Dean wrote:
I think you and I are saying the same thing I'm just being more derisive about it. I know there are two dozen monsters labeled "Boss Monster" but they're all just fat slabs of hp with axes. Being behind on the action economy is also a thing big bosses in 3.E (Like Dragons, Balors, Nightwalkers, whatever) actually had things to handle. DR allows you to take multiple hits and handle it better, area attacks like dragons breath weapons let you make level appropriate attacks on everyone, radius spells like Blasphemy let you hit a whole party with one action, ..
I don't think we are saying the same thing. Dragon breath and so on is still clearly there. I'll grant you summons, but honestly that comes down to basic encounter design in the first place. The random chance for something from a list that might not even matter or might break the encounter completely was never a good thing.
The big problem is just that boss fights are inherently dull, and dogpiling just works unless you break out area save or die/suck spells, which still isn't
interesting. Blasphemy is just bullshit, not a real solution. DR... rarely mattered, especially as the edition went on. You either brought the golf bag or went for spell-based solutions to ignore it. If it affected you, you probably weren't a weapon-based character.
I did miss the Quadrone but the others I knew and think my point will hold.
I think it's really obvious that things that were known to have presented any problem to Fighters had the elements Fighters couldn't handle removed.
Given that you're ignoring the things that have ranged attacks that aren't bows, I'm not sure your point does hold.
From games of 5e, there are shitloads of things that fighter types can't handle. Fly, movement shenanigans and/or meaningful ranged attacks are still absurdly necessary, and hand axes or other strength based throwing weapons just don't cut it, due to range and ammo restrictions. For most melee types, switching to a bow is pretty pointless, as they're going to be too far off on the hit and damage bonuses.
It's worth skimming some of the Critical Role fights- Grog (the barbarian) and Percy (the pathfinder gunfighter warped into a fighter archetype) are constantly stymied in fights, especially once the party breaks Percy's only magic damage gun. Outside of DM pity (which doesn't happen often for poor Grog: he often gets kited by flyers using hit and run attacks because the rogue has the speed boots (which bizarrely still use PF rules and are broken as fuck as a result), the flying armor
and the teleportation weapon), they're often stuck doing nothing in big fights, largely because the other players snaffled (and hoarded) the good loot and don't bother with spell assistance. (Because the new players are playing the spellcasters and the experienced/clever players are playing beatsticks)
Their new campaign should be interesting to see for character creation, because several members of the group were clearly irritating as fuck at being stymied by the system on a regular basis. What they make in response should be... enlightening. Or stupid...
This state of affairs doesn't even seem to be rare out in the wild. While you get some people with functional system mastery, like Lago's cleric acquaintance, it's incredibly easy for 5e DMs just plow groups into a wall; encounters where they'll crash and burn because they don't have the toolbox to deal with basic shit (let alone the chicanery fucker DMs got up to in older editions).