D&D 5E Helping melee combat to be more competitive to ranged.

[Flamestrike]

What if your players scout ahead using high stealth and perception with the intent of using ranged attacks to their advantage? Do you prevent them from doing this? And if so, in what percentage of encounters do you disallow this option?

Attack them from the sides or rear or above or below.

I was in the army and patrols do just this (scout ahead with the intent of using ranged attacks to our advantage).

Sometmes it works. Quite often it doesnt and you get bumped from the sides or rear.

From a DM perspective, if you let this one tactic work more often than not, your PCs are going to use it all the time. It gets repetitive and boring, and every PC simply spams the same skills and tactics.

Use creatures with a burrow speed, high stealth scores (in a prepared ambush site giving them advantage to stealth), terrain and environment etc.

Remember, you design the encounters to challenge the PCs. Its no different to designing those encounters comparing CR to EL. You are required to take into account the party before you that you DM for. You are supposed to design your encounters to challenge those characters.

Its a difference in DMing styles. Remember; your main gripe about the system is your players use the same tactics over and over again ('they're the most optimal'), and tend to nova encounters.

So you respond by ramping up the mathmatical difficulty of those encounters. This makes your PCs use the same tactics over and over again (because theyre the most optimal), and forces them to engage in rocket tag.

You're the cause of your own problems. You're creating what youre seeing at your table.

Take a step back and try a different approach.

 

[Celtavian]

Attack them from the sides or rear or above or below.

I was in the army and patrols do just this (scout ahead with the intent of using ranged attacks to our advantage).

Sometmes it works. Quite often it doesnt and you get bumped from the sides or rear.

From a DM perspective, if you let this one tactic work more often than not, your PCs are going to use it all the time. It gets repetitive and boring, and every PC simply spams the same skills and tactics.

Use creatures with a burrow speed, high stealth scores (in a prepared ambush site giving them advantage to stealth), terrain and environment etc.

Remember, you design the encounters to challenge the PCs. Its no different to designing those encounters comparing CR to EL. You are required to take into account the party before you that you DM for. You are supposed to design your encounters to challenge those characters.

Its a difference in DMing styles. Remember; your main gripe about the system is your players use the same tactics over and over again ('they're the most optimal'), and tend to nova encounters.

So you respond by ramping up the mathmatical difficulty of those encounters. This makes your PCs use the same tactics over and over again (because theyre the most optimal), and forces them to engage in rocket tag.

You're the cause of your own problems. You're creating what youre seeing at your table.

Take a step back and try a different approach.

I do not mind the same tactics over and over again. It is how I play and enjoy playing. That was never my gripe. We play the way we do because we enjoy it, including myself.

My gripes are as follows:
1. Monster Manual monsters are often too weak as written to challenge PCs. They lack essential skills and saves to make them challenging leaving them open to players able to use a wide array of abilities that target creature weaknesses like the lack of the Perception skill or a lack of good save. You have a group of diverse adventurers with lots of spellcasting power and special abilities, yet you have monsters that are one or two trick ponies trying to challenge the party. It takes more than that to be a serious challenge, especially for powerful creatures like balors and dragons. This is not new for 5E as this has been fairly constant in every edition of D&D.

2. Modules are not designed well to challenge parties. They do not force the six to eight encounter day. Encounters are often weak and below the necessary level to challenge parties. End game encounters lack the power to challenge parties without serious rewriting.

3. This is purely optional since feats are optional. Certain feats are far more valuable than others and provide too much of an advantage for a single feat. At this point Sharpshooter is probably the only feat I put in this category. Maybe Heavy Amor Master at lower level, but it becomes a non-factor at higher level. GWM I considered balanced because melee is far more risky than ranged. At this point only Sharpshooter is a pain in the behind. Feats are optional, so can't complain too much about this as I can remove it.

I was hoping 5E would play better at higher level out of the box. It's about like past editions. Good for first the 5 to 9 levels, then getting clunky as the players gain too much power and have too many powerful options. I've been rewriting monsters for so many years that I'm tired of doing it. It's disappointing when a balor and marilith are big bags of hit points easily blown up in combat. Goes against my imagination of what they should be like along with dragons.

