[DF] Of course...

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by GodBeastX

I tend to use flying enemies sparingly and give a bit of a warning to the PCs before they face one or make them fragile enough where chucking rocks at them is probably enough to take them down.

It's one of the things that can seriously just make being a PC the opposite of fun (See removal of ability's usefulness). You got a sword, and something can fly around freely doing things to you, it'll frustrate you more than challenge you.

That being said, if I ever brought a dragon into play, that's all they'd do is fly around and ignite fire. But dragons deserve to be respected.

I'd note here that every template in DF1 has a ranged attack primary skill, except the thief and wizard who have all their combat skills (including ranged skill) listed as secondary.

Admittedly some have relatively weak options like knife throwing that may not be effective against an armored flier, but none of them will find themselves unable to even take a shot unless they've botched their loadout.

[GodBeastX]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

I'd note here that every template in DF1 has a ranged attack primary skill, except the thief and wizard who have all their combat skills (including ranged skill) listed as secondary.

Admittedly some have relatively weak options like knife throwing that may not be effective against an armored flier, but none of them will find themselves unable to even take a shot unless they've botched their loadout.

I don't run RAW Dungeon Fantasy where character creation is concerned. We all like GURPS because it doesn't have classes, so forcing the idea back onto people has been a step backwards in people's opinions.

I was commenting mostly on the hack & slash concept in general.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by GodBeastX

I don't run RAW Dungeon Fantasy where character creation is concerned. We all like GURPS because it doesn't have classes, so forcing the idea back onto people has been a step backwards in people's opinions.

I was commenting mostly on the hack & slash concept in general.

Whether you use the templates or not, I think having a ranged attack capability should be considered a baseline adventurer-combatant feature. Dedication to melee only may fit some realistic people and plenty of video game characters, but it's rarely justifiable for a tabletop delver.

[GodBeastX]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Whether you use the templates or not, I think having a ranged attack capability should be considered a baseline adventurer-combatant feature. Dedication to melee only may fit some realistic people and plenty of video game characters, but it's rarely justifiable for a tabletop delver.

I'm not the dictor of the game, just the Grand Master :) People take what they want, I warn them, and then we all live with results. Like, this PC who has 10 in their RPM right now XD

[Peter V. Dell'Orto]

Originally Posted by GodBeastX

I tend to use flying enemies sparingly and give a bit of a warning to the PCs before they face one or make them fragile enough where chucking rocks at them is probably enough to take them down.

It's one of the things that can seriously just make being a PC the opposite of fun (See removal of ability's usefulness). You got a sword, and something can fly around freely doing things to you, it'll frustrate you more than challenge you.

Well, yeah, it will - but who made them ditch ranged weapons? If they chose to be melee specialists and you reduce the amount of basically melee-immune foes, you're agreeing that they were right to ditch range weapons.

I have a Scout in my game, and I'm careful to ensure I don't nerf impaling and range all the time, or I may as well tell him to make a new guy. And the people who specialize in melee have to recognize that they have little leverage against flying foes.

Originally Posted by GodBeastX

I'm not the dictor of the game, just the Grand Master :) People take what they want, I warn them, and then we all live with results.

That's totally fine, of course, but I think if you use flying foes sparingly and only when the PCs can fight back effectively, you're basically saying there aren't terribly harsh consequences to skipping ranged attacks.

All of this falls under "House rules to match the specific group" but flying foes are probably a core reason for ranged weapons being on all of the DF templates!

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Peter V. Dell'Orto

[...] flying foes are probably a core reason for ranged weapons being on all of the DF templates!

Yep. In a dungeon, quarters are normally so close that ranged combat is a one- or two-second prelude to a melee clash, at best. Things are actually worse outdoors, where concealment leads to ambushes that occur at a range controlled by the ambusher . . . and most hack 'n' slash ambushers are bitey things, not snipers. Yet ranged combat abilities appear on all the templates. That's because of (1) flying foes, and (distant 2) occasional enemies who shoot from across chasms, atop cliffs, or within bodies of water or acid or lava. Templates or no, it's a fatal tactical error to put together an elite strike team – like a party of delvers – that cannot deal with aerial, aquatic, and insubstantial threats to at least some extent.

