Imposing a penalty to Ranged attacks

[NaughtyTiger]

I am considering imposing a -2 penalty to ranged attacks.
Plus considering additional -1 penalty per 100ft.

Ranged attackers have major advantages over melee.
-less danger
-can attack from hiding
-more targets

Reasonably, it should be harder to hit a moving target at 80ft than at 5ft.

Why is this a bad idea?

[Wizard_Lizard]

I mean. It makes sense but I dislike it.

[nickl_2000]

You are toasting spellcasters who cast ranged cantrips and ranged spells
Ranged weapons do less damage overall than their melee equivalent
Ranged weapon users can't also use a shield, thus lower AC
Fighting styles for ranged favor hitting more, fighting style of melee favor more damage. This was the design of the game to begin with.
Terrain, cover, battlefield conditions are harder on ranged attackers than melee
Prone condition destroys ranged
This actually makes flying creatures even more powerful (especially casters who can cast save spells)


I think a better way to handle this is to have smarter enemies and environmental conditions. Baddies who utility cover more, wind that causes problems with arrows, fog that makes it harder to see, darkness that you can only hit from 60 feet out with darkvision.



I wouldn't want it at my table, but as long as you tell the players in session 0 and apply it on the PC and NPC side it should be fine though.

[king_steve]

With half cover, three quarters cover, total cover and in the event your out in the open, dropping prone at the end of your turn all seem like handy options for countering the ranged attackers.

There are also long ranged penalties as well.

I’m not sure there needs to be additional penalties. But, do your games have a lot of ranged fights out in the open?

[Ninja_Prawn]

It's a bad idea because there's already a built-in penalty for ranged attacks. Look at the weapon damage dice: ammunition-firing weapons are always one or two steps lower than equivalent melee weapons.

One-handed simple weapons:
Mace, 1d6
Sling, 1d4

Two-handed simple weapons:
Greatclub, 1d8
Shortbow, 1d6

Heavy, two-handed martial weapons:
Greataxe, 1d12
Longbow, 1d8

To go into a bit more detail, loading is a severe penalty, so you can step up the die for crossbows. Conversely, light and one-handed are good things, so you have to step down the die for those. Hence if you compare the hand crossbow to the longbow, it's one step up, two steps down, i.e. 1d8 becomes 1d6.

Not every weapon is perfectly balanced, but the idea of 'steps' is a good guide in general.

Man, I got ninja'd hard, there. :smallsigh: To add something new: you can't Divine Smite or Rage with ranged weapons.

[Demonslayer666]

I would come up with other challenges for your ranged attackers to face.

Give them disadvantage: Engage them in melee combat, poison, displacement, restrain, blind, etc.
Have opponents use Cover.
limit vision (mist, fog, smoke, darkness, trees, etc)
weather (high winds, rain)
wall spells
illusions
stun them, charm them, etc. - there are lots of conditions that limit attacking.

[JumboWheat01]

If you really want to hinder ranged weapon users, simply force them to keep track of their ammo. A standard quiver/case is only 20 shots. That's a mere 10 rounds of combat for most martial characters after level 5. And after a fight, you only recover half the ammunition you used.

Spell casters don't have the ammo problem, but they're either using spell slots or cantrips. Spell slots are a limited daily resource, and cantrips don't have THAT amazing range (120ft I think is max normally.) That can easily be outdone by a ranged weapon. With their lower hit-die and generally lower Con scores, a ranged weapon user can be a good counter for a spellcaster.

[MaxWilson]

I am considering imposing a -2 penalty to ranged attacks.
Plus considering additional -1 penalty per 100ft.

Ranged attackers have major advantages over melee.
-less danger
-can attack from hiding
-more targets

Reasonably, it should be harder to hit a moving target at 80ft than at 5ft.

Why is this a bad idea?

It's a bad idea in that it doesn't address the real design problem: it's just a quantitative fix which will make ranged fights take slightly longer, but won't change the actual dynamics.

What is your real goal here? Is it provide a design rationale for bringing a knife to a gunfight? If so, one limited but fairly simple fix would be instead to allow anyone targeted by ranged attacks to drop prone with their reaction. (After all, dropping prone is exactly what will happen to you if you get hit and go to 0 HP.) That sets up a fairly nice dynamic where ranged attackers act to pin opponents in place (they will drop prone and lose movement) while melee attackers close on them until they have to choose between staying prone in melee or standing up.

[MoiMagnus]

I am considering imposing a -2 penalty to ranged attacks.
Plus considering additional -1 penalty per 100ft.

Ranged attackers have major advantages over melee.
-less danger
-can attack from hiding
-more targets

Reasonably, it should be harder to hit a moving target at 80ft than at 5ft.

Why is this a bad idea?

1) It's additional complexity for not a lot of gain. It feels to me the same way than peoples wanting to add a +1 or -1 when you're using weapons inadequate to the armour of the target (like sword against heavy armour or so).
2) Ranged already come with disadvantages, as other said. (Moreover, there is already a disadvantage for high-range attacks. Which is 80ft for the shortbow.)
3) It is a frustrating fix, which would give a bad taste in the mouth of your players.

If you want to nerf ranged compared to melee, here I'd rather add flanking rules instead, with a +1, or +2, or +1d4 to attack depending on how strong you want it. Flanking is essentially a buff to melee attacks. (Just don't use advantages for flanking, it doesn't run well to give that many advantages)

[Protolisk]

Why impose a range based penalty, when ranged weapons already have a ranged based penalty based on short range and long range?

Why impose an additional modular penalty for ranged attacks, when there already is one in the form of cover (which actually is a -2 for half, and -5 for three-quarters cover), which is a problem melee tends to not deal with? When shooting into melee, your allies can be providing cover to your enemies.

And note that when a melee character actually does enter melee with the ranged character, it means that most often, the ranged character is at disadvantage for trying to shoot while in melee. They might be in less danger until a melee target reaches them, then they are in a LOT more danger since the best you can do is either disengage or dash away, which means you aren't attacking and the enemy will likely catch up as they too can dash, or you attack at disadvantage while they wail away at you.

Not to mention effects like prone makes ranged attacks also go to disadvantage, and paralyze and unconscious only allow attacks within 5 feet to get the auto crit.

Range isn't THAT much more powerful compared to melee.

[Keravath]

I'd agree with everyone else that it is a bad idea since you are trying to penalize play style through negative mechanics rather than through encounter design.

"Ranged attackers have major advantages over melee.
-less danger
-can attack from hiding
-more targets"

They are only in less danger if the enemies don't also have ranged attacks, the enemies are all in one place and not spread out attacking both ranged and melee characters, and the enemies can't assess which are the more important targets."

1) "Attack from hiding" sounds like you have a specific rogue character in mind that is being quite effective from range using the hide and then attack ability to enable sneak attack with advantage on the attack roll.

This requires that there is actually somewhere for the rogue to hide. Unless they are a wood elf or halfling this means something solid to hide behind and there are quite a few situations where this isn't possible. Having played a rogue, they need as many ways to get advantage as possible.

2) You could be dealing with a low level 3 or 4 rogue with 2d6+weapon damage who is out-performing the fighter at the same level. However this isn't a good comparison since as levels change so do abilities and at level 5, the fighter gets extra attack and typically takes the lead again. Rogues (unless they dip fighter) also won't have the archery fighting style.

Overall, despite all the cool dice a rogue gets to roll, I've found it pretty balanced against the other classes even when attacking from hiding at range.

3) Rogues aren't the only ranged attacker. Spellcasters also use cantrips at range since they usually don't want to stand on the front lines either. They don't usually get to hide and a -2 to hit plus additional ranger penalties make their cantrips next to useless. It is a major nerf to a class that doesn't need it.

4) Weapons already get disadvantage at ranges over their normal range. For a long bow this is 150' and for a heavy crossbow 100'. Everything else is less. An additional -1/100 feet is just penalizing ranged attacks for no real reason ... unless you are specifically trying to penalize the range ability of the sharpshooter feat which allows normal attacks out to maximum range. This is a admittedly a powerful and character defining feat but if you want to nerf or exclude sharpshooter you would be better to address that than some arbitrary range penalty that isn't needed.

In addition, I can count on one hand the number of times the initial encounter range exceeded 60-100' in the last 2 years of play ... so long ranged attacks really aren't common enough to bother with unless you are playing a campaign set on the great plains. On the other hand, perhaps your game experience or game worlds are very different from the ones I have played.


---

Anyway, in my opinion, the changes you suggest aren't needed and would not improve either game play or game balance in my experience. I'm not sure what the motivation is for such a substantial nerf but I am guessing either a rogue or a sharpshooter/xbow expert battlemaster fighter (which is typically far better at ranged than the rogue :) ).

---

In game mitigation of the play style can be addressed with:
- intelligent enemies that do not ignore the weak characters at the back who are doing a lot of damage
- encounter design with enemies coming from multiple directions
- design of encounters that limit available hiding spots for a rogue ... put a trap or hidden creature in the spot that looks like the best place to run and hide
- use COVER - firing into targets in melee can be considered 1/2 cover if you have a team mate in the way in many cases (this is a -2 to hit). This means that positioning becomes important and it could be that the best place to hide means that the target will have half cover. 3/4 cover is also a factor depending on the terrain and finally the opponents can duck behind full cover on their turn if they like, they don't need to stand out where it is easy for the hiding rogue to hit them.

The +2 archery fighting style is intended to help counter the -2 cover for firing into a melee ... but quite a few DMs don't really take the cover rules into account. (Note that cover is an excellent reason to take sharpshooter even if you don't want to use the -5/+10).

[stoutstien]

Take sharpshooter out of the game and it would fix most of the issues you are having.

[MaxWilson]

Even though I'm not in favor of the proposed fix, it looks like I'm in a minority here in apparently agreeing with NaughtyTiger that ranged combat is ridiculously overpowered in 5E compared to melee, in anything but absurdly-close terrain.

That is, I can understand why someone would want to depower ranged combat. From both a game balance standpoint and a gameworld logic standpoint, it is straight-up ridiculous that it is easier to make a first-level character who can shoot an AC 12 flying eagle out of the air at 200 paces (600') than to make one who can stab that eagle when it's flightless and on the ground. 5E stacks other advantages on top of that, from the partial cover rules to the mounted combat rules to monsters with Parry (which ranged attacks ignore) to the large number of monsters who do nasty things to you if you get within 30' of them (Medusas, etc.) or hit them with a melee attack (Fire Elementals, Balors). Ranged combat is a ridiculously dominant paradigm from a tactical effectiveness standpoint, even though melee DPR peaks slightly higher.

Where I agree with the majority is in opposing this change, and my logic is pragmatic: it's insufficient. Ranged combat will still be ridiculously dominant, and you'll have complexified your game for no real gain.

[djreynolds]

Take sharpshooter out of the game and it would fix most of the issues you are having.

100%.

SS and GWM and even PAM are really the feats that keep fighter types relevant at higher levels... at lower levels they can really outshine others.

-5 penalty is huge. It forces teamwork to ensure this damage output happens.

Whether a cleric casts bless or valor bard inspires. Or a wizard uses the magic weapon spell... all of this is the party coming together and cooperating as a team.

There is time for individual glory and party glory.

An archer will not have the "advantage" if there is no one stemming the flow of enemies.

Don't get disgruntled as a DM. When a party blows through an encounter... celebrate with them don't mourn. When a character dies... mourn... don't celebrate.

In COS... my players wrecked a particular magical practitioner.... great for them.

Remember also the enemy can retreat or even feign retreat. At some point... someone has to get in close.

The DM is not the party's enemy.

Also even goblins are smart enough to... kite.
Goblins can even ambush.

Be wary of magic items and giving them out... magic bow is very powerful... as it disrupts that teamwork.

[micahaphone]

If there's a creature between you and your target, even an ally, give the target half cover (+2). In my anecdotal experience, most DMs forget to do this. The RAW answer is the simplest. This also provides a neat symmetry to the archery fighting style, cancelling each other out

[Dark.Revenant]

Sharpshooter should not ignore cover. That was a mistake on the designers' part. Take that clause out, maybe replace it with a ribbon based around a perception bonus for spotting distant things. That's all I'd do.

[MrStabby]

Even though I'm not in favor of the proposed fix, it looks like I'm in a minority here in apparently agreeing with NaughtyTiger that ranged combat is ridiculously overpowered in 5E compared to melee, in anything but absurdly-close terrain.

That is, I can understand why someone would want to depower ranged combat. From both a game balance standpoint and a gameworld logic standpoint, it is straight-up ridiculous that it is easier to make a first-level character who can shoot an AC 12 flying eagle out of the air at 200 paces (600') than to make one who can stab that eagle when it's flightless and on the ground. 5E stacks other advantages on top of that, from the partial cover rules to the mounted combat rules to monsters with Parry (which ranged attacks ignore) to the large number of monsters who do nasty things to you if you get within 30' of them (Medusas, etc.) or hit them with a melee attack (Fire Elementals, Balors). Ranged combat is a ridiculously dominant paradigm from a tactical effectiveness standpoint, even though melee DPR peaks slightly higher.

Where I agree with the majority is in opposing this change, and my logic is pragmatic: it's insufficient. Ranged combat will still be ridiculously dominant, and you'll have complexified your game for no real gain.

I agree ranged is good... i think it is hard gauging the degree as it depends on the DM. Firstly, you need to make sure you are using the cover rules. A to hit penalty is appropriate. Likewise enforcing range penalties is very occasionally going to make a difference.

The DM thing though is all about encounters. Ranged attacks start to seem a bit less good when enemies are within 5 ft - a campaign rich in enemies with good mobility, invisibility or other means of slipping into the back lines will even things up pretty quickly. There is a lot a DM can do, from allocation of magic items to encounter design to keep things balanced - but I don't like that such things restrict the DM.

[sithlordnergal]

I am considering imposing a -2 penalty to ranged attacks.
Plus considering additional -1 penalty per 100ft.

Ranged attackers have major advantages over melee.
-less danger
-can attack from hiding
-more targets

Reasonably, it should be harder to hit a moving target at 80ft than at 5ft.

Why is this a bad idea?

Well, its a needless penalty for issues that, in my experience, either rarely come into play, are working as intended, or make little sense. Now, I won't deny that ranged attackers tend to get more benefits in the form of higher hit chance thanks to Archery...but at the same time they're easier to hit and their weapons are weaker as a whole. As for the three things you mentioned:

Less Danger: Ehhh, not really? It is if you're in an open field with no cover that's about 600 feet across...but I've been in a lot of games, ranging from Tier 1 to Tier 4, from Adventure League to Homebrew, Modules to Hardcovers...9 times out of 10, your enemies are within 60 feet of you. Which means usually you're within range of someone getting into melee with you, and as the guy with the bow, you're pretty screwed if someone does that. If your players are constantly staying 80ft away from their foes, then that's a design problem that stems from you, the DM. Build encounters that are closer together, without as much open space to maneuver.

And its really not that hard to do so.If they're outside, provide the enemies with areas of full cover, ranged attacks can no longer hit them. If you're indoors, make the rooms 30 by 30, make sure there is a sharp corner that blocks line of sight in one of the paths, change up the environment to give enemies an advantage. And then if the party is still somehow using ranged attacks, have the enemies go prone. Instant disadvantage on ALL attacks that are not made within 5 feet of the target. Not just ranged, but ALL attacks.


Can attack from hiding: That's a feature, not a bug, and its a feature that really only Rogues and Goblins can make good tactical use of. If a Rogue is giving you that much trouble, I have a few suggestions. One is the spell Mind Spike, its a 2nd level Divination spell that deals 3d8 psychic damage, and makes it so the target can't hide from you or gain the benefits of invisibility with respect to you until you end the spell or they leave the plane of existence you're currently on.

Second option, have enemies use the same tactic, or use Fog Cloud/Darkness to remove the Advantage given from Hiding. Crazy as it sounds, Fog Cloud does a TON to nerf hiding mechanics, because it removes the advantage gained from hiding. Hiding is also a valid tactic. Finally, if you're within range of melee, which most combat encounters are, hiding can be completely negated by simply moving to the other side of whatever the PCs are hiding behind. The PC loses their full cover, and are no longer Stealthed because you can't hide in plain sight without a very special ability. You can roll a 30+ stealth check, its not gonna help if you have nothing to hide behind.


More Targets: This...kind of confuses me? How are they targeting more people then the melee folks? I will admit, there are technically more viable targets for a Ranged attack within the range of their weapons then a melee attack...but again, in practice most combat happens within 60 feet of everyone else. Meaning most melee attacks can also reach those targets with one movement or a Dash.

[NaughtyTiger]

Thanks for the feedback.

respectfully, I disagree with most of reasons against my suggestion.


sharpshooter ignores partial cover
sharpshooter ignores long range. short sword has real disadvantage at long range.
get rid of sharpshooter, definitely, already did that, but we still have problems.
tracking ammunition favors spellcasters
ranged attacks do similar damage to melee: daggers, spears, crossbows, eldritch blast, ...
it would frustrate the ranged players, the melee players are already frustrated.
in a 10 by 10 room (50ft range), most bad guys are rocking a 40ft move... so they still can't close range without AoO from another ally
can't use a shield is not the same as being physically removed from combat
ranged folks suck in melee... except they still have access to melee weapons
prone is so risky in melee, it isn't a good counter
-2 penalty is too complex, but +2 archery is simple


giving the edge to DC casters is a problem. this is something i worry about constantly. but nothing stands out as game breaking or horribly gonna ruin the game. worth a try. thank you all again..

i do like the assumption that the players are too hard for DM... nobody considered that the PC barbarian is pissed that he can't hit the giant chucking boulders...
... okay, it's the players kicking my ass, but still.

[JumboWheat01]

You note that ranged characters can still use melee weapons, but melee characters can also use ranged weapons. That shortsword user can easily use a shortbow at the least. A tough fighter or paladin could chuck a handaxe or darts just fine for some ranged. In that 10x10 room, that's even within the long-range for throwing weapons (60ft.)

[micahaphone]

How many dungeons does your table go through? I'm wondering if that's part of people's differing opinions on whether ranged combat is too op.

[Lunali]

As my longbow wielding kensei monk who spends most of his time outdoors, ranged attacks are OP. Melee results in more damage overall, but most enemies can be kited and killed from outside their potential range if necessary. Anything that runs has to build a 600' lead on a monk to escape.

As my AT rogue dungeon delving in a melee heavy party, melee attacks are OP. Ranged attacks would be safer but less accurate (cover and/or flanking) and adding booming blade always tempts me into melee. For particularly hard to hit enemies, booming blade can be dropped in favor of an offhand attack. Anything that wants to run has to worry about soaking another sneak attack as they do.

[sithlordnergal]

Thanks for the feedback.

respectfully, I disagree with most of reasons against my suggestion.


sharpshooter ignores partial cover
sharpshooter ignores long range. short sword has real disadvantage at long range.
get rid of sharpshooter, definitely, already did that, but we still have problems.
tracking ammunition favors spellcasters
ranged attacks do similar damage to melee: daggers, spears, crossbows, eldritch blast, ...
it would frustrate the ranged players, the melee players are already frustrated.
in a 10 by 10 room (50ft range), most bad guys are rocking a 40ft move... so they still can't close range without AoO from another ally
can't use a shield is not the same as being physically removed from combat
ranged folks suck in melee... except they still have access to melee weapons
prone is so risky in melee, it isn't a good counter
-2 penalty is too complex, but +2 archery is simple


giving the edge to DC casters is a problem. this is something i worry about constantly. but nothing stands out as game breaking or horribly gonna ruin the game. worth a try. thank you all again..

i do like the assumption that the players are too hard for DM... nobody considered that the PC barbarian is pissed that he can't hit the giant chucking boulders...
... okay, it's the players kicking my ass, but still.

So again...what sort of encounters are you building where combat takes place that far away? Why are you building encounters that happen that far away? How is the Barbarian with a 40ft movement speed unable to enter combat with a single Dash? That's 80 feet of movement right there, that should be able to reach just about every enemy in 90% of combat encounters. If your encounters are starting over 120 feet away...then honestly, that's more on encounter design. There's no need to "fix" ranged by nerfing it. If you build an encounter that starts with the party being 300 feet away, then of course Ranged builds will seem OP, because you're not supposed to start an encounter that far away. The very max you should be starting an encounter is 120 feet away.

EDIT: As for prone being risky in melee, that is true, but if you already have to worry about being in melee, then the melee characters shouldn't have any issue with ranged characters because you're already in melee range. All in all, this just feels like a nerf for no reason. You're putting down reasons for it, but none of those reasons are good or make sense:

"ranged attacks do similar damage to melee: daggers, spears, crossbows, eldritch blast,"

No, they actually do less then melee attacks, outside of certain Crossbows and Eldritch Blast. However, those are evened out because you need a feat to make a crossbow effective, otherwise you make a single attack, and you need charisma for Eldritch Blast.


