Masters of the Wild bloopers

[hong]

Hmm...I'm not sure about this one. Our party (13th-level, one Arcane Archer, no Deepwood Sniper) recently faced off against a black dragon with Mage Armor and Protection from Good running. It had an AC of over 30. Usually, our Arcane Archer is a machine-gun of flaming arrow death, but against that high an AC, she wasn't able to hit much. With a True Strike and a x5 crit on her bow, she'd be a much more serious threat. Granted, once a day isn't a lot, but a lot of second-tier PrC powers are like that, such as the Phase Arrow from the Arcane Archer. Good in a specific situation, but only once. I see the crit mod bonus as the first-tier ability a Deepwood Sniper gains.

This is still a _10th level_ class ability we're talking about. Casting a 1st level spell once per day as a 10th level ability (15th character level minimum) is not anything spectacular, particularly given all the other sniper abilities up to that point.

As for the crit bonus, relying on crits to save you doesn't strike me as a very sound strategy. Most of the time you'll just be blowing bigger holes in mooks, and conversely by Murphy's law you'll never get a crit on the big boss. (Talking about TS and crits, it's been clarified that the TS bonus doesn't apply on a threat confirmation roll, or any similar sequenced-attack-roll situation. So there's no particular synergy going on there.)

Yeah, and multiclassing potential shouldn't be used to guage a PrC's strength anyway, right?

Given that I'm talking about making changes to a PrC before allowing it in the campaign, that should be a sign I'm taking a proactive stance on things. That includes multiclassing issues.

Also, I think this is the first time the word "proactive" has appeared on these boards.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

This is still a _10th level_ class ability we're talking about. Casting a 1st level spell once per day as a 10th level ability (15th character level minimum) is not anything spectacular, particularly given all the other sniper abilities up to that point.

You may be right on this one. To be honest, though, I've never equated the 10th-level slot of a PrC with the "best" of its abilities. Some PrCs get their strongest abilities at that level, (I think the Alienist's Transcendence for instance, is very potent,) but some PrCs don't have much going for them, (the Assassin gets another sneak attack die and +1 vs. traps--at that level, nothing to write home about.) While it's nice to have the best ability at the highest level so there's a reason to finish out the class, that's not always the case. Perhaps the class's abilities should have been re-arranged so that it received the x5 crit multiplier at 10th-level, and the True Strike ability elsewhere along the way, but the end result is still a class with both True Strike 1/day and a x5 crit ability on his bow. I'm saying that's rather strong.

As for the crit bonus, relying on crits to save you doesn't strike me as a very sound strategy. Most of the time you'll just be blowing bigger holes in mooks, and conversely by Murphy's law you'll never get a crit on the big boss.

It's true that you shouldn't rely on crits to pull your fat out of the fire when fighting the Big Bad. But even from a number-cruncher point-of-view, the higher crit bonus translates into a higher average damage. There are only so many ways to improve an archer's damage, and nothing in the core rules can give an archer that x5 except the Deepwood Sniper class. Add average wealth on top of that, and the Sniper has more ways to punish with a bow than most other classes. He'll have less wealth than the Arcane Archer, because he has to pay to get his arrows enchanted while the Archer doesn't, but in raw damage, AFAIK he'll still come out ahead.

(Talking about TS and crits, it's been clarified that the TS bonus doesn't apply on a threat confirmation roll, or any similar sequenced-attack-roll situation. So there's no particular synergy going on there.)

Really? Is this in the new version of the FAQ? *sigh* I really wish they'd color-code the thing or something, so that new additions are easy to pick out of the previously published stuff. I haven't had the time or the inclination to read through the whole thing again. That's a depressing ruling, actually. We play it the other way.

Given that I'm talking about making changes to a PrC before allowing it in the campaign, that should be a sign I'm taking a proactive stance on things. That includes multiclassing issues.

Also, I think this is the first time the word "proactive" has appeared on these boards.

Sorry, my comment was more aimed at my previous statement, rather than yours. In that I shouldn't have brought up the potential of multiclassing with Arcane Archer, because that's not really relevent to a discussion of the strength of the Deepwood Sniper. I always forget that it's hard to be wry online. I think proactive DMing is generally the best way to handle things. It's easier to empower the PCs later on than it is to take away their toys once they've started to play with them.

 

[Rowenstin]

Actually is color coded. Questions added in the later release are blue.

 

[Killer Shrike]

Unfortunately I leant my copy of MoW to a friend a couple of weeks ago so he could make a character for the campaign we are starting after spring break is over, but according to him he used the DWS and multiclassed with OotBI to make what sounds like a very very deadly character. I havent had a chance to peruse the character yet so I cant attest to the characters deadliness now, but it sounds like a very synergistic combo.

