Quote Originally Posted by MaxWilson View Post
I don't know if we can concede that, under RAW. In corner cases, yes. Often? That remains to be shown. One of the reasons I want to see people proposing concrete scenarios is to see what "often" looks like to them, and whether they are overlooking any options.

I will readily concede that a well-built party of mixed spellcasters and ranged guys will often outperform the all-ranged-martials party, but that's not what you proposed.



Sharpshooter for sure, assuming they know how to do teamwork. Sharpshooter has an easier time applying force in tight quarters, and not much difficulty applying force at close range either; a melee guy would have a better AC than my typical Sharpshooter, but that won't matter because a PC won't do the tanking, one of the Bard's or Wizard's summons will. And if I'm wrong, and the Sharpshooter has to tank, he still can (shield and rapier), far better than a GWM guy can apply force from the backline.

Notice that I'm making some assumptions about level, since you didn't say (are you keeping it at level 6 like I did?), which reveals my own biases. I find 5E boring in Tier 1.



Or the Bard. Conjure Animals, Polymorph, Animate Objects are all common in bards IME. By mid Tier 2, I expect somebody to have at least one summoning spell, and if not, well, we'll work something out. If this is happening at 6th level as in my scenario then Conjure Animals and Aura of Vitality are both possible. We'll see.



Eh. The Rogue makes a better tank actually, due to Uncanny Dodge. Fewer HP lost per round, especially when Dodging. But if the Rogue took Athletics Expertise then we can cooperate to Grapple/Prone small groups of toughish monsters, which turn out to be common-ish from what I can see of Kobold.club's monster generation for level 6, so that he and I can both attack.



Maybe, but if it's a level 6 one shot endurance crawl in a labyrinth then I'm playing a Battlemaster, not an EK.



Partly because that's a different argument, which goes: "spellcasters can replace melee PCs with summons far more easily than ranged PCs."



Also putting Darwinian pressure on the squishies to evolve into the non-squishy form you mention.

Although even a "typical" AC 14ish + Shield wizard can block a doorway okay if needed, while Dodging. He just burns Shield slots to do it.



We'll see. I'm interested in learning more about the parameters other people expect in actual play. I'd like to hear more about your party bard, rogue, and diviner for example. Not just builds but player behavior, and also DM procedures that may affect dungeon crawls.

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Edit: Here's a question for readers, especially DMs: let's say the party in the labyrinth stumbles across a lamia and bulezau in one of those 10' x 30' clearings. The DM is using regular PHB round-robin initiative. On the first character's first turn in combat (including monsters), are the PCs inside the room or still outside the door (if there is one) or doorway? Does it depend on what the players were doing before opening the door / moving up to the doorway?

Being outside the room and having to move through other PCs as difficult terrain can easily cost melee PCs a round, but it's not easy to narratively justify giving them a free round even if there is a door, and without one it's blatantly gamist.
IMO the new summons with ranged attacks seem to be able to supplement for ranged characters at least as well as the new melee summons supplement for melee characters. That’s not all summons by any means but it’s still something to consider.

A curved passage leading into a 5ft door way can be common and will really hinder the archer party. As the curved passage will prevent at least some of the back ranks from shooting into the room.

Intelligent enemies can all get adjacent to the wall with the door the archers are coming through.

Aoe abilities will be particularly hurtful to those archers. Even small cone shaped ones like burning hands.

There’s grappling and dragging the point man out of the doorway.

I run totm. When it comes to calling for initiative, I’m probably calling for it after all the players are just inside the room unless they do something to initiate combat sooner. Or if the space themselves out too much I’ll call for it with only some of the party in the room.