D&D 5E Helping melee combat to be more competitive to ranged.

CapnZapp said:

Funny, I thought I was talking to Hemlock. In fact, don't I remember telling you to take your reprehensible blame-it-on-the-DM argument elsewhere, Cmad?

Ah, yes, here it was. Let me repeat my answer, since it still holds true.

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seebs said:

Hmm. So when you talk about "mitigating" the -5 part of the -5/+10 things, how are you contrasting this with "what you'd get if you used those same tactics to gain plusses, and didn't offset them with the -5 to hit"?

Say you have a tactic which allows you to get +5 to hit, precisely offsetting the -5. Is taking the -5/+10 necessarily better than keeping the +5?

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Johnny3D3D said:

I think, instead of -5/+10, the feat would work better if it were based upon proficiency in some way.

"Take a penalty to your attack roll that may be up to your proficiency bonus. If the attack hits, you deal extra damage equal to twice that penalty."

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Satyrn said:

Between 3e's Power Attack and 5e, the designers decided that getting to choose the penalty/bonus for each attack wasn't as fun/balanced for some reason. I think it was 4e that moved to the current rule, and 5e just stuck with it figuring that it works better for most games.

But there is of course no reason not to switch to what you say if your players want that granularity of choice.

And I like basing it on Proficiency.

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Ashkelon said:

Unless of course the DM is someone who doesn't believe that ranged combat is mechanically superior to melee so is unwilling to make any changes because they believe nothing is wrong in the first place.

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Hemlock said:

The -5/+10 is important to keeping Fighters relevant--otherwise archers would just all be Sorlocks using Spell Sniper Hexed Agonizing Eldritch Spear, and sometimes Quicken another one to boot, and have no logistics to worry about. But there are situations where you don't want to use it even if you have it.

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Saelorn said:

Every edition is a reaction to earlier editions. In this case, they saw that people weren't happy dealing less damage in Pathfinder,...

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Ranged attacks are better than melee attacks, when everything else is equal, which is why you need something else to not be equal.

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cmad1977 said:

Funny how it's
A: a public forum
And
B: still within the DMs power to easily make either type of play possible.

It's as if it was the intention of the designers to empower the DM with the ability to mold the game to their liking.

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CapnZapp said:

This still doesn't even begin to explain why the designers couldn't have made the game work from the beginning, instead of you blaming DMs if they don't fix WotCs mistakes for them.

DMs empowered to tweak the game is a good thing. You're confusing that with the responsibility for making the base game (the game the DMs then tweak) work.

Or more accurately, you seem unable to accept that the designers still need to make the base game work, even though it is technically within the realm of possibilities for each of us DMs to make it work using our empowerment to tweak it.

In short, your argument is irrelevant and needlessly shifts blame onto those that does not deserve it.

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CapnZapp said:

I think you are completely correct - I too believe this.

But as a customer, we do not need to look at the greater situation. Keeping a watch out for unintended systemic consequences is something we pay designers for.

If taken to a somewhat extreme point, you and I could both want to play the Legolas, but that only works if somebody else plays the Gimli.

Many posters here doesn't have any problems right now, but I foresee how the game will get ripped to shreds when all their players start playing the Legolas and none the Gimli.

The game simply can't handle an all-Legolas party. It's not built for it. It's quite evidently not designed with this assumption in mind.

But more importantly - I don't think it leads to a fun game. That is what I meant above: playing the Legolas is fun precisely because you're a special snowflake. In a game with only Legolases and no Gimlis, it's not funny anymore. And when the laughter has died down, all you're left with is a broken game. A game that's built on fantasy melee assumptions but where players run modern range and mobility tactics.

(I don't have anything against games revolving around modern SWAT-teams, but it sure as hell ain't what I play D&D for)

I'm convinced WotC designers simply and honestly forgot to make sure the most fundamental assumptions of the game would still be true, even after meeting these customer demands on point after point after point.

I'm convinced WotC needed to have said "no" at some point. For the game to keep featuring traditional D&D combats, there needs to be a significant downside to ranged builds.

Where to put that downside is certainly something we can discuss, just as long as it's there - somewhere.

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Rhenny said:

Yes, I see what you mean, and I totally support all discussion where community members point out what they feel as flaw in an attempt to determine a way to modify.

I think overall with 5e, WotC is using more fluff and story as well as a reliance on most groups choosing PCs based on "fun" and desire to play different builds -without overmaximizing party construction, to keep control of the extremes. For that, DMs will have to make their own limitations if and when they feel that there is something "broken." This isn't an excuse defending them. It is just pointing out a design choice that will make some more happy, some less happy and others indifferent.

The fact that some want more powerful ranged attackers, some want more powerful melee attackers, some want more spellcaster dominance, some want more melee dominance, is a Catch-22 that WotC realized from the get go with 5e. In a way, they had to accept that people would need to modify the game to their own tastes. That's the lesson learned from their examination of the way an aggregate of people played all D&D versions from basic through 4e.

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