D&D 5E Longswords

Arial Black said:

So no, I would never contemplate changing 5E so that finesse weapons wouldn't use Dex for damage. I've been wanting it for nearly forty years!

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I'm still waiting for a new D&D where armor reduces damage.

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Dexterity is the best skill, people talk about min maxing and using the point buy system but it is common sense, if we port the game mechanics to the world a guy naked can sustain the same damage as a guy in full armor, can have nearly the same damage with a rapier as a strong guy using a two handed sword if he is a fighter (unless you use the optional feats that change the standard balance of the game, but then he could have far better defense, range damage, etc) and he is better with a bow. Obviously in this kind of world people would train dexterity since childhood and most people would be very agile instead of strong, the point buy system and what people choose reflects this.

If you don't want people to use the obvious choices in this case a rapier then you need to change a lot of rules.

Armor reducing damage adds one "step" to combat rolls and slows the game down though. Is the trade off worth it?

Not to mention you have to rebalance almost everything.

Yes, a proper system with armor only reducing damage would be a big change.
Some easy changes I can think to boost STR builds:

- Heavy armor reduces 4 from slashing, piercing and crushing attacks and medium armor reduces 2 ,or give an armor value to each type of heavy and medium armor. Don't use the feat that does the same with heavy armor, personally I wouldn't use most feats.
- Rapier 1d6 damage or/and change dueling, +2 damage only for str weapons, add another fighting style for finesse weapons, for example +1 damage or the same feature as the defensive duelist feat.
- Perhaps give something like fiendish vigor, for example 4-5 thp to light, knowledge and trickery domain clerics.

dco said:

Some easy changes I can think to boost STR builds:

- Heavy armor reduces 4 from slashing, piercing and crushing attacks and medium armor reduces 2 ,or give an armor value to each type of heavy and medium armor. Don't use the feat that does the same with heavy armor, personally I wouldn't use most feats..

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A creature with1d6+2 damage only does 5 average damage, which means many monsters under CR 1 will do 0-2 damage.

DR should probably scale with proficiency bonus, e.g. DR = to proficiency bonus for heavy armor and D = 1/2 proficiency bonus for medium.

You might also need to lower the AC values of heavy / medium armor as well.

I think that's on the low side, for example a sword was not very good against a breastplate or plate armor, and swords do more damage. The average of a wolf is 7, max 10, it could kill a human (with 6hp or less) wearing plate armor with one bite.

I would avoid feats, but for the people who use them one feat can give 3 damage reduction for heavy armor, so this is not very different mechanically. The thing is that instead of half a feat it would be a free bonus for armors that would give str characters a bit more balance against dex builds and perhaps there would be less naked barbarians.

dco said:

I think that's on the low side, for example a sword was not very good against a breastplate or plate armor, and swords do more damage. The average of a wolf is 7, max 10, it could kill a human (with 6hp or less) wearing plate armor with one bite.

I would avoid feats, but for the people who use them one feat can give 3 damage reduction for heavy armor, so this is not very different mechanically. The thing is that instead of half a feat it would be a free bonus for armors that would give str characters a bit more balance against dex builds and perhaps there would be less naked barbarians.

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Part of the balancing of feats is that they're generally not available before level 4.

Just looking through the DM Basic rules, there's a bunch of monsters above CR 0 that do 4 or less damage per attack:

Acolyte, Bandit (in melee), Blink Dog, Blood Hawk, Boar, Camel, Cockatrice, Cultist, Eagle, Giant Badger (Bite), Giant Crab, Giant Frog, Giant Rat, Giant Sea Horse, Gnoll (Bite), Guard, Harpy (Club), Hyena, Kobold, Mage, Mastiff, Merfolk, Mule, Twig Blight, Panther (Claws), Zombie.

All of these monsters — some of these iconic D&D ones, up to CR 1 — you simply could not use in your adventures with that type of DR mechanic.

Seeing this is going down the same lane countless other discussions have went in the past, let me offer an alternative rules approach.

You can kill somebody with a knife. Also, playing a knife-fighter can be fun. So consider not getting bogged down by detailed notions about armor and weapon reach and weapon speed and all that, and instead look at it from a gameplay "is it fun" perspective, and generally allow almost ANY weapon to have the same high damage per round

RCanine said:

Part of the balancing of feats is that they're generally not available before level 4.

