D&D 5E Do we really need so many classes with Extra Attack?

[Li Shenron]

Fighter gets Extra Attack at levels 5, 11 and 20.
Barbarian, Paladin and Ranger get Extra Attack at level 5.
Bard gets Extra Attack at level 8.

This ability causes some complications in combat, as recently addressed by Mearls and Thompson in their columns or tweets.

It also requires an exceptional rule for multiclassed characters.

It might be that at the end Extra Attack won't make it at all into the game, as some gamers are advocating its complete exclusion.

I would be in favor of keeping it for the Fighter, but why is this really needed for the others? All other classes get only one Extra Attack at best, so it's not really a major narrative element for them, or neither a balancing factor. Why not making Extra Attack(s) a unique feature of the Fighter class? It would mean:

(1) one more tactical reason to choose Fighter class over others
(2) one less ad-hoc exception needed in the multiclass rules
(3) less number of PCs having multiple attacks i.e. more control over abuse and slightly faster combat
(4) slight strengthening of the Fighter narrative archetype

What do you think?

 

[DEFCON 1]

Extra attacks have taken the place of extra damage dice for melee classes. After the full open playtesting period where they tried to maintain balance by using extra damage dice... I think I remember them saying that it just wasn't working as people wanted. So they removed them.

But since you need to make sure all melee classes can keep up with both each other and all the spellcasting classes (who have multi-target spells) in terms of damage... its either give them all extra attacks, or give fighters extra attacks and the other classes extra damage dice. I suspect though that that would make multi-classing even more difficult.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I'm cool with extra attacks. Heck, it's what high-level warriors got in 2e and 3e!

I'm not familiar with some of the issues -- perhaps there are other ways to balance it?

 

[Dungeoneer]

I think Extra Attacks are way too unbalancing. They screw up the game's action economy.

4e did a pretty good job steering clear of them. 5e should do so as well.

 

[Minigiant]

The thing is at about level 8, warriors need to either have 2 attacks dealing about 12 damage or one attack that deals 30 damage....

... or they are useless.

 

[1of3]

They screw up the game's action economy.

Not really. Unless you want to say, that they take more time resolve than a single more powerful attack. That is certainly true.

 

[Wulfgar76]

Extra attacks for the Fighter, and all 'Warrior' classes, is pretty iconically D&D, and seems a simple way of keeping these classes advancing at a similar pace as their spellcasting allies – I hope it stays.

 

[Shadowsoul]

If they do remove extra attacks then I would suggest replacing them with effects such as stunning, knocking prone, tripping etc as part of the attack.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I'd say even one extra attack IS a balancing factor. It doubles a classes damage output per round. It's kind of a big deal.

That's actually why preventing even more extra attacks from stacking with one another was the topic of an article recently. However, "Extra Attack" the class feature given to all of these classes was explicitly exempt from the stacking because this is a major class feature.

 

[Mistwell]

I think Extra Attacks are way too unbalancing. They screw up the game's action economy.

4e did a pretty good job steering clear of them. 5e should do so as well.

How are they unbalancing in this specific situation, and how did these specific extra attacks screw up the game's action economy such that the game plays poorly because of it? I am seeing a lot of generalizations but nothing specific to demonstrate an actual problem comes up with it.