"I see... So I was completely wrong!" a few hours after starting a new thread? Humans don't do that unless they are completely lacking in ego. The nearest they come is softening their stance. ("Only specialist builds are good at archery!")
I kind of disagree with you here its not so much ego but open-mindedness. a low ego could also be the cause but just because someone can hear facts and change their opinion does not necessarily mean the person has no ego.
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In that case, I was completely wrong. I apologise for making such a misleading statement.
In that case, I was completely wrong. I apologise for making such a misleading statement.
It is quite alright my good sir!
I can sympathise with the opening poster (Darksol). My archery focused ranger is a decent character but archery is so feat intensive that he makes for a poor switch hitter. I have made up for that by taking point blank master, whick luckily is easy for a ranger to qualify for, but now I find I keep running out of freaking arrows. I can fix that by casting abundant ammunition but that wastes a round of combat. Most of our combats take place at short range so I tend to do less damage overall than melee fighters or full casters, but I don't mind because I have decent out of combat skills and abilities.
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It seems weird to me how quickly people go to "you have proven yourself incapable of changing your mind". His personal experience is that archery isn't very good. We have yet to diagnose why this is the case. (Bad build? Enemies with abnormally high AC? Bad environmental conditions?) Anecdotal evidence doesn't trump personal experience.
My point was more towards that he does not seem to have an open mind and willingness for discussion, instead opting to prove himself right by invalidating all other possibilities.
At one point, someone tells him that one of the benefits of ranged combat is the ability to get constant full-attacks, in which dark responds by comparing it to the Light cantrip, because that was also at-will. He says at-will does not equal valuable. Therefore full-attacking constantly is as good as a polished turd.
Constant full attacks are a big deal. Generally whats theorycrafted as necessary, is more realistically what is 80+% certain. People roll 15-20 on d20's pretty regularly as well as 9-11.
@ Ryan Freire: Just because I can do an action at any time doesn't make it good. By that logic, constant Light is one of the best effects in the game, even though in a lot of cases it's a bad thing to have and it actually not worth having (such as sneaking past alert guards). Polishing a turd still makes it a turd.
It is statements like these that are most telling of where his mindset is at.
Anything we say can be invalidated, therefore he is right. It is here that he seems the most immobile.It is also statements like these that I admonished him for. They add very little to the conversation, instead they only demean the speaker and the reciever.
I can sympathise with the opening poster (Darksol). My archery focused ranger is a decent character but archery is so feat intensive that he makes for a poor switch hitter. I have made up for that by taking point blank master, whick luckily is easy for a ranger to qualify for, but now I find I keep running out of freaking arrows. I can fix that by casting abundant ammunition but that wastes a round of combat. Most of our combats take place at short range so I tend to do less damage overall than melee fighters or full casters, but I don't mind because I have decent out of combat skills and abilities.
Buy an efficient quiver, that holds 60.
Then you should have a decent enough STR so carry around 100 additional arrows in your pack, for 15 lbs.Another option is make sure you can easily meet a dc 12 craft bows check, which you can take 10 on, so you need a grand total of +2.
That nets you 144 silver worth of arrows a week, or 20 silver a day, which is 40 arrows.
Seriously crafting your own arrows is ridiculously easy, saves you money, and means you don't have to carry absurd amounts with you so long as you top up each day.
I can sympathise with the opening poster (Darksol). My archery focused ranger is a decent character but archery is so feat intensive that he makes for a poor switch hitter. I have made up for that by taking point blank master, whick luckily is easy for a ranger to qualify for, but now I find I keep running out of freaking arrows. I can fix that by casting abundant ammunition but that wastes a round of combat. Most of our combats take place at short range so I tend to do less damage overall than melee fighters or full casters, but I don't mind because I have decent out of combat skills and abilities.Buy an efficient quiver, that holds 60.
Then you should have a decent enough STR so carry around 100 additional arrows in your pack, for 15 lbs.Another option is make sure you can easily meet a dc 12 craft bows check, which you can take 10 on, so you need a grand total of +2.
That nets you 144 silver worth of arrows a week, or 20 silver a day, which is 40 arrows.
Seriously crafting your own arrows is ridiculously easy, saves you money, and means you don't have to carry absurd amounts with you so long as you top up each day.
Good advice! I can use that :) is that for 8 hours work or the 2 during an adventuring day?
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Ignoring the argument, and addressing the original point:
Archery is a bad idea if you're shooting into melee and don't invest all (or at least most) of your Feats in archery. It's a very Feat intensive combat style to pursue. To the point where all archers pretty much wind up with the same Feats.
However, if you do invest all your Feats, it's the most powerful combat style in the game. And not only for some Classes at all.
The thing you have to bear in mind in Pathfinder, is that you can get to-hit numbers that are way higher than necessary pretty readily. Therefore the penalties you get to hit from archery are not as significant as its advantages (which amount to lots of attacks and full attacking every turn).
I can do math pretty readily, but it's always and inevitably class specific, as is all math in Pathfinder.
Now, non-bow ranged options are starkly limited, though thrown weapons can actually do okay if you have the extra Feats to burn...but archery is pretty much the standard version of ranged combat. Saying ranged combat doesn't work because only archery is good is thus a pretty weird statement to make, IMO.
