Viability of Different Ranged Weapons - Your Thoughts?

[Sun Wukong]

The bard build presented is pretty much the epitome of the problem. That build based on a crossbow would be better, or a bow or a sling for that matter. Its effectiveness in melee is noticeably better.

I disagree, the crossbow build would require three additional feats. Weapon Focus, Crossbow Sniper, and Crossbow Sniper Master, not to mention that you need to get Weapon Finesse to get some melee ability with that high dexterity score. You might argue that you have no need for Battle Caster feat, but it remains the easiest way to get your AC up by combining that iron chainmail called Spellchain with a heavy shield. The crossbow damage might be okay, hit like a truck actually, but I do feel that the dexterity based melee damage would be lacking. Hence there is a need to get Evasion somehow to supplement your damage output via Expose Weakness, which in turn limits your epic feat selection, and maximum caster level.

Alternatively, There is nothing wrong with something like Rogue 3/Bard 27, or Shadowdancer 3/Bard 27 as both make very good sneaks. But the biggest downside is that you do not exactly have that many feats to spare for the crossbow feats and other bardic goodies.

Then the bow and sling builds also lean towards dexterity based builds, and while they are less feat intensive, it is the melee damage output and ranged damage output that is somewhat lacking. Instead of having that +10 damage from 30 strength, you are at best looking at +5 from a buffed up strength ability score of 20, which in turn limits your other ability scores at character creation and even spell selection.


A Brutal Throw Bard does well enough in melee, and it throws axes that pack a punch. (Even with the mundane stacks that cost 6-7 gp each.) A character that can do both offers that flexibility to perform several different roles in a party.

As for Brutal Throw Bard being noticeably better at melee, well, not at lower levels at least. The damage dealt with a throwing axe is not that different to the damage dealth with a longsword, but with a throwing axe you can get two attacks per round instead of one, and the ability to draw in enemies one by one.

I really like the Brutal Throw Bard, especially now that I can have a single stack of 2000+ mundane throwing axes.



As for the ranged penalties, didn't stop my Zen Archery Ranger - or my Brutal Throw Bard. Edit: I only use Manyshot (-8 AB) at close range.

[Khazrak]

Yeah, I think I know how to tinker with a Brutal Throw build now. It'll probably be odd, but I think I can make it work. I'll create a thread on that.

But yeah, both bow and thrown weapons are looking very tasty to me. Thanks for the talk here -I've learned some critical things about ranged combat on the server that will help me design my first character. You guys are awesome.

[Diamore]

A crossbow character has no need to buy expose weakness or any other melee feat. That is your personal preference. The ranged damage would be superior and easier to build and equip for.

If you are building for dexterity based melee damage, you may as well just build for melee and only have supplemental attacks from range using the many items with ranged feats on them already.

A sling loses no damage with a +4 weapon with any bonus damage. Same with bow. Both increase damage based on ammunition. Their accuracy improves or greatly improves in the case of the bow.


Low level use of the bard build, melee items and temp buffs that improve damage are easier to come by. Your damage is superior in melee. Your attacks are more accurate without the use of rapid shot. The point stands at all levels, damage would be noticeably higher in melee. Situationally, ranged would improve survivability and effectiveness. Precisely as if you had built for melee and taken Brutal Throw as an after thought.

Any weapon can be used by a character and can be built effectively around. Your thrown weapon builds likely perform quite well and suitable to your liking, especially given your interest in balancing melee and ranged effectiveness. This does not mean thrown weapons are not sub-par, just that you can use them if you really want to. They are still the least effective option available.

[Khazrak]

I decided to see if I could improve on the thrower I made as an example earlier. Here's the thread where I discuss it.

Thanks for the help, guys. Again, a lot of what's been said here has been really helpful.

[Sun Wukong]

A crossbow character has no need to buy expose weakness or any other melee feat. That is your personal preference. The ranged damage would be superior and easier to build and equip for.

Unfortunately there is a possibility to run out of your ranged ammunition. For example my ranger has an 'epic' longbow with infinate amount of mundane arrows, but some monsters require fire to be slain, and therefore she also carries an 'epic' shortbow, and an 'epic' sling if she really needs that shield AC, and that almost 'epic' crossbow just because. She also carries a melee weapon as a just in case situation.

Now, what of the situation where our crossbow character runs into mobs she cannot dispatch fast enough. This could be due to deflect arrow feat, concealment, high AC, or DR. She is now swarmed and on the recieving end of attacks of opportunity with every ranged attack she makes. A mob of 8 is +8 extra attacks at the mob's highest AB. Concealment can help, but sometimes it just makes more sense to switch to melee.

A sling loses no damage with a +4 weapon with any bonus damage. Same with bow. Both increase damage based on ammunition. Their accuracy improves or greatly improves in the case of the bow.

