Bit esoteric but I've been trying to pin down just how potent having a fighting style is. Often this is due to my ongoing notion that barbarians should get one which gets countered by the notion that Barbarians get rage instead.

However, rage scales up over time and has other abilities which tie into it. The same thing can be said for the Monk's martial arts/unarmed strikes and to some extent the rogue's sneak attacks. Classes such as rangers and paladins who do get fighting styles will also get favored enemies and smites as class exclusive abilities just as the fighter gets action surge. I think based on that it's fair to say that a fighting style is not equal to a class ability.

There's also no class with a simple weapon limit which gets a fighting style, sub-classes like valor bard, war cleric, and hexblade warlock will give martial weapon proficiency but not a fighting style. I think it would be too enticing and mechanically advantageous as a subclass feature and would throw off the balance between these options, therefore a fighting style is more powerful than martial weapons proficiency.

My application for this debate is figuring out whether a theoretical Fighting Style feat should come with a 1 to Dex or Strength. The existing Weapon Master feat does include a single stat bump otherwise it would be less appealing than it already is. In my game experience Fighting Styles aren't incredibly potent, when I've played characters that have one fighting off of meta doesn't really feel like a nerf and when combined with magic items or certain abilities it can be much more effective to ignore your chosen style. Early on the small advantages you get are weighty but as you level up it becomes less and less influential to the game.

Thanks for coming to my Ted talk.