[Bo9S] Archery schools

[hong]

Your version of TSS (ranged-only) is 9th level, dazes you for a round, and fatigues you for the rest of the encounter. Significantly worse than TSS, which already allows exactly that, but isn't limited to only ranged attacks.

In practice, people who have TSS are going to use it for melee attacks. You have to be 17th level to get it, and by that time most of your gold and feats are going to be tied up in melee items. I guess you could have a multiclassed fighter/warblade with a longbow, but none of their other abilities work at range, so they really have little reason to be focusing on it.

Your maneuver is strictly worse than TSS, and I can't tell why, since the whole reason TSS is soooo good is because full attacks are hard to get in melee: when you get one and initiate TSS, you instead get two.

IME it's not too hard to get a full attack. Often the bad guy also wants to get a full attack on you; even if they don't, you have maneuvers like sudden leap, shadow blink or quicksilver motion. You should check out Rystil Arden's rants about action-granting items in some of the MIC threads.

Archers are at the other end of the spectrum: ranged full attacks are easy. So why would I bother to use Tears of Heaven?

Um, to get two full attacks? It's about DPS, to borrow the MMORPG term. Consider the two scenarios:

1) I make an attack; BBEG gets a kaboom attack off; I make another attack which kills the BBEG assuming I survive

2) I make two attacks; BBEG dies, does not get a kaboom attack off; I am dazed, but it doesn't matter because the BBEG is dead

It's a finishing move, like the Iron Heart strike. Or you could remove the dazed+fatigued condition, which would make it more like the maneuvers in the book. ToH also has synergy with the other boosts like adamantine arrow flare, which gives more attacks than raging mongoose (albeit at a penalty).

Sorry, I don't see that written. Could you point out where?

Here's one:

Unfurling steel blossom
strike

You fire a single arrow into the air, which separates and transforms in mid-air into a cloud of deadly projectiles.

As a standard action you attack all creatures in a 10' radius burst, within your first range increment.​

The Counter would be high-ish level, since it could potentially ruin any foe's charge against anyone in the party. But that's cool IMHO.

I don't really see how this would stop people charging, since like I said, they could just jump over the difficult terrain.

There is one cast-iron rule I see you violating: stances shall remain useful.

Now, is that cast-iron because it's explicitly stated somewhere, or is it simply that current stances don't overlap much, leaving open the question of whether it's kosher to go outside that convention...?

There are some high-level stances that are strictly better than low-level stances of the same school, and that's not good, since you can't trade them out. Not sure exactly how to fix, since the school seems to rely on damage multiplication via stance. :\

The issue is really that there's one thing that the school does, and that is: shoot. So it's natural that all the stances are going to be about shooting, thus they'll overlap.

Well, I guess that's not strictly true, since it's also about truth, mental steadfastness and seeing through falsehoods. So I could have a stance that gives you, for example, continuous true seeing or something. But that would mean reducing the damage on a shot, if you leave the stance where you do extra damage. But maybe that's reasonable.

 

[Nifft]

In practice, people who have TSS are going to use it for melee attacks. You have to be 17th level to get it, and by that time most of your gold and feats are going to be tied up in melee items. I guess you could have a multiclassed fighter/warblade with a longbow, but none of their other abilities work at range, so they really have little reason to be focusing on it.

You only need four prereqs. An Elf Warblade could easily pick up:
- Moment of Perfect Mind
- Mind Over Body
- Hearing the Air
- Diamond Defense or Stance of Alacrity (the latter being especially useful for a Warblade)

(in that order, it's a pretty natural progression)

I'm sure he'd want to mix it up in melee too, and would choose maneuvers to support melee style as well, but it's a natural progression IMHO and one could very well end up taking TSS with the intent of using it for both ranged and melee combat.

Of course, you'd still be playing an Elf...

IME it's not too hard to get a full attack. Often the bad guy also wants to get a full attack on you; even if they don't, you have maneuvers like sudden leap, shadow blink or quicksilver motion. You should check out Rystil Arden's rants about action-granting items in some of the MIC threads.

Oh no. I agree that it's not terribly hard to set up. But my point is that melee guys have to expend resources or take risks to do so; ranged guys, not so much.

