What's the point of magic arrows?

[LordAO]

I recently got my 3.5 books and was planning on making an Arcane Archer. However, to my dread I saw the new rules on magical ammunition. The bow and arrow no longer stack. Further, the bow will even make your arrow magical for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction! I thought that maybe the bow added to hit and the arrows to damage. But to my dismay even that turned out to be incorrect.

The simple truth is, in 3.5 edition, there is absolutely no point to magic arrows. If you have a +5 bow, a +5 arrow will do nothing. Nothing at all, even though magic arrows have an enormous cost. This is even more disheartening for the Arcane Archer. The main feature of that class is the ability to enchant arrows for free as you shoot them. Yes, they still have that ability, but it is now worthless to any character who has a magical +X bow. Arcane Archers used to be the kings of penetrating damage reduction, yet a simple +1 bow makes even that pointless.

Yeah, I suppose I could load up my bow with special abilities, but there is still the annoyance of having the base +1 bonus (which all weapons must have before any special abilities can be added) go to waste. This is also true of ammunition. Yeah, I suppose there would be a point to flaming, holy, etc arrows if your bow doesn't have that ability, but the base +1 is a waste. And why would anyone get a stack of 50 +5 arrows when they could buy a +5 bow for the same price (50,000 gold)?

I simply do not understand the thinking of the designers on this one. Overall my impressions of 3.5 have been a good. I love the new ranger, i like alot of the spell and feat revisions, the skills, etc. There are very few rules I have not liked, but this one is definately not a good one, IMHO. I can see where they were coming from in thinking that perhaps an archer with a +5 bow and +5 arrow is too much, but my group has never had any problem with archers being overpowered before. If anything, it helped to copensate for many of the weaknesses they have compared to melee and the ridiculous cost of magical ammunition. And it certainly made the Arcane Archer a worthwhile class.

Can anyone shed some light on this? Am I reading it wrong? Is there something I'm missing? Why would WOTC do this? And if they planned on making magical ammunition pointless, why do they even still have +arrows in the game? And why didn't they give the Arcane Archer somthing to compensate for the enormous loss he has suffered as a result these changes?

 

[Christian]

You're reading it right, there's nothing you're missing, and Arcane Archers have been shafted with the new edition. As to what the designers were thinking-hey, we're not mind readers here! But I'm guessing that the concern was that archers' combat bonuses topped out at +10/+10 while melee characters couldn't get more than +5/+5. The expendability of ammunition was irrelevant for characters with access to the Greater Magic Weapon spell. And for the change to bows (instead of just ammunition) counting for DR penetration, well, I guess that was just part of the "let's decrease the relevance of DR" philosophy in 3.5 ...

 

[Liminal Syzygy]

I believe the issue was that stacking the hit and damage bonuses from ranged weapon and their ammunition made archery too powerful, especially when greater magic weapon (which they actually toned down as well) and other buffs were added.

On the positive side, if you go the AA route you can just stick with a +1 bow and add flaming/shock type enhancements to it. Also, the fact that bows add their enchantment bonuses to ammunition helps archers a lot against 3.5 DR. It's a lot easier to carry around a few non-enchanted special material arrows than a weapon of each material... so with a minor expenditure, archers can easily overcome magic and silver, magic and cold iron, magic and adamantine.

 

[Ds Da Man]

Evened out the field a little! Ummmm....rapid shot with manyshot, with a +3-5 bow and +3-5 arrows, archers are already overpowered. Besides, I thought prestige classes were for flavor, not just awesome bonuses. Archers get 2 attacks per round at first, have to only dump points in one stat to get great attack and defense bonuses, and now can get even more idiotic uber-abilities with manyshot and such. Ohhh...the humanity!!!

 

[Spatzimaus]

There's a few separate debates here, that all got rolled into the "Arcane Archers got teh shaft!" topic which has come up a few times since 3.5E came out.

1> In 3E, archery was overpowered.

Personally, I agreed with this statement. It's not that the style itself was too powerful (well, except Manyshot), it was just simply the mechanics of the stacking rules that favored them too heavily. A melee person couldn't enchant his sword twice, after all.

My personal house rule was to cut the cost of bows and arrows in half (1000 x N^2, like armors), but have bow Enhancements only add to bow hardness/HP and attack rolls (which precluded enchantments like Flaming, since that didn't affect the attack roll), while arrow Enhancements only added to damage and DR penetration. The 3.5E version is just fine, though, and is probably less of a headache in the long run.

