defense.

When instead we talk about a DPR master is GWM that make the difference, not GWS.

[djreynolds]

It was a Rogue mistake not a Fighter fact...

Case 1) The Fighter was able to protect and take a crit in his face
Case 2) The rogue learn how to play and disengage after his sneack attack, the fighter gets the crit
Case 3) The Fighter Shove the hobgoblin, hit him and retreat (Shield Mastery feat), the rogue hit the hobgoblin and retreat, the gonlin stand up and don't crit anyone

There are many other cases for sure...

What makes Duelist so appealing to me is that you have a really low damage output 1d8+3 or 4 to 11 damages when you start your career and upping that to 6-13 is pretty good. You are not the DPR of the party but a costant damage dealer (on par with a featless/featureless Two Hander) and Shield Mastery gives you a really nice free Shove Move any turn on top of more defense.

When instead we talk about a DPR master is GWM that make the difference, not GWS.

Duelist is an excellent style, it maybe broken with multiclassing so easily to obtain it.

And yes, it was my fault for getting smacked with a critical hit and with that martial ability of the hobgoblin on top of it.... served me right for getting froggy and missing on my first strike and swinging with my bonus action for my sneak attack. But see, protection is good for fighters with dumb rogues running around.

[Deadandamnation]

Duelist is an excellent style, it maybe broken with multiclassing so easily to obtain it.

And yes, it was my fault for getting smacked with a critical hit and with that martial ability of the hobgoblin on top of it.... served me right for getting froggy and missing on my first strike and swinging with my bonus action for my sneak attack. But see, protection is good for fighters with dumb rogues running around.

Probably avoid TWF is better at low levels, or at least use it ranged -> if the first miss you can throw the second and walk away with your remaining movement.

It's how I'd played that, you are not dumb going melee but sometimes get punished to :)

[djreynolds]

Probably avoid TWF is better at low levels, or at least use it ranged -> if the first miss you can throw the second and walk away with your remaining movement.

It's how I'd played that, you are not dumb going melee but sometimes get punished to :)

This rogue hits so hard, I'm sad he's a thief and that the SCAG didn't come out earlier. But a thief he is, 5th level cannot come earlier, uncanny dodge is really wanted.

Unfortunately too many ranged types in the group, so TWF it is. But the dueling daggers... that is good advice. Split up the movement. Throw a dagger or throw a dagger. Have to get them though. Need to buy a hand crossbow.

But please try out protection style in your next build, especially champion. It does eat up the sentinel reaction attack, but I have saved many froggy PCs.

Rogues get proficiency in wisdom saves at level 15, so until then I plan to play mine very reckless.

My champion, crazy build had protection and archery. Strength based, shield master, defensive duelist with a short sword as well. And later on I snagged sharpshooter. I tried to making the one of those roman infantrymen in gladiator, the ones stabbing the big German Barbarian to death in the opening battle.

Great Thread, makes for great discussion

[silveralen]

Protection imposes disadvantage.

People dont rate it becuase it doesnt buff the user. Other than that, its benefits are much better than +1 to AC.

Ive seen a Fighter (protection), a Paladin (sentinel feat) use them to great effect before side by side with a Wolf totem barbarian.

If you attacked the fighter or barbarian, the paladin smacked you with his greatsword (and the Fighter riposted with a manouver and hit you also). If you attacked the paladin, the Fighter imposed disadvantage to hit. On their turns, the Paladin and the Fighter both got advantage to hit from the Barbarian.

People rate it low because it has an action cost (unlike the others) and numerous caveats about usage.

I've seen someone tear enemies up duel wielding, duel wielding is still generally not optimal.

[TekDragon]

I don't have the exactly math about GWF and correct me if I'm wrong:

1d6= +0.5
1d8= +0.6
1d10=+0.7
1d12= +0.8

It should be something like that right?

Sorry, but that's wrong. Some dude went all crazy with the math in another discussion and the numbers are higher than that for re-rolling 1's and 2's.

Here's the numbers you can expect using GWF:



d10: +14.5% damage (+.80 per die)
d8: +16.6% damage (+.75 per die)
d6: +19% damage (+.66 per die)
d4: +20% damage (+.5 per die)

Now, +19% on 2d6 isn't huge, I'll freely admit. But +19% on 2d6 plus +16.6% on a whole handful of d8s can be huge. In the scenario I gave before, a dirt-simple multi-class (2 Pally / X Sorc) twinning a high level Booming Blade w/smites on two targets, that's 4d6 and 16d8 if they both hit. That's almost 15 extra damage. God forbid one of those hits crits, and now you're looking at an extra 22 damage.


