Extra Attack vs Scaling Damage

[TwoSix]

Agreed 100%. Linear damage increases are so much easier to balance around.

 

[Xeviat]

Your particular suggestions need work.
You also need to watch out for other forms of multi-attack, like TWF, or crossbow expertise.

I didn't give all of my current ideas. I've been running the math on them. The barbarian and ranger end up getting buffs at 11th level and up. The paladin ends up getting a buff at 17 and up. Based the big damage comparison spreadsheet by [MENTION=6670944]Kryx[/MENTION], the other classes could use a bit of a buff; the Battlemaster Fighter is clearly on top of everything but two-Weapon fighting. But, I haven't seen them in play myself at those levels, and my goal isn't to "fix" that.

Here are my current ideas. Mathematically, the fighter compares well against the core fighter. The other classes compare well against the new fighter, but as I said they're buffed compared to their bases.

Barbarian: half damage on a miss with strength based melee attacks. This shows off the barbarian as a brutal attacker. Putting your shield and armor in the way doesn't block all of the damage; you still feel the force. Even a dodger has to overextend. In a 4E style approach, I'd do the "target Reflex defense" type thing, but attacks as save DCs isn't supported in 5th.
Justification: evoker wizard gets this with save based cantrips. Yeah, they don't get it on cantrip attacks. I suppose a floor could be used so sufficiently bad attacks (like if you have disadvantage?) can still miss for zero damage.

Valor Bard: give them war magic instead of Extra Attack. Also, add green flame blade and it's siblings to their cantrips.

Fighter: Weapon Mastery. At 5th, 11th, and 20th, they gain +1 to hit and +2 to damage. This makes them more accurate than the other warriors, even though their damage will end up slightly lower in certain cases.

Monk: I'm actually struggling here. Since they can use a weapon and are only forced unarmed for their martial arts and flurry attacks, I could just keep them as unarmed and change the unarmed scaling to Xd4. But, getting those extra modifiers on top of the extra weapon dice is tough. Also, without the unarmed die size scaling, monks will all hang onto quarterstaffs for ever (even though they already ideally hang onto them till 11th level when unarmed becomes 1d8). They only get 1 Extra Attack, so only one ability needs to be replaced. They could use a damage buff at higher levels.

Paladin: replace Extra Attack and improved divine smite with the +1d6 radiant damage at 5th and 11th.

Ranger: replace Extra Attack and their 11th level path feature with 1d6 sneak attack damage. I like what this will do to their playstyle as well. Reword their 11th level path features to be unique standard actions that don't stack.

Blade Warlock: remove their extra attack invocation and move their cha damage invocation to 6th level.

Bladesinger Wizard: War Magic at 6th level instead of Extra Attack.

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Starting at 5th level, you can split Attack. Split Attack allows you to reduce your damage by 1 weapon die to target two targets in range. Instead of 2[w]+ability to one target, you do 1[w]+ability to two targets. Yes, you do more combined to two than one, but that's to reward spreading (for the same reason that multitarget spells are supposed to do about 75% damage compared to single target spells).

Aside from the Rogue, base two weapon fighting is golden. Without the style, compare 1d6+ability and 1d6 short swords to 2d6+ability great sword. Identical, and they scale the same. TWFing costs a bonus action, but can split attacks earlier.

The style needs to be changed to allowing larger weapons. Then you get 2d6*+ability (8.33+ability) vs 1d8+ability +1d8 (9+ability). This partially shows how GWFing is weaker than Duelist (which needs to grant +2 damage to every die, otherwise it collapses). Then again, I'd rather change the fighting styles entirely anyway if given the chance.

For Rogue, I'd have to accept that a TWFing rogue gets a +3d6 damage boost for no reason. They don't need it. TWFing could be changed. As I said, I'm open to changing the styles entirely.


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[Xeviat]

Last thing that 5e needs is less attacks.

I would put for every martial class extra attacks at lvl5,11,17, same as cantrip damage boosts.

Then give fighters one extra at 20 and some other ability at lvl11.

