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Looking for an advice for a human archer Arsenal Chaplain Warpriest for RotRL. Specifically, which feats to choose. Here are my options:
1 Weapon Focus, Point-Blank Shot, Precise Shot
3 Rapid Shot, Deadly Aim
5 Combat Reflexes
6 Many Shot, Weapon Specialisation
7 Point-Blank Master
9 Snapshot, improved Snapshot
1 Weapon Focus, Point-Blank Shot, Precise Shot
3 Rapid Shot, Deadly Aim
5 ?
6 Many Shot, Advanced Weapon Training [Warrior Spirit for on-demand Bane]
7 ?
9 Snapshot, improved Snapshot
1 Weapon Focus, Point-Blank Shot, Precise Shot
3 Rapid Shot, Deadly Aim
5 ?
6 Many Shot, Weapon Specialisation
7 Point-Blank Master
9 Clustered Shot, Advanced Weapon Training [Warrior Spirit for on-demand Bane]
In other words:
1) Are the 2 Snapshot + Combat Reflexes feats a good investment?
2) While the AoOs done via Snapshot do not provoke themselves, you still need to be in "melee" range to get them. Does this mean that Point-Blank Master is also necessary?
3) Is Clustered Shot really necessary once you have blunt arrows, arrows of different materials and the Align Weapon spell?
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Snap shot is overrated and point-blank master is underrated. Pbm is almost mandatory for me in certain groups.
My pfs zen archer was not only once the main tank (ac of 30-38).
Clustered shot is important since sone dr type less and some hardness is over 20. Also you don't always know the dr without meta gaming
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Snap shot is overrated and point-blank master is underrated. Pbm is almost mandatory for me in certain groups.
My pfs zen archer was not only once the main tank (ac of 30-38).Clustered shot is important since sone dr type less and some hardness is over 20. Also you don't always know the dr without meta gaming
Clustered Shot does nothing for hardness.
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manyshot and snap shot both require bab +6 which you dont get til 8 i think. I'd recommend weapon specialization earlier, and point-blank master earlier because of that.
so
1. Weapon focus, Point-blank shot, precise shot
3. Deadly aim, rapid shot
5. weapon specialization
6. Point Blank Master
7. ? not sure if you can take martial focus or not?
9. Clustered shot and manyshotdont know about 1 and 2 but for 3. yes because your damage is based on multiple attacks doing damage that adds up.
btw what deity do plan on worshipping? I recommend milani for good hope as a level 3 spell added to your list or erastil, for deadeye bowman trait.
I suggest you give a second look at Warpriest's bonus feats.
Weapon Specialisation require Fighter level 4, which you have only with bonus feats: so level 6 minimum. At 6 I get 2 bonus feats thanks to human FCB, and for these feats I count as having BAB 6, hence Manyshot.
Clustered Shot does nothing for hardness.
It kind of depends.
When you use a full-attack action to make multiple ranged weapon attacks against the same opponent, total the damage from all hits before applying that opponent’s damage reduction.
So, is hardness a kind of damage reduction? It could be. The language is vague enough.
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Grab the feat Hammer the gap. Also, use a orc hornbow. Either take prof or switch to half orc for free racial prof, grab the skilled alt trait and the +1 luck bonus to saving throws, then take fates favored for an additional +1 which also works with a few cleric buffs
I already know how Fate's Favored works. My question is about feats.
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In general Snap Shot, Improved Snap Shot, and Combat Reflexes aren't worth it in my opinion. As an archer your goal is to stay away from the enemy, not get close to them.
Clustered shots is nice just so you don't have to worry about DR and having the right arrows. Especially since it was ruled that arrows only get the benefit of magic enhancement to overcome DR magic, not silver, cold iron, adamantine, or alignment based DR.
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I don't think snap shot is worth going into unless that's really the theme you want for your character.
PBM is also something that shouldn't be needed much if playing a normal archer type that stays in the back, a 5ft step will solve your issue most of the time and getting attacked once while dropping the enemy isn't a bad deal either if needed. The only time it would be really "needed" is if they have combat reflexes and tons of AoOs to hit you with and you can't 5ft away.
clustershot is less needed if you want to bother carrying lots of different types of ammo and don't want to use rounds or spells to cast align weapon. Though it's rather nice to just not need to care about your ammo.
1 Weapon Focus, Point-Blank Shot, Precise Shot
3 Rapid Shot, Deadly Aim
5 ?
6 Many Shot, Weapon Specialisation
7 ?
