Marksmanship in Melee

for me double shot is a little broken over here, as I'm also more familiar to DnD xD can't see why exactly fighter must split his dices using divided attack (let's say it's ok though) and archer doesn't have to do anything than take -1D and just attack two guys- doesn't seem like timing for me, and not sure is it easier to hit something twice with arrow or with sword xD and i don't think that there is quality/benefit for melee fighters like this... that's just my thought

and according to DnD, opportunity attacks vs long ranged attacks in melee come to mind automatically- put Your hand to quiver, pull out arrow, put it on string, lift up bow, shot... and yes, fighter 1 yard from You is just looking at what the hell are you doing, without difference do you want to shoot once or twice bow is for sticking up 1 or 2 arrows in someone's butt before he will get to you- with double shot we are speaking about 2 or 4 arrows, not to fight in melee distance. keep tactical position behind or change to melee- that's what my mind says to me so for me bigger penalties=better, as I really can't imagine the situation in practice.

p.s. for me even moving further than 1 yard from someone should cause opportunity attack like in DnD  it limits and balances run and shot element in mentioned system

and with XP spent already? They wanted to be archers, so let's let them- but never heard about archers, who were shooting arrows in the middle of battle and got alive from that

Also, English Longbowmen used to carry mallets into battle, and those are nasty things in the hands of someone with the strength to properly use their longbows.

Hey everyone! I'm the player who brought this up with the narrator after following Tanis' awesome fight with the bandits. I didn't want to start a thread about it without consulting him first, because I believe that if the narrator has no problem with the rules, then it's not my place to start a general debate about it. "Fortunately", he agreed that there were issues concerning archery in melee. Here are my arguments why the rules need to be adjusted.

The balance argument
For the record, I normally despise balance arguments. In this case, however, I do feel that the imbalance between Marksmanship/bows (principally) and Fighting/melee weapons is so blatant that it needs to be adressed.

Example
Player 1 builds an archer. He buys Marksmanship 5 (Bows 1B) and Agility 4 for damage purposes (incidentally gaining a better initiative roll), and invests in a longbow. He can now engage any target up to 100 yards away with no penalties. Each hit will do 6 damage/DoS and also benefits from Piercing 1. The RAW doesn't appear to prohibit firing his bow while engaged in melee, so he will roll the same dice to hit and do the same damage to hit even when adjacent to an enemy trying to gut him with a sword.

Player 2 builds a melee combatant. He buys Fighting 5 (Long Blades 1B) and Athletics 4 for damage purposes. He doesn't want to dump his CD completely, so he will use a shield and a one-handed weapon. He chooses a longsword because it has good base damage without requiring any extra investment in the Strength specialization (which would be needed for a Powerful weapon) or fancy benefits. Each hit he does will do 5 damage/DoS and he cannot engage an enemy he isn't adjacent to. If he wants to affect an opponent at range, he still has to invest in Marksmanship.

So, for the same amount of investment, the archer gains the ability to kill at any range up to 100 yards away, he gains superior damage and the benefit of Piercing 1. And once in melee combat, he will still hit as often as the melee combatant, while continuing to benefit from superior damage and Piercing 1.

Once you add in benefits, things just get sillier. Double Shot requires Marksmanship 5 (Bows 3B) and allows the archer to gain 2 attacks/round at no cost but a Greater Action. No melee combatant can equal this without spending DP or having the Berserker benefit or Braavosi Fighter III, which requires Fighting 6 (Fencing 3B) and both the prior Braavosi Fighter benefits.

It's simply no contest - Marksmanship with bows (and crossbows once you buy Deft Hands) is wholly superior to Fighting if it can be used with no penalties in melee combat. Since an archer can wear heavy armor as well as the next man, there's also no argument to be made that the melee combatant will be better at absorbing damage.

The verisimilitude argument
GRRM's books describe a fantastic world, but one in which the protagonists are still fairly ordinary humans. His descriptions of fighting in Westeros also hew quite closely to a fairly "realistic" medieval model of warfare. SIFRP is intended to model this world as closely as possible.

I am not aware of any historical accounts where archers are described as standing their ground in battle, continuing to draw and fire arrows even when enemy infantry or cavalry are attacking with hand-to-hand weapons. AFAIK, archers either retreated from enemy melee troops, or they drew melee weapons themselves to fight back. This includes the famous English longbowmen and their victories in France.

I am also not aware of GRRM ever describing archers firing their weapons in melee combat. There are spectacular archers, such as Anguy the Archer, Jalabhar Xho and Balon Swann, but none of them do anything except fire their bows at range. In fact, I seem to recall the Jaime Lannister makes the point to Brienne that you should always charge archers to take away their advantage (or something to that effect).

So, allowing Marksmanship to substitute for Fighting in melee combat completely breaks my sense of verisimilitude, both in terms of "realism" and in emulating GRRM's books.

My solution
I believe that adding a modifier for using a ranged weapon in melee combat isn't enough. The imbalance between Marksmanship and Fighting is just too great. My solution would be as follows:

Whenever you are engaged in melee, i.e. being attacked by an opponent with a Fighting weapon, you cannot use a ranged weapon and you cannot use Marksmanship to hit. If you want to fight back using just your bow, it will be an improvised weapon and you would roll to hit with Fighting.

I do not see this as penalizing an archer in any way - it just makes it necessary for him to make the same investments as a melee-focused character if he wants to be good at both forms of combat. This solution is also easy to remember - Fighting for melee, Marksmanship when outside of melee. If your character is desperate not to lose the advantages of his Marksmanship/bow combo, there's also an easy solution to that - use a Lesser Action to step outside your opponent's melee reach, and you're free to use your bow as normal again.

There's rules for attacking weapons aye, we're using that.
Grabbing a weapon? Well there is disarm, which happens be fighting vs passive fighting. Then you can pick up the bow. Or snatch it with your free hand if you have fighting 4.
Grabbing the character, yes, fighting(weapon with grab, like your hand)against passive athletics, and he must beat you with a fighting test to get out. Now, I must confessed I didn't read Tanis' adventure, he'd probably get neutralized if his opponents did that.

Like I told the Narrator, I don't have a problem with taking a look at this and I'm ok with the -1D to tests while in melee but I don't much care for the other rule changes. There are plenty of ways to stick it to an archer in melee. Like it's been said, with a low fighting it's much easier to disarm me or even maneuver me for another -1D.

I know double shot can be a bit much but so too can Acrobatic Defense or the ability to do 11 damage with a one handed great sword that you can swing every time you take an injury. I'm ok with reigning in I just don't want to be punished for playing the character I built using the rulebook.

No, I would likely do that anyway. But if you want realism, there is no parity between melee and ranged. Archers are deadly and hated for a reason by knights in history.

Also I don't much care to not be able to shoot at all if engaged. I'd rather take the -1D. And I'd rather someone use the rules against me and break my bow than have the rules changed against me. I don't expect I'll really have to buy a lot of bows anyway since I don't expect to survive if another player is that intent on killing me in melee.

Historic note, a single warrior against a single archer -> warrior wins (almost) every time. Archers were mostly deadly in war because they could volley fire into densely packed foot soldier formations Aim wasn't very important as you were hitting a target larger than the broad side of a barn. Archers were not the ultimate decider of most battles, barring movement restricting terrain features (like the muddy fields of Agincourt). They softened up your opponent's foot soldiers (typically not heavily armored) so your knights could more safely make a dashing charge to steal the glory.