I've been scarred by the presence of a zen archer in my game. Not the player, who was marvelous, but the class. He pumps out hundreds of HP worth of damage every round when others of the same level almost never top 100 hp/round. Even at mid-levels, the power disparity was laughable.
So for my next campaign, I'd like to consider ways to tone down ranged combat.
One thought I had was eliminating the feats Rapid Shot, Manyshot and Clustered Shot.
Thoughts?
The simplest solution would be to eliminate the Deadly Aim feat, which is the core of a lot of the damage output for an archer character. I'd consider not allowing Rapid Shot to stack with Flurry of Blows from a zen archer as well (I'm not certain if they should stack by RAW or not).
Clustered Shot is a good feat, but it shouldn't come online for a while, and honestly it's fairly easy for an archer who can pull out whatever arrows he needs to bypass most DR anyway.
Removing Rapid Shot, and Manyshot probably won't do anything to your Zen Archer player because those feats can't be used with their Bow flurry as it isn't compatible with it.
As for the power disparity it may be that your other players have just built mechanically weaker characters compared to the Zen Archer. From what I understand Zen Archer's are rather hard to mess up, and Archery being arguably the best martial fighting style doesn't help.
Instead of banning/removing things talk to the player about toning down the damage if it's a problem, as no one likes their character to suddenly be nerfed when they show up for the next session. Also do the other players have a problem with the archer doing so well?
|
Archery is powerful because it's relatively easy to get full attacks; you don't have to move up to enemies first. But if that's not the case, then archery isn't as powerful anymore.
So what does it take to make archers occasionally move-shoot rather than shoot as a full attack?
1) Indoors adventures; often enough at least some of the enemies won't be within your line of fire at the start of combat due to walls and such.
2) Enemies that seek cover against a machinegun-like archer, which is very reasonable for them to do.
3) Enemies that circle around the melee PCs to attack archers directly, forcing them to evade a melee onslaught. If the archers prove hard to hit in melee, well, bows are pretty easy to sunder. Staying in melee as an archer is hubris.
4) Enemies that use wind wall, obscuring mist etcetera to block archery until the archer moves around the obstruction.
None of these stop archery outright, but they do upset the full attack paradigm that feeds both rapid shot, manyshot and zen archer flurrying.
Furthermore, you should be fully aware of the cover rules and apply them. Yes, any professional archer will beeline for the feats that negate cover, but until then it's a significant check on the power of archery.
thank you, but I'm not looking fort ways to cope with archers. I'm looking for ways to fix them.
Your proposed fix won't tone done zen archers by much, since they use flurry instead.
1) toning up the opposition is an option, even if you don't like it.
2) boosting the other pc's would also work, it's not like you'll run out of challenges and encounters
3) you could just ban zen archer
4) you could increase the bonus from cover and concealment
5) you could eliminate deadly aim, which would curb the zen archer, and all other achers.
I'm curious to see the breakdown of the numbers on that zen archer. What is the bonus damage per shot, and from what sources?
As to ways to "fix" archery, limit their targeting options would go a long way. Perhaps add a cost to switching targets (attack penalty, skip an iterative, etc), and/or only allow targets within a 60-90 degree arc of the initial target.
One way to fix archers is to give melee characters access to pounce. This helps to bridge probably the biggest disparity between them in that an archer can optimally full attack all the time. As well if your party is getting into the high levels which it seems like you might be saying in the OP then a martial dealing hundreds of HP of damage a round isn't completely surprising. DPR does starting increasing rapidly as you get into the higher levels
Also it might be worth checking your archer's math as it might be wrong depending on your level. A quick example off the top of my head puts a zen archer at level 11 doing 6 attacks at +17/+17/+17/+12/+12/+7 for roughly 1d8+16 without party buffs and by spending a ki point. Assuming those all hit that's only on average 123 damage in a round. An example 2H barbarian at level 11 is throwing around 3 attacks at +26/+21/+16 for roughly 2d6+29, and he has class-based access to pounce. With everything hitting he deals on average 108 damage. These are just very rough builds that I threw together really quick so they aren't optimal but it should still show that there shouldn't be that great of a gap between them.
If you still truly feel that archers should be nerfed dropping Clustered Shot would probably be where to start as that would help reduce an archer's dpr against enemies with DR as they do become more and more common as an archer starts to hit his stride.
|
|
thank you, but I'm not looking fort ways to cope with archers. I'm looking for ways to fix them.
