I'm annoyed at archers.
- Thread starter ConcreteBuddha
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Fisk said:
I don't see cleave or great cleave come up much, ever. There is a durid/barbarian in my game who says on occasion "I never get to use that feat." If I throw the kind of low level mooks at the party that he can cleave, the party wont be hurt. Is it fun to slaughter peons when they can't hurt you?
The monster manual has a large number of "brutes", large monsters who hit hard, have lots of hp, and maybe a few special abilities. These act like melee fighters most times, because they are. When the PCs send out the melee fighters, the get hit by AoOs but the monster doesn't advance. Now the monster is hurt a little, so he attacks the fighter. Archer hits it, melee hits it, monster dies.
Only when the melee type is dead does the archer fear for their life. If the monsters appear right next to the archer, it starts differently, but eventually degrades to melee on monster. Darkness forces the melee in and the archer will hang back, same result. Tower shields on most monsters don't make much sense. Some of the other counters work, but get excessive if used every other combat. Melee types should dominate half the time, right? Barbarians are called meat, but there was an archer in a game I played called the elven machine gun. What would you rather be called?
My experience in 3e is that archers are easier to powergame, take less damage, dish out more damage, and then have little to no weakness that the melee type doesn't. Melee is the place for hirelings and archery is for PCs, and I like playing melee characters.
(Psi)SeveredHead
Adventurer
I always laugh at people who use two-handed weapons, like a falchion, and rely on crits.
Until very high levels lots of monsters have a hard time hitting AC 30+, but hitting AC 20+ is a lot easier for them.
And those crits never come when you want them. It's great to have a 40% crit rate, but in one battle or another you won't get any crits at all. It's just random chance. I'd rather go with the dependable shield.
The only two-hander I've seen played well was a psychic warrior, since she could manifest Inertial Barrier.
Until very high levels lots of monsters have a hard time hitting AC 30+, but hitting AC 20+ is a lot easier for them.
And those crits never come when you want them. It's great to have a 40% crit rate, but in one battle or another you won't get any crits at all. It's just random chance. I'd rather go with the dependable shield.
The only two-hander I've seen played well was a psychic warrior, since she could manifest Inertial Barrier.
Storm Raven
First Post
WizarDru said:
Archers should be reasonably common in the world, ranged weapons are standard in the game and very utilitarian. Most opponents with any intelligence at all should at least have some method of dealing with archers. They may not be really good at it, but all of them should have put some thought into the issue.
LokiDR said:
That's a DM issue. Some prefer the big baddy - say a gray render for a 6th level party. And sure, it would be a good fight. But I'd be more likely to give them a dozen 3-4th level hobgoblins or orcs. It makes for a more interesting fight IMHO.
In our games, about the same percentage of warriors take Power Attack and Cleave as sorcerers who take magic missile. Point granted on great cleave though - by the time you get it, you can't really use it.
"and.... I don't get why people are bitching about archers... "
Well perhaps its because other don't see archers as somehow inable to use these things you list for melee fighters.
A +1 KEN flaming burst bow costs just as much as the same Axe. (give or take the pocketchage for the mighty+4 etc.)
Lets look at a 15th level archer, an elf say, who has 6 regular feats and 8 fighter feats.
focus and spec on bow
focus and spec on his melee weapon of choice.
PBS, precise shot, rapid shot
improved crit on both his melee weapon and bow.
Five remaining feats for his fun... lets guess at improved init, blind fighting, power attack maybe and hey, what are the preqs for that power critical thingy on his bow?
See, this doesn't look like an awful lot of lost melee capability there.
he can have similar magic items to the melee fighter so his bow is just as good. In addition to their normal features such as keen and flaming burst or bane or whatever, they are at +5 from the chained GMW from the mage. My archer also has +5 arrows as well from the same source.
The comparison is actually quite simple...
Compared to the melee fighter, i have +5 more enhancement bonus, +1 to hit and damage from my extra point blank shot, I get to take an addition attack per round with -2 as the impact from it (on top of haste and the like),
So from BAB and enhancement and feats we have...
melee fighter has +5 enhancement, +15 BAB and +1/+2 feat for three attacks at +21/+16/+11 doing damage of weapon+7. Add strength bonus to both of these sets.
archer has +10 enhancement, +15 BAB +1/+1 from PBS and +1/+2 from focus/spec for +25/+25/+20/+15 for damage of weapon+13. Add dex to the to hit and strength up tp +4 to the damage.
