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Shadwen
2010-03-25, 05:28 AM
Im wanting to build a Paladin/Ranger - focused on ARchery

Need to know if the paladins abilities work with a bow.

The point here would be an evil smiting archer. We are going to be facing mainly Evil and I thought this would be fun. I would be the backup-aid guy.

Any suggestions or ideas to aid me in my quest?

magic9mushroom
2010-03-25, 05:45 AM
Im wanting to build a Paladin/Ranger - focused on ARchery

Need to know if the paladins abilities work with a bow.

The point here would be an evil smiting archer. We are going to be facing mainly Evil and I thought this would be fun. I would be the backup-aid guy.

Any suggestions or ideas to aid me in my quest?

Don't have the 3.0 PH, but in 3.5 it's definitely limited to melee unless you take ACFs or feats that say otherwise.

Shadwen
2010-03-25, 05:51 AM
Ouch, probably the same over here. Ill open and read it to see if it affects.

Ecalsneerg
2010-03-25, 06:08 AM
Well, Races of the Wild has an alternate class feature for Elves only, where they lose their ability to smite in melee and instead gain the ability to smite at range.

I'm not sure of the exact book for this one, but Devoted Tracker allowed Ranger and Paladin levels to stack for some things, including animal companion/special mount.

T.G. Oskar
2010-03-25, 06:59 AM
Im wanting to build a Paladin/Ranger - focused on ARchery

Need to know if the paladins abilities work with a bow.

The point here would be an evil smiting archer. We are going to be facing mainly Evil and I thought this would be fun. I would be the backup-aid guy.

Any suggestions or ideas to aid me in my quest?

Nope, smite doesn't work with ranged weapons unless you take the Ranged Smiting feat. Not sure if the feat is original from 3.0 (and if so, you could probably find it on Defenders of the Faith) or 3.5 (Complete Warrior), but that could work with your ranged inclination.

If you're using 3.5 material, Devoted Tracker (as mentioned) helps but not too much. You're just raising the damage of your Smite (but not your chances), and your bonus only applies on Wild Empathy (not even on favored enemies). The singular bonus you'll get is that you can treat your special mount as your animal companion, which means you'll be depending on your mount a lot. So really, you're not losing much without it.

If you wish to go Devoted Tracker, you might want to wait a bit and get a better special mount; since the feat doesn't restrict which should be your animal companion, you can choose a better mount (such as a gryphon or pegasus) and get less but combined benefits.

You might want a mithral or darkwood breastplate post-haste. Remember your combat style doesn't work on armor heavier than light, so you need a light armor to keep your bonuses, a decent Dex for your archery line, and good AC (taking advantage of the Paladin's improved equipment). You can also exchange your armor for Dragonscale Husk (from Dragon Magic) if you get access to it, though you need to be of the dragonblooded subtype for it.

Stat-wise: Dex and Cha should be pretty high, with Wis on a fixed 14 at least. You'll probably won't get 4th level spells (or even 3rd) so you can keep your Wis to a minimum and focus mostly on Dex (for your archery, AC, Reflex) and Cha (smite evil, saves, Lay on Hands) with some decent Con in the middle.

Feat-wise: go straight for Point-Blank Shot (that's a given) and work into the archery line. If you can stretch your feats and are going for the special mount/animal companion Devoted Tracker line, you can attempt to get Mounted Archery to reduce the ranged attack penalties (but you need two feats for it, since you also need Mounted Combat). You might also want Extra Smiting (for more smiting uses per day) and stuff that improves your smite (Complete Divine has feats for it; if 3.0-exclusive, then Defenders of the Faith may have the same feats)

If what you want is the smite ability instead, there's another build, but you need to be NG (and not LG) for it: Fighter 1 (for the armor proficiency, though you can be any class with heavy weapon proficiency actually), then Ranger 9 (so you can get Evasion) and then Stalker of Kharash 10 (from Book of Exalted Deeds), which grants you 19 levels of Ranger spellcasting and a smiting ability right at the middle of the class (although reduced). The benefit from this is that you get the good parts of Ranger spellcasting (if you want it), your animal companion doesn't have to be a mount (unless you wish to make it your mount), you still get Hide on Plain Sight (in case you don't want the mount), you get Favored Enemy - Evil, and you still can work the Paladin feel from it. The only prohibitive cost is that you get Smite Evil pretty late (about level 5th) and the class is not exactly as impressive as you might think (you do get the ability to literally sniff evil, then track it).

