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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6992041" data-attributes="member: 42582">I didn't think very much turned on it. But if it's important to you, then I'm happy to deny that everyone will always have back row options. For instance, if they're committed to rending you limb from limb then - unless they've got Mr Tickle arms - they don't have back row options. (That is, favouring the picture and the flavour text I quoted, over the default stats offered.)Which is my main point - what counts as an option, and hence what might generate a should, is relative to goals, expectations etc. And I don't see how it is in any way contrary to the presentation of gnolls to play them as not having back row options.Well, I wasn't there, but I thought it was because (i) they take damage when they enter the aura, and (ii) they take damage when they start their turn. I don't know whether CapnZapp also applies the damage when the cleric moves the aura over them, though on a natural language reading that might count as entering the aura.I don't understand this. Why would range have to be nerfed in that example? The example didn't involve any ranged combat.I've explained what I think generates the mismatch between fiction-driven expectation - a horde of slavering gnolls descends on the PCs - and the upshot - the gnolls are dashed to pieces on the reef of Spirit Guardians. And that is the auto-damage rules in combination with spell damage scaling, which make Spirit Guardians as good as having a whole platoon of Conans to deliver OAs for you. Which is purely an artefact of mechanics, not of fiction.Advantage to whom?Pretty much by definition, being behind a parapet or in a tower or up a tree favours ranged over melee combat. You are deliberately keeping yourself out of the fray, so as to be able to pick off your targets from behind cover.As to whether such enemies must be easier to attack via ranged rather than melee, that is a matter of mechanics, eg how much does cover impede ranged attacks? what is the archer's rater of fire vs the melee attacker's movement rate? In AD&D the cover of an arrow-slit grants +10 to AC, and to saves, and allows no (rather than half) damage on a save. Whereas in 5e it grants +5 to AC and no bonus to saves, nor damage reduction.Moving to the second question - assuming a base grade archer and a melee combatant who is closing at base rate outdoors, an AD&D character can close 120 yards while having to risk two enemy shots (12" movement, with archery RoF of 2 per round); whereas a 5e character can close only 120 feet (two rounds of move + dash) in that time.Consider further that, in AD&D, the archer probably has +0 to hit if a basic mercenary, or maybe +2 to hit if an orc, vs AC of (say) 6 for a PC in leather with 16 DEX - meaning a hit on a roll of 15 or better for the mercenary, or 13 or better for the orc; whereas a 5e orc has +5 to hit, which vs AC 14 (leather + 16 DEX) will hit on a 9 or better - a 50% boost in success rate.Suppose the need to close 100 yards to get behind the archer's mantlet. The AD&D character can do that in one round; the expected number of hits from the archer, in that time, is 4/5; and the bonus of clearing the cover is an effective +10 to hit.Whereas the 5e character will take 5 rounds to do the same, with an expected number of hits taken being 3. And the bonus of clearing the cover is an effective +5 to hit.Did reality change between AD&D and 5e? No - just the mechanics.Which is more realistic - that the best way to defeat an archer behind a mantlet is to shoot through the slit, or to advance across the open ground and go behind it? This is a long way from my fields of expertise, but to the best of my knowledge, when archers behind mantlets were defeated (in combat, as opposed to by capitulation) it wasn't genrally because other archers shot them through their slits, but because hand-to-hand combatants managed to close with them and defeat them hand-to-hand. I think the same thing was generally true in WWI (but with machine-gunners in emplacements rather than archers behind mantlets).</blockquote>

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