So I have been having this discussion with friends about Dexterity and Strength based fighters. A civil one, not violent. But it got me thinking what other people think about it. -Side not: By "fighter" we mean everything that enjoys an extra-attack feature and has a d10 or higher hit dice, not the official class.
To me, Dexterity is the strongest modifier in the game (with an arguable exception of Constitution) for a fighter, and maybe in general. The amount of things you enjoy with a high dex heavily outweighs the high strength. To put it side to side:
Strength has 1 Skill, Athletics; though a strong one, lots of classes and players can bypass the use of it with other features, gameplay or spells, making this situational or rare. The highest weapon damage you can output is 1d12 or 2d6 for melee, and 1d6 for ranged with heavy ammunition costs. You can wear heavy armor. Finally carrying weight, which I noticed is ignored in most games. Strength saves are rare, and until now I haven't really seen any massive downside to having a low Str. save, but if you know comment below.
While Dexterity has 3 skills, one of which is Stealth. Stealth can put yourself in such a favorable position that you can reduce encounter difficulties just because you dominate so much on your first turn. The highest damage output is 1d10 for ranged (once per turn due to reloading) and 1d8 for melee, putting it in the same category as any other one-handed strength weapons. Ranged weapons also outrange any melee weapon and their ammunition is much lighter and bundled. Medium armor master also grants access to a base 18 AC if your dexterity isn't lowered. Dexterity saves are frequently used for damaging spells, and combine it with the Shield Master feat you can (theoretically) make Dexterity Save spells obsolete against you. A higher initiative can make you a dominate force in the first turn, and eliminating one or two creatures in the first turn can reduce retaliation big time.
But every score has its own benefits over the other. Strength based fighters can shove a creature prone to give advantage to itself and its melee allies. But a high dex fighter can dodge that same shove just as easy. But at the same time there are so many spells useful against steel/armor. So that 18 AC Heavy/Medium armor goes weak against such spells vs. a 17 AC light armor or 18 AC no-armor (Dragon Sorcerer), or 20 AC Monk, or even 22/24 AC Barbarian (ultra rare option, but not non-existing).
One thing I'll add as last is that we all agree that it's a roleplaying game, and that you shouldn't aim for the strongest builds or the best options. But as D&D 5e is build by itself, just looking at it, it's almost as if it was made for said Dexterity fighters, though costly through feats.
So what do you guys think about it? Agree? Disagree? Did I overlook something? I'll be glad to listen, but lets all keep this civil.
One thing that I will add to this is players who choose Dex over Str have an easier time getting a magic item to negate low Str in [magicitem]Gauntlets of Ogre Power[\magicitem]. (You can find one in the starter set adventure.) There isn’t a comparable magic item for Dex unless you homebrew something.
Part of it is DM dependent too. With a higher strength score you can jump across a 15' pit, open doors that are stuck closed, etc.. But that only matters when your DM uses those challenges. When you're initiating a Grapple in combat you use your Athletics check, although you can use either Athletics or Acrobatics to defend against it. Plus in order to gain a +3 bonus to your AC from your Dexterity while you're wearing chain mail you need to take the Medium Armor Master feat while if you take the Heavy Armor Master feat the damage that you take from non-magical slashing, piercing, and bludgeoning weapons is reduced by 3. That's a huge benefit!
It's all about trade offs and there are always advantages and disadvantages to everything in 5e. By focusing on your dexterity as a fighter you're giving up the advantages that you get from a high strength and vice versa.
Athletics is a more common and versatile skill check than Acrobatics. Full Plate Armor, while expensive, is numerically superior to maxed Dex + Studded Leather and doesn't require wasting a feat on Medium Armor Master. Str saves are the most common of the "uncommon" saves - Cha and especially Int are only tested by rare spells, while Str saves are called by a lot of nasty Prone and Restrained effects, including non-spells like panther/wolf takedowns.
Most importantly, Str-based melee has access to Great Weapon Fighting/Mastery, which handily outstrip the damage potential of one-handed finesse weapons, and Polearm Mastery, which pairs wickedly with Sentinel. If you're playing a no-feats game, then Dex is probably better pound-for-pound than Str, but Str wins if you're using feats (which most will).
Of course, all this depends on a flexible character concept. Most people will go into their character expecting to be a brutish warlord or a lithe duelist, so obviously there's more than mechanics to it.
I think that most people would agree that all other things being equal, using Dexterity as your attack stat is superior to using Strength as your attack stat. One stat is tied to attack and damage with melee weapons, the other tied to attack and damage with melee weapons and ranged weapons and armor class. No real contest there, although there are classes and situations that flip this on its head (Barbarians require strength attacks to use their rage bonus damage, great weapon master is the sharpshooter of melee damage, etc.).
But I humbly disagree with two of your premises:
First, Strength saves are much bigger deals than Reflex saves imho. Dex saves pretty much always hand out damage, and taking damage is something that all characters can handle to some extent or another. Often, even when you succeed a reflex save, you still take damage so... why bother? On the other hand, Strength saves are to resist things like being knocked prone, grappled, restrained, pushed.... effects that often will restrict you from taking the actions you're optimized to use in battle. For me I think that most combats boil down to action economy, not HP pools, so I'd much rather take 20 extra damage than end up restrained.
