D&D 5E And Lo, the Fighter Did Get a Shtick of his Own... COMBAT SUPERIORITY!
Yes, but that's just an issue of timescale, not of basic concept. "Spend a point to get a die on a roll" is by no means a recent development in gaming, is all I'm saying.
Nah, you need a weapon with more force on a sharp point. A large two-handed hammer or two handed sword isn't the weapon to take to fight a dragon or a bear and to get past their thick hide. A dagger on the end of a long stick is.
Someone
Adventurer
Some essentials classes have at will stances. The key diference between them or at will attacks and feats is that feats all work at the same time, all the time, sinergizing (if the character is properly built) so 99% of rounds there's one and only option that's better than any other option, so the martial character becomes a one trick pony. Cue the leap attack build, the half ogre trip monkey...
However stances and powers are mutually exclusive; you can't use only one at the same time; you can't, say, push the enemy hit and gain the extra damage and the same time. They are situational abilities that give the player options in combat and add some dimension to the fight instead of beign an automatic choice. If combat superiority dice/tokens work as we think they work, they'll add this dimension from 4e combat to 5e.
JamesonCourage
Adventurer
Well, you can stab with a two-handed sword, and it's not ineffective. And, historically, a "dagger on the end of a long stick" isn't called a dagger, but a spear (or other polearm). I wouldn't mind seeing this kind of weapon be good against large enemies, though. Spear for large game, lances (from horseback) for exceptionally large game (like dragons), etc. It seems to fit within a fantasy context rather well.
The downside is that it's fiddly. Easier way around that is just to say "bigger weapons deal more damage" as a general rule. And thus my take on bigger weapons with a bigger damage die. Yeah, you only need three inches of steel to kill a man, but push comes to shove, would you rather be hit by a dagger or two-handed sword? A well-placed hit from either is basically death, but a glancing blow or nick from the two-handed sword is certainly a lot worse than the dagger is. I've been nicked by a knife; I don't want the equivalent from a two-handed sword. As always, play what you like
There's also at least one encounter stance, which the fighter in my game has: Battle Fury, which lasts until you spend a healing surge.
I think that [MENTION=2067]Kamikaze Midget[/MENTION] was thinking of the "allocate BAB to AC/damage" feats - which (in some sense, at least) don't stack.
But I agree that these remind me more of 4e powers than 3E feats - 4e combat power design is practically defined by trade-offs between damage dice, targets, and non-damaging effects!
Mustrum_Ridcully
Hero
Only because I didn't know of Darken before.Only two links? You missed the Darken reference.
Like 3E Feats that were originally a fighter only mechanic?
We'll see.
Maybe, but look at what DiasExMachina made in Ultramodern4 with a 4e-chassis and you'll see that powers are a really better mechanic overall.
Sure, but it is still the size of a dagger, and has about the same penetrating force as a dagger. It just has reach. But when has a spear done as much maximum damage as a dagger in D&D, or a spear done as much damage as a two-handed sword? Never, which is dumb.
Bringing back the lance's ability to do double damage from the back of a horse during a charge would be a good start. Heck, bringing back the lance at all would be a good idea.
4e weapon qualities show a way to do weapons that is a fairly elegant compromise with simplicity and weapon design. It is just a shame that they kept differing weapon damage values.
If you classify weapons based on what they do, and give that class of weapons qualities which give them differing damage in different situations, I believe it is completely workable and simple.
And thus my take on bigger weapons with a bigger damage die. Yeah, you only need three inches of steel to kill a man, but push comes to shove, would you rather be hit by a dagger or two-handed sword? A well-placed hit from either is basically death, but a glancing blow or nick from the two-handed sword is certainly a lot worse than the dagger is. I've been nicked by a knife; I don't want the equivalent from a two-handed sword. As always, play what you like
The Romans scorned the Gauls and their use of a long slashing sword, believing it was only good for superficial glancing injuries. They put their faith in a short thrusting sword and a shield, and their record in battle against the Gauls speaks for itself. You wouldn't know it from D&D though, because a short sword always does less damage than a longsword or two-handed sword. If you were using D&D stats, the Romans would lose to the Gauls every time.
A two-handed sword has its uses. If you don't need a shield because you are wearing plate armour, it increases the reach and power of your longsword substantially. Good against calvary, good at cutting through swaths of pike formations. But there is a reason that he generally lost to men wielding an estoc or rapier.
The large two-handed sword is slower, has a large arc, and is difficult to recover from a missed blow. When a man overcommits with his large weapon, a man pretty much has his pick of where to stick his blade, as large portions of his body will be exposed by the errant swing. So a rapier doing half the damage of a two-handed sword in that situation is baloney.
Or how about the fact that nobody ever uses a dagger to backstab anyone? Really, assassinations are the reason a stiletto was created, but nobody ever uses them because they do less damage than a short sword or rapier (or pay the feat tax to backstab with an even larger weapon).
This can all be laid at the feet of differing damage for weapons, because the D&D community can't be convinced that weapons were designed for tactical advantage in specific situations, not because one weapon is superior to another.
There are ways in which weapons do more damage than other weapons, but they aren't absolute things. A club doesn't have as much mass as a mace, nor metal ridges or spikes designed to bend or pierce armour. But against an unarmoured opponent, a club does the job just as well. (This is why armour should be damage reduction instead of AC but that's a debate for another day).
Last edited:
My guess is it will remain a fighter-only thing up until the point where their ideas for individual paladin / barbarian / monk mechanics fall short of what they want (if they do).
In truth, from this first glance to me it seems like Combat Superiority is a nice mirror to the game mechanic of Spells. So the classes get divided in half... those that use Spells as their combat mechanic, and those that use Combat Superiority as their combat mechanic. Which is really how it should be when it comes to combat... some classes are spellcasters, and some classes use weapons.
Fighters, rogues, rangers, monks, paladins, and barbarians use CS.
Wizards, clerics, druids, warlocks, sorcerers, and bards use Spells.
After all... people have wanted a real way to distinguish clerics from paladins... this is how you'd do it. Clerics of war domains use spells like Divine Favor and Crusader Strike to increase their combat effectiveness... paladins use Combat Superiority maneuvers to do the same. They both get better in fighting, they just accomplish it with two different game mechanics. And thus they can remain two separate classes, even if their fluff identity is tied to the divine.
