Oddity with arrows

[Hellblazer]

Also, I'd have to check to make sure, but from memory the max bonus I have seen added to the dmg of arrows is +3 from the mighty 3 enhencment. Wich makes the arrows go 1d8+3, if you have a special head then you may get the bonus for that too. As of yet thought, I haven't seen an arrow head that gives a bonus vs monstrious races, which represent a good amont of the foes in layonara. Again, keeping that in mind it would be pretty hard to kill everything before the fighter can fight them. Unless you're a crazy hasted wierd/wail floading mage.

[Hellblazer]

Alrighty small edit: Titanium is for giants.. so hum since that is the most thing that people are fighting around the servers, it's quite out of reach of many if not all archers unless they spend considerable amounts of money to get it to train. Even more, not to have it trained to be able to put enchentment on it. I can't even find a price on the forum for such nuggets and I am pretty sure it takes 3 to make one ingots, considering that I saw an enchentment 4 of titanium start at a bid of 100,000. It would be ludicrous to even attempt to train a bow with those type of arrow. Maybe the type of damage to giants (ie monstrious race?) should be set to a lower kind of metal?

[Hellblazer]

Ah but now you talk about the warrior being able to wield shield, and armors that gives them high ac, compared to the light armor or no armor at all depending on which type of char is there using a bow, that will make them pretty frail compared to the warrior. Of also the fact that soo many times the foes rushes through the front line to go at what is firing, even if the person is firing at what is being hit and not something else. SO basically you have tanker with unlimited elemental damage, vs limited in all ways for the archers, where the metals and wood are already balanced as each metal has a corresponding wood that equals the bonus. So again, yes I know the warrior gets their head bashed on.. really a wonder they don't all look like ali in his older years. But still, a balance usually mean that things are devy up equally between other things, which at the moment it is not divided up as such.
 
 Also not forgetting that to actually get pass the Dr of a foe you need the higher bows, which is normal, but to actually do any kind of real damage with the bow, you need loads of higher ends (mahog and yew) arrows. It's good that you can train a bow now, that helps.
 
 Being that I play a AA, I can tell you that they would not lose any uniqueness to it. Firstly the enchantment they get are not elemental based, so they would actually benefit from being able to put an elemental enchantment on their bow. Secondly their enchantment is not aleatory but a fixed set of additional damage that can go up to +15 on each hit which is considerably more than the 1d8 maximum the arrows would get, so again they have a better deal, not to mention my personal favorite, imbue arrow. ECDQ/WLDQ i can understand that.
 
 
 
 Anywyas I didn't want to get into a debate of stats, but eh.
 
 

Originally Posted by Nehetsrev
 If ranged weapons ever became as powerful as melee weapons the game would be unforgiveably unbalanced, and no one would want to play a melee fighter because they'd always get killed before they could even close range to engage their foes.

 
 that is what is call planning ahead and tactics, making it clear not to shoot before the fighter are actually engaged. RP it out, you'll see it works.
 
 Also, I'd have to check to make sure, but from memory the max bonus I have seen added to the dmg of arrows is +3 from the mighty 3 enhencment. Wich makes the arrows go 1d8+3, if you have a special head then you may get the bonus for that too. As of yet thought, I haven't seen an arrow head that gives a bonus vs monstrious races, which represent a good amont of the foes in layonara. Again, keeping that in mind it would be pretty hard to kill everything before the fighter can fight them. Unless you're a crazy hasted wierd/wail floading mage.
 
 Alrighty small edit: Titanium is for giants.. so hum since that is the most thing that people are fighting around the servers, it's quite out of reach of many if not all archers unless they spend considerable amounts of money to get it to train. Even more, not to have it trained to be able to put enchentment on it. I can't even find a price on the forum for such nuggets and I am pretty sure it takes 3 to make one ingots, considering that I saw an enchentment 4 of titanium start at a bid of 100,000. It would be ludicrous to even attempt to train a bow with those type of arrow. Maybe the type of damage to giants (ie monstrious race?) should be set to a lower kind of metal?

[miltonyorkcastle]

Ah but now you talk about the warrior being able to wield shield, and armors that gives them high ac, compared to the light armor or no armor at all depending on which type of char is there using a bow, that will make them pretty frail compared to the warrior.

Actually, I know many archers with higher or equivalent ACs to the average fighter. Dex base builds, especially on low magic item Layo, can get a much higher AC than a heavy armor build.

Also not forgetting that to actually get pass the Dr of a foe you need the higher bows, which is normal, but to actually do any kind of real damage with the bow, you need loads of higher ends (mahog and yew) arrows. It's good that you can train a bow now, that helps.

This is actually why we have fixed GMW to also be cast on bows. Now bows will have the Enchantment bonus to beat the DR, assuming you travel in a party with a mage or cleric (and we always want to encourage group travel, of course) and get +1 to +5 extra damage, not to mention Flame Weapon and Darkfire.

that is what is call planning ahead and tactics, making it clear not to shoot before the fighter are actually engaged. RP it out, you'll see it works.

I think Nehetserev was actually referring to the fact that if range damage was equivalent to melee damage, NPC archers would mow down PCs before they could close in. If you as an archer waited for the fighters to engage before shooting (in the above scenario), you would be watching your friends die before they could even use their awesome melee attacks, heh.

Maybe the type of damage to giants (ie monstrious race?) should be set to a lower kind of metal?

