Halfling Scout question

[xlyce]

One of my players is bemoaning her lack of importance in ISAR. She is, obviously, a halfling scout. I looked her character over and realised she had made some mistakes, but I want to make sure I calculated this correctly.

Halfling Scout
ST 8
DX 15

Bow Skill is DX+4 (19) with two levels of Halfling Marksmanship so it is now a 21.

She has Strongbow so her regular bow ST is a 10

If she has Telescopic Vision 1 and a Trademark Move (All Out Strong Attack with Bow aimed at the eye while jumping up) she would be 21 (skill) -9 (eye) +2 (ACC) +1 (Trademark move) which is 15, correct? Damage would be d-1 +2 (Strong) impaling if she uses regular arrows, piercing if she uses bodkins.

Creatures with a DR 4 and 11+ HP would be blinded on a 4+ with bodkins or 5+ with a regular arrow.

Now did I do this all correct, or is there a flaw in what I wrote?

[ArchonShiva]

Originally Posted by xlyce

One of my players is bemoaning her lack of importance in ISAR. She is, obviously, a halfling scout. I looked her character over and realised she had made some mistakes, but I want to make sure I calculated this correctly.

Halfling Scout
ST 8
DX 15

Bow Skill is DX+4 (19) with two levels of Halfling Marksmanship so it is now a 21.

She has Strongbow so her regular bow ST is a 10

If she has Telescopic Vision 1 and a Trademark Move (All Out Strong Attack with Bow aimed at the eye while jumping up) she would be 21 (skill) -9 (eye) +2 (ACC) +1 (Trademark move) which is 15, correct? Damage would be d-1 +2 (Strong) impaling if she uses regular arrows, piercing if she uses bodkins.

Creatures with a DR 4 and 11+ HP would be blinded on a 4+ with bodkins or 5+ with a regular arrow.

Now did I do this all correct, or is there a flaw in what I wrote?

There are at least two flaws:
1. The four options for AOA are only for melee. Ranged attacks only ever get +1 to hit.
2. If you All-Out Attack often enough to be worth a signature move, you’re dead.

Of course, the loss of damage wrecks your crippling thresholds.

On the plus side, you don’t need to specify jumping in your Trademark move, it isn’t quite that precise.

How to gain damage with a scout:

• Fine arrows have +1 damage for effectively $2 per shot. ($6 instead of $2, but Scrounging picks up half the arrows after a battle, just spend [1] in it from Quirks.)
• A Dwarven Whestone adds +1 to damage from arrows, even bodkin arrows according to Kromm.
• You can use a bow above your ST, it just lowers skill and costs FP after battle.
• If your bow is significantly above your ST, Strength Potions effectively raise skill by 1d for one hour, at $250 ($200 if someone makes an alchemy roll).
• Weapon Master, obviously. It gets fantastic if you use a ST 19 bow, but that may be difficult for a halfling without making it elven.

[Bruno]

There's range penalties to take into account, unless this is all happening at close range - and generally if you're that small you don't want to be in close range as you don't have a lot of HP and usually don't have a lot of armor. So keep an eye on those.

[zuljita]

Most creatures with eyes don't have eye DR unless they have nictitating membrane. If the creature has a brain and eyes (check traits section for exceptions) an arrow to the eye that rolls one damage past DR (usually 0) inflicts 4 injury due to wounding modifiers. Anything past that one point is likely to do a major wound to the eyes with the attendant hugely penalized knocked roll.

[Colarmel]

Similarly, but less spectacularly: Vitals give x3 and a -5 on the resulting major wound. Halfling scouts are particularly all about the hit locations.

[ArchonShiva]

Note that if you range penalty is more than your Acc (or you have a penalty from someone in the way), you’re sometimes better off taking a Move and Attack ward, shooting from two yards (don’t let them parry the bow itself!), and running back behind the fighters. You can shoot at *any* point your move, and HA means no Bulk penalty.

[xlyce]

I knew I missed something!

The four options for AOA are only for melee. Ranged attacks only ever get +1 to hit.

On the plus side, you don’t need to specify jumping in your Trademark move, it isn’t quite that precise.

She has to jump, she is short so she gets a better angle...


So, if she does:
If she has Telescopic Vision 1 and a Trademark Move (All Out Attack with Bow aimed at the eye while jumping up) she would be 21 (skill) -9 (eye) +2 (ACC) +1 (Trademark move) +1 (All Out Attack) which is 16. This is at 3 Yards.

Damage would be d-1 impaling if she uses regular arrows, piercing if she uses bodkins.

What would work is if she bought an Elven Bow of Accuracy (ST 13) and did her Trademark move, she would be at 15, due to the -1 because the bow is 5 higher, correct?

You can shoot at *any* point your move, and HA means no Bulk penalty.

