D&D 5E Equipment and likely ability scores

[Ferrous]

Consider the human Fighters Bill and Bob.

Bill is a 10th level heavy fighter with Plate armour, longsword and shield. Bill has a 20 Strength and an 8 Dex to take advantage of heavy armour.

Bill’s AC is 19 and does d8+5 damage. Bill is -1 to Initiative, and usually -1 to Balance, Disable Device, Drive, Ride, Sleight of Hand, Sneak, Tumble, Use Rope. Bill is at +5 to Climb and Swim checks. Bill is at -5 movement and disadvantage to Stealth. Bill’s armour is very visible and takes minutes to put on. Bill is disadvantaged with the Ambusher and Stealth specialties. Bill has a limited selection of missile weapons that have poor range.

Bob is a 10th level swashbuckling Fighter with Mithril armour, rapier and a shield (buckler). Bob has a 20 Dexterity and a Str of 8.

Bob AC19 and does d6+5 damage. Bob is +5 to Initiative and Balance, Disable Device, Drive, Ride, Sleight of Hand, Sneak, Tumble, Use Rope. Bob is at -1 to Climb and swim checks. Bob has no disadvantages and can conceal his armour to attend the Grand ball. Bob has no speciality he can’t take. Bob can use the best missile weapons with the best range.

So in effect Bill has traded +1 damage per blow that hits for:
-6 Initiative
-6 to 8 different skills
-5 movement
Disadvantage on Stealth
Donning armour rules
Armour not concealed
Worse missile fire
Can’t use 2 specialities very well.

In fact the two skill that Bill is good at don’t really make a lot of sense, “OK let’s get the guy in Plate armour to climb the sheer cliff wall and swim across the river…”

To be frank this is simply not balanced and moreover nonesensical. It seems like the equipment rules have been created without actually considering the likely impact on play and skills. So we get a guy dressed like a knight who can't ride but can swim and swashbuckler who can't climb into a ladies window?

There was a bit of a problem with Mithral breastplates etc. in 3rd edition but instead of learning from this they have made it a lot worse. In 3rd edition for example you had to pay a feat for Finesse and still your damage did not get a bonus for high Dex. However in the new edition Finesse is free and affects damage as well. As well as this you get no advantage for a high Dex whilst wearing heavy armour which you did in 3rd edition (and indeed every other edition apart from 4th). Also missile fire weapons did not get a bonus to damage for dexterity. This is a quadruple whammy and enough to make the traditional heavily armed, strong Fighter a distinctly suboptimal build.

To be frank this does not make sense from either a game balance point of view or even a real world point of view. Real armour is not as encumbering as the designer seem to believe. There are reports from the field of the cloth of gold of acrobats entertaining the two kings with backflips and handstands etc in full plate armour. In fact the one thing that I woud really not want to do in Plate is swim, which in the rules as they stand I suffer no penalty for, and if we take likely build for ability scores into account I would actually be good at!

When the best build for a Fighter looks a lot like a Rogue you also have a problem with niche protection. At present the Rogue is down +1 to hit and 4 hit points then 2 hit points per level for 4 extra skills and a skill focus dice that blows away most DC's (at least when not in combat). As some of these skills are at best very situational (woot I am trained in Rope Use) this is contributing to the Rogues as second class Fighter feel.

 

[Blackbrrd]

You have some very good points here I think. At the same time, the default point-buy doesn't give you a higher default stat than 15 +race , so the difference is much lower than you mention here. In addition, a fighter shouldn't dump-stat his dex.

3e and earlier editions had +dex to hit on some weapons (bows, finesse weapons with finesse feat) and always +str to damage. Maybe that would be a better idea? It would make it harder to make a good finesse fighter though.

It might be better to just make Heavy armor a point or two better at straight up AC compared to the Light armors with maxed out Dex or give the heavy armor some other benefit.

 

[Ultimatecalibur]

You do realize that skills are no longer directly tied to certain stats. Climb checks can be done with Dexterity.

Stats of 20 are rare (.5% chance of getting an 18 with 3d6 and 1.6% chance of an 18 with 4d6 drop lowest) or impossible (Array and Point buy current max at 18 or 19 if human at level 8) depending on the generation method.

 

[Ferrous]

Than for the reply Blackbird.

I based the 20 Str or Dex off a 15 +2 from Human, +1 from class, for an 18 starting score and 20 after levelling. If the 20 Str Fighter does not dump stat his Dex he will be limitted in some other ways such as less hit points etc. This was easier for a straight comparrison. So the difference is exactly as I have mentioned here. Weird isn't it?

As for solving the problem, well I think that a good start would be to give heavy armour the max +2 Dex bonus that is in medium armour at present (and fold medium armour into the other catergories). This would stop some of the stat dumping and that was supposed to be a goal of 5th edition and mean that heavy armour was not "strictly worse". Also Plate armour should not cost the same as Mithril? So our heavily armed and armoured knight would get his armour earlier.


Don't get me wrong I love swashbuckling heroes such as Zorro. However I like Sir Lancelot as well and think that the option should be well balanced.

P.S.
20 stats then are not rare for a human and are indeed optimal. Even if you make your player roll for their stats there is about 70% chance you get at least one 16. Indeed the average is slightly higher if you roll and so are likely able to max out at your stat at level 8 rather than 10 (if human). Also letting Zorro use his Dex to climb into a window just means that there are now 1 less skill that Sir Lancelot is better at leaving only swimming. Unless you are going to allow Sir Lancelot to add his Strength to Stealth etc. ?

