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Message: <blockquote data-quote="FormerlyHemlock" data-source="post: 6523098" data-attributes="member: 6787650">Not to mention breathe fire in an area, charm anyone within 30 feet, stun everyone in a 60' cone, suck out your brains if they grapple you...I've been looking through old AD&D material recently, which made me realize something striking about 5E: all special abilities in 5E have range limits. I can't think of a single 5E monster which does something to "anyone looking at it" or "anything it can see." And the range limits are all short. One of the reasons why missile combat is so strong in 5E is that range and the ability to disperse your PCs geographically without degrading their ability to apply force is the most effective defense against almost anything out there.Put it this way: high-level Monks have fantastic saves, right? Proficient in everything at level 13 with the ability to reroll using ki. However, if two illithids Mind Blast a group of four 14th level Monks who are trying to melee their minions, one or two of the monks are likely to be stunned regardless. (+5 to Int saves means 10 or greater succeeds, meaning 45% chance for success, 79.75% chance when ki is factored in, so there are eight chances at about 20% success to stun a monk. Specifically, 4 * (1 - 0.7975)^2 = 1.43 monks on average will be stunned.) If the monks are dispersed and firing bows, however, only one monk at a time can be targeted and so only 0.364 monks will be stunned on average. It's true that the monks will chew through the minions 50% faster when using melee attacks instead of bows due to higher melee DPR, but 33% lower offense in exchange for 4x the defense is nothing but a win-win situation--not to mention the fact that missile weapons can potentially outright ignore the minions and go straight for the mind flayers.On top of that, combat in 5E is mobile by default (can attack/cast spells in the middle of movement), and there are a number of cheap and easy ways to enhance your movement even further (class features like Cunning Action and monk/barb movement increases; low-level, widely-available, long-lasting stackable spells like Longstrider and Expeditious Retreat; feats like Mobile that combo even better with Cunning Action/Expeditious Retreat on rough terrain). Ranged combat is quite simply the dominant combat paradigm in 5E, and anyone who doesn't plan for combat to happen is doing it wrong, or has a DM who is deliberately going easy on them/depicting a tactically-inept opposition[1].So far I've been enjoying 5E but if I burn out and quit/go back to AD&D, it will probably be over missile dominance. It makes the game just too easy.-Max[1] Possibly for legitimate reasons. If half the 5E players on the Internet believe in the superiority of Great Weapon Fighting style over Archery, why wouldn't stupid orcs be vulnerable to the same logic until someone shows them differently?</blockquote>

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