D&D 5E Helping melee combat to be more competitive to ranged.

[FormerlyHemlock]

Well there is no mechanical restriction for this beyond the encumbrance rules, about which you are correct, they will likely not limit anyone.

But what if the DM simply asks the player "So where does your character store all these arrows?" Would you guys all say that such a common sense type of approach is beyond the DM's ability? Or beyond the social contract aspect of the game that exists between players and DMs?

What does everyone think about that?

I do that kind of thing all the time. "How are you holding all of your javelins? Can you describe what you're doing?"

 

[Ovinomancer]

Just curious - have you ever run a table without any melee PCs? In the games I've been apart of without them (and crowd control as well), the PCs get rushed and things are get more dicey for winning fights, even with good dpr.

Yes, but not in 5e. However, my melees in 5e have been clerics and monks up till now. At one point I had a knowledge cleric (not a tank), a light monk (focused on movement), a warlock (EB focus), a ranger (ranged focus), and a lightfoot rogue (ranged focus). There was no front line, per se. Right now, that party composition is a battlemaster sheild expert fighter, a tempest cleric, the ranger and the rogue. Huh... the only character that hasn't died in my campaign is the ranger (they're all 11th now). The rogue player had a cleric until the TPK (except the ranger) at 5th level. Both the battlemaster and the tempest cleric have played exclusively melee or caster builds (a barbarian, a monk, and a melee wizard/fighter for one, and a bard, a cleric, and an arcane trickster dagger fighter for the other). Those two players are, arguably, the better tactical players at the table, too. Weird. (The warlock player got disinvited, although I've recently added a wizard player, he's only made on sessions so far).

So, for most of my ranged players' careers in 5e, they've had weak front lines. Tactically, I can say this doesn't seem to matter much, up until the point I can actually split them up and get them focused on individual threats rather than focus fire. So long as they continue focus fire, they've done very well. The combats that go badly, though, almost always involve them operating as individuals against independent threats. At that point I can overwhelm them because I've broken their mutual support. Not that this is my goal, as a DM, I never set out to do this, but I also play encounters according to the desires and objectives of the bad guys, and some of them are smart enough and powerful enough to operate this way.

In reality, the rogue in my group has approx 70 hp at 11th (8 first +4*10 levels +2*11 con, oh hey, that is 70). Add roll with it to that and he's pretty tough. Sure, much less than the 18 con and tough tempest cleric with the 21 AC, but the cleric also has a 12 STR, so he's not much of a melee threat to stop critters. The ranger is better off than the rogue, but lacks roll with it, but suppliments with escape the horde and a 17 AC, meaning that she just walks away from most melee combatants and often doesn't get hit (disad against 17 AC likely misses for most monster to hits). Right now, actual control is done by the battlemaster, who shield bashes and goads all the time, and by the tempest cleric's spells. So, I just haven't actually noticed a need for a meat wall in 5e. A touch of control and the beefiness of characters limits the need.

 

[Ashkelon]

One of the few games I have played in where arrows were was a Gurps game. The encumberance rules are quite harsh, much more so than the harshest 5e encumberance rules. In that game I had a back quiver, a shoulder quiver, and two hip quivers. IIRC it was enough for 60 different arrows on my person at a time without being encumbered.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

But that's just your houserules...?

The subject of the context in which you mentioned Zorro and Drizz't was houserules. Specifically, your houserules for enabling Drizz't and Zorro by nerfing lots of stuff. I pointed out that you could enable Drizz't and Zorro by boosting Drizz't and Zorro specifically instead of nerfing everything else, especially since you were also interested in keeping fighters useful and in having melee fighters have higher DPR than ranged fighters. The rules I gave as an example were just a straightforward solution to those constraints.

If we're not talking about house rules in response to Drizz't and Zorro, then I don't know what we are talking about. Everyone already knows that two-weapon mojo is weak both in real life and by 5E PHB rules.

And how is adding a boost to each and every fighting style easier to create, balance and analyse than my approach? (I mean, you say it like your approach is obviously easier and better.)

Once you're done with Drizzt and Zorro, how about all the other kinds of weapon-usages...

Sorry, I don't have time to respond in detail multiple times to each query, only to be met with new demands after explaining one answer (Drizz't and Zorro) three times. If you follow the quoted links by clicking on the arrow you'll see my ballparked solution for the other weapon-usages (e.g. double damage dice for Dueling style, hypothetically) which serves to illustrate the point. Working the math and tweaking it to taste is left as an exercise for the individual DM.

