Ammunition is a limited resource. Some GMs are very strict about records of arrows used being kept track of and have no problem with punishing an archer who didn't weigh himself down with an insane quantity of arrows before heading out.
That said, for most games I suspect it is rather overpriced. It might be a life saver, but it might also never come up.
Because you're not paying for the ammo, you're paying for the actions you would have spent reloading (or the feats to negate those actions).
Because you're not paying for the ammo, you're paying for the actions you would have spent reloading (or the feats to negate those actions).
Unless you have a bow. And then its only a matter of how many arrows can you reach without using a move action. Or more abstractly, how many quivers did you throw on your hips and back and in your Efficient Quiver (which you bought anyway even if not for the ammo storage feature).
But in general, it's way overpriced. If your GM is the type to really enforce keeping track of spent ammo then it could be useful. If your GM is the type that only asks you to keep track of magical arrows or arrows made of special materials...then you should probably bypass it completely and never worry about it again.
Because you're not paying for the ammo, you're paying for the actions you would have spent reloading (or the feats to negate those actions).
Unless we're looking at different enchantments, Endless Ammunition specifically says it does not change the actions required to reload the weapon.
Only bows and crossbows can be made into endless ammunition weapons—firearms and other projectile weapons cannot. Each time an endless ammunition weapon is nocked, a single non-magical arrow or bolt is spontaneously created by the magic, so the weapon's wielder never needs to load the weapon with ammunition.
If the wielder attempts to load the weapon with other ammunition, the created arrow or bolt immediately vanishes and the wielder can load the weapon as normal. This ability does not reduce the amount of time required to load or fire the weapon. The created arrow or bolt vanishes if removed from the weapon; it persists only if fired. Unlike normal bow and crossbow ammunition, these arrows and bolts are always destroyed when fired.
Near as I can tell the only advantage of the ability is that you are no longer required to carry ammunition. That's a useful feature, but nowhere near worth a +2 modifier. You're probably better off with a handy haversack or bag of holding filled with arrows and/or getting durable arrows.
@Kudaku: You've skipped over some important text! Look again:
Only bows and crossbows can be made into endless ammunition weapons—firearms and other projectile weapons cannot. Each time an endless ammunition weapon is nocked, a single non-magical arrow or bolt is spontaneously created by the magic, so the weapon's wielder never needs to load the weapon with ammunition.
You've also skipped over a part.
Only bows and crossbows can be made into endless ammunition weapons—firearms and other projectile weapons cannot. Each time an endless ammunition weapon is nocked, a single non-magical arrow or bolt is spontaneously created by the magic, so the weapon's wielder never needs to load the weapon with ammunition.
It doesn't make a difference with a bow, but with a crossbow you have to pull the string back and lock it into place. That takes time. Endless Ammunition just removes the step of having to place the bolt into place after the crossbow is nocked.
Plus the whole second paragraph, which specifically stats reloading times are not reduced.
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Amusingly, the pistol of the infinite sky most closely matches a +5 greater reliable endless ammunition* pistol in effect--except it's strictly better, as it doesn't need to be loaded at all and never misfires no matter how hard you push it. The comparision would price it as a +10 weapon. However, the actual price is right around the price of a +6 weapon. Looks like someone out there agrees that endless ammunition is overpriced.
*Infinite ammo should probably be priced even higher for a pistol, as it normally isn't available for them and is far more valuable.
When loading a crossbow, it is the "nocking" that takes time -- cranking the string into place and locking it down. You may not have to drop the bolt in place afterwards (that's the "loading ammunition" phase), but you still need to nock it.
This is precisely why it takes longer to load a crossbow than it does a longbow.
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Since nocking an arrow is putting the arrow on the string, I would assume this creates a second arrow when you nock the first, for your next shot. That doesn't line up with some of the other text, so perhaps 'nock' is misused. For a crossbow 'cocked' would be accurate.
I personally read "this ability" as referring to Endless Ammunition as a whole, not just the sentence immediately preceding it. While I'm certainly open to the possibility that I'm misreading the text (wouldn't be the first time) I find it quite strange that bows are charged the same price as crossbows for this enhancement if Endless Ammunition really does replace the reload action required for crossbows. If true the enhancement replaces three feats for a heavy crossbow and no feats for a longbow.
From a RaI point of view, the reload steps for a crossbow and a bow are identical except the crossbow has to be "cocked" before you can notch a bolt in it. You're not penalized for drawing a bolt and fitting it to the string since that's what you're already doing with a bow for free, you're penalized for having to pull the string back on the crossbow. Abundant Ammunition removes the "draw a bolt/arrow"-step, not the "cock the crossbow"-step.
I did a little bit of searching but that's the only thread I found - I couldn't find any staff replies.
Edit: ninjaed, a few times over. D =
Since loading the bow is already a free action this has no effect on bows except unlimited ammo.
Crossbows, however, are charged for the reloading, which this would remove. However, crossbows ARE harder to draw then bows are, as excessive draw strength is one of the hallmarks of such things.
I'd have it downgrade the action by a step, but yes, it should get a FAQ, and may end up doing nothing for xbow speed either.
==Aelryinth
By RAW it also states that the action needed to reload the weapon does not change. While I agree that the text is confusing, I don't think it's as clear-cut as you make it out to be.
That said, this is straying over into Rules Questions territory. Perhaps someone could make a new thread in the right message board?
Either way, it's not an ability anyone should ever buy.
