Advice needed for my caster-centric Arcane Archer guide


Advice

Sovereign Court

Here's the guide, tear into it so that it doesn't suck, please!

Silver Crusade

Dot. This thread has potential. However I fell that your limiting yourself, instead lets get some other people from the other Build Threads to work on this Arcane Archer guide. Who knows, with the right proper work and input this can put on the Guide to Class Guides thread.

Sovereign Court

Would love to get more feedback on this. It's a rather unique idea even if the character isn't as effective as a straight-classed optimized one.


It's interesting, but I think that if you want to make it into a real guide, you might want to diversify it a little. Right now, it's more of a 'guide to a cool party trick for high level wizards/sorcerers' than a guide to a prestige class.

I also think you ought to consider including other build plans. I agree that the strength of the Arcane Archer is in its second level ability, so you need high caster level. But you could be a lot more of an archer and still imbue arrows at the same level as you can now. Also, while you need caster levels, the main appeal is antimagic field, and since that doesn't give a saving throw, you don't really need your casting stat to be higher than the 16 you need to cast the spell.

For example, a 1 fighter (or other full BAB class, I personally like guide ranger a lot) / 10 wizard / 2 arcane archer gets 6th level spells and imbue arrow at the same time, at level 13, one level earlier than your build, and is a lot better with a bow, due to potentially having point blank shot and precise shot at level 1, instead of just bow proficiency.

Even better, you can be an awesome archer at all levels and still shoot antimagic fields at level 14 by taking levels of Eldritch Knight. A 1 ranger/5 wizard/5 eldritch knight/3 arcane archer has access to 6th level spells and can deal tons of damage with his arrows at any level. See this old thread for some good thoughts on Eldritch Knight archers.


I feel like where missing some of the other really nice things about a AA
class i love specials, Hail of arrows is wonderful as well as phase arrow
so if your doing a guide take more this in to thought like what you have so far but you need to say oh and as a AA you can also do (xxxx) so everyone can get something out of it.

Sovereign Court

Both good points, thank you.


I think it would be a decent idea to do some caster ratings, go through and rate every Sorcerer bloodline, Wizard Specialist, and do archetypes as well with the standard 4 color rating system. (Although adding stars for the colorblind is nice too). Also, checking out the various types of casting styles, like blaster vs controller spells would also be useful.

Also, you might want to look through all of the feats, combat and casting feats and rate them as well, or give a list of suggested feats, ignoring all of the lowest rated ones. The spell focus feats for instance: are they cool, or do you want to stay away from spells with saving throws?

A more comprehensive spell list would be cool. It would be better to have more than 10 spells that are considered awesome. Do all that and you should have something that people will really enjoy.

Silver Crusade

WOOO! Oterisk is here, now we can get to chugging along

Really I see the AA as generally falling into one of three camps: THe Rocket, THe Railgun, and the Aussult Rifle.

THe Rocket is a powerful explosive ordinance with a long range i.e. A caster who takes the class to increase range and blast radius. The Rocket is least likely to multiclass into a melee class and least likely to follow the AA past 2nd level.

THe Railgun augments a standerd projectile beyond normal capabilities i.e. Is someone who takes the class for its boons to Ranged attacks in general. THese tend to be more combat oriented classes who take a minor dip into a caster and are more likely to follow the AA from start to finish in order to augment thier combat abilities to the optimum

The Assult Rifle is a versitile weapon able to switch from single to mutifire and from sniping to close quarters weapon i.e. Just about anyone else who takes the class for versitility. This may be a magus who dips for that extra magical ability at range, The inquisitor who wants to slay his foes from a distance, or any other hybrid who tries to mix it up such as a Wizard5/Fighter5 who wants to mix this up.

Perhaps this can be our template for making the guide?

Sovereign Court

Quintin Belmont wrote:

WOOO! Oterisk is here, now we can get to chugging along

Really I see the AA as generally falling into one of three camps: THe Rocket, THe Railgun, and the Aussult Rifle.

THe Rocket is a powerful explosive ordinance with a long range i.e. A caster who takes the class to increase range and blast radius. The Rocket is least likely to multiclass into a melee class and least likely to follow the AA past 2nd level.

