Extra Attack vs Scaling Damage

[Horwath]

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.

You have a class that deals lots of extra d6's with one attack per attack action, it's called a rogue.

And it's still very binary per round. All or nothing. having 4 or 5 attacks per attack action sidelines luck a little. And helps with fighting mooks.

 

[Zardnaar]

You have a class that deals lots of extra d6's with one attack per attack action, it's called a rogue.

And it's still very binary per round. All or nothing. having 4 or 5 attacks per attack action sidelines luck a little. And helps with fighting mooks.

Helps with things like Monks or Halflings as well.

Its not a bad idea in a vacumn but it seems to be a bad idea in 5E as you need a game built from the ground up or a class like the rogue designed around it.

 

[Ganymede81]

I've always been a fan of re-implementing some form of damage scaling from Next and then moving Extra Attack to the bonus action. That'd preserve extra attacks in a round, but force them to compete with other interesting ways to use your bonus action.

 

[Blue]

13th Age is a d20 that came out before 5e but is similar in philosophy. They handle it much like you are asking.

They don't have extra attacks (except for a few conditional ones you can get by how you pick your talents for certain classes), but weapon damage is [level]d[weapon die]. So a Fighter 3 with a longsword is doing 3d8+Str damage. It's a 10 level system, so that would be [level/2] for 5e. Note that your strength or dex modifier counts once per tier of play, so x1 to x3, not adding to each die.

Some other differences - two handed martial weapons are only d10s sicne the difference in die size will get multiplied by level, rogues get d8s with light or simple weapons like daggers, but in general it's similar to 5e.

But monsters and PCs have more HPs so it's not a huge inflation. A starting character get three hit dice worth (plus Con once) at 1st level, and the numbers are higher - Fighters get 8 HPs, so a Fighter 1 has 24+Con HPs.

Healing is also greater, much more like 4e in that you have a certain number of recoveries and a healing spell (or you can do Rally yourself 1/combat* as an action) will heal a good amount, plus a bonus based on the spell, but it uses up one of your recoveries (what would be healing surges in 4e). While 5e has HD, in-combat curing doesn't utilize them and generally heals a lot less of your total than 13th Age (or 4e).