Weapon finesse suggestion to make it viable

[Xenostrata]

I rather find Chai's idea better.

Make strength the damage stat and dexterity the accuracy stat (to-hit). This way weapon finesse would become obsolete and maybe some other feats as well.

The problem here is that it would be the biggest nerf to every single melee build out there right now that isn't finesse (ie, most of them). Also, if you are going for realism, this is a system that includes the shielding of armor into the protection of a character, which means being able to swing the weapon really hard IS helpful in getting past a persons defenses (finesse all you want, but you still won't be able to get that dagger past someone's full plate).

p.s.
No matter what you do the rules will reflect some abstractions. If you want the combat to mimic real life combat you'd have to ditch quite a lot of the legacy rules.

Exactly. If this were true, str would be damage, dex would be attack and AC, and armor would only contribute DR. Not viable in the current system, and would get a lot of people angry if it was changed.

[Jrstevenson07]

I like this idea, but it still puts rapier a little too far ahead and leaves others too far behind.

Why not make it all one handed finessable weapons (rapiers and unarmed) get +5-7% attack speed
All light weapons get +18-20% attack speed
All "exceptionally small" weapons (daggers, kukri, light hammers - weapons that look cool but are seriously gimped) gain 25-30% increased attack speed.

I'd also like staves included as one handed weapons, and become finessable with the feat. It may not be inherently light, but it is as a weapon more about technique than just swinging randomly and hoping you hit hard enough to get past defenses.

As i've said before, I'm not good at number crunching. As it stands now all weapons are equal except for damage and crits. why is that?

Chai: You seem to have a bit of experience on the matter, but your own post admits that a smaller weapon WILL strike faster, as is my suggestion to be implemented. Your contention seems to be with the actual contact the force required. A dagger WILL move faster and yes, do less damage. If we are to dabble into the force required to weild certain weapons, we might as well install a stamina bar. Im sure you would agree a grandmaster swinging broadswords at the same speed as daggers will tire out faster.

Furthermore everybody, look at what dexterity is here for in the game. It increases reflexes (your body moves quicker to evade traps and spells) as well as armor class (you are able to move quicker to evade an attack). It only stands to reason that it also would enhance melee movement as well.

[Xenostrata]

Chai: You seem to have a bit of experience on the matter, but your own post admits that a smaller weapon WILL strike faster, as is my suggestion to be implemented. Your contention seems to be with the actual contact the force required. A dagger WILL move faster and yes, do less damage. If we are to dabble into the force required to weild certain weapons, we might as well install a stamina bar. Im sure you would agree a grandmaster swinging broadswords at the same speed as daggers will tire out faster.

As someone who has taken broadsword and fencing lessons (yes, I'm that much of a nerd) for several years, I can directly say that in a fight, heavier weapons will hit harder but move slower (slightly obvious but bears stating). In a RL duel, the foil will ALWAYS win, since it doesn't matter how hard you hit, just that you hit in the right places, and being able to appropriately maneuver is more important than being able to hit the hardest. However, DnD is an HP based game, and so must take being able to hit harder into account. This means that the normally superior weapons (rapier v. greatsword is not even a contest) are in fact incredibly inferior, because it gives all the advantages large weapons get (hitting harder) but none of the advantages small weapons get (hitting faster, more accurate).

Giving the smaller weapons these advantages would do wonders to balance out the game and make build variations more viable.

Also note that I agree that it should be dex to attack, str to damage, regardless of which is higher. The ability to target weaker spots is already present in the rogue's sneak attack ability, and if you are fighting (even with a light and fast weapon) the goal is less to target specific areas but to get hits in at all, unless you are schooled in that skill (like a rogue).

[Rinimand]

... make dex the to hit stat and str the damage stat...

^ Now, this I agree with !

[Jrstevenson07]

^ Now, this I agree with !

It would be interesting. isnt that the mechanic ued for other MMO's?

But in the meantime i am merely suggesting a way to make dex builds worth more than mockery.

[Feithlin]

The best way to make Weapon finesse more useful imo is to make AC useful in epics.
Basically, the idea of Weapon finesse it that you spend a feat to focus mainly on dex, which also benefits to your ref saves, your AC, and may be more easily increased for your race. This is the benefit: there would be no need for another one if it could make your AC viable.

