What the **** is WotC thinking?

[Speaks With Stone]

<<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.>>

Sure military research is big business. (And yes guns research is way ahead of melee research in terms of effectiveness
)

But tell me, in what way is factoring in max damage per round accounting for all of those possibilities of counter? Where is the limits based on being closed by a melee fighter and such? How do you plan to account for being grappled, sundered and other situations such as fog clouds and other concealments.

In idealized situations, one thing looks good. In practice this often turns out not to be the case. And there are prime examples of this in military history. There was a time when the rocket launcher was considered the ultimate weapon as it could eliminate a tank at significantly reduced cost compared to another tank. But all of the tests on the matter assumed prime conditions and did not take into account battlefield conditions that never allowed for prime conditions.

I point to the following excellent books as being much better at explaining this than I.
Paradoxes of War by Zeev Moaz
Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace by Edward N. Luttwak

 

[seasong]

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...

YOU TAKE THAT BACK! I'M TELLING!

What else am I going to do with my time? Work?

 

[seasong]

But tell me, in what way is factoring in max damage per round accounting for all of those possibilities of counter?

Why should I tell you that? It's not true and I never said it was. Instead, THIS is what I said, and I think most of the people here would be in agreement on this point (extra emphasis mine):

Originally posted by seasong
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.

Are you even reading responses to you?

 

[Staffan]

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.

A compromise I think I will use: The bow itself is protected by the enhancement. However, the string isn't. This means that you can sunder the bow's string which would make it useless for that particular combat, but once the string can be replaced everything is fine again. This makes the archer vulnerable to sundering, but not to the point of losing the investment in a magic bow.

 

[seasong]

Staffan: That's not a bad idea! YOINK.

 

[Speaks With Stone]

<<Are you even reading responses to you?>>

Yes. I also read the responses of others who did not state that it was only a small aspect of combat. Don't take things so personal, I was under the impression this was a group discussion.

Otherwise, it sounds like we both agree that the math presented is only a small piece of the puzzle. So lets shake hands and move on.

 

[seasong]

Yes. I also read the responses of others who did not state that it was only a small aspect of combat.

The guy you quoted (Olgar) in your response wasn't claiming that, either - hence my assumption that you weren't reading it.

Otherwise, it sounds like we both agree that the math presented is only a small piece of the puzzle. So lets shake hands and move on.

Sure .

 

[jdavis]

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.

By that same arguement much of this entire board is silly too. There is thread after thread of indepth discussion on D&D around here, Paticularly in the rules forum. Silly isn't neccessarily a bad thing, beats the heck out of doing real work.

Have we gotten to the point that we all pretty much agree that the stacking bonuses seem to be the problem here? I don't care for Greater Magic weapon being used on 50 arrows nor do I care for bags of holding with 500 arrows in them but that's not what the balance problem is, the problem comes down to the fact that a +5 bow and +5 arrows makes a +10 weapon in terms of ability to hit and damage done. If the bonuses didn't stack then you would have a +5 to hit and a +5 to damage, just like a melee fighter with a +5 sword. If the bonuses don't stack then the situation becomes much more balanced and basically a non issue.

Oh and yes this is a engineering problem, combat strategy is just another variable. The example was just to show damage comparisons under optimal conditions, the whole rest of the thread has been discussing non optimal conditions. One of the things that I see that is being overlooked is the fact that what monster in their right mind is going to charge past the guy hitting it in the head with a sword to chase after a archer 50 feet away, that would just put the melee fighters at your back, and that is just plain bad tactics. Taking out the archers first just isn't always that feasable, he is at a distance, the guy in front of you is bashing you in the head. The only way this is important is if the monsters/NPC's plan the attact to take out a archer first, otherwise it is just busting heads. Did anyone se the "Conquest" show on archers? that gave a good real life example of how archery worked in real battles.

 

[kigmatzomat]

Is the argument against this rule that a magical bow has similarly been hardened into a super-wood that is designed not be cut by a really sharp sword? I wouldn't think so. The bow has been magically enhanced to be super springy and accurate, not super hard.

Thus, the +5 longbow gets cut to pieces by the +1 longsword.

Thank {diety}, I'm not alone! Magic items intended to be slammed violently into other items should be more resilient to having things slammed into them. (E.g. magic sword) Something enchanted to reduce vibration, provide non-standard spring acceleration, and align the paths of deformation will not (e.g. bows, xbows).

Ranged weapons have the advantage they stack ammo + weapon bonuses with the drawback that they are no more resistant to physical trauma than any non-magical item.