Proposed Archery Debuff


Homebrew and House Rules

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AwesomenessDog wrote:
JAMRenaissance wrote:
AwesomenessDog wrote:
HellHunter wrote:


Stuff

I really think your responses are interestingly connected. My statement isn't due to a resistance to my initial idea; it's due to a resistance to ANY nerfing. I recognize that some people play for optimization, so I really don't knock someone for doing so. However, I will label it as such.

No, while I can't speak for HellHunter although I would guess he is in the same boat as me, I don't have a problem with nerfing, I don't have a problem with making house rules to balance stuff, I don't have a problem with people trying to tell me (assuming you were my hypothetical gm in the hypothetical game using the OP HR) what their rules are. But no one would play archer save for the elf caster who wants some weapons for when they aren't casting.

Archery is better than martials; how much so? Hardly at all: their only advantage is range and if they are full attacking all the time its only so long before the fighter closes in and there isn't a single archer "class" that gets flying in any easier of a way than fighter does. So how do we balance this? Well its practically already balanced enough that the only noticeable difference will be while optimized on both sides but as HellHunter stated that's what you have to assume when talking balance, even though most people don't optimize every character they play for DPS, Boosting, Healing, Tankiness, etc. (and really one could argue that even if someone is building an average build by choice, he/she is optimizing his/her fun instead of their DPS). So even if you want to make that little push to hypothetical perfect balance - even though its never possible - it is very little of an adjustment. You however suggested something that not only nerfs almost every aspect of progressing as an archer build, it also makes it so making an actual build is not possible since you can only use feats for one aspect of combat at a time which is not a build for a combat style...

Pretty much took the words from my mouth. As Mike J said (and what I said earlier), starting by removing manyshot or removing enchanted ammunition is pretty much all that is really reasonable. OP is trying to balance archery in line with the other two by nerfs, and we're trying to state that it's not the right approach nor are the proposed changes even remotely beneficial to any ranged character; the alternatives to archery (guns aside due to the gunslinger allowing them to be somewhat viable, which the OP mentioned will be nerfed) are so sub-par that they typically cannot hold up against any style of play, and this is to such an extent that they require the use of multiple feats for stacked benefits to become usable.

I'll put it into some context. Maybe this will help to get the OP to understand just how huge of a loss his ideas would be to ranged players.

Despite having played exclusively ranged characters save one for the past 15 years in all tabletops/RPG's given the chance I've played, and frequenting the local archery range because I actually shoot bows and crossbows and love everything about traditional ranged combat, the rules the OP is suggesting would make me actively not want to play with any ranged style in his campaign.

So for the last time, I'll make a suggestion to fix ranged combat in your campaign: get rid of manyshot, make enchanted ammunition either not exist or be exceedingly rare (usually I make such ammunition for my PC's occur at a rate of around one arrow per level of its appropriate rarity level at acquisition, and prevent the ammunition from being able to be recovered), and buff crossbows slightly.


I agree 100% with the above.

OP - Here's a great test for whatever changes you are planning to make: Build a fighter with a bow using the changes. Then build a bard with a bow using the changes. The bard should still be viable as a scondary damage dealer.

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
redcelt32 wrote:
I just banned clustered shots as a feat to balance archery. Since I already don't allow magical "plusses" on weapons to auto bypass DR, if I want an encounter to be particularly challenging to the archer, I just pick one with DR. That way he can still be awesome most of the time. Of course, if your archer is a paladin, this doesn't really work so well :)

That wouldn't work with my players, because when they play Archers, they usually craft, buy or loot arrows with different materials or blessed arrows. Specific DR still hurts melee characters most, because they are usually invested in that one signature weapon, while archers can just swap out arrow types for relatively low cost.


DM_aka_Dudemeister wrote:
redcelt32 wrote:
I just banned clustered shots as a feat to balance archery. Since I already don't allow magical "plusses" on weapons to auto bypass DR, if I want an encounter to be particularly challenging to the archer, I just pick one with DR. That way he can still be awesome most of the time. Of course, if your archer is a paladin, this doesn't really work so well :)
That wouldn't work with my players, because when they play Archers, they usually craft, buy or loot arrows with different materials or blessed arrows. Specific DR still hurts melee characters most, because they are usually invested in that one signature weapon, while archers can just swap out arrow types for relatively low cost.

Not to mention rangers can just change types as a free action with a permanent abundant arrows since the conjured arrows don't have a listed type.


