Designing an archer

[comareddin]

I need an archer for an upcoming campaign with these stats: 18, 18, 16, 13, 12, 11. Not having played an archer before, I ask for the board's help for designing one. I await your suggestions of an effective archer. It would be nice if you could give suggestions of feats, classes and/or prestige classes using only WotC material and taking him from 1st to 10th level.

Com

 

[Phaedrus]

I am by no means an expert, but I'd recommend S16 D18 C18 I13 W12 CH11. If you want skill points, make it C13 and I18.
Human Fighter.
3 feats: Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, and then either Dodge or Weapon Focus.

Other feats I'd take: Rapid Shot, Manyshot, Weapon Specialization, Mobility, Shot on the Run, and the one that negates AoO's for using missile weapons in threatened areas (can't remember the name).

I would stay with Fighter for a good long while to accumulate all the feats. Then I might consider going PrC or Rogue (for sneak attack). If you're not feat-hungry, go rogue sooner than later, maybe 1:1 or 2:1 with Fighter.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

My suggestion:

An archer's primary stats are strength (for damage) and dex (for attack bonus). He also needs constitution to stay alive. Mental abilities can let him do something other than kill stuff at range.

If you want a damage optimized archer...

Wood Elf
Str 20, Dex 20, Con 14, int 11, Wis 12, Cha 11
1. Rgr 1- Point Blank Shot, Track
2. Ftr 1- Precise Shot
3. Rgr 2- Rapid Shot, WF: Longbow
4. +1 dex, Ftr 2, Quickdraw
5. Ftr 3
6. Ftr 4, Weapon Specialization, Manyshot
7. Ftr 5.
8. +1 dex, Ftr 6. Improved Rapid Shot
9. Ftr 7. Improved Crit
10. Ftr 8. Greater Weapon Focus

Get yourself a +5 strength bow and do your best to get a belt of giant strength as soon as possible so you can get a mighty [+7] strength bow. Make sure to get a pair of boots of speed by 10th level. You'll eventually want to get Celestial Armor or even bracers of armor since your dexterity will be through the roof (31 by level 20 without inherent bonuses) but at 10th level, you'll probably be best off with a mithral chain shirt. Eventually, you'll also want greater bracers of archery, but those are probably too pricey at 10th level.

And get yourself at least a masterwork cold iron melee weapon and a buckler. With a 20 strength, you'll be pretty effective even if you have to drop your bow and stand toe to toe with your enemies. (And with Quickdraw, you don't need to spend an action to switch from ranged to melee and you can even throw daggers or handaxes if you're fighting something with DR /slashing).

I need an archer for an upcoming campaign with these stats: 18, 18, 16, 13, 12, 11. Not having played an archer before, I ask for the board's help for designing one. I await your suggestions of an effective archer. It would be nice if you could give suggestions of feats, classes and/or prestige classes using only WotC material and taking him from 1st to 10th level.

Com

 

[Endur]

I like pure Ranger. Wood Elf works great (think Legolas). Dex and Wis get highest stats, then strength. Chr and Int are the dump stats. Con can be relatively low since archers rarely get attacked in melee.

Wood Elf Ranger
Str 16+2 racial=18
Dex 18+2 racial=20 (+1 at levels 8+)
Con 13 -2 racial=11 (+1 at level 4)
Int 12
Wis 18
Chr 11 -2 racial = 9
Ranger Archery path (level 2: Rapid Shot, level 6: Many Shot, level 11: Improved Precise Shot)
Feats:
1: Point Blank Shot
3: Weapon Focus
6: Improved Rapid Shot (complete warrior)
9: Improved Critical
12: Improved Favored Enemy (complete warrior)

 

[Rackhir]

I am by no means an expert, ...
Mobility, Shot on the Run, and the one that negates AoO's for using missile weapons in threatened areas (can't remember the name).

Do NOT take shot on the run or mobility. Shot on the run can't be used with anything other than a single attack, multi-shot, rapid shot, etc... do not work with it. If you want something to improve mobility, mounted archery kicks ass. You can get off a full attack while your mount gets a full move. Far better than shot on the run.

There is no (non epic) feat for negating AoO's when using missle weapons. Order of the Bow Initiate (OoBI) gets this as a lv2 class ability. The ranger spell Arrow Mind, from "The Complete Adventurer" goes one better though and actually lets you threaten the normal 5' area around you. There are a number of GREAT ranger spells for Archers in "The Complete Adventurer". Exotic Weapon Master (from "The Complete Warrior") can take as one of their weapon tricks, the no AoO ability as well as some of the other marginal bow weapon feats like ranged disarm. Nominally you have to use an exotic weapon for this class, but you might be able to talk your DM in to just letting you blow a feat to make your bow "Exotic". There is an exotic bow, the Greatbow in CW D10 dam 20/x3 crit. However it is too large to be used while mounted, a restriction I would prefer not to have.

Ranger makes a good base for an Archer in 3.5 with the archery based skill path, you also get a number of nice skills and abilities like track, move silently, listen, hide, spot, that you wouldn't get as a pure fighter.