Good advice! I can use that :) is that for 8 hours work or the 2 during an adventuring day?I can sympathise with the opening poster (Darksol). My archery focused ranger is a decent character but archery is so feat intensive that he makes for a poor switch hitter. I have made up for that by taking point blank master, whick luckily is easy for a ranger to qualify for, but now I find I keep running out of freaking arrows. I can fix that by casting abundant ammunition but that wastes a round of combat. Most of our combats take place at short range so I tend to do less damage overall than melee fighters or full casters, but I don't mind because I have decent out of combat skills and abilities.Buy an efficient quiver, that holds 60.
Then you should have a decent enough STR so carry around 100 additional arrows in your pack, for 15 lbs.Another option is make sure you can easily meet a dc 12 craft bows check, which you can take 10 on, so you need a grand total of +2.
That nets you 144 silver worth of arrows a week, or 20 silver a day, which is 40 arrows.
Seriously crafting your own arrows is ridiculously easy, saves you money, and means you don't have to carry absurd amounts with you so long as you top up each day.
I think technically per 8 hour day.
I so you could make 40/8 per hour, so 5 an hour.If your GM doesn't let you whittle away then maybe tell him he is being mean.
Another option is to ask to use Making Craft Work [Alternative Crafting Rules] on here
It makes stuff make a bit more sense in terms of actually using it in the game.
If you can manage a higher check, with take 10, you can make the arrows faster, for example if you can wrangle a +12 you can get +22, which combined with increasing craft dc's by 10 to decrease time nets you 22*22 = 484 silver a week, 70 a day, 9 an hour. That is 18 arrows an hour
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Except based on the above math, you wouldn't hit with any of your iteratives most every time (making Full Attacks pointless unless you roll Natural 20s every time)Full Round Attack.
From over 100 feet away.
Each and every turn.
You didn't really do any math. You listed some penalties and acted like they were insurmountable without actually showing this to be the case.
Take for example an Inquisitor, a class known to be a strong archer. I'm using level 10 because most I've used it before and its fresh in my mind.
Give him a +2 weapon and +4 Dex belt, 18 starting Dex, +2 Dex at 4 and 8 and 14 Str. Low balling his WBL. Assume pre buffed with Heroism. Round one move 30ft away from the enemy, turn on Judgement for accuracy and damage use your standard for Divine power, turn two turn on bane and fire.
BAB 7 + DEX 7 + Luck 4 + Enhancement 4 + 3 Sacred + 2 Moral - 2 Rapid shot - 2 Deadly Aim.
Full Attack 23/23/23/18 (1D8+2D6+17) First attack does double. Recommended AC for a CR10 is 24, so you hit on 2,2,2,6.
If you cast Divine favor instead of power turn one you hit on 2,2,6 but can be hasted.
If an ally gives an enemy cover, the obvious thing to do would be shoot another enemy, but also worthy of note is you should have Cooperative shot and Enfilading shot, which with Solo Tactics means if your ally threatens the opponent you get a +1, or +4 if they flank them.
Doing the same with a fighter whose brought some gloves dueling because really what fighter hasn't by this level. Also assume he has weapon specilisation for Damage.
BAB 10 + DEX 7 + Weapon Training 5 + GWeapon Focus 2 + Enhancement 2 - 2 Rapid Shot - 3 Deadly Aim.
21/21/16 (1D8+19) hit on 3/3/8.
So yeah, feel to me like if you actually did some math you'd see that its fine.
Sorry if someone already did this but I just didn't feeling like wading through what looked to be a very frustrating argument. Just thought I'd do some actual math.
Good Maths
On the previous page I did some basic lvl 7 math with a fighter and paladin, hidden in a spoiler
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Math to the death GO!
Math to the death GO!
Sum n for n =1 to infinity = -1/12
[EDIT] Some explanation for the less mathematically inclined
Sum n for n =1 to infinity basically means:
1+2+3+4+5+6+7+... and on and on to infinity.
So Sum n for n =1 to infinity = -1/12
is saying add together every whole number and you get -1/12
1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10+... = -1/12
I just love this maths
If anyone really wants a proof I can try explain it
[EDIT][EDIT]
Not technically a proof and requires a slightly different use of the '=' sign than usual.
For me the craziest and most awesome bit about this maths is that it is actually used in a bunch of physics and such
If anyone is interested the solution to someone baggering you in melee for an inquisitor is bow staff, turns your bow into a Quaterstaff as a swift action for a level 1 spell. It isn't ideal but all your buffs are still up, you attack sequence would become
22/22/17 (1D8+2D6+16) not ideal but I think we can agree pretty decent since this is you forced into acting outside of your ideal strategy.
Hmm I think J4 is winning this math off.
Hmm I think J4 is winning this math off.
Why thank you
Hmm I think J4 is winning this math off.
I prefer to think of it as a collaboration than a competition. We do after all agree.
My point was more towards that he does not seem to have an open mind and willingness for discussion, instead opting to prove himself right by invalidating all other possibilities.
He continued to provide (unconvincing) arguments in defence of his point - therefore he's not willing to discuss it? Defending your stance is a natural instinct, just as you posted to defend your own post against mine. It's what people do. If you accuse someone of lacking an open mind just because they won't immediately admit they're wrong, it only escalates hostilities. Never fight rudeness with rudeness.
My point was more towards that he does not seem to have an open mind and willingness for discussion, instead opting to prove himself right by invalidating all other possibilities.He continued to provide (unconvincing) arguments in defence of his point - therefore he's not willing to discuss it? Defending your stance is a natural instinct, just as you posted to defend your own post against mine. It's what people do. If you accuse someone of lacking an open mind just because they won't immediately admit they're wrong, it only escalates hostilities. Never fight rudeness with rudeness.
