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

[Flamestrike]

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

Yeah it did. Unless you had the improved unarmed strike feat you copped an AOO when you punched someone.

 

[pemerton]

Yeah it did. Unless you had the improved unarmed strike feat you copped an AOO when you punched someone.

In Gygax's version, if you lose initiative and get hit you can't pummel, grapple or overbear; and if you win initiative then the target gets a free attack which, if it hits, doesn't do damage but does stop you making your unarmed attack.

4e doesn't have OAs for unarmed, only for ranged and area attacks (both martial and magical, though there aren't very many martial area attacks).

 

[Flamestrike]

In Gygax's version, if you lose initiative and get hit you can't pummel, grapple or overbear; and if you win initiative then the target gets a free attack which, if it hits, doesn't do damage but does stop you making your unarmed attack.

4e doesn't have OAs for unarmed, only for ranged and area attacks (both martial and magical, though there aren't very many martial area attacks).

For mine the idiot using a bow against a dude trying to slice him with a sword gets attacked at advantage.

Draw a sword.

 

[The Old Crow]

For mine the idiot using a bow against a dude trying to slice him with a sword gets attacked at advantage.

Draw a sword.

What about spellcasters? Do you differentiate between them casting an attack spell, or a ranged spell, or other types of spells? How has this worked out in play?

 

[Corwin]

As I said, it depends on a range of factors...

...he says in a thread hinging entirely on that very same bugaboo.

(1) seems extremely table dependent...

...he says in a thread hinging entirely on that very same bugaboo.

 

[seebs]

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.

I may be missing a thing. Crossbows and bows aren't one-handed weapons, so the loaded hand crossbow thing only works when you're not using one of those. And just from the flavor text, etc., I would only let you do that if you had a "loaded hand crossbow". As in, once you've done that, you now have an "unloaded hand crossbow", and you're going to have to burn an item interaction or something to resolve that. And will need a free hand.

And while these are both decent feats, you're also looking at the gap between a 16 and a 20 in an attack stat at that point, so, +2/+2. I suppose at higher levels you can eventually have enough feats to make up for that, but...

And I guess you could just go with "wielding hand crossbow only", although I'd probably rule that "extra attack with a loaded hand crossbow" is implicitly "other than one you might have been wielding as primary weapon". And hand crossbow's damage is lower than that of the others, but I suppose if you're betting on that +10 to save you, that's not always a huge deal.

 

[Corwin]

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.

Hrm. None of the above matches my considerable experience with 5e over the years since its release (and pre-release playtesting). Like, zero percent of it. Weird, huh?

 

[Ashkelon]

I may be missing a thing. Crossbows and bows aren't one-handed weapons, so the loaded hand crossbow thing only works when you're not using one of those. And just from the flavor text, etc., I would only let you do that if you had a "loaded hand crossbow". As in, once you've done that, you now have an "unloaded hand crossbow", and you're going to have to burn an item interaction or something to resolve that. And will need a free hand.

And while these are both decent feats, you're also looking at the gap between a 16 and a 20 in an attack stat at that point, so, +2/+2. I suppose at higher levels you can eventually have enough feats to make up for that, but...

And I guess you could just go with "wielding hand crossbow only", although I'd probably rule that "extra attack with a loaded hand crossbow" is implicitly "other than one you might have been wielding as primary weapon". And hand crossbow's damage is lower than that of the others, but I suppose if you're betting on that +10 to save you, that's not always a huge deal.

Here is the official ruling about crossbow expert and the hand crossbow. It does in fact allow you to fire the same hand crossbow up to 5 times per turn (9 with action surge).

http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/sageadvice_feats/

As to the combo only being available to high level characters, that simply isn't true. A human can have 18 Dex, crossbow expert, and sharpshooter by level 6. In a game with rolled stats any +2 Dex race can also have that at a relatively low level as well. The greatsword fighter needs great weapon master so at most he can get a 20 in his prime stat two levels earlier than the archer.

 

[Ashkelon]

Not relevant

 

[Tony Vargas]

I might be naive or conservative or simply unimaginative, but I envision D&D as a game that favors the mighty barbarian in loincloth that calmly awaits the orc hordes holding his trusty axe/sword, and then builds a small hill out of their dead bodies.

Well, it's never been precisely that - he'd've been AC 10 back in the day. Change it from loincloth to platemail, though, and you'd've been OK.

If you use more of an old-style system like "everybody declares, then everybody rolls their dice and resolves their actions" (per the 2nd edition PHB) you minimize that sitting around time.

though, you may lose some of the gain in figuringoutwhateveryonejustshoutedatyouallatonce time.

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)

That's something D&D has always struggled with. If you were to watch a fantasy movie in the 70s or 80s (not that the 70s had a lot of 'em), you wouldn't have seen everyone clomping about in heavy armor with a full helm covering their face (because actors hate that) most of the time. But that's what the D&D of the day prettymuch required of a PC who was going to be fairly tough in melee. D&D's traditional 'Vancian' magic resembled the magic of myth/legend, S&S or 'high fantasy' hardly at all. The early class system and random stats gave players little chance to play the PC they wanted to. Proliferation of build options in 3e just left a few 'Tier 1' choices & optimal builds to tease out, in place of the few class choices of the classic game.

5e has somewhat more choice than the classic game, and some of them are sub-optimal. Shoring those up would give more 'real' choice. FWIW. If no one really wants to play a melee-oriented martial type in a given campaign, it might be a non-issue. If you don't try to 'fix' it upfront and someone at your table does pull a Gimli, though, you still could do things to keep him relevant other than changing the underlying rules of the game. Like just happening to place heavy armor and magical axes rather than magic bows & arrows...