Giving A Half-Orc Some Class!

[Archpaladin Zousha]

I'm working on a character, and I have a concept in mind, but I can't figure out what class to be.

Long story short, this half-orc, Ernakh Steel-Arm by name, grew up in Trunau and has become a skilled archer thanks to his dad's training. Should he be a ranger? A slayer? A fighter? I want him to use a longbow of some sort and carry a buckler, dressing in chain mail to defy the "archers in fantasy wear leather armor and hoods" stereotype, but otherwise I've literally no idea what to build him as.

Any advice?

[RainyDayNinja]

Can you go into more detail about his backstory? What else does he do besides shoot a bow? From his location, a Ranger with a favored enemy of humanoid (orc) seems appropriate, but a fighter could also be good. Since archery is so feat-heavy, and you don't get that human bonus feat, I'd recommend something that gives a good number of bonus feats.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

He's being tentatively made for when Giantslayer comes out. Other than shooting, sneakiness is a key factor. Been listening to Miracle of Sound's latest song based onShadow of Mordor for inspiration:

Broken blade, revenge is calling
Savage shade, in the dark I dash
Broken blade, black blood falling
Shadow of the ash

[Fruian Thistlefoot]

Ranger or slayer are both wonderful.
fighter is a class to dip into.
paladin archers are freaking awesome
lastly you could be a hunter archer...get a nice beastly pet as well.

[Fruian Thistlefoot]

Slayer has a more versitle class feature compared to favored enemy. But for the most part sneak attack does little to an archer.

Slayer is now the perfected class of the switch hitter ranger.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

What's a switch-hitter ranger?

[GM_Solspiral]

Use Quickdraw and mix melee and archery feats (switch from ranged to melee back to ranged as needed.) That's a switch hitter ranger do a search you'll find it as a Treantmonk Guide

[GM_Solspiral]

If you really want to shatter expectations go Magus into arcane archer/eldritch knight.

It is not an idealized caster but you can make a wickedly good archer that delivers a ton of trick style arrows.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

I play too many gishes and wizards already. I'm deliberately looking to play something that doesn't utilize arcane spells to be effective.

[Ryzoken]

Zen Archer Monk.

Your character's father taught you archery, but where did he learn his art from? No reason he or his father before him weren't taught in a monastery that has since been abandoned resulting in you being taught by him directly rather than by the monastic brotherhood.

Mechanically, ZAM is a pretty solid class, boasting strong defenses, potent offense, and a nice suite of mobility enhancement for when you need to reposition, not that you need to once you've hit level 3. It'd also be interesting to see how high you can crank your saving throws, combining the monk's strong saves with the half orc's sacred tattoo and the Fate's Favored trait. That's +4 to all saves before stat modifiers at level 1. Figure on 14's or so in your relevant stats and that's +6 to all, with strong scaling as you level. If you can stomach the dump stats, you could possibly eke out something like:
Str 14 Dex 14 Con 14 Int 9 Wis 16 Cha 7
with the half orc bonus applied to Wis to bring it to 18. Early on you might have a bit of struggle hitting things, but once your Wis to hit activates, you should be golden, and you'll have strong saving throws.

Just my two zeni.

[I3igAl]

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

I'm working on a character, and I have a concept in mind, but I can't figure out what class to be.

Long story short, this half-orc, Ernakh Steel-Arm by name, grew up in Trunau and has become a skilled archer thanks to his dad's training. Should he be a ranger? A slayer? A fighter? I want him to use a longbow of some sort and carry a buckler, dressing in chain mail to defy the "archers in fantasy wear leather armor and hoods" stereotype, but otherwise I've literally no idea what to build him as.

Any advice?

Buckler - Shields are inferior for switch hitters since needing lots of feat support.

Fighter - Needs a trait for sneaking effectively, Light Armor points to Lore Warden Archetype.

Ranger - Awesome sneaky Archers, have nice thematic spells, can support two combat styles.

Slayer - Ranged Sneak Attack is hard to pull off, but switch-hitting might be nice.

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Paladin, Hunter and Inquisitor - also make awesomely strong Archers, but have thematic/magical concepts attached to them, that might not be for you.

[Dustyboy]

Well you could try the rarest route of it all, Use alchemical splash weapons and add int to them while shooting them from a launching crossbow.

It might seem like a cop out but really, what's more fitting for an orc than the biggest, shootiest thing you can find.... Don't forget to paint your crossbow red, it'll go faster >.>

Because dex/int is sexy, and vivisectionist definitely synergizes well with underground chemist rogue.

You'll need two feats, EWP (Launching crossbow), and quickdraw... everything else is up to you, though a standard rapid shot build would work, and I'm fairly certain it's legal to use vestigial arms to dual wield crossbows.

