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How many are worth a full action to use?I could be convinced that ranged ammo would be a whole lot better. The DCs are so low as to feel not worthwhile. Be more worthwhile if ammo were tied to class DC or caster DC.PF2E's handling of item DCs is an overall design issue with the whole system that at least needs a way to pay to scale things up.
That said, these always work, as they don't rely on an initial non-flat DC, and most have no DC:
Shining Ammunition
Silver Salve
Life Shot
Aromatic Ammunition
Climbing Bolt
Ranging Shot
Trustworthy Round
Beacon Shot
Vine Arrow
Exsanguinating Ammunition
Viper Arrow
Energized Cartridge
Elemental Ammunition
Sampling Ammunition
Imp Shot
Bane Ammunition
Bola Shot
Conduit Shot
Fate Shot
Lightning Rod Shot
Magnetic Shot
Corrosive Ammunition
Sighting Shot
Mindlock Shot
Dimension Shot
Penetrating Ammunition
Shrieking Skull
Ghost Ammunition
Garrote Shot
Spell Echo ShotAnd this list is all Common, PFS-legal stuff.
All of them. They're all utility functions or combat boosters. Some are more niche than others, but even weird stuff like Trustworthy Round could be a lifesaver against enemies that influence your attacks or in a bunch of RP trickery.
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I think we may have different opinions on which ammunition is worth the cost and the extra action to use.
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I can't give you your opinion.
That said, a bunch of the ammo I listed isn't magical or has uses outside of combat.
Personally I find a third action attack at -10 underwhelming compared to the status effects available in many cases.
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I can't give you your opinion.
That said, a bunch of the ammo I listed isn't magical or has uses outside of combat.
Personally I find a third action attack at -10 underwhelming compared to the status effects available in many cases.
Flurry Ranger is one of the few classes where it pays to go all in on 4 shots a round. Not many other archers can say that.
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Demoralize is 30'
Create a Diversion has no range
Recall Knowledge has no range.
Command Animal has no range.
Hide/Sneak are obviously useful.
Thievery abilities are... their own thread.
Aid, Point Out, and Sense Motive have no range.
Seek is 30'
Fascinating Performance and Distracting Performance have no range.
Recognize Spell has no range.
There is *stuff to do* beyond being a turret.
This is more the kind of thing I was hoping this thread would bring... although I am a touch skeptical about the tactical utility of dropping an action on Seek every round before your two Strikes... that's one that seems a touch too situational to take seriously for these contexts.
Make no mistake, this list is a touch padded but there are some useful points in here. I still don't think the existence of a skill feat reaction to ID a spell offers much argument in support of the idea that ranged characters are already spoiled for options, but I appreciate compiling a short list of a few things a ranged character might want to invest skill points, and skill and class feats in.
I think we can all agree that more options is always nice; heavens know I want more net options. I do feel that there is quite a lot to work with already, just not neccessarily to everyone's taste.
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Unroped net is 20'. Net and bola are both cheap, and you probably won't be spamming them.
An unroped net itself needs to be picked up to be used, and 1 GP isn't all that cheap to start with. Once it starts being cheap, though, the Escape/Force Open DC of 16 makes it trivially easy to escape from.
Unusual ammo starts at 3gp. You don't spam it, but you can certainly use it when it matters.
3 GP for one piece of ammo is a massive cost at the level ranges we're discussing. Again, just so we're on the same page:
For the people suggesting that ranged combat needs no changes, perhaps you would like to offer insight what things you do to spuce things up at low level that are actually in the ranged character's control.
What you're effectively asking is for a low-level ranged character to either splurge most of their gold on single-use or consumable items, or wait until a higher level in order to do most of the things you're suggesting (and again, at that point the net's a lot less useful).
Demoralize is 30'
Alright, I've Demoralized the enemy... what do I do next turn? Because that enemy will be immune for the next 10 minutes.
Create a Diversion has no range
Great, I've created a diversion... and now the enemy has a +4 against further attempts. What do I do?
Recall Knowledge has no range.
Sweet, I've just Recalled Knowledge and obtained no useful information the caster didn't already glean on their own turn. What now?
Command Animal has no range.
I have no animal to command. Should my Gunslinger archetype just for this?
Hide/Sneak are obviously useful.
