Anyone who has played Final Fantasy III remembers the autocrossbow, a tool that Edward used. I am trying to mimic that via a Gnome Artificer Item.
So I asked myself, as the artificer item's effects are supposed to mimic those of a spell effect, are there any spell effects out there that would work (there are none on the artificer power list).
About the closest thing I can find is launch bolt, a 0th level power that fires one crossbow bolt as if fired by the caster taking into account all feats, etc. Moreover, it fires whatever crossbow bolt you happen to have on hand (I think it is limited to a light crossbow bolt), be it an alchemical bolt, a magical bolt or whatever.
In designing an autocrossbow, the point is that it fires more than one bolt a round. So first I was trying to figure a way to use the 0th level spell. About the best I could come up with would be 14 castings of it per round with a twinned quickened version, and then two twinned (3x) versions for a net of one 7th level spell and two 9th level spells. That would be the equivalent of 14 ranged attacks at the casters BAB modified by whatever abilities the caster has and whatever abilities the bolts have. Let's figure point blank shot, with weapon focus, a 20 dex and +5 bolts (at that level). That yeilds 14d8+84 total damage with 14 attack rolls all at +25 to +30 to hit. That seems about right (a little less than smack down damage but we are figuring 18th level and a character not built around this concept).
So this is what we have to work with in designing a power for the artificer. It seems that the number of bolts fired is rougly equivalent to 3/4 of the wizard's level (I know it doesn't break down directly as there are drastic increases at certain levels, namely 12th and then at 18th, but that is exactly how many spells work that are buffs, like divine favor for example). This of course is with the caster hasted. A non hasted caster only fires 8 bolts, which is slightly less than half his level.
From all of this analysis, I was thinking that to design a power based on this ability and balanced would require a 3rd or 4th level spell (also trying to account for the fact that the powers on a gnome artificer's class list are limited to 4th level abilities).
Typical damaging 3rd level spells do d6 dmg/level with a cap of 10d6 damage and these can be area effects or for a single target. Area affects are 15' - 20' radii bursts.
Thus it would seem that using launch bolt as a model we could create a "greater" launch bolt which was a third level spell that launched 1 bolt/level with a cap of 10 bolts.
Here is where I am running into difficulty however. First, the damaging spells require saves (typically), rather than attack rolls. That might make sense with the auto crossbow concept. However, how exactly would that work. Where as the spells requiring saves affect all targets in its AoE, this spell has a finite number of bolts. That tends to make me lean instead towards making the spell simply require a bunch of attack rolls. This would then be no more powerful than the third level spells that affect a single person as the cap is still going to be 10 damage die.
Now the question becomes: Is this 3rd level spell balanced?
It would allow up to 10 attack rolls each doing d8+modifiers in damage. Not to mention it allows for all sorts of alchemical and other multi-function bolts. Well off the bat, the potential of 10d8 damage as opposed to 10d6 is obviously unbalanced. I initially thought to make the bolts do less damage. However, one balancing factor in my opinion is the fact that to do every d8 of damage an attack roll is necessary. Moreover, this is a standard attack roll, not a touch attack roll (unless the bolts were brilliant energized, but that would get extremely expensive and would balance itself I think). So that is 10 attack rolls that all have to hit to deal damage. This ceratinly balances it to some degree, but now factor in that these bolts can do other things. They can be magical and have damage bonuses, they have feats applied to them, and they can have special functions.
Does this push this spell over the edge. Should I make it a 4th level spell. Would it balance this spell to make it only a gnome artificer power? After all, to gain access to 4th level artificer powers you must be higher level anyways.
Let me know what you all think. Thanks.
So I asked myself, as the artificer item's effects are supposed to mimic those of a spell effect, are there any spell effects out there that would work (there are none on the artificer power list).
About the closest thing I can find is launch bolt, a 0th level power that fires one crossbow bolt as if fired by the caster taking into account all feats, etc. Moreover, it fires whatever crossbow bolt you happen to have on hand (I think it is limited to a light crossbow bolt), be it an alchemical bolt, a magical bolt or whatever.
In designing an autocrossbow, the point is that it fires more than one bolt a round. So first I was trying to figure a way to use the 0th level spell. About the best I could come up with would be 14 castings of it per round with a twinned quickened version, and then two twinned (3x) versions for a net of one 7th level spell and two 9th level spells. That would be the equivalent of 14 ranged attacks at the casters BAB modified by whatever abilities the caster has and whatever abilities the bolts have. Let's figure point blank shot, with weapon focus, a 20 dex and +5 bolts (at that level). That yeilds 14d8+84 total damage with 14 attack rolls all at +25 to +30 to hit. That seems about right (a little less than smack down damage but we are figuring 18th level and a character not built around this concept).
So this is what we have to work with in designing a power for the artificer. It seems that the number of bolts fired is rougly equivalent to 3/4 of the wizard's level (I know it doesn't break down directly as there are drastic increases at certain levels, namely 12th and then at 18th, but that is exactly how many spells work that are buffs, like divine favor for example). This of course is with the caster hasted. A non hasted caster only fires 8 bolts, which is slightly less than half his level.
From all of this analysis, I was thinking that to design a power based on this ability and balanced would require a 3rd or 4th level spell (also trying to account for the fact that the powers on a gnome artificer's class list are limited to 4th level abilities).
Typical damaging 3rd level spells do d6 dmg/level with a cap of 10d6 damage and these can be area effects or for a single target. Area affects are 15' - 20' radii bursts.
Thus it would seem that using launch bolt as a model we could create a "greater" launch bolt which was a third level spell that launched 1 bolt/level with a cap of 10 bolts.
Here is where I am running into difficulty however. First, the damaging spells require saves (typically), rather than attack rolls. That might make sense with the auto crossbow concept. However, how exactly would that work. Where as the spells requiring saves affect all targets in its AoE, this spell has a finite number of bolts. That tends to make me lean instead towards making the spell simply require a bunch of attack rolls. This would then be no more powerful than the third level spells that affect a single person as the cap is still going to be 10 damage die.
Now the question becomes: Is this 3rd level spell balanced?
It would allow up to 10 attack rolls each doing d8+modifiers in damage. Not to mention it allows for all sorts of alchemical and other multi-function bolts. Well off the bat, the potential of 10d8 damage as opposed to 10d6 is obviously unbalanced. I initially thought to make the bolts do less damage. However, one balancing factor in my opinion is the fact that to do every d8 of damage an attack roll is necessary. Moreover, this is a standard attack roll, not a touch attack roll (unless the bolts were brilliant energized, but that would get extremely expensive and would balance itself I think). So that is 10 attack rolls that all have to hit to deal damage. This ceratinly balances it to some degree, but now factor in that these bolts can do other things. They can be magical and have damage bonuses, they have feats applied to them, and they can have special functions.
Does this push this spell over the edge. Should I make it a 4th level spell. Would it balance this spell to make it only a gnome artificer power? After all, to gain access to 4th level artificer powers you must be higher level anyways.
Let me know what you all think. Thanks.