 

[Flamestrike]

I do not mind the same tactics over and over again. It is how I play and enjoy playing. That was never my gripe. We play the way we do because we enjoy it, including myself.

But you're not enjoying it. You wouldnt be complaining constantly if you were, your players wouldnt be bored, and your games wouldnt crash and burn at mid levels.

The way you DM is creating the situation where the monsters are getting ambushed (and then nova striked) into paste from 200' away by characters with double actions, double spell slots and +3 items, in single encounter adventuring days!

You're constantly complaining that this is wrecking your game, monsters are too weak and get stomped easy, and your players find it boring, yet not only do you refuse to do anything about it, youre actually the one creating these encounters in the first place. This is a problem that is being created by the way you DM and not by the rules.

And what is driving me nuts is I'm telling you how to fix it, but you are not listening. You're apparently just going to keep doing it your way, despite the game clearly not working when you do.

Please just listen to what Im saying. Start your encounters closer. Enforce the longer Adventuring day. Ditch loading each member of the party down with amultiple artifact+ items. Enforce the rules for concentration.

If you intentionally set up your encounters in such a manner as to let your party nova strike critters to paste from range in single encounter adventuring days, then thats exactly what they're gonna do.

Thats not the games fault. Its your fault for being bad at encounter design. Its no different from a DM designing encounters with 4 Orcs for a 10th level party and being confused as to how they steamrolled it so easy.

DMing is an art as much as a science, and while I reckon you have the latter worked out, Im not sure you truly understand the former.

 

[Seramus]

Remember, you design the encounters to challenge the PCs. Its no different to designing those encounters comparing CR to EL. You are required to take into account the party before you that you DM for. You are supposed to design your encounters to challenge those characters.

You definitely should design your encounters to challenge your players, but keep in mind that you can only create circumstances that nerf the archers about... 30% of the time (tolerance for shenanigans may vary depending on the group). More than that, and your archers are going to sit down with you and have a talk about player agency.

So sure, start some combats closer. Or throw up some fog. Or have them make clever use of cover and spells. But the archers (like any character) should only be handicapped some of the time.

Of course, location always plays an important part of the percentages.

 

[Flamestrike]

You definitely should design your encounters to challenge your players, but keep in mind that you can only create circumstances that nerf the archers about... 30% of the time (tolerance for shenanigans may vary depending on the group). More than that, and your archers are going to sit down with you and have a talk about player agency.

So sure, start some combats closer. Or throw up some fog. Or have them make clever use of cover and spells. But the archers (like any character) should only be handicapped some of the time.

Of course, location always plays an important part of the percentages.

Im not saying 'spring monsters 10' away from the PCs as lol gotcha moments' as a matter of course, anymore than one should overuse things like antimagic as counters to magic, or every encounter featuring a Mage with counterspell etc.

Im just saying that you should definately spring some encounters on the party in an adventuring day that force those archers into melee, just like you should give them a few encounters that let them plink away at range.

Same deal with a party with flying PCs. Design some encounters where flying is a bad idea (or neutered somehow) and design others where its a good thing.

Design your encounters to challenge the party. If your party are all fireball tossing fire genasi with flaming ranged weapons and flight, bunching together fire vulnerable ground based monsters is probably a bad idea (although from time to time, you should do it anyway to highlight those player choices and abilities).

Its not a science; its an art.

 

[Flamestrike]

A particularly good tactic to use is to spring burrowing monsters on them in dense terrain (if they insist on placing a ranged PC or two hundreds of feet away).

While the forward scout wastes rounds getting back to where he can get eyes on the PCs, tear them apart with those monsters. Suddenly, the forward scout starts staying a lot closer, and it becomes a risk/ reward thing.

If they start bunching up to take advantage of the paladins saves, hit them with repeated AoE effects. They'll probably pass those saves (and take half damage) against effects they wouldnt be making saves for (or taking damage from) in the first place. More resources (healing via potions, HD and spell slots) get spent than would ordinarily as they heal up after the fight (making later fights that day much harder).

