Rapid Shot analysis by Sean Reynolds

[Berk]

Berk: Given that your statement is a blanket contridiction of my experience, and that I am not noted as a poor tactician in D&D (or anything else for that matter), I'd be interested in you giving some examples.

In my experience it is alot harder to nerf an archer, and alot harder to be nerfed as an archer compared to a melee fighter.

Please give examples of what can be done to counter archers easily with or without spell casters that does not apply to fighters as a whole.

You would actually have to give me the example so I would be able to solve it for you.

 

[Dash Dannigan]

Rapid shot is one reason because there is no one feat that gives melee fighers an extra attack without haveing them stop the fast Base attack bonus advancement.

What about cleave? Just a circumstantial modifier but no modifier for the extra attack, with great cleave the potential for multiple attacks by a meleer in a round get's silly.

 

[Kugar]

What about cleave? Just a circumstantial modifier but no modifier for the extra attack, with great cleave the potential for multiple attacks by a meleer in a round get's silly.

At low levels, when one attack will take out the grunts it is an awesome ability, but I don't consider it a workhorse feat like rapid shot. If you look at the Damage table I posted there is only ONE area per level that taking the shot does not make sense. The only times the archers I DMed for did not rapid shoot was to conserve arrows. At high levels it's another good attack plain and simple. Cleave is a great situational feat, but not used as much as rapid shot.

Plus melee fighters are put behind the proverbial 8-Ball because of all the factors I mentioned mixed together.

 

[Styracosaurus]

First of all, a melee fighter should be able to do more damage in a single hit compared to an archer. That is the point of 'Power Attack'.

I did not realize that magical bonuses for arrows and bows stacked. That's double your money for damage on one attack. That is a serious advantage.
Other than that,
Damage Resistance should be an issue, at least every once in a while. Otherwise, why bother with it in the first place? And if DR matters, then an archer is not going to be pleased when he does a few points damage per hit.

 

[drdevoid]

I don't think this one has been brought up so I'll just make mention of it. In addition to possible weight encumbrance, AoO (both against others and against the archer himself), disposable ammunition, arrow tallying and DR considerations (only the arrow's enchantment can break DR- even DR silver- not the Bow's enchantment), there is the problem of firing into melee which makes rapid shot more likely to hit one's own allies. Hence, the necessity of Precise Shot. Precision is not needed at all for melee types unless they are attacking grappled or bull rushed opponents or are blindly targeting hex squares due to spells like obscuring mist. So I argue you really need 3 feats rather than two (much like how Quickdraw is much more helpful for a dual wielder than most players think)

There is also a bit of an exaggerated opinion of Point Blank Shot. Better than ambidexterity (if we are continuing with the TWF analogy)? Sure, it's _hard_ to make ambidexterity as a stand alone feat very sexy. {PC Duelist: "There is one thing you should know. And that is . . . (switches to onhand) that I am not right handed"} but an archer that is getting to stack his PBS with RS is probably in serious trouble very soon as his melee opponent will be skewering him if not taken down ASAP.

With regards to damage, the medium sized archer is doing 2d8 + strength (up to +4) + enhancement/ability + PBS or Weapon Spec + various class abilities (favored enemy, sneak attack) if hitting on both shots. Purty nice BUT quite a bit of extra damage requires the target to be within 30' (and therefore within retaliatory distance and AoO time) as well as the Mighty +4 Strength limit on the Mighty bow. After that you are either in house ruled territory or you are using some sort of magic ability or magic artifact. So at low (the expense to get a mighty weapon) & high levels, you are spending money that your melee counterpart isn't just to add your full strength to damage (and as, a cheesy aside, the archer is technically using a two handed weapon and not getting x1.5 strength damage)

Finally, there are only so many archery feats. A melee fighter can't take all melee feats, he'll just switch feat chains. There are only so many options available to the archer.