9 ?, Greater weapon focus
this lets you be your amazing archer and then fill in the ? with interesting stuff, better saves, HP, skill points, skills, deity feats, extra traits, or the feats mentioned above if they fit your concept/theme.
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I'm just going to paste in my favourite archer build. It's currently built for a Half-Orc, but it's easy enough to swap it to human if you want to. It's also currently built for PFS, so it goes to 11.
Half-Orc
Sacred Tattoo, +2 WIS
Alignment: LG or LN, Deity: Erastil
Traits: Deadeye Bowman, Reactionary
16/12/12/10/18/7
+1 WIS at 4, +1 WIS at 8
Zen Archer Monk 3/Arsenal Chaplain Warpriest 7/Medium 1
Favored Class: Warpriest (Human FCB: +1/6 bonus feat)
1) Monk 1 | Keen Scent, Monk B: Point-Blank Shot, Monk B: Perfect Strike, Monk B: Improved Unarmed Strike
2) Monk 2 | Monk B: Precise Shot, Monk B: Weapon Focus (Longbow)
3) Monk 3 | Deadly Aim, Monk B: Point Blank Master
4) Warpriest 1 | Warpriest B: Weapon Focus (Unarmed Strike)
5) Warpriest 2 | Additional Traits (Fate's Favored, Magical Knack (Warpriest))
6) Warpriest 3 | Warpriest B: Improved Initiative (retrain to Weapon Specialization (Longbow) at level 7)
7) Warpriest 4 | Improved Initiative
8) Warpriest 5 | -
9) Warpriest 6 | Rapid Shot, Warpriest B: Manyshot, Warpriest B: Clustered Shots
10) Warpriest 7 | Warpriest B: Quicken Blessing (War)
11) Medium 1 | Spirit Focus (Champion)
At level 7 your combat looks something like:
Divine Favored +1 Comp Longbow (+3) Deadly Aim Point-Blank Flurry - +13/+13/+8 for 1d8+14 (Unarmed Strike: +12 1d6+6)
Some notes on the build:
- The plan is to use Flurry of Blows until you hit 9, at which point you swap over to using Rapid Shot so that you can start using Manyshot as well.
- The Arsenal Chaplain Weapon Training will apply to both your bow and your unarmed strikes, thanks to having Weapon Focus in both.
- You're not afraid to be up close and personal thanks to Point Blank master and Improved Unarmed Strike. You don't provoke and you get to threaten.
- Keen Scent is on there to be able to abuse Pheromone Arrows, but if you want to go Human it'll need to be replaced with something else.
- The level of Medium is there for a nice damage boost from Champion Spirit, as well as being able to tack an extra 1d6 onto a failed attack roll to make it succeed, or onto a failed Fort save to make it succeed.
- If I were to continue this build past 11 I would most likely take a 4th level of Monk (and Qinggong archetype) for a Ki Pool and take the Barkskin power, and take the rest of the levels in Warpriest.
Honestly, so little of archery's damage actually comes from strength (but rather from other bonuses) that zen archer's dips just aren't exceptionally good in my opinion. Sure it allows you to be a str/wis based character, but you're also sacrificing 3 levels of spell casting which is a lot. And sure, Zen Archer is front loaded with a lot of good feats but later on down the road once everyone has had a chance to get those same sort of feats it's pretty lack luster.
It's one of those things where it's great a low levels and only gets worse as you level up, which is why you stop at 3 levels. But the truth is you should eventually retrain those levels to warpriest. Of course, if you GM doesn't allow retraining (or it's too expensive like in PFS in my opinion) then you're better to tough it out at low levels so that at medium and higher levels you don't regret it.
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You get quite a lot for the 3 levels of Zen Archer, and being STR/WIS meshes with the idea of having your unarmed strikes for backup and threatening.
Even then, you can mostly ignore STR if you want to and pile on more WIS, or else throw on some INT to shore up the lack of skill ranks for when you switch to Warpriest.
Additionally, while you CAN just retrain those levels and take those feats later, that means there are that many other feats (6) that you're not taking. And, as a Warpriest, you've got everything you care about by 16. You may be down a couple of spell slots, but that's what gold is for. The important part is getting access to that spell level. Warpriest 16 + Magical Knack also caps out the bonus on Divine Power, which is nice.
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There is no need for UAS as a back up with empty quiver style, a cestus, a natural attack or PBM. Getting divine power three levels late is still a drag for those three levels, which is compounded by costing an additional trait. There are also other buffs you're are delayed getting like Hunter's blessing, or Eaglesoul.