I don't think she read the HA skill at all...

A Dwarven Whestone adds +1 to damage from arrows, even bodkin arrows according to Kromm.

I will point this out too

Thanks everyone!

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by xlyce

What would work is if she bought an Elven Bow of Accuracy (ST 13) and did her Trademark move, she would be at 15, due to the -1 because the bow is 5 higher, correct?

Yes, she'll also spend +1 FP at the end of the fight for having used a Bow with a ST 1 higher than she can easily handle.



Bonus side notes: If she eventually buys a massively over-ST bow, say ST 19 (which is the first real 'good' jump to multiple dice of damage) and has Weapon Master Bow and has Very Fit (yes, yes, I know it's getting character point expensive*) and ST 9 (not completely necessary**...) she's at a -6 to hit† (from bow over-ST) and spending +3 FP‡ at the end of the fight, but is doing a whopping 2d+5!

[ST 19 2d-1; Composite Bow +3; Weapon Master +2; Dwarven Whetstone +1]


* 45 points for St 9, Very Fit, and Weapon Master (Bow). An Additional 24 if she wants to buy off the -6 to hit. §

** Staying at ST 8 means she's at a -7 and spending +4 FP at the end of the fight.

† Which means there is no "wastage" from a ST potion giving a max ST bonus (and the only calculation changes are in to hit penalty and FP spending).

‡ Very Fit cuts the FP expenditure in half, otherwise it's equal to the to hit penalty.

§ Yes, I'm sure some people are saying to themselves right now, but if she's spending 69 points for all of that, why not just spend the 60 on the ST?
(which is another perfectly fine build, but it loses 2 damage)

To them I say "Sure, but that's like just... something... mumble-grumble..."

[ArchonShiva]

First of all, why Telescopic Vision? I really don’t think it does anything relevant for her in most circumstances. Raising Per at the same price seems worlds better. (TV is good for aiming, but HA means you should never aim. I really don’t know what it’s doing on the scout’s template. That or Multi-Aim.)

Very Fit is fun, but far from necessary. Fit will carry you through, considering your lower encumbrance and not using spells. (Post-battle FP is 1+Enc+missing ST, so armored fighters usually spend ~4, which is 40 minutes of rest for them. Most casters effectively recover 1 energy every 2.5 minutes (because of ER), but spending 10+ per fight seems extremely common.

You can reasonably expect the rest of the party to be up for at least twenty minutes of rest after any difficult battle - that’s 4 FP with Fit, you should be fine.

Originally Posted by xlyce

She has to jump, she is short so she gets a better angle...

I’m not saying she shouldn’t jump, I’m saying she shouldn’t have it specified in her TM.

• She needs to pick either Attack, Move and Attack or AOA (and which option, but here it’s automatically +1 to hit).
• She needs to pick a hit location.
• She needs to select a weapon, an attack mode (call it shooting, as opposed to whacking them across the head), and if the GM is feeling strict, an arrow type (but she’s aiming for the eyes, so that’s going to be bodkin anyway).

She does not need to decide whether she’ll take a step. She does not need to decide whether she’ll jump (assuming the Maneuver allows jumping in the first place). She can use the same TM while jumping as while hanging upside-down from a ladder.

Do not confuse this with Trademark Move in the other game, which is mostly stricter.

(Technically, if she selects Move and Attack, she can still get ten +1 while remaining stationary, but the Acc bonus from switching to Attack is always going to be at least as good as the +1 from TM.)

P.S. I do not actually recommend Trademark Moves for scouts. Despite what some people claim, scout attacks tend to vary a good deal more than knight or swashbuckler attacks, because their best move isn’t the same against every target. A TM that doesn’t quite give +1 to your best option more than 25% of the time is best invested in the next level of Bow. Also, anything that has eyes is already in trouble against a scout, so that’s probably not where she needs help. After Weapon Bond and Strongbow, probably keep further points for Weapon Master, Bow skill, and Extra Attack.

[ArchonShiva]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

[ST 19 2d-1; Composite Bow +3; Weapon Master +2; Dwarven Whetstone +1]

Weapon Master is +4 for 2d-1. Also, drop the Composite Bow (it’s way too expensive, especially once you add Elven and Balanced) and get Fine arrows, for the same damage.

§ Yes, I'm sure some people are saying to themselves right now, but if she's spending 69 points for all of that, why not just spend the 60 on the ST?
(which is another perfectly fine build, but it loses 2 damage)

To them you say “This has +4 damage, +1 to HT rolls, recovers FP quickly from using magic items or universal scrolls, plus it turns the -3 from fast-loading to a -1, and it’s gonna be crazy once I get my hands on a ST 27 bow... If you need the additional HP that much, review your party tactics!”