... when you have terrain and lighting that let you Hide or Sneak, yes. How do you ensure you get to Hide and Sneak consistently?
Thievery abilities are... their own thread.
No, by all means, do elaborate. Are you expecting encounters to always have a trap to disable or a lock to pick?
Aid, Point Out, and Sense Motive have no range.
I'm sorry, you're expecting players to Sense Motive in the middle of combat? "Gee, my tremendous powers of perception seem to be telling me that this beast wants to kill me." Who would've guessed?
And once again, Aid and Point Out are heavily situational actions. Point Out requires an enemy to be undetected to your allies, and Aid does have a range, it's simply adjudicated by the GM each time you're typically not going to be able to shout encouraging words across the room to help with an Athletics check unless you're a Bard, for instance.
Seek is 30'
Great, can you guarantee enemies will be hiding consistently enough for this to reliably fill out my turns?
Fascinating Performance and Distracting Performance have no range.
Distracting Performance is just you trying to repackage Create a Diversion again, and Fascinating Performance in combat requires a critical success. Not only that, but the Perform action also gains the incapacitation trait to fascinate, meaning that it will be literally impossible to fascinate a higher-level creature in this manner.
Recognize Spell has no range.
Great, I've successfully Recognized the fireball, which the party caster already knew about because they have the spell prepared. What now?
There is *stuff to do* beyond being a turret.
So here's the fallacy: you're right, there are actions you can take as a ranged character that don't involve Striking (and I'm quite surprised you didn't bring up Bon Mot or Tumble Through, given how overkeen you were to pad your list). Problem is: none of these actions can be reliably and consistently drawn from, unlike Athletics maneuvers, moving to flank, or even just Feinting. Many of these actions are extremely situational, others are extremely difficult or outright impossible to use effectively more than once, many don't actually contribute utility so much as a purely personal benefit, and some, like Sense Motive, are quite literally useless in the near-totality of encounters. An Eldritch Archer could take the time out of their busy rotation to Sense Motive in combat, but do you really think they will? Even if we put aside the turret builds, are you truly expecting every ranged character to have all of the skill proficiencies, skill feats, and items you're asking of them at levels 1-3?
Again, this I think is where it helps to read between the lines, because what you're effectively stating is that in order to have enough interesting things to do with their actions, a ranged martial has to bend over backwards to purchase items, take certain trained skills, and pick certain skill feats... and even that wouldn't be enough, because most ranged martials simply do not have the gold, skill increases, or skill feats to accommodate everything you're asking for them, certainly not at levels 1-3. I also question whether a ranged martial who could use all of those actions at level 1 would still have that problem answered, because again, there is a pretty obvious lack of repeatable, generally useful actions you can use like in melee. For all the smoke and mirrors being deployed here, a melee character can just get trained in Athletics, which many melee characters are by default, and have a wide range of effective actions to choose from every turn in addition to moving. That, on top of every single other thing mentioned here. This therefore once again feels less like genuine advice, and more like an excuse to stick one's head in the sand in the face of widely-noticed problems with ranged combat that cause many characters to devolve into turrets.
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I did think of one weak design space for ranged martials and combatants.
The main area where melee martials outshine ranged martials is Reactions. I somewhat understand why as the extra damage from reaction strikes at range may be too potent, but I still think coming up with some way to let ranged martials use more reaction abilities would be a way to not let that design space feel wasted in ranged combat.
It feels not great as a ranged combatant to have this ability that is so prominent with melee martials feel completely unimportant with ranged martials. I think the designers could come up with something balanced and interesting to make a ranged martials reaction usable in ranged combat.
Maybe a lesser Reactive Strike keyed off something like standing up from trip or being tripped or escaping a grapple or doing something that would open up a target for a quick, well-timed ranged strike. A useful reaction is important to a character feeling like they are using all their action resources for something worthwhile.
Level 1-4 combats are unlikely to go on so long that you have burned through all of the Third Action options for each target on the map. If you're constantly having 6+ turn combats against solo targets at that level you're outside of the expected gameplay.
