But my point is that you can say my character is does more damage, has more uptime, gets attacked less etc but all that falls apart when you play on a team with at least 1 melee character. At that point the party is much better off if the party doesn't play like you describe your ranged character playing. The melee character will eventually end up dead as he's the only one taking virtually ALL the incoming damage. However, if you have 2-3 melee characters, or ranged characters that don't super kite like you describe, then that becomes much less likely to happen as that damage that gets taken gets split between 2-3 characters instead of just 1.
This is untrue because your assuming all characters have to do be on the cliff or all have to be in the valley but the melee fighting in the valley does not cause ranged fighters from using range from the cliff. The only concern is when the fighter is out of reach... like when the enemy can fly and the melee fighter is useless and the range necessary which is my point. I addressed this in my previous post but we actually do this every chance we get in my current party with 2 melee and 3 ranged. Melee are actually safer because despite the focused fire on melee they also have focused healing and one knew they would be the "tanks" so they focused on defense and protection fighting style protecting damage melee fighter. It works great. Their is not falling apart here AT ALL. I still attack from cliffs, kitting around my allied, and supporting them from ranged rarely taking damage in fights unless targeted by other ranged. Again highlighting the tactical advantage of ranged combat.
Just like the real proof that melee is better is comparing them to an all ranged party pincered in a very tight twisty corridor?
Actually that's not a problem. First, your ranged so you pull back to straightest part you can to allow as many attackers as possible because even a "tight twisty corridor" has spots that are more striate that others. Secondly, ranged fighting melee fighters in a "tight twisty corridor" would have to have a polearm to attack more than the front target where even 20ft section would mean 3 attackers vs the first melee enemy. So put your highest defense in front unless the melee fighter is doing 3 times the damage they are likely to drop fast especially when you consider ranged spell casters with toll the dead that are ignoring the armor for saves.
I don't feel like you are even trying to be realistic in what your proposed characters are doing or their ability to meaningfully kite at the ranges they will have to fight at. You cherry picked characters that took every defensive choice possible to try and bolster your point but doing that actually made it ring hollow.
But when you build a party … you pick those things, so as a
completely controllable option why would you not have at least one "ranged tank" to plug doors and hold a line?
One of my original points remain, that ranged characters (with enough range and/or movement to matter for kiting purposes) either don't get the defense of a melee character or if they do they sacrifice a lot of offense to get to that point. The characters and tactics you chose for them illustrate precisely that.
If you have a 5ft wide hallway and a blind turn then second ranged can shoot the same target every time. The second melee can't. Only one of my 5 example sacrificed anything for Defense and that was the fighter.... the other 4 got every thing I listed as part of their base class and are not sacrificing anything from damage. The fighter would likely make the same choice for melee fighter. Defensive fighting style for AC is universal defense ranged or not and taking medium armor master for a dex based two weapon melee fighter is also normal... so if your argument is that archers need to pick things for defense at best that just levels them to melee, but then you only need one or 2 to do that to make a wall in cramped spaces, other wise the other 3 can focus on ranged. No reverse that, I am attacking your 4 melee with my 4 ranged I can pick my target so they just kill the week armor first, or its a narrow 5ft hall and my 4 ranged are attacking your 1 melee in front while the 3 melee in back are waiting their turn to die.....
But more importantly all that still doesn't rebut my main assertion that melee is superior because it allows damage to be easily spread out of different PC's resulting in much fewer team deaths.
Constitution can be low or high on any character regardless of range.... I didn't rebut this argument because its indifferent to ranged or melee to begin with. A fighter with crossbow expert, had 1d10 hit dice per level and can have high AC and High constitution so high HP while having high dex and that is a ranged character... Warlocks can add temporary hit points, rangers can heal themselves... they just done need to and if damage is focused on one ally it also means you can focus healing... there is no point here... It doesn't lean to melee or ranged because its not specific to melee or ranged. A warlock of the old one pact of the blade is a melee fighter but a warlock of the old one pact of the tome might be ranged... they are the same HP, same AC options, the difference is style of fighting. So your not arguing the same classes as melee or ranged your trying to argue a specific melee build is better than another specific ranged build? If not your point is not valid and if you are your splitting hairs way worse than my examples to prove your point. Ether way your still incorrect.
In case you are wondering, I am measuring character strength based on how likely your team can overcome combat challenges without death. Of course I'm not advocating for an ALL melee party, just that melee has benefits due to the team aspect of D&D that get overlooked in most analysis.
I do agree melee gets underrated, but that doesn't mean its not strategically inferior to ranged. It's just that because it is strategically inferior to ranged the people overly and incorrectly disvalue it. We have played many games and generally its not a matter of ranged or melee that result in enemy death so I don't think this is good metric. Most deaths are due to players using tactical error like splitting the group, leaving support behind, bad roles, underestimating enemies, or over estimating themselves. Also, the unexpected arrival of enemy casters and ranged without cover or because they were relying on a heal that counter-spelled.
I don't know that I've ever seen any decently sized group go all melee or all ranged. That's just not the way D&D is played. In the way D&D is played melee is just as good as ranged because while ranged can focus fire and be hit less etc etc, melee spreads attacks on the party out more which helps keep everyone alive.
I don't disagree with your first sentence but melee is not just as good however it is underrated and highly useful. I don't usually see "melee spreads attacks on the party out more which helps keep everyone alive" I usually see at least one tank build in the party who stands in front getting enemies to them then the healer focusing healing on that member. That is the exact opposite and usually its just the one melee and the rest build for damage separating targets and focusing on kills and crowd control just like the ranged in the party.
None of this has absolutely anything to do with D&D. A turn based game where you typically take multiple turns to kill enemies after you start attacking them and enemies can travel hundreds of feet before death is not the same kind of thing as real life where you can spray a machine gun and kill a bunch of guys before they travel 5 ft.
You are correct, but it does have to do with ranged vs melee combat and battle tactics which is a universal truth and I mentioned this and bring it back to D&D in that in order to off set that tactical advantage then D&D would have to deliberately off set ranged attacks do a greater degree than they do. Similarly, superior number and flanking positions that remove the benefit of cover and stealth (because you can't hide from a target unless you are at least partially obscured per the rules) are still relevant tactics from the real world that translate into D&D.
