Swift hunter / ...monk?

[berry3x]

No xp penalty, but it does prevent you from ever raising scout again without suffering xp penalties (especially since you can't raise monk again, even if you wanted to). Maybe you don't care about that, I'd find it annoyingly restrictive.

Ascetic hunter lets Ranger and monk levels stack for determining unarmed damage and also allows me to multiclass feely between the two. I would just have to raise monk before I raised scout, don't know why I would want to though. I would leave it at 1st lvl if I could avoid the xp penalty.

Let me get this straight...NPC already has you in melee, you're going to dance around to get your skirmish damage so your melee attacks actually do decent damage. Instead of using that same movement to just...I don't know...get out of melee and shoot the sucker? DC 15 Tumble is not terrifically hard. The only other scenario I can visualize where melee would come up is if you thought it would be a good idea to toss away all your feats and bow training, and all the money you poured into the bow, so that you could go in and mix it up with fisticuffs, actually seeking out melee. If I've misread your logic, please correct me.

I was simply saying that if I was going to melee why would I use a bow as a quarter staff when my fists deal more dmg and have a better to hit via weapon finesse. I am sure there will be situations(such as those small tight dungeon corridors) where I will find myself unable to use my bow very effectivly to skirmish and would simply use the melee as an alternative.

 

[berry3x]

It seems that most of you are thinking that the monk lvls are kind of a waste and I should just go strait ranger/scout. I kinda felt the same way I just liked the monk idea for some reason. Why melee when I can just tumble out and manyshot? right?

Thanks again for all the input.

 

[Dandu]

DC 15 Tumble is not terrifically hard.

It's actually fairly easy, once you use the alternate character option from Cityscape which allows any class to trade Ride for Tumble.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Scout gets Tumble as a class skill anyway. Granted, he's doing mostly ranger it seems, so getting to +14 might be tough without spending some ranks in ranger. Hmm...start with an 18 dex (reasonable, it's an elf archer), get in a good 8 ranks by Scout 3 (according to the progression, that's char level 5), +2 synergy bonus from 5 ranks in jump...nope, not hard at all.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Ascetic hunter lets Ranger and monk levels stack for determining unarmed damage and also allows me to multiclass feely between the two. I would just have to raise monk before I raised scout, don't know why I would want to though. I would leave it at 1st lvl if I could avoid the xp penalty.

DIdn't notice the feat, sorry. Still, as you mentioned, you have to go to Monk 2 just to make it work, and you basically just blew the main advantage of being human by requiring a second multiclass feat.

I was simply saying that if I was going to melee why would I use a bow as a quarter staff when my fists deal more dmg and have a better to hit via weapon finesse. I am sure there will be situations(such as those small tight dungeon corridors) where I will find myself unable to use my bow very effectivly to skirmish and would simply use the melee as an alternative.

The thing with using a quarterstaff (if ranged is clearly not happening, may as well just draw a melee weapon) is...you would be using it in two hands most likely, gaining 1.5x str bonus to damage. So even if it's only base d6 damage (with strongarm bracers, which you'd want for your bow anyway, it'd be d8 for a Large stick), you probably have fairly good str score to increase your bow damage, so that's worth something, too. All of this is assuming you go for a freebie stick off the ground instead of a modest investment of say...a masterwork greatsword for your backup melee weapon.

I never endorsed getting an elvencraft bow, and beyond all else...Arrowmind. That's all you really need, even works in a wand if you can't memorize it enough times/day.

 

[Herobizkit]

Did you happen to forget that Rangers get proficiency in all martial weapons? If you get in melee, use your dang decent attack bonus, get a decent melee weapon, and, I dunno, swing with that.

If it were me, I'd give up on Monk unless you wanted to switch your whole concept to melee... in which case, Scout/Monk would probably work well.

 

[Nedz]

I'm confused: your feat selection is for archery and yet you want the option of letting your melle build opponent have a full round of attacks?
The small amount of additional damage you might do will be more then offset by the large amount of additional damage you will take, and even then it will be curtailed as you are dropped after a couple of rounds.
If you want to build a melle character then you need to change all of your feats, otherwise you need to keep moving and not let them get their iterative attacks in. Tumble 14 should be fairly easy to obtain.
You should also be looking at the feats Improved skirmish and Ranged Skirmisher, these should help you greatly.
Other options depend upon the game style being run by your DM:
If many encounters take the form of your party being ambushed then you need spot, listen and Imp Init - this is a feature of many campaigns though not all. If this isn't the case then Imp Init can be dumped.
Similarly some DMs make use of terrain, others seems to ignore it. If you find yourself having to tumble through lots of difficult terrain then consider Scout 6 for Flawless stride otherwise just stop at Scout 3 for Swift hunter.

At the end of the day you have to decide what character concept it is that you are trying to achieve.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Granted it's only 8 votes total...

But why in the hell is it TIED?! Who thinks the Human progression is better than the Elf one? Is it just the general idea of Human Swift Hunter vs. Elf Swift Hunter, without the specific builds, that's so appealing?
Even then...why? Scout/Ranger is one of the few cases (Wood) Elf is actually a pretty good fit for a build. +2 to two useful stats is big, and there's so much elf-only variant stuff to improve things further. And most of the really good archer feats are't available until after level 1, many times not until after level 6, anyway. Not necessarily all that you'd want, but... Manyshot, Greater Manyshot, Improved Rapid Shot, Woodland Archer, Improved Precise Shot, Ranged Weapon Mastery, Improved Skirmish...just to pop a few off the top of my head. Low level feats? Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Rapid Shot...that's about it.
/frustration at humans being the favorite racial choice for EVERYTHING

 

[Herobizkit]

+1 feat is a huge benefit.

But yeah, given the two options, I prefer the Elf one. So I broke the tie.

Woo woo!

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

+1 feat is a huge benefit.

But yeah, given the two options, I prefer the Elf one. So I broke the tie.

Woo woo!

Well, thank you for the tie break. But can you please tell me what other feats are so important to have that you can obtain at level 1 besides those 3 (one of which ranger gives anyway)? Weapon Focus if you're going for Ranged Mastery, but then you've got Fighter feats to play with. I just do not get it.