Holy Modified Archetype! Archery and the Modern Cleric

[Brian J. Fruzen]

I am reviewing Ultimate Combat and am reasonably happy with the direction the new cleric archetypes are heading. On that note, I immediately wanted to modify one of them: the crusader.

If you don’t have the book yet, the crusader takes on reduced spellcasting (only 1 domain, and 1 less spell per spell level) and gets bonus feats at 1st, 5th, 10th, 15th and 20th. These feats can be used on armor and shield feats as well as various weapon feats, most of which are limited to the deitie’s favored weapon. The crusader also gets an ability at 8th level that allows him to spread non-harmful touch spells to everyone he can touch at the time of casting for the spell and a spell slot 3 levels higher.

I am wondering if it would be unbalancing to replace the feats with other combat style feats, archery feats in particular (although I see little reason why other thematic feat trees could not be developed around this swap idea.) Instead of the armor, shield and weapon feats, I would use a feat guide similar to the ranger, or the zen archer archetype. At 1st level: Far Shot, Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, and Rapid Shot. At 6th level: Improved Precise Shot and Manyshot. At 10th level: Pinpoint Targeting and Shot on the Run. This list would have to be modified for the levels at which the crusader gets his bonus feats, and new archery feats from Ultimate Combat could be added as well.

I have little experience with playing archers or with archers playing in my games and would like to read your ideas on the matter.

[Tim4488]

Not a whole lot of specific advice, but - archers are generally considered some of the most powerful damage-dealers in the game. This is primarily due to their ability to get out lots of attacks in a round, which would be hindered somewhat by the Cleric's lower BAB. That said, Clerics may be able to overcome or even surpass that hindrance through smart self-buffing. A fully buffed Cleric, at least in 3.5, was often exceeding Fighters, Barbarians and their ilk for damage (of course, not all Clerics are focused enough on self-buffing to pull that off, especially with losing a domain and 1 spell/level).

Sounds like a fun idea though, could easily see it being a really cool option for Clerics of Greyhawk's Ehlonna, Artemis or Apollo, Uller... good stuff.

EDIT: Also be careful to avoid stepping on the Ranger or Fighter's toes.