D&D 5E 5E Ranged Attacks

[Minigiant]

Often a second tier citizen of weapons combat, ranged weapons barely gets a look in D&D sometimes. This ignoring of long ranged weapon attacks has caused there to usually be only one iconic ranged character. And as D&D is often an inspiration of other media, many books and video games have few ranged characters. If they have any.

Some of this comes from the role (waits for boos and hisses) of thrown and projectile weapon. D&D started a tradition of having a guy with high defense walking into melee combat withe a closed range weapon. The ranged character just sat back next to the soft spellcaster and dropped damage.

I know it's a minor issue. Something that could be worried about later.

1/3 of all weapons combat resources should be ranged. A third of all weapons class build should be ranged. One ranged feat for two melee specific feats. Crossbow paladins and archer warlords out the box.

If possible, ranged weapons should be used and support characters that enter other roles. I don't mind trick shot archers and ranged warlord-like characters. If a ranger laying down suppression is too weird, maybe spellcasters should get into archery. Hey, they are already back there and afraid of melee weapons.

Or at least give, a boost to melee characters who have entered our "backup ranged weapon" mentality, strength in that style.

 

[MarkChevallier]

I'm not sure this is entirely true - I remember ranged fighters being quite deadly in 2E due to their improved rate of fire, and in 3E with various feat choices, an archer fighter could be extremely effective. (Due to various strange combinations, an archer cleric could occasionally be RIDICULOUSLY effective.)

I don't think there should be a ranged "quota" as such, of a 1/3 of all resources. I think the mix in 3E was pretty much spot on - if you wanted to be a dedicated archer, you could be really rather good.

 

[Connorsrpg]

Yeah, unfortunately, the very specific roles of 4E killed many PCs picking up and using ranged weapons. That is something I miss. Most encounters were designed to take place at short range too. I guess this was so everyone could have fun?

I liked some of the old skirmishes, fighting your way forward for better cover and less range. I also miss the various range penalties too. 2 ridiculous ranges was certainly one thing about 4E that rubbed me wrong. Return to 3E's ranged increments OR Saga's categories: PB/S/M/L.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Yeah, unfortunately, the very specific roles of 4E killed many PCs picking up and using ranged weapons. That is something I miss. Most encounters were designed to take place at short range too. I guess this was so everyone could have fun?

I liked some of the old skirmishes, fighting your way forward for better cover and less range. I also miss the various range penalties too. 2 ridiculous ranges was certainly one thing about 4E that rubbed me wrong. Return to 3E's ranged increments OR Saga's categories: PB/S/M/L.

I think the roles mostly killed the Fighter as bow-fighter, since he was supposed to be a Defender, and the 4E Defender shtick was to force or encourages enemies to attack him. (CRPGs and MMOs seem to have less problems with ranged defenders, but that may be because they have only rudimentary collision detection typically, and they have more leeway in their "aggro" logic than p&p games).

I think the short ranges work in dungeons and indoors, but I must admit, outdoors (and I run really a lot of stuff outdoors) it can be a little weird. Any game with a mini focus still probably works best at those lower ranges. The less abstract positioning is, the smaller your battlefield, I suppose.

 

[DonTadow]

I think the roles mostly killed the Fighter as bow-fighter, since he was supposed to be a Defender, and the 4E Defender shtick was to force or encourages enemies to attack him. (CRPGs and MMOs seem to have less problems with ranged defenders, but that may be because they have only rudimentary collision detection typically, and they have more leeway in their "aggro" logic than p&p games).

I think the short ranges work in dungeons and indoors, but I must admit, outdoors (and I run really a lot of stuff outdoors) it can be a little weird. Any game with a mini focus still probably works best at those lower ranges. The less abstract positioning is, the smaller your battlefield, I suppose.

Thus, I hope they do not hard code "roles" into any system. I don't mind if you have a newbie build that has a role, but don't prevent creativity.

Let's look at some of the hindreances of ranged combat.

1. You need 2 feats to shoot into melee combat. Else you're taking -4 to all hits. So the only way to use ranged weapons is to specialize in it. This doesnt even count trying to do cool things like specialize splash weapons and improvised throwing.
2. To specialize in ranged combat, you need more than 2 feats. So by 6th level, you can be somewhat good in it.

I liked Monte Cookes Experemental might books. He uses feat progressions. I fully expect we'll see a version of this in 5th edition. Every type of combat from magic to weapons had a feat progression with it and everyone got a feat at every level.

 

[KidSnide]

I think the real problem with ranged combat in 4e is that the focus on miniatures forces groups to abandon anything other than small scale maps. Without medium or large scale maps, ranges became very short and a whole range of encounter styles became more difficult to design (skirmish / advance-under-cover / flank-the-sniper / etc).

Compare spell ranges in 3.x with 4e - even a "medium" ranged 3.x spell can outdistance a long "range 20" spell in 4e.

I don't have a problem with some adventures taking place entirely at short ranges, but it's silly forcing every outdoor encounter onto a tiny little map. WotC should be shipping large poster maps for backgrounds with its outdoor dungeon tile sets, and should be providing rules for when a 1-inch square needs to represent more than 5-feet.

-KS

 

[Hassassin]

I think the real problem with ranged combat in 4e is that the focus on miniatures forces groups to abandon anything other than small scale maps. Without medium or large scale maps, ranges became very short and a whole range of encounter styles became more difficult to design (skirmish / advance-under-cover / flank-the-sniper / etc).

Compare spell ranges in 3.x with 4e - even a "medium" ranged 3.x spell can outdistance a long "range 20" spell in 4e.

I don't have a problem with some adventures taking place entirely at short ranges, but it's silly forcing every outdoor encounter onto a tiny little map. WotC should be shipping large poster maps for backgrounds with its outdoor dungeon tile sets, and should be providing rules for when a 1-inch square needs to represent more than 5-feet.

-KS

I was going to post something along these lines. In 3.5 we often have encounters where there are several rounds before melee contact. Almost every fighter I've seen carries and uses a ranged weapon, even if they have taken no feats with it.

I'm quite OK with ranged weapons being less effective or requiring more specialization after melee has started, though.

 

[keterys]

Yeah, 3e combats are often decided before things have a chance to get into melee range - ranged often being overly powerful. It may be that 4e swung too strongly the other direction.

 

[Aenghus]

I think another cause of this is the Conan Conundrum. Conan never gets shot to death by massed missile fire. PCs who want to emulate Conan don't enjoy his plot immunity (protection from normal missiles?) ).

It's much easier to focus fire with missiles, but been shot by twenty bowmen and killed in one round isn't much fun for the player involved.

The martial PC with a melee weapon is a core archetype of D&D and really effective missile fire risks making such PCs walking dead men (/women/lizards etc).

So melee weapons tend to me more effective than missile weapons, except for extreme specialists.

 

[the Jester]

Often a second tier citizen of weapons combat, ranged weapons barely gets a look in D&D sometimes.

This is really only true in 4e.

3.x had a ton of ranged stuff- many many pcs aspired to Precise Shot or Rapid Shot, which they could get at 1st level in many cases. 1e and 2e had variable rates of fire. Etc.