STR vs. DEX and how I would buff STR

[strangebloke]

STR and DEX represent two different physically competent archetypes. The lean and nimble warrior vs. the strong and stalwart warrior. Both of these stats can be used for offense or defense, and they have various pros and cons.

STR only requires a 15 to get max AC, and gives more AC than most DEX armor calculations. It also gives you access to bigger weapons if you're willing to forgo a shield, which in a featless game translates to more damage, but in a game with feats doesn't matter much. You also are slightly better at the Athletics skill which is useful for lots of things.

DEX gives better initiative (which is a sizeable damage buff) better ranged options (which thanks to sharpshooter are very high damage and safe to use) if you're willing to forgo a shield. You also get bonuses to a lot of skills, most notably stealth which STR builds conventionally give a huge malus to. (and while a lack of STR can be compensated for by just having expertise in athletics, you can't do the same with DEX) Dexterity is also an important save.

Overall, the trend here is pretty straightforward. STR is nice because it just gives you good AC without more ASI investment, Dexterity is better because you add it to way more things, whereas pretty much all the applications for STR that aren't AC or attacks are governed by a single skill. If you're going to max a stat, I'd argue DEX is the clear winner, but 16 STR paladins and Clerics do make sense, at least to me.

My only complaints are as follows

Sharpshooter removes too many means of counterplay and is too easy to exploit for too many archetypes. It's really silly to consider that you could have a monk, ranger, fighter, and paladin who all have this feat and are playing 'optimally.' It also firmly tips the DPR game in the side of the ranged/dex characters and removes one of the primary incentives for melee. However, I'm wary of removing this from the game entirely, because accuracy-boosting archers are fun archetypally and almost as a rule are not actually overpowered.
The tradeoffs for heavy armor are very bad in the late game. The advantages STR characters have WRT AC basically don't matter in T3/T4 without magic items or the shield spell, and disadvantage on stealth remains very hard to compensate for. Even the 'low investment' nature of STR matters less once you get to level 12 or so and everyone has 3-5 ASIs.
Besides lacking in initiative, STR builds also have to get close to deal damage, and movement speeds, movement options, and ranges of attacks scale up in T3/T4 meaning that cases where the melee guy can't get into melee are going to come up more and more frequently.


My fix:

Every weapon attack / unarmed strike can do a -5/+5. SS is a half-feat that lets you fire without disadvantage at long range and does nothing else. GWM is as it currently is
Plate gives you AC equal to 15 + proficiency, which means that your AC will scale with you into the late game and a GWF fighter remains pretty tough even at high levels with 20-22 AC or so.
You get a +5 bonus to movement speed if you have 16 STR, and a +10 bonus if you have 18 STR, and a +15 bonus if you have 20 STR. (these are not cumulative. A 20 STR Wood Elf would have 50 feet of movement speed.)

[Sherlockpwns]

Could Just make str weapons do more damage if you feel str is vastly inferior. Go back to the old 1.5x str for all str based weapons. Maybe even 2x (so +10 dmg at 20 str).

In general I’ve always felt pretty weird that a big guy smashing you with a mace does the same damage as a skinny guy jabbing you with a rapier. But hey, I’ve never been on the receiving end of either.

Anyway, making str weapons simply hit harder than dex ones gives a pretty good delimitation between the more flexible dex stat and the pure dmg + armor str one. How much harder is up to you.

[langal]

I saw a pretty cool idea on another thread to make movement based on Strength. And no, sprinters do not look like body builders....but they are strong. Initiative/quickness is already Dex-based so there's that too.

For the many tables who disregard encumbrance, having Strength affect your base speed sort of solves that problem.

[diplomancer]

I saw a pretty cool idea on another thread to make movement based on Strength. And no, sprinters do not look like body builders....but they are strong. Initiative/quickness is already Dex-based so there's that too.

For the many tables who disregard encumbrance, having Strength affect your base speed sort of solves that problem.

The body builder physique is an archetype for high strength, but not the only one; I.e: high strength does not equal a body builder physique. Think Boromir, who is described as being very strong (stronger than Aragorn, as a matter of fact).

[Anonymouswizard]

I saw a pretty cool idea on another thread to make movement based on Strength. And no, sprinters do not look like body builders....but they are strong. Initiative/quickness is already Dex-based so there's that too.

For the many tables who disregard encumbrance, having Strength affect your base speed sort of solves that problem.

This is what I do with my homebrew systems, movement speed being calculated as something like 9+Strength yards*/round. I find it works a lot better than basing movement on Dexterity, as it limits the ability of ranged characters to kite.

I'd also potentially move HP to strength and base movement speed off of Constitution instead (although I'd rather get rid of CON).


Encumbrance is weird. By the standard rules it matters if you're doing a TSR style dungeon crawl. If you're doing a more 'modern' scripted adventure than every class's standard kit falls within normal encumbrance with a bit to spare for rations and the important treasure (i.e. magic items).

* I use yards because as a staunch SI supporter I wrote all my early drafts in metres. As a yard is about 0.9 metres the numbers still work quite well.

[BoutsofInsanity]

Snip

My only complaints are as follows

Sharpshooter removes too many means of counterplay and is too easy to exploit for too many archetypes. It's really silly to consider that you could have a monk, ranger, fighter, and paladin who all have this feat and are playing 'optimally.' It also firmly tips the DPR game in the side of the ranged/dex characters and removes one of the primary incentives for melee. However, I'm wary of removing this from the game entirely, because accuracy-boosting archers are fun archetypally and almost as a rule are not actually overpowered.
The tradeoffs for heavy armor are very bad in the late game. The advantages STR characters have WRT AC basically don't matter in T3/T4 without magic items or the shield spell, and disadvantage on stealth remains very hard to compensate for. Even the 'low investment' nature of STR matters less once you get to level 12 or so and everyone has 3-5 ASIs.
Besides lacking in initiative, STR builds also have to get close to deal damage, and movement speeds, movement options, and ranges of attacks scale up in T3/T4 meaning that cases where the melee guy can't get into melee are going to come up more and more frequently.