But I'm doing this for a multitude of reasons, that also include feat balance (buffing other weapon feats to do more damage only widens the gap to non-combat feats and my players are already more interested in combat than non-combat), archetype support (Crossbow Expert actually is the worst, since it doesn't support the archetypes it should while supporting only the fully automatic crossbow Sage Advice specifically said it doesn't), along with the other issues we've already discussed (melee vs ranged, martial vs cantrip) etc.

Fine. You have a multitude of interacting reasons for running the game the way you want it. That's precisely why tweaking the game is left up to individual DMs like yourself--it's very difficult to even articulate all the requirements you have, and every time I try to respond to the ones you've articulated, it turns out there are other requirements you haven't articulated which cause you to prefer a different solution. That's fine. Every DM's game is idiosyncratic.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Are you aware that your posting style is needlessly aggressive and insulting?

You're not the first person to point it out.

How long are your combats? Serious question, because you're talking about 10's of rounds to go through 2 quivers of arrows unless your making 4 attacks a round, in which case you probable have a magical solution?

To be fair, 5e doesn't assume magic items at any particular level. For that matter it doesn't assume any wealth/level, so even a 20th level archer could theoretically be counting every arrow because he's impoverished enough to fret about the cost of replacing them...
And, also to be fair, you could get into the 10s of rounds over a longer adventuring 'day' of 8 encounters - or over an extended adventure of several adventuring-day-equivalents without re-supply. Probably neither's going to be the case often, but it could happen.

 

[Corwin]

Stay classy, San Jose.

 

[nswanson27]

Yes, but not in 5e. However, my melees in 5e have been clerics and monks up till now. At one point I had a knowledge cleric (not a tank), a light monk (focused on movement), a warlock (EB focus), a ranger (ranged focus), and a lightfoot rogue (ranged focus). There was no front line, per se. Right now, that party composition is a battlemaster sheild expert fighter, a tempest cleric, the ranger and the rogue. Huh... the only character that hasn't died in my campaign is the ranger (they're all 11th now). The rogue player had a cleric until the TPK (except the ranger) at 5th level. Both the battlemaster and the tempest cleric have played exclusively melee or caster builds (a barbarian, a monk, and a melee wizard/fighter for one, and a bard, a cleric, and an arcane trickster dagger fighter for the other). Those two players are, arguably, the better tactical players at the table, too. Weird. (The warlock player got disinvited, although I've recently added a wizard player, he's only made on sessions so far).

So, for most of my ranged players' careers in 5e, they've had weak front lines. Tactically, I can say this doesn't seem to matter much, up until the point I can actually split them up and get them focused on individual threats rather than focus fire. So long as they continue focus fire, they've done very well. The combats that go badly, though, almost always involve them operating as individuals against independent threats. At that point I can overwhelm them because I've broken their mutual support. Not that this is my goal, as a DM, I never set out to do this, but I also play encounters according to the desires and objectives of the bad guys, and some of them are smart enough and powerful enough to operate this way.

In reality, the rogue in my group has approx 70 hp at 11th (8 first +4*10 levels +2*11 con, oh hey, that is 70). Add roll with it to that and he's pretty tough. Sure, much less than the 18 con and tough tempest cleric with the 21 AC, but the cleric also has a 12 STR, so he's not much of a melee threat to stop critters. The ranger is better off than the rogue, but lacks roll with it, but suppliments with escape the horde and a 17 AC, meaning that she just walks away from most melee combatants and often doesn't get hit (disad against 17 AC likely misses for most monster to hits). Right now, actual control is done by the battlemaster, who shield bashes and goads all the time, and by the tempest cleric's spells. So, I just haven't actually noticed a need for a meat wall in 5e. A touch of control and the beefiness of characters limits the need.

I guess what you say in your scenario makes sense - sometimes a dab will do ya. I guess in my scenarios there wasn't any at all, and it made a notably different (worse) group posture - sometimes it didn't matter much, but sometimes it was PCs running and have nowhere to run to and unprotected spellcasters going down. We haven't had any TPKs though, so it was still workable in the end.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Are you aware that you read aggressiveness and insults into posts?

Case in point.

I did answer you. Sorry if it wasn't the answer you wanted. But it was clearly an answer. And an accurate one at that. And, as I have done many times here, if I wanted to acuse you of acting in bad faith, I would have said so. Again, it seems like you are projecting or reading into things.

