playing around with archer ideas

[Loudent2]

as per my MO I'm already thinking about another alt. This time an archer build.

I looked at the old stand-bys such as ranger and Arcane archer and while they bring some good things to the table I think there are better options with Kaedrin's PrC

First off, ranger. The benefit of this class is you get the feats without having to mee the pre-reqs, but since dex is used to determine attack rolls, this is a minor benefit at the most.

Arcane Archer, while the damage and hit bonuses are impresssive, it lacks flexibility. It also requires elf or half-elf which dimishes the advantages of elemental archer. In the end, I'm not sure it brings any more than swiftblade does.

So, I played around with a build, starting with an air genasi going to fighter 4 ,then wiz 5, swiftblade 2, the EA to 5, SWB to 10 and fighter to 10.

I used one great dex which allowed me to get One shot at mid-high 20s, all the normal focus/spec abilities, practiced spell caster and such.

Spellcasting was minor with just into 6th level spells and a total caster level of 15 but swiftblade bonuses brings this up to 90 rounds of haste

All in all it looks like a solid build (final levels are fgt 10/wiz 5/ea 5/SB 10)

What do you guys think?

[nicethugbert]

clc/brd/CL/AA with Zen Archery, Intuitive Attack, and Holy Warrior?

[shoujo]

If you don't care about casting that much, what about bard?

You get sonic weapon (min/L) instead of weapon of energy (R/L), bard song boosts to AB and damage (not much party help unless you're with other archers), and access to more AB boosting feats (song of the heart, battle dancer). You do lose DR and Bigbie 5/6 though which'll be painful.

fighter 8 - enough for EWF, ranged weapon mastery
bard 8 - +2 inspire courage, +4 with inspirational boost, song of the heart, you can get away with low charisma by using a cloak
EA 4 - one damage loss made up by bard 8
SB 10

[siegelayer]

Sounds good, too.

I tried Dordon's build, but ended up rebuilding and swapping elemental archer with fighter lvls and picked up weapon master (ranged).

I liked the build so much it became my favorite out of 3 archers that I tried, and eventually got her to lvl 29.

So, the build turned out as Wiz5/swift10/fight6/aa9. Lvl 6 spells. Around 55 ac, and well over 60 ab. (edit: guess this gets about 59 to 60 ab. but when you group with your bard and cleric buddies you might see 70 or more. P:)) Had to take 2 great dex for one-shot.

You can also get Ranged Mastery (weapon mastery (ranged) with only 4 lvls of fighter if you take the 4th and weapon spec on a feat lvl.

Also interesting that the FS can get ranged mastery without fighter levels, (as they get free weapon spec.) but an FS archer build isn't really working, as far as I see. Rather just take cleric and go Zen.

It's funny that you mention the part about AA. I was just saying the same yesterday. It's a great class for archer with the AB and all, but it restricts race to elves and removes a fourth class option. I've started to think of trying something without AA too.

I guess Beldar will know a deal more about the archers too. As he's the one that said, "No AA = sucks"

[Beldar]

Lou, your build is solid, but not spectacular. You are 2 fighter levels short of being able to take greater weapon specialization and epic weapon specialization (+2 damage and +4 damage stacking respectively). I think the +6 damage from these 2 feats outweigh the damage from the last 2 levels of EA.

It also kind of seems like you are torn between Gish and combat. I would recommend picking one or the other.

I recommend 2 Gish builds:
Drow Wiz 6/ SWB 10 / EK 10 / AA 4
Air Genasi Wiz 6 / SWB 10 / EK 10 / EA 4

For non-buffing, this is my latest build (HiPS, 8d6 sneak, 28 bab):
Tiefling Rogue 4 / Fighter 12 / Thug 12 / Shadowdancer 2

I have found this build to be an improvement over the Drow Sniper on the wiki:
nwn2.wikia.com/wiki/Drow_Sniper_-_F%2812%29%2C_Wiz%281%29%2C_AA%289%29%2C_Asn%288%29

Rogue at 1, shadowdancer at 13 and 14, rogue 2-4 at 28-30 (to fill out skill points) - the other levels alternate fighter and thug to avoid xp penalty. Able learner at 3 so you can keep hide and move silent maxed. Loses death attack stuns (only happens 5% of the time anyway) but gains 4d6 more sneak attack damage and has a higher bab.

