Uber archer?

[Victim]

About a 100 hundred points per round at level 14 seems fair, especially if fully buffed.

I've seen a 12th level werewolf ranger (LA was reduced later because being a werewolf did little besides give me the chance to screw the PC) and a 15th level halfing rogue ranger sneak attack machine each do about 100 per round on full attacks to a dragon. And that was with the only spellcasting support being Spellsword. No GMWs, no dispels on the dragon, etc.

Of course, the dragon had a low AC because it was only the Simulacrum of GW Red, but the case is probably roughly comparable.

 

[The Souljourner]

Sigh.
The aimed shot.

Intuitive Archery Mastery: When you make an aimed shot with your bow (see the Improved Aimed Shot feat for a description of this action), you gain a +20 insight bonus to your attack roll, and you are not affected by the miss chance that applies to attacks against a concealed target.

Finding the Target (Ex): At 5th level, the master of Intuitive Archery can make an aimed shot with a normal attack action instead of a full attack

Umm... does this or does this not say that you can now use aimed shot for every attack in a full attack and due to the mastery feat, it gets True Striked?

and ignores the first 4 points of cover

It doesn't come into play that often, IME.

Do you have no melee characters in your party? In my experience, you're almost always shooting past one or two of your own friends, which give half cover to the guy you're shooting at (given that they're the same size). If your targets never get cover, you're either always fighting in big, wide open spaces, or your DM isn't enforcing them correctly.

and you can cause 10d6 points of constitution loss per day.

I'm toning that down, as I said above.

Ahh, ok, I missed that, sorry.

-The Souljourner

 

[Berk]

IMHO nothing should do around 100hp a round to a dragon if the dragon was played correctly, unless that character got extremely lucky and crit'd a few times.

And that PrC, it's just badong, way to overpowering. But that is just my own opinion and you know what opinions are like since everyone has one. =op I would actually tone down a lot of the things like that con damage you said you are and that ability to use a concentration check after you've already failed a will save with all the bonuses and everything added to your concentration check. I don't personally know the aimed shot and called shot feats or whatever since I don't play archers much and it is too easy to kill them.

Anyways, not a bad idea for a PrC, but overall, it's just too overpowering, and no amount of prereqs can compensate for that.

 

[Endur]

Unbalanced and Too Powerful

I agree. The PRC and some of the feats are way too powerful.

Below is how I would balance the feats and abilities.

Called Shot seemed like a reasonable feat.

Improved Aimed Shot and Improved All Out Attack need to be fixed:

Instead of a -4 dodge penalty, call it what it really is: The archer (or fighter) loses his Dex bonus to AC (so he can be sneak attacked, etc.) and is treated as Dex 0 for AC purposes until the start of the archer/fighter's next turn. IF you use one of these feats, you aren't paying any attention to defense.

Improved Dodge: the +2 ac should only apply to one opponent.

Negate Critical: I could see a feat like this, but not based on attack rolls, too easy for a fighter with a magic sword to never suffer a critical. Instead, it ought to be based on con and toughness.

Instinctive Shot: I don't understand the double the wisdom modifier. I think it should just be wisdom modifier.

For the Prestige class,
a +20 insight bonus 1/per level per day that ignores concealment is pretty powerful. Way too powerful.

4 skill points a level, d8 hit points, good reflex and will saves, full BAB, and a ton of abilities.

Greater Mastery has to go.
KI Arrows: Essentially the same as the Arcane Archer ability

Count up the feats:
Instinctive Strike, Still Mind, Strength of Will, (Great Sharpshooter), Penetrating Shot (double damage on a called shot),

Special Abilities: Undeflectable Shot, Ranged-Blind Fight, Finding the Target (totally eliminates all penalties for called/aimed shots),
True Seeing once per day,

Grand Mastery: +20 insight bonus for every arrow fired.

Ok: All the Mastery benefits have to go. I could see letting the character cast True Strike as a spell-like ability 1/day, but that's it. Maybe 2 or 3/day at most.

For the feats and special abilities, pick half. Those you keep; the rest are gone.

That's how I would balance the prestige class.

Tom

 

[Endur]

By the way, I don't think the damage is excessive. But I think the prestige class is far too powerful and needs to drop a number of the abilities.

Last session, my hasted 14th level archer did ~300 points of damage over 3 rounds to a black dragon. This caused some comment, possibly because it was a custom PrC of my own design (see it here).

