The Attack Action Is Terrible

[Amechra]

OK, I think that title is click-bait-y enough.

If you aren't a spellcaster, the Attack action is almost always going to be your only proactive action in combat. All of the other default options are either ways to get out of sticky situations (Dash, Disengage, Dodge, Hide) or are very situational (Search, Use An Item). In a very real sense, hitting the "I attack!" button is your only way to help the battle progress.

Now, on the face of it, this isn't that bad - skipping your one attack in order to get yourself into a better position or set up an ally can totally be worth it. The issue is that almost all of the ways to get extra attacks are tied to the Attack action. Once you have Extra Attack, giving up the Attack action to Disengage (or Dash or whatever) means that you're skipping two attacks - if you have a bonus action attack, you're effectively giving up three. And if you look at the martial classes, they tend to double down on this design decision by tying more and more goodies to whether or not you chose to Attack that turn.

I honestly think that martial characters would be more exciting to play in general if Extra Attack just gave you a "free" attack on your turn, so your choice was between, say, "take the Attack action and make two attacks" and "take the Dash action and make one attack".

---

Thoughts? Counterarguments? Vitriol?

[cutlery]

As I recall, “charge” was a full round action that let you move and attack once in 3e. It sucked, because if you wanted to move more than 5’, you only got one attack that round.

Now, provided you can manage the opportunity attack problem (mobile, etc), you can move as much as you want between attacks.

That’s actually the horizon walker’s whole schtick at 11th.

[Anonymouswizard]

Martials need at the very least more basic things to do which aren't optional rules, and getting the ability to make a BA attack if you don't take the Attack action on your turn would be interesting as a potential option.


The problem with D&D combat is that it's descended from a wargame where it doesn't matter if martials can't do interesting stuff because you have 30+ per legged siege weapon wizard. It's fine if that rough idea holds water, but while you could argue that it did early on it very much does not anymore, and so mundane combat probably needs to get a bit more complex. Not to insane 'you can hit three times with a dagger between a greatsword's swings' levels, but 5e removed the options that 3.X and 4e martials got in the PhB with it's simplified grappling and fewer activated abilities for pure martials.

[Ir0ns0ul]

I tend to agree. That’s why Spiritual Weapon is so good when combined with the Dodge action. Honorable mention to the bonus attack granted by the Barbarian Battlerager ability; you can trigger it without taking the Attack action.

[cutlery]

I tend to agree. That’s why Spiritual Weapon is so good when combined with the Dodge action. Honorable mention to the bonus attack granted by the Barbarian Battlerager ability; you can trigger it without taking the Attack action.

That would generally be a good thing, but if every martial(ish) class could do it, it would take even longer for the fighter extra attacks to move out to a clear lead (this is already sort of the case with PAM/CBE)

What could fix this is: I think fighters should have more accuracy - I know that’s 5e heresy, but oh well.

[Amechra]

As I recall, “charge” was a full round action that let you move and attack once in 3e. It sucked, because if you wanted to move more than 5’, you only got one attack that round.

Now, provided you can manage the opportunity attack problem (mobile, etc), you can move as much as you want between attacks.

That’s actually the horizon walker’s whole schtick at 11th.

Could you possibly explain to me how this is relevant? Not trying to be dismissive or anything - I'm literally confused about what this has to do with what I'm complaining about, other than the fact that they both involve the Attack action.

[Frogreaver]

OK, I think that title is click-bait-y enough.

If you aren't a spellcaster, the Attack action is almost always going to be your only proactive action in combat. All of the other default options are either ways to get out of sticky situations (Dash, Disengage, Dodge, Hide) or are very situational (Search, Use An Item). In a very real sense, hitting the "I attack!" button is your only way to help the battle progress.

Now, on the face of it, this isn't that bad - skipping your one attack in order to get yourself into a better position or set up an ally can totally be worth it. The issue is that almost all of the ways to get extra attacks are tied to the Attack action. Once you have Extra Attack, giving up the Attack action to Disengage (or Dash or whatever) means that you're skipping two attacks - if you have a bonus action attack, you're effectively giving up three. And if you look at the martial classes, they tend to double down on this design decision by tying more and more goodies to whether or not you chose to Attack that turn.

I honestly think that martial characters would be more exciting to play in general if Extra Attack just gave you a "free" attack on your turn, so your choice was between, say, "take the Attack action and make two attacks" and "take the Dash action and make one attack".

---

Thoughts? Counterarguments? Vitriol?

Making 1 attack and dodging would nearly always be better.

[bid]

I honestly think that martial characters would be more exciting to play in general if Extra Attack just gave you a "free" attack on your turn, so your choice was between, say, "take the Attack action and make two attacks" and "take the Dash action and make one attack".
So, extra attack allows you to copy what rogues do?

