D&D 3.x [3.5] Archer changes

[Mike Sullivan]

Look at Mike's analysis of power attack, and you will see it doesn't raise his damage much, and might lower it.

My intuition (haven't run the numbers) is that power attack is a feat that is in-and-of-itself useful more for longsword/bastard sword & shield fighters than greatsword fighters. ("In and of itself" as opposed to "as a prerequisite for Cleave," which is more useful for greatsword fighters).

Since Power Attack is an additive bonus, it's generally speaking more worthwhile the lower your normal damage is. Since a longsword & shield fighter isn't optimized for damage output, but for a balance between damage output and AC, we're talking a whole new ballgame.

 

[Storm Raven]

Look at Mike's analysis of power attack, and you will see it doesn't raise his damage much, and might lower it.

Power Attack is highly useful against two classes of opponents: (1) high hit point opponents whose AC is low enough that you can take a BAB loss and still reliably hit them, converting the wasted BAB to damage and (2) opponents that you could only hit with a 20 anyway.

Cleave is only useful if you drop enemies in one shot, and at 10th level you don't tend to be facing a goblin horde.

No, you are describing Great Cleave. Cleave is useful any time you are facing more than one opponent. At some point, one opponent will fall, and you will get your extra attack. If you are a 10th level fighter facing a crew of 50-60 hit point enemies, you will probably get an extra attack every other round or so. That is a big deal.

Great Cleave is still useful for many high level fighters. They may not be fighting goblins, but there are enough instances where midrange opponents show up that he can drop one or more in a round to make it a very worthwhile investment.

Combat reflexes is only usefull if enemies are provoking lots of AoOs, which smart enemies rarely will do.

Using a reach weapon helps a lot when dealing with Combat Reflexes. It makes it really difficult for most enemies to avoid them without conceding you an edge in positioning. Avoiding the AoO from a reach weapon user frequently means that you have to conceed a rounds worth of attacks to him, once again a significant damage potential added. Also, never forget the damage potantial of being able to make AoOs when flat-footed that Combat Reflexes gives you. Many opponents do silly things when they think you are flat-footed.

Power critical is once/day, IIRC.

And the ability to do something like triple damage reliably once per day is a big deal. Esepcially for a high powered melee fighter who gets a lot of his damage from the added modifiers. A 26 Strength 10th level Fighter with a +3 Glaive and Power Critical sees his damage on his Power Critical attack go from 1d10+17 to 3d10+51, quite a leap in damage output that will skew the results a bit (especially given that most high level combats are over in a handful of rounds). If that allows him to trigger a Cleave, all the better.

Feats rarely make the melee's damage output go up significantly. They instead tend to give him more options (expertise tree, improved unarmed tree) or different style (TWF tree). There isn't a stackable "+2 damage" feet for melee.

Conversley there isn't a "get a free attack when you drop an opponent" feat for ranged attacks. Feats frequently make the melee damage output go up. They allow for additional attacks, stronger attacks and so on.

 

[Storm Raven]

Besides, IIRC there's a combat tactician or somesuch feat that lets other characters get partial actions whenever an ally gets an attack of opportunity which would work as a replacement for archers.

No, there isn't one that would work for archers. The Order of the Bow Intitiate has a class ability that would allow him to do this, but only when an ally gets an AoO, and only once per round, and it is a 6th level PrC ability (if I remember correctly), meaning the PC won't have access to it until he's 11th level or so.

 

[Mike Sullivan]

Power Attack is highly useful against two classes of opponents: (1) high hit point opponents whose AC is low enough that you can take a BAB loss and still reliably hit them, converting the wasted BAB to damage and (2) opponents that you could only hit with a 20 anyway.

Specifically, for Gary, our 9th level Greatsword fighter, speaking of opponents with a 20 AC, 1 point of Power Attack is mildly helpful -- it offers around a 2-3% increase in per-round average damage. More than 1 point of Power Attack lowers his average damage against an AC 20 opponent. Any Power Attacking at all lowers his average damage against a higher-AC opponent.

