Uncomfortably Close Combat
Nuh-uh! I can take crossbow expert! And if that’s not available I’ll just work towards point blank master! And if that’s not available I’ll learn gun kata!
I know. Believe me I know. When I’m building a ranged character, I want my main offensive option to be online 100% of the time. By the same token though, there’s something in me that rebels against that idea of a near-mandatory feat. Every time I spend one of my precious feat selections just to make sure my main weapon functions, I wind up getting the feels-bad. That’s why I tend to go for other solutions.
- The Switch-Hitter: You can thank the redoubtable Treantmonk for this one. Popping off a shot or three at range before wading into melee is a fun cinematic trope, as explained by Exhibit A. And for my money, It feels slightly more believable than standing next to a big angry orc with only a bit of yew wood to parry.
- Stick and Move: It wasn’t so long ago that we talked about mobile archery platforms. A flight spell, a worthy steed, or a friendly dimension door can all pass muster here. The idea is to always be where the enemies aren’t, allowing specialist archers to do their thing.
- Backup Weapons: We’ve talked about this once or twice before, but archers are perhaps more in need of a trusty belt knife than other character types. If your bowstring snaps or your black powder gets damp, you don’t have spells or STR-based wrestling in your repertoire. That means you want another option. A lesser cousin of the switch-hitter, the backup weapon is a last resort rather than the main battle plan. If all goes well, you’ll never have to use that short sword. But if you do, it’s a load better than stabbing your enemies with arrows.
- The Weird: If you’ve never heard of combinations weapons, I suggest you check out this gallery. Tacking a bayonet onto a rifle is only the tip of the iceberg. Unconventional options like the dagger pistol bring some swashbuckling goodness, and with a little creative homebrewing it shouldn’t be to hard to whip up more.
So what about the rest of you bow-havers? What’s your plan for dealing with melee? Do you just try to avoid it at all costs, or do you turn your bow into a three-part-staff and go to town? Sound off with your favorite up-close-and-deadly strategies down in the comments!
EARN BONUS LOOT! Check out the The Handbook of Heroes Patreon. We’ve got a sketch feed full of Laurel’s original concept art. We’ve got early access to comics. There’s physical schwag, personalized art, and a monthly vote to see which class gets featured in the comic next. And perhaps my personal favorite, we’ve been hard at work bringing a bimonthly NSFW Handbook of Erotic Fantasy comic to the world! So come one come all. Hurry while supplies of hot elf chicks lasts!
One of my favourite Pathfinder fighters was very much a switch-hitter.
Her ranged attacks typically came from thrown handaxes, though she did carry a bow just in case. After an opening volley though, she liked to reap the benefits of her Opening Volley great, and wade into combat with her battleaxe.
When an enemy fell, she would often draw and throw another handaxe before closing to a new melee, so as to benefit from Opening Volley again.
Played a one-shot of Animal Adventures yesterday:
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/56728f72a128e6b1e548ec55/t/5c98a78ae4966b0c56f119dd/1553508259136/D%26D-Rules-Companion.pdf
Made sure to get myself a pair of throwing daggers despite being a mastiff.
One of the players in my new campaign uses Opening Volley. Many jokes have been had about his tendency to fire a longbow shot, drop the thing on the ground and move into a blocking position with his reach-having lucerne hammer. (Helps that he has extremely high initiative, so he can usually shoot at a flat-footed foe to make up for his relatively low attack bonus.) We’re all sure that one day something’ll go wrong and he’ll lose the bow. And it’ll be hilarious.
Get that dude some gloves of storing, STAT!
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/e-g/glove-of-storing/#:~:text=This%20device%20is%20a%20single,be%20held%20in%20one%20hand.
All of my Pathfinder characters, with the exception of three, have a melee weapon, a backup melee weapon, and a ranged weapon. The exceptions are the Inquisitor as she’s an archer. But she does carry a dagger and knows the spell Bowstaff to use her bow as a melee weapon if she needs to. The other two characters are both natural weapon users with multiple natural weapons. But they both have a shortbow for ranged attacks.
Bowstaff is such a perfect spell for this situation. Always loved the concept, and double so since they made it a swift action.
I wonder if it would do extra damage using an orc hornbow? My Inquisitor is a half-orc. Probably not but it would be cool if it did.
