NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Petrosian" data-source="post: 516075" data-attributes="member: 1149">My experience is quite simple.I have been Dming a game for about two years (anniversary in January.) In that time, the characters have advanced from 2nd to 12th level. Recently, to replace player losses, we added a rogue, who came in at 10th level.The dwarven fighter and the barbarian produce prodigious melee combat ability and show their stuff encounter after encounter. The "dedicated archer" is actually a druid/ranger (I use different druid weapons restrictions but that does not affect the issue as his druidic levels impeed his archery... he would be better as a fighter.) The dedicated archer has a +1 (mighty +4 str) corrosive bow (like flaming but it adds acid damage 1d6 instead of fire) while the fighter typically swings a +2 keen dwarven war axe (with some spell-once-per-day things) and the barbarian swings a +2 dragon bane greatsword (also with some spell add-ons.)The arhcer tends to lag a level or two behind the fighter/bar in terms of extra attacks from BAB. however rapid shot makes up for this and adds extra at some levels. i would say about half the levels he has an extra shot due to rapid shot. This was fairly pronounced when he was at early levels, like 3-5. before the party began using GMW (their sor got it at 9th) the archer was doing about par with the rapid shot and more frequent full attack actions making up for weaker weapons and less strength bonus. His dex is not maxed out, and when he got into melee his damage with a quarter staff was fairly impressive.After they began using GMW, then things switched. Now, instead of being a + down in terms of enhancements, he was a net +6 to their net +3. This moved to +8 vs their +4 and will soon reach +10 vs +5. IIRC he stopped taking archery feats after 6th (PBS, PS, RS and Far Shot??) cuz he started to fill into the role of party healer and began working feats toward his druid stuff. He is NOT a munchkin archer with maxed dex and uber feats. The early feat for RAPID SHOT and more frequent full attacks kept him in the race neck and neck. The value of extra attacks is huge in that regard. When GMW kicks in, making the doublke stacking a daily thing and not some rare thing that costs a lot, his arhcery strength went thru the roof. Amusingly, while this was happening he was devoting character time to improving his druid stuff with the natural spell feat and the plant potion thing out of MotW. He has had the same bow for at least 6 levels or so and has not spent archery feats/skills in that time. Nor has he spent charc points on dex, they went to wisdom.The elf rogue coming in at 10th finds great success as an archer and is now flabbergasted that his to hit chances surpass the melee fighter. He often gets improved invis and does sneaks attacks at range. his dex is very high and his damage boost comes from sneak... but since he has been getting GMW on arrows and bows, he finds that whereas before he thought a non-sneak shot was worthless (doing d6+1) he now sees d6+9 with the bonus to hit as worth it. he now hits better than the fighter, and moving invisibly he can often avoid full cover bonuses.In a game i played in, i was running an elven fighter. I started him with decent dex 16 and high Strength 18. I had intended to run him as an atypical elf, using two handed weapons. About 4th level i began to map out his future development. Since the party sprcerer planned on GMW around 9th, i began to look at what that would do. i quickly came to see that the extra attack and double enhancement made working for foc/spec/crit and PBS/RS/PS on bow extremely appealing. The numbers when run showed i could get F/S/C on bow, PBS/RS/PS, and also get F/S/C on my axe by around 12th. At that point, assuming +4 weapons, the bow/arrow was a better choice for to hit and damage and numbers of attacks. Unfortunately, that campaign ended prematurely so i never got to play him at the developed level.When using NPCs, the couple of times i have used "archer" specialists, who were typically no slouches, they did very well.So. all in all, this is not, for me, a theoretical issue. It first raised its self when i had it in play.other's mileage may vary.</blockquote>

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