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It just feels like a lot of the mechanics you would use to make ranged combat deeper are things that would add unnecessary complexity to the rest of the game. Like it should always be more effective when you strike someone who is not in position to notice/avoid/deflect a blow but in melee combat we can abstract a lot of this with things like flanking and feinting. It should be more effective to shoot someone in the back, but there's no great impetus to add facing to the game since the entire rest of the game is set up to make it unnecessary.
So it genuinely feels like it's a fair tradeoff in Pathfinder that the reason to engage in ranged combat is "relative safety" but it seems like a bigger problem to tackle on the Starfinder side of things where the assumption is that everybody has a gun.
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I can't give you your opinion.
That said, a bunch of the ammo I listed isn't magical or has uses outside of combat.
Personally I find a third action attack at -10 underwhelming compared to the status effects available in many cases.
I would agree with this if all ranged characters were fighters, but it just so happens that most classes already need to spend their third action doing something else. If something was clear from the gunslinger thread is that most people (including myself) that took Munitions Crafter barely used it and, in some cases, eventually retrained it for something else. Special ammunition is hella situational except for maybe elemental ammunition.
I can't give you your opinion.
That said, a bunch of the ammo I listed isn't magical or has uses outside of combat.
Personally I find a third action attack at -10 underwhelming compared to the status effects available in many cases.
Why are you assuming the only available 3rd action would be an attack? Most classes have a preferred 3rd action competing with special ammo and special ammo rarely wins the opportunity cost battle.
...if they already have better stuff to do then problem solved?
...if they already have better stuff to do then problem solved?
Not if those extra things end up feeling like an action tax.
...if they already have better stuff to do then problem solved?Not if those extra things end up feeling like an action tax.
What are you willing to trade for the extra power or versitility then, if not actions?
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What are you willing to trade for the extra power or versitility then, if not actions?...if they already have better stuff to do then problem solved?Not if those extra things end up feeling like an action tax.
I've already traded gold and might be willing to trade a feat to activate this special ammo as part of the attack or loading action taken to use it.
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I've already traded gold and might be willing to trade a feat to activate this special ammo as part of the attack or loading action taken to use it.What are you willing to trade for the extra power or versitility then, if not actions?...if they already have better stuff to do then problem solved?Not if those extra things end up feeling like an action tax.
What about a feat to activate ammo using a reaction? I would like that.
Should ammunition have activation costs at all?
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What about a feat to activate ammo using a reaction? I would like that.I've already traded gold and might be willing to trade a feat to activate this special ammo as part of the attack or loading action taken to use it.What are you willing to trade for the extra power or versitility then, if not actions?...if they already have better stuff to do then problem solved?Not if those extra things end up feeling like an action tax.
That does give ranged characters a good use of their reaction, so I wouldn't hate that. Honestly, I might just make that how ammunition works, as the current interact action cost seems to be too steep for most people.
I could get behind a feat or feat chain for rapid activation, or even a dedication along the lines of the other consumable specialists.
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Should ammunition have activation costs at all?
Sure. It gives a boost to a ranged attack. I think a reaction for activation would make ammo a lot more attractive and ranged combatants aren't using reactions for a whole lot else right now.
The reaction acts as a natural limiter for possible broken combos.
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Eldritch Archer seems to cover some of this. A few more variations on that would be nice.
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Reaction to activate penalizes gunslinger pretty heavily, since that means they can't use Fake Out.
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You could also make a ranged weapon-only rune that causes that weapon to automatically activate ammunition. You give up another property for the ability to freely use special ammo.
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Oh, something else I should've noted: technically, ranged has incentive to move to avoid lesser cover from their allies being in the way. Unfortunately, the aim-aiding rune is a tax on the melee martials and deletes this positioning problem almost entirely.
Level 1-4 combats are unlikely to go on so long that you have burned through all of the Third Action options for each target on the map. If you're constantly having 6+ turn combats against solo targets at that level you're outside of the expected gameplay.
This presumes you have all of the above actions available when as already pointed out, the majority of these options won't be, either because they are too expensive at those levels or because you simply won't have the skill increases and feats to accommodate them all. This also assumes there are always not only multiple targets, but enough of them to repeat the same action each time (and that nobody else in the party is using these same actions), which Paizo's own APs should show is not a given.
