Reading the last issue of Dragon has made one of our group (the nearest to a true power gamer we have) really want to roll up an archer and become the parties 'Legolas' when we start our STAP. The player is not really a fan of elves but loves the idea of never missing a shot and performing exceptional displays of marksmanship. Perhaps another dexterous race would be more to his liking as long as it does not have a level adjustment of course.
Dex+ race/ranger looks the most obvious choice but what with all the choices of feats, classes etc out there now we don’t really know where to start.
Has anyone gone down the supreme archer path before, does it hold up well compared to other combat choices and how did you do it?
I think Mr average human fighter with your best score put into dex would be best. Only because we're playing STAP he could make things a little more exotic and play a tribal person from the jungle, perhaps even using a variety of poisons etc.
|
The article in Dragon 350 on page 91 has a really good list of feats available for an archer. My suggestion is to start there for ideas on what things to take and work toward. There are some really nice things that you can do with archery with some of the psionic feats found in the Expanded Psionics Handbook if you are using that option (Psionic Shot and Fell Shot especially -- and you don't even have to be able to manifest powers if you take the Wild Talent feat).
As far as the prestige classes go, you can take a look at the Darkwood Stalker, the Arcane Archer, and the Order of the Bow Initiate. You can also take a look at the Deepwood Sniper, but take a look at the discussion on that class on the What happened to the Deepwood Sniper thread.
Unless the player really wants to get the benefits of the Ranger class, I would suggest going full fighter with one of the above prestige classes. The feats for an archer can really make it stellar.
I've done this before -- my character was known to be able to shoot through trees :)
I think the extra feat humans get can easily make up for no Dex bonus. Straight fighters and their multitude of feats are best, IMO.
Good luck,
Jack
BTW I love elves, and I love elven archers, but their Con penalty cuts into hit points more than people realize -- they really don't have much staying power in melee combat.
IMO
Jack
Human fighters or human rangers both make great archers. The biggest choice is "how specialized do you want to be?" The fighter is the best choice if you want to focus on getting archery tricks (feats) as quickly as possible or if you want to focus mainly on achery, but have other combat tricks as well. The ranger is the best choice if you want more of a sniper (possibly switching out Favored Enemy for +1d6 Sneak Attack at 1st and every 5th level) and more in the way of skills.
If you want a non-elf archer with the highest Dex possible, one option (PHB) is a halfling ranger; you'll take a slight hit on damage from small weapons, but you'll hit more often. A halfling ranger with Sneak Attack instead of Favored Enemy can be very effective in many situations; stealthy as a rogue, best BAB, Sneak Attack damage, ranger bonus feats, plus the other ranger abilities...plenty of options instead of "I shoot something."
one of my players is gonna run a truedive shifter as a ranger based archer. he always researches in my dragon mags when creating some good ones all class acts r 323,327,330,339,347,349 and 350 all have good ideals in them...he didnt know what to go with as fav enemy..i do like the sneak attack have to bring that up with him
If your using the Complete Books and especially Players Handbook II then take a Fighter (or better yet Fighter/Psychic Warrior) and make your best stat Dextarity. With all of these books one can make a mindblowingly good archer but you need feats, feats and more feats. I think it is a toss up between the bonus feat one gets with a human and the ability to have a really high Dextarity with the elf. Though I would lean toward the Human.
Thanks for all the help. Applying psionics to an archer is something we would never have thought of for this character concept but thinking about it in more depth has enabled us to come up with a very cool character. (At least in our opinion.)
One of my friends main worries is losing his equipment and becoming a virtual turkey without his bow, however there’s a psionic power (quite a low level one at that) which allows the manifester to ‘call’ a weapon to his hand from some other plane so there’s one of his worries alleviated.
As we are playing STAP in the Chult region of Forgotten Realms psionics fits in perfectly because of all the yuan-ti influence in the area. My friend is going to play a ‘primitive’ tribal human from the jungle with the Snake Blood feat (given to him as a freebie in place of the district feat the other players are getting as a bonus IMC) meaning he has some yuan-ti ancestry and it gives him a good reason for being psionic.
We are using 32 point buy so he will be able to get a good dexterity score. Ideally, he wants to be fast, mobile, great at archery (and have his character mainly centered around this) lightly (or none at all) armored, good hp, use poison, be able to stay out of toe-to-toe combat but still handle himself if the need arises and wants psionic powers. (More for utility powers and flavour over damage dealing.)
He sees the character as virtually naked, imagine one of the indigenous people of the Amazon rainforest but with snake tattoos, one slit-pupil snake like eye hinting at his heritage and a fancy MW bow carved like a double headed serpent.
As we are now starting at second level, he does not know whether to go for barbarian as his 1st level (because of the hp and fast movement) then psychic warrior as his 2nd level and then just multiclass between the two for the rest of the campaign or something else like fighter. He asked if he could take barbarian and swap the rage (greater, tireless and mighty), indomitable will, features of the class for fighter feats and I said maybe. If he gets his way, he intends to go barbarian/psychic warrior all the way, using all any feats/powers he gets for archery and putting all his ability increases into dex, but that’s not many feats to spend on being a great archer is it? Is it feasible?
Psionic archers are cool! Matter agitation, dimension swap, truevenom weapon are all ones that are useful for a ranged combatant.
|
|
As we are now starting at second level, he does not know whether to go for barbarian as his 1st level (because of the hp and fast movement) then psychic warrior as his 2nd level and then just multiclass between the two for the rest of the campaign or something else like fighter. He asked if he could take barbarian and swap the rage (greater, tireless and mighty), indomitable will, features of the class for fighter...
It seems to me that if you really want to focus on being an archer, the barbarian class is a very poor choice. What good is movement if you are shooting people from a distance anyway? If you are really concerned about movement speeds, there is a feat in the Expanded Psionics Handbook that increases movement as well as a power that does that as well. Another option is to take levels in the Scout class -- your to-hit suffers and you don't get as many feats, but it has some other nice abilities.
Rage also does very little for an archer.
Another option is that there is a non-spell casting option for a ranger in the Complete Warrior -- but I think that it was designed pre-3.5. I still feel that for your build, a fighter/psychic warrior is the way to go.
I've done archers lots of different ways. Every option I've tried can be outdone by a fighter & its feats.
Yeah, I've said it already, but I think it bears repeating (and I'll probably say it again). I can't speak to psionic classes -- I've never cared for psionics in any of its incarnations.
Good Luck
Jack
Thanks to everyone here. Player has decided to go fighter/psy-warrior all the way. (Although between you and me, the player is the type of person who always comes to me with a totally solid character idea and then proceeds to absolutely go against said concept as the campaign moves forward.) ;)
I just know once the party get to the IoD the player will want a dinosaur (Dinonycus) and become a dino-rider, stopping at nothing to get it...