But, okay, I, too, will chalk it up to a long, contentious thread for this one and respond in good faith.

Depends is not an answer, it's an equivocation that needs further explanation, which you didn't provide. To call depends an answer renders the concept of answering a question irrelevant -- so long as I type a word I can claim I've answered.

Can't recall the last time I saw, or read of, a fantasy archer regularly running around with multiple quivers on their hip/back/wherever, and a handful more in a backpack. This, IMO, falls into a similar playstyle category as [MENTION=6774887]Ashkelon[/MENTION]'s archers carrying around a dozen rapiers and/or daggers to whip out momentarily between turns, before promptly dropping them, just so they can get in on OAs.

Preemptory google searches on the topic indicate that 10th century Byzantine archers were expected to have a quiver of 40 arrows and a quiver of 60 arrows on hand. English order of battles from Henry V's Battle of Agincourt show that an English Longbowman carried 2 sheaves (24 arrows each sheaf) in their quiver and another 1 or 2 sheaves worth tucked into their belt for a total of 60-75 arrows. (Although the typical English archer would only carry 24 to 48, that was also when they had a very well rehearsed resupply from stores, which wasn't present at Agincourt and may account for the differences.) The Mongols rode with 2-3 quivers of 60 arrows each, with one quiver holding specialty arrows like signal arrows or incendiary arrows. They also carried 2 bows.

So, historically, carrying many arrows is something archers did -- I think because most archers realized that their lives pretty much depended on having ammo. So reference to what some artist thinks a fantasy archer should look like is far less convincing to me than what can be easily accomplished and, indeed, was historically accomplished re: carrying a lot of ammo.

If you'd like to call following the example of the greatest historical archer archetypes (the Mongels and the English Longbowmen at Agincourt) cheese, go ahead, I won't mind.

 

[Corwin]

Depends is not an answer, it's an equivocation that needs further explanation, which you didn't provide. To call depends an answer renders the concept of answering a question irrelevant -- so long as I type a word I can claim I've answered.

Poor questions get poor answers. What is it computer programmers like to say? Anyway, "How long are your combats?" is a largely useless question. But okay, you clearly are desperate for an answer. So, I'd say, realistically anywhere from 1 to 12 rounds. Depending (I know you hate that word, but again it's the only way to answer such a broad question). I mean, I've been playing 5e for over two years. Multiple groups. Multiple campaigns up through the bulk of available levels (admittedly we've never gone past 17th of yet, and that was only once so far). Hundreds of fights. Literally hundreds. I'm sure one or two may have even gone *past* 12 rounds. I'd also like to take this opportunity to question your "typically 4-5 rounds long" claim. Really? That's an awfully narrow margin. So excuse me if I think you are being a bit inaccurate, or at least convenient, with those numbers. Mind you, you didn't say "average." You said, "typically." That's a big difference.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Nod. At best, additional quivers would likely be tucked away in a backpack for storage. So once the archer burns through his active quiver, if the combat isn't over yet, will need at least a round of ineffectualness gaining access to a fresh loadout.

Yeah, even if it's just a speed bump where the archer has to take 1 round to fetch another quiver or something. At 4 attacks a round with a hand crossbow, 5 rounds would deplete a quiver. Spending round 6 on resetting the gear at least slows down the constant barrage.

2 quivers, for 40 arrows, isn't outlandish (a hip quiver and a back quiver). A bundle of 40 more arrows tightly lashed to your pack is also not outlandish (or even much of a challenge). That's 40 arrows immediately available and another 40 available within a minute or two. This totally discounts any opportunity to pick over the combat to recover expended arrows, which, according to the basic rules, takes 1 minute and recovers half of your expended ammunition. So, given that, and the ability to recover ammunition, that's up to 120 potential shots worth of arrows easily carried without eyerolling.

A few moments of foresight and planning make ammunition moot without magic storage containers.

Yeah, I wouldn't expect it to totally counter the tactic, but anything to mitigate things even a little can matter.

I do that kind of thing all the time. "How are you holding all of your javelins? Can you describe what you're doing?"

Yeah, it just seems like the kind of thing that may be able to be addressed without mechanical concerns. "Wait...how are you wearing 3 quivers and a backpack and your melee weapon?" Usually, you can work out some kind of reasonable balance.

Although the one time I had a player rage-quit was because I asked him how many arrows he had so I suppose I shouldn't assume it's always an easy way to address it.