The real problem, though, is that behind your responses is the same general underlying assumption, which is that the problem being stated and supported through evidence and player experience doesn't exist. I don't think this helps move discussion forward, because it forces everyone else to continually justify why their experience is valid instead of actually engaging with the topic. On top of this, though, you seem to in fact agree that there is some room for improvement, so it may work better to use that as your basis instead of assuming everyone complaining about ranged combat is being ignorant or unreasonable.
The main area where melee martials outshine ranged martials is Reactions. I somewhat understand why as the extra damage from reaction strikes at range may be too potent, but I still think coming up with some way to let ranged martials use more reaction abilities would be a way to not let that design space feel wasted in ranged combat.
I definitely agree that ranged martials could use more reactions. I also agree with you that ranged reactions need to be kept under extremely tight control, otherwise they can easily end up being just things you do every turn, but there's room for some things there all the same. Just as a basic example, being able to throw out an item to an ally and have them catch it as a reaction could help out ranged martials, and let them contribute some utility as well by distributing items.
I also think there's probably more to be done with the Ready action: by default, Ready is super-versatile, but also super-costly, because it takes up most of your turn to turn a single action into a reaction. There's probably room for many more feats that let you ready a very specific action with a specific trigger as a single action, and do even more specific, not necessarily attack-related things as a reaction. This needn't be exclusive to ranged martials either, but could be something ranged martials could leverage well all the same.
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Interesting topic. Coming to it a bit late, but I think the concerns are valid.
Compared to melee, the incentive to just stand there and turret is a bit too strong. But the other things you could do should have good flavor, and also have good mechanical balance.
For example, for good flavor, we do have to respect that players who make an archer want to make a ranged character. That's something I feel the gunslinger struggles with: it's got a lot of melee focus baked into the Ways. If you didn't want to do melee as your Plan A, the Vanguard, Triggerbrand and Drifter ways are already not really appealing to you.
But we also don't really want to encourage too much building for 200ft+ range. It's not gonna fit on a lot of flipmats, and it can cause annoying encounters where half the party and the enemies spend a couple of rounds just closing to melee while you shoot. Yes, shooting enemies before they can even get to you is definitely part of the ranged combat fantasy, but there has to be a bit of balance how far you take that fantasy.
It makes sense to align the range for new options with existing ranges. 30 foot is the range for things like Demoralize and many cantrips. It's also typically 1-2 moves for an enemy to close to melee, depending on Speed and whether the melee characters can block their path properly.
Because we don't want people to turret, we also want to think about reasons to move around. Flanking is defined as specifically melee, but it's definitely the sort of mechanic that keeps people moving. Both to create flanks, but also to avoid getting flanked by monsters. We'd like something similar for ranged characters then.
We also don't want options to be locked behind class feats. To make ranged combatants more interesting, we also should make monster ranged combatants more interesting, without having to do a lot of statblock surgery. So if we can solve it by making it a "general mechanic" similar to Trip/Shove/Grab that anyone can use, that'd be best.
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One concept that seems usable is enfilade. Suppose that you defined this activity that anyone can try:
ENFILADE SHOT
2 actions
If your enemies are lined up, a shot that misses the first one could still hit the second one. Make a ranged Strike. If the attack misses, you can roll the Strike again against another enemy that is behind the first enemy, on a line measured from your position. If you do, use the same multiple attack penalty for the first Strike, then increase it as normal for two attacks.
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Another idea would be to play around with the concept of flanking, but differently:
CROSSFIRE
2 actions
Choose a target enemy creature. Ready a ranged Strike with as trigger that one of your allies also makes a Strike against the same enemy. If the angle between the two Strikes is at least 90 degrees, the enemy is flatfooted against both attacks.
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Both of these offer incentives for archers to move around a lot more, to get targets lined up nicely.
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Eldritch Archer seems to cover some of this. A few more variations on that would be nice.
Yeah, I really like the remastered Eldridge Archer.
I believe that we are getting a remastered archetype based on Drow Shootist in Battlecry!, and I'm excited to see what that archetype, and possibly other options in that book, will offer for ranged character builds.
Fighter:
...
Flanking Stance: Stance that allows you to flank with bow in melee range.
Forgive me for dragging back to this point, but I was thinking about ranged flanking again and recalled your mention of this feat. I wanted to go read the feat for myself to determine under what restriction Paizo devs see fit to bestow ranged flanking, and unfortunately I cannot seem to find it.
