the best archer druid


Advice


I just had an unfortunate incident with my mage involving inter detentional travel and altitude. Needless to say landing in a lava hole didnt help. The denizens of this plane may be willing to let my spirit return to my body but based on how the dice have been to me lately...next character.

I am still needing to fill the party roll of battlefield control and AoE but i dont want to recreate my mage. To this end i am looking for the best way to utilise an archer druid. I am looking currently at the eagle domain and want to include augmented summons feats. 25Point build, all paizo books are ok. Setting is mostly naval with aquatic and land expeditions.


Halfling Druid Archer riding a roc?


I have considered that. Feat progression thru 12 is my main challenge. Race seens more like decoration.

Scarab Sages

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Eleven ancient lorekeeper Wood oracle? Wood bond, wooden weapon, wild shape, cleric self buffs are better for archery than Druid ones, and wizard spells known for control/aoe.


I agree with riding the bird, perhaps some levels in zen archer.

Liberty's Edge

Feats, assuming Half-Elf, Elf, or some other way of getting Bow Proficiency (which I'd advise, personally):

1: Point Blank Shot
3: Precise Shot
5: Rapid Shot
7: Deadly Aim
9: Manyshot

That leaves one Feat, which you can use for Item Creation, Natural Spell, or Spell Focus (Conjuration) in preparation for Augment Summoning at 13th.


Lorekeeper is an interesting idea. I would be concerned that i would spend all combat casting.
let say I went Eagle Sham with eagle domain
The Hawkeye domain skill gives a stout bonus to attack 3+wis and standard action to summon eagles, Rocs, or giant eagles.
With summons I am still contributing to combat and can cast and shoot my bow efficiently.

I wonder if there are any Wildshape forms that can use bows?...


Gorillas and dire apes ought to be able to. Earth elementals too.


If you are spending a lot of time at sea on the open waters I'd add in Far Shot at some point and keeping my eye open for a Distance weapon as well


Being able to summon as a stardard action is money so the shaman archs are great. I threw this together last night. what do you all think?

Bowsong the Druid:

Half-Orc (Mystic) Druid (Eagle Shaman) 12/Monk (Zen Archer) 3
LN Medium humanoid (human, orc)
Init +4; Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision; Perception +30
--------------------
Defense
--------------------
AC 27, touch 25, flat-footed 25 (+2 Dex, +3 deflection, +2 natural, +10 untyped)
hp 79 (15d8+15)
Fort +13, Ref +12, Will +20; +4 vs. fey and plant-targeted effects
--------------------
Offense
--------------------
Speed 40 ft.
Melee unarmed strike +11/+6/+1 (1d10)
Ranged +3 distance seeking longbow +25/+20/+15 (1d8+4/×3)
Special Attacks flurry of blows, wild shape 5/day, zen archery
--------------------
Statistics
--------------------
Str 11, Dex 14, Con 12, Int 10, Wis 27, Cha 10
Base Atk +11; CMB +11; CMD 36

Feats Augment Summoning, Clustered Shots, Deadly Aim, Endurance, Improved Unarmed Strike, Lightning Reflexes, Natural Spell, Perfect Strike, Point Blank Master, Point-Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Rapid Shot, Spell Focus (conjuration), Sunlight Summons, Superior Summoning, Weapon Focus (longbow)

Traits magical knack, reactionary

Skills Acrobatics +6 (+10 jump), Climb +4, Escape Artist +6, Fly +8, Handle Animal +7, Heal +12, Knowledge (geography) +5, Knowledge (history) +5, Knowledge (nature) +8, Knowledge (religion) +6, Perception +30, Ride +6, Sense Motive +25, Spellcraft +13, Stealth +14, Survival +14, Swim +4; Racial Modifiers +4 Perception

Gear: staff of conjuration;+3 distance seeking longbow, bracers of archery, greater, headband of inspired wisdom +4, monk's robe, ring of protection +3, ring of sustenance, Amulet of Natural Armor +2, Pearl of Power(1st level)x3, Pearl of Power(2nd level)x3, Pearl of Power(3rd level)

Range Attack: Hawkeye+6, Deadly Aim -3/+6, Point Blank, Flurry
+27/+27/+22/+12 1d8+11
Range Vanilla: Rapid shot, Deadly Aim, Point Blank
+21/+21/+16/+11
Mellee Unarmed:
+11/+6/+1 1d10


Sirlink wrote:

Being able to summon as a stardard action is money so the shaman archs are great. I threw this together last night. what do you all think?

