Recent content by Mrodron

DMs sometimes counter optimized -5/+10 builds by giving monsters maximum hitpoints. The problem in this approach is that it "forces" fighters to select the GWM feat or drop behind in the damage treadmill. (A better approach would be to give monsters higher AC, but I suppose many DMs will want to...

How effective the shoving approach is depends on the target's AC. Against low-AC targets, making two melee attacks is the better option. Shoving the high-AC target prone kind of debuffs it. The tactic is not as effective against every target (either by RAW or by my suggestion). On the other...

Hello everyone. This goal was just to make this tactic more worthwhile for players seeking more combat options for their fighters. I am worried about this becoming a too often used tactic. Currently, in my experience, this is underutilized.

No, because that's how it worked in 3.5/PF. I'd be actually more worried about PCs around a poor monster that has been knocked prone.

Unless I am mistaken, given two attacks, it is always better (for the fighter) to attack twice than (try to) shove a target prone and attack it once with advantage. Standing up from prone consumes half of ones movement. Therefore, standing up is kind of moving, and movement does provoke attack...

Replacing a physical stat with a mental one makes the already abstract ability scores and the already abstract game mechanics even more abstract. This can cause disassociation between the game mechanics and the imagined fantasy world.

Allegedly, the feats are OP, not strength. There is the equivalent feat (Sharpshooter) for dex-based characters, which is arguably even more OP. It is ranged only, but so are the above mentioned feats for melee only. It follows from this that the rapier (a melee weapon) is not the main issue...

I was completely under the impression that longbows required strength of 13! Maybe they (and rapiers) should, but I was wrong about this one.

The person who started this thread found rapier's dex damage an issue, so I gave him a suggestion (based on a mistake, see below). The person is not alone: quite a few have observed that not only the game supports "different kinds of fighters", some find the different kind of fighters favourable...

Did not go through the whole thread so I am not sure if this was already suggested: What if d8 finesse melee weapons had the same strength 13 requirement the long bow has? This would at least stop the most obnoxious str 8 dual wielding rapier builds. I guess it would make some sense...

Assume that the campaign goes from level 1 to 20, no feats will be allowed and only official rules will be used. I have read about potential balance issues with respect to strength versus dexterity, melee vs. ranged and martials vs. casters. I'd be interested in experiences from people who have...

Thanks everyone for the comments. Maybe this just has to be tried.

Are there any obvious examples of classes/builds that would suffer if ASIs were not allowed? I understand that there would still be "optimizing", but I would want to close the too obvious ASIs to STR 20 + GWM -combo.

Feats with +1 ASIs would be the only way to increase ability scores if straight ASIs were not allowed.

This is a question for those experienced players/DMs who find the game a bit too easy because of feats. Has anyone considered banning ASIs and allowing only feats? (Typically, it would be just the other way.) Let's assume that point buy will be used. Without ASIs, to get, let's say, strength...