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

[hawkeyefan]

It isn't also worth noting that in 5e, it is rare for combat to go above 5 rounds with 3 to 5 being the most common. Since the vast majority of combat encounters do not start with enemies already engaged at melee range, the archer who wishes to threaten OAs will not typically need to be armed for melee combat in the first round. Since weapons can simply be picked up after a battle is over, even an archer who is "cheesing" the item interaction rules to draw a weapon every turn to provoke OA, should need no more than 4 melee weapons.

My combats often go longer than 3 to 5 rounds, especially when there is a lot of ranged combat involved. Cover and readied actions tend to come into play a lot in those instances.That tends to slow things down. It's also helped my players not panic if they have to spend a turn just moving into position or taking some other non-attack action (the horror!).

So the ammo factor rarely comes up in my game anyway because of this, but if I had crossbow guys running around shooting like Han Solo with a blaster, I might pay closer attention to ammo, and try and rein in anything that was excessive.

Anyone have any examples of ways they've fixed this problem, or has that taken a backseat to arguing whether there is a problem?

There have been a few solutions proposed. Some folks reduce the effectiveness of ranged-oriented feats. Others have redesigned feats. I suggested the possibility of dropping feats entirely. Any of these could work, depending on the severity of the issue for a specific table.

I also mentioned earlier in the thread that a first step would be for a DM to try and manage the encounter a bit to balance things out. Don't let there be unobstructed views of all enemies at all times, use enemies that also have effective ranged attacks and combine them with other types of enemies.

It all depends on if the table is experiencing these issues, and if so, how much of an issue they are.

Why do people think the archer needs multiple weapons in order to threaten OA's? Last I checked, picking up something up off the ground was covered under the "one free object interaction" and dropping it was a free action. If the archer didn't move after dropping the weapon, it should still be there to pick up.

(Not that it isn't cheese, I just think it's even cheesier than people seem to think it is. )

Now with more cheese than before!

Ugh....all I can say is I'm glad I don't have players that try this kind of crap at my table. It's such an obvious exploit of the rules that I'd dismiss it out of hand...and I usually try not to just dismiss things like that.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Ugh....all I can say is I'm glad I don't have players that try this kind of crap at my table. It's such an obvious exploit of the rules that I'd dismiss it out of hand...and I usually try not to just dismiss things like that.

A really tyrannical DM could rule that "dropping" is a type of object interaction, and that you can only interact once with a given object on a turn. Then you couldn't drop rapier + shoot + pick up rapier all on the same turn.

 

[guachi]

FYI - I'm starting a new campaign this weekend. I've instituted the following house rules:

Archery Style gives +2 damage instead of +2 attack bonus.
Sharpshooter doesn't allow you to ignore cover. Instead, you have a +2 attack bonus against any target with half or partial cover.

We'll see if this makes a difference or not.

+2 damage is likely more useful than +2 to hit. Consider at lvl 1 attacking an AC18 hobgoblin where high 'to hit' is very useful. At +7 to hit with archery from, say, a long bow you will hit 50% of the time and your average damage increases from 3.00 to 3.75 with archery.

If, instead, you had +2 to damage like the duelist has you hit 40% of the time with or without the +2 to damage but your average damage increases, with a longsword/rapier, from 3.00 to 3.80. And the advantage to the +2 to damage only increases as the AC of the target decreases to more typical ACs.

 

[Caliban]

+2 damage is likely more useful than +2 to hit. Consider at lvl 1 attacking an AC18 hobgoblin where high 'to hit' is very useful. At +7 to hit with archery from, say, a long bow you will hit 50% of the time and your average damage increases from 3.00 to 3.75 with archery.

If, instead, you had +2 to damage like the duelist has you hit 40% of the time with or without the +2 to damage but your average damage increases, with a longsword/rapier, from 3.00 to 3.80. And the advantage to the +2 to damage only increases as the AC of the target decreases to more typical ACs.

Eh, in general a bonus to hit is going to net you more overall damage than a similar bonus to damage.