THe Railgun augments a standerd projectile beyond normal capabilities i.e. Is someone who takes the class for its boons to Ranged attacks in general. THese tend to be more combat oriented classes who take a minor dip into a caster and are more likely to follow the AA from start to finish in order to augment thier combat abilities to the optimum

The Assult Rifle is a versitile weapon able to switch from single to mutifire and from sniping to close quarters weapon i.e. Just about anyone else who takes the class for versitility. This may be a magus who dips for that extra magical ability at range, The inquisitor who wants to slay his foes from a distance, or any other hybrid who tries to mix it up such as a Wizard5/Fighter5 who wants to mix this up.

Perhaps this can be our template for making the guide?

I like those descriptions. Those give good frameworks as to what the AA class can be. Maybe expand this into an overall AA guide by pointing out other builds (even though it's not the greatest prestige class)

Silver Crusade

The Human Diversion wrote:

I like those descriptions. Those give good frameworks as to what the AA class can be. Maybe expand this into an overall AA guide by pointing out other builds (even though it's not the greatest prestige class)

Thats the idea

Silver Crusade

HEre is the alphabetical list of classess and thier uses (if any) for the class and what Gun-type they would follow

Alchemist: Assault Rifle, but usually only as a dip. Can be ok dip for mutagen and ability to mix poisons. Usually 2/5 stars.
Archetype Spotlight:
Grenadier: makes for a rather decent Railgun character as thier abilities are already useful for buffing ammunition and actually gives incentive for the Infuse Projectile discovery and directed blast combined with it is rather useful. 3/5
Vivisectionist: is "Okay", but just stick with the rogue if you want Sneak Attacks in your Assault Rifle. 2/5
THe Bramble Brewer (Half-elf): this archetype is only slightly better that its vanilla friend in terms of its Mutagen. 2.5/5

More comming soon


Zen Archer+Empyreal Sorcerer is worth a look for entry.


I like the Rocket, Railgun, Assault Rifle terminology!

I'm wondering though, is there really anything worthwhile in Arcane Archer beyond imbue arrow? Enhance arrows is fairly useful for an archery focused character I suppose, but it's not really any better than just enchanting your bow with special properties yourself and casting greater magic weapon every day. And definitely not better than 10 levels of favored enemy/bane/weapon training/whatever class ability. The special attacks all suffer from the fact that you spend your action to hit enemies with one single arrow, which most enemies will laugh at by the time you get this ability. And the arrow of death is unlikely to work when you really want it to.

That leaves imbue arrow, and even there I'm not sure I see anything useful beyong antimagic field. The antimagic field trick is great, mind you, but what other uses do people see for imbue arrow?

I'm asking, because if the antimagic field trick is all there is to the arcane archer, it might not be terribly worthwhile to detail all the many different ways in which one can become an arcane archer and be worse at their role than if they'd stuck with their old class.

So I guess my question is: why does the railgun want arcane archer levels, instead of improving his ranger/fighter/paladin/inquisitor/whatever abilities? Why does an assault rifle who will never be able to cast antimagic field want arcane archer levels? Does the rocket really get much of an advantage out of imbue arrow beyond antimagic field? I've seen the spells listed in the guide off course, but it all seems like stuff you could do just as well or better with a different spell.

I'm not saying that no-one should ever want to play an arcane archer for anything else than antimagic fields, but since guides are generally meant to be about optimization, I do wonder what other genuinely useful abilities people see in this class. There's not much point in writing a guide for people who want to play the class for flavor, in my opinion.

Silver Crusade

THeres more to playing a class than pure damage capabilities. You ask what other uses the Rocket has aside from antimagic field? For one the imbue arrow ability works on All Area spells, and that includes Cones,bursts,lines and even abilities that effect any number of creatures within a certain distance from eachother. Why is this important? because that also includes the incredibly short range/touch attack spells, thus insuring that even your low-level spells have some oomf.