And since we're going deep into a brainstorming:
- can you dash-cantrip by removing 1 dice of damage?
- can a high level caster dash and use a level 1 slot for casting?

[Foxhound438]

Thoughts? Counterarguments? Vitriol?

Vitriol, obviously,

Obviously if you don't like taking the dash action to run as far away from the encounter as possible on every round, you're a total noob who's never been forced to roll a level 1 character into a long standing game after dying because you didn't take the dash action to run away from the encounter in the last fight, and for that I have lost all respect for your opinion on this thing that has nothing to do with that specific situation!!!!1!!

But in all seriousness, all of the classes get more and more value out of their action as they level up. A spellcaster is giving up a timely fireball, or a hold person on the first round, etc. Extra attacks being lost is maybe about as valuable as any of that.

Though I do admit that the casters getting their big burst effect a turn later is still a lot of value for the spell slot resource, and even a turn late those thing will still feel fine. If a caster has 4 "big" slots that they can do impactful things with over the course of a 6 turn fight, it might not matter whether those land on a specific round, while a martial taking dash or dodge a couple times does mean they go from 12 attacks in the encounter to maybe 8. Sometimes there's just nothing in range of your attacks though, so it's not necessarily easy to say how good or bad it is in general to do those things. I just do it when I have to.

[Tanarii]

So, extra attack allows you to copy what rogues do?
Except better, because you would still have your bonus action.

Definitely a nail in the coffin for the idea.

[CheddarChampion]

I'd like to see skill use in combat w/o requiring UA feats. We already have grapple/shove (push)/shove (trip)/stabilize but let's add more:

Provoke an enemy into targeting you on their next turn with performance.
Frighten an enemy for one round with intimidation.
Feint with sleight of hand (give yourself advantage on attacks against one enemy for a turn).
Move through an enemy's space with acrobatics.
Figure out what actions a creature can take with investigation.
Recall information about a supernatural creature's strengths and weaknesses with arcana/religion.
Figure out what a creature will do for the next two rounds if the situation doesn't change with insight.
Fully stabilize a creature if you roll high enough on medicine, perhaps even restore 1 HP.

The idea is that each of these would replace one of your attacks, same as shove does already.

Base the DC on the CR of the creature and on its ability score modifiers or something. Perhaps 10+(CR/3 rounded down)+relevant ability score modifier. Wisdom resists feints and taunts, for example. If there's not an obvious ability score just use 10+(CR/2) instead. For PCs plug in level instead of CR. Maybe give fighters a +2 bonus to any skill check in combat.

Oh, but now I'm inclined to just expand all that into more defenses - convert a Wisdom saving throws bonus into a Wisdom defense, like AC.

Really off topic: if it were up to me have Charisma saves resist fear effects instead of Wisdom saves. It seems more thematically appropriate to me - paladins are oathsworn warriors, sorcerers have magic in their blood which probably comes with feelings of superiority/power, warlocks regularly deal with the supernatural, bards often inspire others and should know how to put on a brave face to do so, clerics (they get proficiency) tend to be less determined than paladins, a wizard's book reading and a druid's communing with nature don't exactly seem like they would translate to bravery.

[Eldariel]

As I recall, “charge” was a full round action that let you move and attack once in 3e. It sucked, because if you wanted to move more than 5’, you only got one attack that round.

Well, it "sucked" as a baseline but all the damage multipliers were attached to charging making charging way better than anything else in the game if built for, to the point that you could reach scientific notation in damage with a simple charger (we're talking billions of damage in one round here).

[bid]

Except better, because you would still have your bonus action.

Definitely a nail in the coffin for the idea.
Pretty much, yeah.

I don't know what rogues could get to negate that. Free mobile?

[Gtdead]

I am inclined to agree with the premise. As it works right now, not only the opportunity cost of using another action instead of attack is too high for martial classes but the options are limited and don't reflect the mastery one would have with a weapon.

I'm a supporter of being able to swap one attack for dodge, at least for martial classes (meaning any class that has access to fighting styles). And to avoid being too frontloaded, a class feat like "improved fighting style" would give it at lvl 5 or something (after all it's useless before that for a single classed build).

[Mr Adventurer]

Well, it "sucked" as a baseline but all the damage multipliers were attached to charging making charging way better than anything else in the game if built for, to the point that you could reach scientific notation in damage with a simple charger (we're talking billions of damage in one round here).

Let's be honest: way beyond "if built for", and rather into the realms of the hyper-specific, theoretical optimisation. You wouldn't see such a thing in play unless the table social contract was explicitly about being silly. "Simple charger" just isn't a fair way of describing it.

Also, there were other ways of reaching similar numbers, so let's not pretend charging was the golden egg. King of Smack and Hulking Hurler shenanigans come to mind, and I'm no expert.

