Let's Fix: The Arcane Archer

[Man_Over_Game]

This is the second of a series of threads targeted towards redesigning the subclasses in 5e that need it the most.


What's the worst subclass in the game? (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?615764-What-s-the-worst-subclass-in-the-game)
Let's Fix: The Purple Dragon Knight (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?576465-Let-s-Fix-The-Purple-Dragon-Knight)

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For those that aren't familiar, here's the summary of this XGtE class:

Level 3: Gain a proficiency and a utility cantrip. Also gain two choices of Arcane Shots that are "cast" on-hit with a bow-type weapon, two uses per Encounter.

Level 7: Your bow shots are now magical, and gain a new Arcane Shot option (now 3). Also Curving Shot lets you spend a Bonus Action to attack a different target if your shot misses.

Level 10: Get another shot option (now 4).

Level 15: You start combat with at least 1 charge of your Arcane Shots.

Level 18: Your Arcane Shots are now upgraded in potency (generally +2d6 damage). Get a 5th Arcane Shot option.


Banishing Shot: Charisma Save or target is banished until the end of their next turn.
Beguiling Arrow: +2d6 damage and Charms the target towards an ally on a failed Wis save.
Bursting Arrow: +2d6 damage to all creatures within 10 feet of the target, no save. This is a 5x5 square, estimated 5 targets hit.
Engeebling Arrow: +2d6 damage and halves their weapon damage on a failed Con save.
Grasphing Arrow: +2d6 damage, and spawns entangling roots on their location. Roots must be removed or target takes 2d6 damage next time they move.
Piercing Arrow: Don't roll an attack, but instead shoot a 30ft line. All hit targets make a Dex save or be hit by your arrow attack and an additional +1d6, half damage on save. Ignores cover.
Seeking Arrow: Target of your choice that isn't behind full cover makes a Dex Save or suffers an arrow shot +1d6 and reveals its location to you, half damage on a save.
Shadow Arrow: +2d6 damage, blinds target against any nonadjacent enemies until the start of your turn on a failed Wis save.
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Balance Concerns:


Use numbers for comparisons whenever possible, as the circumstantial bonus of something like the Prone condition is, well, circumstantial. Damage, on the other hand, is a very universal currency that's always beneficial in every scenario. Try to use damage vs. damage comparisons whenever possible.
If a quantifiable benefit has to be circumstantial - such as a saving throw, or AoE against a variable number of targets - assume that it's 50% successful and AoEs hit a number of targets equal to the square root of the max potential for targets (a fairly close estimate for most AoEs).
"Balanced", for the sake of simplicity, just means "Better than the worst choice, worse than the best". So long as it's not too close to either end of the spectrum, it's a job well-done.

We can probably use some assumptions to make things simpler, like the fact that the Grasping Arrow deals a guaranteed 7 damage and then has a circumstantial 7 more damage. and after assuming the "circumstance" occurs 50% of the time, we can estimate each Grasping Shot is worth about 10 damage when used appropriately.
Bursting Arrow is also a great choice at 7 damage per target hit without a save, and the AoE would hit about 5 targets, for a total of 35 damage.

After averaging these two shot-types, as long as we aren't talking about an AA that's level 15 or higher, the Arcane Archer gets about +23 damage per Encounter in value, or roughly +69 per day.

For the sake of simplicity, we'll assume all Fighter builds have Sharpshooter or GWM. Maths here (https://rpg.stackexchange.com/a/76656/45619), but those feats roughly add an average of +2 damage per attack, or +4.5 if you have a reroll effect (like Advantage), assuming you need an 7 on the die to hit.

The Samurai is a pretty close competitor to the Arcane Archer, and even has similar powers. It has Advantage on its attacks with x3 Long Rest uses, and it works as a ranged playstyle. It's difficult to determine the value of this benefit without really getting into it, but we can assume both our AA and the Samurai have Sharpshooter. SS with Advantage is roughly the value of +2.5 damage per attack compared to not having Advantage. Using a level 5 example, all of your resources in a single fight with 3 rounds, that's 8 total attacks, for a +20 bonus damage total. Spread out across the day, when you can use your Warrior's Spirit feature when you use Action Surge for maximum efficiency, that's 12 attacks in a day for +30 damage.

Battlemaster is also fairly similar to the AA in mechanical concept. It gets 4 uses per Short Rest, with the most damage-minded being Riposte that grants an extra attack + 1d8. Assuming the circumstance occurs 50% of the time, and you deal an average damage of 12 (10 + GWM/SS feat), we can estimate that each Maneuver is worth about a whopping +8 damage. 4 each combat means we're dealing with +32 damage per fight, and almost +100 damage worth in contribution with 3 fights a day. Yes, I understand you cannot use SS with Riposte, but all of the other maneuvers utilize some kind of condition that's hard to compare. Even before comparing the other effects and conditions, you're still looking at guaranteed +4.5 damage per maneuver, which still outperforms most other Fighter build in raw damage at this level with +54 damage per day.

The Champion is...regrettably low for a bar, but it's still a bar. +5% crit chance to apply your weapon damage (likely 7) means a +.35 damage bonus per attack. Assuming 3, 3 round combats, as a level 5 character, you're looking at 12 attacks, for a +4.2 damage bonus over the course of the day.

So the rough balance between the Fighter subclasses is, with x3 encounters with x3 rounds each:

Champion (+4.2), Samurai (+35), Arcane Archer (+69), Battlemaster (+54-96)

So as far as where the Arcane Archer sits, it is pretty dang strong. A slight nerf could be afforded if it makes it more fun/cooler to play.

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There's no getting around it, the Arcane Archer follows the example of most Fighters in terms of themes by not really having one. What it does have is mostly centered around having a Nature or Magic background, and using ranged attacks. Most of the Arcane Shots are fairly abnormal, so anything "high fantasy" would apply. It's odd working around the bow-restrictions, as no other class is so rigid on weapon types (not even the Rogue), and it's not like spamming crossbow shots is all that worthwhile on a Fighter that either has to use Crossbow Expert to compete with their Curving Arrow, or use a crossbow normally for fewer attacks.

A bit tricky, we want to avoid having the remastered Arcane Archer be a Ranger copycat, while also not having it be a less-versatile version of the Eldritch Knight. This means avoiding having "burst shots", as well as not just casting straight spells.

Its shots act as spells, yet aren't, which actually is kinda frustrating if you think about it. More and more content that needs referring to, and they aren't quite as modular and simple as the Battlemaster's version, meaning that they're much harder to memorize. Ranged attacks are also incredibly boring, as most of your turns act the same.

So on one hand, it tries to cater towards those that enjoy simple combat through Curving Shot, yet fails them by having too much emphasis on overly complicated Arcane Shots.

On the other hand, it tries to cater those that enjoy more complexity through fairly complex options through the Arcane Shot features, but then fails those players too by not allowing those powers consistently.

It's the equivalent of a Wizard spamming Firebolt every turn until you need to cast Cone of Cold for 50% of your spell slots that day, and even Warlocks refresh on a Short Rest.

My biggest concern, though, is that this is effectively a "Ranger" on the Fighter, yet it doesn't leverage anything unique about the Fighter's benefits. The Fighter is more durable than the Ranger, has more attacks, and the Arcane Archer doesn't have a means of leveraging any of this. It simply copies the powers and concepts of the Ranger onto the Fighter while completely ignoring the fact that it's a Fighter.


With the mechanical/thematic concerns mentioned, I'd just suggest rewriting the entirety of the Arcane Archer, as there's no notable way of changing it to fit something that doesn't resemble something that already exists in the core books, but I think I know of a way to do it that resembles the Arcane Archer.

My suggestion: The Rune Knight.

Yes, I know it already exists as a UA, but I don't see the UA version being all that enjoyable, and it kinda already seems like the Arcane Archer could easily just be a "ranged Rune Knight". A few ideas:

Imbue your weapon element that grants specific benefits on each attack that same turn. Earth knocks the target prone or deals extra damage if they are already prone, Wind causes the weapon/ammunition to return to you and lets you fly 5 feet each time you hit a target, etc.
Have specific benefits for ranged and melee weapons, to emphasize the Fighter's focus on utilizing weapons to solve problems, while also puts more weight on the Fighter's defensive powers than the Arcane Archer does.
Change how ranged combat works, with things like piercing effects, "marking" a piece of the environment or an enemy with a ranged attack to to teleport into an attack or create a trap. Having more utility effects that scale with your number of attacks directly pulls power from the Fighter's Extra Attacks, and the constant mobility means you can utilize the Fighter's defensive powers more often, too.





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Honestly, I don't have many ideas for the Arcane Archer as-is, but what do you guys think about it?

[Lysimarchos]

The first thing that comes to mind is increasing the amount of uses of Arcane Shot. Maybe equal to your INT modifier or Proficiency?

[heavyfuel]

I actually forgot about this subclass in my vote post, which is odd, since I started a thread on the Homebrew forums about it a while ago

Basically: I had an idea on how to make the class suck a bit less with just a few minor changes, making the archetype share some traits with Hank from the D&D cartoon and Magick Archers from the Dragon's Dogma videogame


Energy Arrow: At 3rd level, you can choose to remove the string of any bow in your posession with a Use an Item action. When unstrung, simply drawing your fingers in the air near the bow causes it to be strung with an arrow of glimmering energy. These energy arrows are treated, in all ways, as regular arrows, except they disappear one round after you shoot them. These arrows are treated as magical for the purposes of overcomming damage resistance.

Unerring Shot: At 7th level, when your bow is unstrung, you can use your action to shoot unerring missiles of force. This works exactly like a Magic Missile spell cast as a 1st-level spell. Increase the spell level by 1, firing one additional missile, at 10th, 15th, and 18th level


Energy Arrow gives you a much more magical feel. You're not shooting regular arrows you enhance with magic, you're shooting arrows made of magic.

Unerring Shot seems strong, but it's more a ribbon than anything else. It has a worse range than a Longbow, and 3d4+3 as an Action is strictly worse than 2d8+20, even when you take AC into account. It's a decent ability if you have Disadvantage on attacks for some reason, or if you know that the enemy is very low on HP and any extra damage is likely to drop them.

[LudicSavant]

How to determine "Balance:

*snip*

If a quantifiable benefit has to be circumstantial - such as a saving throw, or AoE against a variable number of targets - assume that it's 50% successful and AoEs hit a number of targets equal to the square root of the max potential for targets (a fairly close estimate for most AoEs).

This is not a good way to measure balance. The "assume 50% success" ignores benefits to accuracy entirely (no small factor in a thing's effectiveness), and the "assume targets is based on max potential targets" means that you'd rate Thunderclap as hitting more on average than Slow.

[Crucius]

This is not a good way to measure balance. The "assume 50% success" ignores benefits to accuracy entirely (no small factor in a thing's effectiveness), and the "assume targets is based on max potential targets" means that you'd rate Thunderclap as hitting more on average than Slow.

Well the dungeon master's guide makes similar concessions when it comes to estimating number of targets in the chapter "Adjudicating Areas of Effect". The math is not exactly the same, but close enough I'd say.

How would you approach estimating the balance of AoE's? Assume 2 targets at least?

[Dienekes]

So going off what I said in the other threat:


Honestly, I take the term Arcane Archer as indivisible. You can’t just define archer and define arcane and add them together. That would be how one gets Eldritch Knight but with a bow.

Now I’ve never played an Arcane Archer before 5e, so that will inevitably cloud my perception. But I quite like the concept it has taken in the game. The magic is the archery. They don’t get much in the way of other spells, or generic magic-y or fighter-y abilities. Their focus is that the spell effects come from shooting people full of arrows.

My only qualm with the subclass is that they focus far too much on making the magic arrows damaging. Which means to keep the balance with the rest of the fighter subclasses they can only get a handful of these magic arrows to use. If I want to play an Arcane Archer, then I want the arrows to be used far more often than twice a short rest, with more interesting effects. If damage needs to take a nerf for that to function, I won’t be shedding any tears.

But I think that's about what the AA is to me. It needs to consistently make magic happen by shooting it with arrows.

I'd personally think it'd be more fun if the magic effects of shooting arrows were far more common. Perhaps based on some "cantrip" shots like Greenflame Blade or Booming Blade, but a fair few more of them and of course based on shooting arrows.

Then we add the actual cool shots that are more limited. Perhaps taking the current group as a basis. I'd personally say with a minimum of one per encounter at least by level 7 and perhaps more than that as it goes.

[thoroughlyS]

ARCANE ARCHER LORE
At 3rd level, you learn magical theory or some of the secrets of nature—typical for practitioners of this elven martial tradition. You choose to gain proficiency in either the Arcana or the Nature skill, and you choose to learn either the prestidigitation or the druidcraft cantrip.
In addition, you gain the ability to infuse arrows with magic. Whenever you fire a nonmagical arrow from a shortbow or longbow, you can make it magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage. The magic fades from the arrow immediately after it hits or misses its target.
Pact of the Blade Warlocks can make their weapons magical at 3rd level, so why can't you? Arcane archers were able to do this at 3rd level back in Unearthed Arcana, going so far as to make them +1 arrows. I can see why the bonus was dropped, but not why the feature was delayed.
ARCANE SHOT
At 3rd level, you learn to unleash special magical effects with some of your shots. When you gain this feature, you learn two Arcane Shot options of your choice (see "Arcane Shot Options" below). You gain an additional Arcane Shot option of your choice when you reach 10th level, and another at 18th level.
Once per turn when you fire an arrow from a shortbow or longbow as part of the Attack action, you can apply one of your Arcane Shot options to that arrow. You decide to use the option when the arrow hits a creature, unless the option doesn't involve an attack roll. You have two uses of this ability, and you regain all expended uses of it when you finish a short or long rest. Each option also improves when you become an 18th-level fighter.
You gain an additional use of this feature at 7th, 15th, and 18th level.
My biggest problem with the arcane archer is that they only get two uses of Arcane Shot per short rest for their entire career. If you always want to have one available, that basically boils down to using one shot per combat, which seems pretty boring. I give an additional use of this feature at the same levels that Eldritch Knights get new spell levels (with a minor exception for 18th level). This boosts the damage output of arcane archers, but keeps them slightly below the battle master for their entire career. I believe that this is a fair trade-off, because the Arcane Shot riders are generally better. I remove the damage bump at 18th level, for this same reason. One casualty of this change is nerfing the versatility, which I assume was originally to make up for getting so few shots. If you were able to fire 5 Arcane Shots per short rest, AND knew 6 of the 7 options, you'd be incredibly versatile.
EVER-READY SHOT
Starting at 15th level, your magical archery is available whenever battle starts. If you roll initiative and have no uses of Arcane Shot remaining, you regain one use of it.

CURVING SHOT
At 18th level, you learn how to direct an errant arrow toward a new target. Once per turn, when you make an attack roll with an arrow and miss, you can use a bonus action to reroll the attack roll against a different target within 60 feet of the original target.
I believe that this feature is the reason Wizards of the Coast was so hesitant to buff the arcane archer. It practically works out to something like advantage on 1 attack a turn, which seems pretty good on paper. I just push this into Tier 4, where features can get remarkable, and drop the action economy penalty to make it feel better.