I've rated Protection ☆
I'll try to illustrate why with a pretty long answer:


I am really sorry you went through all that effort typing up a huge anecdotal scenario when no one cares about anecdotal scenarios. If they did, I'd share the story of my Sword and Board, Protection, Shield Master Paladin who is crushing encounters by neutering the enemy's big strikes, turning 2, 3, or even more "hits" per encounter into misses while also giving my Barbarian and Monk companions advantage on their 6+ combined attacks thanks to Shield Master.

Effective and smart shield usage out-ranks +1 AC any day of the week IF YOU CAN PLAY SMART. I wouldn't swap it for +1 AC. Hell, I wouldn't swap it for +2 AC.

The one caveat I'll give is if you're playing with a poor DM who thinks enemies are dumb enough to always attack the party's 21+ AC "tank" when there's other perfectly viable targets right next to them. In that scenario, I'd go with +1 AC.


People rate it low because it has an action cost (unlike the others) and numerous caveats about usage.

It absolutely does cost a reaction, because turning a hit into a miss once a round is a massive benefit. Against a big bad with 3 strikes, of which 1-2 are likely to connect, it lets you reduce the enemy's damage anywhere from 50-100%. That's insane.

And what the heck are these "numerous caveats about usage"? Am I the only one here that plays Dungeons and Dragons? The only caveat is you have be standing next to your ally when an enemy swings at him.

Lol, I'm in tears imagining what kind of games you guys are playing.

[silveralen]

I am really sorry you went through all that effort typing up a huge anecdotal scenario when no one cares about anecdotal scenarios. If they did, I'd share the story of my Sword and Board, Protection, Shield Master Paladin who is crushing encounters by neutering the enemy's big strikes, turning 2, 3, or even more "hits" per encounter into misses while also giving my Barbarian and Monk companions advantage on their 6+ combined attacks thanks to Shield Master.

Effective and smart shield usage out-ranks +1 AC any day of the week IF YOU CAN PLAY SMART. I wouldn't swap it for +1 AC. Hell, I wouldn't swap it for +2 AC.

The one caveat I'll give is if you're playing with a poor DM who thinks enemies are dumb enough to always attack the party's 21+ AC "tank" when there's other perfectly viable targets right next to them. In that scenario, I'd go with +1 AC.

Reasons why your tactic isn't as good as you think:

Your DM/your enemies apparently haven't realized your 3 man melee squad standing in a line are in the perfect position for AoE spells, nor do they have any movement/formation disruption abilities.

Your DM/your enemies haven't learned to bait your single reaction per turn.

Your DM/your enemies have apparnetly mastered "don't go for the guy on the frontline with the highest ac" but not "if the guys on the frontline keep bunching up, just rush the squishies in the back"

This is the general problem you seem to miss: If we start assuming enemies avoid tankier characters, then we are dealing with intelligent enemies who can form/react to tactics. Getting to deflect the 2-3 important/powerful attacks each combat on the other hand implies the opposite.

Your DM plays your enemies just smart enough to make your ability useful. Which actually makes him a good DM who keeps his players happy. It doesn't make your character optimal or your tactics good.


And what the heck are these "numerous caveats about usage"? Am I the only one here that plays Dungeons and Dragons? The only caveat is you have be standing next to your ally when an enemy swings at him.

Lol, I'm in tears imagining what kind of games you guys are playing.

Standing shoulder to shoulder with your teammates is generally a bad idea in 5e DnD for many reasons. It makes you more vulnerable to AOE and restricts how much area your frontliners can lock down, leaving the squishy characters more exposed. There is generally no reason to do so, a 5ft-10ft spacing gap is generally better.

[DivisibleByZero]

You give Defender 3 stars because you claim that +1 AC is awesome, and yet you give Mariner 1 star, even though it offers +1 AC as well as swimming and climbing speeds?
You do realize that for any character who doesn't wear heavy armor or use a shield, Mariner is strictly better than Defender, don't you?

[Deadandamnation]

You give Defender 3 stars because you claim that +1 AC is awesome, and yet you give Mariner 1 star, even though it offers +1 AC as well as swimming and climbing speeds?
You do realize that for any character who doesn't wear heavy armor or use a shield, Mariner is strictly better than Defender, don't you?

Sry, and thanks to pointig that out, I was totally wrong.

First of all I misread the feature and I was convinced that it says "When you don't wear any armor nor wielding a Shield".

It bump up to 3 stars. That's why:

It can be used in conjunction with Defense for a cumulative +2. (For example Ranger/Fighter)

It gives you the climbing and swimming normal speed that's nice.

If you are not inclined to wear a Shield and are a Dex based fighter assuming a 20 Dex you are probably TWF or Ranged:

Mage Armor: 13+5+1 (19 AC)
Light Armor: 12+5+1 (18 AC) can get Defense too for 19

With Dual Wielder it becomes 20 at max.

