Archealogist Bard Archer Feat Stuff?

[Cathulhu]

Half Elf is generally considered the way to go here, considering the +1 rounds of Performance/level.

However, an Archer needs a lot of feats early on. With a Half Elf, this is hard to pull off. For example:
1 Point Blank Shot
3 Precise Shot
5 Rapid Shot
7 Arcane Strike
\

Is a fighter level 1 dip worth it, or should you wait until Rogue Talent at level 4, for Combat Trick? Example:
1 point blank shot
3 Precise Shot
(4)Rapid Shot
5 Arcane Strike
7 Deadly Aim

Thanks!

[strayshift]

Depends on your DM I would say. Do they skip through the first few levels or do they draw a fair amount of play on these?

Also Archaeologists Luck is effectively tripled by Lingering Song so I'd go human. For extra rounds of Luck at 1st Level you can take Noble Scion (Performance) and Extra Performance so planning an human archaeologist could go:

1. Noble Scion or Lingering Performance, Point Blank Shot
3. Precise Shot, etc

[XMorsX]

The Aasimar favored class bonus is also very interesting and probably better, especially if you intend to use the archetype's author recommendation to increase your archaeologist's luck by 1 round/lvl.

Anyway, Lingering Performance should be your first lvl feat regardless.

A two lvl dip in divine hunter paladin will give you Precise Shot for free and Charisma to saves, along with smite evil 1/day and some uses of lay on hands.

Even one lvl of paladin dip is worth more than the fighetr dip.

If you do not want to mess with the aligment restrictions though, an one lvl dip in lore warden fighter is probably required.

Alternatively, a 3-4 lvl dip in weapon master figher will give you many bonus feats, access to weapon training + gloves of dueling and, in the latter case, weapon specialization.

[strayshift]

Oh and is there not an issue with swift actions around Arcane Strike and (non-lingering) Archaeologist's Luck - specifically that they both require a swift action?

Another reason to take lingering performance straight away.

[soupturtle]

I agree with the above - you need lingering performance, and you probably want it as your first or third level feat. That also makes arcane strike less good (as you need a swift action to reactive your luck every third round), so I wouldn't worry about that until a bit later. You might even want to get deadly aim first. Anyway, if you use your rogue talents it's doable both as a half elf and a human. I'd go human though - lingering performance gives you 18 rounds of luck per day, which should be enough most days. If it isn't, you can always grab extra performance once you're a bit further along. Half-elf may work out better at level 20, but by then you'll have had plenty of opportunity to make up for it with charisma headbands and the like.

I'd go human, and take the feats as such:
1. point blank shot, precise shot (you want to be able to shoot into melee from level 1)
3. lingering performance
4. rapid shot

[XMorsX]

Another option: Dip 1 lvl of Zen Archer. You lose BAB, but you get precise shot and flurry for free, so you can ignore both PS and Rapid Shot-Manyshot (maybe point blank shot too?), making your build less feat intensive.