I'm annoyed at archers.

[WizarDru]

Okay, that's a fair point. But it's only applicable if there's a rogue in the party and you're fighting something that can be sneak attacked.

Flanking benefits any melee attacker, not just rogues. They reap the greatest benefit, if the target is subject to criticals, but a cleric with a mace and lower BAB can benefit from the -2 AC...especially if he's attacking to aid, increasing the melee fighter's benefit.

Now, the reason I brought this up was so I could point out what happened when he started taking levels in Weapon Master. But it seems we aren't allowed to mention PrCs (Tribal Defender anyone?) that aren't Core.

Not allowed? By whom? If you mean that many of us will immediately dismiss your argument, then yes. Claiming that archery is broken because of a non-core feat, prestige class or spell is like claiming that a rogue's sneak attack is too powerful because Traps & Treachery has an Improved Sneak Attack. The base rules mechanics are fine...it's the new feat, class or spell that is throwing your balance off. Once you get away from the core rules, you loose the validity to comment on their efficacy.

Originally posted by ConcreteBuddha
Verb: 'to twink'--- to make a character more efficient, generally dealing with combat.

Thank you. We were using different definitions, then.


What I'm curious about is how far many of the posters to this thread have taken archers, game-wise. Often, I see a great deal of armchair qb-ing, but precious little actual game application, particularly in the double-digit levels. I now have a party of 17-18th level players, 6 of them, and have seen over time how archers have behaved. A review, over time, shows me that if archers are overpowered, it's because of the feats and prestige classes that get allowed them, not the core rules themselves. Moreover, I've seen what a properly buffed and equipped high-level melee fighter can do, and don't see the imbalance.

My players just survived an EL22 encounter this weekend, against the Cathezar from 'Bastion of Broken Souls'. It wasn't the archer who carried the day, it was the melee. The divine casters couldn't punch past her SR, the arcane caster had better luck, but was so endangered in the area as to have his effectiveness reduced (to remain in the area was suicide) and the archer was constrained by line-of-sight and other factors...he never got a single shot. The Paladin, armed with his holy sword, was the one who drove her off, doing and taking mass amounts of damage, keeping her on the defensive and shielding the other more vulnerable combatants. He single-handedly preveneted a TPK (the druid nearly caused one, but that's another story...this one, in fact.

The point is that, as often as not, when I hear the monday morning DMs claim something is broken, it's often just guess work, not actually field-tested data. Archery is a strong option...it should be. As others have pointed out, ranged weapons have eventually replaced melee as the weapon of choice in battlefields and personal combat over time. That said, in a game, they should be balanced so that no particular choice of character class is the optimal one in all situations. Not that they aren't the optimal in SOME situations.

The Cathezar battle illustrated to me balance, not the lack thereof. Only working as a coordinated team were the players able to survive, let alone drive her off. If not for the judicious use of heal spells, daylight, mass haste, empowered lightning bolts, sneak attacks and combined melee and ranged attacks, a TPK was possible (and at one point, seemed probable).

Furthermore, campaign differences can radically affect some character types more than others. A melee character's effectiveness falls out of balance to a spellcaster when there are only one or two encounters a day, for example. When the casters have no fear of using spells they might need later, they can dominate faster. In a situation where there are limited supplies, an archer hoards his arrows. In situations where the players face lots of enemies, the rogue and fighter have more prominence. So too with the cleric and undead. Checks and balances. Every character type should have a place where they are most effective: the archer SHOULD be better at dealing damage in an open field against distant opponents. In a constrained environment, considerably less so.

And finally, one reason I requested the comparison from Zad was to illustrate power at particular levels. I often see this sort of argument ping-pong back and forth with counter to counter, often comparing vastly different power levels. For example, discussing TWF's power and including an epic feat like Greater TWF throws the discussion out of whack. Comparing a 5th level melee fighter unequipped against a 15th level archer fully-equipped may make your argument more compelling, but certainly not more believable, when analyzed.

