While that is correct, it’s not like your allies are indestructible cover, so I’d say it’s fair. But I don’t really have to tell you I guess.
So when he realised that your last build would have been more balanced then the current one, he just decided to do what he could have done from the start by adding more enemies?
I wasn’t always hiding behind allies, but I was always hiding unless there was zero cover or concealment. If that was the case I just ran to max range which was also fairly effective at keeping my character from taking damage while still giving the enemy trouble. At lower levels most enemies are using weapon attacks or spell attacks that require a target you can see, and are in range, and I did my part to not be a valid target. My DM tried adding more enemies, switching their weapons, and a few other tactics which made fights harder on pretty much everyone except me. It became clear that all this wouldn’t impact how I decided to play a ranged rogue. There was an additional issue too …
The previously mentioned sacrificed elven ranged weapon was one my DM had homebrewed to be able to scale with our power level. He had designed the weapon in such a way that it could gain new abilities if we had a component from a slain monster and were able to figure out the trick. He had me roll Arcana to determine if a given monster had a component, and I passed on a vampire we defeated. On a hunch I was able to touch the fangs of the slain vamp to the weapon and spoke the elven word for “vampire” which I was told by another party member. This unlocked an ability that allowed the ranged attacks to do +10 damage on a crit and heal my character for the damage dealt on the strike. With Uncanny Dodge I was able to minimize incoming damage and then heal myself on a big crit for pretty much whatever slipped through.
Other party members had mentioned how powerful they saw my common turn of ranged attack with advantage, move, hide as bonus, and the weapon was just making it that much more apparent. I agreed that this was a balance issue, and we started talking about ways to mitigate it. We decided this would probably involve getting rid of this awesome ranged weapon. I said if he wanted me to appear to have more at risk he needed to give some incentives for me to get into melee combat.
I already had Booming Blade as a cantrip from Arcane Trickster so I was looking at picking up Green Flame Blade as well as a way to generate consistent advantage outside of Flanking such as Find Familiar. I pitched the idea of the DM allowing non elven Bladesingers (now allowed by default) and he countered by saying I could just play an elf. I said if we could find a way to keep my current character (for the narrative) and have him become an elf then I would be on board. The rest was just DM hand waving to make it happen at the expense of my ranged weapon, but it played out very well at the table. He allowed me to make my new race the Shadow marked elf subrace as acknowledgement that the vampiric weapon was the catalyst.
While that is correct, it’s not like your allies are indestructible cover, so I’d say it’s fair. But I don’t really have to tell you I guess.
So when he realised that your last build would have been more balanced then the current one, he just decided to do what he could have done from the start by adding more enemies?
I wasn’t always hiding behind allies, but I was always hiding unless there was zero cover or concealment. If that was the case I just ran to max range which was also fairly effective at keeping my character from taking damage while still giving the enemy trouble. At lower levels most enemies are using weapon attacks or spell attacks that require a target you can see, and are in range, and I did my part to not be a valid target. My DM tried adding more enemies, switching their weapons, and a few other tactics which made fights harder on pretty much everyone except me. It became clear that all this wouldn’t impact how I decided to play a ranged rogue. There was an additional issue too …
The previously mentioned sacrificed elven ranged weapon was one my DM had homebrewed to be able to scale with our power level. He had designed the weapon in such a way that it could gain new abilities if we had a component from a slain monster and were able to figure out the trick. He had me roll Arcana to determine if a given monster had a component, and I passed on a vampire we defeated. On a hunch I was able to touch the fangs of the slain vamp to the weapon and spoke the elven word for “vampire” which I was told by another party member. This unlocked an ability that allowed the ranged attacks to do +10 damage on a crit and heal my character for the damage dealt on the strike. With Uncanny Dodge I was able to minimize incoming damage and then heal myself on a big crit for pretty much whatever slipped through.
Other party members had mentioned how powerful they saw my common turn of ranged attack with advantage, move, hide as bonus, and the weapon was just making it that much more apparent. I agreed that this was a balance issue, and we started talking about ways to mitigate it. We decided this would probably involve getting rid of this awesome ranged weapon. I said if he wanted me to appear to have more at risk he needed to give some incentives for me to get into melee combat.
I already had Booming Blade as a cantrip from Arcane Trickster so I was looking at picking up Green Flame Blade as well as a way to generate consistent advantage outside of Flanking such as Find Familiar. I pitched the idea of the DM allowing non elven Bladesingers (now allowed by default) and he countered by saying I could just play an elf. I said if we could find a way to keep my current character (for the narrative) and have him become an elf then I would be on board. The rest was just DM hand waving to make it happen at the expense of my ranged weapon, but it played out very well at the table. He allowed me to make my new race the Shadow marked elf subrace as acknowledgement that the vampiric weapon was the catalyst.
Sounds like the real problem was not your strategy but the fact that this weapon was very much not scaling with you powerlevel and really unbalanced.