No. 2 per short rest, and later 1 per battle, is actually very effective. You can argue all you want about it, but until you play these at a higher level, their damage output is much too high for a bow archer. Archery, Sharpshooter, and Curving Arrow is a crazy powerful combination, and add in automatic damage from Arcane Shots on top of that with a crit roll, the Arcane Archer can outpace almost every other damage build. I ran a program once that compared a regular bow fighter with 4 attacks and an AA with Curving Arrow, and the average hit rate was almost 1-hit-per-round higher. Think of that for a moment - an extra 1d8+5 (dex) + 10 (sharpshooter) + x (magic, arcane shot, etc) is an incredible amount of damage increase *per round*. Improve that with 8d6 on Critical Hits (because you can declare the Arcane Shot after the crit is rolled), adds a level of "smite" capabilities on top of that. Per battle.
So, if you want to remove Curving Arrow, go ahead - add 5 Arcane Shots per short rest to bring it up to balance with Battlemaster. Otherwise... your balance is going to be thrown waaaay off.
No. 2 per short rest, and later 1 per battle, is actually very effective. You can argue all you want about it, but until you play these at a higher level, their damage output is much too high for a bow archer. Archery, Sharpshooter, and Curving Arrow is a crazy powerful combination, and add in automatic damage from Arcane Shots on top of that with a crit roll, the Arcane Archer can outpace almost every other damage build. I ran a program once that compared a regular bow fighter with 4 attacks and an AA with Curving Arrow, and the average hit rate was almost 1-hit-per-round higher. Think of that for a moment - an extra 1d8+5 (dex) + 10 (sharpshooter) + x (magic, arcane shot, etc) is an incredible amount of damage increase *per round*. Improve that with 8d6 on Critical Hits (because you can declare the Arcane Shot after the crit is rolled), adds a level of "smite" capabilities on top of that. Per battle.
So, if you want to remove Curving Arrow, go ahead - add 5 Arcane Shots per short rest to bring it up to balance with Battlemaster. Otherwise... your balance is going to be thrown waaaay off.
I think we all know that 2/Rest is underwhelming and sad.
No. 2 per short rest, and later 1 per battle, is actually very effective. You can argue all you want about it, but until you play these at a higher level, their damage output is much too high for a bow archer. Archery, Sharpshooter, and Curving Arrow is a crazy powerful combination, and add in automatic damage from Arcane Shots on top of that with a crit roll, the Arcane Archer can outpace almost every other damage build. I ran a program once that compared a regular bow fighter with 4 attacks and an AA with Curving Arrow, and the average hit rate was almost 1-hit-per-round higher. Think of that for a moment - an extra 1d8+5 (dex) + 10 (sharpshooter) + x (magic, arcane shot, etc) is an incredible amount of damage increase *per round*. Improve that with 8d6 on Critical Hits (because you can declare the Arcane Shot after the crit is rolled), adds a level of "smite" capabilities on top of that. Per battle.
So, if you want to remove Curving Arrow, go ahead - add 5 Arcane Shots per short rest to bring it up to balance with Battlemaster. Otherwise... your balance is going to be thrown waaaay off.
Thanks, that’s really helpful.
It is a little too much, 6 shots at lvl 18. Maybe a total of 5 at lvl 20. +1 every 4 levels?
With my group, we actually go with a number of uses equal to your proficiency bonus.
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3 uses at 5th, 4 uses at 9th, 5 uses at 13th, 6 uses at 17th...seems a little too much
i do 3 at 7, 4 at 10, 5 at 15 and 6 at 18
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