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

[Horwath]

maybe we should ditch advantage/disadvantage for EVERYTHING!

having ranged weapons incremental -1 penalty per range increment worked much better than this binary mechanics.

I.E. longbow could have 50ft range and -1 penalty for every 50ft. max -20 penalty at 1001-1050ft
Sharpshooter feat doubles the range.

down to thrown weapons with 10ft range.

 

[Horwath]

I once had a table of ranges for bows and thrown weapon with short/long range based on STR score.

bows:

STR N/A 1D4, 70ft
STR 8, 1D6, 110ft
STR 12, 1D8, 150ft
STR 16, 1D10 190ft
STR 18, 1D12, 230ft
STR 20, 2D6, 250ft

apply dex to attack and damage normally.

 

[Ancalagon]

if they cant attack me, why should I close range for few pts of damage per shot?

a good point indeed.

One of the thing that is stopping ranged from being even more dominant is that players want to play their PCs "at the max". If you are a strength fighter with a crossbow, you don't want to stand back and do little 1d8+1 attacks.... buuuuuut from a more rational perspective, as long as the fighter is not needed to block rushing attackers, it's best to stand back in such a situation.

 

[Horwath]

a good point indeed.

One of the thing that is stopping ranged from being even more dominant is that players want to play their PCs "at the max". If you are a strength fighter with a crossbow, you don't want to stand back and do little 1d8+1 attacks.... buuuuuut from a more rational perspective, as long as the fighter is not needed to block rushing attackers, it's best to stand back in such a situation.

if I have longbow, and they have javelins. And no one wants to shoot at disadvantage, then:
I attack them at 150ft and run back 30.
they dash from 180 to 120
I attack from 120 and move to 150
they dash from 150 to 90
I attack from 90 and move to 120
they dash from 120 to 60
I attack from 60 and move to 90
they dash from 90 to 30
I pull greatsword, rage and move from 30 to 0 and attack in melee.

just got 4 attacks for "free". Yes, they may have been at 1d8+2 at +4 attack, vs. 2d6+4+2(rage) at +6 attack. But they are without exchanging attack.

This is if terrain allows that.

 

[Leatherhead]

No, ranged attacks are not "too good." We can prove this with simple subtractive design.

If ranged attacks didn't exist, mundane melee martials would still underperform. Especially against monsters who have any kind advanced movement options, even something so simple as a monster having a measly 40' of movement speed. So the answer is the same as it's always been: "Mundane Melee is bad."

 

[Bacon Bits]

I don't think ranged attacks are too good in-and-of-themselves. However, I think they're far more appealing than they should be. If you play with feats they are probably the best overall option for martial characters that don't use Divine Smite or Rage. Above level ~8 you're able to eliminate every drawback and pick up a ton of overlapping bonuses, especially with Tasha's custom origin or variant human.

• Dexterity is broadly useful in virtually all situations. Several good skills, keyed to initiative, keyed to a good save, keyed to AC bonus, keyed to all good ranged weapons, equal to the best one-handed melee damage rolls, has the most weapons that support TWF? Too much, guys. Too much.
• Crossbow Expert is too good. I think standard bows should always be preferred by a trained archer, but this means there's no reason to ever do that. No penalty for melee, no drawback for higher damage ranged weapons, and makes hand crossbow a lot better than other ranged weapons.
• Sharpshooter is too good (so is Great Weapon Master). -5/+10 is a stupid ability. Ignoring all but total cover is pretty silly in practice. Combined with CE it makes hand crossbow overwhelmingly superior to nearly every alternative at a pretty ridiculous range with no remaining penalty.
• The penalty for firing into melee should be different. I'd prefer a d4 penalty die or plain disadvantage so that it's clear when the player is including it because, in my experience, nobody remembers the static AC bonus.
• The Archery style should then eliminate the penalty die rather than grant a static bonus to hit to all opponents. It probably needs something else on top of that, but I have no idea what it might be.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I agree that there should be penalties for using ranged weapons in close quarters.

also 2H weapons lost 1 and 1/2 str bonus from 3.5e, so raising 2d6 to 2d8 fixes that. That is as much balance towards one handed melee weapons as it's for ranged weapons.

There should be penalties for using heavy weapons in close quarters. Greatswords in narrow spaces are a problem.

 

[Horwath]

There should be penalties for using heavy weapons in close quarters. Greatswords in narrow spaces are a problem.

sure.

If you are grabbed, light weapons normal attack, other 1Handed weapons with disadvantage, 2Handed cannot attack.

for low ceiling, 2Handed weapons could have disadvantage, unless they are piercing weapons.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Count me in for “bows are too good.”

Changes I would make:
- Ranged attacks draw AoO
- Sneak attack from range should have some restrictions.

 

[Stormonu]

I've always used the "firing into melee" inflicts disadvantage, without some sort of feat or ability. And, I always will. Probably because I've done so much archery in my own life.

Though I would like to see Dex removed from adding to initiative and ranged damage. Mechanically, I wouldn't mind Strength being the only ability that modifies weapon damage, and tying ANY ability score to Initiative just has issues. Save the latter for feats at best, maybe a class ability here or there.