It might be simply an omission or error in the Archives' search results, but I can't find any feat with that name, nor any Fighter or Archer feat that seems to have a similar effect. Perhaps were you misremembering a different stance feat, Mobile Shot Stance (Fighter 8, Archer 10) which allows a character wielding a ranged weapon to make reactive strikes against targets within 5' of them?
Clarification would be appreciated, as I was surprised to hear that as simple of a bonus as flanking would be gated to within 5' using a specific feat when reach weapons can easily do the same at a 10' range.
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(For that matter, I'm a little bit surprised that Mobile Shot Stance is also restricted to 5'. I would figure giving up an 8th level class feat, your stance, and the safety of distance would be worth at least as much range on reactive strike as every polearm user enjoys for free with much greater damage)
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Yeah the point is that so much of that is locked behind high level feats.
I think some more generalized "trick shot" group of activities that don't require a particular class would be good. Then classes can lean more into ranged combat by for example giving you action compression or MAP deferral feats for those ranged maneuvers.
Another one I'm trying to formulate is a good ranged answer to enemies with resistances/hardness. It would probably have to be some kind of tradeoff: you can't make as many attacks and can't be miles away, but you have a way to either increase damage per (slow) shot, or treat resistances/hardness as lower.
How about:
TAKE AIM (1 action, concentrate)
You take a moment longer to make sure your next shot really counts. If your next action is a ranged Strike, it deals one extra die of damage. If you're at least 10th level, it deals 2 extra dice instead, or 3 extra if you're at least 18th level. This counts as two attacks for calculating multiple attack penalty.
It's usually not the optimal thing, but it can help out when fighting animated objects or high AC enemies.
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Another option is to look back at 1E where silver/cold iron arrows were very affordable, so archers were actually better at adapting to those resistances than melee who'd have to get a separate silver and cold iron sword.
Fighter:
...
Flanking Stance: Stance that allows you to flank with bow in melee range.
Forgive me for dragging back to this point, but I was thinking about ranged flanking again and recalled your mention of this feat. I wanted to go read the feat for myself to determine under what restriction Paizo devs see fit to bestow ranged flanking, and unfortunately I cannot seem to find it.
It might be simply an omission or error in the Archives' search results, but I can't find any feat with that name, nor any Fighter or Archer feat that seems to have a similar effect. Perhaps were you misremembering a different stance feat, Mobile Shot Stance (Fighter 8, Archer 10) which allows a character wielding a ranged weapon to make reactive strikes against targets within 5' of them?
Clarification would be appreciated, as I was surprised to hear that as simple of a bonus as flanking would be gated to within 5' using a specific feat when reach weapons can easily do the same at a 10' range.
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(For that matter, I'm a little bit surprised that Mobile Shot Stance is also restricted to 5'. I would figure giving up an 8th level class feat, your stance, and the safety of distance would be worth at least as much range on reactive strike as every polearm user enjoys for free with much greater damage)
That's the stance. Let's you use Reactive Strike with a ranged weapon in melee range.
To preserve the classic fantasy feel, ranged weapons need to retain some disadvantages relative to melee to avoid melee becoming a bad option. This is also for the benefit of players; facing packs of minions that can trip you from across the map encounter after encounter is going to make combat a slog unless everyone uses ranged, after which the game becomes a comedic shootout.
It is desirable for ranged to need to move away from melee and for melee to chase ranged, but this is movement and not just simply stopping melee from making progress.
Melee maneuvers are heavily focused on controlling movement and positioning so they can maximize the melee attacks, not just debuffs. Melee also sometimes has the risk of active defenses, such as spiked hides, while ranged mostly just has to worry about monks catching their ammo. Using a melee maneuver typically comes at a cost to damage or other desirable traits, such as with the empty hand requirement.
As such I really don't see a need for more free abilities for ranged unless they're highly limited or costly, like a sniper opening attack. New feats and archetypes or weapon traits, special ammo, oils, etc. are always welcome.
For activated ammo, there should just be a rule that says you can activate ammo as part of an action spent to reload it. The biggest issue with it is that it's absolutely useless on anything with reload 1 because of the action economy losses.
A second issue, I guess, is that it overwrites property runes, but that's a smaller issue by comparison.
