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Please don't ditch Precise Shot. Archers almost never get damaged, always firing from behind the meat shields, so I say there needs to be a balancing factor to shooting in melee.
Watch any medieval or fantasy movie: except for Legolas, NOBODY shoots when friends are in melee. Same thing for real-life cops: do they send in the guys with shields and batons and THEN start firing their guns?
NO!
If you don't want that damn -4, shoot enemies when you have clear line of sight and line of effect. If you're so bummed out about the -4, switch to a sword and wade in with your melee friends.
Precise Shot is a good feat. If the -4 rule is being forgotten you DM is missing out on a pretty big rule. There have been several times in my games where a shot the missed by that -4 and hit an ally. It makes for some funny and intense situations.
That's not how the rule is supposed to work, though.
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If you don't want that damn -4, shoot enemies when you have clear line of sight and line of effect. If you're so bummed out about the -4, switch to a sword and wade in with your melee friends.
It's not about Line of Sight or Line of effect (in 3.5, at least). You could have both of those and still incur the -4, because it's about "engaged in melee".
Precise Shot is a good feat. If the -4 rule is being forgotten you DM is missing out on a pretty big rule. There have been several times in my games where a shot the missed by that -4 and hit an ally. It makes for some funny and intense situations.
Where's the "hit an ally" rule? It's not in 3.5 (p140 explains how shooting into melee works) nor in PFRPG Beta (p136 explains how shooting into melee works, same as in 3.5).
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Our group has also always had the confusion of whether or not it applies to rays and other 'weapon like spells' as Complete Arcane called them.
Every archer would take this feat anyway, I hate feats that are absolutely mandatory to a class (like Natural Spell as another example). If Precise Shot had some actual benefit to it besides removing a penalty that really would only ever hurt those who DON'T go all super-focused into ranged combat (the poor rogue who wants to throw a dagger in a one-time situation) it just seems a pain in the arse.
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RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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I also think precise shot should stay (as well as soft cover rules, which are even more often forgotten when dealing with ranged attacks), but also agree that the gateway feat of point blank shot should be removed, or at least upgraded so it's not such a bad feat. I think I'll go start a thread about that feat actually.
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RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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Every archer would take this feat anyway, I hate feats that are absolutely mandatory to a class (like Natural Spell as another example). If Precise Shot had some actual benefit to it besides removing a penalty that really would only ever hurt those who DON'T go all super-focused into ranged combat (the poor rogue who wants to throw a dagger in a one-time situation) it just seems a pain in the arse.
While every archer should take this feat, Archer is not actually a class, so it doesn't really qualify as a feat that is a no-brainer for a class - at best it's a feat that half a class should take (the archery style ranger).
I don't see this as a problem, however, since it's like saying, every 2-handed weapon user should take power attack, so that's a bad feat.
Precise Shot is a good feat. If the -4 rule is being forgotten you DM is missing out on a pretty big rule. There have been several times in my games where a shot the missed by that -4 and hit an ally. It makes for some funny and intense situations.That's not how the rule is supposed to work, though.
Yeah it appears you are correct
Shooting or Throwing into a Melee: If you shoot
or throw a ranged weapon at a target engaged in melee
with a friendly character, you take a –4 penalty on
your attack roll. Two characters are engaged in melee
if they are enemies of each other and either threatens
the other. (An unconscious or otherwise immobilized
character is not considered engaged unless he is actually
being attacked.)
If your target (or the part of your target you’re aiming
at, if it’s a big target) is at least 10 feet away from the nearest
friendly character, you can avoid the –4 penalty, even
if the creature you’re aiming at is engaged in melee with
a friendly character. If your target is two size categories
larger than the friendly characters it is engaged with, this
penalty is reduced to a –2. There is no penalty for firing
at a creature that is three size categories larger than the
friendly characters it is engaged with.
Precise Shot: If you have the Precise Shot feat, you don’t
take this penalty.
That is a change from the 3.5 rules if I am not mistaken.
I think merging Precise Shot with the Feat (i forget the name)
that reduces the penalties for Cover would make certain sense though.
That is a change from the 3.5 rules if I am not mistaken.
It is a change that was implemented in the change from 3.0 rules to 3.5 rules first. Pathfinder uses the same rule as 3.5.
That is a change from the 3.5 rules if I am not mistaken.It is a change that was implemented in the change from 3.0 rules to 3.5 rules first. Pathfinder uses the same rule as 3.5.
For this reason we still play the 3.0 rules. It seems odd that you have no chance of hitting someone if you are firing through their square at an enemy of the same size. It always brings a reaction if there is a chance of being hit.
bring back the 3.0 version I say.
On the OPs point I think what they really want is to get rid of the penalty for firing in to combat. I am against this. I like precise shot, it makes sense.
