Archer Build [Archive] - Wizards Community

Archer Build [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Nerax
12-19-06, 09:09 PM Well my archer has just made 6th level and I am looking for a good feat. These are his stat's so far:

Wood Elf
Cleric 4/Ranger 2 Solonor Th.... Domains: War/Celerity
Str: 14
Dex: 16
Con: 10
Int: 12
Wis: 16
Cha: 8

1: Ranger, Point Blank Shot
2: Cleric, Weapon Focus longbow (War)
3: Cleric, Percise Shot
4: Cleric, +1 Wis
5: Ranger, Rapid Shot
6: Cleric, ?

I plan on taking levels in cleric for the rest of his career unless of course I can get access to Seeker of the Misty Isle. I was thinking of Ranged Disarm but would like to hear some opinions about that feat. This characters next mod will be the first part in the RHoD mod. Any comments apperciated! Thanks!
solbergb
12-19-06, 09:56 PM Hm. If you intend to stay cleric you'll likely want quicken spell and maybe divine metamagic quicken, to get your divine power up AND full attack.

To do that will take planning, ie, your L6 and L9 feat.

If you're going to eschew that approach, the fact that your BAB is only 5 will limit most of the usual archer suspects for L6 (multishot, improved rapid shot, woodland archer)

The shortlist of other feats are:

quickdraw (full attack more often, easier to mix casting with weapon use)
craft wonderous item (every divine spellcaster has to give this a hard look)
craft arms and armor (but depends a bit on access you've seen)
power attack (if you ever switch to melee)

Ranged disarm has a problem in LG that it really isn't clear what "size" the arrow fired from a projectile weapon is. I think the intent is it's the same as a medium one-handed weapon (ie no bonus or penalty) but you may run into a lot of judges who feel you should take a -4 on the roll for size. Also you have to be within 30', which reduces the coolness factor a lot.

If you want one of the "Ranged XXX" tree, the one I like best is ranged sunder, especially if you can find some of those slashing arrows from RW. The best targets for sunder are things like spell comp pouches, holy symbols and wands, all of which are fragile enough for an arrow to break easily. But it's pretty solidly a "flavor" feat. The more boring feats listed above are better from a raw power perspective.
copper_wyrmling
12-19-06, 10:01 PM Hm. If you intend to stay cleric you'll likely want quicken spell and maybe divine metamagic quicken, to get your divine power up AND full attack.

To do that will take planning, ie, your L6 and L9 feat.

If he wants DMM:Quicken, he needs more than that: with starting Cha 8 he would also have to take Extra Turning. That's a fairly big investment for a once / day trick. I would be tempted to just take Quicken, and make the first round Quickened Divine Favor + Divine Power + draw bow and move to a good position, second round full attack. That said, solbergb has a LOT more experience playing archers than I do.
solbergb
12-20-06, 12:39 AM Hm..lets see, +4 cloak charisma = 4 turns a day...ugh, you'd need a +6 to do it without the feat.

That's worse than I thought.

Quicken then at level 12 probably...you won't have the L5 slots until level 11, but quicken divine favor will be worth a whole feat, believe me. At L12 you will not fire your bow unless you have divine power and divine favor running. Note also you can afford a bigger strength bow when divine power comes online. The damage difference will be +6 to hit and +5 damage (+6 if you can find a mighty +5 str bow rather than the usual +4) on each shot over what you do without the buffs and with a weaker bow, plus you'll get an extra iterative attack.

For the level 6 and 9 feat, the powergaming solution would probably be craft wondrous at 6 and woodland archer at 9, but craft arms/armor isn't horrible if you aren't concerned with time units. I don't think you need quickdraw if your round 1 strategy is to cast divine power, since you'll have a move action free to get the bow out. You're going to want a pretty good bow, at least an extra +d6 bow for the rather painful levels between 6 and 9 when you are waiting for divine power to come online.

