D&D 5E Feats Redux

[FrogReaver]

Can I ask a question. Without feats what makes archers better than a wizard casting firebolt?

 

[LapBandit]

Can I ask a question. Without feats what makes archers better than a wizard casting firebolt?

Archery Fighting Style

 

[ccs]

Can I ask a question. Without feats what makes archers better than a wizard casting firebolt?

Could be any # of things:
Larger HD,
Higher ACs,
Our bows & arrows continue working in anti-magic zones,
Our bows & arrows continue working when we can't speak,
Maybe we get some sneak attack damage in there ,
We can poison our ammo. Can you poison your firebolt?
Many DMS are too lenient & our ammo is never tracked.
There's a fair # of uses for bows/crossbows/ammo that don't involve attacking (and a few that do). Not so many for firebolt.... For ex; you try sliding down a zip-line via firebolt. Can you stake a vampire with your firebolt? Etc & etc.
There's no myth & legend to your firebolts. Arrows? Bows? Oh yeah.Things like the Black Arrow, Hercules bow, etc.
I'm sure there's more ways.

 

[CapnZapp]

[MENTION=20564]Blue[/MENTION] I'm dismayed you seem to seriously question the viability of the archer.

First I need to ask you to stop assuming someone will use my feats Redux and... then not use feats! Why would anyone do that?!

Then: why shouldn't I say "used to" in my reply? It's certainly not the case an archer needs all the freebies 5th ed gives them to be viable. Of course "if it was good enough for 3rd ed, it's good enough for me" is a perfectly reasonable stance to take.

And please now remember that my Redux certainly does not come even close to reverting archers back to the "bad" old days of 3e... ☺

Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app

 

[FrogReaver]

With your changes why anyone play archer when you have warlock with eldritch blast that still gets mod dog with invocation?

 

[FrogReaver]

The point I'm trying to make is that doing to archers what you are doing reduces mages to always better. Why play an archer that's going to be squishier than a mage with less cool tricks and barely more damage?

 

[FrogReaver]

Maybe you are approaching this the wrong way with the damage... To even out melee and ranged why not just give ranged weapons a default -2 chance to hit unless within 30 ft of your opponent?

The basic archery style offsets this bonus. Sharpshooters -5/+10 wouldn't be nearly as problematic with less attack roll? So what I'm saying is that instead of making the damage lower instead find the sweet spot for lowering the attack rolls on the ranged weapon. Maybe instead of an inherent -2 to attack with a ranged weapon outside 30ft you need -3 or -4 to make it "feel" right?

 

[rbstr]

I get where you're coming from, that archers give up very little for the safety of range. But I definitely think you hit them too hard. Like you've halved the damage. Especially if you haven't done anything to cantrips (which often get class features to add mod to damage). The advantage of being martial for at-will damage often distills down to that mod damage.
If anything I'd knock down the damage die down to make the damage ceiling lower. At the very least, the dex mod damage should get added through the fighting style pick. It's nuts to have to spend a feat to make archery any good at all.

Of course "if it was good enough for 3rd ed, it's good enough for me" is a perfectly reasonable stance to take.

No, that's an arbitrary stance to take. Doing something because it was done before in an entirely different context is not well reasoned.

 

[CapnZapp]

I get where you're coming from, that archers give up very little for the safety of range. But I definitely think you hit them too hard. Like you've halved the damage. Especially if you haven't done anything to cantrips (which often get class features to add mod to damage). The advantage of being martial for at-will damage often distills down to that mod damage.
If anything I'd knock down the damage die down to make the damage ceiling lower. At the very least, the dex mod damage should get added through the fighting style pick. It's nuts to have to spend a feat to make archery any good at all.

Nuts and nuts, 3e archers never got Dex to damage (though they could get Str to damage).

The cost of "not adding +2 to a stat" is not nuts in my opinion; in fact, what it does equals to a -1 to hit and a damage die decrease in practice.

"Don't forget about cantrips" is a fair argument - I won't. Promise

Adding dex through Archery fighting style was my first thought. In the end I realized it was not enough. After all, any ranged-focused Fighter would have taken Archery anyway, so it would have no practical impact. It would mean the nerf was words only; cosmetics. (Actually, it would mean the nerf was the removal of the Archery +2, which isn't enough imo. Giving range a +2 attack bonus is a senseless hole-in-head buff that needs to go; but I'm not kidding myself into that the removal of an OP buff is equal to a real nerf).

But I remain open to suggestions. I readily admit that choosing feats is fun, and having one feat being "locked in" lessens that fun.

No, that's an arbitrary stance to take. Doing something because it was done before in an entirely different context is not well reasoned.

Generally speaking, you're right. But I believe the combat model and the way melee and ranged combat works in 5e is sufficiently close to the 3e model that the comparison is indeed justified.

Do note I am entirely upfront with how I don't want to walk back *all* the ranged improvements (restriction relaxations) of 5e.

 

[CapnZapp]

(cont'd)

The problem with "just reduce the die size" is more subtle. It means the weapon ceases to be interesting, it becomes all about your Dex modifier.

In a damage roll of d8+5 the ability modifier is already more than 50% of the result (d8 is only 4,5 on average); I don't want to make this percentage any bigger.

A secondary consideration is to explain how monster arrows deal d8 while player arrows deal d6.

But mostly that a single die reduction is only a single point on average. I need at least two. Not coincidentally, giving up an ASI is two points (one on attack, one on damage).

Just saying this to show you I have considered some alternatives already. I'm not nuts after all