The premise of this thread is wrong.
Spellcasters are being nerfed--no question about that (although, with all the talk of Save or Die spells, I wonder if Wizards will have any good ones left before 9th level Destruction is already dramatically superior to Finger of Death, and Disintegrate was the wizard's only real save or die before that (I don't count Phantasmal Killer with it's two saves or Cloudkill and Circle of Death because their HD caps make them useless against CR appropriate monsters)).
Melee characters are getting slightly beefed up in class abilities. However, the changes to Haste (which in 3e allowed a full attack nearly every round, enabling them to pull even with archers), the changes to DR (a single +x weapon and maybe a backup won't be enough anymore; characters will need to shell out for a +x silver weapon, a +x cold iron weapon, a +x adamantium weapon, and a +x moldy cheese weapon in order to be effective--the net effect being that the character can't afford to have the same +x anymore and gets even fewer full attack actions unless he takes Quickdraw) and the changes to the buffs (for all that clerics and wizards cast them, they primarily BENEFITED melee characters) probably will result in a net decrease in their power--if not, they break even at best. Taking into account monsters' higher ACs, attack bonusses, and damages, I doubt melee characters will break even.
Archers, however are the ones that are getting the real boons. I imagine superior weapon focus and greater weapon specialization will work on bows just as well as melee weapons. The new haste is even more useful to archers than the 3e haste was since they rarely have to move and usually get full attacks anyway. And, if they do have to move, Haste now doubles their speed. Just a partial action left you say, not to fear, archers can now do almost their full attack damage through Manyshot. (I'm not looking forward to seeing parties of archers with Shoot on the Run and manyshot using haste to machine gun everything to death without ever coming into melee range). And the new DR? Not to worry, it's not significantly more expensive to cast Greater Magic Weapon on a bundle of 10 normal, 10 silver, 10 cold iron, 10 adamantium, and 10 moldy cheese arrows than it is to cast it on 50 normal arrows (at least not so much more that it will effect the enchantments archers can afford on their bows--which conveniently add damage equally to any arrow they nock). The only downside I forsee for archers is that, now the DR formula is X/magic or X/adamantine instead of x/+y, Protection from Arrows may be adjusted so as to still be useful when GMW enters the picture. (DR 10/Piercing would do it
)
It's archers not melee characters who will be the favored sons of 3.5e
) until I see the finished product.
