[PFS] Bowman, opinions on my build?


Advice

Grand Lodge

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This will be for PFS. Please take a look and let me know if he could be improved. The overall theme here is simply to build the best bowman I can.

I considered Ranger, but can’t see any in-combat advantage other than taking Improved Precise Shot at 6th rather than 11th. But the fighter can get weapon focus and weapon training, giving him +2 in all situations (So in a sense the fighter is only at a -2 penalty when firing against cover.) I did like the idea of a night tracker/hunter, but I’ve always liked being really really good at one thing. The extra feats and weapon/armor training really make the fighter a better archer than a ranger.

I also considered the archer archetype. The tricks would be really cool, especially in combination with combat reflexes and improved snapshot. But at 11th level it would mean sacrificing +3 max dex from armor training. And with pointblank master I didn’t see any other real advantage.

Ugruk
Male half-orc fighter 11
LN Medium humanoid (human, orc)
Init +8; Senses darkvision 60 ft.; Perception +15
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Defense
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AC 31, touch 20, flat-footed 23 (+9 armor, +2 deflection, +8 Dex, +2 natural)
hp 92 (11d10+22)
Fort +11, Ref +14, Will +6 (+3 vs. fear)
Defensive Abilities orc ferocity
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Offense
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Speed 30 ft.
Melee +1 scimitar +14/+9/+4 (1d6+3/18-20)
Ranged +3 composite longbow +26/+21/+16 (1d8+9/×3)
Special Attacks weapon trainings (bows +2, axes +1)
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Statistics
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Str 14, Dex 26, Con 12, Int 10, Wis 10, Cha 7
Base Atk +11; CMB +13; CMD 33
Feats
1st- Precise Shot, Point-blank Shot
2nd- Rapid Shot
3rd- Weapon Focus (longbow)
4th- Point Blank Master[APG]
5th- Weapon Specialization (longbow)
6th- Manyshot
7th- Snap Shot[UC]
8th- Combat Reflexes
9th- Improved Snap Shot[UC]
10th- Greater Weapon Focus (longbow)
11th- Improved Precise Shot
Traits observant, reckless
Skills I maxed perception, put 1 point in every class skill, and put the rest in acrobatics.
Acrobatics +17, Climb +6, Handle Animal +2, Intimidate +4, Perception +15, Ride +12, Survival +4, Swim +6; Racial Modifiers +2 Intimidate
Languages Common, Orc
SQ armor training 3, orc blood
Combat Gear I spent most of 82,000 gold
adamantine arrows (50); Other Gear +3 mithral agile breastplate, +1 scimitar, +3 composite longbow (+2 Str), arrows (60), amulet of natural armor +2, belt of incredible dexterity +4, cloak of resistance +3, ring of protection +2, 3,679 gp, 5 sp
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Special Abilities
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Combat Reflexes (9 AoO/round) Can make extra attacks of opportunity/rd, and even when flat-footed.
Darkvision (60 feet) You can see in the dark (black and white vision only).
Improved Precise Shot Ignore AC bonuses and miss chance from anything less than total cover/concealment.
Improved Snap Shot You threaten an additional 10 feet with Snap Shot
Manyshot You can shoot two arrows as the first attack of a full attack action.
Orc Blood Half-orcs count as both humans and orcs for any effect related to race.
Orc Ferocity (1/day) If brought below 0 Hp, can act as though disabled for 1 rd.
Point-Blank Shot +1 to attack and damage rolls with ranged weapons at up to 30 feet.
Precise Shot You don't get -4 to hit when shooting or throwing into melee.
Rapid Shot You get an extra attack with ranged weapons. Each attack is at -2.
Snap Shot Threaten squares within 5 feet of you when wielding a ranged weapon
Weapon Training (Axes) +1 (Ex) +1 Attack, Damage, CMB, CMD with Axes
Weapon Training (Bows) +2 (Ex) +2 Attack, Damage, CMB, CMD with Bows

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Silver Crusade

You may wish to go with clustered shot at 7th and perhaps use the weapon master archetype


Have you considered Zen Archer? If you would like I could try to put together a sample build for you, but if you are looking for best archer, I believe Zen Archer 8/Weapon Master Fighter 3 with Gloves of Dueling is more powerful than a straight 11 fighter.

Grand Lodge

Tin Foil Yamakah wrote:
You may wish to go with clustered shot at 7th and perhaps use the weapon master archetype

Thanks. I missed clustered shots. Seems like a good deal.

Grand Lodge

Jayder22 wrote:
Have you considered Zen Archer? If you would like I could try to put together a sample build for you, but if you are looking for best archer, I believe Zen Archer 8/Weapon Master Fighter 3 with Gloves of Dueling is more powerful than a straight 11 fighter.

Thanks. Let me work one up and take a look at it.


