I'm annoyed at archers.

[Endur]

comments in line.
Originally posted by ConcreteBuddha
>BTW, on a separate issue: I do not believe that characters must >take PrCs to remain effective. I would like to stay as a single->classed lizardman barbarian. Why should I alter my character >concept to stay effective because some WotC guys decided to >make the PA or OOBI? Both of these classes are more powerful >than any single classed character. (Except for the cleric, of >course.)

I agree. Barbarian is a fine class for a Lizardman. What weapon do you use? Or do you do claw-claw-bite?

With regards to waiting for the enemy...

>Problem: Enemy never actually arrives.

If the enemy never arrives, that is not a problem. After one or two encounters like that, the GM will modify the ELs and the enemy will start arriving for melee. We regularly fight encounters that are 2 to 5 ELs above our level.

Tom

 

[Bastoche]

I agree. Barbarian is a fine class for a Lizardman. What weapon do you use? Or do you do claw-claw-bite?

( If you read carefully his first post, you'll find out... )

 

[Rackhir]

I am of two minds with this issue. I've found the hard way that more than one specialty archer can serious overpower a group, leaving the rest of the group feeling bored as they slaughter virtually everything in their path before the rest of the group has much of a chance. I knew there was a problem when one Level 10 archer nearly killed a retriever in one round (and had it been subject to criticals, he would have).

Actually, Rackhir was 12th or 13th at the point where he took on the retriever and with not too much bad luck it would have killed him. So it didn't do to badly considering it's a CR 10 Monster and Rackhir was a very formidable archer.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

ConcreteBuddha,

You may or may not be a "Munchkin", but glancing at your melee types it is obvious they could use some advice from "Real Men".

Real Men like two-handed weapons and laugh at those use two weapons (unless you are going the spiked shield route).

Real Men don't care for races with ECL unless they are playing characters over 10th level equivalent.
Real Men like humans and dwarves and half-orcs, and know how to stack up either the offense or defense so high it makes the DM cringe.

Real Men like Power Attack, Cleave, and Great Cleave. Those are key advantages of a melee grunt over a ranged specialist.

(If your DM is foolish enough to allow "Ranged Power Attack", all is not lost. But your will need to know how to twink out on PrCs...)

The Achille's Heal of archers is line of sight. A simple Obscuring Mist in restricted terrain can shut them down. You are now 7th level, and you should not be surprised if even the orcs you meet have access to this type of spell. Darkness and its variants will work, too.

 

[JoelF]

Another key weakness of the archers that stay put compared to the melee fighters who close is area of effect spells. The melee fighters are right next to the enemies front lines, and sometimes past it. They aren't very easy to target with fireballs, etc without hitting allies of the enemy spellcaster. The archers are all alone, with no enemies near them and make great targets for area of effect spells (and even single attack spells and ranged attacks for creatures that don't have precise shot), with out worrying about friendly fire.

 

[Petrosian]

My observations on archers in 3e.

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.)

Easily half the time the acid is irrelevent due to protections or resistances.

He is consistently one of the more damaging combatants. The dwarven fighter minmax keeps up but barely.

his feats include point blank shot, precise shot and rapid shot.
He could have had focus and crit by now but spent feats elsewhere.

The problems which i see are as follows...

RAPID SHOT is too good. it allows an extra shot at just -2 to all. this is too good. THe equivalent melee feat requires two feats to pull off AND the off hand shot is at reduced damage as well.

STACKING the bow and arrow enhancements is too good. This becomes critical once GMW enters the picture. This will just get worse in a few levels when CHAIN GMW at 15th level enables with one 6th level spell for 16 weapon.ammo sets to be made for 15h hours each. Thats +5 weapons, bows and arrows for everybody. While this is an issue of concern (GMW is too good) it is compounded by the stacking of enhancements for bow and arrow.

The result is obscene. After taking the -2, he is getting more shots and his +8 hit +10 damage from GMW is still a lot better than the melee fighter with his +5/+5.

had this guy been a fighter and bow specialist...

Focus, Specialization and improved crit.
point blank, rapid shot and precise shot.
those are easy enough to gain for a fighter... and add up to normal shots at +2/+3 within 30' or extra shots with net +0/+3.

All together, archery is a double dipper in several areas and can get too potent too quickly, IMO. This effect is amplified by the already too strong GMW spell.

 

[Fenes 2]

Unless you get hit by Chain Lightning or similar spells.

Edit: This should have been a reply to the post that listed AE spells as archer weaknesses.

 

[WizarDru]

Actually, Rackhir was 12th or 13th at the point where he took on the retriever and with not too much bad luck it would have killed him. So it didn't do to badly considering it's a CR 10 Monster and Rackhir was a very formidable archer.

You're right, 12th level it was. I didn't mean to imply that Rackhir shouldn't have been able to do it...he was built purely for that effort, and built well. My concern was that combats were rapidly becoming decisions of 'how do I prevent the archers from being effective enough to allow the others a chance to contribute'? In this case, I think having two high-powered archers was as much the problem as anything else.

As I said, I'm of two minds on the topic. I haven't restricted archers in my game, and am not likely to in the near future. There are plenty of ways to slow them down, if one is of a mind to do it. On the other hand, I don't want to have design combats to defeat a single or set of players from fulfilling what their character was designed to do.

The retreivers illustrates a problem with the imbalance of raising ELs, though (note that there were two retrievers for a EL 12 encounter). Had both the retrievers wanted to, they would most likely have been able to kill a single player per turn. Had Rackhir not been properly buffed, he would have been killed just as quickly as he killed the retreiver. As it was, he very nearly was anyways.

 

[Artoomis]

How to deal with archers?

Charge 'em and sunder the bow. That ought to be standard tactics, just as charging a spell caster might be, to take them out quickly.

Archers and spell casters are both long-rang threats and should be dealt with as soon as possible by any reasonably experienced foe - who should know better than to try and fight everyone at once.

When the situation favors them, they are terribly effective. That's fine. Make sure the situation doesn't always favor them and you'll be fine.

NO character can overpower every encounter.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Even if you allow enhancements from magic bows and arrows to stack (I do), I would NOT allow GMW cast on bow & arrows to stack. I'd rule it similar to casting two GMW on a sword -- you might extend the duration, but the most you get is +5. If the archer wants to stack his +5's, he's got to go spend the gold or find the weapon. It may not help a lot, but it will cut down on the most blatant abuse.