Ranged defenders have always been in the game in the same way melee defenders have been. It's a principle of drawing fire. The enemy archer will have to shoot your archer first.
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D&D 5E What are the Roles now?
- Thread starter Unwise
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GMforPowergamers
Legend
I do not believe magic is more powerful then might...
Okay.
Hussar
Legend
Why?
Why should I target an enemy archer and not, say, the wizard standing beside him?
In what way can you have a defender archer? What specific mechanics allow for an archer to be a defender?
If you want specific mechanics for something new, you have to make them. The archer could get the marking ability if you like, able to shoot if the target doesn't shoot at him.
Hussar
Legend
But, above, you claimed that you could always be a defender archer. How?
I thought that was clear. Being attacked by the archer would be enough to draw their fire. If you don't think so, feel free to use the 4e marking mechanic, or perhaps increase the damage of the bow and arrow to be more formiddable.
GMforPowergamers
Legend
the ranger had an interrupt in the phb1 that did 1w and gave a penalty to the triggering attack... there was also a burst 1 atwill (not called burst 1 it was like pick a sq and all adjacent sqs...) and if someone moved in there it would attack them... a ranger with those 2 already make a pretty good defender, but a mark works too...
Ratskinner
Adventurer
I know a lot of "Combat as War" grognardy types who would disagree with this contention, particularly in regard to "out play". I mean, what Odysseus does to defeat the Cyclops doesn't really require any special abilities! Even a 1st level AD&D fighter might pull it off. Although most PCs I know would have slain the passed-out cyclops, rather than blind him.
Similarly, a lot of old-school D&D involves taking precautions that obviate the need for saving throws, etc. (whether or not the game provides an effective model or reflection of those strategies is perhaps beyond the scope of this thread)Conan...I'm not sure how "supernatural" any of his stunts get vs. "exaggerated grotesquely", although certainly his world has supernatural elements. Batman....well Batman has a lot of incarnations with wildly varying levels of sleuthy acumen, ninja-like combat ability, and gadget-dependence so its hard to say. Certainly even early-edition fighters can get complicated with the right suite of magical gear. Hercules...well, yes Hercules sorta breaks the mold, but then again he's a demi-god, and his stories are myth that stretches the edge of what D&D covers with its genre conceits. (I would suggest that if one wanted that in 5e, a "Demigod" race with no limit to ability score increases might suffice as a starting point.)
So I don't really buy what you're saying about how impossible it is to play these characters outside of a narrow range of edition-options...However, the idea that such things are not inherent in the class design for 5e (or any edition of D&D)...that I will buy. Whether they should be or not...is a matter of opinion. I've played plenty of "indie" games where the mechanics play at a much more narrative manner than D&D's rather hand-waved "Fantasy", and it works very well. If we accept that one of our conventions will be that "Batman always can pull out just the right bit of Bat-gear" is an inherent part of playing the Batman, then that's fine, and we can skip equipment lists, etc. Dungeon World works this way and, for many players, emulates or reflects the D&D experience quite well.
However, D&D hasn't really moved to function in this manner, and still tends to default to a really profoundly bad simulation-y model that attempts to correlate things to game-world processes, rather than narrative-fictional processes. IME, this approach to game design fares very poorly when dealing with mythological levels of ability (like re-directing a river) in comparison to the more narrative models. Even within D&D, spells and their functioning are often the breaking point for edition after edition. In part, this is because magic is typically used in more mythical stories as an authorial tool, not an aspect of physics. Trying to map various magical effects from myth, legend, fairy tale, and modern fiction onto some kind of sensible scale for a "real" world is a fool's errand, and the problems only get worse as you increase the capacity of the magic in question. I've known many groups not only don't reach, but work hard to avoid higher-level D&D play in part because "things get silly". I think E6 earned some of its appeal this way.
wheww....that got a lot longer and rambly than I intended.
FormerlyHemlock
Hero
You're free to skip over any parts of the game you like. If I were your DM, I'd say, "Sure. Twenty centuries pass. You're now 100th level and have defeated every challenge. You rule the world. The end." and then start a new game elsewhere.
It's not a wizard vs. warrior thing, it's about using what you've got instead of expecting solutions to get handed to you on a platter by pure mechanics.
"Make a major change to the environment" is implicit in having super strength. It doesn't need special rules, it's automatic when you have Str 5000 like Heracles does.
If someone with only Str 20 tries that, I'll say, "Think Odysseus here, not Hercules," exactly as I would if they said they were suplexing Ouroboros. D&D characters don't operate on a mythic scale. If you want to run at the speed of thought and throw mountains at your enemies you want a different game. (I will totally let you make a hole in the wall though.)
If I were the Str 20 guy facing down an army of orcs, I can launch a guerrilla campaign, look for help, challenge the orc leader to a duel for leadership of the army, or train the villagers in weapons. I can even try to dam up the river and flood the plain, although that will take real work and not just one rock. None of these things require special "powers" in the build, they're part of all characters already, at least in AD&D and 5E. (Can't speak for editions in between.)
YMMV. You run your game the way you like it.
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