Ranged DPR is Terrible

[ZRN]

I'm actually a big fan of just using an adjusted proficiency bonus for attack/spell DC and then having the attributes only impact skills and class features.

For example a Wizard with Int 18 vs 14 would have the same spell DC but the number of spells they can prepare will still be impacted. So having a high main stat will still be good, it just won't be mandatory and thereby rolling good/bad won't have as big an impact on how effective your character is.

The biggest downside I could see is that some classes would be encouraged to dump their "primary" stats. Every paladin would have a higher Cha than Str, every wizard would have a higher Dex than Int, etc.

[Xervous]

The biggest downside I could see is that some classes would be encouraged to dump their "primary" stats. Every paladin would have a higher Cha than Str, every wizard would have a higher Dex than Int, etc.

And the convenience of old becomes the new measure of parity. Do we then follow this slippery slope down to standardized packages where players have no numeric input, just the ability to select subclass and spells?

[MaxWilson]

And the convenience of old becomes the new measure of parity. Do we then follow this slippery slope down to standardized packages where players have no numeric input, just the ability to select subclass and spells?

Why should they have to / get to select subclasses and spells? Why not just choose between pregenerated PCs? (Warrior, wizard, valkyrie, elf.)

What is the design goal of eliminating attributes? Clearly it does nothing to make melee more viable. It's a red herring.

[Amdy_vill]

...by which I mean that its terrible how easy it is to kill things from range in 5e. Pretty much no matter how you look at it, ranged DPR is only slightly behind melee DPR, and ranged DPR has other massive advantages, including:

1. Ranged play both enabling kiting and countering kiting. A melee character who wants to kite has to have twice the movement speed available AND be able to fly to kite and/or counter kiting as effectively as a ranged character. This leads to a lot of encounters becoming really really imbalanced really quickly, depending on who has more ranged DPR and/or who has more movement.
2. If range of engagement is high (basically any outdoor scenario) a ranged character can often get 2-3 rounds of damage in for free even if kiting is impossible.
3. Vast majority of monsters have limited ranged options meaning that this style tends to be very effective.
4. Target selection. Picking off the wizard in the back while everyone else fights the zombie horde.
5. The Archery style is simply more useful in t1 and t2 than almost any other style, particularly when combined with Sharpshooter.
6. Needs to worry about opportunity attacks, grapples, and other such things far less frequently.

For contrast, melee has the following advantages

1. works better against prone enemies (who aren't moving anyway)
2. don't need to worry about cover (circumvented by Sharpshooter, and ranged characters don't have to move any more than melee characters to deal damage)
3. don't need to worry about enemies getting into melee (Crossbow Expert and BA disengage circumvent this)
4. More magic weapon options?
5. TWF is sorta good sometimes (mostly for rogues and at low levels)

Now, I'm not one to argue that 5e needs to be a balanced game. Its fine if certain strategies are better. However.

1. Ranged play is boring because there are few tactical decisions beyond "sit in one place and loose arrows" or "run away and loose arrows."
2. Melee combat is relatively complex because lots more mechanics come into play in melee. Opportunity Attacks, reach, grappling, shoving.
3. Because throwing weapons are terrible, strength-based characters have little way to contribute in a lot of these scenarios.
4. Having to design encounters while bearing in mind that the party can and will kite the vast majority of enemies to death is annoying and limits a lot of "field" encounters.
5. Lots of classes and archetypes are heavily pigeonholed into melee combat and simply don't get to use their class features at range. Even if these classes end up being 'good' at range, (like the Kensai) it feels bad because you probably didn't pick monk to shoot arrows all day.

All of the above can be planned around. Maybe everyone just chose to optimize for utility or melee because that's their interest. Maybe you can design encounters cleverly, giving the enemy total cover, you can have enemies gate in directly behind the players, you can run incredibly quick monsters who can nullify the advantages of range, you can have time pressure that forces the PCs to approach... but at some point we're just falling into Rule 0 fallacy. You can fix any problem with lots of clever GMing, but wouldn't it be better to create a general solution before mucking about so much with encounters? I can already think of a few possibilities.

• nerf ranged damage heavily. Ban Sharpshooter, drop EB down to a d8 or d6. The idea would be that although kiting would still be very powerful sometimes, melee would be more useful in a lot of other scenarios. The upside here is that damage doesn't need to be that much better for people to feel that melee specialization is worth it. Has the downside of potentially making certain other spells like Animate Objects even stronger than they already are. It's probably best to still have certain classes be able to dish out (relatively) crazy damage at range if they specialize heavily in that one thing, I just don't want it to be so easy.
• Add a default action called "charge" that allows a character to increase their movement by half and make (one) melee weapon attack at the end of their movement. This would give melee characters a way of running down enemies who are trying to kite them. (ofc this doesn't do anything against flyers but that's a separate problem.)
• Lower max ranges for ranged weapons and/or limit how easy it is to get huge boosts to movement. (or maybe cut their effective range in half if they move at all on their turn? But then this starts to look like 3.5....)

