Ranged DPR is Terrible

[ZRN]

[LIST=1][*]You're missing the part where the melee kill machines spent their first turn fighting the useless chafe at the door. They can't select targets, they can't get to the real enemies in time, so they just have to advance ~20feet up the field and smack some CR 1/8 guards around (who they're actually very inefficient against.) You could literally remove either side of melee combatants from the game and unless your melee PCs are specifically optimized for movement (rogues and monks) nothing would change for the first 1-2 rounds either way. The weaker guards at the door are explicitly pretty weak.

Okay, I was thinking those weaker guards were more than speed bumps. So in this scenario rogues, monks, and anyone with the fey touched feat gets through no problem. Also psi warriors, echo knights... honestly, there’s really no excuse for a melee character not to be able to get to the back lines his first round here.

[*]What are the "PC mages"? Do you mean the spellcasters? Bards, clerics, and warlocks all have an easy time getting to 19 AC, and are far less squishy than a lot of melee PC builds like rogues and monks tend to be at low levels. Ranged fighters and rangers etc. can usually get d10 hit die with 17 AC. To be blunt I don't think anyone will be too fussed about this issue, and if they are, its pretty easy for one of the casters to drop a 'hypnotic pattern' or something on the lowlevel guards. The casters are much better equipped to dealing with a lowlevel swarm anyway.

The issue isn’t just “can the bard take a couple hits” but rather “can anyone prevent all the bad guys from focusing fire on our most vulnerable person.”

[*]Not all spells need line of sight, Warlocks aren't really impacted by such tactics (they can get their full attack off on a ready EB), and ultimately all of the PCs can pull the same trick on him in reverse by using the doorway.

He’s a wizard so he can just fireball the doorway - he doesn’t need LOS. And this thread (including your recommended changes) is mostly about ranged weapons, not spellcasters.

Finally, what are the melee people.... actually doing to stop these lowlevel guards from attacking the "squishy mages"? Using two reaction attacks? Yay? Killing them (very inefficiently) so that the casters don't have to kill them (very efficiently)?

Reaction attacks, sentinel, etc. If the melee enemies are so inconsequential you can just ignore them, as you suggest, then the melee PCs are focusing fire elsewhere, where they can deal damage plenty efficiently.

[Unoriginal]

That situation still greatly favors ranged builds then. E.g. the party can plant caltrops on the approach and set a Dodging friendly like an armored zombie at the doorway to the room, and then take turns strafing the room from behind the friendly, or even moving briefly into the room if needed to get an angled shot (since friendlies can move through friendlies as difficult terrain, but enemies cannot).

Only in very niche situations is it difficult to exploit a reach or range advantage, in the 5E ruleset.

Untrue. The situation you're presenting assumes that the enemies in the room cannot get out of the PCs' line of sight, for example by putting themselves against the wall on either side of the opening, or close the door (if a door is present) and force the attackers to get close to do anything.

People adopting such common defensive tactics when an armed group is attacking is far from niche.

Remember that burrowing vampire combat challenge you created a while back? Ranged attacks are more useful in that scenario than melee attacks are.

True. But that vampire was on the offensive, and was fighting a whole group alone (aside from animals she summoned during the fight) while she had to enter the room even after the ranged combatants can start waiting for her, and had the disadvantage of not knowing where her enemies were/moved to for most of the fight.

[MaxWilson]

Most of the time, engagement ranges are going to be either (1) infinite on the plains or the desert or the high/astral sea (2) 100-200 feet in an environment like a hilly forest (3) 60 feet in darkness or on the edge of a river or finally (4) 15-30 feet indoors or in a cave or adverse weather.

These ranges seem very short to me, unless you're intentionally leaving out a broad category of mountains / hills / etc. where the detection range is a mile or so and the engagement range is "as far as your weapons/spells reach." 100-200 feet is only 30-60 meters.