** spoiler omitted **

Range Attack: Hawkeye+6, Deadly Aim -3/+6, Point Blank, Flurry
+27/+27/+22/+12 1d8+11
Range Vanilla: Rapid shot, Deadly Aim, Point Blank
+21/+21/+16/+11...

A Zen archer cannot combine Rapid Shot with Flurry of Blows so why even take the feat?

My build suggestion for a 12th lvl character is Zen Archer 1/Druid 11 riding a winged animal companion of some kind.

This nets you bow proficiency, wis-to-AC, and one bonus archery feat. You also have access to 6th level spells (which are HUGE at this level).

It does require you to focus on Dexterity as a primary stat, but if you really only want to focus on Wisdom, you lose three full caster levels making your summons mostly useless other than mild distractions and you'd only have 4th level spells to buff/blast/control with.

Either way...just my 2 cp


If you go dex build dont you have to pump str too? It does cost dearly for spell progression.

Scarab Sages

Sirlink wrote:
If you go dex build dont you have to pump str too? It does cost dearly for spell progression.

As a non-primary caster druid, you only need a 14 post racial in WIS. You will be using buffs or other spells that don't require saves, so there isn't a reason to pump WIS for DCs. That will let you have a high dex that you will need for archery feats anyway, and still put some points to STR for the damage bonus.


But if i am the primary caster i need the wisdom.
I suppose a guided bow could fill the need for the 2 extra monk levels...

Scarab Sages

Whether or not you need the wisdom depends solely on what kind of spells you are casting. A 14 wisdom + a Wisdom boosting headband means you will have enough wisdom to cast 9th level druid spells by the time you can cast them. If you are not casting spells that require saves such as buffs, summons, or healing, then there is no need for the extra wisdom at creation. This will let you put more points into Dex and STR.

Based on your previous posts, you want this character to be an archer first, and that is a perfectly valid way to play.


At higher levels it's a lot easier. You can acquire all the up-front feats archery requires of you, and you can turn into an Air elemental to fly on your own and shoot the bow.

Lower levels, you're feat-pressed and need to mount your animal companion for flight. I'd strongly consider Feather subdomain + Boon Companion feat to get some flight magic *and* a full pet, though Boon Companion will make it tough.... you still want Natural Spell and you also want at least PBS, Rapid Shot, Precise Shot, and Manyshot. Getting Imp. Precise Shot as soon as you can (level 15, probably) and Clustered Shots as soon as you have a feat slot for it (probably not till level 11...) is also advised. Deadly Aim is a bit over-rated and at later levels can actually hurt your damage output if you have enough bonus damage adding to each shot for the attack penalty to hurt more than the damage bonus helps. At earlier levels when it's more useful...you're too feat starved for it.

In any case, I'd suggest going with Oread race or any of the Dex/Wis ones like Vanara. You're going to be spread pretty thin on stats, needing Dex, Wis, Str, and some Con. Dump Cha into the toilet, preferably with aid of a race that has -2 Cha as its penalty, park Int at 10, 12 at most. Con 12 is passable. Dex and Wis have to be at least 14, 16 is much more ideal, 18 superb if somehow possible. Str you want 12-14. Actually...with 25 point buy, it could turn out ok...

25 point buy with any of the +2 Dex/Wis, -2 Cha racial options:
Str 14, Dex 18, Con 12, Int 12, Wis 18, Cha 5. (level 1, after racials)


1 person marked this as a favorite.

I found this thread because I'm pondering the same thing. Here's a couple thoughts I had:

1. Druid casters out of the box are pretty competitive (tho different) than Wizards in terms of Battlefield control role; so you shouldn't have much worry there.

2. Wild shape and archer don't mix for obvious reasons. While wild shaping into flying forms and casting from above are a great tactic, for an archer druid this will mostly be wasted. You'll want to cast a control spell, a summon, maybe a buff, and then help burn stuff down to save after-combat healing. There's no place in there that being wild shape really fits.

