Yeah, I am thinking of all the scenes in LotR where Legolas drills arrows into minions at point blank range.
If shooting someone with a bow breaks your immersion, then the problem isn't with the rules.
If I recall those scenes correctly, the orcs weren't in striking range yet; he was downing them before they got into melee range. Even he pulled out the daggers when it got too hot :)
Of course there's the scene where he's standing on the oliphant and shooting it. I guess that's where the rule of cool comes in.
Archery and fencing are hobbies of mine. Given my level (local competitions, nothing national) I know I could stab myself with my foil long before I could shot myself with my bow if I was only 10' away from myself...
That's what I was talking about. Besides a black belt in Kempo, I've studied a -lot- of other arts from Silat to Systema to Kali to Kenjutsu to Western Boxing.
Does anybody who says 10'- 15' is far enough have any significant training in combat/martial arts?
Yes, we all bow before your magnificence.
I also agree with Mr. Hill - firing a bow while actually engaged (getting hit) in Melee is lame. Should at least be on par with a concentration check unless you can avoid actually getting hit or if you can recover on a round if the attacker misses the archer. A little more leeway for the X-bow, easier for one shot if its already loaded otherwise draw your dagger and fight - sort of what archers actually did in medieval warfare.
Luckily, this isn't medieval warfare. This is fantasy warefare in a fantasy world largely based on Tolkien. Ok. Let's do medieval battle. I'll be the 20 Str fighter and beat you with a horse cart. Or easily a rowboat.
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Luckily, this isn't medieval warfare. This is fantasy warefare in a fantasy world largely based on Tolkien. Ok. Let's do medieval battle. I'll be the 20 Str fighter and beat you with a horse cart. Or easily a rowboat.
The only thing you are going to beat here is yourself buddy, use your hand - I hear it helps.
Oh I'm catching it. Just I dont' see that penalty for attempting to use a range weapon in an engaged melee situation? Most sources I have seen/read have a bow wielding hero fire the bow until melee was entered and then with a parting shot draw their sword for mortal combat - this is cinematic to me. Even Peter Jacksons Legolas used two short swords rather than only using the bow. This is not the situation I see playing out in game. There was an excellent article by Roger Moore (please correct me if I'm wrong) in Dragon Mag giving 'tactical advice' which boiled down said said fire bow, throw hand-axe, then melee for a fighter type class. Now we have fire bow, fire bow, and keep firing bow. Perhaps this is something that is caused by character optimisation meaning that the Bow Specialist is so disproportionately different in hit/dam with a bow compared to a sword (say). The advantage and reason for the development of the missile weapon was to be as far away from the enemy as possible an still hurt them. Along comes new D&D and says history got it wrong, nah, missile weapons have no downside once the battle is joined. There are some yeomen archers who would have been pleased a few hundred years ago if this were the case.
The 5'-step rules while allowing positioning during combat, and I think are quite suited to this purpose, should ONLY apply to melee class weapons. Some other games have the concept of Engaged, 1e did, DragonQuest did and they allowed melee weapons and missile weapons to behave as expected. Now it seems you just sort of stroll around a combat drinking potions, looking for clean socks in your backpack and the like.
D&D has become more and more Heroic with each edition, same thing has happened with Warhammer RPG. In all likelihood the "new" game doesn't suit me as I didn't grow up with it. As Sean quoted from the 1e DMG, in my D&D...
I do sympathize with you because that twist in the rules bugs me too. But instead of fixing it, I've come to realize with experience that there presently are in-game solutions to the oddity of being able to put enough distance between you and a guy standing right next to you to be able to pump arrows into him faster than he can swing his dagger (because what archer worth his salt doesn't take rapid shot?).
If your adjacent to a guy with a bow:
1) Trip him
2) sunder his weapon
3) grapple him
4) ready an action to move when he moves
He normally doesn't threaten. Success on any of those put's the archer in bad situation. And honestly, IRL, you'd probably grab that bow as he's trying to shoot and wail away anyway.