FWIW military sources I've read (notably Increasing Small Arms Lethality in Afghanistan:
Taking Back the Infantry Half-Kilometer) indicate that the typical (not maximum!) engagement range in the mountains of Afghanistan is 300 meters. It would be further if using heavier guns.

Operations in Afghanistan frequently require United States ground forces to engage and destroy the enemy at ranges beyond 300 meters. These operations occur in rugged terrain and in situations where traditional supporting fires are limited due to range or risk of collateral damage. With these limitations, the infantry in Afghanistan require a precise, lethal fire capability that exists only in a properly trained and equipped infantryman. While the infantryman is ideally suited for combat in Afghanistan, his current weapons, doctrine, and marksmanship training do not provide a precise, lethal fire capability to 500 meters and are therefore inappropriate.

Comments from returning non-commissioned officers and officers reveal that about fifty percent of engagements occur past 300 meters. The enemy tactics are to engage United States forces from high ground with medium and heavy weapons, often including mortars, knowing that we are restricted by our equipment limitations and the inability of our overburdened soldiers to maneuver at elevations exceeding 6000 feet. Current equipment, training, and doctrine are optimized for engagements under 300 meters and on level terrain.

Drivers on a freeway routinely monitor activity a mile or more away from them.

Expecting to get within 100-200 feet of an enemy before being detected might not be a reasonable expectation even in hilly, forested terrain (depends on the forest really). And if you can be detected, you can be engaged - - the fight has started even if the DM doesn't make you roll for initiative yet.

Untrue. The situation you're presenting assumes that the enemies in the room cannot get out of the PCs' line of sight, for example by putting themselves against the wall on either side of the opening, or close the door (if a door is present) and force the attackers to get close to do anything.

People adopting such common defensive tactics when an armed group is attacking is far from niche.

No such assumption was made. This thing in bold? This in bold is exactly why I predicted that PCs might need to take turns moving through the zombie's space to try to get an angled shot.

Give me some credit - - I'm not going to overlook an obvious counterplay. Instead I already gave you the counter-counterplay.

[LudicSavant]

But darkness and fog don't hamper ranged combat unless you're using my houserule or something like it.

Well, there's also the factor that you have to know the enemy's square, which means you have to be able to hear them. The question is: How far away can you hear someone well enough to determine their square?

Oddly, the only official guidance on hearing distance seems to be on a chart on the official DM screen. It's not in the DMG.

[MaxWilson]

Well, there's also the factor that you have to know the enemy's square, which means you have to be able to hear them. The question is: How far away can you hear someone well enough to determine their square?

Oddly, the only official guidance on hearing distance seems to be on a chart on the official DM screen. It's not in the DMG.

True. That's actually why I edited in the words "or something like it." Earlier discussion in this thread included people ruling that obscurement + being out of hearing distance (60' IIRC?) made you unseen and effectively unheard due to being unable to distinguish many marching feet by the echoes, or something like that, therefore hidden.

That's what I had in mind by "something like it."

[LudicSavant]

Can I just mention how weird it is to me that the developers thought that the hearing distance chart was one of the most important charts to always keep right in front of the DM's face, but neglected to include it in any of the actual rulebooks?

Because that's weird to me. Hearing distance does seem important. So why is it only on the DM screen?

[MaxWilson]

Can I just mention how weird it is to me that the developers thought that the hearing distance chart was one of the most important charts to always keep right in front of the DM's face, but neglected to include it in any of the actual rulebooks?

Because that's weird to me. Hearing distance does seem important. So why is it only on the DM screen?

What evidence is there that the DM Screen was made by the same people who wrote the rulebooks? Maybe they outsourced it like they did Rise of Tiamat, around the same time period.

[strangebloke]

These ranges seem very short to me, unless you're intentionally leaving out a broad category of mountains / hills / etc. where the detection range is a mile or so and the engagement range is "as far as your weapons/spells reach." 100-200 feet is only 30-60 meters.

