Mounted Archery Balanced?

[Clint]

Galfridus: Mounted penalties only apply when the horse is on the move. (other than the ride checks necessary)

Thanks very much for your collective reassurance that this is, in fact, balanced. I feel better.

 

[Artoomis]

Galfridus: Mounted penalties only apply when the horse is on the move. (other than the ride checks necessary)

Thanks very much for your collective reassurance that this is, in fact, balanced. I feel better.

Well, that's what's important.

 

[BlindKobold]

Yup... it's all fun and games until someone pulls out a bag full of caltrops.

 

[Hypersmurf]

And if they fight any druids, these spells are the type they would likely have prepared all the time.

And of course, the sorts of places where you can make use of a horse are the sorts of places you're more likely to encounter druids anyway...

-Hyp.

 

[Artoomis]

Yup... it's all fun and games until someone pulls out a bag full of caltrops.

Whoa.... Be careful with those things - you could poke somebody's eye out with those.

Oh, and don't forget the firing into melee penalties - -4 attack, if I remember right.

 

[Cullain]

Oh, and don't forget the firing into melee penalties - -4 attack, if I remember right.

Exactly the point I was going to bring up. If the horse is attacking a critter in front of him, and the archer also attack it, there's a decent chance the archer is gonna nail the horse. The horse that doesn't necessarily have a lot of hp in the first place.

The biggest thing to remember is, opponents will know that a horse gives you a big tactical advantage, and will want to get rid of that advantage right away. Your ranger better have money set aside from replacement mounts.

But it's still a solid tactic, and I wouldn't necessarily penalize the player for using solid, thousand year old battle plans.

Cullain

 

[Hypersmurf]

But it's still a solid tactic, and I wouldn't necessarily penalize the player for using solid, thousand year old battle plans.

Did any real army ever use their mounted archers to sit within spear range of an enemy and shoot while their horse flailed away with hooves... deliberately?

I thought tradtional mounted archery tactics were to use the horses' superior speed to keep you well away from the spears while you shot at them...?

-Hyp.

 

[Rackhir]

Never thought I'd be agreeing with a smurf, but Hypersmurf does have the right of it.

Particularly if you are fighting in an open area, the horse will effectively let you move-hit-move. After all, the horse moves on your initiative and you take your action at the halfway point of your horse's move. So you can move into the 30' optimum range take a FULL attack action (since you are not moving, your horse is) and then move away from your foe.

The real power of the mounted archery feat is that it starts permitting you to do double moves or even full running actions with the steed at minimal penalties. So you can effectively keep up to 70-90 ft away from your foe while still hitting them at optimum range and at your full rate of fire. This is one of the few areas where the archery feat is better than the melee version of the feat.

This sort of thing is one of the reasons why the Mongols kicked so much ass.

 

[drnuncheon]

After all, the horse moves on your initiative and you take your action at the halfway point of your horse's move. So you can move into the 30' optimum range take a FULL attack action (since you are not moving, your horse is) and then move away from your foe.

Unfortunately for the mounted rider, no. From the SRD:

"If a combatant's mount moves more than 5 feet, the combatant can only make a partial melee attack. Essentially, a combatant has to wait until the mount gets to the combatant's enemy before attacking, so the combatant can't make a full attack."

 

[Rackhir]

Originally posted by drnuncheon
"If a combatant's mount moves more than 5 feet, the combatant can only make a partial melee attack. Essentially, a combatant has to wait until the mount gets to the combatant's enemy before attacking, so the combatant can't make a full attack."

You are absolutely correct...
for MELEE attacks.
Read what you quoted more carefully.

From the PHB pg 138, column 2, paragraph 10.

(after a section on penalties for firing while moving) " In either case, you make the attack roll when your mount has completed half its movement. You can even exercise the full attack action while your mount is moving." It then goes on to talk about how you can use your MEA normally etc...

As it says above in your quote, for a melee attack you have to wait, until your horse gets to the target. Obviously with a missile weapon you are under no such restrictions, they have range. You can "start" shooting as you approach and keep shooting as you "pass" your foe. So while you get penalties for taking more than a standard move on your horse (which you don't with melee weapons) and don't get the bonuses for being higher than your foe (which you do with melee weapons), you can use the full attack action. Taking your action at the halfway point of your steeds move for missile weapons, is obviously somewhat of an abstraction, but given the necessary abstractions of the turn based combat system it's not unreasonable.