I blame GWM, Sharpshooter, CBE and PAM for making people focus too much on which weapon to use instead of just enjoying what they like.

If only there were a convenient houserule that let us apply the +10/-5 to all attacks made with the attack action... hey wait a second

I love the animated intro!

The issue with the longsword, that in DND 5e it is a versatile weapon, that is not versatile. I played other systems, which are a bit more complicated, but put more weight on the properties of different weapons. Melee weapon range (Pike vs Dagger), weight and heaviness (for maneuvers which increase damage or accuracy) etc. had a much bigger impact on specific weapons. In such systems, the longsword is usually the most versatile weapon available, because you can swing it, stab with it, it is not too long but also not too short und you can use it more effectively to defend yourself than many other melee weapons. The result was that it became a generalist weapon. Were range matters, Pikes were good if one was severall feet away from the enemy, but terrible, if the Rogue already snuk up to you with his daggers, which are better in close range. On the other hand, light weapons like rapiers and shortswors are very swift and agile, while greataxes and greatswords are really heavy but therefore hitting harder. In most scenarios longswords were kinda the middleground weapon. There is always a weapon, that is better in certain scenarios, but the longsword just has the least weaknesses in all other scenarios. Now, I do not want DnDs combat system to become more complicated, because that would just extend lenghty combats even further. But it would be nice if the longsword would gain a property, that would make it truely versatile as a weapon.

I added a versatile weapon fighting style as an option in my games that when wielding a versatile weapon, gives a +1 to damage, +1 to AC if wielding it with 2 hands, and the ability to grapple or shove as a bonus action if wielding nothing else. This still leaves it non-optimal for damage as it's about tied with dueling, but gives a flavorful utility option (that shouldn't be broken as it's just a part of the shield master feat) to make using the weapon feel unique rather than just a strange unexciting middle ground

In my opinion, the weapon and armor options in 5e are oversimplified. There is simply not enough complexity to justify the variety. And feats exacerbate the problem by making some weapons dramatically better than others. When I read the design, it seems to me that the original intent was to make one-handed melee weapons pair with a shield. In other words, give up some offense for extra defense. The shield master feat seems to support this concept. But in practice, this means that all one-handed melee weapons get the haft (pun intended).