Example: Say yur part has to attack the fort/citidel of a large military orginization like Talon Co from Fallout or some other PMC. You are just at the front parapet area where the baddies have built a tall wooden archery tower, or two, and are plinking away at your party. Now, you wanna save your higher spells and ammo, so you decide to instead shoot an arrow imbued with Burning grasp (which in the Desc. states it burns anything flammable) and watch as the baddies scramble trying to not be killed by the Towering Inferno their stuck in and probably end up either burning to death first, or jumping off thier tower and having the fall or your buddies kill them

THe job of the Rocket is not to be a Ranged Beatstick. It is to control the field from a distance while also being able to provide support for the party. Plus The rules just state that the spell happens where the arrow lies, meaning you dont even have to hit someone for it to take effect, meaning if your enemie's AC is ridiculous, instead shoot it at thier feet and watch as they flee from terror.

This isn't even with Offensive spells only, This also works for your Mass Cure spells as well, or say your chasing an enemy who's trying to get into a castle you just shoot and embued Wards And Guards spell or even just a Stone Wall or other misc-spell and watch as they try to claw in while your team bears down on him.

Now onto your problem with the Railgun. In real life a Railgun is not uses for pure damage either, rather its meant to be precice and surgical, much like a scalpel. You are thier to simply plink your enemy to death, you are there to peal your enemie's defences away like an Onion! THis works well thanks to Seeker Arrow, Phase Arrow, and to top it off you can even smack everyone in the room with Hail of Arrows. Plus your enhancement bonus is Free, works allday-everyday, the abilities applied from it all stack together And,better yet, Affect you Arrows and not your bow, meaning you can still enhance your bow for more pain and never have to spend coin on magic arrows (automatic Distance is pretty seet you have to admit).

While it may not have the same raw power as such many levels in a particular class it all stacks decently together and gives you more use/per day from it. Plus say you chose that beautiful Palidan's mount instead of the weapon bond, now your an official Magical Abhrams Tank with a Mounted Railgun.

Assualt Rifle is everything else as well as using the class as a little bit of both. the Magus is pretty much High Lord Assault Rifle since his Arcana effects all weapons and takeing AA is finally giving you the Ranged Equivilent to Spellstrike that The Myrmidarch class Failed Miserably to give you...plus it works beautifully well with Hexcrafter or SpellDancer.

While I admit its not the most imple or optimal PrC in existance I feel that people give it far too much hate than it deserves and that the Arcane Archer can earn its place in any group if given the chance and allowed to be played smartly.

Afterall, a true warior can achieve victory through even the most bizarre ways and with the most unconventional methods.

Silver Crusade

deuxhero wrote:
Zen Archer+Empyreal Sorcerer is worth a look for entry.

Alread got you covered


Off course it is possible to come up with situations in which the arcane archer abilities are exactly what you need. But I think it's a lot easier to come up with situations in which not having lost that caster level so that you could have cast a higher level spell is exactly what you need.

I know that you can use imbue arrow with any area spell, but I'm not seeing that many area spells where the range is a terribly limiting factor. Sure, you can shoot a dragon's breath at range, but an elemental or intensified fireball would have accomplished the same thing. Basically, apart from antimagic field I'm not convinced that this lets you do anything you couldn't have done as a high level wizard/sorcerer anyway (although perhaps slighlty differently, with a different spell). Unless you start lots of battles at more than about 200 ft away, off course. But personally, I don't think that's ever happened to me at all. That said, the Rocket seems a perfectly good arcane archer build to me (as long as it goes back to sorc/wizard after AA 4) for antimagic field alone, and I don't doubt you also get occasional use from the other options imbue arrow offers.

As to the railgun, I don't see why anyone would want to try to slowly plink their enemies to death. I generally want to kill my enemies quickly, and if I don't the rest of my party will try to. Hail of arrows is also a horrible strategy, as focusing fire on one target is a lot more effective, due to the fact that an enemy is just as effective at 1hp as it is at 100hp.

I'm not trying to say the arcane archer is bad, and not worth a guide. I can definitely see the appeal of arcane archer levels for a high level wizard/sorcerer, or for an eldritch knight type archer. But for any character that doesn't have wizard/sorcerer/eldritch knight as his main class before AA it seems like you're giving up way too much for way too little benefit.

