Community

Jan 23, 2013 -- 10:30AM, TheLyons wrote:

If anyone gets in your 10 foot reach

"Reach: When you attack with this weapon on your turn, your reach increases by 5 feet."

Reach works differently, and makes more sense now.

Warding polearm counts for when they enter your reach, which, since you're not attacking on your turn, is whatever it normally is (5ft for a medium creature) 

Lunge only applies after you're making an attack already, so for enemies to provoke your attacks, with all of these combined, they still need to move within 5ft of you.

Jan 22, 2013 -- 2:16PM, CarlT wrote:

I suspect that most things people see as OP at this point are 'working as intended'.   Martial characters are supposed to be on an even footing with casters - and this has resulted in a massive upgrade in their damage.

I think they tipped the balance a bit too far in the martial character's favor. The martial characters can now do damage on equal footing as the casters can. However, unlike the casters which have a limited amount of spells, eventually only being able to deal low or moderate damage, the martial classes can continue to dish out their highest damage every turn. Caster classes need to think "is this enemy worth it? Will I need it later?" just about every time they fight and want to use a spell. Martial Characters can just plow out their 8d6+14 damage super hit whenever they feel like.

Jan 23, 2013 -- 10:30AM, TheLyons wrote:

As they've stated, nothing has been found that's OP per se, but more likely working as intended to make things such as melee comparable to spell-casting.

Here is a level 9 fighter:

Polearm Training
Combat Reflexes
Warding Polearm

These three feats have great synergy. If anyone gets in your 10 foot reach, they automatically provoke an attack of opportunity. There aren't a lot of ways to provoke these, so this is great. You have advantage on all of these attacks of opportunity. Furthermore, you can make two of them a round. Two free attacks, or up to 3 free attacks with Cleave! You also have room for another feat in this build. I am unsure, but if these attacks of opportunity combine with Lunge that gives you 15 feet of range for this.

Manuevers -
Opportunist - You'll be generating opportunity attacks with advantage, and this is a bonus of up to six on that!
Lunge - 15ft range attacks! Yeah! These two manuevers have great synergy with this build.
Disarm, Trip, Shove Away all have a 10ft range which makes them nicer than normal. If this is combinable with Lunge, it's even better, but it is unclear to me if you can stack manuevers like this.

I fully feel this isn't OP, and this build will be in full force at level 9. This is what I would build as a monster slayer type fighter. Compared to what a level 9 caster is doing, I would say this fighter would be reasonably comparable and I'd actually enjoy playing him (I hate melee, and love casters, traditionally). If there is a rogue in the party, I'd have him taunt enemies to us as well for free attacks.

   

Yes, I am quoting myself but I wanted to update this build. If you make this character a rogue, then it works better. The Polearm Training feat gives you proficiency with all weapons it benefits from. You can use Taunt to have the enemies come to you and you get up to two attacks of opportunity, with advantage, a turn. If you have sneak attack, you can give up advantage to double your martial damage dice. This is nice synergy.

Also, as a rogue I noticed Slippery Target and Riposte is pretty sweet, as well as Artful Dodger and Riposte.
With Artful Dodger, you give disadvantage to one attack a round. If they miss, you get an attack of opportunity. You can still have an attack of opportunity from combat reflexes in the same round as well.
However, with Slippery Target, if someone misses you, you get an attack of opportunity against them AND you can also redirect their attack to another enemy if one is in both of your reach. This means if someone misses you with an attack, you can get the equivalent two free attacks and STILL have another opportunity attack from combat reflexes at the ready.

None of this is OP, but I think more working as intended.  

Jan 23, 2013 -- 6:32PM, Scald wrote:

Jan 22, 2013 -- 2:16PM, CarlT wrote:

I suspect that most things people see as OP at this point are 'working as intended'.   Martial characters are supposed to be on an even footing with casters - and this has resulted in a massive upgrade in their damage.