I took a crack at this a while back. Here's my approach: The Board and Sword, or the Shield Master without Shield Master First, a Nov 17, 2015 Crawford tweet, a PHB Weapons excerpt, and the entry for Two-Weapon Fighting. Tweet: "An improvised weapon is, indeed, a weapon, but only the moment it's used as such. A chair/shield/etc isn't a weapon otherwise." PHB under Weapons: "Every weapon is classified as either melee or ranged. A melee weapon is used to attack a target within 5 feet of you, whereas a ranged weapon is used to attack a target at a distance." Two-Weapon Fighting: "When you take the Attack action and attack with a light melee weapon that you're holding in one hand, you can use a bonus action to attack with a different light melee weapon that you're holding in the other hand. You don't add your ability modifier to the damage of the bonus attack, unless that modifier is negative." Custom Lineage 17 STR, 15 CHA, 15 CON, (CON can be 14 if a 10 WIS is desired) Dual Wielder feat for "You can use two-weapon fighting even when the one-handed melee weapons you are wielding aren't light." Class: Paladin. Level 12 will be our jumping point but 11 and 13 can also work. First we take the Attack action and make a melee weapon attack using our shield as an improvised weapon. In the moment of our attack, our shield is a melee weapon, satisfying the first condition for Two-Weapon Fighting because Dual Wielder has waived the Light requirement. Our other hand with our longsword is holding a melee weapon and thus can make a bonus action attack. Note that we cannot ever bonus action attack with the shield as it is only a melee weapon in the moment of an attack and not while just holding it. At level 1 our turn looks like this: Action: non-proficient Attack with Shield as improvised weapon. +3 to hit (because we still add our +3 Strength modifier) | 1d4+3 damage Bonus Action: proficient Longsword attack. +5 to hit | 1d8 damage (need the Fighting Style for TWF to add our Strength modifier to damage here, as a Paladin we get it at level 2) So level 2 we pick up the Two-Weapon Fighting style to make our bonus action attack damage a 1d8+3 At level 4 we pick Tavern Brawler to be proficient with our action attack and it bumps our strength up to 18 which means both our attacks have a +6 to hit and a +4 to damage. At level 5 we get extra attack. Note that only ONE of our attacks need to be made with the shield, so you can use one attack with the longsword and use the other with the shield to still use the bonus action attack. At level 8 we improve our strength to 20. At level 11 we get Improved Divine Smite for a +1d8 radiant damage every time we hit a creature with a melee weapon and we can look at our multiclassing options or we could take another level in Paladin to improve our Charisma score and a Paladin level after that would give us Find Greater Steed at level 13. If we're trying not to go too far below the baseline Treantmonk uses, we need these next 6 levels to put in some work. My choices are either 3 levels in Fighter for Rune Knight or dipping Genie Warlock. By level 17 I'll have both. Let's start with bumping up our Charisma and going Rune Knight for this example. At level 12 is a half-feat for +1 CHA. Fey-Touched can be picked up here for example which can be very advantageous. At level 13 1st level Fighter gives an extra fighting style. I would take Blind-Fighting as it can come into play more often at these higher levels. Dueling for the Longsword might work but I opt to bypass that conversation entirely. Level 14 gets us Action Surge and Level 15 gets us Rune Knight. Note that on rounds we first use our bonus action to activate Giant's Might we can skip using our shield to attack and just attack with our longsword as normal. This along with the extra d6 from Giant's Might if we land an attack helps offset the immediate loss of potential damage from not using our Two-Weapon Fighting bonus action attack and on our turn in the next round we can Two-Weapon Fight as normal while still benefiting from activating Giant's Might in the previous round. Level 16 1st level Genie Warlock gives us a short rest 1st level spell slot and the Dao's proficiency bonus bludgeoning damage to one of our attacks on our turn. That bonus is a +5 right now and will be a +6 next level. From here we could get another level of Warlock for invocations like Eldritch mind to protect our concentration which is not the best by any stretch, we could dip sorcerer for more slots. So the build ends up being roughly Paladin 11(12, or 13)/Rune Knight 3/Genie 1, and you can go up to Paladin 13 if you want your mount before jumping off as well as take more Warlock levels. A 4th Fighter level could give Resilient (Constitution) (good if 15 CON was chosen at char creation) and couple that with Genie 2 Eldritch Mind invocation to rapidly improve concentration albeit at a very late stage in the game. We attack two to three times a round, Rune Knight and Genie give us very reliable damage as we only need to hit once on our turn to apply affects such as Giant's Might, Fire Rune, and Dao's Genie Wrath and in the occasional case we miss all our attacks in a round, we have Action Surge in our back pocket as an insurance policy to still deliver that damage. Our smites also play a role in assisting our damage. From levels 2-4, we can save our smites for crits, generally using at least 1 or 2 on an adventuring day. Levels 5-7 we will be smiting a lot or finding ways our spells can be more effective than smites, even consider turning your Channel Divinity into a spell slot. Level 8 onwards about 4 smites with 1st level slots will be needed, maybe an extra one if the enemy succeeds on a save like the Rune Knight's Fire Rune Strength Saving Throw. All this assumes we are not fighting undead or fiends. If we're fighting those, then we're very happy as our smites are doing more, we don't have to use as many for the same amount of damage meaning more slots to use for our other spells. In summary, the answer to sword and board is Board and Sword.

I am SO glad someone finally said “if you don’t like asking your dm for favours with home brew”! I came from 3.5 where there was a legit option for anything you could imagine and it can feel limiting in 5e sometimes

The sword nerds will tell you that the longsword was a sidearm used as a back up weapon or carried for self defense outside of battle and not a main battlefield weapon. That’s key to why adventurers might choose to use a longsword over other weapons. For the Exploration Pillar, a DM is well within his rights to ask a player to make Athletics checks at Disadvantage when the character is trying to climb, swim, or whatever while carrying a great sword in one hand. It might also affect the Social Pillar. Some cities or locations within cities might outlaw heavy weapons or at the vary least, openly carrying those sorts of weapons could attract unwanted attention.

Not an optimizer myself as I tend to run more fun thematic builds but I love the channel! Great ideas and insights.

In going through the classes, I feel like you glossed over Battle Smith, Beastmaster, and Drakewarden. All of these give us a Bonus Action attack via their companion. It's not the best damage in the world, but it puts those classes on the same level as a standard Polearm Master and you don't have to make extra investments. They don't work great for multiclass dips, but they're just fine for the primary class.

The most baffling design choice in the entire game to me is that Rogues start the game with longsword proficiency

I really like the problem-solving/concept videos that preview your next build video. It’s an interesting format

To me the appeal of the longsword isn't the damage it deals but the defence I get by taking a sword and shield. Sure I could take a spear and go polearm master, but if I'm already focusing on defence I might not want to devote a whole feat to increasing my damage when I could have taken something with other uses. Slasher might not deal damage but it does control the enemy to a degree. Healer, ritual caster, and the the various defensive fighting styles gives even more utility. All this while still doing better damage than a monk or a cantrip user, and with a higher AC and probably better hitpoints.

I absolutely loved this video! Hearing a discussion of all the options, whether they’re good or bad, is just great!

Our table just lets PAM work with Sword and Board too, with the Bonus Action attack being flavored as a shield slam. Its still not optimal, but it does make it a lot more viable and fun.

I'm very excited to learn the numbers for the different options. Really cool idea.