One of my PC’s character just, in their words,”embrace the suck” of getting into melee while ranged. Another direct quote from a game a few weeks back in character, “I see you got close to me to make this hard, but this arrow will be in your eye-socket before we are through.” I gave a free intimidation check!
Well, I suppose that every combat style is supposed to have tradeoffs….
On my Ratfolk Exploiter Wizard, I relied on spell options if I got caught in melee (Dimension Door, Windy Retreat), and later, the Arcanist’s Dimensional Step exploit.
On my current Kobold Gunslinger, my options are limited to:
– Using smokesticks to hide/back off, abusing the fact I can ignore smoke as far as vision goes but many creatures can’t.
– Grabbing a melee weapon and attacking (a poor option until I get an agile weapon), since I’m still a full BAB DEX martial.
– Building into Snap Shot, so that people approaching me gives me free shots.
– Hiding behind the melee martial PCs.
– Never getting surprised, ever (thanks to the Thronewarden archetype).
I hadn’t seen the Thronewarden arcetype before. It’s pretty hilarious, especially since they get “starter pistol” as an ability.
It’s very strong! You pretty much immunize yourself and your party to surprise rounds (or become hideously powerful if you surprise enemies by getting a free round), your initiative and sense motive is boosted, making you a natural danger/lie detector, and you can pretty much perma-stagger enemies. Downside is one less bonus feat, losing the passive AC growth and losing bleeding shot.
Played a character in an Iron Kingdoms game who used an exotic longbow… aside from being excessively large with arrows the size of javelins, it was also quite functional as a melee weapon, thanks to the sharpened blades at either end. A ridiculous sort of weapon, but it certainly one-ups Legolas stabbing orcs with his arrows…
“What’s the scraping sound?”
“Sharpening my bow.”
While i always make a point of carrying a backup weapon, my personal favorite method of handling melee enemies is the party fighter. The Sentinel feat in 5e combined with pole-arm master is a heck of a thing for zone control, especially if you find a nice choke point. The fighter has a job, trust them to do it.
But like… what if your fighter doesn’t have those feats?
Then we usually have so many ranged attackers the poor sods cant get into melee range in the first place.
Or, i mean, i guess we could find a door or something and the fighter can just sit down in it. If we wanted to be crazy.
A recent character of mine was a Brawler/Gunslinger who theoretically per RAW was just kicking people for her unarmed attacks as she was dual-wielding pistols, but my headcanon was that she was going all gun-fu on people who got too close.
See also gun-kata. 😀
My last character I intended to be ranged ended up playing more melee like by the halfway point and through the end of the game but it was neat being technically equally proficient at both 😀 Myrmidarch magus archetype that i started by wanting to be an arcane archer and not deal with crappy multiclass/prestige leveling paths .ended up wading into melee to make use of my many anti-spellcaster options but a few times I still got to whip out the ol bow and by that time i could do manyshot-spellstrike-scorching ray shenanigans
Gish-in-a-can! Best of all possible worlds!
Did you wind up going arcane archer anyway?
nah 19 levels in magus before campaign end 🙂 worked out well tbh
My melee contingency have a tendency to consist of taking a five foot step.
Normally that’s enough to get out of melee range long enough to let out another salvo.
Sure I could invest a bunch of my ability points/feats/magic item budget into also being a decent melee combatant (and losing the most valuable ressorce, actions[1], to switch), and that would make me a bit better when trapped and forced into melee.
But well archery is already feat-starved and if I’m playing an archer I’d rather be an excellent archer the ~99% of the time when that isn’t happening instead of being a merely decent archer so that the remaining ~1% I could also be a merely decent melee fighter.
[1] quickdraw helps, but unless you are willing to drop your very expensive bow on the floor you need to spend an action putting it away. Remember that if you drop them they are no longer protected from area of effects by your hit points, and bows don’t actually have that many hit points.
How do you deal with reach?
Preferably by 5ft stepping behind an allied melee-combatant to get soft cover and thus no longer provoking AoOs. Ideally they have positioned themselves in such a way that they don’t grant cover the other way (which is only possible if the enemy is at least size large, but that includes for basically every enemy with reach you can’t 5ft out of, and if they are larger it is surprisingly easy).
The ease of getting cover is both bane and boon for the dedicated archer. Until of course they get high enough level to have something that allows them to ignore it (a seeking bow or improved precise shot or something.)