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I think merging Precise Shot with the Feat (i forget the name)
that reduces the penalties for Cover would make certain sense though.
Improved Precise Shot.
The ranger archer/type in my homecampaign has both Precise Shot and Improved Precise Shot, which lets him ignore the -4 for shooting opponents engaged in melee with allies, and also let's him ignore the soft cover provided by allies (when he's shooting from behind the meat shields / tanks)
No. These feats should stay. Anyone who's DMed a 25th level ranger with all the archery feats and monstrous damage bonuses due to multiple favored enemies would know what I'm talking about.
Protection vs. Arrows was useless for this DM, as it only provide protection against nonmagical arrows (so by level 3 or 4, when the ranger got his magic bow, Protection vs. Arrows did nothing against him).
Sure, as a DM who sometimes wanted to protect a plot-critical villain/baddy, I threw Wind Wall at him once in a while... but this trick gets old, and I'm not a one-trick pony. Besides, this was the Age of Worms campaign and that damn ranger had the good sense to keep that ring of the djinn or ring of air elemental command (don't remember the name, but the thing basically made him impervious to wind effects, or some trick like that, so I gave up with the Wind Walls and ruled that this ring basically extended its power to his arrows, especially since he was the only one who stayed in character and went for an air/lightning/elf theme, and was the only one who fought to keep this ring, while everyone else wanted to pawn off the treasures of Icosiol...)
This rant had a point... really. Basically, I wanted to illustrate that not much, in terms of rules, can stop a high-level archer from doing some very serious damage at very little personnal danger to themselves. So if it costs them one, two or three feats to reach the "fire and forget" state (also known as the "no more math" state)...
SO BE IT! :)
1. Precise Shot has nothing to do with Cover. It is a -4 penalty for the target and his opponent flailing around in combat essentially.
2. Cover (including soft cover such as friends) can also provide a +4 AC bonus.
3. It does appear that 3.5 removed the chance of actually *damaging* Cover from #2 (hadn't noticed that in a long time). Pathfinder Beta retains this lack.
Simply put - Precise Shot (which I like intellectually, but in play very very rarely recall to apply) can be removed, while retaining the "my friend is in the way" bonus to AC.
I kinda think it should be removed - perhaps it can be folded into Point Blank Shot (w/in 30') and a renamed Improved Precise Shot at longer ranges.
Side Note: Point Blank Shot as a feat is just fine - better than Weapon Focus 80%+ of the time. It's also about the only feat that most of my players take without any suggestion of it from me, and that I am constantly impressed with the utility of.
Edit: Purple Dragon Knight - I completely understand the extreme power of high level Archers. It's the low levels ones suffering a *lot* that bugs me a bit.
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My vote is to keep Precise Shot AND to add in rules for hitting allies on accident.
My house rule was, if you miss your target, I'd count off everyone in range and you'd roll a die to see which one you really attacked. Sometimes friend, sometimes foe, sometimes another whack at the guy you missed. Good fun.
Used the same rule for natural 1's in melee.
On topic, keep the feats and DMs need to be better about applying the penalties.
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Yeah I looked and I guess I pulled the 'hitting your ally' from 3.0 rules. Personally I like it and it definitely makes the feat worth it. I don't quite get why you get the -4 penalty but are not able to hit someone else in the melee. It seems stupid that either you hit the person you are aiming at or miss the whole group. My vote is to bring back the chance to hit someone else and keep the feat.
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RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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Yeah I looked and I guess I pulled the 'hitting your ally' from 3.0 rules. Personally I like it and it definitely makes the feat worth it. I don't quite get why you get the -4 penalty but are not able to hit someone else in the melee. It seems stupid that either you hit the person you are aiming at or miss the whole group. My vote is to bring back the chance to hit someone else and keep the feat.
While this might be more realistic, I found that when this rule was in effect, no one ever shot into a melee, ever. Even if the chance was small of hitting your ally, all it took was one time to have the whole party turn on the archer after the fight and yell at/intimidate them to NEVER, EVER, EVER do that again! At least in my experience, it prevented people from playing an archer character at all.
It applies to all ranged touches as well.
didn´t notice that, thanks for the clarification
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Yeah I looked and I guess I pulled the 'hitting your ally' from 3.0 rules. Personally I like it and it definitely makes the feat worth it. I don't quite get why you get the -4 penalty but are not able to hit someone else in the melee. It seems stupid that either you hit the person you are aiming at or miss the whole group. My vote is to bring back the chance to hit someone else and keep the feat.While this might be more realistic, I found that when this rule was in effect, no one ever shot into a melee, ever. Even if the chance was small of hitting your ally, all it took was one time to have the whole party turn on the archer after the fight and yell at/intimidate them to NEVER, EVER, EVER do that again! At least in my experience, it prevented people from playing an archer character at all.
