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

CapnZapp said:

But seriously, stop counting arrows.. ☺

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Ashkelon said:

I'm very confused why the designers of 5e changed core gaming tenants that worked to counter ranged superiority in previous editions.

The removal of the charge action, the removal of opportunity attacks vs spells and ranged attacks, the ability for archers to be just as tanky as melee bruisers, the ability to counteract all penalties for distance and cover by taking a single feat, and the archery fighting style synergizing extremely well with the -5 / +10 feats are just some of the examples changes that promote ranged superiority.

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Hemlock said:

What gives you the right to complain about a game you're not in?

Sometimes the players spend large amounts of time doing things like recruiting peasants for their space colony, milking monsters for poison, negotiating treaties with elvish fleets, stripping poison off of drow bodies and trying to use it up before it all goes bad, or counting how many cows they have left for fueling their lifejammer hammership. Logistics is part of the fun of an RPG.

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Hemlock said:

What gives you the right to complain about a game you're not in?

Sometimes the players spend large amounts of time doing things like recruiting peasants for their space colony, milking monsters for poison, negotiating treaties with elvish fleets, stripping poison off of drow bodies and trying to use it up before it all goes bad, or counting how many cows they have left for fueling their lifejammer hammership. Logistics is part of the fun of an RPG.

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Ashkelon said:

I'm very confused why the designers of 5e changed core gaming tenants that worked to counter ranged superiority in previous editions.

The removal of the charge action, the removal of opportunity attacks vs spells and ranged attacks, the ability for archers to be just as tanky as melee bruisers, the ability to counteract all penalties for distance and cover by taking a single feat, and the archery fighting style synergizing extremely well with the -5 / +10 feats are just some of the examples changes that promote ranged superiority.

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Hemlock said:

Don't forget the elimination of "requires magical weapons to hit." In AD&D, magical arrows were prohibitively expensive, and there were no at-will cantrips, so monsters with weapon immunity basically had to be engaged in melee on a regular basis.

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Yunru said:

Melee gets all the call magic weapons. Ranged, not so much.

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CapnZapp said:

I have been pondering this question too.

Unfortunately the best answer I have come up with is: ignorance.

That is, many changes are individually popular and asked-for.

It's just that no-one realized that more than half a dozen tweaks, all leading in the same direction, could derail the entire carriage.

People simply expect melee to reign supreme just as in every previous edition, not questioning if it really still is.

Still today - in this very forum, even - there are forumists that simply refuse to see this even when we move past all the perfectly reasonable reasons why you don't see it at first.

I have fought hard to finally read a response such as yours, taking this for granted, and I thank you for it.

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CapnZapp said:

(cont'd)

The really important point is: as an archer you never need melee weapons or shields as backups, as you did in all previous editions.

You're not squishy, you're not reduced or limited in any way.

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