Hello there. I am new to the sneaky character scene as paladin's and support clerics have been my main intrigue. In my list to try something new, I want to make a new type of character. Problem is I don't know how to nail what I had in mind down. I want to make a sneaky or at least from behind the front lines ranged character. The main thing I'm looking for is to optimize the character to be sort of a focus on one enemy and fell it in one swoop kind of guy. My team and I are starting at 5th level and the race is up to suggestions. I have heard a Slayer might fit the bill, but I want to know if anyone has a good idea to make it even more of a focus or just more lethal in general.
I am namely looking for the class, archetype, race, and feats that will make this class the most effective at targeting a single opponent at a time at long distance and taking it out with the highest amount of damage output.
Slayer for single target ranged DPS. No question.
Gunslinger/ranger/fighter/rogue/warpriest/inquisitor/paladin/etc. can all make good archers as well with the proper build. There are numerous guides that Google can help you find out the specifics of such builds.
well, this is the problem, as most archery builds focus on many arrows for lower damage, rather than one single arrow. if you're willing to fire a few arrows in 1 turn, then a ton of options open up
If you want to literally one shot people, assassin is the way to go.
Can it be a crossbow instead of a regular bow? In that case Bolt Ace Gunslinger with Signature Deed for "Dead Shot" seems to be what you want. You fire one shot per round, but you do tremendous damage with it.
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...or grenadier alchemist.
Alchemical weapon gets you the ability to add a splash weapon onto an arrow. This can also be a splash weapon mixed with another using the hybridization funnel, which can make an even better one. Hell, use it with a raining arrow (against undead, although ask your GM if you can drain it and put in another fluid for more damage), and you're riding high.
Now as for 1 hit/one kill, now you're taking explosive missile, that'll let you add a bomb to your arrow, but your attack is a standard action now. This can add anywhere between 1d6 to 10d6 depending on your level, and you can add a bomb discovery to it for more fun (force bomb, anyone?) Finish this off with a conductive adaptive longbow (so a +2 with an additional 1k on it, it'll be out of your price range at first) so you can burn 2 uses of your bomb to activate another on your attack. Now you're dealing 2x bomb damage for the cost of 3 bombs a shot. This makes that 1d6-10d6 become 2d6-20d6.
For race, I'd say tiefling myself, and get the prehensile tail, it's great..
So we're looking at tielfing grenadier alchemist 5.
As for being sneaky, take a trait to get stealth as a class skill if you can, combine that with invisibility as an extract and you'll be more stealthy than a slayer could hope to be.
I am open to firing multiple arrows. My main feature I want to highlight to my character is dealing as impressive of an amount of damage from a distance as I can.Essentially, what I am looking for is a guy who can run, climb, or sneak to a favorable position on the field, and stay reletivly stationary the majority of the fight, acting as essentially a scout and a living Turret for my allies.
It really sounds like a slayer is what you want.
If that's the case, then I'll look into a Slayer. That grenadier sounded interesting as well. Thank you so much everybody that responded.
If you want to do massive damage from a distance then forget Sneak Attack since you have to be relatively close for that.
One option is to be a Musket Master Gunslinger with 1 level of Cyclopean Seer Oracle for the Flash of Insight Revelation.
You will be too far to target touch AC but you can use Flash of Insight to roll a 20 then you just need to confirm the shot against a flat footed opponent. Assuming Gunslinger 5/Oracle 1, 20 Dex, a +1 Musket, and Deadly Aim you are dealing 1d12 +10 x4 for about 66 damage.
That is bare bones, There are plenty of things you can do to increase the damage.
If you are fine with multiple attacks then Zen Archer is a decent choice. Take Wisdom of the Flesh trait to use your Wisdom modifier for Stealth. By 6th level you should have nearly all of the ranged feats you need including Improved Precise Shot.
A ranger (guide ranger is very nice for singling out a target) can grab a giant gecko companion and ride it around eventually.
You will also want to petition for allowing Skill unlocks, which can help you by getting the penalty to stealth for sniping down from -20 to -5 by 10th level.
That Gunslinger idea actually sounds amazing. I'll take a look into it.
I second the Slayer suggestion, Sorta. See you want Slayer for studied target. But there is another way.
Inquisitor 5 with the Sanctified Slayer and Preacher archetypes.
Study your target, Bane your target, then unleash on your target. You miss out on some BAB and feats but you can partly offset that with things like the Fate's Favored trait + Divine Favor spell.
Edit: Preacher lets you re-roll misses.
Sniper archetype slayer is the most literal way to do this, base tiefling or human for race. Studied target, deadly aim and rapid shot.