My fix:

Every weapon attack / unarmed strike can do a -5/+5. SS is a half-feat that lets you fire without disadvantage at long range and does nothing else. GWM is as it currently is
Plate gives you AC equal to 15 + proficiency, which means that your AC will scale with you into the late game and a GWF fighter remains pretty tough even at high levels with 20-22 AC or so.
You get a +5 bonus to movement speed if you have 16 STR, and a +10 bonus if you have 18 STR, and a +15 bonus if you have 20 STR. (these are not cumulative. A 20 STR Wood Elf would have 50 feet of movement speed.)


I think you can do a couple of things here. First off though I really like the movement increase. I think especially as the game gets into the Tier 3 and 4 levels, WOTC should have really started developing out movement options for high level martial characters. So increasing movement speed makes a lot of sense to me.

I would offer for simplicities sake the following considerations.


GWM is no longer a feat, but is instead a feature that any character can do. They just need to wield a weapon in two hands. This improves versatile weapons as well. It removes the feat tax also.
Heavy weapons should get (Way back from 4e) Brutal weapon quality. Enabling them to re-roll 1's on their damage dice to compensate.
I think the Plate change is unnecessary but is also fine and doesn't break anything and is a nice little boost.
You can make bows strength weapons and crossbows dexterity. I have shot bows. They are strength weapons in real life. I think this gives Strength characters much needed versatility. It doesn't really break anything anyway.
The last thing is to REALLY lean into the Athletics skill. I'm a big believer in the stopping somatic and verbal components with athletics option, pocket sand, eye gouging etc... Really lean into letting strength characters use their power to throw people around. That's what happens in real life, no reason that super strong people can't do the same.


In short I think you can just give GWM to people who choose to use strength and two hand a weapon, improving versatility fighting styles at the same time. I like the movement idea. Sharpshooter changes are ok and I don't hate them.

Good luck.

[Amnestic]

I removed Initiative from Dex - and didn't put it anywhere else.

I considered putting it on Int (Speedy mind=fast reactions was the logic), but Wizards don't really need the buff so everyone's Initiative is just a flat d20 plus whatever modifiers you get from class (eg. war wizard), race (eg. harengon) or feats (Alert).

[Damon_Tor]

I liked how 4e did saves: either strength or constitution decided "fortitude", whichever is higher. Same with Dex and Int for "Reflex" and Cha or Wis for "Will". That elevated the importance of str, int and cha. A similar change could work for 5e as well, just make all con or str saves into combined "fort" saves" that can use either. I think there would probably be situations where "reflex" wouldn't feel right replacing an int save, so you'd probably want to either change those into specific int checks (as opposed to saves) or just make them will saves.

[questionmark693]

I removed Initiative from Dex - and didn't put it anywhere else.

I considered putting it on Int (Speedy mind=fast reactions was the logic), but Wizards don't really need the buff so everyone's Initiative is just a flat d20 plus whatever modifiers you get from class (eg. war wizard), race (eg. harengon) or feats (Alert).

I like the thought process that got you here. Since proficiency bonus is meant to reflect your general competence level, what would you think about adding it to the initiative? This would let the players still see it climb over time, and have a pretty small effect on the game I think.



I liked how 4e did saves: either strength or constitution decided "fortitude", whichever is higher. Same with Dex and Int for "Reflex" and Cha or Wis for "Will". That elevated the importance of str, int and cha. A similar change could work for 5e as well, just make all con or str saves into combined "fort" saves" that can use either. I think there would probably be situations where "reflex" wouldn't feel right replacing an int save, so you'd probably want to either change those into specific int checks (as opposed to saves) or just make them will saves.

I really like this! I might look at implementing that in the next 3.5P game I run

[KorvinStarmast]

STR vs. DEX and how I would buff STR
I don't allow automatic substitution of Acrobatics for Athletics.
There are some cases where acrobatics fits (avoiding a grapple being one) but athletics checks are athletics/strength checks, not dex checks.
And I use variant encumbrance at two tables.

[Amnestic]

I like the thought process that got you here. Since proficiency bonus is meant to reflect your general competence level, what would you think about adding it to the initiative? This would let the players still see it climb over time, and have a pretty small effect on the game I think.



Harengon get it as a racial feature, so in the event they were playable in your campaign you'd need to substitute it for something else. If they're not playable (or no one is playing them) then that's not relevant.
It would also mean that Rogue 11+ would get to have a "minimum" on their initiative (10+PB+any other mods) due to Reliable Talent. That is honestly fine, I don't mind it and it feels appropriate for rogues to do so. Just something to bear in mind.
It's also relatively a slight nerf to bards - before they had Jack of All Trades to boost their initiative, now everyone's got full PB so the feature is ever so slightly devalued. That said, JoAT is still good and applies elsewhere, I don't view it as an issue.

Adding PB instead of Dex to initiative seems pretty neat, I might do that instead in the future. It would add a bit of variance for the enemies too.

[Dienekes]

I liked how 4e did saves: either strength or constitution decided "fortitude", whichever is higher. Same with Dex and Int for "Reflex" and Cha or Wis for "Will". That elevated the importance of str, int and cha. A similar change could work for 5e as well, just make all con or str saves into combined "fort" saves" that can use either. I think there would probably be situations where "reflex" wouldn't feel right replacing an int save, so you'd probably want to either change those into specific int checks (as opposed to saves) or just make them will saves.

See I wasn’t much a fan of it. Mostly because I haven’t really seen a Str build that didn’t also prioritize Con. Cha and Wis worked fine because they’re two different casting stats and most players won’t need both. But all frontliners need Con, regardless of Dex or Str build. So, in a way this boosts Dex builds more than Str. Dex add their best modifier to Reflex and their second best to Fortitude. Str adds their best to Fortitude and maybe their tertiary stat can go somewhere useful?

Mind you the Paladin is the obvious counter example here. But it’s also the one melee potentially strength focused class that needs the least help.

[strangebloke]

Could Just make str weapons do more damage if you feel str is vastly inferior. Go back to the old 1.5x str for all str based weapons. Maybe even 2x (so +10 dmg at 20 str).

