D&D 3E/3.5 [3.5] Swift Ambusher or Swift Hunter?

[Icyshadowlord]

Okay, I've been looking at the Scout and Spellthief classes of Complete Adventurer a few times now out of curiosity (haven't seen many people play them around here where I live) and I came across two feats in Complete Scoundrel for the Scout class that seemed quite interesting flavor-wise.

But despite looking at the two of them, I didn't really know which one would be better in terms of gameplay. I also tried to look around if anyone had asked the same question, but I lucked out with that one (I only found a bunch of guides for playing a Swift Hunter, which I basically won't care for until I find an answer to this other issue).

So, here I am, asking you guys this question.

Which one is generally a better pick, Swift Ambusher (Scout and Rogue classes stack for the Skirmish bonuses and some Sneak Attack benefits) or Swift Hunter (Ranger and Scout levels stack for Skirmish bonuses and Favored Enemy bonuses)? Basically, I either multi-class Rogue and Scout or then I pick to multi-class Ranger and Scout depending on the feat.

Lastly, should I instead just forget both and go pure Scout or make some other kind of build?

Thanks in advance.

 

[LiL KiNG]

Swift Hunter for sure. Swift Ambusher looks decent enough, but it only stacks your Skirmish damage, the rest of it is pretty bad - Skirmish die can be used in place of SA dice for feats, whoopie. Plus most of your Scout abilities and skills are already very Roguish.

We've got a swift hunter in our group right now (see thread Harpies... what the french? toast!) and it stacks Skirmish, Favored Enemy progression AND allows Skirmish damage to apply to your Favored Enemies, even if normally immune - per the feat!
Right now the party's Swift Hunter is a Barb 1 (CC lion totem pounce)/Ranger 2 (TWF)/ Scout 2 (he just went up a level from those stupid harpies) so right now he doesn't have the Swift Hunter feat, but already he is dealing massive amounts of damage on his charges thanks to Skirmish. If he can hit something first its usually dead, only downfall right now is his terrible Will (and slightly lower hitpoints then a fighter/barbarian since Ranger and Scout are both D8 hit die classes). Once he takes Swift Hunter at level 6 he'll get another Favored Enemy and increased Skirmish - only thing he'll miss out on with his Barb dip is his 5th Favored Enemy.

Mechanically you seem to get a lot more out Swift Hunter over Swift Ambusher. This is all IMHO of course, maybe someone out there actually put together a decent Swift Ambusher...

 

[Fallenibilis]

A single level dip in to ranger as stated above to grab swift hunter is a wonderful idea, as if u pick the right favored enemies you wont have to worry about skirmish not working ever again.

Swift Ambusher is only good if you want to progress rogue and in general i only like that build if i'm making a crit based rogue like a rogue that weilds an elven courtblade and then take telling blow so when i crit i deal both my sneak attack and skirmish damage.

Fallenibilis