Today's guide will be one of many in a series titled "Playing Your Best." This little series of guides will focus on a single game at a time and will cover various aspects to help you play the "best" character you can from whatever choices you can make.
We're beginning with Dungeons & Dragons because it is the single most popular tabletop rpg around right now, and the one with which I have the most experience.
One thing I want to discuss before we begin is min-maxing. Min-maxing is a technique used by many players, usually power gamers, in which you put your best attribute values into the attributes most "useful" to your character and then place your worst in the attributes you don't care about. While, sadly, this is a valid strategy, and most game systems don't penalyze you for doing so, it is frowned upon by some game masters and actor-type players. These guides aren't going to be guides for optimizing your character build per se, but instead, making smart decisions and how to work as a team to overcome challenges.
The Attributes
Because of the physical nature of fighters, they tend to care about the first three attributes (strength, dexterity, and constitution) more than their mental attributes. This makes them tempting to min-max, but before you put your 18 in strength, 15 in constitution, and dump your other stats, let's look at a few character options.
Ranged vs Melee
In the D&D game mechanics, it is a lot harder to dish out as much damage with ranged attacks as it is with melee attacks. Unfortunately, this is just part of the game mechanics. However, with a few smart decisions, you can build an effective archer.
Before you make your decision, let's look at some numbers. If you want to be a melee fighter, that means you're also going to be a melee target! Not only will you need a high strength for dishing it out, you'll want a high constitution for taking it. Let's face it, in D&D, no matter how high your armor class gets, you're still going to get hit by someone, so you still need those hit points. So, if you plan for melee, already you know you want high strength and constitution. You'll want a decent dexterity to help make it a bit harder for the weaker enemies to hit you so you don't have to worry so much about getting worn down before you reach the bigger threats. However, if you choose to play an archer, your primary attribute becomes dexterity, since it affects how accurate your ranged attacks are. Having a high dexterity means that you not only have a higher attack bonus, but a higher armor class bonus. So, you're killing two birds with one stone. You have your offense and defense in a single attribute. This also means you can wear lighter armor and still have the same armor class as a lower-dexterity fighter with heavier armor, so you save on gold. Also, attacking from range means that if you have melee fighters in your party, they're going to become melee targets before you do, so you can afford to have less hit points than they do as you will likely be taking less damage. So, you only need one high attribute. This means you can put your other good attributes in something like... wisdom maybe? You don't want to be the one keeping watch and failing that listen check, resulting in a party ambush situation. If your primary attribute covers your offense and defense, then you can use your other high attribute values to work on utility coverage. Go with a higher wisdom to help that spot and listen skill, or go with a higher intelligence to counteract the fighter's low base skill points. Maybe even go with charisma to be the spokesman of the party and perhaps boost that diplomacy skill when you need to negotiate or barter.
So, there are some advantages to ranged combat. Are there any other advantages? Well, yes. The other biggest advantage is subtle and you won't see it until later levels, but once you do, it can become your biggest advantage. Your arrows. Specifically, magic arrows. Let's take a look at this scenario:
You are fighting against a demon that's immune to fire. The other fighter in the party already has his flaming sword in hand. Your partner has to use one of his actions to put away his sword and draw another (assuming the quick draw feat, or combine a move and drawn weapon in a single action). This means, your partner can only make a single attack this round, and if he was within an opponent's threatened space, he provoked an attack of oportunity for drawing his weapon. You, however, have a bow with no elemental enhancement. Perhaps your bow is a simple +3 bow. You're carrying a bundle of +1 flaming arrows, which you've been using quite a good bit, but you also have a bundle of +1 frosted arrows. When the demon appears, all you have to do is nock your bow with the other type of arrow, which is a free action. You can still make a full-attack this round, and use a weapon that the demon isn't immune to.
What's the subtle relationship between magic bows and magic arrows? Magic ranged weapons grant their enhancements to any ammo they fire, however, the attack/damage bonus doesn't stack, you just use the better bonus. So, in the above example, with a single bow, you have access to a +3 flaming and a +3 frosted weapon, without ever changing weapons. Also, if you decide you need something else, you can spend the gold to purchase a +2 equivilant weapon (+1 enhancement bonus and other special ability with a +1 equivilant price) and you get 50 arrows of that type that you can fire from your +3 bow, effectively giving you another +4 weapon (+3 enhancement plus the +1 equivilant ability) that you can use 50 times for the price of a +2 weapon!