Edit: on topic, I wonder if more explicit and varied no-resource attack options would help? Disarm, trip, shove, throw, feint, intimidate, combos, power attack, flurry, hampering strikes, sundering... I know some of them are in the game already but if they aren't getting used that much they obviously need a boost.

[Eldariel]

Let's be honest: way beyond "if built for", and rather into the realms of the hyper-specific, theoretical optimisation. You wouldn't see such a thing in play unless the table social contract was explicitly about being silly. "Simple charger" just isn't a fair way of describing it.

Also, there were other ways of reaching similar numbers, so let's not pretend charging was the golden egg. King of Smack and Hulking Hurler shenanigans come to mind, and I'm no expert.

It's an edition where it's fairly trivial to reach infinity anything and get infinite damage loops and such so it isn't saying that much but there's a qualitative difference between charging and most high damage builds. King of Smack is a caster build (casters can do anything pretty effortlessly in the edition; I built a level 11 Cleric that can one-shot any printed creature while still being a Cleric) and Hulking Hurler a highly specific PRC.

Meanwhile, charging is an action available to NPC warriors who can use it to reach at least sufficient damage to one-shot a Hecatoncheires with very modest gear (+1 Valorous weapon). Charging isn't purely TO even though peak charging as well as peak anything is, of course. Charging fits all the points of the scale from a completely fairly low op PO tactic to a high end TO tactic.

That's why I singled it out: far as all the ways to land billions tons of damage go, charging is the one that's entirely class/spell-independent: you can build it with just feats and some magic items (even magic items are optional) though of course, not getting pounce from Barb 1 is a huge downer. But even in Core 3.5 you have a reasonable shot at one-shotting a Balor with a charge even without Pounce (though of course, Shapechange and PAO exist so Pounce is available; Leonal for instance is a great form to that end) - there you need to use Spirited Charge and a mount though. It's basically the only fighting style that's easy to build towards and that easily kills anything you might run into. TWF has like Stormguard Warrior and various numeric additions to both sides but it doesn't come anywhere close to what a single charge can accomplish.

Case in point: quite possibly the strongest damage options for ToB characters are picking maneuvers that count as charges (Bounding Assault from Diamond Mind 4 especially since it skips all the normal charge movement limitations and eliminates most charge counters) and stacking damage on top of that. This is what I used in the Eternal Archer build to ensure it also has a reasonable melee fallback; all it takes is Leading the Charge (Devoted Spirit 1 Stance) + Bounding Assault (which can be gotten from Eternal Training so it doesn't even take a maneuver known) + Pounce (which comes for free from Barbarian anyways) + Valorous weapon and you're looking at easy ~300 damage charges with basically no investment.

[Sindeloke]

Edit: on topic, I wonder if more explicit and varied no-resource attack options would help? Disarm, trip, shove, throw, feint, intimidate, combos, power attack, flurry, hampering strikes, sundering... I know some of them are in the game already but if they aren't getting used that much they obviously need a boost.

You'd need to give things that are way more powerful than what most people are comfortable with "mundanes" doing to make it worth it. Absolute action denial (full-on stuns, charms, sleeps), not just disarming one guy. Size-agnostic AoE area control (60 foot cone knockback that works on giants), not just shoving one guy an extra five feet. Multi-target advantageous save-selecting debuffs (all the kobolds make a Wisdom save or have disadvantage, the dire bear deals half damage on every attack until it succeeds at an Int save), not tripping one guy, he chooses his defense, and even if he fails only half your team gets advantage on one type of attack for two initiative steps before it's his turn and he stands up anyway. Death is the best condition by a country mile; anything else has to have breadth, accuracy, or duration that far outstrips the martial's proportional damage to compete in an action economy this tight.

[Mr Adventurer]

It's an edition where it's fairly trivial to reach infinity anything and get infinite damage loops and such so it isn't saying that much but there's a qualitative difference between charging and most high damage builds. King of Smack is a caster build (casters can do anything pretty effortlessly in the edition; I built a level 11 Cleric that can one-shot any printed creature while still being a Cleric) and Hulking Hurler a highly specific PRC.

Meanwhile, charging is an action available to NPC warriors who can use it to reach at least sufficient damage to one-shot a Hecatoncheires with very modest gear (+1 Valorous weapon). Charging isn't purely TO even though peak charging as well as peak anything is, of course. Charging fits all the points of the scale from a completely fairly low op PO tactic to a high end TO tactic.

That's why I singled it out: far as all the ways to land billions tons of damage go, charging is the one that's entirely class/spell-independent: you can build it with just feats and some magic items (even magic items are optional) though of course, not getting pounce from Barb 1 is a huge downer. But even in Core 3.5 you have a reasonable shot at one-shotting a Balor with a charge even without Pounce (though of course, Shapechange and PAO exist so Pounce is available; Leonal for instance is a great form to that end) - there you need to use Spirited Charge and a mount though. It's basically the only fighting style that's easy to build towards and that easily kills anything you might run into. TWF has like Stormguard Warrior and various numeric additions to both sides but it doesn't come anywhere close to what a single charge can accomplish.

