Great Weapon Fighting

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Great Weapon Fighting is a Fighting Style passive feature.

Description

When you roll a 1 or 2 on a damage die for an attack with a Two-Handed melee weapon, that die is rerolled once.

How to learn

Classes:

• Class level 1: Fighter
• Class level 2: Paladin

Notes

• This also applies to Versatile weapons when off-hand is empty.
• Unlike in 5th Edition rules, added damage dice from sources like Superiority Dice,  Divine Smite, and a Fire- or Poison-dipped weapon may also be rerolled.
• This feature increases the average of a "Dx" (a dice with x sides) by 1 - 2/x, e.g. by 0.5 for a D4, by 0.833... for a D12, and so on.
• When used in combination with Savage Attacker, Great Weapon Fighting is applied before selecting the highest damage roll.

Math

Average bonus damage of Great Weapon Fighting alone

Average bonus damage per dice rolled

Damage dice	Average bonus damage	Average damage roll
1d4	0.50	3
1d6	0.67	4.17
1d8	0.75	5.25
1d10	0.8	6.30
1d12	0.83	7.33
2d6	1.33	8.33

If we compare to the 2 bonus damage of Duelling fighting style, at least a few damage dice need to be rolled for this feat to be equivalent or better. For example using the Halberd of Vigilance dipped in fire, this feat would on average add 2 x 0.5 + 0.8 = 1.8 bonus damage. If it is a critical strike it would add 3.6 bonus damage on average.

Average bonus damage of Great Weapon Fighting with Savage Attacker (or Brace)

Average bonus damage per dice rolled

Damage dice	Average bonus damage	Average damage roll	Average bonus damage added by Great Weapon Fighting	Average bonus damage added by Savage Attacker
1d4	0.88	3.38	0.25	0.38
1d6	1.27	4.77	0.30	0.60
1d8	1.63	6.13	0.31	0.88
1d10	1.97	7.47	0.32	1.17
1d12	2.31	8.81	0.32	1.48
2d6	2.54	9.54	0.59	1.20

Comparing with the 2 bonus damage of Duelling fighting style, at least 6 damage dice need to be rolled to be equivalent or better.

This fighting style is less efficient when used in combination with Savage Attacker but it can still be worth taking if :

• Many damage dice are rolled, which can be achieved with e.g Divine Strike and/or when building characters based on Critical Strikes.
• Someone wants to take another feat than Savage Attacker whose efficiency is slightly reduced by using Great Weapon Fighting instead (0.25 to 0.5 less bonus average damage, or 50% to 25% less bonus average damage for a d4 to d12 die)
• There are no better fighting style to pick anyway.

Average bonus damage of Great Weapon Fighting with Savage Attacker and Brace

This feat average bonus damage is even lower when used with Brace and Savage Attacker : ~0.16 damage / die. However Brace can only be used once per short rest so it could still be worth taking.

External Links

• Savage Attacker and Great Weapon Fighting calculations by Kalaeman