[RPG] Is a stout halfling fighter with a shortbow less effective than a Medium creature with a longbow

dnd-5efighteroptimizationranged-attack

I'm building an archer fighter and have been considering making his race that of stout halfling because the halfling race gets +2 DEX and the "stout" subclass gets +1 CON, which seems perfect for an archer fighter.

My only hesitation is that he would have disadvantage when attacking with longbows, because they have the "Heavy" property (PHB p. 147, or here in the basic rules):

Small creatures have disadvantage on attack rolls with heavy weapons. A heavy weapon's size and bulk make it too large for a Small creature to use effectively.

I'm not trying to be stuck on min/maxing, but I want him to be the best he can be in combat. (He's a fighter, after all.)

Is using a stout halfling with a shortbow (1d6) going to be statistically less effective archer-fighter than a medium-sized creature wielding a longbow (1d8)?

I'm wondering if it's a mathematically poor decision to be stuck with a smaller damage die so I can get those good ability scores.

I'm just using the PHB and don't have a DM yet (just doing some play-testing for a campaign I'm writing), so I'm looking for answers that don't include "ask your DM".

Best Answer

1d6 averages to 3.5 damage per hit (not including any additional modifiers).

1d8 averages to 4.5 damage per hit (not including any additional modifiers).

You can get +5 to attack and damage rolls from a maximized Dex score of 20, and +10 to damage (and -5 to attack rolls) from the Sharpshooter feat (PHB p. 170). If you take the feat, the difference between a d8 and d6 is trivial.

With that in mind, why not use a hand crossbow and take the Crossbow Expert feat (PHB p. 165) so that you can get an extra shot off with your bonus action? You might as well, if what you want is high damage output.

To optimize, consider the variant human choice. Starting off with 2 ranged attacks as a lvl 1 variant human fighter is pretty excellent.

  • Two shots from a d6 hand crossbow actually beats the averaged damage of using a d10 heavy crossbow. D10 averages to 5.5, but your Dex bonus alone makes up for the two point difference as it is applied to every shot, and when you've got two shots, there's far less chance of missing with your only attack and doing zero damage.

About optimizing for archery damage

If optimizing for damage, seriously consider choosing the variant human, which allows you to start with a feat. Stats matter, but not nearly as much as feats do. That said, there's nothing wrong with waiting until level 4/6 ASI/feat decisions for your fighter to come online as a sharpshooting crossbow expert. After all, races with darkvision don't suffer the way humans do. And this is a game which involves dungeons!

While this may seem silly, I found a permanent solution to the issue with small creatures having disadvantage to attack when using heavy weapons, and it doesn't require the wish spell: A wild magic sorcerer who rolls an 11-12 on the Wild Surge Table can grow as much as d10 inches permanently on an even roll.