I'm annoyed at archers.

[Lela]

So, in the end, we've come down to the fact that if someone wants to munchkin the rules, they will find a way.

Isn't it interesting how we've decided that it's okay for munchkins to do what they want because it's how they like to play?

Now we just blame the rules that they can abuse.

I think we were right the first time and wrong the second time.

 

[Darklone]

This thread stinks

Some points:

• Yes, archers do have to count arrows. And no, my players don't go shopping after every encounter to replenish their resources.
• Calculate it like you want, archers are balanced. If you complain that an archer with Strength 18 is unbalanced, you are usually in a point buy range where the whole game starts to be unbalanced since some classes benefit more from several high stats than others.
• Archers in 30ft range to the enemies who shoot for more than one round are dead meat.
• TWF and Ambidex are worse than archery feats. That's right. But it's not a reason to downgrade archery since you still gotta compare it to twohanded greatsword twinks with Power Attack and Cleave.
• Why does noone complain about mounted archers?

 

[hong]

Yes, archers do have to count arrows. And no, my players don't go shopping after every encounter to replenish their resources.

In the high-level campaign where I'm playing an archer, the wizard has ~400 arrows stored in sacks inside a portable hole. Half the party has bags of holding. I have a quiver of Ehlonna. Ammo generally isn't a problem.

Why does noone complain about mounted archers?

Because at the levels where it matters, the horse usually dies in one round from one hit. After that, you're back to a regular archer.

 

[Petrosian]

[/B][/QUOTE]

I'm a plain-Jane, vanilla level 1 Fighter. I want two attacks per round. I want all the benefits of my feats to be applicable every time I attack. How many feats must I spend?

None, not any at all. The penalties are severe, but not one feat is necessary.

For the archer, the second shot is IMPOSSIBLE without the additional feats.

TWF: Two feats. Benefits applicable every time I make a full attack. If I use two identical weapons, the benefits of later weapon focus and specialization apply to both, on all attacks.

And after those two feats you have an extra attack at -2 and the possibility (if using identical light weapons of have foc/spec add +1/+2.

Archery: Two feats. Benefits of both applicable only if I am within 30' and make a full attack. Future benefits of weapon focus and specialization apply to all attacks, but specialization only applies within 30'.

And the net effect is obne extra attack, -2 penalties, and within 30' a +1/+1. this raises to +2/+3.

To me, the fact that for two feats the archer gains the ability to make the extra attack at all, penalties of -2, and an additional +1/+1 is important and significant. They are not to be ignored so that we pretend he gains the same thing for two feats as the AMBI/TWF guy does.

YMMV and obviously does.

Let's agree to disagree, shall we, or else I'll be tempted to drag rangers and free Amb/TWF into it.

If you want to drag class abilities into it, thats cool but it wont affect the comparison at all. No matter how you slice it, a flat out beneficial feat, giving +1/+1 within 30' is not at all gonna balance out taking two feats for the effect of one. Maybe in your game the +1/+1 for PBS is worthless enough that it doesn't matter at all. thats fine.

I think in many games, and i know in mine, +1/+1 within 30' is considered very worthwhile.

Matter of fact, i have even heard of campaigns, as strange as this may sound to you, where people spend TWO feats to get a net +1/+2 with weapons that only works within 5', like say someone who takes focus and spec on their greatsword. If you cannot fathom +1/+1 within 30' counting as beneficial or worth a feat on its own, i shudder to think of what you appraise focus and spec at for a melee weapon.

Me, i see it much more simply...

It takes two feats to go from "extra mnelle attack with extreme penalties" to "extra melee attack with -2 penalties" with everything else staying the same and no additional benefits.

It should take at least two feats to go from "NO extra ranged attack at all, period" to "one extra ranged attack with -2 penalties" and no other changes whatsoever.

Thats not how the rules currently stand and from my experience that is a significant part of the imbalance or "archery edge" i have seen in play.

It really seems quite simple.

enjoy your games.

 

[Spatzimaus]

If the parties Magic user wants to drop a 3rd level spell to give some archer a mere 5% increase in the crit threat range fine. It will only last 10min/level.... no big deal.

