Take the Shot
13November 29, 2010 by Jeff
This Killer Combo is inspired by Greg, who plays Peren, the elf ranger. Peren is a damage machine. You don’t measure his damage by how much he does in one hit, however, it’s how much he does in a round. Because within that round he can pull off 5 or 6 good shots and get his extra Hunter’s Quarry damage on several of them.
Peren started off pretty good but wasn’t the super-archer that he is today. Greg is a natural at finding good mechanical exploits. When he created Peren it was his first D&D character ever. But by upper paragon tier he is easily the most mechanically impressive character in the party. It all started when Martial Power came out and he had some more time to study the game. His first big discovery? There was virtually no benefit to using the Archery build for a ranger.
What’s the benefit he was getting from the archery build? Prime Shot, a power that almost never came up. So for fun he (with DM-permission) retrained it for Beast Master, and a new Abyssal blue lizard came out of a portal and joined the party. The lizard was a great back-up defender. It didn’t mark or anything, but it was a walking sack of hit points that got right in the way and blocked corridors.
This was the first step of the magic of this combo. Step two…the Sharpshooter paragon path. This is a pretty darn awesome archery paragon path. You get some cool powers, like Stab and Shoot that totally screams Legolas from the Lord of the Rings movies. Plus you get an extra basic attack when you use an action point.
Step three of this combo of awesomeness, the Beast Protector feat. This feat says that if anyone attacks your beast with a melee attack you get an opportunity attack. It doesn’t say that this opportunity attack has to be a melee one, so range works just fine (edit 11-30-10) when used in combination with the Sharpshooter paragon path which says you can use a bow to make opportunity attacks. So there is yet another attack that you can squeeze into the same round.
So let’s add up these attacks. Let’s say you use an initial power, that allows 3 attacks, which is not horribly uncommon for a ranger. Then you spend an action point…that gives you an automatic extra basic attack from the paragon path (4 total now). Then use a power that uses two attacks (that’s also pretty common, it’s even an at-will power with Twin Strike in your arsenal) and you’re at 6 total attacks for the round. Then have your beast run around and provoke an opportunity attack or two from the bad guys…let’s assume only one falls for it because I’m being conservative, you get a free attack on that goon as well. Bringing your total attacks in one round up to 7.
And that’s being conservative with some of those choices. With the right items, powers, and buffs from your allies you can squeeze a few more attacks out of all of that, boost the damage, increase the crit range…who knows. But I’ll tell you one thing, it’s a seriously killer combo!
How do you make a killer archer? There have to be half a dozen other ways to do it. Rogue? Seeker? Post it here in the comments!
Uh oh. I use Beast Protector on my Beastmaster Ranger, too.
Beast Protector grants you an opportunity attack against enemies who make melee attacks against your beast companion.
Opportunity Attacks, by definition, are Melee Basic Attacks, not Ranged attacks.
Unfortunately for Greg, Jaron is right.
Quote from the compendium:
However, if he were to gain an ability to use a beast attack as a melee basic attack, that would be able to be used nicely.
Normally you’re both correct, but apparently I skipped that step in the process here. I can’t reference anything right now (at work) but I will find it tonight and clear this up. I promise.
This also needs a little more clarification since you cannot take opportunity actions on your own turn, and even if you could, you would be limited to one per turn.
Also, it is the sharpshooter path that let’s you use a ranged attack for an opportunity attack.
That’s awesome, then!
Yes, thank you Charles. The Sharpshooter allows bows to be used for Opportunity attacks. I made an edit to the article to clear that up.
Also, yes, typically you only pull off one opportunity attack per turn, but depending on items, feats, buffs, there are exceptions to every rule, aren’t there.
And if you’re looking at attacks in a round (rather than a turn) you can likely see even more of these turn up before too long.
While this is a great combo, a player using this needs to really be on top of what his/her abilities do; else you have a lot of “Oh, I meant to shoot that guy 2 turns ago with an interupt attack, so that means he wouldn’t have hit Bill the Fighter, and Bill wouldn’t have gone unconscious, so Jill the Cleric wouldn’t have burned her daily, and…”
But yeah, a player who is really on the ball can be deadly with this combo. Good article.
The only flaw I see is the following:
1) “You can’t take opportunity actions on your own turn” (PHBp268)
2) The beast moves when you take a move action – on your own turn.
So you can’t use the movement of the beast to trigger an opportunity attack, as far as I can tell.
Carl
After checking some errata and talking it over with some high quality DMs we decided, Syrsuro is correct. While we said it’s not out of line for a DM to allow it in this situation, generally, you can not take opportunity attacks during your own turn. Good catch, my man.
So the Beast Protector/Sharpshooter combo will get you extra attacks as a result of the beast being attacked, but not through provoking attacks when moving during your turn.
Thanks, Carl.
Also, he can only apply his Hunter’s Quarry damage once per round, so it is only applied to one of those attacks.
“HUNTER’S QUARRY
Once per turn, you can use your Hunter’s Quarry power.”
But…
“If you can make multiple attacks in a round, you decide which attack to apply the extra damage to after all the attacks are rolled. If you have dealt Hunter’s Quarry damage since the start of your turn, you cannot deal it again until the start of your next turn.”
(From the Compendium)
@Phil Yeah, I didn’t actually address the issue of Hunter’s Quarry. That said, you’re mostly right. There is a feat that allows you to do your Hunter’s Quarry an extra time when you spend an action point.
But when you’re taking half a dozen or more attacks each round (conservatively) only getting Hunter’s Quarry once is not really the point.
@THP Jeff A totally fair point. I just didn’t want someone to get all excited about being having extra-high DPR for their shiny new ranger build, only to find out they don’t get an extra die roll per OA.