So is archery more powerful? It sure can be. Maybe it even has a slight edge circumstantially. But it still is primarily the domain of the fighter class and the fighter class is supposed to deal tons o' damage by careful combinations of feats. But Is archery unbalanced? My opinion is cleary a no, but it is just an opinion.

corrected a little unclear language

 

[Dash Dannigan]

I hear ya Kugar. You're right about the feats.

I've seen such things rule-0ed before, by numerable folks, the whole stacking of enhancements for arrows and bows. I agree, that this may be part of the problem with archers. It's seems reasonable to allow the enhancments to either (1) Not stack, or (2) apply the enhancement for to-hit from the bow and to-damage from the arrow.

Though I thought Rakhir had a pretty good point about armor/shield for meleers but I think this has more to do with balancing the fact they take all the heat from monsters and such in melee than doing anything to preserve a balance between archers and meleers.

As for DR, in the coming 3.5 they've discussed the lowering of DRs in general, which should make the arhcers ability to do damage easier (not sure, but we'll see).

Interesting thread eh?

 

[Storm Raven]

Berk: Given that your statement is a blanket contridiction of my experience, and that I am not noted as a poor tactician in D&D (or anything else for that matter), I'd be interested in you giving some examples.

In my experience it is alot harder to nerf an archer, and alot harder to be nerfed as an archer compared to a melee fighter.

Please give examples of what can be done to counter archers easily with or without spell casters that does not apply to fighters as a whole.

I'd say the most notable weaknesses of archers is that they are insanely vulnerable to sunder, grapple and disarm attempts.

Since they are not using a melee weapon, trying to disarm them, grapple them, or sunder their bow draws no AoO, unlike a fighter with a melee weapon.

Since they are not proficient with the bow as a melee weapon all of their opposed rolls for sunder and disarm attempts suffer a -4 non-proficiency penalty at least, or alternative, some have suggested that you can use the rules for attacking an inanimate object. The non-proficiency penalty gives the attacker a huge advantage in the opposed rolls.

Bows have very little hardness, and few hit points, even magic bows are fairly fragile, making them easy subjects for sunder attempts.

If they are grappled, an archer has to discard his bow in order to fight his attacker if he wants to do anything other than inflict unarmed damage, something that is not necessarily true for a melee fighter.

 

[DonAdam]

I would just like to point out that never have I failed to make players keep track of ammo, and that rapid shot, when we allowed it, unbalanced our games.

We also rule that the to-hit bonus comes from the bow while the damage bonus comes from the arrows.

 

[Ondo]

Here are some tables that take into account both the chance of hitting multiple times with Rapid Shot and measures the effects it has if you already have multiple attacks.

The first column is the chance you hit with your best attack. Each column after that is the average number of hits you will get, with 1 attack and then with an increasing number of attacks with each successive one at -5. To make the table smaller I've left off cases where you chance to hit is greater than 95% with the first attack, which would mean a better chance to hit with later attacks even though the first is capped at 95%.

[COLOR=white]Average Number of Hits without Rapid Shot
To Hit  1Attack 2Attack 3Attack 4Attack
 5%	0.05	0.10	0.15	0.20
10%	0.10	0.15	0.20	0.25
15%	0.15	0.20	0.25	0.30
20%	0.20	0.25	0.30	0.35
25%	0.25	0.30	0.35	0.40
30%	0.30	0.35	0.40	0.45
35%	0.35	0.45	0.50	0.55
40%	0.40	0.55	0.60	0.65
45%	0.45	0.65	0.70	0.75
50%	0.50	0.75	0.80	0.85
55%	0.55	0.85	0.90	0.95
60%	0.60	0.95	1.05	1.10
65%	0.65	1.05	1.20	1.25
70%	0.70	1.15	1.35	1.40
75%	0.75	1.25	1.50	1.55
80%	0.80	1.35	1.65	1.70
85%	0.85	1.45	1.80	1.90
90%	0.90	1.55	1.95	2.10
95%	0.95	1.65	2.10	2.30[/COLOR]

