Fixing Quick Draw

[Legildur]

As a house rule, sure, why not.

Personally, I'm with Elder Basilisk in that the feat is fine as written.

I have a Ftr/Pal who would love to take Quickdraw, but has other, higher priority feats to select from. He also wields a buckler shield so that he can take other actions in the round, such as quaff a potion, move a weapon to the off-hand (to hold, rather than wield), leave a longbow in that hand whilst he draws sword and enters melee, wield a longsword in both hands etc.

There have been occasions where he has dropped a weapon to draw another weapon, and that is tactics to recognise when you can do that without risking loss of the weapon.

I believe Quicksheathe (or equivalent) should be a special ability of certain PrCs, such as Samurai or Kensai, rather than a feat.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Of course, then you are also assuming that all of those pluses are 1) taken as abilities, and not +X, 2) Those abilities are all damage dealing, and 3) all of those will damage the target.

So a +4 sword against a DR 10 may not be better,
a +1 Defending will not help much against the DR 15 demon
the Holy Mage bane will not do much against the DR 10 neutral creature.

It is true, switching is not always beneficial. But sometimes it is, and QD makes it more possible.

This is a good principle--but the examples are not ideal for quickdraw. To put it into a bit better perspective, let's try these examples which I've seen frequently enough to be worth mentioning:

Archer:
Usual bow--maybe +1 holy frost
Secondary bow--+1 merciful (for when you don't want to kill your enemies)
Another bow--+1 elemental bane (elementals tend to be the bane of archers--DR 10/- knocks off most of their damage and they don't take damage from holy).
Another option--+1 seeking. (It's not usually needed, but when you do need it, you need it).

Melee character:
Brilliant Energy weapon--it rocks against classed NPCs but is useless against undead or constructs.
+1 keen, wounding weapon--both enhancements are great as long as your foes are critable--if not, don't bother.
+1 ghost touch, undead bane--at a +3 cost, this weapon is as good as a +3 holy weapon against normal undead and twice as good against incorporeal undead--at less than the cost of adding ghost touch to your +3 holy sword. And really, 9 times out of ten, anything you need ghost touch for is undead.
+1 adamantine construct bane weapon--Why settle for being frustrated when you're fighting demons and devils in order to use your +1 flaming holy frost weapon against constructs. A mere 11,000gp will get you a weapon that's just as good as your primary weapon against constructs and enables you to get cold iron or silver on your primary weapon to defeat high level fiendish DR.
+1 merciful weapon. For the same reason as the archer.

Expanding upon this principle, one might note that, in a normal campaign, you end up finding a significant portion of your magic weapons. So it's not a choice between having a +1 flaming frost hammer or a +1 defending hammer and a +1 giant bane heavy pick at rougly the same price. The real choice is between having a +1 flaming weapon after selling the other two or both of the other two. Secondary weapons are a better deal when you have the option to keep found treasure than when you simply pick stuff off the treasure tables for an arena game.

 

[Sledge]

actually that +4 to hit compared to otherwise will increase hit probabilities by about 20% as well as make the hits do more damage. If the character has power attack they can of course swap it out at will.

 

[Sledge]

so the archer has 3 bows? at 32,000, 8,000 and 8,000 gp or roughly the same price as one bow with a total of a +5 modifier. So to do a few point of damage occasionally you invest in a feat and multiple inferior weapons. Or you could just do more always. The melee weapons are more expensive.
However I do agree that in a party where you only ever get a random sword that is below your party level you may find the golf bag of weapons happens. If that is the case again quickdraw can be useful in helping you with your inferiority. It's still just another cost for an inherently inferior character. For instance why do you have to pay a feat to throw daggers, but not to shoot arrows? Maybe quickdraw has value, but it is in many areas that the characters are already penalized for exploring.

 

[Anax]

And the 3.5 revisions to them were stupid and pointless.

Opinions may vary, I suppose. I find it much much easier to explain the rules, to find out when and how you can perform a specific action (like withdrawing), and so on using the 3.5 rules. The changes were certainly not pointless, although those of us who internalized the old rules probably didn’t need the new system.

The thing that gets to me is that the new system says pretty much exactly the same thing the old system did... only it says it in a way that is much less ambiguous and much easier to follow. Why would anybody not like that?

With Quick Draw you do so as a free action. Thus, it should not interfere with a double move. Check this out from the 3.0 SRD:

Simple, elegant, and not broken in any way. And I like to point this out with many of the 3.5 "improvements": "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." What's so unrealistic about a person drawing a weapon as part of their movement while they hustle or charge?

What’s broken about the 3.0 version? The fact that it took me fifteen minutes of flipping through my book to be absolutely sure that without Quick Draw you cannot in fact draw a weapon while withdrawing. The fact that actually, it’s very much open to interpretation whether you can do that in 3.0. Let’s take a look:

p. 122: If all you do is move (not run) during your turn, the space that you start out in is not considered threatened, and therefore enemies do not get attacks of opportunity against you when you move from that space.

p. 126: However, since all you do when you take a double move action is to move, the space where you begin your move is not considered threatened, and therefore enemies to not get attacks of opportunity for your moving from that space.

