Weapon-specific fighting styles

[Gavin O.]

I think you are missing how much D&D abstracts combat already. It's not worth trying to add that granularity to combat in D&D. If it's something you and your friends enjoy then have fun with it. It's not something everyone is going to enjoy. Nor is it any more sensible than how D&D already handles it because combat is meant to be an abstractions. You aren't standing around for 6 seconds. You are dodging, parrying, moving and in general fighting the whole time not just when you attack. An attack generally represents an opportunity to break through the opponents defenses. Since D&D isn't trying to model the whole combat sequence but instead abstract a good chunk of it out I'd say they decided there wasn't enough difference in most martial weapons effectiveness to warrant changing mechanics for each one.

Maybe abstractions are something you have a problem with?

The reason a greatsword deals more damage than a dagger, the reason a longbow can make ranged attacks, the reason a fireball deals fire damage, is because that's how those things would work in our world. DnD could have abstracted away everything and just made every weapon work exactly the same, and I would argue it would be a worse game if they did.
But the point of these fighting styles wasn't just to make the weapons feel more distinct, the point was to provide players with more options in how they actually fought. Right now there are very few options for fighting styles (when you remove the fighting styles your character can't benefit from because of their choice of weapon, there are only 2, or 3 for characters with shields), and none of them are that interesting. That's what I was trying to fix.

 

[Gavin O.]

When we have less attacks per round, the monsters also have less HP, so the static +2 damage means more./QUOTE]

For fighters yes, but Paladins and Rangers not so much.

A paladin of vengeance can get 4 attacks per round with polearm master + haste, and can increase their accuracy Vow of Enmity. (which also increases the effectiveness of flat damage boosts)

A ranged ranger is likely going to be sitting in the backline firing off arrows, where they're much less likely to be taking attacks, and can use Swift Quiver. A Melee ranger should play a different class.

 

[FrogReaver]

The reason a greatsword deals more damage than a dagger, the reason a longbow can make ranged attacks, the reason a fireball deals fire damage, is because that's how those things would work in our world. DnD could have abstracted away everything and just made every weapon work exactly the same, and I would argue it would be a worse game if they did.
But the point of these fighting styles wasn't just to make the weapons feel more distinct, the point was to provide players with more options in how they actually fought. Right now there are very few options for fighting styles (when you remove the fighting styles your character can't benefit from because of their choice of weapon, there are only 2, or 3 for characters with shields), and none of them are that interesting. That's what I was trying to fix.

1. For someone talking so much about the battleaxe and longsword not feeling distinct it's easy to miss that this isn't your primary purpose.
2. Argumentation ad Extremum isn't usually very effective.

Just because not all mechanical differentiations would be bad (which is the point you were trying to make) doesn't mean that all mechanical differentiations are good.

3. Fighting styles don't need to be interesting on their own. They need to mechanically differentiate a fighter swinging an axe from say a cleric swinging an axe because the fighter should be mechanically better at some part of combat at level 1 than the cleric. They do this job very well.

Advice: They can still do that job very well and do what you want without creating a different fighting style for each weapon but your going to have a much more productive time if you let go of all these justifications for why what you want must be inherently better and why the game doesn't make sense without it.

Keep generic styles that cover a lot of different weapons but not all. Then instead of granting the current bonus that's listed make the benefit of each style depend on what weapon you chose.

You can even use the abilities you already designed for this or maybe tweak them a little.

It keeps fighters fighting better than clerics. It gives the mechanical feel you want. It doesn't pigeonhole a player to badly into a specific weapon type. It's cool and sounds fun and avoids all my concerns this way. Good Job. Now just stay away from trying to claim it's better and that current D&D does it wrong and you'll be a lot happier

 

[FrogReaver]

A paladin of vengeance can get 4 attacks per round with polearm master + haste, and can increase their accuracy Vow of Enmity. (which also increases the effectiveness of flat damage boosts)

A ranged ranger is likely going to be sitting in the backline firing off arrows, where they're much less likely to be taking attacks, and can use Swift Quiver. A Melee ranger should play a different class.

