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The Focus Fire Problem
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<blockquote data-quote="James Gasik" data-source="post: 8723039" data-attributes="member: 6877472"><p>When I first started playing D&D, you couldn't fire into melee without risking hitting allies. In fact, the DM was instructed to randomly determine the target of the shot before we even find out if you hit or missed!</p><p></p><p>You couldn't fire a bow at all if you were in melee range-heck, in 2e, at least, you had to be a specialist to even fire from as close as 6' away!</p><p></p><p>If you were a spellcaster, you had virtually no defenses when casting, and so much as a thrown rock doing 1 point of damage made your spells fizzle.</p><p></p><p>In these days, nobody was a dedicated archer, as you could only employ archery once a melee wall was established, and Wizards basically hid out of sight on the first turn, only popping out to cast a spell once everyone else was engaged.</p><p></p><p>Now, people got tired of this sort of play, and I saw, even games I was playing at the time, that these restrictions were relaxed. DMs stopped caring if you were shooting in melee range, and only made you hit an ally if you missed. Wizards were allowed to make checks to keep their spells when they got hit (the most common I experienced was a Wisdom check, for whatever reason).</p><p></p><p>When WotC took over, they took note of this, and peeled back some of these restrictions. Opportunity attacks from Players Option became the standard. Now you could cast or use missile fire in melee range, but you were immediately punished for doing so. Now, firing into a melee was only a -4 penalty, but hey, 2 Feats and you could ignore this penalty!</p><p></p><p>But players still seemed to chafe at this, so over the course of the next two editions, these restrictions were further peeled back until we have the case that now, you might take disadvantage to fire at someone standing next to you. But there's a Feat for that.</p><p></p><p>And allies might provide cover for enemies if you fire into a melee. But there's a Fighting Style for that. <strong>And </strong>a Feat, which turns the Fighting Style into a near permanent +2 to hit!</p><p></p><p>And yeah, you could lose a spell for being hit in combat. But it's a Constitution save, there are ways to get proficiency. A Feat that grants advantage. And it's not like your AC is any worse for casting a spell- why, with a single one level dip or a Feat, you can be a Wizard in full plate armor, maybe with a shield!</p><p></p><p>Which is why I started to notice (and made a thread for it) that ranged attacks seemed awfully good in 5e. And with Rogues being <em>specifically designed</em> to focus fire targets, it seems like this is the playstyle the game is built around.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="James Gasik, post: 8723039, member: 6877472"] When I first started playing D&D, you couldn't fire into melee without risking hitting allies. In fact, the DM was instructed to randomly determine the target of the shot before we even find out if you hit or missed! You couldn't fire a bow at all if you were in melee range-heck, in 2e, at least, you had to be a specialist to even fire from as close as 6' away! If you were a spellcaster, you had virtually no defenses when casting, and so much as a thrown rock doing 1 point of damage made your spells fizzle. In these days, nobody was a dedicated archer, as you could only employ archery once a melee wall was established, and Wizards basically hid out of sight on the first turn, only popping out to cast a spell once everyone else was engaged. Now, people got tired of this sort of play, and I saw, even games I was playing at the time, that these restrictions were relaxed. DMs stopped caring if you were shooting in melee range, and only made you hit an ally if you missed. Wizards were allowed to make checks to keep their spells when they got hit (the most common I experienced was a Wisdom check, for whatever reason). When WotC took over, they took note of this, and peeled back some of these restrictions. Opportunity attacks from Players Option became the standard. Now you could cast or use missile fire in melee range, but you were immediately punished for doing so. Now, firing into a melee was only a -4 penalty, but hey, 2 Feats and you could ignore this penalty! But players still seemed to chafe at this, so over the course of the next two editions, these restrictions were further peeled back until we have the case that now, you might take disadvantage to fire at someone standing next to you. But there's a Feat for that. And allies might provide cover for enemies if you fire into a melee. But there's a Fighting Style for that. [B]And [/B]a Feat, which turns the Fighting Style into a near permanent +2 to hit! And yeah, you could lose a spell for being hit in combat. But it's a Constitution save, there are ways to get proficiency. A Feat that grants advantage. And it's not like your AC is any worse for casting a spell- why, with a single one level dip or a Feat, you can be a Wizard in full plate armor, maybe with a shield! Which is why I started to notice (and made a thread for it) that ranged attacks seemed awfully good in 5e. And with Rogues being [I]specifically designed[/I] to focus fire targets, it seems like this is the playstyle the game is built around. [/QUOTE]
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