Since I also have an interest in this class and that I should really get to know this if you're going to use this in my game, here are my two cents, feature by feature.
I'm not the strongest mechanical person, nor the best eye for balance, so take all of this with a grain of salt. My opinion might be worth far less than I hope.
Spoiler
Chink in the Armour:
maybe I'm being silly, but it might make a bit more sense to let the effect last until right before the beginning of the Archer's next turn, for corner cases like wanting to make a readied attack with Chink in the Armour (since you can't do this as is--maybe consider letting people do that at a slightly later level.)
This will be changed to "For the rest of the round" - I dun goof'd. Perhaps I should change it to start as a Standard Action, allowing you to ready it if you so please?
The scaling's also a bit wonky, in my opinion. At level 1, trying to find a chink in the armour's ridiculously difficult against anyone in actual armour. It would probably get a bit better later in the game, but don't quote me on that.
At level 1, it can be anywhere from 2 to 9, without any other optimization. With 14 Wis and skill focus, you can get it to 9 no problem; an average 70% chance, with little drawback, as you still gain your attack. It stays around 70% with CR, as you stick a point in it each level, and occasionally buy something +wis. At level 5 you can have goggles of the eagle no problem, to keep up with any surprise boosts to AC.
Also, at level 7, way to encourage belts of battle (or Marshals.) :P
Belt of Battle is going to be amazing no matter what you put it on. It's just that good :D
Archer Paths:
Spoiler
Skirmish:
Maybe I don't play often enough, but how often do you absolutely need to attack in the middle of a move action that would justify this being a proper class feature, especially given that it has to sit next to x2 damage, and Rapid Shot redux at level 2?
It lets you attack from total cover; you can peek out, attack, and dodge back in. This lets you make sniping checks incredibly easily - free flat-footedness, and no retaliation until they start taking readied actions.
Sniping:
Why not just say "use normal multiplier stacking rules"? You're overcomplicating the wording, especially since it operates almost exactly as a critical hit's multiplier, if I'm not misreading this:
By the normal rules, a x2 and a x2 make a x3. By your wording, if you get a x2 critical on that special hit you do x1 which is doubled, then another x1--for x3. Even if a bow normally does x3, both methods still add up to x4.
It was meant to imply that the restrictions for critical hits - namely immunities - apply to it, but without their benefits (shocking burst, etc.)
Arrow Theory:
I like the idea here. If you want to give him more options, why not homebrew more of these, divide them into tiers, then give them several choices amongst the tier they're on?
I'd intended to break them up into level requirements, so that their DC's are slightly higher than a character's base craft ability with 14 Int. This would mean that the character would have to actually, you know, care about crafting his arrows.
Spoiler
Shattering Arrow:
Just nitpicking here: additional implies that you're doing damage to that 5 foot burst to begin with.
Will be fixed.
Flash-bang Arrow:
More nitpicking: I'm not sure why you added the "as the spell, except as noted" clause there. You've more or less covered your bases already, and you're only adding extra silliness--in that I think you've allowed the effect to be dismissable (debatable, of course),and made it treated as a spell, so globes of invulnerability ignore it (somewhat debatable, but why not just avoid this entirely?)
It causes both blindness and deafness. The spell causes one or the other. I'll probably just be rewording this entirely.
Incendiary Arrow:
Just nitpicking here, but you might want to define igniting the target (refer to Alchemist's Fire, etc.) Most people'd probably understand, though.
Clarification will be added.
Draining Arrow:
How does bleed damage work? Is this in a book I haven't read? (if it is, you might want to put a refer to Source, pg. or something: note.) If it isn't, how does it work? Does the draining arrow just do one extra point of bleeding damage, period? (beacuse that sort of stinks.)
Bleed damage deals itself once per round at the beginning of your turn, until a DC 15 heal check has been made, OR any amount of magical healing has been administered. I'd thought it was in the PHB, but it's in Complete Scoundrel, and a couple other places. I will be adding a definition for it to the class.
Precision Shooting:
How does this interact with a critical on Chink in the Armour? Would I assume it activates twice? By the wording, it's a bit confusing.
Double Precision on a critical is correct. An extra couple D8's at level 4 isn't going to phase much, considering sorcerers are going around tossing scorching rays out their bottoms.
Just my opinion here, but you should only really penalize the precision damage drop for the one attack you're making a maneuver on.
I'll consider it. I intend to rewrite the entire set of abilities; I'd like for there to be more, with scaling costs, and for there to be a mechanic to combine them, as well.
