Are ranged characters that much harder to pull off to be effective? Or do most people prefer to go toe to toe with their opponents?
For the last few AP, our group has had a serious "melee space" problem, because too many were trying to be in melee with enemies, making improved initiative mandatory if you want a shot at swinging your weapon. :-/
Our only ranged person usually was the party wizard or sorcerer and these always had some funky ideas about whacking people in melee when not using spells... is ranged combat that ugly? Why do arcane casters have to squeeze in with fighters, clerics and rogues for that little melee space?
Clerics have to be besides the fighters, since their healing spells usually require touching. Rogues often rely on flanking which is hard enough to get in small and tiny corridors of dungeons.
I've tried to convince some to get weapons with reach (I tend to pick spiked chain when it's fitting, but right now I'm stuck with my deity's weapon...).
Also most nice weapons with reach require a feat to learn (exotic), and most people don't want that.
I must admit, I usually play a melee character, because I tend to be the scout/sneaky guy for the party. Imho somebody who is leading the party through woods/hills/etc should be able to do decently in close combat, which ranged guys usually don't. Standing in the front row seems rather unhealthy, if not silly, for a ranged guy.
I feel it's because most stuff requires you to be close-up?
It could be the feats that are mandatory for any ranged build to work decently?
Even our clerics gravitate towards their diety's weapon and those are rarely ranged.
Also it seems like many nice classes only really work with melee stuff. Are only wizards/sorcerers/arcane 9th level prgression classes worth considering for ranged combat, and mainly through spells only? And those usually don't do too well with archery because of low BAB.
Why is it so hard to come up with a decent concept&background for a ranged guy?
Is our group just lacking ideas? Is ranged combat bland and not appealing enough (rules-wise)?
Healing = touch
Tank = obvious
Scout = walking in front, flanking, sneaking
Nuker = low BAB: spells only, then thumb-twiddling
I'm almost tempted to try and make a cleric with the "reach spell" feat, to do ranged touch healing... or maybe I'll have to give Witch a shot (spectral hand ^^), but I hate preparing spells and I hate familiars even more. :-(
Does anybody have any cool ideas for ranged character concepts that we (my group) could use?
Ranged combat, archery in particular, is one of the best fighting styles in the game. If not the best.
Trust me, there's plenty of love for ranged characters.
Ranged combat, archery in particular, is one of the best fighting styles in the game. If not the best.
Trust me, there's plenty of love for ranged characters.
Seconded. Its not even complicated to build an Archer; they're simple and ridiculously effective.
The Bard Archer is one of my favorite classes in the game. You can fluff Inspire Courage as being able to give commands easily due to the range and the perspective it allows. It makes everyone more awesome, while at the same time allowing you to mitigate some of the penalties for shooting through people if necessary.
Plus, they can be as sneaky as a rogue.
The inquisitor with a repeating crossbow is awesome too.
I think there is love for ranged characters, as noted above.
I think whether you see it a lot or not depends on the nature of the campaign. If you are playing in a standard dungeon crawl, you are often in cramped space, and ranged characters often don't have a lot of room to stand back and shoot. This is especially harsh at low levels, because you almost always have to fire into melee, incurring that -4 to hit penalty. Precise Shot becomes basically prerequisite, and you can only get that at 1st level as a Fighter, 2nd level as a Archer-Ranger, and otherwise have to wait until 3rd level at a minimum (assuming your 1st level feat was Point Blank Shot). If you are in a campaign that levels slowly and you chose to play an archer who isn't a fighter, you could feel like you're constantly coming up against a wall if there's a lot of melee combats you can't fire into.
Archer builds definitely tend to be rewarding as you continue to level however.
There is something that feels a little more... I don't know, heroic, maybe? About wading into melee. Iconic imagery of adventurers and heroes usually includes more dudes with swords than dudes with bows (yes, yes, legolas and all that, but generally we're talking about dudes with swords). I find myself generally inclined to choose close combat options, and I also tend to notice that among those I play with.
One part of it could be because ranged combat comes into its own much later in play, and it requires a lot of feats invested to be really powerful. There's less room for fun and whacky things when you're focusing on picking up your point blank shot, precise shot, deadly aim, maybe weapon focus, rapid shot, and many shot.
Once you've got all those feats and a good composite longbow - yeah, you can stand in the backrow and machine gun everything down with devastating effectiveness. But I think a lot of players may like to be in the thick of things. That might be what you're noticing.
