The 3.5 ranged combat was much more thought out with many well understood dials. You can't even think about things like "giving martial characters more options in combat, maneuveres beyond "I attack twice" until you address the elephant in the room created by all of the changes 5e made to ranged combat as part of a whole system rather than ialone & n isolation as wotc seems to have done. With regards to eldritch blast, why might it work on strength? easy, the alternative is to acknowledge that a d8 hit dieclass with full caster level progression that gets this
View attachment 125069
is pants on head what the holy heck were they thinking when compared to this
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It's also important to accept that there is no sane path that leads to the 5e warlock & eldritch blast from
even if you add
and things only get worse when you factor in the bizarrely over the top & obvious problematic elements it causes if the goal was anything other than trying to build a multiclasscombo where abusing the rest mechanic is the number one design goal. Why strength? Personally I think eldritch blast should go back towards what it was instead of the 5e best of everything worst of nothing that it is now but cha to hit str for damage similar to dex/str how bows used to be might work if EB must otherwise remain munchkinized as is.