While enjoying my morning coffee, I stumbled upon a Baldur's Gate 3 Barbarian build guide. The author claimed, as you can see from the title, that Great Weapon Fighting (GWF) and Savage Attacker don't work well together.
Unfortunately, I don't have the video URL, so I'll paraphrase the context. The author suggested a 3-level Fighter dip after taking 8-9 Barbarian levels for Action Surge and either Champion or Battle Master benefits. However, they specifically stated:
"I don't recommend taking Great Weapon Fighting if you are taking Savage Attacker as one of your feats because they don't play well together."
This is the first time I've heard this, and my understanding was that more re-rolls lead to better outcomes.
If anyone can clarify the interaction between GWF and Savage Attacker and why it wouldn't be beneficial in this particular build, I would greatly appreciate it.
Thanks in advance!
Best Answer
Adding a second re-roll effect has less impact than the first, especially if it’s Great Weapon Fighting, and taking either option has an opportunity cost
Note: I made a faulty assumption that Savage Attacker would trigger first, but this is not the case according to players who have investigated the interaction directly. See for example this Reddit post. As such I’ve revised my answer.
Great Weapon Fighting (GWF) is a fighting style:
Savage Attacker is a feat:
This is effectively the same as advantage, but for damage dice.
In Baldur’s Gate 3 both of these are always on effects: the re-rolls are mandatory. This differs from the tabletop game in which the player chooses whether they re-roll or not in both cases, and can also use GWF both before and after using Savage Attacker (see “How does Savage Attacker interact with Great Weapon Fighting style?” on RPG.SE for more info). The BG3 versions also include some kinds of bonus damage which are not included in the tabletop versions.
A character who has both of these features and hits with an attack using a two-handed melee weapon will roll their damage dice. Great Weapon Fighting then re-rolls each die with a 1 or 2 result, using the new roll for each one even if it’s lower. Then Savage Attacker rolls a second die for each damage die, using the higher of the two results. GWF does not trigger again on any new values rolled by Savage Attacker.
With a Greataxe, which rolls 1d12 for damage, the normal chance of rolling 2 or lower is 2/12 or 1/6, so 16.666%.
A Greatsword is not quite as bad; it rolls 2d6 for damage, and each dice is considered separately for both effects. For each d6 the normal chance of rolling 2 or less is 1/3, 33.333%. The odds that at least one of them will come up 2 or less is normally quite high: 55.555%.
So you get more use out of GWF with weapons that provide smaller or a greater number of damage dice, and Savage Attacker always re-rolls and gives you the highest result, which makes it strictly better.
How much damage will this add? It will vary a lot, but on average if you have both the style and the feat, it will increase damage for the dice rolled by about 35%. For a detailed breakdown of theoretical damage bonuses from each effect, including in combination, see this Reddit post.
As the linked post points out, this is more useful at lower levels when more of your damage comes from the dice roll than the bonuses added to it. By sixth or seventh level when a fighter or barbarian character is probably adding as much as +10 to a damage roll from Strength, Rage and magical bonuses, the extra 35% to dice damage matters less unless you have a weapon with lots of smaller damage dice.
Choosing the Savage Attacker feat when you already have GWF makes more of a difference than the reverse scenario, but taking either is an opportunity cost.
By taking the Savage Attacker feat you are missing out on an Ability Score Increase (ASI) or another feat. This is an opportunity cost - most classes in BG3 only get three ASIs or feats, though Fighters and Rogues get more, and so the cost is lower for them. An ASI can boost your Strength bonus by +1, which adds to ability checks, saving throws and attack rolls as well as damage, increasing your chances of hitting a foe (and thus reducing your chances of doing zero damage). This is particularly useful in the early game, as are other feats, but the linked analysis above suggests Savage Attacker may be powerful choice.
Taking Great Weapon Fighting as a style is an opportunity cost for other styles which can improve your defence or ranged attacks (useful if the character’s Dexterity is low), or provide other benefits that might be more consistently useful. This is particularly true in BG3, where the Karmic Dice setting (on by default) ensures you don’t have long unlucky streaks of very low rolls.
The final advice of the detailed analysis seems to be that which is worth taking will depend on the size and number of damage dice used by your weapon, but in general Savage Attacker is good for most scenarios, and it’s probably not worth taking GWF if you already have Savage Attacker.
Of course none of this takes into account the feelgood factor of having another chance to avoid rolling low damage with a big weapon, but that’s considerably lessened when the re-rolls happen automatically under the hood.