There is just no way free flaming burst, holy and distance on arrows, plus casting as an 8th level wizard, is worth 10 levels of ranger spells, favored enemy and animal companion, for example. And the same goes for giving up many levels of your magus, fighter, alchemist or bard abilities, even if you do still get most of the spellcasting.

I guess what I'm saying is, before discussing tons of different ways to build up to arcane archer, I think it would be worthwhile to really think about for what classes arcane archer is even a good idea, and for what kind of characters it just plainly isn't.

Personally, at the moment I'm only seeing 10 levels of Arcane Archer for a wizard/eldritch knight (or variety) and 2-4 levels of Arcane Archer for a full sorcerer, wizard, magus, bard or alchemist. Anything else just seems way worse than continuing in your old class.

Sovereign Court

I'm hoping that the fireburst and greater fireburst spells make a comeback - those were fantastic when I played the "rocket" build in LG. They were 2nd and 4th level, respectively, and had D8's and D10's. Since their main drawback was they were an area burst centered on you, they were perfect.

I vaguely remember doing 200+ points of damage with a greater fireburst imbued arrow, and that was with not even rolling very high.


That sounds awesome! :-)

Having thought about it some more, I think the main point I wanted to make above is this:
I think people trying to play the 'iconic' arcane archer are likely to be disappointed by the relative weakness of the class abilities compared to what other classes get at high levels, especially if coming into AA with few caster levels or a class with lots of level dependent abilities. So I wouldn't put too much emphasis on how to get into AA, but more on what you can (and cannot) get from AA.

To me, the perfect guide to Arcane Archers would start with some similar warning, and then:

a) Detail how to get the most out of Imbue Arrow, the one truly powerful ability - which is what you've done so far.

b) Give some build ideas for how to play the character that most people want/expect the arcane archer to be: a primary ranged damage dealer with cool magical abilities. My ideal build would have Eldritch Knight as its main class (and archery isn't really covered in Zolthux's guide to that class), but Bards and Magi are strong options as well.

c) Give some advice on how to be the least disappointed if you really want 10 levels of Arcane Archer. My personal suggestion would be 1 guide ranger (or other full BAB class with longbow proficiency) / 6 sorcerer (preferred over wizard to have more charisma for arrow of death) / 2 eldritch knight / 10 AA / 1 eldritch knight.

Silver Crusade

Soupturtle you are misinterpretting my statements.

As I said a Rocket's job isn't Damage, its manipulating and controlling the field to your liking by using previously suckish Self-centered area attacks in order to not only send them at long distance, but also changing the direction of both Cone and Line attacks in order to keep reaching around the field AS WELL AS Sending mass buffs or heals (in case of Witch) to far away allies. Plus ild like to mention that metamagics still work on said spells. Also it allows you to use your cheeper spell slots first before being forced to spend your big ones. Also I said that with the rocket you don't need more than 2 Levels in AA, so you can continue with your Caster class

Also I said that Plinking is what you wanna avoid as a Railgun (Why You No Listen!!). You job as the railgun is to bust through enemies with heavy defences/concelement as well as using it to increase your range and stacking your enchanted arrows on top of whatever fancy bow you have. THis way you can save on gold and never need to spend on elemental, alignment, burst, or distance enchantments. Just imagine your in this dragon fight:
Dragon: "Hah, foolsh groundwalkers, your puny arrows and spell can never touch me! and even if so, they'll never pierce through my scales and wards!!
AARailgun: Fires an arrow *BOOM*
Dragon: GRAH!!! You Blew Off My Frikkin Wing You @$$-Monkey!!!!

You problam is you can your PrCs to be as rediculous as they where in 3E and 3.5 and just be "Base-Class+" deals. THat is not how Pathfinder Works. You not supposed to think like your Base Class and doing so while Prestiging will always get you killed everytime. Respect your spestige and Think like the Prestige character would. Your niether a Full-Caster nor an Archer, Your an Arcane Archer. you have to change your play style and find the happy medium of the class

Sovereign Court

If folks send me a private message with their e-mail addresses, I'll add them to the edit list for the Rocket doc.