FWIW military sources I've read (notably Increasing Small Arms Lethality in Afghanistan:
Taking Back the Infantry Half-Kilometer) indicate that the typical (not maximum!) engagement range in the mountains of Afghanistan is 300 meters. It would be further if using heavier guns.

Operations in Afghanistan frequently require United States ground forces to engage and destroy the enemy at ranges beyond 300 meters. These operations occur in rugged terrain and in situations where traditional supporting fires are limited due to range or risk of collateral damage. With these limitations, the infantry in Afghanistan require a precise, lethal fire capability that exists only in a properly trained and equipped infantryman. While the infantryman is ideally suited for combat in Afghanistan, his current weapons, doctrine, and marksmanship training do not provide a precise, lethal fire capability to 500 meters and are therefore inappropriate.

Comments from returning non-commissioned officers and officers reveal that about fifty percent of engagements occur past 300 meters. The enemy tactics are to engage United States forces from high ground with medium and heavy weapons, often including mortars, knowing that we are restricted by our equipment limitations and the inability of our overburdened soldiers to maneuver at elevations exceeding 6000 feet. Current equipment, training, and doctrine are optimized for engagements under 300 meters and on level terrain.

Drivers on a freeway routinely monitor activity a mile or more away from them.

Expecting to get within 100-200 feet of an enemy before being detected might not be a reasonable expectation even in hilly, forested terrain (depends on the forest really). And if you can be detected, you can be engaged - - the fight has started even if the DM doesn't make you roll for initiative yet.

Sure I probably could have said 'mountaintops' alongside sea/desert/plains/astral sea for the 'practicaly infinite' distances. I could probably also mention air encounters and cloud tops and limbo. I was just expressing a list of what I thought the primary distances were while adding a few examples of each.

No such assumption was made. This thing in bold? This in bold is exactly why I predicted that PCs might need to take turns moving through the zombie's space to try to get an angled shot.

Give me some credit - - I'm not going to overlook an obvious counterplay. Instead I already gave you the counter-counterplay.

Most players I've had at my table are bluntly kind of terrible at finding the 'optimal' solution, even when I do run encounters as simple as "five guys in a room," which is almost never. Heck, lots of players will deliberately prefer a stupid approach, and from what I can tell this is far more the 'normal' dnd experience. It's why I prefer to rely on extremely naive examples where things progress as people expect.

Not that I'm really trying to persuade people as such. I'm just trying to generate discussion.

Well, there's also the factor that you have to know the enemy's square, which means you have to be able to hear them. The question is: How far away can you hear someone well enough to determine their square?

Oddly, the only official guidance on hearing distance seems to be on a chart on the official DM screen. It's not in the DMG.

yeah, this one is hard to evaluate imo. I usually end up basing it off the passive perception available versus the enemy's stealth check. Even then I'd never allow "I hear a twig snap 500 feet away and instantly know their location to within five feet" unless they had some sort of special ability. I wouldn't let a player attack someone they can't see that's more than a hundred feet away, basically ever. I realize this isn't 100% RAW but that's just me.

[MaxWilson]

Sure I probably could have said 'mountaintops' alongside sea/desert/plains/astral sea for the 'practicaly infinite' distances. I could probably also mention air encounters and cloud tops and limbo. I was just expressing a list of what I thought the primary distances were while adding a few examples of each.

Not just mountaintops. Mountainsides, hillsides, river valleys, most normal terrain. Having your visibility cut to only tens of yards is unusual (especially for those with access to drones and / or flying familiars and / or willingness to climb trees) and needs a specific justification like heavy forest, or a blizzard.

[strangebloke]

Not just mountaintops. Mountainsides, hillsides, river valleys, most normal terrain. Having your visibility cut to only tens of yards is unusual (especially for those with access to drones and / or flying familiars and / or willingness to climb trees) and needs a specific justification like heavy forest, or a blizzard.

Okay. What's your point?

The location of encounters is not actually random. It is, in fact, completely artificial and down to selection of the DM. A party might cross an entire mountain range in safety, only to be set upon as they ford a foggy swamp.