"in a 10 by 10 room (50ft range), most bad guys are rocking a 40ft move... so they still can't close range without AoO from another ally"

So take the AoO, that'll make the melee's happy. Also, is the party bunched up around the ranged person? You're telling me there is no way to slip by a party of 5 to get behind them?


"ranged folks suck in melee... except they still have access to melee weapons"

And melee folks have access to ranged weapons. Javelins and spears work perfectly well.


"it would frustrate the ranged players, the melee players are already frustrated."

Why are you actively trying to frustrate your players? That's a poor choice to do as a DM, don't try to actively frustrate your players.

Seriously, all of your issues can be fixed by a simple rule: Only give the players a chance to start combat when they're within 120 feet, and have a 120ft maximum for distance outside of very special and specific circumstances. If a player decides to flee beyond that, they leave the battlefield, cannot interact with the battle from beyond that distance, and gain no rewards if they remain outside of the battlefield for too many rounds.

Or you can simply build encounters that force the players to be closer to the action.

[ProsecutorGodot]

Seriously, all of your issues can be fixed by a simple rule: Only give the players a chance to start combat when they're within 120 feet, and have a 120ft maximum for distance outside of very special and specific circumstances. If a player decides to flee beyond that, they leave the battlefield, cannot interact with the battle from beyond that distance, and gain no rewards if they remain outside of the battlefield for too many rounds.

I was going to argue against this, but then I thought through my experiences with playing DND. For the most part, we've played almost exclusively prewritten adventures, the longest running being SKT and Dungeon of the Mad Mage.

These are very different settings for an adventure, but I've realized something in retrospect: Even though SKT is literally your band of adventurers roaming the countryside, leaving potentially miles between you and a giant target, you rarely see a combat where a distance beyond a couple hundred feet is relevant. Sure, we'd done our fair share of sniping from a great distance (by "we" I mean our Sharpshooting Elven Gloomstalker) but that rarely killed a target before it was time for the closer range combatants to enter the area where both sides could be attacking from. Typing that out has made me realize how insane most adventurers in SKT are, you're willingly running at 15-20ft tall giants who can throw boulders the size of two people at you from over 200ft away.

In Dungeon of the Mad Mage this is a complete non issue because aside from a few floors with exceptionally large scale (those who've played the adventure might realize this wording is intentional) you don't even see enemies until you're in this distance. Fleeing in DoTMM is pretty dangerous at deeper levels as well (for several reasons, the biggest being gates) so I don't think the hit and run tactics that you could potentially leverage in SKT are going to fly here.

This leads me to believe that the designers of the game don't really expect you to be fighting in the long half of a ranged weapons range regularly, that range of engagement is not typical and changing the rules of the game because you've designed your encounters to make that typical screams as a mistake on your part rather than the games rules.

[MaxWilson]

The DM thing though is all about encounters. Ranged attacks start to seem a bit less good when enemies are within 5 ft - a campaign rich in enemies with good mobility, invisibility or other means of slipping into the back lines will even things up pretty quickly. There is a lot a DM can do, from allocation of magic items to encounter design to keep things balanced - but I don't like that such things restrict the DM.

IME the most reasonable reason for fights to start at close range is when the PCs are not murderhobos or actively at war with a hostile military power, and therefore tend to want to talk to someone before killing them.

Even then, a good ranged + mobility capability transforms a tough fight into a simple one. Instead of racing to inflict enough DPR to put down an enemy, you're just racing to break contact, and then it's all over but the shouting. This means a big monster like a CR Goristro might get only one or two attacks in the whole combat (one Multiattack if it wins initiative, plus one opportunity attack) and then it's dead meat. Ranged party has achieved victory at the cost of say 60 HP and spent some low-level spells, e.g. Longstrider II + Expeditious Retreat. Melee party probably a *beast* of a fight, lost probably 100-300 HP and some higher-level spells--to them the monster was a much bigger deal!

The OP's rule wouldn't change that dynamic.

[Danielqueue1]

snip

But then the question is how is the party breaking contact? A party is only as fast as its slowest member, so full party kiting is only an option if the whole party is in on it. Longstrider on a dwarf for example still makes it unable to outpace the exampled Gorristro. If the whole party is wood elf rogues, monks and such then you've just made a skirmisher squad that is great for a combat-as-war style game, but most parties are more generally balanced.

Also on the topic of gorristro, how are you running away every turn? Are you fighting a maze-fiend on the open road? If you are fighting one in a wide dungeon or its labyrinth, then as soon as you run away it would take a different path and use its knowledge of the maze (specifically listed on its stats) to ambush the ranged party over and over again. Closing to melee range from a different path.

Or how is the party reliably kiting any monster through a dungeon, branching cavern system, city of the dead, cursed dense forest, or any other closely spaced occupied area? Are there no other monsters? Does the party always predictably run back the way they came? Are there no traps, natural hazards, or difficult terrain?

One shouldn't use them all the time, but making it difficult to reliably kite encounters is pretty simple and i'm pretty sure that simply filling up a map with some variety and using creatures' abilities the way they were designed will prevent one playstyle from becoming dominant.

[djreynolds]

But even IRL in the 21st century, ranged attacks are powerful.

And even IRL in the 21st century, adversaries are able to escape these powerful ranged attacks and satellites

So even IRL in the 21st century, you still need people kicking in doors

Sharpshooter still does nothing versus full cover, so a goblin can shoot someone and run 30ft to total cover

Now someone has to chase this goblin.... or drow (if you are up to the challenge)

My point is even Legolas in the Two Towers movie had to switch to his blades, the enemy had close the distance, hence cannon or arrow fodder

[sithlordnergal]

I was going to argue against this, but then I thought through my experiences with playing DND. For the most part, we've played almost exclusively prewritten adventures, the longest running being SKT and Dungeon of the Mad Mage.

These are very different settings for an adventure, but I've realized something in retrospect: Even though SKT is literally your band of adventurers roaming the countryside, leaving potentially miles between you and a giant target, you rarely see a combat where a distance beyond a couple hundred feet is relevant. Sure, we'd done our fair share of sniping from a great distance (by "we" I mean our Sharpshooting Elven Gloomstalker) but that rarely killed a target before it was time for the closer range combatants to enter the area where both sides could be attacking from. Typing that out has made me realize how insane most adventurers in SKT are, you're willingly running at 15-20ft tall giants who can throw boulders the size of two people at you from over 200ft away.

In Dungeon of the Mad Mage this is a complete non issue because aside from a few floors with exceptionally large scale (those who've played the adventure might realize this wording is intentional) you don't even see enemies until you're in this distance. Fleeing in DoTMM is pretty dangerous at deeper levels as well (for several reasons, the biggest being gates) so I don't think the hit and run tactics that you could potentially leverage in SKT are going to fly here.

This leads me to believe that the designers of the game don't really expect you to be fighting in the long half of a ranged weapons range regularly, that range of engagement is not typical and changing the rules of the game because you've designed your encounters to make that typical screams as a mistake on your part rather than the games rules.

Yup, that is exactly my point, encounters in 5e are not designed to be done at extreme distances. The monsters and system are not designed that way. You'll occasionally have an encounter where you need that 320ft distance with a shortbow, but that should be the exception to the rule, not the standard. Encounters should generally take place in relatively close quarters, where melee characters can get to the action with a single dash, provided they have 30ft movement speed. Heck, I went through SKT as well as a Paladin, and the only time I ended up in a situation where I couldn't realistically reach the enemies as a martial class was when I went last to climb down a rope on the top of a cliff. The DM shot the rope before I began climbing, and I ended up trapped at the top of a 100ft tall cliff while my allies fought for their lives...and even then I could have gotten down by jumping and/or climbing.

[NaughtyTiger]

So again...what sort of encounters are you building where combat takes place that far away? Why are you building encounters that happen that far away? How is the Barbarian with a 40ft movement speed unable to enter combat with a single Dash? That's 80 feet of movement right there, that should be able to reach just about every enemy in 90% of combat encounters. If your encounters are starting over 120 feet away...then honestly, that's more on encounter design. There's no need to "fix" ranged by nerfing it. If you build an encounter that starts with the party being 300 feet away, then of course Ranged builds will seem OP, because you're not supposed to start an encounter that far away. The very max you should be starting an encounter is 120 feet away.
encounters are unusually in 50ftx50ft spaces with obstacles...
it isn't far away.



How is the Barbarian with a 40ft movement speed unable to enter combat with a single Dash? That's 80 feet of movement right there, that should be able to reach just about every enemy in 90% of combat encounters. hmm. i find that missing 1 round of combat in a 3-4 round fight would be frustrating for a tank.


EDIT: As for prone being risky in melee, that is true, but if you already have to worry about being in melee, then the melee characters shouldn't have any issue with ranged characters because you're already in melee range.
what? the orc in melee with the party barbarian can't go prone to avoid the ranger. nothing says the orc is in melee with ranger.


No, [ranged attacks] actually do less then melee attacks, outside of certain Crossbows and Eldritch Blast. However, those are evened out because you need a feat to make a crossbow effective, otherwise you make a single attack, and you need charisma for Eldritch Blast.
no, they don't even without a feat. 1d6 spear is the same ranged or melee. 1d8 long bow is same as 1d8 longsword, or 1 point less that polearm. most cantrips do 2d8+effects


"in a 10 by 10 room (50ft range), most bad guys are rocking a 40ft move... so they still can't close range without AoO from another ally"


So take the AoO, that'll make the melee's happy.
monsters aren't dumb.
why would they take 1 or 2 AoO? would your PCs do that? *cough* especially once they see sentinel in action.


Also, is the party bunched up around the ranged person? You're telling me there is no way to slip by a party of 5 to get behind them?
they are not bunched up, but given terrain and walls, i have difficulty getting 2 bad guys behind the tank wall (that is the purpose of a tank wall)


And melee folks have access to ranged weapons. Javelins and spears work perfectly well.
except they don't. you can only throw 1 per attack action (free action draw; attack; can't draw another)

[QUOTE=sithlordnergal]Why are you actively trying to frustrate your players? That's a poor choice to do as a DM, don't try to actively frustrate your players.
not constructive and rude.


Seriously, all of your issues can be fixed by a simple rule: Only give the players a chance to start combat when they're within 120 feet
that doesn't solve a darn thing, cuz most of my combats take place within 80ft.

i don't believe that most DMs can threaten the back wall in most encounters without defeating the tanks.




But even IRL in the 21st century, ranged attacks are powerful.
And even IRL in the 21st century, adversaries are able to escape these powerful ranged attacks and satellites
So even IRL in the 21st century, you still need people kicking in doors
IRL, kicking in the doors, they still used ranged attacks indoors.


Sharpshooter still does nothing versus full cover, so a goblin can shoot someone and run 30ft to total cover
Now someone has to chase this goblin.... or drow (if you are up to the challenge)
My point is even Legolas in the Two Towers movie had to switch to his blades, the enemy had close the distance, hence cannon or arrow fodder
right, so legolas is undamaged at range, while the other guys take the pounding to get to the door. legolas is fresh when he has to switch to melee, the tanks are near dead.

[djreynolds]

Its your game and your table.

And the reality is sharpshooter is very powerful.

And yes being able to shoot someone from 90ft out before they even get to you... probably means they are almost dead.

Henry V knew what he was doing

Honestly the weapons in 5E are a mess.

I really do not know how effective and powerful a longbow is at 10ft or at 100ft

But I'm not sure gimping ranged helps, because ranged attacks are powerful.

How do your players feel about this? Is this important to them.

Crossbow expert take a feat, and therefore expensive, it might be 8th level.

Something I used in combat (like 1E)... if you miss your target by more than 5 (or 10) (think of a fair number) with a ranged attack.... you run the risk of hitting an ally within 5ft.

You could take this rule and expand upon it... for every say 30ft, that 5 becomes a 4, then a 3, etc... this increases the risk of launching arrows 120ft away while the paladin is engage in melee with the target.

[sithlordnergal]

encounters are unusually in 50ftx50ft spaces with obstacles...
it isn't far away.


hmm. i find that missing 1 round of combat in a 3-4 round fight would be frustrating for a tank.


It really shouldn't be all that frustrating...one round of combat gives the tank to set up whatever defenses they have, be it Shield of Faith for a Paladin or Rage for a Barbarian. Yeah, Fighters don't really have anything to set up, but if they really, really, really wanna be on the front line in one round, they have action surge to get there.




no, they don't even without a feat. 1d6 spear is the same ranged or melee. 1d8 long bow is same as 1d8 longsword, or 1 point less that polearm. most cantrips do 2d8+effects


You are correct, spears, javelins, light hammers, handaxes, daggers, and tridents do remain the same...but they also have another common factor. They're all melee weapons with the "Thrown" property, they're not actually ranged weapons. Now, the Longsword and Longbow is a better comparison. The Longbow is Heavy and Two-Handed, and deals 1d8 damage. If you use it, you have to be Medium sized or have disadvantage on the attack, and you have to use two hands to use it, so no carrying a shield at the same time. The Longsword has the Versatile trait, can be used one handed, and deals 1d8. If you wish, you can increase that to 1d10 thanks to Versatile, you can use a Shield, which boosts your AC by two, you can dual wield with a feat, or you could use your free hand to cast spells.

As for cantrips, they do increase their damage over time, but that sort of evens out since cantrips are used less and less by full casters as time goes on because there are simply better spells out there. Cantrips are the last resort, the thing that allows a Wizard to do something when they finally run out of spell slots. It makes sense for them to scale and remain as a viable ability from start to finish. As for the additional effects...ehhhh? I mean, outside of Chill Touch, the cantrips I've seen are pretty well balanced between damage and effects. Vicious Mockey has a strong effect, but only does a d4, Firebolt does a d10 but has no effect.




what? the orc in melee with the party barbarian can't go prone to avoid the ranger. nothing says the orc is in melee with ranger.


Let me reword this, as I realize it was worded very poorly. If whoever the party is targeting is out of melee range, have them drop prone. That fixes a massive issue right there since it gives those ranged attacks disadvantage. If whoever the party is fighting is already engaged with the party's melee people, why are they complaining and having issues with the ranged PCs targeting enemies? It makes little sense for them to complain, because at that point they're already at the action and are taking part in the encounter.


monsters aren't dumb.
why would they take 1 or 2 AoO? would your PCs do that? *cough* especially once they see sentinel in action.


they are not bunched up, but given terrain and walls, i have difficulty getting 2 bad guys behind the tank wall (that is the purpose of a tank wall)

You might want to think about strategy then...as long as there is at least one 5ft gap or larger that an enemy can slip past, then the backrow has no defense. Also, keep in mind that tanks only get 1 reaction per round. So even if the monsters see Sentinel in action, most should be smart enough to realize the PC with sentinel can't do it again to stop them. A player with sentinel can stop only one enemy from getting past them, no more no less. So unless every single party member has sentinel, or they're defending a choke point, the it is relatively easy to get past that wall of tanks.

As for taking AoO, smart enemies would do that. In fact, I'd say the smarter the enemy, the more willing they'd be to risk it. Why? Because, they're smart enough to realize "Hey, that guy in the back is dangerous, while the guys in the front are just trying to slow me down. I better deal with the guy in the back." Where as an animal might go "Hey, these guys hit me if I get try to get past them, best take them down first".

EDIT: And before you start to say "Reactions are a game mechanic, monsters and PCs don't know about them". Any monster and/or PC with any form of combat proficiency, even the dumbest ones, should be able to realize they're only quick enough to hit one guy moving past, no more and no less. They should have the wisdom and/or memory to realize "They can only catch one guy with that attack while we rush past them!"




except they don't. you can only throw 1 per attack action (free action draw; attack; can't draw another)


Good point there, I forgot you can only draw one weapon at a time to throw. And while they can also use bows, they won't be as effective without a Dex investment.




not constructive and rude.


Not constructive, but also not meant to be rude. You shouldn't be actively trying to frustrate your players, that is a sign of poor DMing. D&D should be more fun then frustrating, and adding something to the game with the express purpose of frustrating someone is not a good way to DM. All it will end up doing is causing more trouble. While I personally don't feel nerfs are required for any part of 5e, those making a nerf should not list "it would frustrate the ranged players, the melee players are already frustrated." as a reason to apply the nerf.




that doesn't solve a darn thing, cuz most of my combats take place within 80ft.

i don't believe that most DMs can threaten the back wall in most encounters without defeating the tanks.


Well, if your combats do take place within 80ft, then you're correct, that rule won't help much. However, a Dm can easily get to the back wall if they try without defeating the tanks. The only times you can't are if they are defending a choke point, if they have surrounded the rest of the party and are bunched up, or somehow have enough bodies to create an unbroken line that fills the room. As I said above, as long as there is a single 5ft gap between one tank and the next, you can slip by. Does it mean one enemy might take an Attack of Opportunity? Maybe. Does it mean one enemy is gonna get stopped by Sentinel? Most certainly. That one enemy is gonna be stopped...the other 3 or 4 are going to zip on by with nary a care. Congrats, your tank wall has been broken.

[stoutstien]

People always tend to get a little cagey when you talk about the current state of range combat options in 5e.

I know the feeling of frustration of making an encounter utilizing different levels of cover and hazards to allow more depth in player option just for the ranged user to have SS and have little reason to even acknowledge the elements.
Yes the player with SS had a cost in the form of a feat to supposedly balance this but in reality it is just limiting player options by removing the big hurdle of ranged combat.

I feel they messed up range combat in terms of the fighting style and feat support. (They messed up all martial weapon users with feat tax)

Spell slingers are in a similar boat but could also just use a non Dex based save spell to circumvent cover. At least an active decision is being made there.

In order to try to keep the ruleset simple they inadvertently made ranged combat to easy. Just need to reintroduce some choices past do I shoot target A or B.

[Cizak]

hmm. i find that missing 1 round of combat in a 3-4 round fight would be frustrating for a tank.

Getting into melee range with a ranged enemy isn't really missing a turn. You're accomplishing something by giving the ranged enemy Disadvantage and threatening AoOs if they want to get away from you.


monsters aren't dumb.
why would they take 1 or 2 AoO? would your PCs do that? *cough* especially once they see sentinel in action.

If the ranged enemy is considered a high priority target? Yes, absolutely. You weigh your options and risks in combat. If the ranged enemy is *that* dangerous, then taking one or two AoOs is absolutely worth it, especially if you force the melee enemy to use their reaction in order to let your teammates run past.

Or Disengage. Or if that's not fancy enough; push the melee enemy prone before running past, giving them Disadvantage on the AoO as well as forcing them to choose between standing up and thus not being able to catch up, or crawling after you and thus continuing to attack with Disadvantage.


they are not bunched up, but given terrain and walls, i have difficulty getting 2 bad guys behind the tank wall (that is the purpose of a tank wall)

Exactly, that is the purpose. So the tanks are doing their job, keeping their ranged teammates safe. Why do you want to punish the ranged players for this?


i don't believe that most DMs can threaten the back wall in most encounters without defeating the tanks.

What does "defeating" mean here? Killing and/or knocking unconscious? Then yeah, that's hard to do, because tanks are specifically built to not go down. But again, there exists options for getting past them. And again, I might be misunderstanding something here, but it sounds like you want to punish ranged players because both melee and ranged roles are functioning as intended.

[CorporateSlave]

Ranged attackers have major advantages over melee.


I wonder if that's why soldiers nowadays mostly carry guns rather than swords?

Track ammo and enforce cover...and not just 1/2 or 3/4 which are Sharpshooter-avoidable...have your creatures duck behind full cover if they're getting shot at. If you're consistently putting your players in a position where they can kite with impunity, I don't think the problem is with the RAW!

[NaughtyTiger]

apparently, we are crosswise.

the melee players are constantly annoyed that the ranged players do more damage with lower risk.
how do they do more damage?
in the open, they can get an extra attack.
they take less damage, so they live longer. the tanks do their job, then they sit on the side lines.
they can switch targets to one across the battlefield. the melee has to expend move to engage new targets.

the ranger is not a higher priority target than the barbarian to me as DM (the caster is a different beast, kill them cuz casters are way overpowered)
so an orc would not risk AoO to get the ranger.
the problem is the PC barbarian is annoyed that he drops and the ranger is untouched.

I am discussing ranged attack vs melee attack. I don't care about whether it is a ranged weapon, thrown melee weapon, or spell.

[Cizak]

the problem is the PC barbarian is annoyed that he drops and the ranger is untouched.

