D&D 5E there aren't enough slow Dwarves with Axes! ;)

[CapnZapp]

Dumb beasts know to let prey come within reach before launching an attack.
Thinking things know to let things come within reach/optimal range.

If you mean you have no problems with monsters suddenly appearing 20 ft in front of the heroes, we will have to agree to disagree.

If you mean something else, feel free to provide an actual example

 

[SkidAce]

Ranged is superior to melee. That's why the English Longbowman decimated the French. That's why we use guns. That's why we deliver nuclear weapons with missiles and not carts. Ranged is going to decimate all but the fastest and cleverest of enemies. As it should.

But ranged weapons have their drawbacks. They need line-of-sight. Arrows can't do anything against a foe surprising them around a corner, or in a dense or twisted woodland where distances are limited to average movement speed (+/-30ft).

So yes, if you are throwing a bunch of random beasts at your party on open terrain, they will shoot, shoot, shoot their way straight to victory. Throw some goblins armed with ranged weapons themselves against the party while they stand on high terrain or make best use of their movement to move back behind cover. Big dumb brutes will always lose to clever people with guns. Smart little PITAs will fare much better.

This is true.

When I used to teach tactics, this was emphasized.

However, I think what people are trying to do in this thread, is bring the mechanics of the game into line with what they see as a stale in fiction and movies. I.e. the "heroic swordsperson".
They don't like the reality that in ranged favored situations, that person would be slain before engaging.

I understand their view, and respect it.

For my group, changes would have the OPPOSITE effect, since so many of them are familiar with "tactics" if you will. I can hear it now.

"WTH? He ran straight through a fatal funnel, why isn't he dead?"

We all have our own group's idiosyncrasies to manage, good times, good times indeed.

 

[Imaro]

If you mean you have no problems with monsters suddenly appearing 20 ft in front of the heroes, we will have to agree to disagree.

If you mean something else, feel free to provide an actual example

So do your PC's just open fire on anything and anyone that ventures closer than 120ft - 100 ft? They don't have any indoor encounters? Even outside, are they on totally open fields with no cover, places to hide or terrain? I'm just trying to understand how they control the encounters to the point that majority of them start 100ft away??

 

[CapnZapp]

[MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION], [MENTION=6803664]ccs[/MENTION]: if you truly are interested in constructive dialog, there is an issue I've identified, but since it isn't directly connected to the subjects of this thread, I'll start a new one.

I'll add a link to this post when I've posted it.

Edit:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?505967-Sneakity-Sneak

 

[ccs]

If you mean you have no problems with monsters suddenly appearing 20 ft in front of the heroes, we will have to agree to disagree.

If you mean something else, feel free to provide an actual example

??
I'm not understanding what you're talking about.
YOU said: "A more representative range would be that the monsters ambush the heroes from 100-120 ft away. They get one round (the surprise round) before initiative is rolled."

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...slow-Dwarves-with-Axes!-)/page6#ixzz4RVm7AAjT

I want to know how/why that's the range you're having the foes spring their ambush at as that's a pretty ineffective range. Especially for melee types. If that's truly the representative range your ambushing the party at with melee monsters, then it's no wonder they get mowed down.

And no, if I have creatures lying in ambush (especially melee ones), I have zero problems with them appearing within 20'. That's why it's an ambush afterall.... They wait for prey & spring out of concealed positions.

 

[Imaro]

@Imaro, @ccs: if you truly are interested in constructive dialog, there is an issue I've identified, but since it isn't directly connected to the subjects of this thread, I'll start a new one.

I'll add a link to this post when I've posted it.

Edit:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?505967-Sneakity-Sneak

I'm not really speaking to stealth... I am speaking to encounter design and how one chooses to run the game (which I believe is one if not "the" cause of your issues. I am asking how your players are able to consistently create a situation in which your encounters are regulated to starting 120ft to 100ft away...

 

[knasser]

I'm not really speaking to stealth... I am speaking to encounter design and how one chooses to run the game (which I believe is one if not "the" cause of your issues. I am asking how your players are able to consistently create a situation in which your encounters are regulated to starting 120ft to 100ft away...

Is it not sufficient for you to accept that for many of us it does come up pretty often?

 

[cmad1977]

I have a feeling that the folk who have an issue with ranged weapons in their game are the same ones who insist that the CR guidelines are broken.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Imaro]

Is it not sufficient for you to accept that for many of us it does come up pretty often?

I'm more interested in the "why" of it (I mean this is a discussion board, right? So why is there this push back against actual discussion of the claim?). If it comes up pretty often it shouldn't be a hard question to answer and gives much more insight into a solution than just stating it happens.

 

[Sunseeker]

What's your point here Shidaku.

If you expect me to accept how 5E fails to keep the level of quality given to us in 3E and 4E by serving up platitudes, you have failed.

If you think 4E or 3E are higher quality products, I recommend you play them. Especially if they provide the rules which you seem to be wanting to implement in 5E (they do). EX: I just bought Civilization 6. I do not enjoy it as much as Civ 5, which is widely regarded as a worse game than Civ 4. I am quite happy to keep playing Civ 4 or Civ 5, the fact that there is a newer edition of Civilization does not incline me in the slightest towards ceasing play of the editions that I enjoy more.

Personally, I'd dump 5E in a heartbeat if I could get enough people together to play 4E.

I'm quite capable of tweaking encounters to match my heroes' capabilities. That's not what I am discussing.

Isn't it? You're discussing fundemtnally altering the gameplay of 5E because of a percieved problem. A problem I might add, which I and several other users have positied that may be exemplified by the way in which you approach encounters and the type of players you have. If you are unwilling to alter your fundamental approach to encounters and you are unwilling to alter your player's fundamental approach to the game, then strctural rules changes will not help. It's like you're trying to stop two trains from crashing by replacing the metal rails with wooden ones.

I am identifying a fundamental rift between the characters the game enables and the characters the game expects. I am telling you this rift is wider than possibly ever before. I am saying this isn't because some fundamental design decisions that can't be easily mended without rewriting the core rules engine (like in, say, d20).

The game enables all sorts of characters. The fact that your entire group chose to power-build an entire party of bowmen is what is exacerbating the problem. The system works just fine when players diversify. Even if they still power build. You'd likely have problems if the entire party were great-axe wielding barbarian dwarves. If they were all sword & board paladins. If they were all utility wizards. If they were all druids.

The game enabled your party to do whatever they wanted. What they did was build a highly-optimized artillery unit. Yes, the game can't handle that any more than it can handle a squad of battlemasters (seriously it's like everyone is their own spiked chain).

Instead, I am identifying the specific rules changes that collectively make this happen. Rolling back one or more of them is comparatively minor and easy and with great possible benefits in the ways you no longer need to reengineer half the entire MM.

Personally, the monster manual, the monster math, is fundamentally flawed. Which is why I prefer to fix the monsters rather than rewrite the game to make the monsters work. BTW, I only have to fix the monsters once. To me, it seems easier to fix the puzzle pieces, rather than attempt to paint a new picture.

Now, if you have an opinion on that, or any other constructive criticism, I'm happy to hear it.

Translation: we can't talk about these other issues that may or may not be compounding, creating or inherent to the issues I am having, we can only talk about what I want to talk about.

Honestly, I'm done with this discussion and I won't bother your thread any more with my posts. If you think rewriting the game is a better solution, go for it. I disagree, I voiced my disagreement, I've got nothing else to say.