D&D 5E there aren't enough slow Dwarves with Axes! ;)

[hejtmane]

Thank you. I think that post is so exceptionally on-topic I'll quote it in full (just tell me if you don't like that and I'll remove it)


Assuming "sword" is shorthand for any weapon with 5 ft reach (or 10 ft reach at most), my answer is:

I'm firmly convinced the 5E designers have built pretty much their entire game on the premise that the majority of any party (say three out of five characters) are heroes with Reach 5 and Speed 30. This includes fundamental assumptions about weapon performance, monster manual entries and everything in between.

This is also why the game feels so... defenseless against the tactic where the players collectively blow this premise to bits.

As for your question, I would love to only include "type 2" - buffs to the sword, as it were. Only problem is, that would still make characters overpowered compared to off the shelf MM monsters. And since the main reason we're having this conversation is to not have to tweak/change/rewrite-from-scratch the MM monsters... well...

Which leads us to "type 1" rules - nerfs to the bow, as it were.

Here I don't have a particularly attractive response: a nerf is a nerf is a nerf.

But is it really? If we instead reframe the nerfs as rollbacks of hasty and ill-advised changes to d20, we can perhaps sell them as more attractive, since the purpose is still good: making 5E better for everyone.

What I mean is that compared to d20 5E has made quite the number of changes, that might seem innocuos enough viewed separately, but taken as a group are devastating in the hands of a player unburdened by nostalgia and tradition.

1. you can use dexterity for both attacks and damage
2. loading times and ammunition can be made into a non-issue
3. you can take a feat that makes range a non-issue
4. you can take a feat that makes cover a non-issue
5. you can take a feat that makes the lower damage of your weapon (compared to greataxes) a non-issue
6. you can take a feat that effectively lets you dual wield ranged weapons, and not only that, but lets you stack both the Archery and the Two-Weapon Fighting fightning styles on these attacks
7. you can take a feat that makes you invulnerable to the traditional way you shut down an archer: by getting up close and waving a pointy stick in his face (and at his very fragile bow). Also, how this enables you to shoot at monsters wrestling your allies with no added risk of missing and no risk of accidentally making holes in your best bud.

I'm convinced that merely rolling back ONE or TWO of these rules changes to its equivalent d20 status would go a great way in restoring the "tyranny" of the sword!


Zapp

PS. And indeed this is also what I and other posters have suggested. My own suggestion was 1. and others have suggested 5.

To help ensure everyone is crystal clear on what I mean by 1-6 above, let me spell it out. Apologies if this reads as if written by Captain Obvious...

1. "A character gets no Strength bonus on damage rolls with a projectile weapon" is what the d20 SRD says. In other words (and here comes my fellow Captain) they do not get to add dexterity to damage. What they do get to do is the following (continuing the SRD quote): "...unless it’s a specially built composite shortbow, specially built composite longbow, or sling"

This is what's behind my simplified proposal - to allow all ranged weaponry to add strength to damage. This still makes no difference to a Strength 20 Dexterity 20 character, but at least the added bit of MAD (multi-ability dependency) should make players pause before selecting to play archers.

2. Never a popular path for D&D, you could make it impossible to shoot more than once per round with a crossbow. Then you could compensate for this by giving crossbows a built-in strength score (higher than 10 that is /Captain Obvious), making them attractive for characters without Extra Attack.

3 & 4. While I appreciate the simplicity of how these benefits are implemented in the Sharpshooter feat, they simply throw out the baby with the bathwater. Ranged fire without range and cover isn't just overpowered, it also feels strangely artificial, and as a result: un-fun. But in this context, we're mostly concerned about the simple fact it makes ranged fire crazy powerful.

5. What we're talking about here is the -5/+10 part of Sharpshooter. The difference between 1d6+5 and 1d12+5 isn't to be sneezed at (without the feat, assuming Strength 20 and no magic). But the difference between 1d6+15 and 1d12+15 is much much less. This big reduction means the difference in range suddenly looms large. The range of the hand crossbow (the first weapon) is 120 feet, while the ranged of the second weapon (the greataxe) is 5 feet. Even if we factor in movement, we're still talking about 150 ft vs 30 ft. Since this is often the difference between finding another target to hit after you've downed the first one, and having to waste an attack, the damage differential is easily compensated for.

6. perhaps the clumsiest implementation of all is the added insult to injury of how dual wielding in general got the short shrift, but how the Drizzt has to watch the Crossbow Expert use
a) a single hand crossbow as effectively as he uses two swortswords
b) gets to enjoy the same benefit of two-handed weapon fighting style and still get to put the Archery fighting style on top...