3. Looking at archetypes that eliminate wild shape, I came across Nature Fang. This trades out Wild Shape for, basically, slayer levels (and 1d6 sneak, for whatever that's worth, might mix well with your control spells). At 4th level, you get a Slayer Talent, which can get you a Ranger Combat Style Feat, and all its goodness. From that point on, your feats can go to Extra Slayer Talent-->Ranger Combat Style. So, every level you're taking a ranger combat feat. This is better than Ranger.

The drawback is your BAB, of course, but considering you have full Druid casting capabilities, the archery is just there for the burn down phase and lets you save your big spells for the starts of fights without having to stand around at the end doing nothing.

My initial pass at feat progression looks like this (I'm choosing Elf for the longbow proficiency):

1: Spell Focus (conjure)
3: Augment Summoning
4: Slayer Talent-->Ranger Combat: Precise Shot
5: Extra Slayer Talent-->Ranger Combat: Rapid Shot
6: Slayer Talent-->Ranger Combat: Imp. Precise Shot
7: Extra Slayer Talent-->Ranger Combat: Manyshot
8: Slayer Talent-->Rogue Trick-->Combat Feat-->Deadly Aim
9: Extra Summoning

Basically, 4-7 is where you take your bow feats, if you don't want to burn a feat on point blank. You won't want to be point blank, since you're a control character, and you need feats to get the summoning track.

Note that you get Improved Precise Shot when your BAB is +4. Sick.

At level 10, you get a swift action study target (one that kicks in automatically if you can sneak your target - use entangle to wipe our their dex bonus, then shoot them once and study is on automagically). This gives you roughly the following bonuses, assuming 18 Dex, 13 str start, 1 str at level 4, and +4 dex item:

+3/+3 studied target (switching to a new target costs only a swift action).
+6/+2 from stats
-2/+4 from deadly aim
+2/+2 from +2 comp bow (str 14)
-2/+0 from rapid shot
+7/+0 from BAB

Total:

+14/+14/+9, where first attack fires two arrows
Damage is 1d8+11 (and maybe +1d6 sneak if you're good with your controls)

What you're missing: Gravity bow, clustered shots. Getting clustered shots will cost you taking point-blank shot, there's no way around that. If you're hitting a lot of DR you can't penetrate, you might be in trouble. Depends on how your arrow selection is, I guess.

At levels 1-3, you're just a "regular" Druid. But that's still pretty strong. At levels 4-7 you start bringing the hammer. These arrows will do more for you in most cases than any direct damage spell, but basically they're for the end part of the fight when you're done casting. Instead of standing around watching the party finish things off, you can participate in burning down to end combats faster.

Pure theorycraft here, but it seems OK to me.

Also, I agree, Cleric Archer seems better because of better self-buffs, so does Wizard Archer/Arcane Archer. But if you want to do Druid Archer for flavor (like I was considering), I think this looks pretty good on paper.

(Agree with Eagle domain btw, that was my choice as well). The Hawk familiar is pretty cool, the bonuses are just OK. Aspect of the Falcon is at least a +1 to hit, and you get Fly at level 3 which is nice since you won't be wild shaping you can still fly above the battlefield and rain arrows.

I was looking at this for PFS, so 20-pt build went like this (pre-racial mods):

Str 13, Dex 16, Con 13, Int 8, Wiz 16, Cha 7.

Wis is a little low, but that's what you get for splitting focus and taking Elf for the bow prof.


Might I suggest the hunter since it was released.

It even gives a bonus feat for archery, and still gets the full progression animal companion and retains much of the druid casting.

Also, your thoughts on nature fang and the extra slayer talent are incorrect. You are still limited by the text of the ranger combat style talent. That is, you can only select it 3 times total, and those are at once at anytime, once at 6th level, and once at 10th level.*

*Or at later levels, those would be the earliest you can select them.

Quote:
Ranger Combat Style (Ex): The slayer selects a ranger combat style (such as archery or two-weapon combat) and gains a combat feat from the first feat list of that style. He can choose feats from his selected combat style, even if he does not have the normal prerequisites. At 6th level, he may select this talent again and add the 6th-level ranger combat feats from his chosen style to the list. At 10th level, he may select this talent again and add the 10th-level ranger combat feats from his chosen style to the list.

