Warpriest of Erastil wannabe Ranger, advice needed!

[drum]

Hi guys. We've just started a Kingmaker AP.
I'm running a vanilla warpriest of erastil (human) with a sort of wilderness guide role. Party composition is: Human rogue, human cavalier and human cleric of a homebrew dety of fate.

Both For RP and mechanics I really want to toss a few ranger levels in it but I don't want to weaken my build, so I'm asking: it's really worth it to take levels in ranger? how many? which archetypes? There is a prestige class or something that helps mixing the two classes?

Build is

Human Warpriest of Erastil 2

Str 13 Dex 13 Con 12 Int 12 Wis 18 Cha 7

Blessings: Community and Good
Fervor 1d6
Feats: Weapon Focus (longbow), Point Blank Shot, Erastil's Blessing

Traits: Deadeye Bowman, Seeker (Will change this for Magical kanck probably if multiclassing), Fate's Favored. Drawbackç: Naive

Sorry for the bad english. Hoping for good advice.

[Lelomenia]

Just take levels in Hinterlander PrC.

[DeathlessOne]

What are you hoping to get from the Ranger levels? Favored Enemy? You can mimic that with a feat (Dedicated Aversary) though it's more specific.

[Artofregicide]

Did you roll for stats? Your ability scores aren't great for either a warpriest or a ranger.

I'd skip multiclassing unless you have a very specific build in mind.

[JiaYou]

The ability scores are fine for Erastil's Blessing, as he'll be shooting arrows using Wisdom.

Since it's an AP ask your DM if you can use WIS to satisfy feat prerequisites instead of Dexterity (otherwise you'll be unable to take Multishot at level 6, for instance). Other than Favored Enemy, you gain essentially nothing by going into Ranger. A Warpriest Archer can absolutely keep up with a Ranger in terms of damage (although the Ilsurian Archer ranger archetype is very strong) and you'll still have out of combat utility.

Frankly, I don't think going so WIS heavy is the right answer. I usually go

STR 14 DEX 17 CON 12 INT 10 WIS 14 CHA 7

This gives you much more AC and reflex saves (which can be handy for a Warpriest). Actually, I would recommend going Half-Orc for:

Sacred Tattoo + Fate's Favored giving you +2 to all saves
Free Orc Hornbow Proficiency (essentially +2.5 damage at the cost of a feat)
and if you choose Skilled, you have the same number of skill points as a Human.

L1 Weapon Focus and PBS

L3 Precise Shot and Rapid Shot

L5 Deadly Aim

L6 Manyshot and Weapon Specialization (assuming you put your favored class bonuses into the 1/6 free combat feat per level...which you should)

[drum]

Stats are 15 points as the AP requires

Erastil Blessing is to be SAD.

Ranger is mainly for Party Composition (Need a wilderness guide) and RP reasons (you know, Erastil).

So, advice-wise, I ended with this:

Warpriest 4/Ranger (Freeboter, Ilsurian Archer) 1/ Hinterlander X (Maybe just 3 and then go on with warpriest)

The hinterlander, suggested by lelomenia, can take necessary archer feats without meeting prerequisites.

Also changed Seeker trait for magical knack.

What do you think about it?

[Meirril]

That should work fine for the campaign. Make sure you take Evil Outsider for the Hinterlander Favored Enemy. It won't come up very often, but it should pay off.

[Derklord]

drum wrote:

Ranger is mainly for Party Composition (Need a wilderness guide) and RP reasons (you know, Erastil).

Well, the first is merely levels in Survival, while the second is fixed by your character saying he's a ranger, no Ranger required. Class names are a meta-level thing, not an in-game thing.

I don't really see any need for Ranger levels.

JiaYou wrote:

Since it's an AP ask your DM if you can use WIS to satisfy feat prerequisites instead of Dexterity (otherwise you'll be unable to take Multishot at level 6, for instance).

Quite frankly, that's the important balancing factor of Erastil's Blessing.

JiaYou wrote:

Frankly, I don't think going so WIS heavy is the right answer. I usually go

STR 14 DEX 17 CON 12 INT 10 WIS 14 CHA 7

This gives you much more AC and reflex saves (which can be handy for a Warpriest).

It saves feats, but the spellcasting is significantly weaker (fewer spells per day, and lower DCs). Of course, will saves are more important than reflex saves, and we can wear medium armor (even heavy armor at low levels).

[DthKnell]

Quite frankly, the only reason I would suggest dipping into ranger before getting into Hinterlander is so you can stack the bonus for one Favored Ennemy. If you skip this class feature, don't bother with the dip and stay full warpriest until you're ready to get into the prestige class.

I'm playing a Ranger2/Cleric3/Hinterlander5 at the moment. We play Iron Gods AP and my role is that of spell support/buff/control, unless we face Robots (construct) or Abberations where my Favored Ennemy bonus kicks up my archery to over 9000. For a Warpriest based character like yours, 3 lvls of Hinterlander should be enough to get you the critical feats (Rapid and manyshots). The rest will come from your swift action buffs and sacred weapon feature.
So basically what I'm saying is, if you know the creature types you will encounter most often, ditch Freebooter and keep Favored ennemy to rack up the static bonus. Oh and get your hands on Bracers of Falcon's Aim - they give bonus to everything you're trying to achieve with this character.

[Cade Ravenhill]

I think you have a good build as Hinterlander helps avoid some of the dex prerequisites for feats. Also, like the choice of magical knack as a trait over seeker.

[ekibus]

Personally sounds a lot like a inquisitor :) No multiclassing needed.

[JiaYou]

drum, as a Kingmaker DM, I'd say the problem with wanting to be SAD is that you're delaying Precise Shot until level 3. Kingmaker if played straight can feature a LONG time between levels, particularly in book one (I fairly heavily modified my campaign). So you're going to go for many many sessions eating -4s to hit because you don't have Precise Shot.

The only thing you're going to gain from such high wisdom is a few extra uses of Fervor that you otherwise would have gained had you just gone straight Warpriest. Derklord points out that you'd have lower DCs and spells per day with the lowered wisdom, but you wouldn't even get 3rd level spells until character level 9 with the second build you posted, and by that time you should absolutely have a wisdom headband.

I often focus on the mechanics of the characters when you should just do what you feel like your character should be. If you want to do these multiclasses then go for it, but I wouldn't try to jump through as many hoops as you are.

Edit: Revisited the Hinterlander PC. Taking it forces you to give up 1 BAB and a level of spellcasting, which means you're nearly a full spell level behind just going straight Warpriest. In exchange you gain feats that you would already get access to if you went straight DEX Warpriest (remember you get bonus feats every three levels and if you choose the alternate class bonus for Human you'll get another combat feat every six levels, but you WON'T get that by multiclassing out of Warpriest or choosing a prestige class) and you gain an extra favored enemy, so another +2/+2, BUT at the expense of losing 1 BAB against every enemy that isn't one of your favored enemies (and the Hinterlander options aren't as good as the Ranger options).

If you still want to do the second build, choose the Freebooter/Ilsurian Archer first. Your party will get the Freebooter's Bane starting at level 1 and the Bullseye Shot feat will negate the -4 penalty for shooting into Melee without Precise Shot if you spend that move action to steady yourself. Frankly, that should solve most of your mechanical problems at low level.