The 'Other' Combat Styles

[Loxagn]

Alright, so. I understand that Archery is woefully underpowered in terms of damage (and if using bows, MAD), and TWF is really just inviting a 'flurry of misses' effect. Sword/Board is even more subpar, what with the amount of uselessness a shield bonus to AC ends up being (existence of animated shields notwithstanding).

So I guess my question is... what would need to be done to make these combat styles viable in comparison to THF?

[StreamOfTheSky]

Pathfinder largely fixed archery, though they did it the boring way. All archery is good for is pumping out damage each round. Still, it's something. They did the following:
1) Manyshot is just another attack on your rapid shot now
2) Deadly Aim, a ranged power attack feat
3) Clustered Shots, a feat to apply a foe's damage resistance only once per round - to the total damage dealt. Yes, the feat may as well have not beat around the bush and just said, "lulz, DR." Still, DR was probably archery's biggest problem in 3E.
4) Adjustable is a cheap 1000 gp flat cost to apply to bows to make them automatically match your str bonus. Sorely needed.
5) Point Blank Master, a feat to shoot without provoking (3E's Arrow Mind spell is better, earlier, and more accessible to all classes, though)
6) There's no 50% "shoot your ally" chance for firing into a grapple any more.

Also, you forgot the worst combat styles of all -- single weapon 1H (other hand empty) and unarmed. They're even more terrible than TWF.

[Gemini476]

Well, for TWF you could take a look at the maths to see how it stacks up to THF and where it can be improved.

Rob the Ranger has a longsword, a shortsword, and Two-Weapon Fighting. That's -2/-2 to-hit and 1d8+Str/1d6+0,5Str damage.

Fred the Fighter has a greatsword and Power Attack. If he Power Attacks for two points, that's -2 to-hit for 2d6+1,5Str+4.

Rob's average damage, if he always hits, is roughly 1d8+1d6+1,5Str. However, both his weapons have a 19-20/x2 crit range. His average damage (if he hits on a 2) is 8,34+1,56375Str.

Fred's average damage is 7+4+1,5Str, or 11+1,5Str.

For Rob to surpass Fred in damage, he needs to find some source of bonus damage. +2 damage/hit would let him overcome a Power Attack with the same to-hit.
He could also have 6,4% of his Str bonus be greater than the bonus from Power Attack, but that's not really big enough.

Basically, TWF and THF are roughly balanced when seen in a vacuum. Once you start introducing Power Attack and magic weapon costs, however? Yeah.


Oh, and you need too many feats. I'd suggest collapsing them into a single feat, or better yet just making everyone capable with it.


For shields, I don't know. Making AC more important might help, since as-is monster to-hits get so high that you often shouldn't even bother with it (despite a +5 Tower Shield giving +9 AC.) Maybe make shields give miss chance? That could be useful.


Archery suffers from a lack of support, but also from the archetypical dungeon crawl being in small corridors where range is not that much of an advantage. The genre itself is against it, in other words.
Nevertheless, giving archery some Power Attack-esque feat, some ways to add bonus damage, and removing Wind Wall and similar spells would all help a bunch.

[StreamOfTheSky]

TWF can be helped by making the TWF feat chain into one feat that auto-scales at the proper BAB (solves feat tax *and* stupidly high dex requirements in one fell swoop). Of course, you'd need to alter the ranger TWF combat style. I already do a similar thing for Two Weapon Defense. its a single feat and improves as you get more off-hand attacks on its own. TWF mainly needs unrelated/outside help, though. Sources of bonus damage, and the ability to move and full attack. Both are readily available with the right build. The other problem is the obscene cost of magical weapons and having to pay that price twice. You'd...need to overhaul the magic item prices to fix that.

[Thiyr]

Personally, I've been enjoying this overhaul (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=3140.0) of TWF.

[Morty]

There's only so much you can do to fix the combat styles when the only goal of mundane combat is dealing as much damage as you can and AC scales really badly, unfortunately.

[John Longarrow]

When I DM, I never seem to have issues with THF outperforming archery. Probably because I use environments other than dungeons a lot.

