Quote Originally Posted by MaxWilson View Post
Literally all I did was point out that having a ranged capability makes kiting much easier--otherwise you need enormously greater speed to pull it off (and you're still vulnerable to grapples). I have no interest in arguing semantics with you about whether monks count as "ranged characters" or "melee characters," only in discussing when/whether they should pick up a bow in a given scenario.
I think the question being asked boils down to this:

In some situations kiting (attacking from a distance while moving to stay out of the enemy's inferior attack range) is very effective. Almost any martial melee character is also proficient and fairly effective with at least SOME ranged weapons; they just do a bit less damage because they don't have Sharpshooter. HOWEVER, they often DO have superior mobility to ranged martial characters, either through class features (monk, rogue, barbarian) or through feats or subclasses a ranged character might be less likely to have (Mobile, eagle totem barbarian, etc). So in the cases where kiting works, shouldn't a melee character be pretty effective at it? Like, maybe they take a couple more turns to whittle down the enemy, but they're staying out of range so who cares?