Riley Fuzzle was a famous gnome archer who traveled the land performing feats of wondrous accuracy with his bow for audiences. One night over drinks, a friend dared Riley to shoot the hat off a wizard drinking alone on the far side of a tavern. Riley took careful aim at the unsuspecting wizard and let his arrow fly. The rest of the story varies depending on who is telling it, but in all versions, when the dust settled, the hat of the furious wizard was pinned to the far wall. Riley's bow lay on the floor, but Riley was nowhere to be found and he was never seen again. Riley Fuzzle's trick bow is an ornate lacquered longbow decorated with patterns of midnight blue and grey. It feels perfectly balanced and it has an easy draw.
This longbow is a +1 magical weapon with four charges. When using the bow, you may expend one charge to attempt a trick shot, which you announce prior to firing. Make your attack and, if successful, the target must make a saving throw with a DC of (10 + your performance). If the target fails the saving throw, the trick shot succeeds. If the target succeeds at the saving throw, the trick shot fails, but the arrow still hits its target. A critical hit automatically succeeds on the trick shot. The trick shots are as follows:
- Disarming shot - If the target fails a DEX save, a wielded weapon of your choice is knocked 5’ away from the target to a location you choose.
- Tripping shot - If the target fails a STR save, they stagger and fall prone. Doesn't work against creatures that would not reasonably be knocked prone by an arrow to the knee.
- Distracting shot - If the target fails a CON save, they must make their next save to maintain concentration at disadvantage. Only works if the target is concentrating at the time.
Every morning at dawn, the bow regains all four charges.
Proficiency with a Longbow allows you to add your proficiency bonus to the attack roll for any attack you make with it.
This weapon has the following mastery property. To use this property, you must have a feature that lets you use it.
Slow. If you hit a creature with this weapon and deal damage to it, you can reduce its Speed by 10 feet until the start of your next turn. If the creature is hit more than once by weapons that have this property, the Speed reduction doesn’t exceed 10 feet.
Notes: Bonus: Magic, short rest spent studying the function of this weapon, Damage, Debuff, Combat, Ammunition, Heavy, Range, Two-Handed, Slow
nice one like the idea of adding performance adding. most player would stick to using that bow , maybe add damage calculation.
It's fun with a great narrative, but the always hit or crit thing rubs me wrong. Admittedly, it's only 4 shots per day, so shouldn't unbalance things too much.
"Your entire party is down and bleeding out. The dragon, while mighty, is wounded and burned, you can tell it's near death."
"I bounce two shots off the floor and into the knees!" *roll saves* success/fail no matter, Dragon dies.
"YAY!" party goes wild.
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This is just anecdotal, but the bard in my campaign who has this bow calls his shots pretty rarely. To call a trick shot (you call the shot before you roll) and then roll a natural 20 on the shot would be a sufficiently rare occurrence that I imagine it would be cause for celebration at the table. And in the case of a dragon or most four-legged creatures, I would be inclined to rule that taking an arrow to one leg would not knock them prone. A creature standing on two legs on the other hand... so maybe a wyvern but not a dragon. And even if it did, it wouldn't do any additional damage. In fact, the follow-up shot would be at disadvantage since the creature would be prone after the first shot.
If I did not communicate this intention well enough in my description then perhaps I need to update it.