D&D 5E Helping melee combat to be more competitive to ranged.

[pemerton]

The higher the base damage is, the less significant the +10 is.

Absolutely. That's one reason why 4e Power Attack is fairly bad - 4e scales base damage much more rapidly than 5e (rogues excepted).

since bounded accuracy means that Mooks Are Viable, it's pretty easy to just toss people a field full of 8hp targets, where doing 20+ damage to them is a waste of effort.

This is similar to using lots of minions in 4e - it makes low-damage, high-target controllers shine relative to high-damage, single-target strikers. (And makes sorcerers happy.)

That might work even better if (say) shield users had a "reckless attack" option, where they rely on their shield for defence and hence are able to up their attack rate vs multiple targets.

 

[seebs]

I am sort of thinking that the right answer might involve a smaller ratio, and possibly scaling. Something like -2/+3 at low levels, increasing to -4/+6 and -6/+9 at higher levels, so both the penalty and the damage stay relevant.

 

[Ashkelon]

I think some things are getting lost in the minutia here. So here are the facts:

1) As far as pure damage goes, ranged builds are better than melee. This is because ranged damage is numerically higher, but also because an optimized ranged build suffers no real penalties for using a ranged weapon.

2) The melee builds that are meaningfully relevant are melee controller builds. These builds utilize grapple/shoving enemies to prevent them from moving and to reduce the effectiveness of their attacks while also causing them to grant advantage.

3) Bonus actions utilized for damage are generally inferior to bonus actions used for utility such as the rogue's Cunning Action, mobility from expeditions retreat or the monk's step of the wind, or bonus action spells. Those who purely favor martial warriors who do not multiclass rogue have no relevant use of their bonus action other than damage.

So what does this mean to the game as a whole? Well it means that the best melee builds are not great weapon fighters. Instead they are single blade melee controllers who utilize grappling, magic, and a multiclass with either bard or rogue in order to lock down single enemy targets. It also means that they are better off learning spells than staying a pure martial class.

It also means that if you want to deal damage above all else, you should focus on ranged combat with a hand crossbow instead of using a big two handed weapon.

Finally, it also means that if you want to be the most effective martial character you can be, you should ignore typical fantasy conventions (such as the warrior who focuses on fighting with no magic or the knight who fights in heavy armor) and instead take subclasses or multiclass to give you relevant uses of your bonus action. A rogue fighter is typically better than a pure fighter. An eldritch knight is typically better than a champion fighter. An effective purely martial fighter is only moderately powerful when compared to a spellcasting fighter or mutliclassed fighter.

As such, classes focused on melee damage are typically a poor choice when compared to other available options. Especially those who do not wish to multiclass or cast spells.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Sorry, final comment from me. Here's one of the nine rules on my house rules document:

5.) An attacker unseen by his target has advantage only on melee attack rolls, not ranged attack rolls; however, he does qualify for sneak attack damage at range if he is unseen despite not having advantage.

My reason is more for the sake of verisimilitude and addressing annoyingly-silly tactics ("why Faerie Fire when you can just Fog Cloud for the exact same advantage with no save?"), but it does also make it much harder to attain that sweet spot of "+huge to-hit and advantage" that makes Crossbow Expert + Sharpshooter more attractive for DPR than GWM.

Another is:

6.) Anyone with any weapon can attack vital areas at -5 to-hit for +5 to damage. GWM and Sharpshooter feats merely increase the bonus when you are using those weapons.

This isn't normally very attractive from a DPR angle unless you're fighting a low-AC enemy like a zombie or a black pudding, but it does at least anyone the chance to turn an advantageous situation (Reckless Attack, Faerie Fire, etc.) into higher damage instead of higher accuracy, if "brutal strikes" fits your mental image of how you're fighting. Incidentally it also allows regular non-monk unarmed combatants to be at least marginally effective with their fists, e.g. a 9th level Str 13 Indiana Jones can attack at at +0 for 7 points of damage instead of at +5 for 2 points of damage.