Question: is damage on this order of magnitude excessive? I don't think it is, but then I'm hardly an unbiased observer. I'd be interested to know what others think.

 

[hong]

Umm... does this or does this not say that you can now use aimed shot for every attack in a full attack and due to the mastery feat, it gets True Striked?

It means you give up all your attacks to make one attack at the given bonus. You can do this as a standard action if you have 5 levels in this PrC, otherwise it takes a full-round action. It could be better worded, I guess.

Do you have no melee characters in your party? In my experience, you're almost always shooting past one or two of your own friends, which give half cover to the guy you're shooting at (given that they're the same size). If your targets never get cover, you're either always fighting in big, wide open spaces, or your DM isn't enforcing them correctly.

So far, the encounters have mostly been in areas where everyone (including the bad guys) is flying, or against big monsters (size L or greater).

 

[hong]

IMHO nothing should do around 100hp a round to a dragon if the dragon was played correctly, unless that character got extremely lucky and crit'd a few times.

D00d, the dragon is SUPPOSED to die. The only questions are how long it takes, and how many PCs it takes with it.

I don't personally know the aimed shot and called shot feats or whatever since I don't play archers much and it is too easy to kill them.

Hmm.. If it's too easy to kill them, wouldn't that suggest that it's reasonable to toughen them up a bit?

 

[hong]

Re: Unbalanced and Too Powerful

Called Shot seemed like a reasonable feat.

And someone else on rgfd said it was too weak for its prereqs, if anything. I'm inclined to agree with that one (but I'm still not going to change it).

Instead of a -4 dodge penalty, call it what it really is: The archer (or fighter) loses his Dex bonus to AC (so he can be sneak attacked, etc.) and is treated as Dex 0 for AC purposes until the start of the archer/fighter's next turn. IF you use one of these feats, you aren't paying any attention to defense.

Let us take as our operative assumption that feats are meant to be used, as opposed to being a vehicle to showcase the DM's creativity.

Improved Dodge: the +2 ac should only apply to one opponent.

Eh. The whole point of this feat was so that I wouldn't have to keep track of who I'm dodging.

Negate Critical: I could see a feat like this, but not based on attack rolls, too easy for a fighter with a magic sword to never suffer a critical.

Nothing wrong with that. That's as opposed to being too easy for said fighter to get fortified armour and achieve exactly the same thing. I'm all for using feats to supplant or replace magic items, where possible.

Instinctive Shot: I don't understand the double the wisdom modifier. I think it should just be wisdom modifier.

Because the range penalty is -2 per increment, so effectively you ignore one range increment for each point of Wis bonus. This is another one that has almost never come up in play. Most of the time, a PC archer is going to be right next to the action, due to the cardinal rule: Never Split The Party.

For the Prestige class,
a +20 insight bonus 1/per level per day that ignores concealment is pretty powerful. Way too powerful.

What, emulating a 1st level spell is way too powerful?

And I RAN OUT of these super-duper true strikes while fighting that dragon. The last shots I got in were just regular aimed shots, albeit still at +5 to hit.

Grand Mastery: +20 insight bonus for every arrow fired.

Sigh redux.

Ok: All the Mastery benefits have to go. I could see letting the character cast True Strike as a spell-like ability 1/day, but that's it. Maybe 2 or 3/day at most.

True strike 1/day is an insult at 16th level, IMO. I bumped up the DW sniper's ability for this reason.

For the feats and special abilities, pick half. Those you keep; the rest are gone.

That's how I would balance the prestige class.

Spoken like a DM.

 

[Endur]

Re: Re: Uber archer?

While 100 per round isn't excessive for a 14th level character, we do have to remember that this was against a Dragon. And Dragons generally have very high ac, so any character shouldn't expect to hit on every attack against a dragon. But, in this case, the archer could expect every attack to land, thanks to the +20 insight bonus.

By the way, I don't think the damage is excessive. But I think the prestige class is far too powerful and needs to drop a number of the abilities.

 

[hong]

Re: Re: Re: Uber archer?

While 100 per round isn't excessive for a 14th level character, we do have to remember that this was against a Dragon. And Dragons generally have very high ac, so any character shouldn't expect to hit on every attack against a dragon. But, in this case, the archer could expect every attack to land, thanks to the +20 insight bonus.

Changing your mind, are you?

A pumped up tank or archer, with haste, could inflict ~150 points on a full attack, if every attack hit. Note also the example of the rogue who did 200+ points with sneak attacks. And the dragon's AC went down precipitously after we stripped his buff spells.