7. Crossbow Expert (again) rears its ugly head here: "Being within 5 feet of a hostile creature doesn’t impose disadvantage on your ranged attack rolls". If you only make one single change, for the love of the gods, ban Crossbow Expert! (The difference to the LotR movies is that D&D forgot to make sure there's a reason why not everyone aren't playing Legolas!)

Funny have all that in my game and I have almost wiped my group without rewriting the MM note I also now leverage tome of best last session and they are 11 th level

Sent from my XT1095 using Tapatalk

 

[mpwylie]

So, i agree to a point with the original premise. In 5e ranged is a little too good and is missing some of the downsides. With that said I do not see the need for a long list of major system changes to fix what is a small issue. My opinion is that they should not have done away with the penalties for firing into Melee. Past that I don't see much of an issue. A ranged character can't "kite" a monster if the monster just ducks behind cover and waits for the character to come get him. Dungeon, city, building encounters should not have an issue as they are close quarters nullifying most of the ranged benefits and should by default heavily favor melee. Open area encounters tip in favor of the ranged classes, and should to a degree, but the simple solution is cover and tactics. Unless all of your encounters are in the middle of the desert, there is no reason not to have trees, rocks, ditches, ruins, small buildings, or even a cart the bad guys can tip over for cover it's fairly simple to frustrate ranged characters. If you design your encounters with any forethought, there shouldn't be much of an issue. A characters speed and ranged abilities can't help them when the monsters are in cover. They are at a disadvantage in melee range so charging or ambushing ranged characters from cover can be quite effective. Having a bank of archers or rock tossing giants set up in nearby cover is usually pretty effective too. Monsters with fog cloud, darkness, etc type spells are also quite effective.

Some fights your ranged characters should shine, some should favor the melee. It all comes down to building encounters keeping these things in mind. But yes, I agree that in this addition ranged is slightly unbalanced because the penalties have been reduced. That small tweak to firing into melee would bring ranged back in line in my opinion without ability penalties, removing feats, or messing with movement. If you don't want ranged to be king, don't let it.

 

[Leatherhead]

As for your question, I would love to only include "type 2" - buffs to the sword, as it were. Only problem is, that would still make characters overpowered compared to off the shelf MM monsters. And since the main reason we're having this conversation is to not have to tweak/change/rewrite-from-scratch the MM monsters... well...

Which leads us to "type 1" rules - nerfs to the bow, as it were.

Here I don't have a particularly attractive response: a nerf is a nerf is a nerf.

But is it really? If we instead reframe the nerfs as rollbacks of hasty and ill-advised changes to d20, we can perhaps sell them as more attractive, since the purpose is still good: making 5E better for everyone.

A 5e that doesn't allow for stuff like this:

Isn't one I would consider better.
Ok, maybe that one is a bit too silly for most, but Flying Dragons should be a staple of the game. And you really can't do a flying dragon fight without exciting and impactful ranged combat.

But the more important and juicy bits, in reverse order of juice.

I'm firmly convinced the 5E designers have built pretty much their entire game on the premise that the majority of any party (say three out of five characters) are heroes with Reach 5 and Speed 30. This includes fundamental assumptions about weapon performance, monster manual entries and everything in between.

That's because a great deal of the deign was focused on "modernizing" the design of older editions of D&D, where the dungeon crawl was the default adventure. If your encounters are indoors, then range becomes much less of an issue.

And since the main reason we're having this conversation is to not have to tweak/change/rewrite-from-scratch the MM monsters...

Eh, I don't think this will work out regardless of the changes you plan on doing. You are planning on still using feats, which up the power of all PCs. Yet you are only planning on reigning in the power of the ranged ones? The monsters will still be behind the curve out of the box. When you are using optional rules like feats, just saying "yes you can use feats" is maybe 1/10th of the work you need to put into the game you just started to change, the rest of the work is setting up monsters and encounters to compensate for these new facts of life.
Furthermore, the monsters will still be out of luck when fighting something like baloon guy up there, unless you make ranged combat totally useless, and I am assuming you don't want to make it so that nobody wants to play Legolas, the Elf with a Bow is just as much a part of D&D as the Dwarf with the Axe, after all.

 

[CapnZapp]

the simple solution is cover and tactics

But now you're describing modern warfare, exactly the kind of tactics these changes are meant to do away with.

I want D&D to support the notion of Badass the Barbarian manly striding towards the puny goblins, swatting aside their cowardly arrows.

I don't want Badass the Barbarian acting like a SWAT trooper sprinting from cover to cover, using hand signals to direct team mates to flank the opposition.

I want to bring back D&D to where effective archery was just expensive enough only one out of the four party members doing that build. The wizard also does range, of course; but the cleric and fighter are strictly "range 30" builds, meaning the "center of gravity" of the party as a whole remains squarely with the melee'ers.

I'm not posting this to tell you "you're wrong", MP, you're not. You're just using something as a solution that I see as the problem.

