Ranged DPR is Terrible

[x3n0n]

(which he can't even get for himself).

Nit: Vengeance can use his Channel Divinity for that. (Still nothing compared to Samurai's 3/LR + 1/encounter, of course.)

[Amnestic]

They certainly have the capacity. How often do you see them do it?

Not often, because it's usually not needed to go as far as hundreds at a time.

Early on, 100 arrows (5 quivers/cases) is usually going to be enough between "town visits". With recovery, that's roughly 150 shots. If you can strap rope to your backpack, you can presumably strap/store quivers to it too, you only really need one to be accessible at a time anyway. You can also give them to your party members to hold onto or take the noble background for retainers, if your DM is being an extra stickler about volume in a way I would start to describe as 'combative'.

Levels 1-4 you're using 1 arrow/round, and most fights aren't going to last longer than 5 rounds or so, so roughly 1/4 quiver before you need to restock the one you're actually drawing from. Levels 5-10 you're using two arrows/round, so half a quiver per battle.

And that's all assuming you're only able to have one 'accessible' quiver at a time. One on the back and one of the belt means 40 arrows per fight available, which is probably going to be enough even with 4 attacks/turn and action surging at max level.

At level 10+ chances are high they will either have a magic quiver (or bow that makes arrows for them) or some other extradimensional space that carry capacity isn't really any issue. A bag of holding is an Uncommon item, the same rarity as a +1 weapon. If your party isn't getting Uncommon rarity magic items at level 10+ then your martials probably have more issues than just carry capacity.

Ammunition does become an issue if you're on an extremely extended absence from any sort of civilisation without proper planning, sure. And if your player fails to prepare then that's on them. But between generous carry capacity, ammunition recovery rules and being able to craft them with tools+proficiency (which is not unreasonable for an archer to want) I daresay it is very very rarely going to be a problem.

[Droppeddead]

Okay, so we have a Samurai 11 with Archery/EA/SS/CBE and a Paladin 11 with GWM [using on crits]+Slasher+GWF+Improved Divine Smite. Both have 20 in their primary stat. Damage vs. ACs 13-20 (numbers courtesy of Ludic's damage calculator rounded to nearest integer as per normal rules of mathematics):

So it's not particularly close, the Paladin doesn't come anywhere near any optimal damage output on any level vs. any AC with or without advantage (which he can't even get for himself).

Vengeance Paladins can easily get advantage, any Paladin with Find Steed can easily get advantage. Your evidence is circumstantial at best. Attack for attack the paladin is better. It goes without saying that someone with more attack will have the possibility to do more damage. That wasn't the question you asked, though. So without moving the goalposts, the answer still stands. The ability of the Fighter to deal out more damage is because of their number of attacks, not because Ranged fighting is superior to Melee fighting.

(As a side note, I mixed up Slasher and Piercer, so drop that and throw in say, Savage Attacker instead.)

[Eldariel]

Vengeance Paladins can easily get advantage, any Paladin with Find Steed can easily get advantage. Your evidence is circumstantial at best. Attack for attack the paladin is better. It goes without saying that someone with more attack will have the possibility to do more damage. That wasn't the question you asked, though. So without moving the goalposts, the answer still stands. The ability of the Fighter to deal out more damage is because of their number of attacks, not because Ranged fighting is superior to Melee fighting.

(As a side note, I mixed up Slasher and Piercer, so drop that and throw in say, Savage Attacker instead.)

I asked for highest martial damage. Pally is not it, as you yourself pointed out. Same amount of levels on each side, different investment, highest martial DPR is obviously archery build since it has the best tools. The fact that Pally is a poor archer is immaterial: Pally without Divine Smite or spellcasting isn't a noteworthy damage dealer in the first place.

[Chaos Jackal]

Well, you need to read it again, then. Improved divine smite isn't a spell and doesn't need any spell slots. Can we please stick to the topic?

Apologies, I misunderstood. Didn't realize you meant that just IDS is enough to make up for the difference.

Sticking to the topic then. In such a scenario, no, IDS isn't enough. The calcs showcasing this have already been provided, but you're calling it "circumstantial", so I can't really give you anything else in that regard, since I use Ludic's calculator too.

