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  1. - Top - End - #1
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    Default Does DEX make the most sense for Ranged Attacks?

    Since the dawn of time DEX has been the bonus mod for (most) ranged attacks, but does this make sense? Do we accept it because of its legacy or because it is the best fit?

    Dexterity often relates to agility, reflexes, and fine motor skills, all of which are not super utilized when operating a missile weapon, through my understanding. I'm no trained marksman by any means but I've shot bows/thrown javelins/used firearms, so I am basing these thoughts off of my own amateur experiences. In other systems, I've often house ruled that missile weapon attack bonus are dependent upon a perception-based statistic, instead of dexterity/agility. My ruling for this is often the simple idea of "you can't shoot what you can't see".

    Diving deeper, I think being able to appropriately judge distances, wind power/direction, account for movement, as well as seeing your target are all vital, in addition to the more physical aspects such as consistency in achieving anchor points, weapon control, and in some cases the sheer strength to effectively use the tool (look at you longbows and heavy rifles). Essentially, this breaks down into Sagacity (Perception + Judgement) and Physicality, (more Strength, less Dexterity). To convert this to D&D, it sounds like either Wisdom or Strength are the better options for missile attacks instead of Dexterity. I'd give my preference to Wisdom since Strength we can probably rule as a min STR rating on a weapon to cover most of the previous points. So in conclusion, Wisdom is a more apt choice.

    Or is it?

    Dexterity has been the ruling champ for ages and it could be said that the ability to respond to minute changes, such as adjusting for ballistic arc, wind speed and the sporadic movements of the goblin savage sit comfortably within the realm of Dexterity. As for everything else I mentioned, that can be tucked under the rule of 'being proficient with the weapon'. Or maybe its more mechanical, game design wise, to use Dexterity.

    What are your thoughts? Do you prefer systems that use a more perception based approach to missile attack/home-brew them yourself? Or is Dexterity rightfully king?
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    Default Re: Does DEX make the most sense for Ranged Attacks?

    So there are (usually) two parts to the "bonus mod for ranged attacks": to-hit bonus, and damage bonus.

    If you consider "hand-eye co-ordination" to be part of Dexterity's wheel-house, then yes, it makes sense for the to-hit bonus to be dexterity based for ranged attacks. After all, with ranged weapons a small deviation in initial direction can yield a large difference in final location, whereas with a melee attack, the deviation is much smaller and much less relevant (e.g. a glancing blow from a mace is sub-optimal, but will still hurt).

    Dexterity to damage bonus is more tricky to justify, but is also edition dependent. IIRC, 3.5 didn't give Dex bonus to ranged damage by default, but is present in 5E, presumably as part of the relative streamlining process of that edition. One explanation is greater control over one's ammunition's point of entry can target weak spots in armor or physiology.

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    Default Re: Does DEX make the most sense for Ranged Attacks?

    I would say it depends on what your definition of Dexterity is. In truth, ability scores don't really make sense. And most of them are latching together things that are completely unrelated. Your ability to take a punch has nothing to do with your ability to resist disease, but both are Constitution. Having a strong personality and being naturally endearing to people doesn't make you a better liar, talk to any wilful toddler ever. And don't even get me started on the conglomeration of nonsense that is Wisdom.

    So here's the thing, in 5e Dex is defined as your agility, reflexes, balance, and poise. And honestly, most of these have nothing to do with each other. Your twitch reactions don't make you more agile, nor do they help you balance better. Honestly, most of these things are just stuff that acrobats would train in to be acrobats. But it has nothing to do with being a thief of being particularly manually dexterous.

    3.5 was a bit better, in that it also listed hand-eye coordination as a part of what Dex was about. And there's an argument to be made for that to be what influences your aim.

    But in truth, there is a lot that goes into aiming. If I were to list out the most relevant ability scores it would be Dex, Wis, and either Str or Con depending on whether you think it is your strength or your ability to endure strenuous activity needed to hold a 120 lb longbow out and steady. Though it's definitely strength for throwing weapons.

    The most accurate TTRPG I've played that handled this did something like, different weapons required (Strength + Perception)/2 to make attack rolls with bows, with bigger bows requiring a larger base Strength to use effectively. However, you could adjust where the arrow hit on the target with Dexterity.

    While using Crossbows just required straight Perception to attack, Dex to adjust where to hit. Which made it easier to use for beginners. But since it required more actions to reload once you got trained it became a less efficient weapon. Unless you got yourself one of the super expensive heavy duty ones.