In general I’ve always felt pretty weird that a big guy smashing you with a mace does the same damage as a skinny guy jabbing you with a rapier. But hey, I’ve never been on the receiving end of either.

Anyway, making str weapons simply hit harder than dex ones gives a pretty good delimitation between the more flexible dex stat and the pure dmg + armor str one. How much harder is up to you.
I mean this is kind of the design already, barring one-handed weapons. Greatsword does a lot more than any finesse or DEX weapon. Arguably this is more realistic but I don't really care about the simulation aspect that much - its fine to have an archer or duelist be really lethal since they usually are in movies and books.

The problem is more that getting into melee is difficult to do consistently, and also risky, with little payoff. But with that said, giving a straight +5 to damage with strength weapons is too much IMO.

I saw a pretty cool idea on another thread to make movement based on Strength. And no, sprinters do not look like body builders....but they are strong. Initiative/quickness is already Dex-based so there's that too.

For the many tables who disregard encumbrance, having Strength affect your base speed sort of solves that problem.
Sprinters do look like body builders... from the waist down. But with respect to the rest, encumbrance doesn't benefit STR builds because they also tend to have really heavy gear. Leather and rapier are basically weightless whereas plate and greatsword are extremely heavy. Even archers can have several cases of arrows without needing more than 8 STR. The real losers with variant encumbrance rules are medium armor users like clerics and hexblades.

I think you can do a couple of things here. First off though I really like the movement increase. I think especially as the game gets into the Tier 3 and 4 levels, WOTC should have really started developing out movement options for high level martial characters. So increasing movement speed makes a lot of sense to me.

I would offer for simplicities sake the following considerations.


GWM is no longer a feat, but is instead a feature that any character can do. They just need to wield a weapon in two hands. This improves versatile weapons as well. It removes the feat tax also.
Heavy weapons should get (Way back from 4e) Brutal weapon quality. Enabling them to re-roll 1's on their damage dice to compensate.
I think the Plate change is unnecessary but is also fine and doesn't break anything and is a nice little boost.
You can make bows strength weapons and crossbows dexterity. I have shot bows. They are strength weapons in real life. I think this gives Strength characters much needed versatility. It doesn't really break anything anyway.
The last thing is to REALLY lean into the Athletics skill. I'm a big believer in the stopping somatic and verbal components with athletics option, pocket sand, eye gouging etc... Really lean into letting strength characters use their power to throw people around. That's what happens in real life, no reason that super strong people can't do the same.


In short I think you can just give GWM to people who choose to use strength and two hand a weapon, improving versatility fighting styles at the same time. I like the movement idea. Sharpshooter changes are ok and I don't hate them.

Good luck.

I would rather have everyone able to benefit from accuracy boosting, with GWM being a powerful tool for melee specialists
Kind of fiddly for a generic rule. I already don't like GWF much.
fair
Again, Dexterity represents a lot of things that take a lot of "strength." The stats are more about archetypes than simulation. Adding to this: crossbows, specifically hand crossbows, are already a top tier choice and making them strictly better than longbows is not something I see as desireable.
Athletics skill is a skill. Its never going to justify a high strength score, because you'd always rather use one of the 15 different ways of boosting Athletics rather than boosting STR. A fighter with 16 STR is going to be worse at grappling than a 12 STR hexblade with enhance ability.



I removed Initiative from Dex - and didn't put it anywhere else.

I considered putting it on Int (Speedy mind=fast reactions was the logic), but Wizards don't really need the buff so everyone's Initiative is just a flat d20 plus whatever modifiers you get from class (eg. war wizard), race (eg. harengon) or feats (Alert).
I think its fine that Dexterity is good. No dexterity-focused build is actually strong to the point of being overpowered. Generally I think its fine that rogues and rangers are faster to act.

I don't allow automatic substitution of Acrobatics for Athletics.
There are some cases where acrobatics fits (avoiding a grapple being one) but athletics checks are athletics/strength checks, not dex checks.
And I use variant encumbrance at two tables.
Variant encumbrance makes STR builds worse. I touched on this above but I'll go into more detail here.

A STR character with 16 STR will have 80 pounds of capacity under variant encumbrance. If he has plate and a greatsword, that's 71 pounds of weight. Already almost at the limit! Better hope he doesn't want a backup weapon or some javelins.
A DEX character with 8 STR will have 40 pounds of capacity under variant encumbrance. If he has leather and a bow and a shield and a rapier and a quiver full of arrows that's 20 pounds of equipment! He's got half his capacity to spare!

[Dr.Samurai]

STR and DEX represent two different physically competent archetypes. The lean and nimble warrior vs. the strong and stalwart warrior. Both of these stats can be used for offense or defense, and they have various pros and cons.
I just want to add my opinion on this which is --> I don't think warriors should be forced to choose between lean and nimble, or strong and stalwart. I think it's a choice that isn't worthwhile. Tying AC to Dexterity is part of the problem here, but it seems to me that warriors should be good at combat all around, and having to specialize between melee and ranged, and light armored or heavily armored is not worth it. The action hero is strong AND agile, and can use swords AND bows, and is tough AND has good reflexes, etc.

I don't know what the fix would be, and it would probably be too different to implement, but just want to highlight that making strength martials poorer combatants in general so that some people can play a swashbuckler sucks. An unarmored fighter should be better at dodging weapon attacks than an unarmored wizard that reads books all day long. But depending on ability score placement, that is probably not the case.


STR only requires a 15 to get max AC, and gives more AC than most DEX armor calculations. It also gives you access to bigger weapons if you're willing to forgo a shield, which in a featless game translates to more damage, but in a game with feats doesn't matter much. You also are slightly better at the Athletics skill which is useful for lots of things.