Here's the change in the average number of hits when using the Rapid Shot feat with -2 to each attack

[COLOR=white]Change in Average Number of Hits with Rapid Shot -2
To Hit  1Attack 2Attack 3Attack 4Attack
 5%	0.05	0.05	0.05	0.05
10%	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
15%    -0.05   -0.05   -0.05   -0.05
20%	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
25%	0.05	0.05	0.05	0.05
30%	0.10	0.10	0.10	0.10
35%	0.15	0.10	0.10	0.10
40%	0.20	0.10	0.10	0.10
45%	0.25	0.15	0.15	0.15
50%	0.30	0.20	0.20	0.20
55%	0.35	0.25	0.25	0.25
60%	0.40	0.30	0.25	0.25
65%	0.45	0.35	0.25	0.25
70%	0.50	0.40	0.30	0.30
75%	0.55	0.45	0.35	0.35
80%	0.60	0.50	0.40	0.40
85%	0.65	0.55	0.45	0.40
90%	0.70	0.60	0.50	0.40
95%	0.75	0.65	0.55	0.45
[/COLOR]

Here it is with Rapid Shot -3

[COLOR=white]Change in Average Number of Hits with Rapid Shot -3
To Hit  1Attack 2Attack 3Attack 4Attack
 5%	0.05	0.05	0.05	0.05
10%	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
15%    -0.05   -0.05   -0.05   -0.05
20%    -0.10   -0.10   -0.10   -0.10
25%    -0.05   -0.05   -0.05   -0.05
30%	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
35%	0.05	0.00	0.00	0.00
40%	0.10	0.00	0.00	0.00
45%	0.15	0.00	0.00	0.00
50%	0.20	0.05	0.05	0.05
55%	0.25	0.10	0.10	0.10
60%	0.30	0.15	0.10	0.10
65%	0.35	0.20	0.10	0.10
70%	0.40	0.25	0.10	0.10
75%	0.45	0.30	0.15	0.15
80%	0.50	0.35	0.20	0.20
85%	0.55	0.40	0.25	0.20
90%	0.60	0.45	0.30	0.20
95%	0.65	0.50	0.35	0.20
[/COLOR]

Finally, with Rapid Shot -4

[COLOR=white]Change in Average Number of Hits with Rapid Shot -3
To Hit  1Attack 2Attack 3Attack 4Attack
 5%	0.05	0.05	0.05	0.05
10%	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
15%    -0.05   -0.05   -0.05   -0.05
20%    -0.10   -0.10   -0.10   -0.10
25%    -0.15   -0.15   -0.15   -0.15
30%    -0.10   -0.10   -0.10   -0.10
35%    -0.05   -0.10   -0.10   -0.10
40%     0.00   -0.10   -0.10   -0.10
45%	0.05   -0.10   -0.10   -0.10
50%	0.10   -0.10   -0.10   -0.10
55%	0.15   -0.05   -0.05   -0.05
60%	0.20	0.00   -0.05   -0.05
65%	0.25	0.05   -0.05   -0.05
70%	0.30	0.10   -0.05   -0.05
75%	0.35	0.15   -0.05   -0.05
80%	0.40	0.20	0.00	0.00
85%	0.45	0.25	0.05	0.00
90%	0.50	0.30	0.10	0.00
95%	0.55	0.35	0.15	0.00
[/COLOR]

Draw your own conclusions, but this data takes into account more stuff than the data in the original article.

 

[mmu1]

I have a long stock rant as to why archers getting to stack bow and arrow bonuses is not unbalanced, but I'll limit it to one point.

1) If you get rid of the stacking are you going to drop Shield and Armor bonus stacking? That is one of the benefits that the melee types get and it has the same kind of effect ( +5 armor, +5 shield = +10 to armor bonus).

What does one have to do with the other? Archers don't get to use shields, just like anyone else who decides to use a two handed weapon.

The only people who benefit from shield and armor stacking are those willing to sacrifice large amounts of damage for extra protection... Which is how it should be.