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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Janx" data-source="post: 6174432" data-attributes="member: 8835">Here's another way to look at it.A while back I was playing with a design for a miniatures game, and trying to assign point values for the different pieces.One of the factors in my consideration was making the point cost appropriate to the combat effectiveness of the piece.So if a you had 100 points of archers and I had 100 points of swordsmen, they should have a 50:50 chance of beating the other.The key to that, in my thinking, was the range at which combat begins.  Barring specific situational concerns, that was when one side enters the other's hittable range (ex. the archers can hit you at 100 feet).From there, for 10 archers, how many swordsmen can make it to melee range with the archers?And from there, how many remaining swordsmen does it take to have a 50:50 chance to kill the archers?Assuming this logic results in "game balance" and that "game balance" is a good thing, I've got to play around with how many men on both sides, damage values, to-hit values, range and movement speed, until I get to this mythical 50:50 success ratio.And all that means is that both pieces are valued properly so that in a generic combat, barring any situational advantage or tactical advantage from the player, that it's a fair fight.In D&D, the concern is likely to not make one an overwhelming advantage of the other (ex. bows do 2d10, swords do 1d8) and to crank up the purchase cost a bit for the better weapon (a bow will let you hit the enemy a few more times for free, before he closes with you).In terms of real life lethality, the right weapon in the hand of a person trained to use it in a situation that is not disadvantageous to use is equally lethal to any other weapon in its appropriate usage scenaro.A swordman can kill you quite quickly in a sword fight.  An archer can kill you quite quickly in a bow fight.  A gunman can kill you quite quickly in a gun fight.So in nearly any rule-system, it is mostly correct design to make them all do mostly the same damage.A ranged weapon almost always has the advantage when the fight starts at range, so that's inherent in this model.The disadvantage a ranged weapon has is a crowded/cover-ful battlefield (friendly fire/blocked LOS) or extreme close range (shooting you at 5 feet is still easy).  Shooting you at 6 inches means we are likely grappling for my gun, and you may get it from me.So making sure you enforce the disadvantages of a ranged weapon would be a "realistic" game balancer.If after that, everybody still always carries and uses a ranged weapon first and foremost, then so be it.Personally, since I started D&D, my PC always carried a ranged, melee, and extreme close range weapon (bow, sword, dagger/knife).</blockquote>

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