D&D 5E Dex vs. Str

[Guest 6801328]

I think that that is a reason why D&D has the finesse mechanic: to make low-strength martial characters effective.

But that suggestion was intended towards the original idea of the thread, which was to prevent precisely what you are talking about: a martial character completely dumping one of Strength and Dex, and maxing the other rather than having a balance of the two.

Oh, I see. Yes, but that would make all builds MAD since you need both AC and damage output. I was looking for a solution where Str/Dex vs. Dex/Str is roughly symmetric just in terms of damage.

Agreed. a two-handed Finesse weapon is a pretty weird concept to start with. Arming sword seems covered by Longsword already. (And I wouldn't have thought of arming swords as commonly dual-wielded either, so I'd be unsure of giving them the Light property.)

I agree that using Maul with Dex seems...weird to me. Two responses:
1) Lots of things in D&D seem weird (like falling damage), so as long as a Dex build with a Maul doesn't imbalance anything, why not allow it?
2) That said, from personal preference I'd still like to tweak my rules to provide a disincentive. It could be as simple as "Weapons with the Heavy property cannot be used with Dex."

Its a little odd. Best example that I could come up with would be a body-builder-like character, capable of a lot of power, but not good at sustained effort. But they would also need to incorporate the general sickliness and lack of ability to fight off disease and poisons etc.
As you say, its a bit of a struggle.

I actually find it really hard to come up with an example of a high-dex, low-str character for threads like this.
High Str and Dex characters are fairly common and recognisable, from Conan to Bruce Lee.
Low-str, high-dex would be someone like Bilbo Baggins perhaps? But hobbits are described as quite athletic. Need an example of someone graceful and balanced but unathletic. A couch-potato with quick hands from playing console games perhaps?
Likewise, athletic-but clumsy is also a tricky combination to think of an example.

I've known some professional ballerinas and they all claim they are "total klutzes" off-stage. Similarly, I used to row competitively and there was nothing more pathetic than a bunch of oarsmen playing basketball on rain days.

 

[Guest 6801328]

If it is realism you're after, we have a long way to go. Obviously both strength and dexterity contribute to how likely you are to hit with any weapon, and how much damage it is likely to do. But it seems a reasonable simplification to say that ranged attacks depend more on Dex and melee attacks depend more on Str.

No. Sorry, what I wrote might have been misleading. It is definitely not realism I am after. I am after mechanics that cause interesting trade-offs and decisions, and lead to a greater variety of ability score distributions. If I mention realism it is only to rationalize interesting mechanics for those who care about realism.

 

[Guest 6801328]

It does create a few other things that may need to be considered:

1) Now that combat classes have been made a bit more MAD, maybe spell casting attack rolls should also rely on dexterity to hit.

Yes. I'm actually envisioning this as part of a whole slew of related changes to also make casters more MAD than they currently are. This was just the first installment.

2) Some other mechanic needs to be considered for two-handed fighting, because dexterity builds now favor large damage weapons, which doesn't make any sense. I think the obvious choice is to add in extra strength damage for two handed weapons (either x1.5 or x2). A cool way to handle this would be for GWM to allow double strength bonus instead of -5/+10.

I agree that Dex builds should be encouraged away from heavy weapons. I'm not sure what the solution is for Dex attack/Str damage. I don't think I like the idea of basing it off optimization of a Feat, though.

One (bad) solution would be for the Heavy tag to mean that you use Str instead of Dex for the attack roll, but then we would just end up with all high Str / low Dex characters going 2H.

This is one reason I don't like the solution of Dex to hit, Str for damage. I prefer solutions where you choose your best stat for attack.

3) Strength for ranged weapons seems appropriate, but may require a special bow. For considering two-handedness consider how the weapons are drawn. Longbow/shortbows draw with one hand, crossbow draws with two, heavy crossbow draws with two and an additional lever. slings are one handed, staff slings are two-handed. Alternatively strength bonus to ranged weapons could be part of SS and drop the -5/+10.

In reality it would require a special bow, but in reality most armor would have to be "special", too, but we ignore that.

A quasi-realistic solution would be that bows have Strength ratings. You couldn't use a bow with a higher rating than your own Strength, and if you used a bow with less than your Strength rating you could only get a damage bonus up to the rating of the bow. But would this add to the fun of the game? Imagine finding a sentient Oathbow that has a strength rating higher than the ranger's Strength, but much lower than the Barbarian's Strength...

 

[Yardiff]

This is just my opinion.
The reason dex to damage came about was the standard point buy was too limiting to make effective MAD fighter/rogues so people complained of the need for str to damage when their builds were dex based. While you could build a str/dex MAD character the rest of your ability scores suffered (15, 15, 15, 8, 8, 8). I think an increase in points, 32-35, while still limiting max to 15 would make MAD classes more readily buildable.

 

[Satyrn]

I had another thought about crits with the OP, @Elfcrusher.

What do you think of making the crit damage being a number of dice equal to the Strength modifier (minimum 1)? So a 20 Str would get you 5d6 crit damage.

Or maybe even go crazy and have it start off at 2d6 and add or subtract a number of dice equal to the Strength modifier, with a -2 actually meaning no crit damage. (I suggest the base at 2d6 so dumping str with point buy nets some damage)

 

[Guest 6801328]

This is just my opinion.
The reason dex to damage came about was the standard point buy was too limiting to make effective MAD fighter/rogues so people complained of the need for str to damage when their builds were dex based. While you could build a str/dex MAD character the rest of your ability scores suffered (15, 15, 15, 8, 8, 8). I think an increase in points, 32-35, while still limiting max to 15 would make MAD classes more readily buildable.

Sure...having higher scores will increase damage. But that doesn't change the situation that the SAD class will still end up with better scores because they will save a bunch of points only having to have 2 15's.

What you really want is a system in which an 18 Str/10 Dex build and an 18 Dex/10 Str build do about the same damage, which is about the same as 16/12 and 12/16, and both are out-damaged by 16/14 or 14/16. In other words, it's a good investment to bring up your secondary stat, especially during point buy where further increasing the upper stats becomes increasingly expensive.

Of course, other considerations (saving throws, AC, skills, shove/grapple, class abilities) might complicate the decision, but the goal shouldn't automatically be to get 20/10 as soon as possible for every single character.

(Another implication of this is that *all* classes including casters should have two stats that effect their primary abilities in equal but different ways. E.g. Wisdom and Charisma for clerics, Cha and Con for Warlocks, Int and Con for Wizards, etc.)

 

[Yardiff]

I'd like a system with dex to hit and str to damage and no melee/ranged character is a SAD character.

I do agree with the part you have in parentheses.