This is ofcourse not always possible, but with a bit of foresight in where you placed yourself in the prior turns it usually is, especially if your allies are also on the lookout for such situations and you are willing to delay your action to get the best internal turn order (without actually letting the enemy get an extra turn out of it of-course).
This general strategy also works pretty well for Wizards and their ilk, or for clerics that really want to get close to deliver that Breath of Life to their fallen comrade. Through since mages tend to be a bit more squishy than the average archer while being more mobile due to not needing to full-attack they can benefit from using their move action to keep a good distance with allies and obstacles between themselves and danger.
Last archer I player was a halfing riding on his deinonychus companion. Solves mobility and melee combat in one go.
Other builds I have include an archer bard with dim door on the spell list, zen archer monk can still punch people, the alchemist is probably the worst off but I suppose there’s always the threat of suicide bombing to scare things off (having racial resistance to fire helps).
The mad bomber alchemist in my game got a lot of mileage out of ablative barrier:
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/a/ablative-barrier/
It basically reads “double all healing you receive.”
my Hunter is a Catfolk with claws for those inconvenient times when the companion is on the wrong side of the surprise encounter. At higher levels I‘ll probably go for the spell „produce flame“ which is good for both melee and ranged, at least for a number of rounds equal to character level.
That spell is also the reason why my gnomes are of the Pyromaniac type; and carry a wand of „recharge innate magic“ as soon as it’s affordable.
I always go back to the vesk character in Androids and Aliens shouting, “A vesk in never unarmed!” as her battle cry.
https://www.starjammersrd.com/races/Vesk/#Natural_Weapons
Vesk are made of catchphrases. They’re Brian Blessed in lizard form.
https://i.redd.it/95kmko4722x21.png
nice
I really think there’s a strong case for “guns and claws” as a combat strategy for vesk. Not only is it fun, and reduces the need to fumble around switching between weapons, but you save so much money on melee weapons that you can afford better guns and armour.
Starfinder is a hell of an economic simulator.
The linked bayonet makes me mad, as it’s beyond worthless by design. You can’t shoot with it (as in, the writers used the worst, most archaic version of a bayonet, the one you stick in the gun barrel) and it needs a provoking action to attach it. There is another, more modern/functional bayonet, but it’s exclusive to a specific AP and unavailable in most games without DM permission.
point this out to the desiners and they’ll probably mumble something about „balance“
Hey now. It’s a good concept. I make no claims about the implementation. 😛
I’m glad Starfinder makes mingling melee and ranged trivial from the early levels (just get a bayonet attachment). Pathfinder forces you to either be fighter and invest in too many feats/magic item, or be some kind of pirate Archetype (as anything pirate class wise is a combo of gun and melee simultaneously).
I tried so hard to make picaroon work for a swashbuckler Could not do it. 🙁
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/hybrid-classes/swashbuckler/archetypes/paizo-swashbuckler-archetypes/picaroon/
The one time I was an archer I was a Rogue. Cunning Action let me disengage as a bonus action, so I’d do that if my enemies ever closed to melee. That said, I spent most of the fights hidden, so enemies didn’t know to close in.
If I were to play a Fighter/Ranger I’d probably just have a backup melee weapon handy.
People all the time talking about sneak attack, but I love me some cunning action. That mess is the real draw for me.
Honestly 5E’s Rogue is just such a clean, well-designed combat-package simply from Sneak Attack and Cunning Action synergizing.
Sneak Attack manages to be relatively balanced while feeling insanely overpowered. (Does less average damage than a Fighter’s multi at pretty much all points except levels 3-4) Your entire playstyle becomes apparent at L2.
Considering the Rogue’s sub-par history I’d say 5E hit it out of the park.
And then there’s that moment when your high-level Rogue rolls a crit on his sneak attack. Sure, the Fighter is probably doing more damage on average… but it’s oh so satisfying when you turn the tide of battle with a fortuitous 20d6 kidney-harvesting on the Boss.
“The Weird: If you’ve never heard of combinations weapons, I suggest you check out this gallery.”
