D&D 5E there aren't enough slow Dwarves with Axes! ;)

[Rya.Reisender]

I wonder why range is so good for you.

From my experience 90% of all the battles are inside a dungeon and a room is probably never larger that 40 by 40 feet, so usually you can always melee reach any enemy. Even outside dungeon my group usually tries to negotiate first before fighting, so they will usually start combat close to the enemies.

Our Fighter uses melee attacks to 95%. The remaining 5% he threw a Javelin.
Our Cleric uses melee attacks to 80%. To 19% he casts an offensive ranged spell. And one single time he threw a hand axe.
Our Wizard is pretty much 50/50. Half of the time he goes into melee to tank damage and use short-range spells. The other half he stays back and launches ranged spells.
Our Rogue does ranged attacks 90% of the time. Mostly because this allows him to hide around a corner every round. He switches to melee only when an enemy moved next to him.

So for me it's pretty balanced.

 

[knasser]

Option 4:

Start the lions share of your combat encounters 20' away. Stop starting them 200' away.

Fixed.

Hard to do outside of a dungeon, CapnZapp already covered this in pointing out you can't just keep yelling "Ambush!" at your players and it also does little to deal with the PCs seeing a monster 20' away and then just putting some distance between them and it and kiting it. In any case, it's off-topic for this thread which is for people who do find it a problem and want to work on solutions, rather than the thread become a deluge of "you're playing it wrong" posts.

So back on topic, I like your ideas CapnZapp. I've already toyed with the idea of cancelling Dex bonus to damage for Finesse weapons and extending it to most ranged weapons seems logical enough. The more strength you have the more powerful a bow you can draw, the harder you can throw an axe, the damage it may do and the more accurately you can throw it. I'd honestly say strength is a greater factor in hitting something accurately with an axe than Dexterity. If you can throw it good and hard you can place it in someone's chest. If you throw it weakly your options narrow - maybe it's falling by the time it reaches them and gets them in the foot. So this is likely something I will adopt. The problematic weapon is the crossbow. The power of this does not come from one's strength. But equally you can't give it a Dex bonus without raising the question of why a throwing knife or bow doesn't also get a Dex bonus. So you either break the pattern with the crossbow and live with it, or you give it no bonus and make it weaker. This last option is actually fine though because you don't HAVE to make it weaker. Make it more powerful. It becomes the ranged weapon of choice for low-level characters of course, but by the time they reach mid-levels, it has become less competitive. And that works for realism as historically the dreadful thing about the crossbow (aside from its power) was how little training it took to use compared to the longbow. A skilled bowman was a very dangerous person. But for every one of him you could hand out crossbows to a bunch of peasants and say "point this at the enemy and pull this". So that works for me. Give it an inherent bonus or something.


The cantrips was the only one I thought you were wrong on. Especially with the in-game justifications about someone who can just cast Mending all day or burn through walls with Firebolt. The rules also don't say what the limit is on doing push-ups, but I would apply Exhaustion rolls to characters who tried to do them all day long. Sure you can do as many push-ups as you like in a ten round combat (one minute) when your life depends on it. Doesn't mean that the local miller can replace their ox and stone wheel by tying a mallet to your head and having you headbutt wheat from sunrise to sunset. There's also the two-fold question of whether a magician wants to spend her day as a seamstress and whether there are enough mages out there to make a dent in normal life in the first place. Maybe it's okay that the person who spent years studying arcane mysteries can repair a cloak with a gesture. And I'd say a stone wall isn't like to break because it lets low-grade fire lobbed at it repeatedly, I'm pretty certain I could throw small molitovs at the wall of my house all day long and it wouldn't fall down.

From a game balance perspective, ranged cantrips aren't that dangerous, imo. I don't have a problem with keeping them. Maybe a Warlock with Eldritch bolt gets a bit more dangerous from what people have said, but I'm okay with having someone in the party be a ranged specialist. The problem I see you trying to address is that there aren't enough slow dwarves; not that you must turn everyone into one. The archer is also a staple of D&D. Your problem is the whole or most of the party going that way rendering melee monsters helpless. So long as it's just one or sometimes two PCs hanging back, I think success has been achieved.