I've had to explain to a few people that I don't cater to "Point blank Melee" though, and had someone get upset when their charger build was almost useless in an outdoor environment. Course most of my players bring plenty of missile weapons, so it seems pretty balanced.

TWF gets very useful only when you build dex-centric builds that generally require sneak attack to increase their damage. Good on a sword-sage, not so good on most other builds.

[OldTrees1]

TWF currently is hit by many factors
1) The initial -10 / -6 penalties are ridiculously out of balance for an extra attack.
2) To reduce the -10 / -6 penalties there is a feat tax. The basic styles should not have feat taxes. Feats should be used for further specialization/proficiency in a style.
3) Two Weapon Fighting ends up with less damage from each attack because the prime sources of damage(Power Attack and Strength) have less effect on lighter weapons.


Now the design in theory could have worked but the numbers used wreaked the implementation.
THF is designed to deal some multiple of normal damage.
TWF is designed to hit more often with less accurate attacks slightly less than normal damage

Step 1:Design TWF with one handed weapons (normal damage) as the base and then reward users of lighter weapons with some benefit.
Step 2:Change the TWF accuracy penalties such that
Number of TWF attacks * TWF accuracy * Normal Damage
=
Normal number of attacks * Normal accuracy * Normal Damage * THF damage multiplier
Step 3:Differentiate the styles by reducing the estimated damage and replace the lost damage with effects that fit the style.

Sword & Board can be fixed by balancing this equation
Normal number of attacks * Normal accuracy * Normal Damage * THF damage multiplier
=
Normal number of attacks * Normal accuracy * Normal Damage + Defensive benefit

[Lans]

My TWF fix involves taking a page from the abberant/ combat focus feats and having the the first TWF feat redeuce the penalties and give an additional base attack bonus attack for every additional TWF feat you have. If you have more than 3 TWF feats you can make an off hand attack for every main hand attack you make.

For other feats you have TW defense giving +1 for every feat you have, if you have more than 3 let it deflect 1 attack a round as a free action

TW Rend have it deal xd6+1.5 strength, if you have more than 3 TWF feats have it save vs stagger effect.

Problem is that I'm missing a good 4th feat

[Slipperychicken]

Pathfinder largely fixed archery, though they did it the boring way. All archery is good for is pumping out damage each round. Still, it's something.

I think it would be even better if they allowed people to perform combat maneuvers at range, such as disarm and sunder. How awesome would it be if you could shoot someone's holy symbol off, or knock a knife out of someone's hands? Or even more awesomely, shoot projectiles out of the air, like if someone shoots a fireball, and then you intercept it with an arrow or bullet so it detonates prematurely, catching the caster in the explosion.

[ArendK]

I think it would be even better if they allowed people to perform combat maneuvers at range, such as disarm and sunder. How awesome would it be if you could shoot someone's holy symbol off, or knock a knife out of someone's hands? Or even more awesomely, shoot projectiles out of the air, like if someone shoots a fireball, and then you intercept it with an arrow or bullet so it detonates prematurely, catching the caster in the explosion.

All feasible; if those kind of actions fit the theme of the game you and your GM are running, go for it.
Ranged Disarm? CMB-4 vs. CMD+size bonus of the object in question. Feats would be used to mitigate the penalty.
A ranged counterspell? Ready an action to "counterspell." a well placed arrow would cancel the spells effect; maybe a feat would allow the archer to alter the effect in some way as far as target and placement.

[Slipperychicken]

All feasible; if those kind of actions fit the theme of the game you and your GM are running, go for it.
Ranged Disarm? CMB-4 vs. CMD+size bonus of the object in question. Feats would be used to mitigate the penalty.
A ranged counterspell? Ready an action to "counterspell." a well placed arrow would cancel the spells effect; maybe a feat would allow the archer to alter the effect in some way as far as target and placement.

It's not even so much a thematic thing: people can do stuff like that in real life. PF by default only gives that option to a few archetypes, as if it takes unique training to aim at a weapon instead of center mass.


EDIT: One of the main reasons that nonmagical combat is so boring in D&D and its derivatives is that nonmagical combatants are given far fewer options in a fight than their real-world counterparts.

