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<blockquote data-quote="James Gasik" data-source="post: 8705943" data-attributes="member: 6877472">Really I know what happened.&nbsp; Go grab an old school dungeon map.&nbsp; Look at how small those rooms and corridors tend to be.&nbsp; Imagine being a ranged character with no more than torchlight or infravision, trying to land shots through a door because there's not enough room to enter.&nbsp; And enemies are within one move action of you, unless you can back up down the hallway.&nbsp; Hallways have lots of twists and turns as well.In modern play, light sources are more prevalent, it's a simple matter to keep a light spell on your melee, and I've noticed combats take place in larger rooms to accommodate more enemies or cool terrain features.&nbsp; And there's a lot more outdoor combats than I remember (though this might be anecdotal and DM-dependent).&nbsp; It used to be, that you could never really expect to use long range weaponry effectively, and the damage was terrible, with the exception of slings or composite bows if you're really strong, and most people using ranged weapons weren't- the strong guys were usually up front melee types.Also it used to be that either you couldn't fire in melee at all, or later, that you took opportunity attacks.&nbsp; And in 2e, didn't bows have lousy speed factors?Basically, there's a lot of factors in both how encounters are designed, the fact that old school dungeon crawling has changed, and ranged combat got some buffs like Dex to damage.I don't really want to go back to having ranged options suck, mind you, but it does feel like you're playing football, but suddenly the star quarterback is untouchable (and there's more than one!), and rather than chase him, the offensive line is more than happy to beat the defenders bloody, in the hopes eventually they'll be unable to stop them, and then they'll worry about the pesky QB.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="James Gasik, post: 8705943, member: 6877472"] Really I know what happened. Go grab an old school dungeon map. Look at how small those rooms and corridors tend to be. Imagine being a ranged character with no more than torchlight or infravision, trying to land shots through a door because there's not enough room to enter. And enemies are within one move action of you, unless you can back up down the hallway. Hallways have lots of twists and turns as well. In modern play, light sources are more prevalent, it's a simple matter to keep a light spell on your melee, and I've noticed combats take place in larger rooms to accommodate more enemies or cool terrain features. And there's a lot more outdoor combats than I remember (though this might be anecdotal and DM-dependent). It used to be, that you could never really expect to use long range weaponry effectively, and the damage was terrible, with the exception of slings or composite bows if you're really strong, and most people using ranged weapons weren't- the strong guys were usually up front melee types. Also it used to be that either you couldn't fire in melee at all, or later, that you took opportunity attacks. And in 2e, didn't bows have lousy speed factors? Basically, there's a lot of factors in both how encounters are designed, the fact that old school dungeon crawling has changed, and ranged combat got some buffs like Dex to damage. I don't really want to go back to having ranged options suck, mind you, but it does feel like you're playing football, but suddenly the star quarterback is untouchable (and there's more than one!), and rather than chase him, the offensive line is more than happy to beat the defenders bloody, in the hopes eventually they'll be unable to stop them, and [B]then [/B]they'll worry about the pesky QB. [/QUOTE]

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