This one I agree with. Its totally not like fire you can totally fight fire with rudeness.
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Hmm I think J4 is winning this math off.I prefer to think of it as a collaboration than a competition. We do after all agree.
You have clearly never mathed to the death before.
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You have clearly never mathed to the death before.Hmm I think J4 is winning this math off.I prefer to think of it as a collaboration than a competition. We do after all agree.
May the odds be ever in your favor, and the evens too I suppose
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Chromatic, we do agree, I just loved the idea of 'MATH TO THE DEATH!'
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Ignoring the argument, and addressing the original point:
Archery is a bad idea if you're shooting into melee and don't invest all (or at least most) of your Feats in archery. It's a very Feat intensive combat style to pursue. To the point where all archers pretty much wind up with the same Feats.
However, if you do invest all your Feats, it's the most powerful combat style in the game. And not only for some Classes at all.
The thing you have to bear in mind in Pathfinder, is that you can get to-hit numbers that are way higher than necessary pretty readily. Therefore the penalties you get to hit from archery are not as significant as its advantages (which amount to lots of attacks and full attacking every turn).
I can do math pretty readily, but it's always and inevitably class specific, as is all math in Pathfinder.
Now, non-bow ranged options are starkly limited, though thrown weapons can actually do okay if you have the extra Feats to burn...but archery is pretty much the standard version of ranged combat. Saying ranged combat doesn't work because only archery is good is thus a pretty weird statement to make, IMO.
What you're stating here is true. But you are basically agreeing with the point I have seen others make.
Archery is crazy f%&~ing powerful, but it takes a lot of investment to get there.
So wait if people are saying archers are Huge damage with maximum investment.(which I agree with) So can I just mid medium investment and do medium damage? Just curious cause everyone talks about it like its a all the way or not at all kind of thing.
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My character tried to use a bow, it was a disaster...
He's a level 6 arcanist, with on feats...Why couldn't I hit anything...
So wait if people are saying archers are Huge damage with maximum investment.(which I agree with) So can I just mid medium investment and do medium damage? Just curious cause everyone talks about it like its a all the way or not at all kind of thing.
Yeah, that can be doable. Especially if your class is bard or something so that you have class features which don't require feats to use to good effect.
So wait if people are saying archers are Huge damage with maximum investment.(which I agree with) So can I just mid medium investment and do medium damage? Just curious cause everyone talks about it like its a all the way or not at all kind of thing.
There are a couple of feats that are 'essential' to help bypass some of the biggest issues, like precise shot.
However as avr said, many classes can give you bonuses to mitigate this.A paladin, so long as they have a middling dex, can pick up a bow and smite to his hearts content.
A bard can self buff to help.
The Sanguine Angel I think potentially is one of the best switch hitting classes ever made, but needs to be evil, and is a PrC
Except based on the above math, you wouldn't hit with any of your iteratives most every time (making Full Attacks pointless unless you roll Natural 20s every time)Full Round Attack.
From over 100 feet away.
Each and every turn.You didn't really do any math. You listed some penalties and acted like they were insurmountable without actually showing this to be the case.
Take for example an Inquisitor, a class known to be a strong archer. I'm using level 10 because most I've used it before and its fresh in my mind.
Give him a +2 weapon and +4 Dex belt, 18 starting Dex, +2 Dex at 4 and 8 and 14 Str. Low balling his WBL. Assume pre buffed with Heroism. Round one move 30ft away from the enemy, turn on Judgement for accuracy and damage use your standard for Divine power, turn two turn on bane and fire.
BAB 7 + DEX 7 + Luck 4 + Enhancement 4 + 3 Sacred + 2 Moral - 2 Rapid shot - 2 Deadly Aim.
Full Attack 23/23/23/18 (1D8+2D6+17) First attack does double. Recommended AC for a CR10 is 24, so you hit on 2,2,2,6.
If you cast Divine favor instead of power turn one you hit on 2,2,6 but can be hasted.
If an ally gives an enemy cover, the obvious thing to do would be shoot another enemy, but also worthy of note is you should have Cooperative shot and Enfilading shot, which with Solo Tactics means if your ally threatens the opponent you get a +1, or +4 if they flank them.
Doing the same with a fighter whose brought some gloves dueling because really what fighter hasn't by this level. Also assume he has weapon specilisation for Damage.
BAB 10 + DEX 7 + Weapon Training 5 + GWeapon Focus 2 + Enhancement 2 - 2 Rapid Shot - 3 Deadly Aim.
21/21/16 (1D8+19) hit on 3/3/8.
So yeah, feel to me like if you actually did some math you'd see that its fine.
Sorry if someone already did this but I just didn't feeling like wading through what looked to be a very frustrating argument. Just thought I'd do some actual math.
Requiring a 10th level character for a build to come online is mathematically twice as ridiculous as people who state Dex to Damage by 5th level is a bad expectation (and they do say it). And that's from a purely mathematical standpoint; players play levels 1-10 a lot more often than levels 11+, meaning I'm much less likely to enjoy levels 10+ than I am levels 1-9, and if Archery was meant to be a level 10+ build, then I don't understand why people would build for it when the odds of them coming to fruition are pretty slim.
