Best archer class apart from ranger? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Best archer class apart from ranger? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Pastinator
08-03-06, 02:08 PM What class is best for an archer/crossbowman type character apart from ranger? I was thinking rogue(i don't quite know why though...) or fighter because of extra feats.
rogue_lettuce
08-03-06, 02:23 PM Scout (complete adventurer, i believe) is pretty good for a mobile character.
In my opinion, fighter is the best, possibly multiclassed with rogue or scout.

But ranger are certainly not very good archers most of the time compared to fighters.
Izodor_Shadowcaster
08-03-06, 02:38 PM I vote fighter
Rerecros
08-03-06, 02:50 PM Arcane archer, just need a few feats, the ability to cast arcane spells and a BAB of +6.

Or the simple variant barbarian from UA.
Take a barbarian, loose raging, gain combat style archer and favored enemy as a ranger.
gamertall
08-03-06, 02:52 PM Fighter, all the way. It's about the feats.
Seerow
08-03-06, 03:00 PM Cleric. Give him Zen Archery, give him the Spell Domain so that he can cast Heroics to get whatever Fighter Feats he wants at a given time, put up Divine Power, and go. Persist for more fun.
solbergb
08-03-06, 03:39 PM Straight fighters and straight rangers scale very similarly in raw archery power from level 1-12.

The rangers do a touch better vs favored enemies, the fighters do better vs everyone else, and also tend to have a feat or two left over for things like grapple defenses, power attack or combat expertise and for fluff like improved crit.

The rangers however have far better skills, especially spot skill (you can't shoot it if you can't see it). If Complete Adventurer or Spell Compendium is in the game, they also get several really good archery related spells.

Rogue is a distant third unless you are trying to make a sniper type character. For that they're the best (one shot, one kill), as sneak attack is really the only way to do a ton of damage with only one shot from surprise. With lower BAB and less feats, they pretty much have to dedicate everything to being an archer, and most don't because it is hard to get sneak with archery after the first round of combat.

Arcane tricksters have some advantages over straight rogue (they can cast spells to blind enemies, or go invisible or with Complete Adventurer/Spell Compendium access spells that let them sneak at any range or sneak golems) but they do less sneak attack and have worse skills.

So there's a bit of a tradeoff no matter what. Ranger probably is the best core archer, but a fighter in mithril fullplate with animated tower shield and greater weapon spec might beat one in a duel and is competitive in the damage dealing role.
shadow mage
08-03-06, 03:55 PM Technically, Seerow is right. We've proven it many, many times on the C.O. forums, and it is quite unfortunate too (what with everybody's amazing efforts in KSBSnowowl's archer thread there, all being shown up by a cleric). There's a link to the thread in my signature ("Archer Builds").

Ignoring the Cleric, if we're sticking to Core only, or even core + base classes only, I don't think anything beats the Rogue. Dump heavily into Hide/Move Silently, use the Snipe option listed under the Hide skill description. You won't be making record numbers of attacks per round, but you'll prove why you should never lose track of a rogue. And, the rogue has access to most spells and buffs (via scrolls and magic items), which make him even better (though... not as good as the Cleric, still). If you want to go prestige classing, Rogue + Assassin + Fighter. Assassin not for death attack, but for Poison Use and a concise spell list that is perfect for what he does (the only noncore assassin spell list I've seen was what was included in Song and Silence).

Getting into noncore, it really depends who's making the build and what you want the build to be good at; honest. If you want a one-hit-wonder type of archer, or if you want a machine gun archer, or a mobile one (like a scout-archer). All up to you as a player and what you want out of the character.

-Shadow Mage
utilitarian
08-03-06, 03:58 PM Personally I'm in favor of Scout.
danielinthewolvesden
08-03-06, 04:46 PM Technically, Seerow is right. We've proven it many, many times on the C.O. forums, and it is quite unfortunate too (what with everybody's amazing efforts in KSBSnowowl's archer thread there, all being shown up by a cleric). There's a link to the thread in my signature ("Archer Builds").

I checked out that link, and I can find no such build, especially "many many times". I did find a link withing the thread which went to a thread which made incorrect assumptions about Divine Metamagic.

Not saying that you can't do one, but can you do one that doesn't require several rounds of buffing before combat?

To answer the OP, Ranger is the best overall single class for archer.
Seerow
08-03-06, 04:49 PM You can't complain about Buffing then say Ranger is the best, when the only reason he beats out the Fighter is he has Spells which boost his archery. Thus he faces the same problem a Cleric does. Except the Ranger can't persist his spells, and the Cleric can.
Tony Vargas
08-03-06, 04:54 PM Apart from rangers, sticking with core, the Fighter is the best archer - if by 'archer' you mean someone using a bow to shoot arrows into generic enemies on a battlefied (or, heck, into targets in an archery contest). Really, by that definition a dedicated-archer Fighter even edges out the Ranger.

