Help me with my archer build?

[Brain]

Precise shot is not invalidated by Improved Precise Shot. From 3.5 SRD:

Shooting or Throwing into a Melee: If you shoot or throw a ranged weapon at a target engaged in melee with a friendly character, you take a –4 penalty on your attack roll. Two characters are engaged in melee if they are enemies of each other and either threatens the other. (An unconscious or otherwise immobilized character is not considered engaged unless he is actually being attacked.) If your target (or the part of your target you’re aiming at, if it’s a big target) is at least 10 feet away from the nearest friendly character, you can avoid the –4 penalty, even if the creature you’re aiming at is engaged in melee with a friendly character.
Precise Shot: If you have the Precise Shot feat you don’t take this penalty.

That shows that shooting into melee without Precise Shot gives you a penalty, which is definitely different than giving the target a cover bonus to AC. Also, it doesn't matter which direction you fire from, you still get the penalty.

 

[Nifft]

D'oh! I feel shame and remorse.

And pity for my PCs with bows... now that -4 is really -8 (melee + cover) for many archery situations.

Thanks for the correction, -- N

 

[Brain]

Yeah, ranged combat is rough without several feats. I specifically had looked up the difference between precise shot and improved precise shot just a couple of days back when making an archery style ranger character, so it was fresh in my mind.

 

[pbd]

Improved Rapid Shot

No one has mentioned Improved Rapid Shot from Complete Warrior. This allows you to ignore the -2 from using rapid shot.

Basically, you get an extra shot at your highest BAB with no penalties; pretty good for an archer.

By the way, if you like half-lings, go for the Strongheart from FR Campaign Setting. You get a bonus feat at first level (but lose the +1 to all saves for it).

 

[Laurel]

To add a side comment

For mounted combat there is a PrC in Masters of the Wild called Windrider.

For mounted archers you can't use the longbow or greatbow, so with only short bow (only d6) or cross-bow (recommend shortbow though) taking feats to improve attack and damage would be a good thing.

 

[Corlon]

For mounted combat there is a PrC in Masters of the Wild called Windrider.

For mounted archers you can't use the longbow or greatbow, so with only short bow (only d6) or cross-bow (recommend shortbow though) taking feats to improve attack and damage would be a good thing.

That's what composite is for

Then again, if you think about it...mounted archer isn't really needed. It reduces penalties for firing when your mount double moves or runs, I think for most circumstances 50ft. move (or 100 with a ___ of speed..in 3.0 that is) and a full round of firing is good enough.

Is there any feat that allows you to fire in the middle of your mounts move? Ride by attack is more of a jousting thing, and shot on the run is only for you...

 

[hazardjsimpson]

My current archer build...

First off, take this with a grain of salt; I've only been playing D&D 3.5e for about a year or so now, my group were long time Rolemaster players beforehand. This being said, my experience at high levels is limited. This character seems to be working extremely well, and I set out building him initially with the purpose of showing my group how effective an 'Archer' could be. I designed him in mind to be a close-range skirmisher, but I opted *not* to take the Dodge/Mobility/Shot on the Run track.

So far, he's been pretty impressive, the group thinks anyway.

Here's what I've used so far:

Race: Elf, Str 16, Dex 20, Con 14, Int 14, Wis 14, Cha 12 (stats current after bonuses at 4th and 8th)

Progression:

1 - Fighter - Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot
2 - Fighter - Rapid Shot
3 - Fighter - Wpn Focus: Comp. Longbow, Improved Initiative
4 - Fighter - Wpn Specialization: Comp. Longbow
5 - Fighter - No feats
6 - Fighter - Ranged Disarm (Complete Warrior)
7 - Order of Bow Initiate Lv 1 - gained Ranged Precision Feat
8 - OOB Lv 2 - gained Close Shot Feat
9 - Wizard (preq. for Arcane Archer) - gained Wiz bennies, Manyshot


So far, it's been pretty killer. With the +3 to his Str going into his bow, he deals 1d8+3 base, +2 for Wpn Spec. Not bad, against crunchies. Now however, he moves into a melee and allows his fighter type (in this case Fighter/Rogue/Master of Chains combo with a Spiked Chain - 10' reach) to move up to engage. Within 30 feet, he does an additional +1/+1 from Point Blank Shot. Precise Shot means no penalty to firing into combat. Ranged Precision gives me an additional 1d8 to targets within 30 feet (when he makes a single attack). And Close Shot means I draw no AoO for firing in a threatened square. While Dodge and Mobilty would help with AoO, I've found that just by keeping back a little, most things can't reach him before they are dead, and definitely not KILL the character first.

