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

[pemerton]

Its a pretty fundamental aspect of reality, and if it was changed, my military friends would raise the "dreaded eyebrow of scorn."

Sure. The other way in would be - what sort of fantasy RPG doesn't allow for a character who leaps into the middle of a horde of foes and cuts them all down with his/her sword/polearm/wahtever?

It really boils down to how each table plays and what they want out the game.

And different games set up different expectations. 4e from low-levels, and AD&D from mid-levels (when fighters get their X/level vs mooks attacks), favour the "leap into the middle and cut them down" trope.

Burning Wheel is grittier, but its approach to resolution favours duels over mass melee.

Rolemaster makes focus fire, and ranged kiting where possible, king.

 

[MostlyDm]

Three things:

1) Without feats, you can't add +10 to damage.

1d12+5 is significantly better than 1d6+5 in a way that 1d12+15 is not compared to 1d6+15.

2) Without feats, you can't get rid of disadvantage when you try to do archery adjacent to a monster. Being forced to switch weapons or (worse) taking an OA to step out of reach is a definite drawback to the ranged build.

3) Without feats, you can't gain what's effectively a supercharged version of dualwielding as a ranged character. (Meaning that Crossbow Expert allows you to use your bonus action to shoot one more time, adding your full Dex to damage, something you'd otherwise need two-weapon fighting style to pull off). Not being given a reliable way to convert your bonus action into more damage is a definite drawback.

Taking these three things into account I'd say that without feats, pretty much the entire complaint goes away, at least from where I see it.

Yeah, I think this is generally accurate.

More specifically: With Sharpshooter, the +2 bonus to attack from Archery Style is this amazing mitigating factor that means your +10 damage lands more often, and you have the best attack bonus in the game. And hitting a guy with an arrow at 500 paces is, fundamentally, easier than hitting a guy with a big stick who is standing right next to you.

Without Sharpshooter, the +2 bonus to attack from Archery Style is something very different. It is a low-rent version of almost all of the archery feat abilities combined.

Enemy has cover, or is in melee with an ally between you? That means they get +2 or +5 AC. Good thing I get that +2 to hit, that mitigates it a lot!

Enemy at long range or in melee with you? Shucks, this disadvantage sucks, but at least my overall bonus to hit is better than anyone else, so that mitigates it a little.

It's only at short range against an enemy out in the open that the +2 to hit actually translates into better accuracy than melee.

Which is appropriate. In melee, the enemy combatant is wiggling around and trying to parry with his weapon and such. But that doesn't do much when they're out in the open in optimal firing range of an archer. It's a situation where it's totally plausible that an archer is going to have an easier time landing a telling blow.

The +2 to hit from archery style makes total sense to me, in a world without the sharpshooter feat. But with the sharpshooter feat, it's not just overpowered... it also really strains my credulity. I don't get what sort of reality it's supposed to be (even loosely) modeling anymore.


It's sad that feats are as unbalancing as they are, since they're also really cool and fun a lot of times. So far, in my 5e games, my latest solution has been to incorporate feats into the game as something more akin to the "boons" of the DMG: special benefits granted for in-game activities, such as a consequence of special training, magical abilities, etc.

It's worked well so far, for me and my players.

 

[pemerton]

For those that do find it a problem, I would say to first try and correct it in how encounters are designed and played; vary up the range at which combat is initiated, vary up the types of enemies encountered; vary the terrain and line of sight; vary up the monsters' tactics. I'd do all of that before even considering altering the mechanics.

If none of that worked, then maybe a mechanical solution is in order.

An alternative perspective - rather than changing the fiction to try and adapt to the mechanics, look at mechanical changes that will support the fiction that you want.

 

[Sunseeker]

The crafting feats and in fact crafting has been basically deleted from the game. That was the way you used to spend character downtime and gold.

It's not that you can't craft, it's just that there aren't codified rules for making magic items anymore.

If someone says they want to sit down and make a bow, I wouldn't stop them. Assuming they have the materials and all of the long-term stuff is done already, I'd say it would take them a full day's time. I'm not going to roll that. They either spend the time and do it or they don't spend the time and don't do it.

Past editions crafting rules were seriously flawed, as much as I support player empowerment, they went far enough that players could bring things into the game that could potentially cause severe power upsets that the DM couldn't (or IMO shouldn't have to) deal with; and often with very little cost to the players.

Crafting now takes exactly as long, and produces exactly the results as the DM thinks is necessary and beneficial to the campaign. If that means making +9000 bows of annihilation, that's the DM's call. If that means telling a player it takes a year to craft a +1 magic weapon, that's how it rolls. Which certainly suits this edition's concept of "rulings not rules". In my last game, crafting most weapons (assuming materials and tools are available) took a week and a material cost equal to the cost of the item in the books. Crafting a non-magical +1 weapon took 10 weeks and 100x the book cost; +2 was 20 weeks and 1000x; +3 was 30 weeks and 10000x the book cost. Putting magic on it it meant 365 days of continuously casting the same spell on the completed item and multiplied the item cost by the spell level. No checks required, just spend the gold and the time and you're good. (that means you could make a +3 dart of Wish for 4500gp and 575 days of time, provided you had a 9th level wizard available). And the answer is no, there aren't a lot of magic items in my games.