It'd be more helpful for low AC opponents.

I admit to a certain weakness when it comes to understanding what kind of AC's are reasonable for CR 7-10 opponents. I assumed that 20 AC was kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel. Am I mistaken in that?


I don't take seriously opponents that you have to roll a 20 to hit anyhow. Here's why:

Opponent has infinite AC:

• 
  Gary attacks twice, power attacking for 5 points: 5% chance to hit, 5% chance to hit = .05 * 27.3 + .05 * 27.3 = 2.73 damage per round.
  
  Gary attacks twice, not power attacking: 5% chance to hit, 5% chance to hit = .05 * 22.05 + .05 * 22.05 = 2.205 damage per round.

I have a hard time believing that Gary is going to be any less totally screwed for the extra .525 hit points per round that he's doing. Quite simply, you're dead if you're actually trying to fight any opponent that you need a 20 to hit.

 

[Caliber]

Caliber, the FR spell you are most likely are thinking of is Battletide, cleric 4 or 5. Damage others, give you a partial action.

The pre-reqs of many shot include BAB 6, so if you have it you can fire at least two arrows a round.

Thank you much Loki! Thats exactly the spell I was looking for, but since I don't play Clerics often and I'm the only one with that book, it hasn't seen much use in my game.

Thanks for looking up those prereqs too. Note that a 7th Cleric (like Elder Basilisk was talking about) only has a +5 BAB so no Multishot for them (gotta wait until 9th if you want to stick with the Cleric levels)

Melee fighters have access to feats like Power Attack, Cleave, Great Cleave, Combat Reflexes, Power Critical and so on for which there is no "archery" equivalent. These feats will significantly increase the damage output of the melee fighter in most cases.

Power Critical doesn't work with ranged weapons?

 

[LokiDR]

No, there isn't one that would work for archers. The Order of the Bow Intitiate has a class ability that would allow him to do this, but only when an ally gets an AoO, and only once per round, and it is a 6th level PrC ability (if I remember correctly), meaning the PC won't have access to it until he's 11th level or so.

I believe the reference was to expert tatician. This has been errata'd to be a single melee attack, so it no longer gives extra ranged attacks.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Archer's disadvantages

A big problem with archers may be that they are usually really good at escaping or winning grapples due to high BAB, higher-than-average strength and high dex.

No archers bother with more than 18 Str, and that's much. Melee types, on the other hand, will usually have Str as their highest ability score, and will be bigger than that of the archer (and the melee-oriented monsters usually are big and have enormous Str.)

But the point made with Sneak Attack was a good one (I didn't think of it cause I haven't had archers and sneak attackers in one party until just recently, and I can count on that DM that he won't do something as difficult as grapple. I usually was either the only party sneaker or the only party archer)

(Druid would be the same "type of class" as a Cleric)

Not exactly, as he doesn't have magic weapon.

Same thing with the Archer. Ok, so they do more damage than a guy with a Greatsword. But how many parties have all their "tanks" centered around Archery? Not any that I have played in. There is only so many ways to build an Archer, after awhile it would get boring.

Actually, there quite a few: fighter, ranger, rogue, cleric, psychic warrior (or a combo of these classes), and of course several PrC's. I think it pays to play one, or two, but since I consider ranged attacks only one combat style (no matter who does the archery), there will be no more than that.

Like I said earlier, there are tools and there are crutches. A weapon is a tool. A +5 weapon is the best version of that particular tool. An item that controls your arms while you use the tool is a crutch.

It helps you guide your arms.

But that's cool that you like Bracers that do so much of the work for you. Maybe you can make them your cohorts since they should be getting experience for all the monsters they kill in defense of your meager skills.

Bring that part past me again, where you say that a mere +1/+2 bonus is a major factor of your attacks, and where fighting without them spells your failure. I really don't think that those numbers make decide about your will or won't, considering the much higher bonuses you get from BAB, magic weapons/ammo, and ability scores.

 

[Storm Raven]

Power Critical doesn't work with ranged weapons?