Just looking through the DM Basic rules, there's a bunch of monsters above CR 0 that do 4 or less damage per attack:

Acolyte, Bandit (in melee), Blink Dog, Blood Hawk, Boar, Camel, Cockatrice, Cultist, Eagle, Giant Badger (Bite), Giant Crab, Giant Frog, Giant Rat, Giant Sea Horse, Gnoll (Bite), Guard, Harpy (Club), Hyena, Kobold, Mage, Mastiff, Merfolk, Mule, Twig Blight, Panther (Claws), Zombie.

All of these monsters — some of these iconic D&D ones, up to CR 1 — you simply could not use in your adventures with that type of DR mechanic.

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Supposedly all those monsters should also hit at higher levels, that was the point of the bounded accuracy. The optional human can start with that feat, it also gives +1str.

In any case it is your game, you can use what fits your vision, this is all I change in the game when I am the DM:
- Standard human gets one proficiency with one skill.
- 4 Damage reduction for plate armor, 3 for heavy armor, 2 for medium armor
- Rapier damage = d6
- Fighting styles:- I let draw or stow a weapon with each hand.
- No multiclassing = No more dabbling to get action surge, eldritch blast, armor, etc. Use feats.
- Feats allowed: Light/Medium/Heavy armor master, Durable, Magic initiate, Martial adept, Ritual caster, Skilled, Weapon master (also for unarmed attacks and improvised weapons).
- New feats:- Metamagic: More options than the usual two.- Spells Changes: I added more damage types for some offensive spells to balance the number of damage types of spells. But this is too long.

This way I avoid from feats extra bonus attacks, high extra damage for some weapons, OAs using spells, bonus shoves, super alertness, etc. Most feats are for people who want some extra proficiencies, fighting styles or special abilities. Optimizing for DEX is very good but now this build has less damage for melee (max -3 average), doesn't have damage reduction, etc. No advantage for concentration rolls means class features as warding flare, fighting styles with shield or some metamagic options gain more interest, reduction from armor can also help...

I've always thought there could be two separate, better options or changes, or maybe a combination of the two.

First option, I am not a fan of the weapon table for a few things. I think the differences for the Simple vs Martial weapons should just be a single die category. I think this has a few benefits. The biggest one, for me at least, is I think that it would let people choose weapons based on character image, not on what does the most damage. I hear more times then I can count people say, "I really want to use a Great Axe, but the Great Sword is better damage." If everything falls into a category with similar weapons, people choose on what they see their characters using in their head instead of what's going to put out max damage, at least compared to similar other weapons in that category.

In addition to the changes below, I would change Two Weapon Fighting to only the off hand weapon has to be Light, with the Two Weapon Fighting feat removing the Light requirement for the offhand. This lets a player fight with a Main Hand regular weapon and offhand a light weapon, something I don't think is unreasonable. No different then using a shield. It takes added training (feat) to fight with two full sized weapons.

Simple:
One handed w/ Light & Finesse) - 1d4 (Club, Dagger, Sickle)
One handed w/ Finesse - 1d6 (Hand Axe, Javelin, Light Hammer)
One handed w/ Versatile - 1d6/1d8 (Quarter Staff, Mace, Spear)
Two Handed w/ Reach - 1d8 (None Yet)
Two Handed - 1d10 (Great Club)

Martial
One handed w/ Light & Finesse) - 1d6 (Short Sword)
One handed w. Finesse - 1d8 (Rapier, Scimitar)
One handed w/ Versatile - 1d8/1d10 (Battle Axe, Long Sword, Flail, Warhammer, War Pick, Trident, Morning Star)
Two Handed w/ Reach - 1d10 (Glaive, Halberd, Pike)
Two Handed - 1d12 (Maul, Great Axe, Great Sword)

There's room for specialty type of weapons that are unique, like the whip or Lance that wouldn't fit into the general mold. As a general rule though, everything should find a way to fit into this outline. I also recognize that Thrown weapons would make some weapons slightly better then others, but I don't really know how else to balance that. I'd also had a Martial Spear to the table in the Versatile category.

Second option, simply make your Str bonus relate to +Damage and your Dex bonus relate to +Hit for everything. If gives Str some added value so that Dex isn't the God stat. This is independent of if you use the weapons table I posted above. If you combined the two, the finesse part would go away and you're rearrange things a bit.

This may seem really basic, but why not just make rapiers unavailable in your campaign? In most cases when a race or class allows proficiency with a rapier, it also allows proficiency in some other finesse weapon (shortswords, scimitars), so it shouldn't be that much of a change.