Not saying any of these would work great, but I figure that people here will correct me an I'll at least learn something.

I have generally found that while these advantages exist on paper in practice they are almost never present unless you as the dm build battlefields around them. I do agree that ranged combat is generally boaring but that's IMHO is less of it is good and more of it not having support and interesting option. thing like PAM, GWM, Sentinal and the damage feats give melee character or more aptly the Pam GWM character depth and decisions to make in combat that ranged characters lack. ranged characters only receiving support that in practice doesn't help in combat, sneak attack and a choice of two fighter subclasses that are ok but could be better and give more interesting options.

[MaxWilson]

I have generally found that while these advantages exist on paper in practice they are almost never present unless you as the dm build battlefields around them.

Sounds like it's time to examine some concrete scenarios and talk about who has the advantage in them, under RAW.

Dungeon crawl: labyrinth of 5' corridors and occasional 10' x 30' clearings full of either monsters (50%), treasure (25%), or scenery (25%). Monsters are randomly generated as Medium off Kobold.club for the 6th level party. Short resting results in being attacked by a Medium encounter on a roll of 4-6 on d6.

Who's going to kill more monsters with less HP loss, a party of four Sharpshooter Dex Arcane Archers, or a party of four Str GWM Champions? (Or Str GWM Vengeance paladins if you prefer.)

I predict the archers, because they can take turns equipping a rapier and shield to frontline + Dodge as point man while the other three Archers shoot from behind them. They'll take less than half as much damage as the Champions while doing more than 3/4 as much damage, ergo they're 50% more effective than the Champions and will kill more monsters / get more treasure faster.

[Sorinth]

The biggest downside I could see is that some classes would be encouraged to dump their "primary" stats. Every paladin would have a higher Cha than Str, every wizard would have a higher Dex than Int, etc.

For sure certain class abilities would probably need to be reworked, we already see WotC moving towards using Proficiency rather then Attribute for class abilities (Bladesinger as an example). But this concept is for sure more of a 6e type change since there are plenty of rammifications (Some big, some small)

But even as is I doubt they would dump their primary stat, not only is it debateable that Strength is the primary stat for Paladins, but it's not like you would dump strength, you still need 15 str for heavy armor, it still adds to damage for attacks, etc... A Wizard still wants a decent intelligence in order to prepare more spells so they aren't dumping Intelligence either.

EDIT: I would also point out that I don't think it's really a downside. Having a Battleaxe wielding Fighter that isn't Hercules strong but relies on experience and smarts is actually a positive even if it means my fighter's best stat is no longer Str/Dex.

[ZRN]

Why should they have to / get to select subclasses and spells? Why not just choose between pregenerated PCs? (Warrior, wizard, valkyrie, elf.)

What is the design goal of eliminating attributes? Clearly it does nothing to make melee more viable. It's a red herring.

Agreed it does nothing for this specific issue - sorry to get off-topic.

In response to the slippery slope blue text, I think my particular version (decoupling attack rolls & spell DCs from attributes), if handled carefully (i.e. at the start of an edition rather than shoehorned in as a house rule), would potentially allow for MORE meaningful flexibility in ability score distribution, not less. Right now, if you intend to play an effective character, maxing your primary ability score is a sort of feat tax; it would be great if you could BENEFIT from maxing that score, but a level 16 character with 15 in its primary stat wasn't automatically terrible. It would go better with various archetypes, too, like the seasoned veteran who's no longer the quickest/strongest/etc. but who knows a bunch of tricks (feats over ASIs).

[Segev]

Sounds like it's time to examine some concrete scenarios and talk about who has the advantage in them, under RAW.

Dungeon crawl: labyrinth of 5' corridors and occasional 10' x 30' clearings full of either monsters (50%), treasure (25%), or scenery (25%). Monsters are randomly generated as Medium off Kobold.club for the 6th level party. Short resting results in being attacked by a Medium encounter on a roll of 4-6 on d6.

Who's going to kill more monsters with less HP loss, a party of four Sharpshooter Dex Arcane Archers, or a party of four Str GWM Champions? (Or Str GWM Vengeance paladins if you prefer.)

I predict the archers, because they can take turns equipping a rapier and shield to frontline + Dodge as point man while the other three Archers shoot from behind them. They'll take less than half as much damage as the Champions while doing more than 3/4 as much damage, ergo they're 50% more effective than the Champions and will kill more monsters / get more treasure faster.

While I agree that it's hard to imagine that melee warriors will outshine ranged ones in most situations, I have to point out that you're assuming, here, that the kobolds or whatever are all dumb enough to line up single file and attack the lead guy in melee, one at a time. The reason melee is useful in the described scenario is because the monsters can lurk around corners, forcing the ranged characters to either expose themselves or be unable to get line of sight.

