How about a dungeon where no amount of dex will open doors and you have to use charisma to convince the doors to open. Each door has it's own personality and thinks differently about the party and dungeon inhabitants. Help Help the Rogue just stuck his tool in me without even buying me dinner first.
My first Homebrew attempt to fix the elven dex fighter/rapier and bow all too frequent build in my campaign: I need some advice!
ClaytonCross
Kinder reader Inflection wanted
(0.0) I want to play this dungeon! That is a unique idea a that would a fun exercise in "you can't just fight and break your way though everything... sometimes you need to talk it out or even... dare I say it … run away for dear life." Most of the parties I have ever been in don't ever try to escape. If it looks like we will die if someone yells the usual "Victory or death" comment to see if the GM blinks and provides an out while the touch up their alts under the table when its not their turn. I am inching towards the door yelling "Discretion is the better part of valor" or if I am GM I am calling the bluff... "Well its at this point you realize you have made a horrible tactical error and you each have to consider the value of a strategic retreat in order to regroup and adjust your strategy." or "he who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day". There is still a chance they fight the unwinnable fight to ensure their entry to Valhalla but... player choices. You give players warning and at least one possible door out, if they look at the door and say, "nah, its better this way" who are you to steel their glorious death? Besides the alts on the fly usually end up with the most interesting design flaws. "wait... your a tank eldritch knight with concentration spells and an 8 constitution score? Well... this will an interesting experiment."
Horwath
Legend
1. Buff up all damage of non finesse weapons by one die step.
I.E. longsword 1d8->1d10,
Greatsword 2d6->2d8,
2. Thrown weapon style; increase damage die by one step when throwing melee weapons with thrown trait, double the normal range and draw thrown weapons for free.
3. add more armors with minimum strength and raise min str a little.
I.E.
padded/leather armor: min str N/A
leather armor: min str 10
hide: min str 10
chain shirt: 12
scale mail/breastplate: 14
halfplate: 16
ring mail: 14
chain mail: 14
splint: 16
full plate: 18
I.E. longsword 1d8->1d10,
Greatsword 2d6->2d8,
2. Thrown weapon style; increase damage die by one step when throwing melee weapons with thrown trait, double the normal range and draw thrown weapons for free.
3. add more armors with minimum strength and raise min str a little.
I.E.
padded/leather armor: min str N/A
leather armor: min str 10
hide: min str 10
chain shirt: 12
scale mail/breastplate: 14
halfplate: 16
ring mail: 14
chain mail: 14
splint: 16
full plate: 18
The Crimson Binome
Hero
One lesson that I learned from 3E is that the ability to add one stat to hit and another stat to damage is rarely a path worth following. It was essentially the problem with monks in 3E, was that they needed Dexterity as their main stat, so each hit ended up dealing 5 damage instead of the 15 damage that a Strength-based character would deal.
For the sake of reducing complexity, I would suggest removing the Finesse property entirely, and forcing any melee character to invest in Strength. The most probable balance issue would otherwise be that someone tries to play a Dex-based melee character, and ends up under-powered until they can pick up the feat.
CapnZapp
Legend
Your list is the perfect illustration of why 5E is wrong. A long list of things the system forces you into doing.
Why not simply acknowledge the 5E simplification means Dex is too good and revert back to how Strength is required for 3E fighters?
Then you don't need to jump through any of them hoops of yours.
I prefer to provide a variety of challenges in my game regardless of issues.
Paul Farquhar
Legend
It's a list of core features that should be part of any D&D game. If you leave out core features of the game you shouldn't be surprised if you find balance disrupted.
3rd edition allowed for competitive dex fighters. You would have to revert to 2nd edition to get rid of the Errol Flynn types.
Hriston
Dungeon Master of Middle-earth
I'm not sure if this has already been suggested, but if I wanted to discourage players from playing DEX fighters, I'd just get rid of finesse for melee weapons and let rogues get sneak attack with any weapon with which they're proficient. I think making the trade-off between STR for melee and DEX for archery more exclusive would balance things more towards STR's favor.
ClaytonCross
Kinder reader Inflection wanted
Agreed.
The problem with removing Dex melee is this punches anyone who wants to be a sneaky batman style melee fighter. They are now "taxed" having to use strength and dex. Also where does this leave you with monks? You just don't allow them? The reason for all the dex builds at tables is simply that there are more of them. Barbarian/Fighter tank or GWM/Paladin/Cleric = strength 3.5 options, Rogue/monk/ranger/Fighter archer or two weapon fighting/melee sorecerer/Bladelock/bard/gish wizard/Druid = dexterity 8.5 options... its almost 3 times as many.
The real problem is not that dex fighting is a thing, its that all swords and shield fighter us 1d8 one hand and Rapiers allow for 1d8 one hand sword is shield with dex… If you want to nerf dex without making a bunch of rules... if you really have to go that route instead of making strength good enough that people would want to use it... then consider just making Rapiers 1d6 when used as Finesse.... If player us a 1d6 finesse weapon instead of a 1d8 strength weapon, its not about max/min its about character design choice of being stealth and/or wanting to switch between ranged and melee. The fact that there is a 2d6 strength melee option vs a 1d6 finesse means strength will lose the max damage war but regardless monks and rogues with a 1d4 dagger will still be a thing since they get their damage from abilities not really the weapon. They also rely on dex for class skills.... they are not going away because you hurt dex. It will not resolve the OPS problem.
The only way to get player to pick strength is to make strength good. Making dexterity bad does fix anything. A strength elf rogue with high dex sneaking around and back stabbing for 10d6 will still be a common pick because players like it and the only effect of requiring strength is a 16 str / 16 dex build which rogues can do since they don't have a second stat requirement and expertise in perception and investigation will mean they are still good at look at traps. The OPS complaints remain.
Hriston
Dungeon Master of Middle-earth
I don't understand. Isn't Batman very strong?
The Martial Arts feature lets monks use DEX with all monk weapons. You could do something similar with Sneak Attack. Instead of finesse and ranged weapons, it could give a list of "sneak attack weapons" that qualify.
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