As I understand it, if I have a class which can attack twice when taking the attack action, such as a Fighter or Ranger at level 5, if the first attack hits the vex property would grant advantage on the second attack that round. If that attack hits as well, the advantage would pass on to the next round where I'd have advantage on the first attack that round, and so on.
This, to me, feels overpowered. Is this:
a) How it actually works, as in am I understanding this mechanic correctly, and
b) Is this how it was actually intended to work, and
c) Did playtesting not show this to be overpowered?
One issue I have with it is that this makes the shortbow a much better choice than a longbow in all cases except where you actually need the additional range the longbow provides. The 1d8 longbow does, on average, 1 more damage than the 1d6 shortbow, but the longbow's "slow" property doesn't stack, so if you hit the same target twice one of your weapon masteries is "wasted", and in any case the 1 damage is easily compensated for by being able to attack with advantage.
Obviously, with the longbow you could attack and slow two targets and vex only works so long as you keep attacking the same target, but I feel this is a niche case. You would need to gain actual benefit from slowing two targets and there wouldn't need to be a more pressing need to focus fire on a single target.
The Push property seems weird too. Why does this not require a saving throw? It just seems weird how you could push a large creature back twice in a round, or possibly even more with three attacks per round at lvl 11, a bonus action attack or by taking an action surge, all without even so much as a saving throw.
Topple, at least, gives the target a saving throw, even though to me it seems equally if not more ridiculous that one could topple 2 or 3 up to maybe 4 or 5 targets in a single round of combat (again, possibly even more with some appropriate buffs like haste or specific multiclass combination, but this is a criticism of the mechanic in general as it is designed to work, not an attempt to optimize abilities to exploit the mechanic).
I just did some math about Shortbow versus Longbow.
I made the following assumptions: You have 2 attacks, a DEX modifier of +4 and a PB of +3 (like a 5th level Fighter/Ranger). You make 2 attacks per round and attack the same target 3 rounds in a row (so, 6 attacks total).
Then for targets with an AC of 14-19 the Shortbow, thanks to Vex, will do roughly 1 damage per round (or 0.5 damage per attack) more than the Longbow. And this is assuming "perfect use", meaning you can actually attack the same target six times in a row.
Considering that the Longbow has a higher range and also the additional Slow property, I think that's a pretty decent trade-off! Note, however, that the player with the Shortbow already uses advantage a lot to get there, and benefits less from other sources of advantage. The Longbow player hasn't used any advantage in this calculation and can still benefit greatly from other sources of advantage.
That said, one caveat in this calculation is that I didn't consider any class features or feats. Class features or feats that add extra damage will benefit the Shortbow player more, while class features and feats that give advantage will benefit the Longbow player more.
FYI: This calculation does consider crit chance and properly calculates the cumulative effect of Vex.
This is interesting. From the graph it seems the advantage of advantage isn't all that advantageous. With low-ac targets this seems obvious, but around the AC16 and higher AC's I'd expect more than 5 damage total over 6 attacks. Does this calculation also factor in the additional chance of rolling a crit, given you roll twice as many dice? And what changes if you take the Archery Fighting style?
There are some other factors too. First, Attacking with advantage is always useful, every single attack, whereas slow is not always useful (e.g. slowing a more or less stationary target, or a target which is attacking your melee classes anyways). Secondly, in normal regular combat encounters of which you'd usually have a few a day and where you don't go all-out spending your most precious resources and highest level spell slots, other sources of advantage aren't all that common. Any resources, actions or spell slots which would be used to grant other sources of advantage don't need to be used or can be used to grant other characters this advantage or provide some other benefit. All in all I think the shortbow is still the mathematically better choice.
And what changes if you take the Archery Fighting style?
Since all Archery Fighting style does is give you a +2 to attack rolls, you could just read the same chart but subtract 2 from the AC in the X-axis.
That actually diminished the benefit of the Shortbow over the Longbow, because it means the range where you get the most benefit from it is moved from 14-19AC to 12-17AC. In other words, for higher AC targets, the Longbow benefits more from the Fighting Style than the Shortbow.
There are some other factors too. First, Attacking with advantage is always useful, every single attack, whereas slow is not always useful (e.g. slowing a more or less stationary target, or a target which is attacking your melee classes anyways).
The problem I see with this argument is that it suggests we're weighing advantage versus slowing, all else being equal. But the thing we showed is that the advantage is already needed in order to catch up with the Longbow's base damage.
