The Sage on Arcane Archers

[Caliban]

Imagine this scenerio...

An open plaza where the king is assassinated by a rogue, the rogue is mindblanked. An Arcane Archer sees the assassin running towards the dock ward. So the Arcane Archer runs home, gets his bow and gets to the dock ward. From there he has his seeker arrow "seek" the "King's Assassin" and if he's not in a sealed area, and in bow range, the arrow finds him?

None of the king's epic arch wizard's or his epic clerics can find the assassin since he's mindblanked, but the Arcane Archer power does allow him to essentially know his location? All he has to do is follow the flightpath of the arrow, and how does the arrow "know" where he is if the assassin is completely immune to the very kinds of magic it would take to know where he is.

Why do you think the Seeker ability would work in this situation?

 

[Arravis]

Cause what AuraSeer posted...

**The description of these powers states that the archer fires the arrow "at a target known to her within range." Does that mean she only requires personal knowledge of the target?

Yes. The arcane archer must have seen the target or be able to specify the target in some exact way. Such as "Grodnard the orc" or "the first orc the arrow reaches."**

That does not follow what he emailed me and opens a massive can of worms on the issue of finding creatures that cannot be found via magic. He saw the assassin once and can ask that it go to the "king's assassin"

 

[Caliban]

Cause what AuraSeer posted...

**The description of these powers states that the archer fires the arrow "at a target known to her within range." Does that mean she only requires personal knowledge of the target?

Yes. The arcane archer must have seen the target or be able to specify the target in some exact way. Such as "Grodnard the orc" or "the first orc the arrow reaches."**

That does not follow what he emailed me and opens a massive can of worms on the issue of finding creatures that cannot be found via magic. He saw the assassin once and can ask that it go to the "king's assassin"

I don't see where that implies that the ability cannot be blocked or fooled. It's a spell-like ability, and can be stopped by things that prevent spells from working. It would seem to be a divination effect, and thus things that stop divinations from working should block it, although ultimately that's a DM call.

 

[Arravis]

It makes no mention of that in the description of the spell. If it had such an ability wouldn't it mention that creatures immune to scrying cannot be targeted by seeker arrows? I think if it was a form of "scrying" it would mention it clearly in the description of the power.

 

[Caliban]

It makes no mention of that in the description of the spell. If it had such an ability wouldn't it mention that creatures immune to scrying cannot be targeted by seeker arrows? I think if it was a form of "scrying" it would mention it clearly in the description of the power.

Then why are you asking the question? You seem to be arguing against both sides at the same time. Make a ruling and stop bitching.

 

[Anubis]

The really funny part though, is that a lot of the people that I see bash the Sage for a "boneheaded" ruling is because said "bonehead-sage-basher" really did think that the rule worked another way.

Not exactly. Take, for instance, the DMG errata. Forcing people to pay XP costs for spells used in item creation makes several items impossible to create altogether, including Ring of Three Wishes (which would cost over 100,000 XP) and any of the items that grant inherent bonuses.

 

[Anubis]

About the phase arrow/seeker arrow issue, what is the argument about?

He didn't send different answers to you guys!

To one he spoke only of seeker arrow, the other was the phase arrow. "Known to her" does NOT mean the same thing in both cases. Read the Sage's reply about the phase arrow again:

In this case, "known" means know the location. For example, a target seen, but behind cover, seen remotely (via a mirror or divination spell), heard but not seen, or the like.

See the "In this case"? That is the key. For the phase arrow, "known to her" means knowing the location. For seeker arrow, however, known to her means knowing "identity".

 

[da chicken]

Heh. What Caliban said.

**Ducks and runs.**

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Don't forget a level of wizard/sorcerer.

EDIT: Pardon me while I go have sex with a supermodel to wash away the utter geekiness of this post.

And you think any supermodel will have sex with you after this geek post? Dream on!

 

[Kibo]

It makes no mention of that in the description of the spell. If it had such an ability wouldn't it mention that creatures immune to scrying cannot be targeted by seeker arrows? I think if it was a form of "scrying" it would mention it clearly in the description of the power.

Think of the arrow not so much as on a course of predetermined action, but as an extension of the archer. In this case if the archer saw the assasin, the seeker arrow could follow, find, and fell the assasin. The archer would know what to look for, and so would the arrow. But the rogue would have already been killed by the deepwood sniper, or peerless archer so it's mute.

As a preemtive strike.... In the case of orcs, the archer knows what orcs look like, as does the arrow. Note the king's assassin looks like other rogues, who can look like anyone. Conceivably you could fire an arrow into the plaza seeking unsavory persons of low character, but it probably wouldn't make it very far, let alone to the assassin.

It's all about context.

Seeker arrows require you to know what a target looks like, phase arrows require you to know where a target is and nothing more.