You mean like a person would if suddenly a bullet came wizzing over their shoulder to hit a person in the head? I like the feat... In our group the -4 was assumed to be a penalty for intentionally trying to miss the ally when firing. You could choose to not take the -4 but then you had a good chance of hitting them if you missed. At least until precise shot came around.
With so many ranged touch spells out there I think that removing precise shot would be too much of a power bump for casters. Not that I'd complain too loudly, since it would benefit me ; ) But seriously, I think that it should stay and the soft cover rules make sense. What has never made sense to me is having Point Blank Shot as a prereq for Precise Shot. Point Blank is a pretty decent feat, but the connection never made sense to me. If you don't want people taking Precise Shot too soon just give it a level requirement.
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Yeah I looked and I guess I pulled the 'hitting your ally' from 3.0 rules. Personally I like it and it definitely makes the feat worth it. I don't quite get why you get the -4 penalty but are not able to hit someone else in the melee. It seems stupid that either you hit the person you are aiming at or miss the whole group.
The point, I think, is that the care you take to ensure you don't hit an ally is what causes the -4. I guess that you could have a system of:
1. Fire at full AB and risk hitting allies if you miss
2. Fire at -4 and no risk of hitting allies if you miss
3. Take Precise Shot and attack at full AB and no risk of hitting allies if you miss.
I wouldn't have a problem with that, to be honest.
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i actually prefer 3.0 rules for hitting cover. precise shot is a ugly feat. it does its job as a speed bump for the archery-monster- machine. i would be okay with a different speedbump feat in its place.
I would prefer no 'speed-bump' feats in the game, but if there were to be one, I'd like one that doesn't hamper other people who might want to use a ranged attack as a once in a while.
It applies to all ranged touches as well
Yes, evokers are soooo overpowered and need this -4 penalty to their rays >.>
Uh...
I just used it last night.
I think the penalty mechanic is a really fast, entertaining way of portraying the risk of hitting friends in melee.
I'd rather not see it change.
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Yeah I looked and I guess I pulled the 'hitting your ally' from 3.0 rules. Personally I like it and it definitely makes the feat worth it. I don't quite get why you get the -4 penalty but are not able to hit someone else in the melee. It seems stupid that either you hit the person you are aiming at or miss the whole group.The point, I think, is that the care you take to ensure you don't hit an ally is what causes the -4. I guess that you could have a system of:
1. Fire at full AB and risk hitting allies if you miss
2. Fire at -4 and no risk of hitting allies if you miss
3. Take Precise Shot and attack at full AB and no risk of hitting allies if you miss.I wouldn't have a problem with that, to be honest.
You mean like a person would if suddenly a bullet came wizzing over their shoulder to hit a person in the head? I like the feat... In our group the -4 was assumed to be a penalty for intentionally trying to miss the ally when firing. You could choose to not take the -4 but then you had a good chance of hitting them if you missed. At least until precise shot came around.
Heh, that just struck me as funny that two seconds after I said it, he suggests it.
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Well, I like Bagpuss and lastknightleft's suggestion. The question is, how should hits be allocated? Should a higher roll be more likely to hit an ally in melee, or less likely? I'm thinking that if you don't have Precise Shot, and you fire into melee, if you miss by more than 5, you hit an ally in melee. That makes it dangerous, but not prohibitively so.
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Well, I like Bagpuss and lastknightleft's suggestion. The question is, how should hits be allocated? Should a higher roll be more likely to hit an ally in melee, or less likely? I'm thinking that if you don't have Precise Shot, and you fire into melee, if you miss by more than 5, you hit an ally in melee. That makes it dangerous, but not prohibitively so.
No I don't agree with that, once you get the feat you should be able to fire into melee. The choice is for those who want to fire into melee, but don't want to take the feat just to do so.
With us, if you shot at an enemy engaged in melee you could forgo taking the -4 penalty, if you missed by more than 4 however you had a 50% chance of hitting your ally.
Yes, evokers are soooo overpowered and need this -4 penalty to their rays >.>
Yes, wizards should have to deal with the same hurdles in combat as anyone else. Considering they are hitting a touch AC and touch AC does not scale with CR the way normal AC does it's not a huge burden except at the lowest levels. And wizards who do a lot of rays and orbs can take precise shot also.
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Well, I like Bagpuss and lastknightleft's suggestion. The question is, how should hits be allocated? Should a higher roll be more likely to hit an ally in melee, or less likely? I'm thinking that if you don't have Precise Shot, and you fire into melee, if you miss by more than 5, you hit an ally in melee. That makes it dangerous, but not prohibitively so.No I don't agree with that, once you get the feat you should be able to fire into melee. The choice is for those who want to fire into melee, but don't want to take the feat just to do so.