If you are a Monk with Fighter or Ranger levels assuming 20 Dex and Wisdom:

Mage Armor: 13+10+1 (24 AC)
Naked: 10+10+1 (21 AC)

If you are a non Dex based fighter with 14 Dex using a Two Hand Weapon:

Medium Armor: 14+2+1 (17 if you want to stealth too) 18 if you don't, 19 if you got Defense and Mariner.

A full plate with defense need 15 Str and get 19 with no Dex requirements.

In the end it is good and better than defense for some builds.

[TekDragon]

Your DM/your enemies apparently haven't realized your 3 man melee squad standing in a line are in the perfect position for AoE spells, nor do they have any movement/formation disruption abilities.

Not every encounter is supposed to have a mage, and for those that do - that's why there's counter-spell. Not that the mage gets to survive long when there's a rogue and warlock nuking him.


Your DM/your enemies haven't learned to bait your single reaction per turn.

The DM doesn't decide when I use my reaction. I do. I'm not going to use Protection on a 1d8+5 hit when I know there's a potential massive hit coming up.


Your DM/your enemies have apparnetly mastered "don't go for the guy on the frontline with the highest ac" but not "if the guys on the frontline keep bunching up, just rush the squishies in the back

If the enemy wants to try to disengage from melee, they're more than welcome. That's either a disengage action (hooray, no damage), or 3 opportunity attacks.

And if one or two enemies get by our front line, it's no big deal. Our Warlock simply blasts them back to us and, if need be, our monk can water whip one back into the melee pit.

It's just good tactics, mate. When you get more experience you'll understand how useful it is to turn one big hit per round into a miss.

[Deadandamnation]

Not every encounter is supposed to have a mage, and for those that do - that's why there's counter-spell. Not that the mage gets to survive long when there's a rogue and warlock nuking him.



The DM doesn't decide when I use my reaction. I do. I'm not going to use Protection on a 1d8+5 hit when I know there's a potential massive hit coming up.



If the enemy wants to try to disengage from melee, they're more than welcome. That's either a disengage action (hooray, no damage), or 3 opportunity attacks.

And if one or two enemies get by our front line, it's no big deal. Our Warlock simply blasts them back to us and, if need be, our monk can water whip one back into the melee pit.

It's just good tactics, mate. When you get more experience you'll understand how useful it is to turn one big hit per round into a miss.

Just to be curious, how many party members? From what you have said you got at least:
Fighter, Paladin, Barbarian, Monk, Rogue, Warlock

So your DM always put you 6 vs 1? Pretty difficult...fortunately that they got a Protection Fighter to save them.

[djreynolds]

Granted protection isn't guaranteed, it failed tonight is our game. But the shield spell and defensive duelist fail as well, all three are just about equal in terms of defense,

about a 5,
+5 AC for shield spell,
+2 to +6 proficiency AC bonus for defensive duelist
and protection's disadvantage is said to be like a -5, but only protection can be given away, and that is big.

Now, don't get me wrong. I like the duelist/defensive styles together but these are for heavy armored champions or paladin multiclasses that are there to anchor the line. And the standard party rogue/fighter/cleric/wizard, yeah I could see making a champion with duelist and defensive styles.

Like I said, very creative post. But it must include party lay out. A barbarian needs a complement to his rage, either some to protect him when his enemies now have advantage to hit him, or someone to take big swings if he is wolf totem and is giving advantage to his team mates, GWS makes more sense.

All the styles are good, a paladin gets plenty of damage off his smites to afford either some extra AC from defensive style or use the protection style to possibly stave off a big hit. But he can augment himself with spells, so maybe GWS is better.

[MaxWilson]

I just got my but whooped by an hobgoblin captain, one hit, crit 33 damage on a 4th level rogue. It would have been nice if the fighter next to me had the protection style. But instead, he made an attack with 2 points of extra damage.

Hobgoblin captains have two attacks, and you have to spend your reaction before you see which attack hit (or critted), so even if you were only fighting a single hobgoblin captain, Protection would have only limited use. Against two hobgoblins and a hobgoblin captain it would be nearly useless.

[Steampunkette]

Mariner is, clearly, the single best fighting style for ANYONE to take.

Even Archers.

Your rating system is invalid.

[MaxWilson]

Not every encounter is supposed to have a mage, and for those that do - that's why there's counter-spell. Not that the mage gets to survive long when there's a rogue and warlock nuking him.