No it does not. Check the text of the feat in MotW.

 

[LokiDR]

Power Attack is highly useful against two classes of opponents: (1) high hit point opponents whose AC is low enough that you can take a BAB loss and still reliably hit them, converting the wasted BAB to damage and (2) opponents that you could only hit with a 20 anyway.

If most of the oppents you face fit into those two catagories, you fight a scewed selection of opponents.

No, you are describing Great Cleave. Cleave is useful any time you are facing more than one opponent. At some point, one opponent will fall, and you will get your extra attack. If you are a 10th level fighter facing a crew of 50-60 hit point enemies, you will probably get an extra attack every other round or so. That is a big deal.

Great Cleave is still useful for many high level fighters. They may not be fighting goblins, but there are enough instances where midrange opponents show up that he can drop one or more in a round to make it a very worthwhile investment.

If you are facing 4 enemies, you assume that every time you down one, another will be in range? Think of fighting the iconic party: cleric, fighter, wizard, rogue. Wizard won't be in melee, the cleric would back up and heal himself. Rogue should have the good sense not to get that low on HP. Again, skewed matches.

Using a reach weapon helps a lot when dealing with Combat Reflexes. It makes it really difficult for most enemies to avoid them without conceding you an edge in positioning. Avoiding the AoO from a reach weapon user frequently means that you have to conceed a rounds worth of attacks to him, once again a significant damage potential added. Also, never forget the damage potantial of being able to make AoOs when flat-footed that Combat Reflexes gives you. Many opponents do silly things when they think you are flat-footed.

You must face a lot of stupid opponents. If you have your reach weapon out, they should assume you can use it, or they shouldn't be alive long enough to reach higher levels. 1/2 cover stops AoOs, so think tower shield, or useing the guy in front of you. Many monsters have reach themselves, and don't charge up. Then, what happens if they open combat with twinked out archers of their own? Combat reflexs is nice, but far from increasing your average damage output more than slightly.

And the ability to do something like triple damage reliably once per day is a big deal. Esepcially for a high powered melee fighter who gets a lot of his damage from the added modifiers. A 26 Strength 10th level Fighter with a +3 Glaive and Power Critical sees his damage on his Power Critical attack go from 1d10+17 to 3d10+51, quite a leap in damage output that will skew the results a bit (especially given that most high level combats are over in a handful of rounds). If that allows him to trigger a Cleave, all the better.

[edit] missed the word melee in there.

If you only swing your weapon in combat 10 times in a day, sure you are looking at a big boost. And if you have 5 combats in a day, all lasting 4-8 rounds and you are throwing 2-3 swings per round average, that extra isn't nealy as impressive.

While we are on the subject, archers will get more full attacks anyway, as they don't have to run into melee.

Conversley there isn't a "get a free attack when you drop a n opponent" feat for ranged attacks. Feats frequently make the melee damage output go up. They allow for additional attacks, stronger attacks and so on.

No, they get an extra attack all the time Feats for general combat abilty, like weapon focus and specialization, also tend to work with ranged weapons. Melee options are, by and large, other options for combat, not better ones.

 

[Storm Raven]

I admit to a certain weakness when it comes to understanding what kind of AC's are reasonable for CR 7-10 opponents. I assumed that 20 AC was kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel. Am I mistaken in that?

Formian Taskmaster, CR 9, AC 19

Frost Worm, CR 12, AC 18

Efreet, CR 8, AC 18

Hill Giant CR 7, AC 20

Flesh Golem, CR 7, AC 18

Gorgon CR 8, AC 18

Gray Render, CR 8, AC 19

Delver, CR 9, AC 14

Destrachan, CR 8, AC 16

Devourer, CR 11, AC 18

And so on and so forth. And that was just from checking a random sampling of the "D"s, "F"s, and "G"s. There are plenty of opponents in the CR 7-10 (and beyond) range that have ACs below 20, significantly so in some cases. There are plenty higher than that too, but 20 is not scraping the bottom of the AC barrel for reasonable opponents against a 10th level party.