D&D 5E Helping melee combat to be more competitive to ranged.

[cooperjer]

Personaly, I think that melee combat is lagging a bit behind ranged combat. But not by much.

Here is few suggestions to help it along.


1. Raise the damage die of non-finesse melee weapons by one die. 1d4->1d6,1d6->1d8,1d8->1d10,1d10->2d6,1d12/2d6->2d8.

2. Making ranged attack provokes Attack of Opportunity(AoO) in addition of suffering disadvantage ot attack roll.

3. AoO does not use reaction. Reaction should be used of special class abilities not a simple swing. You have a number of AoOs per round equal to your proficiency bonus.

4. Ready action can be used to make every attack as normal Attack action. That way when archer peek around corner to shoot you can make your "full attack" on him.

5. Count the damn ammunition and check for load. Archers cannot pass whole campaign with starting 30 arrows and they sure can't carry 500 arrows around without magic quivers/bags of holding.

6. Add charge action: Action, add half your speed to your movement this round, but all movement must be in a straight line. If you move atleast 20ft make one melee attack as bonus action.

7. Add new feat: combat reflexes: +1 to str, dex or con. You have advantage on AoO attack roll, and deal max damage with AoO.

8. Add Run action: After you use your action to Dash, you can use bonus action to Run. Add your base move speed to your total speed for this round(with Dash, total of 3× speed). You can only move in a straight line.

I've done a lot of analysis of damage output from class to class, but not range vs melee. I cannot recall anything that would indicate the melee is lagging behind the range combat. What examples do you have that makes you feel this way?

One thing I did notice about ranged combatants is that their AC tends to be lower. When looking at both the offense and defense of a character it seems there is a balance or a possible trade off. Before making any changes to your game, I would recommend considering the defense design of the character as well.

 

[The Old Crow]

I would like being engaged to actually do something tactical. Perhaps the area within reach of a melee weapon should be difficult terrain. Instituting a general cleave rule for melee might also help.

 

[fixitgeek]

Thanks for the suggestion, but you're answering a question I did not ask.

I know that in dense forrest you can surprise someone 10ft away.


I'm thinking about solutions for farmlands,grasslands,deserts,glaciers,sparse forrests, lakes and rivers.

How to close the gap faster and more importantly how to keep melee engagement harded to brake off.

With this his answer fully applies, topology matters even if we don't think about it. Grasslands will have hills, a tundra large rocks and snowfalls, glaciers crags and valleys, the list goes on. Also on top of this natural fog makes for an easy way to obscure vision. Deserts are going to have the mirage effect.

Hopefully that helps put it into perspective. Adding those extra things seems a bit much. I don't see any proposal there that I would honestly use aside from ammunition and this is already a thing. I do make sure that my players keep track of it and you are right, feasibly you aren't carrying 500 arrows. But that also shouldn't hamper the game. Them making sure to stop at a town and spend a little money on the ammo from time to time is good enough for me. Or making a tool check for fletching, I disregard crafting rules for certain instances, a workable arrow can be repaired in a short time, and a new bunch can be made by simply stating you spend some of your nights rest worknig on that, thus taking a player out of the night watch rotation.

Now honestly this is all subjective to the type of game you want, but I prefer to let the story speak louder than the numbers. Combat can be engaging without having to add anything to it, want to stop a player from running away? Swarm them. Want to make the melee shine? Add stealth ambushers. I created my own version of the Australian Drop Bear for this very reason, tiny terrors from the trees that gave a mid-level party a challenge.

 

[pdzoch]

I generally have my monsters target the most dangerous threat that is the easiest to kill. Priority for most monsters is magic users, ranged fighter, sneaky characters, and so on with the heavy fighters being last. When the monsters have ranged weapons, some will screen the heavy fighters, while the other mass fire on the archers and magic users. This tends to make the archers suffer the battle effects as much as the front line meat shields. And player archers seldom bring any sort of shield or other defenses on adventures, so they are pretty exposed compared to the heavier armed fighters. Ranges attacks can do some damage, but it comes with a risk that my players feel does not make it any more desirable than melee.

 

[The Old Crow]

Also, instead of using cover rules for melee, use a general minus* 2 penalty when firing into melee, even when your ally is not directly between you and your target, because of all the darting, ducking, weaving, and the flailing limbs.

*can't make a minus sign because the cat tore some of the keys off my keyboard, and that one is now broken. Stupid cat.

 

[manduck]

I would steer clear of adding in additional rules and house rules when something like this comes up. D&D already has plenty of rules and adding in more or creating house rules usually ends up just complicating things and slowing the game down. As Flamestrike said, simply being a bit more creative in your encounters and role playing will go a long way in fixing your issues. Plus it's a whole lot easier than coming up with new rules.

There are already great suggestions in this thread on how to deal with range party members. When you're in those grassy open fields, have creatures duck into the grass to hide, causing the range guys to lose line of sight. Stealthy character sneaking through the grass and moving in on ranged characters gives the range PCs new problems and creates tension. Creatures can hide in sand and then spring up to ambush the party. Or simply have monsters or bad guys who can shoot back. Don't forget spells like Blur, Mirror Image and others that cause havoc for any party member. When that range guys suddenly has five targest, it will cause problems.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Its an art and not a science. I keep seeing people trying to reduce it to a numbers game. Its not and never has been.

It's more art than science, and usually has been...

The following sound like possibilities:

2. Making ranged attack provokes Attack of Opportunity(AoO) in addition of suffering disadvantage ot attack roll.

3. AoO does not use reaction. Reaction should be used of special class abilities not a simple swing. You have a number of AoOs per round equal to your proficiency bonus.

How 'bout a number of AoOs equal to your number of attacks with an action (Extra Attack)?

6. Add charge action: Action, add half your speed to your movement this round, but all movement must be in a straight line. If you move atleast 20ft make one melee attack as bonus action.

Action: Move up to your speed (or half your speed, whatever sounds reasonable) towards the target and make one melee attack against it. Requirement/restriction: You may not have moved away from the target before charging, and cannot move after making the attack.

9. Penalize firing into melee, either with Disadvantage or a chance of hitting the wrong target.

I would like being engaged to actually do something tactical. Perhaps the area within reach of a melee weapon should be difficult terrain. Instituting a general cleave rule for melee might also help.

The 3.5 Knight had the difficult terrain thing, it didn't do much. Maybe adapt the disengage check from 13A?

 

[CapnZapp]

I would steer clear of adding in additional rules and house rules when something like this comes up. D&D already has plenty of rules and adding in more or creating house rules usually ends up just complicating things and slowing the game down. As Flamestrike said, simply being a bit more creative in your encounters and role playing will go a long way in fixing your issues. Plus it's a whole lot easier than coming up with new rules.

Though its less about "additional" rules than changing the ones already there

 

[Iry]

I cannot recall anything that would indicate the melee is lagging behind the range combat. What examples do you have that makes you feel this way?

The simplest example would be anytime melee cannot reach a priority target, and a ranged attacker can. Either because it was too far, too much difficult terrain, risking too many attacks of opportunity, leaves an open spot for enemies to advance on your squishies, etc.

 

[ClearlyTough69]

Use existing rules:

• Prone creatures impose disadvantage on ranged attacks against them - so get creatures under missile fire to lie down and then crawl to cover
• Use optional DMG rules for hitting cover
• Use optional DMG rules for cleaving through creatures (though I allow left over damage to always be carried over to another opponent)

One suggested change to existing rules: add Strength to damage of finesse weapons; add no ability modifier to damage of ranged weapons (and both of these are more realistic too, IMO)