What the **** is WotC thinking?

[Speaks With Stone]

I think the problem with the mathematical models presented is that they cannot address true tactics or strategy.

Combat is not engineering. There is no single problem to solve for. There is no absolute solution. Not in true combat situations. Your opponents will always strive to counter your strengths and exploit your weaknesses. Even just moderately bright individuals will do this.

If a bow does more damage, then your opponents will counter in any of the many ways mentioned previously. If this tends to make the archers too weak, then they will begin focusing on the next most dangerous character.

All military actions are opposed and the more specialized a weapon/character is, the easier to counter.

If archers/wizards/melee/rogue/whatever is ruling the day, then the DM is not appropriately applying good tactics.

The real fun is where the players have to figure out how to counter the counters.

 

[seasong]

Where we differ is on sundering.

I thought the only question about sundering was whether or not its magical bonus applied for being sundered?

My rule: Treat it as a weapon. The magical bonus applies. A +5 bow will tend to be sundered by a +5 sword, however, and if the archer has GMW, so does his sundering enemies.

Is sunder needed to balance archers? No, not really. It's just one part of the overall tactical options available.

Archers are best at dealing lots of damage to small numbers of opponents at a distance. They can be defeated by charges, sundering, and other "close-in" melee tactics.

Melee fighters are best at wiping out hordes of lesser foes, and pretty good at soaking punishment from more powerful opponents at close-in fighting.

Together, a melee fighter can keep a foe occupied while the archer plinks the foe to death. Against each other, the fighter will tend to try to close in while the archer tries to maintain his distance - which one succeeds at this movement ballet will determine who wins the fight.

IMO, that's balanced.

IMO, IF, in order to maintain balance, you need to hack bows, enchanted bows which cost as much as enchanted swords, to pieces with enough frequency and regularity to make the sunder interpretaion relevant at all, then that is a sign of imbalance to begin with.

Sunder is one of several tactics. Disarm is another. Trip is another. Stunning blow is another. All close-in, where the melee fighter reigns supreme. I mentioned sunder specifically because (A) it's been cropping up in this thread, and (B) sunder is the primary FEAR archers have, and the main reason they'll have to make a tactical decision about bringing out the bow or not, based on the enemy.

In short, if the major keys to balancing an archer all fall into the category of "dont let him be an archer in play" as in the various "break his bow a lot" or "make his bow fragile" and "don't let him archer situations" and so on, then you are not actually balancing the archer at all, just providing ample disincentives to players actually playing one.

Please see my comments, above. There are disadvantages to playing an archer, and there are reasons why an archer is useless without a fighter to keep the enemy off his back. But I consider those incentives for a team to work together and focus on different specialties, rather than a disincentive to play an archer.

That's the same philosophy I approach my story hour with - the side that works together, wins together.

PS... The comment i think made great sense was the one that observed the impact PARTY SIZE would have. In a four man group, there are going to be situational difficulties in getting the "wall o' melee" in front of you.

I would agree... but primarily because spell casters are so needed. In a no-magic campaign, 2 fighters, 1 archer, and 1 rogue would work quite nicely. As it is, the archer can't afford to specialize in archery early on, until the 1 fighter reaches a point where he can literally hold off an army.

 

[seasong]

Speaks With Stone: It is an engineering problem... just a complex one. My analysis was examining only one small aspect of combat, that of damage dealt in an ideal situation. It isn't the whole picture, and I don't see it as such, but in order to analyze the overall picture, it is useful to know the details.

Of course, that analysis is 2 pages ago . I really like the overall analysis that has been going on since then .

 

[Speaks With Stone]

But it's not an engineering problem.

When was the last time an engineer designing a bridge over a river had to consider what the river would do in response to the engineer's designs.

A combatant will see the effectiveness of a tactic and move to counter it. The problem should change on a regular basis, so no solution remains constant.

I'm not saying that analysis is useless, I'm saying that once an opponent decides that the archer is too effective, he should move to counter. Then the archer's ability to pour on damage is changed to a degree related to the counter.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

I'm with seasong here.

Combat is a sophisticated systems engineering problem. It's a highly dynamic system, where every component influences and is in turn influenced by everything else. Just because it's complicated, and you don't know what the other guy is going to do doesn't mean you can't model it -- you simply replace the other guy's options with a series of probability densities. Military operations researchers have been doing this sort of conflict modeling for years with fairly good accuracy -- the results of which drive military research, combat development, purchasing, tactics, and organizational structure.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

But it's not an engineering problem.

When was the last time an engineer designing a bridge over a river had to consider what the river would do in response to the engineer's designs.

A combatant will see the effectiveness of a tactic and move to counter it. The problem should change on a regular basis, so no solution remains constant.

I'm not saying that analysis is useless, I'm saying that once an opponent decides that the archer is too effective, he should move to counter. Then the archer's ability to pour on damage is changed to a degree related to the counter.

Sorry I think this is lets say overstated. So the big weakness of ebing the best is geez people realize your the best and might focus some energies towards you. Ah tell it to the guy in the meat grinder that now that you've rained doom all over the battlefield someone might decide to throw a attack in your direction.

Every tactic can be countered, and while its possible to counter ranged attacks its just as easy to counter mellee attacks if not easier. All you have to do is get some distance, for every wind wall, sunder, and bull rush, there are 5 creatures with a faster movement rate, enemies with boots of cheat, people who can fly, levitate or otherwise get a few feat further away from the melleer than he/she can get to.

Battles may be fluid and change and yappadee yapadee, but the ability to attack at range is a much larger tacitcal advantge than mellee combat ever will be overall. So more damage and a better tacitcal advantage yeah for the archers.

 

[MerakSpielman]

I just thought I'd pop in and remind you that, ultimately, this whole discussion/arguement is silly. Well, not the discussion itself, but the fact that there are people who will spend this much time discussing it, researching it, creating characters, calculating averages, etc...

That's all. It's just silly. But you obviously are enjoying it, so carry on.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

That's all. It's just silly. But you obviously are enjoying it, so carry on.

if people enjoy it, its not silly.

 

[MerakSpielman]

Thus, if I enjoy Monty Python, Monty Python isn't silly....

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Everybody's got to have a hobby, folks ...