PrC Multiclassing Arcane Archer and IOoB broken?

[mkletch]

Even with a cloak of resistance +5 you've got to have some pretty obscenely high stats to hit those kind of saves. I calculate the saves from your classes at +12/+12/+7, with the cloak that means you've got a 18 con (after a -2 Con penalty), 36 dex? and 20 wis. Now I'm sure that you have some stat bonus items, (probably 2-4 +6 Items I'm guessing), but some how I don't think this character was done with a point buy... With that kind of wisdom, why you wouldn't want the OoBI Zen Archery bonus is beyond me.

Luckstone and a weasel familiar fill in the gaps. It was 28 points on the point buy, so a little edge over the standard 25.

So a simple 3rd level spell trumps half the abilities that the AA gets, while the OoBI at least has the sneak attack damage of 5d6 PER Arrow, which with the proper items (ring of blink or imp invis, if we are assuming the resources available to a 19th lv character) can be done pretty much at will.

With blink, 1/5 of your attacks will miss; I'll pass on that. Wouldn't it suck to have your critical hit miss because you blinked out? And you have to burn a standard action every seven rounds to re-activate the ring.

At that level, what opponent doesn't have see invisible or invisibility purge on 24/7/365? It worked in the mid levels, but Lvl 13+, you can no longer guarantee sneak attack. At best, it's only a wasted ring slot.

Yes GMW can be dispelled and that is an edge that the AA's have over the OoBI, but it's a small edge and a 19th lv char is going to have ways around that either with a stock of magic arrows for just that sort of circumstances.

I don't like to spend cash on expendable items, especially at the high end. 2nd level potions are about it for me.

Oh, no doubt a level in wizard can come in handy, with those spells, though frankly I'd concentrate more on Shield and True Strike. But I also recall from my previous campaign that the AA often spent several rounds buffing herself with combat duration spells rather than shooting at things.

No, I just concentrate on shooting things, maybe splash a Shield in there with a haste action. I concentrate all of my abilities and items on making little holes in the enemy, not trying to set up a condition (flat-footed opponent or possible invisibility), or hoping that the enemy is stupid enough to draw an AoO. It's one thing for a full-out adventurer to suck up an AoO vs. some monster, and another entirely for the monster to take an AoO from the adventurers. The balance of power is not level.

Seeker arrow and phase arrow are also both only 1/day as is Storm of Arrows, rather limiting their usefulness even if they are easier to use than banked shot. The ability to use each of those just once mean that if you have to use them, they aren't that useful, because one shot isn't going to be taking down your opponents at those levels.

Well, considering that a standard Balor has just over 100hp, one attack can hurt it really bad. That is close to the top of the MM, except for nightshades, solars, high-end dragons and the Tarrasque. There are things with more hp, but those are just bags of hit points and not a credible threat.

If you are using seeker arrow to locate a hidden opponent (good Hide is better than invisibility at high levels), it has great utility.

You clearly have an unusual and quite perilous situation. The 4 character "typical" party always struck me as only barely sufficient to cover the basics (mage, cleric, fighter, rogue). Also from your comments about the unavailabilty of GMW from your teammates, sounds like your inter-party cooperation could use some improvement.

Well, we decided to just go for it with three. It has been a lot of fun. We concentrate on our niches, and work around or avoid our weaknesses. GMW is available, but not a viable option. First of all, the cleric has better things to do than babysit my archer. Second, it only affects 50 arrows. I shoot five in a round with rapid shot and four with a manyshot on my haste action. A GMW doesn't even give me six rounds. By the time I could afford the 93.8kgp for a Quiver of Ehlonna that cast GMW (with a +5 bonus) on any arrow drawn from it, I would have died a thousand deaths, at least one of which would have also included my two party-mates, necessitating a new party of fools...

Perhaps OoBI would not be as well suited to your party, but that hardly makes it useless and ineffective. I have run in a campaign with AA and OoBI characters for a year and a half, so I feel I can make my assertions with some confidence. The AA and my OoBI were always more or less running neck and neck for effectiveness, with my OoBI generally having a somewhat of an edge.

OoBI has abilities that are not useless, but there are other abilities more useful. The sneak attack is not that good, and if you want to do better, do a rogue. The +5 difference in BAB will only matter on the lowest iterative attacks, and is useful in melee as well as ranged. Banked shot is one shot for a full round action (not a full-attack action). That means, like a summoning spell, it does not go off until your next action. Ouch!