The problem is that the build is not very effective in the long run. With Paladin/Ranger multiclassing, you're dividing your efforts into getting the archery feats and keeping a good smite damage going on. You'll have to decide which side is important, if you're going to keep or ditch the mount and/or the animal companion, what to get from it if you ditch any of them, amongst other troubles. The alternative build is more Ranger than Paladin, but you get what you want with some delay; you need to realize if either Evasion or getting Smite is more important. Finally, your damage won't be very spectacular; if you can smite your favored enemy, that's around the best you can work with.

Oh, if you get Complete Mage, you can get one of your favored enemies to be arcanists (any kind). That may help on the long run.

Eldariel
2010-03-25, 08:36 AM
Whatever you do, take the "Divine Might"-feat. That works with arrows and...yeah, doesn't suck unlike Smiting. I'd definitely look at the 3.0 Archery PrCs; Peerless Archer [Silver Marches] is a great 3-level dip finishing off with Order of the Bow Initiate [Sword & Fist] or Deepwood Sniper [Masters of the Wild]. Those are superb and kick 3.5-versions' ass any day of the week. See KSB Snow Owl's Archer Builds (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=194.0) if interested.

Shadwen
2010-03-25, 02:48 PM
I like the idea of a Holy Archer. I figured smite would be the best run for this since I can do decent +dmg with a shot. My dm is allowing smite to work with range. I talked to him last night. So dont have to worry about wasting a feat.

Eldariel
2010-03-25, 03:53 PM
I like the idea of a Holy Archer. I figured smite would be the best run for this since I can do decent +dmg with a shot. My dm is allowing smite to work with range. I talked to him last night. So dont have to worry about wasting a feat.

Hm, Holy Archer, eh? Then I'm actually gonna suggest a Cleric. You'll want Divine Might anyways. It stacks with Smite and kicks rather much ass. In 3.0, Divine Favor is incredible as are the "Animal's X"-buffs and Blessed Aim can be found in Defenders of the Faith and you get a lot of good buffs like Divine Power that reduce MAD.

Really, the same tools that make for a melee Cleric make for an Archer Cleric and a very good one at that; it probably schools most other Archers easily in terms of damage and especially To Hit (especially with Zen Archery [Sword & Fist]). I also recall there's a Domain granted power that replicates Smiting. Destruction, actually.

You could e.g. be a Cleric of St. Cuthbert with Destruction and Strength-domains, pick up Longbow proficiency through a feat and to town; pick e.g. Extra Smiting later to gain more uses of the Smite and profit.


But yeah, Cleric is excellent for all your divine needs.

Shadwen
2010-03-25, 04:18 PM
So take cleric over paladin? I know that pallys only really get lay on hands/mount heh. But I thought it would make for better in the end. Cleric would still be better even with the DMs ruling on smite?

Eldariel
2010-03-25, 04:45 PM
So take cleric over paladin? I know that pallys only really get lay on hands/mount heh. But I thought it would make for better in the end. Cleric would still be better even with the DMs ruling on smite?

As I said, Clerics can get their own Smite from Destruction-domain. And yeah, they'd be better. Clerics just are an incredibly versatile class capable of presenting a huge variety of archetypes with different builds, deities and Domains.

It's also worth noting that you gain VERY few Smites daily so it's rarely that big a deal. I'd almost say it's not worth bothering about; how many attacks do you make daily? 20? 30? Especially true once Haste and Iteratives and all that kicks in. What 1 or 2 (on level 5) do isn't really that big in the grand scheme of things.

And you only ever get 5 per day; that's not gonna be even half your attacks per day on any level. So...yeah. Extra Smiting only gives +1 too, which sucks. If it gave +2-+3, you could maybe get some relevant number of them with some effort, but as it stands...


Yeah, I wouldn't use Paladin unless you use the Mount. It's a rather big part of the class and if you don't make use of it, you miss out on a lot. Cleric definitely has the "holy warrior"-shtick covered.

Shadwen
2010-03-25, 07:05 PM
If I go with cleric I would be the tree hopping holy ranger....is mounted combat better than that? or just a waste?

Eldariel
2010-03-25, 07:19 PM
If I go with cleric I would be the tree hopping holy ranger....is mounted combat better than that? or just a waste?

It...takes a lot of feats and you barely have any as it stands. If you wanna move while attacking, pick a deity with Travel-domain and Quicken some Teleports once you get to high levels.

Shadwen
2010-03-25, 08:31 PM
mounted probably is a bad idea then. Ok off to a Cleric archer then as in my other post.