Case in point: quite possibly the strongest damage options for ToB characters are picking maneuvers that count as charges (Bounding Assault from Diamond Mind 4 especially since it skips all the normal charge movement limitations and eliminates most charge counters) and stacking damage on top of that. This is what I used in the Eternal Archer build to ensure it also has a reasonable melee fallback; all it takes is Leading the Charge (Devoted Spirit 1 Stance) + Bounding Assault (which can be gotten from Eternal Training so it doesn't even take a maneuver known) + Pounce (which comes for free from Barbarian anyways) + Valorous weapon and you're looking at easy ~300 damage charges with basically no investment.

I'm sorry but I'm not following you; it seems like you've listed a handful of specific builds that can deal high charge damage. But I don't think most of them will reach the "billions" level so I'm not really sure what you're arguing any more.

"Meanwhile, charging is an action available to NPC warriors who can use it to reach at least sufficient damage to one-shot a Hecatoncheires with very modest gear" is simply misleading: that isn't just charging, it's one of a very specific, limited number of builds.

I would actually be very interested to see this Warrior build that one-shots a Hecatoncheires, though, do you have a link?

Also, your "basically no investment" build actually seems to list a wide variety of specific build choices.

I don't think you are being disingenuous, but this post is starting to feel a little bit like it. Please remember, I'm not saying "charging can't be powerful in 3.5".

Finally - if all of these builds revolve around the Valorous weapon enhancement - which, I hasten to point out, is from a 3.0 sourcebook and works in a way that doesn't match other charge-boosters in 3.5, so isn't a guaranteed part of a table game - then that says more about that than it does about charging in the game.


You'd need to give things that are way more powerful than what most people are comfortable with "mundanes" doing to make it worth it. Absolute action denial (full-on stuns, charms, sleeps), not just disarming one guy. Size-agnostic AoE area control (60 foot cone knockback that works on giants), not just shoving one guy an extra five feet. Multi-target advantageous save-selecting debuffs (all the kobolds make a Wisdom save or have disadvantage, the dire bear deals half damage on every attack until it succeeds at an Int save), not tripping one guy, he chooses his defense, and even if he fails only half your team gets advantage on one type of attack for two initiative steps before it's his turn and he stands up anyway. Death is the best condition by a country mile; anything else has to have breadth, accuracy, or duration that far outstrips the martial's proportional damage to compete in an action economy this tight.

That seems like (a) you've chosen the balance point against highest-level spells, not one of Extra Attack's attacks; and (b) are not sufficiently weighting the teamwork element of play.

[stoutstien]

I can get behind the idea of molding the attack action to be a little bit more flexible. I've considered a system where a tax act like a resource pool where you can trade some of your extra attacks for a different option.

[Doug Lampert]

I am inclined to agree with the premise. As it works right now, not only the opportunity cost of using another action instead of attack is too high for martial classes but the options are limited and don't reflect the mastery one would have with a weapon.

I'm a supporter of being able to swap one attack for dodge, at least for martial classes (meaning any class that has access to fighting styles). And to avoid being too frontloaded, a class feat like "improved fighting style" would give it at lvl 5 or something (after all it's useless before that for a single classed build).

How about, "Anything you can do with an action except cast a spell can be done in place of an extra attack".

Extra actions are not overpowered for a martial and six seconds is a LONG time in melee combat. (An action surging level 20 fighter will still be absurd, but then, he should be.)

You might want to limit this to some classes, your suggestion of fighting style classes or you could say that extra attack must come from the class, not a subclass.

[Gtdead]

How about, "Anything you can do with an action except cast a spell can be done in place of an extra attack".

Extra actions are not overpowered for a martial and six seconds is a LONG time in melee combat. (An action surging level 20 fighter will still be absurd, but then, he should be.)

You might want to limit this to some classes, your suggestion of fighting style classes or you could say that extra attack must come from the class, not a subclass.

Yes, same thing should apply for every special action. I just mentioned dodge cause I consider it the most important. If dodge were to be allowed, letting the others in would be perfectly acceptable for me.

Edit: Except hide.

[Eldariel]

I'm sorry but I'm not following you; it seems like you've listed a handful of specific builds that can deal high charge damage. But I don't think most of them will reach the "billions" level so I'm not really sure what you're arguing any more.

"Meanwhile, charging is an action available to NPC warriors who can use it to reach at least sufficient damage to one-shot a Hecatoncheires with very modest gear" is simply misleading: that isn't just charging, it's one of a very specific, limited number of builds.

I would actually be very interested to see this Warrior build that one-shots a Hecatoncheires, though, do you have a link?

Also, your "basically no investment" build actually seems to list a wide variety of specific build choices.

