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

[Bill Zebub]

Oh or a Monk.

They can close 40' without dashing, so....

EDIT: and how did I forget Barbarian?

Barbarians get freakin' advantage on initiative, so clearly they are going to either die to the goblin or to their wizard.

I'm being a little tongue in cheek, of course. The main point....yet again...is that even if you have initiative you have the option of closing part of the distance and holding your action. Or doing something else. Before the goblin acts. And that works for all classes.

 

[Bill Zebub]

A fighter is a class that uses the same weapons and armor as a dozen or more other professions that aren't as competent. There is no "dresses like a fighter." There is only guy with weapon and armor.

Sorry, I meant "fighter" in the generic sense. A person trained in the use of the armor and weapons they have. As opposed to, say, a wizard. Or a merchant.

On the other hand, I think it's a little unfair for the players to be allowed to strategize, "Well, we're 40' away and goblins have 30' of movement, thus..." but the poor goblin can't infer anything from his opponent's gear and has no choice but to banzai in at full speed to his likely demise.

Certainly not how I play.

 

[nevin]

While thinking about things being said in another thread, a common point of debate when it comes to the non-caster classes is their inability to fly without a magic item. But then I considered, why not just use ranged weapons?

The Fighter can be built to use a longbow, gain a fighting style that lets him effectively ignore soft cover (and get a +2 to hit targets not behind said cover). If he or she is a Battlemaster, they can use their maneuvers just as well from range. They can engage targets at any distance, be Dex-based, and if Feats are on the table, can fire in melee.

The only downside is you can't use a shield. I mean, there is a damage loss compared to a greatsword (4.5 vs. 7 average damage) but that seems a small price to pay for the versatility of being able to attack from anywhere on the battlefield without needing to move that much (and force enemies to move more to close with you, perhaps).

The Rogue is likely better as a ranged attacker than a melee combatant (barring debates about two weapon fighting to guarantee getting your sneak attack in, I guess- when I played a Fighter/Rogue archer, I missed so rarely, especially as a Halfling, that I was once told to make all attacks at disadvantage for a fight due to high winds, and because the DM didn't say otherwise continued to do so for the next two encounters and didn't miss once).

So this has me wondering- compared to being a melee martial, well, the thread title says it all.

There's a reason armies love artillery and rifles. Before rifles it was Bows. Ranged attacks in the real world are freaking horrible, especially if they are accurate. I have no problems with that. But If your DM is allowing you to start every fight at range then the problem isn't that ranged attacks are too good, it's that your enemies are too stupid.

 

[Cruentus]

There's a reason armies love artillery and rifles. Before rifles it was Bows. Ranged attacks in the real world are freaking horrible, especially if they are accurate. I have no problems with that. But If your DM is allowing you to start every fight at range then the problem isn't that ranged attacks are too good, it's that your enemies are too stupid.

My 5e group hated smaller engagement distances. They wanted all the time in the world to use long range spells and long range weapons to finish off the enemy before they ever got to melee range. Needless to say, they didn’t always get their way.

They also hated it when I used goblins or orcs in an intelligent manner. “What do you mean the orc is holding his action until I pop up to shoot my bow, what is he, part of Orc Swat?” Or using cover, etc. It was fine for them to do it, but not for the enemy (after the enemy took several rounds of them doing the exact thing - popping up, shooting, ducking down.

That being said, aside from magic, missile fire in combat was usually done in volleys. It was a tactic used against massed troops, not against individuals. Try hitting any of 5-6 people at 200 yards with a bow as they advance (or run toward you) - isn’t likely to happen. I’m fine (barely) with bows in closer quarters, but that’s largely driven by movies (looking at you Legolas), and tropes within fantasy gaming anyway. Rifles are intentionally accurate and able to hit things at range far more easily than bows ever did.

Missile fire can be very good, but there is usually a trade off for it (melee isn’t so great).

 

[Garthanos]

There's a reason armies love artillery and rifles. Before rifles it was Bows. Ranged attacks in the real world are freaking horrible, especially if they are accurate. I have no problems with that. But If your DM is allowing you to start every fight at range then the problem isn't that ranged attacks are too good, it's that your enemies are too stupid.

I think to properly support fantasy properly you have to make melee even more viable than is realistic. Classically this has been accomplished by making all but specialists under capable with ranged weaponry. And providing harder to measure benefits for melee specialists on top of the artificial suppression of ranged (ie it needs to take significantly more investment to get good at range and getting good at melee might include things like marking with battle cries and inspiring allies and similar with low or no cost investment).

 

[James Gasik]

I never really minded being in melee for many years, but in 4e and 5e, it's become a miserable experience, personally. The ranged characters have more options, since they can try to stay out of the line of fire, and they don't need to chase down their targets, and they seem to do reasonable (sometimes great) damage while doing so, while in melee, you're subject to not only more damage, but more weird special abilities.

This has always been the case, but something about the last 15 years or so of gaming that reall made me go "bleh, who would want to be a melee character?".

Well there was my Yuan Ti Paladin. Boy was that a blast. Too bad they're losing their poison immunity. It's unreal how often WotC slaps the poisoned condition on people as a status effect!

 

[Zardnaar]

In 2015 I saw a hand crossbow+sharpshooter battle master in melee outperforming the melee characters.

So yeah about that...,.

 

[James Gasik]

In 2015 I saw a hand crossbow+sharpshooter battle master in melee outperforming the melee characters.

So yeah about that...,.

It can happen, yeah. You can probably get a lot done with Warlock Eldritch Blast builds as well, though I haven't seen many of those- people get bored of just spamming EB all the time, lol.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I don’t mind the archer being effective against a ranged enemy. It’s the part about shooting into a melee at 80 feet with only a -2 penalty (and no chance of hitting the wrong target.)

And shooting while in range of a melee attacker should either be with disadvantage or provoke an OA.

 

[ECMO3]

In 2015 I saw a hand crossbow+sharpshooter battle master in melee outperforming the melee characters.

So yeah about that...,.

Yeah it can on his turn, but he does not have a decent Oportunity attack, so he is not performing the same kind of control/threaten function as a lot of melee characters are.