I'm annoyed at archers.

[Corwin the Confused]

Okay, I've seen them from both sides of the DM/player fence, in multiple games. I've used concealment, spells, sundering, grappling, disarm, cover and every other archer-counter in the book.

I still think they are too powerful. And this is coming from a Munchkin (me).

As an example: in the game I'm in right now, we're L7. We've got two melee types and two archer types. They are as follows:


Melee:
human L7 fighter TWF bastard sword twink
lizardfolk L5 barbarian 27 AC, long sword/shield twink

Archer:
elven L4 fighter L3 rogue archer twink
elven L7 cleric of elf domain archer twink


The archers do the most damage, hands down. Sure, their AC is bunk, but who cares? Most baddies die before they're in melee combat. Even then, they've got Mithril chain shirts and a 20+ dexterity.

There are a couple of ways to deal with your situation:

1. Deal with it. D&D is a team sport. Usually everyone fills a role or roles. There are the point men that get in the front line, suck up the damage from the BBEGs and hopefully give as good as they get. There are your artillary men that stay in the back and deal damagte from a distance. And there are men that are a little of both.

2. Next time there is an encounter do not charge the BBEGs. Hunker down and let them come to you. And attack one flank of the BBEGs and let the Archer's take on the other flank. Even with their miythral shirts and high dex the BBEGs might kill them and any other artillary men i.e. Arcane spell casters and Non-combat focused clerics, etc. Then they will learn to appreciate the safety of fighting behind the close range fighter types.

FYI, historically archers on the losing side of some battles had their fingers cut off. And there is a saying that says, "The honor went out of war when you no longer had to look in the face of a man as you killed him."

 

[Crothian]

I'm curious on how the archers are able to kill things before they get a chancve to advance. Unless the encounters are in a very large place, it should take a round to advance up to the Archers, many times being able to do this with a charge. All one needs to do is win initiative and charge the archer. Then the Archer will be in a world of hurt.

 

[bret]

I can easily see how archers could kill someone before they got to them. Even if we ignore Entangle and their ilk, it isn't uncommon for an encounter in our group to happen at greater than 100 yards. At that point, only your long range spells and longbow archers are going to do much of anything and melee is a long ways away. Especially if the archers are on the other side of a chasm.

Any combat that starts more than 60' away is generally too far for a partial charge (which is all you can do in a surprise round) by anyone other than a Monk. We have tanks with base movements of 15' and 20', which really cuts down how far you can charge.

We are high enough level where this isn't a terrible problem. Still, it can add a significant challenge when fighting something like giants.

 

[Crothian]

But even still, that means the achers are killing the opponents in one or two rounds. I think if that is happening, that might be the problem.

 

[Endur]

Don't advance.

That's my suggestion.

Have your lizardman barbarian stand at the front of the party and wait.

Let the enemy die slowly to missiles and magic.

And when the enemy finally arrives, crush him with a full attack.

Tom

 

[ConcreteBuddha]

James McMurray---
Well, there isa reason that swords aren't the modern-day weapon of choice: ranged combat is much safer for the participant.

Yeah, I know. I guess I'm a fan of heroic fantasy. I can't see Conan or Arthur being overshadowed by some random archer. I like the idea of dueling melees. (No wonder I don't like Real-World time period RPGs.)
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Grog--
Actually, I think the most unbalancing thing about archers is the fact that you can GMW 50 arrows at a time.

I was thinking of a house rule where GMW only effected one arrow. Also, instead of the DMG prices for magic arrows being for stacks of 50, I'd make them for stacks of 500.

(We already have a house-rule that the total market price modifier for special abilities on magic weapons cannot exceed the weapon's enhancement bonus. In other words: No GMWed Keen Vorpal Rapiers +1. This cut down on GMW twinkage dramatically, since before this rule, players never bought enhancement bonuses on weapons above +1 due to GMW.)
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mkletch----
As for archers in general, spellcasters are 5x worse. WHat an archer can do in ten rounds, a wizard or cleric can do in one or two.

Not from experience. I don't want to get into a full-blown debate on this point, but SR, energy resistances and just plain old good saving throws are quite common on most monsters. Besides, a cleric with a bow is ten times better than a cleric without a bow.

But as always, it depends on the circumstances of the encounter.
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bret---
They frequently got torn to pieces.