Death attack isn't garbage, but it's not great.
As far as literally one shotting people, that's how you do it. Or have a capstone ability.
I've seen it used to great effect in at least three campaigns I have been a part of, the most recent a WotW game that I'm running.
Death attack isn't garbage, but it's not great.
As far as literally one shotting people, that's how you do it. Or have a capstone ability.
Death attack isn't an option.
Death Attack (Ex): If an assassin studies his victim for 3 rounds and then makes a sneak attack with a melee weapon that successfully deals damage, the sneak attack has the additional effect of possibly either paralyzing or killing the target (assassin's choice).
Emphasis mine. It's a shame too: a ranged save-or-die effect would be awesome for a mid-level character.
I love playing this character in video games. Fallout, Skyrim, Dragon Age, Assassin's Creed, Sniper Elite, any number of military shooters Call of Duty and all the others, where I play a sneaky sniper and introduce my enemies' brains to the light of day.
I love it.
But Pathfinder is not really the game for it. Monster HP tends to increase way faster than character damage. As others have mentioned, the game balances that by letting characters make more attacks. But that in turn is balanced by the fact that subsequent attacks are more likely to miss (iteratives).
Also, Pathfinder is built for a team of heroes rather than the sneaky lone-wolf sniper type. Not saying you can't do it, but the system doesn't support it much - damage is meant for a team of heroes to wear down mountains of enemy HP rather than just pop open an enemy's skull and then move on.
It's sweet when it works, that's for sure, but you may find this kind of character concept is very unlikely in this game system.
However, alter the concept a bit to be the guy who uses ranged attacks to HELP bring down enemies, and even better, to shut down casters or prevent enemy archers from shutting down your own casters, while knowing that "focus on one enemy and fell it in one swoop kind of guy" is rarely going to happen unless that one enemy is just one weak guy of a bunch of weak opponents, or one strong guy that your team has already been chopping down to size.
Now THAT is really easy to do in Pathfinder.
Ranger with an archery build is a good way to go. If you take the hunting companions boon rather than an animal companion, you can share your bonuses against favored enemies with other party members.
If you want to lone wolf it and don't care about helping your teammates, then go slayer as stated above. Those favored enemies bonuses are very useful though.
If your willing to bend on your one hit kill, then archery in generally is very viable for dealing a lot of damage. But it is dependent on making many attacks.
Otherwise, you just wont keep up. I just used an un-optimized fighter as an example in a previous thread. He deals 27 damage per hit. As a rough estimate a CR 9 creature should have about 115 hp. Even if you had 10d6 sneak attack + 1d8 for a bow + some miscellaneous bonus (lets say +10) would still only be ~50 damage. It's just not possible to deal enough damage in a single hit (for pretty much anyone) to kill an enemy outright.
I distinctly remember either an item or a class ability that allows an assassination to be made at range (up to 30 feet), but I can't seem to remember what it is now.
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The Myrmidarch Magus is another class which can really load damage onto a single arrow. The primary source of damage is Ranged Spellstrike using a Reach Spell Shocking Grasp. At 4th and 5th level that is adding 4d6 and 5d6 damage respectively. Adding the Intensified Spell metamagic feat lets you increase that up to 10d6 by 10th level. Unlike Sneak Attack, that does double on a critical hit so you are potentially adding 20d6 damage to your arrow. (Later you can use Scorching Ray with multiple arrows, but I'm just focusing on the one-shot aspect.)
Because of their mix of Fighter and Wizard abilities, they have many other options for increasing attack rolls or damage. Several of these options increase both.
Swift Actions
-Arcane Pool to add things like more Enhancement Bonus or more energy damage (with the Bane Blade Arcana you can add another +2 to your Enhancement Bonus against one type of creature and with the Devoted Blade Arcana you can add Holy, etc. to your weapon for +2d6 damage)
-Arcane Strike (eventually +5 damage; Gloves of Arcane Striking lets you also deal that damage to those adjacent to your target)
-The Arcane Accuracy Arcana (add your Int bonus to hit)
Move Actions
-Bullseye Shot (+4 to hit)
Non-actions
-Weapon Training (eventually up to +3 to hit and damage; Gloves of Dueling can increase this by +2)
-Standard archery feats like Weapon Focus, Point-Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Improved Precise Shot, and Deadly Aim
-Fighter Training lets you take feats like Greater Weapon Focus (+1 to hit), Weapon Specialization (+2 damage), and Greater Weapon Specialization (+2 damage)
Spells
-Magic Weapon (+1 to hit and damage)
-Greater Magic Weapon (eventually +5 to hit and damage)
-Keen Edge can increase the threat range of your arrows if you don't have Bracers of Falcon's Aim
-Buffs like Bull's Strength, Cat's Grace, Enlarge Person, or Alter Self can increase attack rolls or damage
-The Spell Blending Arcana can get you access to other archery-related spells like Gravity Bow
You obviously can't get all of these, but since they are spread out among Feats, Arcana, Spells, and built-in class features you actually can have quite a few. Not only will those sources of damage stack with your Shocking Grasp spell, they will be tripled on a critical hit. It can really add up.
