D&D 5E Level 11+: How do the Warriors compare?

[Xeviat]

Hi everyone. I've been working on a house rule to remove Extra Attack. I was reminded of it by the recent alternative multiclassing thread. I dislike the juxtaposition of Extra Attack alongside the beautiful Rogue progression and the spellcaster's cantrip progression.

So, I was wanting to explore changing weapon damage to be 1[W] per tier, just like cantrips. Characters would drop down to single attacks, except TWFing. There would also be learned maneuvers for the warriors to allow for other tricks, like giving up a weapon die to split your attacks between multiple targets (this way, your multitarget damage is cumulatively higher than your single target damage, but your single target damage is higher per target; 1d8+5 to two or 2d8+5 to one, for instance).

In place of Extra Attack, the warrior classes would get abilities like the cantrip users and clerics get. They'd get across the board buffs to their attacks. This way, a multiclasser wouldn't necessarily feel rushed to reach 5th level in a particular class to keep up, but the classes are still rewarded at certain tiers.

In my initial ideas, I ended up with the following abilities. They were all balanced roughly equally with the PHB versions, but things got weird past that:

Barbarian: half-damage on a miss. When a barbarian attacks you, even if your armor takes it, it still hurts.

Valor Bard and the other Gishes: War Magic. Instead of Extra Attack, let them make attacks and cantrip uses at the same time. This needs to explicitly state that it's a 1W weapon attack, though.

Fighter: Weapon Mastery. The Fighter gets a bonus to hit and damage with weapon attacks. Not counting barbarian reckless attack, fighters are the most accurate. This is easily balanced through level 20, though I'd recommend moving their capstones around since weapon damage scales at 17th.

Monk: Improved Martial Arts. The monk keeps their multiple attacks. While their main attack scales with additional dice, they'll gain more 1W unarmed attacks.

Paladin: Improved Divine Smite. Move the paladin's improved divine smite earlier. They get extra radiant damage on their attacks sooner to keep up with the curve.

Ranger: Hunter's Quarry. Give Rangers a form of sneak attack against targeted foes. It's similar to the paladin's radiant damage. Maybe let this bypass any damage resistances? Or something.

So, I really liked how these looked at 5th. The Fighter was balancable all the way through 20th. The Rogue had to have its sneak attack progression adjusted since it got extra weapon dice, but it interestingly rewarded single weapon rogues a bit, which I think needed to happen.

What ended up happening, though, is the barbarian's damage started to climb at 11th, since the barbarian doesn't get a damage boost around then. They get their higher crit damage, but those are uncommon and don't drastically impact the averages. Paladins we're fine to 11th, but we're boosted at 17th. Rangers were fine at 11th if you adjust their subclass abilities then, but they too were boosted at 17th. Monks too started gaining damage at 11th.

I haven't gotten to play an 11th level or higher game yet, so I don't know how the other warriors stack up to the Fighter and Rogue at those levels. I suspect the paladin is fine. I suspect the new beastmaster Ranger is fine then. I suspect the role of the Barbarian and Monk are turning then, with Barbarians able to rage for most combat encounters and the monk trading damage for control then.

But, I'd like to hear from others. Do you like Extra Attacks too much to hear trading them out for a different system? Do the other warriors need boosts at 11th or 17th, or would them getting damage boosts then make them too good?


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[Tony Vargas]

Hi everyone. I've been working on a house rule to remove Extra Attack. I was reminded of it by the recent alternative multiclassing thread. I dislike the juxtaposition of Extra Attack alongside the beautiful Rogue progression and the spellcaster's cantrip progression.

So, I was wanting to explore changing weapon damage to be 1[W] per tier, just like cantrips. Characters would drop down to single attacks, except TWFing. There would also be learned maneuvers for the warriors to allow for other tricks, like giving up a weapon die to split your attacks between multiple targets...

Not the first time I've suggested something like this, but still think it's a good idea, in concept (it may not be such a great idea in execution without a lot of work and/or adjustment to other parts of the game, but...

Give weapon users one attack/Tier. That is, one attack roll. Each hit increases the damage done that round by one damage die. So if you get three hits with a longsword, you're doing 3d8, if you only get one hit, it's 1d8. The rub is that you only get bonuses, like the oh-so-problematic +10 from GWM/SS or elemental or 'bane' (that's the 3e name, I don't remember what, if anything they call it now) damage dice from a powerful magic weapon /once/, when you roll damage. So, if you're wielding Orcrist, which does an extra 2d6 vs goblinoids, and hit three times, you can hit one goblin for 3d8+2d6+bonuses or three goblins each for 1d8+2d6+bonuses. TWFing just adds another attack. You could even /keep/ Extra Attack, it might not exactly break things wide open in that system.

You could have maneuvers consume attacks up front, or consume hits. You could require targets be stated before rolling attacks, declare each target before each attack roll, or let the player distribute hits...

 

[JeffB]

I like my Fighters to be able to spread out their attacks if they want and being able to move between attacks. Removing that and giving hit/damage bonus on one attack just makes things more static and boring, especially for a Champion who doesn't have anything flashy to rely on.