Love the video as always! Interested to see how you end up making this work in the next video

If that longsword was a holy avenger then I might be tempted. Even then I'd ask myself if I couldn't trade it in for a holy avenger greatsword instead...

I get that you start with "I want my character to use a longsword. How can I boost my damage?" But I would much rather look at character concepts that ask "what is the best weapon for this character concept?" And arrive at the longsword. Grapple based barbarian is a classic one. Attacking with a d10 while not grappling and a d8 when you are grappling is something only the longsword can do. If you go for a heavy weapon you would only be able to use it as an improvised weapon if you are grappling. The longsword is also the two handed weapon of choice for small races.

This is coming from someone who played a paladin up to level 20 who focus on sword and shield. I don’t think focusing on damage is the best way to optimized characters. I think focusing on team work is a much more fun and interesting way to optimized.While my paladin didn’t have gwm like that fighter he did have something’s the fighter didn’t like the shield master feat. We had a lot of fun seeing the champion fighter used every thing he had on a prone boss. Crits on 19s even on 18s at higher levels,action surge, and gmw really melted bosses. Even our warlock joined in by casting hex giving them disadvantage to not be knocked prone. Dnd is a team game

Would've liked some more discussion on the smite spells that can be cast as a bonus action, but this was a great video for outlining the general options a longsword user has.

I fully believe the math you ran on it, but as a player I'll never take GWM over sword and board. -2 AC from no shield? -5 to hit to gain the main benefit of the feat? Giving up an ASI for a feature that only effects your attacks? That said, everyone I play with has preferred a much more RP-heavy game and we rarely have more than one combat per session (in fact we've gone multiple sessions with no combat at all). It's always interesting to me how many different perspectives there can be on d&d and that all of them are valid.

Something I realized watching this video. Not relevant to most tables, but the longsword becomes much better if you're playing at a table that doesn't use the Feats rules, which are TECHNICALLY optional. So I guess if your table ever decides to try a no feats game, longsword becomes much more viable.

Thank you so much for delving into this! For the last week I’ve been wondering how to make a sword and shield type character in an effective manner, maybe doing something else, like tanking, enemy movement etc. while still doing at least a decent amount of damage.

Wow, I am playing my second session as a Shadar Kai Padlock on Monday and am really looking forward to your next video.

I love when you make videos that are about how to make things like spells and weapons work best. There are a million channels reviewing latest books and ranking subclasses. Very few channels put together these kinds of videos that are actually useful as a player.

Great timing - I was just thinking about how to make a decent longsword build for a set of characters I'm writing up that are a group of adolescent monstrous kung-fu tortles. Looking forward to watching this after work

This video is just a really nice video for how to do something other than polearm master + GWM with a melee character. Very useful.

I think I would focus on the Shield Master feat if I was trying to make the Longsword work, and that requires finding a way to make the Prone condition stick. Maybe a Net to get restrained, then draw and hit with a Longsword? Hex could be used to give disadvantage on Strength rolls both to resist the shove and the Net. This requires more thought. Edit: I'm an idiot. Prone would be wholly redundant with Restrained. Also, Prone movement cost doesn't seem to work the way I thought it did.

I did a longsword Bladesinger so I was happy to see this included. Got around the strength issue by using a belt of hill giant strength.

Baldur's Gate 3 went with the homebrew route. Different weapons have different extra abilities you can utilize with them and the longsword absolutely has a pommel strike option. I agree that reskinning is just... it just doesn't feel right. Great solutions offered here overall though

Optimization is not only all about damage and doing the most optimal damage. The longsword is just as viable a pretty much any other d8 weapon for characters that cannot or do not want to use 2 handed weapons. GWM is not an option for small races, as they cannot wield heavy weapons without disadvantage. So 1h Versatile weapons are great choices for them. Choosing a d8 weapon in order to gain the advantage of +2 or more armor class if your role is to draw attacks away from your allies, choosing a longsword is pretty optimal. Spear or Quarterstaff are valid options for sword/board characters and do allow you to take PAM for the bonus action attack; but attacking with your bonus action is not universally the optimal choice. It you are optimizing for damage it may be, but as I said, optimization doesn't always mean maximum damage. I don't think you make it clear enough that you are only referring to the longsword only being a problem when talking about its damage capabilities vs other options. Longsword + ShieldMaster can be very effective and potentially a more optimal choice, as it gives that ability to get the bigger damage die if you want/need to (assuming you don't have Dueling fighting style). Even with dueling fighting style, on a critical hit versatile > dueling.

I had to homebrew GWM for longswords. Makes it better for me. Excited to hear your ideas.

enjoyable breakdown, thanks!

I like the magic item point, I think it's also good to know that your DM can sometimes offer magic items that aren't just straight upgrades or require a choice, like giving someone a worse type of armor but +2 or something can be kind of interesting. But on longswords I guess it makes even more sense if you are playing a module, because that way you aren't likely to change a characters sword that it wields into a cross bow or quarter staff (which tbh I wouldn't typically anyway, it feels weird for a weapon that in canon is a bit niche to be magical over the common and trusty sword).

