[3.5] Archers nerfed! Meleers/Spellcasters rejoice!

[Khorod]

There's also the lessened need to even bypass DR. DR will generally max at 15. That's for the scary big demons and dragons.

Chances are, werewolves will look like DR 5-10/silver, can your archer break that? So after the first encounter, the archer realizes, "hey these things are really tough. Does my character know what's wrong? Maybe I'll go ask a sage..." Then the party gets to go on a sidequest to find the silver arrows that will hurt the werewolves, while being attacked by said creatures.

So, the early battles are small and deadly, possibly requiring some running away, and the final battle, with well-armed PC's, can be huge, devastating to the enemy, and largely satisfying the the characters that had to wet themselves before.

The only drawbacks to this is
1) The party isn't rising to the role-playing demands of this much more flavorful system. This can happen, particularly with munchkins.
2) You might penetrate DR less, but it only takes 15 pnts of damage to guarantee some harm to most creatures.

 

[kigmatzomat]

You are not comparing a world where the average person is illiterate and books are all handwritten to our modern society of mass media are you?

He was, ummm, wait. In AD&D 99% of the populace is literate with likely 80% in multiple languages. Plus they have a significant portion of learned individuals who are widely respected and coveted for their ability and willingness to share information. (E.G. bards)

We, on the other hand, have mass media.


BTW, if the only Vampire movie I have ever seen was Blade I would not bother with a cross and I would use silver on a vampire.

If Blade were the only vampire movie you'd ever seen you were obviously in a detainment camp or spent your whole life on an airplane. (Blade had kickin' combat scenes but plot?)


By DnD terms of course I would be toast since silver does nothing.
So your example does not hold water at all.

That and Blade was relying on a lot of modern tech. Silver is easier to form into slugs & bullets than wood is. Conversely, wood makes an excellent arrow. Overall it sounds perfect to me. Someone with no skill who's relying on second or third hand information will get close but probably not exact. And maybe dead.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

How is the fact that archers now have to carry different arrows different from a fighter? You're talking about a DR change, not an Archer change.

Actually, it's very different.
+2 holy shock bow (50kgp) and 100 silver arrows, 100 normal arrows, 100 adamantine arrows, 100 cold iron arrows, and a scroll of greater magic weapon
Total: probably not more than 60 kgp. And that's enough for the archer to deal equal damage to several different kinds of DRs.

+1 silvered adamantium holy shock greatsword (44kgp or so)
and a +2 cold iron holy shock greatsword (probably 50kgp or so)
Total: probably 94kgp

So, the price for the archer to be able to beat any combination of DR/silver, DR/good, DR/Adamantium, DR/Magic, and DR/Cold Iron is roughly 60% of the price for a melee character to be able to do the same thing (the melee character also needs the Quickdraw feat as well).

And for every new DR added (DR/Jade, DR/wood, DR/hemp, DR/moldy cheese), the price for the melee character to stay equally effective goes up by 50kgp or so while the price for the archer to stay equally effective goes up by probably no more than 9kgp (for 50 arrows of that particular type)

If anything, this HELPS the Archer. He has more ways to customize his attack to beat DR than the Fighter does.

That's precisely my argument. (Although DR 10/anything the archer can't beat) is a lot worse for most archers (cleric archers with Divine Favor active at a high caster level excepted) than for most melee fighters. The melee fighters usually can switch their weapons to two handed grip (str x 1.5) and power attack in order to minimize the effectiveness of such DR (it often goes down to absorbing one third to half the damage of each attack). Archers, OTOH, are often reduced 66%-90% in terms of damage/round by DR 10.) Even so, I wouldn't say it helps the archer. I'd say it hurts the archer much less than it hurts the melee fighter.

 

[AuraSeer]

Well the way I see it, this pretty much rips the heart out of the Arcane Archer.

Only if the AA remains unaltered. Remember that the classes are changing to take advantage of the new rules.

I'm hoping that instead of adding enhancement bonuses to his arrows, the Arcane Archer will now grant DR-penetrating qualities. It'd be similar, but not identical, to the way Ki Strike will work for monks. (Maybe the arrows count as silver at level 1, magic at level 3, and so on up to adamantine.)