    But that's a bit more complicated than most D&D type games get.

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    Default Re: Does DEX make the most sense for Ranged Attacks?

    I'd say a desirable trait in a game is to make it easy for people to play the characters they want to play. I'm hesitant to make a common task (like shooting a bow) involve a bunch of different ability scores.

    If a new player says "I want to be an archer, where should I put my points?," you don't want the answer to be "Some in Strength to use a bow with a heavier draw strength, some in dexterity so your hands are steady, some in Constitution so you can keep the bow drawn back longer, some in Intelligence so you can hold all the relevant environmental data in your head and process it quickly, and some in Wisdom so you have good eyesight."

    At some point, instead of having each character in the party have there own area of focus, everyone in the party has a near-even spread in their ability scores, because you have to have a little bit of everything just to be able to do anything.

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    Default Re: Does DEX make the most sense for Ranged Attacks?

    Quote Originally Posted by Dienekes View Post
    I would say it depends on what your definition of Dexterity is. In truth, ability scores don't really make sense. And most of them are latching together things that are completely unrelated. Your ability to take a punch has nothing to do with your ability to resist disease, but both are Constitution. Having a strong personality and being naturally endearing to people doesn't make you a better liar, talk to any wilful toddler ever. And don't even get me started on the conglomeration of nonsense that is Wisdom.
    I could not agree more! I'm looking to eventually re-do the core attributes in a way that might be more applicable and this ranged DEX question was one of many that I discovered.

    Quote Originally Posted by Sharur View Post
    So there are (usually) two parts to the "bonus mod for ranged attacks": to-hit bonus, and damage bonus.

    If you consider "hand-eye co-ordination" to be part of Dexterity's wheel-house, then yes, it makes sense for the to-hit bonus to be dexterity based for ranged attacks. After all, with ranged weapons a small deviation in initial direction can yield a large difference in final location
    Both of you guys nailed something I missed, totally glazed over the idea of hand-eye coordination. That does add a big point in camp DEX. Thanks!
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    Default Re: Does DEX make the most sense for Ranged Attacks?

    There are some systems that split hit to dexterity or equivalent and damage to strength equivalent for both melee and ranged attacks AFAIK. D&D doesn't because being relatively SAD is one of the few advantages of mundanes in most editions.
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    Default Re: Does DEX make the most sense for Ranged Attacks?

    I think that Dex has stayed the go-to stat for ranged attacks at least in part because of the trope of willowly, waifish characters (elves, women) being the standard for archers in a lot of fantasy works.

    Which, from what I've read, doesn't correlate well with reality. At least for English-style longbows in the middle ages, you definitely needed a well-developed set of chest and shoulder muscles. Maybe some of the Asian-style bows, such as those used by Mongols while one horseback were different, but I honestly don't know.

    Now, I think the most important question is: What are you trying to achieve?
    Most D&D (and other tabletop games) are looking to have balanced rules, and tell a good story. For that purpose, it doesn't really matter what stat it is. In a different sort of system you could make "Fight" all one stat, or just have "attack" and "damage" as stats and let players fluff it however they wanted, or even have a separate stat for every weapon type (sword, bow, mace, this thing, etc) and let that number apply to everything for that weapon.

    In D&D, if you felt that Dex was too attractive for certain character builds and wanted to nerf it a bit, I could certainly see you making it the stat only for ranged attack rolls, and had the damage-roll from all stats use Strength. There are also lots of stuff in 3.5 (less so in 5E) that you replace one stat with another, so for example if you wanted to let a feat swap out Wis for Dex in ranged combat, that might be an option, too. I think it's pretty flexible and if someone objects based on arguments about "realism" you're gonna have more problems down the line anyway.
    Last edited by Deepbluediver; 2023-01-16 at 11:32 AM.
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    Default Re: Does DEX make the most sense for Ranged Attacks?

    Quote Originally Posted by Deepbluediver View Post
    I think that Dex has stayed the go-to stat for ranged attacks at least in part because of the trope of willowly, waifish characters (elves, women) being he standard for archers in a lot of fantasy works.

    Which, from what I've read, doesn't correlate well with reality. At least for English-style longbows in the middle ages, you definitely needed a well-developed set of chest of shoulder muscles. Maybe some of the Asian-style bows, such as those used by Mongols while one horseback were different, but I honestly don't know.
    Basically this. D&D portrays a fictional fantasy world first. In these stories bows and most other ranged weapons (the exception being heavy firearms) are often the domain of people who fight with agility and/or grace. Ninja's, burglars and Robin Hood types, and especially if the story is based on a small group of individuals going on an adventure, the girl of the group. (Common exceptions are the girl using magic instead or there being multiple girls, in which case the second one is free to get another fighting style.)