Um, to get two full attacks? It's about DPS, to borrow the MMORPG term.

No, I do understand, I just think you're nerfing it too much.

In my experience, the enemy counter-strike is a more common (and dire) risk for the melee guy; archers can afford to be relatively laid back so long as there's someone between them and trouble. The "kaboom"s tend to happen to spellcasters and tanks.

Unfurling steel blossom
strike

You fire a single arrow into the air, which separates and transforms in mid-air into a cloud of deadly projectiles.

As a standard action you attack all creatures in a 10' radius burst, within your first range increment.​

Thanks, I did miss that.

I don't really see how this would stop people charging, since like I said, they could just jump over the difficult terrain.

Some folks just can't jump... but I don't see anything about jumping in the Charge description, which does say that you can't charge through Difficult terrain.

Now, is that cast-iron because it's explicitly stated somewhere, or is it simply that current stances don't overlap much, leaving open the question of whether it's kosher to go outside that convention...?

Can't find where it was stated, but I do recall reading it somewhere... and it's certainly true. Those stances that don't scale with key skill rank (which is a proxy for level) have benefits which are still good at high level; Stance of Clarity will be just as sweet when you're fighting one big dragon as it was when you were fighting one big bugbear.

Cheers, -- N

 

[hong]

You only need four prereqs. An Elf Warblade could easily pick up:
- Moment of Perfect Mind
- Mind Over Body
- Hearing the Air
- Diamond Defense or Stance of Alacrity (the latter being especially useful for a Warblade)

(in that order, it's a pretty natural progression)

I'm sure he'd want to mix it up in melee too, and would choose maneuvers to support melee style as well, but it's a natural progression IMHO and one could very well end up taking TSS with the intent of using it for both ranged and melee combat.

Like I said, by that time you're a 17th level character with a lot more resources (including all your warblade abilities other than those Diamond Mind maneuvers) sunk into melee than ranged. You can do it, but chances are you'll be using your +10 greatsword a lot more than your longbow.

Basically, I choose to ignore the fact that TST allows ranged attacks as well as melee attacks, on the basis that the schools and classes in ToB are all melee oriented, all the maneuvers are melee-oriented, and people claim that classes like the warblade and swordsage are balanced by how they're melee-oriented. The fact that the wording of TST is loose in this respect doesn't bother me.

No, I do understand, I just think you're nerfing it too much.

In my experience, the enemy counter-strike is a more common (and dire) risk for the melee guy; archers can afford to be relatively laid back so long as there's someone between them and trouble. The "kaboom"s tend to happen to spellcasters and tanks.

I'm not sure how the example is affected in any substantial way if I modify it to:

1) I make an attack; BBEG gets a kaboom attack off; I make another attack which kills the BBEG but two party members are dead

2) I make two attacks; BBEG dies, does not get a kaboom attack off; I am dazed, but it doesn't matter because the BBEG is dead

Some folks just can't jump... but I don't see anything about jumping in the Charge description, which does say that you can't charge through Difficult terrain.

It's in the FAQ that you can jump as part of a charge. I asked that question myself not so long ago.

 

[Nifft]

Just for spite fun, I decided to make an Elf Warblade who's focused on archery from the get-go. This assumes no XP penalty for multi-classing. If there is a penalty, just make it a Human and let the Fighter levels cover Longbow proficiency -- we just won't take anything Bow-specific until after we have Fighter levels. (Humans obviously get another bonus Feat at 1st level -- prolly Adaptive Style.)