So I'll leave you with this. You're saying that the fighter's extra attacks is what pushes archery ahead. I run a few calcs of a baseline PAM routine (2 attacks+BA) with GWM and GWF against a CBE SS EA archery routine (2 attacks+BA), both against AC 18, for maxed Str/Dex with +3 and +4 proficiency. It's much closer, but the ranged routine still wins out, with or without advantage. The increased hit chance from archery is really big. If advantage comes in, EA is absolutely massive too.

You can call that circumstantial too if you want. The evidence is there. That's as much as I can contribute to this particular topic.

[Droppeddead]

I asked for highest martial damage.

No, you didn't. You asked if "Archery style + SS + CBE + EA is better than all other martial damage dealing options?" Which it is not.

Pally is not it, as you yourself pointed out.

Per attack? It is.

Same amount of levels on each side, different investment, highest martial DPR is obviously archery build since it has the best tools.

Not really. For example, your samurai would be able to deal more damage if it was a Half-orc with the piercer feat, GWM and a pike. Zealot barbarians at level 11 does more damage through just Rage Damage and Divine Fury than the bonus from sharpshooter without the penalty to hit. Rogues critting with sneak attack and a shortsword can do 87 points of damage in a single attack (97 points with SS and a hand corssbow, 103 with Piercer). Do you count them as a "martial damage dealing option"?

TLDR; your claim that "Archery style + SS + CBE + EA is better than all other martial damage dealing options?" doesn't hold up.

The fact that Pally is a poor archer is immaterial:

Literally no-one said it mattered.

Pally without Divine Smite or spellcasting isn't a noteworthy damage dealer in the first place.

It's correct that Paladins aren't the primary damage dealers of the game. That wasn't the topic we were discussing, though. But if you don't want to talk about your original question that's fine, just say so. It was pretty much a side track from the main topic anyways.

Apologies, I misunderstood. Didn't realize you meant that just IDS is enough to make up for the difference.

No worries, apology accepted. IDS is enough, since it adds more damage. Especially on a crit. Since the point was that there are other combinations that can dish out bigger damage than the one presented, the point still stands.

Sticking to the topic then. In such a scenario, no, IDS isn't enough. The calcs showcasing this have already been provided, but you're calling it "circumstantial", so I can't really give you anything else in that regard, since I use Ludic's calculator too.

Sure, in the biased scenario presented, the option with the bias will come out ahead. My reply was just to point out that the presented statement didn't hold water.

So I'll leave you with this. You're saying that the fighter's extra attacks is what pushes archery ahead. I run a few calcs of a baseline PAM routine (2 attacks+BA) with GWM and GWF against a CBE SS EA archery routine (2 attacks+BA), both against AC 18, for maxed Str/Dex with +3 and +4 proficiency. It's much closer, but the ranged routine still wins out, with or without advantage. The increased hit chance from archery is really big. If advantage comes in, EA is absolutely massive too.

You're almost at the point. In the case I was talking about (Samurai vs Paladin) the only reason the Samurai comes out on top is because of extra attacks. If you take a a Samurai vs a Samurai, that's a completely different situation. Also, you've changed the parameters so of course you will get a different result.

You can call that circumstantial too if you want. The evidence is there. That's as much as I can contribute to this particular topic.

Nah, but to the point I was making, it's a bit irrelevant.

[Osuniev]

While I agree Archery Fighting Style + Sharpshooter make for a powerful DPR, I don't think it's that bad at the table.

However, it might be because I play with some (official) optional rules :

- Flanking provides an easy way for Melee combattant to get Advantage. There is much less easy sources of advantage for a ranged character.
- Variant Encumbrance seems to penalize for STR dumping (5 times your STR and your speed is reduced by 10 feet). In fact, at low levels, heavy armour is so heavy the melee martials actually can carry LESS... However, as soon as they could afford Mithril plate, their superior Strength helped them be able to carry much more stuff.

In addition to that, many enemies in my game tend to stand up, shoot, get back down behind total cover IF there isn't a melee threat nearby. Of course, there usually is... But that means the team has a real need for melee characters.

Finally, has someone mentioned, there is much more magical items for MELEE MARTIALS. My Ranger was actually complaining to me about that on the phone earlier today.

[Willie the Duck]

So, does no one make their table track ammunition?