I just want to point out that Counterspell has a range of only 60', and Fireball has a range of 150'. And the enemy can move before he casts his spell, so Counterspell is only going to be even available if the enemy is within 35' of the PCs' back line at the start of his turn (so probably 20' from the PCs' front line, which is practically within knife-fighting range). Otherwise he'll just back up 30' and Fireball you.

Besides, he can Counterspell your Counterspell.

I really wouldn't count on Counterspell as a hard counter. At best it's a soft counter.

[TekDragon]

Just to be curious, how many party members? From what you have said you got at least:
Fighter, Paladin, Barbarian, Monk, Rogue, Warlock

So your DM always put you 6 vs 1? Pretty difficult...fortunately that they got a Protection Fighter to save them.

You seem to be confused about mechanics. There is nothing that prevents Protection from being used when there's multiple enemies. When an enemy hits an ally within 5 feet of you, you can choose to use your reaction to make him re-roll. That's it.

You might want to check your Player's Handbook if you're confused. You can find one on Amazon if you don't have one.


I just want to point out that Counterspell has a range of only 60', and Fireball has a range of 150'. And the enemy can move before he casts his spell, so Counterspell is only going to be even available if the enemy is within 35' of the PCs' back line at the start of his turn (so probably 20' from the PCs' front line, which is practically within knife-fighting range). Otherwise he'll just back up 30' and Fireball you.

Besides, he can Counterspell your Counterspell.

I really wouldn't count on Counterspell as a hard counter. At best it's a soft counter.

True, but that's why it's so fun being a Paladin. Not only do I get a high probability of nullifying an attack each round while knocking an enemy on his butt, but I also give my allies +3 to saving throws with my aura (plus an additional 1d4 if I got off a bless), plus resistance to spell damage for my front-line brother (monk) and sister (barbarian).

That's why Sword n Board is so useful for a pally. If I had taken +1 AC it'd come in handy maybe once every other encounter. Instead, I'm using Protection almost every single round, using Shield Slam almost every single round, and those who choose to stay near me to take advantage of those abilities are also getting the benefit of my awesome auras.

[MaxWilson]

I know this has been pointed out several times in this thread already, but there's apparently still a lot of people who are unwittingly breaking the rules on Protection, so...


You seem to be confused about mechanics. There is nothing that prevents Protection from being used when there's multiple enemies. When an enemy hits an ally within 5 feet of you, you can choose to use your reaction to make him re-roll. That's it.

You might want to check your Player's Handbook if you're confused. You can find one on Amazon if you don't have one.

If this were true and Protection triggered only on a hit, Protection would be far better than it is by RAW. Quoting from my Player's Handbook:


Protection

When a creature you can see attacks a target other than you that is within 5 feet of you, you can use your reaction to impose disadvantage on the attack roll. You must be wielding a shield.

Emphasis added. Contrast with abilities such as Defensive Duelist which trigger only on a hit. If you're letting PCs save Protection for hits, and then post-hoc allowing them to impose disadvantage on those hits, you're making Protection about 5x better than it is by RAW. If Protection had been written that way I would actually consider taking it for some characters. By RAW it is pretty worthless.

[djreynolds]

Hobgoblin captains have two attacks, and you have to spend your reaction before you see which attack hit (or critted), so even if you were only fighting a single hobgoblin captain, Protection would have only limited use. Against two hobgoblins and a hobgoblin captain it would be nearly useless.

The captain only needed the one attack. I got splattered, still alive, pride squashed.

But though limited, protection, or a shield spell, can save your bacon. Duelist, is just +2 damage. Yes it is static damage, but it never increases.

If you look at a party as a collection of hit points versus hit points, that +2 would take 16 hits to negate the 33 points of damage the rogue sustained. And now you also have minus out the rogue's damage output.

Obviously the fault was my rogue's, and me. But once I was out of the fight, the fighter couldn't increase his AC or increase his damage output. He was stuck in a mid gear, which is fine if he has other options for damage.

But that duelist style just doesn't give enough for me to be worth it long term. Its really sentinel or shield master that makes the PC shine, but not the +2 damage.

Humbly IMO, defense or archery or GWS.

Defense coupled with a shield means cracking your AC and getting at your hit points is tougher.

Archery means you can land more hits, and landing sharpshooter is easier.

GWS, clearly does at least the same damage than a 1d8 possibly +7 is 15 versus 1d10 +5 or 15. But two-handed leads to GWM.

Duelist, is stuck with +2 to +8 damage a round, depending on number of attacks and that's it. It doesn't grow. Defense doesn't require a shield, or one-handed weapon and it works with any PC. Duelist seems stuck, and as before, its the feats doing the damage.

Protection like duelist, means you are stuck with S&B and you need the fighter feats or paladin smite to make the damage. But protection could possibly stop a critical hit, which could be 40-50 points of damage depending on the adversary. Duelist would need 20-25 hits to make up that damage done to the party.