 

[CapnZapp]

the simple solution is cover and tactics

But now you're describing modern warfare, exactly the kind of tactics these changes are meant to do away with.

I want D&D to support the notion of Badass the Barbarian manly striding towards the puny goblins, swatting aside their cowardly arrows.

I don't want Badass the Barbarian acting like a SWAT trooper sprinting from cover to cover, using hand signals to direct team mates to flank the opposition.

I want to bring back D&D to where effective archery was just expensive enough only one out of the four party members doing that build. The wizard also does range, of course; but the cleric and fighter are strictly "range 30" builds, meaning the "center of gravity" of the party as a whole remains squarely with the melee'ers.

I'm not posting this to tell you "you're wrong", MP, you're not. You're just using something as a solution that I see as the problem.

 

[mpwylie]

But now you're describing modern warfare, exactly the kind of tactics these changes are meant to do away with.

I want D&D to support the notion of Badass the Barbarian manly striding towards the puny goblins, swatting aside their cowardly arrows.

I don't want Badass the Barbarian acting like a SWAT trooper sprinting from cover to cover, using hand signals to direct team mates to flank the opposition.

I want to bring back D&D to where effective archery was just expensive enough only one out of the four party members doing that build. The wizard also does range, of course; but the cleric and fighter are strictly "range 30" builds, meaning the "center of gravity" of the party as a whole remains squarely with the melee'ers.

I'm not posting this to tell you "you're wrong", MP, you're not. You're just using something as a solution that I see as the problem.

So, imagine that I post up saying that Melee are OP in my game and no one wants to play ranged cause I only design encounters in dungeons and put all the monsters at the doors so the group just surrounds the door and bashes them when the door opens. And Grapple needs a major nerf or removed from the game because the monk in my group just grapples the enemies at the door so the monsters just have to line up and get bashed 1 at a time so it’s all broken and it’s the designers fault.

Now I agree with you that ranged it a bit too good, I agree with a couple of your points and I am not a fan of crossbow expert (more so with its stacking possibilities than the straight feat). But if I designed my encounters and DM’d as described above, melee would be OP, Grapple and GWM would be issues. See the thing is, it’s broken in your eyes cause it is not working how you want for your game world view. But what you keep saying is broken and needs fixed to match your playstyle isn’t broken in most other people’s gamestyle, at least not to the degree you suggest. I do not wish to have retarded monsters that just stride into combat and my players don’t want to play just walking into combat cause frankly, that’s boring. When I play chess I don’t just stride my king to the other side of the board and then complain that the game is broken when I lose every time.

I think the biggest point of contention is, you want to change the game to fit your ideal view and propose that the designers making sweeping changes for the game to play how you want to play it. The thing is, you are the DM and have the freedom to mold the game to whatever style you wish to play which is the beauty of 5e. There is no reason for WOTC to write out every rule and every action to the Nth degree or nerf things to one playstyle. They did that already, it’s called 4^th edition and it sucked. If you want to put the changes you proposed into your game, you are free to do that, there is no need to force the rules to your playstyle. I change a bunch of things in my campaigns that many others would not like, many things you would absolutely hate. But I am not going to say WOTC needs to change those things, I change them in my game and my group has fun.

 

[mpwylie]

But now you're describing modern warfare, exactly the kind of tactics these changes are meant to do away with.

I want D&D to support the notion of Badass the Barbarian manly striding towards the puny goblins, swatting aside their cowardly arrows.

I don't want Badass the Barbarian acting like a SWAT trooper sprinting from cover to cover, using hand signals to direct team mates to flank the opposition.

I am not even suggesting you have to go to that level of tactics. It can be simple. Instead of designing your encounter with a group of badguys standing around in the middle of an open field with their thumbs in their rears, maybe the group of orcs and goblins have a bridge blocked off that the PCs need to cross. The PCs come down the road or across the field and 200+' out can see the group at the bridge. The ranged super crossbowsharpshooter badass pulls out his bow and launches an arrow at one of them. As soon as that arrow hits the orcs/goblins scramble for cover and duck behind the bridge walls, the embankment, an overturned cart, whatever is in the area at the bridge. They can then pop up and take ranged shots at the party that is standing in the open headed towards them. The ranged characters can ready actions to fire when something pops up. As soon as one pops up and takes an arrow/bolt in the forehead, the rest just stay down. The players are then forced to go to them and close range and now it's a melee battle. as the melee starts, the ranged characters can then shoot from range but now your melee characters are in the fight.

If your group is higher level, there are monsters that fly, burrow under the ground, teleport, etc. So the monsters can go after the ranged characters. You can use monsters with spells so they can toss up a fog cloud or darkness so the ranged don't have line of sight. There is a vast chasm of possibilities between "stupid orc stands in the field or strolls 200' towards the players until it's dead" and "the elite orc swat team". Even the dumbest of creatures should have some amount of inherent self preservation and it's not reasonable that they are going to stand in the open like fools. If you can't use simple tactics or play the creatures like they actually want to survive, then I am not sure any game system is gonna be ideal for you.