[Anthony]

I would note that CRPGs generally either don't implement flight at all, or have vast quantities of ranged damage available, possibly along with abilities that knock people out of the air. You also run into the phenomenon of flight being sort of there, but not actually permitting obvious uses of flight, such as crossing obstacles, simply because CRPGs are often extremely railroady, and flight is very good at letting people get off the rails.

I will note, however, that resource management, while historically a big part of dungeon crawling, is often a rather unpopular part (people aren't at the game to update spreadsheets), and also has a long history of not really working well (it's extremely difficult to push the pace in a way that keeps resources tight but doesn't just starve them out and making success impossible, and often looks highly unnatural and railroad-y).

[Novembermike]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Yep. In a dungeon, quarters are normally so close that ranged combat is a one- or two-second prelude to a melee clash, at best. Things are actually worse outdoors, where concealment leads to ambushes that occur at a range controlled by the ambusher . . . and most hack 'n' slash ambushers are bitey things, not snipers. Yet ranged combat abilities appear on all the templates. That's because of (1) flying foes, and (distant 2) occasional enemies who shoot from across chasms, atop cliffs, or within bodies of water or acid or lava. Templates or no, it's a fatal tactical error to put together an elite strike team – like a party of delvers – that cannot deal with aerial, aquatic, and insubstantial threats to at least some extent.

Also, at the DF points level (and the relatively high DX for most templates) there's a huge benefit to becoming at least competent at using some kind of ranged weapon. Even a single point will ensure that you can throw axes at the people at the bottom of the cliff or set a trap on fire with a flaming arrow.

[mlangsdorf]

A couple of other points that I thought up:

* Give highly varied challenges. Every option on every template should be potentially useful, either to avoid harm or increase reward. Especially as the campaign continues, you want the PCs to be forced to diversify their skills, because the other option is a 300 point Knight with weapon-26, Extra Attack, ST17, and Weapon Master who will destroy just about any foe that melees with him (and that foe will destroy any of the PCs who aren't as heavily optimized for combat). Balancing the game is a little easier if the PCs have spread their points wide because they're all finding Survival, Hidden Lore, and Connoisseur to be useful.
* Mook archers aren't threats if the PCs know about them, they're just harassment. An orc with Bow-13 doing 1d+2 damage with normal arrows will be lucky to hit a PC before getting killed (especially if the PC's scout is doing counterarchery at 6-8 times the effective rate of fire), much less penetrate armor and do significant damage. Deploy 5-10 archers per PC if you want the PCs to sweat at all - or attack from behind.
* Don't be afraid to use monsters with special abilities like Weapon Master, Heroic Archer, or spellcasting. Just make sure they have a reasonable amount of backup - GURPS combat favors the side with the most actions, and 6 PCs against a single bad-ass opponent tends to go towards the PCs in a very swingy way.
* Similarly, it's essential that any NPC that you want to have last more than a single round in combat either have levels of Luck or Destiny (Don't Go Down Like a Chump) if you're using the destiny point rules from Power-Ups 5. Without some source of rerolls, your Big Bad will go down to the first critical hit - which will happen on the first attack roll of the big combat. Again, don't be stingy: give Luck to anyone cool, not just the biggest villain.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

* Similarly, it's essential that any NPC that you want to have last more than a single round in combat either have levels of Luck or Destiny (Don't Go Down Like a Chump).

Eh, not really. You can also just make it tough enough that it can shrug off a couple of hits. However, there's always a peril that you can't make it too tough or it turns into a slog of 'chop your way through a zillion hit points'. Typically, you want a given type of bad guy to last long enough to show off its special tricks, and after that there's a high risk of turning into a slog.

Actually, for DF I'd be tempted by some sort of 'first appearance' rule, where the first time a given type of critter shows up it's pretty potent, and later on it starts to be chaff. Ponder giving a given type of creature a pool of character points (usable for all the normal one-off effects such as buying successes, only a flesh wound, etc) which never refreshes.