If your weapon has a base threat range of either 19-20/x2 or 20/x3, Keen Edge adds 10% to your average damage over time. Take a look at the amount of damage people are talking about doing per turn with archers. 10% of 50 points is nothing to sneeze at.
Would a caster want to lose a 3rd-level spell for that? Depends on the caster. Those who like pure offensive spells would rather throw a Fireball, but people who like buffing might use it; it's increased party damage with no AoE worry, no saves, and no needing to make ranged touch attacks with a caster's lousy BAB. The problem is, it's one of those spells you cast only on other people, and it happens to be at the same level as Haste and GMW, so it gets overshadowed in the buff department.
I've always thought Keen Edge should have been a second-level spell.

 

[Petrosian]

[/B][/QUOTE]

So, in the end, we've come down to the fact that if someone wants to munchkin the rules, they will find a way.

Actually i thought the rules were about non-munchkin things.

A fighter spending his feats on PHB fighter feats does not seem munchkin to me. Isn't that what he is supposed to do with those feats?

A mage or cleric using PHB spells for precisely what they were meant for with not one single "GM has to make a ruling on ambiguous" or house rule needed does not seem munchkin to me. (For instance, he is not trying to finagle fireball into destroying enemy spell pouches or anything, he is simply using the GMW spell for the ONLY THING IT CAN DO... provide enhancements to weapons.)

Neither of these seem munchkin to me.

Where is the munchkin part?

Isn't it interesting how we've decided that it's okay for munchkins to do what they want because it's how they like to play?

Now we just blame the rules that they can abuse.

Does munchkin mean "find imbalance in the rules" so that if wotc published a 1st level spell which did 30d6 of damage to "targets in a 30' radius with no save we should call the players who use it names instead of fixing the nroken spell?

I would much rather have rules that work than to have rules that dont work and tell my players to not use them or i will call them names.

Wouldn't you?

 

[Petrosian]

[/B][/QUOTE]

This thread stinks

WOW!! How utterly brilliant. I had not considered that. Thank you for your insights.

[*] Yes, archers do have to count arrows. And no, my players don't go shopping after every encounter to replenish their resources.

At standard wealth levels and availability, by low/mid level in DND 3e (say 8th) arrows and bags of holding, haversacks and the like are well within the bounds of easily accessible equipment. If your game uses customized rules to handle supply, encumbrance and availability, then it is indeed possible that those house rules have served to bring archery further into balance.

[*] Calculate it like you want, archers are balanced.

Ahhh... so whether the math is right, the examples dead on or the experience in play is accurate, we should all know and accept BY FAITH that what we see and figure and can demonstrate is false.

Again... quite convincing. i find myself often much more swayed by "it is so!!!" than by pesky little things like examples, actual figures and experience.

If you complain that an archer with Strength 18 is unbalanced, you are usually in a point buy range where the whole game starts to be unbalanced since some classes benefit more from several high stats than others.

Actually, again realizing that wealth and equipment is part of balance, looking at iconic characters provided by wotc and used in their playtest of the rules, we can see that an 18 in a secondary stat is not at all in some sort of oversized point buy. By mid levels the notion of a high dex and 18 strength is no more out of whack than it is for a high strength and 18 con fighter.

For example... at as simple as a 28 point buy, stats of 16 14 14 10 10 10 is just fine. By 10th level, the iconic example characters all have (IIRC) +4 booster items for one stat. That means, with the two bonuses for 4th and 8th, these numbers could be 18 18 14 10 10 10. Now, depending on the fighter and his design, the 18 18 14 set is arranged to favor dex/str, str/con or even dex/com if he wants.

I think 28 is considered a fairly common or even low point buy, not some sort of out of whack overly high game balance cracking one.

Perhaps, due to your own campaign house rules, the notion of a character at 12th level having a secondary 18 is indeed way out of bounds. perhaps those house rules have helped to bring archery further into balance.

[*] Archers in 30ft range to the enemies who shoot for more than one round are dead meat.

Ok, presumably this is because of the fact that they get attacked and killed.

Well, surprisingly, most every melee fighter makes his attacks within 5', not 30, but they are not dead meat.

I find it quizzical that melee fighters whose range is limited to 5' are considered viable but archers whose attacks are done at 30' are considered dead meat. Oh well.

In my experience, when you rush an archer you are fighting a guy who is just about as tough as that melee fighter. A little Ac difference , MAYBE, for the shield. If he cannot do the 5' step tango, he switches to his secondary weapon. Same as a melee fighter would switch to his bow if he could not get within range. Neither is "dead meat" in their secondary idiom.

i guess your archers are different than mine.