2A> In 3E, creating permanent magical arrows was too expensive.
2B> In 3E, it was dirt cheap to cast Greater Magic Weapon on a bunch of arrows each day, gaining plenty of +5 arrows with no XP and a cost of only one midlevel slot.

Like everyone else in existence, I ended up house ruling GMW to something more reasonable. So, most of the arrows my archers fired were mundane, since they couldn't afford the good stuff. Coincidentally, this would have helped to solve problem #1 too.

3> The AA now doesn't get the benefit of a bow with a big Enhancement bonus.

As Cordo already pointed out, the AA is now free to use a +1 Flaming Wounding Holy bow instead, without feeling obligated to go Enhancement at all costs. Or, look at it as, the AA is no longer obligated to use anything other than mundane bows, which should save a bit on expense and/or spell slots. Pick up a random, poorly-made bow, string a mundane arrow, and you still get the same Enhancement bonus someone with a really expensive bow would have.

Alternatively, replace the AA with Nifft's version (see the House Rules forum), which is just so nicely balanced that he should be slapped silly on general principle for not being Munchkin enough. Besides actually giving some spellcasting progression, the AA can pick things other than Enhancement bonus to bestow on his arrows.

4> The AA is still just so BORING!

See above.

 

[irdeggman]

A mighty bow is not magical and hence it would 'stack' with magical arrows.

I agree with the opinon that 3.0 had far too many things stacked in favor of archery and like the 3.5 rules concerning ammunition and weapons. I also like how they resolved the shield/armor issue.

Magical arrows were always kind of wimpy and an afterthought in my mind anyway. I mean they were one-time use (unless you missed and then you had a 50% chance of losing them). Why make magical arrows if you can make a magical bow instead? For one thing it is cheaper and faster to make the arrows so you could equip an 'army' of archers vice a character or two. It would be possible to add special properties to the arrows that as long as they are different than the ones possessed by the bow would indeed stack. Like the sonic and flaming family of bonuses.

 

[Zad]

I've been plaing an Arcane Archer for a long time now. I can tell you some things:

1. Archery was not radically overpowered in 3e. I did the math, (which I hadn't seen anyone else do) and saw that it wasn't. But that's not relevant any more

2. Arcane Archers got the shaft in 3.5. I mean they really got hosed. The designers should have revisited the class and changed it, but they didn't. And they were slightly underpowered to begin with.


If you're thinking about an AA, I totally agree with Spatzimaus - go take a look at the variant Nifft write up and And here's the link. It really is a great variant, and puts the "arcane" back into the class. I just converted to it but so far it's good.

 

[Ottergame]

Manyshot isn't a problem, it can't be used with any other attacks in a round unless you have haste. It's it's own special standard action and not an attack standard action.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I don`t think Arcane Archers are underpowered just because Bow & Arrows Enhancement Bonus do no longer stack.

The Arcane Archer does not need to worry about the enhancement bonus of his bow. +1 is sufficient, the rest of his money can be spend on damage enhancing abilities (Flaming, Holy, Bane etc. pp.)
If he loses his bow, it is still bad, but if he gets a replacement (even a nonmagical), he still has his special abilities available and a good magic weapon.

He doesn`t have the big "golfbag of weapons" problem. He just needs Ellhonas Quiver and can buy special material arrows and switch to the needed arrow whenenver neccessary.
He can even decide to save some money if he buys a few bane arrows for different types of monsters - probably much cheaper than improving the bows enhancement itself. (Remember the quadratic increase in price). Upgrading from a +4 to an effective +5 equivalent costs 18.000 gp - you could by 450 Bane Arrows or 225 [alignment] arrows from that money. (Or a Glove of Dexterity +4 and 50 bane arrows)
And whenever he is forced to switch his arrows, he still can use Weapon Focus & Weapon Specialisation with the bow. (Unlike a fighter who probably doesn`t have 6 Greatswords with him, each made from different material or quality to be prepared for the different monsters he might encounter)

Mustrum Ridcully

 

[Plane Sailing]

1. Archery was not radically overpowered in 3e. I did the math, (which I hadn't seen anyone else do) and saw that it wasn't. But that's not relevant any more

You mean math like "the archer can take full attacks every round without having to expose himself to a full attack in return like the melee fighter"

or

"The archer could get +10 hit, +10 damage from magic while the fighter could only get +5/+5"