How to be "Bad to the Bow" ?!?!?

[Tyrrell]

Most of the feats from the expansion books I didn't find to be very useful.

I think that the sharpshooter feat from Sword and the fist can be extremely useful. It lowers cover penalties.

But how often does cover come in to play you ask?

Here are two very commen but not obvious instances.

if you have precise shot (and you do want to take precise shot first) it comes into play whenever you want to shoot through a party member who is in melee with your target. It also comes in to play whenever you're standing behind a party member (to gain cover for yourself or force opponants to suffer an AoO to atack you)

 

[Bobbystopholes]

Regardless of whether or not your DM allows something or not, changes nothing. The rules state you can do it, whether or not you like it, is completely irrelevant. Most boards seem to be filled with Min/Maxers and people asking for Min/Maxing, we give it to them. Personally, I don't Min/Max, but I can.

 

[Numion]

Amen Zad... no offense to anyone here, but am I the only one who's getting tired of seeing PrC's used as the shortcut to power instead of as the roleplaying tools they're supposed to be?

But he asked for Min / max advice, should he be denied it so you don't get offended? Please.

I'm getting tired of people getting tired...

 

[Zad]

I think that the sharpshooter feat from Sword and the fist can be extremely useful. It lowers cover penalties

This is true. And sure cover does come into play. But from my personal experience -

1. Cover doesn't come into play frequently enough for me to bother
2. The bonus of +2 is pretty small given the few times it applies
3. I can generally hit what I want anyway.

The third one is key - As an archer, my overall attack bonus racked up a lot faster than my melee counterparts. A strong dex, bow/arrow bonuses stacking, feats, and so on meant that generally speaking I can knock the fleas off a dog's back at 100 feet. Adding some cover is usually not enough to worry me, unless you add so much that the +2 bonus from the feat seems pretty insignificant. Instead I focused on a few feats to increase my survivability (save bonuses, etc). (The tradeoff for melee is that they can do more damage with feats like power attack etc. that an archer can't take.)

I recall one time in the campaign when we were in a high, snowy mountain pass in a cave waiting out a storm. And through the storm came frost giants, rolling a big boulder in front of them to provide cover. They had planned to block us in the cave. They had very high cover, the storm gave some concealment, and they had buffs that we didn't know about increasing their AC and I spotted them at a good distance away.

The other archer and I looked at each other and nodded with a slight smile - this would be a tough shot.

We still both landed at least two arrows each.

"Ok. Through the snowbank, off the icicle, off the mountain, nutthin but giant."

 

[Jeremy]

Very nice.

You the one who put up the other short anecdote about the two archers calling their shots as they picked them out?

I loved that bit.

Arrogant officer on horseback...

 

[Tyrrell]

Zad:

1. Cover doesn't come into play frequently enough for me to bother
2. The bonus of +2 is pretty small given the few times it applies
3. I can generally hit what I want anyway.

As far as Zad's points one and two, you can use cover to your advantage by moving around your own party members to force an opponant to take AoO's to get to you and to give them a - 4 to hit you from half cover. You can also let your melee types go in to the fight with less worry regarding leaving you a clear lane through which to fire. You will often still take a -2 becuse of 1/2 cover (rather than -4) but check out Zad's point number three.

Don't get me wrong sharpshooter is worth less than precise , point plank, rapid shot, focus, specilization, and (If your DM allows it) improved rapid. Heck I think that even for an archer it's worth less than improved initiative. But if I wanted a smackdown archer it would be next on my list.

 

[Jeremy]

Feats are life to a smackdown oriented character.

Every one is critical. What Zad is saying is that +2 vs -4 cover is pittance and not worth a feat. +2 isn't even worth it against -7. It would be if it was +2 at all times, well, maybe. Actually, considering the usual smackdown archer hits on his 3rd shot by 8 or more, it's not worth it then either. That feat could be much better spent elsewhere qualifying for a prestige class or working on your damage.

And he's right. Check out the sultan's of smack thread for archers that are optimized.

 

[Darklone]

Hmm, shield spells come into play rather often. And they give cover.

 

[Zad]

I don't blatantly disagree with any of the points mentioned. It really comes down a lot to how things work in your campaign.

Personally, I don't have to deal with enemy shield spells that often. (Though my own is near and dear to my heart)

Personally, while I guess I could use my own team as cover, it doesn't happen. Our party is a paladin, wizard, rogue, cleric, and me as an arcane archer. So our "front line" is one paladin wide

Also lately I tend to be using flight and that changes the mobility angle a great deal. Further, while you might move to set up AoO's for your party members if the monster goes after you, that gets harder to do when all you have is a five foot step. And at higher levels, you become loathe to part with that full attack and the multiple shots that come with it.

But depending on your party, tactics, and campaign, it can be useful. I still think the benefit is too small for the narrowness of the situational use, but that's just one elf's opinion.

 

[Thanee]

If you want to be the best archer, you should go the heavy spellcasting route IMHO. With all the boost spells clerics (or wizards) have available, you will outshine the fighter pretty easily (that is, until someone dispels all the stuff). As a cleric you can also double as a healer, which seems like a great combination with someone who tries to stay away from melee anyways.

I personally prefer the arcane trickster route, tho, but that's just my personal preference, I just like rogue and wizard the most!

Greater Magic Weapon is almost inevitable to have against damage reduction and to turn a regular bow into a good magical weapon.
You can also get a simple +1 bow with multiple other enchantments and increase the enhancement bonus via this spell.
Persistent Divine Favor is also great.

Together, these two spells alone grant you a bonus of about your current character level to to hit and damage!

Elf domain is good as a cleric, because otherwise you don't have Cat's Grace, which greatly helps with the attack bonus, especially if empowered later. Time domain is another really good one. There is an elven god in the FRCS, that has both, BTW.

Fighter/Order of the Bow Initiate is the other obvious route, but will suffer from the lack of magical arrows, unless you throw in a few levels of arcane archer as well or got plenty money to spend on magical arrows.

Bye
Thanee