Ranged Fighter, need Advice!

[cheesedoodler]

So I've been thinking about building a Fighter with the Crossbowman Archetype for PFS (mostly because I have a really sweet model for him ). I do, of course, realize the bows are better than crossbow in almost all regards, but I do really want to try and make this work.

This is what I've worked out so far:

HUMAN

Str: 7
Dex: 18 +2 =20
Con: 14
Int: 14
Wis: 10
Cha: 7

Level 1: Points Blank Shot, Rapid Reload, Rapid Shot
Level 2: Precise Shot
Level 3: Focused Shot
Level 4: +1 Dex, Deadly Aim
Level 5: Bullseye Shot
Level 6: Vital Strike
Level 7: Reckless Aim
Level 8: +1 Dex, FEAT?
Level 9: FEAT?
Level 10: FEAT?
Level 11: Improved Vital Strike?

While I am committed to trying to use a crossbow, I'm not married to any of these feats or the order in which they're taken. I'm thinking about the Vital Strike feats because this archetypes bonuses come from taking shots as readied actions, meaning no full round actions for iterative shots.

What do you folks think? Can you offer any pointers?

[Kolyarut]

If you want to be able to make multiple attacks per turn with the crossbow, which you do considering you took rapid shot, you really want to take Crossbow Mastery from the APG. It's a necessity.

Crossbow Mastery (Combat)

You can load crossbows with blinding speed and even fire them in melee with little fear of reprisal.

Prerequisites: Dex 15, Point-Blank Shot, Rapid Reload, Rapid Shot.

Benefit: The time required for you to reload any type of crossbow is reduced to a free action, regardless of the type of crossbow used. You can fire a crossbow as many times in a full attack action as you could attack if you were using a bow. Reloading a crossbow for the type of crossbow you chose when you took Rapid Reload no longer provokes attacks of opportunity.

Special: Starting at 6th level, a ranger with the archery combat style may select Crossbow Mastery as a combat style feat.

[Rynjin]

Yeah, seriously. Crossbow Mastery is the Feat that takes crossbows from "Festering pile of shit trap option the devs threw in to laugh at you for choosing" to "Trap option that is viable as long as you have no actual bowmen in the party to compare it to".

Basically, Focused Shot can f*#~in' wait (well, actually, screw that, you can safely drop Focused Shot entirely).

[strayshift]

The advantages you have over a bow are range(for the heavy), Critical Range and a higher base damage (for the heavy). The disadvantages are much slower reloads and no strength bonus to damage.

If you use a light crossbow and get it up to the speed of a bow for reloads then I would suggest you look at developing in two areas - critical maximisation and teamwork feats.

Teamwork feats can give you attacks of opportunity if another archer hits or if a colleague criticals - all of these things will increase your weight of fire over rounds and slightly make up for the slower reloads.

Likewise you could develop quite a critical threat (I'd go weapon master fighter here) and add some nasty abilities to them - this one is for higher levels obviously.

Good luck but don't write the crossbow off just because people tend to use bows.

[SiuoL]

I see crossbow is a weapon for caster who out of spells and need to hold their enemies off. Cast the last spell keen edge on 50 bolts and share between casters while the tank (fighter, ranger, barbarian or paladin) hold the ankle bitters off. Called shot head and hope that you can one hit kill them with that 20% chance of crit. Even it they ain't killed, they will still have problems getting near the casters.

As for fighter, I'm not sure how to make it work best. It didn't end well for me. So please let me know if you can make it work.

[XMorsX]

Human Weaponmaster (heavy crossbow) Fighter

Stats: Str 8, Dex 20, Con 14, Int 12, Wis 12, Cha 7

Traits: Reactionary, Carefully Hidden

Feats:
1 Point-Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Rapid Reload
2 Rapid Shot
3 Crossbow Mastery
4 Deadly Aim
5 Weapon Focus (heavy crossbow)
6 Weapon Specialization (heavy crossbow)
7 Snap Shot
8 Combat Reflexes
9 Improved Snap Shot
10 Point Blank Master (heavy crossbow)
11 Improved Precise Shot
12 Greater Weapon Focus (heavy crossbow)
13 Improved Critical
14 Greater Weapon Specialization (heavy crossbow)
15 Critical Focus
16 Versatile Critical
17 Blinding Critical
18 Critical Mastery
19 Clustered Shots
20 Penetrating Strike

I don't think that Crossbowman is worth it, weaponmaster is beneficial for the later lvls when criticals will start to be more common.

[cheesedoodler]

XMorsX wrote:

Human Weaponmaster (heavy crossbow) Fighter

I don't think that Crossbowman is worth it, weaponmaster is beneficial for the later lvls when criticals will start to be more common.

While I agree, at later levels it's certainly the better option, as a PFS character you are limited to playing below level 12.

Thank you for all the advice! I can't believe I missed Crossbow Mastery, I'm going to rethink this build using it.

[XMorsX]

You are right I ignored that you want it for PFS. Still I would prefer the weaponmaster for the extra weapon training it offers. The best bonuses the Crossbowman gives are at 13 and 19 lvl anyway. The 12 first lvls of the above build are perfectly fine as they are, you take all the neccesary feats for being an effective crossbowman. The only change I might do is swapping GWF with Clustered Shots or Improved Critical and have a build like this:

Stats: Str 8, Dex 20, Con 14, Int 12, Wis 12, Cha 7

Traits: Reactionary, Carefully Hidden

Feats:
1 Point-Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Rapid Reload
2 Rapid Shot
3 Crossbow Mastery
4 Deadly Aim
5 Weapon Focus (heavy crossbow)
6 Weapon Specialization (heavy crossbow)
7 Snap Shot
8 Combat Reflexes
9 Improved Snap Shot
10 Point Blank Master (heavy crossbow)
11 Improved Precise Shot
12 Clustered Shots