D&D 5E Are ranged attacks too good in 5e?

[abirdcall]

It's not ranged attacks. It's just DEX being a god stat. Since cool feat pairs (GWM+PAM or SS+XE) are basically identical, and DEX is better than STR, of course ranged fighters win.

Dex is better than Str but it's not a big enough difference to really matter.

The high Strength character is effective. The high Dexterity character is effective.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

In a complete white-room situation, or with a flying archer in a low-terrain area, range becomes a factor too. A longbow has 600ft long range, which is far longer than almost any spell, and Sharpshooter means that you won't even be attacking with disadvantage (which is an especially big deal in a campaign like the one i play in, which uses a NASTY homebrew fumble table on natural 1s)

Does that mean that the more skilled a fighter gets, the more chance they have of making a severe mistake with their weapon?

The 5e weapon table needs a bit of an overhaul in general, to be honest (rapiers uber alles being one of the main offenders), but if I was making some houserules I'd specify that weapons with the Loading quality require two hands to use (because 1 hand has to be free to do the loading!)

I'm pretty sure that this is already a rule.
It doesn't do much to limit Hand Crossbow shenanigans however because you don't need two hand crossbows.

to put down the worst of hand crossbow shenanigans, but I'd also consider applying a minimum strength requirement of some sort to things like longbows. Analagous to the Strength requirement on heavy armour. Maybe if you don't meet the Str requirement with some bow weapons you don't get to add your Dex to damage? It'd mean that as an archer you can no longer completely dump Str without penalty.

I just gave bows the finesse property. That only adds a very little complexity, but allows a bit more realism and breadth of characters.

 

[Bill Zebub]

It's not ranged attacks. It's just DEX being a god stat. Since cool feat pairs (GWM+PAM or SS+XE) are basically identical, and DEX is better than STR, of course ranged fighters win.

While I agree that DEX is more useful than STR overall, I don't think that's the core reason why ranged is better than melee. In other words, if DEX didn't contribute to AC, and DEX didn't get added to Initiative, and DEX saves weren't way more common than STR saves....ranged attacks would still be better than melee attacks. The advantages simply outweigh the disadvantages.

Or, put another way...if somewhat glibly...if throwing axes did the same damage as battle axes, you'd be better off throwing them, even though both rely on Strength.

 

[James Gasik]

I look at versatility of target acquisition as the big deal here. No need to move around and jockey into position to get at anyone on the battlefield you want to hit. Enemy caster on the backline? Snipe him. New enemy appears by your backline? Snipe him.

You start the combat and they guy you really want to hit is out of reach? Your options are to ready an attack for when he moves up, hope you have the Charger Feat, or, in the words of Scott Evil, "why don't you just shoot him?"

This is exceptionally useful for higher level Fighters for another reason, being able to just open the combat making all of their attacks at the target they choose to, rather than risk losing said attacks if they can't reach someone in a single move, or being forced to attack a lesser target.

And of course, even if you find yourself in a battle where ranged attacks are a bad idea, you can just draw your finesse weapon. Investing in Dex over Strength makes you a better switch hitter as well.

 

[loverdrive]

Dex is better than Str but it's not a big enough difference to really matter.

The high Strength character is effective. The high Dexterity character is effective.

Yeah, but STR character sacrifices ranged capabilities for smacking people face-to-face, while DEX character can do both. Your agile fighter can just pull out a rapier, your big strong fighter still can't hit the broadside of a barn with a bow.

While I agree that DEX is more useful than STR overall, I don't think that's the core reason why ranged is better than melee. In other words, if DEX didn't contribute to AC, and DEX didn't get added to Initiative, and DEX saves weren't way more common than STR saves....ranged attacks would still be better than melee attacks. The advantages simply outweigh the disadvantages.

Or, put another way...if somewhat glibly...if throwing axes did the same damage as battle axes, you'd be better off throwing them, even though both rely on Strength.

Of course a ranged attack would always be better than a melee attack with the same stats. It's natural, and I don't see any problem with it.

The problem is that going ranged doesn't entail any sacrifice. The damage, attack number, and your squishiness are pretty much the same.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Of course a ranged attack would always be better than a melee attack with the same stats. It's natural, and I don't see any problem with it.

The problem is that going ranged doesn't entail any sacrifice. The damage, attack number, and your squishiness are pretty much the same.

I think we're largely saying the same thing. I think it's a problem, as a matter of game design philosophy, if a desirable archetype (e.g., rogue that likes to stab things rather than shoot them) is a mechanically worse choice. There should be some incentive to get in close and dirty, to balance the incentive to snipe from a safe distance. Not from a realism argument, but from a game design perspective. If that incentive can be created via "realism" (e.g., hard to shoot accurately into a melee) I suppose that's preferable, but it's not necessary.

 

[humble minion]

Does that mean that the more skilled a fighter gets, the more chance they have of making a severe mistake with their weapon?

Yes, but it also means they have a higher chance of rolling on the equally nasty critical hit table on a natural 20, so it kinda evens out. It does make you a bit more conscious of trying to always attack with advantage though, and often calculating whether an attack roll with disadvantage is worth the risk if the damage will be relatively minor.

It's not my favourite thing, but it's the DMs game and it's not a gamebreaker for me. Some of the results are annoying - I play a paladin with a deathwish, and he got a 'you run away in panic for 3 rounds' fumble one time - no save or anything, which is an irritating thing from a characterisation point of view. On the other hand, it's a FR game and at least half the results on the table are wild magic surge type things, so it's not unreasonable in setting. It's becoming a bit of a table joke about how often we roll the 'you all shrink one size category until the next long rest' wild magic fumble result though.

 

[Leatherhead]

I'm sure this post is clear to you, but ... I can't parse it.

The question is "are ranged weapons too good vs martial melee". You can't "prove" that's not the case with your argument as presented. What you've basically said is "Is Red too good vs Blue? No, because if Red didn't exist, Blue would still suck, therefore Red is not too good vs Blue"...

PCs aren't intended to fight other PCs.
The only metric to measure combat is how successful you are at fighting monsters or npcs.

 

[James Gasik]

I think we're largely saying the same thing. I think it's a problem, as a matter of game design philosophy, if a desirable archetype (e.g., rogue that likes to stab things rather than shoot them) is a mechanically worse choice. There should be some incentive to get in close and dirty, to balance the incentive to snipe from a safe distance. Not from a realism argument, but from a game design perspective. If that incentive can be created via "realism" (e.g., hard to shoot accurately into a melee) I suppose that's preferable, but it's not necessary.

As near as I can tell, the only reason to be a melee Rogue is if you're using a "Bladesinger" cantrip (I can't really call them SCAG cantrips anymore) or are dual-wielding to increase the odds of landing a sneak attack- and I don't think much of the latter since Rogues have interesting things they can do with their bonus action.

 

[Bill Zebub]

...or are dual-wielding to increase the odds of landing a sneak attack-

I would agree, except that if you're attacking from range you can easily get advantage, especially now with Tasha's, also giving you two chances to land Sneak Attack.