[MaxWilson]

The captain only needed the one attack. I got splattered, still alive, pride squashed.

I'm with you on the relative unimportant of Dueling style (I'm a Defense fan myself). But even if you had Protection, against two hobgoblins and a Captain you'd have only a 25% chance of using your Protection on the "right" attack, the one that was going to crit otherwise. That's one of the factors that makes it near-worthless. There are others, like the fact that there is always a target available (you) who is guaranteed not to be protected, and the fact that advantage is binary so Protection doing literally nothing in heavy obscurement like Darkness.

Concrete example: let's say there's a sword-and-shield 5th level fighter with plate armor and shield, fighting alongside another identical fighter in a shield wall. (This is the best possible case for Protection style.) They're fighting back-to-back against five Hobgoblins (Medium difficulty). Let's say the hobgoblins have decided that pushing prone and grappling are off the table (they know these fighters are very athletic).

Protection style: fighters have AC 20, impose disadvantage on one attack per round (because the Hobgoblins can all gang up on one fighter). That's four attacks at +3 and one at +3/disadv, all for d8+1+2d6 damage. They hit on a 17 or better, so expected damage taken per round (including crits) is 12.30 per round from the normal attacks plus 0.53 from the Protected attack, or 12.83 total.

Defense style: fighters have AC 21. That's four attacks at +3 and one at +3/disadv, all for d8+1+2d6 damage. They hit on a 18 or better, so expected damage taken per round (including crits) is 12.25 per round.

Neither style: Five attacks hitting on 17 or better is 15.38 damage per round.

In this case, Protection costs you your reaction in order to negate almost as much damage as Defense style, under near-ideal conditions (two identical fighters both with Protection). In an even more-ideal scenario, such as against an Iron Golem, Protection is marginally better than Defense because you can Protect against half of its attacks. Imposing disadvantage on one of an Iron Golem's attacks (2x +13 for 3d8+7) reduces the damage it would do to these fighters from 30.08 to 25.10, whereas Defense only reduces it to 28.

[georgie_leech]

I'm with you on the relative unimportant of Dueling style (I'm a Defense fan myself). But even if you had Protection, against two hobgoblins and a Captain you'd have only a 25% chance of using your Protection on the "right" attack, the one that was going to crit otherwise. That's one of the factors that makes it near-worthless. There are others, like the fact that there is always a target available (you) who is guaranteed not to be protected, and the fact that advantage is binary so Protection doing literally nothing in heavy obscurement like Darkness.

Isn't one of the common complaints about "tanks" in D&D lacking ways to incentivise targeting them? Frankly, I'd argue that if it influences enemies like that, an attack against the heavily armoured Fighter or Paladin over the much squishier Rogue or other skirmisher is a net gain for the ability

[Foxhound438]

I'm saying that Great Weapon Fighting is worse than Defender.



GWS applies to any damage dice for an attack to include...

Hex
Divine smite
Crusader's mantle
Magic weapon bonuses (such as Hazerawn from Hoard of the dragon queen)
Combat inspiration
Divine strike
Combat maneuvers
Colossus Slayer (requires multiclass to get GWS but it's a 3 level dip and you get a second backup style)
SCAG cantrips

because all of that is "added to the attack's damage" and GWS allows rerolls on any damage dice for attacks made with a melee attack.

... the top end for GWS is a lot higher than dueling...

[djreynolds]

But with either duelist or protection, you are basically stuck with a shield. And the sentinel feat is useful with any class and maybe more of an "incentive" to not beat up the fighter's buddies. As is defensive style good for any PC.

Nothing is wrong with either style, but you are stuck with a shield and IMO, protection at higher levels can save even more party hit points while duelist is stuck at the most 8 points of damage for a 20th level fighter, and maybe at the extreme 32 points with 2 action surges.

Protection only requires a reaction, it may stop a crit, so just for that it is valuable.

So for S&B defense is gold (only because you have no competition with sentinel) , protection silver (because you must decide to maybe save your buddy or punch his enemy), duelist is bronze lets say.

