Talk:Improved Deflect Arrows (3.5e Feat)

Ratings

	Leziad likes this article and rated it 3 of 4.
	Decent moderate feat, I could see it being a good tool for fighter and monks who end up fighting lot of ranged combatant.

	Spanambula likes this article and rated it 3 of 4.
	Normally I'm not in favor of things that completely negate attacks, but this isn't even stronger than Wind Wall. My only critique would be that since it's the end of a feat chain, the Dex requirement should be higher than that of Deflect Arrows, at least 15.

	Ghostwheel opposes this article and rated it 0 of 4.
	No feat, regardless of how many prerequisites it has, should make you immune to a whole subset of characters.

Great Minds Think Alike

So in my search for feats which built up off Deflect Arrows as I was thinking of making this feat, I came across several homebrew IDA feats which were all very similar to this idea. The resemblence is unintentional, but amusing, and I felt like giving indirect credit to all the various premutations of this idea.

Honestly I'm surprised it didn't already exist, it seems like the logical conclusion. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 06:20, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

what about an addet option of when in full defence you can deflect any number of arrows, seems right up the troop -- Wildmage ^Talk 06:54, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

I would, but I didn't want to step on Infinite Deflection's toes (not that you couldn't justify it being pre-epic). Course in practice, 1+Dex is usually more arrows than you will need to deflect, especially for those likely to pick this up. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 10:19, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

So basically with this feat, you become immune to all archers unless you face 3+ that all target you, forever? Would that be a good summation of this feat? --Ghostwheel (talk) 14:56, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes, provided sufficient Dex. That's why it's at the end of a 3 feat chain. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 14:58, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Just get the Siege Shot feat or a siege bow, these allow the archer to completely bypass this feat. It really no different than a fighting getting an item of flying or a rogue getting a wand of golemstrike (or whatever that is), any archer build worth their while need to get an answer to wind wall and deflect arrows. --Leziad (talk) 11:24, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

In Defense of Immunity

I, of course, disagree with Ghostwheel here (and also called it, I win $20) but lets have a defense of immunity. When I read Ghostwheel's complaint I see "If you specialize at being really good at one thing, you shouldn't be allowed to be really good when that one thing comes up." For more characters in 3.5, you need Dex 13, Improved Unarmed Strike, Combat Reflexes, Deflect Arrows, and Improved Deflect Arrows, a series of four feats putting you at level 9th, a level where 5th level spells are flying and wind wall has been in play for some time. At this level you also face many things which also shut down the vanilla archer built such as damage reduction (remember, optimizing for one powerful hit is difficult with archery, most fight by volleys), miss chances (available since level 1), and the fact most fights enter melee within a round or two barring methods to keep yourself at range. Suffice to say, I think I could call it level appropriate for this power to exist given other defenses that exist around this time. Humans can weasel it in at 6th, and even earlier if you're a monk or a fighter, but would we really complain if either of those classes got nice things?

Indeed this (nearly) shuts down archery as a viable combat style against your character, as Deflect Arrows does for anything 5 HD or less doing archery... unless of course a dedicated archer took steps to bypass these things through more attacks, special enhancements, or the most unspeakable concept of all; having more than one weapon or fighting style available. And this is where I call bunk on Ghostwheel. The whole stereotype of a fighter having a golf bag of weapons exists because there are challenges where not all options are viable. You don't fight zombies with a hammer. You don't use magic on a golem. It ranged from difficult to impossible but these things exist.

It is up to the archer to have something besides a low number of ranged attacks to supplement them, because this "problem" can be easily be replicated by more than just this feat. Maybe they are a displacer beast and/or wearing that armor crystal with the healthy bonus to AC vs ranged, making ranged attacks nonviable. Maybe the grappler facing the acid and spike covered beast on fire with a huge strength score should choose something other than grappling for this one. "But this shuts down my archery build!" Yes. As so incorporeal things, swarms, and several other challenges. Sometimes you need a secondary form of attack. Should we look forward to opposition on incorporeal and swarms in the future?

Finally, I offer up one interesting side effect of this feat. Tt's high resistance, not straight immunity since attacks deplete it's reserve of AoOs. As a result, a clever archer can aid his friends from provoking by draining a IDA using target's AoOs by firing at them. Its not as if archery is not a viable attack, it's just not viable for damage anymore. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 07:14, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

"But there are other things that also grant immunity to a large subset of builds!" is not a good argument. Those are terribly created too and are bad design and a retarded decision to create my the designers. The whole golfbag fighter exists not because he specializes in different fighting styles to make them all good. It's to have a different weapon against creatures with specific DR/resistances. D&D is a game where only by specializing can you be viable, and trying to dip into many fighting styles, especially when you have no secondary source of damage or super-high str is going to make you suck super hard.

Swarms, incorps, and wind walls are examples of such terrible design and are a lasting indication of how retarded the designers were. "But the designers made similar stuff!" isn't a good argument to make such material yourself either. Just because they had a terrible design philosophy doesn't mean we should copy their mistakes. --Ghostwheel (talk) 09:21, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

I believe I understand Ghostwheel's point, it just doesn't seem consistent. He says it's not a good argument to point to things with immunity to a large subset of builds. However, D&D has enough such things that crying "bad design!" at each of them indicates more of a personal inclination to a preferred style of D&D play, rather than a failure to meet objective criteria. Consider that most golems' magic immunity and often high DR grants them immunity to most magic users and multiple-attack builds. Consider mindless creatures' immunity to mind-affecting spells. The list goes on, and brings me to the second assertation GW makes that I disagree with. "D&D is a game where only by specializing can you be viable." While I don't disagree with that, I will instead point out that this is the exact reason that a party is composed of different classes with a wide range of abilities. No reasonable player is going to expect his PC to be SUPER EFFECTIVE in every single type of encounter. Charge builds and mobility fighters suffer in tight quarters. Trip builds aren't so useful when you fight a giant snake. Magic users suffer when there are AMFs being tossed around or line of sight/effect is difficult, and archers suffer when they can't reliably hit their target. This isn't "retarded" design, it's the designers saying "Hey, maybe we should make creatures different so each encounter can't be handled the exact same way every time." That sonds like a reasonable design philosophy to me. - Spanambula (talk) 10:25, 14 September 2013 (UTC)