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

[FormerlyHemlock]

Corwin: what are the scenarios in which the greatsword fighter deals more damage in melee than the hand crossbow archer? Nobody has shown a single scenario in which this is true but you keep stating it as fact.

Well, there's the fairly obvious case of an endless horde of weak creatures, e.g. Witherlings, especially when both sides have magic weapons. GWM Fighter with +3 greatsword and Crossbow Expert Sharpshooter with +3 hand crossbow (which, incidentally, is much rarer by the DMG weapon tables) will both get the same five attacks per round every round, but a GWM Fighter (2d6+8 damage) can kill a 12 HP AC 12 witherling in one blow 92% of the time IIRC even without power attacking, so he scores 5 * 0.92 * 0.95 = 4.37 kills per round, whereas the Crossbow Expert Sharpshooter (d6+8 damage) kills one only 50% of the time unless headshotting, so he scores max(5 * 0.92 * 0.95, 5 * 1.00 * (0.95 - 0.25)) = 3.5 kills per round. Computing the DPR from KPR is a hassle so I won't do it, but KPR is a slightly better metric anyway, it's just usually intractable to compute in the general case.

In any scenario where higher base damage matters, where the +2 from Archery style isn't significant, and where the GWM is highly likely to get his bonus action on an attack, GWM will outperform Crossbow Expert Sharpshooter once he engages with the enemy. (But again, I think spending your bonus action on an attack is a relatively poor choice, and DPR or KPR is usually the wrong thing to optimize in 5E.) That's a fairly narrow niche (and BTW, it hints at another potential rules fix: improve Great Weapon Fighting to be more relevant) but it does lead you straight to easy examples of GWM superiority, if that's what you're looking for.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I should probably add that my goal isnt to make "all PCs do approximately the same damage".

My goals include:
a) enabling all kinds of fighters to be viable: the Zorro, the Drizzt, the Greatmaul, the Knife Thrower and so on. By "viable" I mean that the difference in damage (to the best-in-class option, still for a fighter) can't be x2 or x3.
b) reestablishing melee as supreme over ranged. Ranged still has a role to play of course, but there should be a definite cost to pay if you want your primary mode of combat to be ranged.
c) not dooming Fighters to insignificance by implementing a+b (thanks!)

Those goals can be satisfied by just improving other fighting styles. Consider a hypothetical case where Dueling gives you double damage dice, TWF style allows you to attack with your off-hand weapon (at no attribute bonus to damage, and with no bonus action cost) every time you attack with your main weapon, and GWM grants +5 to hit.

In such a universe, (1) will be satisfied (I haven't done the math but I have a pretty good intuition that says none of them are double the damage of ranged), and (2) will be satisfied because range now lags other damage-focused options in damage output, and (3) is satisfied because fighters are stronger than ever. (All of these options scale with number of attacks, so Fighters benefit more than Rangers or Paladins.)

You might have other goals like (d) Fighters must become weaker, not stronger, as a result of the re-balancing; but if you don't, improving the weak options is the easiest way to satisfy (a)-(c).

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

With one very important caveat: if you say "that's not an issue for us". I would never try to argue against a rule change that solves the minions issue. Consider a hypothetical thread called "Helping heroes to be more competitive to minions" or somesuch.

Now, unfortunately that's not enough for a small number of obstructive posters. Not only do they not have the issue with ranged characters in their game, they actively oppose any discussion to fix the issue. They might even deny the impact of feats such as GWM or SS.

This is something else, and a completely uncool stance to take. It is exactly as if I were to go "I don't have an issue with minions. I deny minions can outperform characters. I actively argue against anyone trying to fix their issue, I don't want the game changed for the benefit of these people. There is no issue, you're just playing the game wrong."

Consider a hypothetical thread called "Helping Minions Be More Competitive To Heroes" that proposed boosting minions to make them stronger, on the premise that CR 1/4 creatures are too weak against AoE compared to high-level heroes. Consider someone demanding this change and objecting to your having an opinion because your group already doesn't use minions. This person says you are standing in the way of their fun by blocking this very important change to the game.

Is this person wrong?

 

[CapnZapp]

Those goals can be satisfied by just improving other fighting styles.

True. The reasons I prefer to pull high DPR builds back rather than boost all builds up to their level include:

a) taking things away is inherently "safer" than adding things. Adding things is something I'd rather leave for WotC.
b) I have a feeling there are more builds that need boosting than builds needin' nerfin'. (Not to speak of how much more effort I've invested in the latter than into the former at this point)
c) the Monster Manual - if every build does 75 dpr I can just as well throw it away and create all monsters from scratch To me at least, it's clearly designed assuming that 30-45 DPR range.