Then they chose the wrong class.

Like, sure, try to "fix" it if that's what everyone involved wants in order to have fun, but what the PC Barbarian is annoyed at is their class filling its role exactly as intended.

[MaxWilson]

But then the question is how is the party breaking contact? A party is only as fast as its slowest member, so full party kiting is only an option if the whole party is in on it. Longstrider on a dwarf for example still makes it unable to outpace the exampled Gorristro. If the whole party is wood elf rogues, monks and such then you've just made a skirmisher squad that is great for a combat-as-war style game, but most parties are more generally balanced.

Also on the topic of gorristro, how are you running away every turn? Are you fighting a maze-fiend on the open road? If you are fighting one in a wide dungeon or its labyrinth, then as soon as you run away it would take a different path and use its knowledge of the maze (specifically listed on its stats) to ambush the ranged party over and over again. Closing to melee range from a different path.

Or how is the party reliably kiting any monster through a dungeon, branching cavern system, city of the dead, cursed dense forest, or any other closely spaced occupied area? Are there no other monsters? Does the party always predictably run back the way they came? Are there no traps, natural hazards, or difficult terrain?

One shouldn't use them all the time, but making it difficult to reliably kite encounters is pretty simple and i'm pretty sure that simply filling up a map with some variety and using creatures' abilities the way they were designed will prevent one playstyle from becoming dominant.

I agree that kiting is gated on the closest, slowest PC, which means this is an example of how splitting the party temporarily can make the party *stronger*, not weaker, by leaving behind non-mobile characters.

Your other questions are probably best answered on the other thread about what PCs work well together, which discusses exactly this topic of how to deal with open terrain *and* close terrain. But the short answer is that you just need to end every turn at least 55 feet ahead of the Goristro and have Mobile + Expeditious Retreat, which is totally doable in a cursed forest/natural hazards/difficult terrain/etc. In fact difficult terrain makes your job even easier because it affects the Goristro but not you.

I agree that a DM should avoid wasting time on boring encounters--a Goristro inexplicably encountered on an arctic tundra by a mobile, ranged-heavy party isn't even a fight worth playing out in detail, the players can just say "we kill it" and if there isn't a hidden factor the DM should just say "okay" and move on to post-combat consequences. (Good hidden factors could include "it's an illusion!", hidden purple worms, vrocks dive-bombing out of the sun, etc. But if there aren't any, then the Goristro is there because it's going to be interesting *after* it's defeated, not before.)

But even in a stone maze, with the Goristro surprising the party at melee range, and even with my custom initiative variant which makes kiting *much* harder and less predictable, I've found that

1.) melee parties/PCs can easily defeat big dumb monsters like the Goristro because 5E is designed to be easy (one Goristro is a Deadly x2 encounter even for a 20th level Zealot, but the Zealot wins easily), and

2.) a ranged mobile party/PC will struggle a bit of they use the wrong tactics and will take damage comparable to or even higher than a melee party, but

3.) once they find the right tactics they will *own* that scenario (Zealot at 5' range might lose 100ish HP defeating the Goristro, but a Mobile EK Sharpshooter starting 5' away from the Goristro might lose nothing but a first level spell slot solving it, depending on initiative).

This is all before we even get into creative solutions like climbing the stone maze, because again, at a certain point it just isn't worth running round by round combat any more unless there's hidden information--at *most* you might say, "The Goristro flees in rage and confusion. You get two rounds of free attacks before it turns a corner, or three rounds if you're willing to hop down and follow it around the corner."

Ranged combatants simply have more and better tactical options ten melee combatants do, especially by vanilla PHB RAW which makes ranged advantage ready to get via visibility manipulation.

And the thing is, the OP's rule will not alter that dynamic at all.

I've got, um, between two and five house rules I think that are designed to make melee fightering more attractive relative to spellcasting and ranged fightering, and IMO melee is *still* the weakest specialization for a PC. (But at least now it's weak in the same way Scissors is weak against a little kid who can only form Rock and Paper with his fingers--overall it's dominated by better mixed strategies, but has specific scenarios where it is still the best option, like if the kid is doing lots of Paper.)

[NaughtyTiger]

I've got, um, between two and five house rules I think that are designed to make melee fightering more attractive relative to spellcasting and ranged fightering, and IMO melee is *still* the weakest specialization for a PC. (But at least now it's weak in the same way Scissors is weak against a little kid who can only form Rock and Paper with his fingers--overall it's dominated by better mixed strategies, but has specific scenarios where it is still the best option, like if the kid is doing lots of Paper.)

please share, cuz that is why i am going this way. casters >> ranged >> melee and the players are disappointed.

[Mellack]

the problem is the PC barbarian is annoyed that he drops and the ranger is untouched.



It sound to me like the problem for that player is not melee vs ranged, it is that they don't like playing a tank. They really wanted to be a striker. Classes and builds have different roles. The role of most barbarians is to try to get in the baddies way and absorb damage. Every point they keep off the rest of the party is doing their job. Perhaps let them respec if their goal is to try to do more damage.

[MaxWilson]

please share, cuz that is why i am going this way. casters >> ranged >> melee and the players are disappointed.

I'm on phone now, will share and explain later on. Short version includes:

Rolling initiative every round, so interactions including chaotic are more chaotic/less reliable

Casting a spell in melee range triggers an opportunity attack unless you have Warcaster (replaces the reaction casting benefit of Warcaster), unless the spell is a bonus action or reaction.

No advantage for unseen attackers on ranged attacks, but being unseen/hidden does still enable sneak attack.

I forget how many of my other houserules might be relevant. Will check.

[djreynolds]

But I thought rangers stunk up the place.... just kidding

Everyone should have a ranged and melee ability.

I know its easier said then done, but you have to challenge your players, which means more monsters and higher ACs and different terrain.

I'm not against a range penalty for stuff over 100ft, I mean that's pretty far for a bow for hitting point blank

You could implement a sweet zone for ranged weapons. Sort of a point blank range. Any weapon fire outside this range players cannot apply ability bonus to damage.... but this is very tough to track and rules' lawyer will eat you up.

But -2 is very harsh for all ranged attacks. This would crush a goblin with a bow.

You could amend sharpshooter, and instead of ignoring cover... give them a +1 dex or something... this is fair.

Often archers are tough to sneak up on, usually they have a decent perception check... which actually mimics real life.

But this is perhaps the reason why say paladin's smite are melee centric




You know try it out and see how it works

[Misterwhisper]

apparently, we are crosswise.

the melee players are constantly annoyed that the ranged players do more damage with lower risk.
how do they do more damage?
in the open, they can get an extra attack.
they take less damage, so they live longer. the tanks do their job, then they sit on the side lines.
they can switch targets to one across the battlefield. the melee has to expend move to engage new targets.

the ranger is not a higher priority target than the barbarian to me as DM (the caster is a different beast, kill them cuz casters are way overpowered)
so an orc would not risk AoO to get the ranger.
the problem is the PC barbarian is annoyed that he drops and the ranger is untouched.

I am discussing ranged attack vs melee attack. I don't care about whether it is a ranged weapon, thrown melee weapon, or spell.

If your barbarian dropped then the rest of the team should already be dead.

It sounds more like you are not very good at combat tactics and enemies just hit whoever is up front and then standing there until either the barbarian or the enemy drops.

I have said this many times, there is no such thing as a tank in 5e.

Opportunity attacks just don’t mean that much.
You can take sentinel or protection style or whatever you want but you are still only bothering 1 target and 5e is totally a numbers game due to limited action economy.

Ranged has the benefit of archery style, +2 to hit in a game where artifacts only give a +3 is just bad design.

Both melee and ranged have good feat support.
Both can get -5/+10 feats, which also in a bound accuracy system is stupid.
Depending on the weapon, both can get bonus action attacks.
Melee can get a reaction attack and ranged can get multiple ways to ignore disadvantage or armor bonuses.

Another issue I have seen is that because everyone essentially has spring attack in 5e, and dash is only 2x speed unlike 4x like older editions. Any archer can step out of full cover, unload a full round of attacks and step back in full cover. Meanwhile the melee person has to get over there and the enemy can move just as well.

In older editions closing on the archer meant they take AoO every shot because it messes with their defense. In 5e one feat makes that all go away and it is the same feat that gives an extra attack.

Magic items might not matter in some games but the cheap bracers of archery are a flat +2 damage to every attack with a bow.
Nothing like that for melee.

So in a bound accuracy system with 1 cheap item and a fighting style an archer can get the equivalent of a +2 magic weapon that stacks with other magic weapons.

Also because they did not plan the items well at all, magic arrows and magic bows stack.

Essentially ranged and melee have roughly the same damage.
But melee gets all the negatives and ranged combatants have easy ways around almost all of theirs.

Want to see it really show up in action play a rogue with a sword for a while and then play one with a bow.

[1Pirate]

Has anyone ever played with a party of all ranged attackers? To me, ranged always seemed stronger because our melee guys were always dropping, while the ranged guys never got touched.

However, during one encounter our two melees chased after a drow running down a side tunnel and left the ranged players in the main room with a drider. Long story short, the melees had to let the drow go and book it back to the main room and start jamming healing potions down everyone's mouth.

So, I'm wondering if the OP-ness(don't say that out loud) feeling of ranged is an illusion created by the assumption that monsters are always focused on melee attackers.

[NaughtyTiger]

Has anyone ever played with a party of all ranged attackers? To me, ranged always seemed stronger because our melee guys were always dropping, while the ranged guys never got touched.

However, during one encounter our two melees chased after a drow running down a side tunnel and left the ranged players in the main room with a drider. Long story short, the melees had to let the drow go and book it back to the main room and start jamming healing potions down everyone's mouth.

So, I'm wondering if the OP-ness(don't say that out loud) feeling of ranged is an illusion created by the assumption that monsters are always focused on melee attackers.

i have been at tables with all casters, primarily ranged (one blade lock). it is not an illusion.
if there aren't melee frontlines, then the ranged folks will take damage, but it does not impair their ability to deal damage.

by the numbers:
ranged rogue does more damage than melee rogue
ranged BM fighter does more damage than melee BM fighter
by my experience:
ranged Ancestral Guardian tanks better than melee Ancestral Guardian.

[MaxWilson]

please share, cuz that is why i am going this way. casters >> ranged >> melee and the players are disappointed.

Okay, here are the relevant rules from my house rules doc. Simple change #5 weakens ranged combat slightly, #6 and #9 slightly strengthen melee styles like sword-and-shield, and #9 also strengthens the melee/paralyzation synergy, #7 and #8 strengthen melee warriors and weaken spellcasters including SCAG cantrips. Complex change #2 weakens any kind of tactic which relies on being able to predict/exploit the initiative order, including easy kiting tactics, and complex change #3 weakens spellcasters including summoners such as Shepherd Druids and Planar Binding exploiters.

Simple changes

5.) An attacker unseen by his target has advantage only on melee attack rolls, not ranged attack rolls; however, he does qualify for sneak attack damage at range if unseen despite not having advantage.

6.) Anyone with any weapon can attack vital areas at -5 to-hit for +5 to damage. GWM and Sharpshooter feats merely increase the bonus when you are using those weapons.

7.) Casting a non-bonus-action/non-reaction spell triggers an opportunity attack from any enemies in melee range, unless you have the Warcaster feat. (This replaces the third benefit of Warcaster, about reaction spellcasting.)

8.) Casting a non-bonus-action/non-reaction spell while moving at more than half speed, riding a horse or on a moving ship forces a concentration save every round even if it's not a concentration spell (Fireball) or it fizzles. Fizzling does not cost spell points but does waste your action to no effect.

9.) There is no Disengage. Opportunity attacks occur when you move at full speed away from an enemy (turning your back), or whenever you are paralyzed/unconscious. You can back away at half speed without turning your back. Creatures like beholders and black puddings have no backs to turn and can move at full speed in any direction without provoking opportunity attacks.

Remark: Dashing while moving backwards replaces and is equivalent to Disengage. You move half speed ('15), but you do it twice because you Dashed, so you move 30' without provoking opportunity attacks--that's why Disengage does not exist, because it's redundant.


Complex changes

2.) Different initiative variant which makes complex plans easier to execute for those with higher intelligence. Declare actions in Int order (descending), resolve all turns concurrently but use initiative contests to resolve order of actions when necessary. Alert gives bonuses to both declaration and resolution. Delay action is possible; Dodge and Maintain Readied Action always win initiative. Feints are possible with Deception vs. Insight contest. Ask DM for details (or consult brief writeup here http://bluishcertainty.blogspot.com/2017/01/simultaneous-initiative-in-5e.html).

3.) Magic Resistance and Legendary Resistance works differently--requires a reaction and can dispel a spell it's affected by, regardless of whether or not it has a save. Details here: http://bluishcertainty.blogspot.com/2016/03/5e-magic-resistance-variant-rule.html

If a creature attempts to use its magic resistance against a given spell and fails, that represents being unable to resist this casting of that spell unless its magic resistance improves--any retries will result in failure. E.g. if you've got a demon bound with Planar Binding, the demon gets only one chance to resist that Planar Binding. (But a crafty demon may not test the Planar Binding right away so be on your guard.)

If magic resistance fails due to temporary circumstances like Hex or Cutting Words, that represents a temporary failure which can be overcome if the creature retries without the hindance. In this rare circumstance, the DM may record the original d20 roll prior to the temporary modifiers, and re-use it on the subsequent attempts. (Or the DM may choose another equivalent method with the same probability curve.) Ditto for temporary improvements: a demon which rolls a 7 (failure) on its MR check against Planar Binding, but then receives Enhance Ability (Charisma) and tests the spell again, would roll one new die, compare it to the previous 7, and take the higher result.


Has anyone ever played with a party of all ranged attackers? To me, ranged always seemed stronger because our melee guys were always dropping, while the ranged guys never got touched.

However, during one encounter our two melees chased after a drow running down a side tunnel and left the ranged players in the main room with a drider. Long story short, the melees had to let the drow go and book it back to the main room and start jamming healing potions down everyone's mouth.

So, I'm wondering if the OP-ness(don't say that out loud) feeling of ranged is an illusion created by the assumption that monsters are always focused on melee attackers.

I have, including parties of all-ranged and party splits where two ranged characters are working together separate from the party. It works fine (e.g. one can Dodge and tank to buy time while the other does the killing from 80' away), but I was surprised how much more fun the all-ranged party became when a mostly-melee paladin joined and they had a full-time tank.

The thing is that militarily strong tactics are not necessarily *fun* from an RP angle. E.g. burning down a building that might have black puddings or ghouls inside of it is smart, but it isn't always fun, whereas going inside and getting jumped by a ghoul hiding under the bed isn't smart but it can be fun. And having a strong melee tank makes those fun things less not-smart.

Also, from an RP angle, if your track record of winning fights is good enough, it starts to feel morally questionable to do the tactically-smartest thing all the time. Having an intelligent, charismatic negotiator tank can sometimes let you take prisoners (or even make new allies) instead of making corpses.

That's why I'm basically okay with the current balance, after my house rules, between melee weapons/ranged weapons/spellcasting, even though melee is still the weakest from a tactical standpoint: because melee specialization is strong on the social/exploration axes.

(But please do bring a ranged weapon even if you're a melee specialist! As DM I make zero guarantees about spoon-feeding you only specific types of encounters. Versatility is your friend.)

[SpawnOfMorbo]

I am considering imposing a -2 penalty to ranged attacks.
Plus considering additional -1 penalty per 100ft.

Ranged attackers have major advantages over melee.
-less danger
-can attack from hiding
-more targets

Reasonably, it should be harder to hit a moving target at 80ft than at 5ft.

Why is this a bad idea?

Too fiddly.

Besides, the game already compensates for part of this. A +2 AC is super easy to get against ranged attacks (or reach melee, technically) as friendly and non-friendly creatures grant partial cover.

So if a Fighter is shooting at a goblin, but the barbarian is between them and the goblin, the goblin has a +2 AC.

Archery Style negates this and isn't just a pure +2 to attacks.

Be dynamic with your encounters, no need to add more fiddly rules.

[NaughtyTiger]

Too fiddly.

Besides, the game already compensates for part of this. A +2 AC is super easy to get against ranged attacks (or reach melee, technically) as friendly and non-friendly creatures grant partial cover.

So if a Fighter is shooting at a goblin, but the barbarian is between them and the goblin, the goblin has a +2 AC.

Archery Style negates this and isn't just a pure +2 to attacks.

Be dynamic with your encounters, no need to add more fiddly rules.

i don't understand your argument:
archery style is literally a +2 to ranged weapon attacks
if you meant sharpshooter, then sharpshooter negates the first part of your argument (partial cover)
this has been discussed above. please respect your other commenters by reading their contributions to the discussion

[JumboWheat01]

i don't understand your argument:
archery style is literally a +2 to ranged weapon attacks
if you meant sharpshooter, then sharpshooter negates the first part of your argument (partial cover)
this has been discussed above. please respect your other commenters by reading their contributions to the discussion

What I believe they're attempting to say is that Archery Style's +2 to attack is more to cancel the +2 AC provided by half-cover that allies or even other enemies will most likely provide while you are fighting an enemy then to simply give them a +2 to hit at all times. Sure, the extra attack is nice, and handy if you're not focusing on Dexterity first, but it's mostly for firing into combat that's already going on, otherwise they would be at a -2 to attack all the time, even if they were only 10ft away.

[NRSASD]

The only house rule I added regarding ranged combat is that if you are shooting at a target engaged in melee and miss, you have a flat 30% chance of shooting the other combatant.

This makes ranged attacking PCs focus on enemy ranged combatants or only use ranged weapons as an initiating weapon. Once it gets into melee, all my ranged PCs either switch to melee weapons, focus on hostiles not yet engaged, or switch to DC based spells.

This has the added plus of making polearms much more popular, since ranged warrior types still don't want to get into melee and prefer to hide behind their tanks.

Granted, my party only had to have a couple friendly fire accidents to learn. If you have a particularly stubborn archer who refuses to let go of his bow, it may foster some ill will.

[MaxWilson]

I forgot to mention another sort-of downside to ranged attacks in my game, which isn't a houserule but is an adventure design technique I stole from Dominions 5:

Enemies who flee instead of being killed or captured have a chance to regroup and join other groups of monsters instead of being removed from play. Exactly how this works varies from adventure to adventure, but in a dungeon-crawley adventure where I'm generating monster groups on the fly it might mean I roll a d6 for monsters who flee, and any monster which rolls 1-2 gets added to the next group of monsters the PCs encounter.

So, if you fight 4 Drow Elite Warriors, and they flee down a tunnel after you kill 2 of them, either your front-line warriors follow them and kill them with opportunity attacks/etc. (at the risk of maybe encountering something else while chasing them), or you risk turning the next encounter from a fight with a Githzerai Anarch into a fight with a Githzerai Anarch + 1-2 Drow Elite Warriors.

This boosts melee somewhat, but it also boosts grappling, Expeditious Retreat (so you can shoot + move), Sentinel feat, smart tactical positioning (cutting off retreat during the fight), and some other things at the same time including e.g. illusions to make enemies think they've still got a chance to win, or saving your novas until late in the fight so you can finish off survivors instead of making them flee early. So boosting melee is really just a side effect.

[Tanarii]

Reintroduce OAs for firing when an enemy is next to you.

Reintroduce firing into melee targets a random target in the melee.

Get rid of Sharpshooter.

[MaxWilson]

Reintroduce firing into melee targets a random target in the melee.

This idea never made sense to me. As I get more accurate (higher Dex, higher proficiency), I get better at accidentally hitting the wrong target?

If you're going to do this, at least make it a +0 attack instead of a normal one.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

Another things to take into consideration is that thisbis not YOY or a real person firing into melee.

This is a fantasy character that is surroumded by flying dragons and wizards casting spells out their finger tips.

Don't fall into the trap of thinking that the non-magical isn't fantasy in the fantasy game. That archery ranger, fighter, or rogue is just that damn good.

If you are making fiddly penalties for firing a bow, how about making fiddly penalties for even trying to cast a spell? How about every spell fails because spells don't exist in the real world?

[CapnWildefyr]

Dont forget whats good for the goose is good for the gander. The bad guys can have sharpshooters too. They can also throw greek fire . I am dming a game with an archer ranger who can shoot the eyes out a bumblebee for like what seems 2,000 hp a round. So i have been just throwing a lot more cheap targets at them, and yes, he has to track ammo. Also i will have encounters with line of sight issues for them. Finally there are critters out there with resistance to piercing weapons.

