I'm annoyed at archers.

[Lela]

Tower Shield+Ride by Attack or Trample+Horseshoes of Speed=Dead Archer.

Then agian, you asked us not to give you counter measures. Which makes me wonder why you even posted. But, if it becomes a problem, I would go with the bow only affecting Attack and Arrows only going with Damage. There's really no argument against it.

Then again, you could always go with Trolls, Skeleton Warrior , or Paleoskeleton undead types.

Then again, that would be counter measures, which you don't want.

 

[Black Omega]

I can't argue archery is very effective. My seven person group all carry bows. Mage, shaman, all three samurai, the one archery specialist, etc.

The group has found use for archery a few times but it's never been overshadowing. The wizard's magic is considerably more of a threat than the archers. Between fights in cities, ambushes, and counter tactics now that the group is becoming known, getting to to the sniper(archer) and artillery (mage) happens enough everyone has some use.

 

[Petrosian]

All of this talk of being a part of a team, IMHO, is a rationalization of a flaw in the game. Honestly, heroic campaigns are not supposed to be built around waiting for the mage and the archer to kill everything while the melee fighter stands there looking stupid. (Our melee fighters were so useless one battle, that we took out rations and made camp. *grin*)

First, IMO, the design elements in DND which do make teams integral to the play show good results. At its core DND is designed for a PARTY of heroes working together against evil. While solo campaigns, like we see with heroic fantasy where we have one hero and 'the rest", can be done the GM will need to make adjustments, some perhaps serious, to the rules or to the setting to accomodate these goals. The DND rules were, it seems obviously to me, designed to reward and encourage small teams with each character bringing different attributes to the mix.

This seems ideal for a GAME based fantasy setting and ruleset. Its less often seen in heroic fantasy or fantasy novels because in a novel the ability to develop fully more core characters is limited.

As for useless fighters, well, ask yourself this... what would conan do against a flying invisible dragon who could throw fireballs from beyond effective bow range if encountered on a flat open field?

The answer would be... makes for a lousy story.

Conan has a writer who puts him into situations which highlight his strengths, which sometimes exemplify his weaknesses, and always makes for dramtic and enjoyable use of his talents.

In a RPG, that writer is the GM. it is the Gm's job to provide challenges and scenes and adventures that make the session enjoyable and entertaining. This means for everyone. If he has set up a scenario where the fighter are indeed that useless then he should really rethink that scenario design. As an occasional thing, designed to highlight the flaw or better yet, to introduce a puzzle the PCs must figure out how to crack, then it should be Ok but rare.

The GM decides how frequently your gang gets pressed into a series of severe combats. The GM decides how many of your enemies have SR. Your GM decides how many of your enemies have ACs high enough that only really tough fighters can get to it. Your Gm decides how many of your fights take place inside of some sort of wind wall like effect that blocks or deflects or degrades arrow fire.

If your characters are useless, the first place i look is to the character/player and how well or poorly the design is to be a contributibg member and how well they thought through their options. The second thing i look at is the Gm and his scenarios and see if they provide the source of the "problem." Then, and only then, do i look at rules.

I am a fan of heroic fantasy. In heroic fantasy, the bad guys and the good guys face off, mano a mano, and duel to the death; they don't shoot at each other from behind shield walls. DnD does not adequately portray the type of game that I would like to play. Therefore, I have made certain changes to archers IMC, so that archery, though effective, cannot be made so useful and overpowering, that the entire sphere of combat revolves around them.

You would definitely IMO need to make some changes to change the DND 3e into a primarily one-on-one game. In addition to archery, i would suggest looking at the saves, making fighters and other classes more capable of shrugging off magic, since they wont have dispel capable friends. The entire HP system will need some serious overhaul since it pretty much relies on magical healing in droves (perhaps instead of represeting "higher level" and "combat skill" by more or bigger HD you make it a defense bonus since a "more experienced guy took fewer hits" means less dependence on healing) and so on.

i would probably have looked at the others first, the archery thing not being that huge by comparison for me, but then, i prefer a team game.

