Deadly aim for ranger is thumbed down?

[space is cool]

Isn't that good for rangers? When creating a ranger class and looking at the feats It's thumbed down

[CHAO$$$]

Originally posted by N1fty:

When creating a ranger class and looking at the feats It's thumbed down

Make sure you get "point-blank shot" (requirement for precise shot) and "precise shot" feats before you get ANYTHING else when making a ranger.

Deadly aim in general is not that great of a feat anyway unless you are overcapped or capped on to-hit.

The feat gets worse and worse the lower your inital hit chance is.

E.g. on a theoretical 100% hit chance (which doesnt exist because nat 1 but hey math) you would lose 5% (1 out of 20) to hit for 2 damage which would mean that the feat becomes bad once you do an AVERAGE of 40 damage per hit which is very high BUT

when your base to hit gets worse the feat get worse.
E.g. if your average damage is 40 per shot and you hit 50% of the time then your average damage per shot is 20 (0.5*40)
Using this feat it would become 18.9 (0.45*42).
(compared to 1*40=40 vs 0.95*42=39.9 at a theoretical 100% hit chance - which is much less of a % damage loss)

This ignores crit and i cant be bothered to think about how crit, crit range and crit mod would affect this overall. But you get the idea when to use it and when not to.

The higher your damage per shot and the lower your base to-hit, the worse this feat is.

edit: Youd also have to consider multishot (good for deadly aim since both fire at max bab) and successive attacks (bad with deadly aim since lower base to-hit) which make the whole thing a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ really.
By midgame (devourer of metal +2d6 sneak + sense vitals + hurrican bow) your damage should be high enough regardless that this feat is never worth it unless you are overcapped on to hit.

[Matt]

Originally posted by CHAO$$$:

Originally posted by N1fty:

When creating a ranger class and looking at the feats It's thumbed down

Make sure you get "point-blank shot" (requirement for precise shot) and "precise shot" feats before you get ANYTHING else when making a ranger.

Deadly aim in general is not that great of a feat anyway unless you are overcapped or capped on to-hit.

The feat gets worse and worse the lower your inital hit chance is.

E.g. on a theoretical 100% hit chance (which doesnt exist because nat 1 but hey math) you would lose 5% (1 out of 20) to hit for 2 damage which would mean that the feat becomes bad once you do an AVERAGE of 40 damage per hit which is very high BUT

when your base to hit gets worse the feat get worse.
E.g. if your average damage is 40 per shot and you hit 50% of the time then your average damage per shot is 20 (0.5*40)
Using this feat it would become 18.9 (0.45*42).

This ignores crit and i cant be bothered to think about how crit, crit range and crit mod would affect this overall. But you get the idea when to use it and when not to.

The higher your damage per shot and the lower your base to-hit, the worse this feat is.

+1. Nice maths.

Additionnal damage from the feat is multiplied on a crit, right ? So, as long as you crit only on a natural 20, as as long as the feat doesn't prevent you from critting with a 19, your calculations should stay valid when factoring crit damage.

Still, this doesn't really explain why the feat is thumbed down: After all, a full BAB class with no precision damage is still the best class in terms of chances that this feat will prove useful.

Edit: what do you mean by Multishot and Successive Attacks ? Is that Manyshot and Rapid Shot ?

[CHAO$$$]

Originally posted by Matt:

Additionnal damage from the feat is multiplied on a crit, right ? So, as long as you crit only on a natural 20, as as long as the feat doesn't prevent you from critting with a 19, your calculations should stay valid when factoring crit damage.

It is but with increased crit range you have to roll critical confirmation rolls which are affected by the -1 to hit and the higher your crit mod is the better are nat20s and the worse is the -1 to-hit on crit confirmation. (too much to think through really)

Originally posted by Matt:

Edit: what do you mean by Multishot and Successive Attacks ? Is that Manyshot and Rapid Shot ?

Yes manyshot = multishot my bad ;)

successive attacks as in "with higher level you get more attacks at lower to-hit bonus"

[Bob of Mage]

I think it gets rated as a bad choice if your ranger doesn't have other needed stuff first. So if you lack say precise shot (a must for ANY build that isn't melee), deadly aim is a bad investment.

[Matt]

Originally posted by CHAO$$$:

Originally posted by Matt:

Additionnal damage from the feat is multiplied on a crit, right ? So, as long as you crit only on a natural 20, as as long as the feat doesn't prevent you from critting with a 19, your calculations should stay valid when factoring crit damage.

It is but with increased crit range you have to roll critical confirmation rolls which are affected by the -1 to hit and the higher your crit mod is the better are nat20s and the worse is the -1 to-hit on crit confirmation. (too much to think through really)

I'm not sure I understand what you mean. Let me rephrase what I was trying to state:

In the case where a roll in the critical threat range cannot be a miss:

When you roll-to-hit, there is a certain chance (fixed) that you make a roll in the critical threat range. So, basically, you have a fixed probability to roll a confirmation roll. The additional damage from that confirmation roll is either 0 if you roll a miss, or (crit multiplier - 1)*damage if you roll a hit. So, basically, that additionnal damage has the same distribution than the damage on a normal roll, times the crit multiplier minus 1. Hence, any threshold computed when not factoring critical hits is still valid when factoring critical hits.

Things become much more complicated if the critical threat range of your weapon is 17-20 for instance and if 17 means a miss. In general, it will not happen for the first attack of a round, but it can indeed happen with the following attacks (provided that the critical threat range isn't reduced to 20).