And yes, it makes a lot of sense for creatures fixated on melee to be more common in those regions.

[Witty Username]

Ranged attackers pay a significant cost in area denial and in shorter range encounters. In large open environments ranged attacks work well but in tight quarters, disadvantage on attacks (unless they have XBE or Gunner), losing actions to switch weapons, and being unable to make opportunity attacks eat at the effectiveness.
Fast opponents can hurt this as well, anything with a 60+ft move speed will over take a ranged fighter pretty quickly and once the gap is closed the advantage favors melee.
Further enemies with damage resistance can make ammunition more of a concern, unless you have silver arrows werewolves are going to suck and 1 sword is cheaper than 20-40 arrows.

Sidenote: Are magic arrows required to overcome damage reduction or is a magic bow sufficient? As I understand it magic bows overcome resistance but I don't remember ever seeing that. /Sidenote

[MaxWilson]

Okay. What's your point?

That there's a huge middle ground you're excluding when you say,

<<Most of the time, engagement ranges are going to be either (1) infinite on the plains or the desert or the high/astral sea (2) 100-200 feet in an environment like a hilly forest (3) 60 feet in darkness or on the edge of a river or finally (4) 15-30 feet indoors or in a cave or adverse weather.>>

It's more like:

(1) 200+ yards during daylight hours in normal or lightly forested terrain, riverbeds, mountainsides/hillsides, etc. unless the foe is attempting to hide.
(2) However close you approach to ridgelines if you're moving unstealthily and there happen to be monsters there (depends on PC behavior, could be half a mile if you're trying to avoid contact and they pursue you, or fifteen feet if you walk right into an ankheg trap).
(3) Usually 60' to 120' at nighttime against monsters relying on darkvision (i.e. party has no lights), or whatever the enemy's effective weapon range is if the party is using unshielded lights.
(4) 10' to roughly a hundred yards or so (half a block--in Chicago, a typical city block is 330 by 660 feet) in urban terrain unless taking precautions to keep it longer.
(5) Anywhere between 5' and maybe 100' or so in a forest, depending on forest density, unless taking precautions to recon ahead, such as having an aerial observer.
(6) As close as it takes to detect a hidden foe, depending on how good the camouflage is and how observant the observers are.
(7) Indoors or underwater or in a blizzard, sometimes as close as 5' to 20', unless taking precautions to keep it longer.

Some of that middle ground is more accessible to players who proactively seek it, some is not. I honestly think part of the problem is battlegrids/maps which train players to think primarily in terms of what is on the battlemap, which in turn leads them to have extremely skewed ideas about how big a 100' x 100' area is. (In fact, this is endemic amongst WotC designers, judging by the maps they create. They have all kinds of crazy things happening within 100' of each other on many maps, and apparently an expectation that these things just somehow don't interact because they're numbered as being different locations. Also, shows up in things like hobgoblin war camps being implausibly small as measured in feet.)

The location of encounters is not actually random. It is, in fact, completely artificial and down to selection of the DM. A party might cross an entire mountain range in safety, (A) only to be set upon as they ford a foggy swamp.

And yes, it makes a lot of sense for creatures fixated on melee to be more common in those regions.

(A) This is starting to touch on other topics like "how hard should a DM frame a scene?", so for now I'll just agree that "yes, you could technically make swamps which are always arbitrarily foggy and put your monsters exclusively there instead of in the mountains", but even there and even if the monsters are ambush predators and very good at stealth, players should still have some agency over the effective engagement distance if they use e.g. a point man. Someone has to run into the T-Rex, but as long as the players are moving it's disproportionately likely to be the point man (because of relative movement speeds), and if that point man is twenty yards in front of the next guy in the party because swamp fog cuts visibility to twenty yards, the T-Rex is approximately forty yards from that next guy, not twenty. And under such conditions it's also disproportionately easy for the PCs to escape any encounters at all just by moving quietly, which is why this comes back to question about how hard DMs should frame scenes, which BTW has no all-purpose answer, just a bunch of options based on what your campaign is supposed to be about.

