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Take a knee, make a Create a diversion check with the following results. Success: your next ranged attack if it hits imposes a 10 foot per damage die movement penalty for one round. The enemy can spend one action to recover from this effect.
Failure: no benefit.
I love this kind of idea. A "called shot" to the legs letting us give a movement speed penalty or have them burn an action is beautiful. That's exactly the kind of utility I would love to see.
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I think mechanics based on hitting enemies "from the right angle" are interesting for providing incentives to not do things we currently experience as being too good: firing from really long range increments, and turret firing.
Right now, you could of course move around to get a shot at an enemy without cover. This is sort of the same as spending multiple actions on a single attack to get rid of a to-hit penalty. We can tell that the penalty/cover has to be pretty severe for that to be worth it. After all, we are often willing to spend class feats doing the opposite: taking a penalty to hit in order to make more attacks.
So the incentive needs to be bigger. For rogues at least, if you could say, take a Stride action to guaranteed get an enemy off-guard for the rest of your turn against your ranged attacks, that would be interesting. You could Stride and then shoot twice with a bow to get sneak attack damage.
If you phrase the ability in terms of firing angles, it also provides an incentive to actually fight from closer range. Because if the ability only works if you fire at the enemy from a new angle, that takes a lot less movement to achieve if you were within 20 feet than within 200 feet.
You'd have to engineer the ability pretty strictly though, and make it a hard design principle that you don't give shortcut feats that allow you to bypass the requirements. For example, if you made the requirement that the enemy doesn't have soft cover, it's not going to take people very long to find a feat or item that negates soft cover. And then your archer will remain a turret.
It would be okay to provide class abilities that ease the action cost of things, if they still required you to end your movement somewhere quite different than where you started your turn.
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I'm personally a big fan of incentivizing ranged characters to reposition in order to make the most out of their attacks. Even more broadly, I'd like to reframe ranged combat so that the main advantage it provides isn't so much safety as agency: while fighting at range will always be inherently safer than melee, past a certain point that safety becomes powerful in all the wrong ways. If an enemy has to spend most of their turn, possibly several entire turns, wading through the front line just to chase a single character (who, if they're a martial, won't necessarily be that squishy either), most enemies will be neither able nor willing to do that, which gives ranged martials in those situations license to go full turret. That kind of situation should be a rarity that ought to only come from exceptional foreplanning, which is possibly also why Paizo often negates the advantage of range increments by having many AP encounters happen in fairly tight spaces.
However, I also think that there's this Goldilocks zone in ranged combat where a character has more freedom than anyone else to move around the combat zone and pick a more advantageous position, and I think that zone sits about a Stride away from melee. Because you're not being immediately threatened by enemies or possible Reactive Strikes, moving around by itself is pretty safe in the immediate, which should give ranged characters more opportunity than anyone else to exploit positioning and terrain features. Trouble is, positioning isn't really rewarded at range in ways other than "more distance = more safety" right now, so there's no real incentive to stay at a distance that could get an enemy to move into melee range at a moment's notice. Were there mechanics that genuinely encouraged this, like cover leaving openings to be exploited, high and low ground mattering, or ranged characters benefiting from flanking at very close (but still ranged) distances, ranged characters would likely be encouraged to be a lot more mobile and to fight much closer to melee, albeit still farther away than actual melee characters.
I also still think all of the above would be helped significantly if range increments were nerfed: if 30 feet were the standard range increment instead of 60 feet, your shortbow martial wouldn't be able to sit two or more Strides away from a melee attacker without taking a penalty to their accuracy. The flipside to this is by mass-nerfing the range of ranged weapons in this way, this could allow that lost power to be fed back to them in ways that would make ranged combat more exciting, including ways to obtain more damage through positioning, and at least slightly better access to a measure of utility. Rather than function as static sniper turrets, ranged martials especially could perhaps play a bit more like Legolas from LotR: definitely still accurate, but constantly on the move, rarely all that far from the melee, and always trying to use their mobility and positioning to their advantage.
You're basically looking at crossbow (bleed), bow (immobilized), or firearms (stunned). The bleed effect for crossbow is probably never worth it. For bows it's situationally useful (where I want it to be from a design standpoint), and for firearms it might be too strong to cause stunned 1 (even with a save).
I'm actually afraid the 1d8 bleed damage could be too strong at levels 1-3 when your attack deals only one die of damage (and often less than a d8!), but then I'm also not sure whether we really need to hold the absolutely awful damage of ranged weapons at those levels as the benchmark. I do agree though that making the crit spec effect of crossbows almost identical to that for darts is a bit of a wasted opportunity when there aren't that many ranged weapon groups to begin with. Having the crit spec effect for crossbows impose a penalty until the target takes an action to remove the bolt lodged in them (perhaps enfeebled 1?) would offer a more varied spread of negative effects, with the common theme of making the target waste actions one way or the other.
You have a point that at low levels, a guaranteed bleed effect of 1d8 is strong.
Although I was imagining this ability would be accessible via class feat (available to the archer dedication, fighter, ranger, rogue and maybe other classes as appropriate) around level 4 or so.
I think I'm now realizing that your suggestions are intended to simply be options all characters have access to (like any character can use athletics to trip, grab, shove) instead of via character resource expenditure to enable it.
Honestly not sure which makes more sense.
Based on the game as it exists currently, such actions would be good candidates as class feats of some sort.
Honestly as I sit here thinking about this, the way I might implement this is to modify the archer dedication.
Upon taking the archer dedication, you could choose between the existing benefit it provides (treating martial bows/crossbows as simple weapons, and advanced bows/crossbows as martial) or choose to enable "Called Shots" with the kind of actions your proposing falling into a family of called shots. One class feat to enable access to several actions of different types to make ranged combat more interesting seems like a good trade to me.
And it then makes sense for a fighter or ranger (or anyone already trained in martial weapons) to take the Archer dedication (which otherwise normally feels like a waste of a class feat).
Probably also need to allow either benefit of the dedication to be taken later as another feat (if desired).