I like the reskin idea. In a recent one-shot, I played a fighter with a really long katana a la Sephiroth, but it was functionally a halberd.

I love that you included a picture of the ulfberht!!!!! The lightsaber of long swords! A true +3 magical sword of ancient times!

ב"ה With cleric domains you also have the death domain with the channel divinity that increase melee damage. Actually, I've seen a pretty powerfull Eldritch Knight 6/Death domain Cleric that did pretty well with a longsword (eldrtitch knight was for the shield spell and higher spell slots). At level 11 he got spirit shroud, at level 12 he got a second channel divinity, at level 13 he could upcast spirit shroud, at level 14 he got divine strike and at level 15 he got holy sword, so these were levels he got some decent things (though when facing multiple opponent he still used spirit guardians for his concentration, and the spiritual weapon did contribute to his damage too). Tough at our table, when we have 7-8 encounters in a day there are at least 3 options for a short rest (sometimes even more), so the channel divinity was probably more effective than it could have at your table where you run only 1 short rest in a day of 8 encounters (or at least how you calculate damage if you don't actually play this way).

This series has my full support

Great information, I look forward to the followup. I optimize, my party not as much. For balance, I gave my tank a sword and shield to mitigate his damage until other characters catch up. I'm sure he'll end up with a glaive or some two handed weapon eventually.

Just realized that Poisoner could synergize really well with Grasping Arrow from Arcane Archers! Thx for that

On the point of magic swords tending to be longswords, I found it surprising as a player how many magic swords in 5e are greatswords, including some that historically are longswords.

Looking forward to the follow up. I'd suggest making the comparisons to optimised options clear to set up a potential discussion about why longswords and by proxy other unoptimised choices are bad and what would need to happen to bring them more in line, especially while keeping the flavour of the weapons. I understand that most of the issue with other options is the lack of +10 damage feats and bonus action attacks, but other homebrew feat options for a different feel could also be interesting. Maybe an opposite, -5 damage +10 to hit, or things like doubling strength modifier or applying a debuff or extra damage, perhaps with certain conditions. I think that would make an interesting topic as part of this.

Thanks a bunch for this video. As a huge fan of martial shield using classes I am really saddened that it's damage options are as poor as they are. Really looking forward to the next video and see which combos work and how.

I’m currently trying to optimize the first D&D character I made about three and a half years ago. The game is a real slow burn, we’re level 4. I recently found out the magic Longsword my DM gave me at chargen is a Moonblade and I’ve just unlocked one of its four or five abilities. I’m a half-elf Hexblade. I’m thinking of making it my hex weapon, keeping my pact weapon (as a Longsword as well). I already have the dual Wielder feat (which I know is not as great as having a great weapon, but here we are). Next level I get Thirsting Blade and Eldritch Smite, then I’m gonna jump over to Fighter and pick up Two Weapon Fighting, Action Surge, (maybe) Battle Master with trip attack and then get Elven Accuracy. No one else in the group is very optimized, either and I think this will eventually make me an all right crit fisher, allowing me to do some burst damage with my smite. Can’t really think of a better use for my longswords, at least until I know what else my moonblade can do.

I really like the idea of optimizing suboptimal builds. Longswords and melee Halflings are two of my favorites.

Thank you for talking about poison. Even if I think there were details missed or you downplayed certain parts. At least it was more than most youtubers would do.

I’ve been very vocal about the Trident in the past. It’s a damn shame it was left out of the Polearm Master feat. It doesn’t have anything unique to it whatsoever. I figured the Triton race would’ve been proficient with it and maybe even increased the damage die? Nope! Lol. You can throw it and pair it with the Artificer Infusion, the Eldritch Knight BA ability, or even the BattleMaster Quick Toss maneuver, but still very lackluster all together. I just wish there was a dedicated Retiarius subclass - the classic trident and net gladiator. So, please Chris would you mind dedicating a video to our boy the 🔱?

I don't think I heard it in the video, but an upside of versatile weapons is that they can be used with grapplers. Two hand attack for more damage, then switch to one hand when grappling someone. Not sure if that helps though

I think the way to go is a custom lineage battle master with the slasher feat, 18 Strength, 13 Constitution, and 13 Dexterity at level 1 and the shield master feat at level 4. You could use a combination of trip attack followed by a shove to move them back 5ft. and run back out of range of their reduced movement or attack normally, use the bonus action to shove prone, then action surge to use pushing attack to knock them back 15ft. Get 20 Strength at level 6 to make sure you're hitting often and pick up Skill Expert at level 8 to get +11 on the Athletics checks (+13 starting at level 9) and round out the Constitution score. At level 12, pick up Resilient Dexterity to round out the Dexterity score and pair with the 0 damage on a Dex save feature of shield master. From there, you've got 3 more feats to choose from (maybe Lucky, Tough, and Alert, but there are a bunch of other good options) and other than that it's just more attacks and better bonuses on everything. You're not going to outdamage other fighters, but you're not going to get hit as much and you can keep enemies away from the rest of your party pretty well.

