eryndel said:
As for halfling archer rangers... why don't you go with a thrown weapon instead of a bow. All the feats aside from Manyshot can be used with thrown weapons and you'd also get your racial +1 bonus. Sure, come 6th level you'd have to decide if you wanted to go bow, but up until then the +1 bonus and Rapid Shot would likely tip the scales in favor of the halfling in the above example.
Nice idea, but it doesn't work. For thrown weapons, you'd need
Quickdraw for more than one attack per round, and all thrown weapons for halfling sized PC have 1d4 damage.
Compare that to a Longbow (small) which does 1d6. The difference is siginificant enough to matter.
For those that are interested, I've built 3 rangers, at 6th level, 28 point buy:
Half-orc Rgr5/Bbn1, Str 18, Dex 14
Elf Rgr 6 Str 14, Dex 18
Halfling Rgr 6 Str 12, Dex 18
My other ability score are decent, as I'd like to be a bit more than an arrow machine. I could have bumped all of these up a little, but the pay-off is low.
Of the three, the Elf rules the roost in expected average damage per round against all ACs. About 1 hp higher damage than the half-orc, and 1.5 hp higher than the halfling. (For those of you not statistically minded, that 1 hp is significant.)
Strangely enough, this result is
with a "magical energy" bow, which would tend to favor the halfling (as his total attack bonus is higher).
When raging, and with a higher strength bow, the half-orc pulls even with the elf. I don't veiw that as meaning the half-orc is acceptable......that rage is only active for a while, and only once per day. After that, the high strength bow becomes unusable. The elf is much more flexible.
That's too bad. I hate elves.
