Q: Does damage from the Clustered Shots feat apply as precision damage when fighting an Elder Water Elemental for example?
DR10/-
Would the damage reduction be applied only once as per the feat description or be applied to each seperate attack because it is immune to precision damage (elemental trait) and so the feat does not apply. I know sneak attack is listed as an example of precision damage but what would you guys rule in this case?
Thanks already.
Clustered Shot is not precision damage. It does not do damage at all. It allows DR to be applied once for the entire full round attack, instead of being applied to each individual attack.
Well yes but the logic behind Clustered Shots is that well... you cluster your shots to make uae of piercing through the foes armor or hide on the same piece. That may work for a normal corporeal creature one would reckon but a water elemental (that for the same reason is also immune to criticals or sneak attack damage, no vital organs to hit?) ; it just doesn't make any sense to me. Suppose it works like a three round burst on a machine gun..you cluster your shots to do more damage on the same spot.
The logic that would allow you to bypass the damage reduction only once ... I just don't see that working on an elemental? Also the prerequisites to the feat are two other feats with Precise in their names? I know that doesn't make it a different damage type on a rules matter but logic still applies too right?
No. Applying "logic" to the fluff of Feats and abilities makes them non-functional in most cases, like this one.
It is not Precision damage. Sneak Attack is precision damage, as-is any ability that say s"This is precision damage".
Clustered Shots is not.
Okay. Clear. Any suggestions on how to deal with it though? The Clustered Shots feat in general that is? The archer in the group pretty much shreds through anything in a few rounds. And the simplest solution... adding more creatures of the same type might make things a lot more dangeroua expanantionally.
It really only affects creatures with DR in the first place, which does decimate an archers DPR. Would you penalize him if he had arrows made of silver, mithral, cold iron, adamantine, or had blunt arrows?
An archer can already pretty easily bypass most DR by just having the right arrow type. Alignment based DR and DR slashing are the only ones he can't really negate all on his own with ammunition.
I suggest you do nothing, and just realize that archers are all about dealing damage. If you want to do anything, judicious use of Wind Wall or Fickle Winds.
Well yes but the logic behind Clustered Shots is that well... you cluster your shots to make uae of piercing through the foes armor or hide on the same piece. That may work for a normal corporeal creature one would reckon but a water elemental (that for the same reason is also immune to criticals or sneak attack damage, no vital organs to hit?) ; it just doesn't make any sense to me. Suppose it works like a three round burst on a machine gun..you cluster your shots to do more damage on the same spot.
The logic that would allow you to bypass the damage reduction only once ... I just don't see that working on an elemental? Also the prerequisites to the feat are two other feats with Precise in their names? I know that doesn't make it a different damage type on a rules matter but logic still applies too right?
Mechanics are the rules. Clustered shots does not deal damage so it can not be precision damage. It also says nothing about being denied by anything that stop precision damage. Also the idea behind clustered shots is not that you are hitting a vital area. The idea is that you are making concentrated attack. It does not matter if you are hit in a vital area or not. If you get hit hard and fast enough in the same area it will cause more damage.
Also the name of a feat has no bearing on how it works. Precise Shot is not a precision based damage. It is not even damage at all. It is just the name of the feat. Names are not rules. Point blank shot is also not precision based damage, and they both work on everything that can be damage so if you want to use feat progression as logic if the first two feats work on everything then there is no reason that clustered shots should not.
PS: You can be paralyzed and still get a reflex save.<---Another idea you might not like.
So if you are GM feel free to rule otherwise, but by the rules your idea is incorrect.
Okay. Clear. Any suggestions on how to deal with it though? The Clustered Shots feat in general that is? The archer in the group pretty much shreds through anything in a few rounds. And the simplest solution... adding more creatures of the same type might make things a lot more dangeroua expanantionally.
Make good use of the cover rules to add a +4 to the enemies AC, and you can add more less dangerous enemies, using some of them to force the archer to move and not always get full attacks in.
edit: If he is switch hitter he might just pull out a melee weapon and shred them in melee. :)
edit2: If someone is built to do damage in this game it is going to happen, whether it is a ranged character or melee based one.
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Okay. Clear. Any suggestions on how to deal with it though? The Clustered Shots feat in general that is? The archer in the group pretty much shreds through anything in a few rounds. And the simplest solution... adding more creatures of the same type might make things a lot more dangeroua expanantionally.
A big 2H using Barbarian will do the same.
Quantity over quality is the PF motto for making encounters difficult. If your party is level 10, use 6 CR 9 creatures rather than a single CR 13 creature, for example.
General tactics for hindering archers, though, include:
Grappling
Wind Wall
Creatures that easily close to melee
Just to name a few easy ones.
@Wraithstrike》And get a Will save even when asleep I know.
suppose the problem is that the archer rips through things so quickly it steals the thunder of other characters in the group that do not have optimized damage builds.
I feel ita unbalanced in that regard and the other characters in the group deserve their time in the spotlight as well. Also in combat.
It all pretty much went well up until that particular feat came into play. (They're 10th level though and so encounter design gets tougher because of the options the group have availableto them.)
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@Wraithstrike》And get a Will save even when asleep I know.
suppose the problem is that the archer rips through things so quickly it steals the thunder of other characters in the group that do not have optimized damage builds.I feel ita unbalanced in that regard and the other characters in the group deserve their time in the spotlight as well. Also in combat.
It all pretty much went well up until that particular feat came into play. (They're 10th level though and so encounter design gets tougher because of the options the group have availableto them.)
It is -very- unfair to the player who decided to put alot of his energy into being good at combat to just take it away. The correct solution is to make more interesting encounters, done with more creatures. If you use windwall, don't have every creature hide behind it, but do use windwall. Have more monsters, and a variety of them, in every encounter. Fighting a single enemy should be a very rare thing, it's either too easy, or too hard.
Well already used a spellcaster with Wind Wall as an adversary. Don't want to rehash the same tactics too many times. I'll brood on it for a little while more. Something will strike to mind eventually. Thanks for answering the question regardless.
Just on the fluff based reasoning behind clustered shots: The idea is that you shoot eve3rything at the same spot to create one big hole rather than many small ones. Its basically just a single big hit coming in small waves, so there is no reason why it sholdn't work on an elemental, incorporeal thing or an ooze. (or whatever else is there that's immune to crits)
@Wraithstrike》And get a Will save even when asleep I know.
suppose the problem is that the archer rips through things so quickly it steals the thunder of other characters in the group that do not have optimized damage builds.I feel ita unbalanced in that regard and the other characters in the group deserve their time in the spotlight as well. Also in combat.
It all pretty much went well up until that particular feat came into play. (They're 10th level though and so encounter design gets tougher because of the options the group have availableto them.)
Archers do not do enough damage per arrow for that to happen with multiple opponents, however like any DPR focused build any single opponents are going to feel the pain. That is why I said use multiple opponents.
As you level up the bad guys also get more options. Some fights will be a cake walk for the party, and that is fine. I dont know if you are running an AP or homebrew campaign, but the enviroment should also be used, and my group, which Rynjin is in, does so much damage I give the opponents full hit points instead of half. That allows for them to fight longer.
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Wraithstrike and Rynjin know each other? IRL?!?!?!??!?
-gasps-
Not IRL, we play over Roll20.