Basically, your slightly better stat array has to be better that the total benefit of 4-6 spells, 1 or 2 of which are are of a spell level you cannot cast.
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Monk's not needed. Being human you have all the feats to do archery at lv1 and all you need to be good at lv3. All the feats afterwards are feats that the monk doesn't give you anyways. So by level 3 you have all the feats you need, just in one case you have fervor to be extra good at it and the other you're just a monk that is going to feel less good.
plus the 3 level delay delays your weapon training which is +1 to attack and accuracy and your qualification for fighter feats.
I highly think you're getting far less than you get if you go monk.
You get quite a lot for the 3 levels of Zen Archer, and being STR/WIS meshes with the idea of having your unarmed strikes for backup and threatening.
Even then, you can mostly ignore STR if you want to and pile on more WIS, or else throw on some INT to shore up the lack of skill ranks for when you switch to Warpriest.
Additionally, while you CAN just retrain those levels and take those feats later, that means there are that many other feats (6) that you're not taking. And, as a Warpriest, you've got everything you care about by 16. You may be down a couple of spell slots, but that's what gold is for. The important part is getting access to that spell level. Warpriest 16 + Magical Knack also caps out the bonus on Divine Power, which is nice.
Level 16 is pretty high level stuff that most people don't reach, especially not in PFS. Level 12 is basically the end for most characters (it's possible to go higher but not common).
Plus the stuff they said before me.
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Level 16 is pretty high level stuff that most people don't reach, especially not in PFS. Level 12 is basically the end for most characters (it's possible to go higher but not common).
Plus the stuff they said before me.
Oh, I was only referring to going up to Warpriest 16 if you're playing a game to 20.
In PFS I basically only ever want 4-7 levels of Warpriest. Getting one or two 4th level spell slots just isn't really worth the extra levels, and going to Warpriest 7 (with Magical Knack) gets you to +3 on Divine Favor (+4 with Fate's Favored). Additionally, the vast majority of PFS is played at levels 3-9, where you're not going to have time to get all those feats. If you're going straight Warpriest you're specifically leaving things out.
Honestly, so little of archery's damage actually comes from strength (but rather from other bonuses) that zen archer's dips just aren't exceptionally good in my opinion. Sure it allows you to be a str/wis based character, but you're also sacrificing 3 levels of spell casting which is a lot. And sure, Zen Archer is front loaded with a lot of good feats but later on down the road once everyone has had a chance to get those same sort of feats it's pretty lack luster.
It's one of those things where it's great a low levels and only gets worse as you level up, which is why you stop at 3 levels. But the truth is you should eventually retrain those levels to warpriest. Of course, if you GM doesn't allow retraining (or it's too expensive like in PFS in my opinion) then you're better to tough it out at low levels so that at medium and higher levels you don't regret it.
I just wanted to take this opportunity to say that I just enjoy all of your posts so much claxon:-). You pretty much summed up my thoughts.
To the OP honestly half orc+thornbow+fates favored will net you insane damage early on.
I think snap shot is cool and all but taking weapon focus (spiked gauntlets) allows you to consider them a sacred weapon and boost their damage, which get your divine favor and other buffs on top, get some +1 agile spiked gauntlets and you've become a very serious melee threat as well for 1 feat and 8000gp rather than a 3 level class dip or a 3 feat chain.
Plus who doesn't like a half orc with badass spiked gauntlets.
I just wanted to take this opportunity to say that I just enjoy all of your posts so much claxon:-). You pretty much summed up my thoughts.
To the OP honestly half orc+thornbow+fates favored will net you insane damage early on.
I think snap shot is cool and all but taking weapon focus (spiked gauntlets) allows you to consider them a sacred weapon and boost their damage, which get your divine favor and other buffs on top, get some +1 agile spiked gauntlets and you've become a very serious melee threat as well for 1 feat and 8000gp rather than a 3 level class dip or a 3 feat chain.
Plus who doesn't like a half orc with badass spiked gauntlets.
Thanks you! I'm glad you enjoy what the input.
In this same vein, once you have point blank master you don't have to worry about provoking for attacking anymore and can just focus everything on archery. No additional costs or anything. Sure your bow doesn't provoke, but it you really need something that provokes you armor should have gauntlets or spike or something. Generally speaking though, you AoO wont hit hard enough to take down a creature so it shouldn't be something you worry about investing too much into.