D&D 5E Nov 8 Next Q&A: TWF, Manuevers, and Atwill spells

[Warbringer]

Casters get spell slots and spell lists.
Fighting Men get expertise dice and maneuvers lists.

That works. It's brilliantly simple and clean for a CORE BASE for a modular game that can be expanded and refined by bolting on modules.

- Marty Lund

Iv've been doing this for about 3 years in my homebrew ...

Fighting gets better as "Prowess" improves
Casting gets better as "Essence" improves

Fighters gain Prowess faster than Rogues faster than Casters ... opposite for Essence ... Playing around with building something called Guile to fuel the skill system

...

 

[mlund]

If you're not playing D&D to have fun, you're missing the point.

No. If you're playing D&D to have fun at the expense of the other people at the table then you are missing the point. If your idea of fun is "I get to constantly overshadow everyone else's characters," you're doing it wrong.

It's fun to get two attacks when most other characters only get one.

Yes, it is.

The game can be and should be balanced with the assumption that some folks are going to get two attacks, and other folks just one, because TWF is an iconic D&Dism that shouldn't be shoved into some awkward shape for the purposes of strict balance metrics.

Yes. It should be balanced - not just "more awesome 'cuz," without regard for game balance. Hence the "gamist" aspect.

It is not inherently unbalanced to want two attacks, or to want to summon as your shtick, or to want to feel like a master of time and space when no one else is. None of these things are impossible to balance while retaining their central element of fun (namely, two attacks, a summon who does all your work, and access to tremendously powerful magical effects).

That's totally true. It just happens to be that those things have all had instances of miserable balance failures in the history of D&D. So arguments that "they are ruining two-weapon fighting" because they didn't take it to munchkin-land like other editions don't impress me much.

The idea that you take one feat and suddenly have two attacks, no disadvantage or anything else to restrict it is absurd. The impulse to just snap the action economy in half for a pittance is a bad one. Monkeying with the action economy should be a careful exercise in balance.

It's not nice to label people munchkins just because they want different things from a game than you.

Sorry, if what I want is gross imbalance in my own favor I'm a munchkin. If you won't play a two-weapon fighter anymore because "they ruined it," by putting it on par with sword-and-board or two-handed-weapon fighting for the same costs, you're a munchkin. I don't really care if anyone thinks it is "not nice" to call out munchkin behavior by name.

- Marty Lund

 

[MoonSong]

Sorry, if what I want is gross imbalance in my own favor I'm a munchkin. If you won't play a two-weapon fighter anymore because "they ruined it," by putting it on par with sword-and-board or two-handed-weapon fighting for the same costs, you're a munchkin. I don't really care if anyone thinks it is "not nice" to call out munchkin behavior by name.

- Marty Lund

The point it, you are assuming too much. Not every group cares about balance, and if I cared to check if option a or b is mathematically overpowered or anything I would be playing soemthing else -or nothing at all-. I don't really buy that TWF is overpowered by itslef. Currently (in 3.5) my own dual wielding paladin is overshadowed by the party fighter, a one level lower S&B fighter!. Nobody in the party cares that I'm holding two weapons and doing two attacks every round, but if anyone cared enough they would told me to stop fooling around with it and start doing something more optimal!. (luckily noone has done it so far)

I'm not asking for overpoweredness, in fact personal experience tells me that 3.5 TWF is anything but overpowered: you attack at a lower attack bonus and it is very hard to do it every round, in fact many times a combat has ended were I haven't been able to do it even once. If I had never bothered to learn about 4e I wouldn't even know it is suppossed to be broken!. What I want is for it to be barely worthy, yet remain flavorful and exciting, so other people don't tell me to stop doing stupid things and start carrying my own weight by doing something uber-optimal and I don't feel cheated by the system when it tells me "you are taking Two weapon fightning, your reward is +1 feat bonus to damage".

I'm not a munchkin, I'm a scrub that wants to be left alone without nobody telling me how I must play my character because I'm playing wrong and I shouldn't be having fun that way.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

Sort of. I think mostly it should be an aesthetic issue, but I think it should still have something to do with your class. A fighter should have better weapons and armor out the gate than a wizard, and stabbing someone with a bastard sword should be better than stabbing them with a dagger or bonking them with a mace. But you can do that with "weapon style proficiencies" pretty well. Wizards get the "staves and knives" weapon style proficiency, clerics get the "hammers and clubs" weapon style proficiency, rogues get "light blades" weapon style proficiency, fighters get..."universal" weapon style proficiency. Or whatever.