I would further contend that an optimal build even in the scenario as you described, with an unspoken assumption that the monsters will line up and come at them in single file, would likely be one to two melee characters to take the front position(s), so that they can dish out effective damage while tanking the hits. If two, the one in the second position uses a reach weapon. Both can use ranged weapons, even if not as well, if the monsters start far enough away that they don't charge into melee in the first round.

Add in my assumption that monsters will lurk around corners, and the melee guys will actually be the first ones to get a bead on them and be able to attack.

[ZRN]

Who's going to kill more monsters with less HP loss, a party of four Sharpshooter Dex Arcane Archers, or a party of four Str GWM Champions? (Or Str GWM Vengeance paladins if you prefer.)

I predict the archers, because they can take turns equipping a rapier and shield to frontline + Dodge as point man while the other three Archers shoot from behind them. They'll take less than half as much damage as the Champions while doing more than 3/4 as much damage, ergo they're 50% more effective than the Champions and will kill more monsters / get more treasure faster.

1. I think that the game is designed around a heterogynous group - I'm sure you'll concede that even in this scenario, 3 archers + 1 wizard with Fireball is usually going to be far superior, as would 3 archers + 1 champion Str fighter (who's at least somewhat better at blocking a hallway than an archer with a rapier and shield).

2. Most melee builds have one of two primary goals: either they're "tanks" (able to take a lot of hits in melee, some ability to block enemy attacks and defend allies) or they're "skirmishers" (lots of mobility, able to lock down and take out high-value targets). Those goals only really shine in a heterogenous group context. What's the point of zooming around and stunning enemies as a monk if nobody can take them out quickly? What's the point of blocking the hallway and taking all the hits as a barbarian if everyone else in the group is just as tough? Etc.

3. Almost all ranged martial builds have the same primary goal: they deal as much damage as possible to high-value targets without taking much damage themselves. That's a role that remains effective even without heterogenous group support, but that doesn't mean 4 archers is better than, say, one archer, one paladin, one wizard, and one cleric.

[LudicSavant]

1. I think that the game is designed around a heterogynous group - I'm sure you'll concede that even in this scenario, 3 archers + 1 wizard with Fireball is usually going to be far superior, as would 3 archers + 1 champion Str fighter (who's at least somewhat better at blocking a hallway than an archer with a rapier and shield).

You are right to think in terms of heterogynous groups, but sadly GWM Str Champions aren't even very good at blocking a hallway, as they are unusually squishy for Fighters (particularly pre-18), and light on control to boot.

Now make that a sword and board Rune Knight or Eldritch Knight and we're cooking with gas.

[MaxWilson]

While I agree that it's hard to imagine that melee warriors will outshine ranged ones in most situations, I have to point out that you're assuming, here, that the kobolds or whatever are all dumb enough to line up single file and attack the lead guy in melee, one at a time.

You know me well enough to know that I'm not planning a one-trick pony, even if I only described one trick in that post.

If you want to roll things out as described, I'm game. Who actually wins may depend upon what monsters get rolled up (melee party's best chance of pulling ahead is to exploit the grappling/prone advantage synergy against small groups of melee monsters), and how the rooms are arranged, but I'm confident that the ranged party is not going to come out looking bad, despite the cramped dungeon quarters.

@ZRN yes, combined arms is usually better and a wizard would be a good addition, but is out of scope of the comparison I'm trying to draw here (examining andy's claim that ranged is only good when the DM deliberately tries to make it good). I think adding a melee fighter to the ranged party could help or hurt (now you're limited by his HP instead of being able to rotate all four fighters freely), but it's also out of scope (because even if true, it's just another way of showing that ranged is good in that dungeon).

3. Almost all ranged martial builds have the same primary goal: they deal as much damage as possible to high-value targets without taking much damage themselves. That's a role that remains effective even without heterogenous group support, but that doesn't mean 4 archers is better than, say, one archer, one paladin, one wizard, and one cleric.

Fortunately it's also cheap for ranged martial builds to pick up a secondary specialization in tanking. I picked Arcane Archer partly because they're relatively BAD at it, whereas e.g. a Samurai or EK makes a good tank even when he's primarily an archer. I wanted the comparison to be biased against ranged guys (no switch-hitting) so we can get a cleaner comparison of "pure" ranged vs "pure" melee. If even an Arcane Archer can tank well enough to make GWM melee guys redundant then clearly ranged combat doesn't rely on DM custom tailoring.

[LudicSavant]

You know me well enough to know that I'm not planning a one-trick pony, even if I only described one trick in that post.

If you want to roll things out as described, I'm game. The ranged party is not going to come out looking bad, despite the cramped dungeon quarters.