If all a CR 10 enemy has for AC is 24, then quite frankly that's some of the weakest monsters in the game for that level, and of course you're going to shred them. I'm 3 CR below that, and that's the AC I'm consistently facing right now, and that's not including the BBEG's AC (which is close to 30), which is probably going to be the staple at CR 10, and I don't have or get any of those kinds of buffs because those are mostly personal only.
It's also hypothetical because you're assuming you get ample time or safety to buff when bad stuff had reach, stupid amounts of CMB/CMD scaling, combat maneuvers at their beck and call with no counter on your behalf, readied actions to screw up your spellcasting, etc. Or that you actually have 30 feet of space to move away from, or that enemies can't or won't close that gap with a single action (because they exist). That PC would be tripped before he could move away, provoke from his casting (or potentially lose the spell from casting defensively, which is a good chance due to how high of a spell level Divine Power is compared to lacking a high casting stat, as well as lacking Combat Casting feat), and be set right up for the bad guys next turn to be turned to shreds from full attacks. Or are we assuming +5 to the other Big 6 items too? Divine Favor might have a better chance, but either way, that full attack isn't happening the next turn, and even less likely on the turn after. (Which is why I'm saying bad guys getting next to you is such a big deal.)
Fighter is perhaps the only safe bet here because he doesn't have to rely on his buff shenanigans to be effective, and he has feats available to him to counter his biggest weakspots. You're also missing buffs from Warrior Spirit and such, which I imagine is a staple for Fighters as well, but I believe that would be equally scrutinized as above. But the factor that I have to be a Fighter to do this sort of stuff safely really only means that Archery is Fighter Combat, and only proves my point that ranged combat may as well be class specific due to how easily countered the other classes are at doing it.
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Requiring a 10th level character for a build to come online is mathematically twice as ridiculous as people who state Dex to Damage by 5th level is a bad expectation (and they do say it). And that's from a purely mathematical standpoint; players play levels 1-10 a lot more often than levels 11+, meaning I'm much less likely to enjoy levels 10+ than I am levels 1-9, and if Archery was meant to be a level 10+ build, then I don't understand why people would build for it when the odds of them coming to fruition are pretty slim.
If all a CR 10 enemy has for AC is 24, then quite frankly that's some of the weakest monsters in the game for that level, and of course you're going to shred them. I'm 3 CR below that, and that's the AC I'm consistently facing right now, and that's not including the BBEG's AC (which is close to 30), which is probably going to be the staple at CR 10, and I don't have or get any of those kinds of buffs because those are mostly personal only.
It's also hypothetical because you're assuming you get ample time or safety to buff when bad stuff had reach, stupid amounts of CMB/CMD scaling, combat maneuvers at their beck and call with no counter on your behalf, readied actions to screw up your spellcasting, etc. Or that you actually have 30 feet of space to move away from, or that enemies can't or won't close that gap with a single action (because they exist). That PC would be tripped before he could move away, provoke from his casting (or potentially lose the spell from casting defensively, which is a good chance due to how high of a spell level Divine Power is compared to lacking a high casting stat, as well as lacking Combat Casting feat), and be set right up for the bad guys next turn to be turned to shreds from full attacks. Or are we assuming +5 to the other Big 6 items too? Divine Favor might have a better chance, but either way, that full attack isn't happening the next turn, and even less likely on the turn after. (Which is why I'm saying bad guys getting next to you is such a big deal.)
Fighter is perhaps the only safe bet here because he doesn't have to rely on his buff shenanigans to be effective, and he has feats available to him to counter his biggest weakspots. You're also missing buffs from Warrior Spirit and such, which I imagine is a staple for Fighters as well, but I believe that would be equally scrutinized as above. But the factor that I have to be a Fighter to do this sort of stuff safely really only means that Archery is Fighter Combat, and only proves my point that ranged combat may as well be class specific due to how easily countered the other classes are at doing it.
You completely ignored my lvl 7 builds on the previous page.
What PAIZO says AC's should be.
The acerage AC's by CR of every creature made by paizo on the psfrd
The fact that whatever you are fighting has so much higher AC's is not the norm.
This is important to state as it changes the arguments.
As per your arguments about buffing, all the paladin requires is a swift action.
You are hyperfocusing on the examples given and not looking at what they actually mean.
Now, by the sounds of it, you never have combats that aren't in a 30x30 room. If that is your campaign it changes things again.
Most campaigns have ways to easily start combats at over 100ft.
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Yeah, that would indicate that your campaign has special circumstances that makes archery less effective than it should be.
If all of your fights are in crowded rooms with enemies with unusually high AC and reach, then yes, your archer is going to have a bad time.
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Except based on the above math, you wouldn't hit with any of your iteratives most every time (making Full Attacks pointless unless you roll Natural 20s every time)Full Round Attack.
From over 100 feet away.
Each and every turn.You didn't really do any math. You listed some penalties and acted like they were insurmountable without actually showing this to be the case.
Take for example an Inquisitor, a class known to be a strong archer. I'm using level 10 because most I've used it before and its fresh in my mind.
Give him a +2 weapon and +4 Dex belt, 18 starting Dex, +2 Dex at 4 and 8 and 14 Str. Low balling his WBL. Assume pre buffed with Heroism. Round one move 30ft away from the enemy, turn on Judgement for accuracy and damage use your standard for Divine power, turn two turn on bane and fire.
BAB 7 + DEX 7 + Luck 4 + Enhancement 4 + 3 Sacred + 2 Moral - 2 Rapid shot - 2 Deadly Aim.
