Ranged Options for All Classes

Paul Farquhar · Feb 8, 2019

Saelorn said:
A barbarian with 14 Dexterity (as suggested by their armor proficiencies), who picks up a longbow, is not an effective ranged attacker. Two attacks, at +6 to hit for ~7 damage, is not a meaningful ranged contribution for a level 10 character.

That's absolutely false. They are not as effective as they are in melee, but they are still able to make a contribution. It's considerably better than a baseline character with no relevant class abilities, which would be one attack per round with a light crossbow for 1d8, and infinitely better than the barbarian who was too dumb to bring a longbow in the first place.

A good DM will set up a wide variety of tactical situations over the course of an adventure that should give a wide variety of builds and character types a chance to shine. And a competent party will make sure that even if the situation doesn't give their character it's moment in the Sun, there is still something they can be doing. The archer brings a rapier, the wizard learns shocking grasp, the skill-monkey has a dagger and the barbarian brings a longbow.

Swarmkeeper · Feb 8, 2019

Yunru said:
There's also always just getting support from other party members. Fly for instance, is a 3rd level spell.

Yep, very much this. As several posters have mentioned, there are lots of lower level spells to make the encounter a puzzle that has more than the one solution of: “everyone ranges!”

Jump, Levitate, Spider Climb to get melee PCs over/around the lava.

Or get creative with Tenser’s Floating Disc, Dragon Breath (Cold to create an “island” of safety in the lava moat), Rope Trick (think swinging across), Wall of Water, Create Water...

Darkness, Fog Cloud, Silence, Compelled Duel to buy time or get the baddie to come down.

Side benefit: the PCs are displaying teamwork to overcome obstacles which IME creates memorable sessions. This type of solution can create a positive feedbeack loop where the melee PCs now want to show gratitude by assisting the spellcasters overcome some future obstacle. It can really create some nice role play fodder.

Oofta · Feb 8, 2019

DM Dave1 said:
Yep, very much this. As several posters have mentioned, there are lots of lower level spells to make the encounter a puzzle that has more than the one solution of: “everyone ranges!”

Jump, Levitate, Spider Climb to get melee PCs over/around the lava.

Or get creative with Tenser’s Floating Disc, Dragon Breath (Cold to create an “island” of safety in the lava moat), Rope Trick (think swinging across), Wall of Water, Create Water...

Darkness, Fog Cloud, Silence, Compelled Duel to buy time or get the baddie to come down.

Side benefit: the PCs are displaying teamwork to overcome obstacles which IME creates memorable sessions. This type of solution can create a positive feedbeack loop where the melee PCs now want to show gratitude by assisting the spellcasters overcome some future obstacle. It can really create some nice role play fodder.

Which assumes that the spellcasters have those spells memorized and available. Given the limited number of spells you have access to (even at mid-to-high level) it's no guarantee. Even if you do have them, is the wizard going to spend the first 2-3 rounds buffing their party members while they're getting bombarded? Most won't.

In theory what you're saying should work, at least in some situations. In practice? I don't see it very often.

In any case, I just think it's easier to house rule bows that can use strength. It still won't be as good, most sword-and-board types will have to take a round taking off their shield, etc. So there is a trade-off for them, but at least they won't feel left out.

Paul Farquhar · Feb 8, 2019

Oofta said:
Which assumes that the spellcasters have those spells memorized and available. Given the limited number of spells you have access to (even at mid-to-high level) it's no guarantee.

The guarantee is they learn to memorise those spells once they have been in a few tactical situations which would have gone a lot better had they had them available.

DEFCON 1 · Feb 8, 2019

Paul Farquhar said:
The guarantee is they learn to memorise those spells once they have been in a few tactical situations which would have gone a lot better had they had them available.

Which is also part and parcel with some good advice for DMs... don't use BBEG battles to introduce entirely new encounter design that the group has never experienced before.

If you are thinking of having the BBEG fight in some locations where X, Y, and Z will be important for success... drop any of them individually in minor form in other encounters levels earlier so that the party can experience what it takes to deal with them. Then, once they've learned their strengths and weaknesses they hopefully will adapt to them, and thus be more prepared for them when it all comes together in the final fight.

Anyone who has played the first Portal game can recognize this. The first 19 levels of the game are all about teaching you all manner of different strategy for dealing with each puzzle until you then go "backstage" and have to take what you've learned and apply it to the non-formal advancement. And even when running through the bowels of the complex you learn various lessons that you need to apply when you finally reach GLaDOS.

So if you can apply these ideas to your campaigns, you won't end up in a situation with PCs on one side of a cavern have no way to cross over to get into melee against a BBEG, because they will have already had to deal with this situation in a minor form previously and thus have figured out ways to get around it.

5ekyu · Feb 8, 2019

DEFCON 1 said:
Which is also part and parcel with some good advice for DMs... don't use BBEG battles to introduce entirely new encounter design that the group has never experienced before.

If you are thinking of having the BBEG fight in some locations where X, Y, and Z will be important for success... drop any of them individually in minor form in other encounters levels earlier so that the party can experience what it takes to deal with them. Then, once they've learned their strengths and weaknesses they hopefully will adapt to them, and thus be more prepared for them when it all comes together in the final fight.

Anyone who has played the first Portal game can recognize this. The first 19 levels of the game are all about teaching you all manner of different strategy for dealing with each puzzle until you then go "backstage" and have to take what you've learned and apply it to the non-formal advancement. And even when running through the bowels of the complex you learn various lessons that you need to apply when you finally reach GLaDOS.

