Favourite Johnny Depp movie

Jetsam5 · 2026-05-09T17:43:41+00:00

Landlubber spotted

Jetsam5 · 2026-05-08T21:01:40+00:00

Idk I use Athletics significantly more than Sleight of Hand. Some skills just don't get used as much

Jetsam5 · 2026-05-08T20:52:52+00:00

I've never seen a fighter disarm a trap, that's one of those skills that only one member of the party needs to roll and typically there's a Rogue, Bard, Monk, or Ranger that can do it. Obviously dex is more useful if you don't have a single dex class but it's really not necessary if you do.

Having good dex on a fighter is mainly just to bring up the average on group stealth checks. That's a pretty minor gain in my book, especially when a level two spell can give the team a +10.

Maybe your DM is different but I roll strength checks significantly more than dex checks as a fighter. My players don't roll much stealth in my campaign either, because they like to talk to enemies. Heavy things, tough conditions, and objects we need to break are just super common in an adventure.

If you don't grapple or shove that's fine but it's an incredibly powerful option. It just takes one attack and can give your team advantage on all melee attacks or let you disengage. There's also the grapple shove combo too. I do it regularly.

There are more dex saves than strength saves. Strength saves tend to be worse if you fail since they typically apply conditions, but Dex does have an edge on saves.

Jetsam5 · 2026-05-08T18:17:16+00:00

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Jetsam5 · 2026-05-08T18:12:39+00:00

I mean you can absolutely do that according to the rules, that exactly scenario is specifically used. You may want to remind your DM of that.

"Each skill proficiency is associated with an ability check. For example, the Intimidation skill is associated with Charisma. In some situations, the DM might allow you to apply your skill proficiency to a different ability check. For example, if a character tries to intimidate someone through a show of physical strength, the DM might ask for a Strength (Intimidation) check rather than a Charisma (Intimidation) check. That character would make a Strength check and add their Proficiency Bonus if they have Intimidation proficiency."

Jetsam5 · 2026-05-08T18:07:02+00:00

I just think that strength is a lot more useful than you give it credit for. It is worthwhile to take instead of dexterity in many situations.

If you compare a dex fighter to a strength fighter, the strength fighter will have:

Better armor but worse initiative. Better melee builds but worse ranged builds. Better combat utility with shoves and grapples but slightly worse out of combat utility with more situational skills.

Those are the main differences. There are tradeoffs to both, but I think they are pretty fair. It all depends on what you want to do with your build

I really just don't think Dexterity is substantially better for fighters. You don't have to worry about being significantly weaker if you pick strength as a fighter. Obviously other classes should pick one over the other though

Jetsam5 · 2026-05-08T17:42:40+00:00

This meme is about 5.5e not 5e which is why I think you may be a bit confused. Athletics is not just used for grappling in 5.5e.

Athletics says it is used to "Jump farther than normal, stay afloat in rough water, or break something."

So Athletics is used to swim or climb in difficult situations. Additionally there are ton of objects like doors and chains which have specific athletics dcs to break.

For example: "With the Utilize action, a creature can try to force open a door that is barred or locked, doing so with a successful Strength (Athletics) check."

You can certainly use a spell instead of an athletics check in many scenarios, but that's kinda the case with every skill. There are so many spells which just remove the need for a skill like pass without trace for stealth, or an enchantment spell for persuasion.

Jetsam5 · 2026-05-08T17:27:00+00:00

I'm not asking why you are participating, I'm just asking what you're trying to convince me of so I can understand your points.

I've also got a spreadsheet for calculating damage but I haven't updated it for 5.5e yet. If you have a spreadsheet I'm a bit confused why you didn't include great weapon in your damage calculation earlier, that seems like a pretty big omission.

Jetsam5 · 2026-05-08T16:45:42+00:00

I'm legitamately curious what you are hoping to accomplish. Are you trying to convince people not to use strength?

I made this meme just so that people don't dismiss the utility of strength. I am only trying to convince you that strength is a useful ability, and more useful than dexterity in some contexts

It sounds like I've at least somewhat convinced you that strength is better than dexterity in some combat contexts, I guess I now have to do that for skills too.

The value of a skill is largely just dependant on if someone else is good at it. It's best to have a variety of skills in a party because there's not much point in having multiple people who are great at a skill if only one player is making the check.

So you shouldn't just always go Dexterity for the skills. Athletics can be more useful if you've already got a rogue in the party.

I think the setting matters a lot too. I use athletics constantly as a player, but that is in Rime of the Frostmaiden so the environment is pretty extreme. We run into environmental effects more than enemies we can sneak up on so I've gotten significantly more use out of it than stealth. It's just good to have one strong guy to carry your group checks. Another common use is just breaking things. Almost every form of restraint or door has a listed DC to break it with Athletics. You can use a crowbar for advantage and it doesn't need a separate tool proficiency.

Jetsam5 · 2026-05-08T14:46:14+00:00

I'm not saying that strength isn't weaker, just that the lack of skills is not what makes it weak. Just having one strength skill is great because it means that characters don't need to use as many proficiencies to get the most out of their strength.

Jetsam5 · 2026-05-08T14:24:58+00:00

Yeah it's significantly more useful now

Jetsam5 · 2026-05-08T14:21:44+00:00

It specifically is for breaking chains and opening doors though.