If by 'archer' you really mean 'hunter' or 'sniper' or 'robin hood,' then some complementary skills are really called for a Rogue would probably be about the best non-Ranger archer you could come up with.

Now crossbowman is a harder question. The crossbow is really a pretty inferior weapon compared to the standby long comp bow, and you'd have to do some odd things - like keep your STR below 10 your entire career, and fire from prone a /lot/ - to really prefer it. I haven't experimented with such a concept, but I'm guessing a (halfling) rogue would, again, work pretty well, 'snipping' from a prone position behind cover or on a roof top or the like.
JayDubya
08-03-06, 04:59 PM You can't complain about Buffing then say Ranger is the best, when the only reason he beats out the Fighter is he has Spells which boost his archery. Thus he faces the same problem a Cleric does. Except the Ranger can't persist his spells, and the Cleric can.

Yup, and this is one reason a lot of people choose not to allow things like divine metamagic and persistant spell. By RAW, if you allow everything, Clerics pretty much make the best ANYTHING, and that can't be how the game is intended to work.
ORC_Tao
08-03-06, 05:06 PM Scout 4/ Fighter 2/Highland Stalker 10/Fighter 4 is pretty good. Alternatively you could do Fighter 4/Scout 2. Overall, you are at almost full BAB (you lose +1 for the levels in scout) with a fairly decent amount of Skirmish damage (+4d6 at the end of the Highland Stalker progression [lvl 17]) as well as a decent (+2-3, depending on whether you took at least 3 levels of scout) boost to your AC. Take Manyshot/Improved Manyshot to get Skirmish damage on up to four attacks and you should be good to go.

Interestingly enough, this is also a fairly good Bounding Assault/Rapid Blitz build.
Doug_Ervin
08-03-06, 06:15 PM The psychic warrior makes a pretty effective archer also. The psionic feats are pretty nice. The combo of Fell Shot and Manyshot is pretty effective.

Doug
shadow mage
08-03-06, 07:14 PM I checked out that link, and I can find no such build, especially "many many times". I did find a link withing the thread which went to a thread which made incorrect assumptions about Divine Metamagic.
The cleric-archers aren't in that thread; that thread was simply a direction to point at for non-caster archers. Apologies for not clarifying that.

Now crossbowman is a harder question. The crossbow is really a pretty inferior weapon compared to the standby long comp bow, and you'd have to do some odd things - like keep your STR below 10 your entire career, and fire from prone a /lot/ - to really prefer it. I haven't experimented with such a concept, but I'm guessing a (halfling) rogue would, again, work pretty well, 'snipping' from a prone position behind cover or on a roof top or the like.
Trying, trying, trying to find the thread I stumbled across a little while back in the C.O. boards that compared the bow and crossbow. Essentially, the only way to optimize crossbow use short of the prone-position-sniping is dual-wielding them. Silly, yes, but doable (and I am aware that, yes, it still requires two hands to load a crossbow of any size, but repeating crossbows might be cool for this...).

-Shadow Mage
wyatt
08-04-06, 01:13 AM i think that the best archer class depends on your style of play. short ranged machinegun archer, long ranged sniper? personally i prefer the long ranged because if you want to do short ranged you might as well go melee. i would take 5 levels in ranger or fighter, then 10 levels in deepwood sniper, then 5 levels in cragtop archer. at level 20 you will be able to hit things up to 8950 feet away with a great crossbow with distance and the far shot feat. this to me sounds like an archer class because of specializing in ranged. i dont want to break any rules so look into the classes in masters of the wild and races of stone respectivly. if you take that combo you would be very powerful at archery. iv probably screwed up somewhere here so try and find it if ya can. this is my take on the situation and by no means the right one. it realy all depends on your style of play when you play an archer.
solbergb
08-04-06, 02:10 AM I prefer long range machinegun archer myself. You get similar number of attacks to a TWF rogue or a monk, but it's cheaper and easier to set up.