DEX gives better initiative (which is a sizeable damage buff) better ranged options (which thanks to sharpshooter are very high damage and safe to use) if you're willing to forgo a shield. You also get bonuses to a lot of skills, most notably stealth which STR builds conventionally give a huge malus to. (and while a lack of STR can be compensated for by just having expertise in athletics, you can't do the same with DEX) Dexterity is also an important save.
I can't help but feel that you're downplaying Athletics a lot. I don't make the point to suggest Strength is a clear winner or anything, but dumping Strength and then also taking proficiency in Athletics and then also nabbing Expertise with a feat is a serious investment to say something like "you're slightly better at Athletics". And Athletics is a very broad skill that can handle movement, stunts, and grapple/shoves, as well as resisting those attacks.

My only complaints are as follows

Sharpshooter removes too many means of counterplay and is too easy to exploit for too many archetypes. It's really silly to consider that you could have a monk, ranger, fighter, and paladin who all have this feat and are playing 'optimally.' It also firmly tips the DPR game in the side of the ranged/dex characters and removes one of the primary incentives for melee. However, I'm wary of removing this from the game entirely, because accuracy-boosting archers are fun archetypally and almost as a rule are not actually overpowered.
The tradeoffs for heavy armor are very bad in the late game. The advantages STR characters have WRT AC basically don't matter in T3/T4 without magic items or the shield spell, and disadvantage on stealth remains very hard to compensate for. Even the 'low investment' nature of STR matters less once you get to level 12 or so and everyone has 3-5 ASIs.
Besides lacking in initiative, STR builds also have to get close to deal damage, and movement speeds, movement options, and ranges of attacks scale up in T3/T4 meaning that cases where the melee guy can't get into melee are going to come up more and more frequently.


My fix:

Every weapon attack / unarmed strike can do a -5/+5. SS is a half-feat that lets you fire without disadvantage at long range and does nothing else. GWM is as it currently is
Plate gives you AC equal to 15 + proficiency, which means that your AC will scale with you into the late game and a GWF fighter remains pretty tough even at high levels with 20-22 AC or so.
You get a +5 bonus to movement speed if you have 16 STR, and a +10 bonus if you have 18 STR, and a +15 bonus if you have 20 STR. (these are not cumulative. A 20 STR Wood Elf would have 50 feet of movement speed.)

I like these fixes and agree with your complaints as well.

[strangebloke]

I just want to add my opinion on this which is --> I don't think warriors should be forced to choose between lean and nimble, or strong and stalwart. I think it's a choice that isn't worthwhile. Tying AC to Dexterity is part of the problem here, but it seems to me that warriors should be good at combat all around, and having to specialize between melee and ranged, and light armored or heavily armored is not worth it. The action hero is strong AND agile, and can use swords AND bows, and is tough AND has good reflexes, etc.

I don't know what the fix would be, and it would probably be too different to implement, but just want to highlight that making strength martials poorer combatants in general so that some people can play a swashbuckler sucks. An unarmored fighter should be better at dodging weapon attacks than an unarmored wizard that reads books all day long. But depending on ability score placement, that is probably not the case.
With a few exceptions, martials aren't forced to choose. Its very easy for a fighter to start with 16/14/14/12/12/8 or something similar, at which point they're still very good at ranged combat thanks to various other class features like extra attack. Most of my STR character have really good DEX for this reason. The problem isn't that you can't be dextrous and strong, the problem is that people choose not to be strong because being strong is worthless most of the time.


I can't help but feel that you're downplaying Athletics a lot. I don't make the point to suggest Strength is a clear winner or anything, but dumping Strength and then also taking proficiency in Athletics and then also nabbing Expertise with a feat is a serious investment to say something like "you're slightly better at Athletics". And Athletics is a very broad skill that can handle movement, stunts, and grapple/shoves, as well as resisting those attacks.

Athletics is really good, but it scales poorly. How many targets do you want to grapple at level 13 that are not

huge or larger
able to teleport
melee monsters who will happily shred you.

And you still have to drop your weapon to grapple, which makes it very expensive.

Knocking prone is more useful, particularly as a sort of aerial dominance maneuver, but its still sorta niche. And shoving 5 feet becomes less and less relevant because spacing gets less tight.

Basically its a nice option but it isn't enough to carry the archetype. IMO of course.

I like these fixes and agree with your complaints as well.

ah. Well then!:smallbiggrin:

[Guy Lombard-O]

I mean this is kind of the design already, barring one-handed weapons. Greatsword does a lot more than any finesse or DEX weapon. Arguably this is more realistic but I don't really care about the simulation aspect that much - its fine to have an archer or duelist be really lethal since they usually are in movies and books.

The problem is more that getting into melee is difficult to do consistently, and also risky, with little payoff. But with that said, giving a straight +5 to damage with strength weapons is too much IMO.[/LIST]

What I'd do (if I ever DM'd again) would be:

1. Dex bonuses to AC do not apply/are removed, whenever the target is incapacitated,
2. With a Str of 18 or more, you can wield a Versatile weapon 1-handed and get the higher damage die,
3. With a Str of 20 and the Powerful Build feature, you can wield a Heavy weapon 1-handed
4. With a Str of 18 or more, your movement isn't halved when moving with a grappled creature which is at least one size smaller than you, so long as you do not exceed your Carrying Capacity,
5. With a Str of 20 or more, your movement isn't halved when moving with a grappled creature which is no larger than you, so long as you do not exceed your Carrying Capacity.

I feel like, taken all together, that would about equal Str and Dex.

[windgate]

Variant encumbrance makes STR builds worse. I touched on this above but I'll go into more detail here.

A STR character with 16 STR will have 80 pounds of capacity under variant encumbrance. If he has plate and a greatsword, that's 71 pounds of weight. Already almost at the limit! Better hope he doesn't want a backup weapon or some javelins.
A DEX character with 8 STR will have 40 pounds of capacity under variant encumbrance. If he has leather and a bow and a shield and a rapier and a quiver full of arrows that's 20 pounds of equipment! He's got half his capacity to spare!


I feel there are two relative variables being ignored here.

(1) The person with 16 strength has a decent probability of increasing strength further down the line, the 08 Strength character does not
(2) Plate armor (per Raw) is not given out to starting characters and has a gold cost. Less heavy sets of armor are worn first.

