Rotrl help me decide between archer druid or arcane archer

[Thormind]

Our group:

necromancer cleric: not really evil, can heal a little, not uptimized
bard: halfling, not optimized at all
fighter: generic fighter well built

I want to do battlefield control (and maybe some buffing) with spells and dmg with archery. Our group lacks a class with trapfinding so i will probably need to fill that role as well.

Druid: New Nature Fang archetype from ACG. Rogue talents + ranger combat styles + trapfinding + 9th lvl spells. Will probably replace the animal companion with a domain, not sure which one. Not sure if battlefield control will be enough for Rotrl.

Arcane archer: Two choice:

- Transmuter Wizard 5, trapper ranger 1 (for trapfinding), EK9, AA3. Spell lvl 15, 8th lvl spells, BAB 15, bunch of bonuses to archery. Not sure if the 3 lvl of arcane archer bonuses and the + 1 to BAB is worth the lost of a spell lvl.

- Transmuter Wizard 8th, trapper ranger 1, EK9. Spell lvl 16, 8th lvl spells, BAB14. Not sure if the +1 to spell lvl is worth the lost of archery power.

What would you do and why? Also is trapfinding worth it for arcane archer or should i go 1 lvl fighter for the bonus feat.

25 point buy game.

[Mark_Twain007]

It's a tough call. On the druid side, they get some good buff and control spells. I would take the animal companion if it were me, just because a great way to control the battlefield, is to have another piece on it.

On the other hand, your currently your only arcane caster, is a bard.
Currently you plan on taking 9 EK levels, are you really attached to those for the extra feats? If you skip EK, you can get 8 levels of AA with still only 2 spell levels of loss. The problem then being your BAB to get to arcane archer.

Of the 2 I would go with the druid, just because I'm not sure level by level, how well the AA builds would work.

As for your question on trapfinding, while it isn't a necessity for Rune lords, it's a good thing to have.

[Imbicatus]

Druid is the better option here. Druid spells have more overlap with arcane casters than clerics. Also, Studied Target should apply to spell DCs as they are class features.

For your domain, I would go with crocodile. You get a familiar (give him the mauler archetype if possible), you get some useful domain spells, and you get three more sneak attack dice.

[EgakuDrew]

Take the Eagle Domain,

Hawk Familiar +

3+ Wis times per day add half your druid level to a ranged attack roll +

Fly as domain spell

Take Crocodile if you want to Switch hit

[Thormind]

Mark_Twain007 wrote:

It's a tough call. On the druid side, they get some good buff and control spells. I would take the animal companion if it were me, just because a great way to control the battlefield, is to have another piece on it.

On the other hand, your currently your only arcane caster, is a bard.
Currently you plan on taking 9 EK levels, are you really attached to those for the extra feats? If you skip EK, you can get 8 levels of AA with still only 2 spell levels of loss. The problem then being your BAB to get to arcane archer.

- I am not taking an animal companion and i will not be using summons. The necro cleric has many creatures and his turns are taking a LONG. time. I am looking for a domain to add control spells. I will ask my DM to houserule that i can spontaneous cast my domain spells instead of the summons.

So far my favorite domain would be earth with cave subdomain. The pit line of spell would be a big help for battlefield control. Darkvision at will is also really helpful for an archer.

I would prefer going druid but the party would probably benefit more of an arcance caster i think. Bard doesnt have haste, cleric probably doesnt have any dispell magic memorized. There also seem to be more control options in the arcane list. Outside of summons the druid seems to be focused on entangle effects.

- The lvls of EK is to get to 6 BAB asap for arcane archer without losing caster lvl. I am not taking more arcane archer lvl to avoir losing to much spell lvl.

[Drogos]

Wizards get some pretty strong bonuses in RotRL in terms of spellbook loot, and that's just the first 3 books that I've played through. And trap finding is useful in the AP for those same books.