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You're right that this sort of action is normally the kind you'd find in class feats, though I'd personally want to make them universally-available actions: right now, one of the big problems with ranged combat in my opinion is how few options there are innately for ranged combatants, which I think limits both the diversity of their gameplay and their ability to make diverse contributions as well. By giving them a few more baseline options (which IMO are weaker than actual class feats; compare Aim to Vicious Swing for instance), ranged martials would have a few more things to do from the get-go. Incidentally, so could melee characters, who'd be able to use these actions too, though they'd often have more reliable ways of dealing damage or applying crowd control already.
I agree with you that it would be nice if there were some universally available things with no investment.
I think the things you've suggested thus far are too good with no investment, but someone could come up with ideas that makes sense with no investment.
And I agree access if a problem, which is kind of why I suggest adding things to the archer dedication and making that dedication more attractive to classes that start with martial weapon proficiency.
I think one thing that could be done is to allow feinting to apply to ranged attacks within 25ft.
And maybe to allow a "immobilizing shot" a single action activity (similar to grapple) that only causes immobilized condition with a low flat DC (maybe like DC 10) and requires spending an action to remove. (The DC really only being for external forces that try to move you). Basically simulate someone firing an arrow through your clothes/equipment and anchoring you in place (while not also causing damage).
I think if those actions or something similar were available by default to all character it could be interesting. Especially the ranged feint option, which would require a ranged character to still be within a single move action of most enemies to utilize, making ranged combat be a bit more dynamic with positioning.
Then add even more options via class feats and a revamped Archer dedication.
If there are more universal things added they would probably need to be things that make sense for anyone to use either generally like strike and stride or specifically because of a skill like create a distraction or demoralize.
And if any skill stat could use a skill based option based on it I would think that skill would be intelligence based.
Like dex got dirty trick added to its arsenal through thievery. Besides recall knowledge int doesn't do much else in combat skillwise.
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(...)I agree with you that it would be nice if there were some universally available things with no investment.
I think the things you've suggested thus far are too good with no investment, but someone could come up with ideas that makes sense with no investment.
My preference is that we start with some base actions that are sort of in the ballpark of Feint and Shove/Trip/Grab/Reposition.
Some of them could be skill-based. For example, using Acrobatics to dash to a new position and fire a trick shot vs off-guard because you're moving unpredictably and fast. Or yeah like you said, Feint, why can't you do that at range anyway?
Ideally, the base options don't have hefty specialized requirements, to the point where enemies can also do them now and then, not just PCs.
Then as class feats, you can make feats that compress a combination of three actions of stuff into two, or that let you combine a strike with a ranged maneuver at no extra MAP, similar to what we have for melee.
So someone who's not a dedicated archer still has interesting options when they have to pivot to ranged, while archers have something to specialize further in.
The main caveat to ranged Feinting in my opinion is that whereas it competes with flanking in melee, it competes with a lot less at range. In melee, the purpose of Feinting is specifically that you want to make a very specific target off-guard to your own attacks, and that target isn't being flanked by an ally: effectively, of all the relatively easy ways of making an enemy off-guard in melee, Feint offers a way of making the exact target you want off-guard, except less reliably and usually in more limited amounts.
By contrast, there currently is no ranged flanking, so the action would let you apply off-guard when at the moment there is no universally-available means of doing that, short of opting into a specific archetype and/or class feat. I suspect this is why the action is currently so tightly gated and only allowed at range on one class feat: were ranged flanking a thing, then I could see ranged Feinting also becoming a thing too, but on its own it runs a high risk of being a must-pick (and to an extent it already is on the Gunslinger with Pistol Twirl). Definitely not a hard "no", but more of a case where I think this option needs more competition to not dominate build choices.
But ranged characters can create a diversion to make creatures offguard.
It has limitations vs feint but it can be used at range
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I could see a two-action ranged feint with a penalty for distance being reasonable. Avoids stepping on melee's toes and could be improved or built upon with feat investment to make it less niche.
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But ranged characters can create a diversion to make creatures offguard.
It has limitations vs feint but it can be used at range
Sure, but the idea here to is to provide other options.
Create a diversion has a lot of drawbacks compared to feinting.
Feinting doesn't give a bonus to enemy perception for repeated attempts, it can potentially work for multiple attacks. Being the 2 most prevalent differences.
Although I'm now realizing you were just trying to rebut Teridax's statements regarding why maybe ranged feint shouldn't be allowed.
So I guess you're pointing out that via Create a Diversion you can accomplish something similar to feint.
Honestly, feint is the trained man's "create a diversion" or you could at create a diversion as the untrained man's feint. Of course, create a diversion also allows you to stealth away if that's what you're after, but when it comes to utilizing off-guard feint is better.
But ranged characters can create a diversion to make creatures offguard.
It has limitations vs feint but it can be used at rangeSure, but the idea here to is to provide other options.
Create a diversion has a lot of drawbacks compared to feinting.
Feinting doesn't give a bonus to enemy perception for repeated attempts, it can potentially work for multiple attacks. Being the 2 most prevalent differences.
Although I'm now realizing you were just trying to rebut Teridax's statements regarding why maybe ranged feint shouldn't be allowed.
So I guess you're pointing out that via Create a Diversion you can accomplish something similar to feint.
Honestly, feint is the trained man's "create a diversion" or you could at create a diversion as the untrained man's feint. Of course, create a diversion also allows you to stealth away if that's what you're after, but when it comes to utilizing off-guard feint is better.
Right.
also the power level already established for ranged feint is the rogues level 12 class feat ricochet feint for throwing weapons while already in ricochet stance.
While Create a Diversion does let you apply off-guard from range, it only applies to one attack, and after that every enemy in the encounter, not just the one you targeted, becomes significantly harder to divert in the same way. Thus, I don't think it compares all that favorably to Feint for applying off-guard specifically, even though it's really powerful in entirely different ways.
