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Thread: Why was dex made so powerful?
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2017-08-13, 10:22 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why was dex made so powerful?
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2017-08-13, 11:33 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why was dex made so powerful?
Here's how I see it in play, as a general rule, throug level 10:
Str Fighters, HA Clerics (4/7), and Paladins generally dump Dex with their 8.
Barbarians, Bards, non-HA Clerics (3/7), Druids, and Arcane Artillery (Sorc, 'lock, wiz) generally start Dex 12 or 14. Some light/no armor wearers eventually raise Dex to 16, but Con is more common to raise.
Dex-Fighters, Rogues, Rangers and Monks almost always Max Dex.
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2017-08-13, 12:49 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why was dex made so powerful?
Nope. The campaign I'm playing atm the str melee fighter is performing just as well as the dex melee fighter. Bit more damage, bit more often hit himself (rapier with shield vs great weapon fighter, no shield).
In the campaign I'm DM'ing though, STR has proven superior, since the STR char is still alive and kicking and the DEX char was dead by session 3. Of course, that had nothing to do with the fact that the STR char was a barbarian and the DEX char a rogue that should have kept his ass out of melee in the first place.
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2017-08-13, 02:51 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why was dex made so powerful?
With the people I play with no one cares. Warriors tend towards strength. The rogues and monks like their dexterity. Everyone does their own thing, like what they can do, are happy when others do their own thing, and no one resents anyone for anything. The gaming world as presented on these forums have been so not what my actual play experience has been that it is no wonder I'm often on the opposite side of the so called Forum Norms Of Belief Of How The Game Works, including of course 3E/Pathfinder.
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2017-08-13, 03:47 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why was dex made so powerful?
We did that in earlier editions. As noted below, the "focus fire" thing was one of many things that upset anything like balance.
Unless one was a 1e UA Cavalier, yeah. What was that? My monk, but that's a niche case.
There's that. +1 for all that.
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2017-08-13, 05:31 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why was dex made so powerful?
Err ... 6" penetration arrow is an arrow stuck in your body; 12" penetration is one that went through. That's either 2 holes in your lunges instead of one; or more organs shredded. Lethality wise, 12" > 6".
So, I'm not sure what your point was, but you seem to make an excelent case for strength to damage.
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2017-08-13, 06:10 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why was dex made so powerful?
I'm just so glad that the dude with applicable real life experience is being dismissed consistently by the people who 'think stuff'.
It tells me the D&D community I know and love is alive and well.
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2017-08-13, 07:47 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why was dex made so powerful?
1) why are you assuming that
2) the issue is that strength is required to physically manipulate the object. You know that whole bit about archer skeletons from the middle ages being deformed on one side right?
It will have a marginally longer maximum range, since the arrow will have a marginally higher initial velocity, but it will also experience increased wind resistance, and slow down to just above the velocity of the weaker bow fairly quickly.
On a soft target, the terminal ballistics are also rather similar. Once the arrow head enters the target, there is a great deal of friction along the shaft of the arrow. Again, the resistance increases exponentially with velocity, so the penetration depth only increases a little with increased velocity. If you are at a short enough range for there to be a sizable velocity difference based on the power of the bow, the weaker bow is likely to penetrate all the way through the target, at which point the more powerful bow is not increasing the wound channel at all.
This is not to say that stronger bows are worthless, but they only really do much good against a hard target. The stronger bow can shoot arrows with heavier shafts and heavier heads, these heads can better penetrate armour, and the stronger shaft is less likely to shatter on impact (thereby wasting its kinetic energy).
If you wanted to overly complicate the rules, you could let a stronger character using a properly matched bow ignore a point or two of a target's AC, assuming the target AC was natural armour or heavy armour, but that hardly seems worth the hassle.
Edit: Just thought of a slightly less bad solution. You could impose a minimum strength requirement to use different types of bows, with +1 bows having a higher strength requirement.
You mean a ceiling on the bow, right? You could under draw a medieval longbow, you couldn't overdraw it. The strength of the bow is the ceiling on damage, not the floor.
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2017-08-13, 08:12 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why was dex made so powerful?
No one is saying that it doesn't take a lot of muscle to use a bow effectively; just that the muscle isn't the kind represented by strength... weight lifting, bludgeoning power, etc. Of course archery takes muscle, Dexterity *is* in part that kind of muscle; much like gymnastics takes incredible muscles but they aren't 'DnD Strength Muscles'
Body building competition guys are not going to be superior archers just because of their muscle massLast edited by Naanomi; 2017-08-13 at 08:12 PM.
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2017-08-13, 08:23 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why was dex made so powerful?