Now, if we figure both characters are able to get boosting items to about the same level we can give the melee fighter a strength of say 30 and a dex of 20 and the archer a dex of 30 and a strength of 20.
Now the numbers become:
Melee: +31/+26/+21 for attacks doing weapon+22 (assumes THF) so if we are talking greatsword we have an average of 29 per normal hit.
Archer: +35/+35/+30/+25 for damage of weapon+17 (assumes the GM limits kjighty bows to +4) so if we are talking lonbow we have an average of 21 per hit.
Now, in my experience, the extra attack coupled with the better overall to-hit chance will more than make up for the per hit damage difference. this gets even clearer if the weapons are resplendent with special attacks such as fire and flaming burst and bane so that the differences in strength (+4 vs +15) and the differences in bas weapon (2d6 vs d8) become even less significant.
The archer listed above will do more damage over all than the melee fighter.
Add to this the fact that the archer, since he can shoot from range, has a the ability to get full attacks more frequently than the melee fighter and, being at range, is slightly less subject to counterattacks.
As for crits... after my archer takes KEEN and IMPCRIT i have a 18-20x3. If we assume that I confirm crits no more often than the melee fighter (a BAD assumption because the archers hit chances are BETTER) then this works out mathematically identical to the greatsword with its 15-20x2 after the same three feats. in truth tho, with more shots and higher to hit chances, the archer should get more benefit overall. Now, if the fighter is using a rapier, he gets 12-20 but he also has only a d6 base damage. that brings our base damages to within a point or two and the archer still has the extra shot and +4 hit.
The tactical downside of the archer is that he wont threaten an area, which means enemies can run by him and do other AoO things without fear. If this downside is significant enough to balance out an extra shot and about +4 on to hits... sounds like you have an interesting game.
Rapid shot for a cheap extra attack (only -2) combined with double stacking from GMW and combined with double dipping from PBS and FocSpec are what give archery its overall net advantage in 3e. You can easily design a 15th level fighter who is good at both archery and melee, with foc/spec/impcrit for both a melee weapon and his bow. before GMW, the PBS cuts the rapid shot penalty down to -1 net... almost anyone will see and extra shot for -1 as a good trade. After GMW kicks in the double stack there takes archery above and beyond.
Can a GM design scenarios to counter this, sure, he can. All balance stems from the GM. A +5 keen holy sword of wounding and a +2 club can be balanced... all you need are lots of clay golems as enemies. A GM can counter nealry any rules imbalance with the right set of circumstances.
I tend to agree that if the "archer edge" is "running roughshod" then there is a good chance that the Gm is not designing his scenarios with PCs balance in mind, that he is not correcting the scenario setup enough to compensate for the "archery edge" and may even be exascerbating the issue.
Heck, he might even be running module encounters right out of the box.
These are certainly considerations...
they do not however counter at all the analysis of archery vs melee effectiveness from the standpoint of the base rules.
So, what the Gm who is having the problem needs to do is ask himself how he wants to deal with it.
he has two basic approaches.
1. Change the rules to bring archery at its basic form into line with what he sees as typical scenario balance. i would suggest making rapid shot a -5, adding improve rapid shot as the -2 version, and splitting bow and arrows to make bow enhancements "to hit only" and arrow enhancements "damage only."
2. Change his scenarios and setups. Add in a lot more cases where beyond 5' you cannot see your enemy or beyond 5' you cannot get LOS/LOE to your enemy and so on. (This means... you will have to consider the impact of this on spellcaster too, since they need LOS/LOE beyond 5' as much as the archer does.) Add more "high winds" scenarios where the wind is fast enough to hinder missiles (and again pay attention to the spell impacts as well as the risk to small or tiny creatures like familiars and gnomes.)
and of course, a combo of the above exists.
Overall, i see it as a rules issue... it stems from a combo of stackings that seem to generate more than they should. I see it as easier to adjust the rules to bring arhcery "on par" than to try and force scenario after scenario into "ranged attack hostile" situations (especially since that will tend to affect mages and other character types as well.) Fixing the archery rules, changing only the arhcery rules, seems a much tighter fix, whose scope does not extend at all beyond the problem, than adjusting scenarios to handle it.
YMMV.