I know I've mentioned the "drop prone as a reaction against missile fire" thing before I find it elegant, but it's actually not one of my house rules because I'm pretty okay with the status quo. I do have a lot of spellcasting dragons though and other high-AC creatures; good luck hitting AC 24 (dragon scales + Shield spell) at disadvantage for not being able to see the dragon inside of its Darkness spell. -5/+10 is almost entirely useless under those conditions--shooting for the vitals actually reduces your DPR by about 50% because your hit rate drops by 80% and your damage merely doubles.

 

[Flamestrike]

Here is a few (mechanical) ideas.

1) Remove Dex to damage for missile weapons, and make the archery style add it back in (instead of granting +2 to hit).

For reasons discussed.

2) For sharpshooter, remove the 'ignore cover' aspect of the feat, and change it to 'you ignore half cover, and only incur a -2 penalty for shooting at creatures in 3/4 cover'

Makes cover more relevant.

3) If you use your action to dash on your turn, you may dash again as a bonus action.

This makes it easier for melee fighters to close the gap, and makes kiting much harder to pull off.

4) Grant advantage to melee attacks against a creature who is not holding a melee weapon or using a shield, has no natural attacks, and lacks the tavern brawler feat or the martial arts class feature.

When the melee guys get close, switch to a melee weapon or you'll get carved up.

 

[seebs]

I'm a bit curious as to what's making ranged damage "numerically higher" in general. Are you talking about base weapon stats, or weapon stats as modified by the various abilities, or what?

 

[Ashkelon]

I'm a bit curious as to what's making ranged damage "numerically higher" in general. Are you talking about base weapon stats, or weapon stats as modified by the various abilities, or what?

In a game without feats or fighting styles, a longbow archer deals roughly 80% of the damage of a greatsword fighter. In addition to the reduced damage, the longbow archer also suffers penalties for cover, and disadvantage to attacks while within 5 feet of enemies. This is theoretically balanced due to the many benefits ranged attacks inherently possess over melee.

In a game with feats and fighting styles, the ranged attackers damage increases significantly. Between crossbow expert and sharpshooter, all of the inherent penalties ranged warriors face disappear. On top of that, it provides a ranged warrior with a garuanteed means of utilizing his bonus action to attack. This means that compared to a greatsword warrior, the crossbow fighter is attacking significantly more often (a human with crossbow expert is attacking twice as often from level 1). Combine the additional attacks with the +2 accuracy bonus from the archery fighting style and the large static damage bonus from sharpshooter and you have a very potent combination.

All in all, a tricked out hand crossbow archer deals about 35% more damage than a greatsword fighter from levels 6-10 and about 20% more damage than a greatsword fighter from levels 11-19. That is including the bonus action attack from great weapon fighting style.

The optimized melee damage build is a polearm fighter, which closes the gap significantly, but is still behind that of the hand crossbow archer.

 

[pemerton]

4) Grant advantage to melee attacks against a creature who is not holding a melee weapon or using a shield, has no natural attacks, and lacks the tavern brawler feat or the martial arts class feature.

When the melee guys get close, switch to a melee weapon or you'll get carved up.

Did 3E give OAs vs unarmed non-monks? I can't remember. They are there somewhere in the laybrinths of Gygax's DMG.

 

[pemerton]

As such, classes focused on melee damage are typically a poor choice when compared to other available options. Especially those who do not wish to multiclass or cast spells.

Assuming that [MENTION=6787650]Hemlock[/MENTION] is right that -5/+10 is needed to keep fighter damage up to par, at least part of the solution seems to be to power up some melee builds, especially non polearm ones.

How would you go about doing that? (Upthread I mentioned doubling the length of the round so as to double movement speeds, while holding everything else constant. [MENTION=6788736]Flamestrike[/MENTION]'s "double dash" option is somewhat analogous - mechanically a bit more complex but probably easier to implement because not requiring you to remember that all move speeds have to be doubled.)

 

[Caliban]

Did 3E give OAs vs unarmed non-monks? I can't remember. They are there somewhere in the laybrinths of Gygax's DMG.

Yes.