IMO, anyway. This is a good thread.

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

You can also bring charge back into the game. Move up to double your speed (minimum 15 feet, or something like that) in a straight line and you can make a melee attack at the end of your move. You can even make it a reckless attack, like the barbarian class feature, to add some tactical choice.

 

[knasser]

I wonder why range is so good for you.

From my experience 90% of all the battles are inside a dungeon...

You may have answered your own question. I can't speak for Capn but a lot of games tend towards realism and being player driven. Both these things lead to battles frequently taking place in non-contrived locations. The villains are reactive, mobile. The PCs are too. If the villain finds the players are staying at an inn, they'll attack them there, not sit in their castle waiting whilst the PCs stir up rebellion. If the villain is sitting in her defensible castle, the PCs will wait until she has to leave for some purpose to try and get her at her weakest, rather than walk into an environment she controls. If I put my goblins in some underground cave, my players will just pile up a lot of fresh green wood at the entrance and build a bonfire to smoke them out and kill them as they flee.

Sometimes PCs will have to wade through a dungeon, but in a story-focused, more open game, both players and NPCs can manipulate circumstances in enough ways that it's hard to predict the environment and outdoor battles occur pretty regularly. Even when in a dungeon, I would expect my players to rapidly fall back or shift the location to passages or caverns that favoured them. Controlling your environment and where a battle takes place is basic tactics for my group.

Regardless how you run the game though, it's not good to have constraints where you don't need there to be constraints (e.g. system combat only works optimally in enclosed spaces). If it's not a problem for you then great. But I think this thread is really for people who do find it a problem and want to work on solutions.

 

[Ancalagon]

Sometimes PCs will have to wade through a dungeon, but in a story-focused, more open game, both players and NPCs can manipulate circumstances in enough ways that it's hard to predict the environment and outdoor battles occur pretty regularly. Even when in a dungeon, I would expect my players to rapidly fall back or shift the location to passages or caverns that favoured them. Controlling your environment and where a battle takes place is basic tactics for my group.

Well said. I guess it strongly depends on "combat as a sport" vs "combat as war" view of the game. Slow axe dwarves are already inherently disadvantaged in "combat as war"... I still am very, very surprised that dex applies to damage.

 

[Caliburn101]

First off - walk around an untouched bit of wilderness and realise that it is easy to get close to a target before they have a clear line of sight if there is any more vegetation cover but grass to speak of.

Second - realise that a group of monsters provide cover for each other when in a mob - target selection will commonly be restricted to the first rank without penalty, the second rank with light cover, the next with maximum cover and the rest no LOS.

Also - stop being a slave to stablocks and add ranged weapons to monsters who could fire them (opposable thumbs anyone?), and run your monsters like they have at least half a brain...

..."Good guys comin', many bows and wizud - go to ground behind dem rocks and let em get close before we charge out and bash em!".

Monsters may not be good at hiding - so they will probably use other forms of ambush tactic - decoys, feints, attacking at night - 60ft darkvision doesn't give you long to shoot before they are up in your grill now does it..?

The statblock of a monster is an average specimen of the species equipped in only one typical variant of how they might appear. Have your horde of goblins attack with captured crossbows from a cliff top - who gives a rat's ass if bows aren't in their statblock? PUT THEM THERE.

 

[CapnZapp]

Ranged combat is valuable, but I've found that most ranged PCs wither under a face-to-face assault, whereas the classic dwarven fighter easily stands toe-to-toe.

On an open field, yeah, the archers will have their day as they take out the monsters from 100' away. But in an urban environment, dungeon, forest, or any place with shorter line of sight, the monsters will be on them in no time.

I believe you still think of archers as lightly armored mobile skirmishers.

In previous editions you'd be right.

In 5E, however, you're looking at full fighters, with the complete array of sturdiness abilities and features.

Try building the following character and see for yourself. No, really, far too many players downplay the ways ranged fire have lost all penalties in 5E simply because they do not realize this guy is possible. I'm going to display the character at a fairly high level so you know what to aim for.

