[3.5] Dusk Bow

[Human Paragon 3]

I'm thinking of re-tooling the duskblade for a bow-happy player. Here are my proposed changes:

Saves: Good Ref and Good Will (lose good Fort)

Level 1: Gain Rapid Shot as a bonus feat as ranger. Lose: Armored Mage (light)

Level 3: Arcane Channeling applies to ranged attacks with a bow instead of melee attacks.

Level 4: Gain Armored Mage (light). Lose Armred Mage (medium)

Level 7: Gain Manyshot as ranger. Lose Armred Mage (shield)

Level 9: Gain Arcane Channeling (Manyshot) (Apply a touch spell to all attacks in a Manyshot or Greater Manyshot)


Obviously the ability to deliver touch spells at range is powerful, but I think it's offset by the loss of power attack/combat expertise type feats. The Dusk Bow will have to use most of his feats to keep up his archery and not be able to explore other feat trees.

Thoughts?

[Frog Dragon]

The exhance might actually be a bit like.... you know. Casting in armor is not that great, but you get potent arcehry feats for losing it. On the other hand Archery is a tad underpowered so all in all this shouldn't shatter the game.

[Seffbasilisk]

Arcane Manyshot seems to have great potential for abuse.

[Human Paragon 3]

Arcane Manyshot seems to have great potential for abuse.

How so? More than Full Attack?

[Seffbasilisk]

Vampiric Touch Manyshot? Each Arrow damaging them and giving you temp HP? For one spellslot? Crazy.

[Starsinger]

Vampiric Touch Manyshot? Each Arrow damaging them and giving you temp HP? For one spellslot? Crazy.

Can a duskblade do this with full attack?

[Human Paragon 3]

Yes, but usually not until level 13. The problem may be that they get it too early, but at the same time "each arrow" is precisely 2 shots at a -4 penalty, until level 11, where it becomes 3 shots, but at a -6 penalty to each. The full attack option is still much stronger.

To put it into perspective, the dusk bow at level nine could deal a max of 8d6 damage with the vampiric touch and gain that many temporary HP. But to do this, he must hit with two arrows. This is a lot better than just casting the spell, but keep in mind that instead of just hitting touch AC, each arrow has to hit the enemy's real AC, and with a -4 to hit penalty.

A wizard could deal a 9d6 fireball at the same level to all enemies within a 20 foot burst, which has a much higer expected damage potential and cannot miss.

That being said, the Dusk Bow will be a primary damage dealer, so I don't believe this abuse is out of sorts, and certainly would be less than a same level ubercharger or similar.

[esorscher]

Vampiric Touch Manyshot? Each Arrow damaging them and giving you temp HP? For one spellslot? Crazy.

Expend a spellslot per arrow. Or one spellslot of spell level + arrows above one.

So using a first level spell with many shot, channeling through three arrows, would require you to expend either three first level spellslots or a third level spellslot.

I guess this only works if it's a spontaneous caster. I don't have the book before me at the moment.

[Starsinger]

Expending a spell slot/arrow seems a bit harsh to me. As long as it's nothign that melee can't do as well, I don't see a problem with it. Congrats Guard Juris on making an arcane archer that doesn't royally suck.

[Human Paragon 3]

Hey, what do you think about trading armor and shield profeciency for Hide as a class skill and 4 skill points/level?

[RagnaroksChosen]

why move down the full attack arcane channel to 9? why not leave it at 13 or 11 or what ever it was? and just allow them to use manyshot instead of a full attack with it... this way they can still make a full attack with rapid shot or use many shot and still be able to channel?

[Human Paragon 3]

why move down the full attack arcane channel to 9? why not leave it at 13 or 11 or what ever it was? and just allow them to use manyshot instead of a full attack with it... this way they can still make a full attack with rapid shot or use many shot and still be able to channel?

That's actually how it already is. They get many shot at 7, the ability to channel spells into many shot at 9, and the ability to channel into a full attack at 13, which is how the original dusk blade is.

[RagnaroksChosen]

That's actually how it already is. They get many shot at 7, the ability to channel spells into many shot at 9, and the ability to channel into a full attack at 13, which is how the original dusk blade is.

Yes but why allow them to channel through manyshot at 9 rather then at 13 thats a huge power boost early on.

[Human Paragon 3]

Oh, I see what you're saying now. That might be a better way to go, but I thought that staggering the power instead if giving one big boost at 13 was a little nicer. This way it goes from standard action to manyshot to full attack over a few levels.

I thought it would be annoying to get manyshot and not be able to channel spells into it for another 6 levels. Maybe I'll make it so you can channel a spell into the first arrow of the manyshot right away, then at level 13 you can channel into all the manyshot arrows.

[RTGoodman]

I thought it would be annoying to get manyshot and not be able to channel spells into it for another 6 levels. Maybe I'll make it so you can channel a spell into the first arrow of the manyshot right away, then at level 13 you can channel into all the manyshot arrows.

That was gonna be my suggestion - you can channel into the first attack of a manyshot, and you still get the extra arrows even if they don't have a spell attached. You can save that for 13th level with the normal full-attack channeling.

There are a few homebrew versions of this idea floating around, by the way - I don't remember any specifics, but you might could take a look at those if there's something else you're not sure about. Personally, though, I think what you've laid out so far is pretty good.

[RagnaroksChosen]

That was gonna be my suggestion - you can channel into the first attack of a manyshot, and you still get the extra arrows even if they don't have a spell attached. You can save that for 13th level with the normal full-attack channeling.

There are a few homebrew versions of this idea floating around, by the way - I don't remember any specifics, but you might could take a look at those if there's something else you're not sure about. Personally, though, I think what you've laid out so far is pretty good.

if this is the case you should maek it work with rapid shot along the same lines.

[Chrono22]

http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=1085383
This class is very similar to what you're trying to make. It's based off the duskblade, with a focus on ranged combat using bows.
It's 99% complete, but I'm considering reducing the spells per day for it at all levels by -1. There are some party balance issues- it can cast more spells than a dedicated 1st level primary spellcaster. This seriously irritates others players, and to be honest is unnecessary. Most of the time, a character of this class never even uses all his spellslots.