I think you're encouraging them to go all one way or the other. You're also encouraging trying these maneuvers on the last hit of their full round attacks--assuming they can hit (which probably will be the case.)
The damage is sacrificed on all attacks made that round. Attack rolls happen before damage rolls. I'll add a "declare your intent at the beginning of the round" dealio to clarify, though.
Ranged Bull Rush: You might want to add some clauses to defer to the normal Bull Rush rules in terms of bonuses (especially the more than 2 legs thing), because you're almost certainly not including all corner cases and bouts of silliness. Other than that, I like this class feature.
Will do. Knockback is a +3 modifier, meaning a bow of knockback costs 32,330gp at its very basic, least powerful self. This is unacceptable.
Vital Aim:
I understand the penalties cannot become bonuses clause is to prevent someone from completely dumping STR, but it also makes Rays of Enfeeblement stupidly good to use against Archers. "Oh, look, he has 10 STR, let's nullify his DEX or WIS for attacks." Also, in my opinion, this should come earlier.
Perhaps I'll slot it at level 3, and swap Arrow Theory out as a spell-like progression. You need 12 strength, actually, to make use of it. And having your Str zapped means you take nonproficiency penalties with composite bows.
Improved Vital Aim @ level 10:
...why would you base it off of the lower bonus? You're encouraging a bit of MAD here.
The archer is about Precision and Patience, with a side of Planning; He's no more MAD than the Warblade or SwordSage, which is where I want him.
Understandably, basing it off of the higher may not be too prudent either,
Agreed. Perhaps a set bonus, equal to 1/3-1/2 of the Archer's levels?
and I don't think people would appreciate trying to calculate the mean of the two stats in combat,
Heavens no!
so you might not have too many alternatives, however, in my opinion, it's really not asking much to get some sort of bonus to damage. Also, that's really mean to the skirmisher.
I'd also recommend you split the two parts of the ability to seperate entries. It's a bit weird reading.
I don't know whether to change this, or give the skirmisher a clause that allows him to gain Wis to damage. Agreed about setting it in its appropriate spot.
Improved Archer Paths:
Spoiler
Skirmish:
The wording confuses me somewhat. I'm not sure what the (this stacks) part means (the only thing I can think of is that it stacks with Manyshot and anything else that enhances Manyshot, to which end I say "wasn't that implied?")
D&D is an allowance based game; I have to specifically say it happens, or it doesn't. I'll remove the redundancy if I can get a couple others saying it's not needed, I suppose.
You might want to reword the last sentence a bit. May I suggest something like "In addition, the attack penalty from using Manyshot is lowered from -4 to -3, and the cumulative penalty for adding additional arrows is reduced from -2 to -1" or something to that effect?
Suggestion will be taken.
Also, does the feature's extra arrow also add a -2 penalty due to Manyshot?
Yes.
Sniping:
You're giving a lot of features there. Let me try this one at a time. Study Counters seem to be a bit of extra paperwork, but manageable.
I shamelessly stole the idea from here. I intend to tweak it based on comments.
I won't complain there. I've already complained before about the critical threat range increase. Also, awesome, a WIS archer gets to double his stat bonuses to his attacks.
Critical range increase applies only to first attack made. Since critical hits are, in general, underpowered when compared to power attack and the likes, I figured that having a fairly decent critical chance in exchange for move actions wasn't a big deal. If it becomes a dominating feature, I will remove it, or tone it down.
Volley:
Wait, another free attack? Also, the volley ability confuses me somewhat. If he misses target A, he gets to re-roll the attack against A's buddy, B, but the target isn't changed at all? Are we hitting A or B, because I'm a little confused. Also, if you wanted to be really be a jerk in a strict reading, an opponent within 15 feet of the original target includes the original target, I think.
Crap, I wanted him to get an attack at 2, and at 11, with the ability to buy off the penalty from 2 with Imp Rapid Shot. Six was a carryover mistake :I The "target" thing is so that the archer can't benefit from Precision Damage against an opponent that was not his target. I'll change it to "This attack gains no benefits from Chink in the Armor, and Precision Damage cannot be applied to it."
Chink in the Armour @ Move Action:
At this point, I say "Get that belt of battle over here." Volley archers seem to be getting at least 5 touch attacks with added +2d8 precision damage on each. Granted, they might not all hit, but still, that's appreciable at level 7.