With us, if you shot at an enemy engaged in melee you could forgo taking the -4 penalty, if you missed by more than 4 however you had a 50% chance of hitting your ally.
That's what I meant, I must have not specified...
And I didn't see the part where if you missed by more than 4, I must have read too quickly.
Anyways, I think that only one dice roll should be used to both attack and allocate hits. If you roll x, you hit, if you roll y, you miss, and if you roll z, you hit an ally. My question is how x, y, and z are to be allocated. I don't like having a % chance to miss. But maybe it's just me.
With us, if you shot at an enemy engaged in melee you could forgo taking the -4 penalty, if you missed by more than 4 however you had a 50% chance of hitting your ally.
We only made the players roll to hit allies if they rolled a 1.
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Well, I like Bagpuss and lastknightleft's suggestion. The question is, how should hits be allocated? Should a higher roll be more likely to hit an ally in melee, or less likely? I'm thinking that if you don't have Precise Shot, and you fire into melee, if you miss by more than 5, you hit an ally in melee. That makes it dangerous, but not prohibitively so.No I don't agree with that, once you get the feat you should be able to fire into melee. The choice is for those who want to fire into melee, but don't want to take the feat just to do so.
With us, if you shot at an enemy engaged in melee you could forgo taking the -4 penalty, if you missed by more than 4 however you had a 50% chance of hitting your ally.
That's what I meant, I must have not specified...
And I didn't see the part where if you missed by more than 4, I must have read too quickly.
Anyways, I think that only one dice roll should be used to both attack and allocate hits. If you roll x, you hit, if you roll y, you miss, and if you roll z, you hit an ally. My question is how x, y, and z are to be allocated. I don't like having a % chance to miss. But maybe it's just me.
You didn't miss it, i just hadn't gone into detail before so I'm going into detail now so you knew how it worked.
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With us, if you shot at an enemy engaged in melee you could forgo taking the -4 penalty, if you missed by more than 4 however you had a 50% chance of hitting your ally.We only made the players roll to hit allies if they rolled a 1.
We use the crit fumble deck so that covers rolling ones, but yeah I can see that too.
It seems like there is a general consensus here I also agree with. Nix point blank shot, keep precise. If anything also create a feat that the archer doesn't provoke when firing next to a threatening opponent (or at least gets an AC bonus like mobility). Given the world the characters would live in, training for this would be much more prevalent.
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It seems like there is a general consensus here I also agree with. Nix point blank shot, keep precise. If anything also create a feat that the archer doesn't provoke when firing next to a threatening opponent (or at least gets an AC bonus like mobility). Given the world the characters would live in, training for this would be much more prevalent.
Um that's not what the concensua is, and if that's the concencus I disagree, Point blank shot is a strange pre-req but I do think that precise shot needs a feat pre-req. I think the concencus is that the feats are fine as is, but I could be just as wrong.
And no I don't want a feat that takes away the AoO from ranged attacks. the 5-foot step fire mechanic allready exists and ranged characters tend to get hurt less as it is compared to melee guys. The balance is that you can get them pinned down. And even then, the CA had a spell for rangers that took that away. so a feat would be unnecessary and superfluos
I don't. Point-blank shot is lame and no one would take it unless they had to in order to get at the feat they want. Also, I don't think that Precise Shot is cool enough to require a pre-requisite even if that pre-requisite wasn't lame.
I guess our group runs into near range combat more often because we find Point Blank a decent feat, in particular in combination with precise shot. Maybe having a larger group helps. Maybe just eliminate PBS as a prereq. It would be interesting to have some of these feats stand on their own.
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Precise Shot just seemed to be the tax you pay to be effective.
That's my problem with it also, and it seriously hurts the rogue or fighter or paladin who don't specialize in ranged combat, but want to take an attack or two using it, while it doesn't hurt the Rangers/ranged combat builds except in taking up a feat slot.
Precise Shot just seemed to be the tax you pay to be effective.That's my problem with it also, and it seriously hurts the rogue or fighter or paladin who don't specialize in ranged combat, but want to take an attack or two using it, while it doesn't hurt the Rangers/ranged combat builds except in taking up a feat slot.
If you just ditch precise shot then everyone sucks shooting into melee.
It seems like there is a general consensus here I also agree with. Nix point blank shot, keep precise.
I'm not part of that consensus.
Point Blank Shot is a good feat! Especially at low levels, an extra +1 to attack and damage in lots of enconters is quite nice, especially if you happen to use a weapon you cannot put your strength behind, or you're feeble.
For example, my weak bard uses a crossbow, and right now, the only damage bonus he has comes from PBS.