How anybody finds OoBI interesting, I don't know. Granted, it's certainly better than a straight Ranger; so is a Diviner, though. I just look at the abilities, the situations that are needed for those abilities to see full use, and compare those situations to every campaign I've ever played in (1E, 2E, 3E; published modules, home brew, d20 publishers; etc.), and I am glad I did not go OoBI. It would have been a disappointment of galactic proportions.

-Fletch!

 

[Storm Raven]

Attacks:+37/+37/+32/+27/+22/+39 (speed armor), so I'll constantly hit all but the mightiest dragons and major NPCs.

Nitpick: Your extra attack from haste still suffers the -2 penalty from Rapid Shot. It affects all of your attacks in the round, even ones granted from an extra partial action.

Second nitpick: Speed armor has been erratted to being something like a +7 bonus equivalent. Did you pay the full cost for the armor?

Damage: +1 acidic/shocking/icy burst, holy, screaming mighty (+4 Str) composite long bow and every arrow is +5 keen (with imp crit), so the damage is intense against any opponent. Certainly enough to justify sucking up the periodic AoO.

Against a disarm or sunder, you are dead meat. Your attack bonus from the arrows doesn't count, you have a -4 proficiency penalty to your opposed roll for being nonproficient with the weapon as a melee weapon, you gain none of your ranged attack bonuses (like Point Blank Shot, or the bonus from Bracers of Archery). You have to use your Strength modifer and not your Dexterity modifier with the opposed attack roll because it is a melee action. You are basically going to lose your weapon on a regular basis since your opposed attack roll drops by at least 11 points (to +26) and likely more as I'm guessing your Dexterity is higher than your Strength, as a rough estimate, I'd say your opposed attack roll is something like +20 or so on disarm and sunder attempts.

Given that your bow is a +1 bow (only the actual enhancement counts for being difficult to Sunder and for adding hardness), your opponents should have a trivially easy time of sundering your bow. They only need a +1 weapon or better (fairly common at the levels you are playing at), and he only needs to do 17 points of damage to shatter your bow. A cloud giant (fairly low CR compared to you) using a +1 huge morningstar is almost certain to succeed at the opposed disarm (he has a +23 to attack) and will shatter your bow if he connects (4d6+19 damage). He would be able to have a very good chance to disarm you even without the magical morningstar.

My AC is 43 and my touch AC is 27.

Uh-huh. Did you pay full cost for your armor of speed? Does it matter when they are bashing your bow to tiny pieces?

Few things concern me except sunder, and I've managed that through magical hardening

Magical hardening? Oh, you mean you are not actually using the rules as written. Well, when you muck around with the rules, one usually can expect that the balance of the game will change. You eliminated your major weakness with a rules modification, no wonder it doesn't "bother" you.

and other methods (like a spare but lesser bow in a glove or storing, and another glove to hide the primary bow as a free action if it is endangered).

Getting you to use a lesser bow is a benefit to your opponent. He can likely destroy that one as easily as your "better" bow. Or disarm you again as easily.

Helm of teleportation takes care of being grappled or "enveloped" in a reach creature's threatened area.

I do not believe you can activate a magic item while being grappled. You are limited to the actions described in the geapple description, other actions are not compatible with grappling.

If you use the Helm of Teleportation, you cannot attack in the round you use it (it requires a standard action), except with your single shot from your hasted partial action. I'm thinking most opponents will take that trade (i.e. you make no attacks in a round and they get a full round of actions.

Let's face it. We've seen it here an on other boards. High level characters are defined by their equipment. An 18th level character with no equipment is a snail out of shell, prey for a character several levels lower with full gear. For high level adventuring, you plan your gear and pick levels to complement and enhance that gear. AA complements an archer's gear with arrows and abilities not duplicated by usual magic items. OoBI doesn't really complement any sort of gear. It's really crappy to think this way (it's pretty much the diametric opposite of roleplaying), but it's, well, practical. For character's 10th level and beyond, the most fearsome spell in the game is Mordenkainen's Disjunction.

On the contrary, OoBI complements several pieces of commonly available gear, while the primary Arcane Archer benefit is to replicate a set of equipment that a third level arcane spell can easily provide at least as well. Having played a high level archer character, if you need 50 arrows in a single combat, or even in a single day, you are doing something wrong.

Having played (and seen played) several archer characters, I'm pretty convinced that the Arcane Archer is the weakest of the archery based PrCs.