Edit: Although upon further consideration the the Nature Fang is probably stronger if you want to actually focus on archery over your animal companion, but you're still limited on how often you can select the ranger combat style. But that still gives an edge over the Hunter, who wont be able to get the same bonus feats.


Ah, good catch. Well, you could tweak it slightly, but that means it will cost you point-blank shot.

You can still take Imp Precise at level 6, though.


Hunter is interesting, but doesn't have full spell progression. Without looking at it in depth, that's a completely different approach, I'd wager. For someone who wants to focus more on the combat and spells are of a secondary nature.


So, updated feat progression:

1: Spell Focus (conjure)
3: Augment Summoning
4: Slayer Talent-->Ranger Combat: Point-Blank Shot
5: Precise Shot
6: Slayer Talent-->Ranger Combat: Imp. Precise Shot
7: Rapid Shot
8: Slayer Talent-->Rogue Trick-->Combat Feat-->Manyshot
9: Extra Summoning or Deadly Aim.

May want to play around with the order some on this, like if you want to push up Rapid Shot. Not sure mathematically which is worth more, +4 to hit on melee or 2x the shots, you could figure that out as the play goes tho.

It would be more "optimized" to burn a level on fighter, and go human. This gets you Wis bonus instead of Dex, and 2 extra feats to in exchange for essentially a spontaneous spell progression.

1- Spell Focus (Conjure)
HBF- Augment Summoning
FBF- Point-Blank Shot
3: Precise Shot
5ST: RCS: Rapid Shot
5: Deadly Aim
7ST: RCS: Imp. Precise Shot
7: Extra Summoning
9ST: Rogue Trick-->Combat Feat-->Manyshot
9: Clustered Shots

That'd work.

EDIT: Nature Fang is more about giving up wild shape than giving up animal companion. However, I'd still go Eagle domain and give up the companion, as well, for the extra spells.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

I would suggest that if you really want to focus on archery you really need all the feats as soon as you can get them.

So I wouldn't take spell focus and augment summoning then.

Instead

1) Point Blank Shot
3) Precise Shot
4) Talent: Rapid Shot
5) Deadly Aim
6) Talent: Improved Precise Shot
7)
8) Talent: Rogue Talent -> Weapon Training -> Weapon Focus
9) Many Shot
10)Talent: Point Blank Master

Edit: Haha, we were both working at the same time. I think your feat progressions look pretty good too. It will come down to a matter of opinion.


EDIT:

My browser keeps early posting/double posting. :P

Sure, you could tweak it around. I wasn't trying to "really focus on archery" but rather come up with a new take on the caster druid.

I think what's interesting here is that it's a slider you can focus more towards caster druid or more towards archery or try to blend in the middle. But Nature Fang is the point, giving you the slayer stuff and killing off wild shape and a bunch of other mostly situational abilities that you probably won't miss much.

For me, the goal was to make a caster druid that could still contribute with regular old damage when necessary/helpful (other than whacking away with shillelagh), rather than an archer who had druid spells.


I like your progression a lot for focusing on archery. Also keeps the Elf instead of going Human Fighter (I'm big on flavor).

I think the OP was saying he wanted the summoning stuff specifically and the control role primarily, which was the same approach I had in mind.


Extra summon air elementals while you fly above the battlefield... anyone that flies up to meet you gives all your elemental guards bonuses. Fun times. Who needs point blank master? ;)


Check with your DM, to see if you can take Hover Feat from the monster manual. Otherwise, you will need to make a Fly check to hover, while casting every spell + a harder concentration check do to wind speed.

If your going with Archery, you might want to check out the Eagle Terran Domain, for druids. The domain powers are nice for archers or flyers, and the low level bonus spell is nice for archery, charisma boost, if you dump charisma, and high level spell can be nice to cast on group to help the non-flyer in your party.

Scarab Sages

Just a pont, if he's going 3 levels of zen archer, he won't need a great dex, he can sub his wisdom for that with the Zen Archery class ability...all you need is a 13 for Deadly Aim.

Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / Advice / the best archer druid All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.