As a million people have noted on this site, creating a character that has some DEX and some STR can often feel lack luster, seeing as you can focus on one attribute and deal both melee and range damage with either one.
HOWEVER, I think a possible fix is creating a 'balance' tag onto a weapon, and if it has the 'balance' tag (perhaps a longsword) then it can pull damage and to hit bonus from combined STR and DEX scores UP TO A LIMIT of +5, so that it doesn't outshine pure builds which are also cool. Please share your thoughts.
It could work, but the flaw is that a 1st level character could potentially hit that +5, whereas for a character using a standard weapon, they likely wouldn’t hit that high a bonus until 8th level, or at least 4th.
If one really wanted to balance things and make them somewhat realistic, one might alter things so that all melee weapons used Dex for attack rolls and Str for damage rolls, and all ranged weapons (other than crossbows and firearms) used Str for attack rolls and they all used Dex for damage rolls. That would certainly make combat more realistic.
I think you could do something interesting where a weapon's to-hit bonus is still based on a single stat, but the damage bonus includes both STR and DEX modifiers up to 5. I think as long as the damage die isn't larger than a d8 it should be fairly balanced.
For balance you could have a "hard swinger" feat where if you're using a Finesse weapon, you can add your strength bonus to the damage roll. Maybe limit it to once per turn, or limit it to +5 like you said.
That'll prevent low level characters from doing it, and also finesse weapons don't get to high damage rolls - a Greatsword would be way too powerful with dex added to damage as well!
I'm honestly thinking to just make up a couple hyper specific rules to govern it. Namely: 1. You cannot start your character with a combined score of Str + Dex higher than +3 bonus (so that it doesn't outpace true builds who aren't allowed to start higher than 16 in a single stat)
Meaning a starting character could have 14 dex 12 str, or 16/10 or 12/14 or whatever, but no 14/14 or 16/14 cause its just too high of a bonus at first level. That's all I'm thinking so far.
I have an eldritch knight in my party who doesn't picture himself as a nimble rogue or a rough bruiser, so i think this is the change we're going to implement. In addition he'll probably switch to medium armor to avoid the stealth disadvantage and snag up the +2 from his now 14 dex.
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As a million people have noted on this site, creating a character that has some DEX and some STR can often feel lack luster, seeing as you can focus on one attribute and deal both melee and range damage with either one.
HOWEVER, I think a possible fix is creating a 'balance' tag onto a weapon, and if it has the 'balance' tag (perhaps a longsword) then it can pull damage and to hit bonus from combined STR and DEX scores UP TO A LIMIT of +5, so that it doesn't outshine pure builds which are also cool. Please share your thoughts.
It could work, but the flaw is that a 1st level character could potentially hit that +5, whereas for a character using a standard weapon, they likely wouldn’t hit that high a bonus until 8th level, or at least 4th.
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Dang good point. I really don't know how to amend that cause i normally wouldn't let somebody start out with more than a 16 lol
If one really wanted to balance things and make them somewhat realistic, one might alter things so that all melee weapons used Dex for attack rolls and Str for damage rolls, and all ranged weapons (other than crossbows and firearms) used Str for attack rolls and they all used Dex for damage rolls. That would certainly make combat more realistic.
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You could make the limit the lower of 5 and proficiency bonus + 1, but this is getting rather convoluted.
I think you could do something interesting where a weapon's to-hit bonus is still based on a single stat, but the damage bonus includes both STR and DEX modifiers up to 5. I think as long as the damage die isn't larger than a d8 it should be fairly balanced.
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For balance you could have a "hard swinger" feat where if you're using a Finesse weapon, you can add your strength bonus to the damage roll. Maybe limit it to once per turn, or limit it to +5 like you said.
That'll prevent low level characters from doing it, and also finesse weapons don't get to high damage rolls - a Greatsword would be way too powerful with dex added to damage as well!
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I'm honestly thinking to just make up a couple hyper specific rules to govern it. Namely: 1. You cannot start your character with a combined score of Str + Dex higher than +3 bonus (so that it doesn't outpace true builds who aren't allowed to start higher than 16 in a single stat)
Meaning a starting character could have 14 dex 12 str, or 16/10 or 12/14 or whatever, but no 14/14 or 16/14 cause its just too high of a bonus at first level. That's all I'm thinking so far.
I have an eldritch knight in my party who doesn't picture himself as a nimble rogue or a rough bruiser, so i think this is the change we're going to implement. In addition he'll probably switch to medium armor to avoid the stealth disadvantage and snag up the +2 from his now 14 dex.