@ZRN yes, combined arms is usually better and a wizard would be a good addition, but is out of scope of the comparison I'm trying to draw here (examining andy's claim that ranged is only good when the DM deliberately tries to make it good). I think adding a melee fighter to the ranged party could help or hurt (now you're limited by his HP instead of being able to rotate all four fighters freely), but it's also out of scope (because even if true, it's just another way of showing that ranged is good in that dungeon).

Ahh yeah. You definitely don't "need a DM to deliberately try to make it good," the archers should do great.

In terms of just raw, on-turn DPR, I doubt melee characters will pull ahead in any significant way in more situations than not.

I think that those melee characters who are really competitive are often controlling space via their presence. Having something like the Soulknife EK or Arcana Cleric Frontliner in your face is very impactful even before they take their Actions. Not to mention stuff like, say, cheese grater grapplers. These sorts of characters offer a level of disruption that a Sharpshooter Samurai doesn't.

Either that or they're bringing something else very important to the equation (like a Paladin aura).

[MaxWilson]

Ahh yeah. You definitely don't "need a DM to deliberately try to make it good," the archers should do great.

In terms of just raw, on-turn DPR, I doubt melee characters will pull ahead in any significant way in more situations than not.

I think that those melee characters who are really competitive are often controlling space via their presence. Having something like the Soulknife EK or Arcana Cleric Frontliner in your face is very impactful even before they take their Actions. Not to mention stuff like, say, cheese grater grapplers. These sorts of characters offer a level of disruption that a Sharpshooter Samurai doesn't.

Either that or they're bringing something else very important to the equation (like a Paladin aura).

Agreed, they can bring other things to the table. Although it's also pretty cheap for a Paladin to become a switch-hitter (Hexblade 2 if you can stand the RP dissonance, or Celestial 2 if you can't; Divine Soul 1-3 is also worthwhile) instead of a melee specialist, and the RoR on that investment is excellent.

[Rukelnikov]

Agreed, they can bring other things to the table. Although it's also pretty cheap for a Paladin to become a switch-hitter (Hexblade 2 if you can stand the RP dissonance, or Celestial 2 if you can't; Divine Soul 1-3 is also worthwhile) instead of a melee specialist, and the RoR on that investment is excellent.

I'm currently playing an Ancients/Archfey and it feels very themathic, no dissonance at all

[Segev]

Just from my own play experience, I'm in a high seas adventure game where two of most memorable battles have been with a giant fish-dragon and with a pirate ship. We have an arcane archer (using a modified homebrew that dramatically increases his effectiveness over the XGE subclass) and my own character, who is a rogue/monk specializing in grappling. Now, I have amazingly good stats, so that may contribute, here, but I am not even proficient with the greatbow (2d8 damage at ludicrous range, but uses str for damage so you need both str and dex to use it well) and the Arcane Archer is, but I have not been outshined by him in my opinion even when we had the pirate fight start on the open sea with great visibility such that we started exchanging fire from ranged weapons multiple rounds out.

My character dove in and swam (he has a 40 ft. swim speed) over to the other ship and scrambled up the side (Athletics feat), and started throwing people off. The other PCs boarded a round or so later and engaged in a mix of melee and ranged.

Now, one of my contributions as a (shadow) monk was casting darkness on a cannon ball that we launched into the enemy ship's prow, which stopped them from returning cannon fire, so that is a non-melee contribution of mine. But the majority of this was simply that my melee prowess was eventually useful even with multiple rounds of closing to combat, and my limited ranged capacity was sufficient to keep things fun and have me contributing even compared to the Arcane Archer. He did more, spending actual resources during the ranged fire exchange (beyond 2 ki for darkness), but in the end I would say both of us were instrumental to the victory, even discounting my darkness effect neutralizing a lot of the enemy counter-fire during approach.

In the case of the fish-dragon, it more or less power-leapt onto the boat, closing in less than a round from when we found it. And we were looking for it at the time. So melee wasn't suffering at all, there.

Now, again, I'm a highly-mobile skirmisher with swimming and climbing being as effective as running (moreso, for swimming). But I am primarily melee with a weapon I'm not even proficient with as my primary ranged option. And I think I do just fine next to a primary-ranged fighter.

[ZRN]

I think that those melee characters who are really competitive are often controlling space via their presence. Having something like the Soulknife EK or Arcana Cleric Frontliner in your face is very impactful even before they take their Actions. Not to mention stuff like, say, cheese grater grapplers. These sorts of characters offer a level of disruption that a Sharpshooter Samurai doesn't.

Either that or they're bringing something else very important to the equation (like a Paladin aura).

This is my primary point; while melee characters CAN have good damage, the real advantage of them (qua melee characters) is that they control space and protect allies in a way that martial range characters typically don't. This is true of optimized builds like Ludic's and also of fairly vanilla single-class characters - like, any Open Hand monk or Cavalier fighter or Ancestors barbarian.

Fortunately it's also cheap for ranged martial builds to pick up a secondary specialization in tanking. I picked Arcane Archer partly because they're relatively BAD at it, whereas e.g. a Samurai or EK makes a good tank even when he's primarily an archer.

