Unearthed Arcana Light, Dark, Underdark - November's Unearthed Arcana

Interesting stuff.

 

[Radaceus]

Oh man, this is a separate debate, but come on. 31-count kata can be done in 15 seconds even with a partner, and most western martial arts recreations I've seen also run at about two strikes per second once an exchange gets going, with exchanges of 3-4 strikes not that uncommon. And that's what you pick up in a year of training, which in D&D is basically 1st or maybe 2nd-level Fighter.

D&D has never, ever been even remotely realistic about time spans of combat.

Agreed,
It comes down to MMO(4E) and RP(5E), regarding how one takes timing in combat. Its never the real deal ( well not since OD&D...when we would go outside and throw things at each other to justify speed factors).

Speaking of the 31 count Kata. That's not a white belt performing it in 15 secs, nor are they moving 30+' while doing so.

The justification of the multiple/Bonus/extra attack in the mechanics was explained once somewhere (1E/Dragon) as 'you swing X amount of times in 6 seconds and of those you have Y chances to land a damaging blow'... this is considering advanced levels of expertise into the system and making a mechanic that represents it..

Incidentally, 3 of my players wear belts in shotokan, and our good friends (their Sensai) is a 3rd Dan, it takes many years to get the speed up to perform a kata that efficiently

(EDIT: so much typo...mental note: do not post from phone!)

 

[Serpine]

The justification of the multplie/Bonus/extra attack in the mechanics was explained once somewhere (1E/Dragon) as 'you swing X amount of times in 6 seconds and of those you have Y chances to land a damaging blow'.

After later editions reduced rounds from the original one minute length (spellcasters were slooooow back then) the notion of flailing uselessly in combat for much of that became less prevalent.

Personally I don't really have to much concern about the current list of per round actions. The bonus action is usually what your off-hand is doing (something you could expect to do simultaneous to your main attack) and reaction what you are doing during the defense part of the normal attack / defend flow. This seems fine for 6 seconds. The separate interaction action is a little dodgy as a lot of them feel like they would be more appropriate as bonus actions (pulling something specific out of a backpack or tapping the ground with a pole is not something I'd expect to do freely while otherwise fully engaged in combat).

 

[Celtavian]

I know it's probably already been covered earlier in the thread. I just read Close Quarters Combat fighting style earlier. It is awesome for a warlock/fighter or paladin combo. No disadvantage on ranged attacks, including ranged spell attacks. So you can eldritch blast in melee. 1/2 cover and 3/4 cover eliminated for ranged attacks within 30 feet. +1 on attack rolls with ranged attacks. Notice the text does not say ranged weapon attacks. It just says ranged attacks. So Close Quarter Combat works for ranged casters as well. That fighting style is a huge boon for multiclassing casters. You can make some amazing martial/caster multiclass concepts with Close Quarters Concept. That fighting style is all kinds of awesome for my character concept. I have to say I really love this Unearthed Arcana update. I'm glad they finally threw in a fighting style that works not only for ranged weapon users, but ranged spell users as well.

I'm liking the sorcerer archetype better and better.

I'm thinking the Tunnel Fighter is more balanced than I originally thought. There are so many abilities that require the use of a bonus action that giving up a bonus action every round for unlimited AoOs is a pretty big limitation. Paladins can't use smite spells (clarification as Mouseferatu pointed out that Divine Smite is not a bonus action). Battle-masters can't use some of their superiority dice abilities. Rogues can't use Cunning Action. Rangers can't use a few of their spells including hunter's mark. Paladins can't use their Vow. You lose quite a bit committing your bonus action to maintaining a defensive fighting stance. I think Tunnel Fighter may turn out to be balanced. Even a Polearm master may gain a few attacks hitting incoming attackers, but he loses his Bonus Action attack maintaining the stance. The best gut using Tunnel Fighter is probably a Sentinel fighter. His entire job is keeping people form moving away from him. It could get absurd with fliers like dragons trying to fly away. I'll deal with that when it comes to it.

Deep Stalker is a pretty interesting ranger archetype as well. Not sure it is as strong as Hunter, but it is definitely an upgrade over Beast Master.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Paladin's smite doesn't require a bonus action, though your point still stands in many other circumstances.