Ultimately, I don't much care about archer's strengths, except relative to other characters types in-game. All players should be able to overshadow others at specific times...but be overshadowed themselves elsewhere. That's what makes the game fun, IMHO.

 

[Petrosian]

My experience is quite simple.

I have been Dming a game for about two years (anniversary in January.) In that time, the characters have advanced from 2nd to 12th level. Recently, to replace player losses, we added a rogue, who came in at 10th level.

The dwarven fighter and the barbarian produce prodigious melee combat ability and show their stuff encounter after encounter. The "dedicated archer" is actually a druid/ranger (I use different druid weapons restrictions but that does not affect the issue as his druidic levels impeed his archery... he would be better as a fighter.)

The dedicated archer has a +1 (mighty +4 str) corrosive bow (like flaming but it adds acid damage 1d6 instead of fire) while the fighter typically swings a +2 keen dwarven war axe (with some spell-once-per-day things) and the barbarian swings a +2 dragon bane greatsword (also with some spell add-ons.)

The arhcer tends to lag a level or two behind the fighter/bar in terms of extra attacks from BAB. however rapid shot makes up for this and adds extra at some levels. i would say about half the levels he has an extra shot due to rapid shot. This was fairly pronounced when he was at early levels, like 3-5.

before the party began using GMW (their sor got it at 9th) the archer was doing about par with the rapid shot and more frequent full attack actions making up for weaker weapons and less strength bonus. His dex is not maxed out, and when he got into melee his damage with a quarter staff was fairly impressive.

After they began using GMW, then things switched. Now, instead of being a + down in terms of enhancements, he was a net +6 to their net +3. This moved to +8 vs their +4 and will soon reach +10 vs +5. IIRC he stopped taking archery feats after 6th (PBS, PS, RS and Far Shot??) cuz he started to fill into the role of party healer and began working feats toward his druid stuff. He is NOT a munchkin archer with maxed dex and uber feats. The early feat for RAPID SHOT and more frequent full attacks kept him in the race neck and neck. The value of extra attacks is huge in that regard. When GMW kicks in, making the doublke stacking a daily thing and not some rare thing that costs a lot, his arhcery strength went thru the roof. Amusingly, while this was happening he was devoting character time to improving his druid stuff with the natural spell feat and the plant potion thing out of MotW. He has had the same bow for at least 6 levels or so and has not spent archery feats/skills in that time. Nor has he spent charc points on dex, they went to wisdom.

The elf rogue coming in at 10th finds great success as an archer and is now flabbergasted that his to hit chances surpass the melee fighter. He often gets improved invis and does sneaks attacks at range. his dex is very high and his damage boost comes from sneak... but since he has been getting GMW on arrows and bows, he finds that whereas before he thought a non-sneak shot was worthless (doing d6+1) he now sees d6+9 with the bonus to hit as worth it. he now hits better than the fighter, and moving invisibly he can often avoid full cover bonuses.

In a game i played in, i was running an elven fighter. I started him with decent dex 16 and high Strength 18. I had intended to run him as an atypical elf, using two handed weapons. About 4th level i began to map out his future development. Since the party sprcerer planned on GMW around 9th, i began to look at what that would do. i quickly came to see that the extra attack and double enhancement made working for foc/spec/crit and PBS/RS/PS on bow extremely appealing. The numbers when run showed i could get F/S/C on bow, PBS/RS/PS, and also get F/S/C on my axe by around 12th. At that point, assuming +4 weapons, the bow/arrow was a better choice for to hit and damage and numbers of attacks. Unfortunately, that campaign ended prematurely so i never got to play him at the developed level.

When using NPCs, the couple of times i have used "archer" specialists, who were typically no slouches, they did very well.

So. all in all, this is not, for me, a theoretical issue. It first raised its self when i had it in play.

other's mileage may vary.

What I'm curious about is how far many of the posters to this thread have taken archers, game-wise. Often, I see a great deal of armchair qb-ing, but precious little actual game application, particularly in the double-digit levels. I now have a party of 17-18th level players, 6 of them, and have seen over time how archers have behaved. A review, over time, shows me that if archers are overpowered, it's because of the feats and prestige classes that get allowed them, not the core rules themselves. Moreover, I've seen what a properly buffed and equipped high-level melee fighter can do, and don't see the imbalance.

