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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 7146268" data-attributes="member: 996">I'm saying there was no need to play the 'popularity' card - especially given WotC's record of steadfastly asserting that each of it's editions is more popular than the last, as it undermines an otherwise valid argument. You said 11+, you better come up with 11!  ;P   Of course, the obvious one you left out was the AoO for making a ranged attack in melee.  Inability to make AoOs, yourself, was another downside, but 5e hasn't technically removed it, just made AoOs a lot less common and relatively less effective.   For a high-hp fighter with few means of preventing an enemy from closing, that's a fairly minor advantage (for casters it can be huge, of course).  Being able to attack an enemy in spite of being unable to reach them (due to distance, intervening obstacles, effects that reduce or nullify your movement, etc), and thus able to attack the target of your choice, every round, focusing fire efficiently, is a pretty major offensive advantage. Since you seem to be including feats, yeah, you could do that in 3e or 4e via feats, too.  And, you can make ranged attacks with STR, too.Important because it makes it harder to focus fire on enemies engaged with your melee allies.  Though, maybe a little too restrictive. And you can move and make all your Extra Attacks, no Full Attack Action like in 3e, so kiting tactics don't need to accept reduced damage. Meh, he can plink away without provoking, the disadvantage hurts, but, if there's already sources of advantage and/or disadvantage affecting you, that doesn't much matter. You did.  Though, to be fair, I find two flaws with that statement:  1) you /are/ assuming feats, which are technically optional in 5e, and 2) you left out at least two such checks, one of them, the AoO, very significant, IMHO. There's more to it than raw DPR.  It's unlikely the melee guy gets to attack the target of his choice, every single round, since some rounds are spent moving into melee range, so that further reduces his damage potential, and it reduces his ability to focus all that damage on one target to burn it down to 0 hps.  Ranged attackers more rarely face those problems, since an enemy must move a great distance to get out of bow or crossbow range. That's not all things being equal, that's Joe wearing more expensive armor that brings it's own restrictions with it. Not quite that bad, in all likelihood - monsters tend to be faster than PCs, and kiting is hard without some blockers or something to keep them from just Dashing right up to you. They don't change /that/ much.  There's no AoOs for firing in melee, and terrain issues that can mean a ranged type is coping with cover or enemies that can get close before moving into LoS can often prevent melee attacks, entirely, as well.  And 5e archers aren't melee-alergic like those of past editions - they can prettymuch stand and shoot you in the face. They're still fighters, still with d10 hps. That's just a silly tactic, and the need to resort to it, because the feat-optimized ranged character faces no downside in melee just makes it that much more laughable - and sad. She doesn't /need/ to be in melee, but she can handle it. Just dealing damage is all optimized DPR machines like these generally do, and what they should do.  Allies just make it that much easier, with no cover penalties and in no danger, she can just pour the hurt onto whatever poor enemy is engaged with her blockers, focusing fire and burning them down fast.  It's prettymuch ideal. Very valid, larger point.  The OP's topic may have been the balance between two types of weapon-user builds, but the removal of restrictions from archery is concurrent with an even more generous treatment of spellcasting, which is that much more significant in it's impact, so it would make sense to focus on solutions that also applied in that realm.  AoOs for using ranged attacks (of any kind) in melee, for instance, would make it harder for both archers and casters.Imbalances between builds (or even weapons) are just much easier to quantify when you're dealing primarily with DPR.</blockquote>

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