One thing I do for monsters that have both spells/abilities and significant weapon attacks is allow them to use a spell/ability as a bonus action up to 3 times in the combat. Not as good as Legendary Action, but still gives them a chance to use all their abilities before their inevitable slaughter.
Balancing D&D
pming
Legend
Hiya!
Seems to me like [MENTION=12731]CapnZapp[/MENTION] would be happier with 4th edition. I don't mean that as anything other than exactly what it sounds like. My interpretation of 4e (Full Disclosure: I have NEVER played 4e...only read) is that it pretty much erred on the side of "DPS Balance" over "Interesting Thing". I get that some people like their D&D "crunchy", no problem there. What I don't get is trying to force 5e to be "crunchy" and at the same time remove one of the biggest cornerstones of the game's design: The DM's requirement to be actively involved in adjudicating case-by-case situations with "rulings, not rules".
At any rate, good luck with your changes, Capn...hopefully you can find some sort of nigh-perfect modification house rules that give you what you want. I still think it would be easier for you to put 5e stuff into 4e though.
^_^
Paul L. Ming
Seems to me like [MENTION=12731]CapnZapp[/MENTION] would be happier with 4th edition. I don't mean that as anything other than exactly what it sounds like. My interpretation of 4e (Full Disclosure: I have NEVER played 4e...only read) is that it pretty much erred on the side of "DPS Balance" over "Interesting Thing". I get that some people like their D&D "crunchy", no problem there. What I don't get is trying to force 5e to be "crunchy" and at the same time remove one of the biggest cornerstones of the game's design: The DM's requirement to be actively involved in adjudicating case-by-case situations with "rulings, not rules".
At any rate, good luck with your changes, Capn...hopefully you can find some sort of nigh-perfect modification house rules that give you what you want. I still think it would be easier for you to put 5e stuff into 4e though.
^_^
Paul L. Ming
Satyrn
First Post
I've created Badass variants of monsters (because Borderlands), which are really just low level Legendaries - they get one automatic resistance, and one extra action each round, which works well for CR 5ish monsters.
Satyrn
First Post
Even better than that, every piece of "DPS Balance" is like the creamy insides wrapped inside a hard candy of "Interesting Thing."
Sacrosanct
Legend
Borderland is really a great inspiration for D&D. In fact, Tiny Tina's DLC was the best D&D game I've played in years, and techincally it's not even D&D. But it sure felt more like it than many official D&D video games.
Satyrn
First Post
Yeah, I think at this point I'm purposely not playing Tiny Tina's DLC just so that I can perversely say I never have while I'm tossing Badass Shock Skags at my players
Oofta
Legend
Bahh ... what's this facts and information thing? We have a generalized unsupported opinion here that it's BROKEN!
BTW, this seems to match up to my analysis as well. Most options are fairly close especially once you consider the opportunity cost. The white room scenarios also don't take into account defenses, etc. Of course a lot is going to depend on campaign. If the enemy never has AC higher than an ogre or if you hand out belts of storm giant strength like candy, the chart will look a little different.
Tony Vargas
Legend
Dismissive edition warring? ;P
Seriously, though, the Capn has not been shy about is 3.5/PF pedigree. So you're way off base.
Well, try playing it for 10 years and get back to us when you know what you're talking about.
That's actually critical to such 'crunchiness,' because if you don't know what you're going to get for sorting through all the chaff & trap choices in your crunchy-system-mastery-rewarding game, all that crunch is meaningless. You might as well just let the DM tell you a story, from that perspective.
In 3.x/PF, the DM had this 'Rule 0' dangled in front of him, promising him some latitude in how he ran his game, but, in practice, with a RAW-obsessed fan-base, dismissive of house rules and willing to argue any ruling to death, the mechanics - the consensus on what RAW said about them, ruled the day. And, again, that was critical to the RAW/'build'/optimization culture that surrounded the game.
Of course, 'balance' had nothing much to do with it - the point was extracting all the best, most imbalanced bits. But asking for greater imbalance would probably draw even more acrimony.
Sadly they're really bad at both those things. The baseline fighter has one fairly minor self-heal (starts nice, but doesn't keep up), heavy armor proficiency, and, on average, +1 hp per level to "not die." It has nothing (except, well, doing damage, but you don't consider that their thing) to divert attention from the spellcasters (every class casts spells in at least one sub-class, but we get the idea). OTOH, before sub-class even comes into it, the fighter gets more Extra Attacks than everyone else and Action Surge to double those attacks 1rnd/rest, and sure, plenty of high-damage weapons to choose from, for DPR. Barbarians and Rogues (the other two classes that use weapons and have some sub-classes that don't cast spells - ie 'martials'), similarly, have their major combat features (SA & rage) pointed straight at DPR.