0:28 I would say the problem is that he's using a shield and spear in the same hand. Either he forgot it when he calculated his AC or he's trying to slip something past his DM.

Hi Chris! Amazing analysis as always, hope they listen carefully to you when they rebalance combat, feats and weapons for 5.5e. A question please: In your video about "three house rules to fix D&D" from three month ago, you suggested allowing the -5 to hit +10 to damage option for every weapon, without needing a feat. This obviously helps martials, especially those that didn't qualify for feats like GWM. But you also admitted it shifts the balance from two-handed weapons to weapon + shield being optimal. What about this variant: "You can choose to take a -5 penalty to the attack roll. If the attack hits, you add damage equivalent to the die of your weapon to the attack’s damage." --> Two-handed weapons would unsually add 12 damage, one-handed weapons would usually add 8 damage. Both would be be viable, with a relevant but not crippling difference when using a shield. Longswords would benefit more from their "versatile" property.

In a campaign I'm in now I'm using a sorcerer/hexlock. Even with those classes I'm still focusing on my weapon. Buffs, invocations, bonus action booming blade. I'm doing my all to deal damage. And with the decent defense of medium armor, I do well.

You can also do a Shadowblade Bladesinger or Warlock. Flavoring Shadowblade as a Longsword is less of a stretch than reflavoring a Spear as a Longsword, for example.

I think you missed three key advantages to Longsword that likely won't make their use top-tier, but they will do contribute to making a much better PC than you portray. 1) Using a shield - a shield is +2 to AC. This is basically "give your opponents a -10% chance to hit debuff". It's always on, and it uses no additional resources. This should get some recognition, because as you have said in the past, a dead PC does 0 DPR. 2) Shield Master Feat - in addition to bonus to Dex saves (+2 typically ... and you usually say that you like to make your saving throws, and Dex is a very common saving throw to have to make) and the ability to use your reaction to take half damage on a failed Dex save (no limitation on number of times you can use, beyond having or not having a reaction to use), the feat allows you to make the shove action as a bonus action. On a successful check, you basically can knock your opponent prone and gain advantage on your attacks. You touted the Archery fighting style over Dueling as +2 to hit is better than +2 to damage, and I agree. Advantage, simplistically, is +5 to hit. Yes, you do have to win an ability check, but you're a strength-focused character. You will be winning this check with the same consistency as spell casters using a spell vs any other DC check. 3) No dependency on Short/Long Rest features - The benefit of this is going to be campaign/DM dependent. I'm use to playing in situations in which you generally get 1 long rest per day, and 1-2 short rests per day ... and occasionally you come across scenarios where you go for a long time without resting, or you get the "you can rest here, but it's not really all that safe" from the DM resulting in the possibility of the rest being interrupted with a combat. At high levels, this usually isn't much of a problem for many rest-dependent classes (as you typically have enough resources to budget them out for most combats). But, at low or the bottom half of mid-level characters (which, as you often say, is where most people play their games), this can (often? depending on your DM) come into play. Yes, a Shield spell give you +5 to AC compared to a +2 AC with the shield, but you're burning a spell slot for that. It's not uncommon to see spell casters whittle their slots on defensive actions, only to be turned into a cantrip caster for the rest of the combat. Then after combat, their asking to take a rest, while your warrior roles his eyes and wonders why ... we just rested two combats ago. I know you often have the conversation between optimization and role play or fun ... but, I think sometimes you down-play survive-ability. Not always. You definitely have made some survive-ability builds, some which outshine the out-of-the-box fighter. But, if you're going sword-and-board, your top focus isn't on DPR; it's on survive-ability. I'm sure we've all seen a player at our table, whose character just died, and they're like F*** it, I'm getting plate and a shield on my next PC. Another great feat to consider for the longsword + shield user is Healer ... that way they can stabilize and wake up the rest of the party after the fight is over. At the end of the day, if spell casters aren't being force to expend spell slots on defensive mechanics, and the party can just rest whenever and where ever they want, then the DM isn't really doing their job (they're not making any challenges), and the types of benefits that come with a sword-and-board character become basically pointless.

Chris, while watching this video i dont believe youve said the words, "there's an obvious trade off here..." Dgmw Chris. I think what you do is highly admirable, I do! What i find over & over in your videos tho is the lack of reasons given why there's trade-offs in these rules. That said, i still enjoy & appreciate your efforts to find reason in a very vague ruleset.