Shadow Lodge

I have a level 13 AA in PFS right now, and I love it. I fly around on a broom and rain arrowy death on opponents. The Seeker/Phase Arrow is fantastic for finding running or hiding enemies. I use the Seeker Arrow with a smoke arrow to have a trail to follow. It might not be the most broken class in existence, but AA has some really great flavor and some fun abilities.

I'm not sure how I feel about a caster-focused AA, though. The abilities simply aren't built for it. I could see doing something like Wiz 4/Fighter 4, or even Wiz 6/Fighter 3, but going wizard all the way seems excessive to me. Arcane Archer is built under the assumption that you'll multiclass to get in. Trying to avoid that is just going to slow you down.

And as to Imbue Arrow, it's a great ability with some interesting uses. But there aren't that many spells that work well with it (with a few notable exceptions), and I would say that it's barely worth the dip for a full caster.

The basic problem is that casters can already do everything they need to. The purpose of an Arcane Archer is to supplement the archer's fairly narrow (if powerful) set of options. In other words, give them the ability to do more than full attack every round. On the other hand, why in the world would a caster need to be a better archer? Every round spent shooting a bow is a round spent not casting. Imbue Arrow doesn't add that many options to what you can already do. Sure, you could imbue Detonate, but why would you take that miss chance instead of just Fireballing? And Antimagic Field, when imbued, is certainly a powerful shutdown, but not much more than Silence cast on your frontline fighter.

I think it's a great idea, but it simply doesn't hold up in the face of everything else that's possible for a caster.

Silver Crusade

Sesharan wrote:

I have a level 13 AA in PFS right now, and I love it. I fly around on a broom and rain arrowy death on opponents. The Seeker/Phase Arrow is fantastic for finding running or hiding enemies. I use the Seeker Arrow with a smoke arrow to have a trail to follow. It might not be the most broken class in existence, but AA has some really great flavor and some fun abilities.

I'm not sure how I feel about a caster-focused AA, though. The abilities simply aren't built for it. I could see doing something like Wiz 4/Fighter 4, or even Wiz 6/Fighter 3, but going wizard all the way seems excessive to me. Arcane Archer is built under the assumption that you'll multiclass to get in. Trying to avoid that is just going to slow you down.

And as to Imbue Arrow, it's a great ability with some interesting uses. But there aren't that many spells that work well with it (with a few notable exceptions), and I would say that it's barely worth the dip for a full caster.

The basic problem is that casters can already do everything they need to. The purpose of an Arcane Archer is to supplement the archer's fairly narrow (if powerful) set of options. In other words, give them the ability to do more than full attack every round. On the other hand, why in the world would a caster need to be a better archer? Every round spent shooting a bow is a round spent not casting. Imbue Arrow doesn't add that many options to what you can already do. Sure, you could imbue Detonate, but why would you take that miss chance instead of just Fireballing? And Antimagic Field, when imbued, is certainly a powerful shutdown, but not much more than Silence cast on your frontline fighter.

I think it's a great idea, but it simply doesn't hold up in the face of everything else that's possible for a caster.

THats the Golden part about the Rocket Build: You Dont NEED to hit your enemy at all!!!! Imbue pretty much states that wherever the arrow striekes thats where it hits meaning if your enemy has ridiculusly good AC it Allows you to circumnavigate that by hitting and adjacent square instead. Plus for the sake of Cones and Lines since the arrow is the center of the attack you can have the blast go in Any direction you want. This allows you to save on Spell Slots, Metamagic and healing stuff for allies since you can pretty much choose whether they get hit from the splash damage. Or you can, as ive said before, charge with a buff/heal spell and making it as a "Ranged Healing Shiv". Really your using your bow as a free Metamagic feat to increase distance of some spells.


Quintin Belmont wrote:

Soupturtle you are misinterpretting my statements.