Full Attack 23/23/23/18 (1D8+2D6+17) First attack does double. Recommended AC for a CR10 is 24, so you hit on 2,2,2,6.
If you cast Divine favor instead of power turn one you hit on 2,2,6 but can be hasted.
If an ally gives an enemy cover, the obvious thing to do would be shoot another enemy, but also worthy of note is you should have Cooperative shot and Enfilading shot, which with Solo Tactics means if your ally threatens the opponent you get a +1, or +4 if they flank them.
Doing the same with a fighter whose brought some gloves dueling because really what fighter hasn't by this level. Also assume he has weapon specilisation for Damage.
BAB 10 + DEX 7 + Weapon Training 5 + GWeapon Focus 2 + Enhancement 2 - 2 Rapid Shot - 3 Deadly Aim.
21/21/16 (1D8+19) hit on 3/3/8.
So yeah, feel to me like if you actually did some math you'd see that its fine.
Sorry if someone already did this but I just didn't feeling like wading through what looked to be a very frustrating argument.
Requiring a 10th level character for a build to come online is mathematically twice as ridiculous as people who state Dex to Damage by 5th level is a bad expectation (and they do say it). And that's from a purely mathematical standpoint; players play levels 1-10 a lot more often than levels 11+, meaning I'm much less likely to enjoy levels 10+ than I am levels 1-9, and if Archery was meant to be a level 10+ build, then I don't understand why people would build for it when the odds of them coming to fruition are pretty slim.
If all a CR 10 enemy has for AC is 24, then quite frankly that's some of the weakest monsters in the game for that level, and of course you're going to shred them. I'm 3 CR below that, and that's the AC I'm consistently facing right now, and that's not including the BBEG's AC (which is close to 30), which is probably going to be the staple at CR 10, and I don't have or get any of those kinds of buffs because those are mostly personal only.
It's also hypothetical because you're assuming you get ample time or safety to buff when bad stuff had reach, stupid amounts of CMB/CMD scaling, combat maneuvers at their beck and call with no counter on your behalf, readied actions to screw up your spellcasting, etc. Or that you actually have 30 feet of space to move away from, or that enemies can't or won't close that gap with a single action (because they exist). That PC would be tripped before he could move away, provoke from his casting (or potentially lose the spell from casting defensively, which is a good chance due to how high of a spell level Divine Power is compared to lacking a high casting stat, as well as lacking Combat Casting feat), and be set right up for the bad guys next turn to be turned to shreds from full attacks. Or are we assuming +5 to the other Big 6 items too? Divine Favor might have a better chance, but either way, that full attack isn't happening the next turn, and even less likely on the turn after. (Which is why I'm saying bad guys getting next to you is such a big deal.)
Fighter is perhaps the only safe bet here because he doesn't have to rely on his buff shenanigans to be effective, and he has feats available to him to counter his biggest weakspots. You're also missing buffs from Warrior Spirit and such, which I imagine is a staple for Fighters as well, but I believe that would be equally scrutinized as above. But the factor that I have to be a Fighter to do this sort of stuff safely really only means that Archery is Fighter Combat, and only proves my point that ranged combat may as well be class specific due to how easily countered the other classes are at doing it.
Just so that you are aware, I have built several characters focused on archery. I have enjoyed playing all of them at every level that I played them at, from level 1 to level 13. Not only did I enjoy them, I did plenty of damage with them. I do not have any of them on me, so I will post the math for one of them later.
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If my experience from Carrion Crown with one of my players playing an archer paladin is any indication my response to your initial question is.
...Very feasible.
I don't have proper math for you but he overshadowed all other members of the party and I had to search the boards constantly for any kind of foil for his character.
Note: Wind Wall, Fickle Winds and Corruption Resistance slowed him down... a little.
@ Jarhead: I'll get to that later tonight, working right now so I can't properly refute it.
Yes, assuming a game somewhat close to the expected Pathfinder game, archery doesn't have issues. 5ft step should solve a lot of problems because you shouldn't be so close to the enemy that they can just move to you. Also, if it's only 1 enemy closing in on you, which if it happens should be the case otherwise they are ignoring all the melee, then getting hit once for a super strong full attack is a fine trade, they hit you twice you got a full attack off and killed them.
Accuracy is fine again assuming that you're close to the expected pathfinder game, being able to TWF with the same weapon is DPR wise often a good investment. Accuracy can be good that even with the -4 for cover you still have a pretty good chance of hitting. (I have lots of builds that very quickly hit the full bab attacks on a 2 with penalties included, so the -4 for cover would just be needing 6's, and since you're making like 3 full bab attacks, that's likely 2 and often 3 hits.)
Also if you're really worried about cover then get an animal companion to ride and shoot as it moves. Seriously, this has some really "brokenly" strong rules in it for archery.
If you want to mathmatically have evidence for a common discussion point, give out a level(s), and enemy AC, a gold amount, and the most common environment for fighting. Someone or I will make a handful of builds of different classes to show how they fare. Then we will have a common ground point to continue any discussion. This is the only way to understand the comments of "They can't ever hit anything except on nat 20s" vs "They easily hit all the time"
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Darksol is correct in many of the assessments made. The penalty are harsh taking a -4 at level 4 makes playing an archer hard. Deadly aim is only really comparable to power attack when using a one handed weapon, but a better comparison is at TWF and power attack which can work. The PA TWF combo works with very high accuracy or turning it on and off as needed depending on AC.
