Rapid Shot analysis by Sean Reynolds

[Ondo]

Actually, you're wrong. You'll get heads once 50% of the time, and at least one head 75% of the time. Your average chance of doing something at least once in a series of attempts is never one (100%) unless you also have a 100% chance of suceeding on every individual attempt.

I'm not talking about the chance of getting heads at least once, I'm talking about the average number of heads you'll get, as I said. 1 50% of the time, 2 25% of the time, 0 25% of the time, hence 1 on average.

This number is actually significant to an analysis of Rapid Shot. The other is not, except when factoring in the small chance that the first arrow will kill your target.

 

[Christian]

This number is actually significant to an analysis of Rapid Shot. The other is not, except when factoring in the small chance that the first arrow will kill your target.

Addendum-the small chance that the first arrow will kill your target and that there will be no available target for the second arrow. This actually comes into play on occaison, IME, for melee types who get extra attacks. Our party's barbarian usually ponders using a cleave attack on an adjacent PC when there are no enemies within striking range other than the one he just dropped ... Don't want to waste that cleave! I imagine that this would come up much more rarely for missileers.

 

[Rugger]

Crikey!

Kugar was one of my players for YEARS (about 10 years ago...) and he never made my brain bleed like he is now with his Charts!

Having players that run "Bow Guy's" in both LG and our home campaign I can say, without reservation, that the Bow guy is a bit too powerful. Sure, the Full-Plate wearing dwarf has more AC and HP's, but if he's doing his job, the baddies never reach "Bow Guy"...and "Bow Guy" hammers them.

My personal fix would probably be to make magic bows grant a plus to HIT only, and arrows add to DAMAGE only. Cause great googlyey-moogley does GMW make an archer a death machine.

-Rugger
"I (used to) Lurk!"

 

[Kannik]

re: avg damage vs just hitting: I am in the camp that would say average damage is better than 'just hitting' as a way to figure overall effectiveness. Everything else seems to balance itself out: sometimes a high-damage weapon will 'waste' damage on someone who's almost dead (or had low HP to begin with), sometimes the arrow can't make it through DR, sometimes 'just hitting' is better than doing more damage, esp if the target is just about dead. In the long run, the better here/worse heres I think tend to nullify each other and avg damage capaicity is better off.

In the case of statistics, it's actually rather interesting:

On a roll of 2 d 20, you have 400 possibilities. To determine what the % chances, it's simple:

Assume 11+ to hit.

There are 200 cases where 11+ will come up on one die, but not the other (ie, when die 1 rolls 11, there are 10 cases (1, 2, 3, 4 ... 9, 10) where die 2 also doesn't roll an 11+, when die 1 rolls 12, there are 10 cases (1 ... 10) where die 2 doesn't roll 11+, etc).

There are 100 cases where 11+ will occur on both dice (ie, when die 1 rolls 11, there are 10 cases (11, 12, 13 ... 20) where die 2 has also rolled over 11, etc).

There are 100 cases where neither die will roll over 11 (ie, die 1 rolls 1, there are 10 cases where die 2 also rolls less than 11 (1, 2, ... 10), etc).

You can pick any number needed to hit and work out the results.

So, this works out to:

200/400 = 50% chance 1 hitting
100/400 = 25% chance 2 hitting
100/400 = 25% chance 0 hitting

Now, this is a simple case, where the chance to hit is 50%. But one can work it out for any chance to hit... say, for example needing a 17+ to hit (pretty tough!), the rapid firing dude would have: 72% no hits, 26% one hit, and 2% two hits.

A full analysis could be done to see how that compares to a single wielder with a single, standard attack. 15+ = 30% chance to hit, 3.5+3.5+6 = 3.9 average damage.

BUT, if we do that simple, we have NEGLECTED the fact that the single wielder may have taken some feats, A) giving him better chance to hit and B) possiblitity for even more damage. We can make the single wielder ON PAR with chance to hit, but with a +3 to damage due to Weapon Focus and Power Attack, for example. That's a much more valid comparison. And in that case, pure damage wise, the greatsword wielder comes out ahead, (at least at level 3+ when he can use 3 points in power attack }.

Are archers useful? Yes! Are they powerful! Sure... are they OVER powered? I'm not leaning that way at this time.

At least from a pure, non-magical point of vue.

I DO agree, however, that GMW's 50 arrows/time could be what is broken in this case, and/or the stacking of magic bow/arrow. As green slime said, if someone wants to spend a tonne of GP on getting magic arrows, then stacking is fine... when its sooo easy with GMW, then not so fine.

Assuming your party cleric is willing to cast GMW, of course }

Kannik

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

I think you're right about that Precise Shot needs to be factored in. IMO, it's almost more important to an archer than rapid shot. However, the difference between archers and melee characters is that once an archer has point blank, shot, precise shot, and rapid shot, there are few other feats that make nearly as significant a difference. (And even a single classed demihuman bard can have PBS, Precise Shot, and Rapid Shot by level 6).