[*] TWF and Ambidex are worse than archery feats. That's right. But it's not a reason to downgrade archery since you still gotta compare it to twohanded greatsword twinks with Power Attack and Cleave.

Actually it is a reason to COMPARE the two. unfortunately my numbers and experience shows that the archery produces a significant edge.

I typically see cleave and great cleve give my dwarven tank monster one extra swing per fight. Some fights he gets more. Some fights none at all. he typically moves to enable it to occur, keeping two enemies within 5'. The problems are that the enemies do not always stand there for him to do that, the enemies are sometimes killed by other people, and things like that. We have seen the fairly dramatic "Dain wiped out four guys in one round" thing, but very very rarely.

Like i said, about 1 extra swing per fight.

that doesn't compare to +4 per shot.

[*] Why does noone complain about mounted archers?
[/list]

Well from my experience mouhnted combat appears rarely. horses are too fragile, the need for space for things like charges and the like limits the opportunities, and horses do not move well into many of the settings where combat often takes place in DND like INNS castles and dungeons.

Perhaps your games highlight this more?

If i had a PC who was designed for mounted combat, who spent the feats for it, i would try and make it more prevalent, of course.

 

[Darklone]

WOW!! How utterly brilliant. I had not considered that. Thank you for your insights.

No thanks, required, it was a pleasure. Why did I say this? Cause I read too many threads yet that whine that archers are too weak.

At standard wealth levels and availability, by low/mid level in DND 3e (say 8th) arrows and bags of holding, haversacks and the like ... house rules have served to bring archery further into balance.

Sadly the GM hands out items in my games... usually me. That means: No houserules needed. The PCs just don't go shopping for magic.

Ahhh... so whether the math is right, the examples dead on or the experience in play is accurate, we should all know and accept BY FAITH that what we see and figure and can demonstrate is false.

Funny. Someone on the earlier pages showed that a twohanded weapon barbarian/fighter twink is still more likely to dish out more damage. Where are the numbers now?

Again... quite convincing. i find myself often much more swayed by "it is so!!!" than by pesky little things like examples, actual figures and experience.

Hehehe. Funny. I could have bet someone would take me real serious and try to argue. Let's go!
Once again: I think this thread is silly. I (now) gave a reason for this to explain it to someone who didn't see this by himself. But I do like arguing

Actually, again realizing that wealth and equipment is part of balance... By mid levels the notion of a high dex and 18 strength is no more out of whack than it is for a high strength and 18 con fighter.

Your point buy examples only show that this archer will not hit better than a fighter who puts all into higher and higher strength. Which screws your other examples

Perhaps, due to your own campaign house rules, the notion of a character at 12th level having a secondary 18 is indeed way out of bounds. perhaps those house rules have helped to bring archery further into balance.

Did I mention houserules? Don't think so. Skip those arguments, they are worthless in this little funny fight of words. You can do better, show me
As said above, a secondary 18 only means usually that the main stat is not as high as it could be.

Ok, presumably this is because of the fact that they get attacked and killed.
Well, surprisingly, most every melee fighter makes his attacks within 5', not 30, but they are not dead meat.

I don't think it's necessary, but I can happily show you some others threads about how to screw archers who fight in close quarters if you insist. *LOL*

I find it quizzical that melee fighters whose range is limited to 5' are considered viable but archers whose attacks are done at 30' are considered dead meat. Oh well.

Boy, now this is gonna be fun... you play into my hands with this kind of sentences. Shall I give you the answer why you could possibly find this quizzically ?
Honest answer: Other threads.

In my experience, when you rush an archer ... Neither is "dead meat" in their secondary idiom.

Sorry, you can read about other experiences here.

i guess your archers are different than mine.

Now that may be the first nice words you say. Thanks
Now on to mounted archers.

Well from my experience mouhnted combat appears rarely. horses are too fragile... in DND like INNS castles and dungeons.

Do I play Diablo2 dungeoncrawling with tailored encounters that bore my players to death? No. But this only leads to another thread about "Do you customize your encounters or build the world without tailoring the encounters to your heros?" Sorry, I try to make my world alive by avoiding such things. Now you can chime in with houserules and campaign rules. But if my non existant problems with archers root in my way to play with core rules, why would I complain?

