"Bold talk for someone in Sword and Shield range."

"What's your point person within Sword and Shield range?"

I mean, it's really not bad. A basic +2 to AC plus and magic bonuses and 5E rewards high AC more so than other editions.

@@ericwhite1942 To be fair, the issue with Sword and Board isn't the Board, it's the Sword. Longsword does 1d8, which is a decent baseline, but there are weapons that get compatibility with better feats, particularly any sort of polearm. Quarterstaff actually reigns supreme here despite being a 1d4 damage baseline, due to compatibility with the Polearm Master feat (giving an extra attack, which effectively means 2d4 damage per turn which averages out better) AND compatibility with Shillelagh via Magical Adept (Druid) (bumps your quarterstaff damage to 1d8 and uses WIS for attack, which may not be ideal for a normal fighter build but if you intentionally build for it it means you can get away with dumping STR, something normally not viable for fighter outside of DEX builds. Plus using WIS rather than DEX or STR allows for multiclassing into WIS casters in the future). Combining both gives 2d8 using WIS to attack, which is around double that of a longsword. Of course, all of that only really matters if you're trying to optimize. If you don't play in that kind of environment then you can run whatever you want.

The title of this video is fightin' words.

Martial's have a single worthwhile thing! ...Battlemaster Fighter and Rune Knight and....Ummm....

Which video is that from?

@@merlannin2108 kzfaq.info/get/bejne/q5eilZycq6zGm3U.html

The only true martial that genuinely competes with casters when fully optimized and doesn't need multiclass IMO is Swashbuckler Rogue. Which is sad considering there are like 4 primarily true martial classes in 5e with a handful of Gishes that are the only other viable options really.... Swashbuckler being what I'd consider on a similar level in terms of Defense (Uncanny Dodge, Evasion, naturally high AC bc of DEX being its primary Ability Score), Utility (Expertise, Reliable Talent, Cunning Action, Panache) and Offense (Sneak Attack damage and Rakish Audacity for almost free sneak attack as a martial) to a caster with their robustly filled out action economy. Almost every other rogue archetype is usually either more optimal with feat investment into a crossbow or mixes both anyways with no real detriment in playstyle by going ranged or martial, tactically meaning that ranged is always the correct choice before martial. Swashbuckler can genuinely be a "front-liner" like people want without much risk due to disengage as a bonus action or for free after an attack with its Fancy Footwork feature. Flavor is free, pretend the character is a knight or swordsperson who so happens to strike in ways that catches an attacker off guard using their sword training. They could also have Expertise in physical skills like Athletics making use of it far better than a unmulticlassed STR martial could, even with a lower STR total due to optimized stat distribution. Someone could even use STR primarily instead with a scimitar/rapier if they really wanted to for flavor bc it works with sneak attack, and they could always wear plate with a variant human heavy armor master feat for more damage reduction and STR idk. Honorable Mention for Battlemaster, it's alright early but really falls off mid to late game with the dice only increasing by a small margin of d8 to d10 etc. instead of with the number of dice rolled. The utility of its maneuvers stays though and benefits from the extra charges it gets over levels. Honestly, could work adjacently to Metamagic as a secondary feature for Fighters using melee weapon attacks specifically, it would really help them keep up. Gishes are also a great option for makeshift viable martials, ranging from tertiary to half to full casters. Some are specific to martial combat like Paladin, but others like Sword Bard, Eldritch Knight, Arcane Trickster technically, etc. can also work too depending on flavor/playstyle.

Echo Knight is still very cool.

There are lots of fun and flavourful skills that require a shield, and IMO none of the martial builds are entirely bad in 5E, even if they don't do great dpr they have a role to play (and are often a really solid start for a multi-class that brings in the magic later). Pure martial could certainly use a buff in the later levels that almost nobody ever actually plays compared to spellcaster, but in the zone 5E tends to get played all a martial is in general is somewhat simpler to play well - less choices than a spellcaster but that is actually sometimes a good thing. Not every player wants a class with a million options that can change on every rest, especially for their first characters...

It's because shields are underpowered in rpgs compared to their historical benefits.

Yeah it'd be cool if they atleast gave shield a mastery property in one dnd.

@@bobbycrosby9765, Not really... it depends on the RPG.