I believe you mean THIS gallery:
https://rwby.fandom.com/wiki/Weapon
I was a player in a campaign with a new player who wanted to make a “John Wick build” who trips people and then shoots them. We ended up with a Flowing Monk/Black Powder Vaulter Gunslinger mix with tripping feats. In practice, I don’t think he ever tripped-and-shot, but he would run around the battlefield taking shots (using the Black Powder Vaulter’s ability to reload a gun while moving), and if anything got in close, he had a Flowing Monk ability that would let him try and trip an attacker before their attack went through, at which point Vicious Stomp would let him kick them while they were down. It wasn’t the most powerful build ever (he never got DEX-to-damage, though Deadly Aim and upgrades to the pistol kept his damage decent), but it was fun and had a lot of options. Foes too big to trip had low touch AC and so were vulnerable to the pistol, while smaller, harder-to-hit foes and spellcasters were weak to tripping and getting pummeled on the ground while they tried to get back up. Since we had three PCs, one of whom was a dedicated ranged attacker (archer Bard) and the other was a melee-focused fighter (the infamous Oracle/Paladin/Bloodrager/Swashbuckler/Ranger with a throwable greatsword), it was nice for the third PC to be able to operate in both spheres, depending on the situation.
Well then. Looks like I’ve got some new archetypes to read up on.
So we have a 12 year old barbarian in our campaign, who used a brick tied to a rope as his main melee weapon… we have found a nice sword, and ask him if he wants it, and he took it – only to use it as a ranged weapon by throwing it at enemies.
We all love Rick.
I also love Rick. Sounds like a great gamer in the making. 😀
Oh, it’s the same player whose air genasi broke into a prison so he won’t have to pay for the inn for the night.
I usually go switch-hitter or backup weapon myself, mainly because I have an irrational fear of running out of arrows (yes, I know they’re five copper apiece and money’s easy to come by, but what if I can’t go shopping between battles?). I rarely play dedicated archers from the start; rather, I begin with a character adequate at both melee and ranged combat, then focus on improving whichever the party needs more. My most recent archer-rogue could have focused on swordfighting instead if any of her party members had remembered that bows exist.
Have I got a meme for you!
https://i.redd.it/g5r0aqgcn4151.jpg
I usually build something between switch hitter and backup weapon where I don’t get into melee intentionally, but I’m more than capable of fucking the enemy up when I do. Basically, the classic Ranger trope.
Ranger Classic: Full calorie, full flavor, full of arrows.
Normally my line of though is avoid close combat, move and dodge until you are in range again, either that or use the close range to get better hit. But if that fails, why not use then a Redeemer Prime? 😛
BECAUSE I DON’T KNOW WHAT THAT IS
It’s the one of the best shotguns Warframe has to offer. Bonus points for it being a melee weapon, a gunblade and not technically a shotgun 😛
Here, behold the mighty Redeemer Prime: https://warframe.fandom.com/wiki/Redeemer_Prime
So it’s a melee weapon you can use to shot at your enemies. I even use it as a shotgun. It solves Ranger problem, she can shoot the fly or cut it. The gunblades require quite the aiming for a melee, specially when the shooting part of the combos happens, but they are quite rewarding. The Redeemer Prime looks great and when in use i feel like a Grammaton cleric 😀
That sounds good and all, but I hear it’s got low Impact and Puncture damage against shields and armor. >_>
HA! Check this mod config: Sacrificial Pressure lvl 8, Sacrificial Steel lvl 8, Voltaic Strike lvl 3 + Volcanic Edge lvl3, Virulent Scourge lvl 3 + Fever Strike lvl 5, Condition Overload lvl 5 and Quickening lvl 3. And yes, i know there is a lot of ways to improve this build, but more would be overkill 😛
You could always spend a few points from your taradiddle pool.
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/unbalanced
How dare you to mock the sacred… taradira? tadadiya? Ah, taradiddle pool, that is 😛
Sorry, but as long as i can kill things i am okay with that, no need to overkill for me. Where would be the fun if you can crush dragons with your cantrips? :/
As a side note i will not go to the Steel Path either, i need yet to clear the starchart 😀
And for a non-Warframe Redeemer Prime, see Pathfinder’s Halfling Sling Staff. It counts as a Club for melee and a Sling for ranged, but it’s one weapon. So you take Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization, all of that for one weapon and get both. Technically even the Ancestral Weapon Trait works with both sides, cause it doesn’t specify Melee attacks, but if you try it your GM may throw a Starship at you.