Implementing these changes results in the following damage curve, when only considering the raw numbers provided by the dice. In practice, I'd guess that each Arcane Shot will feel more impactful than a maneuver, even if the maneuvers will probably contribute more to the fight.
https://i.imgur.com/AYS6Ejl.png



Lastly, I would make a few changes to the shots themselves:

Add 1d6 damage to banishing arrow. It's the only shot where it may actually do nothing if the target makes their save.
Allow the target of grasping arrow to make a Strength save at the end of each of its turn to end the effect (instead of requiring an action to make an Athletics check).
Bump the damage for seeking arrow to 2d6. The rider effect is rarely useful.





Bursting Arrow is also a great choice at 7 damage per target hit without a save, and the AoE would hit about 5 targets, for a total of 35 damage.
It is highly unlikely that you would repeatedly be able to hit 5 enemies with bursting arrow, if for no other reason than most combats rarely involve even that many. According to the rules for Adjudicating Areas of Effect in Theater of the Mind (DMG p.249), you can expect a sphere to hit radius/5 enemies (rounded up). Bursting shot has a radius of 12.5, so ~3 enemies (for a total of 21 damage, spread across multiple enemies).




I'd personally think it'd be more fun if the magic effects of shooting arrows were far more common. Perhaps based on some "cantrip" shots like Greenflame Blade or Booming Blade, but a fair few more of them and of course based on shooting arrows.
Oh, I actually like this a little bit. This could be a good basis for a ribbon at 10th.

EVOKE ARROWS
Beginning at 10th level, you can imbue your arrows with magical energy. When you fire an arrow from a shortbow or longbow as part of the Attack action, you can choose to have the arrow deal acid, cold, fire, lightning, poison, or thunder damage instead of the piercing damage normal for your weapon.

[Evaar]

Also gain two choices of Arcane Shots that are "cast" on-hit with a bow-type weapon, two uses per day.

Away from book but isn't it a short rest recovery? Above posts seem to agree with my memory.

I just want to point out that bursting arrow does 2d6 force damage until level 18 at which point it does 4d6 damage. So in effect, this is an ability that does 2d6 area damage for the character's entire career.

Why? Why does it need to wait so long? Wizards can use Fireball at level 5. You only get two uses per short rest so it's not like it's going to scale out of control when the Fighter gets 3 attacks a round. Why is the damage so stingy? How is that supposed to make a player feel heroic?

At level 3, there's some value in 2d6 damage. Not a LOT of value, but at least a little. At level 9? 12? 16?? At level 16 a Wizard has an 8th level spell. It doesn't need to be on that level but couldn't it at least compete with a level 2 spell?

[Snownine]

I came across a solution that I like by a user named Ellisthion awhile ago, his is the 22nd post in this thread https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?551686-Do-Arcane-Archers-just-need-more-shots-to-be-viable.

His proposal is to give the Arcane Archer a 3rd use of their arcane shot ability at level 7 and a boost to their arcane shot's added damage to 3d6 at level 11 so that they have some scaling to increase their power before the single bump they get to this feature at level 18 by RAW. I really like this solution as I feel the best arcane shots, there are some duds, are more powerful than many of the Battle Master's maneuvers and therefore the Arcane Archer should be getting fewer of them to compensate for that. I think 3 shots per rest before Ever-Ready Shot is the sweet spot and I like it coming online at 7th level, the same level the Battle Master gets it's 5th superiority die per rest. The bump in shot damage to 3d6 is also important, I feel, to give a greater sense of progression. As it stands now a level 17 Arcane Archer is no more powerful in their main shtick as they were at level 3. That is way too long between an increase and it does not come online until well after most games stop. I believe that between those two simple changes the majority of the Arcane Archer's issues go away. Another thing I can think that would help them out without making a huge difference in their power level is giving them a few more choices of arcane shots. Currently there are only eight options and a few of them are not very good. At the moment I do not have any suggestions on new shot, but I will give it some thought. Maybe someone else has some ideas?

[Evaar]

Oh, I actually like this a little bit. This could be a good basis for a ribbon at 10th.

EVOKE ARROWS
Beginning at 10th level, you can imbue your arrows with magical energy. When you fire an arrow from a shortbow or longbow as part of the Attack action, you can choose to have the arrow deal acid, cold, fire, lightning, poison, or thunder damage instead of the piercing damage normal for your weapon.

Instead or in addition to this, could it be something with a weak rider effect that can be used only once per turn?

Say Frostbite Arrow deals cold damage and causes disadvantage on the target's next attack roll.

Make a handful of things like that, categorize them as different options of a single ability (let's say Evoke Arrows), and specify that Evoke Arrows can only be used once per turn when you take the Attack action.

If a feature like this waits until 10th level, I don't think it will be gamebreaking to put cantrip riders on one Fighter attack per turn.

Some cantrip effects that seem reasonable: Ray of Frost, Infestation, Greenflame Blade, Chill Touch, Frostbite, Thorn Whip. Minor forced movement effects, disadvantage on one attack, some minor cleave damage, speed reductions, the kind of stuff that casters are generally not wasting actions on by now because they're rewriting the laws of reality.

[Kane0]

If a quantifiable benefit has to be circumstantial - such as a saving throw, or AoE against a variable number of targets - assume that it's 50% successful and AoEs hit a number of targets equal to the square root of the max potential for targets (a fairly close estimate for most AoEs).

Just stopping by to say that is really neat and I will be considering that in my future eyeball tests.



So the rough balance between the Fighter subclasses is, with x3 encounters with x3 rounds each:
Champion (+4.2), Arcane Archer (+23), Samurai (+35), Battlemaster (+54-96)
So as far as where the Arcane Archer sits, it could probably use a decent buff. Even accidentally doubling how powerful it is still only puts it on-par with the Samurai, and tripling it only starts to compete with the Battlemaster.

A bit tricky, we want to avoid having the remastered Arcane Archer be a Ranger copycat, while also not having it be a less-versatile version of the Eldritch Knight. This means avoiding having "burst shots", as well as not just casting straight spells.

My biggest concern, though, is that this is effectively a "Ranger" on the Fighter, yet it doesn't leverage anything unique about the Fighter's benefits.

I've always maintained that is should have been a Ranger subclass anyways. How does it fare if you port it over?

[Amechra]

Here's a dumb idea to make it take advantage of the Fighter's multiple attacks - what if each shot only dealt +1d6 damage, but it affected every attack you made with your bow that turn? Then it'd scale with Extra Attack. That might be a little excessive, though.

[djreynolds]

I know many battle master archers who take magic initiate warlock and get hex, is an arcane archer doing this?

[Snownine]

Here's a dumb idea to make it take advantage of the Fighter's multiple attacks - what if each shot only dealt +1d6 damage, but it affected every attack you made with your bow that turn? Then it'd scale with Extra Attack. That might be a little excessive, though.

That reminds me of what they did with the Brute subclass from Unearthed Arcana. I think something like that is effective in increasing damage but I think it is best for something like a Champion or Brute where the name of the game is simple always on combat abilities that don't require much tactical thought or resource management. I think part of the draw of the Arcane Archer is the desire to play a fighter with some more tactical decisions in their actions, having a number of different tools for different situations and figuring out and applying what is best for the fight you currently find yourself in. That is why I feel that the best fix for the Arcane Archer is one that improves their core feature, the arcane shots.

[Foxydono]

The first thing that comes to mind is increasing the amount of uses of Arcane Shot. Maybe equal to your INT modifier or Proficiency?
When I first read the subclass, I thought you had unlimited shots. I can tell you I was very excited to play the subclass and I wondered why it had such a bad rating.

Though I admit, giving the arcane archer unlimited uses, it would probably be the strongest fighter subclass, but I wouldn't mind.

[djreynolds]

What if you could combine shots?

You could launch a bursting banishing shot? Every enemy in 10ft area is banished.

Combo shots?

[MrStabby]

Your balance charts are a bit lacking, since they assume that an arcane archer must remain a fighter subclass. Comparisons with Rangers, Valor Bards, Monks and Warlocks might be more apt. I think this is especially true as a common complaint is that the AA chassis doesn't add enough. Keeping balance whilst adding more arcane archer themed goodness might require a shift from the Fighter base. Assuming from post zero that it must remain a fighter subclass is really shutting down a lot of options and needs some justification.

[Dienekes]

Here's a dumb idea to make it take advantage of the Fighter's multiple attacks - what if each shot only dealt +1d6 damage, but it affected every attack you made with your bow that turn? Then it'd scale with Extra Attack. That might be a little excessive, though.

On this note, what if we changed Arcane Shots to work like this:

Cost a Bonus Action: Every opponent hit by an arrow this turn must make a save or suffer effect. Creatures cannot be forced to make multiple saves.

Or

Cost a Bonus Action: Choose one opponent, if they are hit by an arrow they must make a save or suffer effect. The duration is increased for each subsequent arrow they are struck with by you until the end of your turn.

Not all of the Arcane Shots need to be set up like this of course. But it would certainly be a different method of creating effects unique to the AA and works off of the Fighter’s base abilities better.

[Man_Over_Game]

Your balance charts are a bit lacking, since they assume that an arcane archer must remain a fighter subclass. Comparisons with Rangers, Valor Bards, Monks and Warlocks might be more apt. I think this is especially true as a common complaint is that the AA chassis doesn't add enough. Keeping balance whilst adding more arcane archer themed goodness might require a shift from the Fighter base. Assuming from post zero that it must remain a fighter subclass is really shutting down a lot of options and needs some justification.

I agree, it's just pretty hard to compare the further and further you get from the Fighter. You can do the maths on the base Ranger pretty easily (15.5 damage after Hunter's Mark per attack, ~9 attacks in a day, 140 daily damage. Fighter's is basically the same after considering Action Surge for 144), but my issue isn't the math itself, but the mechanical need. Without scrapping the thing into parts, I'm just not sure exactly how it'd fit as a Ranger other than "More Ranger". Just theme it as "You are really good at Ranger spells"?

There's not really a perfect answer that comes to me. I'm usually pretty good at figuring out how to make things work across multiple levels of play, but the Arcane Archer doesn't really have a major problem in actual play, it just feels completely redundant. I don't think it matters where we put it, as we're basically just moving garbage from one side of the day to another, and making it stronger doesn't really change the fact that it's basically just a glorified Feat to get Ranger spells.

[Edit] You know, after thinking about what you said, having a Ranger that was good at spells is actually not a bad idea. Most Ranger spells are pretty dang cool, and every Ranger build is equally as good at Range as they are at Melee, while the spells don't share the same balance (having more bias towards Range). It'd be tricky to make it more than just "Super Ranger", as even things like the Land Druid tie you to a specific land theme, but that's a lot better than "Super Ranger, the Fighter Subclass".

It'd take a pretty massive overhaul, basically scrapping the Arcane Archer into nothing more than a concept to avoid making the Ranger spells obsolete/redundant, but I think that works a lot better. Make Ranger casting refresh on a Short Rest, make it nonspecific to bows (so you can throw weapons if you want), add special modifers to your ranged attacks at the cost of spell slots (like Piercing or Teleporting), I think it could really be something cool. The best part is that it'd actually put more notice on the Ranger rather than making it more generic, and we don't have to stress about filling a nonexistent niche. I'll get back to the drawing board and take another hard look at it.

[MrStabby]

I agree, it's just pretty hard to compare the further and further you get from the Fighter. You can do the maths on the base Ranger pretty easily (15.5 damage after Hunter's Mark per attack, ~9 attacks in a day, 140 daily damage. Fighter's is basically the same after considering Action Surge for 144), but my issue isn't the math itself, but the mechanical need. Without scrapping the thing into parts, I'm just not sure exactly how it'd fit as a Ranger other than "More Ranger". Just theme it as "You are really good at Ranger spells"?

There's not really a perfect answer that comes to me. I'm usually pretty good at figuring out how to make things work across multiple levels of play, but the Arcane Archer doesn't really have a major problem in actual play, it just feels completely redundant. I don't think it matters where we put it, as we're basically just moving garbage from one side of the day to another, and making it stronger doesn't really change the fact that it's basically just a glorified Feat to get Ranger spells.

[Edit] You know, after thinking about what you said, having a Ranger that was good at spells is actually not a bad idea. Most Ranger spells are pretty dang cool, and every Ranger build is equally as good at Range as they are at Melee, while the spells don't share the same balance (having more bias towards Range). It'd be tricky to make it more than just "Super Ranger", as even things like the Land Druid tie you to a specific land theme, but that's a lot better than "Super Ranger, the Fighter Subclass".

It'd take a pretty massive overhaul, basically scrapping the Arcane Archer into nothing more than a concept to avoid making the Ranger spells obsolete/redundant, but I think that works a lot better. Make Ranger casting refresh on a Short Rest, make it nonspecific to bows (so you can throw weapons if you want), add special modifers to your ranged attacks at the cost of spell slots (like Piercing or Teleporting), I think it could really be something cool. The best part is that it'd actually put more notice on the Ranger rather than making it more generic, and we don't have to stress about filling a nonexistent niche. I'll get back to the drawing board and take another hard look at it.

I think a ranger isnt perfect, but is closer. An arcane ranger with access to wizard spells (and a spell book so as to not screw them on the limited spells known), maybe arcane recovery as an ability then something like the Valor bards ability to make a bonus action attack when casting a spell would make a subclass that would really feel different. Your subclass wouldn't give a boost to the martial side but would be a big boost to spellcasting.

As I say, not perfect, but it feels like the ranger is closer to where an AA should be than the fighter is. If nothing else, the ranger has more power in the subclasses so there is more space to add thematic stuff.

[Darc_Vader]

Another thing I can think that would help them out without making a huge difference in their power level is giving them a few more choices of arcane shots. Currently there are only eight options and a few of them are not very good. At the moment I do not have any suggestions on new shot, but I will give it some thought. Maybe someone else has some ideas?

I agree that there should be more different shots, since as is you end up with 5/8, and already likely picked the best ones at 3rd (the same issue I have with Metamagic incidentally). The only problem with doing so would be that, unless you double the number of options to 2 of each, it would break the existing theming of the shots: each one corresponds to one of the schools of magic.


Banishing: Abjuration
Beguiling: Enchantment
Bursting: Evocation
Enfeebling: Necromancy
Grasping: Conjuration
Piercing: Transmutation
Seeking: Divination
Shadow: Illusion

[Dienekes]

I agree that there should be more different shots, since as is you end up with 5/8, and already likely picked the best ones at 3rd (the same issue I have with Metamagic incidentally). The only problem with doing so would be that, unless you double the number of options to 2 of each, it would break the existing theming of the shots: each one corresponds to one of the schools of magic.


