Last week, one of my players died and decided to build a paladin for this weeks game. The party is level 10, and he decided to play a paladin, which is fine.
He also decided to be an archer, thinking it would be fun, to which I agreed.
We've been talking over Facebook, and I've been helping with his character. His hardest part was choosing feats, and equipment, so I helped. He had 62,000, so whatever.
Here's where the pain comes in.
I said he could get a +1 flaming holy composite longbow +2 (he had the money for it).
I also said he should put as many ranks as he can in Use Magic Device, and get a wand of Gravity Bow, so now his longbow does 2d6 per arrow. He took Rapid Shot and Manyshot, and Deadly Aim.
So at this point, if he were to full attack, rapid shot, manyshot, deadly aim, and smite an evil creature at level 10, would the damage look like this?
Manyshot, 4d6 arrows, 2d6 flaming, 4d6 holy +4 strength, +2 magic bow, +20 smite, +12 deadly aim.
Next two shots, 2d6 arrow, 1d6 flaming, 2d6 holy, +2 strenght, +1 magic bow, +10 smite, +6 deadly aim to each attack?
Or in short, 8d6 arrows +4d6 flaming +8d6 holy, +74? Is this actually correct?
Don't use evil enemies?... Constructs aren't evil lol
Paladin archer can slay a dragon with a crit... Use a lot of enemies instead of 1 big one
Make him pay for not useing a adaptive bow lol... Str drain his ass
It's Rise of the Runelords, they're all evil!!! lol. But I just wanted to know if this is actually correct, as in are the flaming and holy qualities applied to each arrow individually? Does the smite damage get added to each arrow, each attack, or just one attack? Is there anything I calculated wrong? That sort of thing. I don't mind if it is, it just means I have to be more proactive on making these encounters.
Besides, even if the enemy wasn't evil, that'd still be 8d6+4d6+34, averaging about 89 points of damage to anything not immune to fire in a round, which in itself is outclassing the group fighter by a ton. I don't mind if it's over powered, I just want to make sure it's right.
In wrath of the righteous our paladin 1 shot crit a mythic black dragon... Er mighta not been mythic but it was ancient at least.
That is mathematically accurate, assuming all shots hit, that the enemy isn't resistant to fire (fire resistance 5 largely negates flaming) and that the enemy is evil.
Paladins smiting are basically playing an "I win" card. But they only have so many and in RotR there are a LOT of enemies. Treat him like a caster insofar as you don't give them many chances to rest and recuperate, and make them ration those Smites.
Also there are plenty of places that a ranged attack just isn't that good an option. Did he remember to take Weapon Finesse and pack a decent melee weapon?
Last week, one of my players died...
I'm sorry for your loss.
That is mathematically accurate, assuming all shots hit, that the enemy isn't resistant to fire (fire resistance 5 largely negates flaming) and that the enemy is evil.
Still a heck of a boom stick. And I guess I've forgotten that the iterative attacks aren't going to have the greatest chance to hit most of the time, maybe 35% at best.
Paladins smiting are basically playing an "I win" card. But they only have so many and in RotR there are a LOT of enemies. Treat him like a caster insofar as you don't give them many chances to rest and recuperate, and make them ration those Smites.
Also there are plenty of places that a ranged attack just isn't that good an option. Did he remember to take Weapon Finesse and pack a decent melee weapon?
Actually, he's a paladin of Sarenae, so he took Dervish Dance and has a +1 scimitar, just in case. I guess the big reason I feel this all sucks is because they're just about to do the giant raid on Sandpoint, and I'm not looking forward to, "is that the first dragon we've seen this campaign? Awesome, I smite it with a rapid-many shot. Does 147 kill it?"
I'm sorry for your loss.
It's okay, his character was kinda lame anyway. It's for the best...I think lol
Have the lich behind the dragon :)
Seriously though throw something juicy evil for them to obliterate before the big bad.
Last fight I ran they faced off against a lvl 8 alchemist vampire and 2 vampire fighters, 5 goblin fighter archers lvl 6, 7 goblin fighters lvl 6, a whight, and a advanced sea drake... They are lvl 7 mythic tier 1 though... If I had not forgotten one aspect of the alchemist it mighta been a tpk..but it was close.
Rise of the Runelords I upgraded everything. The dragon was an age catagory or 2 higher and took a pistol critical hit from a Paladin ,and ran off with 6 hp remaining.
Remember the Paladin also has Divine bond and can increase the enhancements on his bow or Scimitar(one of them) for several minutes per day
Paladins are very effective provided the target is evil and they have smites available, he probably only has about 3 smites per day so most opponents he fights and shoots at do not suffer from the smite.
In the particular fight in question have the dragon approach invisibly , see the archer slaughtering Giants and then it can choose to swoop in and land in melee leaving him with only his scimitar and smite which is still deadly