Add to that the +1 Magic bow with 1d6 fire damage, and it starts stacking up... Not many things will ignore being hit by 3 arrows doing 1d8+6+1d6 damage each every round...

Overall, I really like the character. I haven't used the Ranged Disarm as much as I hoped, and so I really feel it could be opted out for something more useful along the way (Manyshot sooner maybe?) , but I took it for the PC, so I included it here as well.

Please feel free to critique this build as well, I know a lot of people advocate Ranger levels with an Archer class build, but I really couldn't see the need. This guy fights with a bow, it's his weapon -- he hunts meat with a fork and knife, do ya ken.

 

[NeoGoblyn]

I would check out the Complete Warrior for some Pres Classes to help make the halfing archer. I am not to sure on the prereq's but look at the "Order of the Bow Iniate". Also look at the Halfing Outrider. See what you can make from these. The BI would give some nice archery abilities, and the Halfing Outrider would be more of an mounted type. I would go with Ranger even without the Precise Shot the extra spells and animal compainion are just to good to pass for one feat. But I like rangers myself any way.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

My own recommendation:

Class:
for an archer in 3.5, you can't beat a fighter. Ranger can get a lot of tricks, but a dedicated fighter archer will score far more damage than a ranger any time the ranger is not fighting his favored enemy.

All of the good archery p-classes are 3.0 or non-WotC. There's an alternate Arcane Archer on this board that grants caster level increases and is actually somewhat interesting. There's Order of the Bow Initiate in Complete Warrior--that's worth taking two levels for the ability to fire into melee, but no more. There's halfling outrider which is a rather interesting class. It would make a good addition to a fighter build and an even better addition to a ranger build.

Feats:
The essential feats for any archer character are, in order: Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, and Rapid Shot. For a lot of archers--cleric archers, for instance, that's all they ever get.

A human fighter build:
Ftr 1: Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Rapid Shot
Ftr 2: Weapon Focus: composite longbow
Ftr 3: Iron Will
Ftr 4: Weapon Specialization: Composite Longbow
Ftr 6: Manyshot, Improved Rapid Shot
Ftr 8: Improved Crit: Comp. longbow
Ftr 9: Greater Weapon Focus: Comp. Longbow
Ftr 10: Far Shot
Ftr 12: Greater Weapon Specialization, Improved Precise Shot
Ftr 14: Mounted Combat
Ftr 15: Mounted Archery

And that's pretty much it for archery feats.

Dealing Damage:

The first rule of dealing damage as an archer is this: Don't skimp on strength. Since you don't have the ability to power attack, don't really have much ability to benefit from temporary strength increases (since using a bow that's too weak for you makes you suffer a -2 attack penalty, you won't want a bow that you can only fully use when raging or otherwise buffed), and won't usually have the ability to sneak attack (except in the first round), your damage will come from three sources: your bow, your strength, and Weapon Specialization or Favored Enemy. The strength bonus is very important. And so is weapon specialization. A 12th level fighter archer with an 18 strength and a +1 flaming shock bow might do 1d8+9+1d6 fire+1d6 electricity damage per arrow for an average of 20.5. A 12th level fighter with a 10 strength would do 1d8+5+2d6 per arrow for an average of 16.5. A 12th level non-fighter with a 10 strength would do 1d8+1+2d6 for an average of 12.5 damage per arrow. The strong fighter does nearly twice the damage per arrow that the weak non-fighter does and is more likely to hit to boot.