Deflect Arrows feat DC

[Aust Diamondew]

In my games the character makes reflex save vs. the attack roll in order to deflect the arrow. Sorta like the mounted combat feat.

 

[Henry]

Now, THIS is the $64,000 question:

HAS the revised Deflect Arrows feat proven unbalancing in your campaigns in the past? Your personal experiences, I'm getting at, here. This could well be another Mystic Theurge in a teapot.

 

[Abstraction]

With the Rapid Reload feat, it becomes less of a problem even for crossbowmen, who are the most-quoted as losing out to monks with Deflect Arrows.

Side question: Does snatch arrows provide a benefit over deflect arrows that makes it worth a feat?

 

[Narfellus]

yes, the epic level fighter with the unholy mithral heavy crossbow +8 of flaming burst is unable to harm the second level monk.
That's basically what I meant...

...I think +4 AC would work much better...

Yeah, that's kind of wanky. I hadn't thought about it. Maybe the monk can't deflect an attack over a certain BAB. Anything under that attack threshhold is automatically nullified.

 

[sfedi]

HAS the revised Deflect Arrows feat proven unbalancing in your campaigns in the past? Your personal experiences, I'm getting at, here. This could well be another Mystic Theurge in a teapot.

I think people are complaining more on a flavor-issue than a balance-issue.

Although the weirdness of a 2nd level monk deflecting an Epic arrow is still bothersome (not that there aren´t plenty of examples of those kind of things)

 

[atom crash]

yes, the epic level fighter with the unholy mithral heavy crossbow +8 of flaming burst is unable to harm the second level monk.

that epic level fighter could easily club the monk to death using the crossbow as a bludgeoning tool. but i don't see the big deal about letting someone with the Deflect Arrows feat automatically nullify one missile attack each round.

the 3.0 version set the DC (Reflex save DC 20) way too high. the 3.5 version made it automatic, most likely for the sake of simplicity.

every other "fix" or compromise suggested in this thread ultimately creates more bookkeeping and time lost to figuring out the DC or computing a different AC against missile weapons.

although the +4 AC against missile attacks isn't a bad fix, but it would have to be good against ALL missile attacks, not just the first missile each round.

however, I plan to continue using the feat as written.

 

[Droid101]

One arrow...

If your epic fighter only fires one arrow in a round, he's not really so epic, now is he?

It's just one arrow.

Jeez...

 

[Deset Gled]

HAS the revised Deflect Arrows feat proven unbalancing in your campaigns in the past? Your personal experiences, I'm getting at, here. This could well be another Mystic Theurge in a teapot.

I would liken this less to the Mystic Theurge in 3.5, and more to the Skeleton in 3.0.

3.0 skeleton took half damage from slashing weapons. Up front, this doesn't seem like a bad thing. It's hardly unbalancing. But it's just mathematically odd that a God trying to attack a skeloton could have thousands of points of damage removed from his overall damage when attacking a skeleton with a sword, whereas a 2nd level character many only be penalized one or two points of damage. Why is it that a god gets penalized so much and a 2nd level character so little? Its not unbalancing, just full of cognitive dissonance. Consequently, the mechanic of half damage was replaced with DR 5/bludgeoning, which makes a lot more sense.

The same is true for the Deflect Arrows feat. An Epic sniper could spend a full round aiming at a 2nd level monk, have an insane to hit bonus, and unleash a single, amazingly well placed arrow that should do a ton of damage and have it completely nulified by DA. Or, a level 6 fighter could pull out a bow, fire off two arrows, and still have a chance of hitting with one. The situation doesn't come up often, and it woldn't break a game, but its very counterintuitive and would be quite frustrating when it did happen.

Another potentially weird thing with DA is what happens when a rogue with Multishot shoots someone with it. The first attack is automatically deflected, which is also the one that does precision damage. Shouldn't the arrows that aren't aimed as well be easier to deflect that the one that's the most precise?

To be honest, as a frequent monk player I really like DA more now, but I agree it has problems. I don't know what the best way to fix them without making the feat useless.

 

[sfedi]

Wouldn't you want to deflect the more damaging arrow?

Besides if an arrow would Sneak Attack you, you wouldn't be able to DA it, since you were not aware of the attack.

Mmm... even with Uncanny Dodge?

 

[Li Shenron]

the 3.0 version set the DC (Reflex save DC 20) way too high. the 3.5 version made it automatic, most likely for the sake of simplicity.

Actually IMO the sin was in 3.0. It shouldn't have been a Reflex save with fixed DC since the start, but rather something like the bonus to AC you mention, or a ST/check against a DC equal to the attack roll of the attacker. In that way it would have been easier to deflect arrows shot by weaker foes, and it would have been possible to keep the feat working at about the same rate at every level.

Instead, by having a fixed DC it became later obvious that after a while the success is automatic (unless the DM gives circumstance mods). The 3.5 version just go easier and makes it automatic since the start.

Usually simplicity is very welcome, but honestly I can't imagine someone was thinking that the 3.0 version wasn't already simple enough! ONE ROLL.... Why didn't they address grapple then? Or still about feats, even Dodge is more complicated to use than the 3.0 Deflect Arrows!
IMHO it's only that the design of a game isn't always consistent, it's a work done by several people with different ideas, in case of 3.5 it's even done ON TOP of someone else's older work. That's why one day we hear "we changed this to make it more simple/quick/straightforward" and the next day "we changed that to make it more complex/realistic/interesting".