Two from Full-Round, or two from standard action if move is used? I think. Fighters get Dungeon Crasher at level 6. You be the judge :P
Greater Paths:
Spoiler
Skirmish:
I might be being stupid here, but you can use standard actions to move normally, and people would actually abuse this to justify writing that exception? Another attack? Double Manyshot attack routines? I think your Skirmish archer is about two attacks (from class features) behind the Volley archer, and +2 AB ahead.
Skirmish Archers are supposed to make up for having slightly less attacks by being more mobile. You raise an incredibly good point later on, and I feel silly for not noticing it myself. Yes, people would abuse this ability without the clause to either A) move infinitely far in a round, or B) do horrible, terrible things. People are mean, and I hate them.
+2AB?
Sniping:
Alright, awesome, I can now spot things several miles away with absolutely no penalty. I'd love to be a level 11 archer in the Sniping path just for that.
The spot rules in D&D are stupid. A supermegaoptimized spot person who isn't a wizard can only see maybe 2000-3000 feet. Normal people can't see the Sun, or Clouds, or anything outside of a ~500 foot bubble - and at that, only colossal+. The other option is to halve the penalties again, I suppose.
Volley:
More extra attacks. This has the potential to get really silly. since they can shoot 10 attacks in a full round action, each of them doing extra damage. With a belt of battle, proper weapons, buffs, and a nice powerful Vital Aim... you have appreciable damage output, at least.
Once Improved is fixed, at 11th level, the Archer should be putting out 6 from BAB, and 2 from Rapid Shot and Volley, for a total of 8. I can pop it down to 6, by bringing it to "an extra attack" - This way just feels like two-weapon fighting with perks, to me. The more I look at it, the more I think I'm going to swap it down.
Archer Paragon Path:
Spoiler
Skirmish:
This seems a bit weak.
AND uninspired!
Sniping:
This seems a bit strong, but probably isn't much to talk about at level 16.
I'm looking at a couple one-shots to test it against CR appropriate opponents.
Volley:
Goodie, Time Stands Still every other round! I think you might get some annoyed glares if you actually roll all of them. Also: warforged.
Warforged? Can't a Warblade use Time Stands Still every other round :S The archer gets it a level early, but the archer isn't a d12 chasis with full maneuvers.
Peerless Archer
I'd recommend changing this and other mentions of flat-footed to "denied dexterity to AC", mainly since I think there are some oddities in flat-footed vs. DEX to AC in the books. Don't quote me on that, though.
Flat footed is a special case of denied dex to ac. The opponent mustn't know you're there / where you are for it to be applicable.
With adequate eyesight, a volley archer properly built is now launching lots and lots of arrows at enemies thousands of feet away. No complaints here. Why couldn't this come earlier? :D
You should see my Cragtop Archer build; it can fire an arrow a mile away at no penalty. Remember the Archer is still limited to about 1000 feet because of his bow's range increments.
Skirmisher:
OK, a free +20 to massive damage save DCs.
DELICIOUS DEATH. DC 15 for eradicating half of a dragon seemed underwhelming to me. I'll scale it back for now, and see where testing goes.
Sniper:
You're just now giving HIPS?
Hrmmmm. I just don't know where to put it T_T
Volley-Man:
This is a really badass class feature name. It's like having a superhero for a class feature.
I COULDN'T THINK OF WHAT TO CALL IT! THE OTHER TWO ARE OBVIOUS!
A free double move per round is nice. Does the bleed damage carry through between rounds, becaue I can't see anything that'd say otherwise.
Yes. You are CHALK FULL OF ARROWS. SO MANY ARROWS.
...I won't comment on balance here, since this is a level 20 capstone, but I will comment on what bonuses we've gotten:
Skirmishing:
Two standard actions for multishots on the run, 6 shot multishots with absolutely no penalty, both of them can be combined to super shots with DC whatever + 20. Also, a tasty miss chance that seems to be completely unavoidable, that can be easily raised to high amounts if the archer took methods of being faster.
I'll cap the miss chance at 30; that was what was intended, and the rules will reflect on that. DCs will be scaled back (for now!) The Skirmisher in general feels subpar to me, and I have nothing in mind to fix it T_T
Sniper:
HIPS at level 20 up to +100 critical threat range, damage, and to hit. And the ability to do a +60 critical threat range, damage, and to hit attack as an immediate action. I've made the lightning mace comment before (though, admittedly, this is absurdly shaky; I think even a modron would smack you, though it might work with hand crossbows.) Notably, no ability to avoid miss chances.