Banishing: Abjuration
Beguiling: Enchantment
Bursting: Evocation
Enfeebling: Necromancy
Grasping: Conjuration
Piercing: Transmutation
Seeking: Divination
Shadow: Illusion



Here is a question that you kind of have to answer yourself. Is this theming important to you? If yes, does the equality of numbers of arrows per school matter to you?

For me the answer is pretty much no. I do vaguely see a benefit. But I’d rather make certain our AA got a nice cool list of shots than worry if they each fit a school. And if we end up with 3 illusion and only 1 a abjuration my response would probably be “well, are they all functioning, flavorful, and fun?”

[Yakk]

So one of the problems with this is that it piggy-backs on top of the base fighter's X attacks/round. And that ends up being a lot of power.

We get back a whole pile of power if we require you to replace a complete attack with an arcane shot.

So what I've done is added a "brute" like elemental damage boost, then given the Arcane Archer alternative shots that replace their basic attack routine.

These are slightly modified versions of the base arcane archer shots (sometimes slightly boosted). You get 1 use per short rest of each shot you know, start with 2 shots, and eventually hit 5.

At higher levels, the relative power of your special shots compared to your attack routine goes down, so having 5 different shots per short rest shouldn't break things.

Then, abilities alternate between "you are an awesome archer" and "here are more gonzo magic effects".

Awesome Archer: Elemental Ammunition, Improved Elemental Ammunition (1d6 damage), Perfect Shot, Curving Shot
Gonzo: Arcane Shot (and more uses of it), Arrow Divination, Improved Elemental Ammunition (trigger crit effect).

Arcane Archer Lore
No change.

Elemental Ammunition
At 3rd level, you learn how to imbue your ammunition with magical energy. At the end of a rest or as an action, you can pick an energy types from poison, acid, fire, radiant, cold, thunder, lightning.

Whenever you hit a creature with ammunition from a ranged attack, it takes 1d4 additional damage of that energy type, and your arrows are considered magical for the purpose of overcoming damage resistance.

The ammunition you imbue loses its property if you aren't the one who shoots it.

On a critical hit on a target not immune to the damage type, an additional effect happens:
Fire: The target takes 1d6 fire damage at the end of their turn. If repeated, the damage increases by 1d6 each time. This continues until the creature or someone adjacent to it uses an action to put out the fire.
Cold: The target has its move speed halved until the end of your next turn.
Lighting: The target is unable to take reactions until the end of your next turn.
Thunder: The target is deafened until the end of their next turn. The next attack against them while they are deafened has advantage.
Poison: The target had disadvantage on the next attack they make before the end of your next turn.
Acid: The target takes 4 acid damage at the start of each of their turns. Each time they take such damage, the amount of damage they take next time halves (round down). Additional crits add another 4 damage to the start of the next turn. As an action with at least a flask of water you can rinse away the acid and halve the damage taken next turn. Creatures made of water, or in water, have their damage reduced to 0 after they take it.

This is our bread-and-butter damage attack. Crits are a fun ribbon.

Arcane Shot
You learn two Arcane Shot options of your choice. You can use each of them once as an action before taking a long or short rest. Use the range of your weapon with the ammunition property.

You learn a new Arcane Shot at 10th, 15th and 18th level. (this gives you more uses)

Banishing Shot. You use abjuration magic to try to temporarily banish your target to a harmless location in the Feywild. The creature shot by the arrow must also succeed on a Charisma saving throw or be banished. While banished in this way, its speed is 0, and it is incapacitated. At the end of its next turn, the target reappears in the space it vacated or in the nearest unoccupied space if that space is occupied. If the creature is native to the Feywild, it may choose not to return. In either case, it regains its speed and is no longer incapacitated.

After you reach 5th level in this class, a target also takes 2d6 force damage when shot, increasing to 4d6 at level 11 and 6d6 at level 17 in this class.

Beguiling Shot. Your enchantment magic causes this arrow to temporarily beguile its target. The creature targeted by the shot takes 2d6 psychic damage, and choose one of your allies within 30 feet of the target. The target must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw, or it is charmed by the chosen ally until the start of your next turn. This effect ends early if the chosen ally attacks the charmed target, deals damage to it, or forces it to make a saving throw.

The psychic damage increases to 4d6 at 5th level, 6d6 at 11th level and 8d6 at 17th level in this class.

Bursting Shot. You imbue your shot with force energy drawn from the school of evocation. The shot detonates on top of the creature. The creature and all other creatures within 10 feet of it take 2d6 force damage

The force damage increases to 4d6 at 5th level, 6d6 at 11th level and 8d6 at 17th level in this class.

Enfeebling Shot. You weave necromantic magic into your arrow. The creature targeted by the shot takes 2d6 necrotic damage. The target must also succeed on a Constitution saving throw, or the damage dealt by its weapon attacks is halved until the start of your next turn.

The necrotic damage increases to 4d6 at 5th level, 6d6 at 11th level and 8d6 at 17th level in this class.

Grasping Shot. When this shot strikes its target, conjuration magic creates grasping, poisonous brambles, which wrap around the target. The creature targeted by the shot takes 2d6 poison damage, its speed is reduced by 10 feet, and it takes 2d6 slashing damage the first time on each turn it moves 1 foot or more without teleporting. The target or any creature that can reach it can use its action to remove the brambles with a successful Strength (Athletics) check against your Arcane Shot save DC. Otherwise, the brambles last for 1 minute or until you use this option again.

The poison damage and slashing damage both increase to 4d6 at 5th level, 6d6 at 11th level and 8d6 at 17th level in this class.

Piercing Shot. You use transmutation magic to give your shot an ethereal quality. You fire the shot forward in a line, which is 1 foot wide and 50 feet long, before disappearing. The shot passes harmlessly through objects, ignoring cover. Each creature in that line must make a Dexterity saving throw. On a failed save, a creature takes damage as if it were hit by a shot from your weapon, plus an extra 1d6 piercing damage. On a successful save, a target takes half as much damage.

The piercing damage increases to 4d6 at 5th level, 6d6 at 11th level and 8d6 at 17th level in this class.

Seeking Shot. Using divination magic, you grant your shot the ability to seek out your target, allowing the shot to curve and twist its path in search of its prey. Choose one creature you have seen in the past minute. The shot flies toward that creature, moving around corners if necessary and ignoring three-quarters cover and half cover. If the target is within the weapon’s range and there is a path large enough for the shot to travel to the target, the target must make a Dexterity saving throw. On a failed save, it takes damage as if it were hit by the arrow, plus an extra 2d6 force damage, and you learn the target’s current location for the next minute and do not suffer disadvantage from attacking it if you cannot see it. On a successful save, the target takes half as much damage, and you don’t learn its location.

The force damage increases to 4d6 at 5th level, 6d6 at 11th level and 8d6 at 17th level in this class.

Shadow Shot. You weave illusion magic into your shot, causing it to occlude your foe’s vision with shadows. The creature targeted at by the shot takes an 2d6 psychic damage, and it must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or be unable to see anything farther than 5 feet away until the start of your next turn.

The psychic damage increases to 4d6 at 5th level, 6d6 at 11th level and 8d6 at 17th level in this class.

No more "part of attack action", these *always* hit and then the target saves. But you don't get to shoot 3-4 arrows and use one of these. This frees up budget, makes them more impactful, at the same time.

By blocking using this with the Fighter attack routine, we get to boost the damage it does and make it happen far, far more often. This should make it feel more impactful.

By making it once per kind of shot, we reduce the likelihood the fighter does a boring "repeat the same thing again and again". You get to banish once in a fight bud.

Curving Shot
No change.

Arrow Divination
At 10th level you can use an arrow shot to divine a question. While outdoors with sufficient room above you, you propose a course of action, then fire an shot directly into the air and watch it fall. You gain the effect of Augury (but the course of action is not limited to 30 minutes), and know the direction you should go to fastest proceed towards that course of action succeeding (danger is not considered). You can do this once before completing a long rest, and if ever you try to ask a question that is too similar to a previous one the resulting answer is muddied.

A non-combat feature! OMG!

This has historical precedent too.

Improved Elemental Ammunition
Starting at 15th level, your elemental shots now deal 1d6 instead of 1d4 additional damage. You can trigger the critical hit effect as a bonus action on a creature you hit that turn once for each kind of arrow before completing a long rest. You can change which kind of elemental arrow you are using as a bonus action, instead of an action.

Now we can force the crit once, which is fun. We can also change damage type on the fly, and are rewarded by doing so because each one has a different crit effect.

Sort of a mini-game.

Perfect Shot
Starting at 18th level, once on each of your turns you can make a ranged weapon attack roll a natural 20. You can do this after you roll to see if it hits normally.

This is a per-turn effect. You are now a perfect archer. Crit away! Note this stacks really well with elemental ammunition.

[Darc_Vader]

Here is a question that you kind of have to answer yourself. Is this theming important to you? If yes, does the equality of numbers of arrows per school matter to you?

For me the answer is pretty much no. I do vaguely see a benefit. But I’d rather make certain our AA got a nice cool list of shots than worry if they each fit a school. And if we end up with 3 illusion and only 1 a abjuration my response would probably be “well, are they all functioning, flavorful, and fun?”

That's entirely fair, and maybe calling it a problem wasn't exactly right. I definitely agree that having a larger number of effective and flavourful options would be only a good thing regardless of if the theming was strictly adhered to, it just seemed like something that was worth considering.

[Snownine]

So one of the problems with this is that it piggy-backs on top of the base fighter's X attacks/round. And that ends up being a lot of power.

We get back a whole pile of power if we require you to replace a complete attack with an arcane shot.

So what I've done is added a "brute" like elemental damage boost, then given the Arcane Archer alternative shots that replace their basic attack routine.

These are slightly modified versions of the base arcane archer shots (sometimes slightly boosted). You get 1 use per short rest of each shot you know, start with 2 shots, and eventually hit 5.

At higher levels, the relative power of your special shots compared to your attack routine goes down, so having 5 different shots per short rest shouldn't break things.

Then, abilities alternate between "you are an awesome archer" and "here are more gonzo magic effects".

Awesome Archer: Elemental Ammunition, Improved Elemental Ammunition (1d6 damage), Perfect Shot, Curving Shot
Gonzo: Arcane Shot (and more uses of it), Arrow Divination, Improved Elemental Ammunition (trigger crit effect).

Arcane Archer Lore
No change.

Elemental Ammunition
At 3rd level, you learn how to imbue your ammunition with magical energy. At the end of a rest or as an action, you can pick an energy types from poison, acid, fire, radiant, cold, thunder, lightning.

Whenever you hit a creature with ammunition from a ranged attack, it takes 1d4 additional damage of that energy type, and your arrows are considered magical for the purpose of overcoming damage resistance.

The ammunition you imbue loses its property if you aren't the one who shoots it.

On a critical hit on a target not immune to the damage type, an additional effect happens:
Fire: The target takes 1d6 fire damage at the end of their turn. If repeated, the damage increases by 1d6 each time. This continues until the creature or someone adjacent to it uses an action to put out the fire.
Cold: The target has its move speed halved until the end of your next turn.
Lighting: The target is unable to take reactions until the end of your next turn.
Thunder: The target is deafened until the end of their next turn. The next attack against them while they are deafened has advantage.
Poison: The target had disadvantage on the next attack they make before the end of your next turn.
Acid: The target takes 4 acid damage at the start of each of their turns. Each time they take such damage, the amount of damage they take next time halves (round down). Additional crits add another 4 damage to the start of the next turn. As an action with at least a flask of water you can rinse away the acid and halve the damage taken next turn. Creatures made of water, or in water, have their damage reduced to 0 after they take it.

This is our bread-and-butter damage attack. Crits are a fun ribbon.

Arcane Shot
You learn two Arcane Shot options of your choice. You can use each of them once as an action before taking a long or short rest. Use the range of your weapon with the ammunition property.

You learn a new Arcane Shot at 10th, 15th and 18th level. (this gives you more uses)

Banishing Shot. You use abjuration magic to try to temporarily banish your target to a harmless location in the Feywild. The creature shot by the arrow must also succeed on a Charisma saving throw or be banished. While banished in this way, its speed is 0, and it is incapacitated. At the end of its next turn, the target reappears in the space it vacated or in the nearest unoccupied space if that space is occupied. If the creature is native to the Feywild, it may choose not to return. In either case, it regains its speed and is no longer incapacitated.

After you reach 5th level in this class, a target also takes 2d6 force damage when shot, increasing to 4d6 at level 11 and 6d6 at level 17 in this class.

Beguiling Shot. Your enchantment magic causes this arrow to temporarily beguile its target. The creature targeted by the shot takes 2d6 psychic damage, and choose one of your allies within 30 feet of the target. The target must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw, or it is charmed by the chosen ally until the start of your next turn. This effect ends early if the chosen ally attacks the charmed target, deals damage to it, or forces it to make a saving throw.

The psychic damage increases to 4d6 at 5th level, 6d6 at 11th level and 8d6 at 17th level in this class.

Bursting Shot. You imbue your shot with force energy drawn from the school of evocation. The shot detonates on top of the creature. The creature and all other creatures within 10 feet of it take 2d6 force damage

The force damage increases to 4d6 at 5th level, 6d6 at 11th level and 8d6 at 17th level in this class.

Enfeebling Shot. You weave necromantic magic into your arrow. The creature targeted by the shot takes 2d6 necrotic damage. The target must also succeed on a Constitution saving throw, or the damage dealt by its weapon attacks is halved until the start of your next turn.

The necrotic damage increases to 4d6 at 5th level, 6d6 at 11th level and 8d6 at 17th level in this class.

Grasping Shot. When this shot strikes its target, conjuration magic creates grasping, poisonous brambles, which wrap around the target. The creature targeted by the shot takes 2d6 poison damage, its speed is reduced by 10 feet, and it takes 2d6 slashing damage the first time on each turn it moves 1 foot or more without teleporting. The target or any creature that can reach it can use its action to remove the brambles with a successful Strength (Athletics) check against your Arcane Shot save DC. Otherwise, the brambles last for 1 minute or until you use this option again.

The poison damage and slashing damage both increase to 4d6 at 5th level, 6d6 at 11th level and 8d6 at 17th level in this class.

Piercing Shot. You use transmutation magic to give your shot an ethereal quality. You fire the shot forward in a line, which is 1 foot wide and 50 feet long, before disappearing. The shot passes harmlessly through objects, ignoring cover. Each creature in that line must make a Dexterity saving throw. On a failed save, a creature takes damage as if it were hit by a shot from your weapon, plus an extra 1d6 piercing damage. On a successful save, a target takes half as much damage.

The piercing damage increases to 4d6 at 5th level, 6d6 at 11th level and 8d6 at 17th level in this class.

