Build Advice: Ranged Occultist

[Melmoth1979]

Hi, all! Looking for some advice; I want to build an occultist who favors range and uses a crossbow and evocation to keep his distance from battle. Does this seem feasible? If so, what are my "must have" choices for feats/spells/etc? Thanks!

[Chess Pwn]

why are you using a crossbow? Just use a normal bow.

Ranged combat must have feats are usually Point Blank shot, precise shot, rapid shot, deadly aim, cluster shots.

[Secret Wizard]

Yep.

Must haves:

- Don't use a crossbow, use a bow. Crossbows are for people with bonus feats.

- Be Human

- Point Blank Shot > Precise Shot > Rapid Shot > Clustered Shots > Improved Precise Shot > Deadly Aim

- Transmutation to give Bane to your Bow

- Conductive enhancement on your bow to trigger your ranged blasts with arrow strikes.

- Looking at S14 D16+2 C12 I15 W10 CH8 for stats.

[Melmoth1979]

Thanks! Truth be told, I'm looking at crossbow because the mini I want to use has one (sigh, they look so much cooler than they are!).

[Firebug]

So by "doesn't have bows by default" you mean "does" because Occultist is proficient in all martial weapons.

And that person deleted their post. Carry on.

@OP, As other people mentioned, going Transmutation is a really good choice if you are looking for ranged combat. "Free" Belt of dex/con, ability to add bane (or un/holy, or seeker, or agile if you need to switch to a melee) to your weapons on the fly are excellent and a number of the spells (Gravity bow, Versatile weapon, Greater Magic Weapon, echolocation, overland flight, etc) are excellent from a buffing perspective.

You could go conductive with Energy Ray, but spending 2 points of focus for 1/2 level d6 seems like not so great an option.

A different option to consider would be Sha'ir archetype and pick up an elemental wizard school (like fire) for blasting.

[HyperMissingno]

Firebug wrote:

So by "doesn't have bows by default" you mean "does" because Occultist is proficient in all martial weapons.

That was a mistake. I thought they were simple but then I looked it up and found they had martial weapons. It doesn't help that the one in my party never uses martial weapons and the OP was talking about crossbows.

[Melmoth1979]

@Firebug; I hadn't thought about Sha'ir. Thanks!

[clawoftiamat]

The battle host archetype gives you some bonus feats. You will have fewer implement types, but my occultist seems to be fine with it.