AwesomenessDog wrote:
DM_aka_Dudemeister wrote:
redcelt32 wrote:
I just banned clustered shots as a feat to balance archery. Since I already don't allow magical "plusses" on weapons to auto bypass DR, if I want an encounter to be particularly challenging to the archer, I just pick one with DR. That way he can still be awesome most of the time. Of course, if your archer is a paladin, this doesn't really work so well :)
That wouldn't work with my players, because when they play Archers, they usually craft, buy or loot arrows with different materials or blessed arrows. Specific DR still hurts melee characters most, because they are usually invested in that one signature weapon, while archers can just swap out arrow types for relatively low cost.
Not to mention rangers can just change types as a free action with a permanent abundant arrows since the conjured arrows don't have a listed type.

Assuming you mean permanent abundant ammunition, it's illegal to choose a specific material.

Abundant Ammunition wrote:
When cast on a container such as a quiver or a pouch that contains nonmagical ammunition or shuriken, (including masterwork ammunition or shuriken, but not special materials, alchemical attributes, or nonmagical treatments on the ammunition), at the start of each round this spell replaces any ammunition taken from the container the round before


Just need an arrow of each (damage) type in the quiver, although I haven't seen slashing arrows before. I wasn't going for special material.


We have had two ranged characters in games over the last few years. We tend to play long campaigns and get a year or so on each character so plenty of time to test to destruction.

In both cases the archer build was exceedingly powerful. With rapid shot, many shot, Iterative attacks and the attendant critical hits meant that players were often getting x6 or x7 their base damage even at relativly low levels 6-8. When combined with the defensive power of fighting at arms length they become very powerful.

My advice would be similar to what we do with split hex, retributive hex, power attack, mirror image etc. Which is to say instead of banning the feats request the player only uses the ability when essential - i.e the need to hit multiple opponents simultaneously, or when at risk of imminent death etc. a good player will respect that the abilities are making designing encounters/judging difficulties harder and show self restraint.

If they won't, then ban the feats, confident that you gave them a chance to be responsible and they abused that trust. Just because it is written in a Paizo book does not make it law, provided you have a rational for changing things. However in my experience most players can show restraint particularly if they have seen the damage it can cause to party coherency/DM enjoyment/Party loyalty.


Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I didn't see it in my brief glance over the thread, but what seems to have been missed is the fact that Archery does Piercing damage (or rarely Bludgeoning if someone actually remembers to take Blunt arrows) Against things that are DR/Slashing, they are suddenly ineffective, even if they are piling on the damage.

And then there are even some monsters out there that get *buffs* from piercing. So in a home campaign, to get folks away from the idea archery is god-power, drop a few of those suckers in there and boom, no need to debuff the archers, the lesson will become clear real quick.

Presto. Problem solved, issue shut down, and hey, other folks get to shine.

Scarab Sages

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Wei Ji the Learner wrote:


I didn't see it in my brief glance over the thread, but what seems to have been missed is the fact that Archery does Piercing damage (or rarely Bludgeoning if someone actually remembers to take Blunt arrows) Against things that are DR/Slashing, they are suddenly ineffective, even if they are piling on the damage.

And then there are even some monsters out there that get *buffs* from piercing. So in a home campaign, to get folks away from the idea archery is god-power, drop a few of those suckers in there and boom, no need to debuff the archers, the lesson will become clear real quick.

Presto. Problem solved, issue shut down, and hey, other folks get to shine.

Well unfortunately, as soon as you do that, some enterprising player will pull blunt arrows out of the APG, and then that idea goes out the window too. That's the problem with power creep...slowly the books start offering ways to shore up every weakness for a tactic...like snapshot, reflexive shot, and clustered shots. So now the only drawbacks for full attacking nearly every single round are all gone...


Archery is not and never has been above the curve. Melee is below it.

The monster HP progression assumes the players will full attack every round. It also assumes everyone is two handing their weapon and pumping strength. The monster attack curve assumes everyone is pumping dex and using a shield. Monsters are gaining more than one hit die of at least size 8 every single CR. Only fey get d6s and they rise in HD even faster per CR. Even dragons with their d12s gain hit dice faster than they rise in CR. Monsters also have better stats at higher levels. Boss types just tend to have ad hoc stat boosts in proportion to their CR and even dumb animals get larger with the ensuing absurd con bonuses as CR goes up. Two handed power attack adds 3 points per 4 levels. Deadly aim, though, only adds 2 points per 4 levels. That 33% lower benefit compared to power attack and the split stat investment of ranged characters are what rapid shot and many shot need to make up for. Favored enemy only adds another 2 points per 4 levels and isn't always relevant. Usually until level 11 it's only relevant against mooks and 1 or 2 low level bosses.