@ntb: does zen archery stack with intuitive attack? I thought intuitive attack only worked with simple weapons. Archers shouldn't bother with melee. I am pretty sure spring attack gets rid of the attacks of opportunity. Stick with the weapon you are good at (longbow).

[Beldar]

Siege posted while I was writing up my treatise . AA doesn't suck it just could be better. EK gives the high bab and spell levels - AA + to arrows is not that great compared to 9 spell levels. EA does more damage per level than AA, especially if you pick a genasi.

I had a build that I was debating 4 EA v. 4 AA (my gish listed above). The AA gets free +2 arrows in that situation which is less damage than 4 EA, but does beat some types of DR that the EA won't.

[siegelayer]

Been thinking about an EK build too. Archer with lvl 9 spells sounds nice.


Think you misread me too. I meant that you told me that an archer without AA sucked. Which, for the most part is probably true. But it does limit race and wastes a class slot. In return you get, what?, 15 AB from 10 levels, and other goodies.

[Kaedrin]

Fighter 4 opens up Weapon Mastery (Ranged) for +2 AB/+2 Damage once you hit +8 BAB. Ranger 21/Fighter 4/Elemental Archer 5 is probably my favorite for an archer build.

If you guys can balance and agree on an archer prc I'm willing to do one. I've also been meaning to come back and do Storm of Arrows (essentially an AE bow attack like Hail of Arrows but getting all bonuses on your character instead of just arrow damage) since my weapon attack routine is done. I've even figured out a clever solution to checking if you have weapon spec though I still need to code it up.

I went ahead and pasted what I had worked up a long time ago but never did anything with (flash drive I carry around has a lot of these 'ideas' ). Feel free to use all, part, or nothing of it in your suggestion. nwn2customcontent.wikidot.com/wildbow

My idea was to make a Ranger PrC that focused on Archery with the "ideal" build being Fighter 4/Elemental Archer 5/Ranger 11/Wildbow 10. Wildbows are archers trained by the elves (not required to be an elf) in service to Solonor Thelandira, the elven god of archery.

[nicethugbert]

@beldar: No, they don't stack but I figured he could afford the flexibility. And, now that you mention longbow, I suggest Grey Orc, of course.

[cosper123]

I'm thinking of FS 20/AA8/Sorc1/Cleric1

Will have Holy Warrior, EDM, level 9 spells, and FS 20 gets DR 10 (should be helpful against opposing archer mobs).

Was thinking of (obviously) War domain, and then perhaps undeath domain for extra turn undead...it'll give me four more turn undeads....not really sure if this is worth it or if i'll have enough already, but was thinking in epic instanced dungeons it'd come in handy.

[siegelayer]

Did you get to try that one and get it to work?

I tried it some. Had to be wild elf. If you take 18 dex only, which is still too low for my tastes, I think you would still need 5 great strengths to qualify for EDM lol. Or maybe skimp on something else that I didn't try.

EDM requires 21 str and 21 cha. So 5 of that str is also a waste. And you'll need PBshot, rapid shot, manyshot, imp rapid shot, weapon focus, extend, (hate to miss out on persist), power attack, DM, EDM, etc. Lots of feats.

I even thought of getting the str from RDD or FM, but then you have even more problems, including loss of caster lvls.






. . . . . So, instead of sleeping, I decide I have to try FM, lol.

Wood Elf
FS14
Cleric1
Elemental Archer 5
FM 10

Problem is I didn't get to pick deity again for cleric, so I had to burn a feat on focus warmace.

Starting stats were
16 +1 and +4 from FM
17 +1
8 (dropped con for points. you get 2 con from FM and unstackable nat ac means +6 con ammy)
12
8
16 + 5

Feats: PBshot, rapid shot, imp. rapid, manyshot, tougness (from cleric domain), weapon mastery (ranged), (free) weapon spec, holy warrior, power attack, alertness, extend, divine might, and, eventually, Epic Divine Might at lvl 29.

And xp penalty after lvl 12.

AC is 50+, I think. and buffed AB was 60. Could be more if you get persist in there.

I'm tired now.

[Loudent2]

Mar 22, 2009 16:38:40 GMT -5 Beldar said:

Lou, your build is solid, but not spectacular. You are 2 fighter levels short of being able to take greater weapon specialization and epic weapon specialization (+2 damage and +4 damage stacking respectively). I think the +6 damage from these 2 feats outweigh the damage from the last 2 levels of EA.