    Does it make complete real world sense? Probably not. Similar to how you can get the biggest damage on a rapier by being either a ninja type or a hulking brute, rather than a person with a sensible build somewhere in the middle and lots of practice. In reality most if not all weapons probably require some measure of coordination first (although being strong enough certainly helps achieve this level) and then mostly practice to drive up skill and if you have any "stat points" left strength to drive up damage.

    Honestly, game balance wise it might actually be cool if at least one type of bow was a finesse weapon, usable both with Str and Dex. It can't be the strongest bow though, similar to how the strongest melee weapons aren't finesse weapons. You could make a semi-historical point to make the longbow the finesse one and add a recurve bow as the best bow for Dex users. But since the longbow is probably the most iconic one that everyone wants to use that probably wouldn't be a popular change.

    Another way to try and be more realistic is the 3.5 way of making the damage bonus of every weapon depend on strength. But I almost feel like to make it any kind of fair as well as accurate the accuracy of all weapons should then at least partially be based on dexterity. In the end someone is going to do the math and figure out the ultimate build is somewhere in the middle and now every adventurer tends to either have reasonable values in both stats or have both of them maxed at the expense of everything else. Game wise and fantasy wise I think the current solution is better.

    I'm not considering wisdom because at least at first glance, learning to throw an object or fire a bow feels less about seeing where your target is and estimating distances and more about being coordinated. And while muscle spindles are technically a sense they have always been grouped under Dex rather than Wis as far as I know. In advanced archery you probably need to do a lot of judging of wind speeds and such, but at that point you might as well go full sniper school and make it Int based. Plus I feel like the current balance between physical and mental stats is actually kind of cool, because mental stats are the good ones for role playing. So you can technically get a stronger character by ignoring them, but from a character stand point you often want at least one good and one average one, so it balances itself out. That is not to say the idea is without value at all. There would be several cool character ideas that become viable if you can shoot using Wis and maybe some Str, like a thoughtful ambush hunter kind of ranger who does not do a back flip even ones. But if I have to choose one of them, I'll stick with Dex.
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    Default Re: Does DEX make the most sense for Ranged Attacks?

    Quote Originally Posted by Lvl 2 Expert View Post
    I'm not considering wisdom because at least at first glance, learning to throw an object or fire a bow feels less about seeing where your target is and estimating distances and more about being coordinated. And while muscle spindles are technically a sense they have always been grouped under Dex rather than Wis as far as I know. In advanced archery you probably need to do a lot of judging of wind speeds and such, but at that point you might as well go full sniper school and make it Int based. Plus I feel like the current balance between physical and mental stats is actually kind of cool, because mental stats are the good ones for role playing. So you can technically get a stronger character by ignoring them, but from a character stand point you often want at least one good and one average one, so it balances itself out. That is not to say the idea is without value at all. There would be several cool character ideas that become viable if you can shoot using Wis and maybe some Str, like a thoughtful ambush hunter kind of ranger who does not do a back flip even ones. But if I have to choose one of them, I'll stick with Dex.
    The reason I suggested Wisdom is because, to me, WIS has always been the stat of "awareness" of your surroundings and how everything fits together. So judging how an arrow fired across a distance will strike a moving target, compenstating for lag-time and influence from crosswinds, etc etc etc, feels like it could be pretty influenced fairly significantly by WIS. In other words, of the 3 "mental" stats, IMO it's the one most relevant to this situation. I would also accept "INT boosts damage" with the explanation that you know WHERE to hit your enemies so that it hurts them the most.

    On the whole, though, I'm not really a fan of the entire "replace X stat to Y with Z stat to Y" mechanic because I think it leads to cheesy, one-stat builds, but I'm willing to allow it (or suggest it to other people) if the existing mechanics are giving you or your player's conniptions. That's why I suggested making this part of a feat (or class feature), so it's not immediately available to everyone but can be obtained if you want to build for it.
    I really want to reiterate that D&D is NOT SUPPOSED TO BE A PERFECT SIMULATION OF IRL MECHANICS. It is a game. If you want to try to build a system that perfectly mimics what you think the IRL would be like in a game, be my guest (FATAL springs to mind, and then makes me shudder), but I don't think it will look much like D&D. At some point, I believe most people are just going to have to accept something like "this is a rule that leads to a balanced & fun game", and leave it at that. And if you don't, good luck, but I probably won't be asking to join your group any time soon.
    Quote Originally Posted by Rater202 View Post
    It's not called common because the sense is common, it's called common because it's about common things.
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    Default Re: Does DEX make the most sense for Ranged Attacks?