That's pretty much what I mean. The fighter gets the proficiencies because it fits the class, but theoretically, if we gave the Wizard the fighter's weapon proficiencies, it wouldn't break the game.

 

[Falling Icicle]

While I'm glad that they took the time to explain their thinking behind these changes, after hearing their reasons for them, I still strongly disagree.

They say there will be feats to make TWF better, but you shouldn't need a feat to be merely competent at something. That, and the mechanic is just clunky and poor to begin with. Having to roll 4 times (twice for each weapon) is poor game design, to put it nicely. I think it's also silly that you can't fight with two weapons at once unless one of them is light. I should be able to play a character that wields two scimitars, for crying out loud.

I get tired of the comparison between the fighter/rogue with expertise and clerics/wizards with spells. Why can't they just give rogues special tricks that have nothing to do with expertise dice? And what's going to happen when other classes, like the ranger and paladin, come out? Are they going to have expertise dice too? I liked expertise when it gave fighters something to call their own. I'm not so fond of it as a generic mechanic for all non-spellcasting classes.

The loss of at-will cantrips/orisons is the change that most angers me. They keep saying that at-will spells make up for vancian casting (especially the extremely cut back vancian casting of this packet), but then they go and greatly restrict them. They say that it's too confusing, but I think having some of your prepared spells at-will and some not is more confusing, not less. "0th level spells can be cast at-will." How is that hard for anyone to understand?

They say they want some wizards to be better at some spells, but illusionists already are better at minor illusions than other wizards because they can use both visual and audible illusions at the same time. All 0th level spells should be at-will, and your tradition should give you benefits ON TOP OF THAT. As it is now, it's easily possible for a wizard to be able to run out of spells because he didn't prepare the "right" ones that his tradition demands. That is unacceptable.

I also firmly reject the notion that the possibility of rangers with at-will detect magic is a reason to take at-will cantrips away from wizards. Why is at-will detect magic fine for one class but overpowered in the hands of another class? That makes no sense. Besides, alot of people don't think rangers should even have spells in the first place! And what about the elf ranger that picks detect magic for his at-will spell? Is it only overpowered when rangers get it from their class and not their race?

I'm not trying to be overly dramatic, but if they do not make all 0th level spells at-will again, it will absolutely be a deal-breaker for me. I refuse to play a wizard with at most 10 daily spells who is then left shooting a crossbow the rest of the day.

 

[DonAdam]

I would like to see something like the following for 2-weapon fighting:

Requirement: You are wielding a weapon in your off-hand.

Benefit: When attacking with advantage, if both of your rolls would hit you may add your off-hand weapon damage die to the damage dealt by the attack.

 

[MoonSong]

I would like to see something like the following for 2-weapon fighting:

Requirement: You are wielding a weapon in your off-hand.

Benefit: When attacking with advantage, if both of your rolls would hit you may add your off-hand weapon damage die to the damage dealt by the attack.

It feels reasonable and possibily something I could eventually live with, yet I can't help but feel it is still too focussed on damage to the exclusion of everything else (like the chance to attack more than one enemy) and feels extremely situational.

Perhaps:


Requeriment: You must be holding a weapon on your off-hand

Benefit: When you attack on your turn you can also make an attack with your off-hand, this attack has disadvantage, doesn't benefit from your Strength or Dexterity bonus and you cannot add any extra damage from maneuvers if you don't hit with your main hand weapon first. You can still attack normally with your off-hand weapon if your don't attack with your main weapon.

 

[Treebore]

I like their explanations on everything. The only thing I do not like is that they are making it sound like Feats will be an integral part of the next rules set. Which doesn't sound like that will make D&D Next terribly modular. Hopefully I will end up wrong when the final version is released.

 

[Treebore]

...They say there will be feats to make TWF better, but you shouldn't need a feat to be merely competent at something...

Everyone does realize that they said that in this play test packet:

"Keep in mind that the basic two-weapon fighting option is for the untrained person picking up two weapons and taking a swing."

It has nothing to do with the Fighter class, it has to do with every single class or creature who is untrained.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

Everyone does realize that they said that in this play test packet:

"Keep in mind that the basic two-weapon fighting option is for the untrained person picking up two weapons and taking a swing."

It has nothing to do with the Fighter class, it has to do with every single class or creature who is untrained.

Yes. What we're saying is that we don't want to have to focus on being a two weapon fighter to be competent at two weapon fighting. A feat is too big an investment for base competence.