For future reference: Deflect Arrows and Critical Threats

[Trei Shouri]

While the title might give it away, this is the situation as it occurred in my last session:

My party of 6 PCs was fighting against an Acrobat 1 / Hungry Ghost Monk 2 multiclassed boss and his three goblin minions. After making short work of the goblins, they turned their attention to the boss, and concentrated their attacks on him. However, unfortunately for the ranger, no one else used any sort of ranged weapon, so the boss pretty much had a free Deflect Arrows every round. The Ranger rolled, and the die came up a natural 20.

At the time, I ruled that the whole purpose of Deflect Arrows was to make the boss tougher, and it would make the fight that much more intimidating to see him knock a perfect shot out of the air. However, the guy playing the ranger and another friend of mine were skeptical. So, I figure I'll get rulings from the community here, so I can avoid this same problem in the future.

[Paul Watson]

Trei Shouri wrote:

While the title might give it away, this is the situation as it occurred in my last session:

My party of 6 PCs was fighting against an Acrobat 1 / Hungry Ghost Monk 2 multiclassed boss and his three goblin minions. After making short work of the goblins, they turned their attention to the boss, and concentrated their attacks on him. However, unfortunately for the ranger, no one else used any sort of ranged weapon, so the boss pretty much had a free Deflect Arrows every round. The Ranger rolled, and the die came up a natural 20.

At the time, I ruled that the whole purpose of Deflect Arrows was to make the boss tougher, and it would make the fight that much more intimidating to see him knock a perfect shot out of the air. However, the guy playing the ranger and another friend of mine were skeptical. So, I figure I'll get rulings from the community here, so I can avoid this same problem in the future.

There's nothing in the feat that said it shouldn't be able to do this. I'd agree with your ruling. While it is a little annoying as a palyer to see a natural 20 thwarted, the same thing happens when you roll lousy damage and don't get through the DR.~ It sucks, but them's the breaks.