Archers need love.

[trylobyte]

I was having a discussion with a friend today about new character builds, and eventually we both drew the same conclusion.  Making a dedicated archer just isn't worth it.  Archers could use some serious love.  Before anyone gets defensive, I know this is not a CD problem.  This is a core NWN problem.  Archers are, strictly speaking, terrible compared to all other options, and if you do make one you will probably be shoehorned into one or two very specific builds in order to simply be viable.

Let's compare.  Skip to the bottom if you don't want to read analysis.


The archer's main weapon is the bow.  Right now, there are four bows.  All bows are two-handed.  I'm including slings too because they're technically ranged weapons that would play like an archer would, so we have Slings, Shortbows, Longbows, and Light and Heavy Crossbows.  First off, we're going to just eliminate crossbows as an option for the dedicated archer.  They require a feat to even fire more than once per round and are thus automatically bottom-tier weapons for anyone above level ten, because who's going to waste a feat on Rapid Reload when you can just use a normal bow?  We're also going to eliminate slings because, without serious improvements, they're essentially the worst weapon in the game.  That leaves us with longbows and shortbows, and which one of these you use is going to depend on what feats you have and how big you are, and there's little functional difference between them anyway so we can carry on.

Now we need to compare our two remaining weapons to similar weapons a melee fighter might use.  The Longbow is directly comparable to the battle-axe, as both are 1d8 damage weapons that crit on a 20 and have a 3x multiplier.  The Shortbow is directly comparable to the handaxe, for the same reasons.  The big difference, of course, is that bows require two hands and axes only need one hand.  Having established our baseline for comparison, however, let's look at the inherent properties of these weapons.

All melee weapons scale off Strength.  Strength increases your attack bonus and also your damage.  Therefore, having a high Strength automatically makes you do better with the weapon.  Bows are different.  Bows scale their attack bonus off Dexterity and don't scale their attack damage off anything...  unless you get a bow with the Mighty property, which lets you scale its damage off your Strength up to the limit of the Mighty property.  This means to get the most out of a melee weapon you need one stat, but to get the most out of a ranged weapon you need two stats and an item property.  Additionally, as we're using a battle-axe and a hand-axe as our equivalent comparisons, let's remember.  The advantage of the axe is that it's one-handed, which means a shield, which means up to +9 AC (+5 AC if you assume the archer uses a Shield spell/scroll and it doesn't get dispelled).  The advantage of the bow is range - You can shoot things without being next to them.  So you're trading the ability to fire at range (making enemies less likely to target you) for the ability to actually avoid getting hit by things that do target you.  Now let's look at feats.

An axe is an axe.  You swing it at things and hit them.  It requires martial weapon proficiency and that's all, with the option to take the Standard Weapon Feats (Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization, Improved Critical) to make it better.  A bow has more options but also needs more feats.  In addition to Martial Weapon Proficiency and the Standard Weapon Feats, you can (and will) take Point Blank Shot to negate the -4 penalty for shooting someone next to you and Rapid Shot to give you an extra attack while giving a -2 penalty to all your attacks.  Not too shabby, but fighters can often match you because they get Attacks of Opportunity and can choose to take Cleave.  But it does mean you need two more feats over the axe.  This is a minimum of 2 feats for the axe (Focus and Imp Crit) plus proficiency, while the bow needs 4 (Focus, Imp Crit, PBShot, Rapid Shot) plus proficiency, but you gain an extra attack.  But now let's look at item properties.

This is a short and simple section.  Both weapons can benefit from being Keen and can benefit from the same damage bonuses.  However, our axe gets an Enhancement bonus while our bow only gets an Attack bonus.  This is a key difference - The Enhancement bonus adds both attack and damage, the Attack bonus only adds the former.  So if we assume +4 weapons, then our axe is now doing 4 points more damage than our bow.  Our bow is also going to need Mighty to get the same strength-to-damage bonus that our axe gets innately, so that's another property the bow needs to have simply to stay competitive.  Moving on to prestige classes.

