Help Me Challenge One Of My Players

[axp_dave]

I agree to not punish a character for a good strategy. Ways to challenge him might be to have at least one scenario a night where a archer doesn't do well. Some thoughts to challenge the archer with the environment would be:

A narrow tunnel 10 feet wide where the front line make it harder to shoot past them

A large area for combat where the front line cannot keep the bad guys away from the archer

Enemies with DR good/silver/or anything the archer doesn't have. A lot of monsters have hard DR and throwing them the party's way is fair game

Ambushes where the front line cannot establish itself

All of these ideas don't punish the character for a good strategy nor do they get to specific against the archer (monks snatching arrows, cutting bow strings, etc). By changing the battle ground a little to not always favor the archer it could make things interesting. I imagine the party really relies on the archer's damage. If the archer is engaged in a melee combat it might put the preasure on the entire party.

David

 

[MongooseFamiliar]

Have fun trying to Sunder a Weapon of Legacy!

Olaf the Stout

Ah, but does it have a bowstring of legacy, too? Those little suckers have to be replaced periodically, and they rot if they aren't oiled.

And they snap so nicely. Though a clever spellcaster with a mending spell could fix it fairly easily, I imagine, or someone with a spare bowstring.

 

[javcs]

There's always disarming him, with a -4 penalty 'cause it's a ranged weapon.

Use wind conditions - they cause penalties to ranged attacks.

Darklone's idea, does, in fact, work by RAW, but, in all honesty, all it takes is more than one attempted grapple.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

Ah, but does it have a bowstring of legacy, too? Those little suckers have to be replaced periodically, and they rot if they aren't oiled.

And they snap so nicely. Though a clever spellcaster with a mending spell could fix it fairly easily, I imagine, or someone with a spare bowstring.

That is a good point. The archer does carry around several spares so I imagine that it would only be an inconvenience for him though. He might lose a turn or 2 replacing the sting but that would be about it.

Also, there you can cut a bowstring only so many times before it becomes tedious.

Olaf the Stout

 

[Nightfall]

Maybe you should rule it requires special material for it to work (string) properly. Like Balor guts!

 

[Destil]

An arrow fired from a +X bow is treated as a +X arrow for the purposes of overcoming DR.

His spells aren't really combat spells. Mage Armour and Light are probably the only one that he uses on a semi-regular basis. He doesn't have True Strike. He doesn't really need it as he hit most of the time anyway. Instead of casting the spell he could just shoot off another arrow for even more damage instead. He really only has the Sorcerer level as he wants to take the Arcane Archer prestige class.

Olaf the Stout

Only 2 types of DR carry over from the bow to the arrow: magic and alignment.

"Ammunition fired from a projectile weapon with an enhancement bonus of +1 or higher is treated as a magic weapon for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction. Similarly, ammunition fired from a projectile weapon with an alignment gains the alignment of that projectile weapon (in addition to any alignment it may already have)."
http://www.systemreferencedocuments.../abilitiesAndConditions.html#damage-reduction

So damage type and material type and damage type are both fair game (and another way to help the power attackers). Note that material type DR is actually a great way to show one of the strengths of an archer: he can carry 20 or so of various types of arrows for DR. But the first fight with a werewolf will really cut down his damage if he dosn't have a supply of silvered arrows ready.

 

[Nightfall]

This is especially true if you have a werewolf lich!

 

[thedungeondelver]

Murder holes. Goblins with burning oil. Kinda hard to go all Hawk the Slayer on the bad guys when you're standing there yelling "AUGH F--- MY FACE IS ON FIRE!"

 

[Nightfall]

Better yet, the old "goblin grendade" explosive trick works well. Especially if you use undead!

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

[SIDETRACK]
In regards to Darklone's 'draw and arrow to attack with' idea, this is how I interpret the rules

The rules state "When using a bow, a character can draw ammunition as a free action..."

If your intent is to draw the arrow and nock it, ready to fire.. its 'ammunition'
If your intent is to grab the arrow and weild it as an improvised weapon...its not 'ammunition' anymore. With Quickdraw this could be a free action, leaving you weilding an improvised weapon that threatens an area into which you can react with an AoO.

However, this puts you at the start of your turn weilding an arrow, not the bow. Quickdraw could feasibly be used to re-ready the bow. Personally I would call in the DM option of limiting the number of free actions in order to void any 'I weild a bow but threaten all around me with an improvised weapon {arrow}' strategies.

Without Quickdraw the character would have to expend a move action to draw the weapon and re-ready the bow. A rather sub-optimal choice if you ask me.

If you wish to debate this, please start a thread over in the Rules forum and we can see where it goes
[/sidetrack]