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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Petrosian" data-source="post: 502539" data-attributes="member: 1149">[/B]</blockquote>WOW!! How utterly brilliant. I had not considered that. Thank you for your insights. 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.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.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. 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.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.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.[/QUOTE]

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