 

[DEFCON 1]

Very good point analysis. At the potential high end of things in this current playtest equipment list, you make a good point. The few things to notice though on this current document is that they removed the heavy and light shield designations so that is one point of AC that Bill used to get over Bob that this document currently does not give him. And of course that you right now have to max out both Bill and Bob's primary ability score plus give them enough cash to buy the most expensive armor in the game in order for this balance to get thrown off. It's still an issue of course, you're absolutely right about that... but at least it's not an issue through most of the game.

A couple tweaks to the equipment list and it can be bent back into shape pretty easily. But it's good of you to point it out. Now to the surveys!

 

[Blackbrrd]

[MENTION=61796]Ferrous[/MENTION] I don't see the point in stat-dumping one of your most important stats. If one goes with the standard array of 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8, I would never put the 8 into dex, besides, it would have been a 9 since your example is for a human. If you used point buy, you could have 15, 14, 13, 12, 9, 9 before stat gains, add 2 to str and +1 to the rest and at +1str from class and you get: 18, 15, 14, 13, 10, 10. A typical setup would then be: Str 18, Dex 14, Con 15, Wis 13, Int 10, Cha 10. Stat gain in str and con and you end up with a final array of Str 20, Dex 14, Con 17, Wis 13, Int 10, Cha 10 at level 10. The difference isn't longer 6 points, but 3.

Even so I do think you have a point. The advantage of a high dex is higher than a high strength and I don't think it should be like that.

 

[B.T.]

This is why rolling stats is better than point buy.

 

[Ferrous]

Again thanks for the replies. Just quick clarifaction I like 5th edition and I am pointing out what I perceive as a flaw so the game can be made better.

That out of the way DefCon. I did not give Bill or Bob a bigger shield because it ain't in the equipment list. However if it was Bill and Bob could both use it so that is a wash. There is even an archetype for Bob of Dervish with big shield and scimitar.

Also I used Bill and Bob at 10th level because it could be seen that one was "strictly better" than another option. However even at 1st level with basic equipment the problem is there if slightly less marked:

Bill is a 1st level human heavy fighter with chain armour, longsword and shield. Bill has a 18 Strength and an 9 Dex to take advantage of heavy armour.

Bill’s AC is 17 and does d8+4 damage. Bill is -1 to Initiative, and usually -1 to Balance, Disable Device, Drive, Ride, Sleight of Hand, Sneak, Tumble, Use Rope. Bill is at +4 to Climb and Swim checks. Bill is at -5 movement and disadvantage to Stealth. Bill’s armour is very visible and takes minutes to put on. Bill is disadvantaged with the Ambusher and Stealth specialties. Bill has a limited selection of missile weapons that have poor range.

Bob is a 1st human level swashbuckling Fighter with leather armour, rapier and a shield (buckler). Bob has a 18 Dexterity and a Str of 9.

Bob AC16 and does d6+4 damage. Bob is +4 to Initiative and Balance, Disable Device, Drive, Ride, Sleight of Hand, Sneak, Tumble, Use Rope. Bob is at -1 to Climb and swim checks. Bob has no disadvantages Bob has no speciality he can’t take. Bob can use the best missile weapons with the best range.

So in effect Bill has traded +1 AC and +1 damage per blow that hits for:
-5 Initiative
-5 to 8 different skills
-5 movement
Disadvantage on Stealth
Donning armour rules 10 rather 1 minute
Worse missile fire
Can’t use 2 specialities very well.
Armour costs more

And still the two skills that Bill is good at don’t really make a lot of sense, “OK let’s get the guy in chain armour to climb the sheer cliff wall and swim across the river…”

Thanks for the catch of Strength and Dex should be 9 Blackbird. Of course these are functionaly the same but nice to be accurate anyway. I only varied the two variable of Str and Dex because I wanted a nice direct comparison. Even with your more "organic" stat array the difference between Bill and Bob would be as you said +3 on Dex base stuff + whatever the 5 points of stat increase could buy you like +2 with all Cha skill or +1 hit point per level, etc.

So with your array in effect at 10 level Bill has traded +1 damage per blow that hits for:
-3 Initiative
-3 to 8 different skills
-5 movement
Disadvantage on Stealth
Donning armour takes 10 minutes rather 1 minute
Worse missile fire weapon or -3 to hit and damage
Can’t use 2 specialities very well.
Armour is not concealed so cannot always be worn.
-10 hit points


I think that we both agree that this is not balanced.

P.S.

Rolling stats does not make the problem go away, unless of course you roll the exact same number for all stats because you will still have some bigger and some smaller stats and a decision on where to put them. Indeed you are more likely to get one 16, 17 or 18 so the problem manifest earlier.

 

[Blackbrrd]

Anyway, one thing 3e and was that Plate Mail had a max dex of +1 instead of 0 and Mithril Plate had a max dex of +3. Maybe something like that would work out for 5e too? Alternatively, light armor could get a max dex of +4, making heavy armor a bit more interesting. Personally I would prefer a higher than 0 max dex for heavy armor.

 

[eprieur]

As a strenght fighter you have to take into account heavy weapons I think. I think the rules are pretty easy in term of swapping, etc, so basically you swap, you strike with a 2-h, you swap again to protect, etc. It make the strenght figther better in melee but the dex fighter is better at range. I do see the problem also though and I'm sure they will have to change stuff around and can't leave this like it is.