So if you can apply these ideas to your campaigns, you won't end up in a situation with PCs on one side of a cavern have no way to cross over to get into melee against a BBEG, because they will have already had to deal with this situation in a minor form previously and thus have figured out ways to get around it.

Yes... if you go plan to introdude entirely new stuff, with a new boss, there are countless ways to get that done in a way to make it manageable. Foreshadowing, lore, signs of others failing and the classic early bestdoen/demo followed bybggd trsin/solve/find key yo beating it trope.

Oofta · Feb 8, 2019

Paul Farquhar said:
The guarantee is they learn to memorise those spells once they have been in a few tactical situations which would have gone a lot better had they had them available.

I try to avoid pushing a specific play style on people that I think is best.

The theory is fine. In practice? In most cases either the DM house rules in alternatives, don't throw in combats that require range or the melee types get frustrated and don't feel like they can contribute.

Between people that play wizards that aren't great at tactical thinking and not having available spell slots or correct spells prepared I just don't see it happening.

I think this is one of the areas 5E falls a bit short on. It's easy to fix, but in previous edition most character types had reasonable options and casters had other options like scrolls for utility type spells.

DEFCON 1 · Feb 8, 2019

Oofta said:
The theory is fine. In practice? In most cases either the DM house rules in alternatives, don't throw in combats that require range or the melee types get frustrated and don't feel like they can contribute.

Between people that play wizards that aren't great at tactical thinking and not having available spell slots or correct spells prepared I just don't see it happening.

Well, that all depends on the DM, doesn't it? Theory and practice *can* merge together if that is what the DM decides to focus on, or make more commonplace based upon what kinds of encounters they offer up.

Obviously if a party doesn't have wizards, or doesn't have spells that assist movement, or doesn't have magic items that allow for different types of movement, the DM hopefully learns to recognize this hole in the party's capability and doesn't create encounters intended to exploit it. Unless of course they exploit it prior to large battles in smaller scnearos such that they are informing the party that they *have* this big hole in their capabilities and that they may want to find ways to fill it.

At the end of the day its really part of the DMs job to know what their players and PCs can do, and make encounters to challenge them but not intentionally screw them (unless of course your table is very much that style of 'DM vs players' wargamey-esque table that desires that kind of conflict and resolution-- which is a perfectly fine way to play assuming both sides know that's how they're playing.) And what we had here was a really good lesson that a DM and players learned... unfortunately it just occurred at not the best time. But going forward, it will only make their table stronger and better prepared for games in the future.

Swarmkeeper · Feb 8, 2019

Oofta said:
I try to avoid pushing a specific play style on people that I think is best.

The theory is fine. In practice? In most cases either the DM house rules in alternatives, don't throw in combats that require range or the melee types get frustrated and don't feel like they can contribute.

Between people that play wizards that aren't great at tactical thinking and not having available spell slots or correct spells prepared I just don't see it happening.

But aren't you providing a play experience that rewards preparing attack spells and everyone getting ranged weapons? Is that not "pushing a specific play style on people" in a way? One interpretation might be that you are dumbing down 5e to the most obvious solution: ranged attack ho! The players then adapt to that narrow style that you feed them. It's a self-fulfilling prophesy and not one that is the fault of 5e "falling a bit short". They may not all be tactical geniuses but give the players (and their PCs) some credit for being able to learn from experience and adapt for the future.

I know the players at the tables I DM enjoy diverse challenges. They get excited when they need to think outside the box to solve problems they encounter - in combat and in the other pillars. Every combat is not a "draw bows/eldritch blast/fireball" fest. If it were, I don't think our campaign would have legs to get very far. The many brains of the players are far smarter than my one DM brain - they come up with great - and memorable! - solutions that don't involve any homebrewing. And I don't design challenges that only allow for one solution.

Oofta said:
I think this is one of the areas 5E falls a bit short on. It's easy to fix, but in previous edition most character types had reasonable options and casters had other options like scrolls for utility type spells.

As a DM, if you see that your players are having their PCs learn and prepare only/mostly damage spells, do something about it to help them move along the learning curve to see that there are other choices they can make. Drop a few scrolls with utility spells into the adventure that they can find as treasure and set up situations where those are useful. Or if you are worried about the melee characters not having any ranged weapons drop some Boots of Springing and Striding or Slippers of Spider Climbing into the mix so they can have one more way to close the gap to get in the face of the baddie. Maybe they have to pry these items off the cold, dead feat of a mini-boss at some point! Or allow them to pick up extra weapons at the local weapon shop after adventuring a bit and learning where their equipment holes lie. "Easy to fix" yes - there are endless ideas. To imply that previous editions were better than 5e at helping the PCs succeed is an odd statement, though, IMO.

Oofta · Feb 8, 2019

Short version:
I don't tell people how to play their characters. I do have a simple rule to give strength based characters ranged attack options.

Longer version:
In my experience some people that play spellcasters enjoy the support role (at least now and then) and others just want to blow **** up. It's not my role as a DM to make them be supporting characters that enable the rest of the team. Yeah, teamwork is great and something I encourage it, but I have to face reality as well. One person's enjoyment of the game shouldn't be reliant on another person's taking the right spells.

I also try to avoid tailoring my encounters to my players, I model them on what makes sense for the story. So if it makes sense for the story that they fight an ancient red dragon and the wizard is completely focused on fire spells, then they still fight that dragon (although I will try to give them plenty of foreshadowing). In this case the wizard isn't as effective as they could be because of their choice.

I do make allowances for strength based characters to be reasonably effective in situations where ranged attacks are the only option. I allow strength based bows. If they don't purchase them, so be it. What I don't do is to force Bob who's playing the wizard who never casts support spells to change how he plays his character.