I think, much like the 'encumbrance is a thing' clause in discussions of Str/Dex balance, it's at least fruitful to realize that enough people don't (track ammunition or encumbrance, respectively) that they make haphazard controls and perhaps poor limiters on game strength. I like both, but then again I came from the editions where encumbrance was an elaborate dance between preparedness and the ability to haul back more coinage back to town to convert directly into XP. If someone else says they didn't sit down at the game table to beancount, I can understand their point.

As for how many arrows can you carry? I'm not sure about historical archers. but i know using modern gear if I'm going to spend a long session shooting, I can comfortably carry 75 arrows (50 in the back quiver, 20 in a hip quiver, 5 on the quiver mounted on my bow). But this also means I'm not carrying anything else that doesn't fit in my pockets. Not because of weight, but simply because I run out of places to put stuff while allowing me to move freely and actually use the bow.

Quivers of 30 seem to be a pretty common historical norm. They may or may not reflect a practical maximum, or simply be how many they felt someone would need to carry at once. The modern D&D norm of traipsing across country in full kit, but without supply trains or similar, all to venture into convenient treasure-filled holes in the ground is sufficiently divorced from either historical huntsmen style archers or campaigning soldier style archers as to make these comparisons rather inexact.

20 arrows=1lb of carrying capacity.

Don't forget the weight of the quivers, though.

[Segev]

It IS worth noting that it takes two feats that are not half-feats to get your ranged warrior to be ignoring cover and having zero trouble with people being right up in their faces.

Conversely, the fighter who focuses on melee but carries a longbow (or even a set of javelins) for when he can't close with the enemy will need NO (special/feat) investment to be able to handle most situations.

Range is very nice, don't get me wrong. But in actual play, I've not seen it overshadow melee except when enormous battlefields are in place. And even then, the melee-focused characters had ways to contribute that didn't make them feel like they were falling way behind the ranged damage-dealers.

[Eldariel]

No, you didn't. You asked if "Archery style + SS + CBE + EA is better than all other martial damage dealing options?" Which it is not.

[CITATION NEEDED]

Se far it performed best of tested builds.

Per attack? It is.

Which is relevant how? Your action involves multiple attacks and your turn multiple actions. The inly relevant frame of reference is Damage Per Round.

Not really. For example, your samurai would be able to deal more damage if it was a Half-orc with the piercer feat, GWM and a pike. Zealot barbarians at level 11 does more damage through just Rage Damage and Divine Fury than the bonus from sharpshooter without the penalty to hit. Rogues critting with sneak attack and a shortsword can do 87 points of damage in a single attack (97 points with SS and a hand corssbow, 103 with Piercer). Do you count them as a "martial damage dealing option"?

Wow. Every statement in this paragraph is flawed or irrelevant. DPR-wise: no, half-orc with GWM and Piercer doesn't even come close. Lacking Archery style alone means it gets far less out of GWM than SS build gets out of SS. Rogue critting is multiplied by the CHANCE of critting which results in VERY modest DPR. Use the calculator to do the math yourself. And Zealot loses out to Fighter for the same reason as the Pally: it gets a ****ty ability instead of Extra Attack 3.

No, TLDR; your claim that "Archery style + SS + CBE + EA is better than all other martial damage dealing options?" doesn't hold up.

So far you have failed to prove this. Further, you're pulling in totally irrelevant stats like damage per single attack, damage on crit (without accounting for crit rate), etc. Stick to the point (DPR), please, or this is a waste of time. I'm not replying to a post that fails to address the actual question anymore. I shouldn't need to spell out that the only damage that matters is the average reliable and nova reliable damage a character can do over a unit of time (simplest to stick to a round, but I'll listen to setup-requiring ideas averaged over their setup and execution time too).

[Droppeddead]

So far you have failed to prove this. Further, you're pulling in totally irrelevant stats like damage per single attack, damage on crit (without accounting for crit rate), etc. Stick to the point (DPR), please, or this is a waste of time. I'm not replying to a post that fails to address the actual question anymore. I shouldn't need to spell out that the only damage that matters is the average reliable and nova reliable damage a character can do over a unit of time (simplest to stick to a round, but I'll listen to setup-requiring ideas averaged over their setup and execution time too).

{Scrubbed} A Rogue *can* do that amount of damage in a round (just halve the relevant part if you don't want to deal with a crit), for example. {Scrubbed}

[Chaos Jackal]

*snip*

...

No.

