Ranged Options for All Classes

Oofta

Legend
True dat.

(EDIT: exception for Dual Wielder, I suppose... 3 each round for two rounds, then 2 for 3rd round and beyond... but anyway jeez that's a lot of thrown weapons to carry...)

[MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION] beat me to it. I had a character that did that - two weapon fighting, etc. My DM also (house?) ruled that I could attack with my primary multiple times once I got a dwarven thrower. But that was the exception to the rule.
 

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I have to admit, I'm surprised by how many people enforce the limits on thrown weapons. It's never made any sense to me that I can draw as many arrows as I need to, but I can only ever draw one javelin or dagger. I've never run or played in a game that didn't treat thrown weapons as ammunition for those purposes.

I recognize that it's a house rule, and I'm not suggesting otherwise. I'm just taken aback that it's not almost universal.
 

Lord Twig

Adventurer
I have to admit, I'm surprised by how many people enforce the limits on thrown weapons. It's never made any sense to me that I can draw as many arrows as I need to, but I can only ever draw one javelin or dagger. I've never run or played in a game that didn't treat thrown weapons as ammunition for those purposes.

I recognize that it's a house rule, and I'm not suggesting otherwise. I'm just taken aback that it's not almost universal.
Honestly we never enforce it in our games either. Not even in the AL games where we can be sent to D&D jail* if we are caught.

* D&D jail is just like regular jail but there is a skeleton and a rat in it, plus a secret door leading to the alley that can be found with a DC15 investigation check.
 

I have to admit, I'm surprised by how many people enforce the limits on thrown weapons. It's never made any sense to me that I can draw as many arrows as I need to, but I can only ever draw one javelin or dagger. I've never run or played in a game that didn't treat thrown weapons as ammunition for those purposes.

I recognize that it's a house rule, and I'm not suggesting otherwise. I'm just taken aback that it's not almost universal.

Same.

"Wait, you're telling me it's inferior in nearly every way possible to a bow. Shorter range, lower damage, more expensive, more bookkeeping. The only benefits are that they're one handed, use Str instead of Dex, and they can be press-ganged into melee weapons. And people say that it needs to be limited rate of fire, too?"
 

So, did anyone ever address the point made a few time by various people earlier in this thread that choices have consequences and that's a good thing? That not every class can or should be competant at every aspect of the game? And in this case; both ranged and melee?
 

Your "solution" is to never build a martial character that can be effective outside of melee with anything less than an above average dex. That's not a solution.

There is little or no reason to do a strength based barbarian from a numbers perspective. Dex based is better in every way other than the occasional athletics check which may never happen.

As far as fighters having more attacks, who cares? If I have a 30% chance of hitting doing 3.5 damage per hit they average 1 point of damage per attack. The fighter would be better off throwing their one javelin per turn or going full defensive.

As far as paladins, I have no clue what kind of game you play but they don't have that many spells, and only a few are effective at range. This is especially true if you follow the standard guidelines for number of fights.

Ultimately I don't need or want all character builds to be equal. But as it stands now, strength based character have no good ranged options other than "have a good dex". Blah.

No. I wouldn't build a barbarian with less than 14 dex. MAD is a known issue for 5e barbarians - one reason I'm not fond of the class, but increasing dex from 8 to 14 comes at a relatively low opportunity cost (depending on race), and shouldn't prevent maxing out STR and CON. And it has the side effect that most barbarians are respectable bow users. And there is little point in having dex higher than 14 either, medium armour > Unarmoured Defence.

As for fighters, they have lots and lots of options for dealing with ranged enemies that don't involve dexterity. And I already pointed out Eldritch Knights' ranged attacks key of intelligence (and later get access to Misty Step and Fly, that don't depend on any ability score). Thanks to extra attack a Battle Master is likely to land the occasional hit with a bow even with -1, and they don't need to do significant damage to Disarm, Trip or whatever Manoeuvre they chose. Or they can have a friendly wizard cast fly on them, or they can choose to play race with a helpful ability, such as aarakocra, aasimar, elf (high, eldadrin, shadar-kai), tiefling (variant), genasi (air, fire) or half elf (variant). It just requires the player to spend a moment thinking "what will I do if some enemy is flying around above my head shooting arrows at me?" There are lots of possible answers for any player who turns their brain on.

