Attacks of opportunity, or just the threat of them

[Anaraxes]

split the party by a hundred yards or so

One Move, or about ten yards is sufficient given that we're talking about imitating a D&D AoO, which is just one extra attack. Attacker runs by the tank, tank drops back and takes his "AoO".

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

I disagree with sticking the long-ranged types way behind the lines. In a pitched battle, sure, your missile units don't have to be right next to your melee troops (though they might be pretty close sometimes to maximize range beyond the front...massed archers don't do close fire support very well). But in an adventuring party, what do you gain? Your 'tank' holds up the enemy for the handful of seconds it takes to resolve melee combat, while your 'sniper' takes a couple of long-odds shots. Meanwhile, you've split the party by a hundred yards or so, meaning that nobody can possibly help the archer if he ends up in trouble during the process.

Putting the archer way off in the distance probably makes the archer more likely to survive the fight, but it doesn't make you more likely to win, or to come out with no casualties, unless they're so weak, soft, and tempting to the enemy that their presence in the fray actually makes your group weaker due to the need to protect them.

First, I wouldn't go with a hundred yards. No more than 50 (even 10-20 yards is 2-4 turns of full Movement to reach the guy, with average Move, and the penalties aren't too bad on the shots). The point is, the only person who should be standing so close to the "tank" that someone can Step past and Attack is a spearman, not an archer.

And I don't see how a 10-20 yard separation makes an archer so vulnerable. If he's a sniper, he should have a sniper skill set, including skills the like camouflage, climbing and stealth. Optionally, you can be a Heroic Archer and some high Move and start to kite your opponents. Finally, you can mix your characters archery skills with some decent melee skills and some decent armor (say, leather), becoming a light infantryman as well as an archer, which is what most soldiers did (as I understand it).

A sniper grants you reach. It might not kill the guys around the tank any quicker, but we've already established that the "tank" can take care of himself, thank you very much. The purpose of the sniper isn't to "deal damage to people while the tank soaks their aggro," it's to pick out specialist targets that the tank can't reach, like the commander, the mage, or other snipers. If THEY'RE 10 to 20 yards away, that's a maximum of 20 to 40 yards range, which is quite reasonable for most skilled archers. He can certainly help you win your fight faster.

The core point is that the Holy Trinity is nonsense in GURPS, and that the archer should be alot more than "a guy with a bow." The knight is a good 100-200 points, and the archer should be just as powerful. The knight is on the front lines killing people, not tanking. The archer is behind the front lines, taking his time, making a shot every 3-4 turns, but making those shots count. He's not hitting other tanks, he's hitting soft, high-priority targets that are away from the battlefield. He works more like a real archer would, rather than some MMO abstraction of one.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

Optionally, you can be a Heroic Archer and some high Move and start to kite your opponents.

Heroic archer basically makes a bow an effective melee weapon.

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Heroic archer basically makes a bow an effective melee weapon.

Yeah, but there's no good reason to let him try to hit you when you don't have to. You can hit him while moving away, he can't hit you while you're at a range.