Improved Rapid Shot feat
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jgsugden
Legend
I have. Reread my request. Look at the analysis mentioned above and draw any one conclusion from it regarding the value of IRS to a PC. Express it in mathematical terms. Then, I'll discuss that analysis.Scion said:All right, read the rest of the thread, start on page one
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jgsugden said:
Other than all of the graphs, charts, opinions, and other such things from a lot of different posters I just cant imagine what else you want. You can look at the numbers, testimonials, opionions, whatever.. it is all there already. People have been very thorough on this thread. Either you are able to come to a conclusion at this point or you never will it seems.
Korak
First Post
jgsugden said:
The math is useful because I put it in a context. I took a nearly optimal situtation for the power of the feat to show itself. I tried to break it by analyzing a character designed to have a very high hit bonus and damage bonus. Then I looked at the difference between his damage with and without the feat in optimal conditions (all full attacks). The reason for all this, is that if you look at what happens in the most favorable situation for the feat and it proves to be no more powerful than a very standard PHB feat (weapon specializtion in this case), then you see that the feat can't be overpowered in most campaigns. You missed the context for the math.
jgsugden
Legend
You're saying that you reached a conclusion that this feat is no more powerful than weapon specialization. That it will not result in an increase in PC power greater than that achieved by a PC gaining weapon specialization.Korak said:
Let's say a PC is ready to select either IRS or weapon specialization as his next feat in a campaign. Your saying that IRS, even in a situation most favorable to it, will not be more powerful than IRS.
Let's say that combat takes place mostly in outdoor settings with a lot of open space in this campaign. Combats begin at great distances, so the PC gets to use full archery attacks during (effectively) all rounds of combat.
Before taking the feat, the PC deals d8+4(strength)+2(magic)+d6(fire) [average 14, minimum 8] on a hit. His AB is +12/+7 or +10/+10/+5 when using rapid fire.
The most common encounter, by far, in this campaign are wandering encounters with large packs of CR 1/2 (or less) creatures with 7 hps or less. Each of these foes has an AC of 14 to 20. Orcs, kobolds, goblins, hobgoblins, etc ... These creatures attack in large numbers in order to be effective.
Each shot by that archer will kill one of these foes, even if the PC rolls minimum damage. Having weapon specialization may result in more damage, but not more kills. In this situation, more damage is useless.
IRS, on the other hand, turns 1 out of every 10 attacks from a miss into a hit (on average). When you're making three attacks per round, that adds up rather significantly.
In this style of campaign, IRS is vastly more powerful than weapon specialization.
It will also be far more important in any situation in which it is being used frequently and the percentage increase in chances to hit exceeds the percentage increases in damage per hit (such as when you have a high AC foe and you deal a lot of damage per shot ... perhaps a sneak attacking rogue).
Your conclusion, based upon the very sinsible and well calculated math, ends up in a flase determination because the math doesn't cover the situation fully. Your math lied yo you.
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Korak
First Post
jgsugden said:
Congratulations, you found one kind of trivial encounter that is as far away from the best use of weapon specialization as possible, where IRS is more powerful than WS. I award you a cookie.
If you really feel that it is a good litmus test of a feat to gauge it against trivial encounters where each npc dies in one hit, very well. After all, I did say
If you think hordes of CR(1/2) creatures engaging level 6-8 PCs in wide open terrain falls within the purview of "in most campaigns", then that only proves that you are being quite contrary for the sake of being contrary, or you have had vastly different experiences playing D&D than me. I tend to prefer the latter explanation, for the moment.Korak said:
I would counter by pointing out that IRS is a four feat chain with a prereq feat having a qualification of +6 base attack. So, unless a PC has taken all full base attack classes, and has taken a class level that entitles him to a bonus feat at 6th level, then he won't have IRS that early. I would say that most characters with IRS will be in the level 8-11 range when they aquire it. That would have a horde of CR(1/2) npcs not even giving xp to them. At least it shouldn't give xp. As for the pure specialist archers that get IRS at level 6... bully for them, they can kill the 3rd mook per turn 10 percent more reliably than a similar archer without IRS (though a +3 weapon as in your example is pretty darn nice for a level 6 pc). I'd just like to point out that the party's friendly wizard or sorcerer could easily nuke many more than 3 per round into oblivion with fireballs at great range... and the power attack, cleave, great cleave fighters can kill with bows until the poor CR(1/2) schleps get within cleave range and fall like wheat to the scythe to their melee weapons (easily beating 3 kills per round if they are surrounded, or have a reach weapon).
If you run a campaign that is so far from the norm that IRS is overpowered in it... none of us will begrudge you removing it. I challenge you to describe a scenario that at least 3 other people here will agree is a common occurance in many campaigns where IRS is just too powerful for a 4 feat investment on a level 8-20 character.... which btw, is two more feats and two levels later (at the earliest) than weapon specialization. Hell, rapid shot itself is more powerful than IRS (unless you are in a campaign where you never get to full attack, in which case, you would need rapid shot anyway to qualify for manyshot)... and it's the 2nd feat in the chain.
jgsugden
Legend
Actually, I mentioned a second big one ... when PCs get a bigger increase in the percentage to hit chance from IRS than they get a percentage increase in damage from weapon specialization ... As an example, A PC that deals an average of 20 per strike but only hits 20% of the time versus his typical high AC foes will get a bigger increase in expected damage from IRS (from 4 pts per attack to 5 pts) than a character that takes weapon specialization (from 4 pts per attack to 4.4 pts per attack). This type of thing occurs in games with foes that have high ACs or when PCs deal a lot of damage. I'm sure high AC foes and high damage PCs are rare ... it isn't like rangers get precision damage and rogues get to use a bow for sneak attacks ...Korak said:
My prior post mentioned one example of a much larger section: Extra damage is only meaningful if it results in a foe falling down in fewer attacks. In other words, if you hit an opponent 4 times and take it down with attacks in which you used weapon specialization, weapon specialization only was effectyive if the foe ends up at 0 to -8. If he ends up at -9 or worse, your extra damage was meaningless. An extra point of damage per attack *rarely* accounts to a quicker kill in most combats in amny games.
I could go on and list a lot more situations where the formulas used in this thread fail. Why? Because there are a lot of variables in D&D that are not captured in these simple formulas.
These formulas provide a general picture, but you need to test their results in many campaigns to know if they are actually representative of a real campaign situation.
jgsugden said:
and spread across a 6 attack full attack (what archers get at 16+ base attack with haste), that amounts to 3.6 more points of average damage for IRS than WS... so, IRS is overpowered why? The analysis doesn't claim to represent actual results perfectly, but it is good enough to say the feat is within the realm of power that is considered "balanced."
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