A level 1-3 two handed melee ranger can expect to have 17 strength (elite array highest stat with +2 racial) for +4 damage. A level 1 archery ranger can expect only 14 (second highest elite array stat with the highest and the racial in dexterity) for +2 damage. The melee ranger gets 3 damage from power attack wile the archery ranger gets only 2. That's 2d6+7 damage for melee, 1d8+4 for ranged. The archer can take rapid shot to get to 2d8+8 for a +3 advantage, but he pays -2 to hit. That's not a very good exchange rate. The melee ranger takes something useful like iron will with the feat he saves.

A level 4-5 two handed melee ranger now has 18 strength. He gets +6 damage from strength and power attack now gives +6 damage. His archer brother still has 14 strength but deadly aim gives +4. They both have +1 weapons and +2 stat belts pushing melee up to 20 strength while the archer had to take a dex belt. That's 2d6+15 for melee, 2d8+14 for ranged. Only 1 damage for a 2 attack drop doesn't look good.

At level 6 iteratives appear.Probably +2 weapons as well. Melee adds +con to his belt and archery +str. That's 4d6+30 for melee and 3d8+27 for ranged. Things don't look good for the archer, but at least he can finally hit without carefully lining up firing lanes. They had to be orthogonal to the grid too because cover is calculated in the stupid naive way that approximates everything as square. The diamond approximation (measure from the center points of each side) works much better if you're house ruling. Still, mister archer is doing less damage at a similar average attack bonus.

At level 7 manyshot is available. It could have been around at level 6, but then improved precise shot can't be taken until level 11. Ranged goes up to 4d8+36. Manyshot hitting with the first attack offsets the -2 more or less. Archers look good at this level. The melee has an extra feat, but since it's a bonus feat not offset by not having to take deadly aim with a normal feat it's probably furious focus. If first attacks are likely to miss that's a big help, but they usually don't.

At level 8-10 power attack goes to +9 and deadly aim to +6. Weapons go to +3. Melee gets 19 base strength which isn't useful yet. Melee does 4d6+38. Archery does 4d8+44. Also good archery levels.

At level 11 there's another iterative. Melee gets to 6d6+57. Archery goes to 5d8+55. Any time the third iterative is hitting melee pulls back up to around the same level.

At level 12-15 melee hits 20 base strength and both upgrade their belts and weapons to +4. Power attack hits +12 and deadly aim +8. Melee guy does 6d6+78. Archery guy does 5d8+75.

At level 16 another iterative arrives. If it hits it means a lot more to the melee guy. Power attack gains another point of damage per hit over deadly aim. More magical gear is acquired and the melee guy gets 2 points of damage from putting strength over a multiple of 4 while the archer guy doesn't get strength and a half and only adds 1 point from strength. Melee guy continues to slightly make up ground. but I'm not bothering with the numbers because most games end here and in just one level wish appears and brings inherent stat bonuses and everything goes crazy.

Favored enemy boosts archers more at low levels, but does make later iteratives hit more which offsets that at higher levels. Bows have a lousy crit rate and manyshot doesn't crit, which favors melee who can sacrifice dice for crit rate with a nodachi or even invest one of the feats they don't spend on archery on exotic weapon proficiency falcata and two hand that. The ranged guy only exerts battlefield control at high levels and the melee guy can better take a hit. Neither is going to be avoiding them since monsters generally have natural attacks and it takes both a shield and a dex focus to keep pace with non-iterative attack bonuses.

Manyshot might be an issue at level 6 or 7. Rapid shot is absolutely necessary, though, and manyshot is needed to keep up by level 11. Archery is mostly nonfunctional without improved precise shot if your GM uses cover rules RAW so non-rangers still suck through the above par damage range unless they're in an all-ranged party or you and all melee characters take the friendly fire betrayal feat, which also requires the melee characters to take precise shot and point blank shot as useless tax feats.


As pointed out, Archery's only advantage is they don't have to be in melee combat range. Very little needs to be done to either make that advantage not exist or offset it by other measures.


AwesomenessDog wrote:
Just need an arrow of each (damage) type in the quiver, although I haven't seen slashing arrows before. I wasn't going for special material.

Fair enough, though I think that only really opens up bludgeoning in addition to your normal piercing? Doesn't do anything for silver/cold iron/adamantine, which are pretty common DR types.


Weapon Blanch (UE pg 105) allows a very cheap way for an archer to get silver, cold iron, and adamantine arrows (10 gp per arrow max). That leaves the archer only slashing, alignment, epic, and - to get hosed by, unless I'm forgetting a DR type. The last three are difficult for most characters to overcome. Granted, oil of align weapon allows melee types to overcome the alignment DR, but it costs the actions to draw and apply it (ouch). I think in the end DR is pretty much a wash for the different combat styles.


