D&D 5E Longswords

[Horwath]

This I gotta hear. HOW do you imagine a great sword as a finesse weapon?

I didn't say that greatsword is finesse weapon. I said it's more finesse than a katana. Usually that means that point of balance is closer to the hilt so the sword is "faster" in hands. Katanas are more "blade heavy" as they lack counterweight from pommel.

And D&D greatsword is historical longsword.
1,1-2,0 kg in weight and lenght about 120-140cm.

 

[Zardnaar]

D&D longsword is a claymore or bastard sword. They were similar in length to a two handed sword.

Things like scimitars should not be finesse weapons they excel as a mounted weapon hence the weight of the blade being towards the front.

 

[Horwath]

D&D longsword is a claymore or bastard sword. They were similar in length to a two handed sword.

Things like scimitars should not be finesse weapons they excel as a mounted weapon hence the weight of the blade being towards the front.

D&D longsword is an arming sword. Or just a sword. A one handed weapon that could be used with two hands for extra leverage if you don't have anything smarter to do with your off hand: shield, torch, lantern, another weapon, climbing etc...

Historical greatswords or zweihanders were 170-180cm and more and were reach weapons by D&D standards and were used to break spear/pike formations.

As D&D greatsword has no reach then it fall to bastardsword/claymore category, about 120-140 cm and 1,1-2,0kg

 

[Zardnaar]

D&D longsword is an arming sword. Or just a sword. A one handed weapon that could be used with two hands for extra leverage if you don't have anything smarter to do with your off hand: shield, torch, lantern, another weapon, climbing etc...

Historical greatswords or zweihanders were 170-180cm and more and were reach weapons by D&D standards and were used to break spear/pike formations.

As D&D greatsword has no reach then it fall to bastardsword/claymore category, about 120-140 cm and 1,1-2,0kg

Greatswords were a bit smaller than that and were used by the landsknecht.

Longswords in earlier editions were arming swords and similar weapons.

Greatswords were only used for a few decades and the really big ones are ornamental. Go have a look in a museum real swords are often smaller than the ones in movies.

It was likely bs they were used to lop off pike heads but they evolved alongside pikes and shot combined arms and likely broke the formations after volley fire.

Movies and modern swordfighting are mostly bs as well going by them manuals left behind aka primary sources.

 

[CapnZapp]

Building on that, I like the view that a choice of weapon should be more of a stylistic or character background choice rather than one made for mechanical advantage.

If you're going to use a one-handed martial weapon, you shouldn't get a special advantage if you chose a longsword over a military pick, a battle axe, or a war hammer. The same goes if you chose a rapier.

Already back in the 80's Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play understood this.

Their notion of the "Hand Weapon" was brilliant.

It allows your character to choose freely whether you wield a hammer, a sword, an axe or something outlandish such as a bone club; without having to worry about nerfing yourself.

 

[CapnZapp]

There really isn't one, and I think that's something 5e has gotten 'right.' Remember the convolutions past editions did trying to make light/DEX fighter concepts work, at all? How many Duelists and Swashbucklers (and demands for same) have we seen over the decades? Now, in 5e, you want to play D'Artagnan, you just put a high score in DEX and pick up a rapier.

Sure, DEX is das uberstat, again, as a result. But the margin isn't huge, and the DM can always tweak and tune balance w/in his party if there's a STR guy that's languishing. Or, of course, remove or tweak stats of finesse weapons.

Going back to the 3.5 finesse feat style rule that DEX can add to hit, but not melee damage, would be a more extreme mechanical 'fix' if you really wanted to disfavor the option (rather than remove it entirely) to get back a more medieval feel.

Oh, you could also restore the medieval feel by replacing the Rapier with the more period-appropriate, if obscure to modern readers, Estoc or Tuck.

I guess the problem is more pronounced in a feat-less game, since with feats, the Strength guy gets more options to increase damage than the Dexterity gal.

(At least for melee combat. The Sharpshooter feat, especially in combination with the Crossbow Expert feat, remains to threaten the entire foundation the fantasy genre is based upon)

 

[CapnZapp]

I like the insight here, but want to point out that there actually is a tradeoff between Dex fightering and Str fighting. A relatively minor issue is that Str fighters tend to have higher AC, absent magical support. E.g. AC 18 for plate armor, but only AC 17 for studded leather + maxed Dex.

More significant though is that Str-based fighters have more options for physical control of enemies, which makes them better tanks. A dexterous guy can slash you in the face with his rapier, and threaten to stab you in the back if you ignore him... but a Str-based brute can grab you by the throat, grind your face into the ground, and commence beating you to death at advantage with his battleaxe while you weakly try to stab him back at disadvantage. The latter if obviously vastly more effective at keeping someone from attacking the squishies.

Sure, if you really strain yourself you can find advantages for Strength builds. But the above really isn't representative unless you also list the huge and obvious advantages of a Dex build. Better initiative is just the beginning.

5th edition is the first edition where it really is viable with an all-Dex party. (The advantage of stealth is, like darkvision, only truly realized when everybody in the party has it, assuming the players dislike solo runs and want to experience the adventure together, as a group)

That may sound good, but I'm not sure it really is. Fantasy is rather heavily built on tropes that revolve around the muscular guy that boldly engages the countless hordes mano a mano, after all.

This concept is not the natural or realistic way to fight. It needs support. As a fantasy game, D&D has long preserved the concept by mechanically favoring Strength builds over Dex builds, especially ranged builds.

I'm not saying the change is all bad. I am saying I'm not sure people truly understand what D&d has done. Yet. I believe many players keep playing Strength builds out of habit, not fully realizing that the checks against Dex builds are mostly gone.