[ArendK]

Isn't that why we have the Path of War/Tome of Battle books? To increase the options available to non-magical classes beyond "I swing" or "I shoot" and give them something more...descriptive/effective?

[HammeredWharf]

Tome of Battle already fixes TWF and S&B to a certain degree. TWF Warblades and, to a lesser degree, Swordsages can be very impressive, while S&B Crusaders have some uses for their shields that don't suck. Still, even they are better off with an animated shield or a buckler.

[Yogibear41]

Animated shields will always be better than holding one, unless you get some sort of damage bonus to your other attacks just for holding a shield in your hand, or holding a shield and having an animated shield caused both ACs to stack, but that just begs to have a can of worms opened for 5 animated shields floating around your character, which honestly should up your AC a ton anyway.... until you make them move to actually try and attack something...

[Seppo87]

TWF's potential is underrated.
If you have big static bonuses to damage, as a swordsage (dex+wis+boost+sneakattack) having more attacks is extremely beneficial.
If you can stack more bonuses on your damage through dipping and feats it becomes more and more efficient.
Consider stuff like Hit 'n run Fighter, Champion of Corellon, Slippers of Battledancing, Swashbuckler, Shiba Protector, craven, knowledge devotion, Ferocity rage variant, Iaijutsu Master

It's not MAD (multiple attribute dependent) it's MSB (multiple sources benefits). Consider the existence of Belt of Magnificence. One primary stat (either DEX, CHA or WIS) and multiple stacking bonuses from all the others.

The main benefit of not being a STR based build (as opposed to a DEX + secondary wis, for example) is that you can actually have decent AC, initiative and saves, while still dealing hundreds of damage per round.

You can be 90% proficient at TWFing with one feat + gloves of the balanced hand. You get the 2 best attacks, saving 2 feats that would only improve your effeciveness by 10% or less.

"Flurry of misses" only happens if you don't know what you're doing.
Any minmaxer worth his salt can easily build a TWF character that realiably hits CR-appropriate enemies

[Blackhawk748]

Sword and Board isnt actually that suboptimal, your just doing something different than THF, sorta. It revolves around charging and using the Shield Slam/Shield Charge feats to trip and daze opponents, and you can easily mix it with Dungeuoncrasher if you want to slam them into a wall while doing all of this.

[Seppo87]

Also note that many TOB strikes deal fixed damage, making sword and board a viable option (not optimized, just good)

[Yorrin]

An entire thread about "other" combat styles and nobody's mentioned natural attacks yet? While not available to as broad a number of melee builds as THF or some of the others it's probably the only style that can compete with THF in terms of raw damage potential and existing support.

[Urpriest]

The thing about Sword and Board is that, while there are decent shield-bashing builds, that's not really what fans of the Sword and Board concept are after. What they want, as far as I can tell, is for offense/defense to be a meaningful tradeoff and for shields to offer a meaningful defense.

Even if they do, though, animated shields exist. In a world in which animated shields defend just as well as shields wielded personally, the whole "sword and board" archetype would be "sword and animated board". It's only really because some players are averse to characters that "look" magical (despite being decked out in enough magical gear that detect magic can see them from space) that anyone wants a functional sword and board archetype that doesn't use an animated shield.

Now granted, there is a loophole here. "In a world in which animated shields defend just as well as shields wielded personally." Compare the animated shield to the dancing weapon. One must be loosed as a standard action, only is up for a few rounds, is equivalent to a +4 bonus, and arguably can't do everything a wielded version can do. The other lasts all day, is equivalent to a +2 bonus (on a cheaper item type), and covers the sole function that shields have without feats backing them up, namely granting an AC bonus.

If Dancing Weapons worked like Animated Shields, everyone would have one. Basically, to make "sword and board" worthwhile within the setting, there has to be a reason why a character wouldn't just get an animated shield. That means making shield rules just as granular and mechanically diverse as weapon rules, so that "I can't do everything I could do with a real shield" is a meaningful concern not just in terms of bashing and the like but in terms of raw defense.

