Well, you wouldn't ever take heavy armor prof as a ranger. It turns off your combat style feats. And pinpoint targeting is just a bad idea entirely.
Note that as a ranger you can get point blank master as a 6th level feat. If you do, from this point you don't need melee feats. You might either retrain melee feats or try to do without them until that point.
E.g for a human ranger (maybe after retraining)
1: point blank shot
1H: weapon focus (longbow)
2CS: rapid shot
3: deadly aim
5: boon companion
6CS: point blank master
7: snap shot
9: clustered shots
10CS: manyshot
A few thoughts on the Swash feats.
- You cannot use Piranha Strike with a rapier, it's light weapons only. That's one drawback to the swash, is while you do get dex to damage on one-handed weapons, you lose power attack. (Edit: I often forget not everyone plays with a hardass DM, so if you can make the reasonable argument that Piranha Strike should work with any finesse weapon, including the rapier, then more power to you. Literally.)
- I would hold off on Greater Weapon Focus until after you get your crit feats worked out. You get extra attack built into the class. You want to start exploiting the class's crit synergy as soon as possible.
- Try to find a place for Battle Cry in your feats. Assuming your GM rules it works the way it's written and it allows anyone under it's effect to reroll a failed save (not just a failed fear save) it's fantastic and helps with the Swash's problem of weak saves. Charmed Life is not nearly as good as it looks for shoring up your saves, as it eats up your swift action for around (and swash's are starved for swifts already) and it can't be added after you've seen the result, so you've got to gamble on the die roll. So find feats and traits and gear to fix those bad saves, because there's nothing built into the class to reliably save you.
Is your goal to be a switch hitter?
If so then the swashbuckler is worthless at it.
If you goal is you want to add in some melee ability and want retain some archery then the clear choice would be ranger.
If you worried that there are no melee characters in your party and a lot of squishy casters...well, you aren't solely responsible for their character choices. Play what you want to play, just like they did.
Agreed, there are so many ways for archers to get into melee without any real drawbacks, and archery is so vastly superior to melee on most classes that I wouldn't let anything stop me from making an archer if that's what I wanted to play.
Agreed, there are so many ways for archers to get into melee without any real drawbacks, and archery is so vastly superior to melee on most classes that I wouldn't let anything stop me from making an archer if that's what I wanted to play.
And this is from the guy who literally wrote the guide on Ranger Archery
But seriously, pickup a greatsword for levels 1-5 and use it when you need to. At level 6 you can qualify for Point Blank Master (requires Weapon Focus as a Ranger) through your Combat Style Feat. Now, you no longer provoke in melee. Never touch a melee weapon again because you don't need it. The only thing to really worry about is having sufficient defense and hp to help protect your squishy friends without being killed yourself.
Isn't the hooded champion archetype a mix of swash and ranger? It is a ranger archetype. Some say its not too good i have never used it.
To improve your swashbucklers damage the easy answer and what they wanted you to do is not dump strength. Keep 13 strength, and then use power attack. You will still use weapon finesse and more than likely fencing or slashing grace, but nothing stops you from using power attack.
- Mithral Full Plate works I guess. Although 10.5K will be a fair chunk of your equipment at 7th level.
- There's nothing stopping you playing an archer ranger with a decent strength. In my idea I was saving manyshot for 10th because there's a lack of other good archery style feats after point blank master and manyshot.
- Play a Bolt Ace Gunslinger
- Technically yes, but personally I'd go for a 14.
- Guide replaces hunter's bond and is pretty solid up until the point where wands of Instant Enemy become available/affordable (at which point core ranger might have been better)
You also have to spend a feat on proficiency for heavy armor, or you will take the armor check penalty to attacks.
Also, if you're going to have a high dex for ranged attacks you wont get the full use of your dex. Honestly a mithral breastplate just has a 1 less maximum AC than a mithral full plate, assuming you reach the max dex to AC with it. It's just not worth it in my opinion.
If you want to be on the front lines in melee range snapshot it probably more valuable the manyshot, for a while. The extra attacks you'll get with improved snapshot will make up for the lost attack compared to lacking manyshot. If you have combat reflexes you can potentially get a lot of extra attacks over those granted by manyshot.
A crossbow is strictly inferior in Pathfinder to the bow, unless you play a Bolt Ace archetype gunslinger.
If you're looking to give up spells and animal companions, I suggest you just look at playing a slayer. It's a rogue/ranger combo that gets access to ranger combat style feats through talents and gets studied target which is like favored enemy, but can be applied against any target.
People does not seem to like/forget about improved Precise shot at sixt.
It's important, take it at 6th.
If you have rogue types, they're going to need you to flank with them, so if you go point blank master anyway, pick up some armor spikes as well.
As for how I'd pick the rangers feats;
1H - Power Attack
1 - Cleave
2B - Rapid Shot
3 - Deadly Aim
5 - Boon Companion
6B - Improved Precise Shot!
7 - Heavy Armor Proficiency
9 - IC: Falchion
10 - Manyshot!
Your plan looks pretty solid.
