My character leveled up last gaming session and I'm supposed to have it ready by tonight's game, but I can't decide which route to go. The options I am thinking about are L2 Fighter: Dodge + Crane Style (+1 BAB, -2 to hit, +4 to AC when fighting defensively) and L2 Zen Archer Weapon Focus (Composite Longbow) + either Dodge or Far Shot + 1 bonus level 3 feat (+1 BAB, +1 to hit, 2 feats). Which would you choose? If you choose something not listed, what would you choose instead?
Erm,do you have 2 characters or is that some retraining happening there?
I guess it depends on your party. The Zen archer is a very nice archer, although I'm not sure either far shot or dodge are the best feats you can guess (I'd go with dodge among the two). The fighter is a mele combatant with some nice defense, which can be great if s/he also has some melee punch. These are different characters, though, and they do different things. For a mounted archer, I'd probably go for the monk but you need to give him or her a good mount, too - sohei monks are supposedly better at horse archery, but zen archers can also do it with some investment from their own feats and levels.
If you want Mounted Archery, go with Sohei, you can also put Rapid Shot and Manyshot with your Flurry of Blows.
If you want free Archery feats, go with Zen.
Right now, I'm a L1 Fighter / L1 Zen Archer that leveled up to 3. Retraining is an option :)
The party is currently a Cleric of Strength, a ninja, and a fighter type. We have a 5th member, but he's hit and miss for when he can show up to games. I think the DM throws us against EPL+3 and 4 encounters. So far they've all been challenging or tough.
Unless your GM regularly gives you long range encounters, Far Shot is a waste of a feat. You'd need a massive perception bonus to see far enough to get into the second range increment of a composite longbow, and most battle maps don't even get to the third. (You can also get flight or distance arrows to reduce the range penalty anyway.)
Are you regularly playing mounted encounters? And is your GM allowing you to use a composite longbow while mounted? (You can't use a regular longbow while mounted, and the text of composite longbow is pretty clearly a cut-and-paste error from composite shortbow. They haven't errata'd it or FAQ'd yet, so you might be OK. You might check with your GM, just to be sure--switching to a shortbow isn't a big deal, but you want to know before you get weapon focus.)
If you regularly find yourself in close quarters, I'd go the next two levels of Zen Archer for Point Blank Master for free. Ideally, I'd stay in Zen Archer until level 6 to get Weapon Specialization (free) and pick up Improved Precise Shot (which normally requires a BAB of 11). After that, you can go up the fighter tree to pick up weapon training (Weapon Master Archetype gets it at 3rd level).
Featwise, Deadly Aim is always nice, but I really like Crane Style on my Zen Archers. Combat Reflexes is always fun, too, because no one expects an attack of opportunity from the guy with the bow. Manyshot can't be used with flurry, but you can use it with a non-flurry full attack: so if you can't afford to take the -2 for flurry, you can still shoot two arrows on your attack.