D&D 5E (2014) there aren't enough slow Dwarves with Axes! ;)

[guachi]

If I'm remembering my real life correctly, shields are insanely good against ranged attacks and require minimal skill or effort to get that bonus.

So I'd let any shield get +4 vs. ranged attacks (spell and weapon).

 

[Skyscraper]

I've implemented a few house rules to my game, albeit not because I found ranged attackers to be prevalent (as noted above, a lot of encounters happen at short or immediate melee range). Here are my houserules:

1) damage reduction to armor: medium armor has DR 1 vs bludgeonning, piercing and slashing damage; and heavy armor has DR 2 vs same. Heavy armor also has 5' movement penalty. My game has only human variants so no base speed 20 races are present; base speed is 30 or more. Heavy armor master feat, in addition to giving DR3, now removes the 5' speed penalty. Some monsters and spells with heavy plating or armor bonuses might also have DR. Armor is now more meaningful, especially in a battle vs low-damage mooks. But, I play the intelligent ones mean: they'll swarm the heavy armor tank to pin him to the ground and hit him prone.
2) cantrips have limited daily uses = 2 x # of cantrips known. Canptrips known become cantrips learned, of course. This prevents mages from lighting their way through dungeons with firebolts Seriously (cause the latter has never been a problem in my games), this is one way that I found to shift my game towards a lower magic environment.
3) spells deal more damage (+ 1/spell level for AoE, +2/spell level for single target).
4) spells that allow a save to end when the spell is cast + every turn of a creature, now allow a save to end when the spell is cast + on the first turn only of the creature. Illusions need to be interacted with to allow a save to disbelieve.

(3) and (4) aim to up the power level of spellcasters, so that they become fearrrrrome

I believe all of our houserules, including these, work well for us. They were not aimed at changing the ranged vs melee power curve, but since they indeed touch on increase heavy (and medium) armor efficiency, and also in limiting cantrip uses, I thought I'd share that we like 'em

Cheers!

 

[Lord Twig]

I guess I fall somewhere in the middle on this issue. On the one hand I agree with re-instating the difficulty of using ranged weapons in combat, but on the other hand I don't have any problems forcing melee encounters on my players in logical ways.

For example, it was mentioned that a scout would spring an ambush and then would lead the ambushers back to the waiting party. Why would the ambushers do that? My ambushers would kill the scout (or try to) and then retreat and set up another ambush in a new location. They absolutely would not rush after a retreating scout.

Now of course the goal is not to kill the party, but to create a fun and challenging encounter for the party, even the melee characters. So while a barricade on a bridge might now be a big challenge for a higher level party, invading the keep that holds the Vault of the McGuffin should introduce plenty of melee combat. Honestly I don't know how any party would avoid melee combat most of the time.

All that said I don't like the image of a character continuing to fire a bow in melee combat. Even Legolas pulled his knives when things got up close and personal. The main offender of this seems to be the Crossbow Expert feat. But as an optional rule, it is easy to exclude. Even if you do allow feats in general, there is no need to allow this feat in particular.

In addition to the problem of getting Disadvantage when firing in melee I would include a rule to attack weapons. Bows are not very strong compared to swords or axes. And even just cutting the string renders it useless.

So there you go. No Crossbow Expert feat and allow melee to attack held weapons. Done.

 

[AmerginLiath]

Maybe shields should be better versus ranges attacks like they were in real life. Like a standard shield is +4 AC vs any ranged attack.

Though I also like making dash faster, too.

Having ranged attacks be at Disadvantage versus shields might be interesting. It would average out to around that +4 while allowing for tactical play*, a.k.a. the archer finding Advantage positions to reverse the penalty (without actually gaining an Advantage die, as the universe of ranged options generally makes plausible). One could see the same rule for firing into melee as well.

(*even as simple as having a melee ally Help you, picturing it as an adjacent melee fighter's feint drawing the shield to that 'attack' and leaving their flank exposed to the archer)

 

[MonkeyWrench]

I ran into a similar issue while running RoT, and the supremacy of ranged combatants surprised everyone at the table, including the longbow-wielding Hunter/Assassin who tended to dominate combat.