Oh my. You have a long way to come on the optimization front. Keep it up and you may eventually get there

It amazes me anyone still thinks self buffing with haste for damage is ever a good answer unless you can plan to prebuff before the fight starts. In general a 4d8 to 5d8 smite which is what a level 3 spell slot equates to and getting 3 attacks on turn 1 gives a lot more up front damage (yes up front damage is more important that damage that gets added in on the back end). On turn 1 the hasted character is an attack and 4d8 damage behind. On turn 2 the hasted character is still 4d8 damage behind. On turn 3 the hasted character is up an attack but down 4d8 damage. By turn 4 he may pull slightly ahead and by that time the fight is over or everyone is just in mop up duty.

It also amazes me when anyone brings up vow of enmity because it's only good on one creature per short rest and it takes away your bonus action polearm master attack and goes away as soon as said creature dies (which will be pretty quickly when you have advantage up and are making 3 attacks with -5/+10 and maybe throwing a smite or 2 in there.

All that said, haste + vow of enmity isn't a bad combo on a solo boss type creature. Then again, vow of enmity and just crit fishing to dump that smite into the crit that you would have dumped into haste is pretty effective too.

 

[Gavin O.]

Advice: They can still do that job very well and do what you want without creating a different fighting style for each weapon but your going to have a much more productive time if you let go of all these justifications for why what you want must be inherently better and why the game doesn't make sense without it.

Keep generic styles that cover a lot of different weapons but not all. Then instead of granting the current bonus that's listed make the benefit of each style depend on what weapon you chose.

You can even use the abilities you already designed for this or maybe tweak them a little.

It keeps fighters fighting better than clerics. It gives the mechanical feel you want. It doesn't pigeonhole a player to badly into a specific weapon type. It's cool and sounds fun and avoids all my concerns this way. Good Job. Now just stay away from trying to claim it's better and that current D&D does it wrong and you'll be a lot happier

That's what I wanted to do all along, I never said I wanted to get rid of the old fighting styles. If you want your character to be broadly proficient with every one-handed melee weapon, you can, but it you want something more specific to a certain type of weapon, you can have that too.

 

[Gavin O.]

Oh my. You have a long way to come on the optimization front. Keep it up and you may eventually get there

It amazes me anyone still thinks self buffing with haste for damage is ever a good answer unless you can plan to prebuff before the fight starts. In general a 4d8 to 5d8 smite which is what a level 3 spell slot equates to and getting 3 attacks on turn 1 gives a lot more up front damage (yes up front damage is more important that damage that gets added in on the back end). On turn 1 the hasted character is an attack and 4d8 damage behind. On turn 2 the hasted character is still 4d8 damage behind. On turn 3 the hasted character is up an attack but down 4d8 damage. By turn 4 he may pull slightly ahead and by that time the fight is over or everyone is just in mop up duty.

It also amazes me when anyone brings up vow of enmity because it's only good on one creature per short rest and it takes away your bonus action polearm master attack and goes away as soon as said creature dies (which will be pretty quickly when you have advantage up and are making 3 attacks with -5/+10 and maybe throwing a smite or 2 in there.

All that said, haste + vow of enmity isn't a bad combo on a solo boss type creature. Then again, vow of enmity and just crit fishing to dump that smite into the crit that you would have dumped into haste is pretty effective too.

This isn't an optimization thread. If I wanted to optimize my damage I would just play a Sorcerer with two levels in Warlock and cast Eldritch Blast into Quickened Eldritch Blast every round.

 

[FrogReaver]

That's what I wanted to do all along, I never said I wanted to get rid of the old fighting styles. If you want your character to be broadly proficient with every one-handed melee weapon, you can, but it you want something more specific to a certain type of weapon, you can have that too.

Then we are back to square 1. Adding in specific fighting styles for a weapon and only allowing me to have one pigeon holes me into only ever being good with a single weapon. Even if you keep the old ones if yours are actually superior as I presume they would be as they only affect 1 weapon instead of all then that also pigeonholes me into picking a bad mechanical choice to play the character I want. You are not empowering me with options. You are restricting me with options.

 

[FrogReaver]

This isn't an optimization thread. If I wanted to optimize my damage I would just play a Sorcerer with two levels in Warlock and cast Eldritch Blast into Quickened Eldritch Blast every round.

lol. sure. so why keep bringing up optimized abilities to try and "win" the discussion?

 

[Gavin O.]

lol. sure. so why keep bringing up optimized abilities to try and "win" the discussion?

Because you just insulted me by saying I didn't know how optimization worked?

 

[FrogReaver]

Because you just insulted me by saying I didn't know how optimization worked?

Let's start small then. Cause and effect. What caused me to say that?