Oh, and since when do barbarians fight in formation? (Joke)

[JumboWheat01]

Oh, and since when do barbarians fight in formation? (Joke)

True, a proper barbarian should BE the formation, not be a part of it!

[SpawnOfMorbo]

Oh, and since when do barbarians fight in formation? (Joke)

I know you joke but...

There are 3 specifically non-casters (monks are closer to casters than non-casters) in the Barbarian, Fighter, and Rogue.

Out of these three, the Rogue is the most tactically sound class, but is specifically made to be out of formation and to jump atound to different enemies to get the final hit in via sneak attack.

Between Barbarians and Fighters, the Barbarian is the more tactically minded class. Fighters are rather mindless as a core class (even their subclasses focus on more + attack). The barbarian has to think about when to rage or not rage. When to reckless attack or when not to. Do they rage because they need the offensive boost? Do they rage for the defensive boost? Any tactics the fighter class gains is also gained by the Barbarian. Do I grapple? Do I shove? Do I overrun?

Out of all the classes, and it may not fit the fluff, thr Barbarian is more likely to stick to formation since its the more tactically minded class.

[stoutstien]

I am considering imposing a -2 penalty to ranged attacks.
Plus considering additional -1 penalty per 100ft.

Ranged attackers have major advantages over melee.
-less danger
-can attack from hiding
-more targets

Reasonably, it should be harder to hit a moving target at 80ft than at 5ft.

Why is this a bad idea?

Finally got some time for napkin math.
You can get similar results that you're looking for with less work and without making range focus character feel like it's a straight-up Nerf.
- switch the duelist and archery fighting style benefit.
- change the benefits from sharpshooter to the following:
- attacking at long-range doesn't impose disadvantage.
- your ranged weapon attacks ignore 1/2 cover.
- you can ignore the loading property on ranged weapons.

* The - attack/+ damage can be moved onto longbows and heavy crossbows as a feature.

[MaxWilson]

Finally got some time for napkin math.
You can get similar results that you're looking for with less work and without making range focus character feel like it's a straight-up Nerf.
- switch the duelist and archery fighting style benefit.
- change the benefits from sharpshooter to the following:
- attacking at long-range doesn't impose disadvantage.
- your ranged weapon attacks ignore 1/2 cover.
- you can ignore the loading property on ranged weapons.

* The - attack/+ damage can be moved onto longbows and heavy crossbows as a feature.

This feels like an even harsher nerf to ranged characters than the OP: you're taking away the biggest advantage ranged characters have over spellcasters like warlocks, which is situationally-higher DPR. At least the OP's proposal still gives weapon users a reason not to be spellcasters, at short range. (Eldritch Blast already has d10 damage dice so the "ignore loading property on ranged weapons" doesn't count as a reason.)

[stoutstien]

This feels like an even harsher nerf to ranged characters than the OP: you're taking away the biggest advantage ranged characters have over spellcasters like warlocks, which is situationally-higher DPR. At least the OP's proposal still gives weapon users a reason not to be spellcasters, at short range. (Eldritch Blast already has d10 damage dice so the "ignore loading property on ranged weapons" doesn't count as a reason.)

Eldritch blast is already an outlier for a cantrip and the longbow user is getting a damage buff here with each attack and built in power attack.
So comparing the bog standard EB blaster vs a fighter with a longbow:
Lv 5
Warlock 2(1d10+Cha)
Fighter 2(1d10+Dex+2) and pull out the -/+ effect for low AC/high HP targets

On top of this the issue at hand is melee weapon uses compared to ranged counterparts.

IMO the at-will options for spellcasters deal too much damage as a whole.

[MaxWilson]

Eldritch blast is already an outlier for a cantrip and the longbow user is getting a damage buff here with each attack and built in power attack.
So comparing the bog standard EB blaster vs a fighter with a longbow:
Lv 5
Warlock 2(1d10+Cha)
Fighter 2(1d10+Dex+2) and pull out the -/+ effect for low AC/high HP targets

"Pull out the -/+ effect"? What do you mean here? You've eliminated the -/+ effect with your change to Sharpshooter, so does "pull out" mean "eliminate"?

Since they are both level 5 characters, why are they both level 2 dips (warlock 2/something X, fighter 2/something X) instead of pure-class level 5? Doesn't that make the Fighter's damage unnecessarily anemic since he's missing out on Extra Attack? And why isn't the warlock getting Hex damage boost here? Is it because you're assuming combat beyond Hex range (90'), or because you're assuming the warlock is already doing something better with his spell slots/concentration?

Please explain.

[Willie the Duck]

This feels like an even harsher nerf to ranged characters than the OP: you're taking away the biggest advantage ranged characters have over spellcasters like warlocks, which is situationally-higher DPR. At least the OP's proposal still gives weapon users a reason not to be spellcasters, at short range. (Eldritch Blast already has d10 damage dice so the "ignore loading property on ranged weapons" doesn't count as a reason.)

This is going to be a spanner in the works for any fix -- martial characters in general don't really need being nerfed, so much as have the less optimal choices brought closer to the optimal choices (assuming balance between all these different options are our goal).

[stoutstien]

"Pull out the -/+ effect"? What do you mean here? You've eliminated the -/+ effect with your change to Sharpshooter, so does "pull out" mean "eliminate"?

Since they are both level 5 characters, why are they both level 2 dips (warlock 2/something X, fighter 2/something X) instead of pure-class level 5? Doesn't that make the Fighter's damage unnecessarily anemic since he's got only 1 attack to the warlock's 2? And why isn't the warlock getting Hex damage boost here? Is it because you're assuming combat beyond Hex range (90'), or because you're assuming the warlock is already doing something better with his spell slots/concentration?

Please explain.

The -/+ is a weapon feature on longbow and H crossbows so it's "free" feature for the uses as long as they the proper proficiency.

Hex isn't at will so it wasn't included same as I didn't bring is action surge and what not. we start bringing in resources and it's just going to muddle up the comparison of 'at-will'.

The math was condensed because it was done on phone.
2(1d10+Cha) is a level 5 warlock with the invocation. Action: eldritch blast
(1d10+ Cha) + (1d10+Cha) is the same as 2 X (1d10+Cha). Same for fighter just taken the archery fighting style and using the attack action.
Lv 5 fighter with archery. Attack action: (1d10+Dex+2)+ (1d10+Dex+2)

So in the end the ranged martial weapon uses is getting a pretty large bump in consistent at will damage (~20%). They just can't circumvent cover without actively doing so.

[KorvinStarmast]

the problem is the PC barbarian is annoyed that he drops and the ranger is untouched.
Discuss teamwork. The point here is to have a melee combatant engage the enemy and for the party to focus fire to get one enemy to drop and then the next ... rage to reduce damage to the barb, and any in-combat heals need to prioritize the Barbarian. You get a two for one thanks to rage damage reduction. (But rage is a limited resource ... so that needs to be considered also ...)

Getting the ranged/sneak attack from a rogue or ranger while the barb is frontlining it is sound team tactics. Our current Ranger / Rogue MC (3-3, Scout/Hunter) is a best fit when one of the martial/melee classes is up close so that the sneak attack lands on time. We want our archer to be lethal; it kills enemies quicker when he does.

I'd discuss with your players the advantages of fighting as a team. The point isn't to optimizes what any one player does, it's to optimize the team's effectiveness. (Don't feel bad, I'm playing with a group who have been at it since the 70's and our wizard sometimes feels the need to try and be 'the man' ... he's somewhat intoxicated by fireball's damage when all goes well.

If your players don't want to play as a team, then maybe another game would be a better choice.
D&D, and particularly D&D 5e, is built from the ground up as a team game from the player side of the table.

Is it always played that way? No. And that's not new.

One thing I liked alot about old school games was how bloody lethal the dungeons were: more often than not, "you have to play as a team or you all die" was a standing assumption.

[MaxWilson]

The -/+ is a weapon feature on longbow and H crossbows so it's "free" feature for the uses as long as they the proper proficiency.

Oh, okay. Thanks for explaining.


Hex isn't at will so it wasn't included same as I didn't bring is action surge and what not. we start bringing in resources and it's just going to muddle up the comparison of 'at-will'.

The math was condensed because it was done on phone.
2(1d10+Cha) is a level 5 warlock with the invocation. Action: eldritch blast
(1d10+ Cha) + (1d10+Cha) is the same as 2 X (1d10+Cha). Same for fighter just taken the archery fighting style and using the attack action.
Lv 5 fighter with archery. Attack action: (1d10+Dex+2)+ (1d10+Dex+2)

So in the end the ranged martial weapon uses is getting a pretty large bump in consistent at will damage (~20%). They just can't circumvent cover without actively doing so.

Okay, I understand your proposal now. Thanks.

[stoutstien]

Oh, okay. Thanks for explaining.



Okay, I understand your proposal now. Thanks.

Yep. I'm notoriously good at screwing up explaining some of my hair ball ideas.

The more I play with duelist having the +attack the more I like the whole picture. It being the most accurate style where archery has a nice static damage, two handed can have a swingy 1d4 added(more crit power), and twf can ...let's leave twf out for now lol.

[Hail Tempus]

Sigh. Here we go again. A DM's first instinct should never be to nerf PCs. The ranged rules are fine, and sharpshooter allows players to create characters that reflect plenty of fictional warriors.

There's no problem here that needs to be fixed. If a DM can't figure out how to challenge or threaten the party archer, that's a DM problem, not a player problem.

DMs need to get over the idea that players are "cheating" just because they're playing their characters in accordance with the rules.

[stoutstien]

Sigh. Here we go again. A DM's first instinct should never be to nerf PCs. The ranged rules are fine, and sharpshooter allows players to create characters that reflect plenty of fictional warriors.

There's no problem here that needs to be fixed. If a DM can't figure out how to challenge or threaten the party archer, that's a DM problem, not a player problem.

DMs need to get over the idea that players are "cheating" just because they're playing their characters in accordance with the rules.

It more along the thought process of it is boring for both for the player and the DM.
It is on the same line on why rangers in general are considered bad feeling and not necessarily weak or bad. Rangers cause hand waving a bunch of potentially fun environmental aspects and archery/SS does the same for dynamic environment considerations in combat.

It is entirely possible, and likely, that the rules are both bad and wrong for gaming groups. There's nothing wrong in the pursuit of better games.

*My vote goes that the weapon rules are not adequate. If certain feats are required for them to stay relevant in the damage comparison with casters who get similar damage on top of all the other goodies. If anything weapons should do more damage but with the introduction of weapon attack/spell combos it's gotten hard to do that.
The best way for weapon users to have utility should not be a spell.

[MaxWilson]

Sigh. Here we go again. A DM's first instinct should never be to nerf PCs. The ranged rules are fine, and sharpshooter allows players to create characters that reflect plenty of fictional warriors.

There's no problem here that needs to be fixed. If a DM can't figure out how to challenge or threaten the party archer, that's a DM problem, not a player problem.

DMs need to get over the idea that players are "cheating" just because they're playing their characters in accordance with the rules.

This is a poor assumption. The actual game design issue is the opposite: it's too easy to challenge melee-based characters. They're ineffective in a number of common scenarios, and by RAW they're not actually better than ranged characters except in very niche scenarios scenarios, which makes for sad barbarian players who consult with the DM, get confirmation that yes, melee is weak in 5E unless you heavily exploit stealth, and then roll up warlocks instead.

If you change the rules though, this doesn't have to happen.


It is on the same line on why rangers in general are considered bad feeling and not necessarily weak or bad. Rangers cause hand waving a bunch of potentially fun environmental aspects and archery/SS does the same for dynamic environment considerations in combat.

I don't find this true at all though. Archers have to contend in interesting ways with total cover, prone enemies, enemies in darkness, difficult and/or impassable terrain, sometimes with climbing to get into a good overwatch position, etc. Yeah they don't have to worry about partial cover, and don't have to worry much about range, but that still leaves a larger number of fun and interesting environmental conditions that they do have to worry (at least five) about than the number of those they don't (two).


*My vote goes that the weapon rules are not adequate. If certain feats are required for them to stay relevant in the damage comparison with casters who get similar damage on top of all the other goodies. If anything weapons should do more damage but with the introduction of weapon attack/spell combos it's gotten hard to do that.
The best way for weapon users to have utility should not be a spell.

Grapple/prone/DMG Disarm are all options that weapon users have and spell users don't. I also offer Parry maneuvers and vital strikes (-5/+5 unless you're a Sharpshooter/GWM, then it's -5/+10).

[stoutstien]

I don't find this true at all though. Archers have to contend in interesting ways with total cover, prone enemies, enemies in darkness, difficult and/or impassable terrain, sometimes with climbing to get into a good overwatch position, etc. Yeah they don't have to worry about partial cover, and don't have to worry much about range, but that still leaves a larger number of fun and interesting environmental conditions that they do have to worry (at least five) about than the number of those they don't (two).



Grapple/prone/DMG Disarm are all options that weapon users have and spell users don't. I also offer Parry maneuvers and vital strikes (-5/+5 unless you're a Sharpshooter/GWM, then it's -5/+10).

Depending on ruling of the DM all those factors have to be addressed equally between ranged and melee weapon fighters so I'd call it a wash on that front. I have had a few barbarians Even go into overwatch style positions for the joys of jumping on targets.

Looks like we both moved towards giving the -/+ as a base options. How does your party work? I just put the defensive duelist feat effect on certain weapons.

[MaxWilson]

Depending on ruling of the DM all those factors have to be addressed equally between ranged and melee weapon fighters so I'd call it a wash on that front. I have had a few barbarians Even go into overwatch style positions for the joys of jumping on targets.

In this case I'm not comparing melee vs. ranged, I'm just noting that ranged Sharpshooter fightering isn't devoid of environmental interactions. A lot of people talk as if getting to ignore partial cover means that you can Sharpshooter enemy hobgoblins with impunity even behind their crenellations, but that isn't true--if the hobgoblins realize that there's a Sharpshooter taking them on they can drop prone (imposing disadvantage on themselves and on the Sharpshooter, but they don't care because they already have disadvantage from long range) and also hide behind their crenellations when they're not shooting (forcing the Sharpshooter to rely on readied actions to snipe them, which also limits how many hobgoblins he can kill per round).

What Sharpshooter does do is allow you to exploit enemies who aren't fighting as cautiously as these hypothetical hobgoblins (so the game becomes more interesting as you try to deceive hobgoblins into sallying forth to destroy a deceptively-weak-looking PC force which is hiding behind cover), and exploit large enemies who can't get total cover (a dragon in a messy stalagmite-studded cavern or dense forest where it typically has at least 1/2 cover).

Ignoring partial cover and range penalties is a nice bonus but it doesn't remove environmental concerns from the game.


Looks like we both moved towards giving the -/+ as a base options. How does your party work? I just put the defensive duelist feat effect on certain weapons.

For me I did it because it seemed both realistic and interesting to offer a GURPS-ish option to attack vitals when it's situationally useful (e.g. against enemies with Heavy Armor Master, or against very soft targets like zombies where hitting them very hard should and ought to be as appealing as hitting them with precision). Against normal MM enemies it tends to be a wash in DPR terms, so the balance implications are very small, but I also like that it gives you a way to e.g. convert advantage against a prone target to a damage bonus against a prone target instead.

It was basically just an elegant and obvious rule with no downsides, sitting there for the taking.

I don't really understand what you mean by "how does your party work?" but if you meant "how does your rule work," it's just exactly that: anyone with any weapon (not spell) can take +5 to damage at the cost of -5 to hit on that attack, and that represents deliberately trying to hit vital areas like eyes/throat/heart/etc. instead of going for center of mass/targets of opportunity. A "miss" due to -5 represents being either unable to find an opening in the time available, or spotting an opening but missing (and hitting armor/thin air/whatever else AC represents for that creature).

I think Defensive Duelist is fine as is and I don't feel the need to give it out for free to anyone. I do allow parrying through as an attack option, somewhat similar to DMG Disarm except you're attacking an attack instead of a weapon.

[stoutstien]

In this case I'm not comparing melee vs. ranged, I'm just noting that ranged Sharpshooter fightering isn't devoid of environmental interactions. A lot of people talk as if getting to ignore partial cover means that you can Sharpshooter enemy hobgoblins with impunity even behind their crenellations, but that isn't true--if the hobgoblins realize that there's a Sharpshooter taking them on they can drop prone (imposing disadvantage on themselves and on the Sharpshooter, but they don't care because they already have disadvantage from long range) and also hide behind their crenellations when they're not shooting (forcing the Sharpshooter to rely on readied actions to snipe them, which also limits how many hobgoblins he can kill per round).

What Sharpshooter does do is allow you to exploit enemies who aren't fighting as cautiously as these hypothetical hobgoblins (so the game becomes more interesting as you try to deceive hobgoblins into sallying forth to destroy a deceptively-weak-looking PC force which is hiding behind cover), and exploit large enemies who can't get total cover (a dragon in a messy stalagmite-studded cavern or dense forest where it typically has at least 1/2 cover).

Ignoring partial cover and range penalties is a nice bonus but it doesn't remove environmental concerns from the game.



For me I did it because it seemed both realistic and interesting to offer a GURPS-ish option to attack vitals when it's situationally useful (e.g. against enemies with Heavy Armor Master, or against very soft targets like zombies where hitting them very hard should and ought to be as appealing as hitting them with precision). Against normal MM enemies it tends to be a wash in DPR terms, so the balance implications are very small, but I also like that it gives you a way to e.g. convert advantage against a prone target to a damage bonus against a prone target instead.

It was basically just an elegant and obvious rule with no downsides, sitting there for the taking.

I don't really understand what you mean by "how does your party work?" but if you meant "how does your rule work," it's just exactly that: anyone with any weapon (not spell) can take +5 to damage at the cost of -5 to hit on that attack, and that represents deliberately trying to hit vital areas like eyes/throat/heart/etc. instead of going for center of mass/targets of opportunity. A "miss" due to -5 represents being either unable to find an opening in the time available, or spotting an opening but missing (and hitting armor/thin air/whatever else AC represents for that creature).

I think Defensive Duelist is fine as is and I don't feel the need to give it out for free to anyone. I do allow parrying through as an attack option, somewhat similar to DMG Disarm except you're attacking an attack instead of a weapon.

I meant Parry. Apparently my phone doesn't like it unless it is capitalized and due to a failing video card no PC until next week.

So your Parry is an attack challenge of sort? Trade an attack made with the attack option and if it is a higher total the next attack from that target it prevents the attack from hitting? Conceptually I like it just trying to wrap my head around how it works.

[MaxWilson]

I meant Parry. Apparently my phone doesn't like it unless it is capitalized and due to a failing video card no PC until next week.

So your Parry is an attack challenge of sort? Trade an attack made with the attack option and if it is a higher total the next attack from that target it prevents the attack from hitting? Conceptually I like it just trying to wrap my head around how it works.

Ah. Here's the entry from my HouseRules doc.

15.) Parry: This is a special type of attack which attacks attacks. When you Attack on your turn, you may choose to dedicate one or more of those attacks to Parrying. If an enemy attacks you with a melee weapon before your next turn, you may roll a melee weapon attack and replace your AC with your attack roll against that attack. You can do this a number of times equal to the number of attacks you dedicated to Parrying.

Example: Robilar the Mighty, an 11th level fighter, has been attacked in his bed by two assassins. Unarmed and unarmored, he snatches up a nearby log to use as an improvised club, and dedicates two of his three attacks to parrying. Robilar inflicts some damage on an assassin with his remaining attack, but then the assassins strike back. On the first assassin's attack, Robilar parries, and rolls d20+8 on his melee attack (for Strength 18 and proficiency bonus +4), getting a total of 23, which he uses instead of his normal unarmored AC of 10. The assassin rolls d20+6, gets a 15, and fails to hit AC 23! Then the second assassin strikes, and Robilar rolls d20+8 and gets a 14. The assassin rolls d20+6 and gets 17, so Robilar is hit! The assassin rolls 5d6+4 poison damage and inflicts 27 HP of damage on Robilar--Robilar is in trouble if he doesn't finish them off soon!

[stoutstien]

Ah. Here's the entry from my HouseRules doc.

15.) Parry: This is a special type of attack which attacks attacks. When you Attack on your turn, you may choose to dedicate one or more of those attacks to Parrying. If an enemy attacks you with a melee weapon before your next turn, you may roll a melee weapon attack and replace your AC with your attack roll against that attack. You can do this a number of times equal to the number of attacks you dedicated to Parrying.