If I wanted to play a campaign where missile weapons dominated the game (as they do in real-life), I'd add machine guns.

For addressing my balance concerns on archery, i am looking two changes. First is changing rapid shot to -5 to-hit adjustment and adding an "improved rapid shot" which brings it down to -2. This makes it two feats just like TWF requires. Second is changing the bow/arrow enhancements so that bows provide a plus to hit and arrows provide a plus to damage.

More sweeping changes to GMW, the pricing of magic weapons, and so on are not archery specific, but would have some impact.

 

[Moleculo]

whatever happened to protection from arrows? Unless i missed something, that looks pretty effective, since only the arrow's enchantment tis taken into account, and (i am not sure on this one, sorry) that each arrow is sbject to the damage resistance? The wording in the spell is a little ambiguous. So i mean if they are getting it with arrows that dont meet the dr, then the archers arent going to be doing a lot of damage.

jke

 

[Alariel]

One casting from a low level Greater Magic Weapon (or even Magic Weapon, for that matter) on the arrows fixes the problem of Protection from Arrows. Personally, I think the DR provided by the spell should go up with the level of the caster, since it is the enhancement bonus of the arrows themselves that determines whether the spell is effective or not.

 

[Al'Kelhar]

In our group, the archer is a ranger-druid multiclass.

He has a might bow (+4 strength) which is +1 Acid enchanted (I think they call it corrosive... add +1d6 acid to a shot.)

Irrespective of multi-classing, druids are not permitted to use bows, unless they want to sacrifice all their druid abilities for 24 hours.

This rule seems to have carried over from 2E, whereas the multi-class cleric weapon restriction did not.

Cheers, Al'Kelhar

 

[Malin Genie]

Without being completely nerfed, Archers are not uebercharacters if you actually *use* the Encounter Distance and Spotting rules in the DMG. Most encounters will start less than 100ft away, and many less than 50ft.

Other things to consider are Tower Shields - they can provide 100% cover as an opponent advances, so *no* arrow fire at all will hit! - full defensive action (+4 or +6 AC, which stacks with a cover bonus if any cover is available) as the opponents advance - illusions (if the archers are loosing 4 arrows per round at a slowly advancing target 300 ft away they'll burn their 50 magic arrows pretty fast, and at the kind of ranges that the archers are effective at, it's pretty hard to discern an illusion) - invisible opponents (Blind-fighting only works in melee and the opponents may well already be meleeing when they are detected - etc etc

 

[Saeviomagy]

Actually, they do about the same amount of damage without us. I know because the Fighter/Rogue archer single-handedly cleared out a huge part of the Speaker in Dreams. (We are only halfway through it, so I don't know how relatively large this particular part of the module really is.)

If you're doing speaker in dreams, and your archers haven't been crippled heavily in most encounters, your DM is doing a very, very poor job. Very. I wouldn't mind knowing which particular incident in this module your archer excelled in, because to my mind there are only two places in the entire module where that could happen.
Presuming you've done the previous modules, I can't see how archers could excel in most of those either.

Anyway, I would agree with your point that archers are primarily offensive characters, except that I have personal experiences to the contrary. In general, the archers have just a couple of AC points lower than a tank, and they have about 5% fewer hps. A TWF character cannot have an AC higher than an archer, nor can his hps be exceptionally better. They are, afterall, both wearing mithril chain shirts, and they both tend to have d10 HD (their Con modifiers are not drastically different.)

Then your tanks are doing a really bad job at being tanks. It sounds like they're slow, low on hitpoints and ac, and useless at offense if your own comments are anything to go on. Your complete unwillingness to contemplate alternate tactics because 'it wouldn't suit the character' basically takes away your right to whine. If you can see the problem, you can damn well bet that the character, who's life is on the line, can see the problem too. And if he won't change, he should retire.

This is why I do not compare a mage with the archer. Mages have d4 HD and, though they can have the highest AC, this is not common, IMX, since most of their spells are intended for other pursuits.