Most of the best "sniper" options (sneak attack, skirmish, keen shot, multishot) require you to be within 30'. that's about 170' too close for my taste :)

(whose archer since level seven has been firing several volleys a combat to the extreme range of his bow without taking cover, range mod or concealment penalties for less than full cover or full concealment. Guided shot is the BEST SPELL EVER according to my archer. I'm also fond of flight and swiftwing arrows to kick neg modifiers down a little)

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Pastinator 08-03-06, 02:08 PM	What class is best for an archer/crossbowman type character apart from ranger? I was thinking rogue(i don't quite know why though...) or fighter because of extra feats.
rogue_lettuce 08-03-06, 02:23 PM	Scout (complete adventurer, i believe) is pretty good for a mobile character. In my opinion, fighter is the best, possibly multiclassed with rogue or scout. But ranger are certainly not very good archers most of the time compared to fighters.
Izodor_Shadowcaster 08-03-06, 02:38 PM	I vote fighter
Rerecros 08-03-06, 02:50 PM	Arcane archer, just need a few feats, the ability to cast arcane spells and a BAB of +6. Or the simple variant barbarian from UA. Take a barbarian, loose raging, gain combat style archer and favored enemy as a ranger.
gamertall 08-03-06, 02:52 PM	Fighter, all the way. It's about the feats.
Seerow 08-03-06, 03:00 PM	Cleric. Give him Zen Archery, give him the Spell Domain so that he can cast Heroics to get whatever Fighter Feats he wants at a given time, put up Divine Power, and go. Persist for more fun.
solbergb 08-03-06, 03:39 PM	Straight fighters and straight rangers scale very similarly in raw archery power from level 1-12. The rangers do a touch better vs favored enemies, the fighters do better vs everyone else, and also tend to have a feat or two left over for things like grapple defenses, power attack or combat expertise and for fluff like improved crit. The rangers however have far better skills, especially spot skill (you can't shoot it if you can't see it). If Complete Adventurer or Spell Compendium is in the game, they also get several really good archery related spells. Rogue is a distant third unless you are trying to make a sniper type character. For that they're the best (one shot, one kill), as sneak attack is really the only way to do a ton of damage with only one shot from surprise. With lower BAB and less feats, they pretty much have to dedicate everything to being an archer, and most don't because it is hard to get sneak with archery after the first round of combat. Arcane tricksters have some advantages over straight rogue (they can cast spells to blind enemies, or go invisible or with Complete Adventurer/Spell Compendium access spells that let them sneak at any range or sneak golems) but they do less sneak attack and have worse skills. So there's a bit of a tradeoff no matter what. Ranger probably is the best core archer, but a fighter in mithril fullplate with animated tower shield and greater weapon spec might beat one in a duel and is competitive in the damage dealing role.
shadow mage 08-03-06, 03:55 PM	Technically, Seerow is right. We've proven it many, many times on the C.O. forums, and it is quite unfortunate too (what with everybody's amazing efforts in KSBSnowowl's archer thread there, all being shown up by a cleric). There's a link to the thread in my signature ("Archer Builds"). Ignoring the Cleric, if we're sticking to Core only, or even core + base classes only, I don't think anything beats the Rogue. Dump heavily into Hide/Move Silently, use the Snipe option listed under the Hide skill description. You won't be making record numbers of attacks per round, but you'll prove why you should never lose track of a rogue. And, the rogue has access to most spells and buffs (via scrolls and magic items), which make him even better (though... not as good as the Cleric, still). If you want to go prestige classing, Rogue + Assassin + Fighter. Assassin not for death attack, but for Poison Use and a concise spell list that is perfect for what he does (the only noncore assassin spell list I've seen was what was included in Song and Silence). Getting into noncore, it really depends who's making the build and what you want the build to be good at; honest. If you want a one-hit-wonder type of archer, or if you want a machine gun archer, or a mobile one (like a scout-archer). All up to you as a player and what you want out of the character. -Shadow Mage
utilitarian 08-03-06, 03:58 PM	Personally I'm in favor of Scout.
danielinthewolvesden 08-03-06, 04:46 PM	Technically, Seerow is right. We've proven it many, many times on the C.O. forums, and it is quite unfortunate too (what with everybody's amazing efforts in KSBSnowowl's archer thread there, all being shown up by a cleric). There's a link to the thread in my signature ("Archer Builds"). I checked out that link, and I can find no such build, especially "many many times". I did find a link withing the thread which went to a thread which made incorrect assumptions about Divine Metamagic. Not saying that you can't do one, but can you do one that doesn't require several rounds of buffing before combat? To answer the OP, Ranger is the best overall single class for archer.