[Vogonjeltz]

I think it would be even better if they allowed people to perform combat maneuvers at range, such as disarm and sunder. How awesome would it be if you could shoot someone's holy symbol off, or knock a knife out of someone's hands? Or even more awesomely, shoot projectiles out of the air, like if someone shoots a fireball, and then you intercept it with an arrow or bullet so it detonates prematurely, catching the caster in the explosion.

This exists.


You can disarm a foe from a distance.
Prerequisite
Point Blank Shot (PH) , Precise Shot (PH) , DEX 15, base attack bonus +5,
Benefit
Choose one type of ranged weapon with which you are proficient. You can make a disarm attempt with this weapon as long as your target is within 30 feet.
Special
A fighter may select Ranged Disarm as one of his fighter bonus feats. you can gain this feat multiple times, it's effects do not stack. Each time you take this feat it applies to a new ranged weapon. when using this feat, a character gains no benefit from the improved disarm feat

There are also ranged sunder, and ranged pin feats.

[Slipperychicken]

This exists.



There are also ranged sunder, and ranged pin feats.

That might be so, but they should be default combat maneuvers instead of feats. People can plausibly attempt that stuff without specially training for it (shooting something held in someone's hands isn't significantly different from shooting any other moving target), and they can do so with many different types of weapons, instead of just one.

[StreamOfTheSky]

An entire thread about "other" combat styles and nobody's mentioned natural attacks yet? While not available to as broad a number of melee builds as THF or some of the others it's probably the only style that can compete with THF in terms of raw damage potential and existing support.

Which is probably why it hasn't been brought up, considering the thread is about fixing the under-powered combat styles. You can certainly mention it for completeness's sake, but it needs no help.


This exists.



There are also ranged sunder, and ranged pin feats.

Yeah, but disarm's situational so few bother with it; sunder is situational AND destroys treasure... Ranged Pin is the only decent one, which is why it actually gets taken some times. I love ranged pin, I'd like to see more stuff like that.

And along a similar vein to the Wall of Blades maneuver (use attack roll as AC to deflect an attack), having a higher level one for archers to immediate action shoot at someone's arm/weapon from range to make an attack miss an ally would be awesome.


That might be so, but they should be default combat maneuvers instead of feats. People can plausibly attempt that stuff without specially training for it, and they can do so with many different types of weapons, instead of just one.

Also this...Shouldn't be specific to one weapon.

[squiggit]

It's only really because some players are averse to characters that "look" magical (despite being decked out in enough magical gear that detect magic can see them from space) that anyone wants a functional sword and board archetype that doesn't use an animated shield.
Er.. No. It's a style and aesthetic thing. The mechanics might be the same but the style and look between someone sword and board and someone who just happens to have a shielding floating around him is entirely different.

Not sure where this "only people who hate magic like this" thing came from.

[StreamOfTheSky]

At a bare minimum, you should probably houserule Animated to say that it *only* gives you the shield's AC bonus, plus enhancements and special properties / augment crystal. A lot easier than adding "does not work with animated shields if they're not being actually held" to all the other feats and maneuvers and stuff, like Shield Slam or Shield Counter.
And yeah, I don't think you should be able to use animated floating shields for that stuff.
I would not want to nerf/ban the basic function of "get a bunch more AC for a reasonable price, and maybe some magical properties" of animated shields. PF did that by making it short duration like dancing weapon, and now no one uses animated shields at all. It ended up just being a nerf to martial AC (wizards never used animated anyway; they can just wear a mithral buckler and not care, they only need 1 hand).

[Urpriest]

Er.. No. It's a style and aesthetic thing. The mechanics might be the same but the style and look between someone sword and board and someone who just happens to have a shielding floating around him is entirely different.

Not sure where this "only people who hate magic like this" thing came from.

That's precisely the problem. The "aesthetic" of high-ish level magic is "your gear is now floating around you". That's Ioun stones, that's half the armor sets in WoW and comparable MMOs...a quarter of the character portraits in the first chapter of the Epic Level Handbook have floating stuff around their heads. Part of how D&D depicts high level, high-magic characters is with floating gear, so rejecting the fact that higher level characters switch from a carried shield to an animated shield feels about as aesthetically backwards to me as rejecting the flames on a flaming sword. It's just part of how a D&D character evolves aesthetically with level.