Haha, much like my Gymbro mate that when asked if he wants to join a funrun with me just laughs.
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2017-08-13, 08:50 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why was dex made so powerful?
Last edited by Cybren; 2017-08-13 at 08:51 PM.
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2017-08-13, 09:23 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why was dex made so powerful?
Acrobatics is DEX based, strength has nothing to do with it at all
So your arguement is that all successful archers also could lift great weights and carry heavy loads? Are naturally gifted climbers and swimmers? Can all break free from ropes and tangled vines with ease? DnD Dexterity is all about muscles too, just in different groupings... aspects of CON are also probably about muscle groups. There isn't enough differentiation in the system, perhaps, to really tease out the difference
And regardless, at the end of the day, I still contend that the facts of historical archery pale in importance to the *imagey* and *conceptualization* of an archer... which with few exceptions focus on quickness and aim, tend towards stealth and cunning, are much easier to envision in light armor... much more than heavy weapon users toting fullplate that strength mechanically lends itself too
(The exceptions being Goliath, Odysseus, and Houyi that I can recall, both of which get a lot of emphasis on their bow size and strength... though the first eventually settled on a javalin, and the latter two are described in ways that make me feel they rolled really well all the way down the stat list)Last edited by Naanomi; 2017-08-13 at 09:32 PM.
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2017-08-13, 09:54 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why was dex made so powerful?
Barbarians are pushed into Strength. They dont have an option. As are any PAM or GWM fighters. And most Paladins.
Most of my 'martials' soup up Strength and dump Dex. Rangers, Rogues and archery specialist fighters are the exception.
Dex is actually a great stat to dump. You can cover the AC hit with heavy armor, Dex saves are rarely 'save or lose' just generally damaging effects etc. You can cover Acrobatics with Athletics, but Stealth takes a hit (but you're wearing full plate anyways so who cares). The only place it hits you is initiative, which can be partly ameliorated if you desire with the feat that grants +5 to initiative.
Plus (as already mentioned) encumbrance.
I dont know about you guys but I police encumbrance. I see a lot of Strength 8 guys really struggling at low level to carry even basic adventuring equipment, food, water, weapons and armor.Last edited by Malifice; 2017-08-13 at 09:55 PM.
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2017-08-13, 10:08 PM (ISO 8601)
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2017-08-13, 11:59 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why was dex made so powerful?
Female gymnasts perhaps. It's why they tend to be petite, but good leg muscles help. Male gymnasts are muscular. They need upper body strength for the pommel horse and rings along with dexterity. Dexterity is a bit more important for high bar, vault, and floor, but they need strength as well for grip on the bar and leverage to gain height.
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2017-08-14, 07:24 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why was dex made so powerful?
Naanomi's point (I think) is that in the game, Acrobatics is covered by DEX, and that therefore the strength that is required to perform Acrobatics in the real world is represented by DEX. I don't think anyone was suggesting that acrobats don't have to be strong, regardless of sex.
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2017-08-14, 08:23 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why was dex made so powerful?
In D&D terms yes. Especially since D&D doesn't have the granularity to handle different strengths to different sides of your body.
And regardless, at the end of the day, I still contend that the facts of historical archery pale in importance to the *imagey* and *conceptualization* of an archer... which with few exceptions focus on quickness and aim, tend towards stealth and cunning, are much easier to envision in light armor... much more than heavy weapon users toting fullplate that strength mechanically lends itself too
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2017-08-14, 08:50 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why was dex made so powerful?
Last edited by Naanomi; 2017-08-14 at 08:53 AM.
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2017-08-14, 09:31 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why was dex made so powerful?
I am quoting you, because I want to use this term 'post-hoc justification,' but I am (hopefully) aiming this at both 'sides' of this equally.
Hit points are a shoddy post-hoc justification. Separating Dexterity and Strength as two whole, discrete, and separable traits is a shoddy post-hoc justification. Pretending any of this is anything other than a justification to create gamable characters is holding the game up to expectations it never claims to meet. Any one of us can pick Dex to damage, or Str to damage, and then find real world or thematic points to justify it and declare those points as more important than the points those who disagree bring up. But those are almost the definition of post-hoc justification for the conclusions we wanted to reach in the first place.
We can all make appeals to 'realism' and then use it to justify our pre-conceived notions of what is most important, and it's just as fallacious as the other sides. The truth is that reality is exceedingly complex, and any decision we make in the game is going to leave out some portion of it. But the idea that position X is more realistic is pretty suspicious.
And again I mean this going towards both camps.
^^^ this.
I would call that an argument to reduce the influence of attributes on to-hit and damage, and bring more focus to competency (perhaps proficiency bonus to damage instead?).
