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I went with Cleric only, 1st level. Figured next feat would be Deadly Aim or Precise Shot, with the latter being my preferred choice. I sacrificed some stats figuring he'd be keeping his distance, and mostly using his Channel Positive Energy to heal the party. I'd definitely put a Feat towards Extra Channel as well.
I didn't really flesh out weapons outside of the core stuff (armor and bow)
I think I'd go with something like this...
Elf Cleric Archer
Elf Cleric 1
CN Medium Humanoid (elf)
Hero Points 1
Init +4; Senses low-light vision; Perception +4
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Defense
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AC 17, touch 13, flat-footed 14 (+4 armor, +3 Dex)
hp 8 (1d8)
Fort +3, Ref +4, Will +4; +2 vs. enchantments
Immune magic sleep; Resist elven immunities
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Offense
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Speed 20 ft.
Ranged Longbow +5 (1d8+1/x3)
Spell-Like Abilities Bit of Luck (5/day)
Cleric Spells Prepared (CL 1):
1 (2/day) Entropic Shield, True Strike, Bless
0 (at will) Guidance, Detect Magic, Spark (DC 12)
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Statistics
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Str 10, Dex 18, Con 10, Int 14, Wis 15, Cha 9
Base Atk +0; CMB +0; CMD 13
Feats Point Blank Shot
Traits Fast-Talker, Forlorn
Skills Acrobatics +2 (-2 jump), Bluff +4, Climb -2, Diplomacy +3, Escape Artist +2, Fly +2, Perception +4, Ride +2, Sense Motive +6, Spellcraft +6 (+8 to determine the properties of a magic item), Stealth +6, Swim -2
Languages Celestial, Common, Elven, Gnome
SQ aura, cleric channel positive energy 1d6 (2/day) (dc 9), domains (deception, luck), elven magic, hero points, spontaneous casting, sudden shift (5/day)
Other Gear Armored coat, Longbow, 25 GP
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Special Abilities
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Aura (Ex) The Cleric has an aura corresponding to his deity's alignment.
Bit of Luck (5/day) (Sp) Target takes the higher of 2d20 for a d20 roll.
Cleric Channel Positive Energy 1d6 (2/day) (DC 9) (Su) Positive energy heals the living and harms the undead; negative has the reverse effect.
Cleric Domain (Deception) Associated Domain: Trickery
Bluff, Disguise, and Stealth are class skills.
Cleric Domain (Luck) Granted Powers: You are infused with luck, and your mere presence can spread good fortune.
Elven Immunities +2 save bonus vs Enchantments.
Elven Immunities - Sleep You are immune to magic sleep effects.
Elven Magic +2 to spellcraft checks to determine the properties of a magic item.
Hero Points (1) Hero Points can be spent at any time to grant a variety of bonuses.
Low-Light Vision See twice as far as a human in low light, distinguishing color and detail.
Point Blank Shot +1 to attack and damage rolls with ranged weapons at up to 30 feet.
Spontaneous Casting The Cleric can convert stored spells into Cure or Inflict spells.
Sudden Shift (5/day) (Su) As an immediate action after being missed by a melee attack, teleport up to 10' away, within the reach of the attacker.
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On a side note, he's a cleric of Calistria, and I see him as being a bit shifty using his Bluff and Diplomacy to coerce people to see things his way, as well as a wee bit of stealth from his Domain.
I chose Entropic Shield to protect self from enemy archers, and Bless figuring he should have at least one spell to contribute to the party that could be cast at range.
-Vaz
the hard part with being an archer is you need a lot of feats. your channeling is never going to be good. your charisma is too low to take selective channeling. Second if you are going to use channel to heal, you also really need quick channel, that's another feat, and it cost 2 channels per use.
you really can't be a channel and a archer, just not enough feats.
if you were going to try it,
be human, you need the bonus feat
the 14 needs to be in charisma
your first two feats need to be precise and point blank otherwise you are going to suck at archery, with an avg of -8 on most attacks
then you have to take selective channel at 3rd
and quick channel at 5th, that way you can still get an attack or cast a spell when you channel.
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It can work. Maybe not as well as in 3.5 but it's still doable. I'd definitely take PBS and Precise Shot asap. A dip into Zen archer monk is not a terrible idea. The feats you gain early can be very useful.
Clerics are feat starved as it is so I would disagree with taking selective channeling or any of the other channel feats (at all) if you want to be an effective archer. Most of your healing should be done outside of combat anyway.
The Feather subdomain is useful as it gives you a bonus to perception. Very useful considering you don't get it as a class skill.
Why do you need a cleric? Do you actually want to play a cleric? You're making it sound like a chore...
Agreed - the backbreaker to archery is definitely the feats. Do you want to be a spellcaster first and foremost and do archery if everybody seems healthy, or do you want to attack as an archer primarily?
If you're acting primarily as a caster, you'll never be amazing at archery, especially if you want to dedicate any feats to your spellcasting. Make sure to get Precise Shot as soon as you can. At the start of combat, you may have time to spare some sort of buff spell for yourself. This is viable, but probably not as strong as a straight caster.