As I said a Rocket's job isn't Damage, its manipulating and controlling the field to your liking by using previously suckish Self-centered area attacks in order to not only send them at long distance, but also changing the direction of both Cone and Line attacks in order to keep reaching around the field AS WELL AS Sending mass buffs or heals (in case of Witch) to far away allies. Plus ild like to mention that metamagics still work on said spells. Also it allows you to use your cheeper spell slots first before being forced to spend your big ones. Also I said that with the rocket you don't need more than 2 Levels in AA, so you can continue with your Caster class

Also I said that Plinking is what you wanna avoid as a Railgun (Why You No Listen!!). You job as the railgun is to bust through enemies with heavy defences/concelement as well as using it to increase your range and stacking your enchanted arrows on top of whatever fancy bow you have. THis way you can save on gold and never need to spend on elemental, alignment, burst, or distance enchantments. Just imagine your in this dragon fight:
Dragon: "Hah, foolsh groundwalkers, your puny arrows and spell can never touch me! and even if so, they'll never pierce through my scales and wards!!
AARailgun: Fires an arrow *BOOM*
Dragon: GRAH!!! You Blew Off My Frikkin Wing You @$$-Monkey!!!!

You problam is you can your PrCs to be as rediculous as they where in 3E and 3.5 and just be "Base-Class+" deals. THat is not how Pathfinder Works. You not supposed to think like your Base Class and doing so while Prestiging will always get you killed everytime. Respect your spestige and Think like the Prestige character would. Your niether a Full-Caster nor an Archer, Your an Arcane Archer. you have to change your play style and find the happy medium of the class

I think I get the rocket, it seems like a fun twist on what's basically a god wizard. I didn't think it was for damage, I just used dragon's breath as an example of a cone spell. That said, if the rocket never takes more than 2 levels of AA, that only strengthens my idea that AA is all about imbue and there's nothing else much of value in there.

As to the railgun you literally said "You are thier to simply plink your enemy to death..." I'm terribly sorry for replying to what you wrote rather than what you meant. No need to get rude about it.

I'm still just not seeing the railgun though. It seems a bit contradictory, that on the one hand you say you shouldn't 'plink' your enemies to death (which means no hitting them with only a single arrow per round, I presume), and on the other hand you're supposed to make great use of all the concealment-negating powers. Your dragon example doesn't seem to do anything that you couldn't have done with a spell in the first place, unless you're thinking of some awesome self-centered area spell that I'm not aware of. Also, that example makes it all about imbue arrow again, so if that's what makes the railgun awesome, what's the difference with the rocket again?

It's not that I want my prestige classes to be like 3.5 (never even played 3.5). It's just that it seems to me that everything about AA but imbue arrow seems rather weak, so I wanted either to see if someone could convince me otherwise, or to advice the author of the AA guide to warn people about this so they don't get disappointed with their arcane archer characters.

Silver Crusade

Your right, i shouldn't have said plink, that was my mistake.

Also the Dragon example wasn't about imbue at all. If you reread the AA rules you'll see that as you level up in it Every Arrow you nock gets not only a +1enhancement, but also simultanious Distance, Energy, Energy Burst, and Alignment enhancement. Meaning that dragon is getting shot from a farther distance than a normal arrow, is burning/bursting/cleansing all in one shot, and is bypassing all forms of armor. THink of what railguns do in real life, that is what your arrows can all do now IN ADDITION to thier other traits (Se Sesharan's comment to the Railgun) and doesn't cost a single extra dime. The Railgun has no real need for Imbue except for the most extemperanious of cirmunstances, he's merely an Archer who dips into caster in order to get some bonuses to his arrows that are both decently strong and Free!! and the PrC itself has a Full BAB.

It seems both you and Sesharan have oppisite problems, try observing eachother's ideas and you two might start to see how the other works


soupturtle wrote:
Your dragon example doesn't seem to do anything that you couldn't have done with a spell in the first place, unless you're thinking of some awesome self-centered area spell that I'm not aware of. Also, that example makes it all about imbue arrow again, so if that's what makes the railgun awesome, what's the difference with the rocket again?