Ranged combat definitely has love. It is (in my opinion) the most effective means of fighting. But it's not everybody's bag.
Well as many of you say... once you have all the feats, it's great, but until then you are stuck to be a human for the feats or fighter (which are non-existent in my group, don't ask me why).
And you need to get a few level to start dishing out damage.
Our group's Sorcerer dared to tell me, my 1st level Inquisitor is too low on damage :.( That char is supposed to be support, not damage... and 1st level is not your typical level where one start to shine, right?
An inquisitor is a mix of support and damage, able to do a bit of both.
But yes, an archer tends to bloom a bit later than the greatsword weilding barbarian, but not that much later. By level 3 most Archers have the basics and are competing just fine.
If you want a critique of your build and specific suggestions, a lot of folks are happy to help with that.
The list of classes that make good archers follows:
Fighter
Ranger
Paladin
Monk
Inquisitor
Cleric
etc
I'm sure I even forgot a few, but its just as viable to be ranged as melee for most characters. Remember that most individual play experiences don't necessarily reflect most facets of the game, and just because your play group doesn't do something, doesn't mean others don't :)
Well as many of you say... once you have all the feats, it's great, but until then you are stuck to be a human for the feats or fighter (which are non-existent in my group, don't ask me why).
And you need to get a few level to start dishing out damage.
Our group's Sorcerer dared to tell me, my 1st level Inquisitor is too low on damage :.( That char is supposed to be support, not damage... and 1st level is not your typical level where one start to shine, right?
My Inquisitor, when she was archery, started with low damage as well. It takes a little while to get going.
Come level 7, she got Dominated by a Succubus and proceeded to nearly TPK the party.
So yeah, in the case of an inquisitor, it will take a few levels to fully 'come online', probably till 5th when you pick up Bane.
Until then, as long as you have a good dex, I wouldn't worry too much about your damage output; its better early on with a decent str and a good composite bow, but inquisitor will eventually make that irrelevant.
Rangers/Fighters have it a little easier (Rangers can go nearly Full Str, Fighters get feats much easier), but you'll end up just fine, I promise :) Until then, just stick with it and dont worry about what Sorcerers say.
Ranger archers begin with and continue to have both excellent damage and utility. They get early entry into the most important feats and end up with just the right amount of feats to make life very easy on themselves. I'd go so far as to say the archery focused ranger is a tier 1 powered character in the real game.
The biggest problem with ranged fighting is the "precise shot" feat, which requires "point blank" shot. Until you have precise shot your ranged effectiveness can be totally shot simply by having one of your allies in melee combat. So that's a two-feat investment just to not take a 20% hit on your attack rolls for most situations.
But that usually is only a problem when you are trying to add ranged attacks to a character with a different focus. Point blank and precise shot are pretty much required for any dedicated ranged attacker, and once you have those, it's pretty easy to make a highly effective ranged attacker.
When I create a combined melee/ranged character, I consider PBS and PS to be a feat tax and I just pay it.
Lots of love for ranged characters. It's just not something most new players look into.
I consider the melee cover thing to be just as bad, since everything worth shooting has cover (either behind an ally or an enemy, both of which grant cover). It's a +4 to AC, which is exactly as bad as the -2 to attack rolls vs a target in melee. If you read the rules on cover you can see it is not forgiving. Everything you'd like to shoot either has cover, or can get it in the space of a round if it needs to.
Improved Precise Shot is absolutely necessary, at least as necessary as precise shot. The bad part is that unless you're a class with early entry (Ranger, Zen archer, Paladin Archer wasting smite) then you're waiting until +11 BAB to get this feat on your own. Ouch.
This is why I rank the Ranger as better than the fighter for archery purposes.
I have almost the opposite problem with my groups rise of the runelords party, we are full of ranged combatants and I'm stuck in melee on my own as a Kensai bladebound magus. I take a lot of hits.
I consider the melee cover thing to be just as bad, since everything worth shooting has cover (either behind an ally or an enemy, both of which grant cover). It's a +4 to AC, which is exactly as bad as the -2 to attack rolls vs a target in melee. If you read the rules on cover you can see it is not forgiving. Everything you'd like to shoot either has cover, or can get it in the space of a round if it needs to.
Improved Precise Shot is absolutely necessary, at least as necessary as precise shot. The bad part is that unless you're a class with early entry (Ranger, Zen archer, Paladin Archer wasting smite) then you're waiting until +11 BAB to get this feat on your own. Ouch.
This is why I rank the Ranger as better than the fighter for archery purposes.