Re: ranged Feinting with tradeoffs, although I do like the idea of allowing Feint to be used at range with penalties and/or greater costs, I do still think the secret ingredient here is making it compete with other actions, specifically Striding and other forms of movement. In my opinion, one of the reasons why Feint is a healthy action in melee is because flanking is pretty easy to do, and ultimately a much more reliable and economical way of applying off-guard: if you're the first to reach an enemy and want to get something like a sneak attack in, then Feint is perfect for that, but the next ally who moves into flanking position will automatically get the maximum benefits without needing to roll a check. Thus, despite Feint being an action you can use as many times as you want, it works more as a situational action for when there's no flanking than a dominant action you'd want to take every turn. Because I'd want to make sure ranged martials move around a lot, I'd therefore want to give them ways of using their positioning to get targets off-guard to their attacks, with Feinting being a good option for when that sort of positioning isn't possible in the immediate. At that point, even with minimal tradeoffs Feinting wouldn't necessarily be the dominant choice each time, just a good situational action.
I mean, what if we allowed ranged feint as a thing, with a requirement to be in 25ft range, but the feint had a 2 action cost to do.
I feel with the higher action cost, it actually does more to balance out anything than many other restriction we could look at putting on it. Between the distance requirement and action cost I feel like that's pretty balanced.
Like generally you're going to get to treat the enemy as off-guard for a single action attack. In the rare event that you critically succeed your deception check against their perception DC, on the next round you might also benefit. Like it's cool. But the action cost and distance requirement balance it out I think, because at 25ft you're basically one stride away from most anything beating your face in.
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I would go with a 30 feet distance, just because that's the distance other game elements already use (Demoralize, short range spells etc), and because an enemy 30 feet away that takes a 25ft Stride is right up in your face.
I don't think it should require two actions per se, that's overdoing it. But you can indirectly ask for that: for example by also requiring that it's within 30 feet and nothing in between. So you might have to spend an action moving a bit to get a clear line to the enemy.
Something that always irritated me with "taunt" implementations is that people would try to use taunt abilities to try to divert monster aggression, while at the same time making it really hard for the monster to actually get to them. If you wrote abilities that can only function at full power if there is actually a clear path for the monster to get to you, you can write some interesting abilities with trade-offs.
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The issue I take with ranged Feinting is that on its own, it doesn't necessarily solve the ranged turret problem, and may in fact reinforce it. A ranged martial who currently spends two actions Striking or the equivalent and one action doing whatever else may find themselves just Feinting and Striking twice each turn. If Feinting takes two actions and is still worth using, then a ranged character could just Feint and Strike each turn, and if two actions makes it not worth the action cost, then it may as well not exist as a baseline ranged option in most cases. Ideally, there ought to be something out there that competes with ranged Feinting each time just like flanking in melee, so that Feinting is a good action to use, just not all the time.
The trick is doing so without simply making ranged stronger. We don't need power creep.
I feel the only change I would make for ranged combat (without overhauling the system) is to allow feinting and flanking at range but without providing the -2 penalty from off-guard but still counting foes as off-guard to them for other purposes or to reduce those penalties to -1 if you are at range. I feel new actions to deal max damage and such aren't really a fix because those would compete with the actions most classes get through feats and, in some cases, it could make taking those feats as bad options if they are worse than these new actions (which is IMO kinda bad for homebrew to do).
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One of the main reasons that ranged characters dont always go into turret mode is when they are targeted by melee enemies. They have to move to stay up.
But if your thinking about a battle of ranged vs ranged there would be firing then taking cover with movement reserved for an oportunity to get a better shot around an enemies cover.
So i guess if something is added what is it added to?
The third aituation is turret mode where they onow they can fire off without worry of retaliation.
Does the new action help with
1 ranged v melee coming after them
2 ranged v ranged
3 ranged v targets not going after them
The trick is doing so without simply making ranged stronger. We don't need power creep.
I agree. I think this conversation would be a lot easier to have if weapon range increments were lower, so that the optimal shooting range were always within a Stride of your opponent. It'd add more risk to ranged combat, take power away that could be added back in more interesting ways (like ranged flanking or Feinting), more easily justify doing things that shouldn't be too safe or reliable to do, and also more closely match the size of most combat areas Paizo tends to implement in their APs. I'm not even sure why range increments were made so large in the first place, tbh, the only explanation seems like a realism argument based on a misunderstanding of medieval bows, which are horribly inaccurate even at 50-70 feet and were only used at long distances as part of massive arrow volleys.
I feel new actions to deal max damage and such aren't really a fix because those would compete with the actions most classes get through feats and, in some cases, it could make taking those feats as bad options if they are worse than these new actions (which is IMO kinda bad for homebrew to do).
Those particular actions I listed wouldn't interfere with your use of weapons feats in most cases, as they modify your next Strike. Rather than perform a Skirmish Strike and another Strike, for instance, you could Aim and then Skirmish Strike for the same number of actions and the same final MAP. Even in the worst case where your feats would make those actions obsolete (and both are made to be weaker than class feats), you'd effectively be where you are now, except ideally with the benefit of more other ranged options still.
The biggest issue with ranged combat is that it **should** be static. Nobody fighting a ranged battle wants to move unless they have to, so unless you were chosen as the flanker, you sit in cover and keep the other side's heads down with suppressing fire so your movers can dash between hard cover while flanking. If you want movement, you need to give monsters weak points that you can only hit from a narrow angle or make standing still give a penalty to reflex saves and AC, so you either need to hunker down in cover or move to avoid being hit.
Putting a requirement of "the target must be within 30 feet and not have any bonus to cover" for any called shot type ability would put you in that close and needing to move to get the right angle situation.
I don't think ranged off guard should be on the table, it helps certain classes far more then others.
In a perfect world we would have class feats to improve on basic called shots, but that's a whole other set of homebrew.
Static shooting is realistic, but it's not heroic. So moving for the right angle needs to be rewarded more to make ranged combat more engaging.
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Putting a requirement of "the target must be within 30 feet and not have any bonus to cover" for any called shot type ability would put you in that close and needing to move to get the right angle situation.
I don't think ranged off guard should be on the table, it helps certain classes far more then others.
In a perfect world we would have class feats to improve on basic called shots, but that's a whole other set of homebrew.Static shooting is realistic, but it's not heroic. So moving for the right angle needs to be rewarded more to make ranged combat more engaging.
Bring back penalties for shooting while in melee, and the melee guys have an incentive to rush the ranged characters again. This also gives budget to offer ranged characters more power in exchange for needing to care about positioning again.
i wonder if its more on the encounter design to make things interesting for ranged characters than the abilities.
30x30 flat rooms are not made for ranged characters to have much fun.