BTW, in last night's game the red's fog clouds tended to not last more than a half round. The PC sorcerer would use dispels to bring them down. See, the red never threw the fog cloud to stop the archer. he was throwing it for general good sense... stopping spells from range and forcing everyone to get within his 10' reach... and for specific to thwart the sneak attacks the rogue was doing. The PC sorcerer took the fog clouds down as quickly as possible, so that he and the other guys could use their abilities to their fullest. Altogether, I would think a GM resorting to copious use of this sort of thing "to handle archers" would tend to find it impacting a lot more than the archers, as well as finding it actually hitting the archers less, they simply dealy until the party mage and cleric take down the cloud, and the spellcasters (who keep using slots and actions to remove the fog and darkness with dispel) and even the fighters.
YMMV
Well perhaps its because other don't see archers as somehow inable to use these things you list for melee fighters.
A +1 KEN flaming burst bow costs just as much as the same Axe. (give or take the pocketchage for the mighty+4 etc.)
Lets look at a 15th level archer, an elf say, who has 6 regular feats and 8 fighter feats.
focus and spec on bow
focus and spec on his melee weapon of choice.
PBS, precise shot, rapid shot
improved crit on both his melee weapon and bow.
Five remaining feats for his fun... lets guess at improved init, blind fighting, power attack maybe and hey, what are the preqs for that power critical thingy on his bow?
See, this doesn't look like an awful lot of lost melee capability there.
he can have similar magic items to the melee fighter so his bow is just as good. In addition to their normal features such as keen and flaming burst or bane or whatever, they are at +5 from the chained GMW from the mage. My archer also has +5 arrows as well from the same source.
The comparison is actually quite simple...
Compared to the melee fighter, i have +5 more enhancement bonus, +1 to hit and damage from my extra point blank shot, I get to take an addition attack per round with -2 as the impact from it (on top of haste and the like),
So from BAB and enhancement and feats we have...
melee fighter has +5 enhancement, +15 BAB and +1/+2 feat for three attacks at +21/+16/+11 doing damage of weapon+7. Add strength bonus to both of these sets.
archer has +10 enhancement, +15 BAB +1/+1 from PBS and +1/+2 from focus/spec for +25/+25/+20/+15 for damage of weapon+13. Add dex to the to hit and strength up tp +4 to the damage.
Now, if we figure both characters are able to get boosting items to about the same level we can give the melee fighter a strength of say 30 and a dex of 20 and the archer a dex of 30 and a strength of 20.
Now the numbers become:
Melee: +31/+26/+21 for attacks doing weapon+22 (assumes THF) so if we are talking greatsword we have an average of 29 per normal hit.
Archer: +35/+35/+30/+25 for damage of weapon+17 (assumes the GM limits kjighty bows to +4) so if we are talking lonbow we have an average of 21 per hit.
Now, in my experience, the extra attack coupled with the better overall to-hit chance will more than make up for the per hit damage difference. this gets even clearer if the weapons are resplendent with special attacks such as fire and flaming burst and bane so that the differences in strength (+4 vs +15) and the differences in bas weapon (2d6 vs d8) become even less significant.
The archer listed above will do more damage over all than the melee fighter.
Add to this the fact that the archer, since he can shoot from range, has a the ability to get full attacks more frequently than the melee fighter and, being at range, is slightly less subject to counterattacks.
As for crits... after my archer takes KEEN and IMPCRIT i have a 18-20x3. If we assume that I confirm crits no more often than the melee fighter (a BAD assumption because the archers hit chances are BETTER) then this works out mathematically identical to the greatsword with its 15-20x2 after the same three feats. in truth tho, with more shots and higher to hit chances, the archer should get more benefit overall. Now, if the fighter is using a rapier, he gets 12-20 but he also has only a d6 base damage. that brings our base damages to within a point or two and the archer still has the extra shot and +4 hit.
The tactical downside of the archer is that he wont threaten an area, which means enemies can run by him and do other AoO things without fear. If this downside is significant enough to balance out an extra shot and about +4 on to hits... sounds like you have an interesting game.
Rapid shot for a cheap extra attack (only -2) combined with double stacking from GMW and combined with double dipping from PBS and FocSpec are what give archery its overall net advantage in 3e. You can easily design a 15th level fighter who is good at both archery and melee, with foc/spec/impcrit for both a melee weapon and his bow. before GMW, the PBS cuts the rapid shot penalty down to -1 net... almost anyone will see and extra shot for -1 as a good trade. After GMW kicks in the double stack there takes archery above and beyond.
Can a GM design scenarios to counter this, sure, he can. All balance stems from the GM. A +5 keen holy sword of wounding and a +2 club can be balanced... all you need are lots of clay golems as enemies. A GM can counter nealry any rules imbalance with the right set of circumstances.
