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View Full Version : D&D 3.x Other Terminology deconflicting and balancing an idea: Volley



Alent
2014-11-02, 03:08 PM
I have an idea for a weapon property and class feature that I'm trying to make sure doesn't conflict with any existing rules.

I'm trying to resolve some of the issues with lower damage srd weapons like darts and shuriken by adding a property called Volley to them. This property would let them function like the older 2e thrown weapons where you could get multiple darts off in a single attack, with each attack of the volley being rolled individually. Taking a page from Pathfinder's clustered shots feat, each volley would be summed before DR, allowing the extremely low damage weapons to overcome DR without a feat tax.

Example:

Darts: 1d3 damage, Volley 3
This is intended to be ((1.5+str) * 3) damage per volley assuming a full 3 hits, before any outside influences on damage like crits, poison, sneak attack, enchants, etc.

I would also like to use this to smooth out Archery damage for my WIP Ranger revamp without putting them on the bad end of feat tax:

Archer's Volley
Bows gain Volley 2. The volley size increases at the rate of 1 per X ranger levels to a maximum of 4.

For the purposes of interacting with my game, I've houseruled in 5e's extra attacks class feature instead of BAB derived iteratives. I don't think this actually affects the bigger picture since my campaign isn't expected to go past level 10, but I've mentioned this for thoroughness since it will affect things calculated out to level 20 and eliminates the iterative accuracy reduction.

My concerns are twofold, first, I've seen the expression "Volley" used in reference to the rules compendium ruling that precision damage only applies to attack rolls, but it's my understanding that there's no proper rules text for a Volley, that this was just an expression used in explaining it? If there's some kind of irreconcilable terminology conflict, I'll need to work out a new name.

Second, on the class feature example, I'm not sure how adding arrows will affect archer damage since I don't know enough about Archer damage. I know the small damage of individual arrows makes them weak options against DR, hence the reason for PF's clustered shots feat, but at the same time I've seen a mid-op 3.P archer do extremely high levels of damage before, and I've never been completely sure how that worked. As I've said before on the forums, math isn't my strongest suit (for reasonsTM) and I prefer utility play to raw damage, so I've never completely understood damage optimization.

I also want to remove some of the archery feat tax feats like rapid shot and manyshot, but I'm not sure if that's including too much scope in one question.

Some consideration also has to be given to sneak attack/precision damage, but I figure at the worst I just say sneak attack applies once per volley.

Any and all advice is appreciated!