Race: Variant human
Class: Fighter 6, then Ranger 4, then Fighter 6 for a 16th level character
Ability Score Increases/Feats: 6 (at levels F1, F4, F6, R4, F8 and F12) - Dex 18, Dex 20, Sharpshooter, Crossbow Expert, and two "free".
Fighting Styles: Archery and Defense

This character is no less sturdy than any other fighter. He will easily have AC 19 (and probably more unless you run a low magic campaign) and 120 hp (if not more). He makes four 1d6+15 attacks against every enemy with less than AC 18ish*, not counting the Horde Breaker extra attack, easily being our party's top DPR king (commonly hovering around ~70 dpr unless he rolls exceptionally badly, when he "only" reaches ~50). And I haven't even added poison or nova abilities (like action surge) into this. His range is 120 ft (though his darkvision is only 60 ft I believe), he never gets any penalties from cover, range. He can shoot at foes in melee, he can shoot at foes while in melee himself.

*) it's quite common for monsters to get disabled one way or the other; from Monk Stunning Fist or spells or whatever. His attack bonus is +12 I believe (+5 ability +5 proficiency +1 magic +1 sorry can't really remember outright), which is okay when you have advantage (+7 vs AC 18 means rolling 11+, which translates to a 75% hit chance), especially considering how easy it is to "top up" near misses, most notably with Precision Attack battlemaster maneuver. So way more than merely "okay" really.

When you say "monsters will be on them in no time" I have found that to be simply untrue. It's not just that the monster's speed is effectively reduced by 30 feet per round (since the characters can backpedal 30 feet to keep their distance), there are also plenty of cheap ways to hamper monsters: low-level spells that trap foes or turn the ground into difficult terrain, abilities that lower the Speed of monsters etc.

You really need to have your monsters literally jump the heroes from the shadows to give them a chance of swamping them, and with two characters with darkvision and passive perceptions above 20 that simply becomes impossible even for foes that are supposedly good at sneaking and hiding (unless of course the monster is special, such with a ghost).

And Ralf, remember: all of this is taken only from the PHB.

All this said, I should say that I am fully aware you can become even sturdier if you focus on protection and defense. It's just that I don't see how that can compensate for slow speed at 5 ft reach.

All that's needed is that Regdar the Axedwarf chops down his last goblin and can't reach the next one with his last attack for his DPR to tank. Having a d12 damage die doesn't help you if you can't reliably deliver all your attacks all the rounds.

Where 5E differs from every edition before it is in the following areas that make a difference for the above character:

The smaller damage die of ranged fire is irrelevant. (The -5/+10 mechanism of Sharpshooter)
You add your attack Ability to damage. (Before you had to have a great Strength in addition to Dexterity)
You have effectively unlimited range, even with a weapon listed as 30 feet range. You never suffer cover penalties. You aren't penalized for being in melee yourself.

I could add more: magic bonuses from your bow stacks with magic bonuses from your ammunition. You never risk attacking an ally when shooting into melee. Crossbows don't have reduced loading times: this character can fire 3x2+1+1=8 bolts in a single round.

Any one of these isn't broken. It's when an edition allows all of them you have enough straws to break the camel.

 

[Bitbrain]

Reply to Opening Post.

historically speaking, ranged weapons are superior to melee weapons.
but if it bothers you that much, just give the monsters some kind of magically-induced resistance against ranged weapons.

 

[Horwath]

Well said. I guess it strongly depends on "combat as a sport" vs "combat as war" view of the game. Slow axe dwarves are already inherently disadvantaged in "combat as war"... I still am very, very surprised that dex applies to damage.

Dex to damage is simulation of precision. Same as strength.

It's realation of your attack atribute to your damage output.

If attack roll and damage roll would be in the same roll then there would not be any question about it(like in World of darkness games)

 

[jasper]

Reply to Opening Post.

historically speaking, ranged weapons are superior to melee weapons.
but if it bothers you that much, just give the monsters some kind of magically-induced resistance against ranged weapons.

Historically speaking if wasn't for my brother St George, we would be cleaning dragon droppings off of statues instead of bird droppings.