Why is/was melee training so bad?

[Garthanos]

Well, maybe intimidate. It wouldn't hurt, in a balance sense, to give away the advantages of other stats the way one of the advantages of STR has been.

It would hurt in the sense of differentiating characteristics - and thus classes and, ultimately, characters.

If everyone has the same MBA because they all took Melee Training or some MBA-useable at will, and all have the same Intimidate because they took some feat that let whatever stat fill in for that, and all have the same bonus to hps and surges through various backgrounds, and the same perception and insight, and defenses across the board, etc, etc....

The point of any of it is that if it is does that versatility have a cost and flavor with it... in that sense melee training has a cost... but not so much flavor, and given the extraordinary impact it can potentially have on essentials characters the cost wasnt high enough.

These at-will mbas... are better flavored and more powerful than melee training even un-nerfed... And not as versatile as the Essentials characters basic attacks.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

And even if he were still based on Str it would be a fundamental error to give the Wis-Variant a good MBA? Are you also banning all heavy thrown weapon since those who dump Dex don't deserve an MBA (incidentally they extra made a heavy thrown hammers usable as a holy symbols to cater to Str-clerics)

With all the usable as MBA at-will's we're seeing it looks as if they checked off the "no str no good MBA" as one of the sins of their youth and are moving forward to provide one to each class.

Actually IIRC someone got the answer "be patient" upon complaining that adding a Wis-based MBA to cleric was also adding insult to injury against avengers. So even if it's not part of tomorrows Power Play, I have no doubt that this power will see the light of day sooner or later.

Yes, and you answered your question yourself.

As long as dedicated melee classes that are based on non-strength attributes don´t have such a power, the wisdom cleric does not deserve one, as he had good alternative, flavourful way to get one. Be a Str/Wis cleric.

When the dedicated melee warpriest is melee based, giving him an easy way to get a decent MBA is the right decision.
This is why adding a charisma at-will that can be used as a MBA was the right decision, as a paladin of PHB already used charisma for melee atacks.

Oh, and that heavy thrown thing, interesting way to think about that... you mean there should be something light a light melee weapon that uses dexterity by default... hmmh intersting...
Maybe hammers using con by default... hmmh... which weapon in melee could use wisdom?

 

[Garthanos]

Hit points must cause you cackling fit for asylum!

Gygax put a lot of effort in to making sure people realized most everything but the very last few hit points were heroic luck and defensive skill depleting of stamina and similar abstractions and not really wounds... it wasn't until 3e I do believe that this got lost in the shuffle. Some things didnt make sense because of the slow recovery time.. if its really fatigue incurred over just the few minutes of fighting why would it take so long to recover.

Both issues ;p, really were/are fixed by the latest D&D were attribute use for combat even in weapon attacks is far more open and styles implied by attributes... and hit points acknowledged for there abstraction.

 

[Enaloindir]

I haven't seen one for the Bard yet.

The monk is also out of luck...

 

[angelababy]

These are heroes, they can have 10 strength on a piece of paper, but really they are well trained, proficient and strong enough to wield their weapons. That might stir up an "Expertise hornet's nest", but they're a special case, but that's the nature of the beast. If this is going to be par for the course...