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dropbear8mybaby
2016-10-14, 10:53 PM
I love the concept, hate the implementation. In particular all the flat bonuses given out.

Here's a revised version of fighting styles I'm considering using:

All fighting styles are replaced with the following rules:


Archery. You do not suffer disadvantage on ranged weapon attacks made due to being within 5 feet of a hostile creature who can see you and is not incapacitated.
Defence. You may use your reaction to impose disadvantage on one attack against you per turn.
Duelling. No longer exists. Replaced with “Sidearm Fighting”.
Great Weapon Fighting. You may reroll the weapon’s damage dice for an attack you make with any melee weapon that you are wielding with two hands. You must use the new roll. The weapon must have the two-handed or versatile property for you to gain this benefit.
Protection. You may use your reaction to impose disadvantage on one attack against an ally other than you as long as you are within melee weapon reach of either the ally you are protecting or the attacker who you are imposing disadvantage on.
Sidearm Fighting. You may reroll the weapon’s damage dice for an attack you make with any melee weapon that you are wielding with one hand. You must use the new roll. The weapon must not have the two-handed or heavy property for you to gain this benefit.


I didn't include the TWF entry because that's something I'm working on separately and has changes to other rules that I'm considering which is too much to explain here and takes focus away from the above.

Princess
2016-10-15, 06:17 PM
I love the concept, hate the implementation. In particular all the flat bonuses given out.

Here's a revised version of fighting styles I'm considering using:

All fighting styles are replaced with the following rules:


Archery. You do not suffer disadvantage on ranged weapon attacks made due to being within 5 feet of a hostile creature who can see you and is not incapacitated.
Defence. You may use your reaction to impose disadvantage on one attack against you per turn.
Duelling. No longer exists. Replaced with “Sidearm Fighting”.
Great Weapon Fighting. You may reroll the weapon’s damage dice for an attack you make with any melee weapon that you are wielding with two hands. You must use the new roll. The weapon must have the two-handed or versatile property for you to gain this benefit.
Protection. You may use your reaction to impose disadvantage on one attack against an ally other than you as long as you are within melee weapon reach of either the ally you are protecting or the attacker who you are imposing disadvantage on.
Sidearm Fighting. You may reroll the weapon’s damage dice for an attack you make with any melee weapon that you are wielding with one hand. You must use the new roll. The weapon must not have the two-handed or heavy property for you to gain this benefit.


I didn't include the TWF entry because that's something I'm working on separately and has changes to other rules that I'm considering which is too much to explain here and takes focus away from the above.

These are interesting and I see where you're going with this, but Archery, for example, is clearly worse using this system than the default one for a party with the tactical knowhow to keep an archer out of melee most of the time. What about removing penalties from half cover, as well?

Disadvantage for the defense trait is problematic because reactions are very limited, so this means prioritizing your fighter not getting hit *instead* of hitting a moving opponent - there's a clear opportunity cost here that might not be appealing to players, especially since this makes the Sentinel feat less worthwhile.

dropbear8mybaby
2016-10-15, 06:29 PM
These are interesting and I see where you're going with this, but Archery, for example, is clearly worse using this system than the default one for a party with the tactical knowhow to keep an archer out of melee most of the time.
I have honestly never DM'd or played in such a party and I've DM'd and played in a lot of groups with hundreds of people over the last few decades. Not saying they don't exist, but even with Pathfinder nutters, I've never seen that level of co-ordination and tactics in a group so my anecdotal experience informs me that this is such a rarity as to be a non-consideration for rules building.


What about removing penalties from half cover, as well?
Someone else pointed out (Kryx maybe?) that cover penalties are actually fairly important and that removing them is an incredibly powerful, bordering on broken, ability to possess. I'm somewhat in agreeance with that but only because I enforce the cover bonuses pretty strictly in my groups.


Disadvantage for the defense trait is problematic because reactions are very limited, so this means prioritizing your fighter not getting hit *instead* of hitting a moving opponent - there's a clear opportunity cost here that might not be appealing to players, especially since this makes the Sentinel feat less worthwhile.
When you have competing choices and no one is clearly better than the other, then I think that's balanced. Then the argument becomes whether or not you're crowding that resource, but I think that players who prefer a defensive style will already favour defence over attack. I get that the original ability gives you defence and still allows you that attack, but I think that's also what makes it too good.