In terms of base damage... ranged weapons are basically comparable to finesse weapons in melee (class-specific damage boosts aside). The noticeable gap is with strength weapons (or Thief). That +4 flat damage is basically the equivalent of a striking rune (for anything less than d10 weapons), it's a significant power gap.
Yeah they had that problem solved by not having dex to damage. But I guess thief rogues are being steered away from ranged weapons.
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To preserve the classic fantasy feel, ranged weapons need to retain some disadvantages relative to melee to avoid melee becoming a bad option. This is also for the benefit of players; facing packs of minions that can trip you from across the map encounter after encounter is going to make combat a slog unless everyone uses ranged, after which the game becomes a comedic shootout.
It is desirable for ranged to need to move away from melee and for melee to chase ranged, but this is movement and not just simply stopping melee from making progress.
Melee maneuvers are heavily focused on controlling movement and positioning so they can maximize the melee attacks, not just debuffs. Melee also sometimes has the risk of active defenses, such as spiked hides, while ranged mostly just has to worry about monks catching their ammo. Using a melee maneuver typically comes at a cost to damage or other desirable traits, such as with the empty hand requirement.
As such I really don't see a need for more free abilities for ranged unless they're highly limited or costly, like a sniper opening attack. New feats and archetypes or weapon traits, special ammo, oils, etc. are always welcome.
I agree with this. Being able to attack from a distance is a massive and often-underrated advantage that needs to be factored in somehow; I just think that shouldn't preclude ranged combat from being as varied as melee, including at low level. I would go as far as to say that ranged combat is in fact too powerful even now in certain ways, or at least that some of the ways its power is implemented doesn't make for the healthiest gameplay: weapons should probably not be fully effective at ranges that would take most creatures two full turns of pure movement to close against a stationary target, yet many ranged weapons have those kinds of ridiculously large range increments, like the sukgung. Even the shortbow's range increment of 60 feet means many melee creatures would have to spend two actions closing the gap, and that's without factoring how difficult it may be to wade through the party. A simple, surgical nerf to ranged weapons could be to make range increments shorter, so that ranged martials would need to skirt the edge of danger to make the most of their attacks, and would otherwise pay a greater price in accuracy for attacking from an unassailably safe distance.
A game where most ranged martials are an enemy Stride away from getting directly threatened, not counting things the party can do to hinder that, I think is a game that could probably afford those classes more options, particularly if positioning becomes more important. Positioning-based mechanics like flanking or high ground could be one way of going about this, and would push ranged martials to spend more actions moving, but I do think in all cases there's also room to spend two actions and two attacks' worth of MAP on one attack that does something a bit different: spending an action to make your next ranged Strike count as two attacks for MAP and have it deal a bit of extra precision damage, for instance, would be very useful for dealing with resistances and Hardness even if the total damage dealt is less than two Strikes' worth. Doing something similar to force-trigger a crit spec effect would similarly be inferior to making two Strikes, but could be situationally useful to contribute some utility, especially if you're wielding a bow and an enemy is adjacent to a surface.
In all cases, it shouldn't be about just giving ranged damage more raw power: rather, it should be about giving ranged martial classes incentives to spend more actions to maximize their playstyle, and specifically evergreen actions rather than just the single-use, expensive, or highly situational actions available to them now. The flipside to this is that it should also mean that planting oneself like a turret the whole turn ought to be the exception, and not the norm in a ranged martial's playstyle. If this happens, then Starlit Span and Eldritch Archer would immediately become much healthier playstyles, as they'd have much more pressure to do something other than their current full-turn rotation. The Gunslinger would have many more mechanical hooks to play with, as well, and Starfinder's combat would be a lot more dynamic.
The thing is, that if special ammunition didn't require activation it would effectively be a direct upgrade at the cost of GP, which would be fine if there weren't classes and archetypes that can easily craft them for free. In the early levels it wouldn't hurt much because most of the special ammunitions I remember isn't that good to begin with, and the feat cost to get them for free is (I think) enough to justify that. Howeer, in the mid-to-high levels, some ammunition could be a bit too much of a boost for certain martials if it didn't require an action to activate.
