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<blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 7525726" data-attributes="member: 71699">I think what you mooted here was valuable, and that there are two ways to answer your question.First, in isolation without considering class features and spells, X ranged damage is worth more than X melee damage. There's nothing in the general system that balances that. Opportunity Attacks sound like they could on paper, but do not... in part because they tend to deliver spread damage.Second though, and far more importantly, once you consider class features and spells melee is worth the same as ranged (and both benefit greatly from putting a full-caster in the mix). Melee classes tend to have high effective HP. Ranged classes tend to have peels and escapes. In many instances ranged can pull ahead on effective damage due to up-time and focus-fire, but melee is far more resilient in a much wider variety of scenarios. For instance a Deadly encounter in a tight space will probably leave ranged characters dying in its wake.The only exception is CEx/SS versus GWM. Both are truly fierce, but for reasons already discussed elsewhere the Hand Crossbow wielder wins out. The correction IMO is simply make SS power-attacks require Heavy ranged weapons, just as GWM power-attacks require Heavy melee weapons. That brings down the ranged power-attacks by one, and puts the styles about on par.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="clearstream, post: 7525726, member: 71699"] I think what you mooted here was valuable, and that there are two ways to answer your question. First, in isolation without considering class features and spells, X ranged damage is worth more than X melee damage. There's nothing in the general system that balances that. Opportunity Attacks sound like they could on paper, but do not... in part because they tend to deliver spread damage. Second though, and far more importantly, [B]once you consider class features and spells melee is worth the same as ranged[/B] (and both benefit greatly from putting a full-caster in the mix). Melee classes tend to have high effective HP. Ranged classes tend to have peels and escapes. In many instances ranged can pull ahead on effective damage due to up-time and focus-fire, but melee is far more resilient in a much wider variety of scenarios. For instance a Deadly encounter in a tight space will probably leave ranged characters dying in its wake. The only exception is CEx/SS versus GWM. Both are truly [I]fierce[/I], but for reasons already discussed elsewhere the Hand Crossbow wielder wins out. The correction IMO is simply make SS power-attacks require [I]Heavy[/I] ranged weapons, just as GWM power-attacks require [I]Heavy[/I] melee weapons. That brings down the ranged power-attacks by one, and puts the styles about on par. [/QUOTE]

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