Seerow 08-03-06, 04:49 PM	You can't complain about Buffing then say Ranger is the best, when the only reason he beats out the Fighter is he has Spells which boost his archery. Thus he faces the same problem a Cleric does. Except the Ranger can't persist his spells, and the Cleric can.
Tony Vargas 08-03-06, 04:54 PM	Apart from rangers, sticking with core, the Fighter is the best archer - if by 'archer' you mean someone using a bow to shoot arrows into generic enemies on a battlefied (or, heck, into targets in an archery contest). Really, by that definition a dedicated-archer Fighter even edges out the Ranger. If by 'archer' you really mean 'hunter' or 'sniper' or 'robin hood,' then some complementary skills are really called for a Rogue would probably be about the best non-Ranger archer you could come up with. Now crossbowman is a harder question. The crossbow is really a pretty inferior weapon compared to the standby long comp bow, and you'd have to do some odd things - like keep your STR below 10 your entire career, and fire from prone a /lot/ - to really prefer it. I haven't experimented with such a concept, but I'm guessing a (halfling) rogue would, again, work pretty well, 'snipping' from a prone position behind cover or on a roof top or the like.
JayDubya 08-03-06, 04:59 PM	You can't complain about Buffing then say Ranger is the best, when the only reason he beats out the Fighter is he has Spells which boost his archery. Thus he faces the same problem a Cleric does. Except the Ranger can't persist his spells, and the Cleric can. Yup, and this is one reason a lot of people choose not to allow things like divine metamagic and persistant spell. By RAW, if you allow everything, Clerics pretty much make the best ANYTHING, and that can't be how the game is intended to work.
ORC_Tao 08-03-06, 05:06 PM	Scout 4/ Fighter 2/Highland Stalker 10/Fighter 4 is pretty good. Alternatively you could do Fighter 4/Scout 2. Overall, you are at almost full BAB (you lose +1 for the levels in scout) with a fairly decent amount of Skirmish damage (+4d6 at the end of the Highland Stalker progression [lvl 17]) as well as a decent (+2-3, depending on whether you took at least 3 levels of scout) boost to your AC. Take Manyshot/Improved Manyshot to get Skirmish damage on up to four attacks and you should be good to go. Interestingly enough, this is also a fairly good Bounding Assault/Rapid Blitz build.
Doug_Ervin 08-03-06, 06:15 PM	The psychic warrior makes a pretty effective archer also. The psionic feats are pretty nice. The combo of Fell Shot and Manyshot is pretty effective. Doug
shadow mage 08-03-06, 07:14 PM	I checked out that link, and I can find no such build, especially "many many times". I did find a link withing the thread which went to a thread which made incorrect assumptions about Divine Metamagic. The cleric-archers aren't in that thread; that thread was simply a direction to point at for non-caster archers. Apologies for not clarifying that. Now crossbowman is a harder question. The crossbow is really a pretty inferior weapon compared to the standby long comp bow, and you'd have to do some odd things - like keep your STR below 10 your entire career, and fire from prone a /lot/ - to really prefer it. I haven't experimented with such a concept, but I'm guessing a (halfling) rogue would, again, work pretty well, 'snipping' from a prone position behind cover or on a roof top or the like. Trying, trying, trying to find the thread I stumbled across a little while back in the C.O. boards that compared the bow and crossbow. Essentially, the only way to optimize crossbow use short of the prone-position-sniping is dual-wielding them. Silly, yes, but doable (and I am aware that, yes, it still requires two hands to load a crossbow of any size, but repeating crossbows might be cool for this...). -Shadow Mage
wyatt 08-04-06, 01:13 AM	i think that the best archer class depends on your style of play. short ranged machinegun archer, long ranged sniper? personally i prefer the long ranged because if you want to do short ranged you might as well go melee. i would take 5 levels in ranger or fighter, then 10 levels in deepwood sniper, then 5 levels in cragtop archer. at level 20 you will be able to hit things up to 8950 feet away with a great crossbow with distance and the far shot feat. this to me sounds like an archer class because of specializing in ranged. i dont want to break any rules so look into the classes in masters of the wild and races of stone respectivly. if you take that combo you would be very powerful at archery. iv probably screwed up somewhere here so try and find it if ya can. this is my take on the situation and by no means the right one. it realy all depends on your style of play when you play an archer.
solbergb 08-04-06, 02:10 AM	I prefer long range machinegun archer myself. You get similar number of attacks to a TWF rogue or a monk, but it's cheaper and easier to set up. Most of the best "sniper" options (sneak attack, skirmish, keen shot, multishot) require you to be within 30'. that's about 170' too close for my taste :) (whose archer since level seven has been firing several volleys a combat to the extreme range of his bow without taking cover, range mod or concealment penalties for less than full cover or full concealment. Guided shot is the BEST SPELL EVER according to my archer. I'm also fond of flight and swiftwing arrows to kick neg modifiers down a little)