Example: Robilar the Mighty, an 11th level fighter, has been attacked in his bed by two assassins. Unarmed and unarmored, he snatches up a nearby log to use as an improvised club, and dedicates two of his three attacks to parrying. Robilar inflicts some damage on an assassin with his remaining attack, but then the assassins strike back. On the first assassin's attack, Robilar parries, and rolls d20+8 on his melee attack (for Strength 18 and proficiency bonus +4), getting a total of 23, which he uses instead of his normal unarmored AC of 10. The assassin rolls d20+6, gets a 15, and fails to hit AC 23! Then the second assassin strikes, and Robilar rolls d20+8 and gets a 14. The assassin rolls d20+6 and gets 17, so Robilar is hit! The assassin rolls 5d6+4 poison damage and inflicts 27 HP of damage on Robilar--Robilar is in trouble if he doesn't finish them off soon!


I might steal this. It is a step In the right direction for weapon users.

[NaughtyTiger]

@Max, I like the parry rule. I will have to think about this.


Sigh. Here we go again. A DM's first instinct should never be to nerf PCs. The ranged rules are fine, and sharpshooter allows players to create characters that reflect plenty of fictional warriors.

There's no problem here that needs to be fixed. If a DM can't figure out how to challenge or threaten the party archer, that's a DM problem, not a player problem.

DMs need to get over the idea that players are "cheating" just because they're playing their characters in accordance with the rules.

Hmm. almost like you didn't read the discussion.
oh well. thanks for ignoring everything to call me incompetent, that is very helpful.

edit: addressing your points
sharpshooter is broken:

first game of D&D, rolled up a 5th level ranged archer with sharpshooter. 30 year experience DM. in 2 battles, I noticed how broken sharpshooter was. first session. I offered nerfing it to make folks comfortable.
and it isn't the -5/+10. it removes any penalty to ranged combat for the PC. there is no equivalent for melee combat.

ranged rules are fine:

this is the point, I don't believe they are. even without sharpshooter:
ranged weapon attacks and melee weapon attacks do the same damage as a whole. ranged magic is higher than any martial as a whole.
a ranged attacker has more opportunity to attack any target on the field. ranged attacker has minimum 60ft plus remaining movement. melee attacker has 5ft (maybe 10) plus remaining movement.
a ranged attacker has more opportunity to avoid damage, simply by not being in melee with an opponent. a reasonable enemy will attack the nearest high priority target: melee barb is closer than the equally damaging ranger.
a ranged attacker has disad hitting a target at long range. but that is infinitely better chance than a melee attacker at long range.
a ranged attacker has penalty for cover. they can still attack the target, and often find a target within range and movement that is not in cover. thus the same chance to hit as melee.
a ranged attack can attack from hidden. a melee loses hidden as soon as she steps out from position.

players are "cheating":

no, if you read the discussion, it is explicit. players are unhappy. (ie, the barbarian at my table and my first experience above)

if the DM can't figure out...:

this is flat out wrong.
this is a game for 6th graders. 6th grader DMs aren't master tacticians.
this is not a combat simulator. i am not a master tactician. if i wanted a combat sim, i would play battletech, ogre, warhammer, xwing, ...
hell in 4 years of playing and DMing, i have yet to see any DM consistently threaten ranged attackers.
the DM doesn't have to be the best roleplayer for the table to have fun at RP, the DM doesn't have to be the best explorer for fun exploration, why should the DM have to be the best tactically for combat to be fun and challenging for the table?


that's a DM problem, not a player problem:

it's a party problem.
if you view it as a DM problem, then your solution is to skip combat until the DM becomes good at tactics or let combat suck.
the DM is supposed to lose, but everyone should have fun, including the martials, including the DM.

[MaxWilson]

I might steal this. It is a step In the right direction for weapon users.

Please do. I stole it myself from the AD&D Complete Fighter's Handbook.

[stoutstien]

Please do. I stole it myself from the AD&D Complete Fighter's Handbook.

There it is. I knew it was on the edge of something I've seen before. Nice find.

[Hail Tempus]

edit: addressing your points
sharpshooter is broken:

first game of D&D, rolled up a 5th level ranged archer with sharpshooter. 30 year experience DM. in 2 battles, I noticed how broken sharpshooter was. first session. I offered nerfing it to make folks comfortable.
and it isn't the -5/+10. it removes any penalty to ranged combat for the PC. there is no equivalent for melee combat. You seem to play in an unusual game, where combat occurs at really long ranges. Does your party always fight in open fields all the time, with nothing blocking line of sight? The vast majority of D&D combat seems to occur with the two sides within 50 feet of each other, if not closer. The ability to ignore long range granted by SS is mostly a ribbon that allows the player to do something cool once in a blue moon.


ranged rules are fine:

this is the point, I don't believe they are. even without sharpshooter:
ranged weapon attacks and melee weapon attacks do the same damage as a whole. ranged magic is higher than any martial as a whole.
a ranged attacker has more opportunity to attack any target on the field. ranged attacker has minimum 60ft plus remaining movement. melee attacker has 5ft (maybe 10) plus remaining movement.
a ranged attacker has more opportunity to avoid damage, simply by not being in melee with an opponent. a reasonable enemy will attack the nearest high priority target: melee barb is closer than the equally damaging ranger.
a ranged attacker has disad hitting a target at long range. but that is infinitely better chance than a melee attacker at long range.
a ranged attacker has penalty for cover. they can still attack the target, and often find a target within range and movement that is not in cover. thus the same chance to hit as melee.
a ranged attack can attack from hidden. a melee loses hidden as soon as she steps out from position. So, your complaint seems to be that a ranged party member is an effective member of the team who helps his melee-based party members by efficiently killing threats from long range? Why would any melee based party member be upset that the ranger in the back is doing a good job of dropping the enemies that threaten the melee fighter?

The rules are working exactly as designed- the melee-based party members (who tend to have higher armor class, hit points and the ability to mitigate damage) lock down the enemy combatants. The range-based party members (who tend to have lower armor classes, hit points, and not many mitigation abilities) then kill the enemy combatants from relative safety.

Teamwork.


players are "cheating":

no, if you read the discussion, it is explicit. players are unhappy. (ie, the barbarian at my table and my first experience above) If some players are unhappy with their characters, they should roll up other characters that better suit them. No one should be looking to nerf someone who is playing by the rules and is enjoying their character.

[NaughtyTiger]

...snip...

again, really, show me and the other posters some respect by reading the discussion before you post. your comments have been addressed.

[Hail Tempus]

again, really, show me and the other posters some respect by reading the discussion before you post. your comments have been addressed. Your base complaint seems to come down to DMs not willing to take any efforts to make combat more complex for the party. There are a number of guides out there on how to make combat more tactical and interesting. I've read your posts, I just don't agree with them.

Your exact quote is:


this is a game for 6th graders. 6th grader DMs aren't master tacticians.
this is not a combat simulator. i am not a master tactician. if i wanted a combat sim, i would play battletech, ogre, warhammer, xwing, ...
hell in 4 years of playing and DMing, i have yet to see any DM consistently threaten ranged attackers.
the DM doesn't have to be the best roleplayer for the table to have fun at RP, the DM doesn't have to be the best explorer for fun exploration, why should the DM have to be the best tactically for combat to be fun and challenging for the table?

At its core, D&D is very much a combat simulator, it's not designed at a 6th grade level (though 6th graders can play it). Combat in D&D should not come down to 2 groups walking up to each other and bashing away with swords. Heck, at first level, the party can face enemies with a bonus action disengage (goblins), or who are tactically sophisticated and have access to ranged attacks (hobgoblins). Those are two enemies with a CR not greater than 1/2, that can make things quite interesting for an archer PC.

As parties level up, there are even more enemies with abilities that allow them to hurt the archer. Any flying monster, for example, is going to swoop down and attack the guy shooting pointy sticks at them.

[micahaphone]

Question for the OP: do your fights ever have objectives other than "kill all hostile creatures in this room"? Rooms with infinite respawning enemies until you grab the shiny thing and get out, escort missions, protect the altar for X rounds, some other objective? If your fights are just pure race to 0 HP, then there's little reason to do anything other than max damage all the time. But there can be a lot more to your fights.

Tempus pointed out that some monster stat blocks have extra wrinkles to them, making them more than just "walk forward, hit the hero until I'm dead". When I started DMing, I had trouble parsing what some of these features meant. Thankfully, there's resources that helped me. Kobold Fight Club helped me balance encounters without having to do the CR math myself, and TheMonstersKnow.com helped me understand the tactics or abilities of monsters.

Let's say that in my campaign my players are gonna run into a bunch of Modrons marching around, and in case my players get into a fight (easy enough when dealing beings of "pure order" to have a miscommunication), I'm going to prepare what could be a combat with them.
http://themonstersknow.com/modron-tactics/#more-944 helps me know what formation they would take, whether they'd retreat from combat, if they're ambushers or diplomats, etc. I find this guy's writing incredibly helpful.

[MaxWilson]

You seem to play in an unusual game, where combat occurs at really long ranges. Does your party always fight in open fields all the time, with nothing blocking line of sight? The vast majority of D&D combat seems to occur with the two sides within 50 feet of each other, if not closer

There are crosswalks bigger than that.

DMG guidelines put line of sight at 1-2 miles barring stealth or obstructions, and it boggles my mind how many people still seem to think 100' is a long distance despite that. I think it's a side effect of using battlegrids or something.

No, 100 yards is not an unrealistic distance at which to become aware off a threat (i.e. start an encounter), even in hilly wild terrain, especially if players are actively seeking information (using flying familiars to look over things, keeping a reasonable distance from obstructions until they can see the other side, etc.).

Many of us routinely monitor events a quarter mile to half a mile away from us while driving, even though we live in a world where other drivers are monitoring us back and trying to avoid damaging us. How much more attention would we be paying in a world where other drivers are actively seeking to kill us?

A ranged-heavy party in alert/danger mode checks out a crossroad or an obstruction by sending one or two guys to check it out while the others stay 100 yards back or so to provide covering fire if needed. That way if anything goes wrong you get to shoot the bad guys full of arrows for 100 yards (five rounds? thirty seconds or so) before you're stuck in melee, and with how accurate 5e missile fire is and how weak most encounters are, five rounds is enough to trivialize DMG Medium/Hard encounters that aren't deliberately trying to game the system.

If you're in fights at under 50', either you're dungeon crawling, or your DM is being a jerk, or you're not trying to hold the range open. (And if you're dungeon crawling, other strategies come online.)



At its core, D&D is very much a combat simulator, it's not designed at a 6th grade level (though 6th graders can play it). Combat in D&D should not come down to 2 groups walking up to each other and bashing away with swords. Heck, at first level, the party can face enemies with a bonus action disengage (goblins), or who are tactically sophisticated and have access to ranged attacks (hobgoblins). Those are two enemies with a CR not greater than 1/2, that can make things quite interesting for an archer PC.

As parties level up, there are even more enemies with abilities that allow them to hurt the archer. Any flying monster, for example, is going to swoop down and attack the guy shooting pointy sticks at them.

Two groups walking up to each other and bashing away with swords is actually melee's sweet spot. As combat gets more and more sophisticated, melee gets more useless and frustrating.

You won't notice the problem unless your players (including the DM) are operating at a fairly high level of sophistication.

[NaughtyTiger]

Question for the OP: do your fights ever have objectives other than "kill all hostile creatures in this room"? Rooms with infinite respawning enemies until you grab the shiny thing and get out, escort missions, protect the altar for X rounds, some other objective? If your fights are just pure race to 0 HP, then there's little reason to do anything other than max damage all the time. But there can be a lot more to your fights.

i tend to run premade modules or hardcovers... when there is combat, yes, it tends to be race to 0 HP.

alternate objectives are a good thing, i will have to think about that...

[Hail Tempus]

There are crosswalks bigger than that.

DMG guidelines put line of sight at 1-2 miles barring stealth or obstructions, and it boggles my mind how many people still seem to think 100' is a long distance despite that. I think it's a side effect of using battlegrids or something.

No, 100 yards is not an unrealistic distance at which to become aware off a threat (i.e. start an encounter), even in hilly wild terrain, especially if players are actively seeking information (using flying familiars to look over things, keeping a reasonable distance from obstructions until they can see the other side, etc.).

Many of us routinely monitor events a quarter mile to half a mile away from us while driving, even though we live in a world where other drivers are monitoring us back and trying to avoid damaging us. How much more attention would we be paying in a world where other drivers are actively seeking to kill us?

A ranged-heavy party in alert/danger mode checks out a crossroad or an obstruction by sending one or two guys to check it out while the others stay 100 yards back or so to provide covering fire if needed. That way if anything goes wrong you get to shoot the bad guys full of arrows for 100 yards (five rounds? thirty seconds or so) before you're stuck in melee, and with how accurate 5e missile fire is and how weak most encounters are, five rounds is enough to trivialize DMG Medium/Hard encounters that aren't deliberately trying to game the system.

If you're in fights at under 50', either you're dungeon crawling, or your DM is being a jerk, or you're not trying to hold the range open. (And if you're dungeon crawling, other strategies come online.) What you've described is really, really unusual by D&D standards. Unless your party is walking through an open plain or desert, the typical encounter is in a somewhat constrained area, like a room in a dungeon, a street, or a path in a forest. I don't think it's very typical that DMs allow encounters to start from long distances away.

D&D combat is more akin to a swat team clearing rooms, or close quarters urban warfare. I don't see many DMS designing their encounters to allow for long range arrow shots as the norm. And even modern armed conflict between combatants armed with high-powered, accurate rifles tends to happen at surprisingly close range (like 100 meters or less).

[MaxWilson]

What you've described is really, really unusual by D&D standards. Unless your party is walking through an open plain or desert, the typical encounter is in a somewhat constrained area, like a room in a dungeon, a street, or a path in a forest. I don't think it's very typical that DMs allow encounters to start from long distances away.

On an open plain or a desert you can see for miles, but that's not what we're discussing in this thread.

You don't think you can see someone 50' away on the street or in a forest? Most D&D players, and it sounds like you're one of them, don't have a good sense of how far 50' actually is. Again, there are crosswalks bigger than that. A path in a forest which bends every 50' is going nowhere fast, so under normal circumstances even in hilly wild terrain it will still be possible to have a point man at least 30 yards or so ahead of the main group, which is enough for ranged weapons to be advantageous. And don't forget that even if you're fighting in a dungeon room, you don't have to stay in the room! (Barring DM shenanigans like teleportals, which should be rare.)

I know sophistication is unusual--in fact I sometimes get frustrated with certain players who just charge in and start rolling attacks, because it sometimes means they die when I was hoping not to kill them. (Other times they survive anyway to my amazement, but they still did things the hard way.)

However, when you come along and start telling people that they are bad DMs for noticing these issues, because they aren't problems to you because all of your fights occur at 50', it shows me that this thread isn't aimed at you. For you, it's a solution in search of a problem, because your players apparently do pretty much just kill what's in front of them. For others, it's a problem because we either have (some) more sophisticated players already, or want to support more sophisticated play to encourage players to grow to that level, or both.


D&D combat is more akin to a swat team clearing rooms, or close quarters urban warfare. I don't see many DMS designing their encounters to allow for long range arrow shots as the norm. And even modern armed conflict between combatants armed with high-powered, accurate rifles tends to happen at surprisingly close range (like 100 meters or less).

As I said before, dungeon crawling is a different set of tactics. Even there there's typically a dungeon exterior, and it's useful for ranged PCs to be able to control the exterior of the dungeon so they have the strategic initiative. Ranged PCs are also useful in chokepoints, so you can stick a tank in a chokepoint and use ranged weapons to kill everything beyond the chokepoint. But overall, once you go inside the dungeon/building, SWAT/dungeon tactics focus to a greater degree on stealthy/mobile characters who can surprise enemies (to win tempo) and kite them (to win more tempo), although a strong ranged capability also makes kiting much, much easier. And of course it's fully possible for a PC to be both ranged and stealthy/mobile.

BTW there's a reason SWAT teams are armed with guns and not with swords.

If you're arguing that you use different tactics in a SWAT operation, I agree. If you're arguing that melee specialization, under vanilla PHB rules including initiative rules, is just as strong as ranged specialization in a SWAT scenario, I invite you to prove it.

[micahaphone]

Max, I agree that real life has much bigger distances than what we work with commonly dnd. But in a game called Dungeons and Dragons, combat expectations (especially when looking at published modules) often has fights within 50-60 feet of each other. I'm using published modules to try and get a sense of what WotC expects a "standard" fight or dungeon set to look like.

I'm thinking of some of the mapped out segments of Out of the Abyss, the module I'm most familiar with, and there's

a big cave network (Whorlstone Tunnels), where most rooms feel big but aren't too large. "The Obelisk", a supposedly massive room with an entry tunnel, a plateau with a winding path going up to the top, and a mysterious black stone obelisk on top. The entry tunnel is ~70 feet long, the path that wraps all the way around the plateau is 90 feet long, then maybe another 50 feet to go from the upper level of the plateau onto the platforms and across a small bridge to the obelisk. Assuming you don't climb up the rock faces at all, sticking only to the established paths.

The set encounter has an evil caster up top throwing out lightning bolts, and a lower-CR beholder (spectator?) floating around helping the evil researcher. Assuming that your entire party refuses to use ranged attacks against the caster or to climb the sides of the plateau, The book says that's ~210 feet to get to the top and start punching the caster. As you've pointed out, 210 feet really isn't that far away. But in 5E's terms, that's up and around small mountain.


Another section, the ritual circle where evil cultists are doing evil things, from where the alarm trap is placed to the raised stage is about 80 feet, and from the lip of the stage to the far end of the ritual circle is 50-60 feet.



Other sections of Out of the Abyss (Lost Tomb, Oozing Temple) have rooms that are 40-50 feet long at the biggest.



My point being, in 5E's design, most fights have the combatants starting pretty close together. The disconnect between real-world distances and game term distances is a bit frustrating at times.

I don't know if it's against forum rules, but I've found a blog with the images of the map, if you'd want to see what I'm talking about. Is it okay to share a link to a blog containing published book materials?


I haven't run or looked through Storm King's Thunder, that's the module I can think of having the most wide-open spaces, by my guess. Has anyone played/ran SKT, can they comment on where the book assumes combat to take place?

[ProsecutorGodot]

You don't think you can see someone 50' away on the street or in a forest? Most D&D players, and it sounds like you're one of them, don't have a good sense of how far 50' actually is. Again, there are crosswalks bigger than that. A path in a forest which bends every 50' is going nowhere fast, so under normal circumstances even in hilly wild terrain it will still be possible to have a point man at least 30 yards or so ahead of the main group, which is enough for ranged weapons to be advantageous. And don't forget that even if you're fighting in a dungeon room, you don't have to stay in the room! (Barring DM shenanigans like teleportals, which should be rare.)

I know from the start I was saying that in my own experience the DND encounter range is "short" but when I said short, I was talking hundreds of feet relative to spotting a threat miles away. What was uncommon in SKT was that we'd end a fight while the enemies were still in the longer range of our Sharpshooters longbow. We're fighting giants, they're feeling the arrows but it's unlikely that they die before the rocks start heading in our direction and the rest of the party has to commit to heading closer or taking cover.

Even in Dungeon of the Mad Mage many of our encounters cross over the 50ft threshold and that's near 100% hallways and caverns. Speaking on your comment of "running in ahead" our Monk has gone near death several times being a character who can reliably move over 150ft in a round and still attack, it usually left the rest of us advancing forward either at a dash or while attacking at range before we could start patching up our near death Monk.

50ft is a really short estimate, my experience puts a "short range" encounter anywhere between 200-300ft with exceptional cases (hallways or buildings) being near the 50ft estimate. "Long Range" encounters tend to be those with spells/weapons even capable of attacking at that distance taking pot shots before the target either flees (usually as good as killing them unless they're part of a larger group) or dies to a stream of arrows and eldritch blasts.

Final note, it really does help to have some reference on exactly how short 30/50 feet is. My bedroom is just around 30ft at its length. This is not an overly large room. The distance down my driveway at my old house was just over 120ft, it's not what I'd call a long walk either. What I do know is that before I moved I could see the building I worked at from the end of that driveway, and that was around 800ft. If I really tried (not very hard) I could see the lot that used to be an automotive plant down the street, that would be a distance of 2000ft. If I stood myself in the middle of the road I could have probably made the McDonalds out from the corner of the block over, which was almost exactly 1 mile away.

[MaxWilson]

Max, I agree that real life has much bigger distances than what we work with commonly dnd. But in a game called Dungeons and Dragons, combat expectations (especially when looking at published modules) often has fights within 50-60 feet of each other. I'm using published modules to try and get a sense of what WotC expects a "standard" fight or dungeon set to look like.

