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| Making archery work http://paradigmconcepts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=1198 |
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| Author: | Southernskies [ Thu May 01, 2014 9:06 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Making archery work |
I've re-played a couple of adventures, trying out archery as a concept and its not working to well so far. The speed cost of archery seems to be too high to be viable. Example (after drawing): +2 Load Weapon +5 Fire weapon (shortbow) +2-4 Precise Aim or other 'useful' technique. Making it 9+ ticks between attacks. The last couple of fights, I've fired twice... An heirloom weapon will speed things up by one tick, but its still very slow compared to melee (even a Greatsword wielder makes more attacks; after techniques). The combination of slow speed, reload and the cost of Precise Aim seems to kill it as being viable. Flintlocks at least have the advantage of 'shoot and dump' getting a couple of shots off before I have even fired my first arrow. My feeling is that Shortbow and Longbow need their weapon speed lowered by one and Precise Aim needs to also be lowered to +1 (0) to even catch up to melee builds. |
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| Author: | Nierite [ Thu May 01, 2014 9:11 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Making archery work |
There are two methods of speeding this up in Codex of Heroes: a talent and a martial technique. Look up Rapid Shot and Quick Reload. |
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| Author: | val Holryn [ Fri May 02, 2014 6:19 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Making archery work |
What Cody said. The biggest advantage of "archery" is that you'll never waste time moving up to your foe. Your "reach" is extraordinary. With an heirloom shortbow bow and the right talents you'll be attacking every 4-6 ticks...and the adversaries will generally have to waste time trying to get to you. I believe its viable. |
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| Author: | DeadZone [ Fri May 02, 2014 12:30 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Making archery work |
I agree with Cody & Eric. My wife plays an archer. And her PC does pretty well in combat (...so long as the bad guys don't find their way into the backfield to mess with her or the casters. Even then, incidental movement still allows the character to hold her own, if just a tick or two slower than usual.) Not only that, but as soon as we enter a combat where the opponent(s) can fly, it's her time to shine. Us melee combatants who carry around a ranged weapon for emergencies lose a lot of effectiveness when we can't use our preferred weapon. Scott |
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| Author: | Nierite [ Fri May 02, 2014 12:33 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Making archery work |
My fiancee also plays an archer, and I don't think she's ever been accused of being ineffective in that role. Hell, as an Expert-Archer she is only marginally less effective in melee, which means she is merely average there while still being pretty darned good at archery. Now, if only she could roll above a 12. . . 
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| Author: | Hat [ Fri May 02, 2014 2:03 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Making archery work |
My wife also plays an archer as her secondary and it worked out pretty well. The incidental movement can be killer. I'm starting to believe that Lunge is a must have for melee types, especially ones without Quick. Even at a Pace of 20, Lunge gives you 10' of movement for +1 speed and 2 recovery. Often though that's not enough to cover the battlefield. Opponents don't even have to be flying. I've seen enough opponents on balconies, up stairs, around a switch back etc. to see the definite value in ranged combat. My primary just isn't built for it at the moment. I'm currently toying with a build that would be either bowman or light spear with air rune and gauntlet. Bowman has the advantage of only needing 2 skills to keep up (archery and unarmed) while light spear ends up being 3 (pole-arm, thrown and unarmed). You could even throw in a bit of variation if you added the cestus to the mix on the hand holding the bow. The Flos de Macto fighting style looks cool as well, but it doesn't leave a free hand and I expect it's well represented at the moment. From my perspective it's one of the nicer fighting styles. One thing to keep in mind at least for Martial archers is that you can take Rapid Shot as your archetype martial technique without having quick draw and without needing to wait to have 5 ranks in the weapon before gaining. Saving a talent and starting with it could certainly be a boost. With a sweep of his hat, Paul |
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| Author: | Southernskies [ Fri May 02, 2014 7:35 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Making archery work |
val Holryn wrote: With an heirloom shortbow bow and the right talents you'll be attacking every 4-6 ticks...and the adversaries will generally have to waste time trying to get to you. I believe its viable. I presume you're not shooting into melee then. The +2 from Careful Aim is just murder on the firing rates. The tick saving from having the talents (which cost a few talents to start) doesn't really help once everyone is in melee. |
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