There should be a variance in "leftover" carrying capacity for characters who have maxed out strength. Just wearing the armor is effectively strength training and from a RP standpoint should be difficult when you first start off.

In the real world, blacksmiths were attempting to maximize the protection without exceeding the knights ability to wear it. There are reasons why historians mention that killing a knight is substantially easier once you have them on the ground. Moving around normally wearing full plate should require heroic levels of strength.

That being said. The AC values in the base game do not reflect the (Protection/mobility) tradeoff very well. AC should be significantly higher (and align near to the values in your houserules)

I like the movement speed boosts. It would cancel out the speed penalties of variant encumbrance, making the thing kinda work for high STR characters.

Edit: under variant encumbrance, most characters will hit the first breakpoint (-10 speed) when you factor in the backpack of traveling supplies. the comparison gets more balanced when you looks at them using the 10x strength score limit instead.

[windgate]

I make a point of limiting my personal house-rules to fit on a single page of paper.

Instead of the proposed scaling strength bonuses to speed, what if characters with 16+ Strength were simply granted the mobile feat (for free) instead?

Or to promote pumping both strength and Dexterity together: Speed = 10 + Strength + Dexterity score (Rounded down to nearest 5).

[strangebloke]

I feel there are two relative variables being ignored here.

(1) The person with 16 strength has a decent probability of increasing strength further down the line, the 08 Strength character does not
(2) Plate armor (per Raw) is not given out to starting characters and has a gold cost. Less heavy sets of armor are worn first.

There should be a variance in "leftover" carrying capacity for characters who have maxed out strength. Just wearing the armor is effectively strength training and from a RP standpoint should be difficult when you first start off.
...
I like the movement speed boosts. It would cancel out the speed penalties of variant encumbrance, making the thing kinda work for high STR characters.

Edit: under variant encumbrance, most characters will hit the first breakpoint (-10 speed) when you factor in the backpack of traveling supplies. the comparison gets more balanced when you looks at them using the 10x strength score limit instead.
I mean, under variant encumbrance the 8 STR DEX character has more capacity than the 18 STR character once they get plate and has more capacity than a 16 STR character wearing Chainmail. Adding to this boosting to 10 or 12 STR at level one is very easy to do anyway, much easier than boosting to 18 or 20 STR. The main advantage STR builds have is that they can take GWM or PAM without worrying about their AC.

The nimble rogue is more likely to be the guy with free carrying capacity than the paladin, and traveling supplies go on a donkey or something.

I make a point of limiting my personal house-rules to fit on a single page of paper.

Instead of the proposed scaling strength bonuses to speed, what if characters with 16+ Strength were simply granted the mobile feat (for free) instead?

Or to promote pumping both strength and Dexterity together: Speed = 10 + Strength + Dexterity score (Rounded down to nearest 5).

The bolded isn't a goal. The game promotes boosting dex regardless.

[Joe the Rat]

This is what I do with my homebrew systems, movement speed being calculated as something like 9+Strength yards*/round. I find it works a lot better than basing movement on Dexterity, as it limits the ability of ranged characters to kite.

I'd also potentially move HP to strength and base movement speed off of Constitution instead (although I'd rather get rid of CON).


Encumbrance is weird. By the standard rules it matters if you're doing a TSR style dungeon crawl. If you're doing a more 'modern' scripted adventure than every class's standard kit falls within normal encumbrance with a bit to spare for rations and the important treasure (i.e. magic items).

* I use yards because as a staunch SI supporter I wrote all my early drafts in metres. As a yard is about 0.9 metres the numbers still work quite well.

This reminded me of my favorite d20 Heartbreaker, Savage Kingdoms (https://www.savagekingdoms.net/). Here are some ways Mike used the Strength-Equivalent stat (Physique, for reference), which could be worth consideration:


Is a description of how strong, and how big you are. 5E doesn't really do anything between poundage and size category. Here you go. This would factor in to the height/weight generator, as well as be a derivable bulk measure. Use a stone-encumbrance system, and a body is 8+Strmod "units", halved for smalls. I'm just spitballing here.


Derived Health: 10+2*Strmod+Conmod+Endurance skill points. The health curve in this game is very flat (Think Chaosium), so that strength piece is a big impact. If you want to give your players a little extra meat, add Strength to hit points in some mode. Placing alongside Con every level is a huge uptick in durability, but a starter boost would be felt for those who need it. Heck, maybe this should be what the Toughness feat does.


Movement: 10+Strmod+Dexmod yards per round. So we put both in here - which is probably not a bad idea, unless you want spellcasters to be regularly less fleet of foot than average. This also gives you a benefit to investing to a degree in both.


Parry defense: When you are wielding a shield or melee weapon, you can use your strength based weaponry skill instead of your dex based dodge defense to determine your "AC". This system uses armor differently, but being able to essentially trade Armor+Dex AC for Armor+Str AC vs melee has potential. Obviously a non-starter for heavy armor, but if you don't cap the strength defense on medium... Or consider 10+Attackmod as an unarmored defense option.


Minimum requirements for certain weapons. Obviously not a factor for D&D - most weapons this would apply to are already going to favor strong characters. But if you did want to do this, then change the Heavy trait from "No smalls" to "Min Strength" (or "Min bulk"). Bam! Longbow needs a minimal Strength investment or you are at Disadvantage.


Some of these we've already seen, but I figured if you look at a combined system, some directions to take str might appear.

[Dr.Samurai]

With a few exceptions, martials aren't forced to choose. Its very easy for a fighter to start with 16/14/14/12/12/8 or something similar, at which point they're still very good at ranged combat thanks to various other class features like extra attack. Most of my STR character have really good DEX for this reason.
Define "really good DEX".

I don't consider a 14 Dex "very good" at ranged combat, even with Extra Attack. That's more like "baseline" for a martial, except you're 2 points lower on your attack roll. And your Dexterity and Constitution, which governs AC, Stealth, Initiative, and Hit Points, is only as good as the wizard's. So the martial has to conform to this weird "archetype" where his physicality is on a par with a bookworm, except for Strength. But that's okay because a wizard's offense comes from Intelligence through spells, which allow him to attack people up close and far away by the way.