I'm pretty sure the reason titanium is the metal that gives bonus against giants is actually because there are so many "giant" monster types (ogres, etc.) In other words, the more useful the arrowhead, the "higher level" it is. Titanium is a "high level" metal type, and therefore produces more useful arrows.

[Nehetsrev]

First off, you mis-interpreted my post.  What I meant was that no one would want to play a melee class because they would get slaughtered by any foes using ranged weapons if ranged weapons were made to be equal in damage output with melee weapons.  I wasn't even bringing up how useless melee fighters are when the foes can be killed from range before the melee fighters can close with them, which already happens plenty with powerful mages in the mix.

Nothing prevents a fighter, paladin or cleric who uses a bow from wearing full-plate, but sure, you can't wield a shield while using a bow, that's the trade off for being able to damage foes from range who can't reach you to damage you in return.  If you're playing some other melee class, such as ranger or barbarian, well then sure, you won't be able to wear that heavy armor but those classes have some special abilities as part of their class to make up for the fact they can't wear heavier armors.  For Rangers it's dual-wielding as free bonus feats and their better attack bonuses against favored enemies, as well as their spells and animal companions.  For barbarians it's better ability to dodge attacks, or absorb some damage, and faster movement, plus their ability to rage.  A couple of rogues or shadow dancers working together with Point Blank Shot in combination with their Sneak Attacks can be very deadly to even the most well armored melee fighters even with the way things are now.

As to Arcane Archers, I don't believe armor with spell failure affects their bow/arrow based skills which come as part of their class.  Only the other spells they cast from their wizard/sorceror/bard levels would be affected by spell failure from armor.  So, if your AA leans more toward it's fighter roots, you can easilly wear that heavy full-plate without too much loss to your abilities.  If your AA instead leans more heavilly to it's spell-casting roots, then that was by your choice, and again it's a trade off of wearing lighter armor so that you can damage foes from afar and avoid letting them get close enough to bash you over the head with their big sticks and whatnot.  If foes break through the screen of fighters when you shoot at them, you have a choice as a mage that a fighter doesn't have, and that is that you can cast invisibility on yourself before they get to you as long as you were careful not to stand too close to the front line, and of course assuming invisibility was a spell you chose to learn and have ready.

[Hellblazer]

I actually understood what he was saying, I was just concentrating on an other aspect. Right now the ranged foes IG that I have seen are often already better equiped than the characther archers. I have seen archers pierce 15+ caster level stoneskin with ease, with unlimited elemantal damages, poison, dazing and draining effects and a lot more. And trully I don't think that giving the player charater elemental damage will change that, as I am pretty sure that those are pretty much stock options already put in when the spawns are set, so there is no reason why this would change. But to see this you have to leave the comfort and security of the misted forest and desert. Which is where most low-mid level fights. And from what I have seen, in combination to the ''fighter'' type foes, there is a lot less ''archer'' type vs ''caster'' type, the further you go in more dangerous places. So then again, giving elemental enchantment to the ''Archer'' type, wouldn't change what Is seen already.
 
 For your point Milt, it doesn't change a simple IG truth. If an archer starts shooting before the fighter engages the foe, most of the group will completely bypass the front line to go on the archer. I got a few dts to show for it. And even then, the possibility of the foe breaking up is there, as the ai generally seem to dislike things that shoots at it, it seems especially worse if you have a ranger class, which has brought some pretty funny Rp at time. So basically the archer that doesnt want to be flooded by the foes, has to wait for them to be engage, as most of them at that point wont break the line of skirmish, but some will sometime still break off to head for the archer. Even if the damage of the archers were equivalent of the fighter, it would still take more time for archers to kill them. Bassically because unless you have an absolute dex base char, then your ab is not at the max, which means that you will miss a lot of your shots. Oddly enough, even if you concentrate on dex only, your archer is still pretty weak, a good archer from what I have understood, has to be a mix of str and dex, but then your ac is lower than what the general ''fighter'' would be. I could go on in very much details on how much that actually impacts most archers, which are not necessarily rangers or rogue, but still uses the bow. Concidering that most giants I have faced even on belinara, and in the deep have deflect arrows, it is also an other mean of how archers looses potential attacks. So to say that giving the archers (talking of any one who is using a bow, yes even fighters) would bring down the foes before the tanker can get to then, is far from being the truth. Sure there might be one or two that would fall, but really with a 300+HP giant (to what i think the misted forest giants are), 10 of them running to you. I don't think the 3 or 4 archers in your group will make a big dent in the number of giants or other foe, the front line would have to engage.
 
 That is my thoughts and my observation that I have seen here for the 3 odd years that I have been playing her ''fighter'' types and ''Archer'' types charcacter here. So it may not be an absolute truth, but it's not that far either.

[Hellblazer]

you have a choice as a mage that a fighter doesn't have, and that is that you can cast invisibility on yourself before they get to you as long as you were careful not to stand too close to the front line, and of course assuming invisibility was a spell you chose to learn and have ready.

 
 Until very recently you didn't have that choice even if you could because of an invisibility bug that killed me more time than I can count. And even then, unless you use a GP, I don't think engine bugs are automatically reimburse. Any gm could be able to correct me here if I am wrong.

[miltonyorkcastle]

I think we've debated the point enough in this thread, and as there is no real bug here, just a difference in perspective on balancing, I'm closing the thread. However, HB, if you'd like to have me show you a few non-AA/non-SD/legal-Layo archer builds that are pretty freaking sweet and could actually drop a 300+ HP giant before it reaches them, PM me and I'll send you the builds.