 

[Parmandur]

Pretty sure one of the reasons Feats are an optional rule is that they disowned "balancing" them with or against anything; like multiclassing, just not on the R&D radar, use at your own risk.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Pretty sure one of the reasons Feats are an optional rule is that they disowned "balancing" them with or against anything; like multiclassing, just not on the R&D radar, use at your own risk.

Yep. I mean, D&D wasn't close to having every single thing balanced for literally decades, and millions of people had fun playing it. I'm pretty sure they probably thought, "Way more people will have fun using these X, Y, and Z things we're putting into the game than people who are 'Errrmagerrrbb everything has to be balanced to the 0.001 DPR!', so rather than not do it at all, let's include them. After all, rules are guidelines, and the great thing about D&D since day 1 is that every table can use what they want to make their experience fun. "

I know this is anecdotal, but with over 30 years of playing with hundreds of players all over the world, almost every single one was more interested in playing an archetype that sounded fun, than worried about maximizing DPR as their top priority or making sure that no other player had a PC who was better in some way than their own PC at something. I think that sort of style is a rather recent thing to D&D. Yeah, there have always been rules lawyers or min/maxers, but they were always the exception and pretty rare. Things like point buy/array (make sure no one is better than anyone else) didn't come about until fairly recently, in the history of D&D's lifespan. No one really cared if Billy rolled better for a stat. And I believe the vast majority of players still don't care, but have fun playing anyway.

 

[JohnLynch]

Officially they are balanced and are optional to allow the pre-3e fans to be happy. Multiclassing (and pre-4e fans) are why characters are so weak at levels 1-3 so multiclassing is also theoretically balanced.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Officially they are balanced and are optional to allow the pre-3e fans to be happy. Multiclassing (and pre-4e fans) are why characters are so weak at levels 1-3 so multiclassing is also theoretically balanced.

1. Plenty of pre-3e fans really like the feats in 5e. Like me. It's not the feats in concept that turns some old school players off, it's they way they were utilized in 3e. When done as a theme rather than a million individual options, even many old school players don't have a problem with them, or even like them. Of course, there are players who don't like them at all, but that doesn't mean that all or even most pre-3e fans don't like them.

2. Levels 1-3 PCs aren't weak. That's a subjective opinion. They don't get all the bells and whistles until level 3, but that doesn't make them weak. Just weaker than later on. In a historical context of D&D, a level 1 PC in 5e is still pretty robust. Maybe not as robust as a level 1 PC in 4e, but 4e is a pretty short time period in the history of D&D
3. Those levels weren't designed to be weaker to balance multi-classing per se, but to allow those gamers (and there are a lot of them) who prefer the "zero to hero" model. That's also why you progress in those levels so fast, and why people who don't like that model can easily start at level 3 if that's how their table wants to play. They were also designed that way to give players a feel for how the class played before being locked into a specific archetype that usually happens at level 3. There was an element to prevent level dipping from min/maxers, but that wasn't the reason why they designed those levels like they did.

 

[Blue]

I forget where it is in the books, but there's an explicit entry somewhere that says you never stack the same bonus.

The source of one is Elemental Affinity (Dragon Sorcerer 6 feature) and the source of the other is Radiant Soul (Undying Light Warlock 1 feature). "Chr" is not the source, just the size of the modifier.

 

[Ath-kethin]

Yep. I mean, D&D wasn't close to having every single thing balanced for literally decades, and millions of people had fun playing it. I'm pretty sure they probably thought, "Way more people will have fun using these X, Y, and Z things we're putting into the game than people who are 'Errrmagerrrbb everything has to be balanced to the 0.001 DPR!', so rather than not do it at all, let's include them. After all, rules are guidelines, and the great thing about D&D since day 1 is that every table can use what they want to make their experience fun. "

A friend of mine pointed out recently that in some respects, 2nd Edition AD&D was the best-balanced version of the game so far - because the focus of balance wasn't between PCs, but between characters in the world. The limitations inherent in the system (level limits, class restrictions, etc) were built around world-building and the relative power of societies.

It was an interesting point, and I think I largely agree. Especially since one of the main power sources of martial characters back in the day was that they got a freaking army at level 9, and when that went away with 3rd Edition, we saw the massive interpersonal imbalance of power between casters and non-casters. After all, there is no way you could ever pretend that a person who pokes things with a stick will have the same level of power as someone who can alter reality at will. Give the stick-poking guy a few dozen additional stick-pokers, though, and things start to even out.