Archery!

[ChupacabraJohn]

Hey guys, I was looking for some alternative (read: not volley archer or swift hunter) archery builds/concepts, and I noticed that our very own archery handbook just cuts out right before it gets to all the good stuff. Is there a more complete version of this somewhere, and if not, does anyone have a good builds/concepts they'd be willing to share?

Thanks in advanced.

edited for grammer

[Solo]

Ranger2/Soulknife3/Soulbow10/Cragtop Archer5

Use the Soulknife ACF that gives a bonus feat instead of Psychic Strike. Take the Zen Archery feat for Wis to attack roll instead of Dex, which works nicely with Soulbow's Wis to damage. Note that you can carry a shield as a Soulbow and still shoot people with mind arrows - that is exactly what the class picture shows one doing.

[snakeman830]

Sadly, other than Swift Hunter and Volley archery, there really isn't much in the way of effective options.  The only other possibility I can see is a "headshot"-sniper, but it's really tough to pile on enough damage in a single attack to make it worthwhile.

[sirpercival]

Does it have to be archery, or any ranged attacks?

And, homebrew or no?

[ChupacabraJohn]

Does it have to be archery, or any ranged attacks?

And, homebrew or no?

Archery was the initial idea, but this really isn't for a specific campaign or anything, so I'm open for pretty much any ranged attacker.

Never really too interested in homebrew, mostly because my gaming group frowns on the idea of it.

[sirpercival]

Well, you can have a lot of fun with a ranged Dungeoncrasher build -- either bloodstorm blade, or chameleon with Blood Wind.

Master Thrower can be nice, too, and then there's Soulbow (which is meh, but whatever).

[ChupacabraJohn]

Well, you can have a lot of fun with a ranged Dungeoncrasher build -- either bloodstorm blade, or chameleon with Blood Wind.

Master Thrower can be nice, too, and then there's Soulbow (which is meh, but whatever).

for bloodstorm blade are we talking about using a knockback (complete warrior version) to bull rush everyone, or is there something I'm missing?

[sirpercival]

Yes, you use Knockback to initiate a bull rush at range.  For either version.

[Kasz]

I remember stacking cragtop archer, ranger, fighter and deepwood sniper with +damage feats like ranged weapon mastery and improved critical in a friends campaign where we were playing evil characters and he adjusted the rules for criticals and called shots a lot.

Long and short of it was a 2.88 mile effective range (closest I could get the the real life record of 2.81 miles) at which range I could score a headshot pretty much 100% of the time given a round to aim. Stuff like cragtops no range penalty if you aim and deepwoods +bonus to hit if you aim and the spells like hunter's mercy are auto threaten crit, with bonuses to confirm or auto confirm options.

basically my damage became the DC of a custom death attack.

Depends on what you're after and what your DM will allow; one piece of advice that is always OP for any character ever... Leadership for an Artificer cohort, on an archer thats basically "lol magic arrows and someone to wand me full of buffs"

[ksbsnowowl]

Click the link in my sig, especially if your DM will allow 3.0 material (there's really no reason not to...)

[ChupacabraJohn]

Click the link in my sig, especially if your DM will allow 3.0 material (there's really no reason not to...)

that's what I was looking for! Thanks.

[Jackinthegreen]

Dragon 310 has the Targetteer fighter which gets dex to damage (and also gets an improved version of Rapid Shot to take a -5 on attack roll and perform two extra attacks).  Dead Eye is also dex to damage.  Crossbow Sniper adds half dex to damage.

[Tr011]

Dragon 310 has the Targetteer fighter which gets dex to damage (and also gets an improved version of Rapid Shot to take a -5 on attack roll and perform two extra attacks).  Dead Eye is also dex to damage.  Crossbow Sniper adds half dex to damage.

I think that the more important ability is to give up attacks for almost sure critical hits. This can be optimized heavily and with ease.

[CKorfmann]

Check out the handbook for the Zen Archer Monk.  I'm seriously considering it for my next PC.  It gets a crazy amount of special abiliities and feats pretty early and uses WIS to hit.  If you like to dip, you can cross it with Sorcerer with Empyreal bloodline which uses WIS to cast.  This could lead to a few levels of Arcane Archer (which I'm told are all you need). 

[ChupacabraJohn]

Check out the handbook for the Zen Archer Monk.  I'm seriously considering it for my next PC.  It gets a crazy amount of special abiliities and feats pretty early and uses WIS to hit.  If you like to dip, you can cross it with Sorcerer with Empyreal bloodline which uses WIS to cast.  This could lead to a few levels of Arcane Archer (which I'm told are all you need).

yea, I built a zen archer monk for a pathfinder game we never played, it looked like it would have played pretty well.

[Nameless Void]

I made a "one shot, one kill" archer for a melee vs wizard game. After I'd finished with alterations he could kill almost anyone within his range with one shot. Very feat intensive and a jumble of classes (including non updated 3.0 but this is really 3.5 according to Wizards). I never got to use his final build though.

However this was a RAW contest where you could get/purchase anything within reason (except for infinite loops) )and was 12th level.

[muktidata]

Clerics and their cloistered cousins make great archers. Zen Archery brings you to relying only on Wisdom and Strength. The Elf Domain grants PBS as a feat and access to True Strike, the War Domain grants you Weapon Proficiency: Whatever Bow and Weapon Focus with it, or alternatively if you're considering DMM, Undeath or Planning can be nice. If you dip for your proficiencies or play an elf, you can do Elf and Planning Domains to get some of your feats out of the way. Otherwise Human is a good race and you can always dip a level into a class that grants bow/martial weapon proficiency.

For Prestige Classes, consider the Prestige Ranger so you can Persist some of their nice archery buffs. Eventually you'll want Hank's Bow. Yadda, yadda. Google.com might help you some, too. There's a lot of threads out there.

[Mixster]

Bard Archers with inspire courage optimization are also quite good at dealing decent damage at decent ranges, while still being decent casters/buffers and skill monkeys. It's like being pretty awesome at everything, and always useful, surely there are builds out there that can shoot further, or deal a little more outright damage, or cast more spells. But most of those builds will lack in other areas.
With such builds I prefer to be airborne, so magic items or races that can do that for you is much appreciated.

[ChupacabraJohn]

@mixster: mmmhm. I do like me some Bardchers.
& on that subject, the manticore belt from totemist is great with scouts and dragonfire bards

@muktidata: Yea clerics tend to be good at everything, & I think I've seen a zen archer handbook floating around one of the boards.

I've also found at low levels psionic archers, using dissolving weapon to enchant a set of 50 arrows, can dish out some pretty mean numbers.

[nijineko]

if you are going to use soulbow, use the athas prestige soulknife (which wotc designates as official content) to qualify, instead of the eph base class soulknife.