What I love most about this is that many of those options can also be used for melee combat. That makes for nice switch-hitter builds.
Try a pure earth Kineticist. You go literally underground when you want to dissappear, and you can eventually do 20d6+20+*really high con*+assorted miscellaneous bonuses, empowered and maximized, with a 3d6 extra damage on top of that. Yes, it's obscene. And yes, it's one hit per round. Unless you also grab kinetic whip for a two infusion dip. In which case, most enemies will beg you to go back to being *just* one hit a round. Also if they live you could add entangled and rooted to the spot as a nifty side effect.
Fluff wise, it's awesome as is. If you wanted a bow, there's no reason you can't choose piercing damage for all (most) of your attacks and make a visible stone bow and arrow for your attacks.
Remember, this sounds insane because it's all one hit... as opposed to the tradition archery routes which hit for like 7d6+7*bonuses. It's actually quite fair, a really cool trade off, since you'll overkill one enemy every round but can't divide damage among mooks as cleanly.
Kineticists are one of the few classes I can think of that can pull off sniper without being in charge range.
A kineticist can shoot from 480' away, and then use ride the blast to quickly escape when enemies do finally draw near. Earth users can also add earth glide to further that to quickly take cover underground.
Basically, the system was mostly meant for close up sword bashing, with ranged characters being fairly close to sword bashing range. Kinectist is about the only one that is good at long term guerrilla warfare with constant direct assaults against entire armies. Everything else either has to grab some long distance natural disaster spell (which is impressive in its own right, but not very hands on) or eventually end up overwhelmed when faced with 100's of opponents.
Basically, you could legitimately use the class and core rules to play an entirely different type of game. One where you are doing tactical mass combat rather than the short, dense, intense direct confrontations.
More conceptually interesting than anything. Earth users might be great to do a one player v. gm tower defense game. In the actual system, it might work better as a BBEG, since you have one guy personally murdering entire armies, which is obviously awesome when you know he could actually do it.
The Myrmidarch Magus is another class which can really load damage onto a single arrow.
. . . Or Eldritch Archer (for better eldritch archery, including having a better version of Ranged Spellstrike), or Card Caster (for hurled weapons, and doesn't need Reach Spell, Reach Spellstrike, or Distant Spellstrike, and Harrowed Spellstrike doesn't have the 1 round limit of Ranged Spellstrike) . . . But Myrmidarch is very likely the better switch-hitter, especially now that the Weapon Master's Handbook is out, and in the future maybe even more sow when the Armor Master's Handbook is out (because Myrmidarch gets both Weapon Training and Armor Training, and you can even stack VMC Fighter on it for more of each (although the Weapon Training gets started rather late, at 11th level), while the other Magus archetypes only get these if you stack VMC Fighter onto them).
The primary source of damage is Ranged Spellstrike using a Reach Spell Shocking Grasp. {. . .}
After you get to level 9, alternatively use Magus Arcana Reach Spellstrike to save on the spell level increase from Reach Spell, and then when you get to level 12, retrain this to Distant Spellstrike (strangely, the former is not a prerequisite for the latter).
Also, you'll want to have something other than Shocking Grasp in case you are up against something that is immune to Electricity, like Demons (and these have Resistance 10 or more to all the other Energy types that you can get with Elemental Spell or the Evocation:Admixture Arcane School Power Versatile Evocation). At low (not very low) levels, snowball might be a good alternative -- already Close range, and even though they shave at least 10 off the damage, as long as some gets through they will be staggered for 1 round if they fail their save, and they don't get to use their Spell Resistance against it. Stone Discus also comes already Close range and allows neither a Save nor Spell Resistance, although unfortunately it only scales by making an additional Discus at each of levels 7 (not high enough for Ranged Spellstrike to use the 2nd one) and 11. At mid levels, Force Punch (needs Reach Spellstrike or Distant Spellstrike) does Force damage and pushes the target away if they fail their Fortitude Save (and if they Save they still take damage), although it does also allow Spell Resistance. At high levels, Blood Boil (requires Distant Spellstrike) can mess them up (but you do have to get past their Spell Resistance and Fortitude Save), and Corrosive Consumption (requires Distant Spellstrike; no Save, but still Spell Resistance) can do enough damage to get through their Acid Resistance or force them to spend a whole round getting it off. Of course, if you are a Magus, you don't want to limit yourself just to spells that deal damage; the Magus spell list skimps on battlefield control and debuffing spells compared to the Sorcerer/Wizard list, but it still has some. Of course, it helps to be a Tiefling with Grasping Tail or Prehensile Tail to be able to handle a Rod of Persistent Spell.
bolt ace archetype gunslinger 5
Sniper archetype slayer 15
Stealth + study for 3 rounds assassinate shot to touch AC within 1 range increment.
