Ranged Options for All Classes

[Paul Farquhar]

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

It's hardly unconventional, it's even in the basic rules:

"The following features can add more fun and suspense to a combat encounter:
Terrain features that pose inherent risks to both the characters and their enemies, such as a frayed rope bridge and pools of green slime
Terrain features that provide a change of elevation, such as pits, stacks of empty crates, ledges, and balconies
Features that either inspire or force characters and their enemies to move around, such as chandeliers, kegs of gunpowder or oil, and whirling blade traps
Enemies in hard-to-reach locations or defensive positions, so that characters who normally attack at range are forced to move around the battlefield"https://dnd.wizards.com/products/tabletop/dm-basic-rules

 

[Oofta]

It's hardly unconventional, it's even in the basic rules:

"The following features can add more fun and suspense to a combat encounter:
Terrain features that pose inherent risks to both the characters and their enemies, such as a frayed rope bridge and pools of green slime
Terrain features that provide a change of elevation, such as pits, stacks of empty crates, ledges, and balconies
Features that either inspire or force characters and their enemies to move around, such as chandeliers, kegs of gunpowder or oil, and whirling blade traps
Enemies in hard-to-reach locations or defensive positions, so that characters who normally attack at range are forced to move around the battlefield"https://dnd.wizards.com/products/tabletop/dm-basic-rules

There's a difference between setting up a variety of environments and challenges and forcing a spellcaster into a supporting role in order to enable strength based characters.

As a DM I can always set up no-win encounters. In extremely rare cases I do if it makes sense for the story. That's different than saying "I'm going to throw a ton of encounters where the wizard is forced to cast the kind of spells I want them to cast."

Back to the OP, if I had a BBEG on the opposite side of lava I'd set up alternatives. If you don't want to add strength based bows into the game, there are still plenty of options.

• There's a dead tree that can be pushed over to bridge the gap. Be careful though, those fumes are deadly!
• There's something you can swing across on. You can't use it without provoking an opportunity attack.
• The PCs know that you don't sink and lava and they just jump/run across.
• There's an old catapult (no ammunition) that they can climb into and throw themselves across.

What I don't do is assume the wizard has the fly spell (or anything similar) and is willing and able to cast it. I never assume the players must do what I want them to in order to overcome a challenge. In a recent campaign, the wizard never cast a spell to help anyone else except for the occasional teleportation circle. That's what was fun for him, why would I punish the fighter because of someone like that?

If the bard dimension doors the barbarian across the gap, fantastic! But the barbarian should almost always have some other option other than relying on their friendly neighborhood caster.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

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.

Consider the situation at hand. The Big Bad of the entire campaign is over there, and you have no way to get to them. If you could get to them, you could do amazing* things, because that's what you're good at; but you can't use any of your cool abilities, so you stand back and shoot some arrows, which are probably going to miss. Are you feeling good about your contribution? Are you happy with dealing ~7 damage per round, because half of your attacks miss, such that your total damage is statistically unlikely to end the fight even one round sooner, and the whole party would be better off if you just played dead?


*By 'amazing', I mean 'level-appropriate'. The whole game is balanced around specialists doing the thing they're specialized at. Barbarians were designed and balanced under the assumption that they're in melee combat, just as much as rogues were designed and balanced under the assumption that they'd get sneak attack every round. If a barbarian picks up a longbow, then that's akin to a wizard swinging a battleaxe; something has gone wrong here.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

There's a difference between setting up a variety of environments and challenges and forcing a spellcaster into a supporting role in order to enable strength based characters.

No one is forcing anyone to do anything. The party has to find what works for them. Spellcasters can use support spells OR they can step up with the ranged damage whilst the barbarians support with bows. If the spellcasters aren't sorcerers or warlocks they can prepare enough spells to do either on the fly.

The thing is, the character who does the best melee damage should not expect to be the best at ranged damage as well, and if they decide to throw their toys from the pram and sulk over it, it says more about the player than the rules.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Consider the situation at hand. The Big Bad of the entire campaign is over there, and you have no way to get to them.

If the situation at hand is the entire campaign has been a series of one sort of battle, then the climactic battle is a completely different type of battle, then it is just an appallingly badly designed campaign. Shoot the DM, not the rules.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

Back to the OP, if I had a BBEG on the opposite side of lava I'd set up alternatives. If you don't want to add strength based bows into the game, there are still plenty of options.

