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| #1ZardnaarSep 11, 2014 18:25:47 |
So far I am enjoying D&D and I am DMing the game. Some of you may have noticed I prefer a grittier game than what 5E provides but so far the positives of 5E outweigh the things I do not like. I have played in one game in where we are doing the Lost mines of Phandelver, the other 2 games are my current one and I was running a few sessions of Basic D&D. I have been in around 10 sessions with probably close to 50 hours of 5E experience under the belt so far as some of the session have been 6 or 8 hours with an average of 4 hours probably. The following is a series of observations I have made as opposed to theory crafting. Just trying to clean things up a bit and make it a bit more presentable with some facts and figures with in game examples.
I generally run a variety of encounters as well for example the last 4 sessions have been hexcrawl, dungeon, urban/social, and travel. Encounters have varied between one every few days through to 6 in the dungeon with an average probably of 4 encounters per day. Those encounters are usually hard to deadly using the DM PDF and not every day has had encounters of course. My ideal would be around 40/30/30 mix of combat/social/exploration although some sessions may be 100% of the 3 pillars including no combat at all. I also use a mixture of melee and ranged combat along with terrain, flying opponents on occasion, spell casting NPCs etc. I also tweak the spell lists and equipment of the NPCs from the DM PDF so a knight riding a wyvern may have a lance as a weapon, Ogres may have chainmail on. This is to give you an idea on how I run my games so they are not all dungeon crawls or wilderness games or RP sessions etc. I rarely run mega dungeons though and if I am not running a prepublished adventure my dungeons are often no bigger than 20 locations give or take.
So I have claimed that in this game dexterity is overpowered. This opinion has not changed that much since the playtest. At first I thought feats like Heavy Armor Master, Polearm Master and Great Weapon Master were very good and brought balance to the force so to speak. I am now leaning towards I was wrong with that assessment. This also assumes that feats are even allowed in the game if you do not allow them dexterity is the uber stat. Most of this is also related to how much dexterity does for you that strength does not. They both boost to hit and damage numbers, AC is often similar but strength based might have a narrow lead of 1-2 points at certain levels depending on the wealth levels in the party and if you can get plate armor off an NPC like a knight.
Dexterity builds are often locked into boosting dexterity but since the dexterity feats do not seem to be must haves like some of the strength feats it is not such a big deal IMHO. I would also argue that the strength based feats are also feat taxes as well. Now just because I have an opinion that doesn’t make me right either so I will use some math as well to explain my argument. I will examine some of the options to present my argument. I will not be using the Barbarian class as an example but it is worth noting that in the Barbarians case strength may indeed be better than a dex based PC of another class. I have not seen the Barbarian in action but will bring it up when I cover how things tend to go in game and away from theory crafting.
So the math. Several classes have access to various fighting styles so I will look at those. Note every class has access to them of course but it is difficult to compare de to str in those cases due to the other class abilities which will matter more than the basic str vs dex comparison. A Paladin for example could easily be strength or dexterity based. Without the fighting styles though it is really sword and board vs basic dual wielding vs basic two handed weapon so it is really up to you what one you prefer. The fighting styles that matter for my arguments are.
Dual wielder Duelist Great Weapon style Archery
These are the easiest ones to compare. At level 1 at its most basic assuming you used the default array you have +5 to hit with all of the styles except archery which is +7. Archery has a clear trade off the extra damage of a two handed weapon vs an accuracy boost and ranged utility. For the moment I will ignore archery but come back to it later.
Duelist 1d8+5 damage (average 9.5), +2 AC
Two Handed weapon 2d6+3 damage or 1d12+3 (average 10 or 9,5 damage +rerolls)
Dual wielding 1d6+3 (average 6.5, 13 if both hit) you can hit multiple targets.
On paper dual wielding deals the most damage although action surge will cause larger spikes in the other 2 styles. Rerolls, AC more damage and splitting your targets. This changes at level 4 and 5 however when stat boosts and or feats come into it and with multiple attacks. If you are using dex odds are your AC is also lower by 1 point at level 1.
The extra attack via dual wielding is a bonus action this means at level 5 you now have 3 attacks per round while the other styles now have 2 attacks. Action surge also does not give you an extra attack with your off hand. This is where DPR calculations start to break down as well if feats are used. Two strength based feats grant extra attacks. Polearm mastery grants an extra 1d4+ attribute modifier (and magic) to attack as a bonus action while reducing your primary attack damage to a 1d10 via a halberd. You can also get an extra attack in via an attack of opportunity should anyone come near you. The Great Weapon mastery feat also grants you an extra attack as a bonus action when you reduce an opponent to 0 damage and you can take a -5 penalty to hit and gain a +10 bonus to damage.
Those abilities are situational but they come up often enough to make a difference of DPR in the strength based fighters favour especially with the polearm user feat as the extra 1d4 attack is really only negated by second wind assuming one is using the fighter class. The dex based PC however probably invests in dexterity and gains +1 to hit, damage and AC unless he is level one. If the strength based fighters are human and take one of those feats the dexterity based fighter has probably taken the dual wielding feat which brings his damage up by 1 per hand if he uses a d8 weapon, his AC is also more or less equal to the strength based fighter and he can draw or stow an extra weapon. That last ability is actually very useful as it leads to a major drawback of the strength based character and that is the utility of dexterity.