And with no checks to suppress Dex builds, there is nothing left (but nostalgia and tradition) to uphold the core fantasy concept of the supremacy of the Conanesque hero.

 

[CapnZapp]

The designers really royally screwed the whole thing up.

I believe you are catching on to what I've been saying for months.

But it is probably nearly impossible to take enough away from Dexterity in order to make it equal to Strength. And I am not sure what you could give Strength.

I don't think this needs to be hard at all. After all, WotC has given us plenty of solutions already. They just chose to not use them for this edition.


List the changes made (to weapon use) from 3E to 5E. And you will immediately have a few solutions, that are proven to work.

I mean, yes, I'm not trying to pretend there wasn't bitching Dex wasn't good enough, but if you believe MMearls & Co threw out the baby with the bathwater, you could do worse by examining such a list.

From the top of my head:
* an archer engaged in melee were considerably penalized, with no feat to magically make those disadvantages go away
* an archer shooting into melee did so at a considerable penalty (not sure about this; could be from other fantyas rpgs)
* an archer shooting at a distance was penalized, with no feat to magically make those disadvantages go away
* an archer shooting at a target taking cover was penalized, with no feat to magically make those disadvantages go away
* an archer used Dex to attack, but either did not get an ability bonus to damage, or had to use Strength

(This last one also applies to Dex melee builds or "finesse builds")

And of course, the fundamental core of the entire fantasy genre: hit points
* you generally can't oneshot an enemy like in real life. If you can kill your foe with a single attack, attacking first becomes paramount. Not only does this favor Dexterity, it massively favors ranged combat over melee.


Not saying any of this absolutely must change. Just highlighting the fundamental differences between this edition and AD&D/d20. They are easy to forget.

 

[CapnZapp]

Longsword is for STR fighters who want to sometimes go 1H, sometimes 2H. For whatever reason.

The problem is, there are no such reasons.

There simply isn't any real advantages to the versatility.

If you could switch between sword-and-board and two-handed on the fly, versatile would probably see much more use. This would help the longsword against the rapier.

But you can't:

• Donning and doffing a shield takes time.
• Two-handed longsword use still doesn't count as a heavy weapon which is critical for the best half of Greatweapon Master.
• If there were a "Versatile fighting style"* that got you +1 to AC when fighting one-handed and +2 damage when fighting two-handed, you might have a case (at least in games without feats).

*) If you feel those benefits are familiar, you're right, because I took them from the Defensive and the Dueling fighting styles, respectively. What I mean is, versatile needs support it currently doesn't have. The idea is for a versatile build to be able to switch between defense (one-handed, +1 AC) and offense (two-handed, +2 damage). You don't get both at the same time, obviously

 

[GreenTengu]

The strength based feats are better than the dex based one. At lower levels strength based will have higher AC until level 6 minimum assuming you use the default array.

Without feats though dex is uber and is unbalanced as hell.

Uh... no. Dexterity build totally wrecks Strength build in terms of AC at early levels. Completely so.
The only way to possibly change that is if you are literally handing PCs thousands of gold at first level. Given what armor can actually be afforded at 1st level, you cannot possibly have higher AC as a character with Strength 18 than a character with Dexterity 18. You are stuck with Chainmail or Scalemail, and if your Dexterity isn't somehow 14-- if it is 10 (like the Dex build character can have a Strength of 10 without any penalty) then you are going to be way behind in terms of AC.

It will take several levels before one is at all likely to be able to scrap together the funds for the armors you seem to think are available out-of-the-gate. The Dex build player never needs anything sturdier than studded leather.

I mean, yes, I'm not trying to pretend there wasn't bitching Dex wasn't good enough, but if you believe MMearls & Co threw out the baby with the bathwater, you could do worse by examining such a list.

From the top of my head:
* an archer engaged in melee were considerably penalized, with no feat to magically make those disadvantages go away
* an archer shooting into melee did so at a considerable penalty (not sure about this; could be from other fantyas rpgs)
* an archer shooting at a distance was penalized, with no feat to magically make those disadvantages go away
* an archer shooting at a target taking cover was penalized, with no feat to magically make those disadvantages go away
* an archer used Dex to attack, but either did not get an ability bonus to damage, or had to use Strength

(This last one also applies to Dex melee builds or "finesse builds")

And of course, the fundamental core of the entire fantasy genre: hit points
* you generally can't oneshot an enemy like in real life. If you can kill your foe with a single attack, attacking first becomes paramount. Not only does this favor Dexterity, it massively favors ranged combat over melee.

All of these simply hinder a dedicated archer from being any sort of viable option. Given that battles in D&D virtually never take place in conditions that one can really take advantage of being ranged in the first place, none of these are tweaks I see as being good.

Also, you seem to have it backwards. In real life, if you are thinking of going at someone and they put an arrow through you, you are effectively down. Sure, you probably won't be instantly dead, but you aren't going to be fighting from that point on unless maybe it is with a small firearm. But in D&D, unless you are level 1-3 (depending on how small your class HD is), then a single arrow is never going to take you out-- in fact, you will lose some of your nebulous "hit points" but it will in no way actually hinder you from responding.

Anyway, archers are fine as it is. Maybe move Archery over to Wisdom, but since Rangers (the primary archery class) are supposed to invest heavily in Wisdom anyway, its all good.

The problem is that Dexterity-based melee combatants have better defenses, go first, deal equal damage with equal accuracy and have access to better skills as a result of those skills all being tied to Dexterity. And, yes, they also get to be nearly as good as proper fully dedicated archers at ranged attacks.

The only advantage the Strength build has is that if they drop 2 AC then they can deal an average of 2 more points of damage per a turn.