Every DM seems to use stealth skill differently, so the overall effectiveness will vary. However, how it would be used ought to be clear. Whether someone who is good at stealth might naturally be good at ranged combat is farther along this bunny trail than I have followed.
You seem to be mixing your arguments (and, may I say, very prematurely deciding that we're having an argument). Whether PCs will be better at something than the monsters will be is a separate issue from whether X helps mitigate ranged combat or not.
No, it isn't a separate issue. Sharpshooter's individual effectiveness is irrelevant. It is how it synergizes with the overall mechanics of the game, especially the overall capacity of the PCs to use it to their advantage to overcome game challenges.
So it is not separate, just as no rule is separate. Broken abilities are all based on how they synergize with the overall game system to make it too easy to achieve victory.
Again, you're mixing your arguments. Are the PCs moving back and forth hammering the monsters, or is combat not possible? To answer in case it is really the first case, if the PCs have a consistent higher ranged combat stat, then yes the monsters should either rush them or get behind total cover. That's true with or without partial cover being effective. If the second is the true case, usually monsters are just fine with battle not happening. It is usually the PCs that are trying to obtain some objective that is instigating the combat.
If you don't know how PCs use walls to take advantage of ranged superiority, then you lack the experience to make any assertions based on the use of walls. I shouldn't have to explain how a PC group can use walls to great advantage against monsters with more limited capabilities.
It is not mixing arguments. It is stating something that an experience player and DM would know very well.
You don't see how darkness might mitigate the utility of ranged combat? Same as with stealth (and, although I didn't mention this one before, invisibility)--if you don't know where to attack, elimination of to-hit penalties and/or disadvantage is irrelevant. Darkvision only goes out to 60' (120' for some rare races). If everything after 60' is irrelevant, than so is the mitigation of range penalties that the SS feat gives. Light-type spells do help... if you know where to place them (and note that putting those spells up is rounds that the casters aren't casting anything else).
I know well how it works, just not how it works well against PCs. PCs more often have access to abilities that take advantage of
darkness and
invisibility. Thus the statement the "vast majority of combats." And once again they take concentration and a specific set up for them to work. So not something you can use very often at all for NPCs/Monsters.
and...? All this tells me is that you think that the cover mitigation is a bigger deal for the Sharpshooter feat than the elimination of disadvantage for long ranges. It is interesting information, but I do not see the relevance.
How can you not see the relevance given non-magic using monsters like giants, orcs, or gnolls best option is to build cover behind walls, murder holes or parapets, and the like, basically build fortifications and use cover to protect given their lack of heavy magical capability. Sharpshooter generally eliminates the major methods low magic humanoids utilize to protect themselves from assault from outside forces.
I really could not care less whether the PCs or the monster or the NPCs benefit more or less.
Well, I care a great deal as I DM more often than not. The Sharpshooter feat causes major problems for encounter design by allowing an archer to take a single feat that eliminates ranged and cover penalties as well doubling their damage, all useful abilities that PCs can take great advantage of to assault monsters at range while mitigating damage creating force majeure situations that make the game too easy.
I stated that all of these are additional tools for mitigating ranged combat that the Sharpshooter feat did not eliminate. As far as I'm concerned, you have not shown that any of them are untrue. I'm unclear on your goals, so I don't know if you've succeeded. However, I am confident in both the coherence of my argument and the appropriateness of my responses.
In a thread where the debate is "abilities that are broken", it is inferred that an ability that gives the PCs a major advantage in combat over DM-generated enemies and that PCs can use more effectively is an example of a "broken" feat. If all the factors you list for mitigating ranged attacks are more effectively used by PCs to overcome NPC enemies, then you are not in anyway proving wrong my assertion (or goal as you put it) to show the Sharpshooter feat is overpowered and broken due not only to its capacity to double the damage output of the user, but to mitigate penalties that help low magic NPCs resist ranged attacks.
Though I do have a method for countering sharpshooter known as "beat the holy living hell out of the bow user". The bow user PCs don't enjoy it, but it accomplishes my goal of challenging the PC rather than letting a PC act as ranged artillery without risk. If the designers will not take some time to redesign this feat, I'll simply limit it using the narrow, but effective, choices available to me that often lead to them getting severely hammered by the ranged or mobile attackers I make up specifically to counter the extreme disparity in ranged attacking power.
Not sure why you hopped into the discussion if you weren't looking to debate. I don't argue if by that you mean either of us becoming irritated or unhappy. Your argument, regardless of your assumptions concerning it, do not change my experience as a DM trying to deal with Sharpshooter in a fashion that is fair and fun. In fact, it is becoming no fun to deal with Sharpshooter because of how heavy-handed I have to be when dealing with it.