Entirely agreed. People think of mages as the artillery. They're not - fighters pull off that job much more expertly. Wizards are the combat engineers.

All of this talk of being a part of a team, IMHO, is a rationalization of a flaw in the game. Honestly, heroic campaigns are not supposed to be built around waiting for the mage and the archer to kill everything while the melee fighter stands there looking stupid. (Our melee fighters were so useless one battle, that we took out rations and made camp. *grin*)

That's your own fault. I honestly cannot believe that you're that bad, unless you are taking pains to be that bad.

A single round of running gets a character with a movement of 30ft 120ft closer to the enemy. Your characters (assuming full plate here) may be all the way down to 60ft a round running, and 40ft a round charging, especially since none of you are dwarves (never make a dwarf melee combatant... they're just far too slow). As a barbarian, I would expect you could put together a respectable 160ft run, and an 80ft charge.

Encounters in a light forest start at 105 feet, and at that distance, any ranged targets should have at least 30% concealment, as well as some cover (assuming they don't deliberately take cover). Your charge connects on the second round, assuming you still have LOS to the targets, and the targets made no attempt to close with you.

That's a light forest. Barring an open plain, that's the worst possible scenario for an unmounted melee combatant, and you're still attacking in the second round. Most monsters will out-do that.

 

[Petrosian]

I am aware of that. Early in my campaign i made a few class changes, including an "olde" druid who does not use metal weapons but does gain non-metal weapons such as bows. this was a campaign flavor thing.

Regardless, its not a "druid archers are overpowered" issue, at least, not for me. I could just as easily have used a cleric-ranger example, but i tend to default to in game examples i have seen in play, unless the in game example is somehow significantly skewed.

if you feel the use of a druid invalidates the points about archers, GMW, enhancement stacking, feats or balance already raisedin some way, thats cool. opinions vary.

I also lifted the multiclassing 1-for-1 thing and require character to establish their "normal progression for multiclassing" at character outset.

FWIW, i do have a group of NPC druids who do frequently forfeit their druidic abilities. They primarily rely on the other class (barbarian) and only resort to their shamanistic abilities after a significant period of purification rites. With the druids strong BAB, saves and HD, it works very well. Obviously not as minmaxed as say a barbarian cleric, but the skinwalking (shapeshift) after a day of purification and such just plays so cool.

Irrespective of multi-classing, druids are not permitted to use bows, unless they want to sacrifice all their druid abilities for 24 hours.

This rule seems to have carried over from 2E, whereas the multi-class cleric weapon restriction did not.

Cheers, Al'Kelhar

 

[Petrosian]

To this and the following message...

In my experience, archers strengths in play are not "the long range fire before they get here" at all. its firing into melee as the scramble goes on.

precise shot eliminates the +4 for firing into melee.

double dipping with GMW provides enough enhancement bonus to even ignore the +4 cover allies directly in the path will provide(if that much, its less for medium fighting large.)

Gaining one extra attack at -2 for all with a weapon which gets doublke enhance plus strength from a mid level character (8-12) is really really good.

When they do get clear shots, its even worse.

Now we throw in archer thieves, with improved invis firing for +5d6 to +7d6 sneaks. Remember, firing across a partner provides COVER, not concealment, so he can sneak at will while the tank who has the high AC holds you there.

When i was designing my elven fighter. i avoided taking any focus and such weapon specific feats until about 4th. Then i went with my magical greataxe. As i began to look, i realized that by like 12th level i could be doing more, significantly more, if i went bowman with point blank,precise, rapid, focus and spec than i was already with the axe. Once you get to mid level and beyond, fighters will find hitting is fairly easy in many, many cases. -2 is negligable for an extra swing. its easily compensated by the double enhancement bonuses from GMW and the like.

So while you may be resplete with how to stop the long range archer, the issue is more the archer in the mix, working behind a fighter wall or just relying on movement and feats just like the other fighter.

At least, from my experience.

Most encounters will start less than 100ft away, and many less than 50ft.