The World of Avlis

It occurs to me that some of the combat related feats don't apply to missile weapons, bows in particular. Now, this is fairly obvious with some, not so obvious with others. Here is a list of the feats which I have thought about acquring at one point or another that I'm curious as to their effect with missile weapons, if someone could be so kind as to tell me which of these do and don't work, I'd be much obliged.

Dirty Fighting
Expertise
Called Shot
Improved Critical
Knockdown
Power Attack
Sap


Now, some of these I assume just by their nature, do not work... but the book(s) specify for some and don't specify for others. Power attack I would assume works with melee only, but since some missile weapons get your strength bonus to damage, I could see it working with those..

I just want to avoid wasting slots, is all, if someone could let me know, I'd be appreciative.

Expertise does not work with missle weapons.

Out of the list, only called shot and improved critical work for ranged weapons IIRC.

Also, I think sap was disabled because there were some major balance issues related with the feat.

Dirty Fighting - not sure
Expertise - not sure
Called Shot - can be used with missile weapons
Improved Critical - can be used with missile weapons
Knockdown - no
Power Attack - no
Sap - does not work

Damn.. expertise not working actually really bothers me. The whole concept is that you spend more time moving out of harm's way than trying to hit your target, nothing wrong with doing that with a missile weapon:( Wasted a damn feat already.

Why are you in close combat when you are using a bow?

Titanium Dragon wrote:Why are you in close combat when you are using a bow?

Point blank feat, maybe he is a ranger

Yeah, but still... Expertise is sort of a figthing defensively method, and parrying blows with a longbow would not be a very good idea.

yeah, that's the way I read it also. It's a very defensive combat style and I wouldn't expect it to work with a missle weapon. but I've been fooled before...

*shrugs* I can see why it wouldn't work, but if you read the name, it's Expertise... you know how to not get hit, at the expense of your attack ability. I'm not that pressed... As for why I'm in close combat with a bow, one has to be dedicated to one's weapon of choice and show extreme desire to use it, to convince certain Immortal and Deific beings that one is worthy of prestige classes related to that weapon:P

It doesn't work because it is not what you think it is. It is the art of fighting defensively. But note it is about "fighting" not dodging. Expertise is about putting more of an effort into defending yourself than hitting the other person, it is exactly the same as when you use "power attack" to increase your damage at the expense of your accuracy. But unless you are actually melleeing your opponent Expertise should have no effect and the use of either a ranged weapon, casting of a spell or activating of a SU/EX/SLA should negate it.

So no you can not use it with a longbow since there is no way to fight defensively with a longbow. You certainly can't take away from your chance to hit by doing anything other than dodging and dodging is not what Expertise is about.

The feats you want are dodge and mobility.

Also note, Expertise in PnP is supposed to be a higher form of "defensive fighting", something that isn't in NWN.(I think that was +2 dodge AC at the cost of 4 off your attack roll.) Basically it was supposed to be that you were really good at melee fighting in general. In 3E at least, Expertise was also a prerequisite for things like improved disarm, and I think improved trip.

Honestly I think Bioware screwed up when implementing this feat, particularly since it can't be used with their own version of a defensive fighting stance(parry)

I think Expertise is Bioware throwing in the towel on fixing Parry and giving us a simpler way to fight defensively than with a broken skill.