Using dex for damage

[Anihsod]

When I was doing kendo I was 165 pounds at 6'2". I regularly sparred with a guy who was half of a mountain .. probably 6'4" 255. He landed maybe 3% of the strikes that I landed on him. Speed, technique, and "smarts" are a heckalot more important in a RL sword fight. mohamed ali certainly wasn't the strongest fighter of his day.

[Ayseifn]

You need a 23 Str for OC, which is going to make going Dex-based difficult, and certainly going to make going heavily Dex-based basically impossible.

I forgot it was 23 and not 21, that does skew things toward str a lot more than dex.

Yes, EWP is a feat, and should be worth a feat slot...but so is Weapon Finesse. Which one of those is actually worth spending a feat on? I have no problem with Weapon Finesse becoming equal to, or slightly better than EWP: K...with some specific AP invested in addition to spending the feat. Khopeshes aren't sacred objects that should be elevated above all other options, which they basically are, at present. Giving them some competition isn't a bad thing. Right now, rogues who don't use khopeshes are basically setting out having accepted the fact that they are going to be dealing suboptimal DPS. Not way less than they could be, but definitely less. If they are also Dex-based, it is going to be a lot less damage.

http://forums.ddo.com/showpost.php?p...&postcount=136
For that rogue, if they took power crit instead of ewk they'd be doing 0.047 dmg less per swing. Taking a better feat like PL rog, PL pally, completionist(heh), PA/precision(at least situationally) or quick draw would push the str rapier user ahead.

So far, the only significant point against Dex to damage is that it may eclipse the strength of EWP, depending on the build, while giving characters higher bonuses in some secondary and tertiary abilities...at the cost of a feat (a wash) and an investment of AP. That doesn't sound unreasonable. If we were looking at this being available to all characters, then it might be a problem, but as it stands, it really doesn't look to be.

Pretty much yeah, it's just the cost I'm worried about. Just don't want to see it become a no brainer option like ewk used to be.

[sephiroth1084]

I forgot it was 23 and not 21, that does skew things toward str a lot more than dex.

http://forums.ddo.com/showpost.php?p...&postcount=136
For that rogue, if they took power crit instead of ewk they'd be doing 0.047 dmg less per swing. Taking a better feat like PL rog, PL pally, completionist(heh), PA/precision(at least situationally) or quick draw would push the str rapier user ahead.

I don't believe that example assumes Overwhelming Critical, which can make a difference, favoring the khopesh still. Cleave and Great Cleave also favor the khopesh.

7 feats +2 epic: TWF, ITWF, GTWF, PA, Cleave, GC, IC: slashing, OC, ____ could be EWP:K, Rogue PL, Precision, Stunning Blow (not great, but usable on a Str-based rogue, while not at all usable on the Dex build), Improved Sunder (ditto), Power Critical, Toughness, or Improved Sneak Attack. Giving up some stuff there, but also making some gains.

In any case, that doesn't look like it would make for a clear-cut decision to me.

Pretty much yeah, it's just the cost I'm worried about. Just don't want to see it become a no brainer option like ewk used to be.

I really don't believe this will occur. For one, not everyone wants to be in Shadowdancer, and if you aren't the khopesh is definitely ahead. The khopesh is likely ahead with OC, but you may not want to invest in those other feats to get there. Then you also have Str-based rapier users, which probably compete fairly evenly with the Dex version (lacking a bit perhaps), but have an extra feat to play with, and some more variety in their weapon choices for alternate situations.

Finally, even if it did make Dex-based the clear-cut decision for Assassin rogues (or even Assassins, Tempests, Acrobats, Ninja Spies), you're still looking at less than half of the possible platforms for a similar character make-up being pushed in that direction. Given how strongly everyone has been pushed to use khopeshes, even that doesn't seem like a problem. You would end up with some rogues and rangers (maybe) using rapiers, shortswords, daggers, and/or kukris, while some rogues and rangers would be using khopeshes still, and most (if not all) of your fighters and paladins would be using khopeshes, along with any melee-focused multi-class that benefits more from Str, or from not taking rogue levels, than it does from Dex and Assassin.

THAT would be much better for diversity that the state of the game now, or if Dex to damage wasn't basically even with the Str build. Certainly, access, potentially, to something like Stunning Blow outweighs a few points on Reflex, AC and Balance most of the time.

