What is the essence of D&D

[Garthanos]

they must be downright furious.

How barbaric

 

[doctorbadwolf]

3E had all that, and yet archery was even more imbalanced, because archers were the ones who could reliably stand and full attack every round. And adding insult to injury, Rapid Shot had no melee equivalent unless you were a monk.

So (setting aside 4E because class powers mattered far more than any intrinsic virtues of archery or melee), 5E is in a bit of a "two steps forward, one step back" position here, as far as I'm concerned. And as you note, it's way easier to run, so maybe that last step is just sideways.

I’d also add that pre-4e, it was extremely frustrating to have a feat tax in order to use Dex for attacking, and still not even be able to add it to damage, and I’d rather have some “imbalance” between stats than go back to that. Such a tax in 5e would be much, much worse, because you get so few feats. I already despise the bland feats that just give proficiency in weapons or armor, and simply let people gain proficiencies they need to fill out a concept, instead.

I’m not here to have to minmax my character just to keep up. I’m here to make my character concept function in the game and have fun playing them.

 

[Campbell]

My preferred solution to solving issues with MAD is to make everyone more well rounded by giving boosts to more attributes when you gain ASIs rather than rewarding hyperfocus.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

You know, I’d be fine with using Dex for defense, armor as deflection bonus to defense and DR, strength to gate weapon use and speed, and wisdom to aim all attacks of any kind, if the rest of the system was built to ensure that this doesn’t end up making building characters a huge PITA.

But barring weird stuff like that, I’m happy with not requiring the strong guy pump Dex for coordination to hit successfully, or the Dex guy pump strength to have the muscle power to use their weapon without tiring quickly.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

My preferred solution to solving issues with MAD is to make everyone more well rounded by giving boosts to more attributes when you gain ASIs rather than rewarding hyperfocus.

One way to get there, as well, is to use a higher point buy, but keep the 15-before-race-mod limit in place.

 

[Tony Vargas]

3E had all that, and yet archery was even more imbalanced, because archers were the ones who could reliably stand and full attack every round. And adding insult to injury, Rapid Shot had no melee equivalent unless you were a monk.

True - but, y'know, they'd be hosed in melee... and...er.. could run out of arrows. Same deal as casting, really, writ smaller.

5E is in a bit of a "two steps forward, one step back" position here, as far as I'm concerned. And as you note, it's way easier to run, so maybe that last step is just sideways.

The main issues appear to be DEX seamlessly replacing STR in melee, rather than falling short on damage or paying a feat tax, and ranged options, in general, suffering too little drawback in melee (disadvantage rather than AoOs for attack rolls, /nothing/ if forcing a save or the like). 5e achieves simpler (fewer, natural-language), mechanics by relying on the DM for rulings, so /simpler/ in terms of player perception or impressions given by the rules, but not easier to run. Very /different/ to run, from 3e, though - no building monsters like PCs taking hours away from the table, for instance.

So (setting aside 4E because class powers mattered far more than any intrinsic virtues of archery or melee)

Ranged provoked AoOs, melee could charge to close range efficiently. No full-attack concerns, significantly.
And, Not-D&D, of course.

 

[Umbran]

A thought back to the OP...

The essence of D&D... is what you get when the Skeksis expose Tanis Half-Elven to the Dark Crystal....

 

[Tony Vargas]

My preferred solution to solving issues with MAD is to make everyone more well rounded by giving boosts to more attributes when you gain ASIs rather than rewarding hyperfocus.

Would tend to give you more genre-feeling heroes, who tend to be paragons good at most everything.

Another alternative would be to base certain bonuses on lower-of-two stat pairs. So melee attacks is lower of STR mod or DEX, STR for damage, ranged attack is DEX for attack, lower of STR mod or DEX for damage. Baroque tricks like that. Or 13A's middle-stat-of-3 gives the bonus.
Or having virtually all stats toss in small bonuses, like RQ.

 

[Garthanos]

My preferred solution to solving issues with MAD is to make everyone more well rounded by giving boosts to more attributes when you gain ASIs rather than rewarding hyperfocus.

Heroic versatility has a lot of trope support arguably. Even when you look at a character like D'Artagnan who is situationally a clutz put a weapon in his hand or make it a feat of daring and tadah its entirely different. Its more like a gimic failing than a functional one

 

[doctorbadwolf]

True - but, y'know, they'd be hosed in melee... and...er.. could run out of arrows. Same deal as casting, really, writ smaller.

The main issues appear to be DEX seamlessly replacing STR in melee, rather than falling short on damage or paying a feat tax, and ranged options, in general, suffering too little drawback in melee (disadvantage rather than AoOs for attack rolls, /nothing/ if forcing a save or the like). 5e achieves simpler (fewer, natural-language), mechanics by relying on the DM for rulings, so /simpler/ in terms of player perception or impressions given by the rules, but not easier to run. Very /different/ to run, from 3e, though - no building monsters like PCs taking hours away from the table, for instance.

Ranged provoked AoOs, melee could charge to close range efficiently. No full-attack concerns, significantly.
And, Not-D&D, of course.

I don’t know, I’ve certainly found 5e vastly easier to run than anything other than 4e.

Even then, it’s easier to run in some ways.