[Witty Username]

Out of curiosity, how often do your parties start shooting at stuff at max range? Maybe I just prefer humanoid encounters, but parley comes up sometimes as does sneak up and rob it, or the odd attacked at night during camp (or the last time night raid on the town while they were staying at an inn). Sure when my party sees a monster at max range it is dying to eldritch blast but I don't really expect a monster to be an encounter at 600ft much less a difficult one.

[MaxWilson]

Out of curiosity, how often do your parties start shooting at stuff at max range? Maybe I just prefer humanoid encounters, but parley comes up sometimes as does sneak up and rob it, or the odd attacked at night during camp (or the last time night raid on the town while they were staying at an inn). Sure when my party sees a monster at max range it is dying to eldritch blast but I don't really expect a monster to be an encounter at 600ft much less a difficult one.

It's not necessarily shooting--sometimes the first thing done when enemies are noticed is pre-buffing, or summoning, or hiding, or fleeing. "A stern chase is a long chase" and all that.

And yes, you're absolutely right about parley--parley is the #1 reason why my players get at least character caught in melee range, although even then it needn't be all characters, sometimes just the one guy waving the white flag. Most (?) of the players/PCs are softies in terms of not wanting to use lethal force unless and until they know for sure that it's justified, so they won't necessarily open fire on a bunch of horse cavalry just because they're chasing the PCs with possibly-hostile intent.

As far as I'm concerned though that still counts as the encounter starting very far away, since allowing the other guys to close the distance is a choice the PCs made during the encounter.

[Kane0]

Oh thats a good point: only melee attacks can knock someone out rather than kill them.
Of course there is still healing and debilitating magic but its worth noting that ranged attacks are either lethal or lethal.

[Sorinth]

The main difference between me and MaxWilson is that I'm not trying to argue for 'optimal tactics' and I'm not trying to argue that ranged characters totally and utterly dominate every scenario. What I am arguing is:

Ranged characters have the advantage at almost every possible distance. The only time they come up short is if they both unable to run away and are fighting in close quarters because of fog or whatever. In that scenario, if they lack CE, they'll be forced to switch from EB or SS to... normal melee, which will put them a little behind people optimized for that exact thing. In every other scenario the ranged character has a massive advantage because a load of reasons that I listed in the OP, and in some scenarios that do come up they will outright be able to make melee opponents and allies alike feel totally useless. Features that 'help close the gap' like boots of flying or the mobile feat... help ranged characters even more.

I don't disagree that ranged PCs have advantage over melee PC largely thanks to feats and Dex being a better ability score.

Moreover, Forests do not cut your line of sight to 15 feet unless you've fallen into a ditch or something. The only time you might naturally have engagement ranges that short is in a cave, blizzard, or fog cloud. Also bear in mind: For most melee characters if there's difficult terrain the range of engagement might as well be doubled.

Most of the time, engagement ranges are going to be either (1) infinite on the plains or the desert or the high/astral sea (2) 100-200 feet in an environment like a hilly forest (3) 60 feet in darkness or on the edge of a river or finally (4) 15-30 feet indoors or in a cave or adverse weather.

I very much disagree. Do all forests cut visibility down that much, of course not but there most certainly are forests where that is the case. In many forests you have to either follow an existing path or cut a new one. Trying to move without cutting is very difficult. If your imagination is failing think of the typical "Jungle" where people are using machettes to make a path.

I also very much disagree with the idea that deserts provide infinite visibility. For some deserts sure, but deserts with sand dunes then that's clearly not the case.

[Sorinth]

The end goal of any changes should be to create variety. And by that I mean some combats should favour using ranged attacks, and some combats should favour going melee.

One small change that can help in that regard is to ignore the errata about how magic bows make their ammunition magical. If magical ammunition is extremely rare (And frankly should be) then it will help bring the melee PCs into the spotlight against certain monsters.

