D&D 3E/3.5 mounted halfling archer 3.5e

[heymejack]

so i'm making halflings riding raptors. the dm has agreed to a a medium sized version of the raptors in the monster manual. i like the look of the halfling outrider and wild plains outrider prestige class. i'm going with the paladin mount instead of animal companion because of improved evasion, its such an important feature in a mount

the nice thing is i can be firing from a distance, but then if they take cover i can use the turning charge to get them, but ride by and keep firing from distance afterwards.

1 ranger (for the skills, plus track as the req for wild plains outrider) point blank shot
2 fighter (mounted combat)
3-6 paladin (mounted archery, ride by attack)
7 halfling outrider
8 wild plains outrider
9 wild plains outrider (for the +10 to speed)(precise shot)
10 ranger (rapid shot)
11-19 halfling outrider (spirited charge. but then what? woodland archery? ranged smite attack? what to do with the feats? what book is ranged smite attack as a feat in?
20 fighter? seems like its worth getting the extra feat for the second level of fighter, but again, what should the feats be? or is there a prc that would do something better?

stats would be dex, followed closely by con and str, and then the intellectual stats would be a tough decision. will saves? extra lay on hands? more skills? pretty sure i'll have enough skills though, from ranger levels. so it'll probably be wisdom or charisma.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

If you have the Devoted Tracker feat from C.Adventurer (and as a Paladin/Ranger, you really would want that for any kind of build), you can actually combine the companion and mount into the same creature. Halfling Outrider would then advance the benefits for BOTH, and you'd end up with a very powerful mount.

Not sure if Ranged Smite Attack is a feat at all, try Book of Exalted Deeds. I know Elf rangers get it as a racial subsitution level in Races of the Wild. Talk with your DM, I don't think it's worth a feat if you want it only at range (ie, trade out the ability to use it in melee), I wouldn't waste a feat on it for the option of either, and definitely not if the feat required me to lose the ability to use it in melee.

For stats, I'd do Dex>Str>Con>Cha>Wis>Int. You're an archer with a very fast movement and ability to fire on the move, you don't need health as much as a normal character does. And you have at least 3 classes with good fortitude saves, so Con's really not that critical IMO. Charisma adds to saves, that alone might make it equal Con in importance. Wisdom, you only need a 14 to ever cast your highest level spells, and you'll never see those anyway. Int...just make do with Ranger at level 1 for the x4 skill points.

What else does Wild Plains Outrider do for you? +10 ft movement isn't likely to be very important in a game, it's impractical much anything could keep up with you already. Halfling Outrider for all 10 levels as soon as possible seems more useful to me.

For mounted combat feats, check here: The Archery Handbook
Feats you probably want to get are Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Rapid Shot, Mounted Combat, Mounted Archery, Improved Mounted Archery, Devoted Tracker, and Dragon Cohort or Dragon Steed.

Quite a lot to cover there, get flaws if you can (Noncombatant is an obvious choice, Slow is funny since you'll be mounted anyway and can let you pretend you're a bow-legged Hun warrior who lives on the saddle to the point he can't move as well off of it). If you manage to still have room, Improved Rapid Shot (requires Manyshot, a worthless feat for you, I would NOT bother going for it unless you happened to hit Ranger 6 for some reason), Woodland Archer, and Improved Precise Shot are always nice things to have, but less essential. It doesn't help your archery at all, but you happen to have a worthless Endurance feat from Ranger 3, so the Steadfast Determination feat in PH2 (use con instead of wis on will saves; don't autofail fort saves on a 1) is very nice if you end up with a big gap in your Con and Wis scores late game when you've run out of good archery feats to take.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

By Raptors, did you mean the Deinonychus? It was errata'd to be medium size anyway. If you meant the megaraptor, cool. Depending on what books you can use, there might be better mounts for you later on.

 

[heymejack]

yes, i do mean that dino, not the megaraptor. sweet about the medium errata there though, didn't know about that.

you're absolutely right about charisma, it adds to all saves with the pally, so it definitely outweighs wisdom in that regard. still gonna go for con though, since he will be flying into melee for charges now and again (especially since the smite evil will have to be in melee, which is just kinda cool anyway.)

wild plains outrider also gives me: my levels in the class as a bonus to my ride checks (maybe worth it, ride is a good skill), and the wild plains stalker ability, which means i get to use my ride ranks instead of the raptor's ride ranks for making our hide/move silent checks together. don't know if thats good or not, depends on how many levels i end up taking that have hide and move silent as class skills.



the dm is gonna make me take at least enough levels of either paladin or ranger to get either the mount or the animal companion if i want the ability to advance BOTH as an outrider. it'll probably be paladin, since its the stronger mount, and fewer levels of ranger. i actually have to decide what to do here, because i need at least 16 levels of something that counts for paladin mounts. 6 of paladin and 10 of halfling outrider? 5 of paladin, 10 of halfing outrider, 1 of wild plains outrider? the 1 level of wild plains outrider gives me the ride bonus and the sharing hide ranks thing, plus the help with paladin levels. BUT, if i go 6 levels of paladin, i would use the paladin variant from complete warrior, giving me a good alignment on all my melee weapons. which is nice, since i'm gonna invest more gold in my bow/arrows, i don't have to worry about spending the extra Gold on making my lance good, i can go spend that on some other buffs for the lance. maybe not though, maybe its worth the spells?

so all this talk of rangers and paladins has given me an idea for the roleplaying that i really, really like. DEMON-HUNTER. thats right folks, favored enemy plus smite evil? we got a badass arrow shooting, lance weilding, raptor riding, demon killing machine on our hands.

so it would be:
2 ranger 6 paladin 2 fighter 10 halfling outrider
in which case the feats would be:
mounted combat
mounted archery
devoted tracker
point blank shot
precise shot
ride by attack
spirited charge
improved mounted archery
(one more feat) improved initiative? improved critical?

maybe 1 level of fighter and 1 of wild plains outrider. hard to say.