In fact, the useful archery feats seem to me to be:
Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Rapid Shot, Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization, Improved Critical, Manyshot (if your DM is foolish enough to allow it)

There's a second set of marginal archery feats:
Zen archery, Sharpshooting

And the deadly combat cleric combo:
Extend Spell, Persistent Spell

However, that's pretty much the extent of archery possibilities.

For melee character, OTOH, there are more options (weapon finesse, TWF, sword and shield, shield based combat, spring attack, etc).

There are also more feats that are directly useful for every character:
Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization, Improved Critical, Power Critical, Power Attack, Cleave, blindfight, combat reflexes, close quarters fighting, Dodge, Expertise

And more optional directions to take:
Great Cleave
Sunder-Improved Sunder
Expertise, Improved Disarm, Improved Trip, Knockdown.
Throw Anything, Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Quickdraw, Rapid Shot

Etc. Etc.

Precise Shot certainly factors into the equation but there are simply fewer useful feats for an archer than for a melee character.

Along those lines, I had one point to mention about the feat expenditure comparison with melee fighting. I think that Precise Shot should be factored in to the equation.

My reasoning is this: There are a few likely encounter scenarios that parties tend to run into. A small number of powerful enemies, a few (or a single) powerful enemy and some mooks, or a bunch of mooks.

If there are only a few (or a single) enemies, the melee fighters will engage them fairly quickly and the archer will be forced to fire into melee. This means that without Precise Shot they will suffer an extra -4 on top of any cover that their own team is providing to the enemy. If there are a bunch of bad guys, it is likely that they will be able to maneuver around the "front line" and penetrate into the group deep enough to attack the archers in melee. This means that archery itself is going to become a less optimal tactic.

 

[Victim]

Except that the archery line has lots of decent feats, while most other melee based feat chains have fewer feats. If you want to be a master archer, then you're set for a while. On the other hand, a swashbuckler will run out of good feats to select faster, as will the 2 hander hack them to bits fighter. Melee characters have more options for feats, but most characters are only going to be interested in a few.

Also, melee feats can require decent DEX, STR, and INT scores. Many characters won't qualify for them. On the other hand, an archer will almost certainly qualify for all worthwhile archery feats.

 

[Rel]

I think that part of the reason that I can't bring myself to be outraged about the power of archers is that I tend to take a more wholistic view of game balance.

The fact is that archer types (or ranged spellcasters for that matter) couldn't do any of this stuff without the "front line" fighters up there keeping the enemies at bay. The fact that they are pounding the bad guys from a distance is a boon to the party. Accomplishing your goals as a party is what the game is really all about.

Of course nobody wants to have a character who is utterly ineffectual compared to the rest of the party. But within our game group, the important factor is "can each person do their job well enough to contribute to the success of the group?" We are thrilled when the other party members are good at their role, not jealous.

That said, I can completely understand the point of view that says no class should be significantly more powerful than any other because otherwise you get arguments like, "I want to be the archer this time. You got to be the archer last time!"

 

[Kugar]

The boildown on this is really that the following factors:

A) Feats: Rapid Shot,
B) Stacking Bow/Arrow Enhancements,
C) Spell: Greater Magic Weapon, and
D) The full attack action rules.

mean that the archer gets more attacks at a higher hit bounus than the melee fighter.

If you take any of the above and modify it you can remove the advantage of the archer.
A) If the Archer does not take Rapid shot, he is loosing an attack per round and suffers from poor arrow damage.
B) If the enchancements don't stack he is on par with the TWF as far as # of attacks and attack bounus.
C) If there is no GMW, then the archer is on par with the TWF, and suject to damage reduction hosing or loss of wealth to arrows.
D) If a Full attack was a partial action, then the number of attacks would probalbly favor a Great Cleaving, GITWF, twink.

All said and done there is some acher love in the way the rules work out. Not enough to drastically alter the balace of PCs but enough to notice some balance flaws in the system and exploit CRs more than normal.

Kugar

 

[mmu1]

I think that part of the reason that I can't bring myself to be outraged about the power of archers is that I tend to take a more wholistic view of game balance.

The fact is that archer types (or ranged spellcasters for that matter) couldn't do any of this stuff without the "front line" fighters up there keeping the enemies at bay. The fact that they are pounding the bad guys from a distance is a boon to the party. Accomplishing your goals as a party is what the game is really all about.

Maybe, but that doesn't make getting stabbed, shot, grappled, poisoned, level drained, etc. for the good of the group while the archers and mages hide in the back any more fun.

Here's another thing that really bugs me about archers: Too many of them have this whole "Take damage? But I'm an archer! I'm not supposed to have to do that!" attitude, because they're so fragile, the poor darlings...

 

[Rel]

Maybe, but that doesn't make getting stabbed, shot, grappled, poisoned, level drained, etc. for the good of the group while the archers and mages hide in the back any more fun.

This is exactly why, in our games, virtually all of the buffing magic tends to go toward those who are in immediate danger from the enemy. The Cat's Grace and Greater Magic Weapon for the archer would not supercede Endurance and Magic Vestment for those on the front lines.