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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cyber-Dave" data-source="post: 6977290" data-attributes="member: 82132">You are right. I wasn't accounting for kiting (mostly because I have never seen kiting happen in a real game, and I wanted to avoid white-room conceits that skew the example away from reality as much as possible). In a simple white plane, however, I guess kiting would become a thing. So, the fighter would probably use dash to close the distance completely. Um, this is something of a nit-pick, but you would get 3 attacks (not one). This isn't 3e. You don't need to take a full-round action to get a full suit of attacks. You are right though, in a white room scenario where nothing dissuades anyone from kiting, kiting would become a thing. In the encounters I have actually played, however, I have never seen kiting happen. There was always some factor that stopped such events. Honestly, I really think that depends on the player. As such, I didn't want to start nit-picking such details in a white-room analysis. You are right, however, in stating that white-room analyses are imperfect. In a whiteroom, kiting seems reasonable. In a whiteroom, terrain is ignored. In a white-room, specific character build features are ignored (unless you end up testing specific builds for one reason or another). It doesn't change my overall summation though. You aren't going to build an archer who is better in melee ranges than a melee build. Um, no, my assumption of Dex 19 doesn't. If you use the starting stats or point buy, and you spend two of your stat increases on feats, the highest Dex you can have by level 11 is 19. So, assuming a Dex of 19 isn't an unrealistic penalty at all! It is part of the built in assumptions of the game. I didn't account for Mage Armor for the same reason I didn't account for any build specific details beyond feat choices: the inherent weakness of a whiteroom analysis. I am sure that if I start looking for ways to optimize my damage and AC as a melee fighter, I can find ways to twist the numbers further in my favor as well. For example, I can build a battle master to match your eldritch knight. It will use maneuvers to disarm your archer and push it away after it closes range, thus depriving it of its xbow/at least one round of attacks once I close range. As this is a whiteroom, it will also spam all of its superiority dice over the course of a single fight. Or I could take the time to think up an eldritch knight with a spell list designed to hamper the plans of an archer foe. I didn't, however, take the time to create a specific build. There is no point. The point is only to show that given the assumptions of the game (the starting stats/point values given to players, the number of feats you can have, and the equipment we can assume--as a given--that characters of that level will have), a melee based fighter is significantly better in melee and is fairly balance even if the melee based character starts from 35-60 feet away. He is. If the fight starts within 35-60 feet, the results of the fight will be close to 50/50. If the fight starts within 30 feet, the melee-based character will almost always win. If the fight starts over 60 feet away, statistics significantly favor the archer (and I think they should). Given that reality, I don't accept the premise of this thread.</blockquote>

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