@@nyanbrox5418 woooooah woah. Chill it's just an opinion.

Even if you used 3.5/pathfinder, you'll notice that the martial caster divide is bigger there than in 5e. The casters are gods and have a ton of options. If you cast create pit from pf1, that's a DC 25 to climb out of the pit, it's crazy strong and its a 2nd lvl spell, that's clearly better than any grapple build. If you summon many creatures and make them grapple enemies for you then that's clearly better than any grapple build. It makes sense why it would because its many grapples. If I used those systems then finding problems would be easier compared to 5e. 5e is better designed then those 2 games and my first system was pathfinder 1.

@@PackTactics 100% agree that 5e stands head and shoulders above those two systems. Just trying to point out that instead of being stuck in the Tank = Taunt mentality, we should focus on the other kinds of defensive actions that have existed across the editions. Sorry if this came off as edition warring.

@@PackTactics, Depends on the game system. PF1e is based on 3.5e. However, the caster martial divide has been removed in PF2e.

​@aralornwolf3140 it really is the most balanced. Casters loose DPS and world changing power for versatility which IMO is a fair trade

@@PackTactics I'd argue that the divide is significantly mitigated at low-to-mid levels by caster actually having a disadvantage state. Casters in PF1 may have better tools to swing a fight in the party's favour, but they have much worse tools for closing the fight out and a compromised caster has a much worse time in PF1 than they would in 5e. Moreover, full spell preparation means that much of a caster's power won't be on-hand at any given time and they have to be more cautious about rationing out resources. A full caster in PF1 can easily flip-flop between completely trivialising one encounter to being completely useless in the next. In this regard I find it more 'balanced' than 5e, though it is much more dependant on good encounter/adventure design (which the game isn't good at teaching) and making sure that the martials know what they're doing (because it's very easy to build a bad martial). There are times in Pathfinder where a martial will be the right choice for a given situation, I feel like in 5e a full caster is always the better choice. For a direct comparison between Create Pit and a grapple build, Create Pit is generally the stronger CC, however: - It's useless against an opponent who can fly, jump high or has extraordinary climbing ability. Grappling will be equally effective against any of these. - It's a 10ft. x 10ft. hole. Huge and larger creatures are unaffected. Grapple has no size limit, though it does become significantly harder against larger opponents. - It lasts a pretty short time and doesn't innately open up any fight-ending methods, it mostly serves as a divide-and-conquer tactic. Grapple can innately lead to tying up the target and there are a number of options to make grappling incredibly deadly (I forget the specifics, but I've seen a 1-turn coup de grace build that got there via grappling). - It alters the battlefield for the full duration. Many times this will be a positive, but shoving a hole in the battlefield can be really annoying. A grapple is less disruptive to other combatants and can be ended should it become a nuisance.

According to Mike Mearls (who is an idiot but also, uh, "designed" 5e), it's a quarterstaff that counts as a focus. That might sound really dumb, but that's only because it is really dumb.

@@renatocorvaro6924 Seems kinda harsh. What did he do? (Googles it) Oh, shit, nevermind. Carry on.

​@@renatocorvaro6924 that's strange because in the equipment section of the PHB focus staffs cost 5 GP and the quarterstaff costs only 2 SP. I can understand the extra utility only happening with the more expensive option but it feels weird to have that same utility for a lower price.

@@nessesaryschoolthing Bro you have no idea of the rabbithole this comment sent me down fr

I think he’s referring more to the proficiency rather than the actual object.

not to mention a vast majority of magic weapons in the books are either longswords or one handed/versatile. this is remedied with DMs who homebrew items, but the printed adventures are VERY stingy with actually giving out items.

Yeah. I think there are a couple of soft things about the game design that don't translate out directly. While the classes can be balanced in the absence of magical weapons, the game has always had a baseline assumption of magical items being distributed within the party and the tables heavily favor swords as the magical items of choice. By 20th level, the fighter probably has magical plate armor and a magical weapon. The party roles may be a myth mechanically in 5e, but there are rooted in the traditions of the game. I suspect that a lot of areas where 5e kind of falls down in this respect are areas where the design team wanted to improve the play experience for all the roles. Wizards having a d4 Hit Die and the old rule about cantrips not doing damage is dramatically different from today's game. If you really wanted to balance it out, the design choice to have cantrips be the primary attack for magic using classes should be changed. Either make damage the sole province of leveled spells or make them limited use.

