D&D 5E Allowing Strength for Bows--unbalanced?

[S'mon]

Dex is a good stat, but I don't think strength needs this kind of help. Dex gets decent melee options and the best ranged options, while strength gets the best melee options and decent ranged options. I haven't seen a big movement among my players to drop Str in favor of Dex.

OTOH, if you'd be happy to let Dex apply to greatswords and glaives, then sure, let Str apply to bows as well.

DEX also gets initiative, AC, and a frequent saving throw.

 

[Ath-kethin]

I was actually thinking an across-the-board nerf to ranged damage might make sense, both balance-wise and realism-wise. Being at range is just too much useful and safe for the amount of damage they do.

Of course, this is the very point of ranged combat. I'm sure the French soldiers at Agincourt in 1415 agree with you completely, especially as the English longbowmen decimated their army.

 

[Valador]

I'd be fine removing DEX from ranged damage, as it makes no sense... at all.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

One of my houserules is basically adding finesse to bows, so you can choose to use your Str or Dex to hit and damage. That way, the media tropes of the slim elf and/or female being the archer as well as the realism of actual warbows are both covered for players to base characters on.

I assume that all correctly-sized magical bows will adjust their poundage according to their user in the same way armour adjusts, and that a character will pick up mundane bows suited to their capability.

There is a pretty good argument for using Str to hit for bows in D&D, so I didn't feel the need to split to hit and damage into using different modifiers.

 

[Ancalagon]

In 3rd ed we had a character who had both high strength and dex. He was a fighter who took a lot of archery feats. He was a menace. He didn't get to be the archer/machine gun as often as he would have liked, but when he did he was incredibly effective.

I hadn't realized that dex added to damage for ranged attack in 5e. That's a pretty big change I will have to consider...

 

[Horwath]

I'd be fine removing DEX from ranged damage, as it makes no sense... at all.

why not?

dex represents accuracy. More acurate shot more damage. attack roll+damage roll is an abstraction.

 

[n00b f00]

In general I'd say that dex is stronger than strength in general, it ties to initiative, ac, it's a better save, it has better melee options than strength has ranged.

But I don't think we need a bunch of complicated extra rules with strength reqs or all bows are now finesse or whatever.

I just think it needs to be a bit easier to build throwing str based characters. Which would just be making the action economy of tossing a bunch of javelins the same as shooting a bunch of arrows. Currently you only got the one free item interaction, hard to benefit from haste and multiple attacks. Whereas drawing arrows is part of your attack.

 

[citystar]

I don't see a problem as long as Dex is still used for aiming (To Hit) with the bow and Strength is used only for the damage die. This Str Bow would cost more to purchase and would be useful to classes like Barbarians and Fighters who have a decent Dex and a really high Str score.

 

[Pauln6]

Allow mighty bows that have minimum strength requirements. You can use strength or dex for damage but you take an initiative penalty.

 

[Horwath]

I think what I would do to incorporate Str into bows would be this:

Bows can be made with special materials to make them hit harder. In exchange, there is a minimum Str score to use them. Instead of adding to the damage of the bow, the Str requirement would change the minimum damage roll. For example, with a Str 12 bow, you can reroll a die result of one; with a Str 14 bow, you can reroll die results of 1 or 2; etc.

this is good idea. It gives back the flavor of heavy bows, but does not break the damage. I just makes bows little more reliable.

str 12 bow, reroll all 1's
str 14 bow, reroll all 1 to 2's
str 16 bow, reroll all 1 to 3's
str 18 bow, reroll all 1 to 4's
str 20 bow, reroll all 1 to 5's

str 20 shortbow can only do max damage