PDA

View Full Version : Shot on the Fly (feat)



Galathir
2007-07-15, 09:17 PM
Here is a feat I am working on as part of a series of archery themed feats and possible a PrC. As far as I know there is nothing that allows an archer to take an attak of AoO so I came up with this option. Any comments would be appreciated.

Shot on the Fly [General]
Your finesse with the bow allows you to take further advantage of some foes who leave themselves open to your attacks.
Prerequisites: Dex 16, Combat Reflexes, Point Blank Shot, Rapid Shot, BAB +5
Benefit: Once per round as a swift action you may take an attack of opportunity against an opponent with a ranged weapon. You must be within the range of Point Blank Shot. You make the attack roll at your highest attack bonus, but due to the swiftness of this action you take a -2 penalty to your attack roll and -2 penalty to your damage. This action is a swift action
Special: A fighter may select Shot on the Run as one of his fighter bonus feats.

Kyace
2007-07-15, 09:47 PM
I think there is a Elfish bow/sword that can be fired as a longbow and can attack people in melee range as a longsword. Or maybe as a staff. Such a weapon would allow you to threaten the area directly around you whilst you also take shots. However firing a ranged weapon still provokes AoO.

Since the point blant range is the same as the sneak attack range, does Shot on the Fly allow rogues to make ranged sneak attacks on an AoO?

Shot on the Fly might be too similar in name to Shot On The Run, so if you don't mind, you might consider changing the name to something else.

Due to the nature of AoO, there may be a few points you need to clear up. Does using Shot on the Fly use on of your AoO's from Combat Reflexes? Does using Shot on the Fly still provoke AoO's from others as is normal for ranged attacks?

JackMage666
2007-07-15, 11:05 PM
You can onlt do this 1/round (since you can only do 1 swift action a round), so it seems pretty balanced. You can effectively shoot anyone moving towards you, since you're threat range is 30 ft in all directions.
Like I said, since it's only 1/round, it's fair. If you could do more, totally broken.

Oh, and a rogue can already sneak attack on an attack of opportunity, and it'd be just as hard as this. You pretty much have to be invisible, or flanking someone using a ranged weapon, or casting a spell who failed to cast defensively. The chances arn't great, but you can.

Behold_the_Void
2007-07-16, 12:08 AM
This is a great Wizard-harrier feat (ignoring Windwall's existence, of course). A few nitpicks.

It should be an immediate action, not a swift action. Swift actions are done on your turn. Immediate actions still count towards the 1 swift action a round limit, so no harm there.

I'd make the dex requirement either 15 or 17, since feats always seem to have an odd ability score requirement.

Under special, you refer to Shot on the Fly as Shot on the Run.

I'd clarify that the target must do something to provoke an attack of opportunity, possibly also saying that you count as threatening everything within 30 feet for the purposes of said attack of opportunity. Just to ensure lack of confusion.

Might also want to throw something in about the area you threaten not counting towards flanking purposes.

Damionte
2007-07-16, 01:49 AM
Problem with the feat.

How does an opponent provoke?

Are you essentually saying that your bow threatens out to 30 feet? so that someone doing soemthing that would normally provoke an atack in melee range now provokes out to 30 feet?

If so I'd have to say you've over powered the feat. It's essentually the reason bows don't normally threaten as it is. It gives you too much control of the battlefield.

The only official feat that allows you to take attacks of opportunity with a ranged weapon only allows you to do so in normal melee range.

The ability to do it as you have it is more in line with an epic feat. Thus your pre-requesites are not nearly high enough. You'd need more in line with a 25 Dex, and epic levels. Possibly the entire weapon specialisation chain as well.

JackMage666
2007-07-16, 02:01 AM
Is it any more overpowered than a Spiked Chain fighter who uses Combat Reflexes to take 3-6 attacks of opportunity per round? You can only do it once per round, and it uses up your swift/immediate action for the round (so, if you cast Swift fly on your turn, you can't use it). A foe within 30 ft is probably moving in on you, meaning you have a problem. I don't know, doesn't seem to problematic to me.

Kan8
2007-07-16, 10:33 AM
Whoa, that's a powerful feat. I'm just thinking, any caster would need to cast defensively if there was someone around with this feat, as it would be impossible for the caster to just take a 5ft step out of the reach of the meelee warriors. It also means that if someone takes a charge action against you (Or any action that involves movement), you get a free attack of Opportunity, and as you've said this attack is a swift action, and not a free action, I doubt you're going to make it count towards the character's AoO's per round from combat reflexes.

This can make for a seriously overpowered feat. If you combine this feat with the Knockback weapon special ability (A&EG, DC 19 Fortitude Save or move back 10 feet.), then it becomes awesomely hard for someone to use a charge attack against you, never mind get close to you.