Most DPR calculations seem to be built around the assumption that the opponent the PC is wailing on is a big sack of hit points. It fails to account for the fact that some encounters start at range or the PCs can’t engage the opponent in melee for whatever reason. Due to the opponents flying or being behind cover and/or on top of a wall or whatever. The dexterity based fighter type has better ranged options due to bows having a bigger dice than thrown weapons and the bow also has a superior range a swell. There is a reasonable chance a thrown weapon will have disadvantage on his attack roll while the dex based user will not. Also you can only stow or draw one weapon in a round unless you have the dual wielder feat.
The dual wielder fighter can stow a weapon, draw a dagger or whatever and throw it, and still have a weapon in hand to threaten with. The strength based fighter can only stow a weapon and draw it the next round. The dex fighter can stow his final weapon the next round and pull out a bow. An archer who traded in the bonus damage for accuracy does not have to make that choice she can just keep using her bow all of the time so in that regard her DPR never drops at all and if she has a spare feat she has probably picked up the sharp shooter feat. That +2 accuracy bonus now starts looking very good with the -5 penalty to hit and multiple attacks at level 6. It also starts to look very good if other party members can buff the PCs even when compared with a fighter using the great weapon style. It starts looking even better if that archer is a ranger and can use spells like hunters quarry and class features like Colossus slayer. The dex build archer will likely start to out damage the strength based PC and hit more often and never have to miss an attack due to range or having to switch weapons.
Of course DPR calculations also ignore the other benefits of dexterity which is saving throws, skills and initiative. Dexterity saves are one of the three super save categories along with wisdom and constitution. Strength not so much as it is not a super save. Strength also only has one skill tied to it while dexterity has 3 skills one of which is one of the super skills of 5E which is stealth. The other super skill is perception BTW. Stealth lets you surprise opponents easier so it is a combat skill and anyone can get it with the criminal back ground which makes you trained in thieves tools as well so you can live without a rogue if you must, use guidance and the help action to gain advantage and 1d4 on your dice rolls to disarm traps and open locks. And going first in this game is still better than not going 1st in most situations especially for a spell caster.
So strength vs dexterity right now is starting to look a bit shaky even in a combat situation. Duel wielders deal close to two handed weapon users and can so it there attacks and even at low levels may actually out damage them as well. By 5th level bows are looking tempting as well over a two handed weapon and the dexterity builds have advantages as well in real combat situations. Outside combat dexterity wins hands down IMHO and even in some cases the word and board fighter will not be that far behind in terms of damage. The final nail I the coffin for me is how good is DPR anyway? It is important to keep it up at somewhat respectable numbers but in my experience it is not as important as several other things which I will rate below.
1. The ability to buff or debuff an ally or NPC. Bless, Vicious mockery Faerie Fire, Bardic Inspiration, haste etc are all very very good. They may not be as powerful as number 2 but they come up a lot more often as some of the best effects are low level spells and abilities that recharge on short rests.
2. Effects that stop NPCs attacking full stop. More powerful than buffing and debuffing these effects are usually more limited or situational. Sleep, hypnotism, surprise rounds, hold person and these effects all favour dexterity over strength and even martial characters can get in on the action with surprise rounds. Gish PCs probably want to be dex based IMHO.
3. Synergy between various party members. The sum is greater than their parts. This means various things combo togather.
4. AoE massive damage. More or less limited to spell casters with spells like fireball. A lot of damage dealing spells are not as good as others (firebolt vs vicious mockery) as due to monster hit point inflation they do not do enough damage.
5. PC damage dealing ability.
Now I could be wrong and it is just an opinion but I would personally rate the 1st 3 effects higher than number 4. You do not want to tank damage of course but you really only need 1-2 specialist as such in the party and you can probably get by without it as long as you do not neglect it either. The good news is if you do focus on uber damage you will not be terrible at it and if your campaign is dungeon hack after dungeon hack and that is more or less it it may even be better in that narrow niche. As mentioned earlier I also excluded the Barbarian and having one of those in the party does not punish the PCs.
Now I will briefly cover encounter powers erm I mean short rests. Depending on how the DM runs his game you can abuse the hell out of this. You may even force the DM to metagame against you but here is a breif list of some of the things that recharge after short rests.
Battlemaster Inspiration dice
Bardic Inspiration at level 5
Second Wind
Healers feat 1d6+4+HD healing ability
Clerics Channel Divinity
Now take into consideration what I said earlier about str vs dexterity and consider how the sharpshooter and great weapon master feats interact with accuracy buffs, multiple attacks and bonus damage. One way around the strength based fighters shortcomings is the Battlemaster Fighter. If you get caught in a situation where you can’t attack anyone commanders strike lets you give one of your attacks up (which you do not get anyway) to someone who can such as the archer. Consider how the archer weapon style interacts with the -5 part of the sharpshooter feat (more or less -3 to hit instead and look at spells like faerie fire and bless to negate that penalty along with bardic inspiration. Also consider a war clerics +10 to hit smite ability and the great weapon master feat. Generally you do not want to over specialise in ranged or melee combat either. A party suggestion
Fighter (battlemaster) doesn’t really matter what style you want make him melee.
Cleric War, make him melee as well strength or dex (wood elf cleric)
Bard College of Lore (control, skill monkey)
Wizard (any I like the diviner) optionally a light or tempest cleric for AoE boom effects
Archer probably a ranger a fighter will do.
This is more or less your 4E party IMHO, have fun making your DM cry just saying. |