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Helping melee combat to be more competitive to ranged.
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<blockquote data-quote="seebs" data-source="post: 6985197" data-attributes="member: 61529"><p>I can't figure out what this is supposed to mean. I presented actual numbers. You're presenting handwavium.</p><p></p><p>If you can get a +N to hit, yes, that's worth doing. Whether or not you're at +10 damage.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>If you're hitting four out of five shots against AC 18, you're at +14 to hit. Or you have advantage, and no one was able to counter it, and you have +8 to hit. And if you're doing that while at -5, that means you got to a +19 or +13 bonus, respectively. So, 20 in attack stat, +6 proficiency, and a +3 weapon gets you +14. Bless or the like gets you +1d4. +19 seems... Pretty hard to get.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Okay, now you've offered actual numbers. So, let's see. At +7 to hit, against AC 18, you need an 11, which means 75% hit rate. At +12 to hit, you need a 6, which means 93.8% hit rate. Precision attack dice? Okay, but now you're burning a resource. And advantage assumes that enemies have no way at all to impose disadvantage, but I seem to recall there's ways to get there.</p><p></p><p>So, if your base to-hit is +12, and you're going against something AC 18, sure, you still get a pretty high hit rate. But +12 is pretty high! What level characters are we talking about here? What are they attacking, specifically? How many hit points do the targets have?</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>You're not including base damage, and I think that makes the numbers useless to compare. The guy shooting at +12 with advantage gets about 94% hits instead of 75%. If your base damage is one, then per 100 shots, he does 94 points, and the guy getting 75% hits at 11 damage does 825, so obviously that guy's ahead. What if base damage is 10? Then it's 94 shots at 10 points against 75 at 20. Higher damage is still way ahead... But it's no longer nearly 10x better. If base damage were 40? The guy hitting 94% of the time for 40 points does <strong>more</strong> damage than the guy hitting 75% of the time for 50.</p><p></p><p>Now, realistically, base damage is probably not 40. But then, attack bonus isn't necessarily +12, either.</p><p></p><p>And if you don't have advantage, and you've got +12 (or +7 with the feat), you're now looking at 75% hits without the feat, and 50% hits with the feat. It is trivially obvious that now breakeven is with base damage 20 (75% * 20 == 50% * 30).</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>It may not have been tested in higher-level play. At lower levels, when to-hit bonuses are significantly lower, it doesn't seem like it's nearly as appealing.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I think you're partially mistaken here. Advantage has a much larger proportionate effect on success chances when you need higher rolls to hit, and a -5 to-hit penalty means higher target numbers on your dice. Advantage is a 50% increase in chances when you need an 11 or better; it's a 95% increase in chances when you need a 20. At +12 base against AC 18, it moves you from needing a 6 or better (advantage increases hits by 25%) to needing an 11 or better (advantage increases hits by 50%). So part of what's happening here is that the to-hit penalties are specifically <strong>amplifying</strong> the impact of advantage!</p><p></p><p>And yeah, it seems like the -5/+10 is probably better than it should be. Just off the top of my head, it might well be sufficient to just reduce the bonus to +5, since that roughly matches how it scaled in other systems, but... I think you're sorta overstating the impact.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="seebs, post: 6985197, member: 61529"] I can't figure out what this is supposed to mean. I presented actual numbers. You're presenting handwavium. If you can get a +N to hit, yes, that's worth doing. Whether or not you're at +10 damage. If you're hitting four out of five shots against AC 18, you're at +14 to hit. Or you have advantage, and no one was able to counter it, and you have +8 to hit. And if you're doing that while at -5, that means you got to a +19 or +13 bonus, respectively. So, 20 in attack stat, +6 proficiency, and a +3 weapon gets you +14. Bless or the like gets you +1d4. +19 seems... Pretty hard to get. Okay, now you've offered actual numbers. So, let's see. At +7 to hit, against AC 18, you need an 11, which means 75% hit rate. At +12 to hit, you need a 6, which means 93.8% hit rate. Precision attack dice? Okay, but now you're burning a resource. And advantage assumes that enemies have no way at all to impose disadvantage, but I seem to recall there's ways to get there. So, if your base to-hit is +12, and you're going against something AC 18, sure, you still get a pretty high hit rate. But +12 is pretty high! What level characters are we talking about here? What are they attacking, specifically? How many hit points do the targets have? You're not including base damage, and I think that makes the numbers useless to compare. The guy shooting at +12 with advantage gets about 94% hits instead of 75%. If your base damage is one, then per 100 shots, he does 94 points, and the guy getting 75% hits at 11 damage does 825, so obviously that guy's ahead. What if base damage is 10? Then it's 94 shots at 10 points against 75 at 20. Higher damage is still way ahead... But it's no longer nearly 10x better. If base damage were 40? The guy hitting 94% of the time for 40 points does [B]more[/B] damage than the guy hitting 75% of the time for 50. Now, realistically, base damage is probably not 40. But then, attack bonus isn't necessarily +12, either. And if you don't have advantage, and you've got +12 (or +7 with the feat), you're now looking at 75% hits without the feat, and 50% hits with the feat. It is trivially obvious that now breakeven is with base damage 20 (75% * 20 == 50% * 30). It may not have been tested in higher-level play. At lower levels, when to-hit bonuses are significantly lower, it doesn't seem like it's nearly as appealing. I think you're partially mistaken here. Advantage has a much larger proportionate effect on success chances when you need higher rolls to hit, and a -5 to-hit penalty means higher target numbers on your dice. Advantage is a 50% increase in chances when you need an 11 or better; it's a 95% increase in chances when you need a 20. At +12 base against AC 18, it moves you from needing a 6 or better (advantage increases hits by 25%) to needing an 11 or better (advantage increases hits by 50%). So part of what's happening here is that the to-hit penalties are specifically [B]amplifying[/B] the impact of advantage! And yeah, it seems like the -5/+10 is probably better than it should be. Just off the top of my head, it might well be sufficient to just reduce the bonus to +5, since that roughly matches how it scaled in other systems, but... I think you're sorta overstating the impact. [/QUOTE]
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