"The single biggest damage number" isn't what someone is looking for when building a strong DPR routine. We don't care about a single attack. It's the average DPR we want.

You've already been shown that IDS isn't enough if you wanna compare classes. You've already been shown that with no additional class features the ranged routine comes out ahead. Giving the maximum damage from a sneak attack crit shows absolutely nothing. Your half-orc pikeman doesn't manage to get close as they lack a bonus action attack. And if you wanna bring class back in, your zealot at lv13 (with the second Brutal Critical) and GWM still loses out to a samurai of equal level. At least run the calculations first. I did by the way, which is why I am confidently saying that the above is true.

You're making unsupported claims and have repeatedly failed to give any evidence or proper arguments in favor of your positions. The math is there. If you wanna ignore it, that's up to you.

I don't have anything else to say to you.

[Sorinth]

An out of the box idea might be to boost shields and/or heavy armor to make them better against ranged attacks.

For example, giving Shields +2 AC vs Melee but +5 vs ranged attacks could go a long ways towards making ranged attacks less effective against intelligent creatures but leave them strong against beast/monstrosities type creatures.

Alternatively having damage reduction could work. Resistance to ranged damage from either a Shield or Heavy Armour or simply reduce damage done via ranged attacks similar (But worse) then the Monk could also be effective.

[KorvinStarmast]

The issue is greatly lessened when you use monsters who are sufficiently mobile to make kiting nontrivial.

someone in our party tried kiting air elementals.
Move / Speed = 90.
Oops.

[MaxWilson]

Okay, I'll revise the statement to more accurately reflect my issue:
- There's a reduced amount of interactivity with key game elements without a meaningful payoff. (A) Removing two/three categories of cover does remove a lot of the things that one would normally have to consider, I believe we can agree?
- This reduced interactivity has little upside far as gameplay goes; (B) I posit that it be preferable to reduce penalties but keep the mechanics over just removing them entirely.

I do agree that you can hide behind that log while prone, but it assumes that there's a log to hide behind. A terrain with plenty of brush but no trees for example offers no cover whatsoever from an archer (though concealment may be available). While low cover to hide behind does help, you still have to go prone behind said cover, which still restricts the ability to reach a point where one can affect the sharpshooter.

(A) I don't really agree except in the narrowest technical sense. I mean, there are niche scenarios where it's super important (hobgoblin archers firing from behind arrow slits find that the sniper is shooting them through the arrow slits!) but those are the scenarios that Sharpshooter is specifically designed for. What I'm saying is that I go out of my way during adventure design to look for scenarios where Sharpshooter or something like it would add extra value (in the same way I also go out of my way to add opportunities for sneaky characters, "face" characters, detectives, etc. to shine--so that players considering a new character can think, "boy, that last adventure should would have been easier if we had had a Rogue with us" or whatever). If it truly removed interactivity, I wouldn't have to be adding those opportunities, they'd be ubiquitous.

So I don't really agree that it removes "a lot" of interactivity. Mostly it just lets you ignore creature cover, and lets you pin certain monsters down from very far away, which... is still a form of interactivity. [thinks] I should probably have creatures try to use other creatures as cover more often though, so that non-Sharpshooters have to shift position slightly in order to maximize their to-hit bonuses, but that doesn't strike me as truly interesting interactivity that Sharpshooters are missing out on--it's just a roleplaying detail and potential opportunity to help Spell Snipers and Sharpshooters seem more like expert marksmen.

(B) It's a matter of taste I suppose. I don't find a +2 or +5 bonus to AC as exciting as immunity to attack, and Sharpshooter/Spell Sniper do nothing to remove that immunity, so as a DM I view ignoring the +2/+5 as a consolation prize and not as something which needs to be nerfed down to "you only suffer +1/+3".

[ZRN]

...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)

I think you're shortchanging melee quite a bit. The issue is that you're thinking of this like a DPS character in an MMO, where the goal is just "do a bunch of damage and don't take much in return." But most melee characters in 5e are also tanks to some degree - they're drawing attacks away from the spellcasters, AND they're locking down enemy combatants to keep them in an advantageous position. (Sentinel, PAM, opportunity attacks, etc.) It's much harder to achieve those things from range.

On top of that, several classes (paladins, monks, barbarians) are specifically built to encourage melee over ranged combat. Those classes have their own specific benefits that aren't directly tied to the type of weapons they use, but overall I think it'd be tough to argue that, say, paladins suck because they have to melee.