And that's the way crafting IMO should be. It should be about what is fitting to the setting and the game, not about wizards being able to dump magic-weapon arsenals in the party's lap.

 

[hawkeyefan]

An alternative perspective - rather than changing the fiction to try and adapt to the mechanics, look at mechanical changes that will support the fiction that you want.

Well yeah...that was the second half of my post.

Personal preferences will vary of course, but I prefer not to alter mechanics unless necessary. The reason being that players have assumptions on how feats or abilities or other mechanical elements of the game function, and they select or use such options because of that. I'd rather not alter that. Players tend not to get upset when the sight lines in a given combat aren't perfect for them...but tell them that sharpshooter no longer removes cover penalties and the reaction will probably be a bit more harsh.

It's also less to keep track of or playtest/fine tune.

 

[smbakeresq]

All kidding aside, I agree that ranged weapon combat is a little to good compared to melee right now. Personally, I find it boring so I focus on melee and warlock builds.

If I wanted to bring it more in line with melee, I'd probably make two changes and see how that affects things before doing anything else:

1) Archery style gives +2 damage instead of +2 on attack rolls.
2) Sharpshooter: Instead of ignoring cover you now have a +2 attack bonus vs. targets with half or partial cover.

Much more sensible than what is currently in rules. Armor or a carapace or things like that cover part of the body, think how unbalanced a feat would be if it let you ignore some that.

 

[pemerton]

I feel that the major difference between our tables is that you're inclined towards narrativism and I'm inclined towards sandboxy simulationism. I know we're both believers in letting player choice (vs. DM intent) shape the story

Sounds fair. By Forge-y standards I think my narrativism is pretty light and B-movie (maybe Z-movie?).

it sounds like you're saying you like a rich character generation with lots of pre-defined capabilities and some metagame guarantees attached, a la "if you play a dwarven Barbarian, you will have plenty of chances to dwarven-barbarian-dismantle big bruiser monsters at close range in melee combat." Am I in the right ballpark?

More-or-less, yep.

Depending on system and table mood, some of the metagame guarantees operate purely at an informal/social contract level. For instance, the BW GMing guidlines - which I was using as guidelines to run my 4e game before I started running a BW game - say that part of the GM's job is to put pressure on the players (by reference to PC goals/capabilities etc) so as to force some sort of response that will then drive play.

So the dwarven barbarian might get the opportunities you describe in part by virtue of the player activating abilities (eg charge mechanics) that enable those opportunities to be created, and in part by the GM framing the PC into those sorts of situations (along the lines of "OK, you've told us your guy is all about proving oneself in the crucible of melee - so now, show us!").

if the player characters were faced with the task of sealing a dimensional rift that was burping out demons, I would expect them to deal with it essentially like a solving a puzzle: by applying known laws against it. They could take a week to research a spell and clean up the demons afterward, or they could take an hour to use Mold Earth to cause an avalanche that would bury it, or they could find the dimension-closing Planar Seal I've planted in a dungeon, or they could think of something I haven't thought of like a Sage using his background feature to get a lead on how rifts are created and destroyed. My sense is that you'd approach it differently, as you say, in a character/build-oriented way: the 17th-level Sorcerer can say, "I'm going into the rift to try to blend my magic inherent with it to destabilize it, because I'm a 17th level sorcerer blessed by Odin", and instead of going, "What? That's not a thing," you'd be more like, "17th level is really high and should be capable of impressive things. Okay, make an Arcana check."

The qualifications I would add to this are:

(1) There is still a puzzle dimension for a player in making the transition from "what sort of character am I" (which should be fairly obvious unless the build and play have been utterly deficient) to "what resources do I have to bring to bear in this situation."

Of systems I'm familiar with, the one that most reduces this puzzle dimension to play is HeroQuest revised. But my group plays crunchier systems that do involve buiding up pools of resources to pull things off.

(2) Key to the framing of the check is the consequence (explicit or implicit) of failure. Another elment here is the likelihood of failure. BW is far more gritty than 4e for a number of reasons, but a big part of it is that failure is common, and hence PCs regularly suffer setbacks that are far more severe than what happens in typical post-Gygaxian D&D (short of TPK).

Relating this to my post upthread to [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION], about survivabiity: a significant element of GM skill in the sort of game I prefer is managing consequences in a way that (i) maintains verisimilitude (in accordance with whatever expectations the game establishes for this - some are more gonzo than others), (ii) maintains momementum, (iii) satisfies the GM's obligation to keep the focus of the action on the PCs' goals/capabilities, (iv) whatever else I'm not thinking of at the moment.

