Light Blades using DEX?

[cmbarona]

I don't know if this has been covered elsewhere, but the light blade weapon group has always confused me in D&D, whether it's been called that or not. I'm considering letting my players use DEX for melee basic attacks (and most likely powers, or perhaps select powers) while using light blades rather than STR, essentially making light blades the melee counterpart to Heavy Thrown weapons. I'm not requiring a feat for it, nor changing feat prerequisites in any way.

My question is, how much does this really mess up game balance? If you wish to argue in favor of a Weapon Finesse feat, feel free to do that here, too. It's meant to make a non-STR-focused Rogue's job easier, but I'm not sure what consequences it could have for Fighters and Rangers.

 

[Tony Vargas]

If you allow Light Blades to make a melee basic attack using DEX instead of STR, you have only screwed up the balance between STR-based and non-STR-based builds in the same class, where DEX is also an important stat and only to a small degree. That is Rangers, and, to a lesser extent, Rogues. Currently, TWF Rangers are STR-based, while archer-rangers are DEX-based. Thus, TWF rangers have an advantage when it comes to charging or taking an OA or other melee basic attack. Similarly, a 'brutal scoundrel' rogue (STR secondary) enjoys a similar advantage over the 'artful dodger.'

Making light blades DEX-based for basic melee attacks upsets that balance, making the archers and artful dodgers better builds in contrast to thier muscle-bound alternatives. Furthermore, since rogues need to use light blades for thier Sneak Attack, you're making all rogues more powerful, as they can SA much better on OAs and other basic melee attacks. That too, would upset class balance, making Rogues meaningfully more powerful.

If you extend the change to powers, you really start to mess with things. If a Rogue could multiclass to Ranger and take some of the multiple attack TWF powers, but convert them to DEX, for instance, he'd increase his chances of hitting at least once every round, and thus getting in his SA much more consistently - more like a ranger gets in his HQ (except SA is around double HQ!). If most ranger melee powers can be 'converted' that way, then the class could suddenly become almost entirely DEX-bases, just favoring light blades for TWFing (and making the TWF style even more attractive to would-be archers).

Depending on what other powers you allow to shift from STR to DEX, the rogue and ranger could clean up even more in the multiclassing arena.


I have considered the idea myself. I was thinking of adding back the Weapon Finesse feat, having it aply to light blades, and replace DEX for attack (but not damage) with the basic melee attack. I decided against even that, for the above reasons. It just messes with the balance of the Ranger and Rogue too much.

 

[BendBars/LiftGates]

Most people who use certain weapons will make sure that their class provides powers that are both usable with those weapons and also take advantage of their good ability scores. The game pretty much assumes that up-front.

You should keep the game the way it is, in my opinion, since it already pretty much supports the character styles that you're looking for. The part that you don't like is that Fighters will pretty much always require a good Strength score. There's not much you can do about it, and you're being kind of silly if you make a Fighter (or any other melee character, really) with a really low Strength. Simply logically, you need muscle if you want to fight monsters in hand-to-hand combat, even if you rely on quickness and accuracy.

So, a Fighter that wants to make use of a high Dex score should pick a spear or light blade and pick powers like Armor-Piercing Thrust (Fighter Enc 3), which are still based on Strength for attack and damage, but which take your Dex score into account when you're using a Dex weapon (spear or light blade).



Only changing basic attacks is probably not worth it. The whole point of a basic attack is that you're not going to use it if you can help it and that it doesn't reflect your high skill and training like your real attacks do.

What would be worth it would be to give the Fighter the option of an at-will that uses Dex. Then spear and light blade Fighters would Dance-of-Steel for joy.

 

[firesnakearies]

I really like the idea of houseruling that the default stat for basic melee attacks with light blades is Dexterity. No feats, nothing class specific, and it wouldn't have any effect on any powers. But just using Dexterity for light blade basic attacks seems very sensible to me, though. I believe I'll do this in my game.