How do you figure they're broken, instead of "out of control"? The classic argument why archers are so powerful is because they get more full attacks than melee characters. Wasn't that the case for you as well?
|
Rapid Shot and Manyshot don't work with Zen Archers' flurry, so if you were allowing that, there's a huge part of your problem.
I find the most annoying archery feat is actually Point Blank Master (which the Zen Archer gets for free at 3rd level instead of still mind).
Without Point Blank Master, you'll see archers bob from 100s of damage to 10s of damage, depending on whether they have to move.
In my experience, Clustered Shot has actually reduced archers damage per round. An archer without Clustered Shot has to buy a bunch of specialty arrows, bypassing DR. An archer with Clustered Shot is tempted to ignore it and just power through, losing 5-15 damage per round.
Cheers!
Landon
So, Zen Archer isn't the problem, just the catalyst for my thinking (It's not a problem because I'm going to ban it, so let's forget zen archery in this discussion). Overall, ranged combat (and here I include both the classic archer and gunslingers) is simply far better in Pathfinder than melee.
The result I'd like is for archery to be a viable option, but not a dominant one. I do not want to improve melee; I want to pare back archery/ranged combat.
Ascalaphus, yes, that is the crux of the matter. But it's not just more full attacks, it's also more attacks with each full attack (via Rapid Shot and Manyshot).
|
|
@Tardondor: you get 1-2 additional attacks on a full attack with archery through those feats, but I think that's balanced out by slightly lower damage per attack, compared to 2H weapons. And 2H weapons are the de facto yardstick for melee effectiveness. Compared to 2WF it's roughly the same, but 2WF is particularly vulnerable to not getting full attacks. And S&B is for people who prioritize defence over DPR.
So again, the issue is that archers are getting many more full attacks than melee warriors. In my experience this has a lot to do with the areas in which combat takes place.
In a dungeon, often enough combat breaks out after opening a door, or turning a corner. If positioned strategically, melee PCs will be 5ft stepping into full attack range either on the first or second round of combat. The exception is in big throne room style areas, where you might have to wade through several ranks of goons and cover more than 30ft before you get to the boss.
Those dungeons tend to nullify the advantages of archers. Walls, doors and load-bearing pillars can easily provide total cover to a lurking enemy until you get very close. When you get that close, you'll often be in melee range. If the bad guys know they'll eventually be attacked by adventurers, they might pick such a position to make their stand. They might even identify the ideal spot an archer will try to occupy, and trap it.
Outdoor adventures are more forgiving to archers, although trees and shrubbery will allow enemies to hide, letting them start the encounter at close enough range that they can attack the party's rear and engage archers in melee.
Archery will of course devastate enemies that don't use the terrain to protect themselves from it. Just like you'd use difficult terrain and elevations to keep melee types at a distance, so you'd use obstacles and cover to cope with archery.
I think the one thing that truly helps archers though is the trend at higher levels for monsters to get bigger. Higher CR monsters will tend to be bigger, and they need more room to operate in. As a result, dungeons get bigger and archers get a better field of fire.
|
The first thing I'd look at is to see if they actually built the character correctly. It's easy to make mistakes with this sort of thing.
If we assume a lvl 11 zen archer that hits on every attack with one critical, that's 7 doses of damage. With 20 strength, a +3 weapon, weapon spec, and Deadly Aim that's still 1d8 + 16 per hit. Times 7 that's 7d8+112. That's 143.5 avg. That looks high, but this assumes 100% hit rate and above-normal critical rate. Realistic numbers would be easily below 100 average, especially given the typically-low to-hit for a monk.
As others have noted, manyshot and rapid shot CANNOT be used with a zen archer flurry. I'm not even sure why they're on the bonus feat list given that fact. It's likely your player doesn't realize this and is using them anyway.
TL;DR - If someone is OP, your first question should be if they aren't breaking a rule (whether on purpose or accident). Most likely there isn't anything to "fix" other than making sure they follow the rules and your enemies use better tactics.
Sunder his bow.
If I were a character in Pathfinder and I knew I had an archer opponent to go up against, I would make every effort to break his bow first.
Unless there's some serious cheese going on, his bow is made at least partly of wood and should be pretty easy to chop through.
Disarming also works. Could also have the enemy use archers as well. Or have the enemy wizard drop a fog cloud on his face.