Yes, the advantage from Vex brings us up to +0.5 damage per attack, but like I said, that's for perfect use. I think it's already generous to say that in a real scenario (where you can't always attack the same target 6 times in a row), the two weapons are equal regarding damage (i.e. the +0.5 damage gets lost due to occasionally enemies dying after <3 rounds). In that case, the question is: "Which one is better, a long range and the slow property or... nothing?"
The weapons that get Vex aren't high damage weapons and many of the high damage weapons come with Mastery Properties that increase their damage further (Cleave and Graze.) If you find yourself in a situation where you'd have Advantage anyways, Vex becomes dead weight.
Slow can be quite powerful when combined with harmful area effects, especially if they happen to also create difficult terrain. Combined with Ray of Frost, you can make it very difficult for enemies to get out.
The Push property seems weird too. Why does this not require a saving throw? It just seems weird how you could push a large creature back twice in a round, or possibly even more with three attacks per round at lvl 11, a bonus action attack or by taking an action surge, all without even so much as a saving throw.
Pushing on its own isn't dangerous, and the only ranged weapon that gets it (the Heavy Crossbow) has Loading. None of the Push weapons are Light, so you can't increase your number of pushes with TWF either.
Regardless of how you feel about it though, this horse left the barn in 2014 when they gave Warlocks Repelling Blast. Rather than take away the Warlock's toys, the game designers decided to allowed martial characters to play catch up instead.
Topple, at least, gives the target a saving throw, even though to me it seems equally if not more ridiculous that one could topple 2 or 3 up to maybe 4 or 5 targets in a single round of combat (again, possibly even more with some appropriate buffs like haste or specific multiclass combination, but this is a criticism of the mechanic in general as it is designed to work, not an attempt to optimize abilities to exploit the mechanic).
Prone can be a bit of a mixed bag. It'll limit an enemy's movement, and anyone close to the enemy gets Advantage, but you could've gotten Advantage in other ways, and anyone not close ends up with Disadvantage. There's usually a few of those if your party has any spellcasters at all. You really have to be on the same page as the rest of the party when it comes to toppling. Plus, nothing stops the enemy from getting back up on their turn unless someone takes the extra step of grappling them too.
Many 1st level spells can achieve similar (or better) benefits with only one D20 Test success per target instead two. Grease is an area Topple that includes difficult terrain, Faerie Fire gives unconditional Advantage, Entangle will fully Restrain targets. Martial characters will only be getting 1 topple attempt early on, and by the time that number goes up, spellcasters are getting much more powerful spells and they can be quite liberal with their 1st level spells to boot.
Slow can be quite powerful when combined with harmful area effects, especially if they happen to also create difficult terrain. Combined with Ray of Frost, you can make it very difficult for enemies to get out.
I would have bet money that they'd phrase it such that it doesn't stack with Ray of Frost (if only because it'd would make tracking easier), but you're right, it seems like it would stack. Weird choice, in my opinion. I'm not complaining, but just find it weird.
Whilst you would need 13 strength, Longbow is a Heavy weapon, which means it's applicable for the Great Weapon Master feat's extra damage, adding PB damage to any main action attacks performed with a longbow, this allows Longbow to exceed Shortbow in terms of damage in the mid-late game but does need to be specced for. It can actually be done with Ranger, Fighter and Paladin, where I'd recommend the following starting ASIs
Ranger: STR 13, DEX 15+2, CON 12+1, INT 8*, WIS 14, CHA 10*
Fighter: STR 13, DEX15+2, CON 14+1, INT 8*, WIS 12, CHA 10*
Paladin: STR 14, DEX 15+2, CON 12, INT 8, WIS 10, CHA 13+1
*or switch INT and CHA around
I'd obviously more recommend Ranger or Fighter, Paladin has too much dependent on melee attacks (Smite Spells, Divine Favor, Spirit Shroud ~ 10 foot, Holy Weapon, Radiant Strikes) but it could be a viable choice from a 3 level multi-class dip into Vengeance Paladin to pick up Medium armour, Vow of Enmity and a Fighting Style while also giving Hunter's Mark and 3 1st level spell slots.
These should do more damage with a longbow than shortbow can keep up with, but GWM is usually going to be a level 8 feat choice (level 6 for fighter) since the level 4 will probably go towards a feat with a +1 DEX increase. Since that is both +1 damage and +1 attack, which beats out getting a +2/+3 damage at level 4/5-7.
When you take one of these builds into consideration, Longbow can do more, however some other classes, like Rogue have better alternatives, Rogue is better picking up Crossbow Expert to make two attacks a turn, where Hand Crossbow does grant Vex too which is more chances to proc their sneak attack.
