NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="WizarDru" data-source="post: 515879" data-attributes="member: 151">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.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.  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...<a href="http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=513148#post513148" target="_blank">this one, in fact.</a> 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.</blockquote>

Verification