Deadeye(feat from Mercenaries)

[bcwflash]

I and several in my group were in disagreement on how the feat Dead Eye (from the AEG Book Mercenaries) would be put to use with Rapid shot. My group feels that the two can not be used at the same time.
Dead Eye {General} you are a master with ranged weapons,able to take an extra moment of time to maximize the effect of your ranged attack by exploiting chinks in armour or vital areas.
Prerequisites:base att. +6 or higher,Weapon focus (ranged weapon)
Benefit: when using a ranged weapon which you have as a weapon focus,you may sacrifice your second attack to increase the possible damage of the first. you make a single attack roll with bonuses equal to your highest bonuses,losing the second attack roll.If you attack hits,you automatically score a critical.
Special:If you have four attacks per round,you can perform this feat twice per round.
I have three normal attacks a round and believe that with Rapid shot i will not get two critical hits from four attacks. My group thinks that i acn not use two atacks from my three and still rapid shot at all.
Can anyone help clarify the rules for having both these feats and how they should work?

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Hmm, a feat that lets you exchange an attack at -5 for an automatic critical (with all attendant effects) with no need to confirm. (x3 weapon means a very good chance for triple damage in exchange for a not so good chance for damage equivalent to x2). Presumably, it only works when you would actually be entitled to a second attack (full attack action) but it doesn't actually say so. . . . I think the proper way to use this feat would be to take a black sharpie and use it to highlight the name and all of the text. That's what I'd do in my game. . . .

Oh wait, you want to use it in your game. How would it interact with Rapid Shot? Rapid shot gives you an extra attack at your highest attack bonus but all of your attacks are at -2. Once you use rapid shot, your character will have four attacks. Rapid shot is a special way to use the full attack action (like TWF) so it in no way precludes the use of other full attack feats like this one.

So, using rapid shot, this would give you one attack at BAB -2 (auto critical) and one attack at BAB -7.

When you normally got three attacks, it would give you one attack at BAB -2 (auto critical) and one attack at BAB -7 (auto critical).

 

[CCamfield]

Well, there aren't any official rules for how these feats should interact. I would probably lean towards not allowing Dead Eye and Rapid Shot to stack - one involves loosing arrows very quickly, and the other taking extra time to aim. How do you hurry aiming?

Making the Dead Eye attacks *threaten* criticals would be a lot more balanced.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Re: Re: Deadeye(feat from Mercenaries)

Making the Dead Eye attacks *threaten* criticals would be a lot more balanced.

True, although that's rather like saying "giving a 1st level paladin a +5 Holy Greatsword is a lot more balanced than giving a first level fighter the Sword of Kas."

The feat would be closer to balanced if you only threatened a critical and you had to make the attack roll at the lower of the two attack ratings rather than the higher (so you give up your attack at BAB to threaten at BAB -5). Given x3 criticals (x4 for deepwood snipers), the generally obscene attack bonusses archers get (my 7th level elf cleric archer had +22 to hit on a regular basis), and the various critical effects (bursts, etc), however, I would paraphrase Ralph Nader and say that this feat is unbalanced at any speed.

 

[Stalker0]

Does it say anywhere in there that Dead Eye requires the full attack action?

If it does, it doesn't work with rapid shot. Else, yeah I guess you can.

 

[CCamfield]

Well, Dead Eye only works with a full attack because you only get multiple attacks with a full attack action. It does say that if you have, say, 4 attacks, that you can use Dead Eye twice.

 

[mmu1]

Let me get this straight... You have a feat which lets you give up a lower chance to do do 2x your weapon damage (hitting with both attacks), in exchange for a higher chance of doing 3x the weapon damage, and all you give up is the fact you can't split the attack between the target?

Add another reason to the list of why I no longer use splatbooks...