Seeking Shot. Using divination magic, you grant your shot the ability to seek out your target, allowing the shot to curve and twist its path in search of its prey. Choose one creature you have seen in the past minute. The shot flies toward that creature, moving around corners if necessary and ignoring three-quarters cover and half cover. If the target is within the weaponÂ’s range and there is a path large enough for the shot to travel to the target, the target must make a Dexterity saving throw. On a failed save, it takes damage as if it were hit by the arrow, plus an extra 2d6 force damage, and you learn the targetÂ’s current location for the next minute and do not suffer disadvantage from attacking it if you cannot see it. On a successful save, the target takes half as much damage, and you donÂ’t learn its location.

The force damage increases to 4d6 at 5th level, 6d6 at 11th level and 8d6 at 17th level in this class.

Shadow Shot. You weave illusion magic into your shot, causing it to occlude your foeÂ’s vision with shadows. The creature targeted at by the shot takes an 2d6 psychic damage, and it must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or be unable to see anything farther than 5 feet away until the start of your next turn.

The psychic damage increases to 4d6 at 5th level, 6d6 at 11th level and 8d6 at 17th level in this class.

No more "part of attack action", these *always* hit and then the target saves. But you don't get to shoot 3-4 arrows and use one of these. This frees up budget, makes them more impactful, at the same time.

By blocking using this with the Fighter attack routine, we get to boost the damage it does and make it happen far, far more often. This should make it feel more impactful.

By making it once per kind of shot, we reduce the likelihood the fighter does a boring "repeat the same thing again and again". You get to banish once in a fight bud.

Curving Shot
No change.

Arrow Divination
At 10th level you can use an arrow shot to divine a question. While outdoors with sufficient room above you, you propose a course of action, then fire an shot directly into the air and watch it fall. You gain the effect of Augury (but the course of action is not limited to 30 minutes), and know the direction you should go to fastest proceed towards that course of action succeeding (danger is not considered). You can do this once before completing a long rest, and if ever you try to ask a question that is too similar to a previous one the resulting answer is muddied.

A non-combat feature! OMG!

This has historical precedent too.

Improved Elemental Ammunition
Starting at 15th level, your elemental shots now deal 1d6 instead of 1d4 additional damage. You can trigger the critical hit effect as a bonus action on a creature you hit that turn once for each kind of arrow before completing a long rest. You can change which kind of elemental arrow you are using as a bonus action, instead of an action.

Now we can force the crit once, which is fun. We can also change damage type on the fly, and are rewarded by doing so because each one has a different crit effect.

Sort of a mini-game.

Perfect Shot
Starting at 18th level, once on each of your turns you can make a ranged weapon attack roll a natural 20. You can do this after you roll to see if it hits normally.

This is a per-turn effect. You are now a perfect archer. Crit away! Note this stacks really well with elemental ammunition.


I feel like making an Arcane Shot take an entire action is a step backward, not forward. Even with the increased damage you propose the shots do the fighter would still be doing more damage with a normal attack routine, especially if they have feats such as sharp shooter or elven accuracy. This is made even worse in your variant as they are also giving up the added damage of the elemental ammunition feature. I think the fact you can only use them once per rest is enough to prevent them from being too powerful in conjunction with the fighters 3-4 attacks at higher levels. I would keep it as part of the attack action and remove the guaranteed hit aspect.

[Abracadangit]

I'm definitely showing up late to the party, but one thing to think about is level-tiering the magic arrow shots, and designing them accordingly.

The 4E Monk is widely regarded as one of the worst subclasses (I'm playing one in a campaign right now, even with WotC's suggested hotfixes it's still not amazing), but one cool thing it does is it has techniques that are only attainable at certain levels. When you take the class at 3rd level, you only have access to a handful of low-level moves, and they're not great. But as you increase in level, other techniques in the list become available. At 11th level, you can learn Fly, Gaseous Form, or Stoneskin, and at 17th level there's Cone of Cold and Wall of Fire. Again, we can debate their ki cost and effectiveness all day, but there's still this nice feeling of improvement, this sense of unlocking more and more powerful techniques as the monk gains experience.

The XGtE Arcane Archer and PHB Battle Master have similar structures, in that they have a menu of attacks/abilities that they get to pick from as they increase in level. But where's the sense of getting access to the cooler moves, right? Sure, the Battle Master's superiority die gets bigger, and the Arcane Archer's magic arrows get stronger at level 18, but I maintain it still doesn't feel the same. At those higher levels, I'm STILL selecting abilities from a list that was completely available to me at the very first level of that subclass. There's no feeling of having mastered more difficult techniques, of being able to learn more advanced maneuvers because my character has gotten stronger along the way. The 4E Monk's abilities might not be all they're cracked up to be, but because of the way they're tiered, I still find my Monk's character growth much more satisfying as a result.

I see a lot going on in this thread numbers-wise that I'm not nearly qualified enough to comment on, but this is my meager food for thought.

[Lupine]

The first thing that comes to mind is increasing the amount of uses of Arcane Shot. Maybe equal to your INT modifier or Proficiency?

I had that idea. The problem with it is that most fighters (and players) dump int. Now, those players will have to dump a difference stat. Str? Maybe, but thst feels wrong for fighters. Dex? Absolutely not. Con? Again, maybe, but feels wrong on a fighter.
That leaves the dump at either cha, or wis, which are two of the most common saving throws, and responsible for most social interactions. In other words, it makes the AA dependent on pretty much all abilities, if he doesn’t want to be cut out somewhere else.

Uses = proficiency bonus is a lot better, but it does make the subclass a lot more dip-friendly.


When thinking about uses, I advise you to look at the Monk, and in particular, Ki. Both ki and arcane shots are short rest resources, but a level 20 open hand monk can go “balls to the wall” with ki uses, and go for 6 turns (assuming only using ki gor attacks). Level20 Arcane archer can burn all his shots in one turn. Even with four shots, he can burn all his shots in one round. Even with eight shots, he can burn them all in one round.

So what’s the solution? It would be ridiculous to give them 80 arcane shots per short rest. At that point, might as well make it at will.
Wait. Say that again.
At will. I think the solution is not to buff the damage, but actually to nerf it. At the same time, make all the arrows have damning (or fun) effects, which last until replaced (ok, maybe have one damage based shot, for circumstances)
For example, have an arrow that knocks a target prone, and reduces its speed to zero.
Have an arrow that strings out a rope line when shot.
Arrows that incapacitate, immobilize, or poison enemies. Arrows that split in flight, and act as arrow shotguns. That sort of thing.
If you’re worried about it, you could make preparation of arrows a short-rest for an arrow type thing, but the arrows can be stored. Then, they get 8 arcane shots after a long rest. Allows for nova, at a cost.
Another fun thing you might give them is some sort of ritual casting.


Dunno. Maybe I’m just an idiot.

[Snownine]

I had that idea. The problem with it is that most fighters (and players) dump int. Now, those players will have to dump a difference stat. Str? Maybe, but thst feels wrong for fighters. Dex? Absolutely not. Con? Again, maybe, but feels wrong on a fighter.
That leaves the dump at either cha, or wis, which are two of the most common saving throws, and responsible for most social interactions. In other words, it makes the AA dependent on pretty much all abilities, if he doesn’t want to be cut out somewhere else.

Uses = proficiency bonus is a lot better, but it does make the subclass a lot more dip-friendly.


When thinking about uses, I advise you to look at the Monk, and in particular, Ki. Both ki and arcane shots are short rest resources, but a level 20 open hand monk can go “balls to the wall” with ki uses, and go for 6 turns (assuming only using ki gor attacks). Level20 Arcane archer can burn all his shots in one turn. Even with four shots, he can burn all his shots in one round. Even with eight shots, he can burn them all in one round.

So what’s the solution? It would be ridiculous to give them 80 arcane shots per short rest. At that point, might as well make it at will.
Wait. Say that again.
At will. I think the solution is not to buff the damage, but actually to nerf it. At the same time, make all the arrows have damning (or fun) effects, which last until replaced (ok, maybe have one damage based shot, for circumstances)
For example, have an arrow that knocks a target prone, and reduces its speed to zero.
Have an arrow that strings out a rope line when shot.
Arrows that incapacitate, immobilize, or poison enemies. Arrows that split in flight, and act as arrow shotguns. That sort of thing.
If you’re worried about it, you could make preparation of arrows a short-rest for an arrow type thing, but the arrows can be stored. Then, they get 8 arcane shots after a long rest. Allows for nova, at a cost.
Another fun thing you might give them is some sort of ritual casting.


Dunno. Maybe I’m just an idiot.

The Arcane Archer can only use a single arcane shot per turn.

[Yakk]

I feel like making an Arcane Shot take an entire action is a step backward, not forward. Even with the increased damage you propose the shots do the fighter would still be doing more damage with a normal attack routine, especially if they have feats such as sharp shooter or elven accuracy. This is made even worse in your variant as they are also giving up the added damage of the elemental ammunition feature. I think the fact you can only use them once per rest is enough to prevent them from being too powerful in conjunction with the fighters 3-4 attacks at higher levels. I would keep it as part of the attack action and remove the guaranteed hit aspect.
Yes, they are giving up damage in exchange for a control effect.

If you want to do those effects and be a full damage fighter on the same round, then those effects sort of have to suck or rarely be usable.

I'm attempting to free up power to make those abilities bigger and more often. That requires either (a) an overpowered subclass, or (b) making room in the power budget.

So yes it is a step backwards, but it is a deliberate step. We step back on its ability to combo with the raw damage of a fighter and in exchange make them a bigger effect when we do use them.

AA shot/Base/SS damage
3: 7/10/20 damage
4: 7/11/21 damage
5: 14/22/42 damage
6: 14/24/44 damage
8: 14/26/46 damage
11: 21/39/69 damage
17: 28/39/69 damage
20: 28/52/92 damage
with the AA shot generally being "autohit", and including a rider (aoe for example).

And if that damage isn't high enough, we can .. make it bigger. As it stands, it is 50%-70% of the pre-sharpshooter damage.

Making the scale be:
1d12 @ 3
2d12 @ 5
4d12 @ 11
6d12 @ 17

AA shot/Base/SS damage (AA as percent base/percent SS damage)
3: 6.5/10/20 damage (65%/33%)
4: 6.5/11/21 damage
5: 13/22/42 damage (59%/31%)
6: 13/24/44 damage
8: 13/26/46 damage
11: 26/39/69 damage (67%/38%)
17: 39/39/69 damage
20: 39/52/92 damage (75%/42%)
gives more consistent ratios.

Using these Arcane Shots won't give you a damage burst over your at-will (which is already top-tier), but instead gives you AOE (no-save 10' radius? A 50' line, save for half? Both great), or ok auto-damage *and* a save-or-suck rider.

When you do use your arrows, you can do the "crit riders" 1/2 turns at 15, and every turn at 18 (with your auto-crit). So you'll still be doing more than just hitting things by T4.

[Kane0]

Consider how the AA functions when placed on a ranger instead of a fighter:

- An extra skill suits the Ranger, a class with more skills than the average class
- A cantrip goes nicely with a half caster that otherwise doesn't get them
- Arcane shot provides a relatively few magical effects as a short rest resource that doesn't use concentration, an ideal supplement to long rest spell slots on a half caster progression that makes heavy use of Concentration via Hunter's Mark. It also operates per attack rather than per hit as a minor nerf compared to Battlemaster Maneuvers, which is OK since you have other magical attacks already as a Ranger.
- Magic arrow turns your attacks magical just after the Monk's attacks are, a great ribbon
- Curving Shot is very similar to Stalker's Flurry, which gives you something to do with your Bonus Action when you aren't using it on Hunter's Mark
- Ever-Ready shot gives you more Arcane Shot uses per rest, largely a quality of life improvement common to later stage martial subclass features

It fits so much better, but what i'd really like to see is the ability to recharge your arcane shot uses using a spell slot to really mesh the two resources together.

[intregus]

Consider how the AA functions when placed on a ranger instead of a fighter:

- An extra skill suits the Ranger, a class with more skills than the average class
- A cantrip goes nicely with a half caster that otherwise doesn't get them
- Arcane shot provides a relatively few magical effects as a short rest resource that doesn't use concentration, an ideal supplement to long rest spell slots on a half caster progression that makes heavy use of Concentration via Hunter's Mark. It also operates per attack rather than per hit as a minor nerf compared to Battlemaster Maneuvers, which is OK since you have other magical attacks already as a Ranger.
- Magic arrow turns your attacks magical just after the Monk's attacks are, a great ribbon
- Curving Shot is very similar to Stalker's Flurry, which gives you something to do with your Bonus Action when you aren't using it on Hunter's Mark
- Ever-Ready shot gives you more Arcane Shot uses per rest, largely a quality of life improvement common to later stage martial subclass features

It fits so much better, but what i'd really like to see is the ability to recharge your arcane shot uses using a spell slot to really mesh the two resources together.

This. I agree with this whole heartedly.

[Warwick]

An ad hoc fix a friend of mine and I came up with but never got to test was replacing the limited uses of Arcane Shot with a system where using firing a magic arrow consumed attacks. (2 attacks was our baseline)" at 3rd level you could forgo attacking next round to fire an arcane shot, at 5th you could trade your two attacks to fire a single arcane shot, etc... The reality is that Arcane Shot effects are not that powerful, and, as noted, without a litany of special attacks to choose from, ranged combat is extremely repetitive. We also reduced or eliminated the bonus damage depending on the arrow.

An alternative to directly trading attacks for special arrows would be something like:

Arcane Shot: at 3rd level you learn to unleash special magical arrows blah blah blah. When you gain this feature, you learn 2 [or 3 or whatever] Arcane Shot options of your choice. As a standard action, you may make a ranged attack with a longbow or shortbow against a target within range. If you hit, deal damage as if it were a normal ranged attack and choose one of your Arcane Shot options to apply. At 18th level you may fire two Arcane Shots. You may select different targets and choose different Arcane Shot options each time. Presumably you also learn to use some more magic arrows between 3rd and 18th level, but this is D&D so maybe not.

Magic Arrow: at 7th level, when you use Arcane Shot you may make one ranged weapon attack with a longbow or shortbow as a bonus action. This attack counts as magical and does not consume any ammunition.

Curving Shot: as is, but you can apply it to Arcane Shot as well

Ever-Ready Shot: since this is no longer relevant, I would probably replace it with Arcane Shot scaling. Undecided on if it would be better to having damage scaling or effect scaling.

[Man_Over_Game]

Consider how the AA functions when placed on a ranger instead of a fighter:

- An extra skill suits the Ranger, a class with more skills than the average class
- A cantrip goes nicely with a half caster that otherwise doesn't get them
- Arcane shot provides a relatively few magical effects as a short rest resource that doesn't use concentration, an ideal supplement to long rest spell slots on a half caster progression that makes heavy use of Concentration via Hunter's Mark. It also operates per attack rather than per hit as a minor nerf compared to Battlemaster Maneuvers, which is OK since you have other magical attacks already as a Ranger.
- Magic arrow turns your attacks magical just after the Monk's attacks are, a great ribbon
- Curving Shot is very similar to Stalker's Flurry, which gives you something to do with your Bonus Action when you aren't using it on Hunter's Mark
- Ever-Ready shot gives you more Arcane Shot uses per rest, largely a quality of life improvement common to later stage martial subclass features

It fits so much better, but what i'd really like to see is the ability to recharge your arcane shot uses using a spell slot to really mesh the two resources together.

