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View Full Version : Spot helping archery?(3.5)



Provengreil
2012-05-06, 07:43 PM
Anyone here who hasn't played a Zelda game has some serious catching up to do. Everyone else is quite familiar with those big flashing areas it's quite clear you're supposed to shoot. you know, the ones present on absolutely no monsters in the manuals, at least that I'm aware or.

So I was wondering, then, if you could homebrew a feat, ACF, or even just rule allowing you to make a spot check and find that same sort of weakpoint, gaining some sort of damage bonus as a result. As we all know, archery could definitely use any help we can give it.

IthilanorStPete
2012-05-06, 07:47 PM
A related idea is tying it in with Sneak Attack, since this is what SA is supposed to be doing flavorwise; I'm just not sure about the mechanical execution. Something like every 10 points of a Spot check giving a die of SA damage, and giving that ability to the Ranger, the Rogue, and possibly the Fighter (as a bonus feat)?

Yitzi
2012-05-06, 07:47 PM
Spot is more the ability to spot things in general; this is combat-specific, and so it probably makes more sense to base it off BAB. The best approach is probably some sort of "called shot" approach, where you give up some attack in order to increase the chance or magnitude of a critical hit (thereby serving a similar purpose to Power Attack for melee.)

As for the general goal of helping archery, you first have to specify what you want to help in in comparison to. Helping archery in comparison to melee is probably best done by helping strengthen archery's advantages (i.e. have more situations where closing to melee is difficult or impossible), while helping archery in comparison to magic is probably best done by weakening magic to the point where a caster is inferior to an archer at ranged combat.

Wavelab
2012-05-06, 07:56 PM
I believe this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=12075383) will help a lot.

Seerow
2012-05-06, 08:01 PM
You could maybe have a spot check give bonus damage to ranged attacks using the same scaling as Iajatsu focus?

Provengreil
2012-05-06, 08:03 PM
The reasoning behind using the spot skill was simply that it relies on sharpness of eyes, a must for any good archer. so it was just my first thought.

As for "helping archery," i meant make it, well, more generally useable. you've got a number of feats to use with it, rangers get half of them for free even, but even with that a bow simply fails to keep up with the damage output of an axe, while having nothing special about it unlike spells. having some distance between you and an opponent that can't hit you is nice, but that's situation specific, and often won't last anyway. no, what I was hoping for was a way to use the whole idea of finding a weakness to increase damage to compensate for not having PA, but losing attack bonus didn't seem to make sense to me since you're getting more accurate when you do this, not less. Ithilanor's sneak attack dice idea seems to be something like what I was getting at.



I believe this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=12075383) will help a lot.

Aaaaaaaaand this has already been explored in depth. thanks, then.

Yitzi
2012-05-06, 09:24 PM
having some distance between you and an opponent that can't hit you is nice, but that's situation specific, and often won't last anyway.

Of course something like "shooting across the chasm" (where it will last quite a while) is situation specific, but so is "able to close easily". In archer vs. melee, the winner is whoever can force the terms of combat, and there's no reason that can't be the archer.


no, what I was hoping for was a way to use the whole idea of finding a weakness to increase damage to compensate for not having PA, but losing attack bonus didn't seem to make sense to me since you're getting more accurate when you do this, not less. Ithilanor's sneak attack dice idea seems to be something like what I was getting at.

If it's to replace PA, then it should lose accuracy just like PA does. And it's not that absurd that you lose attack bonus; you're gaining precision (ability to hit a small sensitive area) but losing overall accuracy (if you don't hit that small area, you're more likely to miss entirely.)



Aaaaaaaaand this has already been explored in depth. thanks, then.[/QUOTE]