D&D 5E Flèche: Charge Attack For Light Fighters

[doctorbadwolf]

So Star Wars Saga Edition has a feat called Flèche, which gives you a buff to charging attacks.

Benefit: Once per encounter, when you Charge, you can turn any natural attack roll of 17+ into a Critical Hit.

Now in 5e this would have to either come in with a homebrew Charge action or charge special attack, and it would need a different refresh, but it’s better than the current Charger feat.

But is it worth a feat?

Definitely not. Compare it to any of the weapo -er feats (crusher, piercer) and it falls quite short.

Another feat that sucks is Defensive Duelist.

What if we combine them into a Master Duelist feat?

Master Duelist
You are a master of the duel, wielding only a single light or finesse weapon, and only a defensive* weapon or shield alongside it.

While so armed, you gain 2 manuever dice which are d6s, and learn the following abilities:

Parry and Riposte. You can take the Dodge action as a reaction, and when you cause an attack to miss, you can spend a manuever die to make a melee weapon attack against the attacker as part of the same action, adding your maneuver die to the damage if successful.

Flèche. When you take a charge attack** while armed as above, your movement provokes no attack of opportunity, and you can treat the attack as a natural 20 if the die result is 18 or higher by spending 1 maneuver die. Whether you gain a critical hit or not, you add the maneuver due to the attack’s damage.

*Defensive is a new weapon trait which makes the weapon give +1 AC and have features something like “the weapon allows you to give yourself damage reduction equal to your proficiency bonus against weapon attacks as a bonus action”. Shields also have this trait, but retain their +2. I plan on making different main gouche give different benefits to feel different, and include targe, parrying dagger, cloak, punch dagger, sword-breaker, trident knife, maybe more.

**Charge Attack is a “special action in combat”.

Charge Attack
You sprint into the fight to hit hard and fast. As part of the Attack Action, you can declare a charge. When you do, you can only move away from your origin space, and you must select your target before you move. When you reach the target, you can attempt one of two things.

Unarmed Strike (as the most recent UA rules glossary).

Weapon Attack

If your attack is successful, regardless of the type of attack, you deal extra damage to the target equal to your proficiency bonus.

Thoughts? This is a very rough draft, but the basic shape of the idea is here.

 

[Clint_L]

That seems very overpowered and basically a mandatory feat for all melee classes to take at level 1.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

So Star Wars Saga Edition has a feat called Flèche, which gives you a buff to charging attacks.



Now in 5e this would have to either come in with a homebrew Charge action or charge special attack, and it would need a different refresh, but it’s better than the current Charger feat.

But is it worth a feat?

Definitely not. Compare it to any of the weapo -er feats (crusher, piercer) and it falls quite short.

Another feat that sucks is Defensive Duelist.

What if we combine them into a Master Duelist feat?

Master Duelist
You are a master of the duel, wielding only a single light or finesse weapon, and only a defensive* weapon or shield alongside it.

While so armed, you gain 2 manuever dice which are d6s, and learn the following abilities:

Parry and Riposte. You can take the Dodge action as a reaction, and when you cause an attack to miss, you can spend a manuever die to make a melee weapon attack against the attacker as part of the same action, adding your maneuver die to the damage if successful.

Flèche. When you take a charge attack** while armed as above, your movement provokes no attack of opportunity, and you can treat the attack as a natural 20 if the die result is 18 or higher by spending 1 maneuver die. Whether you gain a critical hit or not, you add the maneuver due to the attack’s damage.

*Defensive is a new weapon trait which makes the weapon give +1 AC and have features something like “the weapon allows you to give yourself damage reduction equal to your proficiency bonus against weapon attacks as a bonus action”. Shields also have this trait, but retain their +2. I plan on making different main gouche give different benefits to feel different, and include targe, parrying dagger, cloak, punch dagger, sword-breaker, trident knife, maybe more.

**Charge Attack is a “special action in combat”.

Charge Attack
You sprint into the fight to hit hard and fast. As part of the Attack Action, you can declare a charge. When you do, you can only move away from your origin space, and you must select your target before you move. When you reach the target, you can attempt one of two things.

Unarmed Strike (as the most recent UA rules glossary).

Weapon Attack

If your attack is successful, regardless of the type of attack, you deal extra damage to the target equal to your proficiency bonus.

Thoughts? This is a very rough draft, but the basic shape of the idea is here.

This is very powerful. - Being able to dodge as a reaction and zig-zag through the fight without suffering attacks of opportunity are both useful.

I'm not sure that the weapon restriction is necessary. - You can still perform both abilities in heavy armour, which is realistic, but deflecting an attack and striking back is a part of most weapon systems from axes to zweihanders.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

This is very powerful. - Being able to dodge as a reaction and zig-zag through the fight without suffering attacks of opportunity are both useful.

I'm not sure that the weapon restriction is necessary. - You can still perform both abilities in heavy armour, which is realistic, but deflecting an attack and striking back is a part of most weapon systems from axes to zweihanders.

Realism isn’t exactly the point. But, you may have a point.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

I’m not sure if it is OP or not, but the weapon restriction doesn’t make sense to me. When you mentioned wanting to improve charging my first thought was heavy weapons, not finesse weapons

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I’m not sure if it is OP or not, but the weapon restriction doesn’t make sense to me. When you mentioned wanting to improve charging my first thought was heavy weapons, not finesse weapons

Heavies can have their own feat. This is about making light weapon users better, as well.