Improved Initiative has become a favorite feat of mine. With your dex and the +4 from II, you can pretty much guarentee you'll go first. If you have any sneak attack dice, this will also let you catch them flatfooted at the begining of combat, so you can get your sneak attack damage on your arrows (within 30').

Unfortunately, there really aren't any good Archery PrCs in 3.5. OoBI, got nerfed as their Precision shot ability is next to useless. Arcane Archer requires that you be an elf (ugh) and has lost much of its reason for existance with the changes to DR in 3.5 and the loss of bow and arrow bonus stacking (thank you all the whiners). Furthermore, in my experience the bonuses that you get from AA, are inferior to that you'd get from Greater Magic Weapon.

One possible PrC is the Kensai from Complete Warrior. They don't gain any specifically archery related abilities, but do get to enchant their bow on the cheap. You get a couple of not especially good class abilities as well, but basically you get to put a +1 enchantment on your bonded weapon per Kensai class level, with the usual +5/+5 max enhancement/ability max.

 

[RigaMortus]

I believe there is a feat in Races of Wild that grants a +4 bonus to AC should you provoke an AoO from using a ranged weapon while threatened.

As for a build, I would make a Psychic Warrior Archer. With feats like Fell Shot and Greater Psionic Shot, you'll be hitting often and hard. Both of these feats require you to use your psionic focus hower, which normally means you can only do one or the other in a round, but there are some tricks PsyWars can do to use them both in the same round.

 

[Chris Nagle]

Have you looked at Scout class from Complete Adventurer?
They have the abilitly called Skirmish which allows them to move and get bonus damage and AC. Move 10 feet + have a single shot and get extra d6 damage and AC (based on level).

Order of the Bow Initate has Precise shot which allows 1 shot and extra d8 damage.

Used with Manyshot feat you get all the extra damage on the first shot but multiple arrow hits.

I currently have a Scout 7/Order of the Bow Initate 7.
When I move i +2 AC. Manyshot gets to shoot 4 arrows at a single target with the first arrow damage behind 1d8 (arrow) + 2d6 (skirmish) + 4d8 (Precise shot) + 10 (+5 str bow, +4 arrows +1 Point Blank Shot) then 3 more arrows at 1d8+10 each.

I have only 1 roll to hit but if I hit the damage is MASSIVE

2d6+8d8+40 (4d8+10 from 4 Arrows) (4d8 precise shot) (2d6 skirmish)

On average I do 83 damage.

If I wanted to be evil I could get a bow of true strike so once per round I get +20 to hit and add some Bane or Holy to the bow it would get even more damage.

Precsie shot and skirimsh only work against targets that can be criticaled so undead and constructs you don't get the 4d8+2d6 damage. Add construc bane to the weapon you get 4d8+40+8d6 (average 86).

HAHAHAHA

 

[Rackhir]

Have you looked at Scout class from Complete Adventurer?
They have the abilitly called Skirmish which allows them to move and get bonus damage and AC. Move 10 feet + have a single shot and get extra d6 damage and AC (based on level).

Order of the Bow Initate has Precise shot which allows 1 shot and extra d8 damage.

Used with Manyshot feat you get all the extra damage on the first shot but multiple arrow hits.

I'm fairly certain that what you are doing is not legal. Both Manyshot and the OoBI's Precise shot require a standard action, so you are taking two standard actions at the same time. Neither of them are modifiers to a standard action, like cleave or point blank shot. That's one of the reasons that the OoBI's precise shot sucks so much, it doesn't combine with anything else.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Actually, OotBI's Precise shot ability is a standard action so it doesn't work with Manyshot for exactly the same reason that Manyshot doesn't work with Shoot on the Run.

The best way to reliably rack up damage with a bow is to use weapon specialization, greater weapon specialization, a high strength, and magic arrows. Energy enhancements are very nice too but they are only effective about 50% of the time at high level play since energy resistances are very common. Holy is very nice because it's probably effective against 60-70% of opponents and defeats a lot of DRs. Sneak attack can be nice (and is available without a BAB reduction through Darkwood Stalker) but is limited in who can be affected and when they can be affected (unless blinking or invisible, that's usually only the first round and only when you begin within 30' of your target).

For reference, a fighter 12/ranger 2 with a mighty +5 bow, greater weapon specialization and +4 arrows (usually through a friendly cleric or wizard with orange ioun stone, bead of karma, etc) will deal 1d8+13 damage per shot and will get 4 shots per round. That's 4d8+52 points of damage (avg 70)--4d8+56 w/in 30' feet. Add Holy and shock onto the bow and that goes up to 4d8+12d6+52 for an average of 112 points of damage. Now that assumes that all the arrows hit, but if you've an attack bonus of +31/+31/+26/+21 [+14 BAB +9 dex +2 greater weapon focus +4 bow +1 point blank shot +1 bracers of archery] you're likely to hit on most of your attacks.

 

[Rkhet]

Make a Tiefling. Polymorph into an Arrow Demon (MMIII). You get excellent stats (s21/d19/c29), Close Combat Shot for free, the ability to use bows one size larger, and most importantly, the ability to shoot two bows at the same time with no penalties whatsoever.

You'll need to be ECL 11 to pull this off, though.