Deflect Arrows feat DC

[Plane Sailing]

I think it is fantastic that it is now automatically successful. The situation used to come up so rarely anyway, and the DC was pretty hard. This way the feat is always useful.

 

[Anax]

The automatic-ness of it could become troublesome if you go to epic levels, though. I've noticed several cases where the epic SRD has *not* really been completely updated to deal with 3.5 issues. One is that it still claims that small and dwarven monks only get half as much speed as other monks *cough*.

But the relevant one here is that since arrow deflection is automatic in 3.5, Infinite Deflection becomes a far far more powerful. Admittedly, at epic levels you kind of expect people to become insanely powerful--but I'd probably limit it to one deflection per something--maybe one deflection per iterative attack. Or perhaps you could get n deflections every time you took the "Epic Deflection" feat.

Otherwise, a character with Infinite Deflection and Exceptional Deflection is entirely too powerful--untouchable by any ranged attack, including ranged touch attacks for spells. Even at epic levels, that's too much for just two feats.

 

[Li Shenron]

I think it is fantastic that it is now automatically successful. The situation used to come up so rarely anyway, and the DC was pretty hard. This way the feat is always useful.

I don't like it. It may not be a problem practically, but not having to roll at all puts me (as DM) into a difficult position. I cannot e.g. adjust the difficulty depending on circumstance because there is no roll to apply a circumstance bonus/malus; if I wish to do so I have to introduce a roll where there wasn't one, which makes the player feel cheated.

I don't think it was a good idea to remove the roll just because the feat was unpopular (it's still unpopular IMXP). If they had just decreased the DC or changed the roll to something easier, I would have felt much better. Besides, it would have actually improved if it had been changed so that it is more difficult to deflect arrows shoot by better archers, such as basically giving a deflection bonus to AC.

 

[hong]

I think they should have just had the feat give an AC bonus vs ranged attacks. Make it a big AC bonus if you feel it wasn't good enough.

Come to think of it....

 

[Li Shenron]

I think they should have just had the feat give an AC bonus vs ranged attacks. Make it a big AC bonus if you feel it wasn't good enough.

Come to think of it....

Even a +1d20 bonus would be better than autosuccess IMO

 

[Azalnubizar]

I agree, IMO the deflection should not be automatic.

There is NO other power in that level that let's you simply ignore one attack per round, no matter how good the opponent is.

A monk with this ability (which he can get in pretty low levels) can simply ignore an opponent pointing a crossbow at him. I have had this situation and it just takes some fun from the game IMO.

I haven't found an appropriate house rule yet, though...
The Reflex DC 20 from 3.0 wasn't very good either IMO and simply adding the save without any benefit makes the player feal cheated...

I have thought about things like adding ref-save to AC or making saves but being able to deflect more than one arrow / round... but nothing final yet...

 

[Plane Sailing]

A monk with this ability (which he can get in pretty low levels) can simply ignore an opponent pointing a crossbow at him. I have had this situation and it just takes some fun from the game IMO.

I think you're looking at this from the wrong angle! This *heightens* the fun of the game for the Monk!

He can't zap people with spells, turn the undead, wear heavy armour - but he can occasionally get his moment of glory and feel way cool. What's wrong with that?

If you nerf the ability it seems pretty certain that monks will just take Combat Reflexes at 2nd level instead, which was always a pretty good choice anyway.

(and hey, at 2nd level all the fighting classes can simply ignore a single opponent pointing a crossbow at him anyway, since it is almost impossible for them to be killed by it even if it penetrates their armour. If the DM wants to capture people he has to use *lots* of people with crossbow bolts)

Cheers

 

[hong]

I think you're looking at this from the wrong angle! This *heightens* the fun of the game for the Monk!

He can't zap people with spells, turn the undead, wear heavy armour - but he can occasionally get his moment of glory and feel way cool.

Unless the guy with the crossbow is hidden, or invisible.

Unless the guy with the crossbow has a bow, and iterative attacks.

Unless the guy with the crossbow is a giant throwing a rock.

Unless the guy with the crossbow chucks a Melf's acid arrow instead.

And really, the monk has plenty of other super powers with which to get his moment of glory. Inherent dim door, Tumble, stunning fist, ethereal jaunt, SUPER SPEED... they have their toys to play with. (They may not be the toys people are expecting if they want to play the monk as a fighter, but that's an issue for another thread.)

Deflect Arrows won't stop the monk getting sniped to death by a hidden rogue, whether it's via the skill or (improved) invisibility. It won't stop the monk being turned into a pincushion by your typical twink archer with Rapid Shot. It won't stop him being smooshed by rocks or other out-of-the-ordinary ranged attacks. It'll make 1st level mooks (generally the only ones who use the crossbow regularly, unless you introduce 3rd party crunch to make crossbows attractive) even more ineffectual, but it's not like this was a weakness of the monk crying out to be addressed. In general, it's most useful when it's least needed, which is hardly an indication of good design.

Meanwhile, on the downside, the feat encourages even more the machine-gun archer schtick, of which squillions already abound in most D&D campaigns. Anyone who wants to play a different sort of ranged combatant -- say, a one-shot-kill guy a la the new OotBI, and/or (shudder) you actually want to use a crossbow for a change -- gets screwed by this feat. Then you get into the scaling issues where a 2nd level monk can deflect an epic archer's attack, and the introduction of yet another wart into D&D's combat system.

In NWN, they changed this feat to give +4 AC against all ranged attacks, and that seems to work well. Not that anyone will still take it except the monk because of the IUS prereq, but it does the job.

 

[Azalnubizar]

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...

 

[MerakSpielman]

You could make it work like other feats, and say the monk has to declare a penalty to his attacks to gain an equivelent bonus to his AC versus ranged attacks...