One shot, one kill?

[daTim]

I agree it's not that big of a deal. You also have to deal with the fact that if that one arrow misses, your entire round is wasted, instead of just missing one of 5.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

I think the feat would be reasonably balanced--burst weapons or no but ranged power attack is unbalanced at any speed.

Archers usually do as much damage as optimally power attacking melee fighters without power attack and typically have attack bonusses 5 to 10 points higher than melee characters. Giving ranged power attack to archers is a sure way to justify all of the complaints about archer/melee balance.

Even using the ranged-power attack, and possibly a burst energy weapon, that seems reasonably balanced doesn't it?

 

[Orm]

Very nice concept. My character would love it. Don´t waste your arrows -especially the magic ones- on big enemies.

A problem with the "1 arrow with 4 times damage" instead of "4 arrows with single damage" is, besides the Massive Damage, the better penetration of DR !
DR 5/+1
with normal arrows:
4*(1D8+5-5) = avg 4*4.5=18 Damage
1*(4D8+20-5) = avg 33 Damage. a huge difference.

But that´s only if each arrow hits. Assume you have to roll 11 to overcome AC. Then it´s
2*(1d8+5-5) = avg 2*4.5 =9 Damage (only two out of four arrows hit)
vs. 1*(4d8+20-5) = avg 33 Damage with a 50% chance to miss, so it´s avg 16 Damage each round.
Having to roll 16, it´s 4 Damage vs. 8 Damage

Though I guess this is wandering into house rules, what do you think would be a balanced feat as far as giving up iterative attacks for a better crititcal chance? Would a 1 or 1 be fair? Looking at the numbers, I think maybe losing one iterative for a two increase in the threat range would be more fair.


At 15th level, my archer can attack with rapid shot like this:
+34 +34 +29 +24 for d8+15 damage & crit 19-20x4

Using this proposed feat, this would become one shot:
+36 for d8+15 damage & crit 15-20x4


And next level, it would turn this:
+35 +35 +30 +25 +20 for d8+15 & crit 19-20x4
into
+37 for d8+15 & crit 13-20x4

13-20/x4
That sounds a lot to me. Give him two levels of Deepwood Sniper -all arrows are keen, improved critical multiplier +1 (but I think you´ve done this, hence 19-20/x4) Add Improved Critical: his bow. Then, IMO, a moderate 1 on 1 change would be enough. This way your character would have still 15-20/x4 at next level. And don´t forget that the improved critical multiplier will rise by 1 every 5 levels.

 

[kreynolds]

Like I say, I don't know what the original ELH wording was.

The same...

"Both arrows use the same attack roll to determine success..."

 

[Dr. NRG]

OoBI has a high-level ability that allows sneak attack damage against normal (as opposed to flat-footed) targets by banking arrows off of the wall. That's as close as anything I've seen to increasing damage by decreasing number of attacks. In this case it's one attack per round.

It seems as if there is precedent for decreasing attack scores by increasing iterations (see rapid shot and flurry of blows). Perhaps increasing every attack that round by +2 to hit per iterative attack given up would be balanced?

NRG