But for my rogue

common sense is gold
5th level, if I live that long, uncanny dodge silver
protection style for fighter, bronze.... or priceless

When I play a fighter, I'm very serious and sensible. But as a rogue, all I care about is that sneak attack landing, I cannot see them ever giving me a proficiency with wisdom saves with the way I play him. Thankfully, I won't live that long. That sneak attack damage is like a drug

[MaxWilson]

Isn't one of the common complaints about "tanks" in D&D lacking ways to incentivise targeting them? Frankly, I'd argue that if it influences enemies like that, an attack against the heavily armoured Fighter or Paladin over the much squishier Rogue or other skirmisher is a net gain for the ability

It might be common, but it isn't one of my complaints. The goal of a tank is not to get enemies to attack him; it is to prevent them from effectively attacking anyone else. Big distinction. An excellent way for fighter-type to tank is to Hex an enemy's Strength, grapple him, and then use his Extra Attack to knock the enemy prone. Tada! Enemy now cannot engage the squishies, and he has disadvantage to attack you, and you can beat on him with your other hand (which could be holding a shield or a weapon) at advantage, plus an extra d6 per hit from Hex.

Instead of spending your reaction every round imposing disadvantage on one attack, and hoping that he'll attack you instead of simply walking away and attacking someone else (you won't even get an opportunity attack because you spent your reaction)--instead of that, you are giving him disadvantage on all attacks and physically preventing him from walking away. He can spend his action to get free, but if he does so he loses at least a round's worth of actions and half a round's worth of movement (standing up) and you can always re-grapple him, and meanwhile everyone else gets to ignore that enemy. I can't think of a scenario offhand where Protection would be useful but where grapple/prone (if feasible) wouldn't be better. And by the way, grapple/prone synergizes with Defense style because when you impose disadvantage, every +1 AC counts for more.

[djreynolds]

I might suggest, a dip of rogue for expertise in athletics coupled with shield master may be easier to obtain.
But hex is sweet. I never looked at it.

For me a barbarian is tank/controller, you just want to hit him. I mean who wears nothing in combat.
A paladin is tank/striker, her spells and smites are awesome
A fighter, humbly, is a tank/enabler/disabler. He is setting the table with 7 feats worth of awesome.

So hex would be a great addition to a fighter. Excellent Idea

[Waazraath]

GWS applies to any damage dice for an attack to include...

Hex
Divine smite
Crusader's mantle
Magic weapon bonuses (such as Hazerawn from Hoard of the dragon queen)
Combat inspiration
Divine strike
Combat maneuvers
Colossus Slayer (requires multiclass to get GWS but it's a 3 level dip and you get a second backup style)
SCAG cantrips

because all of that is "added to the attack's damage" and GWS allows rerolls on any damage dice for attacks made with a melee attack.

... the top end for GWS is a lot higher than dueling...

This is an interpretation, not fact. Look at the PHB where there are two instances where damage dice can be rerolled, the critical hit and great weapon fighting. The critical hit explicitly mentions that also dice can be rerolled from sources like sneak attack. Great weapon fighting doesn't. This at least implied that it isn't RAI, and since it's not stated explicetly, it's neither RAW. Doesn't break the game to allow it, but I wouldn't state it with the certainty you do.

[Deadandamnation]

Opinions can be various, if you find protection the way to go do so, maybe your companions will thanks you too for using that style of play.

Anyway I wanna point out a simple thing:

A Paladin that is the Bless giver of the party, that Shove a target any turn, that Protect them with Protection, that even give them Auras and still can Smite for a good damage output IS the main target of enemies no matter what.
Clever enemies have only 2 options: spread them out or Kill the pally.
Stupid enemies have only one: Kill the Paladin at any cost.

So you are gonna be the target of every single hit, your protection will be usless and you will make many concentration saves. Probably your companions will save you, thanks them you demoted you from a support to a man to be supported.

In the end is probably better to take Defense and let the fighter take protection imho.

[Deadandamnation]

You seem to be confused about mechanics. There is nothing that prevents Protection from being used when there's multiple enemies. When an enemy hits an ally within 5 feet of you, you can choose to use your reaction to make him re-roll. That's it.

You might want to check your Player's Handbook if you're confused. You can find one on Amazon if you don't have one.



True, but that's why it's so fun being a Paladin. Not only do I get a high probability of nullifying an attack each round while knocking an enemy on his butt, but I also give my allies +3 to saving throws with my aura (plus an additional 1d4 if I got off a bless), plus resistance to spell damage for my front-line brother (monk) and sister (barbarian).

That's why Sword n Board is so useful for a pally. If I had taken +1 AC it'd come in handy maybe once every other encounter. Instead, I'm using Protection almost every single round, using Shield Slam almost every single round, and those who choose to stay near me to take advantage of those abilities are also getting the benefit of my awesome auras.

Sorry mate but you are wrong:

You are not able to do so, the enemy declare an attack (only a damaging one) against one of your buddies and you react before the roll were made.

I advise you too on buying the handbook :)

[TekDragon]

This is an interpretation, not fact. Look at the PHB where there are two instances where damage dice can be rerolled, the critical hit and great weapon fighting. The critical hit explicitly mentions that also dice can be rerolled from sources like sneak attack. Great weapon fighting doesn't. This at least implied that it isn't RAI, and since it's not stated explicetly, it's neither RAW. Doesn't break the game to allow it, but I wouldn't state it with the certainty you do.

