Bludgeoning, Flame and Cold Arrows in stacks of 99

[Egon the Monkey]

Bludgeoning, Flame and Cold Arrows in stacks of 99.
Because 1-3 at a time is a pain to use and the Flame/cold arrows don't seem to stack in >10.
That's all.

[Luke Danger]

Agreed, it's become a major pain in the ass for me to have more inventory slots than needed for much less than the space is worth.

I'm sure other archers feel the same.

[dragonfire9000]

Do it. Make 'em a hair rarer, and just do it. This is so simple it's not even funny.

[PanamaLane]

I've always been a big fan of more nifty arrows. There are lots around. But more never hurts. Especially when you weigh in the big time buffs you can lay on melee weapons.

Sure, sure, melee users need said buffs because they are up front. So maybe you don't have 1d4 fire dmg/lvl or whatever. But plus 1 fire damage is still pretty sweet and you would think fairy common in setting.

Making them stackable, well, that's just obvious.

[Jayde Moon]

99 may be a bit much.

But 2s and 3s is frustratingly meh.

Maybe stacks of 20-50?

[Mechsword]

99 may be a bit much.

But 2s and 3s is frustratingly meh.

Maybe stacks of 20-50?

Screw it, let us all just get vorpal death buttons. (Or I.W.I.N. Buttons, which ever.)

[Egon the Monkey]

Er, 1 fire or cold damage isn't gamebreaking especially considering arrows with Negative and Divine Damage in stacks of 50 are common drops on a few quests.

@Panamalane: No, frontliners don't *need* damage buffs, they need defensive ones. Damage buffs are a bonus.

Ranged weapons do end up pretty weak compared to melee due to  the low item power setting and lack of temporary upgrade buffs. Giving access to good size supplies of +dmg arrows would help, as you eat through those things, especially if you're a rapidshot build.

Hell, I'd say that bows and ammo should be vastly improved to make archers scary. When was the last time you saw someone afraid of a ranged weapon based PC? Or an archer win a duel?

[dragonfire9000]

Hell, I'd say that bows and ammo should be vastly improved to make archers scary. When was the last time you saw someone afraid of a ranged weapon based PC? Or an archer win a duel?

Amen!! I rolled up a fighter who I styled as a sniper/hitman. He died painfull on a bugged wild orc quest, but that's not the point here. The point is he had every feat possible for the crossbow. WS Heavy Crossbow, PBS, Rapid Reload (which I later learned was pointless until level six) and Rapid Shot (Which just is pointless for a crossbow) My point is, ranged classes are underpowered.

Unfortunately...

Ranged classes have the advantage of fighting behind people with sixty-odd hit points. This means that, for balance purposes, they have to be somewhat weaker one-on-one. A hateful fact of life.

[Egon the Monkey]

Ok, firstly this suggestion is now moot, because a certain quest now has boxes of ammo including good stashes of flame arrows. Kudos to the DMs on that.

Secondly, yes, ranged PCs are good in a team, but still less than effective in any 1 on 1 fight. I blame the low magic low level setting somewhat, as you can't really spec for bow and retain some closeup power, or multiclass enough to have a load of slowing spells.

They need some kind of short duration firepower or reserve they can pull out to be dangerous 1 on 1. Something to make a sniper attack a scary prospect. Anti-playerrace (but not monsterrace) AB bows, small but common stashes of very powerful ammunition (Onhit:Entangling or 1d6 elemental dmg, that sort of thing) to hoard for emergencies, etc. The ranged equivalent of Magic Weapon/Darkfire wands.

The Fickler Knives are incredible stuff, and I'd like to see more stuff like that that is worth hoarding for PVP, Badass Bosses and so on.

[Luke Danger]

Agreed, in the 100 years of War, the French were (so I've heard) scared witless by English Longbowmen, that kind of terror needs to happen, and to be honest, it's hard to get that unless you're a L9 pure ranger or pure fighter with a min-max archery build with brilliant ammo and your targets at L5 or less. . .

Seriously, archers are underpowered, if you want to assassianate, you usually need to get in close with a *bleep*load of enchantments

Also, it seems that for most arrows, you can take Insulation + Blur and the archer won't hurt you, for PvE, that's fine, but in PvP it's just making an Archer some dead weight.

[Oskar Maxon]

If I got my history right, the Englishmen deployed their longbowmen in an inverted wedge, with knights in the middle. The French knights would, bound of honour, charge towards the English knights, all riding through a gauntlet more or less, with the English firing hail after hail of arrows in a rain of them, killing them in great numbers. They weren't afraid because of a lone archer picking them off with a longbow, it was the massive amount of arrows raining down on a densely packed group, that made the difference.

[Equinox]

the motto of this story is, GANKSQUADS.

[Oskar Maxon]

What?

[dragonfire9000]

Maxon is right, I'm afraid. Masses of arrows inspired terror because of the widespread death.

[efuincarnate]

I played an archer watchmen way back when Fawkes was sheriff in EFU..2 I think he was 2 fighter/5 rogue.   Sneak attack w/a bow is devestating.  Most maps let you get close enough for the sneak attack to trigger, and yet far enough to be out of most melee ranges.  You do sacrifice dmg in close-combat, but as it should be..I could drop folks with moderate hp with one shot.  I do not remember the specifics of the build, but being a successful archer was not at all hard. Maybe the mechanics have been changed since then. *shrugs*