Am i the only one who looked at Zen archer and thought about how, if it had said revolvers instead of "bows" that you could be a Gunslinger ala DARK TOWER?
seriously.
Related but also Unrelated: Anyone have any suggestions on what class abilities to trade out to make Zen Archer work for the Ranger?
I think the point of Zen Archer is to provide a different flavor of bow user than what you get with ranger. I mean you would have to give flurry of blows to the ranger...
I think the point of Zen Archer is to provide a different flavor of bow user than what you get with ranger. I mean you would have to give flurry of blows to the ranger...
i suppose it would be basically building a new class i guess.
you could toss out all the favored terrians but one, all the favored enemies but one, spellcasting, and animal companion? What else would need to go?
Flurry of blows only with a bow, and "ki arrows" just gives bonus damage equal to the unarmed damage, but the ranger wouldnt actually have unarmed damage.
I guess he'd need a ki pool, and the ki strikes i guess. Ill have to work on this :\
EDIT: maybe it would just be easier to edit the monk to be more ranger-like? There is the Hunting Monk in dragon 310 that trades slow fall and a bonus feat for favored enemies i think... something like that.
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Really? I thought the point of Zen Archery was to make it so clerics could have a decent ranged attack value.
Or am I thinking of a different Zen Archery?
Don't get bogged down in the name of a feat, look at the mechanics of what it does and if that's what you want it to do for your pistol toting ranger, use it.
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I actually thought the same thing when I first read the "Zen Archer" monk variant (it immediately conjured images from Bulletproof Monk for me, though). Honestly, you may be thinking too hard because it works very well as written (from what I can tell). Why do you need favored enemy, anyways? If you only wanted it for one type you could just get a gun with the Bane property and be done with it. Or, convince your DM to run a gestalt campaign and just be a monk/ranger with that variant.
Zen Archery is a class option for monks and a really, really awesome one at that.
-Flurry of blows with a bow
-huge list of ranged bonus feats
-Perfect Strike instead of Stunning fist which let's you roll addition d20's and choose which one for your hit
-Bonus Weapon focus and weapon sepcialization with bow
-3rd level you can replace Dex with Wis to hit with a bow
-Bonus Point Blank Master feat
-spend Ki to increase your range, or deal unarmed damage with the arrows, or ignore cover
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I love the variant, possibly more than any other variant in the entire book. The only problem is that you can't use Manyshot with a flurry of blows, which is sad but understandable.
Also, they get Point Blank Master and (later) the ability to make AoO's with their bow to any square they threaten with their unarmed strikes
Just imagine one with a splitting bow. (not PF i know, but still.)
Then reason i wanted Zen Archer-Rangers was because i like the idea of an elite corp of Elven Archers who, through focus and discipline, are peerless with a bow.
But the monk cuts out alot of the "survival/nature" element :\
maybe i can trade: Slowfall, high jump, purity of body, wholeness of body, diamond soul, quivering palm, timeless body, empty body, and perfect self out for something better?
like: track, wild empathy, woodland stride, swift tracker, camouflage, hide in plain sight? is it trading enough to get quarry/imp quarry too or not?
BEYOND MONKS from Goodman Games is a 3.0/3.5 source book, but it says on page 71 that you can trade the following abilities for additional bonus feats: imp evasion, abundant step, diamond soul, quivering palm, empty body. It also says you can have a poor will save to gain a feat at 2nd level and that you can give up slowfall and fast movement to gain feats at 4th 8th and 12th levels, but who would want to do that O_O
Seriously though, i like the zen archer, and archery in general, but theres too much eastern feel on the monk for what i want, and i do wish they had opened it up a little (like allowing crossbows for example)
barely related:Adding a ki-pool and ki-strike, and maybe unarmed damage to a ranger would be a must for making a gunslinger
Zen archer does a really good job of making a monk that fixes two of the major monk issues.
