[3.5] PrC for a Ranger

[Myou]

Hi all, I'm back for yet more advice.

I've just started a ranger who specialises in archery and whose ambition is to kill a dragon (mainly for presitge).

Having looked at my future progression, after level 11 there's really not much advantage to the class other than Hide in Plain Sight which is really not worth a futher six levels for, at least to me.

So can anyone suggest a PrC for me?

I need;

Full BAB
Progression of existing favoured enemies (if possible)
Progression of my divine spellcasting if possible (but not too far)
Archery-related abilities


Are there any suitable PrCs?

I looked at Arcane Archer but, well, eww.

[Eldariel]

3.5 doesn't have any good full BAB Archery PrCs other than maybe Cragtop Archer [Races of Stone] and Justice of Weald and Woe [Champions of Ruin]. I'd suggest asking your DM for the 3.0 Archery PrCs (Peerless Archer [Silver Marches], Order of the Bow Initiate [Sword & Fist], Deepwood Sniper [Masters of the Wild]).

Normally I don't care much for 3.0 material in 3.5, but archery is a special case as 3.5 really lacks decent archery classes and 3.0 has them in multiples. Also, none of them are broken, and two of them have never been reprinted in 3.5 (Order was reprinted, but the new version sucks. The old one was good). And official rules allow using it, so it's all ok.


And no, I cannot think of any class whatsoever that would progress all the abilities you want. Favored Enemy is a very rare ability for PrCs, and much more so for archery-focused ones. Basically, you can get divine casting & ranger abilities or archery, but not both. For example, Stalker of Kharesh (Book of Exalted Deeds) gives you Favored Enemy: Evil, Hide in Plain Sight and advances your casting, but it lacks anything Archery-related.

Really, if I were you, I'd just go Deepwood Sniper/Justice of Weald and Woe. Justice is probably a bit better fit if you can talk your DM into replacing Justice's casting with Ranger-casting progression. It'd have everything but Favored Enemy.

EDIT: Except Justice is a Medium BAB class. Bugger.

[Zephyros]

(lol@me for spamming the same ignored prestige over and over in 10 minutes time)

@OP:

You my friend need Impure Prince from Magic of Ebberon.

It gives 6/6 AB, 4/6 spellcasting *looses at 1st and 6th, progresses FE but needs FE(abberation) to take it. Gives some nice perks along the way (light fortification and symbionts come to mind)

[RebelRogue]

It doesn't fulfill all of the criteria, but if you want to kill dragons, Dragonstalker from Draconomicon might be worth a look.

[Myou]

(lol@me for spamming the same ignored prestige over and over in 10 minutes time)

@OP:

You my friend need Impure Prince from Magic of Ebberon.

It gives 6/6 AB, 4/6 spellcasting *looses at 1st and 6th, progresses FE but needs FE(abberation) to take it. Gives some nice perks along the way (light fortification and symbionts come to mind)

The BAB and caster progression are perfect, but it doesn't give any advancement of my archery and the favoured enemy is limited to abborations, so that's no use to me, so really it's worse than straight ranger in my case.

And the flavour is gross, there's no way I'd enjoy playing that. xP

But thanks for the suggestion, I appreciate it! :3

To clarify, favoured enemy and caster progresion are not nearly as important as a full BAB and archery.

(Is it just me or are the arcane archer abilities pretty awful by the way?)



3.5 doesn't have any good full BAB Archery PrCs other than maybe Cragtop Archer [Races of Stone] and Justice of Weald and Woe [Champions of Ruin]. I'd suggest asking your DM for the 3.0 Archery PrCs (Peerless Archer [Silver Marches], Order of the Bow Initiate [Sword & Fist], Deepwood Sniper [Masters of the Wild]).

Normally I don't care much for 3.0 material in 3.5, but archery is a special case as 3.5 really lacks decent archery classes and 3.0 has them in multiples. Also, none of them are broken, and two of them have never been reprinted in 3.5 (Order was reprinted, but the new version sucks. The old one was good). And official rules allow using it, so it's all ok.


