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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elder-Basilisk" data-source="post: 729733" data-attributes="member: 3146">Actually, archers rarely seem to have too much trouble unless they are in VERY close quarters. The five foot shuffle/ full attack routine, fly, melee characters interposing themselves between the bad guys and the archer often enable the archer to be perfectly effective in such situations. The point I was making is that it is very rare for parties to start out at ranges where there is time for sustained archery as groups close. It is much more typical for parties to be in melee by round 2--if not round 1. That doesn't mean the whole party is in melee. It just means that the bad guys can close to melee range by that point making the use of ranged weapons by non-specialists decidedly suboptimal.Power attack isn't useful only to TWF and THF. It is, however, often overrated in comparisons of average damage. Its primary use are against objects with hardness, creatures with DR that you can't otherwise overcome, very low AC creatures and in standard attack (rather than full attack actions). Since archers have to make much fewer standard attacks than meleers do, power attack makes up for some of that difference but, IMO does not significantly shift the balance when comparing damage/full round attack which is the appropriate way to make the comparison.Archers deal more damage than single handed single weapon melee fighters with or without power attack. (Rogues with sneak attack are an entirely different question).Actually I do agree that--at the moment, only using the core rules (and possibly the WotC class books)--archers are not overpowered. (Add Manyshot into the equation and I change my mind. Add any kind of ranged power attack into the equation and I change my mind. Etc.) I was more correcting what seemed to me to be some egregious errors and suppositions than taking the opposite side of the debate.</blockquote>

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