Also, the additional charge attack rules make charging better for all melee combatants.

A heavy charger fear would want to feel more like the target is getting hit by a truck.

 

[Clint_L]

Being able to take the Dodge action as a reaction is by itself incredibly powerful. It basically means that all attacks against the character are at a disadvantage. This is much better than, for example, the monk ability patient defence, which requires them to give up both a bonus action (ie an attack) and spend ki.

And that’s before all the other stuff you have wrapped up in the ability.

Why would anyone want to do anything but take this feat, plus duelist fighting style, plus heavy armour and shield? At level 1 I can easily have AC 18 with all attacks at disadvantage and be doing top tier damage as well.

The “cause an attack to miss” is going to happen almost every round with this ability, so you have effectively more than doubled offence (they even get to add an extra damage die!) while making defence incredible.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Being able to take the Dodge action as a reaction is by itself incredibly powerful. It basically means that all attacks against the character are at a disadvantage. This is much better than, for example, the monk ability patient defence, which requires them to give up both a bonus action (ie an attack) and spend ki.

Well the monk is being rewritten for the same product this would be in, and patient defense gives DR that obv stacks with Deflect Attacks, which works against any weapon attack and eventually any attack.

And adv/disadv is not that powerful. It’s nice.

And that’s before all the other stuff you have wrapped up in the ability.

It’s basically two manuevers and the dice to use them.

Why would anyone want to do anything but take this feat, plus duelist fighting style, plus heavy armour and shield? At level 1 I can easily have AC 18 with all attacks at disadvantage and be doing top tier damage as well.

The “cause an attack to miss” is going to happen almost every round with this ability, so you have effectively more than doubled offence (they even get to add an extra damage die!) while making defence incredible.

Okay.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

That seems very overpowered and basically a mandatory feat for all melee classes to take at level 1.

A heavy is still better off with a greatsword and GWM.

I may change parry-riposte a bit, but goodness folks overvalue advantage and disadvantage. It’s a modest change to probabilities in most cases.

What I might do is make the riposte a bonus action attack you can take immediately when your next turn starts with a damage bonus, and parry “just” adds the result of the die to your AC. Even though that’s better than giving disadvantage in many circumstances. Maybe most.

As for the flèche, again it’s not a gigantic improvement on the charge attack itself, which everyone has available to them, as a general rule. It’s an agile charge with a damage bonus. I’d be happy to change the die usage to giving a speed buff, 5x1d6 is fun but not a huge deal most of the time.

I won’t make it a bonus action, though. Making the rogue and monk less good at it than others would defeat the purpose. Maybe if you can dash as a bonus action you can use the flèche maneuver as part of that, replacing the d6 based bonus with just doubling your speed.

Or perhaps charging in general could use different action economy.

I like Charge Attack as it is, though.

 

[Kobold Stew]

Master Duelist
You are a master of the duel, wielding only a single light or finesse weapon, and only a defensive* weapon or shield alongside it.

While so armed, you gain 2 manuever dice which are d6s, and learn the following abilities:

Parry and Riposte. You can take the Dodge action as a reaction, and when you cause an attack to miss, you can spend a manuever die to make a melee weapon attack against the attacker as part of the same action, adding your maneuver die to the damage if successful.

The point of comparison for this is the level 2 monk ability Patient Defense.

This is much more powerful than that, and so, by itself, makes for an overpowered feat.
If it required your Bonus action, without the riposte, and was limited to 2-3 times per long rest, it woudl still be an A-tier feat, and would be valuable to any melee

Flèche. When you take a charge attack** while armed as above, your movement provokes no attack of opportunity, and you can treat the attack as a natural 20 if the die result is 18 or higher by spending 1 maneuver die. Whether you gain a critical hit or not, you add the maneuver due to the attack’s damage.

This is fiddly in a couple of ways. Perhaps look at the Centaur (MotM) charge ability, and build it off of that:
Move 20' in a straight line, and your crit range for a melee attack is 18-20 (prof/long rest, if you need a limit). That will appeal to fighters, paladins, and rogues; possibly others.

*Defensive is a new weapon trait which makes the weapon give +1 AC and have features something like “the weapon allows you to give yourself damage reduction equal to your proficiency bonus against weapon attacks as a bonus action”. Shields also have this trait, but retain their +2. I plan on making different main gouche give different benefits to feel different, and include targe, parrying dagger, cloak, punch dagger, sword-breaker, trident knife, maybe more.

Rather than an aspect of a weapon itself, I would roll this into proficiency with shields:

If you are proficient in shields, you may use any light weapon or large object in your hand to enhance your defense. you receive +1 AC (or damage resistance of your proficiency bonus). You may not attack with the object in a round in which you take the AC bonus. Using a weapon defensively in this way does not prevent the bonus damage form the duelling fighting style.

**Charge Attack is a “special action in combat”.

Charge Attack
You sprint into the fight to hit hard and fast. As part of the Attack Action, you can declare a charge. When you do, you can only move away from your origin space, and you must select your target before you move. When you reach the target, you can attempt one of two things.

As indicated above, I think a charge built like the Centaur's ability is more straightforward to implement.