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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The_Furious_Puffin" data-source="post: 6860702" data-attributes="member: 11831">Yes, but the problem is that an Battlemaster Archer doesn't actually have a 2nd order strategy. He's sunk tons of resources into being great with a hand crossbow (or whatever) and the upshot is that he's a hugely reduced combat effectiveness if he changes weapons. There is one play: Stand as far as possible away from the bad guys and shoot. Say the GM added some fog to the battlefield that means archers shoot at disadvantage. It's quite possible that instead of drawing his rapier and getting into melee the hypothetical archer here should continue to fire from range *anyway* as the effective penalty of disadvantage is smaller than the +2 from archery style and +2 from, say, a magical crossbow, plus he's still protected from attack. Whereas if he goes into melee he loses the benefits of his fighting style and feat and gets dunked. That's the thing - he doesn't have interesting choices to make in combat. Actual example from play at the table: The sorcerer can choose between either standing back and blasting, using twinned haste to buff the paladin and the barbarian then hiding, or using twinned spell to polymorph himself and someone else into a T-Rex and stomping into melee combat, or turning into a sea creature and swimming underwater.The Battlemaster archer at the same table doesn't have anything comparable to the 'press this button to become a melee monster (literally!)' effect, let alone the 'we need to get this treasure that is buried underwater, okay I turn into a sea creature' effect!</blockquote>

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