Not to mention, Shield Master's Shove can be used to force something prone. It doesn't say you have to attack first. Just it has to be the same turn. So you could shove as a bonus action, and if they go prone, that's all attacks at advantage

@@kuroshinigami9143 My approach is that any weapon can suit an enchantment within reason. Flametongue longsword? Nope, now it's a flametongue halberd. Spinning wheels of fire boiiiiis.

You are wrong and that was addressed in an errata of that rule. You were intended to attack, THEN push after the attack roll. Anything else is a house rule.

I honestly feel that way for all the "equipment feats". You pick a weapon and there's a feat you have to take to use the weapon optimally, making them all auto-picks. Big weapon? GWM. Polearm? PAM. Bow? SS. Xbow? CE and SS. Two weapons? lol, no. Why?! There's just nothing interesting to it, why aren't all these things built into martials? Level 4 you pick your weapon feat, the end. The huge disparity only making the problem even worse.

Martial should get a lot more things at base to be honest

@@nswmeeuwes89 It should be tied as an affect of the weapon rather than a feat, with proficiency allowing you to use those effects.

@@nswmeeuwes89 Honestly, I'd ponder making them all "Fighting Styles" and then letting everyone who gets a fighting style pick, like, THREE options. Maybe not all at once, of course. But fairly early on. So you can still grab whatever "core" fighting style you want, your feat style, and potentially a 3rd supporting one or a wholly separate secondary weapon type so you can mix it up. But then Clerics and similar have to spend a feat to get ONE fighting style to even begin emulating this playstyle.

I really like that idea. You could also make the fighting style/feats tiered: there's the basic version (something like whats in the PHB), then theres an advanced version and maybe also master version, each level incrementally increasing your bonuses or utility (Advanced Dueling gives you an additional d4 nstead of a +2, Advanced Archery increases your crit range to 19-20, etc.) When you first get your fighting style, you get one or two points to buy one of these (or maybe another normal feat if you want), and then as the you level up you get more points. So in the same way that spellcastwrs gradually get more spells and spell utility, a martial's weapon progresses from a mere d8 to much greater power.

That's the way I read it too, the spellcasting staffs are also 5 GP compared to the quarterstaff costing only 2 SP (subject to change based on setting prices.)

Doesn't really matter either way though, does it?. A casting staff that works as a quarterstaff and quarterstaff that works as a casting staff are identical from a mechanical perspective.

@@jimjimson6208kinda different. Think of them as the difference between a metal rod and a crowbar (irl, not in dnd). A crowbar can be used to pry things open effectively because of the way it’s designed, and because of its heft and shape, it can be used as a bludgeoning weapon. A metal rod however can be used as a bludgeoning weapon, but because it’s not designed in a way to make it good for slipping into cracks and prying things open, it can’t be used effectively to do that. Crowbar is the casting staff, metal rod is the quarter staff

Me too lol. This was more fun to make.

So tired of One D&D videos. No one I know is planning on playing with the new rules.

@@PackTactics well it was also more fun to watch! And this was a long procrastinated topic of optimization so I'm really glad you finally covered it!

​@christophermurray9777 Cherry pick what's good and bad. Feats were buffed. Weapon mastery is good though people always forgot it. Sorcerers gained an additional Metamagic on 2nd level.

@@xiongray that level of stitching rules together just doesn't interest me anymore. If I can't play a game right out of the gate, I don't play it.

The AC bonus of magic shields does tend to get overlooked a bit imo. Still, the damage disparity is bigger than it should be. Namely due to bonus action attacks though, without feats I think the trade-off is fair, although it worsens the martial/caster divide.

A Bladesinger wizard with maxed out dex and int with shield of faith up and in studded leather armor will have a AC of 24, a Sword and Board Fighter with +2 heavy armor and +2 shield will have a AC of 24, in other words a caster can have better AC with no magic items than a fighter with multiple magic items, not to mention the readily available casting of shield to make Bladesingers AC 29 and that’s assuming they haven’t been given their own +2 armor or maybe even +3 armor, in addition they’re full spellcasters they have far more deadly options in their bag then shield of faith, Haste for example. Haste not only gives a +2 to AC but an additional action, now cast spell with your action, attack with your hasted action, and cantrip with your second attack, Fighters, Paladins and Rangers wishes they could be as good as you at everything they’re supposed to be good at.

