Bow Strength

[Letrii]

The penalty to hit is represented in composite bows. They have a certain strength rating and if your strength modifier is less than the rating you have a penalty to hit. The strength rating also limits bonus damage from Str.

For instance composite longbow (+1) would require a Str of 12 or more to use without penalty and allows you to add +1 to damage, even if your Str is 14 or higher you would only add +1 with this bow.

[Therigar]

Earlier in the thread the argument was made that providing a damage modifier based on STR would violate PnP rules. But, as the thread continues to grow it becomes clear that the current implimentation in DDO does not conform to the PnP rules in any case.

If I understand the posts thus far, non-composite bows should offer no STR bonuses to any character and composite bows should. It has long been a part of D&D that composite bows give a STR bonus.

Now, the posts seem to indicate that there is a limit on composite bows so that a non-magical composite bow only provides +1 damage if STR is 12+. Magic increases this to +2 damage if STR is 14+, +3 damage if 16+, etc. So, a +3 composite bow would allow 12 STR +1 to damage, 14 STR +2 and 16 STR +3 -- and it would also give +3 to hit and to damage to all characters. Net bonus would then be: 12 STR +4, 14 STR +5 and 16 STR +6. Characters with more than 16 STR would be limited to the maximum bonus of +3/+3.

This would make composite bows more valuable and improve damage for bow users. I'm not sure it would decrease the gap between melee and ranged characters. OTOH, we don't discuss closing the gap concerning different melee styles. It is perfectly logical to us that TWF and THF should do more damage than S&B. Maybe it isn't an issue of eliminating the gap so much as it is one of decreasing the gap to something more reasonable.

Something JSiN said makes additional sense. STR in real life is much more important to using a bow than DEX is. We have a feat that lets us swap DEX for STR with melee weapons. What if Bow Strength let us swap STR for DEX with bows rather than giving STR bonuses to damage?

If DDO gave STR bonuses to composite bows and if Bow Strength were a swap feat trading DEX for STR then maybe we'd be closer to a workable path. What then to do with the present Bow Strength feat? I'm thinking that it reverts to a ranger only class based feat renamed Bow Expertise that is independent of STR or DEX and provides a bonus to hit and damage as the ranger increases in levels. I'd probably give +1 at L1 and increase by +1 at L5, L10, L15 and L20.

Under this revised proposal a +5 composite bow would be +5 to hit and damage for any character able to use it. It would be an additional +1 to +6 to damage for characters with higher STR. This caps STR at 22 so no bonus damage if STR is higher.

A +11 damage modifier on +5 composite bows would be a big jump. Give rangers another +5 and that seems really large. A ranger with 22+ STR becomes +10 to hit and +16 to damage. If the proposed Bow Strength feat is taken (current feat rolled back to rangers only and renamed Bow Expertise) the ranger becomes +16 to hit and to damage.

Is that really out of line? A melee character with 22 STR and a +5 weapon is +11 to hit and +11 to damage but gets many more attacks than a bow user. A 32 STR character gains another +5 to hit and to damage (total +16).

I don't think that it is out of line at all. It doesn't go as far as my original thought but it does narrow the gap between bow users and melee characters. That may be enough to let us keep rangers in our groups (or at least avoid the need for "/tell rangername Are you TWF or range focused?").

[Visty]

you got a little thing wrong there

a +3 composite bow doesnt give you a +3 from str as max
a compositve bow +3 does that

you can also have a +1 comp bow +5 which lets you add a strmod till +5 to your damage while only getting the +1 tohit (and tht +1 to dmg too ofc)

also adding that mechanic and removing bowstr would cripple ranged combat even more as the max you can get is a comp bow +5

currently its possible to reach 40+ str for a modifier of at least+15

making it in line with pnp would remove 10dmg per shot

[Letrii]

A default composite bow has a Str rating of +0, price goes up the higher rating bow is made with and there is no effective limit on how high it can go.

Composite bow (+1) allows you to use up to +1 Str bonus.

+2 Composite bow (+1) has +2 to attack/damage and allow you to use up to +1 Str bonus.

[Therigar]

Thanks for the clarifications. Then as currently implimented all bows are effectively (+N) where N = STR bonus if a character has the Bow Strength feat. Making a change negates this and further weakens bow users.

For those characters with 40 STR the bonus is +15 and pushing that to +45 as I originally suggested is perhaps too much. I guess the question really is, "What is the delta between melee attacks & damage and bow attacks & damage?"

Emili puts rate of fire at 43 per minute. Assuming a miss on the last of every 20 shots this produces 41 hits. Assuming a 40 STR this is 15*41=615 bonus damage per minute.

