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I spent a lot of time yesterday going back and forth on acharacter build, not being able to decide whether I wanted to use strength or dexterity for my melee stat. So I got the idea to lay out the pros and cons for each. I aim to help people new to the game, especially those coming from Pathfinder or 3rd edition, who might think this: "If I can just use a finesse weapon with dex to both damage and to hit, and it also adds to my AC and so many skills, why would I ever build a strength character?"
In Pathfinder this would be a very legitimate question. Dexterity adds to your AC, ranged attack bonus, Initiative, Acrobatics, Escape Artist, Disable Device, Fly, Ride, Sleight of Hand, Stealth, CMD and one of your Saves
While Strength only adds to your melee attack bonus and damage, Climb, Swim, CMB, CMD and Encumbrance (which barely anyone uses)
So allowing the same thing in Pathfinder would make the Strength stat obsolete for anything other than roleplaying purposes. At first glance you get a similar impression in 5th Edition DnD, but it is not quite so.
Dexterity adds to the following in 5e:
- Finesse and ranged attack and damage
- Initiative
- AC
- Dexterity saving throws
- Acrobatics
- Sleight of Hand
- Stealth
- The most important functions of Thieves Tools (so the equivalent of disable device)
- As well as various more situational uses
Strength is used for these purposes:
- Melee and thrown attack and damage
- Strength saving throws
- Athletics
- Carrying capacity
- As well as various more situational uses
Now at first glance strength seems less useful because it is less varied in its application. The latter is true, the former is not.
Athletics represents not only the equivalent of climb and swim as well as the jumping use of acrobatics, but is also basically your CMB in this game. You use it to shove, grapple and so on and doing so no longer provokes attacks of opportunity in 5th edition.
The Dexterity bonus to AC seems to be a must have at first, but when you begin to understand how AC works in 5th Edition you will notice that dexterity is highly optional. In fact you will usually have the highest AC if you use options which completely ignore your dexterity bonus. At early levels a heavily armored character will start out with chainmail armor which gives them a flat AC 16, while a lightly armored character will start out with leather armor and not have a Dex bonus higher than +3, so their starting AC is 14. As the game progresses a lightly or medium armored character will reach a maximum of AC 17 (12+5 or 15+2) since all ability scores cap out at 20 (+5), while a heavily armored character will reach an AC of 19. This is not counting shields or magical armor which are equally accessible to both. So for the best possible armor class dexterity is not needed at all. It is only relevant for a character who either needs to be good at stealth and still have a reasonable AC, since heavy armor imposes disadvantage to stealth, or doesn't have proficiency with heavy armor.
So when is each ability good for you?
Dexterity:
- Ranged options have a higher range to them and better damage
- More likely to go first in combat
- Better at sleight of hand and acrobatics
- Much better at stealth
- Do not require proficiency with medium or heavy armor (though this also means AC will not be as high as it could be)
Use dexterity if your class only gets proficiency in light or no armor or if you want to build a stealthy or primarily ranged character. It's basically a no-brainer for rogues, monks and many melee paths for spellcasting classes (Warlocks with pact of the blade and bladesinger tradition wizards for example). Barbarians are the big exception here, though they only use light, or more often no armor at all, their rage ability only works with attacks that use strength, so they are better off going primarily with strength and keeping dex secondary or tertiary.
Strength:
- Melee options have more variety (versatile, heavy, reach weapons are almost all non-finesse) and damage
- Better at climbing, swimming, jumping, all of these are one skill too!
- Better at "combat maneuvers", which you don't need any more investment in, other than the skil which also has the above uses
- Can carry more stuff, including that heavy armor you will want to use.
Use strength if you want to be a frontline melee character, if your class grants you proficiency in heavy armor or is simply a barbarian who needs to use strength to benefit from their rage ability, or if you want to be able to blast past terrain obstacles. Especially paladins and fighters focused on melee who want to deal as much damage as possible and have the option to trip, grapple or push around enemies are safe in the assumption that strength is their best bet, so long as they don't need to be stealthy or good at acrobatics.
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the Quality Build:
This is a term I lifted from the Dark Souls community, not sure if it is ever used in other contexts but it refers to a character buillt to use both dexterity and strength. I haven't spent much time thinking about this third option yet but I believe it is also a viable method by which to build your character.
When using point buy you spend almost the same amount of points bringing two scores to 14 as you would raising one to 16, that is if you use a race like humans or half-elves who get an increase to two abilities or their choice or to Strength and Dexterity each in particular. However it is 1 more point from the buy pool and you have to park both of your ability score increases on dex and str, so you will have a little less for everything else.
A quality character would benefit from all the advantages of both Dex and Str characters (long range firepower, high damage and varied melee options, all skills function decently, decent initiative) however at the cost of ever so slightly reduced numbers on all of it (at least at early to mid levels before they start reaching 20) and perhaps also on numbers pertaining to abilities outside of Str and Dex. A barbarian might go down this road since their unarmored defense does benefit from AC, and they generally cannot use heavy armor even if they are proficient with it, simply because it interferes with a lot of barbarian abilities, while at the same time they still need to use Strength.
I'd have to build a lot of test characters to say anything definite on this idea.
Very good post, thanks. I've noticed the same thing so when I read the topic title I was steeling myself for the long rant I was going to write :D but you already said every single thing.
I love the dex fighter btw.
Another thing to consider is how critical hits work now.
Most weapons that do 1d8 or more points of damage (and all that do 1d10 or 1d12/2d6) are Strength-based.
Since critical hits double dice-based damage only, the size of the weapon die is what usually determines how devastating critical hits are (sneak attack and hex and hunter's mark are the exceptions).
I think the feat Great Weapon Master should also be noted. It's what turns strength based into truly damaging monsters. Admittedly dexterity has a similar option, though it is only specifically for ranged attacks.
Both what SmiloDan and Aleron said is true. Though the sharpshooter feat, the ranged equivalent of great weapon master, works with all ranged weapons, including thrown ones, so a strength build can make use of it as well.
I also forgot the important fact that the stronger heavy armors have a minimum Strength requirement, making a strength build the only one that can really use it effectively, and thus making the AC of a strength build actually better than the AC of a dex build.
So the list of pros should be adjusted accordingly.
Dexterity:
- Ranged options have a higher range to them and better damage
- More likely to go first in combat (this is probably the greatest combat related advantage of using Dex as your primary ability)
- Better at sleight of hand and acrobatics
- Much better at stealth
- Do not require proficiency with medium or heavy armor (though this also means AC will not be as high as it could be)
Strength:
- Melee options have more variety (versatile, heavy, reach weapons are almost all non-finesse) and damage
- Better at climbing, swimming, jumping, all of these are one skill too!
- Better at "combat maneuvers", which you don't need any more investment in, other than the skil which also has the above uses
- Can carry more stuff, including that heavy armor you will want to use.
- Better AC if you have Heavy Armor proficiency
- More extra damage on critical hits
- If feats are used, Great Weapon Master will provide a substantial increase to your damage at an also non-negligible penalty to attack.