Archers vs. Damage Reduction

[Lord Pendragon]

RAW, the archer picks himself up a bludgeoning weapon, just like the rapier-wielding rogue or longsword-wielding pally.

As a House Rule, I'd allow an archer to purchase "bludgeoning arrows" at roughly the cost of adamantine arrows. That way he could add a quiver of them to his Quiver of Ehlonna for emergencies.

 

[Furtive Noise]

I think maybe the point of the original post was how, in general, an archer character deals with foes w/ damage reduction; not specifically bludgeoning resistance. A melee character can power attack and such to deal large amounts of damage while archers deal more in lots of small hits. I don't really have an answer short of what others have said- Archers either need to multi-class or get a prestige class focus to dish out damage in larger amounts. Or spend $$ to get special/magic gear. It is easier for archers to get a bunch of different types of arrows to deal with different damage resist types- silver, alignment aligned, etc. The "golf-bag" strategy is easier with archers who can still get the benefit of their bows w/ arrows than with melee types who might hesitate to have multiple hand-to-hand weapons.

 

[Darklone]

Well, some third party books have funny arrows... with slashing damage, bludgeoning damage, whistling effects and other little things. Otherwise: Grab a big big club. Or ask your cleric for Magic Stone and throw them.

 

[Geoff Watson]

Legolam will have to use a sling and suffer against this one monster.

Archers have it easy against most DR, as they can use cold iron, silver, or adamantine arrows and only need one powerful bow; a melee dude would need three separate powerful weapons to match that.

Geoff.

 

[The_Gneech]

Thanks for the input all. Interesting stuff.

-TG

 

[Patlin]

Well, he doesn't have one, he was just created on-the-fly for purposes of the post. I am pondering an elven archer sort of archetype for my next character, and trying to work out his tactics.

Before you get too inolved in tactics, think about what class or classes you would like to take. A wood elf ranger/artificer could be very cool, for example. Once you decide that, you can settle into a theme: enchant the heck out of your bow, and use infusions to beef it up for specific situations. With time, energy, and the Personal Weapon Enhancement infusion much becomes possible.

There are simply so many ways to build an effective archer that I think you should narrow it down a bit before you get started.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Boxing glove arrow

 

[Particle_Man]

Arthurian Adventures: Legends of Excalibur by RPGObjects may solve your problem. They have a class called the Yeoman (an archer type) with class abilities that could easily be changed to feats.

At 13th level the Yeoman can Power Attack with arrows. That's right, using Power Attack on missle weapons. Neat, eh? That could solve the DR problem right there.

At 19th level, the Yeoman can, if they take -4 to hit, and as a full round action, get an AUTO critical with a missle weapon. If that doesn't solve your DR problems, I don't know what will.

So just make these fighter feats with prereq: Fighter 12th, and Fighter 18th, respectively, and there ya go! (Or you can lower your prereqs if you want Legolas to start going Legolas earlier in his career)

 

[Liquidsabre]

Try throwing hammers, best not to get too close...

 

[satori01]

Archers can pack quite a bit of damage in even against DR foes. Assume +2 damage for str, +1 for point blank, +1 for magic bow, add in +1d6 of the element of your choice added to your bow, and some bow specialization down the road and the pain can be brought on quite handily.
What is also nice is that non magical arrows are cheap. The Archer in my campaign always has 20 cold iron, and silver arrows in his quiver as well as some oils of magic weapon. Archers can readily bypass many of the DR resistance,(blugeoning being the tough one). Also dont discount the power of x3 arrow critical. My archer player rolled 4 criticals last sundays game, and no amount of DR was going to save the pin cushion he was shooting into. Things can only get worse when improved critcal is had.