Ranged Options for All Classes

Lord Twig · Feb 11, 2019

Paul Farquhar said:
Sure, you could build a barbarian with dex as a dump stat, if you wanted to emulate that famous hero Conan the Klutz, and be lousy at melee as well as ranged, due to poor AC and initiative. Hell, you can make your strength 8 too. The point is, player decisions are supposed to have consequences. You seem to want to eliminate any meaning to player decisions to the point where you might as well roll a d20 and if the score is greater than 1 the monster dies!

It seems to me that you are unaware of the martial ability: Extra Attack. This works with bows!!!! Thus ALL martial classes (even monks) have at least twice as many ranged attacks as non-martial characters*! *(warlocks excepted)

As for fighters, sure, a heavy armour fighter might dump stat dex, but they could just as easily be an outstanding archer. Player choice has consequences. The system does not force a fighter to be poor at range, the player has to choose it. And even a dex 8 fighter can gain abilities to help in ranged combat: an Eldritch Knight can learn a ranged damage cantrip, keying of intelligence; many Battle Master manoeuvres work with ranged weapons; the Champion's improved critical applies to both melee and ranged attacks and they get an extra fighting style at level 10.

As for paladins, they have so many spells and support abilities that there is always something they can usefully be doing. I'm surprised you even bring them up.

I somehow liked and favorited this post by accident (using the mobile app). It's a fine post, but not THAT good.

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My son had a dwarf paladin with an 8 dex. It was done because it was a fun concept to have a slightly clumsy, well-meaning dwarf in heavy armor as much as because it seemed pretty efficient when wearing said armor.

We only played that game up to 4th level, and up to that point thrown weapons worked fine. I expect at higher levels it would have started to be a problem. A bow really wouldn't be a good solution for that character. We would have had to really rely on some system mastery for careful spell selection and maybe the generosity of the DM (or luck) in getting some magic items to cover the deficiencie. Or, of course, the kindness of other players using their spells or abilities to help out.

So it is not an insurmountable problem, but one that would definitely require some thought and pre-planning.

Oofta · Feb 11, 2019

Lord Twig said:
I somehow liked and favorited this post by accident (using the mobile app). It's a fine post, but not THAT good. .

My son had a dwarf paladin with an 8 dex. It was done because it was a fun concept to have a slightly clumsy, well-meaning dwarf in heavy armor as much as because it seemed pretty efficient when wearing said armor.

We only played that game up to 4th level, and up to that point thrown weapons worked fine. I expect at higher levels it would have started to be a problem. A bow really wouldn't be a good solution for that character. We would have had to really rely on some system mastery for careful spell selection and maybe the generosity of the DM (or luck) in getting some magic items to cover the deficiencie. Or, of course, the kindness of other players using their spells or abilities to help out.

So it is not an insurmountable problem, but one that would definitely require some thought and pre-planning.

At 4th level you only have 1 attack anyway, and you aren't generally fighting monsters that fly. It's when you start relying on multiple attacks (you only ever get 1 thrown weapon per turn without a house rule) that it becomes problematic.

Oofta · Feb 11, 2019

Paul Farquhar said:
Sure, you could build a barbarian with dex as a dump stat, if you wanted to emulate that famous hero Conan the Klutz, and be lousy at melee as well as ranged, due to poor AC and initiative. Hell, you can make your strength 8 too. The point is, player decisions are supposed to have consequences. You seem to want to eliminate any meaning to player decisions to the point where you might as well roll a d20 and if the score is greater than 1 the monster dies!

It seems to me that you are unaware of the martial ability: Extra Attack. This works with bows!!!! Thus ALL martial classes (even monks) have at least twice as many ranged attacks as non-martial characters*! *(warlocks excepted)

As for fighters, sure, a heavy armour fighter might dump stat dex, but they could just as easily be an outstanding archer. Player choice has consequences. The system does not force a fighter to be poor at range, the player has to choose it. And even a dex 8 fighter can gain abilities to help in ranged combat: an Eldritch Knight can learn a ranged damage cantrip, keying of intelligence; many Battle Master manoeuvres work with ranged weapons; the Champion's improved critical applies to both melee and ranged attacks and they get an extra fighting style at level 10.

As for paladins, they have so many spells and support abilities that there is always something they can usefully be doing. I'm surprised you even bring them up.

Your "solution" is to never build a martial character that can be effective outside of melee with anything less than an above average dex. That's not a solution.

There is little or no reason to do a strength based barbarian from a numbers perspective. Dex based is better in every way other than the occasional athletics check which may never happen.

As far as fighters having more attacks, who cares? If I have a 30% chance of hitting doing 3.5 damage per hit they average 1 point of damage per attack. The fighter would be better off throwing their one javelin per turn or going full defensive.

As far as paladins, I have no clue what kind of game you play but they don't have that many spells, and only a few are effective at range. This is especially true if you follow the standard guidelines for number of fights.

Ultimately I don't need or want all character builds to be equal. But as it stands now, strength based character have no good ranged options other than "have a good dex". Blah.