 

[Satyrn]

But clearly if 120'+ is the standard encounter distance in your games, your DM is encouraging ranged builds. If your PCs spend a lot of time bumping creatures in wide open plains, who are too stupid to stick to creek lines, forested areas, dead ground, hills, long grass or any other natural feature, more luck to them.

This is an excellent point. In reading a bunch of Western novels, I've picked up several tips on handling wide opens plains in a heroic fantasy game. Stick to creek beds (in dry weather!), because they're are lower than the surrounding countryside. Avoid cresting hills (and there are almost always hills, no land is truly flat) because you're on high ground and will be seen silhouetted on the horizon. And keep an eye on your back trail!

That is to say, even in Westerns set on the prairies, lots of encounters start at close range.

 

[Imaro]

I am not even suggesting you have to go to that level of tactics. It can be simple. Instead of designing your encounter with a group of badguys standing around in the middle of an open field with their thumbs in their rears, maybe the group of orcs and goblins have a bridge blocked off that the PCs need to cross. The PCs come down the road or across the field and 200+' out can see the group at the bridge. The ranged super crossbowsharpshooter badass pulls out his bow and launches an arrow at one of them. As soon as that arrow hits the orcs/goblins scramble for cover and duck behind the bridge walls, the embankment, an overturned cart, whatever is in the area at the bridge. They can then pop up and take ranged shots at the party that is standing in the open headed towards them. The ranged characters can ready actions to fire when something pops up. As soon as one pops up and takes an arrow/bolt in the forehead, the rest just stay down. The players are then forced to go to them and close range and now it's a melee battle. as the melee starts, the ranged characters can then shoot from range but now your melee characters are in the fight.

If your group is higher level, there are monsters that fly, burrow under the ground, teleport, etc. So the monsters can go after the ranged characters. You can use monsters with spells so they can toss up a fog cloud or darkness so the ranged don't have line of sight. There is a vast chasm of possibilities between "stupid orc stands in the field or strolls 200' towards the players until it's dead" and "the elite orc swat team". Even the dumbest of creatures should have some amount of inherent self preservation and it's not reasonable that they are going to stand in the open like fools. If you can't use simple tactics or play the creatures like they actually want to survive, then I am not sure any game system is gonna be ideal for you.

Like you and quite a few others, I still believe the issue lies in encounter design... not with ranged weapons/builds in and of themselves.

 

[CapnZapp]

I am not even suggesting you have to go to that level of tactics. It can be simple. Instead of designing your encounter with a group of badguys standing around in the middle of an open field with their thumbs in their rears, maybe the group of orcs and goblins have a bridge blocked off that the PCs need to cross. The PCs come down the road or across the field and 200+' out can see the group at the bridge. The ranged super crossbowsharpshooter badass pulls out his bow and launches an arrow at one of them. As soon as that arrow hits the orcs/goblins scramble for cover and duck behind the bridge walls, the embankment, an overturned cart, whatever is in the area at the bridge. They can then pop up and take ranged shots at the party that is standing in the open headed towards them. The ranged characters can ready actions to fire when something pops up. As soon as one pops up and takes an arrow/bolt in the forehead, the rest just stay down. The players are then forced to go to them and close range and now it's a melee battle. as the melee starts, the ranged characters can then shoot from range but now your melee characters are in the fight.

If your group is higher level, there are monsters that fly, burrow under the ground, teleport, etc. So the monsters can go after the ranged characters. You can use monsters with spells so they can toss up a fog cloud or darkness so the ranged don't have line of sight. There is a vast chasm of possibilities between "stupid orc stands in the field or strolls 200' towards the players until it's dead" and "the elite orc swat team". Even the dumbest of creatures should have some amount of inherent self preservation and it's not reasonable that they are going to stand in the open like fools. If you can't use simple tactics or play the creatures like they actually want to survive, then I am not sure any game system is gonna be ideal for you.

Sorry but your goblin scenario simply isn't representative in my experience.

You might think you've reasonably given me a commonplace scenario, and you have.

But what you've also done is give me a scenario with lots of opponents that aren't meaningfully more fearsome in melee.

If all or even most MM entries were like goblins, and that they faced the same number of tricks from the heroes goblins do (that is "very few" at low level) we wouldn't be having this discussion. It is precisely the fact not enough high level monsters have flight, teleport or spells that started the discussion (not exactly the discussion of this thread but others).

So there's no reason to be snide and dismissive. Stop telling me I can't use simple tactics if you want me to take you seriously.