Regards

 

[CapnZapp]

Consider a hypothetical thread called "Helping Minions Be More Competitive To Heroes" that proposed boosting minions to make them stronger, on the premise that CR 1/4 creatures are too weak against AoE compared to high-level heroes. Consider someone demanding this change and objecting to your having an opinion because your group already doesn't use minions. This person says you are standing in the way of their fun by blocking this very important change to the game.

Is this person wrong?

Would you mind terribly if I chose to not go there?

 

[Tony Vargas]

But what I would like to finish here first is to learn more of the claim "fighters need the extra damage".

What specific other builds are these fighters competing with? So far, Hemlock has suggested the Sorlock, which seems reasonable. It also points me in the direction of a single mechanic: the cantrip (and obviously Eldritch Blast).

Might this be all? Will fighters be satisfied if cantrips are also nerfed? Can other spellcaster builds survive even cantrips are nerfed?

Feats are optional, so any idea that a couple of feats are 'needed' by a specific class (other classes can take 'em, y'know), seems a little off. I mean, unless that 'need' is in reference to specific other feats used by specific other classes. Same for MCing. Sorlock is only going to be there if MCing is in place. MCing & no feats, feats & no MCing, both or neither are all possibilities.

So if you eliminate minions, eliminate at-will cantrips, and eliminate Sharpshooter and GWM, and don't hand out any powerful magic items, you probably would get pretty close to having all PCs do approximately the same damage (30-45 DPR), except of course for spellcasters who would now be on the bottom rung unless expending spell slots.

Doesn't sound like you need to eliminate at-will cantrips, just some of the things you can stack on certain of them.

I get that at-will cantrips might be a new, unfamiliar part of D&D, but, understandable though the impulse may be, tossing them out because a sorlock build does a lot of damage with them is like banning bows because of Sharpshooter.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Would you mind terribly if I chose to not go there?

It's fine as long as you also drop the attacks on people with the "completely uncool stance" of not agreeing with your opinions. It's better on Enworld to stick to discussion about DMing 5E, not evangelism with an ulterior motive of influencing WotC's vision of 6E.

But that's just my opinion. You don't need my approval for anything, obviously.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Doesn't sound like you need to eliminate at-will cantrips, just some of the things you can stack on certain of them.

I get that at-will cantrips might be a new, unfamiliar part of D&D, but, understandable though the impulse may be, tossing them out because a sorlock build does a lot of damage with them is like banning bows because of Sharpshooter.

Sure. Sorlocks also have other limitations relative to Sharpshooters, including the fact that in very long fights (e.g. against hundreds of foes) they will run out of sorcery points for Quicken pretty quickly, the fact that Hex works better against big tough monsters than against mobs (e.g. a horde of orcs can't be fought by a Sorlock spamming Eldritch Blast as easily as by a Crossbow Expert because Hex can't be shifted quickly enough--obviously the Sorlock might have others like Fireball, but that's another discussion), and the fact that Hex has a 90' range whereas a Sharpshooter has 600' range effective range.

In actual practice I find that there's not a whole lot of reason to create a pure Sorlock at all. DPR optimization just isn't important enough compared to other things.

Anyway, I agree that banning at-will cantrips might be part of a sufficient nerf to standardize DPR, however it is in no way a necessary part of every such nerf. And nerfing isn't the only way to standardize DPR either, nor is standardizing DPR necessarily the right goal.

TL;DR Tony, you are 100% correct

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

True. The reasons I prefer to pull high DPR builds back rather than boost all builds up to their level include:

a) taking things away is inherently "safer" than adding things. Adding things is something I'd rather leave for WotC.
b) I have a feeling there are more builds that need boosting than builds needin' nerfin'. (Not to speak of how much more effort I've invested in the latter than into the former at this point)
c) the Monster Manual - if every build does 75 dpr I can just as well throw it away and create all monsters from scratch To me at least, it's clearly designed assuming that 30-45 DPR range.

Regards

But I thought you said you didn't want to homogenize damage for all builds, only for fighters, and with melee builds having better damage than ranged. If you've got one Fighter doing 60-90 DPR by 20th level by investing everything he's got (superiority dice, advantage from other PCs, etc.), and three other PCs with DPR in the 20-45 DPR range (e.g. because they do other stuff than just DPR, such as enabling the Fighter to gain advantage so he can get his 60-90 DPR), you'll still be within 18% of that "normal" 30-45 range. (Total party DPR of about 175 instead of 150.)

Boosting Two Weapon/Great Weapon/Dueling Fighting styles seems much less intrusive and less risky than trying to nerf GWM and Sharpshooter and Eldritch Blast and Booming Blade and Greenflame Blade and Planar Binding and Animate Dead and Persuasion (hirelings) and Inspiring Leader (hirelings) and Animate Object and Conjure Animals.

 

[Cyrinishad]

I think I just realized two factors why I don't see Ranged combatants as superior to Melee combatants: Encumbrance and Minions.