| 1 person marked this as FAQ candidate. |
So the splinter cloud arrows from the Elves of Golarion book says they do 1d3 dmg in a 5ft burst. Here's the question, do I do additional damage like I would with any other arrow? I mean, for instance silvered arrows tell you you do a -1 dmg penalty to your arrows. Others, tell you the dmg dice size is a step lower. Here they say the arrow does 1d3 in a burst. That's fine, but do I ONLY do 1d3. or do I do 1d3 + 10 lets say from weapon spec. and deadly aim? If so, here's another question, do I apply that damage to each enemy that takes 1d3 from the burst? I mean that makes some sense. But I'm not even remotely sure.
Any ideas?
Given that it's priced at about the same level as Alchemist's fire, and that it does 1d3 damage to everyone in the radius, instead of 1 damage like alchemist's fire, and that it can be fired from much further away than Alchemist's fire, I'd say the intention is that it does only 1d3 damage period. Could you imagine the alternative? Archers would suddenly be doing 2-4 times more damage with every shot.
5' burst isn´t that big a burst area. The question is, do you normally hit more than one person with this?
Why wouldn't the burst hit everyone within 5ft? a 10 ft burst hits everyone 10ft in all directions, makes sense for the5ft burst to hit all within its area.
Would I still apply my other damage?
Hmm, is a five foot burst the same as a five foot radius burst? I thought it was. If so, it would hit 4 squares total. Am I mistaken about this?
The question isn't do you hit more than one person. The question is do you deal your str damage, deadly aim damage, weapon specialization damage etc… my hunch is no. Otherwise, it'd be pretty broken for 25 gold a shot. As it stands, it's on par with a longer range, higher area damage, lower direct damage, smaller area version of alchemist's fire. That sounds balanced to me. The other way of looking at it doesn't.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
It is the same.
Thank you!
Ok, now they I know I can hit up to 4 squares, do I apply other damage? I know it would seem a bit unfair, but it doesn't say you only do the arrow damage. When you let loose any ammunition you do their actual damage plus any other for an attack roll. Unless it says otherwise I would say I would get the extra damage. Now whether or not it applies to each individual square- like 1d3+12 dmg/enemy hit (unbalanced version as you call it), and not just the dmg given/enemies hit (as I see fit,i.e.: bad guy 1- gets 10 dmg, bg2- 6, bg3-7).
The abundant ammunition spell makes the special arrows much more worth it.
As soon as my group clears out this City of dead ( supposedly city of gold), I'm upgrading my bow, and my quivers to get abundant ammunition put on them.
Thing to remember though is, they only replace what you take out, and only replace it at the beginning of the next round. So if you pull 4 arrows, 1 being pheromone, 2 normal (or if you know anything of playing archer iron,cold), and 1 splintercloud, next round you will only get those exact 4 back again. So be smart of which ones you use, and which ones get used by ability.
Normally, arrow damage is determined with reference to the bow that fires it. Special arrows like fire arrows and bleed arrows are pretty explicit that they add their extra damage on top of the regular damage roll.
Splintercloud arrow on the other hand, replaces the damage done by the bow entirely. Doesn't matter if it's fired from a Large, Medium, Small, Short or Long bow, it's always d3 damage. That would suggest to me that you don't add extra damage from str etc…
Put another way, if you somehow modified a bow to launch vials of alchemist's fire, would they all of a sudden add your str modifier to damage?
Benefit: When fired, the numerous bone fragments tear themselves apart, forming a 5-foot burst of razor-sharp bones that deals 1d3 points of piercing damage (Reflex DC 18 negates).
So poorly written, from that line you fire it from your bow and it explodes on you in a 5ft burst, and everyone laughs at you =/
Normally, arrow damage is determined with reference to the bow that fires it. Special arrows like fire arrows and bleed arrows are pretty explicit that they add their extra damage on top of the regular damage roll.
Splintercloud arrow on the other hand, replaces the damage done by the bow entirely. Doesn't matter if it's fired from a Large, Medium, Small, Short or Long bow, it's always d3 damage. That would suggest to me that you don't add extra damage from str etc…
Put another way, if you somehow modified a bow to launch vials of alchemist's fire, would they all of a sudden add your str modifier to damage?
I don't believe its replace damage for the bow entirely, merely the arrow itself. For instance, a thistle arrow does its actual damage as bleed damage (which is 1 point) for 1d6 rounds. That is actually replacing. And yet, I would still apply my actual damage on top of that, doing 1 bleed + 2 enh dmg. Same thing for bleeding and fire arrow. Also, none of these arrows are mentioned if smaller or larger, and yet when applying size modifiers we can figure out what it is. Hence why a rain arrow is only listed as what it is, but can still be increased or decreased with actual adjustment. Also, another reason I think it could work is because they are decreasing the damage. Granted archers don't really need damage die to do their most damage considering most have a static number for damage, it still means your doing less damage (1d8--> 1d3).
Either way, even if we couldn't change the size of a rain arrow for it to change damage just liek the splinter cloud, it has a fixed amount of damage for he ammunition itself, not the attack, then I would still be applying extra damage. What's left is to figure out if the shards get damage to each as full dmg, or partial dmg by splitting it up either evenly across or as I see fit (or however).
Also, fire arrows say they add additional damage on impact, and not replacing it.. no problem. Here's the thing. it is a regular arrow modified to impart more damage. Thus it does 1d8 +1d4. Burning arrow is same, at 1d6 the next round, but still doing 1d8. The 1d8 here is critical, b/c for splintercloud arrows it is now 1d3, b/c the actual arrow is breaking apart, due to design, to spread out and inflict less dmg directly (from the 1d3), but more dmg overall over an area 1d3+x/shard (max 4 shards, due to 5 ft. burst).
Benefit: When fired, the numerous bone fragments tear themselves apart, forming a 5-foot burst of razor-sharp bones that deals 1d3 points of piercing damage (Reflex DC 18 negates).
So poorly written, from that line you fire it from your bow and it explodes on you in a 5ft burst, and everyone laughs at you =/
LOL, that would not only be funny but would suck so hard for the player. Still, I don't think that's what they meant by it bursting after being shot.
Benefit: When fired, the numerous bone fragments tear themselves apart, forming a 5-foot burst of razor-sharp bones that deals 1d3 points of piercing damage (Reflex DC 18 negates).
So poorly written, from that line you fire it from your bow and it explodes on you in a 5ft burst, and everyone laughs at you =/
Love this! In fact, that's exactly what it does by RAW! Brilliant! Case closed. Lol.
Wouldn't the reflex save for the damage balance out the possibility that they do confer the extra damage, since its not splash damage?
Also the arrows never say they don't do additional damage, arrows like the due arrow say you do no damage, and bleeding say you get extra damage from the store itself. Even then you still apply str, deadly aim, weapon spec., so on.
Trying to get a good argument or even a ruling for my game on thur.
I just can't think of a single other effect that adds strength damage to an aoe weapon attack, but then allows a reflex save to avoid. It's just so incongruous. Reflex saves are generally not used for the purpose of avoiding weapon attacks. In fact, I can't think of a single other weapon attack that is aoe, except for alchemist's fire / acid / holy water which obviously don't add strength damage.
Furthermore, I'm pretty sure it's been faq'ed that when you throw alchemist's fire, you add the damage from point blank-shot only against the main target, not against those in the area of effect.
Perhaps a better interpretation of splintercloud arrow then, is that you fire a single attack for normal arrow damage (+ strength and everything else, no reflex save) against the target of your attack, +1d3 (no str) damage against everything within the area, reflex save to avoid.
But yeah, a very, very, VERY poorly worded entry.