I don't think you are being disingenuous, but this post is starting to feel a little bit like it. Please remember, I'm not saying "charging can't be powerful in 3.5".

Finally - if all of these builds revolve around the Valorous weapon enhancement - which, I hasten to point out, is from a 3.0 sourcebook and works in a way that doesn't match other charge-boosters in 3.5, so isn't a guaranteed part of a table game - then that says more about that than it does about charging in the game.

UE is more like 3.25; it's no longer 3.0 since it's produced in the 3.5 format but it precedes the actual 3.5 Core and thus it's kinda in-between. It's obvious it's not 3.0 though since e.g. skills that exist in 3.0 are no longer in it.

Obviously PO charging doesn't deal billions of damage; that's the Übercharger DocRoc and company were working on pulling out all the stops. Again, it's the ultimate end of the same scale firmly in the TO territory. It's a scale; there's a build for basically every level of power.

That doesn't change the fact that any build that wants to attack can make use of the non-class specific options and feats you can use to boost Charge, which were made for Charge because core Charge is underpowered comparatively. Since they all apply to Charge, combine them and you get some good stuff. Full attack cannot compete with charging specifically because there are no similar bonus for normal full attack. The short list of feats we want could be e.g.:
- Spirited Charge (a multiplier)
- PA + Shock Trooper + Leap Attack (Power Attack and Power Attack multipliers)
- A source of Pounce (I think the only one available to an NPC Warrior is the Pouncing Charge from Martial Study, which he can take on level 18).

Overall, we thus have:
- 3 feats to get Pouncing Charge
- 3 feats to get Spirited Charge
- 4 feats to get PA + Leap Attack + Shock Trooper

This means we need a Human with two Flaws. Then we can get a +1 Valorous Holy Lance, Wand of Wraithstrike (UMD cross-class for +11 and like 16 Charisma for +14 and a +5 item for +19 to automake the check), and Boots of Speed. Wraithstrike lets you hit its touch AC and Holy ignores its Regeneration. This means you get the base damage (all level-ups and items end up with 36 Str if you permanency Enlarge Person) for 20 BAB + 13 Str + 1 Haste + 1 Weapon + 2 Charge - 1 Size = +36/+36/+31/+26/+21 to hit vs. Touch AC of 30. You Power Attack for 20 and dump everything into Power Attack; Ride-By Attack ignores AoOs so that's not an issue. Each attack has 2d6 + 19 Str + 80 Power Attack Leap Attack + 1 Weapon + 2d6 Holy = 107 damage and 7 bonus per hit quadrupled (x3 Spirited Charge and x1 Valorous) for 428 damage with DR reducing it down to 408 and 7 holy for 415. 0,95 * 415 * 3 + 0,85 * 415 + 0,6 * 415 = 1*784,5 average damage, which is about 1.5 times the average HP of Hecatoncheires.

Equipment needed:
+1 Valorous Holy Lance (you don't really need Valorous though)
Wand of Wraithstrike
Boots of Speed
Enlarge Person permanencied
+5 UMD item (there's something in MiC IIRC)
+6 Str item
+5 Str tome (of course, you'd probably have enough numbers even without these; this is just the stock option and I wanted to do stock math s)


There's also a possible Battle Jump build that eschews the mounted feats and mount and instead takes Battle Jump but it has a harder time getting Pounce to work without taking the Barbie dip or using some precast buffs like Polymorph or Lion's Charge or such (to reasonably hit a Hecatoncheires you do need Wraithstrike or similar of course).


Of course, this build isn't immune to damage so it gets one-shot by Hecatoncheires just as easily making it an initiative contest but you could add stuff like Gheden and Troll-Blooded or something to address that if you so wanted. The point is that no other attack mode available to any class can achieve this level of damage easily. Charging is simply the easiest attack option to stack stuff on.

EDIT: Actually, Leap Attack is superfluous. You get 67 base damage for 255 multiplied reduced holied damage, which amounts to 1096,5 damage on a full attack, which suffices to drop the Heca on average (though of course, this way you have much less leeway for a poor attack). I'm not accounting for crits here but that'd of course improve your overall damage significantly: I'm just kinda assuming everything is crit immune in 3e even though that's not strictly the case.

[Morty]

Any potential ways to give more options than just the attack option, be it from class features or generic mechanics, were cut out during the playtest or never made it there. While being able to replace one attack with another maneuver rather than all of them would stop the problem from getting worse as you level, I don't think it'd help much. The calculus of combat means that odds are against another action being better than "hit the enemy again and bring their HP down".

[stoutstien]

Any potential ways to give more options than just the attack option, be it from class features or generic mechanics, were cut out during the playtest or never made it there. While being able to replace one attack with another maneuver rather than all of them would stop the problem from getting worse as you level, I don't think it'd help much. The calculus of combat means that odds are against another action being better than "hit the enemy again and bring their HP down".