[ThePrincipal]

as to the subject of dex to hit/str damage, take a trip down memory lane, before BAB, and take a look at my old buddy ThAC0. to-hit armor class 0. a hit in d&d means the blow pierces the suit of armor and does damage to wearer. in roleplaying terms, if you roll and score a miss, the dm could easily say the blow was dodged or deflected, the effect is the same. its a miss. strength based to hit simply means you have the benefit of having an easier ability to break armor with your sword to get to the meat. this is the standard western approach to middle age combat. hit em hard. d&d recognizes that if you can score a hit by other means than bashing through it. you can aim for the weakspots in the armor (dex to hit) or knowing the weakness in the opponents fighting style (wis to hit). similarly, to defend against an attack you can use reflexes to dodge (dex mod), you can use increased awareness (wis mod), and you can fight smarter (int via combat expterise).

if anything, combat expertise shouldnt be a combat stance, it should be a feat that allows you to use Int mod for AC (same as dex/wis) that figters get for free at lvl 2.

so yes dex can help your to hit, but you gotta be trained for it (take the feat).

and yes you can swing a dagger faster than a longsword. goes without saying. thats not a finese issue, thats weapon speed issue which should be brought back into the game. that would indirectly increase the dps of finese builds and str builds uses small arms.

[Angelus_dead]

As a way to make it viable, and to make dex bills actually worth considering again, I suggest that a finessible weapon, when coupled with the feat itself, receives a bonus to attack speed.

Speed bonuses are multiplicative bonuses, which are inherently stronger than the additive bonuses obtained by having high strength. A change along those lines would immediately overpower those light finesse weapons; just look at how eager Rogues are to dump multiple feats into Opportunist.

If finesse characters need a bonus (and I agree they do), some reasonable ways to approach it are:
1. Make a way to add dex mod to damage under some restricted conditions.
2. Make non-high levels of AC more valuable.
3. Make occasional ranged attacks more valuable.
4. Provide additional sources of dexterity bonuses.

[Talltale-Storyteller]

In the 3.5 edition feat book was the solution to this:

Superior Weapon Finesse. Let you add your dex mod to damage instead of str on all finesse weapons.

[morticianjohn]

I really like all the attack speeds being equal. Don't overcomplicate things.

[Angelus_dead]

In the 3.5 edition feat book was the solution to this:
Superior Weapon Finesse. Let you add your dex mod to damage instead of str on all finesse weapons.

What feat book are you referring to? (I suspect you're not actually talking about D&D 3.5 rules)

[t0r012]

No you would not be able to and still maintain the same force to do the same damage.

Swing the hammer, yes, swing it with as much strength and lethal technique behind it, no. The weapon is the human body, the force is the waist used as a fulcrum, and the hammer is merely an extension of that fulcrum with an impact point on it.

There are grandmasters who can do double broadsword forms as fast as they do double dagger forms. Then they do their double hammer form (chinese hammer weapon resembles an english mace) and those swing just as fast. Its all about economy of movement that the non combat trained human mind does not understand.

If you are using a smaller weapon you can strike faster to make contact faster, but that contact will not maintain the same level of force, because the weapon is not the factor here, the human body is. Flourishing is not striking. The user can wave the blade around in all kinds of pretty little patterns all they want, but the actual strike when done correctly applies force from the waist rotating and the rest of the body acting like a set of gears, multiplying the force behind the strike.

What you are falling for here is that "contact" equals meeting the goal of the attack, which is false. It isnt a game of tag where the weapon merely needs to contact the opponent like a fencing match, its using the human waist as a fulcrum to deliver enough force to do the damage. Dagger, longsword, pole arm, closed fist, it matters not. The human torso is moving the same to generate the force needed regardless of the weight of the weapon.