The problem isn't that you can't be dexterous and strong, the problem is that people choose not to be strong because being strong is worthless most of the time.
That's a problem with people, in my estimation.

But even still, when are you supposed to use Athletics in combat? This forum will tell you until it's blue in the face that combat is over in round 3. The idea of combat is "super tactical execution where you unload on the enemy with maximum efficiency and lethality". In other words "nothing interesting is expected, just unleash your attacks". So when are you supposed to engage with dynamic terrain and grab an enemy or knock them down etc.?

[strangebloke]

Define "really good DEX".

I don't consider a 14 Dex "very good" at ranged combat, even with Extra Attack. That's more like "baseline" for a martial, except you're 2 points lower on your attack roll. And your Dexterity and Constitution, which governs AC, Stealth, Initiative, and Hit Points, is only as good as the wizard's. So the martial has to conform to this weird "archetype" where his physicality is on a par with a bookworm, except for Strength. But that's okay because a wizard's offense comes from Intelligence through spells, which allow him to attack people up close and far away by the way.

A wizard who invests heavily into DEX and CON isn't a bookworm. They're a prep school athlete with straight A's.

But beyond this, physicality is more than stats. A fighter and a wizard with comparable statlines won't be identical. The fighter will be measurably tougher and quicker in the sense of more attacks / attacks that hit harder.

Overall though, you saying "on par with the bookworm except for STR" does kind of highlight how little STR does to make you feel STRONG. Hence my suggestion to make them better damage dealers and tougher and faster on the ground.


But even still, when are you supposed to use Athletics in combat? This forum will tell you until it's blue in the face that combat is over in round 3. The idea of combat is "super tactical execution where you unload on the enemy with maximum efficiency and lethality". In other words "nothing interesting is expected, just unleash your attacks". So when are you supposed to engage with dynamic terrain and grab an enemy or knock them down etc.?
I think grappling and other uses of athletics in combat are useful, but situational. Building a character whose only gimmick is shoving people is probably a bit anemic, but being able to shove is really good sometimes.

[Dr.Samurai]

A wizard who invests heavily into DEX and CON isn't a bookworm. They're a prep school athlete with straight A's.
Right. Here we are tripping over ourselves to preserve archetypes of nimble warrior and strong warrior, meanwhile the standard wizard is a "prep school athlete with straight A's". That's not an archetype for casters.

But beyond this, physicality is more than stats. A fighter and a wizard with comparable statlines won't be identical. The fighter will be measurably tougher and quicker in the sense of more attacks / attacks that hit harder.
But I'm less concerned with that. I'm saying that in an effort to preserve martial archetypes, we wind up with fighters and wizards that have equal amounts of dexterity and constitution. I understand full well they won't be identical, but I don't understand why the wizard gets to be as robust in dexterity and constitution as the fighter. Suddenly our archetypes don't matter so much.

[windgate]

The nimble rogue is more likely to be the guy with free carrying capacity than the paladin, and traveling supplies go on a donkey or something.

[quoting me on dexterity + Strength = speed]

The bolded isn't a goal. The game promotes boosting dex regardless.

At some point, we are dealing with a overall failure of the game mechanics to account for proportional values

Nimble is defined as "quick and light in movement or action; agile."

Under the current mechanics, there is no real motivation for characters to maintain unused "carrying capacity". Characters builds might be different if inventory choices were influenced by positive reinforcement rather than the current design of negative limits and penalties. Unfortunately that might entail a massive overhaul to the game design.


As for the comment about my speed formula earlier, I should have provided the context for why I felt it does align with your goals. namely, your first statement:

"STR and DEX represent two different physically competent archetypes. The lean and nimble warrior vs. the strong and stalwart warrior. Both of these stats can be used for offense or defense, and they have various pros and cons."

Both of these archetypes are physically superior to the average person. By extension, one can assume that both archetypes should be physically faster than the average person (or in context, the "spellcaster" archetypes)

If we are changing speed mechanics to align with the archetypes, both the "lean and nimble warrior" and the "strong and stalwart warrior", need to get a boost to speed.

I am open to the idea that a strong (strength) person will be faster than the nimble (Dexterity) one but both should be quicker than an archetype that is neither. If we are boosting speed based on strength, I argue that that should be a (lesser) increase tied to dexterity.

Your original proposal in another thread was (20 + strength mod x 5). Your new version is better. I am still concerned on the impact it would have for some martial classes whose archetypes imply good physical attributes but the current class designs do not always encourage strength scores:

Namely:
Monks, Rogues and Rangers

Monks will keep up with your changes, but training the body is their entire shtick. Need to ensure they are generally the fastest of all classes.

Rogues don't have any inherent boost to speed, they wont be any faster on foot than the archetypical wizard (who spends his free time reading, not training).

Rangers are a weird mix due to both strength and dex being viable. Due to the nature of a profession they still should be faster than a spell caster regardless of the route they go.


Perhaps keep your new proposed speed buffs but add a single speed boost for a dexterity of 20 (requiring a spellcaster to be level 19 and not pick up any feats if they want it due to pumping primary stat first). It would also reward the player that takes both speed and strength to 20 (requiring them to neglect con and mental stats).

[strangebloke]

Right. Here we are tripping over ourselves to preserve archetypes of nimble warrior and strong warrior, meanwhile the standard wizard is a "prep school athlete with straight A's". That's not an archetype for casters.
It totally is. Loads of combat wizards in fiction. Harry Dresden is pretty strong and fast compared to most humans, just not compared to his peers who get there with raw physical ability.


But I'm less concerned with that. I'm saying that in an effort to preserve martial archetypes, we wind up with fighters and wizards that have equal amounts of dexterity and constitution. I understand full well they won't be identical, but I don't understand why the wizard gets to be as robust in dexterity and constitution as the fighter. Suddenly our archetypes don't matter so much.