And martial classes levels would stack for those extra attack.

One attack per round is god damn boring.

Would you take away things and leave "dead levels" at those levels, or would you give lesser abilities so there are no dead points and accept that weapon damage is going to get a buff across the board (not just for non-fighter and non-rogue)?

I could get behind universal Increased number of attacks coming back in some fashion. I want universality in one way or another, both to smooth out multiclassing and to unify game elements.


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[Xeviat]

I disagree with the premise of this post.

I think extra attacks are so integral to the nature of the martial character that I wish they would bring back the "attack for every level against less than 1 HD creatures and non-exceptional scrubs" rule from AD&D.

20th level fighter? 20 ATTACKS! Muahahahahahahaha! Now you're cooking with gas.

I do have "split attack" for attacking multiple targets for that reason. But, a big part of me lives Book of Nine Swords and wants "martial fireballs" for chewing through hordes of mooks too.


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[Horwath]

I do have "split attack" for attacking multiple targets for that reason. But, a big part of me lives Book of Nine Swords and wants "martial fireballs" for chewing through hordes of mooks too.


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There is varian rule in DMG for sort of "cleave" that gives you option to give overkill damage to adjacent opponent if you beat their AC also.

 

[Horwath]

Would you take away things and leave "dead levels" at those levels, or would you give lesser abilities so there are no dead points and accept that weapon damage is going to get a buff across the board (not just for non-fighter and non-rogue)?

I could get behind universal Increased number of attacks coming back in some fashion. I want universality in one way or another, both to smooth out multiclassing and to unify game elements.


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In last campaign I player MC rogue/fighter ranged assassin. One attack per round. Out of combat it was great(sneaking/lots of skills etc...) In combat? Yawn, as I was wood elf I could use Hide action little more than average and every round was mostly hide-shoot-hide-shoot...

Now I play High elf shadow monk and with 4 attack per round, well it feel more fun, one attack is too binary for me, either its "hell yeah" or "meh, another round wasted".

More attacks evens out the "curse of d20".

 

[Zardnaar]

This is a very bad idea. You just nerfed the martial classes hard.

 

[Flamestrike]

If you have the extra attack class feature you can forgo using that feature and instead make a single attack when you use the Attack action.

If that attack hits, it deals an extra +3d6 damage (of the same type as your weapon) for each extra attack you could normally make with the extra attack class feature.

You must choose to use this feature before you make your attack roll.

You may also use this option when you ready a single attack using the ready action.

 

[Zardnaar]

If you have the extra attack class feature you can forgo using that feature and instead make a single attack when you use the Attack action.

If that attack hits, it deals an extra +3d6 damage (of the same type as your weapon) for each extra attack you could normally make with the extra attack class feature.

You must choose to use this feature before you make your attack roll.

You may also use this option when you ready a single attack using the ready action.

See that is a lot better option than the OP idea and plays nice with things like Champion and classes who get a 2nd attack but with no weapon style.

 

[Flamestrike]

See that is a lot better option than the OP idea and plays nice with things like Champion and classes who get a 2nd attack but with no weapon style.

Better yet, just turf extra attack entirely, and give +3d6 (10) damage when you make a single attack via the attack action whenever you normally get the extra attack ability.

It also makes Fighters scale at about the same rate as rogues (3d6 every 5 levels), and makes their AoO damn scary.

It also makes 'parry' and 'defensive duelist' slightly better abilities. It also nerfs GWM and SS. It also stops poison shennanigans, and paladin smite novas. It also boosts champions.

So it fixes... everything most people have a problem with.

Great weapon fighting keeps its 'high damage niche' (you still re-roll those 1's and 2's) and the -5/+10 is much riskier (and the pay off is lower).

Duelling probably looks a bit lackluster though. You should probably add another +2 to duellings damage per extra attack iteration.

Johnny the Fighter 20 deals [1d8 + str + 9d6 + 8] or around 50 damage per round with his longsword (around 100 when he action surges).

Fixed.