What is the attack rate of a S&B melee character and what bonus damage is done under the same assumptions over the same 1 minute period?

[Maegin]

dude, you know better than to use archery in the first place

your better than that lol

[Therigar]

dude, you know better than to use archery in the first place

your better than that lol

Well, that is the point. Shooting stuff is not a useful combat skill in DDO except in a very few places. In those spots it is enough to just have a bow/crossbow/throwing weapon and to be proficient in the weapon use.

But, there is an increase in range based characters since DDO went F2P and they usually end up hurting the group rather than helping it. Unlike TWF ranger builds that can range but also switch to melee when the mobs get close, these new players have no STR and no melee ability at all. Most of the time they have low HP and low AC in the mistaken belief that being a ranged build they never need to be close to the enemy.

Unfortunately there are a couple of things wrong with those thoughts. First, the bow doesn't do enough damage to kill the mob before it gets to the character. Second, a lot of the mobs have bows or throwing weapons themselves. The AI causes all mobs that are aware of the shooting to aggro on the shooter -- so pulling with a bow isn't a smart thing in most cases. But, even if it were the characters don't have the melee power to kill the mob when it arrives.

This leads to the Keystone Cops scene where the archer is kiting the mobs, often aggroing more of them, and the group is running vainly after to try and help. It is a total disaster and it is so bad that, were I not running almost always with guildies, would cause me to NOT include rangers in my LFMs.

What I am trying to figure out is a way to make these worthless characters meaningful to the game and useful in groups. It is obvious that they won't go away so how do we transform the game to give them a role that every group can use?

My idea is to bring them up to at least parity with S&B characters so that there is a reasonable chance that they can meaningfully contribute to the kill count. The best way to do that is to increase the damage that bows do.

Now, another issue is the number of DEX builds cropping up. DEX builds are worthless except in the hands of people that have a lot of experience. They don't have the damage capacity to contribute meaningfully in a group. So I'm suggesting that we change the environment by putting greater emphasis on STR.

There is a new post concerning a Legolas build. Capped STR of 22. How much more useful would that build be if it had a STR of 30 w/o rage or ram's might? It could use real weapons that did real damage (instead of the suggested kukris) and do more damage with every bow shot. Problem is that DEX is needed for bows.

So, I'm convinced that the first change needs to be a feat that uses STR instead of DEX for bow to-hit calculations.

Figuring out the rate of attack lets us decide if more change is needed. FWIW, I think the composite bow change is also worthwhile (now that I understand it) so that any character could benefit from STR bonuses. That calls into question the need for ranger bow strength and what separates rangers from others. I think a tweak there might be in order.

But, the goal is to find a mechanism that actually makes sense from a real life perspective concerning how bows really work and also conforms in general terms to the fantasy world of D&D. It is NOT, IMO, critical that the mechanism reflect PnP rules as the conversion into a real-time MMO requires some adjustment (and we know that DDO does not follow PnP strictly in any case).

What is important, critical, is that the game give greater utility to range based characters so that they stop being a liability to groups.

[makaishu]

I am by no meen an expert but after 17 lvl as a RANGE BUILD FIGHTER i have as yet to see any RANGER out dps me.

Personnaly i would say that range combat ain't for everyone... If you are looking to out dps the melee, you are not understanding your role in that group and even worst, you are not understanding your own self.

Problem with range build (fighter, ranger) is the person playing it, TOO OFTEN i saw the freakin moron shoot what must NOT BE... aggroing things into the group and getting teammates killed.

Use of the right ammunition does make a huge difference in DPS.
Use of the right weapon type does make a huge difference (ex:metaline vs damage reduction base on metal type, instead of doing 5 damage you do 25)

RANGE BUILD are for "sniping", get rid of the casters(healer,mage) ,aggro management( help that cleric or mage getting pound on, Get the aggro fast and give time the cleric to ress the tank and resume fight as should be.

Patience is the KEY, wait for the right moment then unleash a hell of arrow(damage) kill then wait again.

I would appreciate something like BOW STR being more powerful... but seriously its not needed.


Just my 2cp

[Therigar]

I am by no meen an expert but after 17 lvl as a RANGE BUILD FIGHTER i have as yet to see any RANGER out dps me.

This is a troll right? There is no possible way that you are out DPSing a melee build. You might be out DPSing a ranger that is a range build but that isn't much of an accomplishment. You might even have the ideal bow and arrow combination for the content you are on creating a lot of special circumstances.

But, there is no possible way that you can be doing more DPS than a ranger or fighter or barbarian or monk or rogue as a ranged build compared to their melee builds*.

*Caveat -- if every other character is a completely gimped build you might be doing more DPS, the assumption I am making is that the other characters are moderately well designed and played by competent players.