Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="harpy" data-source="post: 5182425" data-attributes="member: 85243">Being a fan of the central Asian cultures of old, the “horse lords of  the east” such as the Scythians, Mongols, and Huns, I've wanted for  quite awhile to play an mounted archer build.  Here is my analysis of one to use in Pathfinder Society (thus the  level 12 cap):  Dedicated mounted characters tend to need to be small size characters  because it is often atypical for campaigns and adventures to be  primarily outside where a lot of space allows for large size mounts to  easily maneuver.  It would be great if there was a small size race that  gave an extra feat like humans, but none are in sight so I've just got  to suck it up and play a halfling or a gnome.  The gnome in general is stronger than the halfling, they simply get  more stuff.  However, because of the stats I'm going to be using I'm  inclined to play the halfling for the extra bonus to saving throws, to  help offset all the dump stating that I'm going to use with this build.   Fluffwise, halflings are a little more human and capable of being  “barbarian” like so that also helps.  A mini-mongol!  With 20 point buy using Halfling, I'm setting on this:  Str 15, Dex 20, Con 12, Int 7, Wis 7, Cha 9  How the character levels breakout works as follows:  Fighter 1 (Point Blank Shot, Rapid Shot) Fighter 2 (Precise Shot) Fighter 3 (Weapon Focus) Fighter 4 (Weapon Specialization), [+1 Strength] Fighter 5 (Deadly Aim) Fighter 6 (Many Shot) Cavalier 1 (Boon Companion) Fighter 7 [+1 Dexterity] Fighter 8 (Improved Critical, Critical Focus),  Fighter 9 Fighter 10 (Mounted Combat, Sickening Critical) Cavalier 2 [+1 Dexterity]  In terms of combat output, it works out (assuming composite strength  bows, Point Blank, Rapid Shot and Deadly Aim) as:  Level 1 +6/+6 to hit, +3 damage Level 2 +7/+7 to hit, +3 damage Level 3 +9/+9 to hit, +3 damage Level 4 +10/+10 to hit, +6 damage Level 5 +10/+10 to hit, +11 damage Level 6 +11[x2]/+11/+6 to hit, +11 damage Level 7 +12[x2]/+12/+7 to hit, +11 damage Level 8 +12[x2]/+12/+7 to hit, +13 damage Level 9 +13[x2]/+13/+8 to hit, +13 damage Level 10 +15[x2]/+15/+10 to hit, +14 damage Level 11 +16[x2]/+16/+11/+6 to hit, +14 damage Level 12 +18[x2]/+18/+13/+8 to hit, +14 damage  Now from the above there is the weird little dip into Cavalier.  The  point here is to take Cavalier for the mount class feature.  It  functions as Druid animal companion, and with the feat Boon Companion  (from Seeker of Secrets), you are able to add 4 levels to the mount.   The end result is that you get a 5th level mount.  This is to fix the problem with the fact that as you go up in level  as a fighter, your mount stays the same the whole time, never gaining  any hit dice and so by the time you hit the mid levels the mount  suddenly can get knocked out in a single blow, ruining the whole point  of the character.  The cavalier dip isn't a total fix, as know you've got a 5th level  mount through the later half of the game, but at 5th level at least it  has enough hit points to generally be able to survive one hit.  Being an  archer character it is less likely that you'll be in the front so that  might be enough to make it through the adventure.  The other benefit of a 5th level mount is that it will now be an  intelligent mount (if you put it's 4th level attribute into Int) and  that will negate the need for handle animal skills and allow the mount  to be able to go and deal with complex situations and face creepy  unnatural monsters without a lot of fuss.  The 12th level dip back into Cavalier isn't that important.   Basically another level of fighter wouldn't yield anything but Armor  Training 3, which isn't important to a mounted character.  The second  level of Cavalier gives another little boost depending on which Order is  selected, plus it adds another level to the mount.  It could be asked, why not be a Paladin, Cavalier, or Ranger Archer?   With Paladin you have a complicated code of honor that I just don't  want to bother with.  With the Cavalier the class was built assuming  melee combat and so a great deal of the class abilities just don't  synergize with archery.    The best alternative is the Ranger Archer, as you could take Boon  Companion to get a mount that is scaled to your level.  The real problem  though is that you're sacrificing the Fighter's Weapon Specialization  feat and Weapon Training class feature.  You end up losing +4 damage  overall because of that.  Likewise, what you gain, a much more buff  mount, is only really viable as a melee combatant, which doesn't  synergize at all with the character concept.  So why go through all of this trouble?  The gimmick of the mounted  archer is that you can do ranged full attacks while your mount moves.   You don't incur any penalties to ranged attacks as long as the mount  only takes single move actions, which for the majority of play is  perfectly fine.  Thus, each round you can make a 40' move with the  mount, while also rapid shotting the whole time.  The big problem  archers tend to have is dealing with cover, as its inevitable someone is  going to stand in the way of your line of sight to the target and toss a  -4 onto your attack rolls.  With a mount moving about adjusting your  line of sight, it's far less likely that this is going to be a problem.   This would be in comparison to the human fighter archer build, where  for the most part this character needs to just keep making 5' steps to  adjust line of sight, or lose a full attack action to take a move action  to get a clear shot, or just suck it up and take the -4 and fire past  allies heads.  I haven't crunched the numbers but that removal of the -4  cover penalty might be enough to bump the DPR up with a halfling  mounted archer optimized to deal out damage.  Thoughts?</blockquote>

Verification