Why is Vital Strike Melee only?

[Wraith]

Title says it all. Not the way it works in the PnP game.

[Kosiciel]

Unfortunately, it is. I hope it will be changed to work with ranged attacks too.

[Baahb3]

Resurrecting this thread. I could not find any more recent post that this has changed. Have they made mention of making Vital Strike available to Ranged Attacks in any release notes that I have just missed or are we still melee only?

[Erikkustrife]

Im just throwing this out there but vital strike isnt very good for ranged attacks. Ranged attacks relay on multiple hits and vital strike only allows one attack. You end up gimping your self rather hard.

[Baahb3]

Understood, just building a character I ran in PnP for flavor.

[Grifta]

Just take Clustered Shots. In this game, I can't see why (or actually how) you would ever make a single ranged once you have multiple attacks other than to try to punch through DR. Cluster Shots does that.

*edit* Ah, if it's for flavor, then you're unfortunately SOL, and I don't see them changing it. In the format of this game, there's no significant reason to change it.

[=[NK]= Col. Jack O'Neil]

Table top it's always only melee. So it won't change.

[Grifta]

Negative, it's always been any weapon.

http://aonprd.com/FeatDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Vital%20Strike

[Notabot187]

Originally posted by =NK= Col. Jack O'Neil:

Table top it's always only melee. So it won't change.

not true.

It's actually decent with crossbow builds. However, the required items, feats, abilities, and archetypes needed to make it worth it are not present in this game. 1 shot per round that hits like a huge ballista.

[=[NK]= Col. Jack O'Neil]

Well I'll just shut up then :)

Fix your game owlcat! ;p

[Autocthon]

Originally posted by Notabot187:

Originally posted by =NK= Col. Jack O'Neil:

Table top it's always only melee. So it won't change.

not true.

It's actually decent with crossbow builds. However, the required items, feats, abilities, and archetypes needed to make it worth it are not present in this game. 1 shot per round that hits like a huge ballista.

Given that multple flat bonuses across multiple attacks is strictly superior to one attack that applies those bonuses only once there's no real reason to take vital strike on any ranged build ever. There's barely a reason to take vital strike on melee.

No sane person would use vital strike on a round they haven't moved... and ranged chatacters rarely have to move. And crossbows have no reload in PF:K meaning that you can make full attacks and use rapid shot (but not manyshot). Which makes ranged vital strike basically useless.

If you want it for RP that's a different reason.

[Notabot187]

Originally posted by Autocthon:

Originally posted by Notabot187:

not true.

It's actually decent with crossbow builds. However, the required items, feats, abilities, and archetypes needed to make it worth it are not present in this game. 1 shot per round that hits like a huge ballista.

Given that multple flat bonuses across multiple attacks is strictly superior to one attack that applies those bonuses only once there's no real reason to take vital strike on any ranged build ever. There's barely a reason to take vital strike on melee.

No sane person would use vital strike on a round they haven't moved... and ranged chatacters rarely have to move. And crossbows have no reload in PF:K meaning that you can make full attacks and use rapid shot (but not manyshot). Which makes ranged vital strike basically useless.

If you want it for RP that's a different reason.

Did you get the part where I said that in this game the abilities needed to make a vital strike crossbow build aren't available?

Guess what, they are in tabletop. 200-300 dmg with a standard action towards the end of leveling, and 1 hit kills against appropriate challenges once the main build comes together. Also iterative attacks often miss, so theoretical damage is frequently lost against high AC targets. The 1 big hit build still isn't"optimal” but it definitely is viable. Just not in P:km due to missing features.

[=[NK]= Col. Jack O'Neil]

It's viable for say a ranged free booting ranger, that needs a move action to activate his ability :)

[Autocthon]

Originally posted by Notabot187:

Did you get the part where I said that in this game the abilities needed to make a vital strike crossbow build aren't available?

Guess what, they are in tabletop. 200-300 dmg with a standard action towards the end of leveling, and 1 hit kills against appropriate challenges once the main build comes together. Also iterative attacks often miss, so theoretical damage is frequently lost against high AC targets. The 1 big hit build still isn't"optimal” but it definitely is viable. Just not in P:km due to missing features.

There are lots of things that are "viable" that aren't "optimal" and/or don't make sense in context.

Even if PF:K had the missing features you'd still, on average, be better off spending the feats in other areas.

Also you should link this magic 200-300 damage in a single hit build. For now I'm going to assume that's with crit (and with a high crit multiplier). Which would mean the damage is still essentially "crit damage" Even best case scenario Vital Strike for a crossbow build is a baseline 1d10, which means greater vital strike adds an average 16.5 damage that doesn;t get multiplied by a crit.

Add (let's say) 3 sizes to it. 1d10->2d6->2d8->3d6 and that makes it +31.5 damage. That's pretty signicficant on the lower end (about 15% of your damage) but that means 85% of your damage is still coming from just base damage. Or you could replace those feats with more hit chance or more damage and just make a full attack. Outside of a ridiculously narrow range Vital Strike just doesn't compete witth iteratives. If you assume rapid reload and haste.... Yah. Vital Strike is a trap.

[Notabot187]

D10s become d8s with size increases... 3d8x4=12d8 which is 56 average on dice alone... Sure that is just oversized weapon and gravity bow, iirc there is one more size increase you can eek out. Add in weapon training specialization enhancement bonus and other normal buffs and it's very respectable. The crit also gets to x4, and if you don't vital strike and have a full round you can use the overwatch feats to get up to 4 attacks. Also it's a lore warden build if you have to know.

[Autocthon]

Originally posted by Notabot187:

D10s become d8s with size increases... 3d8x4=12d8 which is 56 average on dice alone... Sure that is just oversized weapon and gravity bow, iirc there is one more size increase you can eek out. Add in weapon training specialization enhancement bonus and other normal buffs and it's very respectable. The crit also gets to x4, and if you don't vital strike and have a full round you can use the overwatch feats to get up to 4 attacks. Also it's a lore warden build if you have to know.

1) No. 1d10 becomes 2d6 ( becomes 2d8 becomes 3d6) as per the official damage chart in the rules FAQ.[paizo.com] If PF:K screwed it up that's their problem and should be fixed. You don't gain +4.5 average damage form a die step ever.

2) The only thing you add with vital strike is (up to) 3 damage dice. You only add flat bonuses once.

3) Those dice aren't multiplied on a crit. Meaning Vital Strike is trivial on most high multiplier crits.

Could PF:K have royally screwed it up? Maybe. But even if they did you still get better average damage from iteratives either way (so other than RP there's no reason to give them up). And overwatch style is.... a wash. Seriously -2 to have 4 readied actions that need to be triggered is.... DM discretion advised right there. I'm not even going to get into rapid+many shot + haste + composite longbows.

Edit: Pretty sure I found that build. Looks like 5 size steps (started from a large crossbow). With a vital strike for 53-165 baseline. The entire build is built around cheesing readied actions for full BAB -2 (and you'd get 4 attacks at full BAB-2 from manyshot + rapid shot + haste anyway, so you're giving up three attempts at single target damage to do so). The vital strike is basically "for fun", since you only have a 19-20 crit range the likelihood that your vital strike is actually better than using the readied cheese (or just attacking normally) is basically nonexistent. "Big numbers" but not really effective.