And no, I cannot think of any class whatsoever that would progress all the abilities you want. Favored Enemy is a very rare ability for PrCs, and much more so for archery-focused ones. Basically, you can get divine casting & ranger abilities or archery, but not both. For example, Stalker of Kharesh (Book of Exalted Deeds) gives you Favored Enemy: Evil, Hide in Plain Sight and advances your casting, but it lacks anything Archery-related.

Really, if I were you, I'd just go Deepwood Sniper/Justice of Weald and Woe. Justice is probably a bit better fit if you can talk your DM into replacing Justice's casting with Ranger-casting progression. It'd have everything but Favored Enemy.

EDIT: Except Justice is a Medium BAB class. Bugger.

Thanks for the assistance, you're as helpful as ever, Eladriel. :3

The Cragtop Archer's abilities don't seem great, but I like the flavour and the style the class has. The Peerless Archer has some nice abilities, but it also has a load of pretty useless ones and bad skill points. I'm starting to agree with you about archery in 3.5.

Deepwood Sniper looks much better, the abilities aren't too bad and it has an appropriate flavour too, I think it might be the one for me. The caster progression would be nice and the favoured enemy would be good for flavour, but the later ranger levels just seem so pointless, Deepwood Sniper looks like a much better choice.



It doesn't fulfill all of the criteria, but if you want to kill dragons, Dragonstalker from Draconomicon might be worth a look.

Great idea! Dragonstalker is perfect for the flavour, and if the DM does give us a reasonable number of dragons to fight it'll be perfect. Trouble is, if he decides not to use dragons then I'd be pretty underwhelming.


Unless anyone has other comments, advice or suggestions, I think I'll wait a bit and see how many draconic foes we're pitted againts. If we don't get any/may Deepwood Sniper will be the one for me, if we do face dragons sometimes, then Dragonstalker.

[Frosty]

I think a good class to go into after Ranger is the Scout from Complete Adventurer. You get Skirmish, and all of your favored enemies are no longer immune to any of your crits and Skirmish damage.

[The Glyphstone]

I think a good class to go into after Ranger is the Scout from Complete Adventurer. You get Skirmish, and all of your favored enemies are no longer immune to any of your crits and Skirmish damage.

That only works if you take the Swift Hunter feat, which requires at least 3 levels of Scout - that's still a fantastic bonus for a relatively small investment.

[AslanCross]

Order of the Bow initiate was reprinted in Complete Warrior, so it's good for 3.5. It doesn't progress Favored Enemy or Spellcasting, but it does give a lot of Archery-related abilities. It has full BAB to boot.

[Kroy]

Scout would be great, with Skirmish. Arcane Archer is really only good for a wizard going on level 13 who spends his feats on bows.

[Eldariel]

Order of the Bow initiate was reprinted in Complete Warrior, so it's good for 3.5. It doesn't progress Favored Enemy or Spellcasting, but it does give a lot of Archery-related abilities. It has full BAB to boot.

The class is utter crap though. It requires Rapid Shot and yet can't use it if it wants to use the Precision Damage. Also, the Precision Damage is always smaller than the damage you'd get for multiple attacks. That's why the primary ability of the class is useless.

Add to that that it lost all the worthwhile abilities it had (Zen Archery, Free Attack, Superior Weapon Specialization - only Close-Combat Shot is still there) and you've got a wreck of a class. Simple Fighter 15 is a better archer than Fighter 5/Order of the Bow Initiate 10 - and Fighter 15 is a crappy archer. See for yourself:
OotBI gets Close-Combat Shot, Fighter gets a bunch of bonus feats.
OotBI gets Greater Weapon Focus, Fighter gets Greater Weapon Focus
OotBI gets Sharp-Shooting, Fighter gets Improved Precise Shot
OotBI gets Extended Precision, Fighter doesn't...but neither is going to use it anyways as they do more damage with their full attacks!

That leaves the Fighter with 3 extra feats vs. Close-Combat Shot (and I suppose, Fighter qualifies for Greater Weapon Specialization and Weapon Supremacy for what that matters). While being better at Sharpshooting since Improved Precise Shot kicks Sharp-Shooting's keister.