A wizard with 14 CON isn't tougher than a fighter with 14 CON, they're barely on par with a fighter with 10 CON. So even a wizard who's invested heavily into these stats is only able to keep up and surpass martials with spells. Spells are the thing that's overpowered, not anything else. Without mage armor or shield you would never say that a wizard with comparable stats to a fighter is "physically on par with the fighter."

Like. A fighter can really easily match a wizard for intelligence too. Heck they can max their INT faster.

This just isn't a big deal.

[windgate]

Side note,

I found it interesting that when you quoted me, you snipped out the section about historical use of plate armor.

The whole point of that statement was to indicate that the source of the "armored" warrior concept includes the trait of being slower in movement. the idea of added speed is already contradicting the source of the archetype. If your primary goal is to adhere to the archetype you need to account for that.

[Dr.Samurai]

It totally is. Loads of combat wizards in fiction. Harry Dresden is pretty strong and fast compared to most humans, just not compared to his peers who get there with raw physical ability.
In Dresden-verse, being a wizard is a biological thing that results in increased physicality.

A wizard with 14 CON isn't tougher than a fighter with 14 CON, they're barely on par with a fighter with 10 CON.
I didn't say tougher though. A couple of hits points per level could be one or two attacks that you can soak over the wizard. With spells, a wizard easily overcomes that.

So even a wizard who's invested heavily into these stats is only able to keep up and surpass martials with spells.
Is that considered "heavily invested" though? Why can't the wizard start with 16 Int, 14 Dex, 14 Con?

Spells are the thing that's overpowered, not anything else.
I agree spells compound the issue.

But I'm not arguing that wizards are overpowered because of stats. I'm complaining (or whining, perhaps :smalltongue: ) that wizards would, almost by default, have physical stats close to or equal to martials. Once you put your high score in your casting stat, why not put it in the two stats that govern AC, Initiative, HPs, and two of the most common saving throws in the game?

Without mage armor or shield you would never say that a wizard with comparable stats to a fighter is "physically on par with the fighter."
Yes, that's also a thing. But if we strip away all of the spells and armor and stuff, why should a wizard be as dexterous or more dexterous than a martial? The game incentivizes investing in Dexterity, as you've already agreed to. So you wind up with prep school athlete wizards as a standard; stick your 15 in Int and put your 14 in Dex and Con.

This just isn't a big deal.
I prefer more delineation between casters and martials, and I think the issue really is Dexterity, and to a lesser extent Constitution, being general stats that everyone really wants/needs.

[strangebloke]

Perhaps keep your new proposed speed buffs but add a single speed boost for a dexterity of 20 (requiring a spellcaster to be level 19 and not pick up any feats if they want it due to pumping primary stat first). It would also reward the player that takes both speed and strength to 20 (requiring them to neglect con and mental stats).
That would probably fine.

Though I don't really worry about most of the classes here. Rogues if anything benefit from this rule. Rogues are SAD by default, meaning that its genuinely not that crazy to start with 16 STR or more (if you go the STRogue route, which works fine.) Rangers similarly are SAD (most of their spells don't require saving throws or spell attacks) and have lots of ways to boost speed if they want to (longstrider, strength focus, gloomstalker speed, etc.) The only one left out in the cold would be monks, who would still be very fast.

Admittedly something like a tortle monk being insanely fast is more than a little silly.


Side note,

I found it interesting that when you quoted me, you snipped out the section about historical use of plate armor.

The whole point of that statement was to indicate that the source of the "armored" warrior concept includes the trait of being slower in movement. the idea of added speed is already contradicting the source of the archetype. If your primary goal is to adhere to the archetype you need to account for that.

well yes and no. To think about Guts and Serpico, Guts is stronger and faster, but Serpico is more agile and light on his feet. In a footrace Guts wins hands down, but if you're trying to get someone to climb a narrow ridge on a cliff, Serpico is much better.

Adding to this, all the DEX-based classes except fighter already have big mobility bonuses. I'd doubt that a STR fighter ends up nearly as fast as a rogue.

[windgate]

It totally is. Loads of combat wizards in fiction. Harry Dresden is pretty strong and fast compared to most humans, just not compared to his peers who get there with raw physical ability.



A wizard with 14 CON isn't tougher than a fighter with 14 CON, they're barely on par with a fighter with 10 CON. So even a wizard who's invested heavily into these stats is only able to keep up and surpass martials with spells. Spells are the thing that's overpowered, not anything else. Without mage armor or shield you would never say that a wizard with comparable stats to a fighter is "physically on par with the fighter."

Like. A fighter can really easily match a wizard for intelligence too. Heck they can max their INT faster.

This just isn't a big deal.

This tracks for me. True, both the wizard and the Fighter can get the same ability scores. However, those scores are rarely the final modifier. For Con, The fighter gets larger hit dice and proficiency on those saving throws (a well as the minor impact of second wind). As for dexterity this wizard lacks skill proficiency choices in any of the dexterity skills (meaning, getting them is dependent on your characters individual background).

Using harry dresen as the example in this case. His background and (training), at least based on what Im seeing in the wiki, seem to be integrated with sports. I would think that background would make him more physically proficient than other characters with similar powers (note: I have not watched the show).

[Dr.Samurai]

The Hit Dice adds 2hp per level, and 4 at level 1. At low levels that means the fighter might survive an attack that would otherwise down the wizard. At later levels, the fighter might get 1 turn's worth of 1 monster's attack before that advantage vanishes.

The issue is that when you combine these decent stats with spells, the wizard has better AC and better effective HP than the martial, who then NEEDS heavy armor and winds up being not that much tougher than the wizard.

[windgate]

well yes and no. To think about Guts and Serpico, Guts is stronger and faster, but Serpico is more agile and light on his feet. In a footrace Guts wins hands down, but if you're trying to get someone to climb a narrow ridge on a cliff, Serpico is much better.

Adding to this, all the DEX-based classes except fighter already have big mobility bonuses. I'd doubt that a STR fighter ends up nearly as fast as a rogue.

I am admittedly having some trouble with the comparisons here due to having watched the (original) anime but not read the manga. I have a lot more contextual knowledge about guts and very little for Serpico. I would have an easier time if we were comparing Griffith to Guts (before the "event") due to being able to recall more examples.

