ooc: The pace is through difficult terrain. The party gets to choose pace. See this: Travel Pace
Exactly, which is why Aubric IC suggested slowing down to use stealth.
Originally Posted by AquaDyne
... he scans the surroundings, asking "should we slow down to be more stealthy here?" to the party in general. It seems a suggestion, open to debate. "Given our friend Berris's warning, and this terrain, we should be on guard."
In my quest for a simplified version of 5e I've read a lot of varients recently and noticed that designers often redistribute Dex's modifiers.
In 5e, your Dex modifier applies to Dex saves, ranged weapon attacks, armour class and initiative. It's a very hard working ability that makes Dex-based characters a bit more efficient to build.
I've seen designers move initiative bonus or ranged weapon attacks to Wis, for example. What do you think of this idea, not for STK but in general?
There are stats and rolls that are either/or's. For instance, a lot of times I might say "give me an athletics or acrobatics roll". And different spell casters depends on different attributes now. Wizards need Intelligence and warlocks need charisma.
For me, I learned a lesson a long time ago from a man who ran a huge Little League. Nobody has to argues with more people than that guy did. He told me "The rule book is your friend. If you stick by the rules you can always point to the rules to end the arguing."
As for using Wisdom or an different prime attribute, it feels to me that initiative is specifically a Dex thing. There might be situational modifiers that a DM might optionally confer but those types of things would be rare because of the Little League guy guidance. It leads to why her and not me? questions.
Well I am not sure there are any purely Dex based character classes. The closest is a Rogue, but even they need Wis for Perception or Int if they plan to become an Arcane Trickster (and of course Con for HP) The general idea of the stats (IMO) is that each class has a primary stat among Str, Int, Wis, and Cha and that Dex and Con apply to all. Everyone needs HPS for Con and everyone needs AC or Ranged Attacks for Dex. Even if you take a fighter and wear heavy armour with good Dex you can still use a bow effectively. Moving Ranged attacks to Wis (or Int even as it is the same concept) makes that stat unbalanced. Forex, if I now take a Cleric and I want him to use a bow I can give him plate mail for AC and not worry so much that I am negating his Dex benefit. Same for a Fighter wearing plate mail. Bump up Wisdom to get the Perception bonus AND now the Ranged attack Bonus. Dex is less important. Same if you made it Int and you have a Wizard using Darts. Focus on Con and use spells for AC. No Dex really needed anymore. Yes, you lose an initiative plus, but you still get to go every round so not that big a deal.
Dex has many benefits, yes, but then Perception is perhaps the most important Skill in the game and that is Wis based. Adding Ranged benefit to Wis is unbalancing IMO.
[[ it feels to me that initiative is specifically a Dex thing ]]
Well ... dex is certainly involved, but you have to be able to see / understand that there is a threat that would initiate that sort of reaction <shrug>
It's certainly interesting. About the only regular criticism I see of 5e is that Dex does too much. If you go with a Dex-based fighter, frex, you can skimp on Str entirely. You'll have cheaper, lighter armour that's better for stealth, yet an equivalent or better AC, better initiative, better Dex saves (which are quite common) and you'll automatically be better at ranged weapons. If you're sword and board, you don't sacrifice any damage either (rapier is 1d8 damage and can use Dex).
Maybe it's Str that doesn't do enough? I mean, there's an argument to be had that all ranged weapon attacks should be Str, not just thrown. A windlass crossbow was a heavy, unwieldy piece of kit that needed far more strength to operate than dexterity. As for longbows, weaklings need not apply no matter how supple.
You lose Damage if you take a Dex fighter. You can end up with the same attack bonus but you have to use light weapons. Several 1D10 and the 2D6 Great Sword become unavailable. You can attack with two weapons, but unless you spend a Feat you have a minus to the 2nd attack and must hit twice to equal the damage of the Great Weapons.
Also, you cannot get the same AC. If you discount the Disadvantage to Stealth (as the Plate wearing fighter would have that Disadvantage anyway) the best AC you can have is a 17 (Half-Plate with a max +2 Dex bonus). If you want the full +4 Dex Bonus (for an 18 Dex) you cannot wear anything heavier than Studded Leather for a total of AC16. Since you pointed out the Stealth bonus I'd presume it would be that or a Breastplate which would be the heaviest you could wear with no Stealth penalty but still gives you a 16.
Full Plate and Splint are better AC (18&17, and that is not counting another +1 for a shield that a 2 weapon Dex fighter also can't use, although granted that most of the top damage weapons are 2 handed so no shield), given a Stealth penalty, and Chain Mail is equal but all of those are out of reach without a high Str.
