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Vital Strike can used with ranged weapons. Someone needs to roll attacks when firing a direct-fire engine such as a ballista or cannon. That someone could have Vital Strike as his feats.
Can you actually Vital Strike something or someone using a ballista or cannon???
It doesn't say that these siege engines require a full-round action to fire, meaning that it's done as a standard action, but still...
Other than the Light Ballista, they require one or more full-round actions to aim so I would say no.
As siege weapons are listed as siege engines I think the answer is probably no.
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Fun fact, If your target is within 30ft you can sneak attack with your trebuchet.
*BOOM*
Suprise! Bet he didn't see that coming.
Trebuchet's have a 100ft/150ft/200ft min range... so no sneak attacks...unless the gm decides to make it 30' beyond its min for that case
sorry to party poop the silliness
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Gha, being hit with that boulder hurt... but because it hit me in my weakpoint (the body) it was especially painful.
Though silliness asside, I think it would be really cool to have the sniper rogue manning a cannon in ship-to-ship combat. Or hitting a titan right between the eyes.
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When I was in the army (artillery), we used to be able to hit our target within a square meter, even though the damage of our weapons would take out a square kilometer and were hundreds of kilometers away.
Accuracy to a square meter - just because we could.
To be fair, modern-day artillery (what were you working with, the M198 or triple-7 probably?) is a /tad/ more accurate than a trebuchet.
Very true. I haven't read the rules on PF artillery, so I don't know how accurate they are; but I do now have a desire to create a character who can fire a trebuchet with that kind of accuracy.
M270 MLRS.
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If the DM already is allowing the siege weapon, I don't see much issue. Siege weapons are pretty limited in this game.Siege weapons are for.... sieges. Which is not something that PC's do that often. They actually got a big boost in Ultimate Combat, giving players options for sieges they never had before, specifically spell support targeted at siege weapon use.
I'm including those. It's just one of those lengthy procedure weapons.
1. Find a target that isn't going anywhere.
2. Make sure you can't defeat it with non-siege weapons.
3. Find an ideal location to set up your siege weapon.
4. Carry your very heavy siege weapon components to the your location.
5. Get your team to assemble the siege weapon.
6. Get your team to load the siege weapon.
7. Spend a fair amount of time deciding on the perfect time to fire the siege weapon.
8. Repeat until target destroyed.
9. disassemble the siege weapon.
10. Carry the siege weapon home.
Way too much effort in pathfinder. Way easier method:
1. find wizard/sorcerer, or a giant, or some other high DPS living creature.
2. Ask them to destroy your target.
3. Repeat until target destroyed.
4. Go home.
There was a varient of psychic warrior back in 3.5.It let you summon a specific weapon every time you used a power named call weapon.
I used it to summon seige weapons as a standard action and fire them.
It went like:
1: go into dungeon.
2: get enemies to chace you around corner.
3: surprise them with a siege weapon in their face as they turn the corner.
It was actually fun to do.
Nothing I found in the Siege Engines section indicates that they use anything other than the Attack Action to actually fire them. It may take multiple full-round actions to load and aim, but once it's ready to go, it's just a standard attack action to pull the trigger. Vital Strike isn't listed as precision damage; it's just extra damage dice so the prohibition on Siege Weapons dealing precision damage is inconsequential. Thus, I see no reason to conclude that a siege engine does not benefit from Vital Strike.
My thought exactly...
Also, to everyone questioning the idea... I see nothing wrong at taking down a Huge or bigger creature using a ballista or cannon instead of picking at its ankles.
So, is the consensus that you can do it, as long as the firing would normally take a standard action?
Because with this guy right here, I'm pretty sure the vital strike chain would be a stupidly powerful set of feats to take.
What if, on the weapons that take more than a round to prepare to fire, you have a team setting it up and you just do the last finishing action? Is that even a possibility?
Thread, uh, Breath of Life time.
Fun fact, If your target is within 30ft you can sneak attack with your trebuchet.
*BOOM*
Suprise! Bet he didn't see that coming.
The end of this isn't within the 30 foot range, but I think it counts anyway. Given who the targets are, I'd say that it gets a Circumstance Bonus to let it succeed at longer range.