Put a Melee Weapon in the Ranged Weapon Group, as a Sidearm

[Egon the Monkey]

It probably sounds weird, but the Ranged Weapon Group could use a melee weapon in it! The Thrown Weapon Groups have that, so why not Ranged?

If you have WF/Spec/Imp Crit in Axes, Light Blades or Close Quarters, you get all the feat benefits with your ranged weapon. Then you also get them with a backup Handaxe, Dagger or War Fan. That's really good when something is up in your face, and much comfier than being a bow user! Similarly, a Greataxe Executioner Fighter also gets a decent way to knock Warlocks off towers with Thrown Axes.

I don't know if it's possible to have a weapon in 2 groups or not and e.g. add Dagger or Shortsword to Ranged too.

But if it's not, I reckon the Light Hammer is a pretty strong contender as a weapon to move from Hammers to Ranged.

• It's a finesse weapon and a DEX build needs that.
• It's the only finesse weapon in Hammers. So if you want to play a DEX based hammer user you lose nothing by having to take it in WF: Ranged. Because you couldn't finesse the other Hammers anyway!
• Archers, especially longbowmen, would traditionally carry hammers to drive stakes into the ground as an anti-cavalry defence.
• If it helps you feel happier about flavour, the group could be renamed to 'Archer', not 'Ranged'.

The only character concept that would lose out here is 'Small PC who wants to have their WF etc apply to both a 1h Light Hammer and a 2H Warhammer'. But that's a tiny minority compared to 'every single bow user.'