Great vid and lots of good ideas. You missed battle rager for barbarian sunclasses. Bonus action attack that can be made while sword and boarding. It's not a great subclass but it does synergise with sword and board, and does increase DPR. Shield master gives you a bonus action control option, and potentially increased damage to target if you or the party can take advantage of prone. Not optimal but it is control you can use every turn that isn't available with great weapons. As you've stated before, DPR is a blunt tool and misses a lot of the actual ebb and flow of combat. The minimum +2AC from shields increases time to die in many combats. In some situations one can do lower DPR but more damage per combat by staying on your feet another round or two of a 4 round combat.

An elegant solution for longsword is to take one of the "pet" classes. The BA attack by the pet, which generally scales well, solves much of the damage gap, and then together with the base classes (ranger and arti) give us a lot of little damage boosts and powerful utility that aid us contribute much more that just damage

Also worth mentioning for war cleric is getting divine favor. Bonus action cast, don't need to move to new targets after leaving bonus action for those extra bonus attacks

A rogue with the dual wielder feat can attack with a long sword, then sneak attack with a finess weapon in the other hand, (optimally a rapier, but a short sword or knife isn't that much worse). It's an interesting build option, (if not exactly optimal) especially since it means building into strength. I like the idea of pairing it with lizardfolk since, as a race, lizardfolk dont provide all their features to any PC that uses armor and doesn't have both stength *and* dexterity. I mean the only real reason to use a longsword instead of two rapiers is to have access to more magical weapons, but maybe lean into that. Go with thief, get use magic device at 13 so you can ignore class restrictions, steal a paladin's holy avenger, and now you're the holy avenger swordmaster thief who occasionally bites people. Now there's a character concept!

Can we get a follow-up to this on the Whip? I keep watching Castlevania and it REALLLYYYYY makes me want to use a good whip build

The vid seems to define optimization as the ability to do damage but you can optimize in many different ways. You can optimize for social encounters, for exploration, and for Defense rather than offense. The longsword user is normally going for Tank options/defense with the shield. So the optimization should not be focused on how to improve their damage but on how to improve their defense and other tank related options: Sentinel, Slasher, Shield Master, and appropriate subclasses, etc.

I am very happy to see this video.

Hex blade dip and swords bard could be worth a look. Both use charisma and seem to complement each other well and you get a lot of spells to bolster your fighting

Great video

You channel character and background just make me think of Elden Ring now.

One feat I feel you missed was Dual Wielder. It gives you a reliable bonus action attack with a longsword.

Really, I think PAM would still be a really fair Feat choice if you removed the BA attack. Opportunity attacks on an enemy entering your weapon’s range is still a solid boost. You could then make a “Medium Weapon Master” Feat with a BA pommel attack for 1d4 and maybe add in a Parry ability because 1) The Parry feat sucks, I have never seen it used and 2) It only works on Finesse weapons. This expands it to work on Longswords, Battle Axes, and Warhammers to make them work better. It also makes Dueling better since that +2 damage will apply to your BA attack while not removing or negating the power of SS or GWM. PAM takes a hit, but I think it’ll survive as it combos EXTREMELY well with both Sentinel and GWM.

I think you might have overlooked one Feat/Fighting Style. Duel Wielding. The feat remove the restriction of only light weapons, so you can then duel wield Long Swords, and the Two Weapon Fighting style adds ability mod to Bonus Off-hand Attack. So, there you are, a Fighter in Full plate, with two long swords, possibly magical at that (Paladin can wield a Holy Avenger with a second magic long sword, or two holy avengers if DM feeling overly/insanely generous) with one or both possibly coated in poison.

I would have loved to see proper support for versatile weapons including the longsword, in both feats and combat styles. Oh, well. Maybe we'll see something in 5.5.

Re-skinning for flavor is always welcome at the table. I reference that gnome sorcerer with magic missile chickens all the time.

When I looked at making a longsword character, I did put together a 1 fighter/X undead warlock that, using grave touched and spells like spirit shroud, was mathematically able to consistently perform at that 50%+ above "baseline" damage benchmark with a longsword while still having the complement of warlock spells and invocations for fun party tricks in and out of combat, though the stat split undeniably complicated matters. Top damage, no, but a perfectly worthwhile and reliable combatant.

Great video! Honestly, with a longsword character i would focus on defense and utility, rather than damage. Play a swarmkeeper, grab shieldmaster, maybe slasher. Prone enemies, reduced movement speed, forced movement, Web. Sounds good to me! I can also imagine going rune knight, grappling huge enemies with my free hand (no shield with this one) and generally be useful with my runes. It seems like a losing battle to get the damage to keep up with GWM, or ShSh.

28:18 maybe even a level 7 dip to paladin for the extra aura could be of help, not necessarily in the cause of this video but for general paladin survivability

Artificer: Armorer Armor Model Beginning at 3rd level, you can customize your Arcane Armor. When you do so, choose one of the following armor models: Guardian or Infiltrator. The model you choose gives you special benefits while you wear it. Each model includes a special weapon. When you attack with that weapon, you can add your Intelligence modifier, instead of Strength or Dexterity, to the attack and damage rolls.

