Is There Anything in 5e That I Like?

I seem to be very negative about the latest edition of Dungeons & Dragons, and, well, I do find that it is not as fantastic as I hoped it would be. It has too much of 4th edition in it (and not the cool stuff that 4th edition brought out), and seems to be on easy mode, and it's very easy for players to make overpowered characters, and on and on. Is there anything, at all, that I do like?

Yep, there is.





What? Okay, fine. But before I get into what I like about 5th edition, you have to know that I used to participate in the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) and that in that organization, I used to fight. In most places I would have to amend that I fought "heavy" but I generally forget that since I lived and fought in the Kingdom of Calontir and they never adopted the "light" style of SCA combat. If you're not familiar with what the SCA is, or what SCA "heavy" combat is, then I invite you to watch the following video from NBC News about the Society:

I retired most of a decade ago from the hobby, but I still feel that it's appropriate to mention that the SCA is not all about fighting, but it is the one activity that tends to be the most exciting to watch. With that, understand that I find that D&D's combat rules have been lacking in some particulars. Yes, yes, I enjoyed my time in armour, hefting a shield and swinging chunks of rattan at my friends, but I fully realize that even the SCA is not 100% accurate when it comes to recreating medieval armoured combat... but it's close, a lot closer than D&D is and has been in the past. Yes, yes, (I say that a lot to what I imagine to be your unvoiced questions, don't I?) D&D is at best an abstraction of armoured combat, and more worried about appearing more cinematic than realistic. But even knowing that, I've seen a few things in 5th that make my black, shriveled heart happy.

Oddly enough, what I've found recently that have made me want to play and not merely DM in 5th edition, are two feats. Many people seemed to take great umbrage with feats in 3rd edition, but I rather liked them (and Prestige Classes). 5e's feats have been "meh" at best, and too overpowered at their worst, but I've run across two that I really like - Dual Wielder and Polearm Master.

Polearm Master (found on page 168 of the 5e PHB, for those of you following from home) isn't as overpowered as, say, Great Weapon Master (basically, take disadvantage on your To Hit roll to double your Damage, and two other bonus bits on top of that? yup, overpowered), it simply makes the use of glaives, halberds, and quarterstaves more realistic. You get a bonus attack with the opposite end of the weapon (a simple 1d4 Damage), and a reaction attack whenever an opponent enters your reach (not just leaves it), both of which are very realistic. Fighting with polearms as long as I did (and I was fair to middlin' with them, not knight level, but deadly enough that people treated me with respect when I held my "boat oar" slashing spear in my hands), I learned to use the weapon's reach to my advantage by striking at ranges they couldn't reply, when possible, but also to be able to fight with a 6 foot weapon at ranges best described as "belly to belly". In fact, training to fight with polearm, and training others, I oft repeated that first contact with polearms is done with the sharp pokey bits, like a spear; the next step in is done with the sharp slashy bits, like a long axe; and the last step in is done with the butt spike (not totally unknown in period, but not terribly common), like daggers with 6 feet of handle on them.

If you want to see someone who is REALLY good with polearms (in other words, better than me) teach their techniques, you should watch the following video, and the two that follow it.

The other feat I particularly like in 5e, Dual Wielder, makes fighting with two, one-handed weapons viable in D&D. 3rd edition had decent rules and made florentine or "two stick" fighting possible, but did so with some very involved and complicated rules. Dual Wielder (page 165 in the PHB) as a feat makes the base Two-Weapon Fighting (page 195, also in the PHB) much more realistic and far simpler than 3rd edition - you can use non "light" weapons, you get a bonus to your AC, and something about drawing/stowing your weapons normally (which is nice, but not really important). Two sword fighters in the SCA, at least those who are good at the style, are whirling dervishes of thrown shots, counter-blows, mobile walls of sharp steel constantly attacking and fading.

Of course, everyone immediately thinks of wielding two swords (one in each hand), which is the classic definition of "florentine" fighting, but seeing this rule, I immediately thought of fighting sword and spear, or sword and axe, two classic Viking/Nordic/Norman/Anglo-Saxon fighting styles. With sword and spear, shown on the Bayeaux Tapestry (which commemorated the 1066 invasion of Anglo-Saxony by the Normans), you fight with a sword in your "on" hand (if you're right handed, right is your "on" hand) and a 6' or similar length spear in your "off" hand, the stabby bit pointed down. Holding your weapons in this way, you can stab at your opponent all the way at the end of your 6 feet and more of reach with the spear and use it up close as a very tall, thin shield, or choke up on it and stab at something closer to you. With sword and axe, you generally use a longer handled axe, generally 4' long, like a footman's axe or Danish bearded axe or even a shorter bardiche (use the stats for Battleaxe), and one with a butt spike on it. Like sword and spear, you fight sword and axe with sword in "on" and the axe in "off", using the beard or the scallop behind the bit in a bardiche as your handle, both to protect your "off" hand and to more easily punch with the axe blade. The butt spike you use like you would a spear, keeping your opponent at range. Both of the "off" weapons are versatile, and can be used two-handed without the sword.

The added bonus of using polearms, axes, and spears is that it is more realistic to use those weapons than swords. Yes, yes, when people think of armoured knights beating on each other, they think swords... but swords aren't really good against armour. Swords (both the iconic European longsword and Oriental katana, plus just about any other sword out there you can think of) were mostly used against unarmoured opponents, and everything else - spears which every civilization out there used because it's so easy to put a sharp point on a long stick, polearms which are all farming implements repurposed into medieval can openers, and axes got turned from chopping wood to chopping people - was what you used when you were facing someone with a decent amount of armour. Don't believe me? Check out any of the medieval arms manuals (Talhoffer is popular), or S.M. Stirling's fantastic Emberverse series of novels. If I were to rewrite the D&D rules, I'd focus more on spears - spears as the yardstick against which all other weapons are measured, spears doing more damage than swords (European longswords were used more as piercing weapons than slashing weapons back in the medieval period... why? because it was more effective that way), magical spears by the dozen, and replacing as much sword-bearing art with spear-bearing art as I can get away with. The iconic 5e fighter (seen below) is not bad, but still too much sword and not enough spear.

Click the image to learn more

Enough of me prattling on, I'm sure you want to watch cool action videos of people in armour wailing on each other. So here goes, an example of sword and axe (he doesn't stab much with his butt spike because he's facing a leftie so the shield is already in place to block that particular shot):

And an example of sword and spear, featuring my good friend and former squire brother (he kills his opponent with a quick thrust of the spear, you can't see it because it's on the other side of the fight):

And the first of some fantastic instructional on fighting two swords or "florentine". Yes, these are old, low quality vids, but you can hear what he says and see well enough to tell what he's talking about.

The more I talked about "realism" in D&D combat, the more I wished they had added to the Shield Master feat a bonus attack with that item, as shields were as useful in the medieval period for bashing your enemies as they were for blocking sharp bits of metal intended to go into your body. Ah well, can't have them all.