The 3.0 version was actually interesting with a bunch of good abilities and the real feel of a Bow's devoted. Oh, and Ranged Precision was instead something actually useful - Ranged Sneak Attack.

[AslanCross]

Wow, it kind of feels like Hulking Hurler, then, having prerequisites it doesn't actually use. I'll go with recommending scout instead, then. At least taking the Swift Hunter feat stacks Scout and Ranger levels for the purpose of Favored Enemy and Skirmish.

[Kaiyanwang]

I don't know if it could help, but I've seen several ranger spell that could be useful.

Don't remember that if is in spell compendium, but, there should be a spell allowing auto crit with a shot.

Further, in Champions of Ruin, there are some spells for ranged assassins and ranger that could be useful (you don't have to be evil to cast them).

Sorry for the palliative, but does not come in my mind a good prestige class :smallredface:

[Eldariel]

Hunter's Mercy is indeed in Spell Compendium (it's the autocrit spell). Other notables in that book include Arrow Mind, Guided Shot, Hawkeye, Sniper's Shot (if you get SA), Exacting Shot, Arrow Storm, Find the Gap and Foebane. PHBII has Hunter's Eye and Champions of Ruin has, as advertised, a boatload of archery spells. Short list:
Woodwisp Arrow
Brilliant Energy Arrow
Spellslayer Arrow
Arrowsplit (which is the basis for the dreaded "Splitting" bow)
Darkflame Arrow
Bloodfreeze Arrow
Doublestrike Arrow
Shadow Arrow

In other words, CoR allows you to invoke the Green Arrow in the sense that you'll have an array of arrows you can make just for the occasion.

[Tempest Fennac]

There is a feat called Swift Hunter which lets Ranger and Scout levels stack for determining FEs and Skirmish effects. It needs at least 3 Scout levels and 1 Ranger level to take (see page 95 of http://crystalkeep.com/d20/rules/DnD3.5Index-Feats.pdf ), so you would lose some BAB by taking the Scout levels. While this isn't a PrC, Generic Warrior levels, if the DM allowed you to take levels in it with Ranger levels, would give you as more Favoured Enemies: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/genericClasses.htm .

[Myou]

I looked at the scout before but it lacks full BAB and dragons aren't immune to critical hits anyway. To be honest, I'd prefer just straight ranger to scout, since that gives all the features I want. Skirmish damage is nice, but the other stuff like Trapfinding isn't much use. Scouts are also just a bit bland for me. xP

Deepwood archer or Dragonstalker are more suitable for me.

But thanks to all those who suggested scout nontheless!


I don't know if it could help, but I've seen several ranger spell that could be useful.

Don't remember that if is in spell compendium, but, there should be a spell allowing auto crit with a shot.

Further, in Champions of Ruin, there are some spells for ranged assassins and ranger that could be useful (you don't have to be evil to cast them).

Sorry for the palliative, but does not come in my mind a good prestige class :smallredface:

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll look those up. :3


Hunter's Mercy is indeed in Spell Compendium (it's the autocrit spell). Other notables in that book include Arrow Mind, Guided Shot, Hawkeye, Sniper's Shot (if you get SA), Exacting Shot, Arrow Storm, Find the Gap and Foebane. PHBII has Hunter's Eye and Champions of Ruin has, as advertised, a boatload of archery spells. Short list:
Woodwisp Arrow
Brilliant Energy Arrow
Spellslayer Arrow
Arrowsplit (which is the basis for the dreaded "Splitting" bow)
Darkflame Arrow
Bloodfreeze Arrow
Doublestrike Arrow
Shadow Arrow

In other words, CoR allows you to invoke the Green Arrow in the sense that you'll have an array of arrows you can make just for the occasion.

Impressive... most impressive. ;D

Thanks for the list!


There is a feat called Swift Hunter which lets Ranger and Scout levels stack for determining FEs and Skirmish effects. It needs at least 3 Scout levels and 1 Ranger level to take (see page 95 of http://crystalkeep.com/d20/rules/DnD3.5Index-Feats.pdf ), so you would lose some BAB by taking the Scout levels. While this isn't a PrC, Generic Warrior levels, if the DM allowed you to take levels in it with Ranger levels, would give you as more Favoured Enemies: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/genericClasses.htm .