When I ran a session of AD&D a week or so ago I was reminded that failure (missed attacks, failed rolls to open doors, etc) is quite common, but the failure didn't play the same role in that game as it does in a "narrativist" game. It mostly adds onto the time taken, which triggers wandering monster checks. It's not about setting and then resolving "stakes".

 

[CapnZapp]

Was there any resolution or communal understanding reached on how to keep melee combatants competitive? 44 pages deep and I'm hoping someone has context.

All kidding aside, I agree that ranged weapon combat is a little too good compared to melee right now. Personally, I find it boring so I focus on melee and warlock builds.

If I wanted to bring it more in line with melee, I'd probably make two changes and see how that affects things before doing anything else:

1) Archery style gives +2 damage instead of +2 on attack rolls.
2) Sharpshooter: Instead of ignoring cover you now have a +2 attack bonus vs. targets with half or partial cover.

As for me, I have identified a few critical abilites/features/rules that shift the balance.

a. Being able to negate penalties for when a foe runs up to you and attacks you in melee
Specifically: the part of Crossbow Expertise saying you no longer get disadvantage when in melee

As long as foes can threaten your ability to keep fighting with ranged attacks, this might all by itself be just enough to discourage these builds. Of course, as the thread has shown, all you need to do is effortlessly draw a rapier, so this isn't really a huge difference. More like making a statement.

Running a no-feats game is the easiest solution. Specifically banning the Crossbow Expert feat is also rather straight-forward. However, I will personally probably try to salvage the feat by changing it, but that's much harder to pull off.

b. Not getting to add Dexterity to ranged damage
In 3rd edition, archers add no ability bonus to damage. Of course, the game offered "compound" bows that had a strength requirement (such as Strength 16) - if you met that requirement, you got to add a bonus to your damage (such as +3 for this example bow). In practice, it all boils down to archers adding their Strength to damage (for bows, not crossbows).

This is a much more fundamental change; one that I personally believe will once and for all shift the balance back towards melee. Of course, 5E is a simple game and so all this minutae with compound bows is too much detail, IMO. I'd suggest making the following very simple rules tweak:

When attacking with a weapon, you add your ability
modifier—the same modifier used for the attack roll—
to the damage.​

-- Player's Handbook, page 196

to

When attacking with a weapon, you add your Strength ability modifier to the damage.​

Simple, huh?



That's all you need to change. Since specific trumps general, no other rules change is needed to still accommodate finesse weapons:

Finesse. When making an attack with a finesse
weapon, you use your choice of your Strength or
Dexterity modifier for the attack and damage rolls. You
must use the same modifier for both rolls.​

-- Player's Handbook, page 147

The end result is that if your hero is using a rapier, she can still add Dexterity to damage. If you throw a dagger, you can still add Dexterity to damage.

The only change is for ranged weapons. Since they aren't finesse weapons, they now add Strength to damage instead of Dexterity. Effectively all ranged weapons are "compound". To me this is simple and easy.

Also, it ensures ranged weapons will always come second to a true hero. They are still useful when you can't get to your foe, and when the foe charges you from the distance (exactly as useful as in 3rd edition in fact); but like a proper fantasy hero, you will always want to get close and personal if given a choice

To me, this "saves" D&D from becoming a "modern" game where cover and movement take precedence over brawn and guts.

Not coincidentally, it also saves many Monster Manual stat blocks from being obsolete, since now strategies that prevent monsters from closing to melee also prevent heroes from making their best attacks.

One final note: the classic Archer is not banned in any way - she just needs to focus on both Strength and Dexterity, that's all. Considering how powerful range still is, this is definitely a proper cost in my mind.

No longer is Dexterity the über-stat above all others.

Regards

 

[CapnZapp]

Sure. The other way in would be - what sort of fantasy RPG doesn't allow for a character who leaps into the middle of a horde of foes and cuts them all down with his/her sword/polearm/wahtever?

And different games set up different expectations. 4e from low-levels, and AD&D from mid-levels (when fighters get their X/level vs mooks attacks), favour the "leap into the middle and cut them down" trope.

Burning Wheel is grittier, but its approach to resolution favours duels over mass melee.

Rolemaster makes focus fire, and ranged kiting where possible, king.

Read the post just above this, Pemerton. There you'll find at least my answer to how to reenable the kind of hero you mention, and to "derolemasterify" 5th edition

 

[CapnZapp]

An alternative perspective - rather than changing the fiction to try and adapt to the mechanics, look at mechanical changes that will support the fiction that you want.

Yes. So very much this. Thanks!

The issue here is that D&D has in no way indicated the shifted balance as something intentional or desired. Not least to me.

That is why I feel that the supremacy of ranged is still a half-hidden secret that few know about, and that the designers would consider a mistake if pointed out to them.