Deflect Arrows

[Rassilon]

Well, if I recall correctly, 3.0 required you to make a DC 20 Reflex save to deflect that one arrow per round. Depending on how much credibilty you ascribe to WOTC, they either "knew what they were doing, it's probably he correct change" or "WOTC messed up a perfectly good thing again".

I recently DM'd a very simialr scenario to the hypothetical above - a monk w/ deflect arrows was fight a small group of 1 hit mooks (base Orc vs. L8 character) and was being targeted by a tough ranger. Due to range, the ranger had to roll a 20 to hit the monk. He did, and the monk deflected it. My reaction: Great! I got to have the exitement and momentary threat of a 20, and the monk got to use his class abils to 'out play' the enemy.

I don't see that it would be a problem for any other class with th feat either - and compared to some metamagic feats, or power attacking Barb w/ greatsword, avoiding one arrow per round does not seem disrupting.

If in doubt, fire ten arrows at the Deflect Arrows character !

Rassilon.

 

[Infiniti2000]

So in my group, we do opposed attack rolls.

Opposed attack rolls with what? What does the defender 'attack' with? So, Dex has nothing at all to do with deflecting arrows?

 

[Lord Pendragon]

Deflect Arrows in the RAW is too black and white to be balanced in 3.5e.

You're right. It's already far too weak to be considered balanced. I can't imagine weakening it even further by requiring a roll of any sort.

 

[krishnack]

Now this is a purely hypothetical situation and not likely to happen; the situation is just a demonstration of a possibility, not a probability, and to me shows that Deflect Arrows in the RAW is too black and white to be balanced in 3.5e.

yeah you're right: this is a purely hypothetical situation which will never happen cause a master with his bow will have all feats you described he has not and a fighter with a one handed weapon will have a shield - also a fighter 1 will never encounter a ranger 20 and so on...
purely hypothetical it would be the situation you described but purely hypothetical you also can build a character whith at least 1 level of every starting class without XP penalty - but it's a matter of facts that this character will never become true and this situation also will never become true
also the ranger 20 would attack with more than one arrow cause altough the fighter gains cover he has low AC like every fighter 1 without a shield and the ranger has a bloody high attack bonus like every ranger 20 which makes no sense that he doesn't attack with more arrows but the fighter can only deflect one of them!

 

[Evilhalfling]

This feat has only seen much use in my current game. After 8, 3rd ed games. Even most monks will trade out this feat if they can. The only reason it has seen use now is that the monk belongs to a school that requires it, and there were 2 archers in the party without Percise shot. Even so he was still hit by friendly fire once. With the archers both gone, this feat will vanish again.

There is no reason to weaken a substandard feat further.

 

[Li Shenron]

The 3.5 change to Deflect Arrow did not improve my game in any possible way, but it did (and still does) make lots of people argue against each other, and that alone is something I haven't forgiven the editors. Energy stolen from more important discussions...

 

[Shape D.]

an opposed save seems like the best option.

10th level ranger lets say dex 16 would have a +13/+8. (just BAB and dex bonus.)
10th level monk with a dex of 16 ref save would be +10. (just BS and dex bonus.)

thats not too bad of an apposed roll. The attacker at an equal level only has a +3 advantage over the defender.

 

[Deset Gled]

an opposed save seems like the best option.

10th level ranger lets say dex 16 would have a +13/+8. (just BAB and dex bonus.)
10th level monk with a dex of 16 ref save would be +10. (just BS and dex bonus.)

thats not too bad of an apposed roll. The attacker at an equal level only has a +3 advantage over the defender.

I highly disagree. Deflect Arrows just isn't a very useful feat to begin with. Requiring opposed rolls just adds another level of complexity to a feat that doesn't need it. And an attacker having any advantage over the defender on a tactic that is used so little is a kick in the pants to the player who took the feat.

Can any of you people who are creating house rules for opposed rolls and the like give an example where the Deflect Arrows feat changed your game to the point of being broken, or are you just arguing from a logical standpoint that this tactic should be harder than the feat makes it?

 

[Shape D.]

Can any of you people who are creating house rules for opposed rolls and the like give an example where the Deflect Arrows feat changed your game to the point of being broken, or are you just arguing from a logical standpoint that this tactic should be harder than the feat makes it?

Post 3

<ME> I rolled a 20
<DM> Cool, roll to confirm.
<ME> 18 so after modifiers thats a 32.
<DM> He deflects your dagger.
<ME> What a load of crap.

Thats a 33 damage (average) dagger he deflected, with no save needed. Being able to do something difficult 100% of the time doesn't make sense.

 

[c0mA]

Post 3

Being able to do something difficult 100% of the time doesn't make sense.

like deflecting an arrow coming in at you @ 300'/sec (200mph av.) when you are in melee with three orcs, two of which are flanking you. sure its a feat, but for a first level character to be able to accomplish this is unbalancing using RAW.

which was my point exactly. i was using a hypothetical to show how this overpowered feat needs some toning down. there are too many situations where this feat can be abused as is. for instance, your party encounters the BBEG (who has deflect arrows). the dm has it set up so that taking him out normally would be hard to do for the party, for whatever reason, but the one rogue/fighter archer has a slew of +1 arrows that do +2d6 fire damage. the rogue/fighter, if he does not have rapid shot and isn't high enough level, cannot ever hit the BBEG.

for those of you argueing against an exagerration thinking it would never happen, well that wasn't the point. i can think of many instances where an NPC with the deflect arrows feat completely neutralizes at least one of the PCs for the entire combat, or has the possibility to do so.

an opposed attack roll could have DEX as its modifier, or STR. i didn't explain further because its our house rule and i didn't feel like expanding upon it here.