An important fact about accuracy to remember is that because it increases with level pretty reliably the harder the fight the more likely accuracy will be favored over static damage. This is a problem for core monks, swashbuckler, TWF any class that does not have built in accuracy boosts.
Things to note about archery:
- The highest accuracy class perform the best: warpriest, inquisitors, high level rangers, fighters (especially weapon master, mutation warrior).
- Some classe do penalty mitigation better than other: Class that can fly, arrow song mistral, slayer/rangers (access to point blank master/improved precise shot).
- Manyshot is the true equalizer: When TWF gets a second attack at -7 archers get another "attack" at their higher bab (pointed out by @ShroudedInLight).
- The other major benefit to the combat style is ammunition: CI, Silver blanch, Adamantine, and ghost salt blanch change the game an archer can be ready for more fights more easily than any other character in the game.
- Knowing when to turn off which feature really helps archers: You can manyshot/deadly aim, just many shot, manyshot/rapid shot. With the acception of high ac thowing everything at it results in the highest average damage. The sepcific threshold being different with each build.
Finally a note about variability. Low accuracy builds by definition have great variability. There is a higher likelihood of doing no damage in a round with these builds. This is not fun for all players. It has another impirical drawback though, even if average damage is high if there is a 5% of doing nothing for a round that can be enough to let a hard fight break bad. Average damage is a decent metric for builds but it does not tell the whole story. I occasionally look at the likely hood of a build have two bad rounds in a row, I set a threshold at <30% damage for 2 consecutive rounds. This gives me a idea of how often I should expect to suck.
I think what most people feel when they use these builds - low to moderately optimized archery, TWF, core monk - is the effect of high variability.
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Wasn't including range increments, read the post again. No Deadly Aim? No Rapid Shot? That's actually the highest source of penalties that are practically non-negotiable if you're wanting to actually do damage. Your damage compared to Mr. Melee guy will be horrible if those aren't taken into account, and eventually Mr. Melee guy will be right in front of one of the guys you need to shoot, meaning that's another +4 to their AC.
I wondered why Darksol the Painbringer made a claim that ranged combat is infeasible when in most players' experience it is not only feasible, but can also be strong. He is an experienced player who knows the rules. Does he have a blind spot? His quotes above might show that blind spot.
An archer does not need the extra damage from Rapid Shot or Deadly Aim when the archer is 100 feet away from an opponent that lacks a ranged attack. The archer can kill that opponent slowly with merely 1d8 damage a turn, if the opponent keeps his distance. Combat encounters do not have to be over in just two rounds.
If Mr. Melee insists that the party close in on the target, then the archer's slow damage softened up the target before melee began. That is the concept behind the switch-hitter archer (Treantmonk's Guide to Rangers). The archer can close in, too, and switch to melee.
Archer archetype for the Fighter.
Zen Archer.
Ranger Combat Style. (Would have taken it on my ranger, but she doesn't end up in melee that much.)
Any class that can be treated as a fighter for feat selection or gains Weapon Specialization. (My vigilante is an archer and will be taking Signature Weapon (Bow) for just that purpose.)
@ TriOmegaZero: Three of those options are class-specific...
You keep saying this, and I keep not seeing the relevance. Archery does not have to be 100% effective across the board to be the best combat style.
Because it no longer becomes a "combat" style, it becomes a "class" style. Hence my joke with "Fighter Combat."
What's the point of referencing it being ranged combat when there's no point in anybody other than that class going that style of combat? You might as well just make it exclusive to Fighters because that sounds like it's the only class that would make use of it.
Archery is more specialized than swinging a sword. So what? Specialization does not make it infeasible. Spellcasting is even more specialized than ranged attacks, yet that does not stop spellcasting from being the strongest option in Pathfinder.
I admit that sometimes I feel like Pathfinder has an unpublished Archer class and the way to do ranged attacks is to either take a line of feats--Point-Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Rapid Shot, Improved Precise Shot--as if they were a VMC to Archer, or take an archetype that makes other class partially an Archer. But that is because the primary archer in early Dungeons & Dragons was the Ranger, and Ranger was designed so that it could ignore archery if its player wanted.
Crossbows are bad and have been ruined because Lord of the Rings and Legolas made bows a lot more popular, and because a lot more people wanted to be like Legolas from Lord of the Rings instead of some other famous guy who uses a crossbow (which there aren't any, I might add), Bows became the fantasy staple, and everything else ranged-related went to the toilet. Which is why nobody uses anything except bows for ranged combat.
William Tell was a Swiss crossbow-shooting folk hero, who represented the pride and value of Swiss crossbowmen.
Nevertheless, crossbows are slow. Pathfinder pretends they are fast but made them worse to compensate. Early firearms are bad, too. Thrown weapons are terrible in the real world, too. Tolkien's elvish archers, such as Legolas, were based on the Welsh and English longbowmen. The longbow was an amazing weapon for its time.
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You completely ignored my lvl 7 builds on the previous page.
What PAIZO says AC's should be.
The acerage AC's by CR of every creature made by paizo on the psfrdThe fact that whatever you are fighting has so much higher AC's is not the norm.
This is important to state as it changes the arguments.As per your arguments about buffing, all the paladin requires is a swift action.
You are hyperfocusing on the examples given and not looking at what they actually mean.
Now, by the sounds of it, you never have combats that aren't in a 30x30 room. If that is your campaign it changes things again.
Most campaigns have ways to easily start combats at over 100ft.
About hyper focusing. I agree it should be a voided and for that reason I recomend agaist using a paladin as an example. Smite is a very limited resources and are quite different than most other archers.
