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

[Satyrn]

I think, instead of -5/+10, the feat would work better if it were based upon proficiency in some way.

"Take a penalty to your attack roll that may be up to your proficiency bonus. If the attack hits, you deal extra damage equal to twice that penalty."

Between 3e's Power Attack and 5e, the designers decided that getting to choose the penalty/bonus for each attack wasn't as fun/balanced for some reason. I think it was 4e that moved to the current rule, and 5e just stuck with it figuring that it works better for most games.

But there is of course no reason not to switch to what you say if your players want that granularity of choice.

And I like basing it on Proficiency.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

To be honest, I'm not sure. From the perspective of feeling that ranged combat is a little too good in 5E, I start to feel like I'd like to change something, but the changes I'd like to make would require changing a lot of things about 5E. I don't feel confident enough about tinkering with the system to attempt those changes.

From the perspective of the house rules in question, I suppose I'd rule that the ranged attacks only use your own movement if #3 were part of the game. I'd rule that way because ruling otherwise creates some situations which bother me.

If I'm an archer on a wagon being driven by someone else, do I become an anchor which prevents the other person from moving?

Does playing something like a Mongolian horse-archer become impossible?

Does a flying creature plummet from the sky because it makes a ranged attack or does it just sorta pause in mid-flight?

Personally, I'm inclined to say 'no' to all of those.

Hmmm. But rule #3 doesn't require any of those. "Shooting ends your move/Your shooting effectively takes place from wherever you ended your move" doesn't make Mongolian horse archers impossible, nor make you impossible for vehicles to move. It just means the horse archers have to move and then shoot at long range.

(This is also why #3 isn't even close to a sufficient "fix" by itself if you're trying to boost melee. You'd still want to combine it with e.g. #7 and maybe either #1 or #6.)

 

[Ashkelon]

Funny how the DM had the power to make both versions totally viable.


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Unless of course the DM is someone who doesn't believe that ranged combat is mechanically superior to melee so is unwilling to make any changes because they believe nothing is wrong in the first place.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Hmm. So when you talk about "mitigating" the -5 part of the -5/+10 things, how are you contrasting this with "what you'd get if you used those same tactics to gain plusses, and didn't offset them with the -5 to hit"?

Say you have a tactic which allows you to get +5 to hit, precisely offsetting the -5. Is taking the -5/+10 necessarily better than keeping the +5?

It depends on the opportunity cost of the tactic (concentration economy? limited uses?) and the enemy's AC and what you're trying to accomplish (kill them? disrupt their concentration? land Ensnaring Strike? land a Sneak Attack?).

The -5/+10 is important to keeping Fighters relevant--otherwise archers would just all be Sorlocks using Spell Sniper Hexed Agonizing Eldritch Spear, and sometimes Quicken another one to boot, and have no logistics to worry about. But there are situations where you don't want to use it even if you have it.

 

[Argyle King]

Between 3e's Power Attack and 5e, the designers decided that getting to choose the penalty/bonus for each attack wasn't as fun/balanced for some reason. I think it was 4e that moved to the current rule, and 5e just stuck with it figuring that it works better for most games.

But there is of course no reason not to switch to what you say if your players want that granularity of choice.

And I like basing it on Proficiency.

In my mind it's less about granularity of choice and more about damage expectations more closely aligning with level.

There are a lot of things I'd like to change about 5E, but I'm not quite sure how to start yet.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

About a year ago, I was playing both 5e and Pathfinder on different nights, and personally, I hated the inferiority (no bonus to missile weapon damage) of Pathfinder. I bet that a lot of what WoTC did when designing 5e was based on feedback from playtesters that expressed a desire for more powerful ranged options.

Every edition is a reaction to earlier editions. In this case, they saw that people weren't happy dealing less damage in Pathfinder, and they saw that adding Dex to damage worked in 4E, but they failed to connect the dots and realize that the reason Dex to damage was balanced in 4E was because you had a lot of other infrastructure going on that supported it. If they'd just taken Dex to damage and imported it straight back into Pathfinder, they would have ended up with the exact same problem that people are now seeing in 5E.

Ranged attacks are better than melee attacks, when everything else is equal, which is why you need something else to not be equal. Making ranged attacks deal less damage is probably more satisfying than making them less accurate or giving them a lower attack rate.

 

[CapnZapp]

About a year ago, I was playing both 5e and Pathfinder on different nights, and personally, I hated the inferiority (no bonus to missile weapon damage) of Pathfinder. I bet that a lot of what WoTC did when designing 5e was based on feedback from playtesters that expressed a desire for more powerful ranged options.

I think you are completely correct - I too believe this.