Blushing Mermaid Basement in Baldur's Gate, with a character that has -1 Appraise skill:

Cryptrunner's Axe (50) - 1050 g,
- Damage Bonus Against Undead 1d4
- Damage Bonus: Divine 2
- Enchantment Bonus: +4
Material: Metal (Alchemical Silver)

The Mad Sorcerer (50) - 770 g,
- Damage Bonus: Bludgeoing 1d8
- Enchantment Bonus: +4
On Hit: Silence DC=20 50½ 1 round

Troll Axe - 770 g,
- Damage Bonus: Fire 1d8
- Enchantment Bonus: +4
On Hit: Ability Drain DC=20 Constitution

Velvet Darts - 840 g,
- Damage Bonus:Slashing 1d4
- Enchantment Bonus: +4
On Hit: Poison DC=30 1d2 Constitution Damage

You will do more damage with a strength based Brutal Throw build. You got the +4 EB if you want to, and extra damage on top, with a far higher strength ability score.

Low level use of the bard build, melee items and temp buffs that improve damage are easier to come by. Your damage is superior in melee. Your attacks are more accurate without the use of rapid shot. The point stands at all levels, damage would be noticeably higher in melee. Situationally, ranged would improve survivability and effectiveness. Precisely as if you had built for melee and taken Brutal Throw as an after thought.

1 melee attack, 95% chance of hitting for 10.5~ points of damage per hit. (9.975~ avarage damage per round)
2 ranged attacks, 85% chance of hitting for 9.5~ points of damage per hit. (16.5~ avarage damage per round)

You have not considered how that -2 AB is just -10% to your probability to score a hit. Therefore, a slightly lower damage will still translate into a higher avarage damage per round thanks to increased number of attacks. Moreover, the same holds true with Manyshot, if the -4, -6, or -8 AB penalty does not considerably decrease the probability of scoring a hit, you have basically gained +1, +2, or +3 attacks per round, which translates to higher damage per round.

The higher your number of attacks is, the higher your probability to score a hit, and therefore the higher your probability for a higher damage output. Rapid Shot and Manyshot leave a noticiable increase in the ranged damage output. But this does not change how DR can considrably decrease the actual damage delivered per hit, which once again raises the need for an alternative form of damage output. For a dexterity based build, it could be Expose Weakness bleeding damage, for a strength based Brutal Throw Bard, I feel that Northlander Hewing is good contender simply for its ability to push through DR.

[Diamore]

I tend to keep my posts short for ease of understanding for all parties, but I am losing track of your point Sun Wukong.

Are you saying that thrown weapons are equally powerful to an optimised crossbow, bow or sling build?

In response to above:

1. Running out of ammunition isn't a problem for anything except throwing weapons. All options available to throwing weapon in your first point work for all others as well. If your optimised crossbow build will not hurt an enemy, your un-optimised melee damage will do less.

2. The hypothetical situation you set forth ignores simply playing a ranged character well. You have an avoidance ability (HIPS, invis, move speed, ki step etc) and regular defences. If one on one you may simply ignore the AoO entirely as your damage will be far greater, or instead begin kiting. This is an unrealistic problem to use as a counterpoint.

3. A character investing in the items listed for a throwing character would be better served by purchasing a good weapon once rather than stockpiling a resource that is readily expended. Even in the case of purchasing expensive ammunition to temporarily equal other ranged weapons, bows can then purchase ammunition themselves. The difference of +5 damage is negligible with a 1d6 ammunition, a slings natural mighty and the critical multiplier or bows.

4. I have considered this. At low levels, as was specified, the reduced attack base makes a considerable impact on damage per turn due to less accuracy. As levels progress, this evens out. Despite this, my point stands. Damage is higher in melee due to weapon enhance, temp buffs and accuracy.

5. I have never needed to overcome damage reduction with a ranged character by doing anything more than shooting them more.

[Sun Wukong]

1) Running out of ammunition is an issue for my ranger, especially against things like trolls that require that extra fire/acid damage to be finished off. It was an issue to my Zen Archery based Spirit Shaman/Hospitaler with an epic sling that had 1d4 cold damage by default, I had to keep buying those bullets of fire, and I would run out were I not paying attention.

The issue of ammunition is not that big of a problem if you multiclass to get some extra fire/acid damage from a class ability. But the build we are talking about here is a Bard 26/Fighter 4.

2) HiPS - Shadowdancer or Assassin - both of these options hit our Bard's caster level and reduce the amount of feats that is available. Crossbow builds in general require a far more feats than Weapon Masters. Yes, there are some special items that you can buy for 70k+ or get if you whine long enough to DMs, but HiPS costs feats that could be spent on other things.

Invisibility can be seen through, and is limited by spell progression like most other increases to movement speed, concealment, and mirror images. Sure, you can stock up with some Boots/Bracers of haste, but those take away the number of inventory slots you have for your ammunition and loot. UMD is only an option once you have played a character long enough to amass a mountain of gold to be spend on things that regularly cost 20-50k to craft.

Moreover, you have no control over where and when monsters spawn on the map. Far too often when a party enters and starts moving in the same area that I am in, I get swarmed with mobs of spawns. It is difficult to kite and run around when the in game pathfinding cannot find a way because you are simply surrounded by giants.

And as I said before, you can try to deal with mobs one by one, and it works for the most part. But you can still be swarmed, and the more you move, the higher the chance to spawn in more monsters right at your own two feet.