Vex, I agree is very powerful (and I feel should be once per turn) but is useless once you already have advantage, as such, I think Vex should have been once per turn but should also have had an alternative usage to increase the number of D20s on advantage by 1, similar to Elven Accuracy, which is limited to the same once per turn (so you can only use one of the two options).
Make sure to take in account the target is probably moving and attacking back. Probably only getting one round of shooting with shortbow before it closes in on ya. Think the longbow still wins in this.
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Hello,
As I understand it, if I have a class which can attack twice when taking the attack action, such as a Fighter or Ranger at level 5, if the first attack hits the vex property would grant advantage on the second attack that round. If that attack hits as well, the advantage would pass on to the next round where I'd have advantage on the first attack that round, and so on.
This, to me, feels overpowered. Is this:
a) How it actually works, as in am I understanding this mechanic correctly, and
b) Is this how it was actually intended to work, and
c) Did playtesting not show this to be overpowered?
One issue I have with it is that this makes the shortbow a much better choice than a longbow in all cases except where you actually need the additional range the longbow provides. The 1d8 longbow does, on average, 1 more damage than the 1d6 shortbow, but the longbow's "slow" property doesn't stack, so if you hit the same target twice one of your weapon masteries is "wasted", and in any case the 1 damage is easily compensated for by being able to attack with advantage.
Obviously, with the longbow you could attack and slow two targets and vex only works so long as you keep attacking the same target, but I feel this is a niche case. You would need to gain actual benefit from slowing two targets and there wouldn't need to be a more pressing need to focus fire on a single target.
The Push property seems weird too. Why does this not require a saving throw? It just seems weird how you could push a large creature back twice in a round, or possibly even more with three attacks per round at lvl 11, a bonus action attack or by taking an action surge, all without even so much as a saving throw.
Topple, at least, gives the target a saving throw, even though to me it seems equally if not more ridiculous that one could topple 2 or 3 up to maybe 4 or 5 targets in a single round of combat (again, possibly even more with some appropriate buffs like haste or specific multiclass combination, but this is a criticism of the mechanic in general as it is designed to work, not an attempt to optimize abilities to exploit the mechanic).
I just did some math about Shortbow versus Longbow.
I made the following assumptions: You have 2 attacks, a DEX modifier of +4 and a PB of +3 (like a 5th level Fighter/Ranger). You make 2 attacks per round and attack the same target 3 rounds in a row (so, 6 attacks total).
Then for targets with an AC of 14-19 the Shortbow, thanks to Vex, will do roughly 1 damage per round (or 0.5 damage per attack) more than the Longbow. And this is assuming "perfect use", meaning you can actually attack the same target six times in a row.
Considering that the Longbow has a higher range and also the additional Slow property, I think that's a pretty decent trade-off! Note, however, that the player with the Shortbow already uses advantage a lot to get there, and benefits less from other sources of advantage. The Longbow player hasn't used any advantage in this calculation and can still benefit greatly from other sources of advantage.
That said, one caveat in this calculation is that I didn't consider any class features or feats. Class features or feats that add extra damage will benefit the Shortbow player more, while class features and feats that give advantage will benefit the Longbow player more.
FYI: This calculation does consider crit chance and properly calculates the cumulative effect of Vex.
This is interesting. From the graph it seems the advantage of advantage isn't all that advantageous. With low-ac targets this seems obvious, but around the AC16 and higher AC's I'd expect more than 5 damage total over 6 attacks. Does this calculation also factor in the additional chance of rolling a crit, given you roll twice as many dice? And what changes if you take the Archery Fighting style?
There are some other factors too. First, Attacking with advantage is always useful, every single attack, whereas slow is not always useful (e.g. slowing a more or less stationary target, or a target which is attacking your melee classes anyways). Secondly, in normal regular combat encounters of which you'd usually have a few a day and where you don't go all-out spending your most precious resources and highest level spell slots, other sources of advantage aren't all that common. Any resources, actions or spell slots which would be used to grant other sources of advantage don't need to be used or can be used to grant other characters this advantage or provide some other benefit. All in all I think the shortbow is still the mathematically better choice.
Yes, I calculated the advantage of advantage and the crit chance correctly.
Let's take an enemy with AC=17 so that in our example the base hit chance is 55% and base crit chance is 5%.
You see around Attack 4 it really starts to converge and further attacks don't compound that much more.
Since all Archery Fighting style does is give you a +2 to attack rolls, you could just read the same chart but subtract 2 from the AC in the X-axis.
That actually diminished the benefit of the Shortbow over the Longbow, because it means the range where you get the most benefit from it is moved from 14-19AC to 12-17AC. In other words, for higher AC targets, the Longbow benefits more from the Fighting Style than the Shortbow.