Archery SHOULD be better than melee. Its the entire reason we don't still fight with swords


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Pathfinder Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

I suspect that JAMRenaissance is secretly a rakshasa, and plans to eventually nerf all piercing weapons as to negate the DR weakness.


jimibones83 wrote:
Archery SHOULD be better than melee. Its the entire reason we don't still fight with swords

Archery existed alongside infantry for millennia. Modern Firearms are a totally different thing.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook Subscriber
AwesomenessDog wrote:
Archery is better than martials; how much so? Hardly at all: their only advantage is range and if they are full attacking all the time its only so long before the fighter closes in and there isn't a single archer "class" that gets flying in any easier of a way than fighter does. So how do we balance this? Well its practically already balanced enough that the only noticeable difference will be while optimized on both sides but as HellHunter stated that's what you have to assume when talking balance, even though most people don't optimize every character they play for DPS, Boosting, Healing, Tankiness, etc. (and really one could argue that even if someone is building an average build by choice, he/she is optimizing his/her fun instead of their DPS). So even if you want to make that little push to hypothetical perfect balance - even though its never possible - it is very little of an adjustment.

The crux of your argument seems to be "archery vs standard martials".

Though I mention archery "often" being better than standard melee, the definitive statement is "Archery is far and above the most powerful method of ranged attack".

So, while I could possibly understand why you'd want to keep the comparison between archery and melee in the discussion, I'm primarily looking at archery vs guns/slings/shuriken/crossbows/kinetic blasts/anythingRangedNotArchery.

Moreover,

Quote:


You however suggested something that not only nerfs almost every aspect of progressing as an archer build, it also makes it so making an actual build is not possible since you can only use feats for one aspect of combat at a time which is not a build for a combat style...

Do you mean the nerfs initially suggested?

Or the nerfs accepted later in the thread as much more efficient and easier (eliminating Manyshot and Rapidshot)?

Or the nerfs later accepted as being more targeted (nerfing instead of eliminating Manyshot and Rapidshot)?

I ask because I think you may be arguing against a straw man, since the original ideas are not what was being discussed later.

As an aside, I never got around to coding the modifications for Many/Rapidshot into PCGen before I needed them for my campaign's next session so, in a fun piece of irony, I'm just accepting the current system's archery bias. The players primarily using archery aren't super-optimized, and I can ensure that the NPCs that use them (I use mostly NPCs, not monsters) aren't overpowered.

KestrelZ wrote:
I suspect that JAMRenaissance is secretly a rakshasa, and plans to eventually nerf all piercing weapons as to negate the DR weakness.

Ha!

There is an interesting irony to this discussion; the statements made are about what PLAYERS want, but the vast majority of any of my rules adjustments are meant for NPCs. I'm trying an experiment where I'm not using Bestiary monsters, but all characters encountered are instead NPCs of varying levels. So they aren't fighting "orcs"; they are fighting Level 4 Orc Dirty Fighters. It's one reason I'm not as worried about the player reaction; I'm not balancing against the NPC; I'm balancing against myself.

I'm similarly not responding to "here's easy ways to make archery harder on the players". It isn't that I'm trying to be a jerk and ignore folks; it genuinely isn't applicable. For the most part, I'm not making things harder on my PCs; I'm making things harder on MYSELF.

Heck, the one primary-archer player I have will probably be someone I work with to make her MORE optimized, not less.

I'm genuinely not trying to "challenge them"; I'm balancing what "should be" in my head, and archery "shouldn't be" /THAT/ much better than anything else.

Of course, there is a new twist in my balancing.

So I mentioned that guns, in this universe, can be fired at MOST every other round. You can reload while you do something else, but the idea is to mimic muskets, and those things just can't be fired quickly. In exchange, though, guns do a LOT more damage (a pistol is 2d6 damage, as an example), and guns are always touch AC.

So here's a scenario I found myself looking at last session: Team goes against a Gunslinger. The gunslinger has two pistols with weapon cords, two carried on her person, and a backup short sword. In her first attack round she would get to shoot both guns for her iterative attacks. With the second round she would be able to shoot the backup guns (which would then pretty much be dropped untilt he end of battle). Third round would involve quickdrawing the short sword as needed to attack, and reloading the first gun. An interesting dance of two-weapon fighting between the sword and gun and reloading a gun at a time would ensue.

Now, "fortunately" this never came up, as the Ninja Assassinated the Gunslinger (the first of two planned threats that my PCs flew right through with tactics and bad rolling on my side), but it seems like this combo of things may be more "equal" to standard archery than at first glance.