Prestige classes are important for both melee fighters and ranged characters, but they get two very different classes.  Melee fighters get Weaponmaster, ranged characters get Arcane Archer.  Weaponmaster requires more feats to take, so now our axe-wielder probably has 7 feats (Expertise, Dodge, Mobility, Spring Attack, Whirlwind Attack, Weapon Focus, Improved Critical) while our arcane archer doesn't need to take any new feats (they've still used 4) but does need to take a new class, automatically making them a three-class build (since no sane spellcaster is going to take many levels of a class with no spell progression).  We already know what Weaponmaster does since it's one of the most popular prestige classes, so let's add its bonuses to our axe.  Our axe still has the same base damage but it now has a threat range of 18-20 and does 4x on a crit while our bow is unchanged.  Arcane Archers get a few nifty abilities (most of which are gimmicky and not worth talking about) but the biggest change is to their arrows, which are now enchanted just like a weapon.  This gives them a higher attack bonus than our warrior (making it easier for them to hit things) as well as a small damage bonus on every shot (the same one the axe already gets from Enhancement, though capable of going slightly higher).  But now let's get into spells.

Greater Magic Weapon will make any weapon +5.  But again, this is a +5 enhancement bonus for the melee (+5 Attack and +5 Damage) vs. +5 Attack for the bow, making it more useful for the melee weapon.  Additionally, melee weapons get Flame Weapon, which, from a decent-level caster, is an additional 1d4+10 damage of whatever element they choose, a spell that cannot be used on the bow at all.  Keen Edge can keen a weapon not already keened, but again this cannot be used on the bow.

Now let's get to the fun part.  Let's combine it all together.

A level 20 weaponmaster with 30 Strength (18 base, assuming a full suite of buffs for the +12 cap) using a CD standard tier 4 weapon (+4, 1d10 elemental damage) battleaxe that's been enchanted by a mage (or UMD) is going to be swinging around a +5 keen battleaxe that deals 1d8 base + 1d10 elemental + 5 enhancement + 10 strength + 1d4+10 Flame Weapon damage per hit 4 times a round with a crit range of 17-20 and a multiplier of 4x.  A level 20 arcane archer using a CD standard tier 4 bow (+4, Mighty 5, Unlimited Ammo 1d6, Massive Criticals 2d8) is going to be dealing 1d8 base + 1d6 elemental + 5 enhancement (from AA) + 5 strength damage per hit 5 times a round with a crit range of 19-20 and a multiplier of 3x.  If we average all that out, the weaponmaster is dealing approximately 37.5 damage per attack to the arcane archer's 18.  If we simulate 10 rounds of combat using those averages, then the weaponmaster will attack 40 times with a 20% chance to crit (averaging 8 critical hits) compared to the archer's 50 attacks with a 10% chance to crit (averaging 5 critical hits) for a theoretical damage output of 2400 damage (1200 from regular swings, 1200 from critical hits - Funny how that worked out!) for the weaponmaster compared to a paltry 1125 (810 from regular attacks, 315 from critical hits) for the arcane archer, and remember that this is using weapons with the exact same base stats!

This gets even worse on CD when you consider the variables that exist there skew things further in the favor of melee fighters.  Keen Edge can't be cast on bows and I've never seen a Keen bow, decreasing the critical threat of archers (which was factored into the above math).  Melee weapons also tend to have stronger elemental bonuses than bows can achieve, due to the ammunition requirement of bows (this was also factored in above).  Further, the Strength bonus I used for the above calculations is actually extremely low when you consider half-dragon PCs are easily capable of reaching Strength scores in the 40s by level 20, raising their base damage significantly.  I also didn't factor in the bonus attacks melee fighters get from making attacks of opportunity or the use of feats like Cleave, which can dramatically increase their damage.


TL;DR - Archers are significantly worse than anything else you could be doing outside of one or two very narrow and specific builds (often ones that make use of Divine Might).

Now, what can we do to fix this?  Well, short of adding new base classes (and I don't want to dump that on Vincent right now) there are a few things you could do to make archers feel better.  Most of them come in the form of updating their available item pool - Keen works as well on bows as it does on weapons, so why not have a few Keen bows?  Why not give bows more damage capability by sticking elemental or even physical damage bonuses on them on top of the ammunition to give them some more kick?  Why not make Rapid Reload standard on crossbows to make them viable, and why not have some standard level of Mighty on bows as well?  In fact, how about we distinguish ranged weapons a bit more? 

Consider this as a way to differentiate ranged weapons:

Slings and Throwing Weapons all gain Mighty +20 for free.  They'll go as hard as you can fling them and the stronger you are the more they hurt.  This can be done via an OnEquip script that gives them a temporary bonus, I believe, but I'm no coder and I'm not sure how much work it would be.  This would give strong characters a way to help at range, albeit with a low chance of actually hitting things because their attack bonus still scales off Dex.  This would also make throwing knives and darts great weapons for rogues.

