Arcane Archers and the arrows they create

[trimeulose]

I think we are all forgetting (myself not included in this) that only the amunition counts for purposes against DR. If you buy a +12 bow and have masterwork arrows, sorry you still have to deal with the DR of a creature.

Now factor in that you have to pay for amunition every fifty shots, and DR creatures can cost you more in amunition than the treasure that you gain from it.

If you went up against a 40/+5 creature reg 20 with around say 500 hp, you're gonna spend at least 50 arrows trying to kill the thing. Thats the equivalent of a +5 weapon (fifty thousand gp) gone. If your wizard uses a spell to "better" your ammo for a while, it might cost you the fight.

The Arcane archer curbs that, MW arrows are now doing more damage, fly better (better attack bonus), and they bypass DR. To me this is well more than enough. I agree that it would add color, but you might wind up finding out that it would be unbalancing a class that is already at the forefront of overbalancing classes.

Another example of how AA is overpowered.

ftr6/sor1/AA33:

Abilities that matter: Str 34 Dex 40

Attacks: off the chart with # of attacks and abilities and all that
Damage: 1d8 +40 (beats DR of +17)

equipment that matters: Bracers of stability (+12 ro str and con), Boots of Swiftness (+12 to dex I think), Elven Great Bow (counts as a +5 weapon when weiled by elf and always has mty pull (str damage bonus) equal to characters str bonus

comparing at epic levels but it still shows how the class is unbalancing. 1D8 +40 at max range 1250 ft no range penalty. It could kill the Prismatic Dragon before it would have a chance to get withing range.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Versatility IS power. If you had to choose the powers you gain like a sorccerer, then no problem.

That's my intention: everytime you get enchant arrow, you also get one new arrow with a special power/special powers. They cannot be changed later.

So you maybe have flaming arrows, and they're +4 flaming instead of +5. Or you have icy burst shock weapons, and they are +2 icy burst shock instead of +5.



Of course, you can just enchant your bow with the special powers and it bestows them on the ammunition, so you could get some additional powers on top of the stuff created by your enchant arrow ability, but that works whether you change the ability as above or not.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

I think we are all forgetting (myself not included in this) that only the amunition counts for purposes against DR. If you buy a +12 bow and have masterwork arrows, sorry you still have to deal with the DR of a creature.

Now factor in that you have to pay for amunition every fifty shots, and DR creatures can cost you more in amunition than the treasure that you gain from it.

If you went up against a 40/+5 creature reg 20 with around say 500 hp, you're gonna spend at least 50 arrows trying to kill the thing. Thats the equivalent of a +5 weapon (fifty thousand gp) gone. If your wizard uses a spell to "better" your ammo for a while, it might cost you the fight.

The Arcane archer curbs that, MW arrows are now doing more damage, fly better (better attack bonus), and they bypass DR. To me this is well more than enough. I agree that it would add color, but you might wind up finding out that it would be unbalancing a class that is already at the forefront of overbalancing classes.

Substituting enchantment bonuses for special powers will rob the Archer of the ability to overcome DR....

Another example of how AA is overpowered.

ftr6/sor1/AA33:

Nope: ftr6/sor1/something else 3/aa30 (you need to be above level 20 to have more than 10 levels in an epic advanced PrC)

Abilities that matter: Str 34 Dex 40

We're talking about a 40th-level character. They tend to have greater ability scores....

Attacks: off the chart with # of attacks and abilities and all that

There's actually a limit: 4 attacks +1 for rapid shot +1 for haste (if you have it), being 6 attacks a round. Of course, you can overcome the number of arrows you fire with Improved Manyshot, but that's only one attack, and only against a single foe, no spreading of attacks.

Damage: 1d8 +40 (beats DR of +17)

Easy to obtain at 40th level for a melee combatant, with magical weapons, high ability scores, and feats like power attack. My bladesinger is 16th level and can already manage 1d8 + 20 and more, and we don't have no epic feats with that one yet.

equipment that matters: Bracers of stability (+12 ro str and con), Boots of Swiftness (+12 to dex I think), Elven Great Bow (counts as a +5 weapon when weiled by elf and always has mty pull (str damage bonus) equal to characters str bonus

The boots have +6 dex, and a couple of other goodies.