So what we're really talking about here is the few classes (rangers, rogues, fighters) that have access to both melee and ranged styles, and we're specifically excluding characters with any interest in actively preventing enemies from swarming the party wizard. In that context, for those specific characters, "ranged is better than melee" might well be true, but it's hardly game-breaking.

[Segev]

Am I the only one who finds the primary allure of Sharpshooter to be the ability to fire to long range without disadvantage? The other two are more than just ribbons, I acknowledge, but there are far, far fewer characters I have or would play who would even be tempted by Sharpshooter without that particular bullet. If you offered that bullet on its own, I'd be tempted, even knowing it's not really worth a feat. Offer it on a half-feat, and I would take it in a heartbeat, even without the rest of the feat. And I probably wouldn't take the other two on a half-feat in most characters I play.

[MaxWilson]

So if it's not objectively better... what is the alternative that outperforms it?

It depends on level, but especially in Tier 2, a Zealot with PAM + GWM using Reckless Attack tends to have somewhat better damage. But it also depends on how easily the Elven Accuracy user is able to get advantage. If the DM is using RAW on vision and letting the Elven Accuracy user just hang out at 70' distance (beyond darkvision range) and shoot with advantage against a target illuminated by Dancing Lights or another PC with a torch, he will wind up doing more damage than the Barbarian.

Hunter Rangers with Volley and Horde Breaker also sometimes do far better damage than Crossbow Expert does but that's niche and also not melee anyway. :)

Am I the only one who finds the primary allure of Sharpshooter to be the ability to fire to long range without disadvantage? The other two are more than just ribbons, I acknowledge, but there are far, far fewer characters I have or would play who would even be tempted by Sharpshooter without that particular bullet. If you offered that bullet on its own, I'd be tempted, even knowing it's not really worth a feat. Offer it on a half-feat, and I would take it in a heartbeat, even without the rest of the feat. And I probably wouldn't take the other two on a half-feat in most characters I play.

For me all three bullets of Sharpshooter are equally tempting/awesome.

BTW I allow anyone to with any weapon to target vital points (take a -5 penalty for a +5 to damage), which is usually not worth doing except against very soft targets like AC 8 zombies. GWM and Sharpshooter just increase the payoff to make it actually WORTHWHILE.

[ZRN]

Game designer opinion: I think the biggest issue with ranged combat feats in 5e is that they reduce counterplay.

...

And feats like Sharpshooter, Crossbow Expert, and Gunner reduce counterplay. People stop darting from cover to cover because those chest-high walls are ignored by Sharpshooter. People don't try to force them to act with Disadvantage by getting in their face because they can just fire point blank as easily as they had a melee weapon. Even the "ignore distance penalty" bit reduces interaction, since quite a few creatures just plain can't interact with things 600+ feet away other than seeking full cover. In short, those parts of the feats slide gameplay a step further towards the "just exchange attacks until one side falls over" end of the spectrum.

I feel like this presupposes one of two weird options: either the DM is giving his archer baddies feats (why would you do this?) or the DM is having his enemies act in really weird, metagamey ways because the DM knows the idiosyncratic rules.

Like, even assuming the enemies have really good knowledge about the PCs, what in-character knowledge could they have that would make them stop using cover? "Tim the Ranger over there is a legendary sharpshooter - my best bet to avoid getting shot is to stop ducking behind things and just casually stroll across an open field towards him, because he probably has a feat that lets him ignore partial cover."

I feel like this is saying Purity of Body is bad because the DM doesn't get to use poison anymore. Naw man, the whole point is for the PCs to get to feel cool when they get bitten by a rattlesnake and it doesn't do anything! If you, as DM, are working hard to avoid them getting the benefit of their feats and class abilities, you're actively impeding their fun!

[diplomancer]

Am I the only one who finds the primary allure of Sharpshooter to be the ability to fire to long range without disadvantage? The other two are more than just ribbons, I acknowledge, but there are far, far fewer characters I have or would play who would even be tempted by Sharpshooter without that particular bullet. If you offered that bullet on its own, I'd be tempted, even knowing it's not really worth a feat. Offer it on a half-feat, and I would take it in a heartbeat, even without the rest of the feat. And I probably wouldn't take the other two on a half-feat in most characters I play.