Rangers for example can have cool sniping moments if they can prepare and set up on nearby highground. used ranger just cause the double range with hunt prey, but anyone can do it from the right distance.
Areas with differing levels and difficult terrain and outcropings or buildings provide cover and something to work with regarding distance.
If the enemies are all melee any walk up to the parties melee and stay there the whole fight then why wouldn't ranged characters stay back and turret.
If the terrain has changing or interactive elements like crumbling floors and rope suspended objects then ranged characters start thinking of how they can use these elements to their advantage.
i wonder if its more on the encounter design to make things interesting for ranged characters than the abilities.
30x30 flat rooms are not made for ranged characters to have much fun.Rangers for example can have cool sniping moments if they can prepare and set up on nearby highground. used ranger just cause the double range with hunt prey, but anyone can do it from the right distance.
Areas with differing levels and difficult terrain and outcropings or buildings provide cover and something to work with regarding distance.
If the enemies are all melee any walk up to the parties melee and stay there the whole fight then why wouldn't ranged characters stay back and turret.
If the terrain has changing or interactive elements like crumbling floors and rope suspended objects then ranged characters start thinking of how they can use these elements to their advantage.
Outside of VTTs, interesting 3D terrain is also hard to do on a 2D map sheet. Imagine the pain that a simple cliff with an overhang can cause on your average dry-erase board.
Outside of VTTs, interesting 3D terrain is also hard to do on a 2D map sheet. Imagine the pain that a simple cliff with an overhang can cause on your average dry-erase board.i wonder if its more on the encounter design to make things interesting for ranged characters than the abilities.
30x30 flat rooms are not made for ranged characters to have much fun.Rangers for example can have cool sniping moments if they can prepare and set up on nearby highground. used ranger just cause the double range with hunt prey, but anyone can do it from the right distance.
Areas with differing levels and difficult terrain and outcropings or buildings provide cover and something to work with regarding distance.
If the enemies are all melee any walk up to the parties melee and stay there the whole fight then why wouldn't ranged characters stay back and turret.
If the terrain has changing or interactive elements like crumbling floors and rope suspended objects then ranged characters start thinking of how they can use these elements to their advantage.
You still have to deal with flight at somepoint and that makes terrain even more important.
You still have to deal with flight at somepoint and that makes terrain even more important.Outside of VTTs, interesting 3D terrain is also hard to do on a 2D map sheet. Imagine the pain that a simple cliff with an overhang can cause on your average dry-erase board.i wonder if its more on the encounter design to make things interesting for ranged characters than the abilities.
30x30 flat rooms are not made for ranged characters to have much fun.Rangers for example can have cool sniping moments if they can prepare and set up on nearby highground. used ranger just cause the double range with hunt prey, but anyone can do it from the right distance.
Areas with differing levels and difficult terrain and outcropings or buildings provide cover and something to work with regarding distance.
If the enemies are all melee any walk up to the parties melee and stay there the whole fight then why wouldn't ranged characters stay back and turret.
If the terrain has changing or interactive elements like crumbling floors and rope suspended objects then ranged characters start thinking of how they can use these elements to their advantage.
Yeah, and flight mostly sucks at the table if you want to do air-to-air melee. I mostly solve this by not using a grid and going theatre of the mind with drawings if my players need a visual to help them orient. This also lets them take my descriptions and ask if x thing is cover or if they can climb y.
I question the claim that combat should be static: from the point of view of trying to win, sure, I don't want to move if I can spend that action hurting my opponent more directly instead, but from the point of view of wanting fun combat, I think movement is one of the most fundamental ways of making encounters feel more dynamic. The fact that ranged characters often move very little is a big reason why their turns tend to feel so repetitive, in my opinion, and I'd want to give ranged characters more reasons to move, ideally at ranges that make them approachable to melee enemies. Although some characters could set themselves up to snipe, no character should be able to just opt out of putting themselves at risk entirely, certainly not as a default part of their playstyle.
In general, safety I think is a strength that should only go so far: being able to create some distance between yourself and your enemy is fine, so long as that enemy can then catch up to you relatively quickly by default. It should then be up to your character build, your team, and your use of the environment to stretch that further, but I think that baseline should be one Stride, not two and certainly not eight (25 feet against the sukgung's 200-foot range increment). Creating more distance should come at a cost to your own effectiveness, and I think even ranged characters need to be under some amount of constant risk if they expect to pull off really effective plays.
I also think there's a degree of doublethink in Paizo's design that ought to be addressed here: on paper, ranged weapons are capable of shooting accurately from truly ludicrous distances. In practice, those truly ludicrous distances rarely materialize, at least not in most of Paizo's APs where encounters happen in spaces so tight you're unlikely to ever shoot an enemy outside of your first range increment. If those range increments are supposed to be a meaningful part of play for ranged martials, then Paizo needs to release more large battle arenas in their Pathfinder APs and create more occasions where the party starts off far away from the enemies in the encounter (which would probably highlight the problems with range increments going that far). If fighting across large distances is in fact not how Pathfinder plays at its best, then we may as well adjust range increments to more closely match AP encounters and rebalance ranged weapons around that more accurate standard.
I question the claim that combat should be static: from the point of view of trying to win, sure, I don't want to move if I can spend that action hurting my opponent more directly instead, but from the point of view of wanting fun combat, I think movement is one of the most fundamental ways of making encounters feel more dynamic. The fact that ranged characters often move very little is a big reason why their turns tend to feel so repetitive, in my opinion, and I'd want to give ranged characters more reasons to move, ideally at ranges that make them approachable to melee enemies. Although some characters could set themselves up to snipe, no character should be able to just opt out of putting themselves at risk entirely, certainly not as a default part of their playstyle.
The game does a poor job of making you want to move. Even melee characters often only need to take a five-foot step back to force the enemy out of using 3-action attacks. If the team wanted movement to be key, they needed to make that a core design goal.
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As someone who has made my own campaign I try to come up with varied environments for encounters to take place in.
One example was a forest area with cliffs. One of the players used diplomacy with an arboreal to convince it to get them up on the cliffside.
They then used that cliff as a sniper location finding the right spot with visibility to assist the rest of the team that went to confront enemies below.