First, this stuff costs over 7.000.000 gp, so you can expect something, and second, this can also be had by melee combatants (except the bow, of course, but they can have other insane weapons.

comparing at epic levels but it still shows how the class is unbalancing. 1D8 +40 at max range 1250 ft no range penalty. It could kill the Prismatic Dragon before it would have a chance to get withing range.

Of course, you couldn't kill a Prismatic Dragon before it would have a chance to get into range: Your adult Prismatic Dragon (CR39, so appropriate for 40th level characters) could fly ("running") to within 50 feet of you in the first round, and in the second, you'd experience a Prismatic Breath weapon, forcing you to save against DC 49.
Within that first round, you'd have to beat AC 64 (with a -2 penalty because the dragon's running). and hit often enough to inflict 1032 points of damage - that would be around 30 hits with the bow. And you don't have 30 attacks with a bow, you have 6 at most. And Manyshot only works for foes within 30 feet.



Let's look at a 40th-level melee fighter, to look what damage he can deal.

Fighter 40.

We give him the boots of swiftness and the bracers of stability, and a weapon that costs around the same as the elven great bow: a +5 Sonic Blast Keen Mercurial Greatsword.

Among his feats he'll have Exotic Weapon Proficiency, Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization, Improved Critical, and the Epic counterpart of those feats, as well as the Power Attack Feat chain, and penetrate DR.

STR 44.

Attacks. 4 (5 with haste). +56/+51/+46/+41 (+56)
Damage: 2d8+37 + 3d6 sonic. Crit at 18-20: 8d8+148 + 12d6 sonic.

That's 48 + 10 / 184 + 42 per hit on average. (having just a +12 Sword would mean 2d8 + 44 = 53 and 8d8 + 176 = 212).

And he hasn't used power attack yet....

Of course, he cannot attack foes at a distance of over 1000 feet, but he'll probably have a better AC and more HP to compensate for his need to enter melee (especially if he has armor skin and damage reduction and stuff, not unlikely with 40 levels worth of fighter feats!)

This melee fighter outdamages your archer, and I haven't even used Prestige Classes (think of a Barbarian/Frenzied berserker with STR beyond 60, and power attack for 2 points of damage for every point of AC spent)

 

[Zad]

Issues I didn't see anyone mention (but I did start skimming part way through)

No, they would equal +1,+2,+3, +4, and +5, respectively

Won't work.

The single thing I don't see anyone mentioning is DR.

The problem with firing +2 shocking burst arrows is that you only have a +2 arrow for purposes of DR. At a point when you should have +4's.

From personal experience, the enchant arrow ability develops slowly. There are times it lags behind and monsters that are a good match for your level have a DR higher than the AA can exceed. Part of the reason is that the AA starts with +1 arrows around 7th or 8th level usually, and that puts you WAY behind the curve right from the start.

If you start letting an AA say "ok this time it's +2 holy arrows" then they won't have +4 arrows to overcome DR. Yes, you can use a seperate batch of GMW arrows, but it defeats the purpose and unique ability of the AA, in my opinion.

If you let them mix and match on the fly, then that fixes it. They can do flaming burst when they want but switch to their highest bonus when dealing with a creature that requires it. However this runs close to getting too bloody powerful.

How about this instead: the archer can switch on the fly. But at first level they can have +1's worth of bonuses they "know" how to shoot (flaming lets' say). At third, they get +2 more (maybe they pick holy, or maybe they pick flaming burst, or maybe shocking and icy). And they can mix and match arrows on the fly, always firing the same type each round.

This actually sounds kinda powerful (I only just thought of it). Maybe scale it all down by one - at first level only +1. At second level they get +1 worth of goodies (like flaming). And so on. The arrow always has to be at least +1 so this makes sense

So an example

1st: +1 arrows
3rd: AA picks "flaming" as +1 worth of powers. Can fire +2 arrows or +1 flaming arrows.
5th: AA picks "chaos" as +2 worth of powers. Can fire +3 arrows, +2 flaming, or +1 chaos.
7th: AA picks "icy" and "disruption" as +3 worth of powers. Can fire -
- +4 arrows
- +3 icy
- +3 flaming
- +2 chaos
- +1 chaos flaming
- +1 chaos icy
- +1 disruption flaming
- +1 disruption icy

(no you cannot fire icy flaming arows, because I don't think it makes a damn bit of sense )

9th: AA picks brilliant energy. Hopefully by now you get the idea.

