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Making the Arcane Archer Not Suck

   



Hmm... how about spells with a Target or Area entry? And all spells activate as normal?

As far as I can tell, that should make it work. Everything that creates or summons something seems to lack those two entries, and has an "effect" entry instead.

I wouldn't say activate as normal. Some things are only not unbalanced because they're centered on the caster, for instance. But anything with a Target or Area affecting the Target would work.

A few little things.

Firstly, Spell Resistance. With the Arcane Archer's slower spell progression (barring the proposed fix), a Wizard 12/Arcane Archer 8 is looking at a caster level of 16. Not bad, but a little low for a 20th level character, when it'll be facing down nasties with SRs near 30 or above. To counterbalance this, I would suggest that the AA be able to apply their Enhance Arrow bonus (or half, rounded down) to all rolls made to overcome spell resistance. That should make up for their impeded CL.

Secondly, how does Split Arrow interact with Manyshot? I can see an AA unleashed a volley of 6 arrows, each imbued with a disintegrate spell. Pretty high damage.

Last of all, a minor critique and/or wording complaint. You don't specify in the prerequisites that you must be able to cast Arcane spells of at least first level. I know the name kind of implies it, but I'm a stickler.

Quote:
Originally Posted by SageBahamut View Post
I wouldn't say activate as normal. Some things are only not unbalanced because they're centered on the caster, for instance. But anything with a Target or Area affecting the Target would work.
That was one of the benefits of the original Imbue Arrow was that the area effect was centered on where the shot landed, even if the spell specifically said it's supposed to be centered on the caster.

I can't think of any offensive spells that would be broken by this. Though I suppose I can tack on "enemies only" to avoid stuff like cleric/AA characters shooting other players with DMM persisted buffed subdual arrows.

Arkyrion - There are enough spells that don't check SR that it doesn't really matter. As for Splitting + Manyshot, the fact that it adds up to Zounds Arrows is the very core of any decent volley archer build. It's supposed to work that way.

Greyfeld - I see what you did there. Go for it. And why bother with enemies only? I find the idea of a volley of Arrows of Cure Light Wounds funny as hell (and no more broken than what a Bard/Warweaver can do at similar levels).

Quote:
Originally Posted by Arkyrion View Post
Firstly, Spell Resistance. With the Arcane Archer's slower spell progression (barring the proposed fix), a Wizard 12/Arcane Archer 8 is looking at a caster level of 16. Not bad, but a little low for a 20th level character, when it'll be facing down nasties with SRs near 30 or above. To counterbalance this, I would suggest that the AA be able to apply their Enhance Arrow bonus (or half, rounded down) to all rolls made to overcome spell resistance. That should make up for their impeded CL.
I changed it to 8/10 progression, so that shouldn't be so much of a problem. Though if the current Enhance Arrow ability turns out to be overpowered, that's definitely a direction I might consider taking them in.

Quote:
Secondly, how does Split Arrow interact with Manyshot? I can see an AA unleashed a volley of 6 arrows, each imbued with a disintegrate spell. Pretty high damage.
It interacts the exact same way a Splitting Bow would. Yes, that means that every arrow shot off with Manyshot and Greater Manyshot is split into a second arrow.

Quote:
Last of all, a minor critique and/or wording complaint. You don't specify in the prerequisites that you must be able to cast Arcane spells of at least first level. I know the name kind of implies it, but I'm a stickler.
I purposely removed the "arcane" portion, because I wanted the class to be able to function as a baseline PrC to any sort of spellcaster archer build.

Quote:
Originally Posted by SageBahamut View Post
Arkyrion - There are enough spells that don't check SR that it doesn't really matter. As for Splitting + Manyshot, the fact that it adds up to Zounds Arrows is the very core of any decent volley archer build. It's supposed to work that way.
Pretty much. It basically makes up for the fact that archers don't get Power Attack, or 1.5x their STR to their attacks.

Quote:
Greyfeld - I see what you did there. Go for it. And why bother with enemies only? I find the idea of a volley of Arrows of Cure Light Wounds funny as hell (and no more broken than what a Bard/Warweaver can do at similar levels).
Alrighty. I already updated the original post with all the updates.

I also added the skill list. Since I wanted the PrC to encompass spellcasting archery, no matter what type of caster, I got a little unsure of what skills to give it. So, here's the current list.





 

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