I don't know if that's strong enough to make an argument with.

The language for GWF says "When you roll a 1 or 2 on a damage die for an attack you make with a melee weapon..."

The damage dice applicable are any made during that attack, hence the "for an attack". The "melee weapon" sets the conditions for which attacks are eligible (has to be a melee attack with a two-handed or versatile weapon held in both hands).


GWS applies to any damage dice for an attack to include...

SCAG cantrips

This is where my line gets blurry. I'm inclined to believe that the re-rolls should only apply to the initial damage to the first target, and would not apply to the second target (in the case of GFB) or when the target moves (BB).


But with either duelist or protection, you are basically stuck with a shield. And the sentinel feat is useful with any class and maybe more of an "incentive" to not beat up the fighter's buddies. As is defensive style good for any PC.

Sentinel is an ok feat. Paired with Polearm Mastery it's a great feat.

Shield Master, by itself, is a great feat for a Paladin or Fighter who doesn't have stringent requirements on their bonus actions. Granting other melee allies advantage on every attack they make is absolutely massive.


Sorry mate but you are wrong:

You are not able to do so, the enemy declare an attack (only a damaging one) against one of your buddies and you react before the roll were made.

I advise you too on buying the handbook :)

Correct, I should have worded that better.

However, I was responding to your assertion that Protection somehow only works in a 6 on 1 encounter, as if the ability somehow stops functioning or the player loses the ability to choose when to use their reaction when more than one enemy is in range.

[Deadandamnation]

Correct, I should have worded that better.

However, I was responding to your assertion that Protection somehow only works in a 6 on 1 encounter, as if the ability somehow stops functioning or the player loses the ability to choose when to use their reaction when more than one enemy is in range.

I should have too.

What I was trying to point out was that a group of 6 need to face more threats than a group of 4 to balance the encounter.

So you are probably gonna face up 10/12 enemies even more sometimes and you are devolving 50% of the party members to stop 1 or 3 of them depending on how the DM decide to split them.

If instead they are 2 or 3 big fat guys, you again shouldn't be able to lock them with your line of 3 fighters.

Moreso if you are going to face that alone Big Fat Guy he is gonna be HUGE and help me say HUGE that probably can Whirlwind Attack your 3 line Fighters maybe twice each round, it's impossible to move/shove or grapple and don't care if you are the Tank, he is gonna hit you first with his abnormous giant foot sending you on the other room side.

Your party is gonna win anyway, D&D is a game that let players simply win, even if they all die they win since is the fiction that make it real.

So I'll admit that Protection gives you a nice fictioning move, estetically it's really awesome: "Do you remember when I blocked that Axe with my Shield bro?" And it implies more satisfaction for the player...

But from a rating point of view? (Rating is based on utility) It's still bad...

[Foxhound438]

This is where my line gets blurry. I'm inclined to believe that the re-rolls should only apply to the initial damage to the first target, and would not apply to the second target (in the case of GFB) or when the target moves (BB).



yes, i probably should have qualified that. the added damage to your attack is increased, but the secondary damage would not be an attack at all. ("when there is question as to if you're making an attack, the rule is simple; if you're making an attack roll, it's an attack.") the same is true with, for example, ice knife criticals (EE player's companion). the attack's damage (the d10 piercing) is rolled twice, but the following explosion of cold (determined by saving throw) is not.

[Deadandamnation]

yes, i probably should have qualified that. the added damage to your attack is increased, but the secondary damage would not be an attack at all. ("when there is question as to if you're making an attack, the rule is simple; if you're making an attack roll, it's an attack.") the same is true with, for example, ice knife criticals (EE player's companion). the attack's damage (the d10 piercing) is rolled twice, but the following explosion of cold (determined by saving throw) is not.

Criticals and GWF are not exactly the same, you can rule to apply GWF on any dice rolled in your attack action if you swing with a Great Weapon but that's more like an houserule to make it good.

You are good at slashing with your greatsword, so rerolling those 2d6 or 4d6 on a crit each attack.

Any other roll involved is coming from another power: for example smiting, are you than good at dealing more smiting damage too? They come from your divine power not from your combat prowess.

Hex: is a magic that say the target is like cursed and take additional damage when hitted, it's not coming from the edge of your sword or your ability to deliver them througth a Great Weapon.

[djreynolds]

I like options. Protection gives you an option, but as our Host says, it is not a guarantee which is very true. And duelist damage is guaranteed every time. But for me, for S&B, defense or protection.

