Projectile damage enhancers

[Meetch1972]

Just wondering what people think about some ability to enhance your arrows and bolts, just as today's archer can spend more money if they wish to help their chances doing damage.

Now, I know we have both normal->+5 bows/crossbows and normal->+5 arrows/bolts, and those are D&D things. But is that enough? I'm suggesting something like this, whether only available from house D favor, or some jungle tribe, or whatever:

Option 1: Let us convert the projectile's head to barbed (or even occasionally find projectiles like that) -> increase the crit damage chance by 5% and multiplier by 0.5. It could cost 100pp per arrow, if you wanted to spend it.

Option 2: Keen arrows. Double crit range, non-stackable with other keen effects/IC feat.

Additional option: Heighened keen arrows. Enchanted heads that add another +1 to the crit range above all keen/IC calculation.

I'd pay decent extra pp to ensure I have a stack of those bolts or arrows over the silver/hundred stacks currently available. It might even turn into a bit of a PP sink for those who use ranged combat regularly.

Thoughts? Worth the effort?

Just thinkin'...

[doubledge]

just make repeating arrows drop normally, grab a returning pure good arrow, put icy burst on it, and voila

[ArgentMage]

I usually think about this the other way: have a great bow, and just buy the most
basic arrows, so you don't have to think about it.

If you're a serious bow user, you'll have Holy, Paralyzer, Stat-Damager, and Ghost Touch bows.
Put Frost or Icy Burst on them (from the Risia games). Then you're pretty much good
to go.

Many TWF AA builds are DEX with ImprovedCrit:Ranged anyway, so Keen wouldn't
stack with that.

[Meetch1972]

I usually think about this the other way: have a great bow, and just buy the most
basic arrows, so you don't have to think about it.

If you're a serious bow user, you'll have Holy, Paralyzer, Stat-Damager, and Ghost Touch bows.
Put Frost or Icy Burst on them (from the Risia games). Then you're pretty much good
to go.

Many TWF AA builds are DEX with ImprovedCrit:Pierce anyway, so Keen wouldn't
stack with that.

If you have a STR build with ImprovedCrit:Slash, you want a Returning Throwing Axe
anyway. Preferably a Shocking or Flaming one so you can add Frost/IcyBurst to it.
Then you pick up the improved crit for it, too, which is pretty nice.

Have, or working on all of the above. Just thinking that there are already keen weapons, and maybe even keen bows, so why not keen arrows and bolts? So you got your hands a banishing bow and don't/cannot invest in IC:Pierce. It would be nice to be able to improve the chances of a crit and hence forcing the target to make a saving throw.

I also deliberately indicated in option 2 that the basic keen arrow wouldn't stack with IC or a keen bow - but if you find a +5 metalline holy burst then it'll probably be ML20 and racially restricted anyway - no room for keen. So buy some funky arrows that give you MORE power. Muahahaha! And as bolts and arrows are consumables, they might be a viable way to drain my pp supply, if I decided I needed it for a task. Edit: Trying to say here that with this I can be closer to an AA in effectiveness, but not sustainable without ongoing investment.

Increasing the crit multiplier is more wishful thinking, but I thought I'd throw it up there, but the rest was thinking "out loud" with respect to giving the non-AA a little more power, and maybe even helping the AA a touch more, even if it is at significant cost. My melee toon doesn't need to invest in mana pots and many other things (larges is about it now that some tomes are out of the way). I would invest a decent amount of my extra pp to maintain ranged effectiveness while running toward the fray.

Thanks for the input, anyway.

[Meetch1972]

just make repeating arrows drop normally, grab a returning pure good arrow, put icy burst on it, and voila

I don't agree with returning arrows - the house D specials are ok, but a 100% returning arrow with a desired effect strikes me as just... wrong... Besides, how would you manyshot them? Similar for repeating crossbows - it's too much of a stretch for me that I might have 3 copies of one bolt flying at the target simultaneously. In fact, it even bugs me a little that I can both see my returning throwing axe embedded in that wall over there in a couple of places, AND be throwing it again at the same time.

[sephiroth1084]

You know that Arcane Archer creates up to +5 returning arrows as one of its major features, right?

[Meetch1972]

You know that Arcane Archer creates up to +5 returning arrows as one of its major features, right?

Actually, I wasn't. I knew they were special but haven't researched the details... yet. An AA can be treated as a special case due to the specifics of their path (still silly if your arrow can clone itself on your bow during manyshot IMO but I'll not argue there 'cos I don't know how it works yet). The sacrifices made to become AA is enough excuse for me to give them something which makes them useful if not top DPS.

But giving everyone the chance at finding a +5 returning arrow in a chest, or the AH is a bit much, again IMO.

I'd just like the opportunity as an ordinary ranger to be able to invest in occasionally doing something better than what I can, at expense in bursts that don't rely so much on manyshot but also a little on pp. The key is, even if it could be as good as an AA for a little while, it would not be sustainable - if you want to do what an AA, then make the necessary sacrifices and go AA, but if you're not an AA and want to look like one in front of your group, pony up a few thousand pp to get a minute worth of awesomesauce.

[Rakian_Knight]

I know this isn't the greatest but I might help some:

What if the normal vendor in house D that sells +1 weapons sold arrows and bolts that were +1 acidic, +1 flaming, +1 frost, +1 shocking? Either that or increase the normal drops of arrows and bolts from stacks of 20 to stacks of 100 so they might be used more because we have enough to use them.

100% returning arrows or bolts should never be created as random loot and be bound to character named loot if they make them at all. Arrows with 75%, 50%, even 25% returning named items that aren't bound shouldn't be bound like the arrows you can get from the shadow crypt.

Just my thoughts

~Rakian_Knight

[Ganolyn]

Many TWF AA builds are DEX with ImprovedCrit:Pierce anyway, so Keen wouldn't
stack with that.

If you have a STR build with ImprovedCrit:Slash, you want a Returning Throwing Axe
anyway.

This is incorrect. IC:Slashing and Piercing do not transfer to ranged and thrown weapons. Only IC:Ranged and Thrown work on those types.

[ArgentMage]

This is incorrect. IC:Slashing and Piercing do not transfer to ranged and thrown weapons. Only IC:Ranged and Thrown work on those types.

I stand corrected - and apologize for the incorrect info.
Original post edited to eliminate bad data.

[doubledge]

how about a tome- like rarity of a bta returing arrow showing up? only usefull buffs.

[Meetch1972]

how about a tome- like rarity of a bta returing arrow showing up? only usefull buffs.

Actually, I could go for that if the arrow were as fragile as regular arrows... returning, but not everlasting.

[Talias006]

<snip>
(still silly if your arrow can clone itself on your bow during manyshot IMO but I'll not argue there 'cos I don't know how it works yet). The sacrifices made to become AA is enough excuse for me to give them something which makes them useful if not top DPS.
</snip>

Actually, if you haven't yet read up on the AA arrow summoning yet, it's not as silly as you think. You get to summon a stack of 100 +(X) arrows. So it's not a cloned returning arrow, but a batch that I don't think it's even possible to drain all 100 in a single shot/attack.

[PopeJual]

If Turbine made 100% returning arrows drop in chests occasionally (like the 100% returning throwing weapons), I'd actually roll up an Arcane Archer.

[Raodin-bel-iori]

I personally would just like to see house d sell, or AA be ablel to conjure blunted or bladed arrows so that they can shoot undead and skeletons without having to worry about never being able to bypass their DR.

Being able to buy or conjure arrows of certain materials would be nice too. It's a pain having to try and hoard silver or adamantine arrows slowly over time and than blow them all in one quest.