Crossbows get Rapid Reload for free.  All of them.  This puts them on par with bows in general and makes them good emergency backup weapons.  To specialize them further, Crossbows are never Mighty but have higher damage bonuses (usually Piercing damage) and bigger Massive Criticals values so that they do more damage in the hands of the inexperienced and are still able to be focused on as a main weapon but aren't as versatile as bows.

Shortbows and Longbows would have a wider array of bonuses, more versatile damage types, and higher Mighty values compared to crossbows, but not as high as throwing weapons.  They would also have the most versatile array of ammunition and would be the most likely weapons to have Unlimited Ammo.

Finally, introduce a new vendor who only sells ammunition and throwables.  This would allow ammunition to scale with the server instead of stopping at Tier 3 and would also allow for price control, since the prices on ammunition can get wildly out of control in proportion to how useful they are.  It would also allow for the sale and use of 'trick' ammunition that makes use of On-Hit Cast Spell to do cool and unusual things.

Just some ideas.  I hope they help, and am interested in feedback!

[allatum]

Don't thrown weapons already do damage based off of strength? I'm fairly sure they do. I'm not sure about slings though. As for extra damage on bows, doing Keen, alongside Mighty Crit bonuses may be a nice addition.

[Edge]

Thrown weapons and slings do already add STR as part of their base damage yes.

[trylobyte]

Aug 26, 2017 7:38:09 GMT -5 allatum said:

Don't thrown weapons already do damage based off of strength? I'm fairly sure they do. I'm not sure about slings though. As for extra damage on bows, doing Keen, alongside Mighty Crit bonuses may be a nice addition.

I wonder why I've never noticed this before.  Thanks!  I'd still like to see higher-quality ones made available.

[trylobyte]

So I've been playing an arcane archer now, because I wanted to do something different.  And boy do I regret it.  The class is just so, so, so bad from a mechanical standpoint.  How bad?  Well, I have 7 levels in Arcane Archer and I still do more damage with a +1 shortsword that I bought at level 5 than I do with my bow.

This really highlights how bad bow-users have it.  Let me reiterate all the things about playing an archer that have made me regret it:

* I do no damage.  Elemental Weapon alone does almost as much damage as my shots do and my rapier crits for almost as much damage as my bow despite my bow having Massive Criticals and an x3 multiplier.  The fact my rapier crits more often makes it the superior choice for damage.  Again, this is despite me having SEVEN LEVELS in an archery prestige class.  I still see myself doing single-digit damage from time to time at a level where other people typically do 20-30 damage a swing.  It's pathetic.

* A good bow is hard to find.  Especially at sub-16 levels.  Why are most of the better mid-tier bows restricted to melee classes?  There are two bows I'd love to use, but one is limited to cleric/druid/paladin and the other to fighter/barbarian/weaponmaster!  Weaponmaster!  They shouldn't even use bows!  And bows are equally rare in loot drops, to the point I haven't come across one yet despite running T3 and T4 dungeons regularly.

* Rapid Shot is too finicky to rely on.  It disengages at the slightest misclick and requires a full round to toggle back on.  I know that nothing can be done about this, but it's annoying.

* A lot of dungeons force me into close combat due to having enclosed buildings or spawning things on top of me.  Combined with the fact every mob gets a free attack of opportunity against me once per round and this results in either risking death in close combat, switching to melee to avoid them, or missing out on XP.


Please give archers some love.  I don't know how, but they really need something.  This is making every part of me that wants to play an effective character sad, and it's a shame because I enjoy the roleplaying.  But every dungeon run is torture.  I repeat, archers need love.  Please help them.

[Vincent07]

So, I'll address your last few points.

1)  Bow Damage:  No argument here, bow damage is generally shit unless you crit with a good bow.  Really only fix for this would be to add more items and revamp existing ones to do more damage.  However, if memory serves, the bow itself only adds damage from 'Mighty', which ofc requires a high STR mod.  Actual damage bonuses need to go on the arrows.  So maybe I just need to make a Fletcher merchant that has a variety of higher damage arrows.

2) Bow items:  Related to the above... the good bows are few and far between, and gods help you if you want to use a shortbow.  As to the restrictions on some of them,  blame that on the builder who made them.  She had a theme in mind.   I may go undo some of that, as I'm starting to think a lot of the class/etc restrictions on items are dumb.