 

[Rackhir]

I think we should just drop this discussion, it's clearly going nowhere and there is the far more important issue of mkletch's disturbing love of room temperature Mountain Dew. He clearly needs an intervention on that issue.

 

[Bob5th]

I'd like some more info on the GMW/Quiver of Elhonna. Is there a GMW quiver that was printed somewhere that I missed?

 

[jontherev]

I think we should just drop this discussion, it's clearly going nowhere and there is the far more important issue of mkletch's disturbing love of room temperature Mountain Dew. He clearly needs an intervention on that issue.

I concur. This pi$$ing contest between archers is stale compared to the room temp MD. Perhaps the color of the MD (it being so close to the color of another liquid I mentioned earlier) was a portent? Sorry, I know that was a reach, but Rackhir inspired my descent.

To add something to the thread though, I'm not all that familiar with it, but the Peerless Archer is nice. Imagine a power attacking archer. Ouch.

 

[Rackhir]

I'd like some more info on the GMW/Quiver of Elhonna. Is there a GMW quiver that was printed somewhere that I missed?

It is not a formal item per se, but is basically a Standard QoE that has the added ability to cast GMW x amount of times per day, to create +x arrows (where x is how ever much you are willing to pay for, under the item creation rules for an item that can cast the spell GMW). It's a fairly obvious item for higher level archers to pick up in one way or another.

Peerless Archer is a class, even I'd have to conceed is probably broken. It's just got too many powerful abilities.

 

[mkletch]

A few general rules points, then I'm going to bail on this thread, except to check for future replies.

Nitpick: Your extra attack from haste still suffers the -2 penalty from Rapid Shot. It affects all of your attacks in the round, even ones granted from an extra partial action.

Second nitpick: Speed armor has been erratted to being something like a +7 bonus equivalent. Did you pay the full cost for the armor?

There is no -2 penalty from RS if the haste action comes before the full action. There is no official errata for DotF, not is there a mention of speed armor in the DnDFAQ.

You can actually reverse engineer the process by which effective bonuses are calculated for armor or weapons. It works in 95% of the cases, though rounding up or down seems to have been a judgement call. Calculate the cost to place the effect on an individual magic item, if you can. Divide that by 10,000 for a weapon, or 5,000 for an armor. Take the square root of the result, and there is your effective bonus.

Speed armor comes up as a 2.45, which was rounded up since it gives a pretty profound effect. Take the square root of the product 2000x5x3/5000 and that is your result. The one notable exception to this method is a speed weapon, which is hopelessly overpriced. I could just make a vest of haste for 30kgp...

Magical hardening? Oh, you mean you are not actually using the rules as written. Well, when you muck around with the rules, one usually can expect that the balance of the game will change. You eliminated your major weakness with a rules modification, no wonder it doesn't "bother" you.

The spell Augment Object in the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook adds 20 to the break DC of an object and doubles its hardness and hitpoints. While SBG wasn't bought by as many people as the splatbooks, it is no less 'official'. You could also use wish/miracle or other means to further increase the hardness and/or hitpoints, or research an effect to make an item unbreakable. No, I did not do the latter, but I did use a miracle. Using official spells (miracle and augment object) is hardly mucking around with the rules, and no rules modifications were necessary.

I do not believe you can activate a magic item while being grappled. You are limited to the actions described in the geapple description, other actions are not compatible with grappling.

If you use the Helm of Teleportation, you cannot attack in the round you use it (it requires a standard action), except with your single shot from your hasted partial action. I'm thinking most opponents will take that trade (i.e. you make no attacks in a round and they get a full round of actions.

You never need to make a concentration check to activate an item, and a help of teleport is a command-word item. You say the word, and you are gone. Not a whole lot of activity there. If you can attack with a light weapon, you can speak a single word.

Extending this thought, does a silence prevent one from activating a magic item? Not really covered, and it is left vague with every item. "on command" could mean with a gesture or something, but is rarely mentioned explicitly in an item. I figure few DMs actually go to this level of detail on every item.

Having played a high level archer character, if you need 50 arrows in a single combat, or even in a single day, you are doing something wrong.

Having played (and seen played) several archer characters, I'm pretty convinced that the Arcane Archer is the weakest of the archery based PrCs.

As mentioned in one of my previous posts, our party has only three characters; we have no wizard/sorcerer type, and the war cleric often doubles as a front line fighter. My archer fills to role of artillery, though the cleric's occasional blade barrier, or a greater dispelling against summoned creatures is very effective. So yes, I routinely shoot out most of a QoE in a non-trivial battle. Enemies have heal and other powerful spells at their fingertips, and don;t drop like flies. Perhaps there needs to be an archer's equivalent to the epic feat Devastating Critical? Just kidding.

