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Message: <blockquote data-quote="hawkeyefan" data-source="post: 6981133" data-attributes="member: 6785785">I find it pretty easy. I'll admit that it likely helps that I don't have players who design their characters purely for function as a combat unit, though. I mean...don't most dungeons pretty much come with range limitations? I know not all adventures or encounters must take place in dungeons, but I'd expect a good amount to. Don't bad guys drop tothe ground when shot at? Or take cover? Cover whose existence is pretty much up to the DM? Again....I think that a lot of this perceived disparity can be addressed at that level. Not all of it, but probably many cases except for games finding an extreme imbalance. It comes up quite often in our game. Now, this likely is partially due to the fact that I don't have five archers who are also casters blasting every possible enemy from 100 feet away. But I think I don't have to deal with that problem partially because I don't allow ranged combat to dominate tothe same extent that some other games do. However, the threat of opportunity attacks is pretty big in our game. And I would argue that it is not necessarily limited to the one use of your reaction. If during one round of combat, two orcs decide not to try and dart past the fighter to get at the wizard, that's two enemies affected. They likely will attack the fighter instead, which is part of his job. And with HP so easily recoverable in this edition, that's not necessarily bad. So it isn't only the opportunity attack itself that must be considered, but also the possibility of one. Very often I or one of my players will not take a move of some sort forfear of taking another hit. Come now. A 15 foot wide corridor can be pretty effectively guarded by one melee combatant. Another way of looking at it is that you have not made opportunity attacks to be tactically viable option for them. This is where I would say more monsters and other battle conditions could be a huge factor. If the monsters die too swiftly to reach the party's back line, then send more than they can quickly put down. Use archers on the bad guys side who have access to cover. Force the PCs to ready an action to take shots at the enemy archers who pop out of cover. Have the bad guys do what they can to slow down your PCs' rates of attack.Now, you may not think this is feasible for every encounter...and that's true, you can't always throw a horde of monsters at the PCs and so on. But again...these are the kinds of things I think of when this disparity is brought up. We can also talk mechanical solutions...no Dex bonus to damage from ranged weapons or no -5/+10 feats or what have you. Sure, those are options. There are other tools at a DM's disposal however. I think that the more that is done at the encounter design level, the less extreme or frequent the issue will likely be.</blockquote>

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