Watching again after two years! You can take a ranger, dip it into war domain cleric and presto! All the problems are solved! Now you have an extra attack (2-3 times per long rest), you get hunters mark to boost your damage! And you get the feeling that you could litteraly play using a longbow and be 100% better!

Not sure if it's been mentioned here, but I had a Sorcadin character Paladin 6/Sorcerer X that I wanted to be tanky (leaverage heavy armor and shield and the shield spell) as well as hard hitting (smites, dueling style and quicken spell on top of that for a bonus action booming blade from time to time). It worked out fairly well, and while multiclass options might not be in the remit, I think it was the first time I was legitimately 100% satisfied with my choice of longsword as a weapon (doesn't hurt for damage that I upgraded it later to a Flametongue).

Using a long sword and shield with the dueling fighting style gives you an extra 10% chance to be missed and an average damage of 6.5 plus whatever other pluses you get. Using a great sword with great weapon fighting style makes your average damage 8.33, and a greataxe averages 7.33, plus whatever other pluses you get. Great Weapon Master might be a big boost, if you can hit with the -5 to attack. That's an extra 25% miss chance, though. If straight up damage is the only thing you care about, then yeah, using a sword and shield isn't the best option, but you can't land hits if you're knocked out, and once you get into magical items, every plus on that shield is an extra 5% chance you're not getting hit, while every plus on the weapon is the same whether it's a longsword or two-handed weapon.

Thanks Chris

I would like to make a small correction--yes, archery is the best fighting style, but ONLY if you have something like Sharpshooter to take -5 to hit and +10 to damage. If you aren't using sharpshooter or GWM, dueling is arguably better than archery. Here's some numbers: 5 str + d8 with 70% accuracy: 6.65 damage 5 str + d8 + 2 dueling with 60% accuracy: 6.9 damage If you get advantage, obviously it tips more towards the +2 to damage (8.65 damage for +2 to hit, and 9.66 for +2 to damage).

I need a weapon and shield fighter for a game a few years ago. He was going to be the ONLY front liner, so his ability to survive was crucial, hence the shield. I asked the GM if I could take the UA Brute as a subclass. He allowed it. In the game we were also allowed to commission enchantments on items (for an exorbitant cost). I got flaming put on my weapon. So I had my 1d8 base damage, a 1d6 for flaming and an extra damage die from brute (die depending on level). I got my strength to 20 quickly. The end result was that with my bonus attacks added, I was easily out damaging anyone else in the party.

Wow, they need to put out longsword content and I did not even realize.

The best idea I have is an old errata that got undone. Shield Master (Which we sometimes reflavor as just a larger gauntlet on the arm or a dueling cloak.) Using that bonus action to shove (ie knock prone) before the attack action. Used to be you could just take the bonus action before and that get advantage on melee attack rolls, but then it got changed around by an Errata. My table ignores that. You can use the bonus action to shove, but you are locked into the attack action too.

Quick points to help feed The Algorithm. Poison also can be done with plants so you can make a case for herbalism and using it can be a Poisoner Kit use. That means you can off load that onto a background as standard. (DM agreement as always). Kensai do use a sword as an option even if they are a monk and getting dueling is painful outside of a dip but a 2 level dip would really need to be done. (Mention that for completeness not optimization because I have a feeling it is not going to be great). Lastly and slightly off topic (but there is a point at the end), you could go two weapon long swords. Admittedly this requires a feat (Dual Wielder) and a fighting style to have any chance of being nearly effective and for it to be survivable you may need second defensive feat. But for completeness I have to mention it because the Drizzt in everyone’s head is saying what about just using two. And that is why there was no way to really use a long sword in the game as well as you can other weapons (IMHO). They expected this to be the power option for the long sword. I have a lot I want to say about two weapon fighting and dueling combat but I am not a KZfaqr and better (and better looking) folk can do that. See you next week and all the people that are traditional Bladesingers and followers of Eilistraee sing for your success to redeem the most iconic weapon in history in D&D.

What game really needs is a sword master feat, bonus action attack with a pommel and extra damage once per round would go a long way to my mind.

Hexblade poison blade familiar sounds awesome :3. Costume lineaje for the poisoner feat and 3 lvls in warlock for the sprite or the quasit, nice. Wonder how it may look 🐍

We're kind of missing the forest for the trees. If you are using a long sword it's not because you aren't optimized, it's because you aren't optimized around weapon damage. To me the obvious use case is paladin (especially vengeance): wearing a shield lets you get a very high AC when combined with haste (even better with a hexblade splash for shield spell and cha to damage), you don't get a lot of feats anyway for GWF/PAM (elvin accuracy must be first, with a splash you aren't getting another feat until 9th or 10th, which you probably want to use on CHA), and your weapon damage is secondary to your smite damage. Using a longsword here makes sense.