If they use flight, ensure you use things like the trip manouver, making them fall to the ground, or scary aerial threats that make the decision to fly a risk/ reward thing and not a go to.

Have the flying Imp familiar actually act like a devil for a change and do something mischevious. Like fall asleep on guard duty. Or lead the PCs to a ranking devil (by 'accident') or whatever. Listen for loopholes it can exploit in its masters orders. That way it can speed his descent into hell, and free itself from his service. Not all the time mind you, but just enough to keep the PCs guessing.

I could go on an on here. You get the point.

If a particular build or tactic is showing up at your tables over and over, its because you dont counter it often enough and your players are taking the easy road. Mess with those expectations from time to time. It stops them getting comfortable, presents them with new challenges, and opens up opportunities for other builds and tactics to shine.

 

[CapnZapp]

True. Though keeping track of the changes can be a hassle too.

Agreed.

I'm not a big fan of changing or adding rules unless there is some major flaw in the game.

Exactly. To my mind, being able to fight with ranged weapons unhindered in melee is such a major flaw.

I think in this case it's more getting a handle on encounters for the party than an actual problem with the rules themselves.

If I had shared that sentiment I wouldn't have felt the need to mess with the rules.

But I don't. My players are simply to good at finding/exploiting loopholes and building characters for best-in-class DPR.

I simply can't let things like Great Weapon Master stand, since it means nobody would consider playing a character that can't benefit from it. The damage increase potential is simply too great.

I mean, talking about the mid levels (level 12 for example), if a greatsword wielder does, say, 10-15 points more damage per round than a sword-and-board character, that would be totally fine, and probably a reasonable tradeoff compared to the extra AC and perhaps Shield Master ability.

And that's what a quick look at the game tells you.

But in real play, it simply isn't the case.

In practical play, the sword-n-board guy might do 3d8+15 or 28 damage. But the greatsword gal will do 3d12+45 damage or 64 damage.

That difference is so enormously staggeringly huge it isn't funny. It is completely unreasonable to ask a character to forego frikkin' double damage just to gain a few points of AC or similar.

Killing monsters at twice the speed simply can't be beat. You take much less damage if only half as many monsters get to attack you, than what any AC bonus could ever help you with.

And, to round off by bringing us back on topic, if in practical play there's a third guy using a hand crossbow that deals 4d6+60 damage (that's even more than the greatweapon wielder!) both in melee and from up to 120 feet away, then there can only be one conclusion:

There IS a major flaw, and patching the rules needs to happen. Even though keeping track of the changes IS a hassle.

Not only does these feats disable every other character build, they completely outclass the monsters too.

Since I would like to avoid rewriting the entire MM in the Dave 2008 style, I feel that taking away the possibility for runaway amounts of damage is the more painless way to go.

Of course, the best solution would be for WotC to errata the GWM, SS and CE feats officially.

 

[dco]

I reread the thread and noticed that the pro-Ranged positions revolve around tactical scenarios that have no tactical obstructions (terrain/line-of-sight/etc.), and presume nearly infinite ammunition resources. I readily concede that Ranged attacks will be far superior given these circumstances.
I also reread the Fighter class details in the PHB and it seems to be either neutral or melee-focused, not ranged-focused. The Champion and Eldritch Knight Archetypes are neutral, and the Battle Master is neutral/melee. Out of the 15 Combat Manuevers listed, 4 are melee-only, and the rest are neutral.
Lastly, the pro-Ranged position in this thread is reliant on the use of feats, which although we may enjoy using are "optional" and not part of the core system.

I may be misunderstanding this thread, but from what I am reading I am just seeing people wonder what house-rules can be made to make Melee characters more effective when compared to Ranged characters that always have tactical advantage, utilize optional feats, and are equipped with infinite ammo... It just seems silly to me.

Well, the fist homerule on the first post is to improve the damage of the non-finesse melee weapons, so it is not only about range vs melee, the thread also involves DEX vs STR.

