D&D 5E Old Vexed Question: All too Important Dexterity Stat and Finesse Weapons, namely the Rapier

[Paul Farquhar]

Sorry but those are truly terrible examples. The Dex fighter isn't one-shotting anything, that dragon should have been left alone or killed outright and what is the rest of the party doing if winged kobolds are an issue? Paladins must be terrible aswell, by that logic.

Dex melee is freakishly terrible compared to str and if this is the best you can come up with I think that point has been proven tbh.

They are all perfectly reasonable examples, of the type that come up in actual play, rather than whiteroom theorycrafting.

The DEX fighter could one-shot a first level wizard, who could take out a STR fighter with Tasha's Hideous laughter. The dragon is too powerful to kill and is blocking the path to the plot-critical McGuffin. The rest of the party are outnumbered by kobolds because the fighter doesn't have a useful weapon.

And no, that doesn't mean paladins, or strength fighters are "terrible". This is the other Min-Maxer fallacy - anything that isn't optimal must be terrible - rather than accepting that everything has strengths and weaknesses that depend on the situation.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

I challenge anyone to post a Dex based Melee fighter (AL rules) that comes anywhere near a Str based one.

"Anywhere near" in terms of what metric?
Is this comparison between generic class capabilities, or specific combinations or builds?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

How about adding a "must have AC over 20" condition?

 

[BacchusNL]

They are all perfectly reasonable examples, of the type that come up in actual play, rather than whiteroom theorycrafting.

The DEX fighter could one-shot a first level wizard, who could take out a STR fighter with Tasha's Hideous laughter. The dragon is too powerful to kill and is blocking the path to the plot-critical McGuffin. The rest of the party are outnumbered by kobolds because the fighter doesn't have a useful weapon.

And no, that doesn't mean paladins, or strength fighters are "terrible". This is the other Min-Maxer fallacy - anything that isn't optimal must be terrible - rather than accepting that everything has strengths and weaknesses that depend on the situation.

So it's not white room theory crafting anymore when you apply some wonky, narrow, examples to it. Gotcha. I don't have time to list endless hypotheticals so i'm going to skip on that part. And you can hide behind a "people can play what they want"-trope, sure, but that doesn't change the fact that for the people who do care about balance it's dumb that GWM and SS still exist in their own bubble.

Also, we are in a thread that is about wether or not Dex (and rapier's in particular) is too strong. Not thinking up background stories for the character that uses them. Balance is definatly a factor.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

So it's not white room theory crafting anymore when you apply some wonky, narrow, examples to it. Gotcha.

All situations that occur in the game are wonky and narrow - i.e. unique. Any attempt to make a universal comparison is in a fail-state from the start.

I don't have time to list endless hypotheticals so i'm going to skip on that part.

No one has time for endless hypotheticals. Because they are endless. Nevertheless, a game of D&D is made out of endless hypotheticals, not endless white rooms.

And you can hide behind a "people can play what they want"-trope, sure, but that doesn't change the fact that for the people who do care about balance it's dumb that GWM and SS still exist in their own bubble.

People who care about balance need to get a life.

 

[BacchusNL]

All situations that occur in the game are wonky and narrow - i.e. unique. Any attempt to make a universal comparison is in a fail-state from the start.

Yet some how your examples conviently ignored many other core factors in the game, like party members or other mechanics to get around the dragon. Or are we going to pretend your "definatly not a white room"-overleveled dragon is the one and only way to the mcguffin and stealth is the only option?

No one has time for endless hypotheticals. Because they are endless. Nevertheless, a game of D&D is made out of endless hypotheticals, not endless white rooms.

But you listing of 3 out of an endless amount proves a point. Right.

People who care about balance need to get a life.

High-school level insult aside, every reasonable person knows you arn't going to find balance in any dice based game but the fact that there isn't a 1-handed equivelant to GWM or SS (or having those erratad, or the dozen of other choices game designers can make) is just dumb.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Yet some how your examples conviently ignored many other core factors in the game, like party members or other mechanics to get around the dragon. Or are we going to pretend your "definatly not a white room"-overleveled dragon is the one and only way to the mcguffin and stealth is the only option?

It never had to be the only option. It happened to be one the player decided to try. Last time I looked your typical STR fighter wasn't much cop at negotiation either.

But you listing of 3 out of an endless amount proves a point. Right.

Listing and endless number would be difficult, even for me. But listing one is enough to prove such things exist.

High-school level insult aside, every reasonable person knows you arn't going to find balance in any dice based game but the fact that there isn't a 1-handed equivelant to GWM or SS (or having those erratad, or the dozen of other choices game designers can make) is just dumb.

Because AC doesn't matter? All that matters is the size of your damage dice? In which case, why are you even looking at fighters and not playing a wizard?

 

[Flamestrike]

"Anywhere near" in terms of what metric?
Is this comparison between generic class capabilities, or specific combinations or builds?

Does it matter?

The system supports Str as being optimal for melee fighter builds. Within the system, Dex melee fighters aren't even close.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

Does it matter?

The system supports Str as being optimal for melee fighter builds. Within the system, Dex melee fighters aren't even close.

Lets just say that I've recently lost a fair amount of faith in human nature. I wouldn't be entirely surprised if, when someone actually produces a Dex fighter in response to that request, the goalposts appear around melee damage only and the standard vhuman BM GWM build is brought out. At which point they likely declare themselves victorious.

 

[BacchusNL]

Lets just say that I've recently lost a fair amount of faith in human nature. I wouldn't be entirely surprised if, when someone actually produces a Dex fighter in response to that request, the goalposts appear around melee damage only and the standard vhuman BM GWM build is brought out. At which point they likely declare themselves victorious.

No reasonable optimiser is looking to create something that is the end-all-be-all of builds. The problem is that when they created outliers like GWM + Polearm Master and SS and didn't support 1-handed playsyles the same way it immediatly creates a balance-issue for many players where they feel pigeonholed into those 2 select playstyles. "Balance in D&D is a scale, not a point" someone said in a different thread, and I fully agree, it's just that the scale has to be in a reasonable range and not have the glaring differences in top and low end values it has had for so long.

It's the exact same thing they just got rid of with Tasha and the dominance of Variant Human for race choices. The fact that those changes are only coming after SO many years, where we've gotten too the point where people are already starting to yell "5.5 when?", and the fact there are still many other systems in 5E that are plain under-developed feels off to me and getting a bit tiresome.

There is some great 3rd party content out there to fix some of those issues, and that does count to some extend, but the reach of those products (not to mention seperating the chaff from the wheat among them or reaching a consensus between players and DM on what is fair/ needed in the game) is extremely limited compared to official releases.