In my games I've addressed the problem by:
- removing most combat-related feats (CE, SS, and GWM in particular) as I find that using feats massively tips the balance in favor of the PCs
- doubling the AC bonus for shields versus ranged attacks and adding in a +3 AC "large" shield
- making sure the terrain in any encounter is varied and that there are ways for melee combatants to close to melee w/o drawing too much fire

I do think that the 5e rules favor ranged combatants over melee, and if you want to emulate the heroic swordsmen of the fantasy genre you have to bring back the drawbacks of ranged combat that existed in prior editions - penalties to fire in melee, generous cover bonuses, etc. Even with the drawbacks, ranged combat still edges out melee, but the disparity isn't quite so glaring.

 

[hejtmane]

I ran into a similar issue while running RoT, and the supremacy of ranged combatants surprised everyone at the table, including the longbow-wielding Hunter/Assassin who tended to dominate combat.

In my games I've addressed the problem by:
- removing most combat-related feats (CE, SS, and GWM in particular) as I find that using feats massively tips the balance in favor of the PCs
- doubling the AC bonus for shields versus ranged attacks and adding in a +3 AC "large" shield
- making sure the terrain in any encounter is varied and that there are ways for melee combatants to close to melee w/o drawing too much fire

I do think that the 5e rules favor ranged combatants over melee, and if you want to emulate the heroic swordsmen of the fantasy genre you have to bring back the drawbacks of ranged combat that existed in prior editions - penalties to fire in melee, generous cover bonuses, etc. Even with the drawbacks, ranged combat still edges out melee, but the disparity isn't quite so glaring.

I have removed anyone style from dominating with encounter building I have all feats in play or allowed and we do rolled stats (I am old school on stats I hate point buy). Yet the players are not walking over encounters even with smart play and no one is dominating ranged or melee they have all shined or not shined in different ways and different battles

 

[smbakeresq]

I have removed anyone style from dominating with encounter building I have all feats in play or allowed and we do rolled stats (I am old school on stats I hate point buy). Yet the players are not walking over encounters even with smart play and no one is dominating ranged or melee they have all shined or not shined in different ways and different battles

Never had a problem like this either. I did have a storm giant archer modeled after dragon magazine article that used a composite longbow (3d8 per arrow + 9) with a range of 450/1800 once.

I can see getting rid of the SS feat of no disadvantage if target is at long range, that seems excessive to me because there is clearly a penalty for anyone to try to hit something at long range. it would work better if instead the weapons ranges were increased %50 for each range increment i.e. the longbow was now 225/900. Now the "expert" is not shooting with disadvantage at a %50 greater range and can shoot with disadvantage %50 farther. That seems more balanced.

Another way to handle this is let the enemy have the same advantages sometimes. A giant hurling boulders with no range or cover penalties is pretty deadly, and the Orog swinging for the fences at +1 to hit but d12+14 damage (twice due to multi-attack) can still be scary to characters above its level.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

That's it for now. Thoughts?

The fix is insufficiently large to make melee attractive. If damage is always Str-based, but mobility is still king, then you might see ranged characters with a balance of Str and Dex, but you still won't see slow dwarves with axes. You'll see Mobile dwarves with axes, and you'll see Rogue/Fighters shooting arrows while kiting monsters, and you'll even see wizards killing monsters to death with crossbows while avoiding them via Expeditious Retreat... but you won't see slow dwarves getting up in the faces of Medusas, because approaching within 30' of a Medusa is still a great way to get killed.

 

[cbwjm]

I've always assumed that dwarves make heavy use of crossbows. I can imagine them staying back and peppering their enemies with crossbow bolts.

Sent from my SM-G925I using EN World mobile app

 

[CapnZapp]

The fix is insufficiently large to make melee attractive. If damage is always Str-based, but mobility is still king, then you might see ranged characters with a balance of Str and Dex, but you still won't see slow dwarves with axes.

Tru dat, but we need to begin somewhere