Are there any other advantages to being an archer? Yes. Let's say a human melee fighter wearing medium armor is standing 110ft away from you. You've both drawn your weapons. You have the higher initiative, so you get to go first. Let's assume your attack bonus and chosen feats let you make three attacks with a full-attack action. You shoot 3 times. Now, your opponent is too far away to charge. Medium armor only allows you to run at x3 speed instead of x4. So, he moves 90ft towards you. He still can't reach you! In the following round, you could make 3 more attacks. Your opponent charges. He gets a single attack as he charges. In round 3, you make a simple 5ft step backwards as a free action, and you can make 3 more attacks! Now, your opponent is close enough to do the same to you, but before he's unleashed a full-attack on you, you've already gotten in 9 shots total, while he's only attacked you once so far. Against an opponent in heavy armor, as many melee fighters will likely wear, his speed is reduced to 20ft base, so he runs even slower, so you're quite likely to land even more attacks before he attacks you even once.
How Can Melee Compete?
For the longest time, my players and I have incorrectly believed that dual-wielders are the best melee damage dealers. Well, after crunching some numbers, we've realized that we were pretty far off. Assuming the proper feats, a single one-handed weapon and a light weapon, your penalty is reduced to as little as -2. One of the most popular one-handed weapons is the longsword. So, we'll use that for this example. We'll assume a short sword for the off-hand weapon. What you have here is a -2 penalty to all of your attacks for a base of 1d8 damage with your primary weapon and 1d6 damage with your secondary. The benefit to this is the one extra attack you get, which is your secondary weapon. So, if you are level 1-5, you get 2 attacks, one primary, one secondary. Let's assume a 5th level fighter with a strength score of 15, about average. This equates to a base attack of +5, strength bonus of +2, then two-handed penalty of -2, for a total of +5 attack bonus. Your primary weapon will deal 1d8+2 damage and your secondary 1d6+1. The average damage rolls are 6.5 and 4.5 (the average for any single die is the average of its highest and lowest values, so 4.5 and 3.5 in this example, modified by the +2 and +1 damage bonus. The secondary gets only +1 damage because your off-hand gets only half your strength bonus to damage). So, you are sacrificing 10% (-2 penalty) to your accuracy for the chance to deal an extra 4.5 damage on average.
What would happen if this same fighter used a two-handed weapon and used power attack instead of two-handed fighting? Let's assume a greatsword to keep a sword in each example. A greatsword deals 2d6 damage. Because you wield it with two hands, you get to add 150% of your strength bonus to damage instead of the normal strength bonus. So, your damage is 2d6+3. Let's assume you use the power attack feat for the same attack penalty that you would have had with two-weapon fighting, so -2. The power attack feat lets you add double your penalty to damage if you use a two-handed weapon. So, you take a 10% accuracy penalty for a +4 damage bonus. You are getting only a single attack, but your total damage 2d6+7, or an average of 14 (7 is the average for 2d6 +7 for the damage bonus). Both fighters have the same +5 attack bonus. The first fighter, if he hits with his first attack, deals 6.5 damage on average, then if he hits with the second, deals 4.5. The second fighter, if he hits, deals 14 damage. This results in an average of 3 more points of damage per hit than the first fighter. Of course, you may argue that fighter 1 has two attacks, so he has two chances of hitting. Well, yes, he does. However, even if both attacks hit, he's dealing less damage overall. Let's take this scenario:
The enemy has an armor class of 16. Now, both fighters need to roll an 11 or higher to hit the opponent. This means that 50% of the time they will hit.
So, in round 1, Fighter A gets 2 attacks, one hits, for 6 damage, the other missed. Fighter B gets 1 attack, it hits, 14 damage.
In round 2, Fighter A gets 2 attacks. He gets lucky and both hit for 11 damage. Fighter B attacks, misses, no damage.
In round 3, Fighter A misses with both attacks!. Fighter B attacks, hits and deals 14 damage again.
In round 4, Fighter A attacks, his first missed, his second hits for 5 damage. Fighter B misses again.
Ok, after 4 rounds, Fighter A has dealt a total of 22 damage, Fighter B, 28 damage.
The above scenario uses a lot of average rolls. Obviously, some oddities will occur, but over many rolls over the course of the entire campaign, the averages eventually work themselves out. You will notice, I allowed each attack to hit exactly twice in this example. Fighter A's longsword landed 2 hits, the shortsword landed 2. I rounded damage down in the first hit, then rounded up with the second hit.
