I'm GMing for a group where everyone (including myself) is entirely new to Pathfinder. We had our session 0 recently followed by a quick practice combat. The thing I noticed from that, plus a little theory crafting of building a low level character myself, is that people using ranged combat felt very underwhelming compared to melee weapon users.
- They couldn't add any modifier to damage
- They had far fewer feats upgrading them (particularly compared to dual wielders)
- They had fewer "third action" options
- Less ability to help out allies with things like flanking
- Can't opportunity attack
Sure, for all that they have the advantage of being safer from getting damaged. But it didn't really feel like a worthwhile trade-off. Does this get better as you level up? Is it just something caused by inexperience? What options can/should you take to make ranged combat feel more interesting and valuable?
For context, my party had a rogue and a ranged fighter as ranged users, as well as a barbarian and a magus in melee, and a druid and sorcerer as casters.
I think for the rogue in particular they would be a good option as long as they have ways of triggering sneak attack like hiding behind cover. As a rogue a lot of your effectiveness comes from how you hit the enemy, not what you hit them with.
Doesn't it take a lot of actions to do that though?
Like, Stride to move behind cover, then Hide to actually become hidden. Then on your next turn, Stride to come out from behind cover, Strike, then Stride to get back behind cover.
Or can you attack around a corner without needing to move out of your square?
Combat is not still, depending on the rest of combat, someone may move into your line of fire.
But it does in general take a lot of actions to set up a fire-from-hidden situation.
Or get a wizard to upcast invisibility to let you stay invisible while sniping. :)
Yeah. I'm GMing some new players and I have a hard time getting my rogue to realize that there are a good number of ways to get a target flat-footed and deal sneak attack damage. I'm giving him as many suggestions as possible but it's not clicking for him yet.
I don't think they are worse, they just do less damage. A lot of the value of ranged combat depends on the map layout, if there are places to take cover, choke points, difficult terrain. And also it requires coordination with the rest of the party to be very effective, if everyone grabs a ranged weapon they can shot at enemies while they get close, then switch to melee when they are in reach.
Ranged characters work better for party comps with good CC. Being able to put a full-sized Entangle between the party and a dangerous enemy kicks ass, unless your party members all start scrambling through the weeds to thwack enemies with big sticks.