Bye.

-Fletch!

 

[jontherev]

You can actually reverse engineer the process by which effective bonuses are calculated for armor or weapons. It works in 95% of the cases, though rounding up or down seems to have been a judgement call. Calculate the cost to place the effect on an individual magic item, if you can. Divide that by 10,000 for a weapon, or 5,000 for an armor. Take the square root of the result, and there is your effective bonus.

Speed armor comes up as a 2.45, which was rounded up since it gives a pretty profound effect. Take the square root of the product 2000x5x3/5000 and that is your result. The one notable exception to this method is a speed weapon, which is hopelessly overpriced. I could just make a vest of haste for 30kgp...

You gotta be kidding me. Did you forget that Haste adds a +4 to your AC, that stack with everything? That's like a +4 armor bonus already. Then add the fact that you can cast spells every round, all day long, or make an additional attack every round all day. This is the first time I've ever heard someone defend the pricing of Speed Armor as seen in DotF as being balanced (which is what it sounds like you are doing). It should EASILY be a +6 bonus and probably more like a +7. This is not like Boots of Speed where it's gone in 10 rounds. It's on all day long.

 

[Rackhir]

You gotta be kidding me. Did you forget that Haste adds a +4 to your AC, that stack with everything? That's like a +4 armor bonus already. Then add the fact that you can cast spells every round, all day long, or make an additional attack every round all day. This is the first time I've ever heard someone defend the pricing of Speed Armor as seen in DotF as being balanced (which is what it sounds like you are doing). It should EASILY be a +6 bonus and probably more like a +7. This is not like Boots of Speed where it's gone in 10 rounds. It's on all day long.

Hey, hey. Go easy on the guy his judgement is clearly impaired by the fact that he drinks Mountain Dew at room temperature. A fact he is clearly in denial about. I just hope sometime somewhere someone who loves him will be able to persuade him to seek help to overcome this terrible problem.

In anycase it doesn't really matter what he paid for it. The "suggested" wealth levels for 19th level characters easily encompases both armor and weapons of +10 total bonus each, with plenty left over.

 

[mkletch]

Magic item pricing

Haste - 3rd level spell
Minimum caster level - 5th
Continuous function - 2000gp

Multiply the factors: you can make an item to fill any slot (except armor or weapon) that gives you continual haste for only 30kgp. Check page 242 in the DMG. It's all there. Reverse engineering the bonus, well, I already did that. sqrt(6)=2.449. It was rounded up because it is powerful.

Since you need to have at least a +1 bonus on the armor, you are going from +1 to +4 on the pricing scale, and at a minimum, speed armor costs you 15kgp. You do get a break on the cost there, unless you add other abilities and the price goes up and up (+4 to +7 actually hits the target, but who wouldn't pick this up early).

Look, I'm not saying that this is not really powerful, but perhaps it is haste that is broken, or at too low a level. Do all of the math backwards. What spell level would haste have to be if it were a +6 or +7 bonus? 10th level for a +6 bonus (exact; no rounding), or 12th for a +7 bonus (actually 11.58). I assumed here that min caster level was double the spell level minus 1; we are talking about the base spell here, no a metamagicked lower level spell like you could have above 9th using the Epic rules. So haste should above 9th level, an epic spell. It's up to you, remove haste form the game (if you won't recant on the +6/+7 bonus rediculousness) or deal with it (and speed armor) as they are in the rules.

95%+ of the items actually folllow the system; examples are actually given in T&B. There are some ad hoc adjustments, but not on the scale you give here. Heck, a speed weapon should only be a +2 bonus, and that's if it has the same effect as speed armor (but caster level 5 instead of 7). If it is only for an attack with the weapon, as speed is now, then it should be a +1; sqrt(3) rounded down instead of up. Why a speed weapon has caster level 7 is beyond me.

I was accused earlier in this thread of arbitrarily mucking around with the rules. That is exactly what you have here. QoE that does GMW on every arrow drawn. Hey it's only a 3rd level spell, everybody has access to it all the time. Well, I have access to a 3rd level spell all the time, and now, hey, that's way over-powered.

Tangent: do you lose a haste bonus to AC if flat-footed? We ruled that you do in house, but I've seen no ruling on it in either the errata or the DnD FAQ.

-Fletch