[sephiroth1084]

On a side note when I was 12 and taking judo/jujitsu at a dojo we where honored by the grand daughter of the schools founder coming to visit. She was an old woman in her 70s or so. She in an open spar with the 5 instructors coming at her from my school rapidly put them down in a series of moves nearly impossible to follow.

This was certainly a case of Int,Wis, and Dex being the keys to skillful combat when unarmed. IMO STR should be a nearly trivial score to a monk in DDO. Or one they can fuel more easily with some kind of ki expenditure perhaps a 1D2 per character lvl with a scaling cost of 5 ki per die. this would let all monks dump str at the gate but summon it up when needed. I frankly tend to feel ki doesnt have enough use on my monk and often am sitting on a surplus of it no matter how fast I spam my ki attacks.

But was she hurting them much? Certainly getting knocked down, or thrown, hurts (though it doesn't in D&D), but was she hurting them otherwise?

That sounds more like she was using Dodge, Mobility, Combat Reflexes, Improved Trip, Defensive Throw and Elusive Target. Basically, whenever someone you have declared Dodge on misses you, you get a free Trip attack against them; the first time someone flanking you attacks you in a round, that attack misses you and can hit your opponent; when you provoke an attack of opportunity by move out of a threatened square, and your opponent misses you, you gain a free trip attack against them.

Maybe mix in some Pathfinder stuff for Crane Wing and Crane Riposte (once per round, automatically negate one melee attack, then use AoO to counterattack).

High Dex and Wis for AC (maybe Combat Expertise as well), and when people miss you, you trip them. It's effective, but it isn't causing damage.

In the real world, you need Dex, Int, Wis and Str to hit someone with most weapons with any kind of regularity of success or effect, especially if your opponent has any skill at avoiding attacks. D&D is an abstraction. If you land a hit with a sword against someone in armor, but you swung it like a 10 year old girl, sure, you may have landed the blow thanks to your litheness, but you won't have harmed your target, unless you are especially adept at using your quickness to get to exposed points.

[Chai]

But was she hurting them much? Certainly getting knocked down, or thrown, hurts (though it doesn't in D&D), but was she hurting them otherwise?

That sounds more like she was using Dodge, Mobility, Combat Reflexes, Improved Trip, Defensive Throw and Elusive Target. Basically, whenever someone you have declared Dodge on misses you, you get a free Trip attack against them; the first time someone flanking you attacks you in a round, that attack misses you and can hit your opponent; when you provoke an attack of opportunity by move out of a threatened square, and your opponent misses you, you gain a free trip attack against them.

More like momentum throws and reverse momentum throws. Most of the grabbing and throwing martial arts techniques are based on power and momentum, and not on strength.

High Dex and Wis for AC (maybe Combat Expertise as well), and when people miss you, you trip them. It's effective, but it isn't causing damage.

This is incorrect. The instructor isnt doing damage because they dont want to - they are teaching and not in a RL battle. If they have someone in a reverse momentum throw the person thrown is basically screwed in a real confrontation. The person reversing the momentum gets to decide how they will hit the ground, which body part will hit first and all of their charging speed and own weight is now a liability against them. If they decide that point is going to be the back of their head and they weigh 240 pounds and also charged at them...its going to do alot of damage. Alot of those techniques were invented and refined in an era in those cultures histories where people had to know how to defend themselves. If those moves did no damage they would not have continued to refine the techniques for hundreds of years.

Throwing techniques did alot of damage, which is why one of the first things good teachers instruct their students on is how to fall. Back in the day, they had to develop a counter to many of these dangerous unarmed moves, which also get committed to muscle memory.

In the real world, you need Dex, Int, Wis and Str to hit someone with most weapons with any kind of regularity of success or effect, especially if your opponent has any skill at avoiding attacks. D&D is an abstraction. If you land a hit with a sword against someone in armor, but you swung it like a 10 year old girl, sure, you may have landed the blow thanks to your litheness, but you won't have harmed your target, unless you are especially adept at using your quickness to get to exposed points.

In the real world, you need TECHNIQUE. Str is at the bottom of the list of those stats. The Int is needed to understand the concepts during training to even become proficient, wis to retain them through muscle memory, and dex for execution. After that point, if two opponents have the same in every one of those attributes, the one with higher str is at an advantage. However, if it is a CHOICE between str or dex, the dex will have far better execution and become more of an expert combatant.

