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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ashkelon" data-source="post: 6977347" data-attributes="member: 6774887">A few other things to not forget!Archers can wear medium armor which is only 1 AC behind heavy armor. Therefor archers should only ever be 1 AC behind their melee counterparts. Archers in general can afford better stats because they can entirely neglect strength but a melee warrior should probably still have a 12-14 Dex.Archers have better Dex saves which effectively gives them more HP than their melee counterparts. Dex saves tend to be some of the most common saves in the game. Even though Archers will have lower STR saves than their melee counterparts, most STR saves only knock you prone, which is not that big of a deal for a ranged warrior.  Champion archers get two combat boosting fighting styles while great weapon fighters only have 1. Point blank shot can be a huge boost to power for close range combat. Archers can still make opportunity attacks. By RAW, due to the wording of archery fighting style, they can use their crossbow as an improvised weapon but still gain the +2 bonus to hit because it is a ranged weapon. Battlemaster archers are far more potent than battlemaster melee warriors. Pushing attack, trip attack, and menacing attack provide much more battlefield control when used at range than in melee. Tripping a flying enemy causing them to fall 100ft can be especially brutal. Pushing enemies back or knocking them prone can keep them at range for multiple rounds. Archers can run up to melee to shoot enemies who hide behind total cover just as well as melee warriors can. Using cover as an argument doesn't actually make any sense.Even if most fights take place where enemies are within 30 feet at all times, the archer will still take less damage than the melee warrior overall.Archers are much better at taking care of enemies who are attempting to flee.Archers are also better at taking out enemy spellcasters or other choice targets who are behind a defensive line. Since archers ignore partial cover, they can fire at the mate who is behind a wall of enemy soldiers. The melee warrior is stuck with only being able to engage enemies in the front line. This targeting capability is especially important given that most enemies in the rear tend to have lower AC and fewer HP while simultaneously having greater damage output. Being able to kill such targets before taking out the front line tends to have a much greater impact on outcome of any particular battle. Basically archers can do everything a melee focused warrior can about as well as the melee warrior, but with the added benefit of being able to perform incredibly well at range.IMHO, the way the game is designed, the ranged warrior shouldn't even be close to the damage of the melee warrior. If the ranged warrior was truly squishy or truly pathetic in melee combat I might understand them having similar damage. But that simply isn't the case. Fighting styles and feats complete negate any potential penalties the ranged warrior might face. I believe that melee warriors should have 10-20% more effective HP and 10-20% more damage than an a ranged warrior given the difficulty most melee warriors face in combat (flying enemies, opportunity attacks, being knocked prone, enemies at range greater than 30ft, enemies spread out more than 30 ft, choice targets in the back ranks, etc). Instead, archers tend to deal more damage and have similar defenses.</blockquote>

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