This is why 5 foot 0 inch tall japanese men could cut through a roll of carpeting diagonally and cleanly with a weapon, hand that weapon off to a football player, who cant even get halfway through it. They could grab a claymore (supposedly a better weapon for a man of larger stature) if they wanted to, and not generate enough force, if they arent using the proper technique.

its obvious that the designers had no martial experience and did minimal research when using str as the to hit stat. The game was more of a single player version of chainmail which is a medeival risk like game. There are RPGs who use a dex stat (physical prowess for example) for to hit and str stat for damage, and they are more balanced for not being able to dump 4 out of 6 stats and still be effective. Go figure. The irony here of course is that they used monk wisdom stat to add to certain characteristics and abilities that monks have. Someone familiarized themselves with japanese/korean mythology at some point, but it was long after the decision was made to use str mod for to-hit as well as damage.

Of course that being said, in 2.0 they tried to use an initiative system which incorporated the size of the weapon into the modification of the roll, as well as the dex mod. This was the closest they got to what the OP is talking about here in D&D. Segmented combat in my opinion was more accurate than the movement-standard-full-free action combat system 3.5 used. It was also alot more involved. It still didnt give dagger users a faster ROF then sword users, it just let them go first in the round more often than not.

Sorry Chai your view of the situation is quite flawed IMO.

you can talk about doing forms at the same speed or or faster with the heavier weapons but those forms have very little basis in combat reality. All forms are designed to do is to teach the basic mechanics of a weapon and train muscle memory of the techniques.

using a dagger/knife will be many times "faster" than a broad sword. as you have to follow through with a sword and place lots of force in to the blow to provide decent damage it takes a lot longer to make real combat strikes than it does with a dagger/knife. a knife with its smaller finer edge will be much easier to strike with as it is used to strike at weak/high value points generally the major arteries on the on the yin side of the body; the neck, under the back side of the arms and the inner thigh. as a secondary the tendons at the joints are also great places to cut at to reduce the available movement options of your opponent. but the thing is they don't require a "hacking" or much force at all. to sever the arteries in the vulnerable places usually only requires slicing through the skin a small layer of fatty tissue then the artery itself which equates to pretty much a flick of the wrist.

[Aesop]

Weapon Finesse

Dexterity applies to Combat DCs instead of Strength (Hitting the right pressure point, tangling up the legs, cutting the right strap on the armor)

Dexterity applies to the "to hit" bonus in place of Strength Modifier.

Dexterity is added as a damage bonus on confirmed Critical Hits (critters immune to Critical Hits are immune to this extra damage as well) (could also only be on confirmed Natural 20s if this was seen as too powerful with all the rest)

Light and Finessable weapons have a +5% Double Strike Chance


all of these benefits ONLY apply when Dexterity score exceeds Strength score.


Aesop

[Angelus_dead]

all of these benefits ONLY apply when Dexterity score exceeds Strength score.

That'd create a perverse situation where a guy with dex 30 / str 29 gets a Rage spell cast on him and his DPS goes down.

[Raithe]

This is the benefit: there would be no need for another one if it could make your AC viable.

It's more than simply making AC viable. My kensei, even with a 26 dex (+8), actually achieves the highest AC marks by wearing either Dragontouched (+3 dodge) full plate or epic Cavalry Plate. The key is making damage mitigation and avoidance more useful in general. Reflex saves and ranged attacks.

DDO has become an OP healing and one-shot-kill world. You have to have enough hit points to surmount that high damage spike, and people need to be constantly healed for the same reason, so why bother with damage mitigation and avoidance if it doesn't save resources?

Make AC viable, sure, but the damage and healing need to be toned down significantly as well. The benefits of doing so extend beyond simply making dexterity a more valuable stat, it makes the game more diverse and interesting in general.

[Aesop]

That'd create a perverse situation where a guy with dex 30 / str 29 gets a Rage spell cast on him and his DPS goes down.

Yep that is true but it also prevents a 72 strength 30 dex barbarian from gaining even more damage and extra double strike.

I suppose you could do something else to avoid that situation. Any ideas?



Maybe as long as Str doesn't exceed Dex by a certain amount... or maybe as long as Base Dex + Inherent Bonus isn't exceeded by Base Strength and Inherent Strength

[fco-karatekid]

Allow weapon finesse to use dex for both to hit and damage.

Make quarterstaffs finessable.