I'm thinking of some of the mapped out segments of Out of the Abyss, the module I'm most familiar with, and there's...*snip*

I have the OOTA book at home, so no worries about posting images. I probably still have Storm King's Thunder--I don't think I've given it away.

One of my objections to most WotC-written adventures is that, unlike the 5E DMG, they don't have a good sense of scale--it will surprise me not at all if you are exactly correct about everything taking place in a shoebox. I know the hobgoblin war camps in Volo's are ridiculously tiny, for example, about the same size as a restaurant parking lot even though hobgoblins have enough tactical acumen to know that it's to their advantage to clear ground around the camp so they can actually use their longbows.

As I said earlier in the thread, I think battlegrids are one reason why 5E players often seem to have no idea how far 50' really is, and the WotC adventures for 5E are very battlegrid-oriented, so if you want to stipulate that 5E WotC-written adventuring areas are extremely tiny, I'll stipulate that--it's exactly what I expect from them.

However,

(1) 5E is a ruleset, not a bunch of adventures from WotC, and it is absolutely intended that you write and run your own adventures. Telling the OP to just use poorly-written WotC adventures with scales that don't make sense is not a solution, it's just surrender.

(2) Even in those adventures, by vanilla PHB rules (including initiative rules), melee specialization is still weaker, although it usually wouldn't matter because the adventures are designed to be nigh-impossible to lose anyway. So even using WotC adventures is not a solution to the problem the OP is trying to solve.

Again, if you don't have this problem, feel free to keep playing the way you do, but don't tell those of us who see it that melee specialization isn't really stronger than ranged or spellcasting in 5E, because it absolutely is, and there are sad paladins and barbarians out there as a result.


I know from the start I was saying that in my own experience the DND encounter range is "short" but when I said short, I was talking hundreds of feet relative to spotting a threat miles away. What was uncommon in SKT was that we'd end a fight while the enemies were still in the longer range of our Sharpshooters longbow. We're fighting giants, they're feeling the arrows but it's unlikely that they die before the rocks start heading in our direction and the rest of the party has to commit to heading closer or taking cover.

That makes sense, because if you kill the giants from 200 yards away they can't even hit you back--if a Frost Giant Dashes 80' forward and the longbow fighter falls 30' back, the longbow still gets about 7 rounds of attacks before the giant is even in a position to shoot back, and playing out a fight like that is boring and should not be done by a DM unless it has the potential to turn into something more interesting. For example, if there are a whole metric ton of giants charging you, and the longbow dudes are struggling to kill enough of them that the party won't get stomped when they do come into range, that can be interesting. Or it can be interesting if the giants are not known in advance to be hostile, so non-murderhobo PCs need to send someone under a white flag to talk to them first before combat starts--conversation doesn't happen at 200 yards. There are other ways to make it interesting, and it doesn't astonish me if your DM found ways to make that happen.

But the problem is that some of these solutions make melee boring. The talking one is good for melee guys, but even there the optimal strategy is probably not the fun-for-melee-guys strategy (e.g. best strategy might be "eat a single opportunity attack and run away at top speed") unless you introduce other considerations: for example, there are too many giants to fight (20 Frost Giants), but you can win diplomatic concessions if someone can beat a giant in single combat in a fair fight, and kiting from range isn't considered "fair" but melee fighting is.

Therefore I have cultural considerations built into my world to make melee more relevant, but you can't do that unless you first realize how weak melee naturally is and that it needs the help.


Even in Dungeon of the Mad Mage many of our encounters cross over the 50ft threshold and that's near 100% hallways and caverns. Speaking on your comment of "running in ahead" our Monk has gone near death several times being a character who can reliably move over 150ft in a round and still attack, it usually left the rest of us advancing forward either at a dash or while attacking at range before we could start patching up our near death Monk.

50ft is a really short estimate, my experience puts a "short range" encounter anywhere between 200-300ft with exceptional cases (hallways or buildings) being near the 50ft estimate. "Long Range" encounters tend to be those with spells/weapons even capable of attacking at that distance taking pot shots before the target either flees (usually as good as killing them unless they're part of a larger group) or dies to a stream of arrows and eldritch blasts.

Final note, it really does help to have some reference on exactly how short 30/50 feet is. My bedroom is just around 30ft at its length. This is not an overly large room. The distance down my driveway at my old house was just over 120ft, it's not what I'd call a long walk either. What I do know is that before I moved I could see the building I worked at from the end of that driveway, and that was around 800ft. If I really tried (not very hard) I could see the lot that used to be an automotive plant down the street, that would be a distance of 2000ft. If I stood myself in the middle of the road I could have probably made the McDonalds out from the corner of the block over, which was almost exactly 1 mile away.

People focus a lot on starting range for an encounter, but PCs can also create distance during a fight. I think I gave the example earlier where a 20th level Zealot took a bunch of damage against a Goristro, starting from 5' range, still beating it easily but losing ~100 HP in the process on average (I think I ran the fight twice), whereas the equivalent 20th level Sharpshooter EK starting at 5' range took similar amounts of damage (~100ish HP) the first time I ran the fight and eventually evolved tactics to trivialize the fight, losing nothing but an Action Surge and a 1st level spell slot most times in spite of all my houserules to make spellcasting and kiting harder. (Action Surge to teleport 30' away, then Dash + Dash + Expeditious Retreat + regular movement (40' each because Mobile), and now you're at 190' away if you won initiative this round and 110' even if you lost (though you probably took some damage in that case), which means the Goristro is now pwned.)

Kiting is also possible in group settings, but it takes more cooperation, and that's probably why it doesn't happen as often in actual play: it doesn't work unless all the players are operating on a fairly high level. If I eat an opportunity attack from a monster to Dash out of its threat radius, intending to "solve" the combat with no further damage taken after that, and then you stay in the threat radius and keep hitting it (even though it can't even opportunity attack you!), I just took an opportunity attack for nothing--and if I'm melee-specialized I may even have to waste another round Dashing back in, which may cause resentment if you (incorrectly) think I wasn't pulling my weight in the combat.

[JumboWheat01]

Final note, it really does help to have some reference on exactly how short 30/50 feet is. My bedroom is just around 30ft at its length. This is not an overly large room. The distance down my driveway at my old house was just over 120ft, it's not what I'd call a long walk either. What I do know is that before I moved I could see the building I worked at from the end of that driveway, and that was around 800ft. If I really tried (not very hard) I could see the lot that used to be an automotive plant down the street, that would be a distance of 2000ft. If I stood myself in the middle of the road I could have probably made the McDonalds out from the corner of the block over, which was almost exactly 1 mile away.

I know we're having a serious discussion here, but I need to stop and stare at you saying you have a thirty foot long bedroom and you say it's not an overly large room. Thirty feet! I'll admit some form of jealousy, the biggest bedroom I've ever had is ten by ten, and I thought that to be a huge bedroom.

[Keravath]

There are crosswalks bigger than that.

DMG guidelines put line of sight at 1-2 miles barring stealth or obstructions, and it boggles my mind how many people still seem to think 100' is a long distance despite that. I think it's a side effect of using battlegrids or something.

No, 100 yards is not an unrealistic distance at which to become aware off a threat (i.e. start an encounter), even in hilly wild terrain, especially if players are actively seeking information (using flying familiars to look over things, keeping a reasonable distance from obstructions until they can see the other side, etc.).

Many of us routinely monitor events a quarter mile to half a mile away from us while driving, even though we live in a world where other drivers are monitoring us back and trying to avoid damaging us. How much more attention would we be paying in a world where other drivers are actively seeking to kill us?

A ranged-heavy party in alert/danger mode checks out a crossroad or an obstruction by sending one or two guys to check it out while the others stay 100 yards back or so to provide covering fire if needed. That way if anything goes wrong you get to shoot the bad guys full of arrows for 100 yards (five rounds? thirty seconds or so) before you're stuck in melee, and with how accurate 5e missile fire is and how weak most encounters are, five rounds is enough to trivialize DMG Medium/Hard encounters that aren't deliberately trying to game the system.

If you're in fights at under 50', either you're dungeon crawling, or your DM is being a jerk, or you're not trying to hold the range open. (And if you're dungeon crawling, other strategies come online.)



Two groups walking up to each other and bashing away with swords is actually melee's sweet spot. As combat gets more and more sophisticated, melee gets more useless and frustrating.

You won't notice the problem unless your players (including the DM) are operating at a fairly high level of sophistication.

All of your comments depend on the terrain and the circumstances.

"Many of us routinely monitor events a quarter mile to half a mile away from us while driving, even though we live in a world where other drivers are monitoring us back and trying to avoid damaging us. How much more attention would we be paying in a world where other drivers are actively seeking to kill us?"

In my experience, most drivers appear to pay attention only to the objects within 10 car lengths (less than 100 yards) directly in front of them (or their cell phones). Monitoring events 450 to 900 yards away in any direction except straight in front of the vehicle is a good recipe for accidents. Basically - a very unrealistic analogy in my opinion :)

"No, 100 yards is not an unrealistic distance at which to become aware off a threat (i.e. start an encounter), even in hilly wild terrain, especially if players are actively seeking information (using flying familiars to look over things, keeping a reasonable distance from obstructions until they can see the other side, etc.)."

100 yards in hilly wild terrain is a LONG distance. Have you ever walked through hilly wild terrain? Hiked in an overgrown forest, even along a trail? Seeing even 20 yards along the trail and 10 yards into the bush could be a challenge and that is without the hills. Of course there are both more open and less open bits but your generalization is way off. Even with a flying familiar, you can't effectively see through the tree canopy from above and below the canopy there are both other predators and lots of leaves/branches. Of course this depends on the type of forest and the spacing of the trees but there can be MANY situations in which 100 yards isn't reasonable.

In a natural rolling countryside with fields and no trees you might be able to see someone strolling along or riding a horse from anywhere from 1/4 to 10 miles depending on how flat it is. However, even a slight roll creates dips and valleys that provide substantial cover. A flying familiar might notice something but a lot of other folks might not and it comes down to a perception check. However, this type of visibility is why encounters don't usually start with surprise since the opposite sides are aware of a possible threat.

If an encounter starts outside a character's effective range and it will take them time to get into effective range ... what do they do? They take the dodge action and use total cover to close the range. Both either prevent shots or guarantee disadvantage from ranged attacks.

-----------

Finally, mostly on the thread topic, the main complaint seems to be that melee characters take disproportionately more damage (duh) and so should also inflict disproportionately more damage to keep them happy - so lets nerf ranged attacks so ranged attacks are less effective and the melee are happier because the risk/reward ratio is improved.

I think this misses the point that it is a team game. As several folks have pointed out, parties of ranged characters do NOT typically do well without melee characters to take the brunt of the damage. When an opponent is next to a ranged character the character has disadvantage on attack rolls, they may not have a shield so their AC is lower, they typically have lower hit points, especially wizards and sorcerers .. in general it doesn't usually go well. Yes, the melee characters have a much higher risk level. I have several ranged characters that rarely take damage and several melee characters that have come close to dying just because they are doing their job well. However, they usually end up surviving because the team focuses fire and the casters keep the melee on their feet.

If you really feel it needs a fix then add some damage to melee weapons.

[Hail Tempus]

However, when you come along and start telling people that they are bad DMs for noticing these issues, because they aren't problems to you because all of your fights occur at 50', it shows me that this thread isn't aimed at you. For you, it's a solution in search of a problem, because your players apparently do pretty much just kill what's in front of them. For others, it's a problem because we either have (some) more sophisticated players already, or want to support more sophisticated play to encourage players to grow to that level, or both. My players take a combined arms approach to combat, which seems to be the norm. For my current party, the typical approach is for the barbarian and rogue to move into melee, with the druid standing behind them and the cleric and wizard, who tend to use ranged attacks, in the back. They know that the squishier characters and ranged damage dealers aren't safe in the back. Smart monsters will target them at range, and sneaky monsters will try to avoid the barbarian and go after the soft targets in the back. But, I try not to let them use the same tactics in every room.

In our last session, they had a fight in a tunnel, where enemies came from two sides. A fight where they got the drop on a group of slavemasters and had to block three exits so they couldn't seek help. They then rode mine carts and had to dismount two at a time into the next room before engaging in combat. The last fight of the night was in a room with a giant slave wheel in the middle, that effectively cut the room in two and allowed the enemies to come at them from two sides, and also allowed one of the monsters to use cover to release hell hounds from their pen. Having a diversity of classes and skillsets gave the party the versatility to deal with different tactical situations.



If you're arguing that you use different tactics in a SWAT operation, I agree. If you're arguing that melee specialization, under vanilla PHB rules including initiative rules, is just as strong as ranged specialization in a SWAT scenario, I invite you to prove it. I'm arguing that the melee specialized PCs are just as effective in their respective jobs as the ranged characters, because they're designed for that job. A party of all melee characters is not a great idea, and neither is a party made up only of ranged characters. Each one is just a one-trick pony whose tactics can be countered by a competent DM.

OP said that the barbarian in his party was annoyed that the archer was doing a lot of damage. And I have to ask, why would that upset the barbarian?

I take issue with OP's whole premise here- if ranged combat is too effective, then the answer should be to make melee combat more interesting. DMs should avoids nerfing to the greatest extent possible.

[ProsecutorGodot]

I know we're having a serious discussion here, but I need to stop and stare at you saying you have a thirty foot long bedroom and you say it's not an overly large room. Thirty feet! I'll admit some form of jealousy, the biggest bedroom I've ever had is ten by ten, and I thought that to be a huge bedroom.

Well, to be more specific, the entire upstairs addition to the house my family moved into is "my bedroom". It would be more accurate to call it an apartment, the bedroom portion being probably less than a third of the overall space.

[micahaphone]

Here's the OotA map referred to in my previous spoilered section (https://outoftheabyssnw.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/gracklstugh-tunnels-player-version.jpg?w=840), for anyone else who wants to see it. I checked the forum rules and didn't see anything against it. The two sections I refer to are the top left and bottom right of the bottom half of the image.


Even if we ignore the "poorly written wotc adventures", I feel like 5E's ruleset is designed to work at roughly these ranges. How far away do most attacks reach? Heavy Crossbows and Longbows are the long-range sniping options, and their regular ranges are 100 and 150 feet. A long range sniper slamming you for a D10 per hit is just 100 feet away. Fireball is considered a long range spell with a range a 120 feet. 5E's rules are designed for short ranged fighting. It's a game about Dungeons.




Again, if you don't have this problem, feel free to keep playing the way you do, but don't tell those of us who see it that melee specialization isn't really stronger than ranged or spellcasting in 5E, because it absolutely is, and there are sad paladins and barbarians out there as a result.

I don't disagree with you that ranged/dex based combatant are stronger than strength/melee focused characters, I never said that. But I'm skeptical that the imbalance is enough that we need to start changing rules. I think that if there was a disparity so strong it needed rebalancing, we'd see people avoiding melee roles. Even on this forum, where people are probably the most mechanically adept fans of 5E, plenty of people are building melee focused characters. When building a hexsorcadin with PAM/GWM or other mechanically strong builds, no one comments "you should just play ranged, ranged is OP".


In the OP's situation, the barbarian player is unsatisfied with their character. I think they should work with that player to get them into a character they enjoy, help players understand that it's a team game, and/or modify combat to give the players varied objectives or environments. If your goal is to capture an evil wizard alive, the barb's ability to do nonlethal damage or to grapple like a god will be more useful than pure DPR optimization. But any evil wizard worth his evil ritual altar will have minions that someone's gotta kill.

Working with a player or changing your encounter design is a much easier goal compared to modifying the core rules

[Hail Tempus]

I haven't run or looked through Storm King's Thunder, that's the module I can think of having the most wide-open spaces, by my guess. Has anyone played/ran SKT, can they comment on where the book assumes combat to take place? Most of the set pieces in the module are what qualify as "dungeons" (though none of them are, technically speaking). There's a goblin cave, a giant temple complex, five different strongholds of the giant lords, and an underwater castle.

There are also some outdoors scenarios, like a town defense, and the approach to a dragon's lair.

So, it's a pretty indoorsy module.

[MaxWilson]

My players take a combined arms approach to combat, which seems to be the norm. For my current party, the typical approach is for the barbarian and rogue to move into melee, with the druid standing behind them and the cleric and wizard, who tend to use ranged attacks, in the back. They know that the squishier characters and ranged damage dealers aren't safe in the back. Smart monsters will target them at range, and sneaky monsters will try to avoid the barbarian and go after the soft targets in the back. But, I try not to let them use the same tactics in every room.

In our last session, they had a fight in a tunnel, where enemies came from two sides. A fight where they got the drop on a group of slavemasters and had to block three exits so they couldn't seek help. They then rode mine carts and had to dismount two at a time into the next room before engaging in combat. The last fight of the night was in a room with a giant slave wheel in the middle, that effectively cut the room in two and allowed the enemies to come at them from two sides, and also allowed one of the monsters to use cover to release hell hounds from their pen. Having a diversity of classes and skillsets gave the party the versatility to deal with different tactical situations.

As I said, your players apparently kill what's in front of them: they move into melee and fight the monsters in the room. Apparently it didn't occur to them to exit the room with a giant slave wheel, hold the door with the Barbarian, and let the Rogue + cleric + wizard kill the monsters to death from behind the chokepoint.

It's no wonder you don't see melee as weak--your players are not fully exploiting their tactical options.


I'm arguing that the melee specialized PCs are just as effective in their respective jobs as the ranged characters, because they're designed for that job. A party of all melee characters is not a great idea, and neither is a party made up only of ranged characters. Each one is just a one-trick pony whose tactics can be countered by a competent DM.

And you're back to flattering yourself again for some reason: you are telling yourself that the scenario with the slave wheel was challenging because you made it hard, when it's really just challenging because they were using weak tactics.


OP said that the barbarian in his party was annoyed that the archer was doing a lot of damage. And I have to ask, why would that upset the barbarian?

Because the real issue isn't that the archer was doing a lot of damage--it's that the Barbarian (correctly) perceives that his fantasy of being a brawny barbarian hitting things with an axe is counterproductive and/or useless, and that under the 5E ruleset he'd have been better off as a spellcaster or archer.


I take issue with OP's whole premise here- if ranged combat is too effective, then the answer should be to make melee combat more interesting. DMs should avoids nerfing to the greatest extent possible.

I do agree with that much--the goal should be to give the players interesting decisions, and it's better to give melee players new options than to take away existing options from others. But any balance change can be perceived as a nerf from some angle: if I say that spellcasting in melee range triggers opportunity attacks, yes that's a gift to melee players (gives them more reason to exist: they're the Rock to spellcasting's Scissors), but it's also a nerf to spellcasting (now there's a Rock to their Scissors where before there was nothing except other Scissors (Counterspell) that could counter them).

But I do agree that the OP's rules are fiddly and likely to leave a bad taste in someone's mouth, and I wouldn't use them. I'm not sure if the OP still intends to use them anyway, and that was true even before you posted.

[Willie the Duck]

You don't think you can see someone 50' away on the street or in a forest? Most D&D players, and it sounds like you're one of them, don't have a good sense of how far 50' actually is. Again, there are crosswalks bigger than that. A path in a forest which bends every 50' is going nowhere fast, so under normal circumstances even in hilly wild terrain it will still be possible to have a point man at least 30 yards or so ahead of the main group, which is enough for ranged weapons to be advantageous. And don't forget that even if you're fighting in a dungeon room, you don't have to stay in the room! (Barring DM shenanigans like teleportals, which should be rare.)

I know sophistication is unusual

I generally am unconvinced regarding 'most D&D players' being in some way lesser than the poster or us on these forums in general, or unsophisticated, etc. If anything, I suspect that people are well aware of how unrealistically short a certain distance is, and simply don't care (BattleTech players, who I've no reason to believe are more or less sophisticated than D&D gamers, have tended to come forward with a 'yes, we know these ranges are garbage. Why does it matter as long as it is consistent?' attitude). To that point, I think ease of play and as you pointed out battle mats are the primary culprits. Hazy memory tells me that BITD, when hexcrawling (so, not SWAT teams in dungeons) in AD&D, the normal ranges were about 5-6x as much (which makes sense, since the squares would 10 yard instead of 5 feet), although with a lot more deviation between groups (both in total and with regards to battle mats, miniatures, etc.). 5e as well probably has a lot of variation based on whether one uses published modules, battle mats, miniatures at all, started with 5e/WotC/TSR, and so on.


Final note, it really does help to have some reference on exactly how short 30/50 feet is. My bedroom is just around 30ft at its length. This is not an overly large room. The distance down my driveway at my old house was just over 120ft, it's not what I'd call a long walk either. What I do know is that before I moved I could see the building I worked at from the end of that driveway, and that was around 800ft. If I really tried (not very hard) I could see the lot that used to be an automotive plant down the street, that would be a distance of 2000ft. If I stood myself in the middle of the road I could have probably made the McDonalds out from the corner of the block over, which was almost exactly 1 mile away.