Level / Class -- [Bonus] Feat(s); Maneuver(s); Stance
1/ Warblade 1 -- Weapon Finesse; Moment of Perfect Mind, Sudden Leap, Douse the Flames; Blood in the Water
2/ Warblade 2 -- Steel Wind
3/ Warblade 3 -- Point Blank Shot -- Wall of Blades
4/ Fighter 1 -- Rapid Shot
5/ Fighter 2 -- Weapon Focus (Longbow)
6/ Warblade 4 -- Weapon Specialization (Longbow); Steel Wind -> White Raven Tactics; Absolute Steel Stance
7/ Warblade 5 -- [Improved Initiative]; Lion's Roar
8/ Warblade 6 -- Wall of Blades -> Mind Over Body
9/ Warblade 7 -- Ranged Weapon Mastery (Piercing); Iron Heart Surge
10/ Warblade 8 -- Douse the Flames -> Disrupting Blow
11/ Warblade 9 -- [Blade Meditation (Diamond Mind)]; Iron Heart Focus
12/ Warblade 10 -- Adaptive Style; Hearing the Air
13/ Warblade 11 -- Iron Heart Endurance
14/ Warblade 12 --
15/ Warblade 13 -- [White Raven Defense], Improved Critical (Longbow); Quicksilver Motion
16/ Warblade 14 --
17/ Warblade 15 -- Lightning Throw
18/ Warblade 16 -- Martial Stance (Leading the Charge); Stance of Alacrity
19/ Warblade 17 -- [Blind-Fight]; Time Stands Still
20/ Warblade 18 --

He will fight with a longbow (duh) and a pair of spiked gauntlets, which he will use to smack opponents who come too close. This smacking will generally attempt to disable the opponent with a standard action Diamond Mind strike, so the Warblade can run away.

He will use most of his class abilities defensively.

There are a lot of White Raven area or ally maneuvers which he can use to "direct battle" from relative safety; in particular, Lion's Roar allows him to initiate it when he drops an opponent by any means, at any range (as opposed to Fountain of Blood, which requires that the dropped foe be within your threatened area). The rest of his maneuvers are geared towards mobility and self-preservation.

Leading the Charge is taken mostly for irony value. The stance will benefit his party, but he won't be leading anything.

This looks like it could be a fairly effective character, even though he's ignoring the intent of most of his class features. He's not someone you want to run up to and attack, but neither is he someone you can safely ignore. If you sunder his bow, he'll take a round to Adaptive Style himself his few melee maneuvers, and then you will be in trouble.

There are a bunch of levels where he could swap out old maneuvers for new ones; I didn't bother, but he could easily have Diamond Nightmare Blade by sacrificing... something. I dunno.

Anyway, IMHO this would be viable (albeit sub-optimal) with the schools out there right now. So an archery school should do better.

So, anyone want to play this?

Cheers, -- N

 

[hong]

Anyway, IMHO this would be viable (albeit sub-optimal) with the schools out there right now. So an archery school should do better.

Sigh. Nifft, you're really smart and creative and all, and I value your feedback, but you're making it difficult, you know?

The Celestial Rain school _is_ better. For 8 maneuver levels, it gives you more funky archery stunts than you can shake a stick at. It certainly gives you a lot more toys to play with than any of the schools in the book, if your chosen niche is archery.

There is ONE maneuver which is of debatable utility, compared to another maneuver in a school which otherwise gives bugger-all to archers. And even if it comes out second-best compared to that maneuver, in absolute terms it still gives an immense boost to the person using it. Most certainly anyone on the receiving end will be in no doubt that it's pretty awesome, bordering even on munchkin.

This is akin to people complaining that wizards are unplayable if you ban wish. Like hell they are. They are exactly as playable as always, for 16 character levels or 80% of the non-epic lifespan. Perhaps if you base all your character decisions on the distant, oft-unattainable basis of what happens at 20th, there might be an issue. And I bet you also bought Enron shares.

. . .

In any case, fine, if it's that big an issue, drop the daze+fatigue bit. Personally I'd nerf time stands still by applying the same penalty to it, although this may change depending on experience.

 

[jasin]

I said to Nifft that I was working up a couple of schools for archery/missileers, so here they are. Diamond Arrow is for snipers; Celestial Rain is for machine-gun archers.

Overall, I like 'em. Particularly how you managed to make two different styles of archery.

Celestial Rain
3rd level

indomitable archer's stance: stance -- generate ammunition magically, considered nonmagical, up to 5 missiles/rd

IME, most people tend to treat ammunition like material components: barring extraordinary circumstances, if you need it, you have it. Of course, in this extraordinary circumstances, this would be useful, but I'm not sure it really warrants a 3rd-level stance. You can only use one stance at the time, and you cannot swap known stances later, so I don't think something this situational is very useful.

9th level

tears of heaven: strike -- 2 full attacks as full-round action, you are dazed next round, fatigued for rest of encounter

This really doesn't compare well to time stands still, or with the discipline's other strikes.