We use the cover rules in combat. My precise shot archer rarely has to deal with cover from her allies, because they know to stay out of her way.
I have rarely lost an argument with the GM about partial cover, especially against large targets. So that reduces the penalty to at least a -2.
As a GM I admit that I do not enforce the draconian cover rules blindly. If a character has precise shot, they have a completely free lane to shoot the target without any creature blocking a square in between, I consider that shot to be without cover. I shoot guns, shoot bows, shoot slingshots, etc. I know what cover is and isn't. Having an ally standing adjacent to an enemy so that one corner of their square touches one corner of the target's square is only "cover" in the most asinine, insane sense of the word.
Point blank, precise shot, take the -4 and shoot into melee. You'll still out damage the two hander at higher levels because you'll be making full attacks more often.
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If most of your encounters are in dungeon corridors -- and your GM is well-versed in the cover rules -- it takes awhile to get an archer up to snuff; and playing from 1st-level can be an ordeal. Your weapon is expensive and delicate, and your AC tends to be mediocre versus a tank's (meaning that crits are more likely to confirm against you).
As a GM I admit that I do not enforce the draconian cover rules blindly. If a character has precise shot, they have a completely free lane to shoot the target without any creature blocking a square in between, I consider that shot to be without cover. I shoot guns, shoot bows, shoot slingshots, etc. I know what cover is and isn't. Having an ally standing adjacent to an enemy so that one corner of their square touches one corner of the target's square is only "cover" in the most asinine, insane sense of the word.
"Corners" of "squares" are a metagame contrivance; from the POV of an archer PC, the adjacent melee combatants are snarled up with one another.
If most of your encounters are in dungeon corridors -- and your GM is well-versed in the cover rules -- it takes awhile to get an archer up to snuff; and playing from 1st-level can be an ordeal. Your weapon is expensive and delicate, and your AC tends to be mediocre versus a tanks (meaning that crits are more likely to confirm).As a GM I admit that I do not enforce the draconian cover rules blindly. If a character has precise shot, they have a completely free lane to shoot the target without any creature blocking a square in between, I consider that shot to be without cover. I shoot guns, shoot bows, shoot slingshots, etc. I know what cover is and isn't. Having an ally standing adjacent to an enemy so that one corner of their square touches one corner of the target's square is only "cover" in the most asinine, insane sense of the word."Corners" of "squares" are a metagame contrivance; from the POV of an archer PC, the adjacent melee combatants are snarled up with one another.
Sorry, not buying it. Using that logic there is no such thing as "flanking" in melee combat. Everyone is all just jumbled up in a big amorphous mass of flailing limbs and flying bodily fluids.
Look at this image of "cover". If you, as the GM, ruled that the sorcerer could not fire a ray spell at the LARGE ogre without a -4 (or even a -2 "partial cover") penalty just because a rogue ally is lurking around the corner in a square which happens to have one corner touching one corner of one square the ogre is in... or because 1/3 of one square of the four squares the ogre inhabits is obscured by a corner...
Well, I'd consider you a pretty intractable, hard-ass GM for sure. And I'd question your common sense.
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Sorry, not buying it. Using that logic there is no such thing as "flanking" in melee combat. Everyone is all just jumbled up in a big amorphous mass of flailing limbs and flying bodily fluids.Having an ally standing adjacent to an enemy so that one corner of their square touches one corner of the target's square is only "cover" in the most asinine, insane sense of the word."Corners" of "squares" are a metagame contrivance; from the POV of an archer PC, the adjacent melee combatants are snarled up with one another.
Flanking is easily explained by a person not having eyes on the back of your head....but flanking is a poor analogy (and counter-rebuttal) toward what I was getting at: The real reason, per text, why an archer takes a -4 penalty when shooting into melee is to avoid hitting her allies. (This is to avoid the annoying stupidity of earlier versions of D&D whereby combat had to come to a screeching halt every few seconds while it was checked to see whether or not an errant arrow struck anyone else along the route.)
Put yourself in the frame of mind of viewing melee combatants as subatomic particles; in larger time-scales (say, every six-second "snap-shot" called "top-of-the-order" by the GM), their positions are relatively static, but in finer time-scales, they're milling around and sometime even briefly change places.
On a square-grid, it looks like your ally adjacent on a square tip to an enemy you're both at a 90-degree angle to couldn't possibly be in your way, but in reality you still have to be careful because you don't want to sink your shot into your friend's arm or leg while he's extending to strike his opponent.