I look at this way: The base assumption of the game is fighting in dungeons, so archers will be shooting past cover (the front line PC's) most of the time, so their targets will have a +2 bonus to AC. The Archery style offsets this with a +2 bonus to attack. Allowing feats give them access to Sharpshooter. Now they can ignore the AC bonuses from cover and have a +2 bonus on top of that. Against an opponent with cover they have the equivalent of +4 to +7 attack bonus over someone without Archery style or Sharpshooter, meaning the -5 penalty to do +10 damage with Sharpshooter is effectively canceled out.

My changes bring the attack bonus situation back down to normal - they can shoot past half cover with no penalty, and still have a tangible benefit from choosing Archery style. What it does is make the -5/+10 feature of Sharpshooter less reliable - on par with the choice GWM has to make about using it.

I want to see if my assumptions work out in actual play, rather than second guessing myself and making even more changes before testing it out.

I'm not sure how good a test it's going to be, I'm not sure if any of the characters are going to be archery focused.

Personally, I've seen ranger-archers blowing things up with Archery Style+Sharpshooter, but haven't really seen the fighter-archer with Archery style+Crossbow expert+Sharpshooter (except when the DM threw 4 of them against us in a lvl 12 game. Disarming them and playing keep away with their crossbows became the best tactic, although two of them kept trading one crossbow back and forth on their turn until we finally took them out.)

 

[hawkeyefan]

A really tyrannical DM could rule that "dropping" is a type of object interaction, and that you can only interact once with a given object on a turn. Then you couldn't drop rapier + shoot + pick up rapier all on the same turn.

I don't even know that I'd say that was tyrannical on the DM's part.

Or, if it is, then it's a case of Cheesey Munchkinism by the player cancelling out the Tyrannical Fiat of the DM.

 

[pemerton]

I do think alot of this would be mitigated by removing DEX to damage except with light weapons. That always made sense to me since DEX does improve accuracy of ranged weapons whereas the damage component would be set by pull or draw or weight of weapon.

Wouldn't damage also reflect precision - eg shooting someone in the chest will be more likely to kill them than shooting them in the arm or grazing their leg?

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I don't even know that I'd say that was tyrannical on the DM's part.

Or, if it is, then it's a case of Cheesey Munchkinism by the player cancelling out the Tyrannical Fiat of the DM.

Poe's Law. "Tyrannical" was intended to be tongue-in-cheek. I wouldn't be quite that strict myself, but I think it's unquestionably true that dropping an object in real life is not an instantaneous, effortless action under every circumstance; and I can't think of anything in 5E that says dropping an object doesn't count as "interacting" per PHB pg. 190, so by strict RAW dropping an rapier has the exact same action cost as sheathing it. A DM who lets you drop a rapier for free is being lenient--reasonably so IMO.

So I meant "tyrannical" ironically, as a humorous contrast to "reasonably lenient," as if there were no middle ground.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Wouldn't damage also reflect precision - eg shooting someone in the chest will be more likely to kill them than shooting them in the arm or grazing their leg?

Sure. Though target's hps account for a lot of that (the arrow goes through the heart of the guy with 1 hp but only grazes the guy with 100, no matter how accurate you are) and critical hits for some.

Pull (STR) might work better with the weapon die, then? So attach a STR min to various ranged weapons, with higher min STR corresponding to bigger damage dice? From Ulysses's Bow at STR 20 for 2d6, down to the Light Short Pixie Wet Noodle Bow at STR 2 & 1 pip of damage.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Poe's Law. "Tyrannical" was intended to be tongue-in-cheek. I wouldn't be quite that strict myself, but I think it's unquestionably true that dropping an object in real life is not an instantaneous, effortless action under every circumstance; and I can't think of anything in 5E that says dropping an object doesn't count as "interacting" per PHB pg. 190, so by strict RAW dropping an rapier has the exact same action cost as sheathing it. A DM who lets you drop a rapier for free is being lenient--reasonably so IMO.

So I meant "tyrannical" ironically, as a humorous contrast to "reasonably lenient," as if there were no middle ground.

I didn't think you were being literal...no worries!

 

[CapnZapp]

Redesigning the whole feat system seems a bit more heavy handed than defaulting to the expected level of play.

I don't disagree.

But alas, playing an edition of D&D with so little crunch as 5th edition w/o feats and multiclassing would be a dealbreaker for my players.