Improved Precise Shot

[Westwind]

Actually, with a d8 HD and a assumed focus on archery, the new Ranger isn't going to like hack and slash one bit in 3.5. I'm in agreement with hong and some of the other posters: Yes, this is a powerful feat, but it's also available only after 11th level. Maybe at that level fantasy archers are simply that damn good. After all, at the same time casters are casting disintergrate, harm, and antimagic field (and repel wood!). Even in their new forms, these are pretty potent effects to wield in game. I agree with Happiest_Sadist's reasoning to a degree, but not his conclusion. The best reason for IPS is mechanics. High level characters should be able to pull off amazing feats. This feat allows a character to really shine and look cool every so often--there's nothing wrong with that. There is a great logical arguement to be made as to why this feat doesn't make sense, but the counter-arguement is pretty simple. This is a game. A fantasy game, no less. Things won't always make sense, but as long as everyone is having fun, they don't always have to.


Legolas is broken!

 

[hong]

Perfect Called Shot:
Ignore all armor and bonuses from a target, as you always shoot them in the most vulnerable place.

If you can just ignore the part of them behind an wall without reduced accuracy, why can't you just ignore the part of them not covered by an open face helm.

The only reason between the two is that Perfect Called Shot would apply in every game,

There's also, oh, the small matter of how most monsters (and most NPCs and PCs, even) tend to have oodles more armour and natural armour bonuses to AC, whereas cover bonuses tend not to appear often, if at all. Of course, such considerations may be secondary for some people.

whereas IPS only applies in games where tactics are used, pushing them into mindless WANGER and WANGER.

Indeed, WANGERing is best when mindless.

 

[hong]

Legolas is broken!

Ironically, the Zen swordsman guy in _A Chinese Ghost Story_ was doing the manyshot thing years before Peter Jackon thought of it.

 

[Ravellion]

Well, my game is about to hit 11th level, and I have an Archer in that game. I think he needs about 2500 xp more.

Again, the fact that the Archer can do amazing things doesn't bother me. The fact that there will be in-game knowledge that archer's can do these things 100% of the time consistently bothers me.

"You are being fired at by crack shot archers! They are very, very good!"
"Well, no use taking cover and casting my spell then. I'll just stand here in the open instead. There isn't going to be a difference anyway"

Also, there is no melee equivalent, which is strange. I'd think that from 5 feet distance it would be a helluva lot less difficult to ignore cover and concealment than from 200 feet away. But now the 11th level fighter still has a 20% misschance from Blur, whereas the archer can hit the blurred target behind a tree 100 ft away just as easily as if the target were 35 feet away in the open.

It also makes some of the Arcane Archer's arrow abilities quite useless. At least these were explained as being magical. This is also where fell shot comes in: it costs something to do a fell shot, and if you do it lots, you'll soon run out of pp. Perhaps IPS might be fun in conjunction with fell shot though... phwoar, eh lads?

I'll say it again: Whoever designed this feat looked too much at game balance and "cool", and not enough at other ramifications, and hence should be shot. In the head. Through an arrow slit.

Rav