But as a customer, we do not need to look at the greater situation. Keeping a watch out for unintended systemic consequences is something we pay designers for.

If taken to a somewhat extreme point, you and I could both want to play the Legolas, but that only works if somebody else plays the Gimli.

Many posters here doesn't have any problems right now, but I foresee how the game will get ripped to shreds when all their players start playing the Legolas and none the Gimli.

The game simply can't handle an all-Legolas party. It's not built for it. It's quite evidently not designed with this assumption in mind.

But more importantly - I don't think it leads to a fun game. That is what I meant above: playing the Legolas is fun precisely because you're a special snowflake. In a game with only Legolases and no Gimlis, it's not funny anymore. And when the laughter has died down, all you're left with is a broken game. A game that's built on fantasy melee assumptions but where players run modern range and mobility tactics.

(I don't have anything against games revolving around modern SWAT-teams, but it sure as hell ain't what I play D&D for)

I'm convinced WotC designers simply and honestly forgot to make sure the most fundamental assumptions of the game would still be true, even after meeting these customer demands on point after point after point.

I'm convinced WotC needed to have said "no" at some point. For the game to keep featuring traditional D&D combats, there needs to be a significant downside to ranged builds.

Where to put that downside is certainly something we can discuss, just as long as it's there - somewhere.

 

[CapnZapp]

It's also possible to speed 5E up significantly by embracing an alternate initiative system. The trouble with cyclic initiative is that it leaves 50-80% of the players at a time sitting around with nothing to do; according to the rules, they're not really even encouraged/allowed to talk to the DM when it's not their turn. If you use more of an old-style system like "everybody declares, then everybody rolls their dice and resolves their actions" (per the 2nd edition PHB) you minimize that sitting around time. In that case the main constraint becomes the DM's ability to process information at the same time he is planning monster tactics, but even there you can speed it up some more if necessary by enlisting one of the players to be the declaration tracker who makes sure everybody declares an action each round.

Cyclic initiative is the worst thing about vanilla 5E.

Besides, the length of combat is tied to the number of decisions made during it, not the number of attack rolls. I've seen a first-level Barbarian fight an Ogre in a (gladiatorial) fight that went on for about ten rounds; it was over in about ninety seconds because they just took turns swinging at each other until someone went down. Attack rolls are fast.

This is really a different topic, but as I see it cyclic initiative is the alternative to rolling new initiative each round.

That was something we just did back in time without questioning its value. Once we switched over to cyclic initiative, we never looked back: soo much faster and easier. And in games where a single attack seldom has a decisive effect (like D&D), it was strictly an improvement.

What you suggest is something I'd say can still be done with both systems.

Ergo, I would say cyclic initiative is (still) the a good thing about 5E and every other game that employs it

Your observation, however; that it's only the declaration phase that needs to be done in order, while the execution phase can be done concurrently, is certainly something I will take under consideration.

I don't read you to be saying we need to go back to non-cyclic initiative, where initiative is rerolled each round, with all that extra administration. Thank you

 

[CapnZapp]

To be honest, I'm not sure. From the perspective of feeling that ranged combat is a little too good in 5E, I start to feel like I'd like to change something, but the changes I'd like to make would require changing a lot of things about 5E. I don't feel confident enough about tinkering with the system to attempt those changes.

I certainly sympathize with this.

I encourage us all to look at d20/3rd edition, if only to understand what exactly 5E has changed.

Only when we have a clear understanding of WHY ranged combat in 5E can be so powerful, can we effectively fix it.

And more to the point: reverting back to a d20 rule should be much safer than coming up with brand new houserules. After all those rules did get used for over a decade (and still are if you count PF).

I don't know the list by heart, but if it helps you, I've identified at least half a dozen spots where 5E works differently in a way that helps ranged builds. Sometimes for all creatures, sometimes only for a tricked-out player character. The complete list is probably longer.

The question to ask ourselves is: what change (or small set of changes) can you live without, if it helps 5E reassert the dominance of melee?

Take [MENTION=18333]Rhenny[/MENTION] as an example - he might not accept a game where archers no longer get to add Dexterity to damage. Fine - the list is long, and there is hopefully something else he could pick.

(Not saying he needs to change his game if he doesn't have any issues. Just highlighting that 5E made many changes to ranged combat, and that there should be something everyone can live with in that list)

 

[CapnZapp]

Funny how the DM had the power to make both versions totally viable.

Funny, I thought I was talking to Hemlock. In fact, don't I remember telling you to take your reprehensible blame-it-on-the-DM argument elsewhere, Cmad?

Ah, yes, here it was. Let me repeat my answer, since it still holds true.

Sorry, but your putting the blame on DMs is not helpful.

Not going to take the bait. Bye.