D&D 5E Something I would not like to see in 5e: The Tempest

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Oooh! What sourcebook did the Caberdancer appear in? I've been looking for a distinctive class choice for my highlander barbarian and that sounds like it could be it.

 

[Oni]

Suppose I want to make a dual whip wielding character because it looks cool in my head. Should the system forbid it? No. Do I deserve special rewards for being creative and special? No. Or rather, you already got it when the system allowed you to portray the character you wanted to. You do not get to whine and mope however when MinMax does more damage than you dual-wielding axes. Axes hurt more than whips. That should not change just because they look cooler in your head.

I guess I don't consider being able to make the character you want and have him be roughly as viable as any other character a special reward. I want dual whip guy to be just a good (though maybe in slightly different ways) as Mr. Giant MacGreataxe. I want the student of the humble spear to be roughly as good as dual katana wielding emo drow guy. And if I want to make a character with a uranium cored combat yo-yo i'd prefer he be roughly as effective as the bog standard sword and board longsword guy. As you point out there are so many variables in D&D combat, and it is so abstract I don't really see why one weapon should be particularly more effective than an other.

 

[Andor]

I guess I don't consider being able to make the character you want and have him be roughly as viable as any other character a special reward. I want dual whip guy to be just a good (though maybe in slightly different ways) as Mr. Giant MacGreataxe. I want the student of the humble spear to be roughly as good as dual katana wielding emo drow guy. And if I want to make a character with a uranium cored combat yo-yo i'd prefer he be roughly as effective as the bog standard sword and board longsword guy. As you point out there are so many variables in D&D combat, and it is so abstract I don't really see why one weapon should be particularly more effective than an other.

Which should mean you embrace the class + level based damage sytem I suggested, yes? I wouldn't violently object to that, but I think most would.

D&D usually tries to be at least a bit simulationist. 3e was the most simulationist edition, 4e was the least. Since the pendulum is swinging back a bit I expect 5e to try to be more simulationist than 4e. Why do I bring this up?

The weapon stats are simulationist in origin. In reality getting stabbed by a sword is deadlier than getting stabbed by a whiffle bat. Therefore D&D usually has weapons rules that make swords more effective weapons that whiffle bats. A sword is also deadlier than a whip, or a yo-yo. And it should be.

I do not agree with your notion that a most legendary master of whiffle bat combat to walk the earth should be just as feared as a swordsman, he's using a whiffle bat.

The real difference in deadliness between a dagger, a sword, a great axe or a mace is actually not enormous. A solid hit from any of them can kill you in one blow. In combat which one is superior depends on training, terrain, armour, etc.

A whip however is not a deadly weapon. It is a a compliance tool. You can kill someone with it, by strangleing them, by tripping them over a ledge, or with a lengthy and savage enough beating by shock and fluid loss. 50 lashes was a brutal sentance, but people did survive it, and those whips were being weilded by experience users. Do you think those people would have survived a sentance of 50 whacks from a sword?

So no, I don't think the whip, or yo-yo, or whiffle bat, or pasta should be just as valid a weapon choice as a sword or axe or spear. And I don't think being a PC should make you so special that you can kill people just as well with a deadly plastic spork as you could with bazooka. If that's true why would anyone have ever bothered to invent weapons or armour? They should just be killing each other with grass and hair, since it's just as effective.

 

[Sunseeker]

Give characters another way of increasing damage, without having to make 6 attacks per turn. I like how, in 4e, Two-Weapon Fighting added to your main weapon's damage.

That's what I suggested right there. Though I don't favor dropping the total number of attacks below 2. There's something very thematic about striking with two weapons as two attacks. 4e's Two-Weapon fighting was nice for damage, but when you only roll one die, it doesn't feel like you're striking with two weapons IMO.

But then I played Deadlands which oughta be called Dicelands with how many dice you roll per turn. Rolling just one die to attack seem kinda boring, though I agree that there should be a limit.

 

[Plane Sailing]

My main objection to supporting hyperspecialisation with classes is that it automatically closes the door to all other routes. It would be as if someone introduced a 'charge attack' feat which suddenly means that you can't charge attack without the feat.

Too many prestige classes attempted to carve out a niche by proceeding to exclude anyone else from that niche - the wrong way to do it, IMO.

Cheers

 

[Starbuck_II]

5) Not all weapons are equal. Maces are better than clubs, that's why people paid smiths to make them, rather than just using handy tree roots. The bow is a better ranged weapon than the rock. The rock is not ineffective mind you, I would not want to catch a rock thrown by a major league pitcher. But an archer has got better range, better accuracy, possibly a higher rate of fire, and the arrow benefits from having pointy steel bits on to bring the pain. There should not be a "Devotee of the hurled shist" presitge class to try and make stone throwing the equal of archery.

But rocks thrown by a sling in real life are better than Long bow, they just take more training (seriously Slings ashould be martial right beisde long bows). They can shoot about the same distance in real life.

D&D needs to stop with slingshot uses and use an actual sling.

 

[Yora]

When roman field medics hat special tools to remove sling bullets from the body of wounded soldiers, you know those things were brutal. Flatout calling them better than longbows is a long shot though. There are lots of factors involved that make one better than the other for certain situations.
And make no mistake, a good longbow man also requires a huge amount of training.

 

[Andor]

But rocks thrown by a sling in real life are better than Long bow, they just take more training (seriously Slings ashould be martial right beisde long bows). They can shoot about the same distance in real life.

D&D needs to stop with slingshot uses and use an actual sling.

Yes slings are much more deadly than the rules gave them credit for but they do have some problems.

Bullets are much worse than arrows at armour penetration.

Slings require more room to use than bows, important in mass warfare.

As for training. Meh. Children use slings to guard herds. It was an extremely common weapon (which is the cause for the simple desigantion by the way, not it's effectiveness.) The English used to say "If you want a longbowman start with his grandfather."

 

[Eldritch_Lord]

The problem with those "prop up mechanically unsound concepts" PrCs was not that they existed, but that they required too much mechanical investment. Arcane Archer should have been a single feat for Imbue Arrow, really, maybe a second for seeking and phasing arrows if you didn't want to just rely on spells for them; everything else is just magic items and spells. Lasher should be one or two tactical feats. Alienist is one feat. So many PrCs tried to fit the 10-level pattern just for the sake of it and so gave out meaningless abilities and/or stretched out good ones for padding.

I fully support the ability to generalize or specialize to whatever extent you wish, so long as the amount of resource investment required is proportional to the benefit. If you can be a competent two-handed fighter with a feat or two, other fighting styles should be able to accomplish the same.

 

[Aenghus]

I prefer a larger number of focused classes to a smaller number of general classes.

I thought a lot of PrCs in 3rd ed were very badly written, with descriptions and mechanics that often matched badly, sometimes not at all.

On the other hand core spellcasters could break the laws of physics casually, and the proliferation of non-caster PrCs was in part a (IMO futile) attempt to chase the caster power curve. Denying unrealistic non-magical weapons and techniques while allowing all sorts of magic is IMO a particularly insidious sort of double think.