I have found that you have to go out of your way to prioritize finding AC bonuses on shields in 5e. Depends on your DM of course, but it's a big enough problem that I will absolutely choose a basic AC bonus shield as a starting magic item if it's an option.

In a way, I think sword and board struggles with the same problem as everything else. It's more limited by the player than anything. Like I see people that have these preconceived notions that bards have to be singers no matter what subclass you take. But a used car salesman type that can sell ice to an Eskimo is a viable Bard. I do sword and board all the time. Usually with a paladin, and I take Dueling fighting style. I'm not trying to tank exactly, more outlast. I did similar with a bear barbarian. No fighting style, but my goal was to survive and outlast. And paladins have good burst damage.

@@bryanwoods3373 Paladins are quite good for sword and board, because if they want to deal damage they use smites. There are ways to build around it, but you do usually have to try pretty hard to be effective and it mostly involves spellcasting. Clerics are good at it too. That does leave some character concepts in the dust though. You could go the "flavor is free"-route, but in my experience many small problems tend to come up when having that do all the heavy lifting. So yeah, if you're gonna do it, paladin is the best way to go. ancestral guardin barbarian can work well. Cleric for sure. Rangers do pretty good too with added damage dice on hits and support options. :)

I'd honestly be happy if -5/+10 was just baked into all melee weapon attacks

I made a homebrew sword feat and it works pretty great. Give a bonus action attack, a reaction attack when missed in melee, and advantage on the reaction attack proficiency times per long rest. Make it not work with heavy weapons to exclude Greatswords.

@@40Found alternatively -proficiency to attack roll, add double proficiency to damage. so that it grows over time, which is something martials really lack is any meaningful growth after their 2nd attack (fighter notwithstanding)

@@40Found i'd rather see them move away from power attack as a primary damage source in favor of toning spell damage and monster HP down. power attack isn't really a meaningful interaction, it's just necessary for martials to deal competitive single-target damage

Shield master? Or do you specifically mean a ‘more damage’ feat?

So… 4e?

That's a 3.5 swordsage

To whoever is more knowledgeable than me, isn’t this fighter from pathfinder 2e?

Every time someone reinvents 4e, an angel gets its wings

@billcasey2732 There is a homebrew for this called MARTIAL MIGHTS , we play with it , I think One dnd should do something VERY similar to that.

Your first character was the best class build in the game. Good job.

​@@renatocorvaro6924No, that'd be artificer 1, chronurgy wizard x.

@renatocorvaro6924 Thanx 😊, that was like 7 years ago, i just wanted to heal my party and, eventually, use fabricate + knowledge channel divinity to be able to create everything 😅.

@@3of6mylove Well, Cleric 1/Wizard X was best in the pre-artificer days, and Peace Cleric 1/Chronurgy Wizard X barely edges out Artificer 1/Chronurgy X in the post-Tasha's days imo.

any class that gives armor proficiency to a squishy wizard is already one of the best multi classes in game

The key to being a good tank is not to have super-high AC, because then foes will just go around you to attack the squishies. You want to be hittable enough that foes are willing to attack you, but not so hittable that you get hit too much. That's why barbarians make amazing tanks.

​@@RobertPatricianexcept killing the caster is the smarter thing to do so the enemy should just ignore the barbarian. I say this as someone playing a barbarian and end up barely hit most of the time

@@TieberiusVoidWalker Which makes it ironic that all the draw aggro abilities are only available to melee classes that aren't barbarians.

@@connordarvall8482 Spirit Barbarian has draw aggro abilities, people just don't play it because Totem

@@RobertPatrician Eldritch Adept Feat, Lv4 Eldritch Knight: "I cast Silent Image (Invocation)." Enemy: "Must not fail to... Resist!" DM: "And the Enemy failed to discern the illusion. Your party gets a free a turn."