Horses too fragile? If you get stronger, get better mounts. Never rode a dragon? Or anything else? All those guys here speak about magical treasures like Elminster but every mount is a simple horse. Funny

 

[Petrosian]

Oh well, and here i had hoped for an actual attempt at a discussion. my bad.

Of the few points worth mentioning...

In about every game i know the Gm gives out magic items. in some game, the Gm also decides to cut back, reduce or eliminate the access to magic items thru other means. All of these are fine, but...

In DND 3e, wealth is considered a part of balance and that includes access to magic items. items under 3k are noted as commonly available and the purchase rules establish clear guidelines for the purchase of items and magic. Whiule a GM is certainly within his rights to change this, that house rule will have impact on balances. he shoudl, perhaps if he wants to be taken seriously, keep that in mind in online rules discussion.

In this case, it would be a simple matter for a Gm to move archery closer to balance by controlling access to magic items, scrolls for spellboooks and such. More frequent and better melee weapon treasures, little access to sources of GMW, greater frequency of strength boosting as opposed to dex boosting, and so on could all shift the balance in play into line. item creation and the two free spells per level would be about the only real obstacles remaining.

The examples of secondary 18s was solely to refute the nonsense about this meaning it was some high powered point buy. For cases of max strength etc, see the above posts. With max strength vs max dex you do not end up with higher expected damage for the melee guy once you include the double stack of GMW. Your end up with more PER HIT but with a +4 (in the 15th level examples above) difference in hits as well as an extra attack per round, the expected damage goes to the archer easily since against low Ac opponets the extra swing is one more hit and at high ac opponents the +4 per hit is just slam on.

As for this nonsense...

"Do I play Diablo2 dungeoncrawling with tailored encounters that bore my players to death?" No. But this only leads to another thread about "Do you customize your encounters or build the world without tailoring the encounters to your heros?" Sorry, I try to make my world alive by avoiding such things."

I have no idea where diablo fits in, but as far as i can tell, whether a world is alive or bores its players has very little to do with dungeons, castles, inns or woods or roads or brothels or whatever. It has to do with the ideas and creativity and such put into and gotten out of. if somehow you feel that mounted combat makes a game more alive than combat in a castle, thats fine, but i for one see no correlation. I think poorly done, repetitive combats would be just as boring on a horsey in a field as it would be in an inn or in a castle. YMMV and clearly does.

But, for all the "i am right and i dont have to show how" stuff... again, i say thats one powerful argument you have there.

"Horses too fragile? If you get stronger, get better mounts. Never rode a dragon. "

I do not typically use dragons in my game world to serve as simple steeds. i do have one dragon-ruled kingdom that the players interact with so far. They have seen, and engaged alongside, some of its mixed forces, where dragons do fly troops into a fight. however, they typically drop the soldiers off and then the dragons engage in battle using their own abilities, flight, breath weapons, and spells while the soldiers engage in the meaner work. Since there are relatively few dragons compared to the men, the dragons dont normally try to work in tandem with a mpounted melee guy who will be drawing him into close combat. Eahc plays to their strengths. Also, for these cases, the dragonm is considered the guy in charge and the men the subordinates, at least, thats how the dragons see it anyway.

But that is just how my world represents them. i use dragons as near divine class beings whose origins and nature tie in with creation. Dragons rarely are served up as "monster of the week" but are major players.

I figure this is different in your world. i am sure i have even seen fiction where dragons were not the great beasts, but just saddled underlings, more than once. Thats just not the representation of dragons i prefer. YMMV and clearly does.

So perhaps, attitude not withstanding, your "humor" or derision could do with a notion of considering different game styles a little.

 

[LokiDR]

You have it backwards. Melee is for the stars of the game. Archers is for the backups in the game.

Assume average party level is X. 4 characters are level X, one is X+1, one is X-1.

The X-1 character should be in back firing missile weapons. The X+1 character should be out front in toe to toe melee with the enemy. All other things the same, the X+1 character has the best chance to survive the Terrible Monsters.

After all, melee is where you risk life and limb.

What? If a character wants to be effective, they had better get good at what they do. In my experience, if a character starts as an archer, they stay that way. Likewise with melee. If a character is lower then the rest of the party and take PBS, RS, and precise shot they are not going to go into melee if they make it to higher level than the other characters, they are going to stick with archery, because it got them up that far.

Why would any one want to risk life and limb? Most people throw out noble-stupid combat tatics after a death or three.