I'll pop the Critical threat range down to 1/2 sniper levels, and take away its scaling so that it's only +1 per Counter. Miss chance will be removed at a rate of 5% per counter. +60 damage on a single attack that requires some modifiers seems alright to me, considering Barbarians get about that on every attack, and can pounce with it.
Volley-Man (awesome):
Withdraw as a free action, 24 (?) attacks per round with zero buffs, and a whole lot of bleed damage per round. If I did my math right, if all of them hit, that's 300 bleed damage. Also, wounding arrows. That is all.
I think it's 22, but it might be 20. It's a lot of bleed damage; might cap all bleed damage from the archer at 20, as this is still more than anything else I can think of.
...I realize this isn't world-shattering at level 20, but it feels somewhat wrong.
It is, however, very awesome.
Volley-Man: Wrong, but Awesome.
Closing comments on features:
Skirmish and Volley-Man both feel somewhat similar. Granted, a lot of the features and what they can do are different, but their modus operandi feel, at least, somewhat similar. Also, why did the Volley-Man get more mobile than the skirmisher at level 20, and get to keep the extra attacks? :/
I DON'T KNOW AHHHH. I'm going to remove the movement from the Volle-Man entirely and give him bonuses for STANDING HIS GROUND and BEING A BOSS. The Skirmisher will get... Something. I just feel so uninspired when I look at him, even though he's my favourite for rogues.
All in all, this class really feels like a one trick pony. You shoot arrows. You can shoot arrows better. You can shoot more arrows. You can power up your arrow shooting.
Isn't that all Wizards do, but with spells? Or Fighters, with attacks? Agreed, it's a... focused class. I'm open to anything to broaden its horizons :D
Strictly speaking, I suppose it is an upgrade on the archer classes we have in the official stuff right here, but it doesn't feel like an upgrade so much as just a bump in power. You can shoot arrows better, and you get some skill points. That's about it. *shameless plug for my called shot system*
If we can find a way to incorporate your called shot system into this class (if you're willing), I'm all for it.
A few of my gripes with the class:
As it stands, it's fairly MAD. You need at least 10 STR
12, and yeah, you won't find anyone who shoots arrows from a bow for a living with weak arms.
(more to not get completely screwed over by any sort of ability drain), good DEX and WIS, and good CON.
CON is a bit misleading; you preferably don't want to get hit at all. The class's main focuses are Dex and Wis, and it gets enough bonuses for having both to make it worth it, in my eyes.
I'd recommend some sort of clause to allow WIS to help qualify for DEX related feats that relate directly to archery, and maybe help out initiative, but that's just me.
Perhaps include this with Vital Aim, letting you do either or, or adding half the bonus (minimum 1) from the lowest? Also, if I swapped it to level 4, popped Precision Damage to 3, and moved Arrow Theory to 5? I'm going to dink with the class table in Word for a bit tonight, I guess.
I'd also consider bumping up the hit die to a d8; you're remarkably glass cannonish.
I'll see how fast it dies at 6 for now. If you want to wade into battles and charge range with this class, you're... I don't even know :I
The power scaling rubs me wrong. The new iterative levels get the path progressions, and seem like Christmas to me. Some of the archery path abilities are ridiculous (but are kind of balanced by the level at which they come.)
I basically stole the paths idea from Rangers. I still want 5 progressions; 5 is a magic number for D&D. Perhaps I'll go 5/10/15/20, giving me a bit of leeway to rearrange the other abilities?
I've got a lot of gripes with wording. Nobody else seemed to, though, so I don't think that that's too much of an issue.
It's very unpolished and redundant right now, as I want to keep clarity issues to a minimum. Also, there haven't been many reviews as in-depth as yours 
For volley archers, did you get some sort of sneaky marketing deal with a d20 manufacturer?
I have a thing for it. Our bees will blot out the sun/so we will hug in the shade, kind of thing.
What I like about this class:
Well, it's a better archer, at least, and I can't ever say no to that.
This class has got a lot of potential. The chassis's nice.
Agreed. I'm kind of frustruated with it at the moment, because my inspiration for class features and nice things petered out at level 11, but it's my baby and I love it D:
All in all, I'd say that this is a decent homebrew (with no sarcasm.) It has room for improvement.
I'd like to think so!
Re: Archer Base Class [3.5, Mostly Finished, P.E.A.C.H.]
Reply With Quote