D&D 5E Helping melee combat to be more competitive to ranged.

[CapnZapp]

I think perhaps the main reason that ranged combat doesn't dominate in most 5e games is simply because neither the players nor the DM's want it too. Most players (I think - I could be wrong) don't approach it solely as a tactical number crunching game, and most DM's don't run the bad guys as squads of special forces rangers and snipers.

A lot of players just don't think about it that way. They think "I want to play the badass barbarian who wades into melee" or "I'm the wizard who confounds the enemy with his magic" (Ok, maybe it's only my wizards who actually use the word "confound").

They build a melee fighter, barbarian, ranger, paladin, or rogue because they want to be in melee, not because they've run the numbers and it's tactically more advantageous. It's simply more fun for them. If they play an archer they do it because they feel like playing a ranged character (or because they've read a thread like this one and now their melee character seems inadequate).

This is completely true.

On the other hand, we must ask ourselves WHY most players create melee builds.

One important factor is "it's always been the best path to killing the most orcs".

In other words, it's not JUST about fun, and it's not JUST about blissfully ignoring the numbers.

There is a foundation of numerical fact underneath all that. That foundation is what D&D and fantasy is built upon - the supremacy of melee.

The problem arrives when the designers forget to make sure this is still supported by the actual rules, and doesn't just rely on player traditions, nostalgia, inertia, fun and other ephemereal, intangible reasons.

 

[CapnZapp]

Weirdly, the 5e Barbarian seems to be more effective in a tank/support role than as a damage dealer. (Resistance to B/P/S when raging, and either resistant to everything except Psychic as Bear, or giving everyone except himself Advantage on melee attacks when raging as a Wolf, etc)

Very different than in previous editions.

I have a Frienzied Berserker barbarian that I play sometimes that does decent as DPS (3 attacks a round with a greataxe at lvl 5 when Frenzied), but he still ends up being more of a tank.

Yep.

The "offensive" barbarian (Berserk) is almost an outright trap choice, while the "defensive" barbarian (Totem) has best-in-class damage mitigation. And, crucially, offense/defense flexibility.

Combine this with how every barbarian can take Greatweapon Master (the real key to dealing damage, especially since Barbarians can generate their own advantage), and it's easy to see how Totem completely outclasses Berserk (in games where that feat is available) - they can use their damage reduction to mitigate the reckless attacks that enable GWM when offense is needed, and they can use their damage reduction as-is when defense is needed.

 

[CapnZapp]

I mostlyagree with this. There is a reason I am still playing my greatsword wielding fighter instead of switching over to a polearm or a hand crossbow. I like playing a character concept, not a spreadsheet.

I simply wish that the disparity between various character concepts wasn't quite so large as it is. My choice to wield a greatsword means that I deal 20% less damage per round than the hand crossbow fighter.

Now if the restrictions of the past few editions still applied to 5e, that 20% difference might not matter as much. But that is no longer the case. The crossbow archer does not provoke opportunity attacks for shooting enemies while engaged in melee. The crossbow archer ignores most cover. The crossbow archer can shoot his enemies just as an effectively at point blank range as he can at a range of 120 feet. On top of all that, the crossbow archer can be just as effective at tanking enemies as my greatsword fighter.

I think the game would be better overall if the various options had more parity for one another. That way I won't be be effectively gimping myself for choosing to play a character who wields a greatsword as opposed to a hand crossbow or polearm.

I hear your pain, Ashk.

On the bright side, just make two easy changes and the game starts to work again

As for me, I have identified a few critical abilites/features/rules that shift the balance.

a. Being able to negate penalties for when a foe runs up to you and attacks you in melee
Specifically: the part of Crossbow Expertise saying you no longer get disadvantage when in melee

As long as foes can threaten your ability to keep fighting with ranged attacks, this might all by itself be just enough to discourage these builds. Of course, as the thread has shown, all you need to do is effortlessly draw a rapier, so this isn't really a huge difference. More like making a statement.

Running a no-feats game is the easiest solution. Specifically banning the Crossbow Expert feat is also rather straight-forward. However, I will personally probably try to salvage the feat by changing it, but that's much harder to pull off.

b. Not getting to add Dexterity to ranged damage
In 3rd edition, archers add no ability bonus to damage. Of course, the game offered "compound" bows that had a strength requirement (such as Strength 16) - if you met that requirement, you got to add a bonus to your damage (such as +3 for this example bow). In practice, it all boils down to archers adding their Strength to damage (for bows, not crossbows).

