Thinking the Divine Hunter Paladin Archetype isn't very good (Theorycrafting)

[sunbeam]

Okay these are the relevant features of the Divine Hunter Archetype:

1) Precise Shot

A divine hunter gains Precise Shot as a bonus feat at 1st level, even if she doesn’t meet the prerequisites.

This ability replaces her Heavy Armor Proficiency.

- At best this saves you a feat. Maybe two if you for some reason plan on never wearing heavy armor. I think I'd pick up Heavy Armor Proficiency even if I did take this archetype. The saving a feat thing comes up since you can drop taking Point Blank Shot. BUT since Point Blank Shot is a prerequisite for Rapid Shot you will take Point Blank anyway.

2) Shared Precision (Su)

At 3rd level, when a divine hunter hits a creature with a ranged attack, she grants her allies within 10 feet of her the benefit of the Precise Shot feat against that target until the start of her next turn. Her allies must remain within 10 feet of her, and must be able both to see and hear the divine hunter to gain this benefit.

This ability replaces aura of courage.

- Okay. I guess. But how common is it to have more than one archer in a party? At least dedicated to it. I'd rather have the aura of courage. It's more useful, and as I read it a Divine Hunter is not immune to fear without it.

3) Divine Bond (Su)

At 5th level, a divine hunter forms a bond with her deity. This functions as the paladin’s divine bond ability, except the bond must always take the form of a ranged or throwing weapon (excluding ammunition). In addition to the listed abilities, a divine hunter can add the distance, returning, or seeking special abilities to her weapon, but she cannot add the defending or disruption special abilities. Special abilities added to throwing weapons function normally when the weapon is used in melee.

This ability replaces the standard paladin’s divine bond.

- Does this do anything the regular Divine Bond class feature doesn't do?

4) Distant Mercy (Sp)

At 6th level, a divine hunter can expend two uses of her lay on hand ability to use her lay on hands ability on a target within 5 feet per paladin level. Distant mercy has no effect on creatures harmed by positive energy, such as undead.

This ability replaces the paladin’s 6th-level mercy.

- At best this saves you a feat, since you could take the Word of Healing feat. Eventually the range on Distant Mercy will be greater than than Word of Healing. Also the Word of Healing feat only gives half healing power on a distant heal, while Distant Mercy does full, but takes two uses. If you are in a situation where you need this I'm not sure efficiency is your prime concern. I think I'd rather have a mercy.

5) Aura of Care (Su)

At 8th level, a divine hunter and her allies gain a preternatural awareness of each other’s position in battle. She and any allies within 10 feet of her no longer provide cover against each other’s ranged attacks unless they wish to. Allies who cannot move or otherwise take actions still provide cover, as do flat-footed allies. The divine hunter and her allies must be able to see or hear each other to use this ability.

This ability replaces aura of resolve.

- Once again how common is it to have more than one archer in a party? I'd think eventually an archer is going to take Improved Precise Shot since they aren't skimping on dex. The Aura of Resolve just seems way more useful.

6) Hunter’s Blessing (Su)

At 11th level, a divine hunter can expend a use of her smite evil ability as a swift action to grant herself and all allies within 10 feet the Deadly Aim, Precise Shot, and Improved Precise Shot feats, even if they lack the prerequisites. The effects last for 1 minute. Evil creatures gain no benefit from this ability.

This ability replaces aura of justice.

- Once again how common are other archers? In most situations the normal Smite Evil is going to be more useful to your companions. You might say it is a way to get the benefit of these feats for the Paladin, but what archer would ever not take them?

7) Righteous Hunter (Su)

At 14th level, a divine hunter’s ranged weapons are treated as good-aligned for the purposes of overcoming damage reduction. Any ranged attacks made by an ally within 10 feet of her are likewise treated as good-aligned for the purposes of overcoming damage reduction.

This ability functions only while the divine hunter is conscious.

This ability replaces aura of righteousness.

If you use a Smite Evil you don't need this one at all. Probably you'd have an enchantment on your weapon that would cover it regardless. And once again how common are other archers?

This archetype just looks useless to me. I'm not even sure it makes a better archer than a normal paladin, and is much worse in other ways.

The only thing I can think of is it might be good for someone who leads a company of archers, but that would be more of an npc thing than a player thing the way most games play out.

If this argument is old news just ignore this post. I just kind of wonder what the reasoning was behind this archetype. Flavor I guess, but they could have done it a little better I think.

[Egoish]

Most likely flavour, its not a 2 level bad dip for a sorcerer eldritch knight or arcane archer, or an archer oracle, it could be an ok dip for some other classes as well but its probably best for a ray knight dip.

I don't think its good enough to take as a full class over basic archer paladin unless your doing it for flavour.

[LazarX]

The Divine Hunter's Divine Bond opens up the options for ranged enchant effects the standard divine bond does not.

If you're focus is on Archery, heavy metal is probably not a preferred option given that you're not a fighter that can ignore the speed drop.

In my world if you see a company of elven archers, a divine hunter is probably their commander.

Would I expect this to be a common archetype? No. but it's a pretty decent execution that fills this particlular niche in the paladin bestiary.

[The black raven]

Problem with this archetype is not that it is that bad, even though it is not incredibly better than the basic Paladin in its chosen field.

Problem is that it just cannot compete against other Ranged archetypes/classes such as the Archery style Ranger or the Zen Archer.

[Mergy]

This is actually a pretty good archetype. The advantage of providing free ranged feats to allies is that they don't have to be archers to make use of them. The two handed fighter just needs to grab his longbow and suddenly he's a pretty decent archer. Free precise shot is nice, especially for non-humans, and it means a human paladin can have precise and rapid shot at first level.

The one big failing is not being able to share smite evil with the reset of the party; losing heavy armour isn't a problem since dexterity will be your highest stat anyway.

[Cheapy]

I find it funny and pretty sad that if you don't get improved precise shot at 6th level, people think that you are worthless.

[Egoish]

The archtype its self doesn't need to compare to zen archer to be effective, but if you compare it to the base class that it modifies it doesn't really make a better archer just a slightly different one. Which is fine thematically but it doesn't make it a strong choice for optimisation, not all archtypes have to be better than the base class though and this is one of those niche cases.

[Charlie Bell]

Cheapy wrote:

I find it funny and pretty sad that if you don't get improved precise shot at 6th level, people think that you are worthless.

On the other hand, the folks that squawk about how fighter archers are better than any other archers seem to ignore the fact that fighters can't get it until 11th level.

[Cheapy]

Charlie Bell wrote:

Cheapy wrote:

I find it funny and pretty sad that if you don't get improved precise shot at 6th level, people think that you are worthless.

On the other hand, the folks that squawk about how fighter archers are better than any other archers seem to ignore the fact that fighters can't get it until 11th level.

Thanks for proving my point.

[Charlie Bell]

Cheapy wrote:

Charlie Bell wrote:

Cheapy wrote:

I find it funny and pretty sad that if you don't get improved precise shot at 6th level, people think that you are worthless.

On the other hand, the folks that squawk about how fighter archers are better than any other archers seem to ignore the fact that fighters can't get it until 11th level.

Thanks for proving my point.

Thanks for missing mine.

[Mergy]

It's certainly better than a zen archer at being a paladin archer.

[Cheapy]

Hardly. Your point is the exact same thing that I found funny and sad. There's not much to miss with that kind of statement.

[Charlie Bell]

No. The point that I was making, that you missed, is that there is a freakin herd of fighter archer aficionadoes out there who don't care about IPS.