For me, the best bullet point is about ignoring cover; long range disadvantage cancelling is very good if you are pairing it with XBE, but not that important for a longbow user in most battlemaps my DMs prepare.

[MaxWilson]

I feel like this presupposes one of two weird options: either the DM is giving his archer baddies feats (why would you do this?) or the DM is having his enemies act in really weird, metagamey ways because the DM knows the idiosyncratic rules.

Like, even assuming the enemies have really good knowledge about the PCs, what in-character knowledge could they have that would make them stop using cover? "Tim the Ranger over there is a legendary sharpshooter - my best bet to avoid getting shot is to stop ducking behind things and just casually stroll across an open field towards him, because he probably has a feat that lets him ignore partial cover."

I feel like this is saying Purity of Body is bad because the DM doesn't get to use poison anymore. Naw man, the whole point is for the PCs to get to feel cool when they get bitten by a rattlesnake and it doesn't do anything! If you, as DM, are working hard to avoid them getting the benefit of their feats and class abilities, you're actively impeding their fun!

Well said. I go out of my way to have enemies use cover in ways that a Sharpshooter will get to ignore.

Range isn’t great unless your whole party is ranged. Then things change. Otherwise, if even one ally is melee you just incentivize most enemies to pound melee friend into the dirt.

IME a better strategy is for that one melee guy to act as a stalking horse to flush enemies out of cover, and then he acts defensively (grapples if there are only one or two, or Dodges if there are many, and threatens opportunity attacks) while the ranged guys do the damage. This is one reason why maxing Str isn't particularly important on Paladins compared to maxing Charisma, IMO: Str 16 is plenty to let you grapple and wear heavy armor.

[x3n0n]

Am I the only one who finds the primary allure of Sharpshooter to be the ability to fire to long range without disadvantage? The other two are more than just ribbons, I acknowledge, but there are far, far fewer characters I have or would play who would even be tempted by Sharpshooter without that particular bullet. If you offered that bullet on its own, I'd be tempted, even knowing it's not really worth a feat. Offer it on a half-feat, and I would take it in a heartbeat, even without the rest of the feat. And I probably wouldn't take the other two on a half-feat in most characters I play.

I'm surprised to hear that. The ranges that make sense to me are <30ft, 30-80ish, and 80-120ish, and "longer than that".

In that rubric, Sharpshooter jumps slings and hand crossbows from "close range only" up to that 80-120 range, and everything else jumps up to "longer than that".
If I weren't already wedded to hand crossbow or to sling for some reason, that would not be my primary attraction.

[LudicSavant]

I feel like this is saying Purity of Body is bad because the DM doesn't get to use poison anymore.

It’s not saying that at all.

Counterplay is very much *not* saying that you shouldn’t be able to negate abilities. Quite the opposite, in fact. It is about the particular ways in which you do so.

Resistances and immunities have the effect of encouraging players to diversify their elemental portfolios, and adds an extra layer of strategic consideration to (for instance) Wizards choosing their spells. That’s a good thing.

There’s a ton of work done on this subject by fellow game designers, I suggest looking it up, it’s a great read! :)

I feel like this presupposes one of two weird options: either the DM is giving his archer baddies feats (why would you do this?) or the DM is having his enemies act in really weird, metagamey ways because the DM knows the idiosyncratic rules

Neither of these are necessary presuppostions. Some of the counterplay issues described would still happen even if the DM never built NPCs using PC abilities, and always played their creatures in exactly the same way against sharpshooters and non-sharpshooters. One of the reasons for this is because the PC’s behavior still changes.

When removing the cover ignoring bit from sharpshooter, and playing enemies *the same,* player behavior changed dramatically. They used a variety of tactics to seize map positions for better firing lines, or bait enemies, or flush them from cover with aoes, or the like. All to negate that partial cover benefit.

Not even just the person with the feat — *every PC at the table* played differently when that one party member had that one little tweak. Suddenly ranged encounters were playing out more like Xcom (or perhaps more accurately but more obscurely, Atlas Reactor, since that game has fronliner roles alongside xcom-y ranged types).

Like, even assuming the enemies have really good knowledge about the PCs, what in-character knowledge could they have that would make them stop using cover? "Tim the Ranger over there is a legendary sharpshooter - my best bet to avoid getting shot is to stop ducking behind things and just casually stroll across an open field towards him, because he probably has a feat that lets him ignore partial cover."

