A game where 2 characters are part of a bandit group. The ranking brass in this group are a cleric, a ranger, a fighter, and 2 warlocks. By seeding some of the local towns on either side of a "hidden" mountain path, they are able to use a small valley as a place to mug travelers/merchants crossing between the boarders. Since the goal is money, they do offer the chance for those they rob to simply lay down their goods and flee. Should they take the group up on the offer, they will be let through without issue (sans their cargo), but if it turns to blood shed it helps a lot to have allies who can pepper the area from extreme long range. Even those who are prone to fighting, tend to turn tail when they can see that the enemy has them out gunned and vastly out ranged.
Most encounters will not abuse range to this degree, since it's rather dull. I assume this will be less a regular occurrence and more of a curve ball, worst case it provides the possibility of a villain group the party has to be warry of.
Well yes but in a moderately dense forest, it can be that short.
I wouldn't call that moderately dense, I would call that very dense (the forests I'm familiar with generally clear out most undergrowth except where there's gaps in the canopy allowing bushes or new growth trees). There's no question I can define encounter situations where visibility is short (dense high bushes, reeds, high brambles, etc), but they're far more the exception than the rule, particularly since you aren't going to willingly travel through them.
Keep in mind that in true wilderness, the forests are not managed, so no cleared out underbrush, no forested areas with replanting. No modern population levels of campers or settlements raising forest fire risks.
Forested areas with replanting generally have more undergrowth than old growth, because old growth canopies suppress undergrowth.
Forested areas not managed by people also have natural, seasonal fires that nobody puts out, and they forests have evolved for those fires to be part of their natural ecosystems. In fact, many plants rely on those fires for their reproductive cycles. Those fires clear out some of the old growth and allow new growth (which is greener and more fire resistant for a period of time), and that helps diversify the ecosystem and prevent unnatural, unhealthy monocultures. (People need to move the heck out of those areas and let the fires happen as Mother Nature intends.)
A game where 2 characters are part of a bandit group. The ranking brass in this group are a cleric, a ranger, a fighter, and 2 warlocks. By seeding some of the local towns on either side of a "hidden" mountain path, they are able to use a small valley as a place to mug travelers/merchants crossing between the boarders. Since the goal is money, they do offer the chance for those they rob to simply lay down their goods and flee. Should they take the group up on the offer, they will be let through without issue (sans their cargo), but if it turns to blood shed it helps a lot to have allies who can pepper the area from extreme long range. Even those who are prone to fighting, tend to turn tail when they can see that the enemy has them out gunned and vastly out ranged.
Most encounters will not abuse range to this degree, since it's rather dull. I assume this will be less a regular occurrence and more of a curve ball, worst case it provides the possibility of a villain group the party has to be warry of.
So ... travelers are regularly ambushed at long range but if they give up their goods they can proceed.
How dumb are your PCs and NPCs?
After the first group gets through "We were ambushed by some warlocks shooting eldritch blast from 600' away - couldn't do anything". Everyone else says "Well your caravan has guards right? Why didn't you hire yourself a few good bowmen as guards as well?"
So the next caravan through hires four mercenary bowmen with sharpshooter. They hit the ambush point. Four 5th level battlemaster fighters with sharpshooter open up on the warlock at 600' - after the warlocks are dead - the caravan calls on the bandits to surrender.
Hiring effective guards will be the first reaction for merchants being preyed upon by bandits using a known tactic at a known location. If their goods are valuable enough then they will protect them. Caravans don't exist to enrich bandits.
If the bandits become that much of a problem (i.e. more than 10% of the trade being interupted) then the merchants band together into larger caravans to pool the costs of hiring effective guards (some of whom could even be warlocks too).
Finally, if they are still a problem, then the local towns will hire an effective and overwhelming force to kill as many bandits as possible and force them out of the area.
These are some of the likely logical consequences for a group setting up as bandits attacking from long range. If the player actions don't have reasonable consequences then the DM has a bit more work to do.
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As for range, if the party chooses the site of the engagement then they can likely choose someplace without much cover and some 600' sight lines. However, at 600', the curve of the hill/slope, rocks, bushes, trees and even the caravan wagons will all be able to provide cover - though against spell sniper or sharpshooter, only total cover will work.
On the other hand, for most normal encounters that are not staged as an ambush, the effective range of visibility would be much smaller. The only place I have lived that had really long sight lines was the prairies. However, even there, wheat fields, grasses, bushes and the occasional copse of trees would usually provide tons of cover and limited visibility against folks taking advantage of the available cover.
I get it....you have players that invested in a feat so that they can do long range blasting and you don't want to always hard counter their stuff or that in itself becomes dull.