AC (unless absurdly twinked) is worthless at mid to high levels. I don't think replacing one of the archers with a tank would help. It seems like the DM was overcompensating for the PCs ability to easily defeat encounters of appropriate EL.

bret---
I haven't seen an archer type in their full gory, so I'm not sure just how bad it can get. I do know that a melee fighter can output a lot of damage in a full attack,

Eh...really, the problem is getting that full attack. The melee character has to jump through zillions of hoops to get that full attack, whereas the archer is full-attacking from the get go, plus they automatically get an extra attack from L1.

When we were L2, and the archers were Rapid Shotting everything in sight, four CR 1/2 orcs was a joke.

It totally depends on encounter distance, but from experience (and glancing at the DMG pg. 60), starting encounter distance is pretty far away. Light forest is 105 ft., grassland is 420 ft. and dungeons are LOS (which is generally really far for ambient light, not so far in total darkness with torches.)

Anyway, in order for the melee guys to whip out their damage, they need to be in total darkness with a horrible LOS and start off right next to the monsters. That kinda blows.

bret---
I have seen archer types get into a melee situation. When I've seen this, it usually involved the archer getting badly chewed up.

Melee characters get chewed up in melee, too. My lizardfolk with an AC of 27 gets hit regularly by CR 7 creatures. The TWF is even worse off. And that's not even including Improved Grab creatures.
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I know you said you didn't want counters, but I couldn't resist offering one. Wind wall.

Used it. Doesn't work. Casters don't get LOS through magical walls. Same with Wall of Force.

IMHO, Obscuring Mist is a better alternative (and lower level). Or even Blindness, which doesn't effect your minions/superiors. Slow is a good one, too.

 

[the Jester]

No fighter should be a one-trick pony. Every warrior-type ought to be able to fire some kind of missile weapon and then (if need be) switch to melee when the enemy gets close. The archer specialists are still gonna be better that way, but at least you're contributing.

Also, even though you can see things when they're far away, do you always know whether they're gonna be hostile? Seems to me that that could be a contributing issue. I mean, doesn't anyone ever ambush your group? Do you ever have those encounters where you talk first and then the blades come out?

 

[ConcreteBuddha]

Elder-basilisk--

If you want to blow them out of the water in terms of damage dealing, a combination of those is the route to go.

Regardless of the classes taken by the characters, the archer out-damages the melee guy because of the very nature of the bow being a ranged attack and all of the stackable features of DnD archery. The melee guy often cannot employ the full attack action due to the distance between him and his enemies.


BTW, on a separate issue: I do not believe that characters must take PrCs to remain effective. I would like to stay as a single-classed lizardman barbarian. Why should I alter my character concept to stay effective because some WotC guys decided to make the PA or OOBI? Both of these classes are more powerful than any single classed character. (Except for the cleric, of course.)
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Corwin the Confused---
1. Deal with it.

Okay then. The next player who decides to play an archer, I'll kick in the groin. That is my way of dealing with it.

Corwin the Confused---
2. Next time there is an encounter do not charge the BBEGs. Hunker down and let them come to you.

The bad guys would already be dead.
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Crothian---
All one needs to do is win initiative and charge the archer. Then the Archer will be in a world of hurt.

This is assuming that Archers have horrible ACs and horrible hps. I disagree. Most archers, IMX, have a bit less AC and hps than tanks. They have the same AC and a bit less hps than TWFs. For this trade-off, they gain extra full round attacks for the first round or two of combat. They also don't have to maneuver to hit spellcasters or enemy archers.
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Endur---

Don't advance.

That's my suggestion.

Have your lizardman barbarian stand at the front of the party and wait.

Let the enemy die slowly to missiles and magic.

And when the enemy finally arrives, crush him with a full attack.

Problem: Enemy never actually arrives.

 

[James McMurray]

Used it. Doesn't work. Casters don't get LOS through magical walls. Same with Wall of Force.

Wind Wall does not block Vision, nor is it a solid barrier. Therefore it does not block Line of Sight or Line of Effect.

 

[Crothian]

So, what sorts of encounters are your archers totally making mince meat of? Maybe a few examples can help some of understand where the problem is.

From what I've seen, playing an archer, when ever a creature gets in melee with me I'm in trouble. My AC is good, but the first attack ussually hasa better thjen 50% chance of hitting, and then the second has better then 25%. I think it was at seventh level where we ran into Morrow with some class levels I got knocked to -8hp pretty darn fast. I held out as an archer as long as I could, but had to go melee wghen they went melee and even with full expertise going my AC was not good enough. So, I know archers can be darn effective, but not to the point it's a problem.