This is yet another way that the case doesn’t line up with Purity of Body. PoB is an associated mechanic, and therefore one can, totally in character, say “don’t use poison on the Monk, because...”

Associated vs dissociated mechanics is a whole ‘nother kettle of game design worms we could get into.

[HPisBS]

But my more serious question is, what can be done to fix this? IMO good fixes are surgical. A few core rule changes that come up frequently so that everyone can remember them. Don't nerf, just ban. Don't buff, add something made completely of whole cloth. If you are going to change something, make it on the fringes of normal play such that people won't come to the table with an ingrained notion of how things "should" work. I listed a few ideas above, but I'm curious to see if we can reach a consensus on this point.

• Sharpshooter needs to go. Period. Massive power attack damage at range is bad design. Removing partial-cover-based counterplay is also bad design. Massive range bonuses here are unnecessary and make kiting trivial. Nothing to be retained here.

Nah, slight nerfs are all that's warranted here, imo.

Just make it so that a Sharpshooter can only get 1 benefit at a time. Either power attack, or long-range without penalty, or ignore partial cover (or maybe just count ¾ cover as ½ cover instead). It's the combination of these factors that pushes the feat beyond the pale.

• Xbow expert needs to be eliminated as well. Letting crossbow users attack faster than longbow users or swordsmen is silly. Shooting in close range is, once again, just removing counterplay options.

Should someone with a pistol have a hard time shooting at point blank range? If anything, point blank ranged attacks should provide the defender with a chance for an opportunity attack.

The extra attack, however, really is bad. That should say "... you can use a bonus action to attack with a hand crossbow you are holding, if it was already loaded. You are unable to draw or load a hand crossbow as part of this attack.


Segev's version of Mounted Combat is good and intuitive. It's basically how I'd do it anyway.

• Finally, if all this isn't enough (and I think it might not be) apply a simple scaling penalty to accuracy based on range. "Every 20' is -1" or something similar, a la fire emblem. Suddenly those numerous accuracy buffs don't matter as much and the DPR begins to drop off and archers have a clear incentive to approach.

So... instead of disadvantage, attacking at 550 ft with a longbow would be a -20 penalty?

Yeah, I don't think that'd fly. lol

[Chaos Jackal]

It depends on level, but especially in Tier 2, a Zealot with PAM + GWM using Reckless Attack tends to have somewhat better damage. But it also depends on how easily the Elven Accuracy user is able to get advantage. If the DM is using RAW on vision and letting the Elven Accuracy user just hang out at 70' distance (beyond darkvision range) and shoot with advantage against a target illuminated by Dancing Lights or another PC with a torch, he will wind up doing more damage than the Barbarian.

Mostly true indeed. By my calcs, without advantage on either side, a zealot is slightly stronger than CBE+SS+EA+archery, while basically being equal if both sides have advantage, against middling AC. Against higher AC it's still in favor of the sharpshooter. Ultimately, they're about equal, all things considered, with maybe a very slight barbarian edge.

Only works in tier 2, but they're some of the most commonly played levels, so it certainly amounts to something.

[SpanielBear]

What are the real issues here? Like, I’m hearing the white-room arguments loud and clear, sure, but are people as GMs:

- Seeing players at their tables with buyers remorse because they picked a martial?

- Having less fun combats- I mean actually, not just in theory.

- Finding sharpshooters and ranged in general something that needs to be penalised because the feedback you are getting from players is “y’know, I feel like this is too powerful and I’m not feeling challenged”

- (blue text) agreed that Elvish Accuracy is a cursed feat and the *real* problem here, because I am tired of seeing it over and over and over again in every martial theorycraft! (End blue text. Sorry, on phone, can’t edit)

Like, I get the math of how in an ideal situation it’s better, I don’t need that proven. What I do feel like I need to see is that it is actually a problem here.

[LudicSavant]

I love this, it really helps me to encapsulate what I dislike about sharpshooter. Not that its powerful - you spend a feat on it, it should be - but that it reduces strategy by having no counterplay, which just makes the whole thing dull. My current fix for Sharpshooter is to only let one of its features apply at a time. This way the presence of terrain is still interesting, by choosing to ignore it the archer is making a decision of accuracy over power, as they won't be power attacking.