Look at this image of "cover". If you, as the GM, ruled that the sorcerer could not fire a ray spell at the LARGE ogre without a -4 (or even a -2 "partial cover") penalty just because a rogue ally is lurking around the corner in a square which happens to have one corner touching one corner of one square the ogre is in... or because 1/3 of one square of the four squares the ogre inhabits is obscured by a corner...
Well, I'd consider you a pretty intractable, hard-ass GM for sure. And I'd question your common sense.
The sorcerer in that example is firing into partial cover because the ogre is partially behind the wall of the alleyway from his vantage-point. The position of his allies has nothing to do with that.
The text accompanying the illustration makes this clear:
"#4: The sorcerer attacks at range as well, but her lines reveal that she can clearly see more than half of the ogre. This gives the ogre partial cover. "Note that if the sorcerer's rogue ally were standing one square to the left, then all squares of the ogre would be "in melee", and the sorcerer would be -6 rather than -2 to his ranged attack. (As it is, he's aiming for the upper-left square of the ogre which is 10' away from allies.)
"If your target (or the part of your target you're aiming at, if it's a big target) is at least 10 feet away from the nearest friendly character, you can avoid the –4 penalty, even if the creature you're aiming at is engaged in melee with a friendly character."
Sorry, not buying it. Using that logic there is no such thing as "flanking" in melee combat. Everyone is all just jumbled up in a big amorphous mass of flailing limbs and flying bodily fluids.Having an ally standing adjacent to an enemy so that one corner of their square touches one corner of the target's square is only "cover" in the most asinine, insane sense of the word."Corners" of "squares" are a metagame contrivance; from the POV of an archer PC, the adjacent melee combatants are snarled up with one another.Flanking is easily explained by a person not having eyes on the back of your head....but flanking is a poor analogy (and counter-rebuttal) toward what I was getting at: The real reason, per text, why an archer takes a -4 penalty when shooting into melee is to avoid hitting her allies. (This is to avoid the annoying stupidity of earlier versions of D&D whereby combat had to come to a screeching halt every few seconds while it was checked to see whether or not an errant arrow struck anyone else along the route.)
Put yourself in the frame of mind of viewing melee combatants as subatomic particles; in larger time-scales (say, every six-second "snap-shot" called "top-of-the-order" by the GM), their positions are relatively static, but in finer time-scales, they're milling around and sometime even briefly change places.
On a square-grid, it looks like your ally adjacent on a square tip to an enemy you're both at a 90-degree angle to couldn't possibly be in your way, but in reality you still have to be careful because you don't want to sink your shot into your friend's arm or leg while he's extending to strike his opponent.
...Look at this image of "cover". If you, as the GM, ruled that the sorcerer could not fire a ray spell at the LARGE ogre without a -4 (or even a -2 "partial cover") penalty just because
The large ogre is standing at the very end of the hallway. The sorcerer has a clear view of all of the right two squares the ogre is inhabiting. ALL of them. He also has a clear view of over 2/3 of the left front square and close to half of the left back square. In all he can see AT LEAST 19/24 of the Ogre.
That's about the same thing as saying I have cover if I have my left arm behind a wall.
Go ahead and rule that way. I stand behind my assertion.
Update: 19/24 of an Ogre is roughly the same as 3 medium sized creatures. So you are saying that because of the silly rule about lines through walls, even though I can see more ogre than I would see of three medium sized targets, I still have to take a -2 penalty for "partial cover."
Insane.
Update2: The -4 for potentially hittin allies is already covered by having the precise shot feat. Unless the ally is PROVIDING COVER by being interposed DIRECTLY BETWEEN the ranged attacker and the target, then cover does not apply and improved precise shot is not needed.
It is the draconian literal interpretation of poorly conceived cover rules which makes cover such a pain in the ass in Pathfinder games.
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The large ogre is standing at the very end of the hallway. The sorcerer has a clear view of all of the right two squares the ogre is inhabiting. ALL of them. He also has a clear view of over 2/3 of the left front square and close to half of the left back square. In all he can see AT LEAST 19/24 of the Ogre.
Actually, you're made my argument for me, and with near-perfect numbers:
19/24 is .79.
If an archer would otherwise hit a target without cover 50% of the time, his chance to do so with a -2 soft-cover penalty becomes 80% "of normal", or .80.
Note that the sorcerer's soft-cover penalty will never be worse to -2, so he's getting a pretty good deal compared to other situations where he sees fewer than 19 squares' worth of ogre (but more than 12).