Second, Athletics is a skill that every character in a party will be asked to roll against frequently, regardless of party role, and if any skill check is going to be a "pass or die"... its gonna be Athletics. Want to swim free of the sinking ship? Outrun the pack of wolves? Scale the castle wall with the rest of the group? Endure the frigid cold of the mountain pass? They're all athletics checks, they're all situations that every member of the party is going to be asked to perform individually, and they're all going to leave you isolated/uniquely screwed if you can't pass even with repeated rolls. Its gotten to the point where I'm frankly unwilling to make a character that can't muster a decent athletics check, so I'd be careful about tanking strength too much.
You can't make opportunity attacks effectively with ranged weapons and there's a relatively low level spell that'll make everyone in the group at least decent at Stealth (Pass Without Trace). You're also not going to be grappling well with low strength.
If your plan is just to do damage without taking damage in return, then DEX might seem like a better deal, but a STR character has better tools to control the battlefield, which is useful since playing keepaway is probably at least one person's battle strategy.
Discussing some abstract martial character is pointless anyways. Class features are always going to be a big factor into which ability scores you favor. If you're a Barbarian you're going to want Strength and if you're an Arcane Archer you're going to use a bow.
It depends a lot on the DM and the party, for instance if the DM is strict about carrying capacity or not. Also, the overall make up of the party, if you have a Rouge or even a caster with a decent dex stat in your party than going with strength will be the better option, and if you have a strength based Barbarian in your party, than you're strength based fighter will always be upstaged when there are hazards that can be solved with strength checks.
Its too situational and build dependent to say either one is objectively better than the other IMO.
If you are a melee fighter, then the benefit to range weapons in a lot of cases may not be worth the decrease in damage potential for melee weapons.
The AC benefit from Dex in addition to damage is nice, but other than a dex-based Barbarian, it takes a lot to match or exceed the AC armor can give, and while you can do it with something like the Medium Armor Master feat, you still have to use a feat to do that, and a character using heavy armor could instead have gotten a feat like Tough or Sentinel that would make them more tanky or boost their strength in other areas.
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So I have been having this discussion with friends about Dexterity and Strength based fighters. A civil one, not violent. But it got me thinking what other people think about it.
-Side not: By "fighter" we mean everything that enjoys an extra-attack feature and has a d10 or higher hit dice, not the official class.
To me, Dexterity is the strongest modifier in the game (with an arguable exception of Constitution) for a fighter, and maybe in general. The amount of things you enjoy with a high dex heavily outweighs the high strength. To put it side to side:
Strength has 1 Skill, Athletics; though a strong one, lots of classes and players can bypass the use of it with other features, gameplay or spells, making this situational or rare.
The highest weapon damage you can output is 1d12 or 2d6 for melee, and 1d6 for ranged with heavy ammunition costs.
You can wear heavy armor.
Finally carrying weight, which I noticed is ignored in most games.
Strength saves are rare, and until now I haven't really seen any massive downside to having a low Str. save, but if you know comment below.
While Dexterity has 3 skills, one of which is Stealth. Stealth can put yourself in such a favorable position that you can reduce encounter difficulties just because you dominate so much on your first turn.
The highest damage output is 1d10 for ranged (once per turn due to reloading) and 1d8 for melee, putting it in the same category as any other one-handed strength weapons. Ranged weapons also outrange any melee weapon and their ammunition is much lighter and bundled.
Medium armor master also grants access to a base 18 AC if your dexterity isn't lowered.
Dexterity saves are frequently used for damaging spells, and combine it with the Shield Master feat you can (theoretically) make Dexterity Save spells obsolete against you.
A higher initiative can make you a dominate force in the first turn, and eliminating one or two creatures in the first turn can reduce retaliation big time.
But every score has its own benefits over the other. Strength based fighters can shove a creature prone to give advantage to itself and its melee allies. But a high dex fighter can dodge that same shove just as easy.
But at the same time there are so many spells useful against steel/armor. So that 18 AC Heavy/Medium armor goes weak against such spells vs. a 17 AC light armor or 18 AC no-armor (Dragon Sorcerer), or 20 AC Monk, or even 22/24 AC Barbarian (ultra rare option, but not non-existing).
One thing I'll add as last is that we all agree that it's a roleplaying game, and that you shouldn't aim for the strongest builds or the best options. But as D&D 5e is build by itself, just looking at it, it's almost as if it was made for said Dexterity fighters, though costly through feats.
So what do you guys think about it? Agree? Disagree? Did I overlook something? I'll be glad to listen, but lets all keep this civil.
One thing that I will add to this is players who choose Dex over Str have an easier time getting a magic item to negate low Str in [magicitem]Gauntlets of Ogre Power[\magicitem]. (You can find one in the starter set adventure.) There isn’t a comparable magic item for Dex unless you homebrew something.
