Is the Order of the Bow Initiate Overpowered?

[Saeviomagy]

I dissagree. You do not balance a mechanical advantage with a role-playing disadvantage. I consider myself a fairly lienient DM, but here is quite of bit of material in the BoED that is over-powered to the point that I am forced to disallow it. Sheesh, I'm just thinking of the combinations of Vow of Poverty and Incarnum....

"Any enemy will see you coming a mile away" is not a roleplaying restriction. It's a tactical combat restriction. In most games I play in, one of the first goals the party has for party-wide abilities is the ability to adventure in pitch darkness, so we at least have a chance of surprising our enemies instead of vice-versa.

 

[Whimsical]

I still stand by my comment that Book of Exalted Deeds is full of munchkiny goodness. What was that spell... celestial brilliance? Something like 120' radius of daylight lasting hours per level, and just annihilating undead in the AoE. Disgusting.

Oh hey, I used that spell in a recent 19th level one shot. And I was able to defeat what was intended to be an impossible scenario. (scroll up to find the description of the 50,000 insectile axiomatic hobgoblin fighters).

 

[MerricB]

See, I know that's an operating principle of 3E, but I don't believe it always holds true.

I agree that, in most cases, the book as written shouldn't do so. But I have no problem with the DM doing so, so long as he knows his players aren't going to abuse the system, and so long as he is willing to enforce said RP disadvantages.

BoED was written on the understanding that the DM would be enforcing said restrictions. Whether or not it should have been is a matter for a different thread, but the fact is that it was. I've seen the material in play. I've seen it played brokenly, because the DM wasn't enforcing the restrictions, and I've seen it played well, because a different DM was.

Indeed.

I *like* BoED. Playing *really* good-aligned characters is hard work, and having a book that caters to them is great.

It's not just undead, I think it includes outsiders, and some other things. And the amount of damage varies. And it works just like sunlight. So, not only does it illuminate the entire dungeon, it also takes care of all those pesky undead. And it lasts forever. When my player told me about that, I 'bout crapped a brick.

1d6/round to undead.
2d6/round to evil-aligned outsiders.

4th level spell.

Cheers!

 

[MerricB]

"Any enemy will see you coming a mile away" is not a roleplaying restriction. It's a tactical combat restriction. In most games I play in, one of the first goals the party has for party-wide abilities is the ability to adventure in pitch darkness, so we at least have a chance of surprising our enemies instead of vice-versa.

I quite agree. Don't draw attention to yourself!

Just ask the poor Mystic Theurge who levitated up 40 feet in my Necropolis campaign. A human-foe ranger saw him, and one round later he was on -8 hit points, hanging in mid-air with the other PCs wondering how to get him down.

Cheers!

 

[the Lorax]

See, I know that's an operating principle of 3E, but I don't believe it always holds true.

I agree that, in most cases, the book as written shouldn't do so. But I have no problem with the DM doing so, so long as he knows his players aren't going to abuse the system, and so long as he is willing to enforce said RP disadvantages.

BoED was written on the understanding that the DM would be enforcing said restrictions. Whether or not it should have been is a matter for a different thread, but the fact is that it was. I've seen the material in play. I've seen it played brokenly, because the DM wasn't enforcing the restrictions, and I've seen it played well, because a different DM was.

Good rules make the DM's job easier, bad rules make the DM's job more difficult.
It's not just a 3.xE operating principle, but its just good game design. My players are people who I've been playing with for 15 - 20 years. Some of them will happily take advantage of the rules when it fits the flavor of the character they are playing. It is simply good sense to plan and build upon your characters advantages.

The Order of the Bow Initiate is a reasonable extention of this. A bow user who is throwing all his eggs into the basket of ranged attacks, so that he has a clear and definable schtick. He gets lots of neat tricks while using a bow, but not much else. And as using a bow is feat intensive, he is not going to be as good in melee as a result of his choices.

Its very easy to say, "Hey, if I'm really nice to all the PC's and NPC's I meet, role play with them at every opprotunity, and try in earnest to be open and engaging, can I have a +2 to my Charisma score. You can take it away any time you like if you feel I'm not demonstrating my dedication to positive social interaction."

Anyway, Order of the Bow Initiate is just fine. BoED...is a book that I have to look at and judge the material in on a case by case basis - one spell and feat at a time. Balance can be hard enough to maintain without the power creep of things like Goliaths, and the FR elven flavor of the week. It's the one WoTC book on my shelves that I look and and have to think really hard about allowing stuff in it into my game.

 

[Elephant]

I don't know or care if it's overpowered, but I hate the PrC regardless. The flavor text used to introduce it makes me cringe as though I'm being subjected to the screech of nails against a thousand blackboards. It wins the dubious prize of "worst published writing ever" in my mind.

 

[Andor]

I don't think the OotBI iis overpowered. I do however reguard with disgust an archery class that specializes in short range combat. It's like putting a sniper scope on a shotgun. The deepwoods sniper make a lot more sense.

 

[Rackhir]

I ran an OoBI (3.0) twice and it was hardly over powered. I also suspect that most of the people saying its overpowered have never actually seen one run or are basing their opinion on some "WotC Optimization Boards" monstrosity.

I'm not sure I ever even got to use the sneak attack damage. Its kind of hard to do when you don't threaten an area, but it was still more useful than the precise shot in the 3.5 version. I could never see when it would actually be preferable to using a full attack or just using multi-shot.

 

[atom crash]

The Order of the Bow Initiate is quite nice when you're running low on arrows and want to keep up the damage output.

But ultimately the ranged precision is less effective than either a full attack, Rapid Shot or Manyshot.

 

[Whimsical]

I'm not sure I ever even got to use the sneak attack damage. Its kind of hard to do when you don't threaten an area, but it was still more useful than the precise shot in the 3.5 version. I could never see when it would actually be preferable to using a full attack or just using multi-shot.

When your opponent has damage reduction, and your arrows don't overcome it.