The problem I see with this argument is that it suggests we're weighing advantage versus slowing, all else being equal. But the thing we showed is that the advantage is already needed in order to catch up with the Longbow's base damage.
Yes, the advantage from Vex brings us up to +0.5 damage per attack, but like I said, that's for perfect use. I think it's already generous to say that in a real scenario (where you can't always attack the same target 6 times in a row), the two weapons are equal regarding damage (i.e. the +0.5 damage gets lost due to occasionally enemies dying after <3 rounds). In that case, the question is: "Which one is better, a long range and the slow property or... nothing?"
The weapons that get Vex aren't high damage weapons and many of the high damage weapons come with Mastery Properties that increase their damage further (Cleave and Graze.) If you find yourself in a situation where you'd have Advantage anyways, Vex becomes dead weight.
Slow can be quite powerful when combined with harmful area effects, especially if they happen to also create difficult terrain. Combined with Ray of Frost, you can make it very difficult for enemies to get out.
Pushing on its own isn't dangerous, and the only ranged weapon that gets it (the Heavy Crossbow) has Loading. None of the Push weapons are Light, so you can't increase your number of pushes with TWF either.
Regardless of how you feel about it though, this horse left the barn in 2014 when they gave Warlocks Repelling Blast. Rather than take away the Warlock's toys, the game designers decided to allowed martial characters to play catch up instead.
Prone can be a bit of a mixed bag. It'll limit an enemy's movement, and anyone close to the enemy gets Advantage, but you could've gotten Advantage in other ways, and anyone not close ends up with Disadvantage. There's usually a few of those if your party has any spellcasters at all. You really have to be on the same page as the rest of the party when it comes to toppling. Plus, nothing stops the enemy from getting back up on their turn unless someone takes the extra step of grappling them too.
Many 1st level spells can achieve similar (or better) benefits with only one D20 Test success per target instead two. Grease is an area Topple that includes difficult terrain, Faerie Fire gives unconditional Advantage, Entangle will fully Restrain targets. Martial characters will only be getting 1 topple attempt early on, and by the time that number goes up, spellcasters are getting much more powerful spells and they can be quite liberal with their 1st level spells to boot.
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I would have bet money that they'd phrase it such that it doesn't stack with Ray of Frost (if only because it'd would make tracking easier), but you're right, it seems like it would stack. Weird choice, in my opinion. I'm not complaining, but just find it weird.
Whilst you would need 13 strength, Longbow is a Heavy weapon, which means it's applicable for the Great Weapon Master feat's extra damage, adding PB damage to any main action attacks performed with a longbow, this allows Longbow to exceed Shortbow in terms of damage in the mid-late game but does need to be specced for. It can actually be done with Ranger, Fighter and Paladin, where I'd recommend the following starting ASIs
Ranger: STR 13, DEX 15+2, CON 12+1, INT 8*, WIS 14, CHA 10*
Fighter: STR 13, DEX15+2, CON 14+1, INT 8*, WIS 12, CHA 10*
Paladin: STR 14, DEX 15+2, CON 12, INT 8, WIS 10, CHA 13+1
*or switch INT and CHA around
I'd obviously more recommend Ranger or Fighter, Paladin has too much dependent on melee attacks (Smite Spells, Divine Favor, Spirit Shroud ~ 10 foot, Holy Weapon, Radiant Strikes) but it could be a viable choice from a 3 level multi-class dip into Vengeance Paladin to pick up Medium armour, Vow of Enmity and a Fighting Style while also giving Hunter's Mark and 3 1st level spell slots.
These should do more damage with a longbow than shortbow can keep up with, but GWM is usually going to be a level 8 feat choice (level 6 for fighter) since the level 4 will probably go towards a feat with a +1 DEX increase. Since that is both +1 damage and +1 attack, which beats out getting a +2/+3 damage at level 4/5-7.
When you take one of these builds into consideration, Longbow can do more, however some other classes, like Rogue have better alternatives, Rogue is better picking up Crossbow Expert to make two attacks a turn, where Hand Crossbow does grant Vex too which is more chances to proc their sneak attack.
Vex, I agree is very powerful (and I feel should be once per turn) but is useless once you already have advantage, as such, I think Vex should have been once per turn but should also have had an alternative usage to increase the number of D20s on advantage by 1, similar to Elven Accuracy, which is limited to the same once per turn (so you can only use one of the two options).
Make sure to take in account the target is probably moving and attacking back. Probably only getting one round of shooting with shortbow before it closes in on ya. Think the longbow still wins in this.