This is a much more fundamental change; one that I personally believe will once and for all shift the balance back towards melee. Of course, 5E is a simple game and so all this minutae with compound bows is too much detail, IMO. I'd suggest making the following very simple rules tweak:

When attacking with a weapon, you add your ability
modifier—the same modifier used for the attack roll—
to the damage.​

-- Player's Handbook, page 196

to

When attacking with a weapon, you add your Strength ability modifier to the damage.​

Simple, huh?


One final note: the classic Archer is not banned in any way - she just needs to focus on both Strength and Dexterity, that's all. Considering how powerful range still is, this is definitely a proper cost in my mind.

No longer is Dexterity the über-stat above all others.

Regards

 

[CapnZapp]

A system cannot mandate, nor enforce, parity. It is incumbent on the players around the table to do so.

If you mean the game *must* offer ranged builds that outdamage and outrange melee builds yet carry no significant limitations, that's balderdash.

A system can choose favor melee or it can choose to not favor melee.

It does not have anything to do with the players. Sure players can make every system work, but that's not an excuse for not thinking things through as a designer.

 

[CapnZapp]

You know....if you had told me all I needed to do in order to get you to see my point was create a program to simulate battles using different builds, I like totally would have done that like 8 pages ago.

For reals.

I'm happy your sideshow is over, (also [MENTION=6787650]Hemlock[/MENTION] and [MENTION=6774887]Ashkelon[/MENTION] I think), because it steals the attention away from the discussion at hand.

That you can choose a grappler build, much like the suggested paladin build, does nothing to help against the complaint that the longsword fighter is an outright weak choice.

The basic complaints are these:

* the damage differential between a sword and a greatsword is too large
* the damage differential between ranged and melee is too small (given that ranged isn't given any significant penalties)

This can be phrased differently:

The mechanical lack of competitive DPR in choosing melee in general and a one-handed weapon in particular severely limits the number of attractive build choices for the efficiency-minded player, and fewer choices is boring.

Again, I'm focusing on fighter weapon styles. This doesn't mean I don't see paladins or grapplers as valid options.

 

[Corwin]

This has nothing to do with playstyle. The 20% damage difference would occur regardless of players or DM. Numerically, a hand crossbow build deals over 20% more DPR than a greatsword build.

That's interesting. Regardless of playstyle, you say? I had not ever seen that high a number thrown around before. I'm not saying you are wrong, but can you show your maths? Seems higher to me than I previously considered. I mean, 20% is huge.

The damage difference is not due to me being unable to reach enemies in melee (though that still does happen from time to time). The damage difference comes about because the crossbow archer gets a bonus attack every round and has higher accuracy.

Well GWM allows for extra attacks as well, lets not forget those. As frequent? Of course not. But they happen, irregardless. And a greatsword would be rolling twice as many d6s as your hand crossbow, per hit (with rerolling of 1s and 2s). That's not nothing, either. Are you *sure* about 20%?

As for accuracy, that +2 didn't do squat if you missed by more than 2 or hit by 2 or more. So its not always applicable. And given BA, that happens a lot more than I think you are willing to admit. At our table, we have a wood elf archer ranger. The rest of us still hit quite often, even without that extra +2 he gets for his fighting style. Oh, and he still misses occasionally.

I do fight enemies in such a way as to threaten as many OAs as possible. But rarely does an OA actually trigger.

I'm not sure how many more times its going to take, but here we are again trying to explain to you that the triggering of the OA is not the only important aspect of that rule. That you *threaten* is enough to influence a creature's decision making. That is a tactical benefit. And that benefit is greater than 'zero', no matter how many times you keep trying to apply that incorrect value in your casual analysis.

On top of that however, the archer fighter could threaten OAs as well. The crossbow archer can close into melee range and shoot enemies at point blank range. At the end of each turn he can draw a melee weapon to threaten OAs. At the start of his turn, he simply needs to drop the weapon and make attacks with his hand crossbow as normal.