Its a balancing game that is hard for DMs....you want your players to feel powerful yet vulnerable enough that they feel challenged. It takes time to work out and I would suggest mixing encounters that have significant challenges for them (heavy cover/high movement enemies) and ones that don't (fish a barrel style shoot outs) so that they get both experiences.
I get it....you have players that invested in a feat so that they can do long range blasting and you don't want to always hard counter their stuff or that in itself becomes dull.
Reality is: sharpshooter is a good enough feat that you could simply delete the bonus to long ranged fire and it would still be good.
I get it....you have players that invested in a feat so that they can do long range blasting and you don't want to always hard counter their stuff or that in itself becomes dull.
Reality is: sharpshooter is a good enough feat that you could simply delete the bonus to long ranged fire and it would still be good.
I was assuming it was the 2 warlocks with spell sniper but you are probably right its SharpyShooter
Killing things that have no chance to hurt you - no. If you want exp for killing the sharks in the pool, you can't stand outside the pool and cantrip them to death.
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"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
A game where 2 characters are part of a bandit group. The ranking brass in this group are a cleric, a ranger, a fighter, and 2 warlocks. By seeding some of the local towns on either side of a "hidden" mountain path, they are able to use a small valley as a place to mug travelers/merchants crossing between the boarders. Since the goal is money, they do offer the chance for those they rob to simply lay down their goods and flee. Should they take the group up on the offer, they will be let through without issue (sans their cargo), but if it turns to blood shed it helps a lot to have allies who can pepper the area from extreme long range. Even those who are prone to fighting, tend to turn tail when they can see that the enemy has them out gunned and vastly out ranged.
Most encounters will not abuse range to this degree, since it's rather dull. I assume this will be less a regular occurrence and more of a curve ball, worst case it provides the possibility of a villain group the party has to be warry of.
I wouldn't even play out these combats since they don't really sound like fights they could lose. You just narrate the results of the next few robberies and then you have the combat where the hired mercenaries sneak up behind the artillery and attacks.
These features are only as good as you let them be. I wouldn't suggest entirely shutting them down, but you can give them benefits without requiring the other players to stare into space as the warlock is shooting fish in a barrel. Fights without any tension can be narrated in 3 seconds and then you move on with the story.
Bear in mind that without a Twilight Cleric on tap, the caravans can just take the pass at night (using guards with darkvision) and avoid extreme ranged fire. Warlocks can reliably engage at 120 feet, but that's still much easier to deal with than 600 feet. If they have access to common magic items, then they have access to owl familiars, so 120 foot engagements shut down attacking with anonymity. As is typical with 5E combat, the single most challenging prospect for a merchant caravan is keeping the draft animals alive.
i think i see the issue, there has been a level of miscommunication. It's not my players who are setting up these ambushes, it's a group of NPCs. It would be my players who stumble upon them, and have to figure out if they want to fight this encounter while vastly out ranged/run away/ or burn some of their more powerful spells at the get go to help close the distance. With enough planning, even a group (4-7) of generic bandits using generic tools could easily destroy a party of level 5-6 characters. So this got me thinking, what could a group of level 5-7 NPCs manage? There are a lot of BS things the classes can do, but most people never use any of those skills/spells because there are "better" options.
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A game where 2 characters are part of a bandit group. The ranking brass in this group are a cleric, a ranger, a fighter, and 2 warlocks. By seeding some of the local towns on either side of a "hidden" mountain path, they are able to use a small valley as a place to mug travelers/merchants crossing between the boarders. Since the goal is money, they do offer the chance for those they rob to simply lay down their goods and flee. Should they take the group up on the offer, they will be let through without issue (sans their cargo), but if it turns to blood shed it helps a lot to have allies who can pepper the area from extreme long range. Even those who are prone to fighting, tend to turn tail when they can see that the enemy has them out gunned and vastly out ranged.
Most encounters will not abuse range to this degree, since it's rather dull. I assume this will be less a regular occurrence and more of a curve ball, worst case it provides the possibility of a villain group the party has to be warry of.
I wouldn't call that moderately dense, I would call that very dense (the forests I'm familiar with generally clear out most undergrowth except where there's gaps in the canopy allowing bushes or new growth trees). There's no question I can define encounter situations where visibility is short (dense high bushes, reeds, high brambles, etc), but they're far more the exception than the rule, particularly since you aren't going to willingly travel through them.
I left this out of the table, since the discussion was on long range fighting and vision ranges, but it seems somewhat relevant now.
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Forested areas with replanting generally have more undergrowth than old growth, because old growth canopies suppress undergrowth.