So, assuming your Str bonus is equal to your Dex bonus as far as attack bonuses go you have a single attack at 2d6 or 1d10 versus 2 attacks (one with a penalty to hit) with weapons that cannot do more damage than 1D6 each (you CAN'T use a Rapier as while it has the "Finesse" property to allow you to use your Dex bonus instead of your Str bonus it does NOT have the "Light" property which means it cannot be used as part of a two weapon attack sequence).
Additionally, to make the second attack you must use up your Bonus action for the round, so (with a Rogue forex) no Dodge, Disengage, Hide or Dash.
All in all a high Str fighter with heavy armour is just better at fighting (dealing damage and not being hit). If your goal is to be sneaky, and you're willing to accept the penalty to the second attack and giving up your Bonus action every round then you could take Dex, but your AC will be worse and you won't do as much damage on average.
[[ it feels to me that initiative is specifically a Dex thing ]]
Well ... dex is certainly involved, but you have to be able to see / understand that there is a threat that would initiate that sort of reaction <shrug>
Initiative doesn't always mean "attack". If you have initiative, you just go first. Maybe it's to parley before combat? It's only when your turn is. The other stuff, understanding what you're seeing, is where other skills like insight might come into play.
Quote
About the only regular criticism I see of 5e is that Dex does too much.
The biggest thing about Dex is that it's the most important defensive attribute. It impacts AC; it's the save you need to use to evade fireballs; it's used to escape a grapple; it helps you hide.
My post made more sense in my own head, Zeim. In my head I was comparing a Str 18 fighter in heavy armour and using a great sword with Great Weapon Fighting Style as the optimal build vs a Dex 18 fighter in light armour using a sword and board with Duelling Style as the optimal build.
Nep, yours and MikeD's discussion of initiative being just turn order has made me realise why designers make another common change to 5e. Replacing rolled initiative with set initiative like players go first or clockwise round the table etc.. I guess if Perception, Insight and other skills are used to sense threat, initiative is purely an abstract method of determining turn order. Maybe nothing should modify initiative except magic/supernatural abilities.
I quite like the idea of all weapon attacks being Str modded and Dex being an AC, Dex save only. Differences in style of fighting could then be handled by class features and so on.
You can always min-max a build to get the most out of it. I was comparing 'base models'. While I do like Dex fighters, those are mostly bowmen. For HTH, I don't like losing your Bonus Action every round in order to get a second attack, at a minus, with the added limitation that your weapons can only do d6 damage and you can't use a shield.
I've seen min-max dex based builds that are crazy. I'm playing a gloomstalker in my brother's game and it's crazy good. At 7th level he'll be a Gloomstalker 5/Fighter 2. At that point he gets the following attacks in round 1: Attack action: 2 (normal) attacks + a dread ambusher attack (where damage is 1d8) Action Surge: 2 (normal) attacks (assuming you still have it available and want to use it) Bonus Action: 1 crossbow attack (assuming you qualify)
He'll have taken the sharpshooter and crossbow expert feats. The sharpshooter feat lets him add +10 damage to each attack if he takes a -5 to hit. That's a potential extra 50 points of damage in the first round.
We're going to need to create Forge accounts for the invite link to work at all. We're not the first people to experience this, the question was asked and answered here:
OK. Some issues solved. I'm sure some will crop up.
I fixed some issues and recorded a short video - no sound.
Log on as yourselves. If you don't have an account, make one. Easy and free.
When you log on, sometimes you'll see the error message that it's taking too long to load. Ignore it for at least 3 minutes. Sometimes that's just true, but most of the time just waiting an extra minute works.
Once you log on, unless I'm online too and have unpaused the game, the game will be paused. You won't be able to move your token. But there's a fix and I demonstrate that. On the bottom of the screen is a macro bar. I've added a macro to everyone's macro bar. Hover over it and it says "Toggle Game Pause" and that's just what it does. When you click on it the status of the game changes from paused to unpaused, and if you click on it again it changes to paused again.
Now you can move your token. Also, if you want to see your character sheet, double-click on your token. Notice that there are tabs on the right of the sheet. Yes, these are your current sheets. They, like the links above, are tied to the DnDBeyond characters.
At this point we're just going to use Forge as a game board and not take advantage of all the bells and whistles of a real-time remote game.
All, I'm leaving on a 5-day road trip with my wife and may not be able post until at least next Wednesday. I'll try and check in to answer questions as this event unfolds.
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In my head I was comparing a Str 18 fighter in heavy armour and using a great sword with Great Weapon Fighting Style as the optimal build vs a Dex 18 fighter in light armour using a sword and board with Duelling Style as the optimal build.