Who will win? A Group of space robotic ninjas with blades that also work as shotguns, or a group of lawyer’s friendly hobbits with clubs that also work as slingshots? 😛
I say Tenno victory like in ten seconds 😀
Both good to see other games with combi-weapons 🙂
One of the party members in my Curse of the Crimson Throne group plays a Shoanti ranger who focuses on archery. He’s our most consistent source of damage by far and we do our best to keep the enemies away from him as much as we can. Unfortunately, this doesn’t always work and he does keep a sword as a backup weapon, though he’s far less dangerous with it than his bow. He’ll frequently try to just do the five foot step shuffle so he can continue to use his bow, but all too often, that’s not an option.
I wish he’d taken the Sable Marine or Monstrous Mount feat so he could have a hippogriff to keep him out of danger, as without him consistently getting off a full attack action, things become far more dangerous for the rest of the party. Unfortunately, he apparently didn’t realize that was an option.
I need to reexamine the sable marine feat. Could be a nice option for my players’ Crimson Throne playthrough (it’s a 2-person gestalt game).
How is that going? I think you’d mentioned someone was playing an aether kineticist, but I can’t remember if you said anything else.
We’re just beginning book 4 and making (probably) terrible choices. We ended up killing our GMPC after he effectively begged for a mercy kill (longish complicated story) and he’s finalizing a replacement.
It’s not, actually. 🙁
Both of my players are a bit busy right now, so the play-by-post is off to a pretty slow start. I really do need to poke ’em again to try and jump start this thing.
I can’t recall if I’ve mentioned this here before.
Whatever my character build I always consider “but what if I can’t use X option”. This will sometimes lead to consternation in the cast of spellcasters when picking cantrips since most likely I don’t have enough to cover all the based you might care to (ideal main attack cantrip, if they’re resistant/immune to main cantrip cantrip, save/attack roll cantrip if the other type of attack isn’t a good option, melee/ranged cantrip in case I’m in the range I don’t want to be at, etc.)
This is a bit simpler with normal weapon users. Though give then spare money I almost always will somehow still wind up with 6 different kinds of weapons for all sorts of “just in case” scenarios.
As for feeling obligated to take feats or features… yeah. I hate that. It’s less bad in 5e, but it still does come up often enough. (coughWarCastercough)
Switch hitters are nice to play, though they seem to work well for only a narrow range of possible builds.
As an example I was building a Ranger the other day and had planned to make a switch hitter (sword & board and longbow) and take Blind Fighting as my fighting style… and then realized “oh wait, I really need to be able to have a real damage output on this build more than I need 2 more AC and the ability to very rarely not have disadvantage” so wound up going for Two Weapon Fighting instead. I felt a bit lame about it since it’s such a default way to be a ranger…. but it’s also one of the most efficient ways to be a ranger. Which matters a lot more when you’re not taking a damage focused archetype and you refuse to use Hunter’s Mark on principle because it and Hex bore the heck out of you so much you wish you could excise them from the system.
I’ll still have that longbow, but it’s most certainly a backup weapon now.
On a related note: I feel like a fraud. I wrote a whole blog post about the need to take fun magic items…
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/classy-quests-part-3-4
…And for the weekend one-shot, my 5e DM let everyone choose an uncommon magic item at start. I found myself staring between the deck of illusions and the gauntlets of ogre power. I did what I had to do. #conflicted
Haha. I feel that. I did that exact thing in a game recently too. Admittedly doing it was the thing that allowed me to make the character fully come together the way I wanted. So I think that’s a better use of an uncommon item than one that doesn’t have to do with stats.
Have you seen the Fragged system? It started as Fragged Empire, a scifi game system and setting, but you can now get Fragged Seas for pirates, Fragged Aeturnum for dark souls /blood borne /ravnica -esque city games, and finally Fragged Kingdoms for their fantasy setting.
I bring this up because the games very naturally encourage secondary weapons. It ensures all players are “trained” in more than one, and the way weapon ranges work and their abilities interact with enemy types, you quickly pick up a secondary.
For example, in fragged seas you could summon a giant starfish on deck. Why? Why NOT? Besides being a ever-lovin’ fish-o’-starz, it blocks movement, maybe even LoS, a great control spell. However, it blocks you as much as your enemy, and all the spells have this issues. Fire spells can randomly splash out fire terrain, meaning you may accidentally hit the fighter. I’ve seen lots of people wanting to play sea wizards, and after their fist fight realize they CAN, but they should get a sword or musket too.