I think the sweetspot here would be to make it so the Strike action includes the activation of the ammunition (so bows are included as well), but some ammunitions (even of the same type, like elemental ammunition for example) could have increasing action costs. For example, most ammunitions would likely have an action cost of 1 in the early levels, so they wouldn't require an action and would be activated as part of making the Strike, but higher level ones would cost 2 actions so it would require the Strike action plus an extra action to activate. This is pretty much a rework of the ammunition system so I don't see it happeninig anytime soon, though.
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Going back to the topic of an additional action for ranged characters to play with, how about this as a Perception "skill" action?
Traits: concentrate
You search for a weak spot in a target's defenses, preparing to hit it for maximum damage. Attempt a Perception check against that target's AC. Regardless of your result, your next Strike this turn counts as two attacks when calculating your multiple attack penalty.
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Pound-for-pound, this wouldn't be as huge a damage increase to start with as it may seem -- even with expert starting Perception, you'd only barely deal more damage with a shortbow than two Strikes, and this comes from still having to make two separate checks (contrast with Vicious Swing, which just adds bonus damage). However, it would have the benefit of guaranteeing a solid ranged hit, which would allow ranged attacks to fare better against targets with resistance or Hardness (this is actually a pretty big deal in Starfinder, where gun-centric combat faceplants pretty hard against constructs and other creatures with damage reduction). Given that the classes meant to be the best at shooting tend to have pretty good Perception (up to master on the Fighter, up to legendary on the Gunslinger, Investigator, Ranger, and Rogue), this ought to synergize with their stats fairly well too.
In addition to the above, I think this could provide a bunch of mechanical hooks:
And so with just this example of an additional action (which melee characters would also be able to leverage), you'd get to inject an additional degree of choice in ranged combat that other mechanics could play off of. Making it a Perception action would essentially give the action a home and avoid it dangling in some mechanical limbo, while also synergizing with classes already meant to be good at wielding ranged weapons.
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Going back to the topic of an additional action for ranged characters to play with, how about this as a Perception "skill" action?
Traits: concentrateYou search for a weak spot in a target's defenses, preparing to hit it for maximum damage. Attempt a Perception check against that target's AC. Regardless of your result, your next Strike this turn counts as two attacks when calculating your multiple attack penalty.
Critical Success: You identify your target's weak spot and can hit it with maximum precision. Your next Strike this turn against the target deals maximum damage and additional precision damage equal to your Dexterity modifier (minimum 0 damage). Calculate this damage as if every die you would roll has a maximum result.
Success: As critical success, but you don't deal additional precision damage.
Critical Failure: Your target's defenses leave you flummoxed. Your next Strike this turn against the target deals minimum damage. Calculate this damage as if every die you would roll has a minimum result. ---
Pound-for-pound, this wouldn't be as huge a damage increase to start with as it may seem -- even with expert starting Perception, you'd only barely deal more damage with a shortbow than two Strikes, and this comes from still having to make two separate checks (contrast with Vicious Swing, which just adds bonus damage). However, it would have the benefit of guaranteeing a solid ranged hit, which would allow ranged attacks to fare better against targets with resistance or Hardness (this is actually a pretty big deal in Starfinder, where gun-centric combat faceplants pretty hard against constructs and other creatures with damage reduction). Given that the classes meant to be the best at shooting tend to have pretty good Perception (up to master on the Fighter, up to legendary on the Gunslinger, Investigator, Ranger, and Rogue), this ought to synergize with...
As someone who was recently considering a Precision Ranger crossbow (arbalest) build, this proposed AIM action would be a huge win for that character.
Though, while I like it, I don't think it actually is all that interesting of a choice, it's just a slightly different way to deal damage.
I would like to see some feats added that allow ranged attackers to do something like many of the athletics maneuvers. Being able to grapple (immobilize), trip, and maybe even reposition or shove via ranged attacks would be interesting. And I think there are a few options out there that do it, but I don't think they're very accessible.
And to be clear, it wouldn't be based on athletics, just mimicking those kinds of actions.
And to clarify, I know that Archer dedication does have something that does that, but I'm not a fan of it because a fighter or ranger doesn't gain much, they're really spending a class feat just to get access to the "good" feats, which I really hate.