If anything, I'd say make it so that the weapon threatens in a 5ft raidius and makes AoO normally, like the Arrow Demon's Special Ability in the MMIII:


Close Combat Shot (Ex): An Arrow Demon does not incur attacks of opportunity for firing a bow while threatened. In addition, the arrow demon can shoot its bows to make attacks of opportunity as if it threatened the squares adjacent to it with its bows.

Leastways, I think there's already a feat to use bows to make an AoO into the squares adjacent, I dunno what book though...

Damionte
2007-07-16, 10:47 AM
Is it any more overpowered than a Spiked Chain fighter who uses Combat Reflexes to take 3-6 attacks of opportunity per round? You can only do it once per round, and it uses up your swift/immediate action for the round (so, if you cast Swift fly on your turn, you can't use it). A foe within 30 ft is probably moving in on you, meaning you have a problem. I don't know, doesn't seem to problematic to me.

Yes. It's a lot more powerful than that. Or it would be if it actually functioned correctly. As written it doesn't work at all.

I didn't notice at first that it uses a swift action. A swift action can only be done on your own turn. So he could only do this against someone who provoked an attack of oportunity from him, after he had provoked on from them.

Think the author meant to make it an immediate action.

As written it's not broken. In fact it's not at all useful. As I believe he intended it, yeah it's abusable. 30 feet is too far away to take an attack of opportunity without a serious expenditure of resources and abilities. There's nothing without level adjustments that can pull that off.

as I said though, if it were an EPIC feat it would fall in line with the power lvl's of the other epic feats. As somethign you can take at lvl 5 though it's too broken.

Behold_the_Void
2007-07-16, 12:40 PM
It's really not that bad. You can hit one person moving up to 30 feet with an arrow. With a knockback makes you hard to charge and the first time a wizard tries to cast a spell they'll find themselves rudely interrupted. That's about it. Remember, you're still just shooting one arrow (with a penalty to hit and damage no less). It's not THAT life-threatening.

Kan8
2007-07-16, 01:44 PM
@^

Hmm....Maybe I should put the description of the Knockback ability then show a strategy that can be used...


Knockback: A weapon with this ability can drive its targets back. On a successful hit, the target of the attack must succeed on a Fortitude save (DC 19) or be knocked back 10 feet. If the target can't move back 10 feet, it instead falls to the ground. If the first save fails, the target must succeed on another Fortitude save (DC19), or be stunned for 1 round. Knockback weapons work only on creatures of the wielder's size or smaller.

Now for the strategy...Let's say that I'm a rogue, I'm fighting a fighter, we're in a 60ft diameter tournament arena, we both start 20ft from the walls, leaving 20ft between us. I win initative, so I attack him the bow, he fails his fortitude and is knocked back, I now move 10ft forward to the center of the arena. The fighter charges, I use my AoO to hit him, the knockback kicks in, and he's now 5ft from the arena's edge, his turn over. On my turn, I launch a full atack, my first attack misses, but my second attack hits, the knockback kicks in and the fighter is at the arena's edge, on the ground prone. When it's his turn he tries to stand up, I get an AoO and he gets launched into the wall. The best he can do now is to stand up, with the AoO I can make him hit the ground again, whilst I'm safely standing from a massive distance of 25ft. The only way the fighter can possibly hope to attack me would be with a ranged weapon, but he'd first have to survive a DC 19 Fortitude save AoO for standing up.

Now, please tell me that was basically understandable :smallconfused:.

Behold_the_Void
2007-07-16, 02:11 PM
It was understandable, yes, but arena combat is a whole different beats from D&D as a whole, and Homebrew feats are never used in sanctioned arena fights anyway.

Against a melee monster it MIGHT be harmful, but by the time you hit high enough levels that fortitude save is going to be nothing to a strong melee-based monster. Against groups of monsters, not so much.

And in your example, all is not lost for the fighter either. First off, you keep assuming he's failing his fortitude saves. To have two iterative attacks means that your rogue is at least level 8 (consequently about what you need for that feat), which means the fighter is also level 8. The fighter's AC is likely quite high, so you assume you'll always hit and that the fighter will always fail his save which, assuming a constitution of around 14 and no cloak of resistance (a cheap must-have for just about any adventurer who doesn't need a cloak of charisma), he'll make 45% of the time, not the best odds but not terrible either. Give him a cloak of resistance and that chance increases.

Also, what fighter worth his salt doesn't have a ranged alternate weapon? So what if he gets knocked prone, he can just start shooting YOU. You now have a substantial penalty to hit and the fighter's sitting pretty with more HP and a higher BAB, whittling you down.

Damionte
2007-07-16, 02:51 PM
Behind you're dreaming even more than he is with the example fight. Let's make the archer a ranger rather than a rogue.