She was able as a ranger to hunt prey and support fire from a pretty long distance with no chance of being attacked.
Something like this doesn't happen a lot but its great for that player when they get a chance to really get something out of their extreme range.
A different battle was in a room with lots of columns supporting the structure and that same ranger was being chased by a creature with the ability to teleport short distances because she got a crit on it drawing its attention. She had to move quite a bit in that fight.
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I question the claim that combat should be static: from the point of view of trying to win, sure, I don't want to move if I can spend that action hurting my opponent more directly instead, but from the point of view of wanting fun combat, I think movement is one of the most fundamental ways of making encounters feel more dynamic. The fact that ranged characters often move very little is a big reason why their turns tend to feel so repetitive, in my opinion, and I'd want to give ranged characters more reasons to move, ideally at ranges that make them approachable to melee enemies. Although some characters could set themselves up to snipe, no character should be able to just opt out of putting themselves at risk entirely, certainly not as a default part of their playstyle.The game does a poor job of making you want to move. Even melee characters often only need to take a five-foot step back to force the enemy out of using 3-action attacks. If the team wanted movement to be key, they needed to make that a core design goal.
While this is true, I think the fundamental point of this thread is that it's noticeably more true for ranged combat than melee. Like if there's more than one foe at the very least you're probably going to move once to get to the other foe, assuming you don't end up in a dance where you move to gain/escape flanking and they move to counter that anyway. I feel like this can only make the balance of ranged power more healthy, where they could convert the loss of safety into opportunities for other power (albeit obviously not to the extent of melee, who still have to be within reach to strike)
But the thing is, movement doesn't have to the key to good combat, it's just that the obvious dearth of reasons to move as a ranged character above what melee characters already experience creates a noticeable dull zone that could be ameliorated with reasons for ranged characters to move (among other strategies). Position play is something that ranged characters often only ever experience once in a fight (is there cover nearby?) where melee characters experience it at least once every time a flanking opportunity arises and once again if they end up in a position with no enemies within reach.
Furthermore, as many have already said in this thread, one of the things that balances ranged damage to be so weak is that ranged characters are so comparatively safe. If given many reasons to stay within 30' of a fight or less, they become much less safe, putting them on a more even playing field with melee characters, where enemies are typically one Stride from being able to threaten them. I feel like options that reduce the safety of ranged to be more comparable to melee can only be healthy for building in the ability to do things that are more interesting than stand in a safe location and attack 3 times every turn.
Ok , I have a question.
For those who have the experience of standing in a safe location all the time and firing away.
What leads to that being your choice?
What are the creatures doing?
Are other characters more threatening than your ranged character?
Do the melee and casters just make it too costly for creatures to come after you?
Maybe another reason?
The game does a poor job of making you want to move. Even melee characters often only need to take a five-foot step back to force the enemy out of using 3-action attacks. If the team wanted movement to be key, they needed to make that a core design goal.
I don't think this is true at all, at least not for melee combat. Putting aside how you need to move into melee range to start attacking in melee, flanking means there's constantly an incentive to move to either get into flanking position or avoid getting flanked. Even just a five-foot Step is movement, and that melee characters would do this to mess with an enemy's turn does show in my opinion that movement matters in melee.
In addition, Sibelius makes a good point that even if it isn't true now, it is still something worth advocating for. A lot of the problems of ranged martials stem from their excessive safety, as they mention: ranged martials can feel boring to play when they fight at long range, because they're too safe from enemies and thus don't feel in real danger. Ranged martials can also feel boring to play because they just stay in place and do the same thing, and that's because their safety gives them no incentive to do anything different from turn to turn if they can avoid it. Ranged martials can also feel boring to play because they tend to do a lot less than melee martials, but they can't really be allowed to do more when they can make themselves so safe (and again, at no tradeoff given how large range increments are). A game in which ranged martials were less safe is a game where they'd be more likely to do more things, including move, and would be allowed to do more too.
Ideally, ranged martials should have reasons to move not just reactively when an enemy gets too close, but also proactively to make themselves more effective against their targets. Even if we put aside ranged flanking, people have brought up weak spots, I mentioned high ground, and there are likely other ways of encouraging positional play at range, all of which could make ranged characters want to move and feel better for positioning well. I can't speak for everyone, but I'd personally prefer a world in which ranged martials were mobile and constantly under threat in combat (though slightly less so than melee characters), but also got to pull off some really impressive plays through good positioning and have varied turns. It'd certainly be more interesting to me than the current world in which those characters are liable to just stand in place and go through the same rotation every turn from a position of excessive safety, unless you box them in and negate the advantage of their range with a small battle arena.
Ok , I have a question.
For those who have the experience of standing in a safe location all the time and firing away.
What leads to that being your choice?
In my experience playing ranged martials and running them, the ranged characters might throw out Demoralizes against whichever enemies they can instead of making a third attack, but are still quite static because they have no incentive to move. When they're about fifty or more feet away from the enemy, who'd have to wade through the rest of the party to get to them, the only things that might reach them are the odd ranged attack or spell, and that's not something movement would help with. Moving closer to the enemy or to a different vantage point brings no benefit either, so movement at that point is a wasted action.
In several cases, though, characters stay put because they really can spend all of their turn just attacking. When a friend played a Pistolero, their basic loop in combat was just shooting and reloading as much as possible, and Demoralizing was just an incidental benefit of their subclass's reload. In another group, the Starlit Span Magus basically did the same thing every combat because they had exactly enough actions per turn to Spellstrike and recharge. Nothing else came close in terms of power they could output, certainly not moving.
What are the creatures doing?
Are other characters more threatening than your ranged character?
The creatures in those cases were usually fighting the party members much closer to them, and often yes, those characters were more threatening, because getting tripped and grabbed while also eating lots of melee attacks is about as threatening as it gets. Sometimes, those monsters did break off and attack the party casters, who were often about 30 feet away at earlier levels, and if a monster had ranged capabilities they'd definitely target the Starlit Span chunking their side of the fight, but rarely did a monster have the ability to move all the way through the party to the ranged martial without shooting themselves in the foot, nor was there reason for most monsters to do this first thing in the fight even if they were sapient, so the party's ranged martials tended to get the least amount of attention. This sometimes changed based on the monster's abilities, and a dragon encounter had the monster Fly to the Starlit Span mid-encounter and get all up in their business, but that was very much the exception and not the norm.