The Crimson Binome · Feb 11, 2019

Paul Farquhar said:
Sure, you could build a barbarian with dex as a dump stat, if you wanted to emulate that famous hero Conan the Klutz, and be lousy at melee as well as ranged, due to poor AC and initiative. Hell, you can make your strength 8 too. The point is, player decisions are supposed to have consequences.

Are we still pretending that the game is balanced?

If nobody can safely dump Dexterity - not even a high-Strength fighter with heavy armor - then that points to a serious issue with stat balance. After all, plenty of people can get away with dumping Strength, Int, Wisdom, or Charisma. Why should everyone in the world need above-average Dexterity in order to be minimally competent? (And yes, this argument is borrowed from Constitution, which everyone already agrees is a broken stat.)

Yunru · Feb 11, 2019

Oofta said:
There is little or no reason to do a strength based barbarian from a numbers perspective. Dex based is better in every way other than the occasional athletics check which may never happen.

Except for rage damage, and reckless attack, and the bigger weapons...

Oofta · Feb 11, 2019

Yunru said:
Except for rage damage, and reckless attack, and the bigger weapons...

The +2 to damage is nice (for the levels most people actually play), but hardly earth-shattering. I had forgotten about reckless attack since I don't have the PHB memorized yet. Assuming that at least some of your stats are average or below not getting reckless would hardly be the end of the world.

As far as bigger weapons, going dual weapon with rapiers does just about as much if not more damage than other options for the levels most people play.

In addition none of that addresses anyone that wants to run any number of archetypes that wear heavy armor and that should be perfectly fine with an average dexterity. As [MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION] said: if nobody can dump dexterity, it's a problem.

doctorbadwolf · Feb 11, 2019

Oofta said:
The +2 to damage is nice (for the levels most people actually play), but hardly earth-shattering. I had forgotten about reckless attack since I don't have the PHB memorized yet. Assuming that at least some of your stats are average or below not getting reckless would hardly be the end of the world.

As far as bigger weapons, going dual weapon with rapiers does just about as much if not more damage than other options for the levels most people play.

In addition none of that addresses anyone that wants to run any number of archetypes that wear heavy armor and that should be perfectly fine with an average dexterity. As [MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION] said: if nobody can dump dexterity, it's a problem.

And yet, people make characters with dex ranging from 8-12 all the time. I see it dumped more often than Con, which most players do consider to be genuinely mandatory, IME.

But then, I disagree with the idea that a stat being universally a bad stat to dump is a bad thing.

The simplest solution, since there is no chance whatsoever of a rewrite of the game, is to simply add a benefit for higher strength that any weapon user can't simply dismiss as irrelevant.

Like a stacking damage bonus equal to Str Mod to all weapon attacks, or a bonus to speed if you have a strength of 15 or higher, and another boost if you max your strength, or +1 to total HP for every Str point above 10.

Heck, making Athletics work harder helps. If the Barbarian with 18 Str can use Athletics to run as fast as the Str 10 Monk with no training in Athletics, and can climb faster, it helps.

But the simplest thing, for a quick houserule, is to always allow Str to atk and dmg with any weapon attack, regardless of weapon.

It'd make a lot of sense for my wife's Ranger to have higher str than dex, but she made her to be an archer, so it wasn't possible. She still would want good dex, for AC, but being able to flip her str and dex would make a lot of sense for her.

Swarmkeeper · Feb 11, 2019

Oofta said:
At 4th level you only have 1 attack anyway, and you aren't generally fighting monsters that fly. It's when you start relying on multiple attacks (you only ever get 1 thrown weapon per turn without a house rule) that it becomes problematic.

Not sure the bolded part is true. My 11th level fighter is holding two hand axes. On her turn in combat, she throws both axes then draws a dagger and throws that. I count 3 attacks possible, all with STR bonus and without feats. Would you say RAW or houserule?

The Crimson Binome · Feb 11, 2019

DM Dave1 said:
Not sure the bolded part is true. My 11th level fighter is holding two hand axes. On her turn in combat, she throws both axes then draws a dagger and throws that. I count 3 attacks possible, all with STR bonus and without feats. Would you say RAW or houserule?

The issue is always about sustainability. You might get three attacks on the first round, but that was a one-off gimmick that you had prepared for. On a round-by-round basis, you can only draw and throw one weapon on your turn.

Swarmkeeper · Feb 11, 2019

Saelorn said:
The issue is always about sustainability. You might get three attacks on the first round, but that was a one-off gimmick that you had prepared for. On a round-by-round basis, you can only draw and throw one weapon on your turn.

True dat.

(EDIT: exception for Dual Wielder, I suppose... 3 each round for two rounds, then 2 for 3rd round and beyond... but anyway jeez that's a lot of thrown weapons to carry...)

Ranged Options for All Classes

Lord Twig

Adventurer

Oofta

Legend

Oofta

Legend

The Crimson Binome

Hero

Yunru

Banned

Oofta

Legend

doctorbadwolf

Heretic of The Seventh Circle

Swarmkeeper

Hero

The Crimson Binome

Hero

Swarmkeeper

Hero

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