In the example with the feat as written you can assume that at the minimum both of them are lvl 6. So the fighter is probably about 50%-60% of the time going to make his fort save to avoid the knockback. The archer doesn't need another iteinerate attack, he has rapid shot. Though in this exampel he does have one.

If the fighter does stay at range and plink at the Archer which his crossbow he's lost the fight already. This is a melee build fighter, he has no specialty in the X-Bow thus his one shot a round is not going to make up for the Rangers 3 shots since the melee fighter probably doesn't have rapid reload for his x-bow. (You can't fire bows from prone, only x-bows.)

If the opponent is a mage forget about it. The caster suffers an AoOp every tinme, unless he's casting defensively. Any time he get's interupted is another free round of attacks for the archer.

The feat is broken.

If you want to unbreak it, you may have to put in more qualifiers. Like, you can take an attacjk of oportunity on someone who provokes an attack of opportunity from any of your allies within 30 feet. Take away the swift/immediate action so you can do it as many times as you like. I believe that WAS a feat, or class ability in 3.0.

Or make it an improved version of the Order of the Bow initiate ability to threaten within 5 feet. And increase the length to 15.

1 range attack can be deadly. I can do a lot with one ranged attack.

Behold_the_Void
2007-07-16, 04:03 PM
What's the enhancement on the knockback weapon? Currently I'm seeing most of the argument being "this is broken with this weapon" and by the sound of it it must be at LEAST a +2 enhancement which means you're dropping at least 18,000 gold on it. That's half the wealth of a 9th level character, and if the knockback enhancement is only +1, I'd say it's the enhancement that's broken, not the feat.

A spellcaster gets harried at most once by this feat. After they realize that they're going to get shot at, they're going to cast defensively.

Seriously, being able to shoot someone within 30 feet as a swift action if they provoke an attack of opportunity isn't going to hugely unbalance anything. I mean, come on. Celerity, anyone?

Damionte
2007-07-16, 04:11 PM
I'm saying it's broken regardless of that weapon. This is broken with a plain old short bow.

Also remember that as written it's not broken in an onverpowered way, it's broken in that it doesn't work at all.

You're not going to provoke an attack of opportunity from someone 30 feet away. You just can't.

A swift action can only be done on your turn. So yuo the archer can only take an attack of opportunity on someone 30 feet from you who happens to go, (in the middle of your turn) and does soemthign that provokes.

Also does the feat actually say that you threaten 30 feet away? if not then it won't matter since you won't be offered any attacks of opportunity anyway.

My argument is that on many levels the feat needs work. it's not even worded properly. The OP needs to go back through the rules and word his feat so that it actually functions mechanically. Then we can punch holes in it from a balance standpoint.

JackMage666
2007-07-16, 04:13 PM
Sounds like Knockback is the problem, not the feat. It sounds like the ranger can pretty much do with with a Knockback bow anyway, the AoO just helps a bit.
Again, imagine a Spiked Chain fighter, with a Knockback weapon, and comabt reflexes, and tell me which you would rather fight. The Ranger, or the Spiked Chain fighter?

Damionte
2007-07-16, 04:16 PM
Assuming the feat was re-worded. I'd rather fight the spiked chain fighter, his range is halfed. I'll just stay away and kill him.

Behold_the_Void
2007-07-16, 05:08 PM
Well I know the wording is off, I mentioned that in my first post. I'm just saying being able to AoO someone with a bow isn't going to be the end of the world, especially given the fact that archery builds are mechanically not as powerful as other builds.

Damionte
2007-07-16, 06:52 PM
No archer builds are more powerful than most other warrior builds because just like in all other forms of combat range is king.

Behold_the_Void
2007-07-16, 11:25 PM
No archer builds are more powerful than most other warrior builds because just like in all other forms of combat range is king.

The damage output ranged combat has is really not comparable to melee, and reach doesn't do anything if you can't drop the target.

Not to mention archers are hideously easy to shut down.

Damionte
2007-07-17, 03:50 PM
The damage output ranged combat has is really not comparable to melee, and reach doesn't do anything if you can't drop the target.

Not to mention archers are hideously easy to shut down.

Then you havn't seen any good archer builds. I can optomise with the best of them, and I've had archer builds that can hold thier own with any of the melee builds when it comes to damage. Even the leapiong power attack builds.

And short of being in a 15 by 15 ft room against someone with reach shutting down an archer is no more difficult than shutting down any other melee type. You get rid of the weapon, but that's the same problem all the other non monk warrior classes have.

Point here though is that the feat needs to be re-written if you want to come accross as remotely balanced.

firepup
2007-07-17, 08:13 PM
I think it's fairly balanced, and getting rid of a range game is as simple as throwing darkness over someone without the proper ways to get around it. If you have Combat Casting and a good concentration score, you will make your concentration 14 times out of 20, and no AOO.