What is up with the Order of The Bow Initiate?

[ngilop]

So.. what is wrong with this PrC other than the nonsensical knowledge religion prerequisite?

I know the class is supposed to be built around firing off one really really deadly arrow, but in practice is fails at that by a large margin.


anywyas what is wrong and what exactly can be done to make teh OoBI worth taking for 10 levels?

[skycycle blues]

The selling point of the class is that it seems to give a major damage bonus, but the bonus only applies to Standard Actions, so if you were to take all 10 levels, you'd still be likely to do less damage with a single Standard Action than if you made a full attack.

Make Ranged Precision apply to all attacks and the class gets much better, and is much less of a trap.

[NeoSeraphi]

If you want real options for this that don't involve homebrew, the best suggestion I can give is to drop the class entirely and take four levels of scout (Complete Adventurer) and 16 levels of ranger, along with the Swift Hunter feat, allowing you to basically tack Skirmish onto a ranger's chassis. Now you get archery feats, full BAB, Favored Enemies, and you get bonus damage that apply to all arrows you shoot after you've moved 10 feet in a round.

[Manateee]

Awesome PrC. It's a shame they never updated it to 3.5.

[ngilop]

It was updated to 3.5......


and as awesome as neoseraphi is.. saying go scout/ranger did teh exact opposie of the post and the title asks...

and so far the only thing ive seen si teh ranged shot is a standard action..

so woul gettign +1d8 PER level instead of every other level make it worthwhile barring cheese is +10d8 dmg a good standard action?

[NeoSeraphi]

The problem is the same problem rogues have.

You deal 10d8 points of damage with one shot. Great. You still have to be within 30 feet of your target. Which puts you in mauling range of a lot of creatures, as well as opening you up to Close range spells, immunity to which is one of the major advantages of playing an archer in the first place.

Not to mention, that 10d8 points of damage? Swarms, oozes, undead, constructs, elementals, characters with heavy fortification armor, plants, and incorporeal creatures are all simply immune to that damage.

10d8 points of damage averages out to 55 points of damage. Meanwhile, a fighter with 18 Strength and a composite longbow with a +4 Str rating, using the Rapid Shot feat, deals 5d8+20 points of damage at 20th level. That's an average of 47.5 damage, and it doesn't take into account the bow's enhancement bonus or the possibility of critical hits (not to mention, who has 18 Str at level 20?)

24 Str and a +5 flaming burst composite longbow will instead net you 5d8+5d6+60 points of damage, or an average of 102.5 damage with a full-round action. And that's a fighter, not a swift hunter.

Archers should not be fighting in close range. They have way too much to fear from it. If you want to use non-homebrew methods to fix OotBI, I can't help you. It's beyond help. If you want to use homebrew to fix it, making the damage untyped, usable from any distance, and adding some status effects to it would be a good start.

[ngilop]

see there yas go, I just wanted to knwo
what is wrong and what exactly can be done to make teh OoBI worth taking for 10 levels?

ok make the dmg +1d8 every level and just extra dmg useable up to 60 feet at first adding 20 feet every 3rd level after to a max of 120 feet at 10th (LONG range bow attacks to me are the realm of snipers or volley users)

add in some neato status effects every so often
is 1d8+10d8 + a +4 mighty flamingburst longbow weidlied by a lvl 15 character able to do decent dmg?

[NeoSeraphi]

Hmm...it's certainly "decent" damage, but the problem is that it still can't stand up to a guaranteed +12 damage every hit on a full-round attack. However, I don't think that's an issue. Adding in status conditions like blindness and nausea, as well as saving the archer feats (No need for Manyshot/Greater Manyshot if you have something else you can do relatively well as a standard action) means that your single shot will be powerful enough, and when you really need to pump out damage, you can still just Rapid Shot full round for power.

[Rausdower]

Meh, I'm playing a low-mid powered campaign with a scout/OoTB and am having a good time making my single shot a motherloving shotgun to the face.

Skirmisher's boots are lovely if I desperately need another attack at hand.

[Hiro Protagonest]

It was updated to 3.5......

What are you talking about? Next you're gonna tell me they made the Star Wars prequels.

[TroubleBrewing]

What are you talking about? Next you're gonna tell me they made the Star Wars prequels.

And that would have been terrible.

[Lord_Gareth]

And that would have been terrible.

Not as bad as a Baldur's Gate novelization would have been.

[Manateee]

Mainly the 3.5 OotBI (if there were such a thing) has one huge problem:

It focuses all its resources on improving an option that a player will never actually use. Volley attacks can do several times as much damage as the OotBI's Ranged Precision, so RP is almost never a sound tactical option. So a player playing to win won't use it. And there's absolutely no reason to sink levels in the class if you aren't using its features.

Even on builds focusing on moving and shooting, there's basically no circumstance where OotBI levels are better than levels in Ranger, Scout or Wilderness Rogue.
Even with 2x the bonus damage.

The 3.0 class, on the other hand, has a reason to exist.
And its super-Zen Archery ability means its religion ranks make a bit of sense.
If you want to fix the 3.5 version, you can basically just revert.

[dspeyer]

This thread inspired me to homebrew a fix (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=12711242#post12711242)

[Yuukale]

talking about homebrew, last year I tried to come up with a decent archery prestige class: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=203110

hope it's somehow useful or amusing to you.

[Darth_Versity]

Not as bad as a Baldur's Gate novelization would have been.

You my friend deserve a cookie