[MaxWilson]

I also very much disagree with the idea that deserts provide infinite visibility. For some deserts sure, but deserts with sand dunes then that's clearly not the case.

This brings us back to a point I want to stress: engagement distance is influenced by PC and monster behavior. In a desert with sand dunes, using the eyes of a familiar 100' up allows monsters who are not hiding to be detected from even further than usual (1-2 miles is not at all implausible depending on visual conditions). However, all of that is irrelevant if the attacker is an ambush predator hiding under the sand. In that case, engagement distance will be zero for whoever is on point, and for the rest of the party it will be "whatever distance we decided to keep between us and point", unless for some reason the ambush predator has a reason to prefer someone other than the point guy.

TL;DR it's unrealistic to talk about "engagement distance" as a specific, fixed number independent of player decisions. If you ignore their decisions and force a certain distance anyway, that's a very form of hard scene framing, and should not be used more than the players are comfortable with.

One small change that can help in that regard is to ignore the errata about how magic bows make their ammunition magical. If magical ammunition is extremely rare (And frankly should be) then it will help bring the melee PCs into the spotlight against certain monsters.

Good point, although you must then also nerf warlocks somehow. (And would Arcane Archer ammo still count as magical?)

[x3n0n]

One small change that can help in that regard is to ignore the errata about how magic bows make their ammunition magical. If magical ammunition is extremely rare (And frankly should be) then it will help bring the melee PCs into the spotlight against certain monsters.

Good point, although you must then also nerf warlocks somehow. (And would Arcane Archer ammo still count as magical?)

(And add Kensei to the Arcane Archer list.)

What about the spell Magic Weapon? The devs have clearly said that "Monks and the spell Magic Weapon" are intended to be the early-tier-2 damage dealers vs enemy resistances to nonmagical weapon damage.

I think you can rationalize it by errata'ing any "external" source of "magicness" to say that it imparts "magic" to ammunition of affected weapons. (e.g. Arcane Archer, Kensei, spells like Magic Weapon, class features like Forge Cleric, Sacred Weapon, and the Repeating Shot infusion.) Those force an investment from the party to make the weapon matter.

However, that *doesn't* deal with Max's first point, which is that nerfing magic ranged weapons is effectively a huge buff to RAW Agonizing Eldritch Blast.

[ZRN]

However, that *doesn't* deal with Max's first point, which is that nerfing magic ranged weapons is effectively a huge buff to RAW Agonizing Eldritch Blast.

One of the potential issues with some of the suggestions on this thread is that by focusing primarily on nerfs to ranged martial DPS, you'd be comparatively making spellcasters even more effective. (OP suggested nerfing the range of cantrips along with that of ranged weapons, but even that would be at worst an invocation tax on warlocks for Eldritch Spear.)

[MaxWilson]

(And add Kensei to the Arcane Archer list.)

What about the spell Magic Weapon? The devs have clearly said that "Monks and the spell Magic Weapon" are intended to be the early-tier-2 damage dealers vs enemy resistances to nonmagical weapon damage.

I think you can rationalize it by errata'ing any "external" source of "magicness" to say that it imparts "magic" to ammunition of affected weapons. (e.g. Arcane Archer, Kensei, spells like Magic Weapon, class features like Forge Cleric, Sacred Weapon, and the Repeating Shot infusion.) Those force an investment from the party to make the weapon matter.

However, that *doesn't* deal with Max's first point, which is that nerfing magic ranged weapons is effectively a huge buff to RAW Agonizing Eldritch Blast.

I think the whole purpose of the rule change is to fix what is viewed as a mistake made by the 5E devs, so ignoring their stated opinions is very much appropriate in this case. :) Much as I love Magic Weapon, it is too cheap to fit with this fix. If you want to do full damage to an Iron Golem from very far away, I think it's fine to play an Arcane Archer. Kensei I'm more on the fence about. EK with the Magic Weapon spell is too easy / cost-free.