It's really a symptom of rather poor encounter design principles. It should be much more common for alternative paths to victory other than race to zero hp.

[Morty]

It's really a symptom of rather poor encounter design principles. It should be much more common for alternative paths to victory other than race to zero hp.

Sure, but it's difficult for a GM to design each and every single encounter with other ways of winning in mind if the system does virtually nothing to support it.

[Crucius]

I think MoG put it beautifully: From level 5 on, for most martial classes, the attack action remains unchanged until level 20.

There are rarely any new options, and rarely any new interactions with the attack action.

I think many of the gripes people have with regards to fun with martials stems from the lack of choice/options, akin to smites, maneuvers or flourishes (of which two of these are on caster classes qq)

[Gtdead]

Any potential ways to give more options than just the attack option, be it from class features or generic mechanics, were cut out during the playtest or never made it there. While being able to replace one attack with another maneuver rather than all of them would stop the problem from getting worse as you level, I don't think it'd help much. The calculus of combat means that odds are against another action being better than "hit the enemy again and bring their HP down".

Not necessarily. Considering that melee characters would take advantage of this change the most, I can think of a few scenarios that dodge would be better than taking another attack.

The obvious one is when the character is swarmed. Fighter for example does on average 20-23 damage per attack with greatsword GWM. Calculating for -5 hit, this is not enough to kill most CR1 monsters in a turn. So for example, against 2 dire wolves, the fighter would be far better off attacking once and dodging, rather than attacking twice, not killing one wolf, and then having to deal with advantage and bite.

I personally make extensive use of dodge action. It's especially useful for choke points when they exist (which is relatively often if the campaign is set in urban areas). Rush to the choke point (door) and dodge while my team gets in position. This type of play has never failed me, but it's not very fun to spend 1 or 2 rounds without attacking (unless you are cleric).

Twohanders are squishy and while they have enough health to survive a couple of hits, it is a resource which is very inefficient to refill.

[stoutstien]

Sure, but it's difficult for a GM to design each and every single encounter with other ways of winning in mind if the system does virtually nothing to support it.

Aye. It's definitely a shift in game design philosophy that 5e has the potential to do but hasn't taken the leap. Newer material being released seems to be at least acknowledging it.

As far trying to use a more modular attack action I could definitely see cases where trading one or two attacks for a Dodge could be useful and maybe we could also add in some options for trading attack(2) for a single attack with some modifications.
He can work alike modify battlemaster maneuvers besides they have to commit to it prior to the attack roll so it's not as good but at least it there. The attack action is definitely an area where some new player options could be added without bloating the whole system.

[sayaijin]

There was homebrew about making called shots that have extra effects if the enemy doesn't pass a save. Some of those effects included blinding the enemy if you aim at their eyes, or reduce their movement if you go for the legs.

A word of caution though: if PC's can do these things, then so can enemies.

https://www.5esrd.com/gamemastering/alternative-rules-other-publishers/called-shots/

[Amechra]

Making 1 attack and dodging would nearly always be better.

That is a good point


So, extra attack allows you to copy what rogues do?

Except better, because you would still have your bonus action.

Definitely a nail in the coffin for the idea.

Well that's awfully dismissive! :smalltongue:

The Rogue still has two big advantages:

1) Their Dash + Attack is likely to be better than, say, a Barbarian's. Sneak Attack was designed to keep pace with people making two attacks per round, after all.
2) The Rogue can take two non-attack actions if that's what is appropriate. This wouldn't let other martial characters do that.


And since we're going deep into a brainstorming:
- can you dash-cantrip by removing 1 dice of damage?
- can a high level caster dash and use a level 1 slot for casting?

I'm less sure about either of those, because spellcasters already have a ton of options for both their action and their bonus action - they don't need the flexibility boost. I could see creating more cantrips that can be cast as a bonus action, though.


I think MoG put it beautifully: From level 5 on, for most martial classes, the attack action remains unchanged until level 20.

There are rarely any new options, and rarely any new interactions with the attack action.

I think many of the gripes people have with regards to fun with martials stems from the lack of choice/options, akin to smites, maneuvers or flourishes (of which two of these are on caster classes qq)

I'm going a step further and saying that the whole idea that the Attack action should be more exciting is a symptom of non-spellcasters having Attack Monomania. Maneuvers, flourishes, and smites are nice, but they don't really break you out of the idea that you should spam the Attack action.

I do agree that getting more options would be nice, but I've also noticed that most martial classes that get alternate actions end up skipping over them for the Almighty Attack Action.


There was homebrew about making called shots that have extra effects if the enemy doesn't pass a save. Some of those effects included blinding the enemy if you aim at their eyes, or reduce their movement if you go for the legs.

