Arcane Archer's Imbue Arrow ability...

[Herobizkit]

Can someone give me a number of examples where the Imbue Arrow ability would be beneficical, or perhaps a listing of all range/touch spells to get an idea of how this ability could best be used?

 

[Zimbel]

Arcane Archer

Let's see: the text from the 3.5 SRD: "When the arrow is fired, the spell’s area is centered on where the arrow lands, even if the spell could normally be centered only on the caster. This ability allows the archer to use the bow’s range rather than the spell’s range. It takes a standard action to cast the spell and fire the arrow."

This means we're looking for area effect spells with a small (or 0') range, a significant area, and /or a long casting time. It does not look like this helps touch spells (in which case, we'd be talking about shocking grasp, vampiric touch, Heal, Harm, and the Cure/ Cause Wounds spells).

So a few examples:
Mass Heal or for that matter, any mass spell.
Summon Monster 1-9
Summon Nature's ally 1-9
Prismatic Sphere
Hallow/Unhallow (only 1 standard action to cast!)
Unholy Aura (or the Lawful/Good/Chaotic equivalent)
Holy Word (or the Evil/Lawful/Chaotic equivalent)
(Minor) Globe of Invulnerability
Prayer

Note that for most of these, the optimal way to go would be either Wiz 18/AA2 or Cleric 17/AA 2/Wiz1 (obviouslly, you could use Sorcerer in place of Wizard to taste).

(Edit due to Hypersmurf's correction)

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Fireball is a popular one.

Any of the cone-shaped spells are pretty decent, as well, since they allow you to use generally melee-only spells at a range.

 

[Zimbel]

Fireball is a popular one.

Any of the cone-shaped spells are pretty decent, as well, since they allow you to use generally melee-only spells at a range.

Fireball already has a pretty nice range; I don't think that this ability adds much to it; in many cases, it would have been better to take an extra 2 LV of Sor/Wiz instead of 2 levels of AA for Fireball.

I like the cone suggestion, though.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Fireball is a popular one.

Why? Its range is Long (400 ft. + 40 ft./level). A longbow at the minimum range of 600 ft. (5th level caster) is shooting at a -12 penalty (-10 for a composite longbow, which completes its 6th full range increment at 660 feet). Assuming you're trying to hit an AC 5 target, you're likely to miss at least some of the time at that distance with a penalty like that. Better to just cast the spell.

I suppose there's something to be said for sniping with a fireball at targets out beyond 600 feet or so (to a maximum of 1000 ft/1100 ft, with a penalty of -20 at that range...but amusingly -18 one foot shy of that range), but how often does that come up. I wouldn't think often enough for Fireball to be a popular choice.

Any of the cone-shaped spells are pretty decent, as well, since they allow you to use generally melee-only spells at a range.

Now that one makes sense.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Mass Heal or for that matter, any mass spell.

Not an area spell. Mass Heal (or for that matter most other Mass spells) is a targeted spell.

Summon Monster 1-9
Summon Nature's ally 1-9

Not an area spell. Summon X spells are effect spells.

Prismatic Sphere

Effect spell.

Unholy Aura (or the Lawful/Good/Chaotic equivalent)

Targeted spell.

Imbue Arrow was much more impressive when applied to a cone in 3E than in 3.5, but cones changed...

-Hyp.

 

[RigaMortus2]

Is Summon Monster a valid spell to use with Imbue Arrow? That would be nice if it was.

Sound Burst would be nice too (one of my fav low level spells)...

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Fireball already has a pretty nice range; I don't think that this ability adds much to it;

Casting Fireball, all by itself, is a standard action.

Casting Fireball into your arrow and shooting someone is also a standard action.

So, if you're going to cast Fireball, you might as well hit the guy with your +3 arrows coming from your Composite Flaming Shocking Longbow +1 and still blow him up.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Imbue Arrow was much more impressive when applied to a cone in 3E than in 3.5, but cones changed...

Yeah - now they're just good, instead of "Holy crap! That's GOOD!"

 

[silvertable81]

HMM, If you centered a fireball on the arrow, then planted it in someone's chest, I'd think they'd need a higher reflex save, though the rules prolly don't state that it would be so.