Does upping the damage and making all guns to-hit help balance out the "every other round" nature of what is going on? The "every other round" things is HUGE to me from a flavor standpoint; I'm trying to model a world where new technology is becoming equal to magic, but because it is so new there are intrinisic "growing pains" to deal with.


Cheburn wrote:
AwesomenessDog wrote:
Just need an arrow of each (damage) type in the quiver, although I haven't seen slashing arrows before. I wasn't going for special material.
Fair enough, though I think that only really opens up bludgeoning in addition to your normal piercing? Doesn't do anything for silver/cold iron/adamantine, which are pretty common DR types.

The benefit is long run on gms who make you keep track of arrows (especially since you technically could dupe things like thistle arrows with it since they are technically a special material, but not that I would let it fly as a gm) I'd gladly pay 1000GP up front to not bleed 1cp every arrow and be able to freely swap ammo types and not have to mark my sheet and roll d100's for every miss.


JAMRenaissance wrote:
AwesomenessDog wrote:
Archery is better than martials; how much so? Hardly at all: their only advantage is range and if they are full attacking all the time its only so long before the fighter closes in and there isn't a single archer "class" that gets flying in any easier of a way than fighter does. So how do we balance this? Well its practically already balanced enough that the only noticeable difference will be while optimized on both sides but as HellHunter stated that's what you have to assume when talking balance, even though most people don't optimize every character they play for DPS, Boosting, Healing, Tankiness, etc. (and really one could argue that even if someone is building an average build by choice, he/she is optimizing his/her fun instead of their DPS). So even if you want to make that little push to hypothetical perfect balance - even though its never possible - it is very little of an adjustment.

The crux of your argument seems to be "archery vs standard martials".

Though I mention archery "often" being better than standard melee, the definitive statement is "Archery is far and above the most powerful method of ranged attack".

So, while I could possibly understand why you'd want to keep the comparison between archery and melee in the discussion, I'm primarily looking at archery vs guns/slings/shuriken/crossbows/kinetic blasts/anythingRangedNotArchery.

Moreover,

Quote:


You however suggested something that not only nerfs almost every aspect of progressing as an archer build, it also makes it so making an actual build is not possible since you can only use feats for one aspect of combat at a time which is not a build for a combat style...

Do you mean the nerfs initially suggested?

Or the nerfs accepted later in the thread as much more efficient and easier (eliminating Manyshot and Rapidshot)?

Or the nerfs later accepted as being more targeted (nerfing instead of eliminating Manyshot and Rapidshot)?

I ask because I think you may be arguing...

Archery is not the most powerful way to deal damage, blast casters greatly out-power them but blasters are the weakest caster. However in comparison to other ranged martials archery is not first place; very few fears apply exclusively to archery and xbows are still bows. The only feats I can find that are bow specific are focused shot and manyshot (which you still HR as applying to one handed throwing weapons). So whats left is the question of damage: the best way to beat archery there is throw earth breakers, now you don't have pay for ammo and a bow at 2x1000xehancement^2. When you add the feats for throwing big stuff, you do more damage per hit, it costs less, and you can still build it to not provoke (and barbarians can use it, because why not have a burley man throw hammers larger than thigh). We also can look to shuriken, a ninja will outclass every ranged build because he can go invisible and get 1d2+10d6 dmg every round with it, and stay invisible.

I actually haven't seen your revised changes but ill admit I have only skimmed back through. My responses were more towards a perceived hostility toward pointing out the original changes flaws.

(If there aren't bandits even in the wilderness, your doing it wrong; no reason for an aberration to be running around a plane when some ambushing highwaymen will work fine so good on you there.)


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Melkiador wrote:
jimibones83 wrote:
Archery SHOULD be better than melee. Its the entire reason we don't still fight with swords
Archery existed alongside infantry for millennia. Modern Firearms are a totally different thing.

The benefits to killing your enemy before he reaches you don't need to he explained. Ranged combat has always had more potential than melee combat. Because of that, better ranged weapons were developed. The fact that archery was better than melee is the entire reason we have firearms. They're not entirely different, they're the same. They're both ranged weapons, firearms are just a more advanced version


Nerf the bow and nobody wants to play the archer.

And if nobody wanted to play the crossbow guy, they don't all of a sudden want to play the crossbow guy just because now they're closer to the archer in power.

If you feel the need to tone down the power of a bow, do it on its own merits, not based on its power level vs other ranged options


If you took the bow down to a x2 critical modifier, I imagine a lot of people would still use it.


Melkiador wrote:
If you took the bow down to a x2 critical modifier, I imagine a lot of people would still use it.

I could see this, but probably nothing else

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