Now, a Paladin does use weapons, and can be pretty good at protecting allies - in addition to the same armor, weapons & hps as the fighter, he has healing he can use on himself or allies, and an aura that boosts his & ally's saves. And all paladins cast spells, of course, so they're among "the spellcasters," themselves, rather than "the martials" (or they're "divine gish" if you want, I suppose).
Not that DPR is a great way to try to keep a class relevant, by itself. IMHO/X, when you try to get by with just DPR, you end up either under-contributing (yeah, you're grinding things, but so's everyone, if not quite as hard, and your efforts don't stand out), or over-powered (wow, that's just too much damage, you powergaming GWM, you).
He's really talking more 'defender,' which 5e barely nods to. 'Tank' is much more 5e-plausible, and how the fighter 'defended' back in the day. The lynchpin of the Tank function: high DPR. With no 'aggro' or marks or anything, you need to just hit the enemy so hard they don't dare ignore you. The fighter, sufficiently optimized for DPR, should be well-able to do that, and maybe even be tough enough to stand up to the consequences for a round longer than the next guy.
Well, you can criticize them. But the more constructive thing to do is very often for the DM to adjust the campaign to avoid the problem, rather than trying to address that critique. So, while I admit that /just/ volunteering that you have no problem so it must be a DM problem is non-constructive, presenting campaign strategies that might ameliorate intractable issues with the system can be at least as constructive as pointing out those issues (though, really, after 44 years, both the issues and the campaign-tweaking solutions are pretty broadly known).
Zapp could just dial up encounters, drop the odd OP magic item on anyone who didn't take an OP enough build, and ditch xp so that those hugely overleveled encounters don't kick advancement into overdrive. Compared to trying to line-item-veto and amend D&D into a neatly balanced/playable game with a wealth of meaningful/viable choices and a dearth of 'traps' or chaff to sort through, that'd just be orders of magnitudes easier.
Tony Vargas
Legend
Sounds inside out. DPS just seems like it'd be metaphorically hard & shiny, like the candy coating on the M&M.
But DPR (not S, we use imaginary Rounds, not RL Seconds, in TTRPG land) Balance does seem to be very much a thing in 5e, anyway. Fairly obvious DPR builds will grind (and/or spike) out comparable overall damage, given the expected 6-8 encounter/2-3 short rest day.
(I haven't watched a lot of the MMHFH streams, but one of the ones I did, he goes straight to the spell/level damage table to 'balance' the sub-class he's working on.)
DPR is just the easiest thing to check, so nominally balancing it is just pragmatic.
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Salamandyr
Adventurer
The first part of assumption 1 conflicts with the second part of assumption 1. Feats are not cruch. They are anti crunch. They're a way to portioning out interesting combat options to a handful of characters so that characters only ever have 1 or 2 things to do...maybe they do trips, or maybe they can grapple, or maybe they just focussing on making the numbers go really high. To reiterate, feats are a way to make the game simpler and less crunchy where it matters, at the table.
And that my friend is why fighters are boring (and weak) because each one is a hyperspecialized one-trick pony that fails to be an interesting character or an interesting representation of a storybook warrior.
Feats are the worst way to model combat options.
You want interesting fighters? You want combat options? Ditch your feats.
Take all those interesting combat moves you were writing feats for and just take those mechanics and stick them in the combat chapter. Make them something any warrior can use...when it's appropriate to use them. Instead of a "Pole Arm Mastery feat" so a fighter can do what any peasant who has picked up a spear for first time can do (hit a guy first with his long weapon before a guy with a shorter weapon can get close enough to hit). Make reach and opportunity attacks just a function of handling a pole arm.
Make cleaves something anyone with the right kind of weapon can try to do. Want to attack multiple opponents? Knock somebody down? Do a flying kick? Stop making those feats and class abilities and write them into the rules!
And that my friend is why fighters are boring (and weak) because each one is a hyperspecialized one-trick pony that fails to be an interesting character or an interesting representation of a storybook warrior.
Feats are the worst way to model combat options.
You want interesting fighters? You want combat options? Ditch your feats.
Take all those interesting combat moves you were writing feats for and just take those mechanics and stick them in the combat chapter. Make them something any warrior can use...when it's appropriate to use them. Instead of a "Pole Arm Mastery feat" so a fighter can do what any peasant who has picked up a spear for first time can do (hit a guy first with his long weapon before a guy with a shorter weapon can get close enough to hit). Make reach and opportunity attacks just a function of handling a pole arm.
Make cleaves something anyone with the right kind of weapon can try to do. Want to attack multiple opponents? Knock somebody down? Do a flying kick? Stop making those feats and class abilities and write them into the rules!
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