Never Let Them See Your 5E D&D Mobile Archer Coming

Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted reveal the secrets to challenging various highly specialized and powerful fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons character builds. Like so many RPG players we’ve been brainstorming and theorycrafting character builds for years and years because frankly it’s fun to talk about these things with fellow nerds. In the video Dave and Ted cover five different 5E D&D character build concepts with tips for Dungeon Masters on how to provide adequate challenges for these characters to overcome. But the one left on the planning room floor is the one I’m most interested in exploring so yay for me! Let’s get into what it means to be a long range mobile archer.

Sniping for success in 5E D&D

Many years ago I played D&D in a large group. This was during the third edition era of D&D and the players spent as much or more time pouring through splatbooks to plan out their characters level by level, like you did back then. Everyone carefully constructed their plan for advancement, hashing out precisely how they’d execute the cool combos they dreamed of pulling off during our games.

Then one day a new player joined us for her first foray into D&D or any tabletop roleplaying game for that matter. If I recall correctly we were around 3rd level at the time and she created a ranger focused on archery. While everyone muddled along with our plans for those eventual convergences of amazing feats and class features I noticed just about every time we got into combat this ranger outshined the rest of us. She didn’t have complex series of actions or stacking effects or anything of the sort. Nope, she’d start firing arrows, ducking behind doorways and cover and by the time the rest of the party cast their self-buffing spells and whatnot many of the enemies had already fallen.

Around this same time the computer game Neverwinter Nights came out and I thought I’d apply the same principle for my character in that game, and that’s when I really fell in love with long range martial characters whether it’s D&D or my beloved Commander Shepherd sniper from Mass Effect. Taking out enemies from extreme long range with the only resource expenditure being ammunition is powerful y’all.

Unlike the powerful 5E D&D character builds discussed in the video a mobile archer isn’t necessarily a build that yields overwhelming results. Any character with a ranged weapon can become a very effective combatant. Every character class except druids can at least use a light crossbow with proficiency and many can wield a shortbow no problem either. (Shortbows are the superior simple ranged weapon if you ask me.) With either weapon a character can begin peppering enemies from up to 80 feet away without penalty.

In the intervening years I’ve come to love this approach to combat. If I play a video game with this sort of option I’ll take it every time. There’s no fussy cooldown abilities or mana to manage, no series of effects to stack on an enemy to take them down and not even a battle of attrition pitting your toughness and damage output against opponents in close combat. You don’t have to look further than Elder Scrolls: Skyrim to see how finding a good position, firing a few arrows and moving to another position is absolutely devastating.

This brings up the second part of the what can make a highly mobile archer character so deadly — cover. One of the more memorable D&D characters I’ve played back in the 3.5 days was a catfolk scout. Oh, the damage he dealt. Like a rogue the scout had a special kind of extra damage they dealt called Skirmish and it was way easier to deal than Sneak Attack damage — all you had to do was move 10 feet during your turn. See where I’m going with this? Duck and run, duck and run firing arrows along the way.

In my experience cover is one of the most under utilized features of 5E D&D. Did you know a low wall, tree trunk or even a large piece of furniture provides a +2 bonus to AC with half cover? A thicker tree trunk or something like a portcullis bumps this up to three-quarters cover and a +5 AC. And of course total cover means you cannot even be targeted, generally speaking.

Do unto 5E D&D adventurers as they would do unto thine monsters

“But I thought this was supposed to be tips for Dungeon Masters to challenge powerful characters!”

You’re absolutely right. How to you challenge a character who’s really only employing decent tactics with mundane equipment and their surroundings? In this regard it sort of falls into the same camp as the character builds discussed in the video. In those cases an individual character excels far beyond their companions in a single aspect like AC, skills or damage output. Part of the challenge for a DM is putting those characters’ capabilities to the test without making the disparity with the rest of their party put the others in extreme danger (or simply stepping on everyone else’s toes).

The answer is easier than you think — give your antagonists the same sensibilities. Consider creatures like hobgoblins. These disciplined martial goblinoids know warfare and they’re gonna bring those tactics to bear. A group of four hobgoblins straight out of the Monster Manual presents a Medium difficulty challenge for four 3rd level characters. These hobgoblins don’t have a tremendous amount of hit points (11 on average) with an 18 AC wearing chainmail and carrying a shield. An average shatter can take them all out in one fell sweep. A scorching ray could potentially put three of them at death’s door with 7 average damage per ray.

Now imagine those four hobgoblins take up position against the party from far away, let’s say the maximum standard longbow range of 150 feet. Their AC drops to 16 without a shield but remember what we learned about cover? Our hobgoblin archer squad now boasts 18 or even 21 AC and showers adventurers with a rain of arrows while they try to advance. It’s a long way to go before they’re in shatter range.

On the flip side imagine employing these kinds of long range mobile archer tactics against a party without their own sniper! One of the things I enjoy most about this combat tactic is the simplicity. You can certainly play and build a character as an archer specialist but more importantly a mundane ranged weapon makes a fantastic addition for any character’s equipment list. Even a squishy wizard with a light crossbow can contribute to combat long before their spells might come into play. Out of the 518 official 5E D&D spells only 25% of them have a range more than 60 feet. Take a moment to consider this. Even the longest range cantrips — chill touch, eldritch blast and fire bolt — mean the caster must close some distance first.

Challenging characters or parties with mobile archer types becomes more about discovering new approaches for your monsters and other enemies and antagonists. This can be a really rewarding situation for a DM though too. It gives you a chance to bring all those numbers and traits of a stat block to life in new and interesting ways. Going back to our 3rd level adventuring party and looking at some CR 3 monsters I see there’s excellent opportunities. With Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden out now let’s look closer at the yeti. They’re beefy, they’re dangerous but they’re a close range enemy for the most part. Their only Action at range is Chilling Gaze within 30 feet. How will a yeti even reach the party before it’s full of clothyard shafts and falls dead?

“Snow Camouflage. The yeti has advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks made to hide in snowy terrain.”

A yeti already has Stealth +3 and stalking through their snowy terrain gives them advantage. But the snowy terrain also provides a measure of protection too. Whipping winds and falling snow can easily account for making the yeti lightly obscured at least, which translates to -5 on those passive Perception scores. A truly awful snowstorm might even make the area heavily obscured and effectively make characters blinded. Those quivers full of arrows don’t seem so useful now, do they?

At the end of the day the answers to how to challenge characters are the same whether they’re over powered builds or first time players with characters out of the Basic Rules. Taking into account the surroundings and the creatures goals and strategies, then coupling those with the game mechanics gives a DM all the tools they need.