If you're a warblade, 2 full attacks get you +20/+15/+10/+5/+20/+15/+10/+5. Jade arrow flare (5th-level) gets you +20/+15/+20/+15/+10/+5, more than half the benefit, without any drawbacks, and with the additional option of making it +20/+20/+15 plus a move action, since it's a boost.

If you're a swordsage, tears of heaven are even less attractive, since you only get 6 attacks compared to the JAF's 5.

Also, note that fatigue is particularly damaging for an archer. -2 Str, -2 Dex will tend to mean -1 damage, -3 to attack, since the -2 Str will likely take you below the Str rating of your bow.

BTW, my favorite one is field of quills.

Edit: OK, I now see that TOH is already being debated in depth... It does make sense to include some penalties if you feel times stands still is over the top. I'm not sure it is, compared to stuff like the heal thing from Devoted Mind, or the approach-attack-for-+100-disengage possible with strike of perfect clarity + sudden leap. I'd rather be working with the assumption that the other disciplines' 9th-level maneuvers are OK, and adjust if needed after seeing it in play. If TSS and TOH are too much without the penalties, add penalties to both.

But what I'd really like to see as the 9th-level maneuver for Celestial Rain is something new, rather than just "TSS for ranged".

OTOH, now that I look at it, Diamond Arrow's 9th-level seems a bit over the top (compared to strike of perfect clarity). A character using it will be in a Diamond Arrow stance, so it's either +100 damage or +150 damage if you're willing to give up Dex to AC, and +2d4 Dex on top. Also, why Dex?

 

[hong]

Overall, I like 'em. Particularly how you managed to make two different styles of archery.

I've been thinking about it for a long time.

IME, most people tend to treat ammunition like material components: barring extraordinary circumstances, if you need it, you have it. Of course, in this extraordinary circumstances, this would be useful, but I'm not sure it really warrants a 3rd-level stance. You can only use one stance at the time, and you cannot swap known stances later, so I don't think something this situational is very useful.

Well, people don't track ammo later on, when portable holes and bags of holding become available. Early on, though, may be a different story. In any case, like the Diamond Arrow strike that ignores DR/hardness, it's more thematic than pragmatic (flavour text notwithstanding).

Actually, I just thought of one case where a higher-level stance is better than a lower-level one: Shadow Hand. Once you have balance on the sky (8th level), dance of the spider (3rd) and step of the fluttering month (5th) become almost superfluous.

This really doesn't compare well to time stands still, or with the discipline's other strikes.

If you're a warblade, 2 full attacks get you +20/+15/+10/+5/+20/+15/+10/+5. Jade arrow flare (5th-level) gets you +20/+15/+20/+15/+10/+5, more than half the benefit, without any drawbacks, and with the additional option of making it +20/+20/+15 plus a move action, since it's a boost.

If you're a swordsage, tears of heaven are even less attractive, since you only get 6 attacks compared to the JAF's 5.

However, you can use tears of heaven and JAF (or AAF) in the same round: +20/+15/+10 // +20/+15/+10/+5 // +20/+15/+10/+5.

And you might as well add Rapid Shot, which any self-respecting machine-gun archer will have: +18/+13/+8 // +18/+18/+13/+8/+3 // +18/+13/+8/+3

(assuming Rapid Shot only gives one extra attack)

Basically, getting two full attacks at once strikes me as incredibly good, especially when you start adding in the extras (haste is pretty much a given, for instance). As said above, you can take the daze+fatigue out to be consistent with the book, but personally I'd go the other way and nerf time stands still.

BTW, my favorite one is field of quills.

I think I like the delayed minefield best (wrath of the earth dragon).

 

[hong]

OTOH, now that I look at it, Diamond Arrow's 9th-level seems a bit over the top (compared to strike of perfect clarity). A character using it will be in a Diamond Arrow stance, so it's either +100 damage or +150 damage if you're willing to give up Dex to AC, and +2d4 Dex on top.

Strike of perfect clarity is probably a bit weak, actually. I'm already regularly doing 160-200 points with diamond nightmare blade, even without true strike; in the last session, I hit 270 with a DNB critical. At best, a warblade Power Attacking for max with strike of perfect clarity might do 100 + 40 + (normal damage), or something like 160-170 points. It would be great if you scored a crit, but that's not something to be relied on.