Also, keep in mind that since Fighter B rolls 2 dice, his damage will be more consistent than Fighter A, which isn't shown in the example. It's a fact of probabilities that when you roll a single die, each value has an equal chance of coming up, but when you roll 2d6 your chances of rolling a 7 is a little more than 16%, your chances of rolling a 6 or 8 is 14%, a 5 or 9 is a little more than 11%. So, the chances of rolling between 5 and 9 is ~41% not quite half, but as you can see, you have a much better chance of rolling decent damage, while the single-die roller has equal chance of rolling awesome, decent, or sucky damage. This brings me to my next point...
Which Weapon?
Obviously, from the above example, you will want a two-handed weapon, but which one? Well, the greataxe is a popular choice, but it deals 1d12 damage. The greatsword is an all-round great weapon with 2d6 damage, and is also the only 2-handed martial weapon to roll 2d6 damage. Now, there are a lot of nice options in the 2-handed department, some of them with reach, some with other fun little perks, but let's concentrate on these two for right now. The greataxe is 1d12 damage with an x3 critical, while the greatsword is 2d6 with a 19-20/x2 critical. What does all this mean? Well, when you crunch the numbers, the greataxe has a little more than 8% chance of rolling any single value. This means a 33% chance of rolling 1-4, and a 25% chance of rolling higher than 9.
d12 vs 2d6
Chance of rolling higher than 9
d12: 25%
2d6: 16%
Chance of rolling less than 5
d12: 33%
2d6: 16%
Chance of rolling 5-9
d12: 40%
2d6: ~41%
What can we tell from these numbers? The d12 and the 2d6 both have a good chance of dealing average damage, but the d12 has a better chance of dealing greater damage, but it also has a much greater chance of dealing low damage.
Let's look at the criticals. The greataxe has an x3 critical. The greatsword a 19-20. This means that 5% of your attacks with the axe have a chance of dealing triple damage, while 10% of your attacks with the sword have a chance of dealing double.
What does this mean? Well, overall, it means the sword will score criticals about twice as often as the axe, if wielded by the same fighter. So, assuming average damage, a strength bonus of +2, and a power attack of -2/+4, here's the breakdown:
Axe deals 6.5+7 for 13.5x3 total damage, or 40.5 after a single critical
Sword deals 7+7 for 14x2 total damage, or 28 after a single critical
You'll notice the average damages aren't quite equal. Why? As explained above, the average roll is equal to the average of the high and low values, or 1 and 12 for the d12, while the 2d6 has values of 2 and 12, for a slightly higher average.
Ok, the axe seems to win on criticals... until you remember that the sword will score criticals roughly twice as often as the axe. What does this mean, numbers wise? Well, it means that assuming both weapons score the same number of hits, both will deal the same critical damage over time. Want an explanation?
Axe crits for x3, then doesn't crit for x1. Total damage dealt: average x4
Sword crits for x2, then crits for x2. Total damage dealt: average x4
Now, while you won't actually score criticals that quickly... at least you shouldn't, what this really means that given X attack rolls, the Axe will score criticals X/20 times, while the sword crits X/10 times. So, every crit of the axe is x3 damage, every crit of the sword is x2. Since the sword crits twice as often, you could just as easily work this out in the equation as saying X/10 = 2. Or X/20 = 4. So, when you assume two criticals from the sword are equal to a single critical at x4, this means that in two attacks, the sword did x4 damage, while in the same number of attacks, the axe did x3 with one attack, and normal damage, or x1, with the other attack, so in two attacks, a total of x4!
This means that for the purpose of comparing damage directly, going strictly by averages, you can ignore their criticals and compare average damage, in which case, the sword wins by a slight margin. However, the more total attacks made will increase this margin more and more. As seen in the above example, the sword's average damage was 14, while the axe was 13.5. So, let's say after 10 attacks, the sword is averaging 140 damage, the axe 135. Now, that .5 is starting to make a difference.
Ok, but let's look at it in real terms. How many enemies take 140 damage to kill? Enemies of 10th level and up maybe? Dragons? Demons? By the time you face enemies with that many hit points, you should have access to magic weapons, which we haven't factored into the equations. So, while the equations and averages may be true, let's face it, at low levels, when you are relying purely on your damage rolls and no magical enhancements, your enemies can't really take that much damage. So, let's assume 5 enemies with 20 hit points each. Which fighter defeats them quicker? Well, neither. The sword hits for 14, then again hits for 14, enemy can only take 20, so the other 8 is a waste. How many GMs really care if their NPC is reduced to -8 or -7? They're still defeated. The axe fighter similarly deals 13 then 14, again, 7 damage is wasted. In both scenarios, both fighters deal at least 10 damage per hit. Wait! The axe has just as good of a chance of dealing less than 10!