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Much appreciated both! And I agree as well that on its own, it wouldn't necessarily solve the problem of ranged action diversity: if there's one thing ranged combatants can do consistently, it's output damage, so while this would help quite a bit under certain circumstances (I tested this out on a bunch of enemies with Hardness in a Starfinder adventure and it was a game-changer), there's still room for actions that would let ranged martials in particular output a measure of utility too. It doesn't have to be in the same amounts as a melee character with Athletics either, so long as it's still useful.
While we're brainstorming, how's this for an additional Perception "skill" action:
Traits: concentrate
You ready yourself to take advantage of an opening in your target's defenses and fully exploit your weapon's potential. Attempt a Perception check against that target's AC. On a success, your next Strike this turn against the target applies its weapon or unarmed attack's critical specialization effect on a hit. Regardless of your result, your next Strike this turn counts as two attacks when calculating your multiple attack penalty.
---
Following the same basic model, here you'd be trading off the damage of a second Strike in exchange for more reliable access to some utility. You'd still need to succeed on at least two checks (and sometimes have your target fail a third), so this wouldn't be quite as direct as an Athletics maneuver, but this could let you do stuff like use your bow to catch an enemy and pin them to a wall, stun an enemy with your firearm, or just inflict some bleed damage with a crossbow or dart. As with the above, this too is something you could have as a trait for weapons meant to fire once per turn, with those kinds of weapons focusing on utility more than direct damage necessarily.
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Much appreciated both! And I agree as well that on its own, it wouldn't necessarily solve the problem of ranged action diversity: if there's one thing ranged combatants can do consistently, it's output damage, so while this would help quite a bit under certain circumstances (I tested this out on a bunch of enemies with Hardness in a Starfinder adventure and it was a game-changer), there's still room for actions that would let ranged martials in particular output a measure of utility too. It doesn't have to be in the same amounts as a melee character with Athletics either, so long as it's still useful.
While we're brainstorming, how's this for an additional Perception "skill" action:
Traits: concentrateYou ready yourself to take advantage of an opening in your target's defenses and fully exploit your weapon's potential. Attempt a Perception check against that target's AC. On a success, your next Strike this turn against the target applies its weapon or unarmed attack's critical specialization effect on a hit. Regardless of your result, your next Strike this turn counts as two attacks when calculating your multiple attack penalty.
---
Following the same basic model, here you'd be trading off the damage of a second Strike in exchange for more reliable access to some utility. You'd still need to succeed on at least two checks (and sometimes have your target fail a third), so this wouldn't be quite as direct as an Athletics maneuver, but this could let you do stuff like use your bow to catch an enemy and pin them to a wall, stun an enemy with your firearm, or just inflict some bleed damage with a crossbow or dart. As with the above, this too is something you could have as a trait for weapons meant to fire once per turn, with those kinds of weapons focusing on utility more than direct damage necessarily.
I kind of like this, but it's usefulness is kind of limited.
You're basically looking at crossbow (bleed), bow (immobilized), or firearms (stunned). The bleed effect for crossbow is probably never worth it. For bows it's situationally useful (where I want it to be from a design standpoint), and for firearms it might be too strong to cause stunned 1 (even with a save).
But I like the concept, but it might require rethinking what the critical effect of some weapons are.
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Might want to add that the target can't have any bonus from cover, to make sure you have a clear line of fire. Having to move around to get around allies providing enemies cover or in SF2 just getting around any cover should have a greater benefit. Instead of just getting over a penalty, moving around for a clear shot seems like proper ranged play to me. Therefore getting in to the right position, either for one shot or a vantage point for multiple rounds, coupled with this crit effect would help make ranged combat more interesting.
I think the big problem with ranged combat is how it's used. Because in APs and such starting more then 30 feet away from an enemy is rare, so ranged combatants with 60+ range are already missing out on one or more rounds of taking advantage of what their weapon of choice is good for.
So if all ranged weapons are nearly always used in close range, what other things could be done to make them more interesting? Perhaps a new type of action, a mix of spell shapes and maneuvers, name them called shots or something. Critical Opening could be a perception called shot.
Take a knee, make a Create a diversion check with the following results. Success: your next ranged attack if it hits imposes a 10 foot per damage die movement penalty for one round. The enemy can spend one action to recover from this effect.
Failure: no benefit.