Part of it is DM dependent too. With a higher strength score you can jump across a 15' pit, open doors that are stuck closed, etc.. But that only matters when your DM uses those challenges. When you're initiating a Grapple in combat you use your Athletics check, although you can use either Athletics or Acrobatics to defend against it. Plus in order to gain a +3 bonus to your AC from your Dexterity while you're wearing chain mail you need to take the Medium Armor Master feat while if you take the Heavy Armor Master feat the damage that you take from non-magical slashing, piercing, and bludgeoning weapons is reduced by 3. That's a huge benefit!
It's all about trade offs and there are always advantages and disadvantages to everything in 5e. By focusing on your dexterity as a fighter you're giving up the advantages that you get from a high strength and vice versa.
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Athletics is a more common and versatile skill check than Acrobatics. Full Plate Armor, while expensive, is numerically superior to maxed Dex + Studded Leather and doesn't require wasting a feat on Medium Armor Master. Str saves are the most common of the "uncommon" saves - Cha and especially Int are only tested by rare spells, while Str saves are called by a lot of nasty Prone and Restrained effects, including non-spells like panther/wolf takedowns.
Most importantly, Str-based melee has access to Great Weapon Fighting/Mastery, which handily outstrip the damage potential of one-handed finesse weapons, and Polearm Mastery, which pairs wickedly with Sentinel. If you're playing a no-feats game, then Dex is probably better pound-for-pound than Str, but Str wins if you're using feats (which most will).
Of course, all this depends on a flexible character concept. Most people will go into their character expecting to be a brutish warlord or a lithe duelist, so obviously there's more than mechanics to it.
Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in awhile.
I think that most people would agree that all other things being equal, using Dexterity as your attack stat is superior to using Strength as your attack stat. One stat is tied to attack and damage with melee weapons, the other tied to attack and damage with melee weapons and ranged weapons and armor class. No real contest there, although there are classes and situations that flip this on its head (Barbarians require strength attacks to use their rage bonus damage, great weapon master is the sharpshooter of melee damage, etc.).
But I humbly disagree with two of your premises:
First, Strength saves are much bigger deals than Reflex saves imho. Dex saves pretty much always hand out damage, and taking damage is something that all characters can handle to some extent or another. Often, even when you succeed a reflex save, you still take damage so... why bother? On the other hand, Strength saves are to resist things like being knocked prone, grappled, restrained, pushed.... effects that often will restrict you from taking the actions you're optimized to use in battle. For me I think that most combats boil down to action economy, not HP pools, so I'd much rather take 20 extra damage than end up restrained.
Second, Athletics is a skill that every character in a party will be asked to roll against frequently, regardless of party role, and if any skill check is going to be a "pass or die"... its gonna be Athletics. Want to swim free of the sinking ship? Outrun the pack of wolves? Scale the castle wall with the rest of the group? Endure the frigid cold of the mountain pass? They're all athletics checks, they're all situations that every member of the party is going to be asked to perform individually, and they're all going to leave you isolated/uniquely screwed if you can't pass even with repeated rolls. Its gotten to the point where I'm frankly unwilling to make a character that can't muster a decent athletics check, so I'd be careful about tanking strength too much.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
Clearly strength is a stronger pick than dexterity.
That's why it's called strength.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
I find strength and dexterity to be fairly even.
In AC thanks to heavy armor, they stay fairly even. The heavier the armor, the more it costs, but the less it needs a stat investment.
STR has more damaging 2 handed melee weapons, DEX has more range on ranged weapons.
DEX has stealth and initiative (+2 less used skills), STR has athletics and carrying capacity which is more used in exploration.
You can't make opportunity attacks effectively with ranged weapons and there's a relatively low level spell that'll make everyone in the group at least decent at Stealth (Pass Without Trace). You're also not going to be grappling well with low strength.
If your plan is just to do damage without taking damage in return, then DEX might seem like a better deal, but a STR character has better tools to control the battlefield, which is useful since playing keepaway is probably at least one person's battle strategy.
Discussing some abstract martial character is pointless anyways. Class features are always going to be a big factor into which ability scores you favor. If you're a Barbarian you're going to want Strength and if you're an Arcane Archer you're going to use a bow.
It depends a lot on the DM and the party, for instance if the DM is strict about carrying capacity or not. Also, the overall make up of the party, if you have a Rouge or even a caster with a decent dex stat in your party than going with strength will be the better option, and if you have a strength based Barbarian in your party, than you're strength based fighter will always be upstaged when there are hazards that can be solved with strength checks.
Its too situational and build dependent to say either one is objectively better than the other IMO.
If you are a melee fighter, then the benefit to range weapons in a lot of cases may not be worth the decrease in damage potential for melee weapons.
The AC benefit from Dex in addition to damage is nice, but other than a dex-based Barbarian, it takes a lot to match or exceed the AC armor can give, and while you can do it with something like the Medium Armor Master feat, you still have to use a feat to do that, and a character using heavy armor could instead have gotten a feat like Tough or Sentinel that would make them more tanky or boost their strength in other areas.