Jayder22 wrote:
Have you considered Zen Archer? If you would like I could try to put together a sample build for you, but if you are looking for best archer, I believe Zen Archer 8/Weapon Master Fighter 3 with Gloves of Dueling is more powerful than a straight 11 fighter.

Based on my test builds in PC Gen, I think Jayder is right.

Ranger will net you more skills. Fighter will edge out in damage slightly.

You'll want Deadly Aim, though. That really buffs archery.

Grand Lodge

A Zen Archer cannot use Rapid Shot or Manyshot when making a flurry of blows. But Rapid Shot is one of the feats on his bonus feat list. Is what situation, if any, would it be advantageous to give up the flurry for rapid shot?


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Improved Precise Shot is one of the biggest quality of life improvements an archer can get. Fortunately, it's now available as a trait (Deadeye Bowman, Inner Sea Gods) that is PFS legal. This makes a wide variety of archers viable that simply weren't before. Your observation that the fighter can pick up IPS later is very reasonable given the fighter chassis' ability to handle hit/damage bonuses, but you don't need to feel beholden to that particular feat anymore. The trait has restrictions, naturally, but that's to be expected.

Since IPS is available early via the trait, it opens up all of the 3/4 BAB classes as viable primary archers. The Medium, Hunter, Inquisitor, and Occultist are all much better because of the trait than you'd expect. The downside is that you're looking at a delayed Manyshot and iterative attack, but the upside is SPELLS. A short breakdown:

Medium - built to level 11, you have +3 hit +5 damage from your Spirit Bonus and Seance Bonus, with an optional +1 to both from the feat Spirit Focus. You will have 5 shots per round without Haste and 3rd level Medium spells. That means you will have your own means of flight at the very least (Fly), as well as some other mobility options (Gaseous Form, Dim Door) and useful utility (Greater Invis, Greater False Life). Your feats are pretty well tied up, though - PBS, Precise, Rapid, Spirit Focus, Manyshot, Clustered Shot for a non-human, likely in that order. Humans are able to squeeze in Deadly Aim at some point.

Hunter - Optional pet, access to the Planar Focus feat (includes burrow speed as an option!) and 4 levels of casting from the druid/ranger lists. Free Precise Shot at 2. Less damage, more utility here. Might not be your cup of tea.

Inquisitor - 4 levels of brutal spells, Bane on command, Judgment...I think everything is covered by this guy and it's been hashed out in other posts before. Like the Medium, your feats are pretty well locked down, but you don't have Spirit Focus taking up Deadly Aim's slot.

Occultist - 4 words - first level Bane availability. A first level Occultist can literally put Bane on their bow with Magic Weapon and Legacy Weapon. You're also an INT-based caster with some killer utility (automatic identify at level 2 and scaling bonus on UMD), and a solid spell list that includes all the goodies of Medium plus several more fun options. On top of that, you effectively get free stat belts. Again, feats are tight, unless you take the Battle Host archetype, which you might want to do because it's amazing for archery...or melee...or guns. Slipping in Extra Mental Focus is helpful if you can spare the feat slot, which basically means if you go Battle Host.

The archery class selections are better now than they ever have been, and they were honestly pretty good before. Zen Archers, Clerics, Bards, Rangers, and Fighters have all done well in the past, but there's lots of fun stuff out there to play with that are crazy effective.


I don't think there is a great reason to take it as a Zen Archer. Usually you would take Point Blank Shot at 1st level, Precise Shot at 2nd Improved Precise Shot at 6th as your bonus feats. Picking up Deadly Aim at 3rd. Are you leveling from 1st or applying GM credit?

Grand Lodge

Jayder22 wrote:
I don't think there is a great reason to take it as a Zen Archer. Usually you would take Point Blank Shot at 1st level, Precise Shot at 2nd Improved Precise Shot at 6th as your bonus feats. Picking up Deadly Aim at 3rd. Are you leveling from 1st or applying GM credit?

I'll be leveling from first. I'm thinking start out with fighter 1 and then get to monk 6 to get the feats as soon as possible.

Grand Lodge

Serisan wrote:

Improved Precise Shot is one of the biggest quality of life improvements an archer can get. Fortunately, it's now available as a trait (Deadeye Bowman, Inner Sea Gods) that is PFS legal. This makes a wide variety of archers viable that simply weren't before. Your observation that the fighter can pick up IPS later is very reasonable given the fighter chassis' ability to handle hit/damage bonuses, but you don't need to feel beholden to that particular feat anymore. The trait has restrictions, naturally, but that's to be expected.

