Bow of True Arrows question

[RUMBLETiGER]

Someone mentioned in This Thread about the Bow of True Arrows weapon in Sword and Fist.

Now, I know 3.0 was known for being unbalanced, but at first glance this weapon looks ridiculously powerful.

At second glance, I have a question that might make more sense. Casting True Strike is a Standard action. Does this mean the character would spend one round activating the spell, than have to wait the second round to fire? Essentially firing Nearly-Impossible-To-Miss arrows, every OTHER turn, and wasting the other alternate turns activating the ability?

 

[Ranger19k]

I had to look it up when I read it in that other thread as well, and had the exact same WTF initial reaction that you did.

But I also came to the same conclusion as you, that the casting of the spell would limit you to firing every other round (in the absence extra standard actions), so might not be as broken as I originally believed. If you find a way to activate it as a swift action however, all bets are off.

 

[cjosephs1s]

I guess since I posted the weapon I should clarify how it works. It works on a spell trigger just like a wand and you must shoot an arrow for the spell to work. So you cannot "cast the spell this round then do nothing let the spell expire and then shoot an arrow at +20 next round" as you describe doing. Even the spell true strike doesn't work like that.

Esentially the "spell trigger" could be interpreted from the text as shooting the arrow so it would function anytime an arrow is shot.

Granted the trade of to hitting every time was low damage 1d8+1 but with new classes and revised sneak attack rules, yes this weapon has become insanely cheap for what you get.

So at the time it probably wasn't overpowered as this small amount of damage everyround would not make or break an encounter but with todays 3.5 classes and rules it can guarentee insane amounts of damage. Keep in mind it is not in the MIC which is 3.5 and this may be the reason (of course the MIC doens't list everything either). So you may want to consult your DM on this item.

 

[Vegepygmy]

I guess since I posted the weapon I should clarify how it works. It works on a spell trigger just like a wand and you must shoot an arrow for the spell to work. So you cannot "cast the spell this round then do nothing let the spell expire and then shoot an arrow at +20 next round" as you describe doing. Even the spell true strike doesn't work like that.

As a matter of fact, that's exactly how the spell true strike works. You cast true strike (normally a standard action), you have a move action left (which isn't enough to attack with), and on your next turn, your next single attack roll gains a +20 insight bonus.

Esentially the "spell trigger" could be interpreted from the text as shooting the arrow so it would function anytime an arrow is shot.

Not with a straight face, it can't.

 

[Hassassin]

Esentially the "spell trigger" could be interpreted from the text as shooting the arrow so it would function anytime an arrow is shot.

Activating a spell trigger is a standard action that provokes no attacks of opportunity. You can't do it as a part of another action unless otherwise specified.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Honestly, it probably isn't overpowered. The strength of archery is full attacking. While you CAN full attack the round you use true strike (it'd just only affect the first shot), that's still giving up an entire round of rapid shotting to cast the spell every other turn to make a single shot hit 95% of the time. Unless you've instituted some sort of power attack for archers (Hank's Energy Bow; PF's Deadly Aim feat, etc...) it's not going to be broken. At will True Strike is only really abusable when you can turn the attack bonus into lots of damage, like with melee.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It's actually a fairly weak item.

If you hit on a 10 then you shouldn't use it, period. It will reduce your damage output.

All that it actually does is allow you to inflict some damage even when the target is pretty darn hard to hit.

 

[cjosephs1s]

Well after reading all the current rules on things it looks like 10 years ago when I used this bow for my character me and the DM interpreted the rules incorrectly. My bad!

So yeah...I take back my recommendation for using this bow as it is really crappy. Sorry about that. Like I said 10 years ago when my DM and I sat down with this weapon it was a +20 to hit with every attack and the spell trigger was shooting an arrow. 3e was still new and there wasn't much content out yet.

So yeah..it works like you suggested..every other round you have to recast the spell.

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

Thanks for all the input guys!

Upon further inspection, this item does not appear broken, but it does seem situationally useful.

I'm thinking this would be very handy with powerful arrows, poison useage and against enemies with incredibly high AC. I still think it would be handy to own one, but I can't see building a character around it.