I distinctly remember either an item or a class ability that allows an assassination to be made at range (up to 30 feet), but I can't seem to remember what it is now.
If you happen to recall what may allow a ranged death attack, I'd love to know. I was building an assassin for my homebrew, and wanted to have him shoot from a distance and then disappear. I was surprised to find that really wasn't an option. That and the DC isn't too hard to beat (at least against the martials he would be targeting the most).
The primary source of damage is Ranged Spellstrike using a Reach Spell Shocking Grasp. {. . .}Also, you'll want to have something other than Shocking Grasp in case you are up against something that is immune to Electricity
Magus with VMC wizard... Choose Evocation/Admixture as the arcane school and the character can switch energy types on the fly at 7th level (as well as gaining a little bit of extra damage with Intense Spells). Also, gain a familiar at 3rd level, an at will 0-level spell-like ability at 11th level, and an arcane discovery (Fast Study is solid, or possibly True Name to call an 18 HD outsider) at 15th level. The magus bonus feats even help mitigate the VMC cost.
^I thought about that, and it is probably good enough for a lot of campaigns, but if you are up against a lot of something like Demons, it really isn't a panacea (although you might still want it anyway, depending upon how much other stuff you are up against). So you really need other options. Example campaigns would be parts of Second Darkness, or a non-Mythic Wrath of the Righteous (as reported by others on these boards, if you get to go Mythic as normal, you are brokenly overpowered compared to the opponents anyway). Also, while the Magus Bonus Feats do help, they aren't very numerous, and trading one of your feats for a Cantrip when you already have Magus Cantrips is painful, even if you wanted a Familiar and a Wizard Arcane Discovery anyway That doesn't mean VMC Wizard (Evoker:Admixturer) is terrible, and I'd still consider it myself, but it isn't a shoo-in, either, especially when it is competing with VMC Fighter to get more Weapon Training (and in the future more Armor Training may become more important as well).
Try this for a more mundane way. It's also hilarious to shoot with a mini ballista
I distinctly remember either an item or a class ability that allows an assassination to be made at range (up to 30 feet), but I can't seem to remember what it is now.If you happen to recall what may allow a ranged death attack, I'd love to know. I was building an assassin for my homebrew, and wanted to have him shoot from a distance and then disappear. I was surprised to find that really wasn't an option. That and the DC isn't too hard to beat (at least against the martials he would be targeting the most).
Sniper archetype slayer. The sniper lets you sneak attack within the 1st range increment from ambush, the requirements for assassinate is denied dex bonus and hit with a sneak attack. No inherent range limit.
Ah, I found it. Unfortunately it's a spell from 3.5, not Pathfinder. Sniper's Eye.
Sniper Goggles allow you to add sneak attack damage at any range. So a Rogue or a Slayer or possibly a Investigator with sniper goggles for the massive damage win.
Gonna go with Bigger Club here and suggest the Marksman from Dreamscarred Press. It even has a combat style that focuses around making 1 attack and dealing extra damage. Basically, it gets a scaling Vital Strike like effect that stacks with the Vital Strike feats. Its probably still better to just make many attacks with lots of static mods, but if you like the flavor and imagery of making 1 big ranged attack, then that's the way to go.
Making 1 big hit instead of several smaller hits does have a couple of advantages, even if your DPR is somewhat smaller:
1. If you have to move a lot (for instance, to kite a highly mobile enemy), you do your damage in a Standard Action instead of a Full Attack, thereby leaving your Move Action free.
2. If you are up against a lot of things with Damage Resistance and you CAN'T get the right stuff to bypass a lot of them, doing 1 big shot instead of a lot of little ones lets you punch through.
Some guides that might interest you:
Deadeye's Servant: A Guide to the Archer Paladin
Lastoths Guide to Archery Rangers
Surpassing even The Boss: N. Jolly’s guide to the Pathfinder Gunslinger (Pay special attention to the Bolt Ace archetype)
A Study of Slayers You want the Sniper archetype.
I'm sure there are others, but those were just some that came to mind.