EDIT: Oh, and also the following:
5) Step Up, Following Step, Step Up and Strike
6) Lunge
7) Reach weapons
Well, that's your personal preference. 1e/2e combat was heavily skewed against casters. 1e DMG says you can't cast S spells when crouching or lying down. In 1e/2e, getting hit while casting automatically disrupts the spell. No option to cast defensively. And so on. 3e combat actually lets casters *use* their spells in combat. It's a different paradigm: "We want all characters to have fun by having a reasonable chance to use their class abilities on a regular basis."
That was the expected assumption:
Because spell casting will be so difficult, most magic-users and clerics will opt to use magical devices whenever possible in melee, if they are wise.
and also:
Thus, while magic-users are not strong in combat with weapons, they are possibly the most fearsome of all character classes when high levels of ability are finally attained. Survival to that point can be a problem, however, as low-level magic-users are quite weak.
As far as the punishing movement in 1e is concerned, I found in the 1e PH the following:
Participants in a melee can opt to attack, parry, fall back, or flee. Attack can be by weapon, bare hands, or grappling. Parrying disallows any return attack that round, but the strength "to hit" bonus is then subtracted from the opponent's "to hit" dice roll(s), so the character is less likely to be hit. Falling back is a retrograde move facing the opponent(s) and can be used in conjunction with a parry, and opponent creatures are able to follow if not otherwise engaged. Fleeing means as rapid a withdrawal from combat as possible; while it exposes the character to rear attack at the time, subsequent attacks can only be made if the opponent is able to follow the fleeing character at equal or greater speed.
Not sure if the bolded part is explained in the DMG, but there it is. If you weren't alone and your ally was engaging the foe you were engaged with, no problems moving out of combat. No mention of moving within a melee can I find.
No, it's fine to nerf non-casters when they have an ability that breaks the rules of logic. Those are the guys that are supposed to obey them. To buff them, you add to the abstracted parts of them, things that don't have to model reality. Magic is how you break physics, that's the point of it.Martial classes should be more realistic.
*watches a wizard cash Wish, literally alter the entire game setting, makes no complaint*
Just once I'd like to see "I want this to be realistic" and not be so easily able to replace it with "I want to nerf non-casters"
Replace every usage of "magic" with "fantasy" and ignore the part about how martial characters need to obey reality and you have my argument.
Incidentally, D&D has always been heroic. Always. This idea that it used to be just a bunch of random peasants poking themselves in the butt with a stick and then getting killed by a dragon is utter nonsense.
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Every time you post there is a reminder to keep the boards 'friendly and fun'.
The tone of a lot of posters in this thread is really quite aggressive, to the point that I am impressed that some posters have managed to keep cool and maintain a civil tone.
Play nice, it's a measure of you as a person and is far more important than whether or not you use minis.
Not sure if the bolded part is explained in the DMG, but there it is.
Nope, wasn't in the 1e DMG at all.
First I apologize to the many posters here for not reading every single post. I am a player in Jess' Kingmaker game. I have played under both types of games, with and without a battlemat. My personal preference is to use a grid of some type, either a flipmat, or gaming paper, or map packs. I have a hard time remembering where each opponent and PC is if there is no physical representation for me to see. From the few posts I have read here I think there is justification for each style of play. The important thing is find the one which allows you to have fun. Contrary to popular belief there is no "One true way to play Pathfinder".
Just my 2 cp.
Many moons ago, I didn't use mini's but I got tired of folks arguing a consequence of their action due to the fact that they didn't picture the scene as I described it. So minis came into play. That was about 10 years ago and now I don't look back when I DM.
I also find that it helps to speed up play when you buy one of the 1" gridded poster mats at Staples, Office Depot etc., and have the area drawn out in advance.
Of course now that I'm into Hirst Arts models, I can just present the whole dungeon in 3D. I must say I enjoyed building the Whispering Cairn, even though it was my first project and there were lots of things I would have done differently.
I think it ultimately depends on the group. I've played for a long time and had great games with nothing other than books, dice and paper. For the last two years I have used mats and minis and they have worked extremely well. One reason for that is because all of my players are completely new to the hobby. They came from video games like Runequest and T.V. shows to this game, and reference those things in order to make sense of what they are experiencing. The Minis help with that.
If I had another group of experience players, I wouldn't need them and I'm sure I would still have a great time.
Oh, and also , I find they make things a little easier for me to keep track of who is doing what where.