Or maybe I'm wrong and even Arcane Archers shouldn't get to do it - - if every fighter in Tier 3 is suddenly an Arcane Archer we'll know ranged combat is still too valuable.

One unfortunate side effect of this proposed fix is that unless you change monster stats, ALL Fighters are now obsolete vs. most monsters in T3, because now the ranged Fighters can't beat the DPR of massed skeleton archers (even before it was rough but weapon resistance was key when it did work) and melee warriors were already obsolete. However, if you combine this rule variant with others for nerfing ranged combat down to reality I think you may still land somewhere reasonable, although it will be very different from vanilla 5E.

[Sorinth]

This brings us back to a point I want to stress: engagement distance is influenced by PC and monster behavior. In a desert with sand dunes, using the eyes of a familiar 100' up allows monsters who are not hiding to be detected from even further than usual (1-2 miles is not at all implausible depending on visual conditions). However, all of that is irrelevant if the attacker is an ambush predator hiding under the sand. In that case, engagement distance will be zero for whoever is on point, and for the rest of the party it will be "whatever distance we decided to keep between us and point", unless for some reason the ambush predator has a reason to prefer someone other than the point guy.

TL;DR it's unrealistic to talk about "engagement distance" as a specific, fixed number independent of player decisions. If you ignore their decisions and force a certain distance anyway, that's a very form of hard scene framing, and should not be used more than the players are comfortable with.

For sure player/monster decisions can and should influence encounter distance. Although I would point out even if you detect an enemy 1-2 miles it might not change the "real" encounter distance since the PC still has to have line of the target. Facing ranged enemies after a potential initial shot the enemy would presumably stay below the tops of the dunes so that's there's never LoS until they are close enough to rush in. In this case the value of the familiar is more to allow setting up an ambush/avoiding the fight then it is changing the encounter distance.

Good point, although you must then also nerf warlocks somehow. (And would Arcane Archer ammo still count as magical?)

Arcane Archer have a 7th level ability that makes ammunition magical so I would simply leave that as is. Since AA is considered a weak subclass to begin with I don't think it's a problem for them to break the mould in this regard. For spellcasters it's probably beyond the scope of this thread since caster balance is such a huge topic. But they at least don't have Sharpshooter adding +10 damage to each attack. Since there are lots of suggestions for reworking that feat it's just worth noting that just by ignoring an errata you can reduce the OPness of the feat by making it a bit more situational since against enemies with resistance to nonmagical BPS the -5/+10 is actually -5/+5 which is a lot less attractive.

[Amechra]

Honestly, Eldritch Blast was a mistake in the first place, so it deserves to be nerfed. The fact that it's one of the best ranged attack options hides a lot of issues with the Warlock.

The smallest change that'd do the trick is probably just limiting Agonizing Blast to the first bolt that hits each turn.

[MaxWilson]

For sure player/monster decisions can and should influence encounter distance. Although I would point out even if you detect an enemy 1-2 miles it might not change the "real" encounter distance since the PC still has to have line of the target. Facing ranged enemies after a potential initial shot the enemy would presumably stay below the tops of the dunes so that's there's never LoS until they are close enough to rush in. In this case the value of the familiar is more to allow setting up an ambush/avoiding the fight then it is changing the encounter distance.

Arcane Archer have a 7th level ability that makes ammunition magical so I would simply leave that as is. Since AA is considered a weak subclass to begin with I don't think it's a problem for them to break the mould in this regard. For spellcasters it's probably beyond the scope of this thread since caster balance is such a huge topic. But they at least don't have Sharpshooter adding +10 damage to each attack. Since there are lots of suggestions for reworking that feat it's just worth noting that just by ignoring an errata you can reduce the OPness of the feat by making it a bit more situational since against enemies with resistance to nonmagical BPS the -5/+10 is actually -5/+5 which is a lot less attractive.