    Quote Originally Posted by Deepbluediver View Post
    The reason I suggested Wisdom is because, to me, WIS has always been the stat of "awareness" of your surroundings and how everything fits together. So judging how an arrow fired across a distance will strike a moving target, compenstating for lag-time and influence from crosswinds, etc etc etc, feels like it could be pretty influenced fairly significantly by WIS. In other words, of the 3 "mental" stats, IMO it's the one most relevant to this situation. I would also accept "INT boosts damage" with the explanation that you know WHERE to hit your enemies so that it hurts them the most.

    On the whole, though, I'm not really a fan of the entire "replace X stat to Y with Z stat to Y" mechanic because I think it leads to cheesy, one-stat builds, but I'm willing to allow it (or suggest it to other people) if the existing mechanics are giving you or your player's conniptions. That's why I suggested making this part of a feat (or class feature), so it's not immediately available to everyone but can be obtained if you want to build for it.
    I really want to reiterate that D&D is NOT SUPPOSED TO BE A PERFECT SIMULATION OF IRL MECHANICS. It is a game. If you want to try to build a system that perfectly mimics what you think the IRL would be like in a game, be my guest (FATAL springs to mind, and then makes me shudder), but I don't think it will look much like D&D. At some point, I believe most people are just going to have to accept something like "this is a rule that leads to a balanced & fun game", and leave it at that. And if you don't, good luck, but I probably won't be asking to join your group any time soon.
    Riddle of Steel and its derivative games would be where I would suggest looking if trying to make a game that models realistic fighting mechanics and is actually fun.

    Of course part of that is the system was developed by actual martial artists and not... whatever the hell the people from FATAL are. I wanna say disgruntled perverts?

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    Default Re: Does DEX make the most sense for Ranged Attacks?

    Quote Originally Posted by BigDumbYak View Post
    Since the dawn of time DEX has been the bonus mod for (most) ranged attacks, but does this make sense? Do we accept it because of its legacy or because it is the best fit?
    Depends. If you are wanting an easy, no mess approach for mechanics then yes DEX is the best way to go. If you are wanting more real world aspects then this is best handled by considering what the weapon is. In this avenue DEX makes sense on something like a cross bow where the force needed to generate its power is mechanical. Agility is this case is needed for aiming. For bows, strength makes more sense given the power generated is based on the draw strength of the bow. So it depends, do you want to take the time creating or finding a system that address real world aspects? Or something that is quick and easy?

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    Default Re: Does DEX make the most sense for Ranged Attacks?

    Quote Originally Posted by Sharur View Post
    Dexterity to damage bonus is more tricky to justify.
    My justification: It's easier to line up a headshot with faster reflexes.

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    Default Re: Does DEX make the most sense for Ranged Attacks?

    Quote Originally Posted by Deepbluediver View Post
    I really want to reiterate that D&D is NOT SUPPOSED TO BE A PERFECT SIMULATION OF IRL MECHANICS. It is a game.
    Yeah, that was my point exactly. I'm honestly a little confused why you're yelling this in response to my post. You're the one trying to have the game make more sense from a realism standpoint and then you write a paragraph about how I should ge rewrite an infamous game with negative anus circumferences if I want realism. I don't know how I could have made this clearer, but I'm not the one asking for realism here.
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    Default Re: Does DEX make the most sense for Ranged Attacks?

    Quote Originally Posted by Lvl 2 Expert View Post
    Yeah, that was my point exactly. I'm honestly a little confused why you're yelling this in response to my post. You're the one trying to have the game make more sense from a realism standpoint and then you write a paragraph about how I should ge rewrite an infamous game with negative anus circumferences if I want realism. I don't know how I could have made this clearer, but I'm not the one asking for realism here.
    Sorry, I didn't meant to imply that I was yelling at you. I was more just trying to emphasize it as a general point.

    A lot of times I've seen people discussing or debating stuff like this and they end up getting sucked down a rabit-hole of tangents that end up being largely irrelevant, and it can be useful to bring everyone's attention back to the central theme. I apologize for not being clearer about that when posting- I'm enjoying this discussion very much.
    Quote Originally Posted by Rater202 View Post
    It's not called common because the sense is common, it's called common because it's about common things.
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