An odd feat to build around: Snatch Arrows (3.5)

[gallagher]

so i have a guy preparing for a game i am about to run, and he worked it with another player that he wants to be a halfling acrobat that focuses his build around snatching arrows then throwing them (master thrower style). he also wants the friend he was talking with to be an archery class who shoots arows at him, which he catches and uses himself.

i dont exactly know how to guide him, so i thought i would come here, and with your guys' collective expertise, we might be able to have a fun build. its a low magic campaign, but it is expected to go from level 7-20. home brew is allowed, but it is up to my discretion if they can use it

snatch arrows works like this, as per the SRD:

Snatch Arrows [General]
Prerequisites

Dex 15, Deflect Arrows, Improved Unarmed Strike.
Benefit

When using the Deflect Arrows feat you may catch the weapon instead of just deflecting it. Thrown weapons can immediately be thrown back at the original attacker (even though it isn’t your turn) or kept for later use.

You must have at least one hand free (holding nothing) to use this feat.
Special

A fighter may select Snatch Arrows as one of his fighter bonus feats.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I could be wrong, but as far as I know there's no way to improve deflect/snatch arrows beyond one arrow/round. You're gonna have to home-brew something.

[Quietus]

Why does his friend need to throw them at him? Why can't he just have arrows he throws himself - or alternatively, darts? Off the top of my head, the only way to get more than one snatched arrow per round is Epic, something off the "infinite deflection" feat or something to that effect.. and then there's the problem that he isn't allowed, by RAW, to throw that arrow at anyone but the original attacker - in this case, his friend.

[DanReiv]

The original attacker part of snatch arrow is killing too.

It's kind of hard. Snatching is 1x/round against an attack that hits.

You'd need to homebrew 2 feats/class feature. 1st the ability to toss it back at anyone, not just the attacker, and then be able to do it several times a round.

Still, that means the friend got to have very good attack bonus without really being an archer build (he'll want lots of attack @ high attack bonus, but little to no damage, since they'll be snatched)

A more simple way to do it that free the "friend" a bit is having an arbalester.

They're cheap homonculus from Magic of Eberron. Just have the friend be an artificer with a couple arbalester that shot the halfling (bloodstorm blade/master thrower road) every round.

[PId6]

I could be wrong, but as far as I know there's no way to improve deflect/snatch arrows beyond one arrow/round. You're gonna have to home-brew something.

Infinite Deflection

It's incredibly broken, however, because that feat pretty much just lets you say "No" to the entire combat style of archery, which is just absolutely stupid.

[Draz74]

There's the Crystal of Arrow Attraction in the Magic Item Compendium. It lets you negate one arrow attack per round; I think the DM could easily rule that it stacks with Deflect Arrows.

[Kylarra]

Infinite Deflection

It's incredibly broken, however, because that feat pretty much just lets you say "No" to the entire combat style of archery, which is just absolutely stupid.

Epic in general is incredibly broken though.

[Heliomance]

So... venerable Dragonwrought kobold then?

[FMArthur]

Infinite Deflection

It's incredibly broken, however, because that feat pretty much just lets you say "No" to the entire combat style of archery, which is just absolutely stupid.

However... this is actually obtainable by a Dragonwrought Kobold well before epic levels. You just need to find a way of getting 25 Dex.

[Ravens_cry]

However... this is actually obtainable by a Dragonwrought Kobold well before epic levels. You just need to find a way of getting 25 Dex.

Do magical enhancements count? Because if so, then it's dead easy, just expensive.

[FMArthur]

Do magical enhancements count? Because if so, then it's dead easy, just expensive.

Pretty sure they do, but as you say it's expensive. I was thinking maybe there is a template that won't change your type to give you +4 Dex or so to get this as early as 4th character level.

[Magicyop]

Homebrew is definitely the way to go here if you want him to have a fun game without having a broken character. Some simple and easy suggestions for feats (specifics of course up to you):

-A feat that lets you throw any caught arrow at anyone
-A feat that lets you throw one more arrow per turn (can be taken more than once)

This next one is an idea that I think would work really well to make it so that this combination of two players is at least as effective as both of them fighting separately.

-A feat that increases the damage of the arrow by 1 per 5 ft. travelled before reaching the person with the snatch arrows.

See what this would add? If his friend is standing 50 ft. away and manages to hit him, he could grab the arrow and immediately fling it at a target and get 10 bonus damage. If his friend is standing really far away (like 200 ft.) and manages to hit him, the damage is increased by 40. The physical rational behind this is that the arrow has already traveled a fair distance in that turn, you bounce it and add the power of your throw behind it to give it some serious punch.

It could end up being really powerful if they are helping each other from far away. However, they would of course need to maintain LoS with each other at all times, and the combo would work best in wide open places where they can get a steady distance from each other.

Despite the fact that this could add some amazing damage, you really ought to reward your players both for their creative idea and their willingness to work together. If you think my current thought is too powerful, make it 1 damage for 10 feet or something.

Good luck, and I hope you manage to have a fun campaign...

[Heliomance]

-A feat that increases the damage of the arrow by 1 per 5 ft. travelled before reaching the person with the snatch arrows.

See what this would add? If his friend is standing 50 ft. away and manages to hit him, he could grab the arrow and immediately fling it at a target and get 10 bonus damage. If his friend is standing really far away (like 200 ft.) and manages to hit him, the damage is increased by 40. The physical rational behind this is that the arrow has already traveled a fair distance in that turn, you bounce it and add the power of your throw behind it to give it some serious punch.

Huh? Why is travelling further going to make the arrow do more damage? I realise I'm about to kill a catgirl, but air resistance would result in the arrow slowing slightly as it travelled. Slower arrow means less kinetic energy means it hurts less, not more.