Paladins, they don't need to reach the enemy - it's a team game and paladin is a support class. A simple bless spell can make quite a difference to the party's effectiveness, and they should have the spell slot available since they can't Smite at range. And they can heal, generate defensive auras, and otherwise support the team.

But it's true that not all ability scores are created equal, in D&D they never have been, and they don't need to be. After all, why would anyone who wasn't dumb choose a career as an adventurer?!
 

Oofta

Legend
So, did anyone ever address the point made a few time by various people earlier in this thread that choices have consequences and that's a good thing? That not every class can or should be competant at every aspect of the game? And in this case; both ranged and melee?

The problem is that if your PC is dex based, you can be good at both melee and ranged thanks to rapiers. Care more about damage than defense? Dual wield rapiers and get within a point or two of damage per round of two-handed weapons.
 

Yunru

Banned
Banned
I know it'd undercut Crossbow Expert, but what if both bows and crossbows had the Loading property, but only if you don't meet a strength requirement (the same way armour only slows you if you don't meet the requirement)?
 

Oofta

Legend
No. I wouldn't build a barbarian with less than 14 dex. MAD is a known issue for 5e barbarians - one reason I'm not fond of the class, but increasing dex from 8 to 14 comes at a relatively low opportunity cost (depending on race), and shouldn't prevent maxing out STR and CON. And it has the side effect that most barbarians are respectable bow users. And there is little point in having dex higher than 14 either, medium armour > Unarmoured Defence.

As for fighters, they have lots and lots of options for dealing with ranged enemies that don't involve dexterity. And I already pointed out Eldritch Knights' ranged attacks key of intelligence (and later get access to Misty Step and Fly, that don't depend on any ability score). Thanks to extra attack a Battle Master is likely to land the occasional hit with a bow even with -1, and they don't need to do significant damage to Disarm, Trip or whatever Manoeuvre they chose. Or they can have a friendly wizard cast fly on them, or they can choose to play race with a helpful ability, such as aarakocra, aasimar, elf (high, eldadrin, shadar-kai), tiefling (variant), genasi (air, fire) or half elf (variant). It just requires the player to spend a moment thinking "what will I do if some enemy is flying around above my head shooting arrows at me?" There are lots of possible answers for any player who turns their brain on.

Paladins, they don't need to reach the enemy - it's a team game and paladin is a support class. A simple bless spell can make quite a difference to the party's effectiveness, and they should have the spell slot available since they can't Smite at range. And they can heal, generate defensive auras, and otherwise support the team.

But it's true that not all ability scores are created equal, in D&D they never have been, and they don't need to be. After all, why would anyone who wasn't dumb choose a career as an adventurer?!

So your solution is to have a good dex or cast a spell. Oh, and give paladins fly, allow Battle Masters to spend more than one maneuver per attack. Ignore brutes, champions, non-Oath of the Ancients paladins, etc. Basically pull out the pom-poms and cheer "go team" when you fight that dragon.

I'd rather fix it by tweaking the rules. I allow strength based bows, others make them versatile. Some people allow sheathes for thrown weapons that work like arrow quivers or just ignore the rule that you can only draw one weapon per turn. I think any of those are better than "build a dex based characters or one that has good ranged spells or you suck".

Have a good one.
 

The problem is that if your PC is dex based, you can be good at both melee and ranged thanks to rapiers. Care more about damage than defense? Dual wield rapiers and get within a point or two of damage per round of two-handed weapons.

Duel wield rapiers requires a feat, and they don't get anywhere near the DPS of someone with the Great Weapon feat.

But on the whole, a finesse fighter will only be slightly worse DPS than a 2H weapon user, slightly worse AC than full plate + shield and slightly worse at range than a specialist archer. So what? If you want to be quite good (but not the best) at everything (apart from carrying out the loot), make a finesse fighter. You want to specialise? Your choice.

But point buy gives you enough points to max out THREE stats, or have 6 at 14. There is no reason a dex fighter has to dump strength, or a strength fighter has to dump dex.
 
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