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I had a lot of fun with a character named "Ashe Norfire", maybe it'll help your build ideas out a bit.

He was a "Mixblood"

Half drow paragoned half elf with racial heritage goblin and the orc bloodline arcana..

because picturing the combination of orc, drow, and goblin in one image is scary enough! even though the orc was kind of pointless for the build it added flavor, he wound up being a guy walking around casting deeper darkness as a full round action to fear his enemies, then beating them to death with torches after tracking them by scent (Oh smell fear and scent of fear, I love you)

He also utilized the cavern sniper fighter archetype for drow... because fun.
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[Diminuendo]

Hooded Champion with a level of Swash makes for a fun Switch Hitter.

Eventually you can Parry-Reposte with a bow.

Alternately a Kata Master/Sohei 6 + Hooded Champion also makes for a strong defensive Archer. You get Parry-Repost, Access to Gloves of Dueling, Manyshot with Flurry of Blows, Wis to AC, and a lot more.

[haruhiko88]

In theory you could even play a class like an Inquisitor as a pretty good archer. You have a few spells that really help, but you don't need them all the time. As for a deity, well Torag is a pretty good one as he is one of the big 20. He also hates giants. Just because he's the dwarven god of dwarf stereotypes doesn't mean others don't worship him. There is a very large number of human followers as he is the god of the forge. Build your own bow and arrows, sneak around a bit, use wisdom for bluff, diplomacy, or intimidate. Inquisitor has a lot of really useful class abilities that are fun to play with, the spells are really a bonus.

[Brox RedGloves]

Youse might as well jes be a poncy elf, wit'cher shootin' an' dancin 'round. Aint no 'alf-orc in yers 'tall. Youse wanna be 'alf-orc...youse gotta be DED 'ARD and take yer 'pponent's face off'n one bite!

Yeah I really have nothing else. Cool roleplay though right? :D

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Well, I want him to be something like these guys.

[RainyDayNinja]

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

Well, I want him to be something like these guys.

That sounds like a switch-hitter ranger to me.

Another interesting option for half-orcs is the Savage Technologist barbarian archetype from the Technology Guide (you could refluff it to ignore the technology-based stuff if you want). They get a Str/Dex rage instead of Str/Con, and you can combine that with the Reckless Abandon rage power for great accuracy and damage.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Okay so I've narrowed it down to either ranger or slayer. I'm leaning more towards ranger, but I'm not sure.

[Renegadeshepherd]

Cleric. Two domains and full casting is HARD to beat. You can change the character into anything you want with the proper deity. As a baseline I like general susumu as glory/heroism and war/tactics is a great combination for archers. Other methods would include crusader archetype cleric of Shamira to take demon domain and a number of "fighter only feats"; could even wear heavy armor later on in the game. In either case a half orcs favored class bonus is stupidly good for either of these deities.

Skills might be a little tight but you could always trade darkvision for skilled if you really need to. With sacred tattoo and fates favored you would be something like fort+6,reflex+6, and will+6. Maybe the fort would drop one in favor of a higher strength but that's up to you.

This is bare bones as you could make this character fit what suits you, that's the beauty of cleric. The only reason I can see to eliminate the cleric is because you want skills or its just not your taste.

Good luck.

[Renegadeshepherd]

Darn forgot to mention... With crusader archetype it is possible to take martial weapon prof. This is important because then you take a key domain that would otherwise be unavailable to one who does not longbow as a favored weapon. Though only one domain is attainable that one domain can be big. Heresy inquisition for rolling stealth twice, deception to make it a class skill and mirror image like effect, and so on.

[TheSideKick]

The best non caster archer in the game is a sohei. Dex> str>con>wis improved initiative, reactonary trait, and you'll go first almost everytime. Always act in surprise round, and flurry rapid many shot + gloves of dueling.

Best part a sohei doesn't need to be Asian themed since it's more of a marauder style flavor.

[TheSideKick]

Archpaladin Zousha wrote:

Okay so I've narrowed it down to either ranger or slayer. I'm leaning more towards ranger, but I'm not sure.

Not to diminish the slayer, but I don't see them as good archers, or even switch hitters. If you really want to play a ranger they are a solid choice, personally I'd never choose one over a vanilla fighter.

My favorite archers are:
Sohei (see above)
Vanilla fighter
Paladin
Inquisitor (I've only built one on paper never played one)

[Renegadeshepherd]

I tend to agree with sidekick. Sohei, as I recently learned, is king among non casters. Inquisitors are great as are rangers but they fall short of cleric or sohei unless you just want skills. Paladin is the best survivor but far from DPR machine king.

Sohei is probably the best balance between combat and skills, ranger for those who want high skills, and cleric for straight combat.