But I like the scoring system, its a good idea because fighting styles are important, especially with the ability to multiclass. A bladesinger with a dip of EK should grab duelist, I mean he plenty defense and adding dex and int and +2 could be big damage when coupled with cantrips.

It is very good and intelligent thread. Defense is always a good option because it doesn't limit your weapon selection or feats. Sentinel works with any build. I would think polearm master is better off with defense over GWS.

[Foxhound438]

Criticals and GWF are not exactly the same, you can rule to apply GWF on any dice rolled in your attack action if you swing with a Great Weapon but that's more like an houserule to make it good.


from the phb, criticals:

"Roll all of the attack's damage dice twice and add them together. Then add any relevant modifiers as normal."

from the phb, great weapon fighting:

"When you roll a 1 or 2 on a damage die for an attack you make with a melee weapon that you are wielding in two hands, you can reroll the die and must use the new roll."

neither one of those qualifies that it only applies to weapon damage. both say any die for an attack. when something adds dice to an attack, it becomes one of the attack's damage dice. that's why critical hits reroll dice from outside the weapon damage, and it's also why GWS applies to them. GWSing smites, etc, is RAW. if you don't, that's a house rule. the clarification under critical hits is not specific to crits, it's part of an example.

[Osrogue]

I should have too.

What I was trying to point out was that a group of 6 need to face more threats than a group of 4 to balance the encounter.

So you are probably gonna face up 10/12 enemies even more sometimes and you are devolving 50% of the party members to stop 1 or 3 of them depending on how the DM decide to split them.

If instead they are 2 or 3 big fat guys, you again shouldn't be able to lock them with your line of 3 fighters.

Moreso if you are going to face that alone Big Fat Guy he is gonna be HUGE and help me say HUGE that probably can Whirlwind Attack your 3 line Fighters maybe twice each round, it's impossible to move/shove or grapple and don't care if you are the Tank, he is gonna hit you first with his abnormous giant foot sending you on the other room side.

Your party is gonna win anyway, D&D is a game that let players simply win, even if they all die they win since is the fiction that make it real.

So I'll admit that Protection gives you a nice fictioning move, estetically it's really awesome: "Do you remember when I blocked that Axe with my Shield bro?" And it implies more satisfaction for the player...

But from a rating point of view? (Rating is based on utility) It's still bad...

Care to give an example of a monster that has AoE melee attacks that hit twice a round and whose attacks deal knock back? Because I feel like it isn't a thing, and wouldn't really matter in regards to the utility of protection. The closest thing I can think of is the Balor, but that's a damaging aura and a grapple.

I'll also iterate: if you're the one getting thrown across the room instead of the bookworm, the healer, or the sneak, then congratulations, You've done your job as the tank. The tank is the one that should be able to take hits to the face like that.

That's really the end of my reply, but I prefer not double posting and I want to give my one cent regarding protection style while I'm here. It is a soft compelled duel that doesn't require concentration, and is slightly more useful.

It doesn't require concentration, it doesn't require a spell slot, instead requiring a shield and a reaction. It has a reduced range, and works on only one attack per turn, but still gives the disadvantage, and can be switched between targets if needed.

I don't really know what people think about compelled duel. It's not really discussed. I'm lukewarm towards it mostly because concentration can be spent on better things. I just thought it was worth pointing out.

Protection style and opportunity attacks only work on a single target per turn. this is important. If facing six hobgoblins and whatnot examples were used earlier, if all eleven decided to run past you, there is nothing you can do to stop ten of them.

This doesn't usually happen though, unless I'm mistaken. If I'm wrong and opportunity attacks aren't used to keep enemies from leaving your reach, and just damage them as they walk past, then let me know and ignore the rest of the post. Most enemies don't want to take an opportunity attack, even if it means all of their allies get to saunter over their corpse to beat the bookworm to death with sticks.

An actual opportunity attack can possibly stop a single enemy. The threat of an opportunity attack can keep several foes from piercing through the front line (probably not 11).

Why is this important? An opportunity attack can possible damage one enemy.

Protection can possible prevent one attack.

Protection style against an enemy opportunity attack is probably one of the best ways you can use it, trading your reaction for another character's action that no longer needs to be spent on disengage.

Opportunity attacks keep enemies from harming those outside of your reach.

Protection style keeps enemies from harming those within your reach.

Now, protection style won't prevent a whole lot of damage when it is actually used, but just like opportunity attacks, having the protection style available is what gives it usefulness. Individual enemies want their attacks to matter, since hitting is not garunteed, so when they know that aiming one of their two attacks at the healer will almost garuntee a whiff, the healer becomes a much less attractive target.

I won't say I think protection style is good. I just don't really agree with the arguments made against it so far.