Attacks of Opportunity in mass are a horrible thing to a crossbower or an archer, because they just do not have the shield AC.

3) The price of special ammuniton for bows/crossbows/slings is not that different from the one available to thrown weapons. Not to mention that if you actually look at the Brutal Throw builds, they are designed to be able to make do with MUNDANE throwing axes. Hence, it is possible to amass wealth to buy those 'expensive' stacks. Not to mention that the high strength ability score comes to play here. Unlike some high dexterity build, you can actually drag that assorted lot of eight or so Banded Mails/Fullplates out of a dungeon and turn it to gold. Everything that is not nailed down, gives you more gold. Oh, and you can just use some decent enough melee weapon as a backup.

4) You may have considered, but I have experienced and done my math time and time again. There are always these specific levels that turn mobs on the server considerably easier. It is not because a character gained +1 AB, it is because the character gained an extra attack per round. More attacks, more damage. This is the nature of the 3rd generation D&D, at lower levels, two-weapon fighting actually results in more damage per round than what you can get by two-handing a single weapon. It just boils down to the number of attacks.

5) I guess that is more of a statement of what you have faced and what you have done with your characters more than anything else.

[Sun Wukong]

Are you saying that thrown weapons are equally powerful to an optimised crossbow, bow or sling build?

I am actually suggesting that thrown weapons might be more powerful with an optimized Brutal Throw build. This is what a Ranger 21/Stormlord 9 could do for example:

1d6 (Throwing Axe, Troll Axe)
+ 10 (Strength modifier)
+ 1d8 (Electric, Shock Weapon)
+ 1d8 (Sonic, Sonic Weapon)
+ 1d8 (Fire, Troll Axe)
+ 4 (Enchantment Bonus, Troll Axe)
+ 5 (Favored Enemies)
+ 2d6 (Bane of Enemies)
= 43~ (Avarage Hit) 86~ With Manyshot.

You get 7 attacks per round without haste, technically 10 with Manyshot, and you do not have to rely on sneak attack dice. Oh, and you can have your shield up for that extra bit of AC, and if you want, you can use a spear. (And no, you will not do more damage with it, it is the number of attacks.)

[Diamore]

Crossbow ranger 30 levels with nothing interesting, sub-optimal build without using a restrictive RP class.

1d10 (+4 Heavy Crossbow)
+ 15 (Dex modifier)
+ 3 (Mighty)
+ 3 (+3 ammunition)
+ 4 (Enchantment Bonus)
+ 7 (Favored Enemies)
+ 2d6 (Bane of Enemies)
= 44~ (Average Hit) 88~ With Manyshot.

Damage drops by 3 with basic ammunition. Has longer range, less negatives to hit. Has no shield. Increased critical chance.

I don't do build optimising very often, I expect there are dozens of players who can demonstrate the limitations of throwing with a better build. But on the existing limits and problems with thrown weapons as compared to other ranged weapons, there is one class that makes them useful but nothing that makes them realistically equal to other weapon options.

[Endelyon]

1d10 (+4 Heavy Crossbow)
+ 15 (Dex modifier)
+ 3 (Mighty)
+ 3 (+3 ammunition)
+ 4 (Enchantment Bonus)
+ 7 (Favored Enemies)
+ 2d6 (Bane of Enemies)
= 44~ (Average Hit) 88~ With Manyshot.

+3 ammunition won't stack with a +4 crossbow. You can buy something like 1d6 fire bolts from the ammunition shop in EDE iirc, though. They were the ones I used the most on my own crossbower.

[Sun Wukong]

You can get Blinding Speed feat as a dexterity based Crossbow Ranger, but you are still limited to just 4 attacks per round. (Technically 7 with Manyshot.) Brutal Throw Ranger/Stormlord can use items/UMD to get that extra haste attack for a total of 8 attacks per round. (Technically 11 with Manyshot.)

And yes, with the 1d6 bolts you will do slightly more damage, but all the Brutal Throw Ranger/Stormlord needs to do is just land one extra attack to do more damage per round. Additionally, the Stormlord elemental damage gets more damage with critical hits.



Um, anyhow, could those Blushing Mermaid Throwing Axes and Dart also be sold in stacks of 99?

[Truthiness]

Crossbows are limited to 3 attacks per round (4 with haste), every other ranged weapon are limited to 7 (8 with haste).

Thrown weapons can be just as powerful as the other weapons, although the big problem comes in with the quality of life of it. Replacing the stacks of thrown weapons every time they deplete makes it far too annoying to play for long. (There are some pretty nice throwing axes sold in the Blushing Mermaid, +4 EB and 1d8 fire damage if I recall, which puts them above any ranged weapon damage). Thrown weapons can even be more powerful in some cases, if you were to get six levels of ranger, you can nullify the need for 17 dex, thus making EDM quite possible. (Fighter 12/Ranger 6/Assassin 9/BG 3 seems very nice)

Crossbows are better against high AC/DR enemies than the other ranged weapons, although due to the less amount of attacks per round, longbows are just generally the more solid choice, especially if you have sneak dice (as sneak dice only work on the first flurry) and they scale far better with any bonuses to damage (inspire courage/etc).