You two aren't going to agree, because you have different conceptions of what the attributes mean.Last edited by Willie the Duck; 2017-08-14 at 09:47 AM.
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2017-08-14, 09:47 AM (ISO 8601)
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2017-08-14, 09:50 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why was dex made so powerful?
Most people seem to use feats, which definitely makes Strength based martial types a lot more popular.
Overall, however, it seems that things like 'does the DM enforce encumbrance?,' 'does the DM hand out more dex-based magic items in the treasure if the party has dex-based characters?' and 'does the DM let people get inventive with acrobatics replacing athletics for solving certain situations?' has a strong influence on this.
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2017-08-14, 09:51 AM (ISO 8601)
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2017-08-14, 09:53 AM (ISO 8601)
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2017-08-14, 10:15 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why was dex made so powerful?
Agreed. In my experience, asking why ability scores work the way they do and comparing things to real-world examples just makes things less clear. Why is DEX (or STR, or CON, or ...) the way it is? Because of a few things: a) D&D tradition, b) a semi-arbitrary slicing of the multi-dimensional spectrum of human ability into 6 discrete elements will always have oddities, and c) the system is an abstraction for game purposes. The real characters don't have ability scores--that's just the game's way of exposing their capabilities to the players. It's a UI, not an attempt at accurate emulation of in-universe reality.
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2017-08-14, 11:36 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why was dex made so powerful?
Health is not meat, so damage is not how much something is impaled inside you. My level 2, 20 health fighter isn't getting stabbed through the heart three times before he goes down. If I get hit in the chest with an arrow in real life, it doesn't matter if it went in 6" or 12" since I'm unlikely to be in fighting condition either way.
Health is an abstraction. Therefore damage is not directly related to how much an attack hurts me. It represents how long I can stay in the combat.
The point with the guns is that it doesn't matter how strong you are when shooting a gun, it matters what gun you use and how far away you are. A bow is (mostly) the same way. You can overdraw a recurve bow, but you get severely diminishing returns. So the guy who pulls his 28" bow to 36" isn't going much further than the guy who draws it to 28".
3rd had composite bows of various str values to represent bows with a heavier draw. This allowed you to use dex to hit and add str to damage, up to the value of the bow. They got rid of that in 5e in favor of using dex to damage to represent both the ability to hit and where you hit effectively.
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2017-08-14, 12:10 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why was dex made so powerful?
The issue with Dex is less that it is too powerful and more that it is too necessary.
Every class can benefit from Con, an equal opportunity ability score.
Non magic users can focus on Dex or Str and dump everything else.
Magic users have to focus on Wis, Int, or Cha, and also have to have notable Dex or Str.
Any balance problem between Dex and Str goes away if you use encumbrance. (Why is encumbrance the only variant rule that nobody uses?) If the encumbrance rules sound too complicated, change them to permit a player to carry a number of objects equal to his strength score. Count a pouch of gold or quiver of arrows, etc., as one object.
But casters are all MAD and usually can benefit only from Dex rather than Str. Fix this problem by allowing their primary stats to be useful for defense, and the Dex problem will quickly go away.
Ways ability scores could be used for defense:
Dex: dodge attacks
Str: wear heavy armor that blocks attacks
Cha: dissuade attacks (your natural Charisma causes assailants to question whether they actually want to harm you: they lose heart when they attack you, and miss more often)
Wis: sniff out attacks (your improved Insight and Perception help you notice attacks before they come, giving you a better chance of escaping)
Int: understand attacks (your experience and Intelligence have taught you how attacks work and what makes them tick: you also know how to adjust your position to minimize their effects)
Armor: You can replace your Dexterity modifier with your Charisma, Wisdom, or Intelligence modifier when you calculate your AC. You may not add the same modifier twice.Last edited by robbie374; 2017-08-14 at 12:22 PM.
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2017-08-14, 12:29 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why was dex made so powerful?
Eh... Not a fan of that. It makes casters (including half and third casters) too good, since they now pump EVERYTHING off one stat (except HP).
Plus, what do you do for Monks? Do they get Wisdom*2 to AC?
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2017-08-14, 12:34 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why was dex made so powerful?
On Monks, that's why I specified that you can only add a given modifier once.
Non-casters already "pump everything off one stat". Why shouldn't casters?
Half- and third-casters are still MAD, as they have to use Int, Wis, or Cha for magic and Str or Dex for non-magic. They can choose a difference AC calculation, but they still need multiple strong ability scores.Last edited by robbie374; 2017-08-14 at 12:39 PM.
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2017-08-14, 12:39 PM (ISO 8601)
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