3) Rapid Shot:  Yeah, can't do anything here.  Only way it stays on is if you stay in combat and do not move at all.  Unfortunately, due to ranged target switching not always working right, this sometimes flags you as out of combat, and then it turns off.  Unfortunately, modes fall into combat engine hardcode, so no touchy.

4) Most dungeons are going to involve cramped spaces and things in your face.  Unfortunately there is really no good way to keep things at range, or kite as an archer in NWN.  Ideally you'd have other party members in melee so you can stand in the back, but that isn't always going to be the case, so most of the time you're going to end up in melee, and then your best bet is probably to switch to a rapier. (Hope you took finesse.)


As an aside, AA will be getting some love, in that their useable abilities will be getting more uses/day.  Outside of that, there is not much I can do for them due to combat blackboxing.

[trylobyte]

Regarding #1, I think they actually do...  if you can put them on there.  The problem is that the vanilla toolset doesn't let you add that property to bows without haks that modify the allowable item properties.  I know PRC does it like this - That's how they add your dex modifier to your bow damage, with a flat Piercing bonus equal to your Dex modifier slapped straight on the bow.  In fact, I'm so used to this from my other server that I wasn't aware you can't add those properties to bows by default until I went and checked the builder module just now.

I wonder how easy or hard this would be to implement.  I'll ask a scripter friend who's already done a deep-dive into PRC stuff (which I'm told is bad for your sanity and is not recommended) and get back to you on the subject.

[carp6]

I have played an AA for a very long time now and I would have to say the biggest fix that we could implement would be working on the longbows, short bows and the arrows/ammunition that you can buy for them or find in the dungeons.  If we do that I don't think it would be so brutal to play one.  

[FaeFae]

I am going to give a nod toward mighty being uncapped since it requires a secondary attribute to bow use and does not necessarily add anything unless one has the stat. DEX or WIS determines to-hit, so generally people go heavy into those. Uncapping Mighty will allow a little more variety instead of a fighter picking up a bow and simply being terrible at it in all respects.

[Vincent07]

Ability to add the aforementioned properties to a bow requires .2da line edits.  It's that simple.  

Anything else, like adding dex mod to damage, is likely done via a scripted check in the OnEquip.

[Embra]

Could you nerf zen arrhery feat a sub dex for wis? I am playing an AA npow, though only two lvls AA. Personally,  I am happy with a +3 bow, coming from from the last server I played wasoer magic.

[Edge]

Errr.... Why would we want to nerf Zen?

I don't think we can anyway, pretty sure it's in the black box, but I can't understand why we'd even want to.

Also I'm guessing you're on mobile, a lot of that came thru as a jumbled mess and I can't understand most of what you're saying.

[Embra]

I was think of an additional feat, not to replace zen archery. I do not actually feel much needs to be changed, but i am new and not very savy with mechanics so please disregard.

[FaeFae]

Cleric archers are a valid path and should not be forgotten. To say only Arcane Archer gets to have bow consideration is like forbidding everyone but Weapon Masters from using melee weapons. Don't touch Zen Archery.

I don't believe too many changes are needed, really. They just seem to be off by a few points of damage due to buffs we have on the server. Freeing up mighty would give them the same option to expand as any other Dex class has with damage on melee weapons. Perhaps more massive critical or Blackguard sneak on bows to make up for elemental weapon?

The reason I suggest the fix come in at the bows is because it helps all archers and not just one niche that already benefits by being able to surpass all DR late game and receives up to +10 enchantment in damage.

(This was badly phone written)

[trylobyte]

I'd be curious to see if the 2DA edit would allow for standard damage properties on bows and if they work without the PRC (I'm not gonna ask you to do the onequip stuff, that's too much work for too little benefit right now).  If so, that could give a great tool for tailoring damage without requiring a whole lot of work and would give people a lot more options to make varied and powerful bows.  

As for work that doesn't require any changes at all, uncapping Mighty is certainly a fine start, though we'd have to go back and apply it to bows that don't already have it (I don't think that's very many).  I'm a bit leery on using massive criticals or sneak attacks simply because there's a lot at the mid-levels that can't be sneaked or crit (something that also hurts rogues) though it'd be fine later on since outside of Thunderstone all the epic dungeons have sneakable, crittable mobs.  Probably the best solution without needing to edit files would be a combination of the two.