A word of caution though: if PC's can do these things, then so can enemies.

https://www.5esrd.com/gamemastering/alternative-rules-other-publishers/called-shots/

Why do enemies need to be able to do it too? This is a legitimate question - there are already plenty of rules that only apply to players (the biggest being death saving throws).


In the interest of full disclosure, part of what made me think about this was something that happened a few sessions ago. My TWF Pact of the Blade Fiendlock was fighting in an area of Silence (thanks to our party Cleric), and got pretty badly hurt (AC 19 is good and all until you don't have access to Shield). I then had a choice - either I could Disengage and try to hide behind one of my allies, or I could Attack+BA and potentially take that guy out of the fight and get some temporary HP (which is what ended up happening).

If I hadn't been Silenced, I could have attacked and used Misty Step to get out of there. But without that, my options were "effectively skip my turn" or "actually contribute to the fight being over".

[bid]

The Rogue still has two big advantages:

1) Their Dash + Attack is likely to be better than, say, a Barbarian's. Sneak Attack was designed to keep pace with people making two attacks per round, after all.
2) The Rogue can take two non-attack actions if that's what is appropriate. This wouldn't let other martial characters do that.
That's fair.

To match your proposal, cunning action becomes better than fast hands, right?
And we narrow down the issue to thief only.:smallwink:

[Amechra]

That's fair.

To match your proposal, cunning action becomes better than fast hands, right?
And we narrow down the issue to thief only.:smallwink:

The party Thief actually did have to Use An Item twice in one turn last combat, so... :smalltongue:

[sayaijin]

Why do enemies need to be able to do it too? This is a legitimate question - there are already plenty of rules that only apply to players (the biggest being death saving throws).



My intention here was to point out that if a player brought this homebrew content to their DM, they run the risk of enemies using it too.

[Merudo]

In Baldur's Gate III, character can push enemies away as a bonus action.

I think allowing pushing a creature away (not prone) & grappling as bonus actions would help martial classes, both in strength and versatility, without being unbalanced.

[Eldariel]

In Baldur's Gate III, character can push enemies away as a bonus action.

I think allowing pushing a creature away (not prone) & grappling as bonus actions would help martial classes, both in strength and versatility, without being unbalanced.

It's a bit random though. By default bonus action does nothing. So why would shoving randomly be a bonus action? Currently Shield Master gives it but that's about it, and then it's tied to attacking. If bonus action were to be extrapolated on, there would have to be a bit more flesh put onto it in the first place, though the idea isn't bad.

I personally prefer just giving martials extra actions overall. I think Fighter-types should get extra reactions and extra bonus actions, and hell, making Extra Attack into Extra Action isn't really untenable either (except in the hands of spellcasters with Extra Attack like Bladesinger, Valor Bard and Swords Bard). Though even the double casting is reigned in by Concentration to a degree (but it'd still be really strong).

[kazaryu]

How about, "Anything you can do with an action except cast a spell can be done in place of an extra attack".

Extra actions are not overpowered for a martial and six seconds is a LONG time in melee combat. (An action surging level 20 fighter will still be absurd, but then, he should be.)

You might want to limit this to some classes, your suggestion of fighting style classes or you could say that extra attack must come from the class, not a subclass.

so, whenever a martial would gain an 'extra attack' they instead gain an extra hasted action?

That sounds workable, but we need to consider how to balance the now thoroughly trampled rogue, since being able to do alot of those things and getting their attack of is...pretty much the big thing that makes them unique in combat

[Morty]

so, whenever a martial would gain an 'extra attack' they instead gain an extra hasted action?

That sounds workable, but we need to consider how to balance the now thoroughly trampled rogue, since being able to do alot of those things and getting their attack of is...pretty much the big thing that makes them unique in combat

All Cunning Action does is let rogues run away quickly and hide. So they're going to need something that's actually interesting in any event. Making item use part of Cunning Action for all rogues and giving thieves something in return would be a start. Though item use is still situational.

[Mr Adventurer]

If you're considering that, remember that Arcane Trickster can use Mage Hand as a bonus action and can Use an Object with their Mage Hand.

[Throne12]

I'd like to see skill use in combat w/o requiring UA feats. We already have grapple/shove (push)/shove (trip)/stabilize but let's add more:

Provoke an enemy into targeting you on their next turn with performance.
Frighten an enemy for one round with intimidation.
Feint with sleight of hand (give yourself advantage on attacks against one enemy for a turn).
Move through an enemy's space with acrobatics.
Figure out what actions a creature can take with investigation.
Recall information about a supernatural creature's strengths and weaknesses with arcana/religion.
Figure out what a creature will do for the next two rounds if the situation doesn't change with insight.
Fully stabilize a creature if you roll high enough on medicine, perhaps even restore 1 HP.

The idea is that each of these would replace one of your attacks, same as shove does already.