Does your bedroom take up one full side of your house? North American urban houses in the 1200-3000 sf range tend to be ~30' on a side, and urban lots are often 40-80' wide (unless you have something like a half-acre lot, which is hardly rare but certainly notable). I'm not saying your situation is rare, but it might not be the most representative.


I know we're having a serious discussion here, but I need to stop and stare at you saying you have a thirty foot long bedroom and you say it's not an overly large room. Thirty feet! I'll admit some form of jealousy, the biggest bedroom I've ever had is ten by ten, and I thought that to be a huge bedroom.

10'x10', 10'x12', or sometimes even 8'x10' are very normal bedroom sizes for apartments and mid-century homes (anything before a large 'master bed room' came into vogue). Honestly, what city you are living in (and of course what profession you have) can make what seems normal quite different. A friend's sister is living in New York City right now and absolutely killing it, yet lives in an apartment where they would dream of having a 10'x10' bedroom (well, actually they have that, but are sharing it with their kid, and unsure what they will do when that stops being feasible).

[MaxWilson]

All of your comments depend on the terrain and the circumstances.

"Many of us routinely monitor events a quarter mile to half a mile away from us while driving, even though we live in a world where other drivers are monitoring us back and trying to avoid damaging us. How much more attention would we be paying in a world where other drivers are actively seeking to kill us?"

In my experience, most drivers appear to pay attention only to the objects within 10 car lengths (less than 100 yards) directly in front of them (or their cell phones). Monitoring events 450 to 900 yards away in any direction except straight in front of the vehicle is a good recipe for accidents. Basically - a very unrealistic analogy in my opinion :)

You're supposed to look 1/2 mile to a mile ahead for safety. If you don't do this in real life, I weep for your driving record. If you don't do this in fantasy 5E, I weep for your cold, dead, eaten-by-monsters body.

Ref: https://www.drive-safely.net/driving-safety-tips/

[Hail Tempus]

As I said, your players apparently kill what's in front of them: they move into melee and fight the monsters in the room. Apparently it didn't occur to them to exit the room with a giant slave wheel, hold the door with the Barbarian, and let the Rogue + cleric + wizard kill the monsters to death from behind the chokepoint.

It's no wonder you don't see melee as weak--your players are not fully exploiting their tactical options. If you're letting your players routinely back out of a room while the monsters dumbly walk into a meatgrinder, well, your players aren't the tactical geniuses you think they are. They're facing a DM who gives them easy encounters.

My party knows that if you back away from monsters, the smart ones will use that as a chance to go get help.


Because the real issue isn't that the archer was doing a lot of damage--it's that the Barbarian (correctly) perceives that his fantasy of being a brawny barbarian hitting things with an axe is counterproductive and/or useless, and that under the 5E ruleset he'd have been better off as a spellcaster or archer. The 8th level barbarian in the group laid out something like 70 points of damage in one turn against a Fire Giant. I've never heard someone complain that barbarians are ineffective in combat. They're giant sacks of hit points that can dish out serious amounts of damage with even a moderately well thought out build. Seriously, even on this site, where there are a lot of optimizers, no one is complaining about the effectiveness of barbarians and paladins.

[MaxWilson]

If you're letting your players routinely back out of a room while the monsters dumbly walk into a meatgrinder, well, your players aren't the tactical geniuses you think they are. They're facing a DM who gives them easy encounters.

My party knows that if you back away from monsters, the smart ones will use that as a chance to go get help.

And yet somehow, your monsters didn't go for help, they kept fighting and died in a meatgrinder. The PCs took more damage then they would have taken with better tactics, but the monsters are still just as dead. Why did they do it? Why would their motives have changed if the PCs had fought with missile weapons from behind a Barbarian-held chokepoint instead?

But I'm glad we've at least established that they were in fact using weak tactics.


The 8th level barbarian in the group laid out something like 70 points of damage in one turn against a Fire Giant. I've never heard someone complain that barbarians are ineffective in combat. They're giant sacks of hit points that can dish out serious amounts of damage with even a moderately well thought out build. Seriously, even on this site, where there are a lot of optimizers, no one is complaining about the effectiveness of barbarians and paladins.

Incorrect. Barbarians are okay at low levels but the fact that non-Zealot Barbarians they don't really grow much from levels 6 to 19 is a common observation on these boards, though still controversial. If you think no one complains about them, you're insufficiently familiar with this forum.

[micahaphone]

There's plenty of times where you don't have the luxury of kiting enemies into chokepoints - are you going into this dungeon to save hostages, or stop an evil ritual, or both?


We have a problem, a player feels ineffective and is frustrated that ranged characters deal more damage than they do. It's easier to work with a player to change their character or change how you design encounters compared to changing and rebalancing the core combat rules of dnd . I don't have the experience or resources of 5E's top designers, and I would be very hesitant to play with a DM who makes such major changes to the ruleset. Are you 100% sure that your attempts to balance ranged combat won't frustrate players and make something else more powerful?
For example, if fighting with a bow becomes weaker, why not play a wizard and toss pinpoint precision fireballs all the time? Saving throw based spells aren't impacted by ranged attack nerfs. Are you going to add a scatter die like what Warhammer* uses to AOE spells now? How far are you going to homebrew?

* last I played was 40k 5th edition, I don't know if more recent editions still have scatter die or templates for AOE.

If you really don't like 5e's rules, chances are there's another game system that's closer to what you desire, and has already had thousands of hours of playtesting put into it.

[MaxWilson]

There's plenty of times where you don't have the luxury of kiting enemies into chokepoints - are you going into this dungeon to save hostages, or stop an evil ritual, or both?

Right. I've given some other examples above, such as during negotiations.

But it's very powerful to be able to reduce an encounter to a previously-solved problem just by breaking contact instead of by laboriously depleting all of an enemy's HP, and that's true even when you're going in to stop an evil ritual or save hostages.


We have a problem, a player feels ineffective and is frustrated that ranged characters deal more damage than they do.

From previous discussion I don't think the OP would agree that you're characterizing the problem accurately.

[SociopathFriend]

Relevant- if you crouch and move forwards with a shield extended you arguably have half-cover.
If you stand behind another enemy you arguably have half-cover.

One reason Ranged attacks are so powerful is it is rare that a DM actually puts the normal disadvantages one would have on it. It IS genuinely harder to shoot someone standing behind one person without shooting the person in front. If the bad guys have bigger dudes with larger shields at the front they can literally provide cover for the people following them.

[micahaphone]

From previous discussion I don't think the OP would agree that you're characterizing the problem accurately.


Okay, so what exactly is the problem? I must have missed a part of the discussion, I thought the OP mentioned they were doing this because their barbarian player was getting frustrated.
Can we fix the issue through changing our encounter design, the thing the DM is supposed to do, or do we have to change the core rules?
If we have to change the core rules, can we confidently say that we've maintained balance and haven't caused unintentional effects?
If we have to change the core rules, are we sure that there's not another game system that wouldn't be a better fit?

[ProsecutorGodot]

Does your bedroom take up one full side of your house? North American urban houses in the 1200-3000 sf range tend to be ~30' on a side, and urban lots are often 40-80' wide (unless you have something like a half-acre lot, which is hardly rare but certainly notable). I'm not saying your situation is rare, but it might not be the most representative.

While it's giving me a newfound appreciation for my space, the point wasn't really to illustrate that my bedroom is large for a bedroom, it was meant to illustrate that you're not often fighting in such cramped spaces. That is, unless your campaign sees a lot of fights happening in bedrooms. 50ft by 50ft battle maps would be very cramped and I wouldn't expect that to be a typical area of engagement.


Relevant- if you crouch and move forwards with a shield extended you arguably have half-cover.
I would argue that the entire reason the shield gives you +2 AC is because it's functionally an object you are able to interpose between yourself and the attack. I personally wouldn't go for allowing them to treat it as cover because it's my belief that it already is functioning very similarly. This is obviously something that might vary from table to table.

On the note of creatures though, that's not arguable, that's just how half cover is intended to work. Another factor of ranged attacks that tends to get overlooked (at least at our table we misread this for a long time) is that the 5ft penalty isn't dependant on the target being within 5ft, it only matters if any hostile creature is within 5ft and that imposes disadvantage against any target you would be attacking. I'm sure for most this is understood, but for some it could be overlooked.

[MaxWilson]

Okay, so what exactly is the problem? I must have missed a part of the discussion, I thought the OP mentioned they were doing this because their barbarian player was getting frustrated.
Can we fix the issue through changing our encounter design, the thing the DM is supposed to do, or do we have to change the core rules?
If we have to change the core rules, can we confidently say that we've maintained balance and haven't caused unintentional effects?
If we have to change the core rules, are we sure that there's not another game system that wouldn't be a better fit?


See OP's reaction in post #38 to post #37, and subsequent discussion in posts #45, #72, #74. OP is clearly seeking to give melee PCs more of a niche, not just trying to nerf a particular PC's damage.

[SociopathFriend]

I would argue that the entire reason the shield gives you +2 AC is because it's functionally an object you are able to interpose between yourself and the attack. I personally wouldn't go for allowing them to treat it as cover because it's my belief that it already is functioning very similarly. This is obviously something that might vary from table to table.

On the note of creatures though, that's not arguable, that's just how half cover is intended to work. Another factor of ranged attacks that tends to get overlooked (at least at our table we misread this for a long time) is that the 5ft penalty isn't dependant on the target being within 5ft, it only matters if any hostile creature is within 5ft and that imposes disadvantage against any target you would be attacking. I'm sure for most this is understood, but for some it could be overlooked.

I did say arguable for the first bit for this reason. I happen to believe this is an odd Feat allowance as Shield Master does, functionally, turn a Shield into Half-Cover when you hold it. So only someone who has mastered the shield enough to spend a feat on it is proficient enough to make full use of it in that manner.

But if you ask me, being able to crouch behind a shield while advancing is extremely common and shouldn't require a feat to do. That's basic use that should fall under proficiency- not mastery. Making maximum use of the shield to avoid a Fireball altogether by rolling it off or stopping it cold? Fine use of mastery. Chaining a combination attack to slam someone with your shield while fighting in melee? Fine use of mastery.
If nothing else I maintain it would be a nice bump in the road. Not a hard-stop for ranged attacks but something to take notice of. Particularly if no other quality such as the shooting-behind-a-creature thing is being used.

The issue is that the game either assumes you're prone or bust- there's no mechanical value in crouching unless you can justify how much of your body is visible.

[micahaphone]

See OP's reaction in post #38 to post #37, and subsequent discussion in posts #45, #72, #74. OP is clearly seeking to give melee PCs more of a niche, not just trying to nerf a particular PC's damage.

Melee characters already have more to do compared to a ranged archer.

Ranger using a longbow: does consistent good damage.

Barbarian with axe: does consistent good damage, soaks up damage (tanking), can grapple, controls an area by threatening opportunity attacks, can interact with the world (pulling levers, throwing objects, destroying altars, kicking down doors).

Onto the rest of the questions:


2.Can we fix the issue through changing our encounter design, the thing the DM is supposed to do, or do we have to change the core rules?
I believe we can fix this by having fights in smaller areas, giving fights alternate objectives (protect the shrine, don't activate the thing that'll summon extra enemies, have environmental dangers that things can be grappled into) or playing with alternative enemy tactics (like Tucker's Kobolds). Take the things that a melee character can do, but a ranged character can't do, and provide opportunities for them to happen in a combat. If a player doesn't take these opportunities, or is still unsatisfied with their character, that means it's a more personal issue, not a systemic issue. And that's okay, we shouldn't punish someone for learning what they prefer.

Furthermore, the DMG has several alternate combat actions that make martials more varied, 90% of which are beneficial to melee martials. I suggest skipping the "Mark a target" option, as it's a too-easy way to get advantage. Otherwise, give the rest of them a try. I'm AFB right now, but I remember things like disarming a target, tumbling past a creature, climbing onto larger creatures, and other adventurous things.



3.If we have to change the core rules, can we confidently say that we've maintained balance and haven't caused unintentional effects?
4.If we have to change the core rules, are we sure that there's not another game system that wouldn't be a better fit?
No changes to the core rules yet, this doesn't apply. We could further look at other game systems if 5E isn't providing enough for us. I remember when I started playing Pathfinder, for example, I took a feat that let me plant one end of my spear (or other polearm) into the ground, giving me a bonus against charging enemies. That's a real situational combat tactic, and PF has a rule for it.

[MaxWilson]

The issue is that the game either assumes you're prone or bust- there's no mechanical value in crouching unless you can justify how much of your body is visible.

There are of course other weirdnesses with prone too--if I'm hovering 30' over your head in a prone position, you have disadvantage to hit me because I'm prone, and if stand up (in the air) you have no disadvantage. But logically it should be the other way around.

Another one is that I have disadvantage to hit a huge, prone AC 13 Hill Giant at 30 paces, but I don't have disadvantage to hit a tiny AC 12 cat at the same distance.

It's easy for a DM to houserule away the first example ("from that angle you're effectively prone while standing"), but the tiny cat vs. giant example would probably generate more discomfort as an ad-hoc ruling: where do you stop? In practice players either just learn to live with that weirdness as long as it doesn't come up too often, or the DM winds up rewriting the ranged combat system to take size and geometry into account more explicitly, and most DMs won't be comfortable with the latter so will wind up just living with the weirdness.

That's 5E for you: simplicity and uniform mechanics at any cost.


Melee characters already have more to do compared to a ranged archer.

Ranger using a longbow: does consistent good damage.

Can also use DMG Disarm on enemies. Has the option to hang back, kite, or advance (in order to manipulate enemy actions, e.g. to draw the enemy into pressing an attack in hopes of killing the archer), and can don a shield and enter melee if desired (e.g. if the group needs one of the ranged dudes to convert to tanking temporarily). Loses out on grappling effectiveness compared to the melee specialist but is equally good at other things.


Onto the rest of the questions:

I believe we can fix this by having fights in smaller areas, giving fights alternate objectives (protect the shrine, don't activate the thing that'll summon extra enemies, have environmental dangers that things can be grappled into) or playing with alternative enemy tactics (like Tucker's Kobolds). Take the things that a melee character can do, but a ranged character can't do, and provide opportunities for them to happen in a combat. If a player doesn't take these opportunities, or is still unsatisfied with their character, that means it's a more personal issue, not a systemic issue. And that's okay, we shouldn't punish someone for learning what they prefer.

Furthermore, the DMG has several alternate combat actions that make martials more varied, 90% of which are beneficial to melee martials. I suggest skipping the "Mark a target" option, as it's a too-easy way to get advantage. Otherwise, give the rest of them a try. I'm AFB right now, but I remember things like disarming a target, tumbling past a creature, climbing onto larger creatures, and other adventurous things.

No changes to the core rules yet, this doesn't apply. We could further look at other game systems if 5E isn't providing enough for us. I remember when I started playing Pathfinder, for example, I took a feat that let me plant one end of my spear (or other polearm) into the ground, giving me a bonus against charging enemies. That's a real situational combat tactic, and PF has a rule for it.

Aren't you just answering your own questions here? I thought you were the guy who posed those questions in the first place. You're certainly the one who seems the most convinced that the OP wants to avoid tinkering with the game rules. It appears to me that the OP is thinking like a game designer and wants to fix the rules issue as a rules issue, instead of patching around it at the content level.

If you do want to patch around it at the content level I'd suggest vastly increasing the mobility of fliers and quadrupeds in 5E: some but not all of the downside to melee combat is that enemies are soooo incredibly slow, like dragons who drift sedately through the skies at speeds normally associated with cars passing through school zones when children are present. If you just triple the speed of all the quadrupeds and fliers in the MM, that would eliminate many (but not nearly all) of ranged PCs' advantages over melee PCs, and it would make the game more realistic to boot.

[NaughtyTiger]

As several folks have pointed out, parties of ranged characters do NOT typically do well without melee characters to take the brunt of the damage.
i took away the opposite conclusion from what several folks said: ranged guys do just fine without melee fighters.




[1]Okay, so what exactly is the problem? I must have missed a part of the discussion, I thought the OP mentioned they were doing this because their barbarian player was getting frustrated.
[2]Can we fix the issue through changing our encounter design, the thing the DM is supposed to do, or do we have to change the core rules?
[3]If we have to change the core rules, can we confidently say that we've maintained balance and haven't caused unintentional effects?
[4]If we have to change the core rules, are we sure that there's not another game system that wouldn't be a better fit?


1 wow, Max was thorough in listing my responses! short answer is that melee and ranged do the same damage, melee has all the risk.
2 encounter design doesn't/shouldn't compensate for poor game design. if i have to rejigger every encounter to get around 1 rule issue then it ain't the encounter.
3, I don't believe that melee vs ranged IS balanced to start with, so maintain ain't a thing. i asked the thread for unintentional effects, none were really offered.
4, a -2 to ranged attacks is small compared to changing a game system.

no one decried Max's houserules (i am not either, Max, I like em) as changing the core rules, this is no different (other than some folks reeeeallly don't like it)

[Hail Tempus]

And yet somehow, your monsters didn't go for help, they kept fighting and died in a meatgrinder. The PCs took more damage then they would have taken with better tactics, but the monsters are still just as dead. Why did they do it? Why would their motives have changed if the PCs had fought with missile weapons from behind a Barbarian-held chokepoint instead?

But I'm glad we've at least established that they were in fact using weak tactics. So, your dungeons are all comprised of one entrance that the PCs can easily block? Yeah, that sounds exciting and dynamic.

And yes, in this fight one of the monsters tried to go for help, but didn't make it. The other released reinforcements that joined the fight against the PCs.


Incorrect. Barbarians are okay at low levels but the fact that non-Zealot Barbarians they don't really grow much from levels 6 to 19 is a common observation on these boards, though still controversial. If you think no one complains about them, you're insufficiently familiar with this forum. You're changing the conversation. I didn't say barbarians weren't somewhat boring. But no one can reasonably argue that they're not good at what they're designed for.

[NaughtyTiger]

Another factor of ranged attacks that tends to get overlooked (at least at our table we misread this for a long time) is that the 5ft penalty isn't dependant on the target being within 5ft, it only matters if any hostile creature is within 5ft and that imposes disadvantage against any target you would be attacking. I'm sure for most this is understood, but for some it could be overlooked.

Holy crap!? I have TOTALLY been doing this wrong. Frack for 4 years!!!! No other DM or player has called this out either.
Okay, this definitely weakens some of my argument.

by the way, anyone else having trouble with GTIP server timing out?

[MaxWilson]

So, your dungeons are all comprised of one entrance that the PCs can easily block? Yeah, that sounds exciting and dynamic.

Are you saying the slave wheel room was the entire dungeon? That was it, just the one room? Wow.

Of course you're not really saying that, you're just making things up and projecting them onto me, as if I would make a one-room dungeon. No, I wouldn't, and it doesn't need to be a one-room dungeon for a chokepoint to be advantageous, as you know full well or ought to. Taking the long way around takes time, and that time is used by the ranged PCs for killing monsters.


And yes, in this fight one of the monsters tried to go for help, but didn't make it. The other released reinforcements that joined the fight against the PCs.

Why did they join the fight when it was a losing fight? Why did they stupidly defeat themselves in detail by splitting their efforts? Why didn't they all go get a sufficient number of reinforcements to crush the PCs? (Hint: because most players don't like games in which monsters are always either running away or crushing the PCs with overwhelming force, even though that is better tactics, so DMs find reasons to explain why monsters need to be suicidally aggressive.)

Why would their behavior have changed, and the monsters would suddenly have started fighting intelligently, if the PCs had killed the guy opening cages from range instead of melee?


You're changing the conversation. I didn't say barbarians weren't somewhat boring. But no one can reasonably argue that they're not good at what they're designed for.

We weren't talking about boredom, we are talking about your claim that no one complains they are weak.


by the way, anyone else having trouble with GTIP server timing out?

Yes, for at least a week now, maybe three weeks.

BTW, another thing people often get wrong is that partial cover works against all attacks, not just ranged attacks. Polearm attack over your buddy's shoulder? Enemy has half-cover from your buddy. However, DMG 272 rules on hitting cover IIRC only work against ranged attacks, so AFAIK at least you're not at risk of accidentally hitting your buddy.

One more note: sometimes it's worth it for a ranged attacker to take an opportunity attack to get far enough away to no longer take disadvantage on their ranged attacks. And against big monsters, like ogres and dragons, it doesn't even cost an opportunity attack because their opportunity attacks take place at 10' to 20' (depending on the monster), not at 5'.