 

[Victim]

When our group had an archer, I found that he did better damage against hard targets, but less against soft targets when compared to our group's main fighter (a fighter/rogue build). A GMW was a greater priority for the archer, but the fighter often had haste from Boots of Speed.

However, when playing, I found that the archer didn't help much besides damage. Out of 6 characters, we had 2 pure arcane casters so some fragile characters needed protection. The archer usually stayed in back and fired arrows, so he didn't provide any screening or flanking benefits. Also, the dungeon we were exploring at the time was rather cramped, and at times it was difficult getting all the ranged attackers into position. There were a few times in which he either didn't have a shot, or would have had to fire through several characters in order to hit because of the tight confines.

Overall, I'd say that the archer did somewhat more damage than the existing main fighter, but didn't have the same non-damage utility like tanking, and a few levels of rogue for skills.

I don't see where everyone is getting all these GMWs. My cleric was the only character with it, I didn't have the spells to buff everyone, and have much left. At one point while the archer was around, the following characters could have used combat buffs: the archer (2 GMWs), the fighter rogue (1), the ranger/foehunter-undead (2 GMWs), and my cleric (1). There might have been a barbarian at that point too, I'm not not sure. There's no way I could have kept GMW on everyone, and I prefered to take Spell Immunity, Deathward, an occasional Divination and some other good stuff.

 

[WizarDru]

The dwarven fighter and the barbarian produce prodigious melee combat ability and show their stuff encounter after encounter. The "dedicated archer" is actually a druid/ranger (I use different druid weapons restrictions but that does not affect the issue as his druidic levels impeed his archery... he would be better as a fighter.)

How do you figure that? You've removed some of the penalties of the class, and I'm guessing that you've also removed the armor restrictions. In exchange, he gets a beefy WILL save, only loses up to 2 hps/level, and gets spellcasting ability earlier. There is more to the equation than BAB. Your dislike for the stacking effects of GMW should point that out to you, alone.

The elf rogue coming in at 10th finds great success as an archer and is now flabbergasted that his to hit chances surpass the melee fighter. He often gets improved invis and does sneaks attacks at range. his dex is very high and his damage boost comes from sneak... but since he has been getting GMW on arrows and bows, he finds that whereas before he thought a non-sneak shot was worthless (doing d6+1) he now sees d6+9 with the bonus to hit as worth it. he now hits better than the fighter, and moving invisibly he can often avoid full cover bonuses.

Sounds like the fighter isn't getting improved invis, making this less of an apples to apples comparison. Against a construct or the undead, your rogue isn't going to do that much in comparison to the fighter. It sounds like you're setting up a lot of encounters that play to the archer's strengths, honestly. You also don't mention the fighter getting a GMW. Is he, or is he hitting well enough it was deemed he 'didn't need it'? With that increased threat range, his damage would be better if he had it, which would also change things.

The rogue is doing what he's supposed to, getting his sneak attacks. His reduced BAB should be penalizing him here, or they're coming up against very dextrous foes, and suffering badly when their dex bonus is denied. In both cases, your problem seems more to be with GMW than with archers. It sounds like the archers throw down their bows when the beasties get close, so they're not incurring the danger of AoOs and/or low mobility while in combat. I'm not seeing a problem there, honestly.

Unfortunately, that campaign ended prematurely so i never got to play him at the developed level.

When using NPCs, the couple of times i have used "archer" specialists, who were typically no slouches, they did very well.

So. all in all, this is not, for me, a theoretical issue. It first raised its self when i had it in play.

other's mileage may vary.

Well, that's two different issues. NPCs and monsters follow different rules, for very important reasons. Hence the reason for ECLs being sometimes radically different than a creatures CR. I have used archers against my players...and they've been ripped apart just as much as melee beasties.