Now, my take on this is that the rule is: if you do nothing but move on your turn, you don’t provoke attacks for leaving the first space you were in. If you do anything else (including take a free action to do something), you’ve done something other than move, and therefore you are subject to an attack of opportunity for that first space. It is also reasonable to interpret this as allowing a free action, since they’re kind of special, but I wouldn’t interpret it that way. And clearly, you’re not allowed to draw a weapon while you do this in 3.0.

Now, in 3.5, we have:

p. 143: Withdrawing from melee combat is a full-round action. When you withdraw, you can move up to double your speed. The square you start out in is ...

Here, there is no such ambiguity. It’s a full round action, it has the same mechanical effect as the old rules for not provoking when all you do is move, but you are also definitely allowed to perform a free action in the same round. It’s still prohibited to draw a weapon without the benefit of the Quick Draw feat, but now there’s no doubt at all that you may draw a weapon using Quick Draw if you wish. You can also definitely drop a weapon (a free action) now, whereas in the 3.0 rules this was subject to the same ambiguity as all other free actions.



ANYway, way off the topic at hand, so I’ll stop now.

 

[Drowbane]

Drowbane.. .. Draw as Immediate Action for AoO?

As in you are unarmed and an opponent walks past you.. you get to draw the weapon with which you use as an AoO?

As long as you know this is not RAW, as you need to threaten the opponent in order to be eligible for taking an AoO in the first place.. and can lead to interesting circumstances with reach weapons...

I'm much more interested in cool effects and fun than I am in the concept of "if its not RAW, its crap!". The Rules are mere guidelines, there is in fact a reason why D&D is run with a Dungeon Master.

Thus far I've only used this House Rule once. In a hollywood-style/anime Samurai campaign... Go Iaijutsu!

 

[genshou]

Opinions may vary, I suppose. I find it much much easier to explain the rules, to find out when and how you can perform a specific action (like withdrawing), and so on using the 3.5 rules. The changes were certainly not pointless, although those of us who internalized the old rules probably didn’t need the new system.

The thing that gets to me is that the new system says pretty much exactly the same thing the old system did... only it says it in a way that is much less ambiguous and much easier to follow. Why would anybody not like that?



What’s broken about the 3.0 version? The fact that it took me fifteen minutes of flipping through my book to be absolutely sure that without Quick Draw you cannot in fact draw a weapon while withdrawing. The fact that actually, it’s very much open to interpretation whether you can do that in 3.0. Let’s take a look:



Now, my take on this is that the rule is: if you do nothing but move on your turn, you don’t provoke attacks for leaving the first space you were in. If you do anything else (including take a free action to do something), you’ve done something other than move, and therefore you are subject to an attack of opportunity for that first space. It is also reasonable to interpret this as allowing a free action, since they’re kind of special, but I wouldn’t interpret it that way. And clearly, you’re not allowed to draw a weapon while you do this in 3.0.

Now, in 3.5, we have:



Here, there is no such ambiguity. It’s a full round action, it has the same mechanical effect as the old rules for not provoking when all you do is move, but you are also definitely allowed to perform a free action in the same round. It’s still prohibited to draw a weapon without the benefit of the Quick Draw feat, but now there’s no doubt at all that you may draw a weapon using Quick Draw if you wish. You can also definitely drop a weapon (a free action) now, whereas in the 3.0 rules this was subject to the same ambiguity as all other free actions.



ANYway, way off the topic at hand, so I’ll stop now.

The changes were not pointless because they did not need to clarify a few points. The changes were pointless because many of these "clarifications" are common-sensical and any gaming group that doesn't have Wizards to hold their hands and clean up their drool should be able to figure it out of they get down to thinking about it. What constitutes an "action" is merely a game term, so when you think of something as "taking an action" do they mean taking a standard, attack, move, move-equivalent, free, or swift action; or do they mean the fact or process of doing something significant? Now, "significant" can allow for a great deal of ambiguity. But it is a situation that allows for a DM to make their own call, which kind of situation the 3.5 revision seems hell-bent on destroying (IMO, YMMV, and all that). Everytime I play in 3.5 I get this jarring feeling that it's a player's simulation, not a group's role-playing game.

 

[Thia Halmades]

As usual, I think I lost the idea of the thread a while ago. Hawken summed up my opinion, so add me to the "nay" list; Quick Draw isn't broken.

LCpt. Thia Halmades

 

[ARandomGod]

I always house rule quick draw to include a quick stow. Because really, that just makes sense.

Of course, the feat is mainly there to penalize throwing weapons. (Making you take a feat to have the style be viable).

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

Drow-Bane, I refered to the RAW because, like I was taught behind the wheel, its always good to know when, where, and how you are breaking the rules. That way you can be careful of conflicts with those who are following them...it has nothing to do with HRs being 'crap' as you so elequently put it.

Removing the requirement to threaten a square before being able to respond to potential AoO's is a tactical consideration within the game, making it relatively safe in the first round of combat to rush past the burly front liners to get at someone else.

Anyway, back to your regularly scheduled thread