It's really hard to set up a fair comparison here, because the most straightforward melee fighter (GWM champion probably) is also just pretty mediocre. Set aside for a moment that any rogue or monk will be way more mobile, and that any paladin or barbarian will probably be better at tanking; you also don't have to be Ludic to build even a straight-class fighter that's way better at moving around AND controlling space than that "default" champion fighter we're talking about.

[MaxWilson]

It's really hard to set up a fair comparison here, because the most straightforward melee fighter (GWM champion probably) is also just pretty mediocre. Set aside for a moment that any rogue or monk will be way more mobile, and that any paladin or barbarian will probably be better at tanking; you also don't have to be Ludic to build even a straight-class fighter that's way better at moving around AND controlling space than that "default" champion fighter we're talking about.

I said you can also do a GWM Oath of Vengeance Paladin if you prefer.

Dungeon crawl: labyrinth of 5' corridors and occasional 10' x 30' clearings full of either monsters (50%), treasure (25%), or scenery (25%). Monsters are randomly generated as Medium off Kobold.club for the 6th level party. Short resting results in being attacked by a Medium encounter on a roll of 4-6 on d6.

Who's going to kill more monsters with less HP loss, a party of four Sharpshooter Dex Arcane Archers, or a party of four Str GWM Champions? (Or Str GWM Vengeance paladins if you prefer.)

I predict the archers, because they can take turns equipping a rapier and shield to frontline + Dodge as point man while the other three Archers shoot from behind them. They'll take less than half as much damage as the Champions while doing more than 3/4 as much damage, ergo they're 50% more effective than the Champions and will kill more monsters / get more treasure faster.

I'm not actually sure that the GWM Fighters are bad, because they can cooperate to give each other advantage by shoving, and getting to action surge ~14-15 GWM attacks at advantage every short rest is pretty brutal. On consideration, they might actually outplay the Sharpshooters in this scenario--my prediction might be wrong! But if you prefer Vengeance Paladins for the save bonuses, or even 1 paladin and 3 fighters, go ahead.

Or ignore my scenario and devise your own, with a different party.

The whole point here is to examine the claim that "while these advantages exist on paper in practice they are almost never present unless you as the dm build battlefields around them," to move beyond stating opinions and into concrete scenarios that are actually capable of generating new insights! I'm not here on GITP just to state opinions, I'm here looking for new insights. (E.g. I think I may have changed my own mind about the GWM Fighter thing in the labyrinth, just because melee fighters synergize so well with each other as they all benefit from each other's Shoves. I've actually only run a party of mostly-melee fighters once (three PDKs and a Land Druid), and it was great fun, and now I'm remembering why.)

[ZRN]

The whole point here is to examine the claim that "while these advantages exist on paper in practice they are almost never present unless you as the dm build battlefields around them," to move beyond stating opinions and into concrete scenarios that are actually capable of generating new insights! I'm not here on GITP just to state opinions, I'm here looking for new insights. (E.g. I think I may have changed my own mind about the GWM Fighter thing in the labyrinth, just because melee fighters synergize so well with each other as they all benefit from each other's Shoves. I've actually only run a party of mostly-melee fighters once (three PDKs and a Land Druid), and it was great fun, and now I'm remembering why.)

The scenarios I'm considering run more like this:

The rest of the party consists of (e.g.) a rogue with a hand crossbow, a diviner wizard, and a lore bard. I've got two characters I've wanted to try out: Ludic's EK or samurai archer (linked upthread). Which is more helpful for my group?

The sharpshooter may do more damage, but unless he decides to charge into melee, he won't enable sneak attack for the rogue or keep the wizard safe from goblin hordes. Both characters are versatile and exciting, but I'd argue the EK enables more interesting approaches to combat with this party makeup (which I consider not atypical).

Now, let's say the guy playing the rogue wanted to play an eldritch blast warlock instead. In that case, the party is looking pretty ranged-only, so maybe going all in with the archer is a better idea! But I'd argue that's more about party choices than overall power levels.

[Frogreaver]

Sounds like it's time to examine some concrete scenarios and talk about who has the advantage in them, under RAW.

Dungeon crawl: labyrinth of 5' corridors and occasional 10' x 30' clearings full of either monsters (50%), treasure (25%), or scenery (25%). Monsters are randomly generated as Medium off Kobold.club for the 6th level party. Short resting results in being attacked by a Medium encounter on a roll of 4-6 on d6.

Who's going to kill more monsters with less HP loss, a party of four Sharpshooter Dex Arcane Archers, or a party of four Str GWM Champions? (Or Str GWM Vengeance paladins if you prefer.)

I predict the archers, because they can take turns equipping a rapier and shield to frontline + Dodge as point man while the other three Archers shoot from behind them. They'll take less than half as much damage as the Champions while doing more than 3/4 as much damage, ergo they're 50% more effective than the Champions and will kill more monsters / get more treasure faster.