Base the DC on the CR of the creature and on its ability score modifiers or something. Perhaps 10+(CR/3 rounded down)+relevant ability score modifier. Wisdom resists feints and taunts, for example. If there's not an obvious ability score just use 10+(CR/2) instead. For PCs plug in level instead of CR. Maybe give fighters a +2 bonus to any skill check in combat.

Oh, but now I'm inclined to just expand all that into more defenses - convert a Wisdom saving throws bonus into a Wisdom defense, like AC.

Really off topic: if it were up to me have Charisma saves resist fear effects instead of Wisdom saves. It seems more thematically appropriate to me - paladins are oathsworn warriors, sorcerers have magic in their blood which probably comes with feelings of superiority/power, warlocks regularly deal with the supernatural, bards often inspire others and should know how to put on a brave face to do so, clerics (they get proficiency) tend to be less determined than paladins, a wizard's book reading and a druid's communing with nature don't exactly seem like they would translate to bravery.

This is something I going to start using in my games. But the Arcane/Religion and medicine one are a no go because they step on the toes of med-kits and the battlemaster filters ability. But the other ones seem really cool and not game breaking and gives a melee character more to do in combat other then swing there weapon.



Yall are talking about giving out a dodge as free or at a reduced cost. That just to powerful dodge is a really good AC boosted and you get advantage on Dex saves. All for giving up 1 attack. No I had a player that played a fighter/swashbuckler. He was getting 2 attacks+ sneak attack then a bonus action dodge. I could never hit him. He would be surrounded by 4 enemy's with multiple attacks and only one attack hit each round.


So I would definitely not give the dodge action as a replacement for a single or even two attacks. It good and fine where it is.

I don't see the problem a caster is going to spend there action on casting a spell that spell is going to damage or impede the target. But martial classes do the same they can spend there action on dealing damage or impending the target in someway. Now before you say well casters have spells like thunder step when they can deal damage and teleport or spells like Ray of sickness that damage & poison them.

Martial classes have there sudclass and other abilities to help that. They why spell casters don't get a lot of class/sudclass abilities.

[JonBeowulf]

Flipping it around, a spellcaster spending its action to sling a damage spell is essentially taking the attack action... and it can only do it once per round. Yeah, obviously, casters have more options overall, but a skilled player with a properly-built melee character (for the desired concept) is an amazing thing to behold.

Nearly every one of my characters (from OD&D through 5e) has been melee and I very much enjoy the tactical challenges that come with:
- Being in the right place at the right time
- Taking whatever action, bonus action, or reaction is necessary to maximize the group's advantage
- Being as sticky as possible
- Taking more damage than any other party member
- Being a threat that cannot be ignored

You want to give me even MORE options? Then you'd better buff the entire game world.

If you want to discuss how boring ranged fighter-types are, then I'm right there with you. Except ranged battlemasters... they've got a whole box of Legos to play with.

[stoutstien]

Flipping it around, a spellcaster spending its action to sling a damage spell is essentially taking the attack action... and it can only do it once per round. Yeah, obviously, casters have more options overall, but a skilled player with a properly-built melee character (for the desired concept) is an amazing thing to behold.

Nearly every one of my characters (from OD&D through 5e) has been melee and I very much enjoy the tactical challenges that come with:
- Being in the right place at the right time
- Taking whatever action, bonus action, or reaction is necessary to maximize the group's advantage
- Being as sticky as possible
- Taking more damage than any other party member
- Being a threat that cannot be ignored

You want to give me even MORE options? Then you'd better buff the entire game world.

If you want to discuss how boring ranged fighter-types are, then I'm right there with you. Except ranged battlemasters... they've got a whole box of Legos to play with.

None of the roles that you list are limited to Melee weapon users and it is a pretty wide spread belief that casters using their action to just do damage isn't very useful but the fact they can do damage OR something else with that action, like dropping a wall spell splitting encounters in 1/2, is the argument.

[Eldariel]

Flipping it around, a spellcaster spending its action to sling a damage spell is essentially taking the attack action... and it can only do it once per round. Yeah, obviously, casters have more options overall, but a skilled player with a properly-built melee character (for the desired concept) is an amazing thing to behold.

Nearly every one of my characters (from OD&D through 5e) has been melee and I very much enjoy the tactical challenges that come with:
- Being in the right place at the right time
- Taking whatever action, bonus action, or reaction is necessary to maximize the group's advantage
- Being as sticky as possible
- Taking more damage than any other party member
- Being a threat that cannot be ignored

You want to give me even MORE options? Then you'd better buff the entire game world.

If you want to discuss how boring ranged fighter-types are, then I'm right there with you. Except ranged battlemasters... they've got a whole box of Legos to play with.

Being melee or ranged has nothing to do with non-caster vs. caster. There are plenty of casters who default to melee and plenty of the remaining casters can melee if they want to. Melee casters obviously have a ton more decisions to make than a melee non-caster. So...it's already there.