• There's a dead tree that can be pushed over to bridge the gap. Be careful though, those fumes are deadly!
• There's something you can swing across on. You can't use it without provoking an opportunity attack.
• The PCs know that you don't sink and lava and they just jump/run across.
• There's an old catapult (no ammunition) that they can climb into and throw themselves across.

Yes to all these... and many many more...

What I don't do is assume the wizard has the fly spell (or anything similar) and is willing and able to cast it. I never assume the players must do what I want them to in order to overcome a challenge. In a recent campaign, the wizard never cast a spell to help anyone else except for the occasional teleportation circle. That's what was fun for him, why would I punish the fighter because of someone like that?

If the bard dimension doors the barbarian across the gap, fantastic! But the barbarian should almost always have some other option other than relying on their friendly neighborhood caster.

I don't think anyone is expecting the wizard to have any certain spells or else "Gotcha! TPK you eediots!" That kind of DM would not last long and probably is not savvy enough to try to seek advice here on ENWorld (yes, I'm patting all of us on the back here). My point is that, as part of a team, a PC should not only be thinking about his individual damage potential, he should be thinking about synergies with his fellow party members. And if damage is really their primary focus because they just want to smash monsters with their maul, well, I'd think they want to find ways that their fellow party members can best help them do MOAR DAMAGE and vice versa. It seems we are really in agreement on the bottom line: There are a lot more creative ways to skin this cat than just to make everyone good at ranged attacking.

 

[Oofta]

No one is forcing anyone to do anything. The party has to find what works for them. Spellcasters can use support spells OR they can step up with the ranged damage whilst the barbarians support with bows. If the spellcasters aren't sorcerers or warlocks they can prepare enough spells to do either on the fly.

The thing is, the character who does the best melee damage should not expect to be the best at ranged damage as well, and if they decide to throw their toys from the pram and sulk over it, it says more about the player than the rules.

Except that strength based characters have no effective range options in many cases. At all. Throw one javelin a short distance per round doesn't hack it at higher levels or if the BBEG is more than 20 ft away (and seriously, if they're less than 20 ft away you probably have other options). More than 40 ft away? Sucks to be you.

Bows? Sure. Unless you have a lousy dex and doing 4.5 reduced by your dexterity penalty damage per hit. If you hit, which you probably won't because you're at a negative.

So the options are to give the strength based character an effective attack (strength based bows like I do), give them some way of getting into melee (not always an option especially vs flying creatures), relying on some other PC to help them, or just telling them they are worthless for this encounter.

They don't have to be best. But when dex based characters never hit this kind of issue, that is when I have a problem. A dex based character always has an option of good ranged attack melee attacks.

 

[Oofta]

Yes to all these... and many many more...



I don't think anyone is expecting the wizard to have any certain spells or else "Gotcha! TPK you eediots!" That kind of DM would not last long and probably is not savvy enough to try to seek advice here on ENWorld (yes, I'm patting all of us on the back here). My point is that, as part of a team, a PC should not only be thinking about his individual damage potential, he should be thinking about synergies with his fellow party members. And if damage is really their primary focus because they just want to smash monsters with their maul, well, I'd think they want to find ways that their fellow party members can best help them do MOAR DAMAGE and vice versa. It seems we are really in agreement on the bottom line: There are a lot more creative ways to skin this cat than just to make everyone good at ranged attacking.

In theory, yes, D&D is a cooperative game and people should work together. But some people just don't think that way, and I don't think they're playing the game "wrong".

As far as strength based characters not have ranged options, that's kind of a pet peeve of mine. I don't think everyone needs to be equal, but dex is already enough of an uber-stat that I don't think you need to add a penalty to strength based characters to make it an even better choice.

In the OP's scenario if I were running this in AL where my house rule is not allowed I probably would have added in some way to get over to the BBEG, even if it meant a round or so of climbing along a ledge or some other kind of penalty.

 

[Oofta]

If the situation at hand is the entire campaign has been a series of one sort of battle, then the climactic battle is a completely different type of battle, then it is just an appallingly badly designed campaign. Shoot the DM, not the rules.

But if the DM gets more than 40 feet away and you're a strength based person, that's not going to be an option.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

In theory, yes, D&D is a cooperative game and people should work together. But some people just don't think that way, and I don't think they're playing the game "wrong".

I dunno. It's kinda right there staring at you at the beginning of the PHB (pg 7)
[SECTION]Every character is different, with various strengths and weaknesses, so the best party of adventurers is one in which the characters complement each other and cover the weaknesses of their companions. The adventurers must cooperate to successfully complete the adventure.[/SECTION]