Is this overpowered? I'm not sure. You could easily change it into a X times per day thing tho.

 

[Avatar of the North]

how about make them epic feats similar to how Barbarians and Paladins have epic feats to put Holy and Chaotic type effects on their weapons all the time?

 

[Pax]

Versatility IS power. If you had to choose the powers you gain like a sorccerer, then no problem. If you can switch round to round in any combo, then it could get way over powered, especially in Epic. That's why I suggested requiring the ability to make the item before you can spontaneously use that power.

This is how I'd handle it; I'd also let the AA decide to "hold" a + or three, towards an expensive ability (the + doesn't go into effect at all, it becomes a down payment, if you will).


So:
L1, Gain +1 enhancement
... fire +1 arrows
L3, Gain Sure Striking ability
... fire +1 Sure Striking arrows
L5, Gain Ghost Touch ability
... fire +1 Sure Striking arrows of Ghost Touch
L7, Gain Keen ability
... fire Keen +1 Sure Striking Arrows of Ghost Touch
L9, Gain Wounding ability
... fire Wounding Keen +1 Sure Striking arrows of Ghost Touch

Alternately, if you save:

L1, Gain +1 enhancement
... fire +1 arrows
L3, Gain Sure Striking ability
... fire +1 Sure Striking arrows
L5, save
... fire +1 Sure Striking arrows
L7, save
... fire +1 Sure Striking arrows
L9, Gain Elemental Aura ability (Magic of Faerun, +3 bonus)
... fire +1 Sure Striking arrows of Elemental Aura

By the by, for those sans MoF, Elemental Aura lets you add 1d6 damage, but, you choose which of the 5 elemental damage types (fire, cold, electrical, acid, sonic) to add, round by round (or in this case, arrow by arrow).

IMO, that's great ... especially as it differentiates one AA from anotehr. I think I'll use this IMC, in fact!

 

[Pax]

Interesting idea. I think you'd have to define how all arros would be enchanted from then all out. Allowing any combination of arrow enchantments thjat adds up to +5 is too good and too versatile. So, at firrst level they get +1 to all arrows. At third level they get another +1. If they chose shock, then from then all all arrows shot will be +1 shock. For abilities greater then +1 you'd have to save the + until you have enough to spend. So, for shocking burst you'd bank the extra +1 at level 3rd, so all your arrows would be only +1 at that time.

One bit here; if someone wanted Shocking Burst (using your system, or the nearly-identical one I just posted ), I would as a DM allow them to buy Shock at L3 ... and at L5, use their +1 to upgrade to Shocking Burst.

Why?

Because the ____ Burst enhancement includes the lessse version in it as well. Shocking burst weapons ALSO count as Shock weapons (they get allt he benefits thereof, PLUS the critical-hit bonus damage).

Now, I wouldn't let them upgrade Shock to ICY BURST, because that's not thematically "one step further down the same path" ... but upgrading from an element-add, to it's equivalent Burst ... sounds OK to me at least.

Just an observation.

 

[Tyralis]

bare with me, this is my first post.

i like the idea of adding energy to an AA's arrows as a flavor issue. as for balance, i suggest allowing it as a feat.
this is an example, so play with it as you will.

Energy Arrow
With this feat the archer may add a single type of energy damage to the non-magical arrows he/she fires.
Prerequisites: Enchant Arrow class feature
Bonus: Designate a single type of energy, such as shock, flame, or ice. From then on, the archer has the option of adding +1d6 damage of the energy type specified to any arrow fired by him/her. This damage is not subject to multipliers, such as critical hits.
Special: This feat may be taken multiple times. It's effects do not stack. Each time you take this feat, it applies to a different type of energy. No single arrow may have more than one energy type, though it's effect does stack with the archer's Enchant Arrow class feature.

What do you think?