The achilles heel of the cleric archer is feat starvation. It's very hard to have all the archery feats that real archers use, so you have to lean heavily on spells to make up the difference.
clannagh
12-20-06, 12:54 AM as stated above you are a wee bit short on BAB for the obvious archer feats like woodland archer

there are a couple of LG complete divine feats that use your otherwise useless (as a part cleric) turn attempts .. ranged touch comes to mind, also the one that gives your whole party fast healing for a few rounds

there is always domain spontaneity for one of your domians that allows you to spontaneously convert your normal spells to extra domain spells

if you are thinking of adding rogue or scout at some point tactile trapsmith is sorta ok but only if you are boosting your dex a fair bit higher than current

another funky choice for an elf with passable INT is elf diletante from races of the wild
Dr.Cornelius
12-20-06, 05:30 AM For the level 6 and 9 feat, the powergaming solution would probably be craft wondrous at 6...
For the clueless - what's the key wondrous item: Pearl of Power? Nightstick? Eversmoking Bottle?
Sieylianna
12-20-06, 07:49 AM For the clueless - what's the key wondrous item: Pearl of Power? Nightstick? Eversmoking Bottle?

Nightsticks are restricted in Living Greyhawk. I think it's for the +6 cloak of charisma.

Ed
LachlarlanIII
12-20-06, 11:30 AM Oh how I wish Greater Manyshot from XPH was legal!
Lord Yod
12-20-06, 11:53 AM For the clueless - what's the key wondrous item: Pearl of Power? Nightstick? Eversmoking Bottle?

Pearl of Power is the kicker for me, as you can carry around all your cash in the form of extra spells. Especially good for someone with a set combat routine, as you only have to memorize one slot of each spell since you can pearl them all back every fight.

Big savings in the statbump items, especially when you bring upgrading into the picture. Regular charge for gloves of dex: 4k/16k/36k. Crafted: 2k/8k/18k. If you upgrade, you pay only the difference between the two items, so you get your +6 gloves for 18k and a bit of XP. A non-crafter would have paid 56k.

And there's all those neat little items: eyes of the eagle, magic sleeping bag, quickstrike bracers, hat of disquise, etc. Start crafting some of these, just because they're very useful to have when you need 'em.

Craft Arms and Armor, though, can get you that bow(and a backup) for a LOT cheaper.
UMiskatonic
12-20-06, 12:07 PM I would go with a crafting feat. Either Wondrous or Arms and Armor. I might even take the other one later on.

Arms and Armor:

Better armor
Better bow
Specific arrows (having 50 arrows of the EXACT type you need is really very awesome. Share for fun and profit)

Including flaming arrows, cold arrows, giant bane arrows, dragon bane arrows, anything bane arrows, etc.

Craft Wondrous:

Pearls of power
Stat bump items
skill-boosting items
bracers of archery
boots of speed
some kinda mobility item? (keep in mind, scrolls of air walk will also get the job done)
amnuxoll
12-20-06, 02:26 PM The shortlist of other feats are:

quickdraw (full attack more often, easier to mix casting with weapon use)
craft wonderous item (every divine spellcaster has to give this a hard look)
craft arms and armor (but depends a bit on access you've seen)
power attack (if you ever switch to melee)

Be warned! Take these feats and spend the rest of your career being just like all the other archers in LG. :zzz: Mechanically optimal feats are not necessarily best.

I like your concept with the cleric/ranger (though I wish you'd taken a harder look at the Zen Archery feat when you built the character.

My archer (who admittedly is a bad rolemodel) has Ranged Disarm. I've never had a DM rule that I get a -4 penalty on the disarm check. However, there are surprisingly few bad guys who wield disarm-able weapons. When they do, they are large sized about 50% of the time. Nonetheless, I do get a nifty surprise in every once in a while.

:AMN:
solbergb
12-20-06, 05:58 PM Be warned! Take these feats and spend the rest of your career being just like all the other archers in LG. :zzz: Mechanically optimal feats are not necessarily best.

True, which is why I stated they're just mechanically best.

However I don't think you'll find many archers with craft arms and armor. He can't really do the usual archer feat package, he only has about 1/3 of the feats required to go that way.
Nerax
12-20-06, 06:43 PM Thanks for the all of the great ideas! I really don't use my spells to buff myself, except for the party buff spells like Bless and Divine Protection (limited I know). So far I have not had any issues with hitting and damaging opponents but DR has been an issue a couple of times.