I agree

they are same person if you dont know

@@lufasumafalu5069 lol, I appreciate your concern. The person making the voice is the same, but the characters are different people in my heart 💖

You have no idea where the casters are at because you've barely seen any spells. Casters are good because of spell casting, not features. Wotc needs to release spells for us to reasonably evaluate power level from class to class, until they do most of this discussion is useless.

@@trombonegamer14 You are assuming that there will be sweeping changes to spells. The handful of spells we've seen changed thus far have only been to boost some of the most-complained-about-as-being-weak spells. And a re-work of some spells that scale weird or have needlessly confusing or convoluted mechanics. My expectation is that the vast majority (probably 85-90%) of spells will remain unchanged.

Outliers? Spellcasters aren't the minority in 5e. They're the majority. 9 of the 13 official classes rely heavily on spellcasting. Toning back spellcasters would mean making 3/4 of players less happy, so that's not what they're gonna do.

Easiest way to nerf casters is to have spells cast become active at the start of the next round. If you're hit before the start of the next round your spellcasting is likely interrupted. The only exception would be cantrips which would go off immediately.

@@trombonegamer14 Spells are features. Each spell they give a choice for to spellcasters is a new feature they can use. Martials don't have that level of feature flexibility.

Sorry for the depressing video. I'll make a happy one with Baldur's gate 3 soon!

literally how

Go on, how could you easily have 40AC whilst still actually being able to be involved in the fight?

@@ProfessorCLion literally just google DnD highest AC stack there's plenty of step by step guides for maximum of 114 AC i believe

@@dazeen9591 God people love to throw this kind of stupid builds that wouldnt real work on a real game.

@@SomaTDW ??? It does work. You're just delusional

i played a fighter 12/barb4 with a belt and a flametongue greatsword once with gwf and gwm, the dpr was unbelievable

Realizing there's a ton of stat setting items, specifically for strength, is the next step for character creation. Start with 16 str and get feats until you eventually find a belt of giant str. If playing for late game it opens up a potential 30str. +10 bonus.

@@dominicl5862 It's a +9 bonus max in STR, because the highest you can get is 29 using a Belt of Storm Giant's Strength.

Shield master is good for lowering how much damage you take. The primary things you get from it is using your AC in your dex saves. Get a magic shield (I know not always realistic) and you up the amount of dex save bonus you get from spells that only target you. You get the bonus action shove and you get a discount evasion when you use a reaction to avoid all damage on a successful save. If you have a paladin on your team or are the paladin, its very effective since its really often you'll make the dex save if you have a high charisma.

Just as an FYI to all who reads this in the future: Blade Mastery, Fell Handed, & Spear Mastery are from Unearthed Arcana

@@bananajoe113 Except for the part where most effects that require a dex save are AOE, and thus shield master won't apply.

It also helped that SCAG weapon cantrips were available to play around with. Though I hope the next EK functions more like Bladesinger where you can incorporate your Cantrip into your attack routine rather than having to choose at level 11.

It's also worth noting that some classes, cleric and paladin in particular, can have their spellcasting focus, aka their holy symbol, on their shield

So any news on your revision of sword and board?

Could play 4e instead.

@@GrimHeaperThe Going to need the heavy flammer for this heresy.

@@wereowl9369 You have to roll your save for being stunned first. You get a 1d20 and nothing else.

@@GrimHeaperThe *rolls* 1 :/

5e pretty much neutered maritals, but the role of a martial is to get right up in the enemy's face. This serves two purposes: It makes it impossible for that enemy to attack your fragile casters (which 5e likes making less and less fragile because they want every caster to be like the artificer and have a freaking d8 hit dice and unlimited flexible spells and their own form of invocations). The other purpose it serves is that the martial themself is heavily armored so he's hard to drop, and he's doing a lot of damage so of course the monster stays focused on them. Sure, they're not doing as much AoE damage as a mage, but they're absolutely not supposed to be getting shown up by a warlock casting agonizing eldritch blasts every turn. 5e ruined martials and for some reason refuses to fix them. Make battlemaster maneuvers standard fighter kit. Stop making feats weapon type specific so any type of weapon becomes viable, and give weapon types a little unique flavor built in (axes can splinter enemy shields or spears have reach and are good against charging monsters).

You've probably heard this a million times, but maybe try Pathfinder. Martials are good and weapons actually matter.