You may be rigth about that, the problem is that it alters the entire build. I'd have to just take the 12 levels up front (in the first build only 4 levels were taken up front which means we'll be into epic before the first level of SB making for a tougher start (I imagine with this I'd probably end up going sword and board for most of the levels).

It's something worth looking into once I get to 30 and do the full rebuild thing.

It also kind of seems like you are torn between Gish and combat. I would recommend picking one or the other.

Not really, The idea was an archer (well really elemental archer) and I built out from there. I figured the SB bonuses (which work with ranged) would be ideal so I needed wizard to qualify for that and fighter for the feats. It's not very gishy but it does hit on most of the important defense spells.

Air Genasi Wiz 6 / SWB 10 / EK 10 / EA 4

This is an interesting concept. I'm guessing your a bit feat starved though. You'll need to pick up martial weapon proficiency for EK, dodge and mobility for EK, then PBs, RS, IRS and MS for the EA. It does have the advantage of level 22 casting though. It's a little too Gishy for what I'm looking for (I have a similar build already but used for melee)

[cosper123]

Mar 23, 2009 2:51:57 GMT -5 siegelayer said:

Did you get to try that one and get it to work?

I tried it some. Had to be wild elf. If you take 18 dex only, which is still too low for my tastes, I think you would still need 5 great strengths to qualify for EDM lol. Or maybe skimp on something else that I didn't try.

EDM requires 21 str and 21 cha. So 5 of that str is also a waste. And you'll need PBshot, rapid shot, manyshot, imp rapid shot, weapon focus, extend, (hate to miss out on persist), power attack, DM, EDM, etc. Lots of feats.

Starting stats that matter (as I don't care about offensive spell DC...so Wis not a factor) are:
Str 18
Dex 18
Char 16

Three stat allocations of Str takes it to 21....Three Charisma allocations and two Great Charisma and that's 21 too.

I'll have luck of heroes, point blank shot, many shot, rapid shot, weapon focus, weapon specialisation, improved rapid shot, power attack, DM, and EDM....and one feat left over. That could be persist

This was really the only feasible way I could imagine making the divine archer that I was aiming for.

[Beldar]

I thought that in addition to being used to determine DC, WIS was used to determine what spells could be cast (i.e. need 19 WIS to cast level 9 spells). To get 19 WIS, you would need a starting wisdom of 13 (+6 ammy) or you would need to use stat runes for wisdom. I admit that I have not messed with FS or SS much (one character of each) because of the dual stat requirement for spell casting so I could easily be wrong about this - plus I am relying on my increasingly faulty memory.

I have never been able to figure out a divine archer that I was particularly happy with. I always feel like I am gimping my primary offensive stat (DEX).

Can you use your one leftover feat for persist? You have to have extend as a prereq.

Kaedrin:
I am excited about your Ranger PRC. I have a level 21 ranger archer. I like the build okay so far. Camoflauge and HiPS are awesome, but I hate losing them when I go indoors. Your ranger build is solid and is pretty much what I was planning to do with my remaining 9 levels (that or 1 sorc/ 8 AA- hate not quite getting to 9 there though).

When I get some time, I'll try to figure out a balance archer PRC. I have always been annoyed that elves have a monopoly on magic arrows.

I still thing the lowly sling could use some love (has anyone ever seen a character that makes regular use of a sling). I would love to build a halfling slinger (maybe an AA for halflings using sling???).

@lou:
Yeah, the Gish feats are pretty much non-elective at least till epic, but they are the feats you'll want if you are an archer anyway. I have built the drow variant (currently lvl 24). Has nice high bab. I suspect that if I took all of my archers (I think I have 5 now) and had a PvP tournament the Gish would win (although the HiPSers have a shot). The main thing he has going for him is lvl 9 spells to go with his 27 BAB. I think all of my other archers have lousy will saves (which is a bad place to be against someone that has high level wizzie spells since I am pretty sure solipism is a will save and maybe weird).

[cosper123]

Oh yeah sorry extend spell too, forgot to mention that one...so yeah you can use the last feat for persist.

And no don't need Wis as I understand it for FS...it's spells are based off of Charisma (hence FS)...just the DC for the offensive spells goes off of Wis. So starting it at a lowly 8 and keeping it there.