Before 4th edition, Dex never added to weapon damage (and strength never added to weapon attacks) -- it applied to ranged weapon attack rolls in 1st and 2nd edition (most ranged attacks did not have any attribute-based bonuses to damage, some of them added strength), 3rd edition made it possible to apply to melee weapons (via finesse) and made strength more reliably applicable to ranged weapons, but the idea of 'one stat for everything' didn't really show up until 4th edition.
What would it break to run 5th edition the same way? It obviously changes the balance between strength melee and dex melee (strength ranged is already mostly not a thing in 5e and would become less of a thing) but in general strength seems undervalued already. Obviously a bunch of monsters have their difficulty change, which changes encounter balancing, but that is just more work for the DM, it doesn't seem like the game would suddenly play worse if kobolds did less damage.
I'm not super familiar with earlier editions, though I think it was 3rd I played a ways back.
But the main issue that I can see is that 5e's Ability Score Increases are very limited, meaning you usually only want to focus on two abilities as much as possible. Players will often go Dexterity focused if they have another attribute they also want to maximise, if light armour (and therefore Dexterity) is crucial to their AC, or if they want to be able to shift between melee and ranged.
Also, it's worth keeping in mind that if you're going for melee damage then Strength-based martial classes have access to the highest damage weapons (two-handed Longsword for the versatility, Greataxe or Greatsword for going all-in on two-handed etc.). Strength is also useful for other things (Athletics if your DM uses them, Strength saves etc.).
I'm not specifically sure of what exactly you're proposing though; if you want to make Strength and Dexterity both important, e.g- Dexterity is to hit and Strength is for damage, then you'd probably need to give players access to more ability points.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Before 4th edition, Dex never added to weapon damage (and strength never added to weapon attacks) -- it applied to ranged weapon attack rolls in 1st and 2nd edition (most ranged attacks did not have any attribute-based bonuses to damage, some of them added strength), 3rd edition made it possible to apply to melee weapons (via finesse) and made strength more reliably applicable to ranged weapons, but the idea of 'one stat for everything' didn't really show up until 4th edition.
What would it break to run 5th edition the same way? It obviously changes the balance between strength melee and dex melee (strength ranged is already mostly not a thing in 5e and would become less of a thing) but in general strength seems undervalued already. Obviously a bunch of monsters have their difficulty change, which changes encounter balancing, but that is just more work for the DM, it doesn't seem like the game would suddenly play worse if kobolds did less damage.
I'm not super familiar with earlier editions, though I think it was 3rd I played a ways back.
But the main issue that I can see is that 5e's Ability Score Increases are very limited, meaning you usually only want to focus on two abilities as much as possible. Players will often go Dexterity focused if they have another attribute they also want to maximise, if light armour (and therefore Dexterity) is crucial to their AC, or if they want to be able to shift between melee and ranged.
Also, it's worth keeping in mind that if you're going for melee damage then Strength-based martial classes have access to the highest damage weapons (two-handed Longsword for the versatility, Greataxe or Greatsword for going all-in on two-handed etc.). Strength is also useful for other things (Athletics if your DM uses them, Strength saves etc.).
I'm not specifically sure of what exactly you're proposing though; if you want to make Strength and Dexterity both important, e.g- Dexterity is to hit and Strength is for damage, then you'd probably need to give players access to more ability points.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.