With time stands still, raging mongoose and haste, I could get 10 attacks per round (SS20), each doing around 25-30. A WB20 would get 12 attacks, so that's about 300-360 if they all hit.

Also, why Dex?

It seemed in line with the other strikes that slow you down. Con damage would be over the top, and I was looking for something that stopped you cold, rather than killing you.

 

[Nifft]

Sigh. Nifft, you're really smart and creative and all, and I value your feedback, but you're making it difficult, you know?

Sorry for that. I'm not trying to be an ass, I'm just trying to think this stuff through, and do so out loud. When two smart & creative people disagree about something, then one of three things is true:
1/ One of us is wrong;
2/ Both of us are wrong;
3/ Both of us are right, because the margin for error is large enough to encompass both views.

I don't see any way to figure out which condition holds other than discussing specifics. Your assertion ("more damage now is better") is both true and vacuous -- these high-level maneuvers aren't free, they're the pinnacle class feature of a dude who's supposed to stand up and not be ashamed next to a Cleric and/or a Druid.

Given the ease with which an archer can pull off a full attack, and the commonness of Rapid Shot, I think that the sort of defense used against archers is going to be different than the defense against melee guys. There are spells that straight up negate archery (wind wall, but anything that affects wind speed can do the trick), and since you can't Power Attack or abuse Stormguard Warrior (Combat Rhythm), DR is going to be a bigger issue for an archer than for a melee guy.

Anyway. IMHO the maneuver TSS is weaker if restricted to archery than it would be if it were restricted to melee, and IMHO it's worth taking four non-melee specific Diamond Mind maneuvers even if you are playing an archer with few available maneuvers, if TSS is your goal. (Also, I wanted to find currently unexploited archery-compatible maneuvers, so the build was useful in that regard.)

wizards are [not] unplayable if you ban wish.

No argument there.

In any case, fine, if it's that big an issue, drop the daze+fatigue bit. Personally I'd nerf time stands still by applying the same penalty to it, although this may change depending on experience.

Please do update with your experience. I think that a Warblade would get more use out of this particular maneuver -- many attacks favor those who can add damage to all of them, with stuff like Power Attack, Stormguard Warrior, Weapon Specialization and Melee Weapon Mastery. The best combos I've seen were with Tiger Claw / Diamond Mind builds, I think, using Raging Mongoose and the TWF chain to get really quite a lot of attacks.

- - -

Good find on the Shadow Hand stances. There are two things to note, though: Balance On Air is (Su) while the other two are (Ex), and Balance On Air is affected by wind speed (the other two are not). Perhaps those are regarded as mitigating factors?

Anyway. Constructive crits when my taxes are done. Would you mind peeking at Dancing Fox over in my thread? If you can't, no worries.

Cheers, -- N

 

[jasin]

Strike of perfect clarity is probably a bit weak, actually. I'm already regularly doing 160-200 points with diamond nightmare blade, even without true strike; in the last session, I hit 270 with a DNB critical. At best, a warblade Power Attacking for max with strike of perfect clarity might do 100 + 40 + (normal damage), or something like 160-170 points. It would be great if you scored a crit, but that's not something to be relied on.

DNB is x4 damage, right? So the benefit of the strike is +120-150 damage, with your normal damage being 40-50. Yes, this considered, it would seem that SoPC's +100 isn't all that. SoPC doesn't require a concentration check, but then, how often do you fail that with DNB?

With time stands still, raging mongoose and haste, I could get 10 attacks per round (SS20), each doing around 25-30. A WB20 would get 12 attacks, so that's about 300-360 if they all hit.

This is only tangentially related, but does raging mongoose suffer from TWF penalties? It says you get two attacks with each weapon, and your highest attack bonus. Is that supposed to implicitly include TWF penalties? My first guess was yes, but after reading wolf fang strike (attack with two weapons as a standard action at -2) I'm not so sure, because that one seems to include a "TWF penalty". And if stuff like mithral tornado can pretty much obviate the need for Whirlwind Attack, maybe Tiger Claw is supposed to do the same for TWF...?