How many melee weapons does your archer need to carry around to reliably pull off that cheese? Having focused on Dex, what's your carry capacity looking like? Lemme guess, your table doesn't pay much attention to that either? And you say playstyle is not an issue here...

Also, I haven't played in a game that tracked ammo in a long time.

And you say playstyle is not an issue here...

A gaming system can definitely enforce parity. It is usually quite simple to do so. You design the game with sound math so that the various options comparable. Then you apply checks and balances to the various options.

Are you working on nerdy standup? It's a little rough, but I think the humor is there if you just polish up the routine a bit.

In fact, the core combat rules of 5e are fairly well balanced.

He says as he tears into same said ruleset for being so imbalanced...

 

[Corwin]

I think a system can go a fair way, actually.

I'd like to point out that I never said a system can't be balanced. Even very well balanced. It just can't mandate, nor enforce, parity. Again, only those playing it can do that.

 

[Corwin]

If you mean the game *must* offer ranged builds that outdamage and outrange melee builds yet carry no significant limitations, that's balderdash.

You take me off ignore to be insulting? Classy. Also, your response is a complete strawman. Double classy.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Sure, a melee fighter can do some great non-DPR oriented feats or martial skill...if he is built to fight with a single rapier, use defensive duelist, wield no shield to keep a hand free, and grapple/shoves a single enemy in order to knock them prone and prevent them from ever standing up.

But that then means that the fighter is basically tunneled into either being a DPR oriented ranged weapon user, or a melee oriented controller. There is no situation in which a melee oriented great weapon fighter is the optimal choice. In fact, if you aren't using a polearm, the melee greatweapon fighter isn't even a great choice, it is ok at best.

That is a fair criticism. I think that such "tunneling" as you describe it will be an issue for some tables, and not so much for others. Whether it was an issue or not would likely also depend on what other characters and builds were used in that given game. So if the game didn't have a Crossbow Expert maxed out for DPR, than a GW fighter would be perfectly fine. And so on. The players and how they look at the game and balance among characters and roles will be a huge factor as well.

Personally, I don't know if I agree with how many folks here seem to view Crossbow Expert...but I'll go with the consensus for this discussion.

I'm not Ashkelon, but my beef is with people saying "the game doesn't need changing because I have no problems".

Saying "I don't need to change the game is fine".

But the game doesn't work for people that focus on building optimal characters.

If the game were to be changed, it would start to work for these people.

But it would highly likely still work just fine for people that aren't having this focus.

I find it highly unlikely that anyone's satisfaction depends directly on those areas that prove so troublesome and which a small number of posters defend so desperately.

So: just fix these bugs already.

Dude, go ahead. Fix them. You offered some solutions earlier in the thread. They seemed reasonable. Do they work for you?

I hope they do. And I'm glad you shared them with others. Allow me the same courtesy of sharing how I handle ranged combat versus melee in a thread that is about exactly that.

I'm happy your sideshow is over, (also [MENTION=6787650]Hemlock[/MENTION] and [MENTION=6774887]Ashkelon[/MENTION] I think), because it steals the attention away from the discussion at hand.

You didn't start this thread, so please don't try to claim ownership. My comments have all pertained to the general topic. Just because they do not align with yours does not mean that they are taking attention away from the discussion at hand.

 

[CapnZapp]

That is a fair criticism. I think that such "tunneling" as you describe it will be an issue for some tables, and not so much for others. Whether it was an issue or not would likely also depend on what other characters and builds were used in that given game. So if the game didn't have a Crossbow Expert maxed out for DPR, than a GW fighter would be perfectly fine. And so on. The players and how they look at the game and balance among characters and roles will be a huge factor as well.

Personally, I don't know if I agree with how many folks here seem to view Crossbow Expert...but I'll go with the consensus for this discussion.



Dude, go ahead. Fix them. You offered some solutions earlier in the thread. They seemed reasonable. Do they work for you?

I hope they do. And I'm glad you shared them with others. Allow me the same courtesy of sharing how I handle ranged combat versus melee in a thread that is about exactly that.




You didn't start this thread, so please don't try to claim ownership. My comments have all pertained to the general topic. Just because they do not align with yours does not mean that they are taking attention away from the discussion at hand.

Not claiming ownership. And didn't try to prevent your forcecage fight from running it's course.

Am claiming the OA discussion is a sideshow to the greater topic of the thread, though.

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