That scenario is still fairly abstract...

The scenarios I'm considering run more like this:

The rest of the party consists of (e.g.) a rogue with a hand crossbow, a diviner wizard, and a lore bard. I've got two characters I've wanted to try out: Ludic's EK or samurai archer (linked upthread). Which is more helpful for my group?

The sharpshooter may do more damage, but unless he decides to charge into melee, he won't enable sneak attack for the rogue or keep the wizard safe from goblin hordes. Both characters are versatile and exciting, but I'd argue the EK enables more interesting approaches to combat with this party makeup (which I consider not atypical).

Now, let's say the guy playing the rogue wanted to play an eldritch blast warlock instead. In that case, the party is looking pretty ranged-only, so maybe going all in with the archer is a better idea! But I'd argue that's more about party choices than overall power levels.

This is a great point. When we look at examples of 4 characters of the same build we are no longer looking at how that character contributes to a typical party but rather, how much that character can synergize with himself.

To me, both parties must include one lightly armored caster like a wizard or bard or sorcerer. That's fairly typical in my experience. The real question then becomes, which party is the wizard more apt to survive and contribute in? My money is on the party of melee characters.

Fortunately it's also cheap for ranged martial builds to pick up a secondary specialization in tanking. I picked Arcane Archer partly because they're relatively BAD at it, whereas e.g. a Samurai or EK makes a good tank even when he's primarily an archer. I wanted the comparison to be biased against ranged guys (no switch-hitting) so we can get a cleaner comparison of "pure" ranged vs "pure" melee. If even an Arcane Archer can tank well enough to make GWM melee guys redundant then clearly ranged combat doesn't rely on DM custom tailoring.

IMO - choosing champion fighter for the melee guys was an odd choice for one concerned about making it biased against the ranged guys

Now, let's say the guy playing the rogue wanted to play an eldritch blast warlock instead. In that case, the party is looking pretty ranged-only, so maybe going all in with the archer is a better idea! But I'd argue that's more about party choices than overall power levels.

I've played the only melee character in a party of all ranged characters. Barbarian/Swashbuckler did wonders as my OA's hit super hard, I was extremely mobile, could grapple well, and maneuver to high priority targets with ease. It was even a character that I got to ignore conventional wisdom on and focus more on con than str or dex. I'd pit this characters party effectiveness against that of the SS CE Battlemaster I've played in the past.

[MaxWilson]

That scenario is still fairly abstract...

Not really. It's specific enough that you can do it a couple of times and then report your results; or don't do it, but discuss how you think they'd do.

E.g. 8 Nurtured Ones of Yurtrus--that's going to be nasty, but it's going to be nastiest for the melee guys.

Barghest and Bugbear Chief? Melee dudes can grapple/prone them both, if so will probably do better than the ranged guys.

IMO - choosing champion fighter for the melee guys was an odd choice for one concerned about making it biased against the ranged guys

Your choice of Champion GWM fighter or GWM Vengeance Paladin, vs. Arcane Archer? Arcane Archer is incredibly weak, and at 6th level doesn't even have its main shtick yet (bonus action Curving Shot and auto-magical arrows) and letting you pick between Champion and Vengeance Paladin means it can't be weaker than the strongest of them.

[Frogreaver]

Not really. It's specific enough that you can do it a couple of times and then report your results; or don't do it, but discuss how you think they'd do.

E.g. 8 Nurtured Ones of Yurtrus--that's going to be nasty, but it's going to be nastiest for the melee guys.

Barghest and Bugbear Chief? Melee dudes can grapple/prone them both, if so will probably do better than the ranged guys.

Not having the same challenge every playthrough is a big part of the problem as I see it. All it's going to tell you is whether the archer parties or melee parties got luckier on the random monster rolls - especially given the few number of samples we are doing.

Your choice of Champion GWM fighter or GWM Vengeance Paladin, vs. Arcane Archer? Arcane Archer is incredibly weak, and at 6th level doesn't even have its main shtick yet (bonus action Curving Shot and auto-magical arrows) and letting you pick between Champion and Vengeance Paladin means it can't be weaker than the strongest of them.

But if we use Paladins and do better, then the excuse will be that it's just going to because Paladins are awesome or we used a weak subclass for the ranged fighter. What exactly are we testing here?

[MaxWilson]

But if we use Paladins and do better, then the excuse will be that it's just going to because Paladins are awesome or we used a weak subclass for the ranged fighter. What exactly are we testing here?

Whether ranged tactics are, as andy said, only applicable in rare scenarios where the DM specifically enables them.

I.e. whether one of these two parties makes the other look like chumps in a tiny cramped labyrinth setting.

[strangebloke]

Not having the same challenge every playthrough is a big part of the problem as I see it. All it's going to tell you is whether the archer parties or melee parties got luckier on the random monster rolls - especially given the few number of samples we are doing.