Detecting the enemy from far away also lets you do things like turn the whole party invisible and then surprise them, or send Earth Elementals under the sand to attack them. Since the PCs are already making decisions and interacting, to me that means the encounter has started, so you have already changed the encounter distance by detecting them.

Of course some PCs and players will ignore that opportunity and just do what they were going to do anyway, especially vs. weak-seeming enemies.

I agree that AA is viewed as weak, but if they were the only ones still getting double damage at range, would they still be seen as weak? I don't know.

[Sorinth]

(And add Kensei to the Arcane Archer list.)

What about the spell Magic Weapon? The devs have clearly said that "Monks and the spell Magic Weapon" are intended to be the early-tier-2 damage dealers vs enemy resistances to nonmagical weapon damage.

I think you can rationalize it by errata'ing any "external" source of "magicness" to say that it imparts "magic" to ammunition of affected weapons. (e.g. Arcane Archer, Kensei, spells like Magic Weapon, class features like Forge Cleric, Sacred Weapon, and the Repeating Shot infusion.) Those force an investment from the party to make the weapon matter.

However, that *doesn't* deal with Max's first point, which is that nerfing magic ranged weapons is effectively a huge buff to RAW Agonizing Eldritch Blast.

Arcane Archer isn't effected since their ability is specifically mentioning ammunition. Kensei it's a little more grey but the others would be a bit of a nerf. But is that really a problem?

[5eNeedsDarksun]

The end goal of any changes should be to create variety. And by that I mean some combats should favour using ranged attacks, and some combats should favour going melee.

One small change that can help in that regard is to ignore the errata about how magic bows make their ammunition magical. If magical ammunition is extremely rare (And frankly should be) then it will help bring the melee PCs into the spotlight against certain monsters.

I was thinking of this as well. Depending on the campaign it could be a huge nerf or not much though.
As much as I'm not a huge Elf fan, the idea of Legolas as primarily a bowman, but who occasionally needs to resort to melee weapons is kind of what I envision as the goal. Unfortunately magic bows making ammo magical and XBE tend to turn ranged martials into one trick ponies.

[Sorinth]

Detecting the enemy from far away also lets you do things like turn the whole party invisible and then surprise them, or send Earth Elementals under the sand to attack them. Since the PCs are already making decisions and interacting, to me that means the encounter has started, so you have already changed the encounter distance by detecting them.

Of course some PCs and players will ignore that opportunity and just do what they were going to do anyway, especially vs. weak-seeming enemies.

I agree that AA is viewed as weak, but if they were the only ones still getting double damage at range, would they still be seen as weak? I don't know.

To me the encounter starts when we roll initiative but really it's just semantics.

AA isn't getting double damage though. They simply aren't being penalized which makes a big difference because the AA damage is still comparable to say the GWM. We maybe see less BM/Samurai archers and more AA and Rangers (Since certain spells would turn the ammunition into magic damage), but is that a problem? I would've thought it was actually a positive outcome. Especially since the other builds are still perfectly viable as it's penalty is always situational.

[Segev]

The end goal of any changes should be to create variety. And by that I mean some combats should favour using ranged attacks, and some combats should favour going melee.

One small change that can help in that regard is to ignore the errata about how magic bows make their ammunition magical. If magical ammunition is extremely rare (And frankly should be) then it will help bring the melee PCs into the spotlight against certain monsters.

What good would magic bows be, then?

[Sorinth]

I was thinking of this as well. Depending on the campaign it could be a huge nerf or not much though.
As much as I'm not a huge Elf fan, the idea of Legolas as primarily a bowman, but who occasionally needs to resort to melee weapons is kind of what I envision as the goal. Unfortunately magic bows making ammo magical and XBE tend to turn ranged martials into one trick ponies.

The good part about that is that the DM controls the availability of magic ammunition. So in games where there are lots of fight against enemies with resistance the DM can increase the frequency of magical ammunition.

[Sorinth]

What good would magic bows be, then?

They still add to hit and damage.