Deflect Arrows (feat) vs. Arrow Deflection (shield special ability)

[atom crash]

In my campaign, one party member is a fighter with a +1 shield of arrow deflection. This campaign started off as 3.0 (that's when he acquired the shield) but has morphed into v3.5 along the way. I'm running into some issues with this item because of changes in the rules from 3.0 to 3.5.

The Deflect Arrows feat allows the character to knock away one projectile per round that would otherwise score a hit, as long as he has one free hand and is aware of the attack. v3.0 required a Reflex save to deflect, but v3.5 dropped the save and made it automatic, assuming the other requirements are met.

The Arrow Deflection special ability of shields allows a Reflex save (DC 20) to do the same thing as the Deflect Arrows feat and costs a +2 bonus.

Why was the Reflex save not dropped for the shield special ability in v3.5? Shouldn't this special ability work just like the feat? And why is the cost so high? IIRC, this ability cost a +1 bonus in v3.0.

Reflex isn't a fighter's best save, so he's paying a +2 bonus for a chance to knock away one ranged attack per round with his shield. Not a good trade-off, in my book. A 20th level fighter with no other mods to his Reflex save with a +1 shield of arrow deflection still has to roll a 13 or better to use this ability. And that 40% chance costs 9000 gp! Wouldn't he be better off just taking a +3 shield and thus increasing his AC against all attacks?

I'm leaning toward house-ruling that the shield special ability works just like the feat and costs a +1 bonus. I'm looking for other input before I make that call, so any opinions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Droid101]

Reflex isn't a fighter's best save, so he's paying a +2 bonus for a chance to knock away one ranged attack per round with his shield. Not a good trade-off, in my book. A 20th level fighter with no other mods to his Reflex save with a +1 shield of arrow deflection still has to roll a 13 or better to use this ability. And that 40% chance costs 9000 gp! Wouldn't he be better off just taking a +3 shield and thus increasing his AC against all attacks?

Paying? Taking? Man, PCs in my game take what I give them without a complaint. If they ever said "I think if i rearrange the bonuses on this item I'll be better off," I think I would be forced to slap them.

But as to your problem, I think a houserule to make it one automatic deflection wouldn't be overpowered, especially for a +2 bonus. Maybe it was a rules oversight; they just forgot to change it.

 

[atom crash]

True, he didn't pay for the item in question because it was part of swag gained in-game, and I placed it in the hands of a bad guy I knew the party would handily defeat. I should have used the term worth rather than cost instead.

When the player gained the item, it worked just like the feat and was worth 4000gp (IIRC, don't have a DMG 3.0 on hand). But now this item doesn't work just like the feat and is worth 9000 gp, which accounts for much (if not all) of a 5th-level character's suggested character wealth. This means that I have to bump up encounters to attempt to keep them balanced, because the CR of published creatures assumes that characters adhere to the character wealth table. And I'm trying to take into account the party's existing wealth when placing treasure.

Just to clarify, the player is not complaining about this item at all. I am just raising some issues I have with the item now as a DM, because in v3.0 it worked just like the feat and in v3.5 it doesn't. And it is worth a greater chunk of his character wealth.

 

[AuraSeer]

If you think the ability is weak for a +2, the easiest thing is to houserule it to a +1. That should put the PC's wealth back in line with normal totals, and you shouldn't feel obligated to strengthen the encounters.

(IMO you shouldn't have increased the difficulty anyway-- not because of this one item. Its special power only works against ranged attacks, and only once per round. Maybe if the party fought a single distant archer you'd have to make changes, but in the vast majority of encounters, Deflect Arrows makes barely enough difference to notice.)

[Edited to add
In general, remember that the worth of an item is not the same as its price. For an extreme example, consider a Wiz1 with one hit point, who finds a +5 greatsword (and cannot sell or trade it). Going solely by market price you'd think he had become far more powerful than any other 1st-level character. But practically speaking, he'll never be able to use that sword, because if he gets close enough to swing it he's dead meat.

 

[Scion]

Going strictly by the numbers the enhancement would have to be worth much more in its field of interest than just a general + in order to be worth getting.

A +1 means something close to 1 out of every 20 attacks failing because of that bonus. But, this works against just about every attack out there (physical attacks of course, but then since the arrow deflection works against a smaller subset of these misses it works out all right as a comparison)

At +2 enhancement the character gets a roll to try to negate a much smaller subset of these attacks. Definately not worth it.

At +1 enhancement and a roll then probably around 25% of the first ranged attack that can be blocked in a round are deflected. Still pretty weak really.

At +1 enhancement with auto block the first potential in every round this is actually pretty good. Worth getting at least.

Of course, one is required to use a shield in order to even get this ability, which is generally a hit to damage or a very hefty hit to money.

So, overall, I think it'd be more than all right to change it to +1 and have it either require the roll or not, depending.

If it gets to be too much somehow (every combat in the game seems to start with bows and crossbows) then go for the weaker one, if not the stronger one is probably fine.

Note, certain archer feats may ignore this ability or force the save to be made if it wasnt before. This will help put a balancing factor on it for the higher end game while leaving the item happily in the all right zone vs ker/less experienced archers.