I like some what you're bringing up, but there are a few concerns I think should be addressed.

For example, the Ranger already has a number of "Shot Enhancers" that rival the Arcane Shots, and almost all of them take your Bonus Action. I think that the Arcane Archer is redundant and generic as-is, but there is some solid room to make a heavily magic-based Ranger if we look at the tools we already have. MrStabby gave me the idea.



Potential features:
Recharge spell slots as if it had Arcane Recovery (so a number of spell slot levels equal to Ranger level once per day after a Short Rest).

Gain 1 more Ranger spell per level.

While Concentrating on a spell, weapon attacks you make are considered Magical for the sake of resistances and communities, weapons with the Throwing trait teleport back to your hand after the attack, and weapons with the Ammunition trait can conjure ammunition needed for your attacks.

While Concentrating on a spell, weapon attacks that miss can attack a different target within range. This can only occur once per attack. Additionally, you gain an AC bonus equal to the spell level of the spell you're Concentrating on.

You may spend a spell slot when you attack to enchant your next attack to pierce all obstacles. The attack gains a bonus to its hit and damage equal to the spell slot spent, it ignores all cover, and causes all creatures in a 15 feet line behind the first target to make a Dex save or take as much damage as the first target.

When you are attacked while Concentrating on a spell, you can use your Reaction to make a weapon attack against that creature. This occurs before their damage is dealt to you.

[Kane0]

So you're thinking drop the existing AA entirely and make a new casting-focused Ranger subclass?

That's cool and there's room for it, but then we aren't fixing the AA.

[MrStabby]

Possibly you could do it as a type of divine smite - sacrifice spell slots for additional effects.

You have a weaker base class so a whopping spot of extra power is less of an issue here than on other classes. An ability that uses spell slots means you are trading off one resource for arrows rather than adding a resource which also helps limit it's power.

This would also let the AA use their signature arrows a lot more frequently.

[Dienekes]

I feel we’re breaking into two different directions here and need to pick which one to focus on for the discussion to progress.

On the one hand we have magic shot focused Fighter.

On the other we have magic focused Ranger, with maybe maybe not some ranged smite feature.

Personally I lean toward the first. I like the idea of a character whose magic is encapsulated in their archery ability. Without worrying about spell slots and spell levels and all that. But then I have stated before I’m just not a fan of D&D’s basic spell system. And I love generating different more flavorful systems. So I am biased here.

[Snownine]

An ad hoc fix a friend of mine and I came up with but never got to test was replacing the limited uses of Arcane Shot with a system where using firing a magic arrow consumed attacks. (2 attacks was our baseline)" at 3rd level you could forgo attacking next round to fire an arcane shot, at 5th you could trade your two attacks to fire a single arcane shot, etc... The reality is that Arcane Shot effects are not that powerful, and, as noted, without a litany of special attacks to choose from, ranged combat is extremely repetitive. We also reduced or eliminated the bonus damage depending on the arrow.

An alternative to directly trading attacks for special arrows would be something like:

Arcane Shot: at 3rd level you learn to unleash special magical arrows blah blah blah. When you gain this feature, you learn 2 [or 3 or whatever] Arcane Shot options of your choice. As a standard action, you may make a ranged attack with a longbow or shortbow against a target within range. If you hit, deal damage as if it were a normal ranged attack and choose one of your Arcane Shot options to apply. At 18th level you may fire two Arcane Shots. You may select different targets and choose different Arcane Shot options each time. Presumably you also learn to use some more magic arrows between 3rd and 18th level, but this is D&D so maybe not.

Magic Arrow: at 7th level, when you use Arcane Shot you may make one ranged weapon attack with a longbow or shortbow as a bonus action. This attack counts as magical and does not consume any ammunition.

Curving Shot: as is, but you can apply it to Arcane Shot as well

Ever-Ready Shot: since this is no longer relevant, I would probably replace it with Arcane Shot scaling. Undecided on if it would be better to having damage scaling or effect scaling.

That seems clearly weaker than the already existing Acane Archer. I don't see any reason to nerf the shots by removing their added damage. Giving up 2 attack to fire one arcane shot that does not even have any added damage is horrible action economy. It would make the shots have to compete with just using the attack action and that would make them much more situational than they are now, only being used when you REALLY need the rider effect as you are severely dropping your damage output to pull it off. You would only end up using them as often at most, and probably less, than the current Arcane Archer. I agree with you that the shots, as they are now, are not that crazy powerful. I see no reason that the Arcane Archer could not just simply get more uses per rest, it would be far from overpowered as they could still only be able to use them once per turn and could not nova with them. Perhaps a 3rd use somewhere along the line and a maybe even a 4th at high levels.

[zinycor]

The first thing that comes to mind is increasing the amount of uses of Arcane Shot. Maybe equal to your INT modifier or Proficiency?

This, Arcane shot should be any of these choices or something similar. Also, I would make it so you can alsoapply these abilities to crossbows.

[Yakk]

Those riders are all pretty decent. A 1 turn near-blind, a 1 turn banishment, a 25' diameter no-save 7 damage AOE, 1 turn protect slly, 1 turn weakness, a 23 damage 30' line (dex for half), a "find invisible/hidden" attack, and a 7 damage+7 damage per shove (!) or per turn if you kite a melee (!) or burn an action.

The BM at level 3 doing raw damage is doing 18 per rest and produces weak riders; AA does 14 and gets better riders.

The problem is, while 2 shadow arrows are as strong as 4 BM trips, the shadow arrows are swingier. Only 2 tries, then bumpkus.

The exploding force arrows, if you value AOE at 2 targets, is 28 damage.

The better debuffs of the AA scale more than the BM ones.

BM has 6d12 (39) damage by level 18. AA using boring bursting arrows has 4d6 AOE for 56.

AA also gets to reshoot misses at 7, which is wuite good. And an AA shot at initiative is better than a BM die at initiative.

BM's main edge is in precision attack and riptose, not the raw damage+minor rider ones. Plus BM saves tend to be better.

So, like I said above, if you want Arcane Shots to suck subststnially less, they cannot stack with a full attack routine.

As a bad guy, would you burn a legendary resit against "blind for a turn"? How about "trip, get up on your turn"? The first seems nastier. Or "deal half damage for a turn?" "Take 7 or 14 damage on every shove or move for rest of fight?"

[Kane0]

Fighter Version:
- Leave Arcane Archer Lore and Ever-Ready Shot as-is.
- Change Arcane Shot, Magic Arrow and Curving shot to allow for ranged weapon attack rather than just shortbow/longbow.
- Learn three Shot Options at level 3 instead of two, grant an extra use between rests if you have 15+ Int and/or Wis, and scale +1d6 damage at levels 10 and 18 rather than +2d6 at 18.

Ranger Version:
Level 3: Arcane Archer Lore, Arcane Shot
Level 7: Magic Arrow
Level 11: Curving Shot
Level 15: Blended Arcana

- Arcane Archer Lore and Ever-Ready shot remain as-is
- Change Arcane Shot, Magic Arrow and Curving shot to allow for ranged weapon attack rather than just shortbow/longbow.

Arcane Shot:
Start with three shot options, learning one more at levels 7, 11 and 15. Damage increases by +1d6 at levels 7 and 15. Arcane Shot is used when you make an attack rather than when you hit. When you expend a Ranger spell slot you regain one expended use of Arcane Shot. If this is too weak maybe allow three uses instead of two.

Blended Arcana: When you use your action to cast a Ranger spell you can make a ranged weapon attack using an Arcane Shot as a bonus action.

[Snownine]

Fighter Version:
- Leave Arcane Archer Lore and Ever-Ready Shot as-is.
- Change Arcane Shot, Magic Arrow and Curving shot to allow for ranged weapon attack rather than just shortbow/longbow.
- Learn three Shot Options at level 3 instead of two, grant an extra use between rests if you have 15+ Int and/or Wis, and scale +1d6 damage at levels 10 and 18 rather than +2d6 at 18.

Ranger Version:
Level 3: Arcane Archer Lore, Arcane Shot
Level 7: Magic Arrow
Level 11: Curving Shot
Level 15: Blended Arcana

- Arcane Archer Lore and Ever-Ready shot remain as-is
- Change Arcane Shot, Magic Arrow and Curving shot to allow for ranged weapon attack rather than just shortbow/longbow.

Arcane Shot:
Start with three shot options, learning one more at levels 7, 11 and 15. Damage increases by +1d6 at levels 7 and 15. Arcane Shot is used when you make an attack rather than when you hit. When you expend a Ranger spell slot you regain one expended use of Arcane Shot. If this is too weak maybe allow three uses instead of two.

Blended Arcana: When you use your action to cast a Ranger spell you can make a ranged weapon attack using an Arcane Shot as a bonus action.

Your Fighter version is pretty much what I think the Fighter based Arcane Archer should be as it addresses, what I feel. are the two main issues with the subclass; not enough arcane shot uses per rest and insufficient scaling. I think that single extra shot per rest is all that is needed to get them there on that front as more than that is too much as they are more powerful than the Battlemaster's maneuvers and 2 per short rest is just not quite enough to carry the feel of the magic archer. Likewise the increase in damage for the arcane shots by a step before the 18th level helps with the feeling of progress that the subclass currently lacks.

[Warwick]

That seems clearly weaker than the already existing Acane Archer. I don't see any reason to nerf the shots by removing their added damage. Giving up 2 attack to fire one arcane shot that does not even have any added damage is horrible action economy. It would make the shots have to compete with just using the attack action and that would make them much more situational than they are now, only being used when you REALLY need the rider effect as you are severely dropping your damage output to pull it off. You would only end up using them as often at most, and probably less, than the current Arcane Archer. I agree with you that the shots, as they are now, are not that crazy powerful. I see no reason that the Arcane Archer could not just simply get more uses per rest, it would be far from overpowered as they could still only be able to use them once per turn and could not nova with them. Perhaps a 3rd use somewhere along the line and a maybe even a 4th at high levels.

Most of the arrows had their bonus damage reduced from +2d6 to +1d6, so it's not far off from firing two arrows (the one we cut the bonus damage on was Piercing Arrow, which we ended up reworking significantly). At level 5 it would be: (4.5+4)*2 = 17 for two attacks vs (4.5+3.5+4) = 12 for an Arcane Shot, and at level 7 you get a bonus ranged attack when you fire an Arcane shot, so you actually jump ahead on DPR vs just attacking until your third extra attack. (17 vs 20.5). So that might need to be toned down or reallocated.

I also wouldn't be opposed to just cutting the saves, given that the effects are not especially devastating and you already have to land a ranged attack. I'd rather lean into the trick/magic arrow aspect of the Arcane Shot rather than the ranged smite aspect.

I'm against just expanding uses per short rest because short rests suck for a variety of reasons. I would rather shift to a long rest schedule and expand the number of Shots known and usable per day. If you must keep the short rest schedule, I would give the AA a mix of more powerful and limited Arcane Shot and 'cantrip' arrows they can use at will. IMO the ability to throw out a steady stream of magic arrows is an important part of the aesthetic/fantasy of the AA - otherwise you're just a regular archer with a few pieces of magic ammunition.

[Man_Over_Game]

So you're thinking drop the existing AA entirely and make a new casting-focused Ranger subclass?

That's cool and there's room for it, but then we aren't fixing the AA.

I feel we’re breaking into two different directions here and need to pick which one to focus on for the discussion to progress.

On the one hand we have magic shot focused Fighter.

On the other we have magic focused Ranger, with maybe maybe not some ranged smite feature.

Personally I lean toward the first. I like the idea of a character whose magic is encapsulated in their archery ability. Without worrying about spell slots and spell levels and all that. But then I have stated before I’m just not a fan of D&D’s basic spell system. And I love generating different more flavorful systems. So I am biased here.

I agree that splitting into two directions isn't ideal, but the problem is that there really isn't a distinct path to choose.

On one hand, keeping it a Fighter subclass means we're staying true to the original content.

On the other hand, we already have a weapon specialist that uses magic to enhance their ranged attacks, and that's a class that's already competing with the Fighter in a lot of design areas. Fighters features make them tankier, so why do they get the range-only subclass?

We either have to find a way to create a Fighter AA that isn't redundant (which means starting from scratch), or we have to port it over to the Ranger (which means starting almost from scratch). Honestly, the AA is probably the hardest of the subclass to remake, if only because WotC screwed up by adding it in the first place. Most of these effects could have just been done as an expansion to Ranger spells.

In fact, you could probably easily turn all of these into Ranger-spell-equivalents, give the Fighter AA some Long Rest Spell Slots and access to these Ranger spells, and that's basically the entire subclass.

That's not targeted towards you, just meant as a means to show how redundant/replaceable the Arcane Archer is, and how dumb WotC was in developing it. So my opinion is that if we're going to do it right, we gotta burn it to the ground and decide what the Arcane Archer SHOULD do, and then find the best way of making it happen.

For me, that's a martial class that thinks like a caster, which is why my solution involved just making a Ranger focused on their on-hit spells. Take out almost all ranged requirements, if only because ranged attacks are almost always going to be the default to begin with (as the Ranger has more support for it, look how Monster Slayer is range-neutral yet it clearly is better as a ranged build). If we're going to keep it as a Fighter, I think it has to play like one (which was what the "Rune Knight" concept was for on the first post).

What do you guys think it should be doing, and would be better on the Ranger or Fighter?

[Yakk]

The Ranger is already an "Arcane" archer. It would be like having a "Fightperson" subclass to the Fighter.

[MrStabby]

We either have to find a way to create a Fighter AA that isn't redundant (which means starting from scratch), or we have to port it over to the Ranger (which means starting almost from scratch). Honestly, the AA is probably the hardest of the subclass to remake, if only because WotC screwed up by adding it in the first place. Most of these effects could have just been done as an expansion to Ranger spells.


I disagree that it has to be the ranger. As I mentioned before there are advantages to other options. My preference is the Sorcerer:

1) The sorcerer provides enough "arcane" to tick that box
2) The sorcerer is missing a martial subclass unlikethe warlock, bard and wizard
3) Martial abilities onthe sorcerer would aleviate some of the pressure on spells known
4) There would be less of an overlap with the core of the class or clash with other subclasses than you get with a fighter or a ranger
5) Because the class already has two resources (SP and spell slots) it is easier to give generously in the special ability department as it can be balanced against resources used; on a cless with fewer resources you either need to add resources or have the subclass not see too much use or have it imballanced.

