Mounted Archery, how useful is it?

[ngc7293]

I have a halfling mounted archer that I am building.

This is my first mounted Archer. I have looked at other threads and they have suggested the Mounted Archery feat.

The way the feat reads, there is a lesser penalty when shooting while taking a double move or running.

Since I don't have experience with a character using a mount and archery,

I was wondering if the feat is really needed.

On the other hand, what situations am I not thinking of where this feat comes in handy and how often?

[kestral287]

In any case where you've got room to maneuver, Mounted Archery is excellent. If you can control which enemies can reach you (by simply being faster than them), you can easily control the battlefield.

The problem is that some creatures get very fast. A horse moves 50'... an adult dragon hits 200. So the horse needs to be double-moving at the least, to buy some time, or ideally running, to stop the dragon from doing much. And that means you'll want the ability to be accurate while shooting.

However, in more confined areas where you're not likely to move more than 50' (or whatever your mount's speed is), or if most enemies are slower, it's much less useful.

[Claxon]

Mounted Archery is amazing.

Being mounted allows you to move (up to your mounts normal movement speed) and still make a full attack. This allows you to get into any position you want and still being able to always attack.

You don't actually need the mounted archery feat to be good at mounted archery. You only need the feat if you mount makes a double move action or runs. Which is rarely necessary in my experience.

The penalty is usually not enough to make me consider picking it up versus the other myriad of feats required for archery.

Mounted archery really prevents much chance of melee characters from ever being able to do much against you. The biggest threats to me were always spell casters. Which isn't really much of a surprise.

[Kayerloth]

Previous post attempt died a grizzly death do to computer wanting to reboot ... arrrgh.

Anyway I tend to agree with Claxon. I had a Living City character who started down the road towards mounted combat and so rarely saw opportunities to use it much less the space required for mounted archery that dedicating feats to the mounted aspect of archery would have been a total waste.

That said for a home campaign it is very very very much a matter of what sort of campaign it is. Lots of wide open spaces with room to maneuver then it is much more likely to be a helpful feat particularly for making your iterative attacks effective. That said I suspect even in such wide open areas it will be as Claxon has noted ... you won't often have to move far enough often enough to make it worth it. Unless of course your campaign features a lot of encounters with foes on various cavalry type mounts looking to get in your face "Hello my name is Genghis, prepare to die!".

[666bender]

my ranger has a roc . he fly up and kill ALL. few reach it. he ignore cover, and live very well.

[DM Under The Bridge]

Become a Mongol. It is useful.

:{D>

[avr]

It's great - if the enemy can't move up and massacre your friends because they're slow moving grunts. Then it becomes merely good.