Scout/Ranger Battlefield Archer Build Question

[Aramalian]

Okay, so I'm building this Scout4 Ranger16 Archer who stalks the battlefield looking for people who need to be nailed with lots of arrows before they do bad things to his party. It's for an elven campaign so the race is locked in.

The build is below, for anyone to critique, but I have another related question. At some point around level 12, this character will have at least a +10 to initiative. When he wins initiative, should a DM allow him to delay his action until he spots an arcanist moving to cast and then let him move? Basically, I want him to be able to use his hit-and-run ability as a version of counterspelling.

Make sense? Sound feasible?

Thanks in advance for your advice!
nick


Here's the general arrangement of the build:

Beginning Stats:
STR 14
DEX 20
CON 14
INT 12
WIS 11
CHA 14

I'm planning to take Arcane Hunter from Complete Mage and Champion of the Wild from Complete Champion - 1 to boost my specific hunting ability, and 2 to boost my archery feats. So here's my feat progression:

1 - Point Blank Shot
3 - Precise Shot
5 - Swift Hunter (stacks Scout/Ranger levels for Skirm/Fav Enemy)-Scout bonus feat
6 - Improved Skirmish
8 - Manyshot
9 - Greater Manyshot - Champion of the Wild bonus feat
12 - Improved Initiative
12 - Improved Precise Shot - Champion of the Wild bonus feat
15 - Expeditious Dodge
15 - Mobility - Champion of the Wild Bonus (with DM Permission)
15 - At this point, Ranger receives Improved Precise Shot as their Combat Mastery Feat, so I will take Shot on the Run (as a substitution or a retrain, however it works out)
18 - Woodland Archer
18 - Improved Favored Enemy - Champion of the Wild bonus

 

[Ranger19k]

I have another related question. At some point around level 12, this character will have at least a +10 to initiative. When he wins initiative, should a DM allow him to delay his action until he spots an arcanist moving to cast and then let him move? Basically, I want him to be able to use his hit-and-run ability as a version of counterspelling.

Hey, I just saw this post and figured that you should get some response before dropping off the first page. I don't do build advice, but I can answer your other question.

The basic answer is yes, but not how you described it.

When you DELAY, you can not interrupt someone's actions. (PH 160) "You can’t, however, interrupt anyone else’s action (as you can with a readied action)." So delaying would allow you to blaze an archanist after someone else ID'd him, but not to interrupt his spell casting. (Now if you kill him with a full skirmish it might be mass-nix whether you interrupted him or not: dead is better than interrupted.)

On the other hand, if you READY a standard action, you can disrupt his casting. However, you can only ready a standard action and a 5-foot step OR a move action, so you could not ready the move action + standard action required to get your skirmish damage. But fear not, in order to get skirmish damage, you simply are required to have moved in that round, so you should be able to 1)move on your initiative, and then 2) ready a standard action to attack/disrupt the caster. That attack should get your skirmish dice and thus make it much harder for him to succeed with the required concentration check.

Hope that helps.

 

[Squnk]

A splitter bow is always good to have for an archer especially a swift hunter build.

 

[Pergentile]

Nice starting stats. Just brutal.
A buddy of mine had a clifftop archer/deepforest sniper build on his elf, where he had two repeating crossbows and some special gloves that let him reload them as a swift action by magically making bolts appear in his hands (maybe they were bracers). I'll ask him about it. It basically just made it so he walked around rapidfiring everything. Really good build for making casters cry.