Who can be a superior archer-extraordinaire: A Ranger or Fighter?

[ForceUser]

A straight Fighter would probably be able to plunk away for more damage, but I'm finding that I'm more versatile.

There's the thing...I've noticed that a lot of players want the asskickedness of a fighter with the versatility of other classes. A lot of the builds mentioned here reflect this, and that's no doubt why ranger is a more popular archer choice than fighter. But for those few who don't mine a super-specialized character like the pure fighter, there's no denying that he's the best at applying damage. I find all these complicated builds to get around the best damage dealing class's lack of versatility amusing, to be honest.

 

[Plane Sailing]

(Poly self now sucks for a ranger because of the low-low HD cap.)

Not to mention that its not on the ranger spell list now

 

[ruleslawyer]

Hmm; how did I miss that?

Just had another thought; a tiefling Ftr1/Rgr2/Rog16 might be a pretty good choice, too. In the spirit of playing up from 1st level, you'd probably want to use the FR negative level adjustment rules or something similar, as even a tiefling Ftr1 is going to be seriously vulnerable in the middle of a 2nd-level party, but just wait until you can UMD a nice CL 14 wand of polymorph self! Planetar ability score adjustments, anyone?

 

[Darklone]

Just had another thought; a tiefling Ftr1/Rgr2/Rog16 might be a pretty good choice, too. In the spirit of playing up from 1st level, you'd probably want to use the FR negative level adjustment rules or something similar, as even a tiefling Ftr1 is going to be seriously vulnerable in the middle of a 2nd-level party, but just wait until you can UMD a nice CL 14 wand of polymorph self! Planetar ability score adjustments, anyone?

Start with Fighter (possibly sword&board or polearm dude with Combat Reflexes) and keep back in the party. Get some rogue levels afterwards, you'll be fine. Then pick wizard levels and go for Arcane Trickster. You'll rock.

You don't need a bow then... but you'll rock.

 

[mhd]

More to the point, the OotBI gives up Greater Weapon Focus and Greater Weapon Specialization--two feats that are immensely useful for archers. I would say 12 levels of fighter are more important than however many Order of the Bow levels a character has.

Is it? Back in the 3.0 days, specializing in ranged weapons had the disadvantage that it just applied within a 30 foot range, probably because it got stuck in the "precision damage" category (yet still applied to crit-immune critters...)

From a quick browse through 3.5, this seems to have changed now. Did I miss anything or did archers finally get a neccesary boost?

 

[Darklone]

WS and Greater WS got better for archers, but since so many people whined that archers are too strong in 3.0, they were "nerfed" ... and enhancement bonuses of arrows and bows don't stack anymore in 3.5.

It's ok though. Get a nice magical bow and some peculiar special abilities and Rapid Shot, Haste and other goodness... plus something that keeps the melee monsters away (dragon mount preferred) and you'll be fine with full attack actions while your mount keeps running.

 

[johnsemlak]

OK, I've just looked ath the Targetteer fighter varient from Dragon 310.

I'm not to impressed. What exactly does the class gain, from sacrificing martial weapon profieciency ot all non-ranged weapons. The trade-off is supposed to be proficiency in two exotic weapons; but won't most archer specialist just specialize in the Longbow anyway?

The Targetter gets three special abilites it can take in lieu of feats; I'm not sure if that helps much.

The only other benefit I can see is that hide and move silently are class skills.

Anyone think this class is worth it?