Do the melee and casters just make it too costly for creatures to come after you?
Maybe another reason?
That was part of it. When you have a Barbarian restraining you and also punching you in the face, your priority is probably not going to be chasing after the Gunslinger standing so far away you'd need to spend your whole current turn moving to them, and so assuming you somehow Escape the Barb on the first try. Breaking off to move towards a nearby caster in one Stride and attack them at least once was a more realistic prospect, however, which is why it happened more often.
I don't think this is true at all, at least not for melee combat. Putting aside how you need to move into melee range to start attacking in melee, flanking means there's constantly an incentive to move to either get into flanking position or avoid getting flanked. Even just a five-foot Step is movement, and that melee characters would do this to mess with an enemy's turn does show in my opinion that movement matters in melee.
That's still pretty static. A step better than PF1, but still basic. Adding +1 to Ac per 20 ft. moved in a turn would be better at showing how well running works to keep you harder to hit. If it also gave an equal penalty to attacks, you'd more closely approximate the tradeoffs made in a fight.
In addition, Sibelius makes a good point that even if it isn't true now, it is still something worth advocating for. A lot of the problems of ranged martials stem from their excessive safety, as they mention: ranged martials can feel boring to play when they fight at long range, because they're too safe from enemies and thus don't feel in real danger. Ranged martials can also feel boring to play because they just stay in place and do the same thing, and that's because their safety gives them no incentive to do anything different from turn to turn if they can avoid it. Ranged martials can also feel boring to play because they tend to do a lot less than melee martials, but they can't really be allowed to do more when they can make themselves so safe (and again, at no tradeoff given how large range increments are). A game in which ranged martials were less safe is a game where they'd be more likely to do more things, including move, and would be allowed to do more too.
This stems from poor encounter design and too few ranged enemies invested in making life difficult for you. Toss in a few PL-2 ranged threats where you can, and you'll see ranged characters more engaged.
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Ranged characters in a cramped map setting will likely have to struggle with everything having lesser cover from allies.
That's still pretty static. A step better than PF1, but still basic. Adding +1 to Ac per 20 ft. moved in a turn would be better at showing how well running works to keep you harder to hit. If it also gave an equal penalty to attacks, you'd more closely approximate the tradeoffs made in a fight.
I guess we have different standards for what counts as static, but regardless of our differences in opinion, I think it stands to reason that ranged characters could be made to move with a frequency at least slightly more comparable to melee characters, and that would improve their playstyle significantly.
This stems from poor encounter design and too few ranged enemies invested in making life difficult for you. Toss in a few PL-2 ranged threats where you can, and you'll see ranged characters more engaged.
As others have mentioned already, I don't think the solution is to throw in a bunch of ranged enemies when most AP encounters are cramped enough as-is. I don't think ranged enemies make that much sense in a bunch of encounters either (which ranged animals are you thinking of including at levels 1-3?), and ultimately melee characters don't need enemies of a certain type to work, so I don't see why ranged enemies should be required to paper over the excessive safety of ranged party members.
As others have mentioned already, I don't think the solution is to throw in a bunch of ranged enemies when most AP encounters are cramped enough as-is. I don't think ranged enemies make that much sense in a bunch of encounters either (which ranged animals are you thinking of including at levels 1-3?), and ultimately melee characters don't need enemies of a certain type to work, so I don't see why ranged enemies should be required to paper over the excessive safety of ranged party members.
Make larger maps on two-page spreads, make half-scale maps and make the GM blow them up before combat, or include full-sized fold-out map sheets with APs. Paizo has options and chooses not to use them.
You don't need to add ranged enemies to every fight, but you should add them to encounters if you have a ranged character with a bored player. The game caters to melee in a way that no other edition has, but has done so by removing power and options from ranged characters while also allowing them to function in melee without issue. It's a baffling design choice and one that has very obvious drawbacks.
Make larger maps on two-page spreads, make half-scale maps and make the GM blow them up before combat, or include full-sized fold-out map sheets with APs. Paizo has options and chooses not to use them.
Right, and as mentioned already, there's probably good reason for this. Imagine your melee party members constantly starting three or more Strides away from the enemy; do you think they'd be happy?
You don't need to add ranged enemies to every fight, but you should add them to encounters if you have a ranged character with a bored player. The game caters to melee in a way that no other edition has, but has done so by removing power and options from ranged characters while also allowing them to function in melee without issue. It's a baffling design choice and one that has very obvious drawbacks.
What you're suggesting is sound advice for a GM wanting to make play more interesting for their ranged players, but ultimately what you're suggesting is a GM workaround to a design problem being discussed on this thread. This isn't the advice subforum, this is general discussion, and having the GM work overtime to make the game work well is precisely the kind of thing 2e tries to avoid.
The game does a poor job of making you want to move. Even melee characters often only need to take a five-foot step back to force the enemy out of using 3-action attacks. If the team wanted movement to be key, they needed to make that a core design goal.I don't think this is true at all, at least not for melee combat. Putting aside how you need to move into melee range to start attacking in melee, flanking means there's constantly an incentive to move to either get into flanking position or avoid getting flanked. Even just a five-foot Step is movement, and that melee characters would do this to mess with an enemy's turn does show in my opinion that movement matters in melee.
In addition, Sibelius makes a good point that even if it isn't true now, it is still something worth advocating for. A lot of the problems of ranged martials stem from their excessive safety, as they mention: ranged martials can feel boring to play when they fight at long range, because they're too safe from enemies and thus don't feel in real danger. Ranged martials can also feel boring to play because they just stay in place and do the same thing, and that's because their safety gives them no incentive to do anything different from turn to turn if they can avoid it. Ranged martials can also feel boring to play because they tend to do a lot less than melee martials, but they can't really be allowed to do more when they can make themselves so safe (and again, at no tradeoff given how large range increments are). A game in which ranged martials were less safe is a game where they'd be more likely to do more things, including move, and would be allowed to do more too.