I think that I need to go thru my access to see if a crafting feat might be for me. :D

Anyone else have any suggestions?

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Nerax 12-19-06, 09:09 PM	Well my archer has just made 6th level and I am looking for a good feat. These are his stat's so far: Wood Elf Cleric 4/Ranger 2 Solonor Th.... Domains: War/Celerity Str: 14 Dex: 16 Con: 10 Int: 12 Wis: 16 Cha: 8 1: Ranger, Point Blank Shot 2: Cleric, Weapon Focus longbow (War) 3: Cleric, Percise Shot 4: Cleric, +1 Wis 5: Ranger, Rapid Shot 6: Cleric, ? I plan on taking levels in cleric for the rest of his career unless of course I can get access to Seeker of the Misty Isle. I was thinking of Ranged Disarm but would like to hear some opinions about that feat. This characters next mod will be the first part in the RHoD mod. Any comments apperciated! Thanks!
solbergb 12-19-06, 09:56 PM	Hm. If you intend to stay cleric you'll likely want quicken spell and maybe divine metamagic quicken, to get your divine power up AND full attack. To do that will take planning, ie, your L6 and L9 feat. If you're going to eschew that approach, the fact that your BAB is only 5 will limit most of the usual archer suspects for L6 (multishot, improved rapid shot, woodland archer) The shortlist of other feats are: quickdraw (full attack more often, easier to mix casting with weapon use) craft wonderous item (every divine spellcaster has to give this a hard look) craft arms and armor (but depends a bit on access you've seen) power attack (if you ever switch to melee) Ranged disarm has a problem in LG that it really isn't clear what "size" the arrow fired from a projectile weapon is. I think the intent is it's the same as a medium one-handed weapon (ie no bonus or penalty) but you may run into a lot of judges who feel you should take a -4 on the roll for size. Also you have to be within 30', which reduces the coolness factor a lot. If you want one of the "Ranged XXX" tree, the one I like best is ranged sunder, especially if you can find some of those slashing arrows from RW. The best targets for sunder are things like spell comp pouches, holy symbols and wands, all of which are fragile enough for an arrow to break easily. But it's pretty solidly a "flavor" feat. The more boring feats listed above are better from a raw power perspective.
copper_wyrmling 12-19-06, 10:01 PM	Hm. If you intend to stay cleric you'll likely want quicken spell and maybe divine metamagic quicken, to get your divine power up AND full attack. To do that will take planning, ie, your L6 and L9 feat. If he wants DMM:Quicken, he needs more than that: with starting Cha 8 he would also have to take Extra Turning. That's a fairly big investment for a once / day trick. I would be tempted to just take Quicken, and make the first round Quickened Divine Favor + Divine Power + draw bow and move to a good position, second round full attack. That said, solbergb has a LOT more experience playing archers than I do.
solbergb 12-20-06, 12:39 AM	Hm..lets see, +4 cloak charisma = 4 turns a day...ugh, you'd need a +6 to do it without the feat. That's worse than I thought. Quicken then at level 12 probably...you won't have the L5 slots until level 11, but quicken divine favor will be worth a whole feat, believe me. At L12 you will not fire your bow unless you have divine power and divine favor running. Note also you can afford a bigger strength bow when divine power comes online. The damage difference will be +6 to hit and +5 damage (+6 if you can find a mighty +5 str bow rather than the usual +4) on each shot over what you do without the buffs and with a weaker bow, plus you'll get an extra iterative attack. For the level 6 and 9 feat, the powergaming solution would probably be craft wondrous at 6 and woodland archer at 9, but craft arms/armor isn't horrible if you aren't concerned with time units. I don't think you need quickdraw if your round 1 strategy is to cast divine power, since you'll have a move action free to get the bow out. You're going to want a pretty good bow, at least an extra +d6 bow for the rather painful levels between 6 and 9 when you are waiting for divine power to come online. The achilles heel of the cleric archer is feat starvation. It's very hard to have all the archery feats that real archers use, so you have to lean heavily on spells to make up the difference.