In fragged kingdoms, the weapon ranges do this more than anything. Bows get penalties if your target is too close. Even swords and daggers have ranges, a dagger meant for the square next to you, but can lunge with a penalty. A sword can attack adjacent with a penalty but can attack a space away fine. A spear attacks two spaces away, and can choke up to adjacent with penalties. It encourages less static combat by “zooming in” instead of pathfinder and d&d’s version of “imagine they’re moving around, but in a square”. Also, you get the cool knife fighter moment of rushing inside a spearman’s reach and going to town.
Fragged Empire is fun because enemy types encourage either backup weapons or good party comp. If you know you’ll be fighting robots with energy shields, you may wany special mods for your guns, etc.
Good games, I think they’re a great example of discouraging one-trick ponys by encouraging smart, tactical play. The penalties never seem so big that you feel chastised for trying, but the bonuses for smart play seem large enough that even the stubbornest of gamers can see their value.
I wonder if that something that d20 system just doesn’t do? It’s too easy to succeed with “just the basics” so that there’s not enough incentive to try more complex tactics.
I think an inevitable downfall of most d20 systems is how big the numbers get. I mean at level 5 or so most people say they have the most fun, and I think it may be because they have enough abilities to play around with, but the numbers they need to do anything aren’t often higher than 20 yet. At level one they don’t have the gadgets to play with, but at level ten in order to hit the guy or pick the lock you kind of need at least a +10 on average, meaning an untrained person with just a +2 can’t do it. Sure, that means no one gets to steal the rogue’s thunder and pick the lock instead, but it also means no one can do anything except their one or two things they’ve focused on.
Fragged is one of those games that tends to keep the numbers mostly the same. In Pathfinder a level up means about ten or more numbers tick up by a few points, and you get abilities that tick very specific ones up by even more. Fragged says you get to choose a feat basically, and that determines what ticks up, meaning leveling happens much slower, but since the numbers are kept so low across the board it still feels awesome when you get that ability that lets you do thing x, and gives you a +1 to two skills.
You can also be rewarded with “resources”, “spare time”, “research”, “trade goods” and “influence”, which give you options and numbers going up, and essentially replace money, but the GM usually directly controls these. There’s even a helpful chart in the book that lets GMs know how much of each reward type to give based on genre like space opera, horror, scifantasy, etc.
I dig the abstraction. I imagine that encourages players to come up with narrative explanations for their level-ups.
The abstraction works very well. For ecample in their sci-fi setting, Fragged Empire, “wealth” is actually a skill. After all, it doesn’t matter how many credits you have, but what your credit line looks like. Can you keep up with stocks? How are you at navigating exchange rates between systems? Can you even get the locals to accept your credit, or whatever you can buy with it?
It makes a lot more sense to me than “oh, everyone in all systems accept the same basic form of credit with no exchange rates, inflation, or other complications. Rather than go deeper to simulate those complexities, they went a bit more abstract, and it really works for that setting.
I take particular umbrage at the six feats that are essentially required to be a competent archer. In particular, I feel the AoO penalties (cannot take AoO’s, trigger AoO’s from enemies in melee range with you) are particularly severe given the high liklihood of your already much lower AC.
Especially due to the existence of the five bajillion melee combat feats. Further, stat and feat distributions punish the switch hitter build too.
I have an idea for a Synthesist Summoner archer build, but the more I’m looking at it, the more I find myself wondering if I should just focus on combat maneuvers and exploits, which is too bad.
I don’t dislike switch hitting. But you have to admit, Pathfinder straight up punishes players for doing it. At least in 5e, you can just swap weapons and move on with things.
Naw. You just have to go for the right build. That’s what I was referencing with Treatmonk:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OI2lQ_FPUpnXD4i3sBLgzvgyOV9l43gKL0JM83co7iI/edit
If anything, Treantmonk’s guide is an illustration of my point. ;p
If we are talking about specifically building rangers to be good at switch hitting, that’s fine as it turns out. Barbarians are pretty good at this as well.