Ideally, ranged martials should have reasons to move not just reactively when an enemy gets too close, but also proactively to make themselves more effective against their targets. Even if we put aside ranged flanking, people have brought up weak spots, I mentioned high ground, and there are likely other ways of encouraging positional play at...
Thanks Teridax. I am getting a lot of thoughts from all of this so i apologize if its coming up a bit scattered. Some of this is a response but some of it is just you making me think.
Ok so with those considerations what should a ranged character add to the fight?I think already they add damage, less than melee but without much draw on resources like healing. But it seems they do draw on other resources as in actions like grapple and movement to position or spells from allies to keep enemies from moving to them and the casters.
Ranged do usually have to move to maximize their damage though. They wouldn't want to fire into lesser cover from allies in the way if they can move once to get a better direct line of fire. If GMs are not using enemy actions to get lesser cover again then maybe thats something a GM can do in the creatures interest that will get more movement from ranged PCs its as little effort as a step most times? Not exciting though.
As RPG-Geek pointed out If enemies have ranged attacks in good positions the ranged PC is in danger if they dont use cover. so moving to cover and taking cover become important for as long as the ranged enemies are still a threat. Maybe not always an option to add in given the space.
But there is still a glaring issue you raised even if the GM changes things up. A party that protects the backline well creates the environment where ranged only needs to reload and fire or just fire fire fire. I have gotten around this with creatures that have different ways to move like burrow flight and teleport but I dont do it all the time for many reasons.
Right, and as mentioned already, there's probably good reason for this. Imagine your melee party members constantly starting three or more Strides away from the enemy; do you think they'd be happy?
No, but that's what they get for being melee only and not carrying any backup ranged weapons. It's also a system issue if melee characters don't get good gap-closing abilities from level 1.
What you're suggesting is sound advice for a GM wanting to make play more interesting for their ranged players, but ultimately what you're suggesting is a GM workaround to a design problem being discussed on this thread. This isn't the advice subforum, this is general discussion, and having the GM work overtime to make the game work well is precisely the kind of thing 2e tries to avoid.
Part of the design problem is that Paizo builds encounters badly and doesn't use enough variety of spaces or the correct mix of range, melee, and evasive threats to ensure that the front liners can't just keep everybody in front of them, so ranged characters don't need to move. Hence a fix is for GMs to correct this poor design themselves, no different than a GM using any other fix found in this thread.
But there is still a glaring issue you raised even if the GM changes things up. A party that protects the backline well creates the environment where ranged only needs to reload and fire or just fire fire fire.
This is the win condition for ranged characters. If you're bored with this, you probably shouldn't play a ranged martial character. Ranged wins if the enemy shows that they aren't a threat to break through. After all, the shot just keeps firing while the pikes still hold.
You can also implement my other ideas where not moving or being in cover applies a penalty to reflex saves and AC. So holding still is a risk/reward choice for more offence at the cost of being a sitting duck if anybody does get to you.
Thanks Teridax. I am getting a lot of thoughts from all of this so i apologize if its coming up a bit scattered. Some of this is a response but some of it is just you making me think.
Ok so with those considerations what should a ranged character add to the fight? I think already they add damage, less than melee but without much draw on resources like healing. But it seems they do draw on other resources as in actions like grapple and movement to position or spells from allies to keep enemies from moving to them and the casters.
Anytime! I'd say ranged characters generally should be able to do similar things to melee characters, just in less intense amounts in exchange for the reliability that comes with ranged target access. That does still mean that ranged characters should be able to output good damage, apply some crowd control and utility, and so on, and so against exactly the targets you'd want, even if melee characters should have stronger moves.
Ranged do usually have to move to maximize their damage though. They wouldn't want to fire into lesser cover from allies in the way if they can move once to get a better direct line of fire. If GMs are not using enemy actions to get lesser cover again then maybe thats something a GM can do in the creatures interest that will get more movement from ranged PCs its as little effort as a step most times? Not exciting though.
I don't think lesser cover is usually an issue unless enemies are positioning themselves specifically to put melee party members in-between themselves and the ranged characters. Melee party members tend to not get in the way of their ranged allies if they can avoid it, and if an enemy does try to make them get in the way, that usually means they've also moved out of flanking, so they're liable to reposition anyway.
As RPG-Geek pointed out If enemies have ranged attacks in good positions the ranged PC is in danger if they dont use cover. so moving to cover and taking cover become important for as long as the ranged enemies are still a threat. Maybe not always an option to add in given the space.
This assumes the ranged enemies always go for the ranged martials, which I think is actually a rarity if your enemies have enough tactical acumen to focus on specific targets, as the party caster tends to be a much juicier (and squishier) target in the immediate. Even in the case of ranged characters targeting each other, the problem with cover is that taking cover gives enemies cover against your attacks too, so even if it does mitigate the damage of a really threatening ranged opponents, it's not a great option in and of itself either.
But there is still a glaring issue you raised even if the GM changes things up. A party that protects the backline well creates the environment where ranged only needs to reload and fire or just fire fire fire. I have gotten around this with creatures that have different ways to move like burrow flight and teleport but I dont do it all the time for many reasons.
Exactly, this has also been my experience. I've tried switching things up when the ranged martials at my table have been getting bored, but it's also difficult to keep adding ranged enemies who attack them or enemies who bypass the advantage of range in some way without making those players feel like they're being unfairly targeted.
No, but that's what they get for being melee only and not carrying any backup ranged weapons.
Who said they had no backup ranged weapons? Do you think that the Barbarian is going to have a good time just because they'll be spending an action a turn plinking with their under-runed bow for the next two to three turns they'll spend trying to catch up to that enemy?
It's also a system issue if melee characters don't get good gap-closing abilities from level 1.
It is a system issue if every character is built to make distances and range irrelevant. Gap-closing abilities exist as 1st-level feats like Sudden Charge: these are meant to be optional feats to aid against specific situations, not must-haves to paper over systemic problems.
Part of the design problem is that Paizo builds encounters badly and doesn't use enough variety of spaces or the correct mix of range, melee, and evasive threats to ensure that the front liners can't just keep everybody in front of them, so ranged characters don't need to move. Hence a fix is for GMs to correct this poor design themselves, no different than a GM using any other fix found in this thread.