Make all daggers automatically finessable whether you have the feat or not.

Dunno why, but for about 6 months, (and not reading the description), this is exactly what I thought finesse did for the rogue I was playing. Then I read it and re-rolled I really like this idea.

[azrael4h]

When designing my own cRPG, the first thing I decided upon was making Agility (equivalent to D&D's DEX) the to-hit stat, STR is damage. It has always been the more logical way of doing things to me, with even my limited experience in martial arts. I felt this way back when I was 7 and decided I wanted to make a crpg, and never have changed that thought.

Now I have experience with the English Quarterstaff and German Longsword, and what I felt back then has been proven true by that experience.

Swinging a Longsword (using this as example, but it's a common theme) is about leverage, and using the body to efficiently generate force along the cutting edge. Swing a longsword like a crowbar, and you're going to get killed. Think that a qstaff is a big hammer without a head, and treat it as such, and you won't get much done except die embarrassed.

using a dagger/knife will be many times "faster" than a broad sword. as you have to follow through with a sword and place lots of force in to the blow to provide decent damage it takes a lot longer to make real combat strikes than it does with a dagger/knife.

The person who puts a lot of force into using a broadsword is a person who doesn't know how to use a broadsword. It's not a crowbar. That point sinks quite readily into flesh; that edge cuts skin easily. This isn't a movie. If you need lots of force to a blow to make a broadsword work, then learn to use the Broadsword right. It's about leverage; not power. I generate more force with a Quarterstaff by using it properly and using leverage than I ever would swinging it like a sledgehammer. And as more than one person found out, it moves very, very fast.

Pick up any Christian Tobler book, like "Fighting with the German Longsword". I also recommend checking out the ARMA's website http://www.thearma.org/, as it has a good many articles on western martial arts in general. In reality, the main difference is Eastern and Western arts is wide-spread publication and availability, and more than a bit of marketing. The western arts are lesser known, and like your post illustrates vastly misunderstood and oversimplified into brute barbaric nonsense. In studying both, I'm finding more similarities than differences, and what differences there are are due to cultural and technical limitations.

[Aesop]

When designing my own cRPG, the first thing I decided upon was making Agility (equivalent to D&D's DEX) the to-hit stat, STR is damage. It has always been the more logical way of doing things to me, with even my limited experience in martial arts. I felt this way back when I was 7 and decided I wanted to make a crpg, and never have changed that thought.

Now I have experience with the English Quarterstaff and German Longsword, and what I felt back then has been proven true by that experience.

Swinging a Longsword (using this as example, but it's a common theme) is about leverage, and using the body to efficiently generate force along the cutting edge. Swing a longsword like a crowbar, and you're going to get killed. Think that a qstaff is a big hammer without a head, and treat it as such, and you won't get much done except die embarrassed.



The person who puts a lot of force into using a broadsword is a person who doesn't know how to use a broadsword. It's not a crowbar. That point sinks quite readily into flesh; that edge cuts skin easily. This isn't a movie. If you need lots of force to a blow to make a broadsword work, then learn to use the Broadsword right. It's about leverage; not power. I generate more force with a Quarterstaff by using it properly and using leverage than I ever would swinging it like a sledgehammer. And as more than one person found out, it moves very, very fast.

Pick up any Christian Tobler book, like "Fighting with the German Longsword". I also recommend checking out the ARMA's website http://www.thearma.org/, as it has a good many articles on western martial arts in general. In reality, the main difference is Eastern and Western arts is wide-spread publication and availability, and more than a bit of marketing. The western arts are lesser known, and like your post illustrates vastly misunderstood and oversimplified into brute barbaric nonsense. In studying both, I'm finding more similarities than differences, and what differences there are are due to cultural and technical limitations.

Hey I know that guy... he's a bit eccentric. When I knew him he was kinda overdoing the Errol Flynn look but still not a bad guy

[azrael4h]

Hey I know that guy... he's a bit eccentric. When I knew him he was kinda overdoing the Errol Flynn look but still not a bad guy

I think you have to be a tad bit eccentric to pour over Medieval European fight manuals and reconstruct the arts within, or for that matter, design and program a computer game.