For AC one should pick the AC that is in line with the high difficulty fights in ones game. No one dies in the CR -1 fight right. CR +3 is are for in most games. Highly optimized games may have fights harder than that.
Fighter, rangers, slayer would be more inline with base line archer build. For a gish class it becomes hard becasue they all buff so differently with dramtically different action ecomomies (magus, inquisitor, warpriest).
"Most campaigns have ways to easily start combats at over 100ft."
This myabe your experience but I don't know if it is normal. Most things I have run, that are publish by paizo, have lots of urban settings, caves, dungeons etc. Admittedly, I have not run everything but rooms, street, ambuses are not so rare they can be ignored.
I don't think it's normal either. I can go through my modules, but I doubt there's even a few that start so far away.
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So wait if people are saying archers are Huge damage with maximum investment.(which I agree with) So can I just mid medium investment and do medium damage? Just curious cause everyone talks about it like its a all the way or not at all kind of thing.
Pathfinder tends to work better for those that specialize. How much you have to invest to just be ok depends on your ideal of ok, and what you count as a "medium" investment.
Personally by the time I am ok at archery I may as well go ahead and make myself good at it.
I want to present a character I built as perhaps one of the finest characters I ever came up with.
I built an non-archetyped Inquisitor, that made use of the Chivalry Inquisition to build an incredible archer.
The mount granted by the chivalry inquisition, made the character a mounted archer.
With Teamwork feats like Escape Route my character never got pinned down anywhere, because by picking it up on my mount we would literally never provoke.
You are right that it was somewhat a cookie cutter build for the first several feats:
Point Blank Shot
Precise Shot
Rapid Shot
Deadly Aim
Manyshot
Improved Precise Shot
But eventually there was room for other feats (I'm having trouble remembering what I took though).
With the ability to use Judgment, use Greater Bane, and to drop buffs on myself like Divine Power I was capable of buffing to insane levels of damage, although it did take 1 round + swift to reach that full level of power. However, my experience was that I almost never needed to buff that much, it was overkill in almost all circumstance except boss fights. Usually I simply used Greater Bane, that was more than enough most fights.
My mount, was not only the mobile base of the duo, but I gave it feats like Body Guard and In Harm's Way that made me super durable and difficult to hit.
I had lots of skills thanks to the class chassis and a decent INT, and I had 6th level spell progression so there was lots of versatility. Admittedly that's mostly a plug for 6th level progression casters which tend to have good skill points per level and spells.
Honestly, this was probably the best character I had ever built. I felt it was significantly stronger than even the Beast Totem Superstitious Spell Sunder Barbarian that I had built years ago.
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First and Foremost: Try to fighting a Huge or Larger Enemy without ranged Options.
Going on:
Most Builds are Feat depended be it Melee, Ranged or Caster.
Killing something before it even reaches you is a huge difference:
be it normal attacks, auras or breath weapons.
Almost all arguments except Feat requirement are basically void which means your argument is build for Campaigns that reach LvL 6 (or 3) at most.
In all honesty after level 5 every Ranged Fighter or Caster could easily destroy a Fighter before reaching him.
In my opinion is simply you don't understand that this is a team/cooperation game and melee are in most cases on the bad spot not the other way around.Almost all control spells are the death of a charging fighter and because fighters usually don't have the highest Initiative the aren't going first.
They try to gain focus on them because they have overall the most hp so the ranged/caster can unleash their damage.
5 vs 5 on the same Level are balanced group will almost always destroy the 5 fighters.
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5ft step should solve a lot of problems because you shouldn't be so close to the enemy that they can just move to you.
Thinking about it, I'd rather trip an archer than attacking them. They usually can't respond with an AOO, they can't fire their bow while prone and prone is quite an unfortunate situation in general. I admit: Their CMD won't be that bad (mediocre Str but high Dex), so success is not guaranteed. But given that the prone condition helps immediately, while hurting the archer with a single strike does nothing (on the short run), it's worth a consideration.
When it comes to closing to a distant archer, the run action can make sense - sometimes there is not much Dex bonus to lose, but a lot to be gained by closing as fast as possible. In the best case you might end your movement behind some cover, forcing the archer to move more than a 5 ft step.
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@Claxon the build you are discribing is one of the best archery build in the game. The build is amazing but I would not recommend using it for the the combat style good as a whole discussion. Likewise I would also avoid Arsenal Champion warpriest, and Weapon master mutation warrior fighters and build that dip Savage technologist.
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Requiring a 10th level character for a build to come online
this is a strawman, I'm not saying its required, it is simply an example, I even outlined this is the comment you replied to.
is mathematically twice as ridiculous as people who state Dex to Damage by 5th level is a bad expectation (and they do say it).
twice as ridiculous? this is just nonesense, you're trying to quantify lunacy in two unrelated arguments.
And that's from a purely mathematical standpoint; players play levels 1-10 a lot more often than levels 11+, meaning I'm much less likely to enjoy levels 10+ than I am levels 1-9, and if Archery was meant to be a level 10+ build, then I don't understand why people would build for it when the odds of them coming to fruition are pretty slim.
Not that you asked but if you ask me for an archer to be online I would say the required feats are PBS and Precise shot, so Inquisitors are happy by level 3 or 1 if they're human. They hit their stride with Rapid shot, which should be level 3 or 5.