If you want to focus on archery, I would put your highest score in dexterity and be a human for sure, for better feat access. I might take a few levels in ranger or fighter, to make sure I get the important feats early, like Deadly Aim, Rapid Shot and Precise Shot. Healing can wait until after combat.
Check out SGG pdf on archer archetypes. There are a lot of ideas there for making the archer viable for any class.
If you want to try a cleric/archer, it might be worth taking 3 levels of monk, specifically the Zen Archer archetype (APG). This will allow you to use Wisdom to determine your bow attacks, instead of Dexterity. Obviously, the monk levels would dilute your cleric casting, so you need to determine if that is worth it. I recall an older version of the game where there was a Zen Archery feat that was usable by any class, but apparently PF decided to limit that ability to one archetype.
Is there a reason why we need this thread placed twice here?
Viable Yes. Will he be better than a straight up fighter archer? No, but only because he has less feats and needs to spend standard actions to buff himself before he starts to shoot.
Have Erastil as your deity, then take the feat where you use your wisdom modifier for attacks with your deity favored weapon. This allows you to ignore the archers need for dex.
Depending on races allowed you could then be an Oread or dwarf for a higher wisdom, or human if you feel you need that extra feat.
Are you looking to play an archer made out of a cleric? Or more of a cleric who uses a bow?
My group is starting a side campaign and I want to give the one player who always plays the cleric a break. I wanted to do something different than the standard heavy armored cleric, so I thought I'd try an elf cleric. I would take dexterity as my second highest stat and take archery feats.
What would be the best way to do this well? Should I take a level of zen archer monk? Are there domains that would help?
if you intend to do Zen archery, then you dont need to put so much effort into DEX
you really need to pick a deity that will help your build, i like the channel smite/guided hand route in PF if you plan on taking a straight class, but you will need a deity with bows or crossbows as a favorite weapon, if you pick crossbows you can dump STR, keep a moderate DEX, and reduce MAD which you suffer from a lot
the zen archery feat from 3.5 is exactly what you want, if it isnt legal, i recommend going as a cleric of abadar, or a cleric of Ketephys
as it will give you the needed cross/bow proficiency, and ability to take guided hand for your bow
if you dont go crossbow, you cant dump STR, so just be careful
Don't forget that a Strength 10, Dex 18 archer is useless until you can afford elemental enchantments, and even then relatively weak compared to spellcasters, including your own spells. You just won't do significant damage.
The Elf of Calistria idea isn't terrible, but you'll need to dip a level or two in fighter (zen archer monk requires a lawful alignment, which your deity won't agree with). If you don't, either don't make a cleric archer, pick a different deity, and/or become human.
Alternatively, consider a bard of the Arcane Duelist archetype. They make decent archers, they can use all healing wands and have spells of their own (although I would not choose heals for them myself), and I can see a bard of Calistria work fairly well. Lots of social skills. You can afford Con at 10-12, Int 10, Wis 8 - that should allow you a Str of about 14, Dex 17 or so (assuming a +2 racial bonus), and Charisma whatever you have left - hopefully a 15 or 16.
If you are going for an archer cleric I really recommend going in to the evangelist archetype. You give up medium armor (not a big deal as you have a decent dex to keep AC high and don't want the movement penalty when you are repositioning), you lose 3d6 of channeling (again not a big deal, you will rarely be using channeling in combat since you are not built for it and you're probably out of range. Out of combat a cheap wand of cure light wounds makes up the difference if needed), and finally you lose spontaneous healing spells and get a different list (Again you will normally be out of range for in combat healing so once again not a big loss). In exchange for a couple of abilities that are pretty minor to your build you gain bardic performance which is huge. Inspire courage lets you buff the whole party and makes you more or less equal to a full BAB fighter. The extra damage it gives is especially nice for an archer since damage is harder to come by and since you make lots of full attacks. Invest a feat in lingering performance and at low levels your basic tactics would be:
Round 1: standard action- inspire courage, Move action- get in to position to attack with bow
Round 2: If it looks like a easier encounter Full attack with bow and let inspire courage drop (it will continue for 2 more rounds from lingering performance)
If it's a more difficult encounter keep inspire courage going and either full attack with bow or use a secondary buff as needed.
Rounds 3-5: Full attack with bow unless there is a dire need of emergency healing if there is use move action to get close and standard to heal. let inspire courage drop unless it is a very difficult battle, by round 4 you shouldn't need it any more as you should just be cleaning up.
If you want to play an elf I'd recommend Ketephys over Calistra. The god of hunting has the bow as a favored weapon and gives some good domains, I'd take Animal (feather) for the Animal companion and perception bonus. Any of the other domains work pretty well except for chaos (the touch attack is pretty worthless since you'll rarely be in range) Personally I'd probably go with good (azata) since you pick up some useful spells (expeditious retreat/fly) that you'll use daily.
http://www.pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Ketephys
