What's Wrong with Wonnilon?

@Basil

you can use rapid shot with a thrown weapon. drawing a tiny weapon it's a free action, thus you can draw a throwing dagger and shoot it if you previously had one on your hand. If you have a dagger in each hand, you can shoot them both, and draw again for free to make your extra shot.

Of course, you can do the same with a javelin in each hand, but you can't draw a new one.

Also, you can use rapid shot with a repeating crosbow...actually, you can wield a repeater in each hand, to get two shots, and use rapid shot for an extra one. You'll having a big penalization (something close to -6 -6 -6 !)...or use a repeater one-handed and a hand crossbow for three shots too (-4 -4 -4), that if you only have one attack allowed.

 

Oh, I say!

Steady on there, Tyrannar, have you never come across magickal bows that need no arrows and generate their own magickal shafts of lightning? Have you never played Baldur's Gate? That's what I hoped it meant at first when it said it never needs reloading, as it implies there's always a bolt knocked and drawn, but the description is just another example of poor English.

What it meant when it said it never needs reloading is that it ALWAYS needs reloading, but that the lever of the repeating crossbow allows you to relaod as a free action. It doesn't work without ammo. Sadly.


~

 

Well i found a plenty of such bows/crossbows/slings in BG/NWN and i dont know how you havent met with repeating crossbow before.

Here it says DOESN'T NEED RELOADING which is much different from NO NEED FOR AMMO.
Former means it has fully automatic, no need to exchange clips or draw strings or levers, use like longbow does. Point and click interface
Later means that u have unlimited ammunition but not that u dont have to reload it. ex: you pull the lever (move equivalent action) and bolt materializes in chamber..

Anyways it would be nice to have quiver of unlimited arrows or bolts, since magical weapons already transform ordinary ammo in magical one.

 

Manyshot and rapid shot don't work together in PnP.

I thought this was common knowledge at this point...

Manyshot is the *+bonus* attack feat for stationary archers, as in the ones looking to get their primary and iterative attacks. (Ie - 11th level Ranger fires 4 arrows while stationary. This is a high level feat for characters with BaB to blow on massive negatives to every attack, trying to squeeze out every bit of damage. Or against low AC targets.)

Rapid shot is the one for mobile archers. Doubles your output for a standard action. (Ie - 11th Level Ranger fires two arrows on the move. OR, 1-5th level Ranger fires an extra arrow. You can't forget that Rapid shot is better at low levels, and then once you pass the second attack threshold, it becomes an add-on for the shot on the run tree. There are many applications, but likewise, you could also just use rapidshot to change your to hit from +6,+1 to +4,+4. There are many statistical reasons to use either, but more or less Manyshot is for standing still and rapid shot is for moving.)

Honestly, the reason they are even connected via feat tree, is that you have options depending on the situation.

Think about it for a second, negative bonuses aside - do any other feats allow you to gain extra attacks for nothing? Can melee fighters even do that? Two weapon fighting is the closest thing in the core books, and that adds penalties, and requires advancing a chain to get extra off-hand iterative attacks.

 

Yeah man, I agree -- while like you I enjoy rules lawyering for the RAW, I agree that making the rules work for an engaging and fun PnP game requires a flexible DM. The folks over on the WoTC boards have come up with some pretty absurd examples of stuff that can happen by RAW.

Yep, those power gamers from the WoTC boards always went the Cleric/PrC route for their strongest rangers. Anything they lacked from the ability tree of the Ranger, they got via spells or PrC abilities -- and I agree, it makes the Archer-Ranger lose appeal.

Don't confine your views to PnP gatherings, rules experts are definitely needed here -- Gaer is working towards getting the weapons/ShopMap up to RAW standards, and I think I read somewhere else here that they want to get as much as they can to RAW.

I did some searching on google yesterday for discussions about Manyshot and Rapid Shot; people seemed to think that Manyshot was a little underpowered at lower levels, but balanced at higher levels. I'm not sure I agree, as by 20th level melee characters are dishing out way more damage or devastation (via trip, sunder, overrun, bull rush, disarm, etc) with a standard action attack than a Ranger - probably more than can be accounted for due to their having to be in melee range.

With all that said, in 4e it appears that the Ranger is probably the most powerful archer at the moment, but splatbooks with PrCs will be coming out, and probably pretty much nix that.

 

Shadow, I think you have them reversed -- Manyshot is for mobile archers, Rapid Shot is for stationary archers.

 

What does RAW stand for?

My group is treating 4e as blasphemy - money grubbing WotC!

 

My mistake

I made a mistake and didn't check my PHB before I posted, I thought I had them down

You're right about the archery vs melee deal, melee has more options but they have to close the gap and deal with AoO's and the like. And honestly, Ranged weapons just don't do the damage a two handed power attacking sword does, so I don't really think it's unfair how ranged can get more attacks easier.

 

As for pnp I concur. But as for ToEE it's completely different matter. My Bard/ranger and Zaxis both had rapid shot and fully enchanted longbows and i gotta say when zaxis hit node guardian (I think it was node guardian, but not sure which one though) for 72 pts of damage with only one shot, and around 150 with his 4 attacks. Only one person in my parts deals that much damage on the 1st round: rogue. Too bad zaxis didn't take a lvl of ranger cause he allready is a great npc but that way he would be even better.