clannagh 12-20-06, 12:54 AM	as stated above you are a wee bit short on BAB for the obvious archer feats like woodland archer there are a couple of LG complete divine feats that use your otherwise useless (as a part cleric) turn attempts .. ranged touch comes to mind, also the one that gives your whole party fast healing for a few rounds there is always domain spontaneity for one of your domians that allows you to spontaneously convert your normal spells to extra domain spells if you are thinking of adding rogue or scout at some point tactile trapsmith is sorta ok but only if you are boosting your dex a fair bit higher than current another funky choice for an elf with passable INT is elf diletante from races of the wild
Dr.Cornelius 12-20-06, 05:30 AM	For the level 6 and 9 feat, the powergaming solution would probably be craft wondrous at 6... For the clueless - what's the key wondrous item: Pearl of Power? Nightstick? Eversmoking Bottle?
Sieylianna 12-20-06, 07:49 AM	For the clueless - what's the key wondrous item: Pearl of Power? Nightstick? Eversmoking Bottle? Nightsticks are restricted in Living Greyhawk. I think it's for the +6 cloak of charisma. Ed
LachlarlanIII 12-20-06, 11:30 AM	Oh how I wish Greater Manyshot from XPH was legal!
Lord Yod 12-20-06, 11:53 AM	For the clueless - what's the key wondrous item: Pearl of Power? Nightstick? Eversmoking Bottle? Pearl of Power is the kicker for me, as you can carry around all your cash in the form of extra spells. Especially good for someone with a set combat routine, as you only have to memorize one slot of each spell since you can pearl them all back every fight. Big savings in the statbump items, especially when you bring upgrading into the picture. Regular charge for gloves of dex: 4k/16k/36k. Crafted: 2k/8k/18k. If you upgrade, you pay only the difference between the two items, so you get your +6 gloves for 18k and a bit of XP. A non-crafter would have paid 56k. And there's all those neat little items: eyes of the eagle, magic sleeping bag, quickstrike bracers, hat of disquise, etc. Start crafting some of these, just because they're very useful to have when you need 'em. Craft Arms and Armor, though, can get you that bow(and a backup) for a LOT cheaper.
UMiskatonic 12-20-06, 12:07 PM	I would go with a crafting feat. Either Wondrous or Arms and Armor. I might even take the other one later on. Arms and Armor: Better armor Better bow Specific arrows (having 50 arrows of the EXACT type you need is really very awesome. Share for fun and profit) Including flaming arrows, cold arrows, giant bane arrows, dragon bane arrows, anything bane arrows, etc. Craft Wondrous: Pearls of power Stat bump items skill-boosting items bracers of archery boots of speed some kinda mobility item? (keep in mind, scrolls of air walk will also get the job done)
amnuxoll 12-20-06, 02:26 PM	The shortlist of other feats are: quickdraw (full attack more often, easier to mix casting with weapon use) craft wonderous item (every divine spellcaster has to give this a hard look) craft arms and armor (but depends a bit on access you've seen) power attack (if you ever switch to melee) Be warned! Take these feats and spend the rest of your career being just like all the other archers in LG. :zzz: Mechanically optimal feats are not necessarily best. I like your concept with the cleric/ranger (though I wish you'd taken a harder look at the Zen Archery feat when you built the character. My archer (who admittedly is a bad rolemodel) has Ranged Disarm. I've never had a DM rule that I get a -4 penalty on the disarm check. However, there are surprisingly few bad guys who wield disarm-able weapons. When they do, they are large sized about 50% of the time. Nonetheless, I do get a nifty surprise in every once in a while. :AMN:
solbergb 12-20-06, 05:58 PM	Be warned! Take these feats and spend the rest of your career being just like all the other archers in LG. :zzz: Mechanically optimal feats are not necessarily best. True, which is why I stated they're just mechanically best. However I don't think you'll find many archers with craft arms and armor. He can't really do the usual archer feat package, he only has about 1/3 of the feats required to go that way.
Nerax 12-20-06, 06:43 PM	Thanks for the all of the great ideas! I really don't use my spells to buff myself, except for the party buff spells like Bless and Divine Protection (limited I know). So far I have not had any issues with hitting and damaging opponents but DR has been an issue a couple of times. I think that I need to go thru my access to see if a crafting feat might be for me. :D Anyone else have any suggestions?