Divine Archer - Any ideas?

[KidCthulhu]

So the time is drawing near for my Ranger/Cleric to reach her desired prestige class goal, that of the Arcane Archer variant of Divine Archer.

I know there has been some discussion of this PC in the past. Does anyone have any write-ups that have been done on the subject, any links to sites, or thoughts on how this class should work. The number of low level clerical area affect spells is very small, and I'm trying to come up with a trade off that would still allow the class to enchant arrows, but allow more interesting spell choices. Otherwise, the enchant arrows thing is pretty useless for a Divine Archer.

 

[las]

They should have a small amount of spells that they can put into there amonushen. Like the spellsward, Bladesinger, ex....

 

[Enchanter]

Maybe you could enchant your arrows with healing spells. The effect would be to heal the target and then damage them with the normal damage of an arrow. It would be a big gamble with Cure Light wounds, but a decent healing effect with Cure Serious Wounds.

In any case, it would make for an interesting situation.

 

[Crothian]

I don't think there should be any problem using the class as is with a small exception of changing the requirement of "Ability to cast 1st level Arcane spells" to "Ability to cast 1st level Divine Spells".

The enchant arrows ability allows to fire non magical arrows as if they were magical. You're thinking of the imbue arrow ability. Clerics do have spells that can be used with it, especially if you have access to other books like DotF and R&R. Also, depending on your domains you may have domain spells that can work as well.

 

[Morrow]

I'd make two changes:

1) Change the requirement for 1st level arcane spells to 1st level divine spells.

2) Change Imbue arrow so that only touch spells can be imbued. If the arrow misses its target, the spell is lost. Divine spell casters get all kinds of nifty touch spells, making the Imbue Arrow ability useful again. You would need to limit the level of spell that could be imbued, I'd probably look to Spectral Hand and limit the ability to spells 4th level or lower. You make it any higher and the divine archer can start imbuing Slay Living, making the 10th level Arrow of Death power redundant.

All of the other arcane archer abilities are just as useful for a divine spellcaster as an arcane one.

Morrow

 

[KidCthulhu]

My plan for the Divine Archer was to copy Arcane Archer pretty much word for word, substituting divine spells for arcane ones. My complaint had only to do with the imbue spell ability, and the lack of area spells for clerics, even with R&R and DotF.

I like the idea of imbuing arrows with touch spells, but my rat bastard DM ("oh, no Mr. PirateCat, sir, I wasn't besmirching your name on teh boards. Er, em, Look over there! PA is posting more pictures of you and Gary Gygax!") thinks that's too powerful. Certainly the ability to Cause Light Wounds stacked on arrow damage is pretty hefty. Perhaps if it only worked on curative spells...

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Hmm. I don`t know about the Imbue ability, but since I remember that Clerics only use Crossbows, how about making them specialist with that weapon (instead of Longbows).
Instead of an Imbue Arrow you had Imbue Bolt, obviously.

Some Special Abilities
"Divine Bolt":
Even if you have no bolts available, you can shoot your crossbow firing a divine bolt of energy. The Bolt is considered blessed, and inflicts energy damage. (I don`t know if it has to be negative or positive)

"Holy Bolt":
You can imbue an arrow with holy energy. The Bolt is considered blessed, and has a +1 bonus for every 2 divine archer levels you possess. You inflict double damage against evil or undead enemies.

"Bolt of Disruption":
Once per day per every Divine Archer level you can launch a holy bolt at a Undead. If you hit, the target must make a Fortitude Check DC 10+WIS+half Arcane Archer Level or be immediately destroyed. (Hmm - Do Undead make Fortitude Saves? I am still unsure about it)

"Imbue Bolt":
You can imbue an arrow to deliver touch spells up to 3rd level (thinking of potions is better than of Ghost Touch - Cure Serious is deadly enough, isn`t?). You have to cast the spell first and "shoot" him next action at your target. You need a regular ranged attack to affect your target (not a touch attack) with the spell. Saving Throws apply as usual.

 

[Rackhir]

Frankly, Imbue spell isn't all that useful if you are an arcane spell caster either. Remember you need at least 5 caster levels (at the expense of your fighter levels) to get something like fireball or lightning bolt and even then most area effect spells have such a long range on their own that the ability to put them on an arrow isn't that useful in the first place.

The best use I've seen of it so far with the AA in my campaign, is some of the obscuring spells like Glitterdust. Basically, unless you've some how managed to invest 10+ levels in spell casting, plus a bunch of levels in fighter you aren't going to be getting that much use out of the ability in any case. Imbue Arrow is one of those abilites that sounds better than it really is in the game, when you look into the details of how it works.

 

[Douane]

IIRC, something like a Divine Archer was posted on the old boards and a copy of that resides on my harddisk. I will immediately commence the search.

Folkert

 

[Piratecat]

Thanks! I'm not really a jerk DM - well, I am, but I won't admit it - but I do worry that imbuing an arrow with a touch spell is too darn powerful. I might be wrong, but it is a concern.

- PCat