[Man_Over_Game]

I disagree that it has to be the ranger. As I mentioned before there are advantages to other options. My preference is the Sorcerer:

1) The sorcerer provides enough "arcane" to tick that box
2) The sorcerer is missing a martial subclass unlikethe warlock, bard and wizard
3) Martial abilities onthe sorcerer would aleviate some of the pressure on spells known
4) There would be less of an overlap with the core of the class or clash with other subclasses than you get with a fighter or a ranger
5) Because the class already has two resources (SP and spell slots) it is easier to give generously in the special ability department as it can be balanced against resources used; on a cless with fewer resources you either need to add resources or have the subclass not see too much use or have it imballanced.

That's a pretty smart idea, and I think it's darn cool, I think the trick would be figuring out how to make it without having the opposite problem. We don't want "Fighter that pretends to be a Ranger", but we also don't want "Caster that pretends to be a Ranger". Maybe I'm not clever enough to see it, but I can't imagine a solution that isn't reminiscent of the Ranger.

I do agree that the Sorcerer needs a martial subclass, I just imagined it as more of a super-magical Eldritch Knight/Paladin thing that used the Sorcerer's plethora of melee spells efficiently (as there's often not a reason to cast anything but Booming Blade). Making it a ranged combatant, when considering the Stone Sorcerer already exists as UA, and there are no supporting proficiencies for the Sorcerer as-is, would mean it'd be a bigger jump than using either the Fighter or the Ranger, not to mention that the Sorcerer doesn't have many spells that work for a ranged weapon attacker. It'd be almost harder than starting from scratch, as we'd literally have to write a Sorcerer subclass that makes it less of a Sorcerer.

[Kane0]

We either have to find a way to create a Fighter AA that isn't redundant (which means starting from scratch), or we have to port it over to the Ranger (which means starting almost from scratch). Honestly, the AA is probably the hardest of the subclass to remake, if only because WotC screwed up by adding it in the first place. Most of these effects could have just been done as an expansion to Ranger spells.

In fact, you could probably easily turn all of these into Ranger-spell-equivalents, give the Fighter AA some Long Rest Spell Slots and access to these Ranger spells, and that's basically the entire subclass.


Hold up, didn’t we just have a couple threads essentially pointing out that we can have magic that isnt spells and spell slots?

[Spiritchaser]

I disagree that it has to be the ranger. As I mentioned before there are advantages to other options. My preference is the Sorcerer:

1) The sorcerer provides enough "arcane" to tick that box
2) The sorcerer is missing a martial subclass unlikethe warlock, bard and wizard
3) Martial abilities onthe sorcerer would aleviate some of the pressure on spells known
4) There would be less of an overlap with the core of the class or clash with other subclasses than you get with a fighter or a ranger
5) Because the class already has two resources (SP and spell slots) it is easier to give generously in the special ability department as it can be balanced against resources used; on a cless with fewer resources you either need to add resources or have the subclass not see too much use or have it imballanced.

I agree that there’s room for a sorcerer with a martial focus and extra attack.

I agree that this could work with bows, and that there’s no reason not to allow that option, however:

Even though sorcerer casting is limited by an inexcusably restricted spell list, it is still a very capable full caster. What would compel such a character to plunk away with a bow when they have such power at their disposal?

Bladesinger obviously works, but very few bladesingers actually use their extra attacks choose to stay in melee. Those that do are typically working shadow blade pretty hard.

Could there be a ranged version of shadow blade that remained balanced for other characters as well?

This isn’t my favourite fix for the “arcane archer” but it is a character I would want to play.

[MrStabby]

That's a pretty smart idea, and I think it's darn cool, I think the trick would be figuring out how to make it without having the opposite problem. We don't want "Fighter that pretends to be a Ranger", but we also don't want "Caster that pretends to be a Ranger". Maybe I'm not clever enough to see it, but I can't imagine a solution that isn't reminiscent of the Ranger.

I do agree that the Sorcerer needs a martial subclass, I just imagined it as more of a super-magical Eldritch Knight/Paladin thing that used the Sorcerer's plethora of melee spells efficiently (as there's often not a reason to cast anything but Booming Blade). Making it a ranged combatant, when considering the Stone Sorcerer already exists as UA, and there are no supporting proficiencies for the Sorcerer as-is, would mean it'd be a bigger jump than using either the Fighter or the Ranger, not to mention that the Sorcerer doesn't have many spells that work for a ranged weapon attacker. It'd be almost harder than starting from scratch, as we'd literally have to write a Sorcerer subclass that makes it less of a Sorcerer.

So depending on power/balance... I could see things like:

Level 1 - proficiency in all bows and archery fighting style

Level 6 - extra attack

Level 14 - advantage on attacks with a bow against any target subject to a spell you are concentrating on

Level 18 - can make an attack with a bow as a bonus action whenever you cast a spell as an action.


Given the potential interaction with quicken spell metamagic and the relief this places on spell slots I would think this would be a pretty powerful subclass. Still primarily a sorcerer but able to conserve resources for some big rounds when needed.

[Man_Over_Game]

So depending on power/balance... I could see things like:
[...]
Hold up, didn’t we just have a couple threads essentially pointing out that we can have magic that isnt spells and spell slots?

Sure, but that non-spell magic usually provides something that spells don't/can't. It bypasses a limitation, usually to better support a specific playstyle niche.

In this case, though, adding on-hit ranged magical weapon attacks with conditions that you have limited resources for...directly competes with a major Ranger mechanic.

You don't make Warlocks/Wizards/Druids more generic by using the Storm Herald mechanics, but you do make Rangers more generic by using the Arcane Archer mechanics.

What's more is that most of those AA effects already exist. Just compare Grasping Shot with Ensnaring Strike, and there's really no justified reason to have Arcane Shots as anything other than Ranger spells, except for the "just cuz" defense.

Just for reference, here's a list of what I mean:

Hunter's Mark: Extra 1d6 damage on target hit and they're easier to track for an hour.
Hail of Thorns: Next ranged weapon attack explodes for 1d10 damage, 5ft radius from target.
Ensnaring Strike: Next weapon attack Restrains the target, needs a Strength check to break. Deals 1d6 on their turn while Restrained.
Conjure Barrage: Shoot a 60ft cone of shots for 3d6 damage, consumes one ammunition.
Lightning Arrow: Next ranged weapon attack deals 4d6 damage, and splashes in a 10ft radius for another 2d6.
Flame Arrows: Next 12 shots deal a bonus 1d6 fire damage.
Conjure Volley: Shoot a piece of ammunition, it multiplies into a 40ft radius for 8d8 damage
Swift Quiver: Infinite ranged ammo for the duration, and can fire two shots as a Bonus Action.

These are all effects that you could see the Arcane Archer doing, yet the reverse is also true.

On moving away from the Ranger, it's not necessarily the question of "Why can't", but just "Why"?

[Yakk]

Well, a spell that grants "EB like" damage output wouldn't be unreasonable.

Level 1 spell. "Energy Bow".

S,M(ranged weapon with the ammunition property)
Duration: 1 minute

The weapon no longer requires ammunition. Select a damage type (force, radiant, fire, cold, acid). As an action, you can use the weapon to make a ranged spell attack, using the long range of the weapon, dealing 2d8 if one handed, or 2d10 damage if two handed, of the chosen type.

At higher levels:
If you use a 3rd level slot, you can do 2 ranged spell attacks as an action, and the duration becomes 10 minutes.
If you use a 6th level slot, you can do 3 ranged spell attacks as an action, and the duration becomes 2 hours.
If you use a 9th level slot, you can do 4 ranged spell attacks as an action, and the duration becomes 16 hours.

[Amechra]

Sure, but that magic provides something that spells usually don't. It bypasses a limitation, usually to better support a specific playstyle niche.

In this case, though, adding on-hit ranged magic attacks with conditions that you have limited resources for...directly competes with a major Ranger mechanic.

You don't make Warlocks more generic by making the Storm Herald mechanics, but you do make Rangers more generic by making the Arcane Archer mechanics.

What's more is that most of those AA effects already exist. Just compare Grasping Shot with Entangling Shot, and there's really no justified reason to have Arcane Shots as anything other than Ranger spells, except for the "just cuz" defense.

OK, so if we make Arcane Shots into spells... what does the AA have other than Arcane Shots? And are those enough to build a subclass around?

3rd: A single utility cantrip.
7th: Your arrows count as magical. You can spend a bonus action to reroll a missed attack with a magic arrow against a different target.

That's it. That's everything they get that isn't just progressing Arcane Shot. No wonder we can't decide on what to do with it - there isn't really anything there.

¹ Am I the only one who's a little annoyed that the Arcane Archer, Battlemaster, and Four-Elements Monk all "waste" subclass levels on progressing their "special" techniques, while Arcane Trickster and Eldritch Knight automatically upgrade their spellcasting and get new features at every single subclass level?

[Dienekes]

I agree that splitting into two directions isn't ideal, but the problem is that there really isn't a distinct path to choose.

On one hand, keeping it a Fighter subclass means we're staying true to the original content.

On the other hand, we already have a weapon specialist that uses magic to enhance their ranged attacks, and that's a class that's already competing with the Fighter in a lot of design areas. Fighters features make them tankier, so why do they get the range-only subclass?

We either have to find a way to create a Fighter AA that isn't redundant (which means starting from scratch), or we have to port it over to the Ranger (which means starting almost from scratch). Honestly, the AA is probably the hardest of the subclass to remake, if only because WotC screwed up by adding it in the first place. Most of these effects could have just been done as an expansion to Ranger spells.

In fact, you could probably easily turn all of these into Ranger-spell-equivalents, give the Fighter AA some Long Rest Spell Slots and access to these Ranger spells, and that's basically the entire subclass.

That's not targeted towards you, just meant as a means to show how redundant/replaceable the Arcane Archer is, and how dumb WotC was in developing it. So my opinion is that if we're going to do it right, we gotta burn it to the ground and decide what the Arcane Archer SHOULD do, and then find the best way of making it happen.

For me, that's a martial class that thinks like a caster, which is why my solution involved just making a Ranger focused on their on-hit spells. Take out almost all ranged requirements, if only because ranged attacks are almost always going to be the default to begin with (as the Ranger has more support for it, look how Monster Slayer is range-neutral yet it clearly is better as a ranged build). If we're going to keep it as a Fighter, I think it has to play like one (which was what the "Rune Knight" concept was for on the first post).

What do you guys think it should be doing, and would be better on the Ranger or Fighter?

I believe this might be our disconnect. Since archer that uses magic is so very broad in my mind making it mechanically distinct is worthy enough to make a subclass. Or for me. Any means of getting to do cool things with weapons is grand and if I don’t have to interact with vancian magic at all, so much the better. So here is magic archer where you don’t.

Now preferably it is designed in such a way to take advantage of fighters other benefits. Which is where I think current AA falls down some. Having a way to make magic arrows work better with fighters Multiattacks. Or something would improve the subclass immensely.

Now you have a point that fighter is very tanky for an archer. And if this was a fighting game that’d be a problem. I’d have frontliners all have d10, Skirmishers d8, and backline d6. And there’d be no way to change that. But it’s not and fighter being a great archer is nothing new. It’s just something the system has baked in.


The Ranger is already an "Arcane" archer. It would be like having a "Fightperson" subclass to the Fighter.

In fairness here. They did do that. They just called it Champion. Or Battlemaster.

[Man_Over_Game]

OK, so if we make Arcane Shots into spells... what does the AA have other than Arcane Shots? And are those enough to build a subclass around?

3rd: A single utility cantrip.
7th: Your arrows count as magical. You can spend a bonus action to reroll a missed attack with a magic arrow against a different target.

That's it. That's everything they get that isn't just progressing Arcane Shot. No wonder we can't decide on what to do with it - there isn't really anything there.

¹ Am I the only one who's a little annoyed that the Arcane Archer, Battlemaster, and Four-Elements Monk all "waste" subclass levels on progressing their "special" techniques, while Arcane Trickster and Eldritch Knight automatically upgrade their spellcasting and get new features at every single subclass level?

This is kinda why I had a defeatist attitude on it from post #1. I didn't really think about the AA seriously until I started the thread, but...uh, it's just kinda bad content. It directly contradicts the streamlined design strategy of 5e, like they just wanted to fill up a book with more content

It's the same reason I'm frustrated with XGtE content altogether, now that enough time has passed to look at it objectively. There's not anything that shows the developmental depth of the Battlemaster, the Moon Druid, the Divination Wizard, or the Shadow Monk. Most of it boils down to "We want a class that does X", without really thinking about what it adds to the game (like how Samurai is just a better Champion, Hexblades removed 4 EB builds to make 1, and Scout doesn't do anything other than be a Rogue with a Ranger dip).

Other than the Drunken Master and some other subclasses that were in UAs or other books, most of the content feels like really simple stuff that someone could have homebrewed just as easily. In fact, I've seen more well thought-out content from our own Subclass Homebrew competitions.


I believe this might be our disconnect. Since archer that uses magic is so very broad in my mind making it mechanically distinct is worthy enough to make a subclass. Or for me. Any means of getting to do cool things with weapons is grand and if I don’t have to interact with vancian magic at all, so much the better. So here is magic archer where you don’t.

Now preferably it is designed in such a way to take advantage of fighters other benefits. Which is where I think current AA falls down some. Having a way to make magic arrows work better with fighters Multiattacks. Or something would improve the subclass immensely.

Now you have a point that fighter is very tanky for an archer. And if this was a fighting game that’d be a problem. I’d have frontliners all have d10, Skirmishers d8, and backline d6. And there’d be no way to change that. But it’s not and fighter being a great archer is nothing new. It’s just something the system has baked in.

I do agree that the concept can be very broad, and that the solution doesn't have to use Vancian-style magic.

I do not think that it should use the same style of magic-archery power-shots as Rangers, as we already have that. Similarly, Samurais and Barbarians have a similar "Press this button to win with weapon attacks" mechanic, but they're different enough to be justified and develop their own means of branching into their unique mechanics as they progress. Copying the Ranger's homework and then doing more of the same isn't working around that problem. It acts as Warlock Spell Slots with Vancian-style Recharging, so it really all that different from Vancian Casting - at least not enough for that to be the Arcane Archer's justification for doing it.

And, no offense, but limiting the Fighter to having half of its valid playstyles just seems like a wrong idea. No other class does the same. The Ranger does function as a melee character, yes, but it doesn't have quite the same support as the Fighter in that regard (fewer melee-specific Fighting Styles, fewer defensive features in both Core and Subclass, more ranged spells vs. melee, etc. Even classes like the Sun Soul Monk, Bladesinger Wizard, and Moon Druid still provide soft benefits for the original class playstyle even if both can't be used at once. For example, a Moon Druid saves spell slots for Druid Form by fighting in Beast Form, and a Sun Soul Monk that can't spend Ki on Sun Soul subclass powers has more Ki for Stunning Strike. However, fighting at Range doesn't really utilize your Second Wind any better (as it means that someone else is usually taking the hits instead of you, while you'd probably take the hits better), and fighting in melee doesn't really improve your Arcane Archer features in any way.

[MrStabby]

There is a real challenge to avoid profound overlap as a fighter.