What other way could a defensive fighting style work that doesn't give a flat bonus to AC?

PapaQuackers
2016-10-15, 06:50 PM
I love the concept, hate the implementation. In particular all the flat bonuses given out.

Here's a revised version of fighting styles I'm considering using:

All fighting styles are replaced with the following rules:


Archery. You do not suffer disadvantage on ranged weapon attacks made due to being within 5 feet of a hostile creature who can see you and is not incapacitated.

This is pretty antithetical to the nature of being an archer. Being in melee range is nothing that a good archer would do and I don't think this is the way I'd encourage that fighting style.

Defense*. You may use your reaction to impose disadvantage on one attack against you per turn.

This is interesting to a point, but it's definitely much more powerful in the early game than the previous one was. +1 AC vs Disadvantage is a pretty huge difference.

Dueling*. No longer exists. Replaced with “Sidearm Fighting”.

Rip Dueling

Great Weapon Fighting. You may re-roll the weapon’s damage dice for an attack you make with any melee weapon that you are wielding with two hands. You must use the new roll. The weapon must have the two-handed or versatile property for you to gain this benefit.

This is literally the same thing as the other Great Weapon Fighting one except flat out better because you can do it whenever you like. It doesn't even have a limit on it so you could do it every single attack.

Protection. You may use your reaction to impose disadvantage on one attack against an ally other than you as long as you are within melee weapon reach of either the ally you are protecting or the attacker who you are imposing disadvantage on.

Just say 5ft instead of melee weapon range since certain melee weapons do have an extended reach. Also doesn't stipulate that I must use a shield so this one is inherently better than the one in the PHB.

Sidearm Fighting. You may reroll the weapon’s damage dice for an attack you make with any melee weapon that you are wielding with one hand. You must use the new roll. The weapon must not have the two-handed or heavy property for you to gain this benefit.

Just a straight copy and paste of the Two-Weapon Fighting one? How is that interesting? It also comes with the same problems as it's counter-part.



I didn't include the TWF entry because that's something I'm working on separately and has changes to other rules that I'm considering which is too much to explain here and takes focus away from the above.


Most of these don't seem to actually add to versatility and just increase overall power of each of the fighting styles. As I don't think that was the intent I would recommend giving them another once over.

dropbear8mybaby
2016-10-15, 07:35 PM
Most of these don't seem to actually add to versatility and just increase overall power of each of the fighting styles. As I don't think that was the intent I would recommend giving them another once over.

Hmm, you're right. Much like how Shield Master gives extra versatility to an already existing ability, I should probably try to think of Fighting Styles as something similar, but maybe not quite as powerful as a feat.

dropbear8mybaby
2016-10-15, 07:56 PM
Just say 5ft instead of melee weapon range since certain melee weapons do have an extended reach. Also doesn't stipulate that I must use a shield so this one is inherently better than the one in the PHB.

That was intentional. The protection fighting style is one I find that very few players ever choose and yet it opens up an interesting option. The problem with it is that there are so many limitations on it that in actual play it rarely comes up.

Allowing someone to use it without a shield (weapons can be used to deflect blows just as well, if not better, against someone else's attacker than a shield), plus opening up the option for polearms is also I think well within the power range of a fighting style.

I should probably point out here that I nuke the -5/+10 of GWM so I'm taking that into account when making that change.

PapaQuackers
2016-10-15, 08:17 PM
That was intentional. The protection fighting style is one I find that very few players ever choose and yet it opens up an interesting option. The problem with it is that there are so many limitations on it that in actual play it rarely comes up.

Allowing someone to use it without a shield (weapons can be used to deflect blows just as well, if not better, against someone else's attacker than a shield), plus opening up the option for polearms is also I think well within the power range of a fighting style.

I should probably point out here that I nuke the -5/+10 of GWM so I'm taking that into account when making that change.