Deadly aim is actually of little concern to a Inquisitor since they have so much damage built in (Divine Favor/Power, Judgement, Bane).
If all a CR 10 enemy has for AC is 24, then quite frankly that's some of the weakest monsters in the game for that level
Strictly incorrect.
and of course you're going to shred them. I'm 3 CR below that, and that's the AC I'm consistently facing right now, and that's not including the BBEG's AC (which is close to 30), which is probably going to be the staple at CR 10, and I don't have or get any of those kinds of buffs because those are mostly personal only.
then your game is FAR FAR FAR outside the statistical norms.
It's also hypothetical
obviously its hypothetical this is all hypothetical, did you expect me to find a game, join it, make an archer and send you a video of me playing it?
because you're assuming you get ample time or safety to buff when bad stuff had reach, stupid amounts of CMB/CMD scaling, combat maneuvers at their beck and call with no counter on your behalf, readied actions to screw up your spellcasting, etc.
Ample time? you mean starting the first round of combat outside the opponents threat range?
I'd say that was the standard for none ambush encounters.
Or that you actually have 30 feet of space to move away from, or that enemies can't or won't close that gap with a single action (because they exist).
are there not other PCs in your party inbetween you and them? there should be. As for assuming there is room, yeah, I'm assuming you're not in a 30ft by 30ft box. Are you normally inside a 30 by 30 box?
That PC would be tripped before he could move away, provoke from his casting (or potentially lose the spell from casting defensively, which is a good chance due to how high of a spell level Divine Power is compared to lacking a high casting stat, as well as lacking Combat Casting feat), and be set right up for the bad guys next turn to be turned to shreds from full attacks. Or are we assuming +5 to the other Big 6 items too?
no I'm assuming you don't start round one in your opponents threatened range. The standard assumption.
Divine Favor might have a better chance, but either way, that full attack isn't happening the next turn, and even less likely on the turn after. (Which is why I'm saying bad guys getting next to you is such a big deal.)
what happened to them starting able to trip us? no getting involved, seems like as far as your concerned they're there to begin with.
Fighter is perhaps the only safe bet here because he doesn't have to rely on his buff shenanigans to be effective, and he has feats available to him to counter his biggest weakspots.
Zen Archers, Paladins and Rangers don't usually need to prebuff either.
You're also missing buffs from Warrior Spirit and such, which I imagine is a staple for Fighters as well, but I believe that would be equally scrutinized as above. But the factor that I have to be a Fighter to do this sort of stuff safely really only means that Archery is Fighter Combat, and only proves my point that ranged combat may as well be class specific due to how easily countered the other classes are at doing it.
You've proved nothing except that your game exists extremely far outside the typical assumptions.
Darksol why do you think melee combat is feasible and using bows isn't?
I know you only said "ranged combat", but not all forms of ranged combat are the same so are you asking about All ranged combat are bows? I ask because the ranged combat that get described as "the bees knees" is when people use guns and bows.
From a mathematical point bows do a lot of damage.
From an in game perspective nobody is in the archer's face anymore than they are in a witch's face, and there are many more threads about "how sleep or evil eye broke my game" than there are threads asking "help my witch survive".
From experience I have no problems keeping an archer alive, and that was before point blank master existed.
Most enemies can't just walk up to the archer any easier than they can just walk up a full caster who is sitting in the back. They tend to have to go around allies to get there. By then the archer has likely laid two full attacks into them. If they do make it they die from the 3rd full attack and/or the extra damage from the party.
There basically isn't a common scenario that makes archers not "worth it" over the course of a general campaign. Sure there will be times when they have problems, but those tend to happen to every class. Just to be clear unless something strange is going on the archer is not going to be sitting around wishing he could do more.
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Because on paper the two handed greatsword swinger is doing more damage, in practice he loses out a good chunk of his damage having to move and then attack. That gets exacerbated at higher levels as 1) iteratives come online and are supposed to be a bigger part of the game just as 2) the game becomes rocket taggy. Rounds are shorter if that S even needs to be there, the fighter needs to move up to the bad guy swing, and then hope that he's still there AND that the party doesn't kill him with their full attacks (or spells, that don't care if you moved)
@Claxon the build you are discribing is one of the best archery build in the game. The build is amazing but I would not recommend using it for the the combat style good as a whole discussion. Likewise I would also avoid Arsenal Champion warpriest, and Weapon master mutation warrior fighters and build that dip Savage technologist.
That's fair-ish I guess.
I would say a fair baseline is a full BAB martial not using any special tricks.
So perhaps an non-archetyped fighter. Taking the standard archery feats.
Really the only classes that are bad at archery at the ones that don't have a way to add to their accuracy and damage of ranged attacks.
So barbarians make bad archers, but only because their bonuses to strength and con don't really help much. The strength bonus increases damage, but since you don't get accuracy bonus and since you don't get two-handed weapon type damage scaling it just means barbarian isn't a great chassis for ranged combat.
But really, all that's saying is "If your class doesn't support your combat style well, you're probably going to have a bad time". I don't see anyone who would make the claim that two-handed weapon fighting is bad because a wizard can't make good use of (actually a transmutation wizard can do okay for the first few levels but it gets bad after that).
re best archery build...
they all use the same build pretty much. It's cookie cutter.
mm cookies
re best archery build...
they all use the same build pretty much. It's cookie cutter.
mm cookies
I mean...is that a problem?
I don't see it as a problem.
Every two-handed fighter takes power attack.
Archery just requires several more feats before you can have some build variability.