But what about all those other characters that could find switch hitting useful? For instance, this is a frustrating build with Rogue, but Rogue is one of the classes where it’s probably the most natural fit conceptually. This also leads us down that path of ‘what do you mean I can’t Sneak Attack at range?’ Many bodies lie down this trail.
My first Pathfinder character was a goblin rogue in a pirate game. Dude had a brace of pistols and a custom feat. My GM allowed something we termed “ranged flanking.” If I was directly opposite an ally, sneak attack would work.
I always wondered why that wasn’t an option. Seemed to work well for us without being crazy-OP.
I’ve tossed an NPC Abyssal Bloodrager Archer at a group before. She’d enlarge herself with Rage and that Longbow suddenly becomes 2d6 and she’s shooting sharpened tentpoles at them as they’re trying to get out the way and if they got close…well…uh…she pulls a melee weapon and smashes them flat.
I can confirm this. I have a Celestial Bloodrager, same idea.
The thing is… that character doesn’t have to be ‘good’ at being an Archer. Full BAB, likely to have at least fair Dex, and you can easily throw a feat or two at Archery if you want. That character will still tear everything apart.
I have a friend who made a trench fighter – well – fighter. Did you know there’s a fighting style called Empty Quiver style that lets you beat someone over the head with your ranged weapon and treat it like a heavy/light mace AND let you use your feats that modified your ranged attack and damage rolls when making these attacks? He did more damage using his gun as a bludgeoning weapon than he did at range. It was horrifying.
As for myself, depends on the character. I have a gun spellslinger that can dimension door away from problem, and I have a Gun Tank planned that wants you to get close so they shove a one handed shotgun in your face and pull the trigger while they hide behind a tower shield. I think in general I prefer the “when all you have is a hammer” approach.
My Musket Master/Hunter technically has a club as a backup to her musket but it’s pretty much unnecessary. She and her large-sized ape companion both have the escape route feat https://aonprd.com/FeatDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Escape%20Route . As long as Jane is close to the ape she has a nice 20 foot by 20 foot area that she can move through without provoking attacks of opportunity, giving her the opportunity to fire her musket safely.
I often suggest to my players to at least have a Ranged option, for when charging into melee is not viable or possible. My players, being players, often ignore me. So que the beginning of our recent Reign of Winter campaign, which pits the players against flying enemies at a frankly shamefully low level. The rabid frustration as the Paladin with a greatsword is completely helpless beside the Warpriest with no ranged options. Worse, I had to cheese the monsters to not have them just ignore the fighters and pepper the ranged back row with arrows. For multiple reasons, my players opted not to continue that module after the first couple of encounters, but I personally believe the frustration in those early encounters was a large part of it.
For anyone actually playing Reign of Winter: Seriously, bring your A game. That module does not play. I think there are two CR 1 encounters in the entire book.
My go-to strategy has always been to use the bow as an improvised melee weapon. Ideally, it will be dual-wielded, held in my offhand while my main hand holds my actual back-up weapon (in 4E this works particularly well, since the Ranger at-will power Twin Strike works with both bows and dual-wielding) so switching back to ranged is a simple as a free action to drop the melee weapon.
Much like my wizards, my archers will generally try to (in order):
Remain safely behind beefier party members
Retreat behind beefier party members
Escape whatever killed beefier party members
Now, another question is: What do melee characters do with problems too far to punch? Ideally they carry some javelins or a shortbow or something, of course, but not everyone bothers.
Have I ever told you the story of the Shadowrun troll who kept rejecting guns, even when they were being offered for free, until he had to resort to throwing the psychotic vengeful dwarf? (Of course he was played by Galaxy-Brain the party idiot.)
Bad enough to be caught in D&D without a ranged option (common for GB), worse when all of your enemies have guns.
I’ll never understand the PCs that don’t put “throwing axe” on their sheet. It takes minimal effort to have a semi-viable ranged option.
My archer rides on a winged Tyrant Lizard. It isn’t all that easy to get up and personal with her in combat. 🙂
I hold perfectly still! I hear that archers’ eyesight is based on movement.
It took me the longest time in 5e to realize that cantrips (and spells in general) with saving throws instead of ranged attack rolls do NOT have any disadvantage for use in melee. The Forge Cleric/War Mage is built around that, leaning heavily on Toll the Dead as the goto alternative to trying to leverage an attack roll with no Str OR Dex.