Cant be a fighter with a little arcane magic as it then steps on the toes of Eldritch Knight.

Cant be a fighter that inflicts debuffs/effects on a hit without stepping on the toes of the battlemaster.

It cant be a boring low power class or it steps on the toes of the champion.


Monk might be an option. DeX based class. Has a casting stat. Using Ki to power arrows...

[Man_Over_Game]

There is a real challenge to avoid profound overlap as a fighter.

Cant be a fighter with a little arcane magic as it then steps on the toes of Eldritch Knight.

Cant be a fighter that inflicts debuffs/effects on a hit without stepping on the toes of the battlemaster.

It cant be a boring low power class or it steps on the toes of the champion.


Monk might be an option. DeX based class. Has a casting stat. Using Ki to power arrows...

Monk's not a bad idea at all, but, well, you kinda start getting into a weird design space between Kensei and Four Elements.

I had similar thoughts you do. There is a little bit of wiggle-room when using the Fighter chassis, as full-turn buffs that interact on weapon hits. Similar to the Samurai in concept, but a bit more complex and a bit less generic. The Samurai basically is just a less complex Battlemaster, so having a Fighter option that makes your choices carry more weight while having a bit more versatility could be pretty dang cool.

That was my original idea for a Fighter AA replacement on the original post, as a sort of Rune Knight:
Pick 2 out of 4 runes on a Short Rest, you can invoke each one once between each Short Rest, and each use gives you benefits and penalties when activated to change your combat style for 1 round.

Earth knocks enemies prone, reduces your Speed, gives THP.
Air makes you fly 5 feet and push an enemy backwards when you hit them while also causing Ranged attacks against you to have Disadvantage.
Fire makes attacks from and against you to deal 1d4 fire damage to creatures adjacent to the target while giving you Resistance to Fire Damage,
Water lets you move to another ally or enemy within 10 feet without OAs whenever you attack, granting THP equal to Fighter level when doing so to the ally or yourself. Moving to an enemy gives you the option of dealing the THP as damage if you already have the THP.

Same sort of on-hit powers as the AA, naturally scales with the Fighter's Extra Attacks, and it doesn't overlap with anything that already exists. More than that, though, is that it fills a mechanical void of a Fighter that's inherently difficult to play perfectly, and solving a problem should probably be the goal of adding any content, I think. It at least sounds fun to someone like me, and is probably the only idea I could come up with that doesn't have the dead ends you mention without moving away from the Fighter.

There are obviously other solutions someone can come up with while using the Fighter, but I think there's not too many other openings for something that's "Arcane Archer-esc" that doesn't just repeat the same problems.

[MrStabby]

Monk's not a bad idea at all, but, well, you kinda start getting into a weird design space between Kensei and Four Elements.

I had similar thoughts you do. There is a little bit of wiggle-room when using the Fighter chassis, as full-turn buffs that interact on weapon hits. Similar to the Samurai in concept, but a bit more complex and a bit less generic. The Samurai basically is just a less complex Battlemaster, so having a Fighter option that makes your choices carry more weight while having a bit more versatility could be pretty dang cool.

That was my original idea for a Fighter AA replacement on the original post, as a sort of Rune Knight:
Pick 1 out of 4 runes on a Short Rest, you can invoke it twice between each Short Rest, and each use gives you benefits and penalties when activated to change your combat style for 1 round.

Earth knocks enemies prone, reduces your Speed, gives THP.
Air makes you fly 5 feet and push an enemy backwards when you hit them while also causing Ranged attacks against you to have Disadvantage.
Fire makes attacks from and against you to deal 1d4 fire damage to creatures adjacent to the target while giving you Resistance to Fire Damage,
Water lets you move to another ally or enemy within 10 feet without OAs whenever you attack, granting THP equal to Fighter level when doing so to the ally or yourself.

Same sort of on-hit powers as the AA, naturally scales with the Fighter's Extra Attacks, and it doesn't overlap with anything that already exists. More than that, though, is that it fills a mechanical void of a Fighter that's inherently difficult to play perfectly, and solving a problem should probably be the goal of adding any content, I think.

I think the wigle room is, as you say "little". Now I have no doubt you could fit a couple in here that dont overlap with the battlemaster in what they do or the role (debuff/effect on hit), but can you engineer enough different effects that they dont heavily overlap with themselves and dont overlap too much with the BM/EK but are still a rich fulfilling subclass?

I just cant see the space being rich enough for this. I mean "on a hit save of some kind or target gets attacks against them made with advantage" type effects are going to get stale if used on too many fighter classes. Likewise with save or forced movement or similar.

[Edea]

Maybe have it as a bard college?

[Man_Over_Game]

I think the wigle room is, as you say "little". Now I have no doubt you could fit a couple in here that dont overlap with the battlemaster in what they do or the role (debuff/effect on hit), but can you engineer enough different effects that they dont heavily overlap with themselves and dont overlap too much with the BM/EK but are still a rich fulfilling subclass?

I just cant see the space being rich enough for this. I mean "on a hit save of some kind or target gets attacks against them made with advantage" type effects are going to get stale if used on too many fighter classes. Likewise with save or forced movement or similar.

Fact is, the Fighter's schtick is "I attack 1-4 times" and "I attack twice as much on turn 1", the rest being "I attack better" (Fighting Style), or "I die less" (Second Wind, Indomitable).

No matter how you look at it, every "Fighter" subclass feature basically needs to revolve around on-hit effects.

The missing element is "How". Samurais, Battlemasters, Cavalier, and Champions all have risk-free features that are 100% as valuable as they can possibly be at the point of choosing/using them, as they're either guaranteed advantages (Battlemaster uses resources after hit is confirmed, Samurai gets Advantage on Attacks and THP, impossible to use wrong), and even picking a bad Battlemaster Maneuver on levelup just means you're spending more for one that is relevant. Eldritch Knight, while not really in the on-hit department, is really the only one that carries any risk, with Concentration Spells and possible bad spell picks, but..well, how bad can you be with just spamming all of your spell slots on Shield? And that's before considering other spell that may be more relevant!

Risk is a big missing element to the existing Fighter's On-Hit options. Could be more, but I can't think of any. Heck, just working around "Risk" while working on the Arcane Shots would be almost enough to distance it from the Ranger, if we wanted to keep it true to the original AA.

Nothing but Barbarian's Reckless Attack and Berserker's Frenzy really has the same sense of "You may use this incorrectly" in any of the Martial content, thinking about it. It's a design space that really needs more attention, which is kinda funny. Without it, it basically means most Martials can be automated in combat with just a few lines of code (which is certainly how I've felt whenever playing them):

50% HP: Use self-defense feature.
50% HP: Use Healing Potion.
25% HP: Disengage and retreat, or Dodge if retreat is implausible.
More than 50% of enemy total HP remain: Use offensive resources.
Attack (all attacks attempt to avoid OAs and only target creatures within range):

Attack an enemy mage.
Attack an enemy that's adjacent to an ally that has less HP than you.
Attack the enemy that has the lowest HP.
Move to the closest enemy.



Besides a few exceptions, that's basically how most Martial combat is to play perfectly.

[MrStabby]

Fact is, the Fighter's schtick is "I attack 1-4 times" and "I attack twice as much on turn 1", the rest being "I attack better" (Fighting Style), or "I die less" (Second Wind, Indomitable).

No matter how you look at it, every "Fighter" subclass feature basically needs to revolve around on-hit effects.

The missing element is "How". Samurais, Battlemasters, Cavalier, and Champions all have risk-free features that are 100% as valuable as they can possibly be at the point of choosing/using them, as they're either guaranteed advantages (Battlemaster uses resources after hit is confirmed, Samurai gets Advantage on Attacks and THP, impossible to use wrong), and even picking a bad Battlemaster Maneuver on levelup just means you're spending more for one that is relevant. Eldritch Knight, while not really in the on-hit department, is really the only one that carries any risk, with Concentration Spells and possible bad spell picks, but..well, how bad can you be with just spamming all of your spell slots on Shield? And that's before considering other spell that may be more relevant!

Risk is a big missing element to the existing Fighter's On-Hit options. Could be more, but I can't think of any.

Oh, I implicitly agree. This narrow thing is why there is only so many fighter classes you can really get without some problematic overlap... hence I think it becomes increasingly evident that the fighter doesnt really have the space to fit it in and we should be looking at other classes. Looking at classes where it makes for a somewhat different play style.

[Amechra]

Nothing but Barbarian's Reckless Attack and Berserker's Frenzy really has the same sense of "You may use this incorrectly" in any of the Martial content, thinking about it. It's a design space that really needs more attention, which is kinda funny. Without it, it basically means most Martials can be automated in combat with just a few lines of code (which is certainly how I've felt whenever playing them):

50% HP: Use self-defense feature.
50% HP: Use Healing Potion.
25% HP: Disengage and retreat, or Dodge if retreat is implausible.
More than 50% of enemy total HP remain: Use offensive resources.
Attack (all attacks attempt to avoid OAs and only target creatures within range):

Attack an enemy mage.
Attack an enemy that's adjacent to an ally that has less HP than you.
Attack the enemy that has the lowest HP.
Move to the closest enemy.



Besides a few exceptions, that's basically how most Martial combat is to play perfectly.

It doesn't help that a lot of the feats that people claim give martial characters more options just push you towards doing a specific thing every turn:

Polearm Expert, Shield Master, or Tavern Brawler? Your Bonus Action feature requires you to take the Attack action, pushing you towards just attacking over and over.
Great Weapon Master/Sharpshooter? You can make an excel spreadsheet that tells you the exact times to use the "attack-for-damage" tradeoff.

---

I think that the Monk also falls under the "you may use this incorrectly" category, at least on the larger scale. The Monk really wants you to be aware of where everyone is on the battlefield, and blowing through your Ki at the wrong time can seriously screw you over. You're a melee fighter without a Barbarian's HP or a Fighter/Paladin's early high AC, and that means you can't relax and let yourself be surrounded.

[Man_Over_Game]

I think that the Monk also falls under the "you may use this incorrectly" category, at least on the larger scale. The Monk really wants you to be aware of where everyone is on the battlefield, and blowing through your Ki at the wrong time can seriously screw you over. You're a melee fighter without a Barbarian's HP or a Fighter/Paladin's early high AC, and that means you can't relax and let yourself be surrounded.

I think part of that might just be the Monk having a lot of buttons to push. Just removing Step of the Wind makes the Monk a lot simpler and still play with almost 100% efficiency. Don't get me wrong, I like the Monk, I just wish it had a few more meaningful decisions other than "Attack more" or "Move more".

However, something like Reckless Attack encourages tough decision-making without needing a bunch of features to choose from (that doesn't stop people from dumb-firing it but those folks usually aren't doing it because it's overly efficient, they do it because they think it is).

I only mention this because the Fighter has a sort of trend towards having few things to track, and I think having a long list of options like the Arcane Archer makes it kinda contradictory towards what most players want when playing the Fighter. Having to memorize your 12 unique Arcane Shots, just to use them twice a day, just feels really obnoxious.

We can up the risk/complexity, without a laundry list of features, by just making each option come with penalties. Or if not penalties, forced changes to the environmental situation that are occasionally detrimental (like a forced push against your target on hit).

[KorvinStarmast]

So you're thinking drop the existing AA entirely and make a new casting-focused Ranger subclass? That would be an improvement.

Let's Fix: The Arcane Archer
My fix is like the key I have on my PC keyboard: Delete. :smallbiggrin:

[Kane0]

That was my original idea for a Fighter AA replacement on the original post, as a sort of Rune Knight:
Pick 2 out of 4 runes on a Short Rest, you can invoke each one once between each Short Rest, and each use gives you benefits and penalties when activated to change your combat style for 1 round.

Earth knocks enemies prone, reduces your Speed, gives THP.
Air makes you fly 5 feet and push an enemy backwards when you hit them while also causing Ranged attacks against you to have Disadvantage.
Fire makes attacks from and against you to deal 1d4 fire damage to creatures adjacent to the target while giving you Resistance to Fire Damage,
Water lets you move to another ally or enemy within 10 feet without OAs whenever you attack, granting THP equal to Fighter level when doing so to the ally or yourself. Moving to an enemy gives you the option of dealing the THP as damage if you already have the THP.

Same sort of on-hit powers as the AA, naturally scales with the Fighter's Extra Attacks, and it doesn't overlap with anything that already exists. More than that, though, is that it fills a mechanical void of a Fighter that's inherently difficult to play perfectly, and solving a problem should probably be the goal of adding any content, I think. It at least sounds fun to someone like me, and is probably the only idea I could come up with that doesn't have the dead ends you mention without moving away from the Fighter.

There are obviously other solutions someone can come up with while using the Fighter, but I think there's not too many other openings for something that's "Arcane Archer-esc" that doesn't just repeat the same problems.

Not sure why a penalty as part of each rune would be necessary, but more importantly i'd prefer to keep the schools of magic than swap over to elements. Otherwise each one functioning for your whole turn on it's own per-rest cooldown sounds like a much better fit for the fighter.

[MrStabby]

Not sure why a penalty as part of each rune would be necessary, but more importantly i'd prefer to keep the schools of magic than swap over to elements. Otherwise each one functioning for your whole turn on it's own per-rest cooldown sounds like a much better fit for the fighter.

I think I agree. The schools of magic is a nice theme. Personally I would like it if you were restricted to two schools but that there were 3 or 4 ability options within each school. Possibly including some non-arrow abilities.

[Man_Over_Game]

Not sure why a penalty as part of each rune would be necessary, but more importantly i'd prefer to keep the schools of magic than swap over to elements. Otherwise each one functioning for your whole turn on it's own per-rest cooldown sounds like a much better fit for the fighter.

I wasn't trying to necessarily focus on the "penalty" part, but instead focus on the "you can do this wrong" part.

For example, weaving through your allies between ranged attacks for the Water form to grant them easy THP makes sense...until you consider that allies create Cover against your ranged attacks, so you could be screwing up your attack accuracy if you are dumb about it, and dashing too far hard into the enemy team for bonus damage can be equally as punishing.

Flying 5 feet in a direction and knocking the target back doesn't sound all too bad, but that means that your positioning matters a lot more than it normally would if you have plans for keeping them within a certain radius of an environmental effect.

Mostly, it was just to cut down on the "careless" factor. I'm not against the 12 schools of magic concept, but having a long list of unique powers to only use them a couple of times was a distinct problem of the Arcane Archer. Lots of bookkeeping, for...what? +1d6 or whatever damage and some random conditional rider?

This worked for the Battlemaster, because almost all of them used the same formula: Add 1d8 damage to an attack, add a boon to the attack or a condition against your enemy. Of the 16 maneuvers, the only ones that don't follow that pattern are:

Commander's Strike
Evasive Footwork
Maneuvering Attack
Parry
Precise Attack (just adds Superiority Die to attack instead of damage).
Rally
Riposte

And most players could probably guess half of those accurately without looking them up. Maneuvers are simple and consistent. This speeds up play since you no longer need to reference the book midcombat. It's the reason Battlemaster players play Battlemasters instead of Rangers.