I used a spread sheet of averages from all of the monsters in all of the books combined. On average its usually 65%. There's never a spot that makes a dramatic change based on average and if that did exist then I would talk about it.

You ignored the most important argument against sea druid and you fell for the trap that I've talked about many many many many times. You somehow convinced yourself this is "Free damage". Ending your turn close to melee is not free damage because of the potential damage taken. Why didn't you consider the most important part of optimization? Why isn't damage dealt vs damage taken a no brainer? Why isn't basic concentration protection a no brainer? Btw, this metal medium armor and shield prof druid normally doesn't care about a single OP usually. Sometimes walking away normally is fine and its better than staying in melee just to be greedy with a little bit of damage and then suddenly get swarmed. If we put it under a microscope, the druid walking takes less damage and has a better a vantage point at putting down a fresh control spell. Imagine walking away 30 ft and then putting down spike growth. Imagine an optimal party kiting with spike growth because they have 2 encounter days so resources doesn't matter in the first place. Imagine casting conjure animals and then walk away so you don't have a greater chance of losing that concentration.

@@PackTactics And there you go assuming that being within melee range is a problem for the druid, when in reality, if you're actually using the features given to you BY just being a Druid, then you don't have to worry about taking damage in the first place. You have somehow convinced yourself that by being close to melee means that it's being not optimal, when in reality, damage taken is a non-issue so long as you don't fall to 0 HP. And why WOULD you worry about taking damage? You have wildshape, giving you temp HP, Conjure Animals, which is something YOU conveniently praised as the BEST use of Druid spellslots as it gives you a whole herd of animals to use as a wall between you and the enemy (you even had an entire video dedicated to the spell!), and either Web or Plant/Spike growth down as well, which can either immobilize (Web) or slow to a crawl with difficult terrain (Plant/Spike Growth). And then to say that "you have the chance to lose concentration" after that, would be a feat unto itself, due to what we've just laid out. You can even still move away before the end of your turn if you're that scared of being hurt, nothing has taken up your move action. And, if it would help damage, or even outright kill just 1 of the enemies in an encounter, you just reduced the danger you're in by a significant margin regardless by either setting up the kill, or, as previously stated, killing the target, making any damage you would take, again, a non-issue. Should I even have to mention Goodberry here as an option to heal after the battle, or have you forgotten your own videos where you were praising that spell to the high heavens too?

Ideally you'd drop the sword and just use eldritch blast lol, but if the decision is between sword & shield and two handing a longsword, sword and shield definitely wins, especially once you add dueling. Let's compare you with sword & shield and dueling to you with a two handed longsword and defense (likely the fighting style you'd pick). For all of this I'll assume you make 2 attacks. Since your to hit bonus is the same for both, the comparison is really easy. 1d8+7 is slightly more dpr than 1d10+5 against any ac except for if you only hit on a crit, at which point they do the same damage. The difference isn't huge, at any point it's generally just about a 1-2 dpr difference in favor of sword & shield, but you also have 1 more ac. If you pick pact of the blade to use a greatsword, this doesn't change much btw. Your dpr again increases by about 1 with a greatsword but you have 1 less ac. Even with great weapon fighting, the dpr difference actually isn't huge against expected ac (hit on 8 for regular attack, hit at 13 with gwm) at around 3 more dpr for the gwm but this difference varies greatly based on enemy ac and if you have advantage (about 8 more dpr for the gwm if you have advantage against expected ac). This of course ignores the opportunity cost of having to go pact of the blade and picking gwm as a feat, if you give one of your dueling longsword attacks advantage from your imp that increases the dpr you deal to about the same as a gwm against expected ac without advantage, and you can still have a feat or you're +1 on your charisma as compared to the gwm version of yourself which again tilts this in your favor. If you can get your hands on a flame tongue, you even have a slightly higher dpr without advantage as compared to the gwm version of yourself with a flame tongue but also no advantage. So really, I wouldn't worry too much about sword & shield against the rest, unless you have a way of massively offsetting the -5 from gwm, I'd probably even prefer having something like pact of the chain and a feat or +1 of my choice. If you wanna play around with these sorts of calculations yourself, look up dnd dpr calculator from RPGBOT, it's pretty intuitive to use and gives you some great insight into how much damage actually comes out of your builds.