Then again, what can't you solve with spells, anyways? If you think that way, there isn't much incentive to play anything other than a caster. Besides, the Railgun is a mundane character with just a sprinkle of caster, the point is that he can do more varied stuff than "I attack it with my arrows". You won't be advancing your base class features, true, but you're not losing BAB, and can net some unique features along the way.

On a totally unrelated note, I found it very funny that Arcane Archer could be considered "bad", when it got so absurdly better since 3.5. A matter of perspective, eh? =D


I remain unconvinced, as free alignment + energy burst arrows (the +1 doesn't stack with your bow, energy doesn't stack with energy burst, and distance seems very situational) just doesn't seem worth 10 levels of not increasing your primary class abilities, and spending a round to hit your enemy with a single unmissable arrow seems like it just can't compete with trying to hit them 6 times per round (generally with much better to hit than the AA will ever get), shooting 6 arrows as one hit with clustered shots, or repositioning so you can do either of those in the next round.

That said, since I've never actually played an arcane archer I'll shut up about it now. But if I get to play this kind of character anytime in the near future (as I kinda want to) I'm still going to use Eldritch Knight as my main class. And maybe craft myself some dragon bane arrows with my free crafting feat from wizard level 5. ;-)

Silver Crusade

For Future Reference here is the Rules for Enhance arrow

Paizo said wrote:

At 1st level, every nonmagical arrow an arcane archer nocks and lets fly becomes magical, gaining a +1 enhancement bonus. Unlike magic weapons created by normal means, the archer need not spend gold pieces to accomplish this task. However, an archer's magic arrows only function for him.

In addition, the arcane archer's arrows gain a number of additional qualities as he gains additional levels. The elemental, elemental burst, and aligned qualities can be changed once per day, when the arcane archer prepares spells or, in the case of spontaneous spellcasters, after 8 hours of rest.

At 3rd level, every non-magical arrow fired by an arcane archer gains one of the following elemental themed weapon qualities: flaming, frost, or shock.

At 5th level, every non-magical arrow fired by an arcane archer gains the distance weapon quality.

At 7th level, every non-magical arrow fired by an arcane archer gains one of the following elemental burst weapon qualities: flaming burst, icy burst, or shocking burst. This ability replaces the ability gained at 3rd level.

At 9th level, every non-magical arrow fired by an arcane archer gains one of the following aligned weapon qualities: anarchic, axiomatic, holy, or unholy. The arcane archer cannot choose an ability that is the opposite of his alignment (for example, a lawful good arcane archer could not choose anarchic or unholy as his weapon quality).

The bonuses granted by a magic bow apply as normal to arrows that have been enhanced with this ability. Only the larger enhancement bonus applies. Duplicate abilities do not stack.

So last I check it pretty much states your Elemental, burst, distance and Alignment enhancements are all active at one, you just have to choose which ones you want at the beginning of the day.

Also Soupturtle I highly recomend playing an Arcane Acher for a little bit. Everyone Who says they've used it have all seemed to really enjoy it immensely.


I definitely hope to. But I'm not sure mine will have more than 3 levels of AA, as I love the idea of an Eldritch Knight archer as well. All those tasty buff, transportation and utility spells...

Also, I get what stacks +1 doesn't stack with your +X bow, elemental burst replaces elemental (it says: "This ability replaces the ability gained at 3rd level.") and alignment and distance stack, so you end up with elemental burst (which also gives the flat d6, not just the d10 on criticals) + distance + alignment.


Attempting to access this guide keeps popping up a dialog saying that I may not have access to this file soon because it may have been trashed. Any way to fix this?


^I guess putting the guide somewhere other than Google Docs is one way to fix the problem.

Just noticed something: Dwarf is rated Orange in general and Red if you are going to be Sorcerer. While the reasoning for this is fairly obvious, you COULD be a pretty good Dwarf Sorcerer if you have the Empyreal (Wild-Blooded) Bloodline, which moves your spellcasting stat onto Wisdom. This could even work for a Cleric/Sorcerer/Mystic Theurge build, if only Mystic Theurge hadn't been nerfed into oblivion by the recent SLA FAQ.

EDIT: Reading to the end of the new link to the guide, I see that Zenith Games took it upon themselves to provide a workaround.

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