Elan Vs Haley

[Dycedarg]

Greater Manyshot works for multiple targets, so it's useless in an one-vs-one fight.

Manyshot lets Haley fire up to five arrows - many of them with quite hard negative modifiers. Elan has like 15d6 hp. So no, I don't think Haley can chunk Elan in one shot.

I know Haley is very popular and written as a very competent character, while Elan is written as fairy incompetent. But we aren't talking story-wise, we are talking realistically and mechanically.

Mechanically, a high lever spellcaster trumps a high lever non-spellcaster. All Elan needs to do is score a spell through Haley's weakest save.

Realistically, there is magic because the OP said so, but there are no unrealistically initiative rules, neither cultural bias towards bows. Elan can take cover while Haley tenses her bow*. Once behind cover, Elan overcomes her with magic.

*This is one of the many reasons why, in real life, crossbows trumped bows. Because they are ready for firing at any moment, while a bow must still be tensed.

Actually, while Greater Manyshot allows you to attack multiple foes, it also has several other advantageous effects that apply whether you are attacking one or more targets. In this case though, I doubt she'd use it, as she's got boots of speed. Pop those into action, and with improved rapid shot she's got five arrows at full attack bonus with no penalties every round for ten rounds. With the movement speed bonus from the boots she'd have little difficulty staying out of melee range long enough to finish him.

His only chance is spells. Being a bard, he has a fairly low number of known spells, and we've seen most of them. He hasn't used anything particularly useful for closing with a ranged character except possibly Lesser Confusion, but that only has a one in five chance of allowing him to close distance, and only lasts one round. While theoretically the spells we don't know about could be anything, I highly doubt that he has either invisibility or dimension door given how many times he's been cornered lately and failed to do anything about it. Further given his actions in the throne room when running from Enor I think we can rule out most of the other mind control spells. I can't imagine he'd have bothered with Lesser Confusion if he could have just controlled him outright.

So in this fight I'd definitely go with Haley. Sure, spellcasters are overpowered, but he's a bard, and a bard who focuses on support. Mechanically speaking, a spontaneous caster who hasn't tailored his build to one on one fighting with people at range is going to suck at it, and Elan has never demonstrated any effectiveness whatsoever in this sort of situation.

[wumpus]

For a bard, any 1v1 should be a loss. Any character/class that can't beat a bard 1v1 should presumably be a better buffbot or have similar party utility or be haplessly outclassed on the tier chart (by bards, no less). The basic strategy of a solo bard is to mosey into a tavern, sing a bunch of rousing songs, and recruit up a posse. Let posse defeat enemy, Huzzah!

For a ranged rogue, defeating a single enemy should be trivial. As mentioned above, all she needs is a full [sneak] attack and return to concealment for maximum damage. Even attacking a single member of a full party shouldn't be a problem: she has "infinite" daily sneak attacks, bards and other support characters have finite daily sneak attacks. As long as she maintains the initiative, our bard is doomed.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Greater Manyshot works for multiple targets, so it's useless in an one-vs-one fight.

Not how I read it. Maybe there was a CustServ ruling (HA!) or Errata on this that I'm not aware of, but here's what the feat says:

When you use the Manyshot feat, you can fire each arrow at a different target instead of firing all of them at the same target. You make a separate attack roll for each arrow, regardless of whether you fire them at separate targets or the same target. Your precision-based damage applies to each arrow fired, and, if you score a critical hit with more than one of the arrows, each critical hit deals critical damage.

Emphasis added, naturally. To me, that says that the extra precision damage applies to each attack whether or not you take advantage of the first sentence of the feat or not, since you can explicitly use Greater Manyshot on multiple targets or just one. The tradeoff is making separate heavily-penalized attack rolls instead of it being all-or-nothing on one roll, in addition to needing to spend the extra feat.

For a bard, any 1v1 should be a loss. Any character/class that can't beat a bard 1v1 should presumably be a better buffbot or have similar party utility or be haplessly outclassed on the tier chart (by bards, no less). The basic strategy of a solo bard is to mosey into a tavern, sing a bunch of rousing songs, and recruit up a posse. Let posse defeat enemy, Huzzah!

For a ranged rogue, defeating a single enemy should be trivial. As mentioned above, all she needs is a full [sneak] attack and return to concealment for maximum damage. Even attacking a single member of a full party shouldn't be a problem: she has "infinite" daily sneak attacks, bards and other support characters have finite daily sneak attacks. As long as she maintains the initiative, our bard is doomed.

The issue here is that the arena is set up specifically to remove all of a ranged rogue's advantages, because there's no cover or concealment, and we don't have any evidence that Haley carries concealment-granting magic items (though her Hide is probably good enough to snipe Elan if she did have cover or concealment).

A flat featureless plain and 50 feet of distance are the only reasons Elan stands any chance at all, really.

EDIT: Actually wait, that wasn't specified, I just assumed because that's how vs. concepts normally work. If Haley's got concealment to work with, or even just rough terrain, forget it. Can't enchant or use your Dex bonus to AC against what you can't see.

[Crusher]

If Haley can nuke Elan down on the first round she obviously wins, otherwise Elan (well, not-Elan, rather an optimally constructed Bard) will bomb her with Will-save spells which she'll almost certainly fail. Can he coup de grace her after that? If so obviously its over.

If not... hmm, do Bard's get sneak-attack bonuses in 3.5? I don't think they do, but I don't honestly remember how Bards work anymore. In the unlikely event he does, then he can probably work her over pretty hard himself. And even in the more likely event that he doesn't, they're a more even match in melee than at ranged. While in sheer combat I'd still give the edge to Haley, her problem is that Elan can keep disabling her with low level Will-save spells and use the break to heal himself, adjust his position and then get free attacks on her whenever he likes.

She still has a chance in that Rogues are pretty crafty and she might win initiative and pull of something tricky before he can cast a follow-up spell. She probably can't Sap him in melee combat but she might be able to throw dirt into his eyes or some other temporarily incapacitating move, allowing her to get back out into range and annihilate him before he can recover.

If she doesn't win the first round *OR* get lucky and successfully save on that first spell, I think its Elan's fight to lose, but Haley could still pull it out. I would probably bet on Haley to win, but I wouldn't give better than 1-2 odds.