Level Up (A5E) Holywood Heroics: substituting for Dex

[Quartz]

Dex is pretty much the uber-stat at the moment. So how about reducing MAD and letting the fighting classes allow substitution? Thematically this is to fit the filmic travelling troupe of adventurers. They're not all Dex-machines. And see Your Highness for why you don't adventure in full plate.

Low level:
Fighter: may substitute Proficiency Bonus for Dex mod when calculating AC.
Paladin: may substitute Cha mod for Dex mod when calculating AC.
Ranger: may substitute Wis mod for Dex mod when calculating AC.

Medium level:
As above for Initiative.

High level:
Bring on the ideas!

This would mean that a lower-level PC would still benefit from full plate and medium armour, while a high-level PC gets an AC no better than plate (AC 12 armour + +6 PB) but still has some armour for when she's surprised. And a more experienced combatant is surprised less often. Dex still has all its other uses - in particular finesse weapons.

 

[Haldrik]

Make Strength responsible for all Athletics-Acrobatics.

Delete Acrobatics. (Or rethink it as "finesse Athletics").

Strength is responsible for all running, jumping, falling, tumbling, climbing, balancing ability checks.

Strength is athletic agility, especially gymnastics.

Strength is grappling, and hand-to-hand.

Therefore Strength is the AC bonus! (Not Dexterity, which is manual dexterity only.)



Dexterity retains precise shot aim (bows, crossbows, guns, etcetera), and slow cautious Stealth, but looses all gymnastic-related concepts.

 

[tetrasodium]

The big problem with the str/dex imbalance is similar to the int/cha one. Dex was always "better" but it came with costs like being hit by Armor Check Penalty more significantly (how often does a party use climb or jump vrs sneaky stuff), the need to invest in more skills, the need for investing in feats like weapon finesse, no/weaker shield access, & being limited to a smaller subset of weapons that excluded a lot of stuff with some combination of good to great damage dice, crit multiplier, & crit range. Meanwhile strength builds were kicked down to effectively the same weapons as dex with d8/d10 vrsd8/d10/d12/2d6 with the same crit multiplier crit threat & so on while no longer having an edge in skill investment or better shields. Taking all the hurdles that kept melee weapons better in many fights while extending ranges on ranged weapons to near drone warfare levels just exacerbates the whole mess.

I don't know what route A5e will take, but it seems that limited substitutions of "use strength instead of dex for $thing" type stuff alone is more just throwing our hands up & admitting it can't be steered back while just giving strength a blatant handicap. bringing back some of the weapon diversity of previous editions & rebuilding ranged weapons/combat are a couple keystone elements that really need to be part of the overall solution

 

[Horwath]

increase all non finesse weapons damage by one step.

1d4->1d6
1d6->1d8
1d8->1d10
1d10->2d6
1d12/2d6->2d8

add min str for all armor not just a few heavy ones

 

[Haldrik]

increase all non finesse weapons damage by one step.

1d4->1d6
1d6->1d8
1d8->1d10
1d10->2d6
1d12/2d6->2d8

add min str for all armor not just a few heavy ones

Or.

Allow Dex to keep the attack bonus for the d20 to hit.
But remove the damage bonus from Dex.
Only Strength gets a damage bonus.

 

[Horwath]

Or.

Allow Dex to keep the attack bonus for the d20 to hit.
But remove the damage bonus from Dex.
Only Strength gets a damage bonus.

Sure, but dex can to damage can also be described as more precise shot, rather than forceful. 200N to the throat is more damaging than 500N to the chest.

 

[Haldrik]

Sure, but dex can to damage can also be described as more precise shot, rather than forceful. 200N to the throat is more damaging than 500N to the chest.

But Strength can aim accurately with a sword too.

I am increasingly leaning toward there being no "finesse weapons". Weapons that are agile in the sense that grappling and punching is agile, would rely on Strength anyway.

Steady aim weapons, like bow and crossbow, still benefit from Dexterity in the sense of manual dexterity and small sensitive motion.

 

[FXR]

Dex is pretty much the uber-stat at the moment. So how about reducing MAD and letting the fighting classes allow substitution? Thematically this is to fit the filmic travelling troupe of adventurers. They're not all Dex-machines. And see Your Highness for why you don't adventure in full plate.

Low level:
Fighter: may substitute Proficiency Bonus for Dex mod when calculating AC.
Paladin: may substitute Cha mod for Dex mod when calculating AC.
Ranger: may substitute Wis mod for Dex mod when calculating AC.

Medium level:
As above for Initiative.

High level:
Bring on the ideas!

This would mean that a lower-level PC would still benefit from full plate and medium armour, while a high-level PC gets an AC no better than plate (AC 12 armour + +6 PB) but still has some armour for when she's surprised. And a more experienced combatant is surprised less often. Dex still has all its other uses - in particular finesse weapons.

To be honest, I'm not a fan of your idea.

I don't really want the system to steer players toward having a single useful ability scores and the others be dump stats. I'm perhaps one of the few who genuinely like some sort of low-key MAD, as it forces players to make meaningful choices for their characters and not simply use their ASI for a single stat determined by their class. Unsurprisingly, I completely agree that Dexterity is too much of a über-stat.

I would keep Dex as the main defense stat. It makes at least some modicum of sense and using other stats seem very artificial.

I would however go with one or more the following:

- Option 1: use the lower of Dexterity and Wisdom for your initiative. You might have rapid-fire reflexes (high Dex) but if you are unable to read the battlefield, you won't be able to act in a meaningful way.

- Option 2: remove the goddam rapier. You want a finesse weapon? Go ahead, but it's going to do 1d6 damage at the maximum. Better, remove all finesse weapon as suggested by Haldrik.

- Option 3: Use Strength instead of Dexterity for damage with bow and other ranged weapons. I don't care how precise you are, if you can't pull the bow string, your arrow won't go far.

- Option 4: Put a Strength requirement for longbows. See the rationale for option 3.

 

[Morrus]

One thing we are discussing is using other ability scores for initiative based on the situation. Initiative isn't as powerful as it seems, though; once you've had your first go, it's just a cycle.

 

[tetrasodium]

One thing we are discussing is using other ability scores for initiative based on the situation. Initiative isn't as powerful as it seems, though; once you've had your first go, it's just a cycle.

I ran a campaign using int for several months with initiative and agree, it sounds like it should be a big deal but didn't really make much difference most of the time & what little difference it made didn't really change much of anything.