Unless you like it for flavor. I'd use it for no reason other than it looks cool.
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Unless you like it for flavor. I'd use it for no reason other than it looks cool.
Not everyone has between 16,000 and 72,000 gp to throw away on pure flavor.
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It all depend on the kind of fights you have. In most Pathfinders/3.x fights it has little value. You generally fight 1 or a few enemies that can be killed with a few shots if each shot do massive damage (and most archers can do that).
So a 20 arrow quiver or at most a efficient quiver is more than enough for a battle and you never have the need to draw more arrows from your bag of holding while fighting.
If you play older style scenarios (but playing that kind of fight is very time consuming with 3.x/Pathfinder rules) you can find yourself fighting a lot of enemies and 20 arrows would be consumed in 4 rounds, 60 from a efficient quiver in 12 rounds.
So far in my Pathfinder games I had that kind of fight happened only once, with a barbarian horde attacking a city.
The PC archer was shooting at the massed troops, and each hit was enough to bring a normal soldier to 1-2 hp even with minimum damage, so each hit was a killed or incapacitated enemy. he used something like 180 arrows in that battle (and resolving his attacks was very fast as he never had to roll for damage against the standard soldier).
Drawing a new pack of arrows from his bag of holding was the moment in which he was most exposed.
In that situation this enchantment become useful, but it is too circumstantial to be worth it.
The only other scenario in which it become useful is a long campaign in which resupplies are hard to get.
Taking all that in account, this kind of enchantment is one of those that should have a fixed price instead of being priced as a +2 enhancement.
There's nothing stopping you from carrying multiple quivers - you could easily wear 4 (one on your favored hand's shoulder, one on each hip, one strung diagonally across your lower back) or more quivers. Most normal archers don't wear multiple quivers because one covers their needs, but when you fire 6+ arrows a round you're going to empty a single quiver in no time.
For long drawn-out campaigns where you won't often be able to resupply (Kingmaker for instance) then a few quivers of Durable Arrows are an excellent option with a minimal cost compared to Endless Ammunition.
I do agree that a fixed price would be a much better way to handle the enhancement, something like the Adaptive ability for longbows. I'd also consider make it something like Abundant Ammunition - ie it keeps replicating the last (nonmagical) arrow you fired.
I homebrewed a truly "efficient quiver" a while back that simply offered you an unlimited (but time-sensitive) supply of whatever kind of arrow you stored in it. It never really caused any problems that I could tell and my archer player loved it.
I homebrewed a truly "efficient quiver" a while back that simply offered you an unlimited (but time-sensitive) supply of whatever kind of arrow you stored in it. It never really caused any problems that I could tell and my archer player loved it.
I just stopped tracking mundane ammo. More trouble than it's worth. And, at one point, a player bought 10 quivers of arrows and insisted that every party member carry two.
The enchantment looks like it would be awesome for a repeating crossbow. It would basically make it a bolt fun. Although I can't see a +1 endless ammunition crossbow as being worth 18thousand gold.
Works great for Inquisitors. Free proficiency with repeating crossbows and a Bane ability to make up for the +2.
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Why wouldn't your Inquisitor just use a bow, and spend that +2 on (say) +1 and Seeking instead?
Why wouldn't your Inquisitor just use a bow, and spend that +2 on (say) +1 and Seeking instead?
Low strength? Likes to fire while prone? Prefers the D10 and 19-20 crit range? Thinks crossbows are stylish? Was told scary stories about elves as a child and has developed a fear of bows? Has a thing for Abadar or Brigh?
Why wouldn't your Inquisitor just use a bow, and spend that +2 on (say) +1 and Seeking instead?Low strength? Likes to fire while prone? Prefers the D10 and 19-20 crit range? Thinks crossbows are stylish? Was told scary stories about elves as a child and has developed a fear of bows? Has a thing for Abadar or Brigh?
wants to launch stakes at vampires like he's in a blade movie.
Frankly I love this enchantment, and use it on my Gauntlet -> turned animated object -> turned into wrist mounted crossbow who cannot carry ammo himself
Why wouldn't your Inquisitor just use a bow, and spend that +2 on (say) +1 and Seeking instead?Low strength? Likes to fire while prone? Prefers the D10 and 19-20 crit range? Thinks crossbows are stylish? Was told scary stories about elves as a child and has developed a fear of bows? Has a thing for Abadar or Brigh?
Even if he has low Strength (but not negative) he's still better off with a Longbow. He won't have to spend a feat on Rapid Reload or a +2 enhancement for Endless Ammunition on a Repeating Crossbow - And how long before you can afford that? He can pick up Manyshot (which only works on bows) and have a significant damage increase whether he's relying on Strength or other things like Bane.
You still need Point Blank Master or something similar to avoid provoking attacks of opportunity for shooting, which for a Longbow would be enough on its own - Crossbows need to eliminate AoOs for both reloading and shooting, and again, you'll either be waiting a long time for that no-reload enhancement or paying the feat tax for Rapid Reload/Crossbow Mastery.
For crit range he can use Bracers of Falcon's Aim (for both bows and crossbows, it changes the crit to 19-20 x3). He could get a 17-20 crit with a Crossbow using Improved Critical, but that's yet another feat he's down.
Shooting while prone isn't always feasible; you may be at risk of getting hit in melee, or you may be flying, or whatever. In light of all of the above, it's certainly not enough of a benefit to make Crossbows worthwhile.