[Person_Man]

Wind Cloak soulmeld grants DR 2 + (2 * essentia invested)/- against all ranged attacks, and Tiny or smaller creatures attempting to enter your square must succeed on Fort Save to do so. If bound to your Shoulder chakra slot, it also grants you the Deflect Arrows feat, with the added bonus that you don't need a free hand to use it, and each point of essentia increases the number of attacks deflected by 1.

You can open your Shoulders chakra with Incarnate 9, Totemist 9, Necrocarnate 3 (ECL 10), Ironsoul Forgemaster 8 (ECL 13), Soulcaster 8 (ECL 13), Soul Manifester 8 (ECL 13), Totem Rager 9 (ECL 14), or the Open Chakra feat (ECL 12). Soulborn also opens it up at ECL 14, though I would never suggest using Soulborn unless you're using a homebrew version.

Also, the Fellmist Robe soulmeld offers 10% + (5% * essentia invested, max 50%) concealment against all non-adjacent enemies (including melee attacks).

Incarnum capacity is tricky. But it's basically going to be between 1-6 for an Incarnate, or 1-4 for everyone else, +1 if you want to spend a feat on expanding it for that soulmeld, +1 if you want to spend 25,000 on a magic item for that slot. (Though a Totemist 2/Incarnate 15 can squeeze one more point into soulmelds bound to his Totem chakra, bringing the maximum up to +9 for some soulmelds, but not Wind Cloak).

But in most situations, a mid level Incarnate will have an all day 15% to 35% miss chance against non-adjacent attacks, will be able to block 2 to 5 ranged attacks that bypass his miss chance, and apply DR 4 to 12/- to the remaining ranged attacks. This pretty much makes him immune to ranged attacks unless he is targeted by multiple enemies at once. He can also get very high SR, hit points, the Swarm subtype (which makes you immune to all weapon damage, but it's Dragon Magazine material) and tons of other protections. He's the most protected non-full caster tank in the game.

Having said all that, I don't see how you would work Snatch Arrows into the build with RAW. The whole idea of having an ally shoot at you so that you can redirect it at an enemy is daft. You'd essentially be rolling twice as many dice - once for the Archer PC to hit the Snatch Arrows PC, and once for the Snatch Arrows PC to hit the enemy. That doubles your chance of Critical Failure (natural 1) on each attack. It also assumes that the Snatch Arrow PC would have to find a way to dump his AC, so that the Archer PC could hit him 95% of the time. And then the Snatch Arrow PC would need a higher ranged To-Hit then the Archer PC, otherwise the Archer could just target the enemy directly with better results. Plus bows already have a huge range, so there's little benefit to "relaying" a shot in this manner. And by RAW Snatch Arrows needs to target the person who shot it.

[/rant]

Anywho, I would just encourage your player to be an Incarnate. If he's fixated on Snatch Arrows, then create a new chakra bind (presumably Heart) that grants Snatch Arrows instead of Deflect Arrows for Wind Cloak.

[The Big Dice]

However... this is actually obtainable by a Dragonwrought Kobold well before epic levels. You just need to find a way of getting 25 Dex.

You sure about that? It looks pretty clear cut that you need to be 21st level to get a feat with the [Epic] tag.

[hamishspence]

Draconomicon has a line saying "any dragon of old age or older can take epic feats". Of course, at the time, virtually all such dragons had nearly 20 Hit Dice anyway.

After the aging table from wyrmling to great wyrm came out for kobolds in Races of the Dragon- this led people to conclude that the Draconomicon line applied to any kobold that gained the Dragon type, as well.

[Jallorn]

I could be wrong, but as far as I know there's no way to improve deflect/snatch arrows beyond one arrow/round. You're gonna have to home-brew something.

There's an Epic feat, but that doesn't help much here.

[Fax Celestis]

Wild Talent (or some psionic dip) plus Return Shot. I am surprised this has not yet been mentioned.

[Kylarra]

Wild Talent (or some psionic dip) plus Return Shot. I am surprised this has not yet been mentioned.

Return shot is kind of funny with its pre-req BAB of +3, because Fell shot requires +5

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Return shot is kind of funny with its pre-req BAB of +3, because Fell shot requires +5

Probably because Fell Shot may be allowed without prerequisites in certain classes.

[Kylarra]

Probably because Fell Shot may be allowed without prerequisites in certain classes.

Huh, I didn't actually know that, though it makes sense. Shows how long it's been since I've made a psionic ranged character, eh?

[gallagher]

well there are a few things i would like to add.

first is, thanks to EVERYONE so far, you guys are an enormous help.

second, i was thinking that a strange componant of this build would be that now the archer can shoot around corners better, since he is investing in the arrows and the thrower will be investing in equipment to make him survive better. i was thinking he could be a scout build to add on d6's to the thrown arrows. that should make things entertaining, because then shooting around corners for the archer is a feasable plan

third, what if we made it also kind of like a disarming build, that also worked with projectiles? like, any attack that misses he gets a disarm attempt, that would also work with arrows, shuriken, and other ranged weapons, but not spells?

[Dizlag]

Infinite Deflection

It's incredibly broken, however, because that feat pretty much just lets you say "No" to the entire combat style of archery, which is just absolutely stupid.

This makes me think of the movie "Hero" with Jet Li and the scene where he and another lady were up on a roof deflecting thousands of arrows ... at least I thought it was Jet Li in that scene. Regardless, it was a pretty awesome scene ... not stupid at all.

Dizlag

[The Big Dice]

This makes me think of the movie "Hero" with Jet Li and the scene where he and another lady were up on a roof deflecting thousands of arrows ... at least I thought it was Jet Li in that scene. Regardless, it was a pretty awesome scene ... not stupid at all.

Dizlag

It was indeed Jet Li.