Arcane Archer Death Arrow Feat

[Syl]

There is more than enough items that can give most people easy fighting chance against a DC20 fort save.

Death Arrow has a 1% actual usefulness (obviously low balling it) i've never seen this ability actually useful on any server with AA since no matter how high of AA level you take it will forever be a DC 20. Yet spell casters with insta kill spells will get higher and higher DCs and they don't need a PRC

for a application you worked hard to get approved for, and your end reward is a skill that does take a full round to fire, (which would be cool if it could be made as a swift one or free but i know there is code limitation) and that Skill has a simple DC of 20. What is wrong with asking for a little bit of love for a ability for a PRC? it isn't like we're asking Devistating crit to be legalized.

high levels doing high level dungeons probably aren't gonna have a easy time even with a DC 24 or 26 death arrow save for NPCs have the silliest Hsaves. or 75% of high end is undead which is immune to the Death arrow.... Now if instead the Death arrow could be more of something like a slaying arrow but could work on undead as well think that would be better since there is at least some more places to try and use it than.

Look if you're worried that it would be used against low levels as a show of strength just think for a brief moment.. Why waist a arrow that takes time to use, when they could already fill them so full of arrows that a Porcupine would say they look prickly.

Having it useful as a 1 time Oh snap button in high level areas is nice to have when most NPCS  already have a silly fort at that point.

[AgentGibbs]

The abilities of your class are inevitably going to be balanced against each other, too, not just other class abilities. With a +5 to every ranged attack you make, there's no need to split hairs about an ability like this. I don't see why every ability has to be applicable and reliable at-level or in PvP. I think it's destructive to the server environment for capstones to get better when they are overwhelmingly powerful in their situational usage. High level characters need significant power jumps the least.

Except there is no situational usage for death arrow in its current state. There is not a single instance in which just firing 4-6 arrows doesn't do more than using a death arrow. Adding use to a capstone skill doesn't alter the overall balance of the class outside of for one round instead of a roughly guaranteed 100 damage, you take a chance to instantly kill the target. I mean with +5EB already ignoring all DR on the server, 6apr with haste and rapid shot, a rough average of 15 damage an arrow (not including sneak attacks or crits), you are already guaranteed 90-100 damage a round. (My AA when fully ready to fight tends to average 120-150 a round depending on crits and sneak attacks). This damage output alone is likely enough to kill every class except a beefy fighter sub level 15. So I don't see where adding a little love to the capstone achievement for the class gives them a power jump.

Having a scaling DC might make it too powerful since it's unaffected by the target's spell resistance nor spellcraft bonus, and is a Touch Attack rather than a regular attack. You end up with a DC 25-26 (at least) instant death ability that has no downsides.

I would agree to this, except that as Syl pointed out, the amount of death save / fort save gear that is very easily obtainable, and the freakishly high saves of NPC enemies, makes hitting a fort save of 20 by level 15 extremely easy as a minimum. Bodak and troll are the two most common linings, and these dont include death ward tonics, or other gears for increasing saves. I can see where a case for it scaling with Int over Dex is far more viable, and makes sense as well. There just isn't much way for an AA to have an Int much over 14, and still have the necessary skills to make the bow usable in general, and would also require the AA to have taken Wiz as their casting class (or to put points outside of their casting classes use). A 20 + Int DC, would net somewhere between a 20 -24 DC in most instances, making the skill useful, yet still avoidable with death and fort saves coming into play.

[Kaninchen]

Use it on pesky sneaks. They have crap fort saves and everyone hates them.

Except when this was used on me last week, there was only like a 3/20, or 4/20 chance on the save working, without me being 100% prepared for it. So, against a class you'd expect to be able to at least hit this with, the chance wasn't very high, and having just one amulet would make an equal level player immune to the effect. 

Funny story, I bet 50k they couldn't do it again, but died when shot due to just the arrow damage (which I said IC would happen haha), which I think reinforces Gibbs further point of, the damage output from an AA is usually better than the death arrow.

[tylernwn]

In my opinion, Death Arrow should be a free/bonus action. So thats its always an enhancement on your engagement, and not an interruption of your normal arrow damage.

Second, rather than scaling the DC, maybe we should scale the number of uses.  For example the number of uses per rest is equal to your int modifier divided by 2. So 18 int gets 2 uses, 22 int gets 3 uses, etc.

These two changes together would probably make death arrow feel more worthwhile, and without  giving it too much power.

[SardineTheAncestor]

The abilities of your class are inevitably going to be balanced against each other, too, not just other class abilities. With a +5 to every ranged attack you make, there's no need to split hairs about an ability like this. I don't see why every ability has to be applicable and reliable at-level or in PvP. I think it's destructive to the server environment for capstones to get better when they are overwhelmingly powerful in their situational usage. High level characters need significant power jumps the least.

Except there is no situational usage for death arrow in its current state. There is not a single instance in which just firing 4-6 arrows doesn't do more than using a death arrow. Adding use to a capstone skill doesn't alter the overall balance of the class outside of for one round instead of a roughly guaranteed 100 damage, you take a chance to instantly kill the target. I mean with +5EB already ignoring all DR on the server, 6apr with haste and rapid shot, a rough average of 15 damage an arrow (not including sneak attacks or crits), you are already guaranteed 90-100 damage a round. (My AA when fully ready to fight tends to average 120-150 a round depending on crits and sneak attacks). This damage output alone is likely enough to kill every class except a beefy fighter sub level 15. So I don't see where adding a little love to the capstone achievement for the class gives them a power jump.