But if we use Paladins and do better, then the excuse will be that it's just going to because Paladins are awesome or we used a weak subclass for the ranged fighter. What exactly are we testing here?

This is the equivalent of waving your hands in the air and saying "we can't know! It's impossible!" It's an excuse to avoid engaging with the scenario. We're not exploring deep questions of God and Humanity, we're talking about tabletop gaming.

What's pretty easy to say is that the best DPR builds in the game are ranged builds. Archery style is the best fighting style, EA is one of the best DPR feats, Sharpshooter works well with EA and Archery style. QED. Nonspecialized 'builds' also keep pace with their melee peers. The difference between a d6 shortbow and a d8 great club is simply not enough to matter and Eldritch Agonizing Blast is basically a ranged halberd-wielding fighter by itself

So its not even up for debate that in a white room where everyone gets to attack every round, ranged characters are at least comparable.

But as soon as you leave the white room and enter the wonderful world of colorful terrain... melee characters, particularly those who don't invest resources into mobility, will find themselves unable to make attacks. Anytime the range of engagement is greater than 50 feet, basically. Missing even a single turn is an awful feeling and you don't have to miss many turns before your alleged "DPR" starts to fall very very very far behind.

And if you should invest in things like boots of flying and expeditious retreat so that you can chase monsters down... well those are resources that ranged characters can put towards utility and/or more DPR.

[Frogreaver]

This is the equivalent of waving your hands in the air and saying "we can't know! It's impossible!" It's an excuse to avoid engaging with the scenario. We're not exploring deep questions of God and Humanity, we're talking about tabletop gaming.

All I'm aiming for is setting up a fair and meaningful comparative test.

What's pretty easy to say is that the best DPR builds in the game are ranged builds. Archery style is the best fighting style, EA is one of the best DPR feats, Sharpshooter works well with EA and Archery style. QED.

Not QED. It's much easier for melee to gain advantage. Also, Elves trying to utilize EA and SS/CE peak much later than variant human PAM/GWM users. Only a small percent of the game consists of level 20 character builds. Most are much lower and earlier progression into damage enhancing feats really makes a difference.

Nonspecialized 'builds' also keep pace with their melee peers. The difference between a d6 shortbow and a d8 great club is simply not enough to matter and Eldritch Agonizing Blast is basically a ranged halberd-wielding fighter by itself

In a featless non-multiclassing game maybe. Add those things in suddenly EB is pretty far behind most half-optimized builds.

So its not even up for debate that in a white room where everyone gets to attack every round, ranged characters are at least comparable.

It really is debatable though. Advantage is a huge bonus in melee's favor as it's so much easier to generate for a party of melee PC's. Wizards even get a level 1 non-concentration spell that can do this - 'grease'.

Part of your issue is that DPR theorycrafting is never based around any party - which makes it much less meaningful than it otherwise would be. Don't get me wrong, I think DPR is the best metric we have out there - but looking at a solo characters DPR in isolation of a party leaves out alot of information.

But as soon as you leave the white room and enter the wonderful world of colorful terrain... melee characters, particularly those who don't invest resources into mobility, will find themselves unable to make attacks. Anytime the range of engagement is greater than 50 feet, basically. Missing even a single turn is an awful feeling and you don't have to miss many turns before your alleged "DPR" starts to fall very very very far behind.

Yes. And ranged characters will find themselves taking OA's or firing at disadvantage - unless they invested in Crossbow Expertise or additional mobility as well.

And if you should invest in things like boots of flying and expeditious retreat so that you can chase monsters down... well those are resources that ranged characters can put towards utility and/or more DPR.

That's not necessarily true either. 5e doesn't feature magic item shops. It's possible for the party to find a single boots of flying and no other magical items useful for any other PC.

Whether ranged tactics are, as andy said, only applicable in rare scenarios where the DM specifically enables them.

I.e. whether one of these two parties makes the other look like chumps in a tiny cramped labyrinth setting.

Then why limit it to those melees? Why not any melee's? Seriously curious?

[MaxWilson]

Then why limit it to those melees? Why not any melee's? Seriously curious?

I had to pick something because I didn't want to rathole into endless discussions like this one, but I didn't "limit [discussion] to those melees." For the Nth time, if you want to ignore my concrete scenario and propose one of your own, stop hesitating and do so. Then we can talk about what happens and why.

[ZRN]

I had to pick something because I didn't want to rathole into endless discussions like this one, but I didn't "limit [discussion] to those melees." For the Nth time, if you want to ignore my concrete scenario and propose one of your own, stop hesitating and do so. Then we can talk about what happens and why.

Can we concede that an all-ranged-martials party will often outperform an all-melee-martials party, and move on to a different claim: that in a mixed-class party (which the game is obviously designed around), a well-built melee character will often (but not always) be more beneficial to the party than a well-built ranged martial character?

