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Message: <blockquote data-quote="CapnZapp" data-source="post: 6863954" data-attributes="member: 12731">The first thing is to establish that to gain range you need to sacrifice offense. To gain mobility you should have to sacrifice defense.Assuming those as givens; the options that come to mind are (in no particular) order:1) The highest AC should require heavy armor- Heavy armor should not be easy to move quickly in. Not saying we must return to 3E speeds; but as a suggestion:- lets start heavy armor at -10 ft Speed; if you're proficient and meet the Strength demands, his penalty is halved. Result: halfling plate 20 ft; dwarf and human plate 25 ft. - "any increase to speed is halved in heavy armor". This needs to include high-level magicks! Meaning a magic item that adds +20 ft speed only adds +10 to the plate guy. A magic carpet that otherwise zips along at 90' can't move more than 60' if anyone is wearing heavy armor. Note not "if it carries more than N pounds" since a powergamer would immediately think of "gnomes in plate" if it did. Weight means nothing. AC means everything. - In return; there should be a hefty AC advantage to heavy armor; let me suggest a minimum of 3 points of AC. If AC 20 is the baseline for heavy armor plus shield; the monks and thieves and barbarians should struggle to reach more than AC 17. Even in the charop threads. Giving easy access to the Shield spell to somebody with a base AC of more than 15 and more than a d6 hit die is probably not a good idea.2) Restrict the -5/+10 mechanic to melee only. Make it expensive to counter the -5. The fact is: power attack is balanced if but only if you actually suffer the full -5. Say "you cannot enjoy advantage while power attacking full stop". Rephrase bless and similar cheap/low-level bonuses (basically anything that doesn't cost at least a level two spell slot or similar) to not work on power attacks. I don't have any immediate rules language, but I'm leaning towards making power attack a thing of its own - the default is that none of the bonuses that apply to attacks work on power attacks. That way, we can identify a couple of high-maintenance buffs and specifically say "works with power attack", secure in the knowledge we haven't forgotten about some pesky cheap boon somewhere. 4) Don't have Archery style give a massive +2 to hit bonus! Just don't. Whatever the reason was to give it out, rework that benefit into something else than an AC-trivializer and a power-attack-better-than-melee enabler! I can't think of anything right now, but I'm sure previous editions can offer plenty of ideas.3) roll back at least one of the ranged friendly changes of 5th edition. Suggestions:First off, scrap the Crossbow Expert feat entirely. Just delete it. Completely. You could re-enable two-weapon fighting for thrown (but not ammo-using) weapons, I guess.Then, delete the Sharpshooter feat too. There is design space for a ranged-boosting feat, but let's start from scratch, since all three parts of the existing feat need to go. The power attack part should require manly melee. The ignore cover part is strange and doesn't add anything to the game (in fact, it subtracts from it). I guess the "no disad at range" party will seldom actually break anything, but it still feels intensely unrealistic.Let's start with "you effectively double the range of any weapon you use" as a start. Now, you can use a hand crossbow at 60 feet effectively, but you still get disadvantage when shooting at longer distances. Maybe, just maybe we can add back the archer style benefit here... Hmm: what about "if you spend an action aiming, you gain +2 to your next single shot". Yes, that works for the "sharpshooter" theme without actually boosting DPR ; since it would only apply to the start of combats (and not-combats, such as apple-on-head contests)This way we don't have to return to str-based ranged damage. I acknowledge how "dex-damage" enables a variety of char builds that otherwise would not appeal to the damage-conscious gamer.ZappPS. I would love to continue on this topic, but perhaps not right here?(The issue is the way ENWorld shunts off threads that consist of too much homebrew into forums nobody reads; so I'm reluctant to start a new thread that focuses on this very interesting issue)</blockquote>

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