Just finished running the third session of Reign of Winter using the alternate armor as DR rules from Ultimate Combat. It seems to be fine so far, the changes themselves are easy and everyone is still having fun, but I do have one concern: ranged weapons seem to be very weakened in this alternate system. Is there a way around this? Are the ranged attacks just weak because its book 1? We just finished up the High Sentinel Lodge, so it could be that lvl 1 warriors aren't a serious threat, but Rohkar's crossbow didn't seem too scary either.
It really is just being book 1. As far as martial ranged attackers (though not necessarily archers) go, Reign of Winter has some real heavy hitters.
Ok, I thought so. Those bandits couldn't do any damage to the cavalier without a crit, which never happened.
Ranged attackers in general don't do as well versus players with damage reduction as melee attackers would. Melee attacks tend to be harder hitting to make up for the ease of use of ranged attacks.
Deadly Aim helps rectify that, however.