Landing a hit with a sword was only effective against a heavily plated foe if you found an exposed point. Different weapons, like warhammers where better at actually smashing at the armor, because they made nasty dents and destroyed ribs without having to actually go through the metal. Alot of sword fights between armored foes actually came down to stamina. Plate should be DR10/blunt.

Alot of RPG universes got it right when they used the dex equivilent stat for to-hit on all weapons and str for damage on all weapons that require the user to generate deadly force (which excludes things like crossbows). for some reason in D&D they decided it was perfectly realistic to roll an 18 str 8 dex meathead and be successful with it.

[bbcjoke]

My humble suggestion: using DEX as a damage modifier should require the weapon finesse feat (and only work with finesse-usable weapons or quarterstaffs), cost at least 2 enhancement/destiny points and only work on creatures vulnerable to critical hits, or rather, require the target to roll a fortification check for every successful hit. In case of a successful fortification check, STR modifier is used instead.
I think this proposes a nice combination of advantages/drawbacks for choosing to go full DEX and forgetting STR, as someone who does so may have a harder time against undeads, constructs and raid bosses, not to mention they won't be able to perform most tactical feats. The only problem I see is be the increase in the server load with these additional checks for every attack, but since most players using this feature would be rogues anyway, I guess the fortification check is already there.

[Sonos]

But was she hurting them much? Certainly getting knocked down, or thrown, hurts (though it doesn't in D&D), but was she hurting them otherwise?

That sounds more like she was using Dodge, Mobility, Combat Reflexes, Improved Trip, Defensive Throw and Elusive Target. Basically, whenever someone you have declared Dodge on misses you, you get a free Trip attack against them; the first time someone flanking you attacks you in a round, that attack misses you and can hit your opponent; when you provoke an attack of opportunity by move out of a threatened square, and your opponent misses you, you gain a free trip attack against them.

Maybe mix in some Pathfinder stuff for Crane Wing and Crane Riposte (once per round, automatically negate one melee attack, then use AoO to counterattack).

High Dex and Wis for AC (maybe Combat Expertise as well), and when people miss you, you trip them. It's effective, but it isn't causing damage.

In the real world, you need Dex, Int, Wis and Str to hit someone with most weapons with any kind of regularity of success or effect, especially if your opponent has any skill at avoiding attacks. D&D is an abstraction. If you land a hit with a sword against someone in armor, but you swung it like a 10 year old girl, sure, you may have landed the blow thanks to your litheness, but you won't have harmed your target, unless you are especially adept at using your quickness to get to exposed points.

The damage the lady does is less about how hard she makes you hit the ground and more about submission, breaking arms, and choke holds that if kept up would render one unconscious, any dmg made after that would just be over-zealous.

"If you land a hit with a sword against someone in armor, but you swung it like a 10 year old girl, sure, you may have landed the blow thanks to your litheness, but you won't have harmed your target, unless you are especially adept at using your quickness to get to exposed points"

If you have the dex, it's less about swinging it like a 10 year old girl and more about making precise and rapid contact to vital areas, as you point out as exposed points.

Big Brutus could knock a smaller foe out in one heaving blow but where dex shines is, avoiding the blow and striking with combos in a quick successive counter-attack. Or at the very worst, one avoids the majority of the heavy blow's attack.

[dlsidhe]

Just a small note based on the accidentally leaked enhancement pass info from update 16 (viewable, I think, in the general discussion area):

It looks as though dex to-hit and to-damage is being implemented for specific PrE's as an enhancement, only usable with specific weapons. Acrobats, as an example, get it for staves, assassins get kukris and daggers (and granted kukri proficiency), ninja spy gets it for shortswords. A long-past post from a dev suggested that tempests may be able to finesse/dex-damage scimitars (please, let that be possible. I have a build planned for a duel-wielding drow tempest druid using dex+wis to drive everything ).

More interesting is that other alternate to-hit/damage stats are possible - the leaked henshin mystic got a wis-to-hit/damage modifier with q-staves. I wouldn't be surprised if the Divine Avenger FvS PrE, which is supposed to be melee-focused, got to use charisma with their deity-specified weapon.

Realistic? No. But this is a fantasy game at heart, so if an elf's magnetic devotion to the Undying Court carries over into their scimitar, I'll buy it.