In general I think ranged is strong, the ability to kite is powerful given the immense range of many spells and longbows. I think in general this isn't a problem, the problem is encounter design. It's only bothered me when I have battles in a wide open space with enemies that have poor ranged options, so one of those needs to be fixed. I'm likely going to start giving enemies long range attacks, that either do little damage or are firing from their long range, to offer a counter to attacking from high range, while still rewarding it (disadvantage on the monster's counterplay).

I'm glad you found it so helpful!

but that it reduces strategy by having no counterplay

For the sake of precision I would note that it does still have counterplay, just reduced counterplay.

[Battlebooze]

Let me get this straight, y'all find one narrow area where some martial classes outperform spellcasting classes in Dungeons and Dragons and y'all wanna nerf it? If you are a martial class that is terribly good at killing single targets at a range then in all likelihood that is the only thing you're good at. A ranged martial class probably sucks at tanking, healing, support, blasting, diplomacy, traps, obstacles and magic. MAYBE they're decent at ONE of those things.

In my experience playing as a archery focused fighter with sharpshooter is that it looked better on paper than in reality. Melee warriors can hit more reliably and almost just as often due to flanking rules, and most encounters are not in wide open spaces but in dungeon rooms or magical mist or darkness or narrow passage ways. Monsters often have ways of negating martial classes wholesale and that includes the ranged ones too. D&D 5e is designed as a dungeon crawler and all of those cool advantages of being an archer go out the window.

To be honest if you take away sharpshooter's benefits you may as well take away bows and crossbows. Why would anyone play a bad ranged martial character when they can instead play a good spellcasting ranged character?

I was thinking the same thing. I'm currently running a sharpshooter Gloomstalker DPS build, Yes it is effective and fun. It's also not a cake walk because I have to use tactics to avoid getting trapped and pinned down. My character tends to be a big target because I can lay out the hurt on one single target. Lots of enemies is something I don't like to see.

This character though, is NOT more effective than the party greataxe bear barbarian than can walk into hordes and lay down massive smack while tanking more damage than I could ever dream of taking. Nor is he more powerful than the bard who drops fireballs and counterspells the casters. Or the healing Cleric with spirit guardians that is a walking death field and keeps everyone alive.

Sure, you could nerf martial ranged attacks, but then you would be taking away one of the few competitive martial builds.

[Segev]

I'm surprised to hear that. The ranges that make sense to me are <30ft, 30-80ish, and 80-120ish, and "longer than that".

In that rubric, Sharpshooter jumps slings and hand crossbows from "close range only" up to that 80-120 range, and everything else jumps up to "longer than that".
If I weren't already wedded to hand crossbow or to sling for some reason, that would not be my primary attraction.

For me, I want it on characters who are strength-based because it makes javelins and the like into something I can use when I can't close with the enemy instead (I know, close to 30 feet and throw, but still...), or on an archer because I actually want to be shooting at what you call "longer than that."

This has come up for me a few times. Anecdotal, but I never claimed my reason for finding Sharpshooter's long-range bullet to be the most attractive was anything but.

[greenstone]

As a GM, I dislike the power of ranged combat, especially the Sharpshooter feat, because the lack of counterplay (a term I just learned from this thread) means I get bored.

I can have fun putting my monsters behind cover and moving back and forth and so on (using all the scatter terain that I enjoy painting), or I can just have them stand in the middle of an empty field. It makes no difference.

In my current game I added morale rules, where players can do things other than "hit foe." In a couple of combats, characters sucesfully made intimidation checks to make their foes flee. Only for the archers to shoot them all in the back as they ran away. So, what exactly was the point of the intimidate? As a GM, there's nothing for me to do except just leave the foes toe to toe and roll the same dice every round until someone is dead. Boring.

If I try to add some tension by having foes bearing down on the players from a distance ("The warg-riding goblins charge across the field, spraying dirt and grass behind their charging hooves, screaming prayers to their strange gods!") the archer players just go "How far away are they? 600ft? Cool, we get 10 free rounds of attacking." Boring.

Boring boring boring.

I like this thread, it's given me lots to think about.

One thing I have considered adding is allowing crossbows to be fired while prone.

The disadvantage for moving also sounds good. Perhaps "If a creature used the Dash action, all ranged attacks against it are at disdvantage until the start of its next turn."