1. Monks are MAD! The Zen archer only needs Wisdom, everything else is just icing.
2. Moving kills Flurry of Blows. The Zen archer can shoot you in the face from 100 feet.
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I don't know if you noticed, but the Zen Archer monk already gives up a lot of those abilities that you mentioned. With wisdom as a main stat you already have really good bonuses to survival for tracking and getting around in the wild, and they have insane speed so they don't really need swift tracker. Wild Empathy is only helpful if you don't dump charisma, so it would likely be useless, and they are already good at hiding due to their dex-based nature and no armor check penalty.
Y'know, it really does seem to me like you're just looking for a ranger with Flurry of Blows.
Also, I've always been of the school of thought that flavor is what you make of it and how you describe it. If you're the GM, your players are never going to know whether that was a monk they just fought, or a ranger, or a deity in human form. If you told them that they saw a bunch of unarmored elves with bows, they can make all of the assumptions they want. As a player, all you really need is to allocate your skills and maybe a feat or two in line with your concept, the rest is backstory and description. Don't feel limited by class for your concept.
If what you want is some extra ranged stuff for your Ranger, then I'd start with the Ranger class and make an archetype from there.
Give up spellcasting and animal companion.
Gain the Point Blank Master and "make AoO against adjacent foes".
Gain increase in range, and maybe an expanded Rapid Shot ability.
Gain cover/concealment breaking abilities.
Gain a "perfect strike" like ability.
"Flurry of Blows" does two things:
1. Treated as Full BAB. The Ranger already has full BAB.
2. Gives TWF. Normal archery gains Rapid Shot and Manyshot.
At most, you'd maybe need to add "Improved Rapid Shot" on top of Rapid Shot and Manyshot, to get one extra attack and you'd be looking at what Flurry basically is.
High Dex already gives good AC, and without the need of Wisdom (if you give up spellcasting), your light armor gives enough AC already.
Honestly, "a better archer" Ranger sounds more like what you are looking for, rather than "a ranger-like" Monk. Did they have an archer archetype for the ranger in the APG?
Zen Archery is a class option for monks and a really, really awesome one at that.
-Flurry of blows with a bow
-huge list of ranged bonus feats
-Perfect Strike instead of Stunning fist which let's you roll addition d20's and choose which one for your hit
-Bonus Weapon focus and weapon sepcialization with bow
-3rd level you can replace Dex with Wis to hit with a bow
-Bonus Point Blank Master feat
-spend Ki to increase your range, or deal unarmed damage with the arrows, or ignore cover
Sounds like good fun..... well actually sounds like a Prestice Class I posted to these boards :-) Champion of Khurma
I love the variant, possibly more than any other variant in the entire book. The only problem is that you can't use Manyshot with a flurry of blows, which is sad but understandable.
Also, they get Point Blank Master and (later) the ability to make AoO's with their bow to any square they threaten with their unarmed strikes
*Drools.* Combat Patrol/Lunge with a Zen archer.
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It seems like taking maybe just 1 to 3 levels of Ranger would suffice. It depends on how Ranger-ey you want to be, really.
1 level gets you the class skills you want, a favored enemy, wild empathy, and a +1 to tracking, not to mention a decent boost to two saves.
2 levels gets you an extra feat.
3 levels gets you endurance and a favored terrain.
Your BAB while flurrying will be the same, but your actual FoB progression will be a bit behind.
I guess I just really don't see the need for making a new class or even an archetype for the existing class.
Making an archetype that says, "give up 3/4ths of everything about this class, to gain just as many features from this other class" isn't really the point. Especially when what you're asking for can be pretty easily solved with multiclassing.
Lunge is only until the end of your turn, but otherwise yeah Combat Patrol would be pretty sick with that since you don't have to waste movement to get those attacks of opportunity. Monks do suffer from a lower BAB though, so they wouldn't threaten as far as a fighter.
Huh. Learn something new every day. My monk player tried to use Lunge to keep a wizard from fivering out of his threatened area last session, and I just plain didn't realize this was the case.
Thanks for the heads up!
Re: lower base attack -- such is the price you pay for awesomeness.