Let's take your "twisty labyrinth" example with my party composition example (lore bard, crossbow rogue, diviner wizard). Max, if you were joining that group for a one-shot, do you think the party would be more successful with a well-built sharpshooter or a well-built melee fighter (I used Ludic's EK vs samurai sharpshooter for readily available comparison)?

I would look at the two options and figure that unless the wizard is doing a lot of summoning, my character is probably going to end up being the guy blocking the doorway, so I might as well have a significantly higher AC and the other tricks the EK comes with.

In addition, the examples you've used so far neglect the fact that a party without spellcasters is at a significant disadvantage, and many (though of course not all) spellcasters are weaker defensively than melee OR ranged martial characters. So while your arcane archers can take turns blocking a doorway and probably survive, a typical wizard or bard probably can't, putting more pressure on the remaining party members to take care of melee.

The point here is that in actual play, melee characters have some system-level advantages (attacks of opportunity, typically higher AC) and a lot of class- or build-specific advantages over ranged characters, specifically because for all their faults the designers aren't COMPLETE idiots, so they tried to add enough goodies to classes like monk and barbarian that they'd feel relevant next to a guy who can do the same amount of damage from 100 feet away.

Now, did they succeed perfectly? Definitely not. You already pointed out an example from your play experience: high-level barbarians need a lot of work to feel relevant when so many high-level encounters involve highly mobile and/or ranged enemies (e.g. dragons). If you want to play Conan, you're going to need a build optimized for mobility AND probably some magic item help from the DM to pull it off, and even then there will be some frustrating encounters.

[Frogreaver]

I had to pick something because I didn't want to rathole into endless discussions like this one, but I didn't "limit [discussion] to those melees." For the Nth time, if you want to ignore my concrete scenario and propose one of your own, stop hesitating and do so. Then we can talk about what happens and why.

I'd like to propose this melee party.

1. Wolf Totem Barbarian
2. Ancestral Barbarian
3. Vengeance Paladin
4. Way of Mercy Monk

I believe a group like this will help highlight how melee party members synergize together better than ranged ones.

[MaxWilson]

Can we concede that an all-ranged-martials party will often outperform an all-melee-martials party, and move on to a different claim: that in a mixed-class party (which the game is obviously designed around), a well-built melee character will often (but not always) be more beneficial to the party than a well-built ranged martial character?

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.

Let's take your "twisty labyrinth" example with my party composition example (lore bard, crossbow rogue, diviner wizard). Max, if you were joining that group for a one-shot, do you think the party would be more successful with a well-built sharpshooter or a well-built melee fighter (I used Ludic's EK vs samurai sharpshooter for readily available comparison)?

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.

I would look at the two options and figure that unless the wizard is doing a lot of summoning

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.

my character is probably going to end up being the guy blocking the doorway

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.

so I might as well have a significantly higher AC and the other tricks the EK comes with.

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

In addition, the examples you've used so far neglect the fact that a party without spellcasters is at a significant disadvantage

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

and many (though of course not all) spellcasters are weaker defensively than melee OR ranged martial characters. So while your arcane archers can take turns blocking a doorway and probably survive, a typical wizard or bard probably can't, putting more pressure on the remaining party members to take care of melee.

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.

The point here is that in actual play, melee characters have some system-level advantages (attacks of opportunity, typically higher AC) and a lot of class- or build-specific advantages over ranged characters, specifically because for all their faults the designers aren't COMPLETE idiots, so they tried to add enough goodies to classes like monk and barbarian that they'd feel relevant next to a guy who can do the same amount of damage from 100 feet away.

Now, did they succeed perfectly? Definitely not. You already pointed out an example from your play experience: high-level barbarians need a lot of work to feel relevant when so many high-level encounters involve highly mobile and/or ranged enemies (e.g. dragons). If you want to play Conan, you're going to need a build optimized for mobility AND probably some magic item help from the DM to pull it off, and even then there will be some frustrating encounters.

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.

======================================

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.

[ZRN]

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.

See, this is indeed interesting to me because I personally just don't like summoning spells and haven't played a game where one of the PCs used them heavily. If we ARE at 6th level, the bard has to use one of his precious Magical Secrets to get it, and honestly it's not even on my shortlist of Magical Secrets options.

It seems pretty clear that "knowing how to do teamwork" has a pretty extensive meaning for you - not that that's bad! Especially for a one-shot dungeon crawl it makes sense to come up with optimal tactics! But if we're doing that, we can go the other way too - build a party that can see through darkness, or that coordinates grappling and other melee tactics, and you can have a very effective melee-heavy squad.

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

I dunno, I can use a level 3 slot to summon a couple brown bears (pretty mediocre low-level melee allies) or to cast fireball at a group of 8 goblins, and do about 8-12 rounds of archer damage all at once.

[Frogreaver]

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.

======================================

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.