Help improve my Night Stalker Kensai Archer

[Cephid]

Most Archers either shoot many low damage arrows or sit within 30’ and sneak attack while waiting to get charged/grappled. I wanted an archer who could take advantage of their range, do more damage and have some cool options other than stand and shoot.

Summary:
Big damage (for an archer) to several targets at a time from long range in the dark.
No precision/crit immune damage.
Excellent senses: Max spot, Perfect vision, scent. High initiative.
Maxed stealth skills.
Cool options: summon huge earth elemental, manuvers, a few cleric spells from items.

Human Lawful/Evil (=too much fun!)
1) Cleric of Baator (Exotic Weapon: Great bow) {Able Learner}
2) Fighter {Focus: Greatbow}
3) Fighter {Point Blank Shot} (Rapid Shot)
4) Fighter
5) Fighter {Specialisation: Greatbow}
6) Sword Sage (Expertise)
7) Kensai
8) Kensai
9) Kensai (Ranged Weapon Mastery)
10) Kensai
11) Kensai
12) Kensai (Precise Shot)

Abilities: Perfect Vision (see in any darkness inc. magical)
Surge (+8 str few rounds, several/day)
Withstand (Concentration check in place of Ref save.)
+4 intimidate (+8 at kensai 8th)

Maxed Skills: Spot, Hide, Move Silently, Concentration, Intimidate + some jump and tumble.

Stance: Hunters Sense (scent)

Manuver: Sudden leap, Swift invisibility, Counter Charge, Perfect mind, Shadow Jaunt, Mighty Throw.

WEAPON of SUPREME BRILLIANCE and stuff…
Elvencraft Moon Greatbow. (sizing/aquatic)
Elvencraft counts as both a staff and a bow and must be enchanted separately.

Bow:
+1 Exit wound, Splitting (next?)

Staff:
+1 Warning (+5 initiave), acid, Huge Earth Elemental summoning, Deflecting (ignore one range attack each round). (next?)

Key Items:
Quick silver boots (swift move 2/day), Belt of battle, Strong arm Braces (hold bigger weapon), Ring of Haste

Tactics:
Perfect Vision + Archery + darkness = FREEDOM TO DELIVER DEATH. Sit on a hill on a moonless night and shoot everyone within 1 mile. Darkvision, blindsence and blind sight all have range limits.

Locked gauntlet with Killer Bow in one hand, stone with deeper darkness covered in other hand.

In fight:
1) Win initiative (+11 modifier)
2) Free action: Drop Darkness stone, filling 60’ radius with darkness. Activate boots of haste.
3) Swift action: move/sudden leap to line up enemies.
4) Full attack (4 shots) at lined up enemies.
5) 5’ step behind cover (or dancing tower shield)

Enemy turn: If alive, stumble around in the dark looking like a pin cushion.

Mage Killer:
Arrow of binding with loose head. Silence and deeper darkness cast on arrow head. Shoot mage from distance: Anchor, darkness and silence until he physically digs out the arrow head. (no save)

Damage:
Permanent enlarge + strong arm braces = 3d8 base damage.
[+13 (str + feats + enhancement etc) + 1d6 (exit wound)] x 2 (splitting) = 60 average damage/arrow/enemy.
Assuming 4 attacks and only 2 enemies are lined up = 240 each (480 total)

So there is the build, here is where I need your help.

* How would you improve it?


* Because a staff is a double weapon, could I enhance each end separately via kensai? If so, what enhancements do you suggest?


* Where to from here? What classes/feats/abilities do you suggest?


* Should I take advantage of my huge size bow and high strength from surge (Kensai 2nd) and use ranged pin(feat)? I could pin 4/round, or pin one guy and shoot him 3 times and repeat. They each have to use a standard action to free them self.


* What other enhancements should I take? (For bow and staff.)


* What other items should I take? Any good cleric spells for a wand/eternal wand?


* Any way I could take Aptitude weapon (enhancement) + Flurry/other?


Thanks guys for what ever good stuff you've got.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

For the bow itself: Force property, a +2 market price, in Magic Item Compendium, so you never have to worry about DR again. Make it a discipline weapon (Tome of Battle), a +1 cost, in return for +3 to hit, with whichever discipline you plan on being in the stance of most of the time.

Maneuvers: You're maxing concentration for Withstand anyway, you might want more Diamond Mind maneuvers. You can get the will and fortitude save replacements as novice Diamond Mind rings (3000 gp each), and if you're using Magic Item Compendium, then you can stack deflection and other common bonuses on those for no additional cost. (Greater) Insightful Strike, even though it's melee only, might be worthwhile to have just in case, and the weapon used doesn't matter, so you can twack a guy with your bow for massive damage.

Feats: I really like the Woodlands Archer tactical feat from Races of the Wild. I think Improved Precise Shot is very important as well, and I'm kinda shocked you're waiting until level 20 for Precise Shot. It's a rather useful feat to have early on. Or are you starting at 20?

Ranged Pin could be fun, if you want to do more than just damage. It's kind of situational at best, though.

Cleric Spells: Hmm...not sure. There's a level 5 cleric spell in Spell Compendium to get +10 enhancement to Dex for round/level. I really don't think it's worth it, but might as well mention it. In the same book at level 1, there is Blessed Aim, which is like Bless, but for ranged attacks only, and the attack bonus is +2. ...Also in the same book is Sign, a level 1 spell that lasts for min/level. The next time you roll initiative before the duration ends, you get a +4 bonus on it. If you know battle is coming, high CL isn't needed, so cheap CL 1 scrolls/wand of it works fine.

Prestige Classes:
Exotic Weapon Master 1 level dip lets you fire while threatened without incident.

The two best PrC for long range archery, IMO, are the Deepwood Sniper, a 10 level class from Masters of the Wild (technically a 3.0 book, but easily convertable) and the Cragtop Archer, a 5 level class in Races of Stone. The latter gives you abilities like arcing shot to get insanely long reach with your arrows. I believe I once had a hypothetical Ranger/Deepwood Sniper/Cragtop Archer build that could fire out to a mile! I recall calculating the speed the arrow would have to travel at in order ot reach its target in less than 6 seconds and found such a shot would break the sound barrier.
Imagine you're Joe the level 1 orc, and all of a sudden you hear a loud sonic BOOM and your buddy drops dead with an arrow in his throat. OMG! Corellon Larethian himself is attacking us!!!!

 

[Cephid]

Wow, that's a lot of help. Thanks for the reply.

I've considered force and martial discipline. They are both great, but I'm kind of tempted to keep stacking on damage enhancements. I love having an archer who dishes out 60/shot at level 12.

My hit bonus suffered a bit from permanent enlarge and a lowish BAB. Those level 1 Cleric spells are perfect. I could take step of the wind stance at sage 1 to get +2 to hit opponents in difficult terrain. (and I won't ambush them until they are.

That fort save dimond mind ring is great. I'll grab that too. I already have the will replacement, but I could takr the ring so I can handle 2 before recovering manuvers.

I like the woodland archer feat too. Getting +4 to hit after a miss is great, especially with Exit wound.

I don't think I need Exotic weapon master to avoid AoO's, but it might be good for ranged dissarms at any range. I just have to beat their attack roll.

I'm not too keen on the other PrC's. Any other ideas for my last classes? Psionic?

I worked out a similar thing about archery too. If my arrows travel at the same speed as a modern compound bow, then it would take over 6 sec to reach a target at fullrange. So I could full attack and 5' step behind cover and by the time the arrows hit their target I would be out of sight!