[stoutstien]

Melee combat and cover was brought up a few weeks ago and a way around it is jumping. Even at 8 str, a 1 foot standing jump can get enough clearance to bypass walls or other horizontal cover sources long enough to strike someone.

[MaxWilson]

Melee combat and cover was brought up a few weeks ago and a way around it is jumping. Even at 8 str, a 11 feet standing jump can get enough clearance to bypass walls or other horizontal cover sources long enough to strike someone.

11 feet? Was that just a phone typo for "1 foot"?

When you make a high jump, you leap into the air a number of feet equal to 3 + your Strength modifier if you move at least 10 feet on foot immediately before the jump. When you make a standing high jump, you can jump only half that distance. Either way, each foot you clear on the jump costs a foot of movement.

AFAICT, with 8 Str you can jump 1 foot in the air from a standing start, not 11. But it's tough to see how jumping one or two feet in the air is going to significantly change your angle against someone crouched behind a wall.

[micahaphone]

Aren't you just answering your own questions here? I thought you were the guy who posed those questions in the first place. You're certainly the one who seems the most convinced that the OP wants to avoid tinkering with the game rules. It appears to me that the OP is thinking like a game designer and wants to fix the rules issue as a rules issue, instead of patching around it at the content level.

If you do want to patch around it at the content level I'd suggest vastly increasing the mobility of fliers and quadrupeds in 5E: some but not all of the downside to melee combat is that enemies are soooo incredibly slow, like dragons who drift sedately through the skies at speeds normally associated with cars passing through school zones when children are present. If you just triple the speed of all the quadrupeds and fliers in the MM, that would eliminate many (but not nearly all) of ranged PCs' advantages over melee PCs, and it would make the game more realistic to boot.

You are correct, I'm trying to use my questions as a framework around which to base my discussion. I feel like parts of my discussion/recommendation were being skipped, so I stuck to my own framework to reinforce my idea.

And I'm afraid you're completely misunderstanding me. I am seeing that OP considers this a rules issue, and I'm encouraging them to use a content patch or system issue.

If you're not even fully using the rules of ranged combat (disadvantage on all attacks if an enemy is close to you), why not use the base rules, maybe use some of the optional rules the game creators designed, before you make changes that could negatively impact your player's fun?

For example, this nerfs a martial ranged attacker but does nothing to nerf a wizard throwing fireballs and other ranged saving throw based attacks. If a player prefers to attack at range, well you just further encouraged them to play a caster. Because casters weren't strong enough already compared to martials?





i took away the opposite conclusion from what several folks said: ranged guys do just fine without melee fighters.




1 wow, Max was thorough in listing my responses! short answer is that melee and ranged do the same damage, melee has all the risk.
2 encounter design doesn't/shouldn't compensate for poor game design. if i have to rejigger every encounter to get around 1 rule issue then it ain't the encounter.
3, I don't believe that melee vs ranged IS balanced to start with, so maintain ain't a thing. i asked the thread for unintentional effects, none were really offered.
4, a -2 to ranged attacks is small compared to changing a game system.

no one decried Max's houserules (i am not either, Max, I like em) as changing the core rules, this is no different (other than some folks reeeeallly don't like it)

1.Melee weapons deal more damage than ranged weapons. There's no ranged greatsword! And sometimes taking damage can be a feature. Like why barbs have damage resistance - your HP is a resource, and every hit you take is one that didn't go towards the squishy wizard. Melee fighters also have more options in combat.
2. You don't have to make every fight harder for ranged fighters, you need to vary your encounters so sometimes ranged fighting is harder.
3. unintended side effects: you'll make the game less fun for ranged martial players (less hits, nothing else to do in combat), further incentive to play casters (which are already stronger than martials)
4.Seriously though, have you checked out any other game systems? If you feel that 5E doesn't do a good job of something as basic as martial combat, then maybe another game system would be more to your liking. Are you sure this is the only thing about 5E that you dislike, and want to change?

If you find archers annoying, I'm guessing you'll run into frustration with people playing casters. That's a common thing DMs ask for help with. You know what the most common advice for dealing with spellcasters is? Encounter design, using 5E's expected number of encounters a day to force more player resources out.





And yeah, I've been lots of lag loading the page, sometimes 503 errors for overloaded servers. Seems to be only the forums of GITP that are under strain.

[MaxWilson]

If you find archers annoying, I'm guessing you'll run into frustration with people playing casters. That's a common thing DMs ask for help with. You know what the most common advice for dealing with spellcasters is? Encounter design, using 5E's expected number of encounters a day to force more player resources out.

The most annoying thing about that oft-repeated advice, aside from the fact that it doesn't actually work, is that there is no expected number of encounters per day in 5E. There's just an expected adjusted XP budget per day, which generally makes it possible to "afford" 4-6ish Medium/Hard encounters or 2-3 Deadly encounters. The DMG also encourages you to give at least 2 short rests somewhere along the way.

That's it. There is no "expected number of encounters a day."

And the deeper issues with spellcasters have nothing to do with encounter pacing. They have more to do with the multiclassing rules and a handful of strong-to-maybe-broken spells like Simulacrum, Planar Binding, Wall of Force, and Conjure Animals.

[NaughtyTiger]

The most annoying thing about that oft-repeated advice, aside from the fact that it doesn't actually work, is that there is no expected number of encounters per day in 5E. There's just an expected adjusted XP budget per day, which generally makes it possible to "afford" 4-6ish Medium/Hard encounters or 2-3 Deadly encounters. The DMG also encourages you to give at least 2 short rests somewhere along the way.

That's it. There is no "expected number of encounters a day."

And the deeper issues with spellcasters have nothing to do with encounter pacing. They have more to do with the multiclassing rules and a handful of strong-to-maybe-broken spells like Simulacrum, Planar Binding, Wall of Force, and Conjure Animals.

I deleted my last response, cuz you make my points better than I can. You are doing a great job explaining my position, even when you disagree with it. I am impressed.

[micahaphone]

The most annoying thing about that oft-repeated advice, aside from the fact that it doesn't actually work, is that there is no expected number of encounters per day in 5E. There's just an expected adjusted XP budget per day, which generally makes it possible to "afford" 4-6ish Medium/Hard encounters or 2-3 Deadly encounters. The DMG also encourages you to give at least 2 short rests somewhere along the way.

That's it. There is no "expected number of encounters a day."

And the real issues with spellcasters have nothing to do with encounter pacing. They have more to do with the multiclassing rules and a handful of strong-to-maybe-broken spells like Simulacrum, Planar Binding, Wall of Force, and Conjure Animals.

You just listed an xp budget for 4-6 medium/hard encounters, or 2-3 deadly encounters. That sounds like an expected number of encounters a day. I don't understand the difference between these two statements.


And it's far more than just high level spell options that get complained about. Let's grab a level 5 party, compare a fighter and a wizard. A fighter with a longbow and 18 dex can action surge to put out 4 attacks. If all 4 hit they're doing 4d8+16, or avg 34 damage total. Pretty good! A wizard can toss out a fireball, a 40 ft diameter circle that goes around cover. It deals an average of 28 damage on a failed save, to everything in its area. If you hit even 2 enemies, you're now dealing 56 avg damage, a good 22 more than the action-surging archer.

Spellcasters usually have more utility and options outside of combat too. And relying on mental stats means that increasing your combat stat also increases your out of combat stat too.




The reason the advice "have more encounters that use resources" works is because the wizard can't do this all day, they have limited spell slots. fighters can keep attacking all day, and get action surge back on a short rest. If you have only one big fight a day, your casters can pour all their power into one fight, making your martial characters look like kids swinging sticks and tossing pebbles while they're reshaping the battlefield, setting off mighty explosions, and paralyzing the enemy.

[MaxWilson]

You just listed an xp budget for 4-6 medium/hard encounters, or 2-3 deadly encounters. That sounds like an expected number of encounters a day. I don't understand the difference between these two statements.

Maybe you're not parroting the (annoying and wrong) common wisdom then--sorry, it's a pet peeve of mine when people say you need 6-8 encounters per day, and I thought you were doing that too.


And it's far more than just high level spell options that get complained about. Let's grab a level 5 party, compare a fighter and a wizard. A fighter with a longbow and 18 dex can action surge to put out 4 attacks. If all 4 hit they're doing 4d8+16, or avg 34 damage total. Pretty good! A wizard can toss out a fireball, a 40 ft diameter circle that goes around cover. It deals an average of 28 damage on a failed save, to everything in its area. If you hit even 2 enemies, you're now dealing 56 avg damage, a good 22 more than the action-surging archer.

Spellcasters usually have more utility and options outside of combat too. And relying on mental stats means that increasing your combat stat also increases your out of combat stat too.

IME it's more likely that the fighter is putting out 4-5 attacks at around +2 to hit for up to 5d6+65 (82) damage, and that the wizard is probably better off helping him (via Hypnotic Pattern) than trying to deal damage himself. But it's true that there are niche situations where a wizard Fireball really is the best move, and that's why most wizards should learn Fireball if they can.

One problem is though that melee fighters especially do damage which is only ~50% better than a multiclassed armored wizard using a SCAG cantrip--and multiclassing is too good at making wizards more durable than fighters. This problem is not solved by increasing the numbers of encounters per day because SCAG cantrips are at-will, and spells like Blur and Expeditious Retreat and Polymorph are cheap enough to scale well even if you've got 10 or 12 Easy encounters instead.

Another problem is the way a good Conjure Animals can completely obviate the need for melee fighters in a party, by just replacing them with animal meatshields instead. Ranged fighters are not so easy to create through spells.

There are too many other problems to talk about in this thread but that's two off the top of my head.


The reason the advice "have more encounters that use resources" works is because the wizard can't do this all day, they have limited spell slots. fighters can keep attacking all day, and get action surge back on a short rest. If you have only one big fight a day, your casters can pour all their power into one fight, making your martial characters look like kids swinging sticks and tossing pebbles while they're reshaping the battlefield, setting off mighty explosions, and paralyzing the enemy.

The reason this advice doesn't work is that cantrips are also at-will, and multiclassed, armored wizards have enough cheap defensive spell options to out-tank the fighters even when you have lots of encounters per day. Ranged fighters are fine--they still have a DPR niche while armored wizards occupy the tanking niche. But melee fighters, especially tanky ones (as opposed to GWM/PAM DPR-oriented ones) are unfortunately mostly redundant.

Which doesn't mean they can't be fun, mind you, if you go in with your eyes open. But it can be frustrating to be bad at something you thought you were going to be good at when you made the character.

[stoutstien]

11 feet? Was that just a phone typo for "1 foot"?

When you make a high jump, you leap into the air a number of feet equal to 3 + your Strength modifier if you move at least 10 feet on foot immediately before the jump. When you make a standing high jump, you can jump only half that distance. Either way, each foot you clear on the jump costs a foot of movement.

AFAICT, with 8 Str you can jump 1 foot in the air from a standing start, not 11. But it's tough to see how jumping one or two feet in the air is going to significantly change your angle against someone crouched behind a wall.

It was a typo on my part. Assuming a wall providing 1/2 cover and a medium PC how much clearance do you need to attack above it? Around a foot.
For half cover to be a factor they need at least 1/2 their body protected so jumping up a foot is probably all that is needed to expose more of the target. Same for moving 3/4 down to 1/2 cover.

[NaughtyTiger]

1.Melee weapons deal more damage than ranged weapons. There's no ranged greatsword! And sometimes taking damage can be a feature. Like why barbs have damage resistance - your HP is a resource, and every hit you take is one that didn't go towards the squishy wizard. Melee fighters also have more options in combat.


that bump in die is technically more damage, but it is noise
are you really saying +4 damage per round at tier 11 makes a difference? (d12 vs d8 if 2 out of 3 attacks hit),
our ranger/rogue sharpshooter was pumping out 54 damage per round. (admittedly that was with full sharpshooter).
the warlock owned the field with EB: damage + control.

i see more polearms in play than great weapons... die bump appears less important than range. (polearm master is prolly the bigger draw)

[micahaphone]

One problem is though that melee fighters especially do damage which is only ~50% better than a multiclassed armored wizard using a SCAG cantrip--and multiclassing is too good at making wizards more durable than fighters. This problem is not solved by increasing the numbers of encounters per day because SCAG cantrips are at-will, and spells like Blur and Expeditious Retreat and Polymorph are cheap enough to scale well even if you've got 10 or 12 Easy encounters instead.

Another problem is the way a good Conjure Animals can completely obviate the need for melee fighters in a party, by just replacing them with animal meatshields instead. Ranged fighters are not so easy to create through spells.

There are too many other problems to talk about in this thread but that's two off the top of my head.



The reason this advice doesn't work is that cantrips are also at-will, and multiclassed, armored wizards have enough cheap defensive spell options to out-tank the fighters even when you have lots of encounters per day. Ranged fighters are fine--they still have a DPR niche while armored wizards occupy the tanking niche. But melee fighters, especially tanky ones (as opposed to GWM/PAM DPR-oriented ones) are unfortunately mostly redundant.

Which doesn't mean they can't be fun, mind you, if you go in with your eyes open. But it can be frustrating to be bad at something you thought you were going to be good at when you made the character.

I guess I've never played with a caster/fighter multiclass for armor who relies on cantrips. They'd still be on a d6 hit die, and behind in caster levels, but yeah I guess that could be strong. I'm not sure what to say on that front.

In general, it sounds like your table is a lot more mechanically optimized than the ones I play on

[MaxWilson]

I guess I've never played with a caster/fighter multiclass for armor who relies on cantrips. They'd still be on a d6 hit die, and behind in caster levels, but yeah I guess that could be strong. I'm not sure what to say on that front.

In general, it sounds like your table is a lot more mechanically optimized than the ones I play on

Depends on the players really. I accomodate a wide range. It's part of my job as DM though to be aware of what is possible, which includes knowing things that I know full well these particular players are unlikely to do (like reconaissance, sigh). Right now I'm too fed up with 5E and busy with other things to play or run any regular campaigns, so it's just little stuff here and there.

[Keravath]

Holy crap!? I have TOTALLY been doing this wrong. Frack for 4 years!!!! No other DM or player has called this out either.
Okay, this definitely weakens some of my argument.

by the way, anyone else having trouble with GTIP server timing out?

Just curious ... is that serious or sarcasm?

One of the reasons I was saying ranged parties (in my experience) have so many issues with combat without melee characters is because as soon as an opponent is next to them they have disadvantage firing or casting at ANYONE. Casters are also challenged at point blank ranges if they don't have a save based or melee cantrip ... unless they use a spell slot. Also, casters in melee usually means concentration checks which will fail at some point.

On the other hand, this is the circumstance where crossbow expert + sharpshooter works particularly well ... though the character will still have a lower AC than a typical melee since they don't have a shield and are often wearing light or medium armor.

As for GITP, I've had all sorts of server issues over the few weeks or so. 503 server not responding, getting logged out, server too busy error message, very laggy posting or timeouts when posting.

[Aussiehams]

Some of this comes down to Dex being OP in 5e. If you change finesse and ranged weapons to be + Dex to hit, + Str to damage (No + damage for crossbows) it should help with this imbalance reasonably well.

[djreynolds]

I have to say that this has been a very interesting and actually polite thread... so congrats to everyone

This is what "play testing" is for. Try your ideas out.

I wanted to see how good or bad the savage attacker feat was... so I handed it out and actually tracked it.... and it was pretty good. Seriously.

Forum member brought up a +1 (from ASI) to the attack stat would be stronger, as it should be... but SA had its positives... the feat shined best at lower levels obviously... and couldn't keep up with addition of magic weapons and spells and "battle-tested" parties.

For instance the party really needed that extra 3 damage to kill a bugbear at lower levels, but at higher levels the party really learned to cooperate and focus and just obliterate stuff... there was no need for that possible 5 extra damage because there was so much "extra" magical damage on the strikes.

So I recommend to try this out at a table, and track it.

How much does -2 to ranged attacks really effect the game? At lower levels.... this could be lethal to the party, at higher levels... not so much.... maybe... who knows.

5E is strange, IMO monster ACs are lower and HP seems to be higher

I'm not sure if banning sharpshooter is fair in this particular game. So allow it and track it. The feat might become a waste.

I personally like the idea of a minus for increasing range. But something 5E tried to move away from was the tracking of multiple numbers.

You could play with ranges of ranged weapons and spells.

But the idea of just a flat -2 could work out. It is simple.

Firing off an arrow from 100ft into a fray of enemies and allies should be daunting, "not having a clear shot". But under what circumstances does "not having a clear shot" fall under. This is complicated. Your -2 makes this simple.

But I would still allow sharpshooter, with the condition that this -2 still applies (no matter what). With bounded accuracy -2 will make that -5 into well -7, and your "all around" -2 makes up for "not having a clear shot" circumstance.

So try it out and see.

[CapnWildefyr]

I am not in the 'change the rules' camp, but if you want to try some tweaks, how about one or maybe more of the following:
- Sharpshooter feat: prepend "for one of your attacks:" to it.
- Attacker moving: -1. If you moved last round and plan to move this round, or if you already moved this round, it applies.
- Target moving: -2. Target has to have moved at least 5ft, you can make it 10ft, whatever, during its immediately previous turn.
- If you want to do range modifiers, go all out. PB -5, S 0, M -2, L -5, and resurrect the weapon ranges from 2e. Probably need to keep spells at 0/-2 or 0/-5 (I'm letting -5 ~disadv) because it would be hard I think to mess with those ranges, and magic IS different.

And make sure the ranged attackers play fairly in that you can't interact with things like doors when you're holding a bow and arrow. (I forget, is drawing an arrow a free object use or part of making an attack? Anyway don't penalize just make sure all follow the rules.)

[MaxWilson]

(I forget, is drawing an arrow a free object use or part of making an attack? Anyway don't penalize just make sure all follow the rules.)

Oddly, by strict RAW weapons that use ammunition don't require you to touch the ammunition at all to use it. E.g. by absolutely strict RAW you could use a hand crossbow to shoot crossbow bolts even if you only have one hand available, since it's not a two-handed weapon. Obviously a sane DM will say, "that's dumb, of course you need two hands."

[Keravath]

Oddly, by strict RAW weapons that use ammunition don't require you to touch the ammunition at all to use it. E.g. by absolutely strict RAW you could use a hand crossbow to shoot crossbow bolts even if you only have one hand available, since it's not a two-handed weapon. Obviously a sane DM will say, "that's dumb, of course you need two hands."

As far as I know, RAW, you can fire the crossbow with one hand but you can't reload it. Loading a one handed weapon requires a free hand (PHB errata so if you haven't updated, it might be missing). The rule also states that drawing the ammunition from the container is part of the attack which would tend to imply that you have to touch it and that it doesn't magically appear on the weapon.

"Ammunition. You can use a weapon that has the ammunition property to make a ranged attack only if you have ammunition to fire from the weapon. Each time you attack with the weapon, you expend one piece of ammunition. Drawing the ammunition from a quiver, case, or other container is part of the attack. Loading a one-handed weapon requires a free hand. At the end of the battle, you can recover half your expended ammunition by taking a minute to search the battlefield."

"Loading. Because of the time required to load this weapon, you can fire only one piece of ammunition from it when you use an action, bonus action, or reaction to fire it, regardless of the number of attacks you can normally make."

[NaughtyTiger]

Just curious ... is that serious or sarcasm?

not sarcasm at all... apparently i and everyone i have played with mentally replaced "a hostile" with "your target" when it comes up (which isn't super often)

[MaxWilson]

As far as I know, RAW, you can fire the crossbow with one hand but you can't reload it. Loading a one handed weapon requires a free hand (PHB errata so if you haven't updated, it might be missing). The rule also states that drawing the ammunition from the container is part of the attack which would tend to imply that you have to touch it and that it doesn't magically appear on the weapon.

"Ammunition. You can use a weapon that has the ammunition property to make a ranged attack only if you have ammunition to fire from the weapon. Each time you attack with the weapon, you expend one piece of ammunition. Drawing the ammunition from a quiver, case, or other container is part of the attack. Loading a one-handed weapon requires a free hand. At the end of the battle, you can recover half your expended ammunition by taking a minute to search the battlefield."

"Loading. Because of the time required to load this weapon, you can fire only one piece of ammunition from it when you use an action, bonus action, or reaction to fire it, regardless of the number of attacks you can normally make."

Ah, yes, I see it now in errata. Will update my memory.

This is exactly what errata is for: not so much a rule change as taking stuff we all knew was obviously intended and fixing the written page so it reflects that reality.

Thanks for the tip.