Ok, look at this:
Chance of rolling 1 or 2 (damage needed with a +3 damage from strength and +4 from power attack to deal less than 10 damage)
d12: 16%
2d6: 3% (actually more like 2.76% or something close)
Also, keep in mind that the sword can't actually deal less than 2 damage! So, all you need is +1 more damage from anything, and suddenly your minimum damage is 10.
Alright, so the axe will roll less than 10 damage 16% of the time. However, we already established that on average, both weapons will need 2 hits anyway, and we also established there was 7 damage leftover from the axe's second attack. So, even if you did 8 damage (minimum of the axe in the above example), you only need to roll a 5 or better on your second damage roll (66% chance) to finish off the opponent.
So, what does this prove? Basically, at lower levels, before magic weapons get involved, the sword wins out against the axe only against opponents who can suvive multiple hits (major villains), and wins out when you want to consitently one-hit enemies that require damage rolls of 5 or higher to one-hit (total of 81-82% chance of rolling 5 or more on 2d6). Otherwise, you'll do just as well with the axe, and maybe better at times since the one critical from the axe may be enough to drop weaker opponents, but you will require a critical plus a second hit with the sword to drop that same opponent.
Now, there are a lot of other variables we could look at, and a lot of other situations, examples, and math we could work through, but that's more about the axe vs the sword, and this guide has already delved enough into that realm. This guide is supposed to be about the fighter himself, so let's take a look at one more option with the fighter.
Shield?
We've discussed being an archer, two-weapons, and the 2-handed weapon, but what about a 1-hand weapon and a shield? This is also a feasible option, but I have seen fewer good feat choices for shield uses. Improved shield bash comes to mind, but that's really the only one. Using a shield is basically sacrificing your off-hand weapon or your chance to use a 2-handed weapon for a little extra armor class, usually +2. Is it worth it? Probably not. One of the best single-handed weapons is the longsword for d8 damage. 4.5 average before any modifiers. A full 2.5 points lower than the greatsword. What do you get? An extra 2 points of armor class? That reduces opponents' accuracy by a total of 10%.
Now, while the shield doesn't look all that favorable yet, let's also consider that there are still a number of good feat choices for your offense, and you can use a one-handed weapon just fine, and eventually you can get a magic shield which can have some fun abilities, so don't discount the shield option just yet.
The Best Fighter?
Now, numbers-wise, the power attacking fighter, and the archer have the advantage, but let's consider some other situations. Is the archer equal to the power attacker while in a dungeon full of narrow cooridors and cramped rooms? Is the power attacker equal when fighting a flying enemy?
What point am I trying to make here? Well, I've crunched some numbers for you, and while it looks like I might be trying to encourage the min-max, I'm actually just trying to show you some choices you can make to make your character more efficient so you don't have to max out certain attributes because you think that's what a fighter is supposed to be. Also, my last point that I'd like to make is that while specializing looks very appealing, when you do that you become a specialist. You become really great at doing things a certain way, but what happens when you can't apply your strength? Let me give you one more example:
In a recent campaign, I had two players playing barbarians. One was a straight barbarian build using a greataxe with power attack, the other took 2 levels of fighter for the bonus feats and barbarian the rest of the way. He also used a greataxe and power attack. Neither character bothered to purchase a ranged weapon with their starting money. All of their feat choices revolved around melee combat. These two could dispatch minions like crazy, but what happened everytime we reached the end of the adventure and faced the big bad guy (boss) who could fly? Suddenly, our biggest power houses were reduced to level 1 efficiency! Guys who were used to hitting for d12 damage had nothing! Even after several adventures, gaining several levels, they were hitting for d12+9 damage, and still hadn't purchased a ranged weapon even after facing at least 3 big baddies that were unreachable with melee attacks. Finally, they bought javelins and throwing axes. From then on, these giants in melee were reduced from d12+9 damage to a measely d6+3 or maybe d6+4 damage when facing a ranged opponent.
Moral of the story: When you focus entirely on a single aspect of your character, you have no one to blame but yourself when your GM makes you face an opponent you have no answer to.
Which fighter should you build? That's up to you. I won't tell you how to make your character. If I did, it wouldn't be your character. You make your fighter however you want. All I've done is provide some information about the effectiveness of different choices. Now, if you want to play a dual-wielding swashbuckler, or a sword and shield fighter, knowing that a greatsword or a longbow would be a more effective choice... then congratulations. You've graduated from power gamer to actor/roleplayer. As a gamemaster, I'd much rather see my players play a character because of the concept as opposed to which character type racks up the numbers faster.
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