 

[Plane Sailing]

For an interesting example of a Deepwood Sniper character in action, take a look at Piratecats storyhour - where a Deepwood Sniper caused the PCs a whole boatload of grief (and it would have been worse if it hadn't been grappled by a Dire Bear...)

I think that the Deepwood Sniper is a fine class. At 10th level the once per day truestrike isn't the only thing they get - don't forget concealment reduction 30% which is jolly good.

The Blighter is an excellent idea for a class (reminiscent of the defilers from the Dark Sun setting) but I have to say... their spells per day list is atrocious!

In order to become a blighter they must have been a 5th level druid - probably casting 4x1st, 3x2nd and 2x3rd level spells per day. Suddenly she gets probably 2x1st and 1x2nd. She actually loses her ability to cast Contagion for a while!

A pure druid who reaches 15th level gets 8th level spells (OK, they are mostly rubbish compared to everyone else, but stay with me, huh?) while the druid5/blighter10 only gets a couple of 6th level spells!!

Even though some nasty spells are reduced to 6th level for the Blighter, the magic ability of the class seems... strange. I haven't seen a really good example of a spell progression for a magic using prestige class which doesn't relate to the levels of spell casting that they would normally get in one respect or another.

OK, I admit that the Blighter thing isn't really a blooper. Bit strange though.


A bit of feat wierdness:

Favoured Critical. Doubles your threat range against one of your favoured enemies. So far so good. Does not stack with improved critical. Oops. Why ever not? Improved Critical is about using a particular weapon more effectively, favoured critical is knowing where the vitals are on a particular foe type.

They should stack.

What is the worst case scenario? Keen Rapier with Improved Critical and Favoured Critical would threaten a crit on 9-20 but for dragonslayers he isn't going to be hitting their AC on those low numbers anyway, and for weedy foes he will probably drop them whether he gets a critical or not. (I know that a high level "weapon master" prestige class can get an extra +2 on their range, but it isn't tremendously likely that a weapon master would end up with this feat - and I like to try and judge prestige classes against the basic core books anyhow.)

Anyhow, much more likely would be someone with the two feats and a keen axe (crit 17-20) or a sword of some kind (13-20). Still no big deal - if he doesn't come across the particular favoured enemy he doesn't get to use the extra bonus anyway.

I can see how they were trying to remain "balanced" here, but I think they have thrown logic out of the window and tried to restrict something that isn't a big issue.

Kiss of Death spell.
Can you concieve of a circumstance when you could use this spell in combat without provoking an Attack of Opportunity? I sure can't. All you have to do is "make a melee touch attack" to deliver the kiss. Pardon? It is as easy to kiss an armoured person on exposed flesh as it is to touch them with your fingertips?

I just don't believe that!

As an assassination technique it might be fine, but otherwise no. What they wanted to produce was a "poison" spell with a duration of 1 round per level so you could use it multiple times (and considering it is only two levels higher than "poison", the use of 1 round/level instead of 1 attack seems a vast improvement on the spell. can you imagine a metamagic feat that changed a single touch attack to a one-round per level touch attack being only +2 spell levels? A 3rd level shocking grasp that lasted that long would be pretty cool. A 5th level inflict serious wounds that lasted for your level in rounds (or a 5th level CSW every round for you level in rounds?).

So I believe the Kiss of Death spell is flawed in its application and in the manner in which it is derived from the 3rd level Poison spell.

Cheers

 

[Christian]

Talking about TS and crits, it's been clarified that the TS bonus doesn't apply on a threat confirmation roll, or any similar sequenced- attack-roll situation. So there's no particular synergy going on there.

?! Page 38 of the D&D FAQ clearly states the opposite ...

If you use the true strike spell and you get a threat, does the +20 bonus from the [spell] apply to the critical confirmation roll? Would the +20 bonus apply to the extra attacks you get from the Cleave, Great Cleave, or Whirlwind feats?

When you roll to confirm a critical, you use whatever bonuses applied to the attack roll that made the threat, no matter where those bonuses came from.
True strike affects only one attack. (Rolling to confirm a critical is not a separate attack for this purpose.) ...

 

[hong]

Whoops, you're right. I misread that portion of the D&D FAQ.

Nevertheless, I still think that true strike 1/day is pretty uninspiring for a 10th level ability. Even if it makes crits more likely, you're still giving up all your attacks for one round to activate the ability, so you're effectively halving your rate of fire to use it. I think changing it to being usable at will (but still needing the standard action to activate) wouldn't be out of line.