I get the idea but I'm going to level with you, you've now eliminated the fighting style of choice for shield users. There are people who love to use shields, feel special for using shields, and want to be validated like every other fighting style. Just because you personally disagree doesn't mean you should alienate an entire way of playing the game.

dropbear8mybaby
2016-10-15, 08:22 PM
How about these?


Archery. When making a ranged weapon attack against an opponent in melee range, does not provoke opportunity attacks when leaving the reach of that enemy. You also learn how to repair arrows and bolts meaning you replenish all arrows and bolts used during a combat.

Sword and Shield Fighting. You can equip a shield as a bonus action instead of an action and gain proficiency in using it as an improvised weapon.

Archery gives you the ability to get out of melee, thus being conducive to an archery fighting specialisation, and also gives a new ability to maintain your missile cache. Not a huge ability, but nice all the same.

Dueling was always about S&B. I'm guessing they simply didn't call it that because they wanted it to still be useful when the character didn't have a shield handy. This opens up the shield-bash option a bit more. My TWF changes mean that it still won't be as good as TWF so that plays a role in my balance decisions.

I have to say, it's really quite difficult to come up with options that aren't flat bonuses or just increases in power.

dropbear8mybaby
2016-10-15, 08:24 PM
I get the idea but I'm going to level with you, you've now eliminated the fighting style of choice for shield users. There are people who love to use shields, feel special for using shields, and want to be validated like every other fighting style. Just because you personally disagree doesn't mean you should alienate an entire way of playing the game.

Erm... what? You're making out like I'm attacking shield users because of a personal bias. My favourite feat is Shield Master and my favourite character is a battlemaster with Shield Master so, yeah, whatever man.

PapaQuackers
2016-10-15, 08:27 PM
How about these?



Archery gives you the ability to get out of melee, thus being conducive to an archery fighting specialization*, and also gives a new ability to maintain your missile cache. Not a huge ability, but nice all the same.

Dueling was always about S&B. I'm guessing they simply didn't call it that because they wanted it to still be useful when the character didn't have a shield handy. This opens up the shield-bash option a bit more. My TWF changes mean that it still won't be as good as TWF so that plays a role in my balance decisions.

I have to say, it's really quite difficult to come up with options that aren't flat bonuses or just increases in power.

The Archery one is worded strangely, I'm not really sure what you mean. I'm guessing it's something like being able to disengage as a free action while wielding a bow, which is pretty interesting, but difficult to gauge from a power perspective. Unlimited arrows kind of negates the point of having more than 20 arrows ever which seems a bit bland. It's essentially just a /different/ passive bonus. Passive is not usually interesting and being interesting is the intent here.

Dueling may have been the more optimal choice for S&B, but that doesn't mean it was the design intent. Just a product of min/maxing and number crunching of the players. I'd go back to the drawing board and focus on defense, that's what wielding a shield is about.

Now you see the problem with increasing versatility with making the power creep up.

dropbear8mybaby
2016-10-15, 09:38 PM
The Archery one is worded strangely, I'm not really sure what you mean. I'm guessing it's something like being able to disengage as a free action while wielding a bow, which is pretty interesting, but difficult to gauge from a power perspective.
If you make a ranged weapon attack against a target, then you do not provoke opportunity attacks from that target until the start of your next turn. So any ranged weapon. It doesn't negate the disadvantage for attacking in melee with a ranged weapon while providing an incentive to attack and move away on the same turn. It's not quite as good as Mobile but good enough to promote a ranged weapon attacking style.


Unlimited arrows kind of negates the point of having more than 20 arrows ever which seems a bit bland. It's essentially just a /different/ passive bonus. Passive is not usually interesting and being interesting is the intent here.
I consider only having to carry 20 arrows a good thing. It's super unrealistic and ridiculous for anyone to be carrying around more than one quiver full of arrows. This also promotes a bit of an RP aspect because the archer is someone who knows their weapon well enough that they never run out of arrows over the course of an adventure. It also means they end up carrying probably other things like daggers for throwing when they run out of arrows in the middle of a combat. That's pretty cool in my opinion. Besides, the "interesting" part is that they can get out of melee and focus on ranged attacking, the arrow thing is just a minor addition.