Since IPS is available early via the trait, it opens up all of the 3/4 BAB classes as viable primary archers. The Medium, Hunter, Inquisitor, and Occultist are all much better because of the trait than you'd expect. The downside is that you're looking at a delayed Manyshot and iterative attack, but the upside is SPELLS. A short breakdown:

Medium - built to level 11, you have +3 hit +5 damage from your Spirit Bonus and Seance Bonus, with an optional +1 to both from the feat Spirit Focus. You will have 5 shots per round without Haste and 3rd level Medium spells. That means you will have your own means of flight at the very least (Fly), as well as some other mobility options (Gaseous Form, Dim Door) and useful utility (Greater Invis, Greater False Life). Your feats are pretty well tied up, though - PBS, Precise, Rapid, Spirit Focus, Manyshot, Clustered Shot for a non-human, likely in that order. Humans are able to squeeze in Deadly Aim at some point.

Hunter - Optional pet, access to the Planar Focus feat (includes burrow speed as an option!) and 4 levels of casting from the druid/ranger lists. Free Precise Shot at 2. Less damage, more utility here. Might not be your cup of tea.

Inquisitor - 4 levels of brutal spells, Bane on command, Judgment...I think everything is covered by this guy and it's been hashed out in other posts before. Like the Medium, your feats are pretty well locked down, but you don't have Spirit Focus taking up Deadly Aim's slot.

Occultist...

This is going to keep me busy for a while D:


Ronnie K wrote:
Jayder22 wrote:
I don't think there is a great reason to take it as a Zen Archer. Usually you would take Point Blank Shot at 1st level, Precise Shot at 2nd Improved Precise Shot at 6th as your bonus feats. Picking up Deadly Aim at 3rd. Are you leveling from 1st or applying GM credit?
I'll be leveling from first. I'm thinking start out with fighter 1 and then get to monk 6 to get the feats as soon as possible.

I will point out that the most painful levels for the Zen archer are 1-3. at level 3 Wisdom to hit for the bow turns on, before that they are at a weird place because they don't want super high dex like other archers, but can't use their wisdom as effectively yet.


Ronnie K wrote:
Serisan wrote:

Improved Precise Shot is one of the biggest quality of life improvements an archer can get. Fortunately, it's now available as a trait (Deadeye Bowman, Inner Sea Gods) that is PFS legal. This makes a wide variety of archers viable that simply weren't before. Your observation that the fighter can pick up IPS later is very reasonable given the fighter chassis' ability to handle hit/damage bonuses, but you don't need to feel beholden to that particular feat anymore. The trait has restrictions, naturally, but that's to be expected.

Since IPS is available early via the trait, it opens up all of the 3/4 BAB classes as viable primary archers. The Medium, Hunter, Inquisitor, and Occultist are all much better because of the trait than you'd expect. The downside is that you're looking at a delayed Manyshot and iterative attack, but the upside is SPELLS. A short breakdown:

Medium - built to level 11, you have +3 hit +5 damage from your Spirit Bonus and Seance Bonus, with an optional +1 to both from the feat Spirit Focus. You will have 5 shots per round without Haste and 3rd level Medium spells. That means you will have your own means of flight at the very least (Fly), as well as some other mobility options (Gaseous Form, Dim Door) and useful utility (Greater Invis, Greater False Life). Your feats are pretty well tied up, though - PBS, Precise, Rapid, Spirit Focus, Manyshot, Clustered Shot for a non-human, likely in that order. Humans are able to squeeze in Deadly Aim at some point.

Hunter - Optional pet, access to the Planar Focus feat (includes burrow speed as an option!) and 4 levels of casting from the druid/ranger lists. Free Precise Shot at 2. Less damage, more utility here. Might not be your cup of tea.

Inquisitor - 4 levels of brutal spells, Bane on command, Judgment...I think everything is covered by this guy and it's been hashed out in other posts before. Like the Medium, your feats are pretty well locked down, but you don't have Spirit Focus taking up Deadly

...

Numerically, the Medium comes out VERY close to the Fighter, but it also gets spells. If there's a take-away to be had, that's probably it. From a feature comparison, here's the ups and downs without duration buffs or gear, level 11:

Medium: 5 attacks (or 4 with an additional move action), +4 hit, +6 damage, 8 BAB, Fort +7, Ref +3, Will +7. Deadly Aim only available to Humans unless you swap Clustered Shots, which puts you to +1 hit, +12 damage.

Fighter: 5 attacks, +4 hit, +4 damage, 11 BAB, Fort +7, Ref +3, Will +3. Deadly Aim modifies to +1 hit, +10 damage. 12 more base HP than Medium

The fighter has +3 hit over the Medium or same bonus to hit and +4 damage with Deadly Aim, but loses 4 to Will save and has no spell access. Yes, that's a significant value to hit, and yes, you'll have access to Snap Shot/Combat Reflexes on the Fighter. At that level, though, the Medium will be able to Greater Invis to hit Flatfooted AC, cast Heroism/Haste on themselves, etc. That is a tremendous benefit to consider given that you don't even lose out on number of attacks over your career.

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