Edit-the "split attacks" would just allow auto hits to other targets in the area and you would "spend" damage dice between the targets? If so, I still prefer the extra attack rolls and being able to move to another target.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Edit-the "split attacks" would just allow auto hits to other targets in the area and you would "spend" damage dice between the targets?

It was just one possibility, but, yes, the idea is, you roll a handful of dice, count the hits, and distribute them just like you would make separate attacks in 5e: all on one enemy, one each on several enemies even if you have to move between them, etc...
If you were attacking several different enemies with different ACs, you'd presumably have to hit the highest AC of the bunch (or keep track of exactly what you rolled), if you were going to roll first, then distribute 'hits.'

 

[JeffB]

It was just one possibility, but, yes, the idea is, you roll a handful of dice, count the hits, and distribute them just like you would make separate attacks in 5e: all on one enemy, one each on several enemies even if you have to move between them, etc...
If you were attacking several different enemies with different ACs, you'd presumably have to hit the highest AC of the bunch (or keep track of exactly what you rolled), if you were going to roll first, then distribute 'hits.'

So essentially you are just rolling all attacks at once but not "committing" to a particular enemy...e.g.

Champion great weapon Fighter (not using feats) with 3 attacks and a magic greatsword, wades into the middle of a group of beserkers... fighter has +12 to hit, and a damage dice pool of 6d6 (3 greatsword hits) and a damage bonus of +7 per hit (normal single attack would be 2d6+7).

Rolls all 3d20, and best roll hits up to a ac22 which is good enough to hit any beserker. So fighter could chose to drop 6d6 +21 on one beserker, or split it up in some way on two, or three, or even all of the 6? So if he wanted to ...1d6 on each beserker and split the +21 among them as well?

Or maybe he has 2 beserkers on him, and their shaman is 20ft away... he rolls all 3d20, his best roll is enough to hit the beserkers and the shaman, doles out 2d6+7 on each beserker, kills them, and moves to engage and deal last 2d6+7 on shaman.

Now if the difference is, roll 3d20, and count individual hits...e.g..so he only rolls one attack that hits a beserker, and only gets to roll his normal damage-2d6+7 and gets to chose which one of the 6, I am not sure how this is better, other than getting to choose which target gets clocked after the roll. It doesn't really speed up play/cut down on rolls that much,which is kind of where I thought the OP was heading.

Or maybe I am confoozled..would not be the first time.

 

[Tony Vargas]

So essentially you are just rolling all attacks at once but not "committing" to a particular enemy...

Essentially, it's just figuring damage from two or more hits differently.

You could run it exactly as normal, but second and subsequent hits on the same target on the same turn only inflict the base weapon die, no bonuses or extra dice.

Of course, that would be underpowered...

Rolls all 3d20, and best roll hits up to a ac22 which is good enough to hit any beserker.

If it were the lowest roll it'd be three 'hits.'

So fighter could chose to drop 6d6 +21 on one beserker, or split it up in some way on two, or three, or even all of the 6?

6d6 +7 for 3 hits on the same target, or 2d6+7 three times for one hit on each.

Or maybe he has 2 beserkers on him, and their shaman is 20ft away... , doles out 2d6+7 on each beserker, kills them, and moves to engage and deal last 2d6+7 on shaman.

Yes, I'd see no problem with moving amongst various targets, as long as the rolls in question could hit any of them.

 

[Xeviat]

My idea was either one single attack (at 1W per tier +mods damage), or a maneuver. A simple maneuver allows you to take -1 damage die in order to now make a separate attack against two targets. So you could still spread them out if you needed to.


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[JeffB]

Essentially, it's just figuring damage from two or more hits differently.

You could run it exactly as normal, but second and subsequent hits on the same target on the same turn only inflict the base weapon die, no bonuses or extra dice.

If it were the lowest roll it'd be three 'hits.' 6d6 +7 for 3 hits on the same target, or 2d6+7 three times for one hit on each.

Yes, I'd see no problem with moving amongst various targets, as long as the rolls in question could hit any of them.

Sorry I did mean lowest roll hits in the first example.

What do you see as the big advantage(s) to this system?

 

[JeffB]

My idea was either one single attack (at 1W per tier +mods damage), or a maneuver. A simple maneuver allows you to take -1 damage die in order to now make a separate attack against two targets. So you could still spread them out if you needed to.


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Ok.

I'm a DM 100% of the time, but I think if I was a player of a fighter who has 3 attacks, I'd feel worse about 1 less attack, but a little more damage.

In a way it reminds me of 3.0 power attack at low to medium levels , almost no-one wanted to take that penalty to hit for a couple more points of damage. IOW- don't want to take a chance on not connecting, and don't mind rolling my normal damage.

Maybe you could put up an example?

 

[Zardnaar]

Seems a bad idea. Warriors are kind of built around multiple attacks and the damage splitting is good. Not a lot of point hitting a low hp opponent for 4W+ lots damage.