Forested areas not managed by people also have natural, seasonal fires that nobody puts out, and they forests have evolved for those fires to be part of their natural ecosystems. In fact, many plants rely on those fires for their reproductive cycles. Those fires clear out some of the old growth and allow new growth (which is greener and more fire resistant for a period of time), and that helps diversify the ecosystem and prevent unnatural, unhealthy monocultures. (People need to move the heck out of those areas and let the fires happen as Mother Nature intends.)
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So ... travelers are regularly ambushed at long range but if they give up their goods they can proceed.
How dumb are your PCs and NPCs?
After the first group gets through "We were ambushed by some warlocks shooting eldritch blast from 600' away - couldn't do anything". Everyone else says "Well your caravan has guards right? Why didn't you hire yourself a few good bowmen as guards as well?"
So the next caravan through hires four mercenary bowmen with sharpshooter. They hit the ambush point. Four 5th level battlemaster fighters with sharpshooter open up on the warlock at 600' - after the warlocks are dead - the caravan calls on the bandits to surrender.
Hiring effective guards will be the first reaction for merchants being preyed upon by bandits using a known tactic at a known location. If their goods are valuable enough then they will protect them. Caravans don't exist to enrich bandits.
If the bandits become that much of a problem (i.e. more than 10% of the trade being interupted) then the merchants band together into larger caravans to pool the costs of hiring effective guards (some of whom could even be warlocks too).
Finally, if they are still a problem, then the local towns will hire an effective and overwhelming force to kill as many bandits as possible and force them out of the area.
These are some of the likely logical consequences for a group setting up as bandits attacking from long range. If the player actions don't have reasonable consequences then the DM has a bit more work to do.
-----
As for range, if the party chooses the site of the engagement then they can likely choose someplace without much cover and some 600' sight lines. However, at 600', the curve of the hill/slope, rocks, bushes, trees and even the caravan wagons will all be able to provide cover - though against spell sniper or sharpshooter, only total cover will work.
On the other hand, for most normal encounters that are not staged as an ambush, the effective range of visibility would be much smaller. The only place I have lived that had really long sight lines was the prairies. However, even there, wheat fields, grasses, bushes and the occasional copse of trees would usually provide tons of cover and limited visibility against folks taking advantage of the available cover.
I get it....you have players that invested in a feat so that they can do long range blasting and you don't want to always hard counter their stuff or that in itself becomes dull.
Its a balancing game that is hard for DMs....you want your players to feel powerful yet vulnerable enough that they feel challenged. It takes time to work out and I would suggest mixing encounters that have significant challenges for them (heavy cover/high movement enemies) and ones that don't (fish a barrel style shoot outs) so that they get both experiences.
Reality is: sharpshooter is a good enough feat that you could simply delete the bonus to long ranged fire and it would still be good.
I was assuming it was the 2 warlocks with spell sniper but you are probably right its SharpyShooter
Fish in a barrel fights garner no exp in my game.
Clever sneak - yes
Good thinking/strategy - yes
Killing things that have no chance to hurt you - no. If you want exp for killing the sharks in the pool, you can't stand outside the pool and cantrip them to death.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
I wouldn't even play out these combats since they don't really sound like fights they could lose. You just narrate the results of the next few robberies and then you have the combat where the hired mercenaries sneak up behind the artillery and attacks.
These features are only as good as you let them be. I wouldn't suggest entirely shutting them down, but you can give them benefits without requiring the other players to stare into space as the warlock is shooting fish in a barrel. Fights without any tension can be narrated in 3 seconds and then you move on with the story.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
Bear in mind that without a Twilight Cleric on tap, the caravans can just take the pass at night (using guards with darkvision) and avoid extreme ranged fire. Warlocks can reliably engage at 120 feet, but that's still much easier to deal with than 600 feet. If they have access to common magic items, then they have access to owl familiars, so 120 foot engagements shut down attacking with anonymity. As is typical with 5E combat, the single most challenging prospect for a merchant caravan is keeping the draft animals alive.
i think i see the issue, there has been a level of miscommunication. It's not my players who are setting up these ambushes, it's a group of NPCs. It would be my players who stumble upon them, and have to figure out if they want to fight this encounter while vastly out ranged/run away/ or burn some of their more powerful spells at the get go to help close the distance. With enough planning, even a group (4-7) of generic bandits using generic tools could easily destroy a party of level 5-6 characters. So this got me thinking, what could a group of level 5-7 NPCs manage? There are a lot of BS things the classes can do, but most people never use any of those skills/spells because there are "better" options.