I was going over my fighter this morning and I took the Arcane Archer for my fighter. At 15th level I gain Ever Ready Shot. Which is Starting at 15th level, your magical archery is available whenever battle starts. If you roll initiative and have no uses of Arcane Shot remaining, you regain one use of it. In my current campaign our DM makes us roll initiative every round of Combat. Because of this rule would that mean that I get 1 free shot (if I have none left) every round of Combat that we roll initiative? It does say at the start of battle but it specifies that if when rolling initiative that I have none I get 1 back.
I'm new to the fighter class and wanted to start a discussion here first before bringing it up to my DM also im not at level 15 yet this was more so just looking to the future.
It seems pretty clear to me that the intent of Ever-Ready Shot is to ensure you have one use of Arcane Shot when you start combat, not every single turn. Since your DM is using a very non-standard Initiative model, some adjustments in other rules are likely to be needed.
That said, I think the general consensus on Arcane Archer is that its resource economy is really poorly designed and it never gives you enough Arcane Shot uses to be worthwhile, so maybe homebrewing it slightly to give you more wouldn't be a bad idea.
Also, this is highly subjective of course, but that way of doing Initiative sounds absolutely exhausting. I'm curious if that's something the players in your group enjoy, and if so what they like about it.
You’ll need to talk to your DM. How their house rule interacts with RAW is going to be their call. Side note, rolling and shuffling initiative every round will really mess with the game. There are so many powers that last until the start or end of your next turn. Moving the turn order will make those powers all last either longer or shorter than intended. All of those features will no longer be reliable. And if the DM says, it will be the same for the monsters, well the monsters were never going to live to see the end of the fight, let alone the next one. The game is balanced in a way to favor the PCs. Things like this add randomness and that ends up hurting the characters more than the monsters.
my take would be it does exactly what it says it does. If the DM wants to do init incorrectly, he can deal with the fall out from that decision. I'm all about not gaming the action economy, but, him fiddling with the rules should have consequences. I remember a time in 4e where we were fighting some drow priestess. She had an ability that let her shift damage taken to another drow (not ally). Guess who was playing a drow? That's right, this guy.
The DM did me a solid, and asked me how I read it and showed me the stat block. I told him...it says drow. the intent was clearly that the priestess is able to shunt off damage to her minions, but that's not what it said. I got absolutely truuuuuucked with damage that she pumped into me. In your case, the rule says you get a shot when you roll init. Dm's making you roll init, so you should get a shot. It does exactly what it says it does, no more, no less.
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That version of initiative isn't actually the wrong way... it's just an optional rule in the 2014 DMG. They, like many other people might be using those legacy rules still.
That rule is already exploitable enough as it is (I had a player going around punching townsfolk to roll initiative and get Arcane Shot back; I had to limit its use to specific combat encounters), so I think that you should take the RAI and only get the Arcane Shot when you roll initiative for the start of combat and make it so that your DM doesn't have to A. Ban that subclass, B. Copy that subclass and change the wording of that feature and make you use the "homebrew" subclass, or C. Tell you how you were supposed to interpret it.
My DM uses that rule because he believes combat should be spontaneous and random like real life. Me personally I love this. It's alot more fun in my opinion then having static initiative roles. As far as abusing it, I won't, but I can definitely see how other people would and could easily do so.
How do you not abuse it? It's like saying, "I have infinite hp, but I'll still die in combat, to be fair." What would you do, just stop using it when you've arbitrarily decided it's enough.
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I was going over my fighter this morning and I took the Arcane Archer for my fighter. At 15th level I gain Ever Ready Shot. Which is Starting at 15th level, your magical archery is available whenever battle starts. If you roll initiative and have no uses of Arcane Shot remaining, you regain one use of it. In my current campaign our DM makes us roll initiative every round of Combat. Because of this rule would that mean that I get 1 free shot (if I have none left) every round of Combat that we roll initiative? It does say at the start of battle but it specifies that if when rolling initiative that I have none I get 1 back.
I'm new to the fighter class and wanted to start a discussion here first before bringing it up to my DM also im not at level 15 yet this was more so just looking to the future.
It seems pretty clear to me that the intent of Ever-Ready Shot is to ensure you have one use of Arcane Shot when you start combat, not every single turn. Since your DM is using a very non-standard Initiative model, some adjustments in other rules are likely to be needed.
That said, I think the general consensus on Arcane Archer is that its resource economy is really poorly designed and it never gives you enough Arcane Shot uses to be worthwhile, so maybe homebrewing it slightly to give you more wouldn't be a bad idea.
Also, this is highly subjective of course, but that way of doing Initiative sounds absolutely exhausting. I'm curious if that's something the players in your group enjoy, and if so what they like about it.
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You’ll need to talk to your DM. How their house rule interacts with RAW is going to be their call.
Side note, rolling and shuffling initiative every round will really mess with the game. There are so many powers that last until the start or end of your next turn. Moving the turn order will make those powers all last either longer or shorter than intended. All of those features will no longer be reliable.
And if the DM says, it will be the same for the monsters, well the monsters were never going to live to see the end of the fight, let alone the next one. The game is balanced in a way to favor the PCs. Things like this add randomness and that ends up hurting the characters more than the monsters.
my take would be it does exactly what it says it does. If the DM wants to do init incorrectly, he can deal with the fall out from that decision. I'm all about not gaming the action economy, but, him fiddling with the rules should have consequences. I remember a time in 4e where we were fighting some drow priestess. She had an ability that let her shift damage taken to another drow (not ally). Guess who was playing a drow? That's right, this guy.
The DM did me a solid, and asked me how I read it and showed me the stat block. I told him...it says drow. the intent was clearly that the priestess is able to shunt off damage to her minions, but that's not what it said. I got absolutely truuuuuucked with damage that she pumped into me. In your case, the rule says you get a shot when you roll init. Dm's making you roll init, so you should get a shot. It does exactly what it says it does, no more, no less.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
That version of initiative isn't actually the wrong way... it's just an optional rule in the 2014 DMG. They, like many other people might be using those legacy rules still.
That rule is already exploitable enough as it is (I had a player going around punching townsfolk to roll initiative and get Arcane Shot back; I had to limit its use to specific combat encounters), so I think that you should take the RAI and only get the Arcane Shot when you roll initiative for the start of combat and make it so that your DM doesn't have to A. Ban that subclass, B. Copy that subclass and change the wording of that feature and make you use the "homebrew" subclass, or C. Tell you how you were supposed to interpret it.
Roll for Initiative: [roll]1d20+7[/roll]
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My DM uses that rule because he believes combat should be spontaneous and random like real life. Me personally I love this. It's alot more fun in my opinion then having static initiative roles. As far as abusing it, I won't, but I can definitely see how other people would and could easily do so.
How do you not abuse it? It's like saying, "I have infinite hp, but I'll still die in combat, to be fair." What would you do, just stop using it when you've arbitrarily decided it's enough.