Here's the thing about Poisoner that you weren't thinking on. Because it's a bonus action to apply, and only applies to the first hit after applying it, it is effectively capped at once around. So you don't need enough for every hit. Just enough for once a round. Pretty paltry addition to damage though, being once a round, especially because they also need to fail a con save or it's just wasted.

I know it's not stellar damage or anything, but a source of poison is the poisonous snake familiar: just a 2d4, CON DC 10 halves, so it can add a d4 to the weapon. Far from being worth a feat, but it's useful on a thief build, as a rogue enjoys a familiar anyway and can use the poisoner's kit as a bonus action without needing the feat

Using sorcerer can be interesting if you're able to choose any one magic item. Get some illusionist bracers then you can twin both for the same cost of quicken. If there's two enemies close to each other green flame blade would do massive damage able to hit each with both the primary damage and secondary damage 4 times. This can be started at level 1 if you take metamagic adept and allowed to start with the magic item

roleplaywise i'd say the longsword has a significant advantage before the halberd or the greataxe. You are not allowed walking along the streets of a peaceful town or enter a tavern having a polearm on resting on your shoulder. even if you don't plan to cause any trouble youmight unintentionally hutr someone, so big axes ang long spears are no-no, leave them with your horses or your cart. but a sword in a propper scabbard is ok, as it is not only a weapon but a part of your dress. and also rapiers, short swords, or even clubs, handaxes or daggers if they are propperly packed and don't cause disturbance among citizens around. simply said: all that you can't hide in your bag/sheath/pocket must remain with your horse, cartor what have you. if the plot leads you to the city to meet with an important NPC and things go nuts, the party might find itself weilding only dress weapons.

IRL combat optimizers: HALBERD!

I also think crusader's mantle might be worth a mention. I mean, it's still only a d4 but it is a damage boost and can boost the party too.

I once played around in a pvp server and I made a longsword wielding hexsorcadin and it was the strongest characteron the server. I was able to smite much more than a real character would be able to but I had a very strong ac and quickened booming blade filled my bonus action. And with smites my damage was comparable to a gwm character all while using elven accuracy

One advantage would be that longswords (without a shield) allow you to grapple with one hand, or use the d10 when not grappling. A build using Battlemaster(trip)+grapple could keep enemies on the ground for consistent advantage. Of course, this will depend a lot on how successful the athletics checks will be, and how much that will reduce your allies' chances to hit if they are ranged. But damage strategies based on AoE+grapple would require the use of a longsword (or other variant weapons).

I am not a super mechanics focused player. My current character is a ranger/warlock multiclass. But something that I have done for her is reskin a rapier as a cutlass dealing slashing damge. Since she's a dexterity based character and my charisma is only 14 I was kinda backed into using a rapier. And that didn't fit her style. Or a Scimitar which is just a handicap since she doesn't fight with two weapons. But the simple reskin and damge change would allow you to basically have a one handed longsword as a finesse weapon (an an arming sword or broadsword etc). That would open up the rouge and I think a rouge/battle master might be really awesome. I got the idea from the 5e lord of the rings book which had a broadsword in place of a rapier.

I generally go for longsword on support paladin. Damage isn't your main thing so low damage doesn't hurt ~as~ bad, you're feat/asi starved so not having a good weapon feat frees up a slot for other stuff you need anyway (or lets you play a race other than vuman or custom origin), and duelist/divine smite/improved divine smite lets your longsword deal some damage, when you need it to at least. Also dips/multiclasses well with either hexblade for hexblade's curse or sorcerer for quickened booming blade, which can help.

I noticed you didn’t mention Divine Favor, for which you’ve expressed some contempt in other videos. It’s less damage and duration than Hex/Hunters Mark, but it isn’t as BA hungry and comes with War Domain. Any use here? Also, what about Quick Toss as a way to weaponize a BA? It’s limited, but maybe combining it with War cleric gives you enough to get by. Last thing: as a thought experiment, I was wondering how much of a bonus is equivalent to -5/+10, e.g., how good a magic longsword (plus Dueling) would I need to convince me to give up GWM?

Bring back an old favorite, Cleave, "On a successful attack you may use your bonus action to attack another opponent within 5 feet", or since people are using a Longsword to use a shield (usually), have a house rule that you can use your shield to make an off hand attack using your bonus action, without losing the AC bonus, so something like "You may use your STR or DEX to make an of hand attack with your shield, this inflicts 1D4 bludgeoning damage unless the shield is modified to do other forms of damage, shield bonuses apply to the attack and damage but you do not gain the stat bonus to damage without the 2 weapon fighting style, if you have the Shield Mastery feat you may attempt the push as part of this attack".