I've also noticed that pure archers tend to be stymied with non-lethality situations. In one combat we experienced, the enemy had used small children as power-sources for constructs, and destroying the constructs would result in killing their hosts. Subdual damage and other tactics were needed. Dominated or confused fellow party members is another problem that requires more than just killing the target. Someone who opined that subdual damage isn't a useful ability of melee obviously plays a fairly limited game, IMHO.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Petrosian,

I am not convinced that what you describe is really an archer issue. Any decently designed specialist who gets buffed and properly protected by meatshields is going to do very well the majority of the time.

I also don't think it is a problem if the archer dishes out ~20%-30% more damage on average than the front line grunt. The grunt has tactical value that cannot be replaced by a little extra damage.

As a matter of fact, I play a paladin with an archer in the same party. That archer inflicts about twice the damage I do in a typical brawl. I don't find that a problem; I count on it. I could compete in damage if I wanted, but I see greater value to the party by spending my PC's resources (feats & magic) in other ways.

 

[LokiDR]

Ok, how about a step back here. If most of the posters have agreed that archers deal more damage than the melee types, and they are fine with that, why?

Melee types will be subject to more damage than the ranged types, in general practice, because they are in front. Melee types will dish out less damage, by general consensus. They have the advantages that Zad mentioned, threating, subduing, ect. Are those worth taking more damage and dealing less?

In war, you want to kill your enemy before he kills you, end of story. Advantage: archer. If you are an investigator, you need to capture. Advantage: melee. I could keep listing "adventurer" occupations, but I think you get my point.

I have played and run games most often in the past 7 years as war. If they try to kill you, you kill them first. In the case of the golems powered by children, I would give them a quick death and gone to punish those who did this crime. Maybe we can raise the kids later, but death happens. This is the simplest solution most often. Whatever you think of D&D, you should see that this is a perfectly viable way to play.

In short (too late), archers are annoying for DM and other players where the "other advantages" of the melee don't come up often. Since my experience has lead to me to believe that most D&D combat is war, I will continue to be annoyed at archers. I may, however, choose to run/play in a different type of game in the future.

 

[kigmatzomat]

I have been running a 3e campaign for 2 years and play "THE" melee fighter in games at various levels (10th & 27th). All three games have had a dedicated archer. (BTW: I'm not saying there aren't other melee fighters in the other games, just that I'm the meat shield that throws himself into the dragon's maw to try and make it choke).

As such my characters should be the ones irritated by the archer. As the GM of a game with a high-dex rogue/arcane archer/Deepwood Sniper with all the toys, I should be irritated.

I am not.

As a GM I can deal with the archer by hordes of easily killed targets. The fighter cleaves his way through them without regard while the archer's primary weapon draws mutliple attacks of opportunity. They are still effective in melee combat, but not nearly as such.

Or I use archers back. Imagine the look of shock on an archer's face when a half-dozen goblins begin riddling them with arrows. "Why me?" they cry. "Because you have your bow out and can return fire" I answer. When they go up in levels it's orc rogues using strength bows, getting the sneak attack on the first flight of arrows.

As the meat-shield I know there are times where I'm just a distraction, keeping the big-bad from eating the others by getting it to eat me. That's because I can't kill it before it can kill them, but the mages & archers can surely put it down if given the chance.

At epic levels we fought a lava wight once. I didn't have weapons able to punch through the DR with any consistency but the archer had the "ignore DR" feat. I went into mega-defense mode (Expertise, defensive fighting, shield, defender sword, etc). The wight needed a 20 to hit me and I need to max damage to hurt it. But the archer slowly ground it to powder while I kept it at bay.

Had I not been there the archer would have been a crispy. Had there been no archer I would have been a crispy.

Teamwork. I use it as GM so the bad guys can put up a decent fight. I use it as a player to make up for individual deficiencies.

 

[Artoomis]

Well said, kigmatzomat.

 

[IceBear]

I agree

IceBear

 

[kigmatzomat]

Well said, kigmatzomat.

Thanks, and call me James.

There's always another "James" on a board but I've never encountered anyone else willing to use the Basquan phrase "there's nothing as good as meat" as a handle.

-James