Peppermint wrote: ↑Tue May 21, 2019 11:08 am
It wouldn't surprise me to see healer zen archer builds start dipping ranger now that 1) monk speed no longer goes above 50%, 2) -path can be used to take the archer path late into the character's career.
Please also bear in mind that crossbow options are superior to longbows overall, especially for drow. Outside of Rapid Shot, Wardbreaker and Hand Spinneret outperform the competition by a wide margin.
I wholeheartedly agree on this analysis with the introduction of the repeating crossbow. Kobolds are to be considered, as well, even without access to Wardbreaker without heavy investment into UMD.
Peppermint wrote: ↑Tue May 21, 2019 11:08 am
Furthermore, ease of creation is irrelevant for a one time craft. The comparison to ammunition (which must be crafted repeatedly) is such patent nonsense that I won't even belabor the point, because I'm certain you
know it's nonsense.
Please don't make assumptions on my part. If you won't belabor this, then I will. Here are the relevant data and statistics on even getting to obtaining 2 of the 3 crossbows:
NWN Arelith High Tier Launchers Materials
We're looking at 1580 + 1404 = 2984 worth of CP to obtain both crossbows.
Not to mention it also takes dedicated Carpenter, Alchemist, Herbalist, Artist and Blacksmith in order to obtain all of the materials necessary to get the craft going.
With the introduction of Crafting Mastery, however, many of the intermediary crafts are likely reduced by half the necessary CP.
So the new number with that in mind is ~ 1300 + 1152 = 2452 CP
Requiring at least 3 different PCs (Dedicated Carpenter, Blacksmith, and Herbalist)
Alchemy can be bypassed via purchasing Standard Alchemical Catalyst
Art Crafting can be bypassed via getting sapphire from elsewhere, glass variants purchased or dedication of 1 point into Art.
In comparison to Longbow, which is ~964 CP (mastery included)
Requiring 2 Difference PCs (Dedicated Carpenter and Herbalist)
Let's compare all these Ashwood variants to other one-time crafts, Masterly Damask Weapons:
Dedicated Blacksmith, 543 CP.
I don't believe it is nonsense when you're looking at such a high disparity in the total amount of players and crafts involved for distinct "one-time" crafts in this case. To top it off, crossbow users may be facing bag-of-swords problem in this case.
The argument was "crafting" has often played in factor for discouraging particular players going into a particular line of weapon or build specialization. The consumable vs one-time craft part, in this particular case, the Ashwood variant one-time crafts are far more complicated than the other one-time crafts most realize.
Peppermint wrote: ↑Tue May 21, 2019 11:08 am
Finally, in their current incarnation, repeater crossbows are not "specialized weapons"; or at the very least, that term is meaningless. Every character specializes in a single weapon. Characters that had previously used longbows (aside AAs, obviously) will almost always spend the additional feat on crossbows for more damage and the versatility that the weapon affords.
It is in my belief that melee characters use ranged weapons from time to time.
It is also in my belief that ranged characters with weapon finesse use rapier/short swords from time to time.
To clarify, repeating crossbow offers nothing new to ones who don't have the ranged feats, nor does it power-creep upon any existing crafts as much as many believe. Its introduction seems more towards a QoL improvement for high-end crossbow users than discouraging non-AA ranged builds going for Longbow.
After revisiting the numbers, reducing the Mighty property of repeating crossbow from 5 to 4 will put it exactly on par with longbow. (±0.5%)
Reducing the Mighty property of repeating crossbow from 5 to 3 will put it 2% below Longbow's average damage, further down to 3.5% difference upon vs high AC opponents.
An argument can be made that repeating crossbow's damage should be reduced slightly given its slight overperformance.