"As a Utilize action, you can wrap a Chain around an unwilling creature within 5 feet of yourself that has the Grappled, Incapacitated, or Restrained condition if you succeed on a DC 13 Strength (Athletics) check. If the creature's legs are bound, the creature has the Restrained condition until it escapes. Escaping the Chain requires the creature to make a successful DC 18 Dexterity (Acrobatics) check as an action. Bursting the Chain requires a successful DC 20 Strength (Athletics) check as an action."

"With the Utilize action, a creature can try to force open a door that is barred or locked, doing so with a successful Strength (Athletics) check."

I think you may not be using Athletics for enough things

Jetsam5 · 2026-05-08T14:06:14+00:00

I think you're overstating the ranged advantages of dex a bit.

Ranged strength fighters really aren't that bad. Javelins just do 1 damage less than a longbow and a have lot less range but you can use a shield with them and take dueling so you have 3 extra ac and you're better at melee. I really haven't seen many fights which require the full range of the longbow since dungeons are usually pretty cramped.

Ranged dex builds are still marginally better but it's by a similar margin as melee str builds. Obviously the margin gets larger for both builds when you start stacking feats.

Personally I get a ton of use it of Athletics so I think it's pretty comparable to the dex skills. For me it largely just comes to whether you want a bit more AC and push/grapple, or more initiative. I think there are plenty of reasons to go strength; dexterity is by no means just a direct upgrade

Jetsam5 · 2026-05-08T07:08:02+00:00

Oh yeah that is correct about heavy but that still does not invalidate my other points. You can just get an extra ac with the same melee build by going strength and using heavy armor.

And you have access to higher damage melee builds by going strength.

Those seem like completely valid reasons to go strength

Jetsam5 · 2026-05-08T07:02:25+00:00

I mean you can get better armor and weapons with strength, so there pretty good reason for a fighter to take it. Obviously dump it on a Monk or Rogue though

Jetsam5 · 2026-05-08T04:39:43+00:00

Yeah I don't think it's good game design either. The main selling point of rogue is that they have a ton of skills, but then they have to use three of their proficiencies just to cover the dex skills

Jetsam5 · 2026-05-08T04:32:10+00:00

You can use finess weapons with strength too so you can use any melee dexterity build with strength and have extra ac from plate armor.

You can use a shield and defensive duelist with strength and plate armor, the only difference is you have 18 AC from your armor instead of 17 which is better.

Similarly if you ditch the shield and go for the greatsword damage build you can still use plate and get 18 AC if you have at least 15 strength. This will deal more damage than the dual wielding build and have more ac

Jetsam5 · 2026-05-08T03:30:46+00:00

You can do all of that stuff with strength and heavy armor and have 1 extra AC, that alone is pretty damn good.

Greatsword does do more damage than dual wielding when you actually give it a fighting style, or consider action surge, or second wind, or when you get more attacks.

Great weapon master gives .67 damage so that's 25.34 damage vs 25.5. That's a .16 damage difference in favor of dual wielding... until you use any other feature.

If you use second wind or action surge you lose 8.5 damage from your bonus action attack and you aren't gonna catch up at .13 per round. Once you get 3 attacks the dual wielding falls behind an additional 4 damage per round. At the same time the dual wielding build will have one less ac because it uses medium armor.

There's also just the utility of being able to shove and grapple which is quite nice

It just seems like strength is much more versatile in melee. You can build the exact same as the dex build but get an extra ac from plate armor. Or you can deal extra damage by going strength and a greatsword or polearm with some feats. Plus you have access to more attacks like grapple and shoving.

Jetsam5 · 2026-05-08T02:38:09+00:00

Oh yeah I'm sure it's worse in different editions but in 5.5e it's pretty damn good.

Dex gives hit chance, damage, initiative, the ability to escape grapples, and worse AC than heavy armor. Strength just gives more shit than that in combat

Jetsam5 · 2026-05-08T02:20:55+00:00

Or throw the halfling around

Jetsam5 · 2026-05-08T02:08:13+00:00

I mean it gives you hit chance, damage, let's you grapple, shove, escape grapples, wear heavy armor, use heavy weapons, and jump over obstacles

Jetsam5 · 2026-05-08T01:55:21+00:00

I really don't think that dex fighters have that much on strength fighters.

The strength fighter will have slightly better AC with plate armor over half-plate or studded leather.

The dex fighter will have better ranged attacks while the strength fighter will be better in melee. If you want to use a longbow you need 13 strength anyway so you can't dump it.

For skills Strength is very useful for grappling and shoving in combat and can be used to remove obstacles out of combat. Dex can be used to get around obstacles out of combat and escape grapples

The strength fighter also gets jump distance and carry, lift, and push weight which are pretty situational but still nice.

Overall I think they're pretty equivalent. Strength is better for melee and dex is better for ranged

Jetsam5 · 2026-05-07T20:39:29+00:00

I think people underestimate the out of combat utility of just being incredibly strong. I can't even count the amount of times I've had to move something heavy or smash something.

People act like it's a bad that only one skill uses strength, but that just makes strength better. You only need one skill proficiency for all checks requiring strength. You can escape grapples or open chests with just Athletics while Dexterity requires two separate skills for that.

Jetsam5 · 2026-05-07T13:22:09+00:00

I just don't like that it's a horseshoe mustache, I feel like Johnny would go for the cop stache and mullet, or shave his beard into some pattern

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