I tend to agree that if the "archer edge" is "running roughshod" then there is a good chance that the Gm is not designing his scenarios with PCs balance in mind, that he is not correcting the scenario setup enough to compensate for the "archery edge" and may even be exascerbating the issue.
Heck, he might even be running module encounters right out of the box.
These are certainly considerations...
they do not however counter at all the analysis of archery vs melee effectiveness from the standpoint of the base rules.
So, what the Gm who is having the problem needs to do is ask himself how he wants to deal with it.
he has two basic approaches.
1. Change the rules to bring archery at its basic form into line with what he sees as typical scenario balance. i would suggest making rapid shot a -5, adding improve rapid shot as the -2 version, and splitting bow and arrows to make bow enhancements "to hit only" and arrow enhancements "damage only."
2. Change his scenarios and setups. Add in a lot more cases where beyond 5' you cannot see your enemy or beyond 5' you cannot get LOS/LOE to your enemy and so on. (This means... you will have to consider the impact of this on spellcaster too, since they need LOS/LOE beyond 5' as much as the archer does.) Add more "high winds" scenarios where the wind is fast enough to hinder missiles (and again pay attention to the spell impacts as well as the risk to small or tiny creatures like familiars and gnomes.)
and of course, a combo of the above exists.
Overall, i see it as a rules issue... it stems from a combo of stackings that seem to generate more than they should. I see it as easier to adjust the rules to bring arhcery "on par" than to try and force scenario after scenario into "ranged attack hostile" situations (especially since that will tend to affect mages and other character types as well.) Fixing the archery rules, changing only the arhcery rules, seems a much tighter fix, whose scope does not extend at all beyond the problem, than adjusting scenarios to handle it.
YMMV.
BTW, in last night's game the red's fog clouds tended to not last more than a half round. The PC sorcerer would use dispels to bring them down. See, the red never threw the fog cloud to stop the archer. he was throwing it for general good sense... stopping spells from range and forcing everyone to get within his 10' reach... and for specific to thwart the sneak attacks the rogue was doing. The PC sorcerer took the fog clouds down as quickly as possible, so that he and the other guys could use their abilities to their fullest. Altogether, I would think a GM resorting to copious use of this sort of thing "to handle archers" would tend to find it impacting a lot more than the archers, as well as finding it actually hitting the archers less, they simply dealy until the party mage and cleric take down the cloud, and the spellcasters (who keep using slots and actions to remove the fog and darkness with dispel) and even the fighters.
YMMV
IceBear
Explorer
BTW - I have added the -5 penalty to Rapid Shot, Improved Rapid Shot, and the splitting of damage and attack bonuses to my house rules as they seem like reasonable ideas. *IF* I ever run into issues with archers (with my current players I don't think I will as they rarely do things that is best for the character only what is best for roleplaying the character - I don't have any powergamers at all) then I'll use these ideas.
I'm also going to use GMW only having a 10 minutes duration per level as opposed to 1 hour (and *maybe* not letting it count towards DR and Sundering) but that's another conversation.
IceBear
I'm also going to use GMW only having a 10 minutes duration per level as opposed to 1 hour (and *maybe* not letting it count towards DR and Sundering) but that's another conversation.
IceBear
Last edited:
Storm Raven
First Post
Petrosian said:
Power Critical only works with melee weapons, you cannot take it for the bow.
Plus, the converse of your example is that the melee fighter doesn't lose all that much with respect to his ranged attacks. Sure, he's not as good at ranged attacks as the bow specialist, but the bow specialist isn't as good at melee attacks as he is either.
Shard O'Glase
First Post
(Psi)SeveredHead said:
I always laugh at people who use a shield when a animated shield is so cheap.
Basic concept of the two handed wielder is if I kill you quicker I take less damage. It frequently pans out. Relying on crits pans out a lot at low to mid levels where only undead are immune. High levels though I've seen way to many opponents immune to crits to make it much of an issue, though you don't lose much in damage per round the falchion being 2d4 instead of the 2-handed swords 2d6. Still at low to mid levels those crits end fights often enough that the marignally lower AC doesn't matter because dead opponents don't take swings at you.
Simple fact is virtually every fighting style is effective if you build your fighter to its strengths. If you haven't seen well played 2-handed weapon wielders in your games its because the ones who played that way either didn't know how or didn't care to.
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