Using the standard rules (no feats) and without talking about an specific class we have:
- Initiative, DEX character is better.
- The only way a STR focused melee character will have more AC at higher levels is wearing plate armor.
- The DEX character will have a higher DEX save, far more important than STR saves.
- Shooting, the DEX character can shoot more times and at greater distances. If we talk about ammo it is more realistic to have 1 quiver equipped than carring an arsenal of weapons to throw.
- Melee, the only way the STR character can deal more damage is using a two handed weapon, in this case the DEX character can have more AC using a shield.
- DEX is applied to more skills. If a character is using plate armor he will have disadvantage on Stealth rolls. STR is better for athletics but most sensible DMs will put higher difficulties to people swimming or climbing with armor, the heavier and more cumbersome it is the more difficulty.

Precisely the feats allows the characters to specialize more on a particular fighting style while they change the balance between those styles. The feats favoring DPS are better, and that's what most comparisons bring, some feats improve DPS for polearms and two handed weapons, others improve DPS for range and let characters use range without problems in melee. On the other hand some options as a Duelist or a warrior with a shield (specially one favoring DEX) or subclasses like the berserker are less optimal.
Using feats the question is if those particular builds around polearms and two handed weapons cut back the advantages of a character using range weapons. At range obviously not, a character focused on range using feats is in another league, if we talk about melee I think the only advantage for using a two handed weapon comes from the bonus attack, OAs if we don't count magic users with warcaster, and 1 more AC.
Things will also depend on when does people get the feats, but at the end I think feats don't help the melee vs ranged (and DEX vs STR) situation while at the same time they damage some options.

The only option left is houserules.

 

[hejtmane]

4d6L is not the standard. Stat arry is the standard.

Phb starts with 4d6

Agreed.


Exactly. To my mind, being able to fight with ranged weapons unhindered in melee is such a major flaw.


If I had shared that sentiment I wouldn't have felt the need to mess with the rules.

But I don't. My players are simply to good at finding/exploiting loopholes and building characters for best-in-class DPR.

I simply can't let things like Great Weapon Master stand, since it means nobody would consider playing a character that can't benefit from it. The damage increase potential is simply too great.

I mean, talking about the mid levels (level 12 for example), if a greatsword wielder does, say, 10-15 points more damage per round than a sword-and-board character, that would be totally fine, and probably a reasonable tradeoff compared to the extra AC and perhaps Shield Master ability.

And that's what a quick look at the game tells you.

But in real play, it simply isn't the case.

In practical play, the sword-n-board guy might do 3d8+15 or 28 damage. But the greatsword gal will do 3d12+45 damage or 64 damage.

That difference is so enormously staggeringly huge it isn't funny. It is completely unreasonable to ask a character to forego frikkin' double damage just to gain a few points of AC or similar.

Killing monsters at twice the speed simply can't be beat. You take much less damage if only half as many monsters get to attack you, than what any AC bonus could ever help you with.

And, to round off by bringing us back on topic, if in practical play there's a third guy using a hand crossbow that deals 4d6+60 damage (that's even more than the greatweapon wielder!) both in melee and from up to 120 feet away, then there can only be one conclusion:

There IS a major flaw, and patching the rules needs to happen. Even though keeping track of the changes IS a hassle.

Not only does these feats disable every other character build, they completely outclass the monsters too.

Since I would like to avoid rewriting the entire MM in the Dave 2008 style, I feel that taking away the possibility for runaway amounts of damage is the more painless way to go.

Of course, the best solution would be for WotC to errata the GWM, SS and CE feats officially.

Pole arm is the crossbow expert of gmw master so 3d1
0+1d4 +60 so let's compare apples to apples please oh and he gets a 10 ft reach

Sent from my XT1095 using Tapatalk

 

[CapnZapp]

Pole arm is the crossbow expert of gmw master so 3d1
0+1d4 +60 so let's compare apples to apples please oh and he gets a 10 ft reach

Not sure how that helps the longsword user, or the rapier user, or the knife thrower...?

(If you meant to say that the "greatpole" wielder gets a very respectable DPR silver medal, I won't disagree )