D&D 3.x [3.5] Archer changes

[John Crichton]

Archers are not useless once in melee unless you design one to be so.

 

[Kai Lord]

Here's what Andy Collins had to say on his own messageboard:

I've also encountered the problems with archery becoming a more powerful method of delivering damage than melee.

The primary issue, as I see it, is that an archer gets almost "double value" for enhancement bonuses.

Part of the problem is from the costing of weapon enhancements--a +3 melee weapon costs about the same as a +2 bow and a pile of +2 arrows, for instance--but greater magic weapon is also to blame. An archer relying on this spell gets his magic arrows "for free," meaning that he's going to have something like double the enhancement that his melee buddy has.

Thanks to a couple of changes--one minor, one more significant--this shouldn't be a problem in 3.5.

Andy Collins
Senior Designer
Wizards of the Coast Roleplaying R&D

 

[Kai Lord]

What Andy doesn't seem to be taking into account is that the "pile of +2 arrows" are going to be used up, and the price will need to be paid again, until the next batch is used up, ad infinitum.

How many arrows does an archer fire each encounter? Magical melee weapons are much cheaper than arrows.

 

[LightPhoenix]

I suspect we will see separation of damage and to-hit bonuses to arrows and bows, respectively. This makes a lot of sense. In the case about about +3 arrows from a +2 bow being more powerful than from a regular bow, they are - they hit 10% more.

 

[Crothian]

Archers seem to have two things going for them, the magical stacking of bows and arrows as well as Rapid Fire. The extra attack is too easy to get and very useful. In my games I've yet to see an archer run out of arrows. Run out of magical arrows yes, but not normal arrows. And GMW makes normal arrows just as good. Storing arrows is really not a problem with extra dimensional storing devices.

 

[Liminal Syzygy]

Crothian is right. I've never seen anyone actually buy magical arrows.

1) They are WAY to expensive considering they are one shot
2) Why pay an inflated price when you can GMW 50 arrows at a time and just pay for normal arrows?

I do think archery damage needs to be toned down, but hope that they reduce the price of magical arrows, or if it works out like KM suggests and only part of the enchantment applies, reduce the price of magic bows as well. It seems like it would be a good compremise.

 

[Kai Lord]

Also with regard to stacking, melee weapons have two big advantages: Strength bonus and Weapon Specialization.

Most bows aren't Mighty, and those that are top out at +4. Weapon Specialization stacks to melee weapon damage with every attack, as opposed to bows for which more often than not won't even apply due to the 30' range cap.

 

[Kai Lord]

Crothian is right. I've never seen anyone actually buy magical arrows.

1) They are WAY to expensive considering they are one shot
2) Why pay an inflated price when you can GMW 50 arrows at a time and just pay for normal arrows?

Which goes to show that GMW is the problem, not magic bows and arrows.

 

[Stalker0]

We assume that magic arrows are one use but consider:

You have a 50% chance of recovering even normal arrows.

the strike an object rules shows that magic items have far greater resistance to mundane damage. Would a magic arrow even break?

 

[Kai Lord]

We assume that magic arrows are one use but consider:

You have a 50% chance of recovering even normal arrows.

Only if you miss.

the strike an object rules shows that magic items have far greater resistance to mundane damage. Would a magic arrow even break?

According to the rules, I believe the 50% break rule applies for magic arrows that miss as well.

Hopefully they won't change the stacking rules, but if they do, oh well. Personally, I think the best thing they could do would be to just have GMW only work on one arrow per casting. Then they could leave the stacking rules alone and nobody could abuse the spell.