If we are using berserk as the baseline here. One of Guts biggest traits is effortlessly one hand wielding a weapon that other people exclaim shouldnt be able to picked up at all due to its weight (meaning his strength is at a super human level).

I know that the berserker armor enters the series at some point. Does wearing that armor appear to slow him down at all, or is his strength still high enough that his movement is not impeded? (after accounting for the internal spikes of the armor).

[Dr.Samurai]

The Berserker Armor does not slow him down. In fact, he's able to push his body to its limits because of its pain-numbing/mind-altering qualities. At least in the anime he looks very quick and agile in it.

[Sorinth]

I'd say the best way of buffing Strength would be to buff the conditions associated with Strength, notably but not limited to Prone/Grappled. As an example if casting a somatic based spell while grappled required an opposed check or the spell fizzles then suddenly strength would be much stronger, or if grappled was removed from the game and all instances of grappled were replaced with restrained it would also make strength much more appealing. If all successful attacks against prone targets were critical hits then strength based builds that focused on knocking opponents down would be amazing.

Those suggestions are obviously on the very strong side so we wouldn't want to go that far, but it illustrates the point. Make things that Strength characters can do with more success then Dexterity characters can and you've buffed Strength.

[questionmark693]

I'd say the best way of buffing Strength would be to buff the conditions associated with Strength, notably but not limited to Prone/Grappled. As an example if casting a somatic based spell while grappled required an opposed check or the spell fizzles then suddenly strength would be much stronger, or if grappled was removed from the game and all instances of grappled were replaced with restrained it would also make strength much more appealing. If all successful attacks against prone targets were critical hits then strength based builds that focused on knocking opponents down would be amazing.

Those suggestions are obviously on the very strong side so we wouldn't want to go that far, but it illustrates the point. Make things that Strength characters can do with more success then Dexterity characters can and you've buffed Strength.

One side effect of that idea would be that people would try to do those things more often, as well. So many people shy away from them because they're learning the system so they keep it basic, then never seem to get around to actually learning them - so it doesn't come up very often. But I'd love to get to play around with them more!

[Dr.Samurai]

I like Sorinth's suggestions as well because it's thematic; the big strong guy holding the monster and making it more vulnerable to attacks.

Depending on the buff, I'd say monsters might need to be buffed as well. I'd say 99% of monsters that can be grappled don't have proficiency in Athletics/Acrobatics and it's almost a given that a strength character focused in Athletics will beat them on a grapple/shove check. Not so much at lower levels but definitely later when Strength/Prof have gone up and possibly Expertise has been gained.

[Guy Lombard-O]

Those suggestions are obviously on the very strong side so we wouldn't want to go that far, but it illustrates the point. Make things that Strength characters can do with more success then Dexterity characters can and you've buffed Strength.

I feel like my adjustments (posted upstream) hit that spot without being overly powerful, making a couple different fantasy tropes more available for the Str builds.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

I'll throw out the one thing we've done: take the Dex bonus away from initiative. It simplifies the game and provides all Strength based characters with a relative bump to initiative. Further, does it make any sense that a cleric praying for a spell, a fighter with a greatsword, or a wizard casting a spell go any quicker based on their Dex? I'd say no; if anything Wis, Str, and Int respectively play a part.
Dump Dex from Initiative. It works.

[strangebloke]

I'd say the best way of buffing Strength would be to buff the conditions associated with Strength, notably but not limited to Prone/Grappled. As an example if casting a somatic based spell while grappled required an opposed check or the spell fizzles then suddenly strength would be much stronger, or if grappled was removed from the game and all instances of grappled were replaced with restrained it would also make strength much more appealing. If all successful attacks against prone targets were critical hits then strength based builds that focused on knocking opponents down would be amazing.

Those suggestions are obviously on the very strong side so we wouldn't want to go that far, but it illustrates the point. Make things that Strength characters can do with more success then Dexterity characters can and you've buffed Strength.

This is a fair point, and makes a lot of sense. It's strong, but imo not too strong. Well I don't know I'd have to think about it. But most enemies aren't spellcasters and have good tools to stay out of reach, or don't rely on components to cast, or have really good strength scores themselves.

[Sorinth]

I feel like my adjustments (posted upstream) hit that spot without being overly powerful, making a couple different fantasy tropes more available for the Str builds.

I'd prefer something a little more simple so things like with Str X you can do one thing and with Str Y you can do something else isn't something I personally would be all that interested with but yes it obviously works as a way to boost Strength. I'm all for removing dex bonus to AC when suffering from certain conditions and highlights where I think you would want to put that complexity. Conditions are a great place to add that complexity because it's temporary and on the DM's screen so is quickly referenced/explained as needed.

And in terms of overall design philosophy Dex being for the skirmish/striker type and strength being for the tank/battlefield control type is a solid design goal (With certain subclasses like Open Hand providing the exception to that general philosophy).

[Falrexion]

I do two things to even out the imabalance between strength and dexterity, the first is just that initiative is based off of the higher of your intelligence or dexterity mod, which isn't a buff to strength but makes the reliance on dex a little less extreme.

The main buff I give to strength characters came from trying to redo the heavy property and involves oversized weapons. I decided instead of small races having disadvantage with heavy weapons, you need a 13 strength to wield a heavy weapon designed for a medium creature. This scales up to biggger weapons in increments of 4 so you can use weapons designed for large creatures with a 17 strength, huge creatures with a 21 strength, and if you get one of the rarer belts of giant strength, 25 for "gargantuan" weapons (This is not something I've given a player and probably wouldn't unless it was a level 20 oneshot). Each size increase adds the original weapons damage dice on top of the medium sized version, and any weapon of a size category larger than medium counts as having the heavy and two-handed properties for a medium creature.

I also use GWM and SS at my table as -proficiency to hit, +2*proficiency to damage. Higher level dex martials might struggle with damage a little in theory, but I don't usually have magic oversized weapons so strong magic items are more versatile and might even do more damage in some cases.