I'm aware of all this and it's why I posted. There is no possible way the death arrow could be more useful in at-level PvP or PvE than dealing that amount of damage in a round. The ability itself would have to change to something else. You can currently use it to instantly slay trivial enemies reliably, and if it works like other instant kills it will incapacitate players without corpsing them, which could be useful.

An earlier post was made about hexblade synergy (either in your party, or in your build) and that's completely right, even a DC 20 is threatening when you have the ability to lower enemies' saves with hexblades, bards, clerics, and so on.

[Syl]

The abilities of your class are inevitably going to be balanced against each other, too, not just other class abilities. With a +5 to every ranged attack you make, there's no need to split hairs about an ability like this. I don't see why every ability has to be applicable and reliable at-level or in PvP. I think it's destructive to the server environment for capstones to get better when they are overwhelmingly powerful in their situational usage. High level characters need significant power jumps the least.

Except there is no situational usage for death arrow in its current state. There is not a single instance in which just firing 4-6 arrows doesn't do more than using a death arrow. Adding use to a capstone skill doesn't alter the overall balance of the class outside of for one round instead of a roughly guaranteed 100 damage, you take a chance to instantly kill the target. I mean with +5EB already ignoring all DR on the server, 6apr with haste and rapid shot, a rough average of 15 damage an arrow (not including sneak attacks or crits), you are already guaranteed 90-100 damage a round. (My AA when fully ready to fight tends to average 120-150 a round depending on crits and sneak attacks). This damage output alone is likely enough to kill every class except a beefy fighter sub level 15. So I don't see where adding a little love to the capstone achievement for the class gives them a power jump.

I'm aware of all this and it's why I posted. There is no possible way the death arrow could be more useful in at-level PvP or PvE than dealing that amount of damage in a round. The ability itself would have to change to something else. You can currently use it to instantly slay trivial enemies reliably, and if it works like other instant kills it will incapacitate players without corpsing them, which could be useful.

An earlier post was made about hexblade synergy (either in your party, or in your build) and that's completely right, even a DC 20 is threatening when you have the ability to lower enemies' saves with hexblades, bards, clerics, and so on.

Only problem not everyone is running around with a Debuff crew and if someone is saying the only way to have a class skill useful is to debuff something to hell and high water that's just goes to show how little use that Skill actually has. Should it require some debuffs to have a chance? sure.. But not to where you need all three types of characters.

[SardineTheAncestor]

When we're talking about an everything or nothing skill like an instant kill, I think it should always be situational and rely heavily on a good setup. This is also a server balanced entirely around group play and players who group up for combat should reap the most rewards. Of course, at some point, you're going to be killing them with raw damage anyway if you can debuff them that much.

If AAs need a new capstone, maybe something appropriate can be suggested. But looking at the state of other PrCs, several of which have even less impactful abilities than this, without having anything close to a permanent +5 on ranged attacks, I just don't see why it needs buffing. AAs are already amazing at killing low fortitude enemies like casters, avoiding all the damage of reflection shields and piercing premonition. This ability doesn't need to stand in for some deficit they're having in that role, and I don't think I want to see them capable of instantly slaying anyone with a primary fortitude save either.

[HopeIsTheCarrot]

When we're talking about an everything or nothing skill like an instant kill, I think it should always be situational and rely heavily on a good setup. This is also a server balanced entirely around group play and players who group up for combat should reap the most rewards. Of course, at some point, you're going to be killing them with raw damage anyway if you can debuff them that much.

If AAs need a new capstone, maybe something appropriate can be suggested. But looking at the state of other PrCs, several of which have even less impactful abilities than this, without having anything close to a permanent +5 on ranged attacks, I just don't see why it needs buffing. AAs are already amazing at killing low fortitude enemies like casters, avoiding all the damage of reflection shields and piercing premonition. This ability doesn't need to stand in for some deficit they're having in that role, and I don't think I want to see them capable of instantly slaying anyone with a primary fortitude save either.

Correct, I don’t think anyone is arguing that AA isn’t a strong PrC class. It’s much better than some of the others that desperately need some love. However, it does stink that their lvl 10 ability is pretty useless. Most AA’s are currently better off mechanically stopping at lvl 9 and using that final level towards another base class. Which is pretty crummy when we talk about what should be the pinnacle of the PrC. I think the best suggestion I’ve seen here is for the death arrow to be a free action. It’s still a super low chance of success, it’s still nearly useless, but if you can use it as a free action then it becomes far more practical. 2% chance to instantly kill and if it fails then you’re not out anything? That sounds good and balanced to me. I don’t know if that’s an option or not though with the coding?

[SardineTheAncestor]

I think the free action thing would be okay too. Then it's like you have the arrow prepared and you just need to shoot it, so I like that more.

[AgentGibbs]

I think the free action thing would be okay too. Then it's like you have the arrow prepared and you just need to shoot it, so I like that more.

I can agree that this would at least add some use to it, if its use being a round isn't hard coded.

[Syl]

I think the free action thing would be okay too. Then it's like you have the arrow prepared and you just need to shoot it, so I like that more.

I can agree that this would at least add some use to it, if its use being a round isn't hard coded.

I would think do able since the subsonic great basically makes bard songs a free Action letting them use it while they are attacking without stopping