Are you sure you really need more damage on the swashbuckler?
at 11th level, you're doing
3d6 base damage+enhancement
+1 enhancement bonus
+11 precise strike
+2 SB weapon Training
+2 gloves of dueling
+6 Pirahna strike
+7 dex
+2 weapon specialization
So ~3d6+31 damage per hit, with 3 hits per round at +21/+16/+11 with a possible extra attack from riposte. And haste, of course. I'd say you don't really need any more. You also get crits left right and center from your 15-20 crit range.
At fifth level, you're closer to 1d6+19 on a +12 accuracy, same crit rate.
Piranha strike doesn't work with rapiers, by the by, they're not light weapons, but that might be a house-rule of yours, you never know. If that's a houserule, ignore claxton's suggestion about power attack, obviously.
Improved Precise Shot is important, but not more important than Point Blank Master if he intends to be in the thick of melee combat firing his bow.
If you wanna be a switch hitter ranger, you gotta pick up Quickdraw.
You also shouldn't need full plate, eventually DEX will cap out most likely for a mithral breastplate, which is the better armor anyway.
And you really need precise shot as your 4th level feat, or even your 2nd as you will need it for shooting at enemies already engaged in melee. Rapid and Many Shots can come later.
Oughta look like:
1)Power Attack
1H)Quickdraw
2)Precise Shot
3)Deadly Aim
5)Boon Companion
6)Rapid Shot
7)Favored Defense (Something you fight often, or something you are maxing out on for later use with Instant Enemy)
9)Improved Critical
10)Many Shot
11)Combat Reflexes/Improved Initiative/Weapon Focus Bow
13)Improved Initiative/Combat Reflexes/Weapon Focus Bow
14)Improved Precise Shot/Point Blank Master
Also don't buy wands of instant enemy, use pearls of power instead because wands are standard actions to activate, regardless of the casting time of the spell.
Now if you wanna get fancy, since I'm pretty sure the text of Improved Precise Shot covers the things you need from Precise Shot (gonna have to ask your DM) you could invoke Retraining and give up regular Precise Shot and retrain it when Improved Precise Shot becomes available (level 10 I believe). That way you can take point blank master.
Remember as the scout to max out your initiative, Improved Initiative could be taken anywhere as early as 7th on this build if you wanna put of Favored Defense for later levels once Instant Enemy is actually an option.
BTW, you do not wanna spend all that extra gold on Mithral Fullplate because you want a WIS item so you have access to a bonus 3rd level spell slot for Instant Enemy access, it's basically a smite for you.
If you wanna get cheesy, look into the Gnoll Killer trait and the feat All Gnolls Must die, and mix that with Instant Enemy.
EDIT: I was wrong, Improved Precise Shot comes online at 6th, so yeah, at 6th level you can retrain Precise into Improved Precise, so long as the DM lets it function properly.
Can't retrain normal feats into combat style feats though.
And as a normal feat, IPS requires dex 17 or 19, bab 11 and precise shot.
You may change one feat to another through retraining. Retraining a feat takes 5 days with a character who has the feat you want. The old feat can't be one you used as a prerequisite for a feat, class feature, archetype, prestige class, or other ability. If the old feat is a bonus feat granted by a class feature, you must replace it with a feat that you could choose using that class feature.
Emphasis mine.
Retraining: Can I retrain a feat to replace it with a feat I didn't qualify for at the level I originally gained that feat?
Yes. As long as the new feat is a valid feat for your current character, you can retrain the old feat and replace it with the new feat.For example, if you are a 3rd-level rogue who took Improved Initiative at 1st level, you can retrain that feat and replace it with Weapon Focus. Even though Weapon Focus has a prerequisite of "base attack bonus +1" (which means you couldn't take it as a 1st-level rogue), it is a valid feat for your current level (3rd), and is therefore a valid choice for retraining.
(Note: Likewise, the fighter class ability to retrain fighter bonus feats does not require you to meet all of the new feat's prerequisites at the level you originally gained the feat.)
You don't qualify until level 11 though.
You don't qualify until level 11 though.
You qualify for it at 6th, so at 6th because you qualify, you can retrain your Combat Style feat that you took at 2nd level into Improved Precise Shot.
The Ranger's Combat feats bypass prerequisites, retraining updates your old feat slots.
They bypass prerequisites, but they do not let you qualify.
He can choose feats from his selected combat style, even if he does not have the normal prerequisites.
I don't believe the language allows for your trick, but even if it did...
You still can't trade precise shot away if you're taking rapid shot with your normal feats afterward.
Can't trade away a prerequisite.
You could trade away rapid shot if you wanted to.
The ranger's expertise manifests in the form of bonus feats at 2nd, 6th, 10th, 14th, and 18th level. He can choose feats from his selected combat style, even if he does not have the normal prerequisites.
So long as he qualifies, i.e. is 6th level, he can retrain his combat style feats into any of the other ones he can take with his class ability.
Because he bypasses prerequisites for his Combat Style it is perfectly legal to do.
Now, whether or not Improved Precise shot imparts all the benefits of having Precise Shot is another issue.