Generic warrior levels actually look like a pretty good option. I could increase my favoured enemy bonuses further than simple ranger levels do.

It does mean giving up Hide in plain Sight and the useful caster progression, but it's something worth considerig at least.

It's a shame I can't just choose one favoured enemy each time, instead of spreading the gains out over lots of them.

[Tempest Fennac]

While it would be expensive to a degree, could wands make up for a lack of casting progressin if you went with my Generic Warrior idea? (My Scout suggestion would cause the same problem as well). Just out of curiosity, why must it be full BAB?

[Myou]

While it would be expensive to a degree, could wands make up for a lack of casting progressin if you went with my Generic Warrior idea? (My Scout suggestion would cause the same problem as well). Just out of curiosity, why must it be full BAB?

Nahh, we have casters, it'd just be good to be able to buff myself.

Full BAB is because as a character my ranger prides himself on accuracy, and a lower BAB would hurt his accuracy quite a bit.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Nahh, we have casters, it'd just be good to be able to buff myself.

Full BAB is because as a character my ranger prides himself on accuracy, and a lower BAB would hurt his accuracy quite a bit.

Just a nitpick:

A 3 level dip in Scout hurts your BAB by exactly 1 point. I doubt it will make much of a difference in the long run.

Furthermore, Swift Hunter feat lets Ranger and Scout levels STACK for Skirmish damage. Combine this with Greater Manyshot and you could easily out-damage most non-optimized Charger builds. You'll have the Skirmish damage of your Ranger + your Scout levels, without having to sink so deep into Scout.

[Myou]

Just a nitpick:

A 3 level dip in Scout hurts your BAB by exactly 1 point. I doubt it will make much of a difference in the long run.

Furthermore, Swift Hunter feat lets Ranger and Scout levels STACK for Skirmish damage. Combine this with Greater Manyshot and you could easily out-damage most non-optimized Charger builds. You'll have the Skirmish damage of your Ranger + your Scout levels, without having to sink so deep into Scout.

I'm not looking for a dip, I'm looking for 9-10 levels and I don't want to be a skirmisher.

It's a good idea though, I might try that if I find I'm underpowered.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

I'm not looking for a dip, I'm looking for 9-10 levels and I don't want to be a skirmisher.

It's a good idea though, I might try that if I find I'm underpowered.

Horizon Walker? Full BAB, and instead of Favored Enemies, you get Favored Terrain, which can net you some pretty potent abilities.

Subterranean, for example, also nets you Darkvision 60'. Desert makes you immune to Fatigue. All of them net you a +1 bonus vs creatures from that terrain (some GM's give themselves a break and simply say 'when you are in that terrain') similar to Favored Enemy.

Once you hit 6th level Horizion Walker, you can pick up a Terrain that grants Dimension Door once every 1d4 rounds, giving you extreme mobility and ability to evade someone trying to grapple you, which is handy for any archer.

[Darth Stabber]

Agreeing on the horizon walker point, The manysplendored abilities are far too much to ignore, Heck I've been known to dip 2 lvls of it for desert and subterranean before. Why mechanically different, flavorfully it could fit if you chose the proper terrain types. Heck even just take a terrain or 2 from it and move on to more archery type stuff. Never really liked playing archery specialists, I always got a lot more mileage out being a melee'r, and carrying a bow for those opportunities, and I never really felt like I lost out on too much, because I always did more damage with a sword than the bow. Actually may of my Sorcs end up being archers, not by feat or class feature selection, just ipsofacto (even with sorc I end up being miserly with spells, especially @ low lvls).

Other things to consider: Fighter(2 lvl dip, come on you know that you already considered it, your just too proud to admit it), Rogue, Paladin(i saw a feat or something that lets them smite with arrows but that may have been a third party book), and archer variant barbarian (don't remember the abilities, they might be redundant)

That's my 2cp