Need help building Ranged Cleric

[7H3LaughingMan]

I am DMing a weekly 10-hour campaign and recently the group has gotten screwed over by our Cleric up and disappearing. Been looking for someone to replace him and haven't found anyone. So I was thinking of rolling a character I can play who can fill our healing but be able to fight from a distance since the group is mostly melee. I was thinking of building a Elven Cleric with maybe 1 level in fighter and using longbows. Any help would be appreciated.

[XMorsX]

Through what lvls are you going to play him?

[tonyz]

Cleric of Erastil. Longbow is your favored weapon...

You don't really need the fighter level. Just expect that all your feats will be going to archery, except maybe Reach Spell.

[RotBot]

Does anyone have UMD? It's one of the best skills available. Assuming someone does, wands of curing can go a long ways. Also maybe getting on friendly terms with an npc healer for bigger issues.

If you do go with the dmpc I wouldn't try to optimize the character too much. They should be actively seeking something like the leadership feat or another player to play a cleric, and be happy when they find one, not reluctant if the badass dmpc archer leaves the group.

edit: my bad, zen archer is a monk subtype and not a feat anymore. XD

[ArmouredMonk13]

Cleric of Erastil with Guided Hand so you only need a 13 dex (plenty of feat prerequisites). Or, since you are an elf, you could do high dex, if you lower your int down to 10-9 after racial +2, but elves aren't great with MAD builds (the -2 CON REALLY hurts). Fighter Dip may not be necessary, but you do need quite a few archery feats, and probably want selective channel.

[Elder Basilisk]

Elf isn't necessary-humans can actually pull it off better as long as you get now proficiency. Good ways to get that: choose Erastil as a deity or (@ least in pfs games) choose to be loyal.to Andor and use one of the faction traits that grants now proficiency.

Probable feat order: 1 point blank shot, precise shot, 3 rapid shot, 5 weapon focus, 7 deadly aim, 9 quicken spell.

That's for a Dex-dependent build. If you go for guided hand and putting everything in wisdom, hope to start @ high level or go crusader archetype to get some of the feats in earlier. Otherwise you'll just be starting to be a competent archer at the levels where you would really rather be casting heal or destruction than making a full attack.