And again, that is not a problem of encounter design alone if encounters need to be designed in a highly specific way to avoid the pitfalls of the system they're dealing with. I also don't think what you're saying is true either: when encounters are cramped, ranged martials are in fact vulnerable to attack when they're a Stride away from the enemy, so the issue of excessive safety disappears. The problem there is that these encounters consistently take away the advantage of long range increments, so ranged martials just often end up playing like weaker melee martials. It's why volley weapons like the longbow tend to be seen as trap options by more experienced players as well, because something like volley 30 feet means you'll nearly always be shooting with a penalty in a 30-by-30-foot battle arena. Range increments and the size of AP encounter areas don't match, is the point.
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But there is still a glaring issue you raised even if the GM changes things up. A party that protects the backline well creates the environment where ranged only needs to reload and fire or just fire fire fire.This is the win condition for ranged characters. If you're bored with this, you probably shouldn't play a ranged martial character. Ranged wins if the enemy shows that they aren't a threat to break through. After all, the shot just keeps firing while the pikes still hold.
You can also implement my other ideas where not moving or being in cover applies a penalty to reflex saves and AC. So holding still is a risk/reward choice for more offence at the cost of being a sitting duck if anybody does get to you.
That is the sense I get.
Ranged is getting the combat environment they want when the team is keeping them safe.Ranged wants to turret basically, its up to the enemy to disrupt that situation.
And with that in mind maybe adding anything more to ranged capabilities is really just power creep even if its not the intention. Maybe unless those alternatives don’t at all do damage.
That leads me to the thought that if ranged is boring it is on the GM/AP or whatever is making the decision of what an encounter will look like. I also think that maybe those close quarter encounters should be horrible for ranged characters. They have to be closer than is optimal for them, they probably always have allies in the way making their shots harder. The strong melee enemies can easily get to them, and they dont do the same damage as melee characters.
I think that is appropriate and actually a good reason for ranged characters to pick up some options good for shorter distances instead of focusing only on ranged.
This assumes the ranged enemies always go for the ranged martials, which I think is actually a rarity if your enemies have enough tactical acumen to focus on specific targets, as the party caster tends to be a much juicier (and squishier) target in the immediate. Even in the case of ranged characters targeting each other, the problem with cover is that taking cover gives enemies cover against your attacks too, so even if it does mitigate the damage of a really threatening ranged opponents, it's not a great option in and of itself either.
Casters are still ranged characters. They're not the subject of this discussion as they have more options and thus don't tend to get bored, but you should have ranged threats attack your casters often enough that they have to spend resources on defence.
Who said they had no backup ranged weapons? Do you think that the Barbarian is going to have a good time just because they'll be spending an action a turn plinking with their under-runed bow for the next two to three turns they'll spend trying to catch up to that enemy?
Yes, in the current design paradigm. The fix is that we should design melee martials so they have impactful things to do outside of melee range (probably tied to a resource like focus points), or we give them gap-closing moves that let them cover that ground faster.
It is a system issue if every character is built to make distances and range irrelevant. Gap-closing abilities exist as 1st-level feats like Sudden Charge: these are meant to be optional feats to aid against specific situations, not must-haves to paper over systemic problems.
You defeat gap closers by exploiting terrain, moving back as they try to advance, or by sending your own melee out to meet them. Gap closers don't invalidate ranged threats; they simply ensure that trying to be a turret is a poor play unless you're set up in a great defensive position.
And again, that is not a problem of encounter design alone if encounters need to be designed in a highly specific way to avoid the pitfalls of the system they're dealing with. I also don't think what you're saying is true either: when encounters are cramped, ranged martials are in fact vulnerable to attack when they're a Stride away from the enemy, so the issue of excessive safety disappears. The problem there is that these encounters consistently take away the advantage of long range increments, so ranged martials just often end up playing like weaker melee martials. It's why volley weapons like the longbow tend to be seen as trap options by more experienced players as well, because something like volley 30 feet means you'll nearly always be shooting with a penalty in a 30-by-30-foot battle arena. Range increments and the size of AP encounter areas don't match, is the point.
So we need to make fights close ranged to cater to melee, and this isn't an encounter design issue, but suggesting that we fix encounter design to engage ranged characters doesn't count because... We already have specific encounter designs in published material, both due to page space and a desire not to force melee characters to spend even a round not being awesome. PF2 is built to make melee feel good and doesn't spend enough time either in encounter design or specific rules to ensure ranged feels the same way.
The AP enounter designs suck and are the biggest issue with PF2. Fixing this fixes ranged martial's feeling bad at the table. A mix of close and open encounters means that both ranged and melee characters get their chances to shine.
That is the sense I get.
Ranged is getting the combat environment they want when the team is keeping them safe.
Ranged wants to turret basically, its up to the enemy to disrupt that situation.
And with that in mind maybe adding anything more to ranged capabilities is really just power creep even if its not the intention. Maybe unless those alternatives don’t at all do damage.That leads me to the thought that if ranged is boring it is on the GM/AP or whatever is making the decision of what an encounter will look like. I also think that maybe those close quarter encounters should be horrible for ranged characters. They have to be closer than is optimal for them, they probably always have allies in the way making their shots harder. The strong melee enemies can easily get to them, and they dont do the same damage as melee characters.
I think that is appropriate and actually a good reason for ranged characters to pick up some options good for shorter distances instead of focusing only on ranged.
You've got it bang on. Ranged works fine as is, the enounter design in APs just sucks for them and the bandaid fix that is not penalising ranged characters for being in melee only makes this issue worse.
I think there is no standard encounter to measure against or really say one design is overly specialized and another is typical.
There might be typical encouter design for APs? I wouldnt know but I dont adhere to any typical design other than what makes sense for the story.
I think there is no standard encounter to measure against or really say one design is overly specialized and another is typical.
There might be typical encouter design for APs? I wouldnt know but I dont adhere to any typical design other than what makes sense for the story.
APs and PFS play would be the standards as they are designed by the same people who write the rules. This is 30 x 30 rooms, narrow hallways, few ranged enemies, little to no cover, no verticality, etc. You can tell if a battle is a set piece if the room is bigger than 30 x 30 and/or has actual features.