Hey all,
So I'm sitting here thinking about versatile martial builds and I recall reading Treantmonk's switch hitter ranger build back in the day. However, I am rather more fond of the two-bladed sword then I am of two handed weapons and so I came up with this little concept which I'd love some critique on.
In essence, the character will be a high STR martial character taking TWF as his Ranger combat style. I'm thinking a stat block like this to start:
20 points, Half-Elf, Ranger
STR 17
DEX 14
CON 14
INT 10
WIS 14
CHA 08
The non-combat style feats will likely be stuff like rend, double slice, combat reflexes, weapon focus, improved crit...the normal stuff one would expect a melee character to take to increase damage potential with the two-bladed sword.
Now, to get the 'switch hitter' part of things, I am considering grabbing up to 10 levels of Zen Archer Monk for the free archery feats that bypass the DEX pre-reqs (notably, improved precise shot and many shot). Again, the focus of the build is to do the whole melee thing but be at least semi-competent with the bow.
I'd likely put the hunter's bond to my companions since I'd really gimp the leveling of an animal companion if I didn't go full ranger; and I'd likely grab the Skirmisher archetype again, because there's no point in having gimped spellcasting. Also, the Skirmisher abilities seem like they might work nicely with some of the monk ki abilities.
Does this seem like it'd work? I still end up with a pretty respectable 17 BAB; I get plenty of feats and a boatload of versatility.
Also, random follow up about taking multiple archetypes: if one takes an archetype that changes a class ability, could one also take an archetype that replaces that class ability?
For example, if I wanted to take Zen Archer Monk but also wanted to be a Sensei...could that be done? Zen Archer changes the rules of FoB so that it works only with the bow; but the Sensei gives up FoB entirely for their bard-like ability. Would such a build be permissible? Or because both are dealing with FoB at all, they can't stack?
Incidentally, I'm aware that it would defeat the point of my build if I did that...it just occurred to me randomly as I was thinking about stuff.