4 elements, that you chose two of, each day, is fine to remember.

But having 12 options leads into a few problems:

If you leave them simple to make them easy to memorize, and you can use all of them, they're likely dumbfire options that don't require any level of thinking to use properly (similarly to Action Surge). This doesn't appeal to the kind of player that enjoys bookkeeping (caster players), and doesn't do much differently than the Battlemaster.
If you make them difficult and complex to use properly, but you can use all of them, you now require constant lookup of all of your powers and makes them impossible to memorize, which doesn't make anyone happy.
If you have them complex, but you only have to pick a few to make things easier to memorize, you have a similar issue with the Arcane Archer where you make a ton of content that the player now feels they're missing out on.

I could see a solution where they're easy to remember, but complex to use, but that'd be hard to perfect. Things like "Shadow Mode makes you Invisible for the round, but you can't see more than 15 feet away", "Divinity Mode allows you to have Truesight out to 30 feet, and roll 1d20 for your Divinity Die. Whenever a creature within 30 feet rolls for an attack or a saving throw, you can choose to use to replace it with your Divinity Die and keep it as your new Divinity Die", etc.

[Yakk]

Another revision. I boosted damage of the shots mainly, and tightened up some wording.

The shots are not balanced so that starting at level 5, the DPR of doing an arcane shot matches the DPR of attacking an 18 AC target without advantage.

Arcane Archer

Arcane Archer Lore
No change.

Elemental Ammunition
At 3rd level, you learn how to imbue your ammunition with magical energy. At the end of a rest or as an action, you can pick an energy types from poison, force, acid, fire, radiant, cold, thunder, lightning.

Whenever you hit a creature with ammunition from a ranged attack, it takes 1d4 additional damage of that energy type, and your arrows are considered magical for the purpose of overcoming damage resistance.

The ammunition you imbue loses its property if you aren't the one who shoots it.

On a critical hit on a target not immune to the damage type, an extra effect occurs on the target:
Fire: The target takes 1d6 fire damage at the end of their turn. If repeated, the damage increases by 1d6 each time. This continues until the creature or someone adjacent to it uses an action to put out the fire.
Force: The target is pushed by 1' for every 1 point of damage the attack deals.
Cold: The target has its move speed halved until the end of your next turn.
Lighting: The target is unable to take reactions until the end of your next turn.
Thunder: The target is deafened until the end of their next turn. The next attack against them while they are deafened has advantage.
Poison: The target had disadvantage on the next attack they make before the end of your next turn.
Acid: The target takes 4 acid damage at the start of each of their turns. Each time they take such damage, the amount of damage they take next time halves (round down). Additional crits add another 4 damage to the start of the next turn. As an action with at least a flask of water you can rinse away the acid and halve the damage taken next turn. Creatures made of water, or in water, have their damage reduced to 0 after they take it.

This is our bread-and-butter damage attack. Crits are a fun ribbon.

Arcane Shot
You learn two Arcane Shot options of your choice. You can use each of them twice as an action before taking a long or short rest. Use the range of your weapon with the ammunition property.

You learn a new Arcane Shot at 10th, 15th and 18th level. (this gives you more uses)

Banishing Shot. You use abjuration magic to try to temporarily banish your target to a harmless location in the Feywild. The creature shot by the arrow must also succeed on a Charisma saving throw or be banished. While banished in this way, its speed is 0, and it is incapacitated. At the end of its next turn, the target reappears in the space it vacated or in the nearest unoccupied space if that space is occupied. If the creature is native to the Feywild, it may choose not to return. In either case, it regains its speed and is no longer incapacitated.

After you reach 5th level in this class, a target also takes 2d8 force damage when shot, increasing to 4d8 at level 11 and 6d8 at level 17 in this class.

Beguiling Shot. Your enchantment magic causes this arrow to temporarily beguile its target. The creature targeted by the shot takes 2d8 psychic damage, and choose one of your allies within 30 feet of the target. The target must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw, or it is charmed by the chosen ally until the start of your next turn. This effect ends early if the chosen ally attacks the charmed target, deals damage to it, or forces it to make a saving throw.

The psychic damage increases to 4d8 at 5th level, 6d8 at 11th level and 8d8 at 17th level in this class.

Bursting Shot. You imbue your shot with force energy drawn from the school of evocation. The shot detonates on top of the creature. The creature and all other creatures within 10 feet of it must make a dexterity saving throw or take 2d8 force damage. On a success, they instead take half damage.

The force damage increases to 4d8 at 5th level, 6d8 at 11th level and 8d8 at 17th level in this class.

Enfeebling Shot. You weave necromantic magic into your arrow. The creature targeted by the shot takes 2d8 necrotic damage. The target must also succeed on a Constitution saving throw, or the damage dealt by its weapon attacks is halved until the start of your next turn.

The necrotic damage increases to 4d8 at 5th level, 6d8 at 11th level and 8d8 at 17th level in this class.

Grasping Shot. When this shot strikes its target, conjuration magic creates grasping, poisonous brambles, which wrap around the target. The creature targeted by shot takes 2d8 poison damage, and it must make a strength saving throw or have its speed reduced by 10 feet and takes 2d8 slashing damage the first time on each turn it moves 1 foot or more without teleporting. The target or any creature that can reach it can use its action to remove the brambles with a successful Strength (Athletics) check against your Arcane Shot save DC. Otherwise, the brambles last for 1 minute or until you use this option again.

The poison damage and slashing damage both increase to 4d8 at 5th level, 6d8 at 11th level and 8d8 at 17th level in this class.

Piercing Shot. You use transmutation magic to give your shot an ethereal quality. You fire the shot forward in a line, which is 1 foot wide and 50 feet long, before disappearing. The shot passes harmlessly through objects, ignoring cover. Each creature in that line must make a Dexterity saving throw. On a failed save, a creature takes damage as if it were hit by a shot from your weapon, plus an extra 1d8 piercing damage. On a successful save, a target takes half as much damage.

The extra piercing damage increases to 3d8 at 5th level, 5d8 at 11th level and 7d8 at 17th level in this class.

Seeking Shot. Using divination magic, you grant your shot the ability to seek out your target, allowing the shot to curve and twist its path in search of its prey. Choose one creature you have seen in the past minute. The shot flies toward that creature, moving around corners if necessary and ignoring three-quarters cover and half cover. If the target is within the weapon’s range and there is a path large enough for the shot to travel to the target, the target must make a Dexterity saving throw. On a failed save, it takes damage as if it were hit by the arrow, plus an extra 2d8 force damage, and you learn the target’s current location for the next minute and do not suffer disadvantage from attacking it if you cannot see it. On a successful save, the target takes half as much damage, and you don’t learn its location.

The force damage increases to 4d8 at 5th level, 6d8 at 11th level and 8d8 at 17th level in this class.

Shadow Shot. You weave illusion magic into your shot, causing it to occlude your foe’s vision with shadows. The creature targeted at by the shot takes an 2d8 psychic damage, and it must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or be unable to see anything farther than 5 feet away until the start of your next turn.

The psychic damage increases to 4d8 at 5th level, 6d8 at 11th level and 8d8 at 17th level in this class.

No more "part of attack action", these *always* hit and then the target saves. But you don't get to shoot 3-4 arrows and use one of these. This frees up budget, makes them more impactful, at the same time.

By blocking using this with the Fighter attack routine, we get to boost the damage it does and make it happen far, far more often. This should make it feel more impactful.

You get 4 uses at level 3 right off the bat (total, 2 of each shot), then collect more shots.

By making it once per kind of shot, we reduce the likelihood the fighter does a boring "repeat the same thing again and again". You get to banish twice in a fight bud.

Damage-wise, we can compare it to a standard attack routine with a longbow and with SS
L3: 9/10/20
L5: 18/22/42
L11: 27/36/66
L15: 27/39/69
L17: 36/39/69
L20: 36/52/92

Against someone with 18 AC and advantage for SS:

L3: 9/5.35/9.45
L5: 18/13.9/25.7
L11: 27/24.2/40.2
L15: 27/30.5/54.2
L17: 36/32.4/57.4
L20: 36/43.2/76.6

So it isn't competitive with SS+advantage past level 4, but it matches the DPR of non-advantage on an 18 AC target. And has riders.


Curving Shot
No change.

Arrow Divination
At 10th level you can use an arrow shot to divine a question. While outdoors with sufficient room above you, you propose a course of action, then fire an shot directly into the air and watch it fall. You gain the effect of Augury (but the course of action is not limited to 30 minutes), and know the direction you should go to fastest proceed towards that course of action succeeding (danger is not considered). You can do this once before completing a long rest, and if ever you try to ask a question that is too similar to a previous one the resulting answer is muddied.

A non-combat feature! OMG!

This has historical precedent too.

Improved Elemental Ammunition
Starting at 15th level, your elemental shots now deal 1d6 instead of 1d4 additional damage, and you can change which kind of elemental arrow you are using as a bonus action, instead of an action.

Perfect Shot
Starting at 18th level, once on each of your turns you can make a ranged weapon attack roll a natural 20. You can do this after you roll to see if it hits normally.

This is a per-turn effect. You are now a perfect archer. Crit away! Note this stacks really well with elemental ammunition; you get the crit-rider every round now.

[eunwoler]

I just like the shots = INT mod min 1 fix. It's elegant, simple and uncontroversial. And it adds more build diversity which is always nice

Another fix is to model the Arcane Archer as a 1/3rd caster like the EK but it's very hard to balance with how the spells scale so exponentially.

EDIT: I also agree with fixes that make the Arcane Shot damage scale better. Like in the above post

[MightyK]

(...) Assuming 3, 3 round combats, (...)

Can we talk about how the whole premise of "the Arcane Archer needs a buff" is based on the assumption of 3 fights per long rest that take 3 rounds each?
I am the only one that thinks this is really low?

Arcane Archer after lvl7 get a great resource free damage buff. Of course that advantage is lost when you can expend a Maneuver basically every turn without running out.

[Zalabim]

Can we talk about how the whole premise of "the Arcane Archer needs a buff" is based on the assumption of 3 fights per long rest that take 3 rounds each?
I am the only one that thinks this is really low?

Arcane Archer after lvl7 get a great resource free damage buff. Of course that advantage is lost when you can expend a Maneuver basically every turn without running out.

Don't forget that the battle master example is taking two short rests and the arcane archer example is taking none. It's page three and the OP still doesn't know how the printed AA works. Fixing something is impossible when people don't know what it does in the first place.

To be as helpful as possible, I think alternative abilities to curving shot could be made (at will, bonus action driven abilities of similar power), and the arcane shot damage could scale at level 10, though some might only gain 1d4 there. In my head, there would be a bonus action ability for each school of magic and you'd pick a few just like cantrips.

[Man_Over_Game]

Don't forget that the battle master example is taking two short rests and the arcane archer example is taking none. It's page three and the OP still doesn't know how the printed AA works. Fixing something is impossible when people don't know what it does in the first place.

To be as helpful as possible, I think alternative abilities to curving shot could be made (at will, bonus action driven abilities of similar power), and the arcane shot damage could scale at level 10, though some might only gain 1d4 there. In my head, there would be a bonus action ability for each school of magic and you'd pick a few just like cantrips.

Man, do I feel stupid. How did I miss that it restored on Short Rests? Balls, that's what I get for paying too much attention on the little stuff, skipped over the big stuff.

That basically triples the balance value of the Arcane Archer, up to +69 bonus damage through the day, stronger than the Samurai and on-par with the Battlemaster. I'll edit the OP to match.

That does change a lot of things, but I don't think it makes it that much better of a position. Consider that the Champion is still more popular, despite providing less than 10% of the AA's bonus to combat.

[Warwick]

Consider that the Champion is still more popular, despite providing less than 10% of the AA's bonus to combat.

I suspect that the Champion's popularity is better explained by the number of players who struggle to remember even basic rules and/or for whom TTRPGs are primarily a social activity. In fact, I expect the relative popularity of most subclasses is better explained by the aesthetics of the class fantasy rather than raw numbers. The fraction of players who crunch the numbers on different builds is pretty low.

Which is not to say we shouldn't care, because bad math and bad design still hurts the games even if no one directly involved cares about it, but I expect the bulk of people playing Samurai fighters are playing them because 'Samurai are cool' and the mechanics work well enough to feel Samurish rather than because Fighting Spirit synergizes with Elven Accuracy in a crit-focused build. Which is why I think Arcane Archer's lack of popularity is not just a mechanical failure, but an aesthetic/thematic one as well.

[Man_Over_Game]

I suspect that the Champion's popularity is better explained by the number of players who struggle to remember even basic rules and/or for whom TTRPGs are primarily a social activity. In fact, I expect the relative popularity of most subclasses is better explained by the aesthetics of the class fantasy rather than raw numbers. The fraction of players who crunch the numbers on different builds is pretty low.

Which is not to say we shouldn't care, because bad math and bad design still hurts the games even if no one directly involved cares about it, but I expect the bulk of people playing Samurai fighters are playing them because 'Samurai are cool' and the mechanics work well enough to feel Samurish rather than because Fighting Spirit synergizes with Elven Accuracy in a crit-focused build. Which is why I think Arcane Archer's lack of popularity is not just a mechanical failure, but an aesthetic/thematic one as well.

Well said.

One thing that the fixed information made me realize is that the power level of the Samurai and the Battlemaster aren't from them being outliers, but is actually the standard. Fighters gather a LOT of power from their Subclasses, which means two things:

1. If we do decide to keep the AA on the Fighter and just remaster it so it actually fits in the 5e ecosystem, it'd have to be fairly strong to keep up with that average of +50 damage-per-day (or +17 damage-per-Encounter, or +4 damage per attack).

2. The Champion is worse than I originally thought. Like, a lot worse. Like, I'm unsure exactly what the best-case scenario would be to even get close to the other common Fighter subs.

[Yakk]

2. The Champion is worse than I originally thought. Like, a lot worse. Like, I'm unsure exactly what the best-case scenario would be to even get close to the other common Fighter subs.
The Champions biggest gap is at level 3-4, and less at 5-10 (but still bad). By 11 the gap is small; the swing count with crits helps close it.

Two easy champion patches are:
1. "Action Hero" -- on your first turn of combat, you can make a melee weapon attack as a bonus action. If you are wielding two weapons, you can attack with both of them as a bonus action.
2. Improved Second Wind
When you use your second wind, heal 1d10 additional HP for every 2 levels in this class. You may also make a melee weapon attack.

The first is a basic "have more damage". It closes most of the damage gap with a naive BM at level 3-10. The second is more interesting, in that it adds some tactical timing to second wind -- it both becomes bigger (you get back about half of your HP, which is awesome) and gives you a small offensive boost.

A 20th level champions second wind becomes 11d10+20 (75)