I think they tipped the balance a bit too far in the martial character's favor. The martial characters can now do damage on equal footing as the casters can. However, unlike the casters which have a limited amount of spells, eventually only being able to deal low or moderate damage, the martial classes can continue to dish out their highest damage every turn. Caster classes need to think "is this enemy worth it? Will I need it later?" just about every time they fight and want to use a spell. Martial Characters can just plow out their 8d6+14 damage super hit whenever they feel like.

If they have tipped the balance in martial characters favor, it's not a major issue currently. As long as the mechanics are solid, the amount of damage right now is just math. They've stated several times that math fixes are super easy, and they are. As long as you have no gripes with the mechanics themselves, then the math will all be adjusted as they go.

My main problem with the editions of D&D before regarding martial characters was that they just weren't fun to me and couldn't hold a candle to casters. I played 1e all the way to 3.5e, and at mid and especially high level play, if you weren't a caster you might as well just stayed at home. The options that the rogue, monk and even the fighter have so far in the packet makes them very temting to play, even at high levels. For the first time since I've been playing D&D, I actually WANT to play a fighter. This shows that they are on the right track, at least for my play group and myself.

Jan 23, 2013 -- 6:32PM, Scald wrote:

I think they tipped the balance a bit too far in the martial character's favor. The martial characters can now do damage on equal footing as the casters can. However, unlike the casters which have a limited amount of spells, eventually only being able to deal low or moderate damage, the martial classes can continue to dish out their highest damage every turn. Caster classes need to think "is this enemy worth it? Will I need it later?" just about every time they fight and want to use a spell. Martial Characters can just plow out their 8d6+14 damage super hit whenever they feel like.

Except that casters have utility with spells that martial characters simply can't have. And as I've seen in the interviews, once the classes are fully fleshed out and there is an issue with the numbers, it's one of the easiest fixes for the team.

Since sixtymya has the alpha strike down pretty well, I'll take armor.

The official policy is that magic items aren't part of the game math, so I'll work without them. If you do include magic items, then the best AC is a wizard spamming Wish for infinite Ioun stones. But everyone knows Wish cheese is full of holes.


There's nothing in the rules stopping you from dual-wielding shields. The rule on shields says shields function as a 1d4 weapon, so you can still attack... badly.

Since you have two weapons, you qualify for Two-Weapon Defense. You might say that blocking using your weapon in TWD is redundant with blocking using a shield, but look at this another way: it's less redundant than TWD and Parry. Which you'll also use if you can. Someday you'll even get Deflect in there, so that you can use your weapon to parry a blow that you deflected with your weapon after the blow bypassed your amazing ability to block blows with your weapon. (Dev team, three different parry mechanics is a great selection for one book. I'm happy. You can stop making them now.)

Upgrade your shields to spike shields. This slightly improves your offensive power and lets you use the two-weapon fighting rules, but mostly you do this because it makes your character look cooler.

With everything together, the best AC in the game is plate armor (18), dual-wielding spiked shields (+2), played as a mountain dwarf (+1 AC in heavy armor), with the feat Two-Weapon Defense (+1 AC while wielding two weapons), and dodging (+4 AC). Grand total is 26 AC, plus one for every cleric you have casting Prayer. Roughly half of the monsters in the monster manual cannot touch 26 AC, and half of the rest need a critical hit, so that's pretty good armor.

Since you're playing a rolling metal spikeball at this point, round out the build with Defensive Roll. You can contribute to the adventure by sticking to your party and using Protect as often as you can, or by rolling up to an enemy and waiting to make an opportunity attack if they move. Good maneuvers are Protect, Opportunist, Glancing Blow, and maybe Shove Away. Your feats are Two-Weapon Defense and Combat Reflexes, probably a house-ruled feat for weapon proficiency in spiked shields, and the fourth for whatever you want.

The ridiculous extreme of AC is an assassin-rogue mountain dwarf cowering behind plate armor and a pair of shields, using Dodge and Unassuming Threat to quiver and look pitiful while secretly plotting the king's demise. 26+1dX AC, plus skill tricks against spells, and zero ability to do anything but survive.