... Bow Mastery.. for free?

[bfreakb999]

So why is it all the PHB epic feats of mastery are as follows...

Axe Mastery Str 21, Con 17 Critical hit with axe melee attack roll of 19 or 20

Bludgeon Mastery Str 19, Con 19 Critical hit with bludgeoning melee attack roll of 19 or 20

Flail Mastery Str 19, Dex 19 Critical hit with flail melee attack roll of 19 or 20

Heavy Blade Mastery Str 21, Dex 17 Critical hit with heavy blade melee attack roll of 19 or 20

Light Blade Mastery Str 17, Dex 21 Critical hit with light blade melee attack roll of 19 or 20

Pick Mastery Str 21, Con 17 Critical hit with pick melee attack roll of 19 or 20

Spear Mastery Str 19, Dex 19 Critical hit with spear melee attack roll of 19 or 20

Ok... notice the stat requirements to be able to crit on 19/20?...
phb2 Bow Mastery

When you make a ranged attack with a bow or crossbow, you can score a critical hit of a roll of 19 - 20.

Now.. granted it is an epic feat...but..for free? really? no high dex required? no pre req? I'm liking a lot of things about phb2, and maybe its too early to tell if somethings are a bit unfair just yet. I'll be playing with many of these new features soon eough. As a dm i just feel like many things are being handed to the PC's unecessarily. Does this seem like not a big difference? or is this something i should be worried about in epic games?
​

 

[Oompa]

It seems they made a mistake or just intentionally did that..

Just await the Update.. Or make it STR 15 DEX 21 ?

 

[Pickles JG]

Now.. granted it is an epic feat...but..for free? really? no high dex required? no pre req? I'm liking a lot of things about phb2, and maybe its too early to tell if somethings are a bit unfair just yet. I'll be playing with many of these new features soon eough. As a dm i just feel like many things are being handed to the PC's unecessarily. Does this seem like not a big difference? or is this something i should be worried about in epic games?​

Bows do not have a secondary stat associated with them & anyone who is using a bow enough to make this worthwhile will have high dex anyway. They could have shoved dex 21 as a prerequisite but who cares?

It seems a bit odd that it was not in PHB1 though.

 

[Bleoberis De Ganis]

Bows do not have a secondary stat associated with them & anyone who is using a bow enough to make this worthwhile will have high dex anyway. They could have shoved dex 21 as a prerequisite but who cares?

It seems a bit odd that it was not in PHB1 though.

And archery rangers should, perhaps, get it free to make it worth having an archery build.

 

[hong]

Meh, I'd just ignore the stat prereqs on all the other mastery feats.

 

[ObsidianCrane]

Bows do not have a secondary stat associated with them & anyone who is using a bow enough to make this worthwhile will have high dex anyway. They could have shoved dex 21 as a prerequisite but who cares?

It seems a bit odd that it was not in PHB1 though.

Well I guess they fixed the problem.

Its a pity that Swordmages live and breathe Heavy Blades but cannot realistically hope to ever meet the pre-Reqs for Heavy Blade Mastery. *sigh*

I'd rather see the Update go the other way and remove the pre-reqs from the other weapons, as that would open them up to classes that don't have strength as a primary or even secondary attribute.

 

[Nytmare]

It seems they made a mistake or just intentionally did that..

I am not sure that I can agree with this statement.

 

[Oompa]

I am not sure that I can agree with this statement.

Why not?

 

[WalterKovacs]

PHBII (and forgotten realms player's guide as well) seemed to move away from having tons of stat based prerequisites.

One thing to note about bow mastery though, there is going to be at least one class that won't be using Dex for the crossbow, and that's the artificer, who is int based and requires a ranged weapon.

 

[Nytmare]

Why not?

I think that, instead of it being, as you suspect, either a mistake or something that they did on purpose; that it's probably something they either definitely meant to do, or something that they messed up and should fix.