Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Storm Raven" data-source="post: 845069" data-attributes="member: 307">Your case is wanting.Using a buckler causes an archer to suffer an attack penalty. Two handed weapon fighters can use bucklers as well, so there is no net benfit gained by the archer here.Many melee fighters wear light armor as well, especially fighters who focus on things like Combat Reflexes. Plus, at high levels, most individuals should have more than enough armor modifications (like using Mithril armor) and magic items to overcome mobility problems.Getting into a ranged duel with a spellcaster is almost always suicide for an archer. Spellcasters simply have too many ways to avoid being targeted by an archer, or to defend themselves against his attacks, and their retaliatory attacks are usually much more devastating.The meleeist also gets lots more damage dealing capability, and the ability to wear heavier equipment without being slowed (once you get to things like Mithril armor).Cleave at this level frequently gives the melee combatant an extra attack. This is also where Combat Reflexes can be heavily exploited.Magic Weapon cannot be used on ammunition. Check your rules.Only within 30 feet, which is more than close enough for the melee opponents to close and attack him, grapple him (no AoO), disarm him (no AoO, crappy opposed roll for the archer), or sunder his bow (no AoO, crappy opposed roll, easy to chop up wooden weapon, goodbye expensive Strength bow).Ranged sneak attack is a minor advantage, since it can't be used for flanking and is limited to 30 feet, placing the archer well within retaliatory range. Close Combat shot doesn't make an archer any less vulnerable to having his bow sundered or disarmed. He is still nonproficient with it as a melee weapon, he just doesn't draw an AoO for using it in melee.Let's assume the fighter takes a difficult and not very good PrC? Nice straw man there. The fighter can get significant benefit out of just multiclassing to barbarian, or going with a more useful PrC, like the Tempest, or the Master of Chains.Only if you assume the melee fighter is not gaining similar bonuses through his magical weaponry and the use of GMW. At this point, the archer has to worry about negating the Rapid Shot penalty, while the melee fighter is adding to his unadjusted BAB with magic. Plus, GMW gives him the opportunity to add something like an elemental attribute to his weapon without losing magical plusses compared to the archer (since GMW makes his +1 Flaming Glaive a +2 Flaming Glaive just fine).The rise of magical ascendancy makes controlling the battlefield more improtant, and archers don't have that ability. High damage, short ranged opponents? That is DM style more than anything else. Flying opponents? Better taken out by a melee fighter with Fly cast on him any day.Cleave is always useful. If you are fighting opponents with 100 hit points each, and you deal out, one average 60 hit points of damage per round (not even hard for even a mid level melee fighter), you are going to get an additional attack every other round, and your attacks will do more damage on a per attack basis, making that extra attack quite valuable.Using up an additional spell slot for the archer. And an additional +4 magic weapon. Yep, giving the archer more resources is certain to make him look good. Of course, it means your analysis is crap, but you've got a nice straw man going there anyway.Plus, which three elemental abilities are you going to stack with three other elemental abilities? I can only come up with four (flaming, frost, shocking and corrosive). You can't have a flaming bow and a flaming arrow and have it stack, like qualities do not stack, sorry.Other than the fact that you have given the archer several throusand gold pieces worth of extra equipment, used an extra buff spell to bump him up, and gotten the rules wrong, your analysis holds up.Not altogether an uncommon occurence. Melee fighters with Strength scores in the high 30s are not that unusual at high levels.Umm, do all of your archers have an additional 18 they can blow on Wisdom? You've got stats committed to high Dexterity, high Strength, and likely high Constitution, and you can afford an 18 Wisdom? or are you just assuming that you can add on several thousand more gold pieces worth of equipment to the archer with nothing added to the fighter?Ranged sneak attack remains a minor factor, as increasing numbers of opponents are immune to sneak attack damage.With the tens of thousands of gold pieces he has saved over the archer, the melee guy can afford boots of flying and other mobility based magic items. This makes your "flying opponents" argument somewhat moot. He can also afford a +5 cloak of resistance, making him much better at saves than your archer.Once you actually equalize their equipment cost to a reaosnable level, the archer comes off looking not so powerful.Only if you give the archer several thousand gold pieces worth of extra equipment, buff him up with spells more, and get the rules wrong. Plus you need to have opponents who don't attack the archer's main weakness (the fact that it is ridiculously easy to get the bow out of his hands). Once you do all those things, sure, an archer looks pretty good.</blockquote>

Verification