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View Full Version : Swift hunter-Archer? Ninja/Scout/Ranger/Peerless Archer



SylvanPrincess
2010-08-17, 12:15 AM
so ive read a few of the scout handbooks out there and also Dictum_Mortuum's Swift hunter handbook (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19872750/The_Swift_Hunters_Handbook_--_2007?pg=1), and im curious if a throwing weapon swifter hunter would work well at all. my first inclination is to say no, it wouldnt be nearly as good as a ranged swift hunter, but im not so sure after reading the machine gun ninja build here http://dungeons.wikia.com/wiki/Machine_Gun_Assassin_(3.5e_Optimized_Character_Bui ld). there is a high potential for damage in this build i feel, if it can be adapted some.

any thoughts? right now im thinking scout5/ranger10/master thrower 5

UPDATE:

ok, so no throwing then. guess ill stick to my great bow. whats the best thing to dip into a scout/ranger build? ive been cleared to use peerless archer from 3.0 silver marches, do you think that 10 levels of that would detract from the build? it would get a sneak attack prog up to 4d6, and maybe with a way to go invisible (ninja 2?) i could really do a hurtin'.

new build critique,
ninja 2/scout 4/ranger 4/peerless archer 10

The Rabbler
2010-08-17, 12:19 AM
wouldn't scout 3/cloistered cleric 1/ranger 11/master thrower 5 work better? that way you get the travel domain and you get the turn undead attempts to fuel into glorious, glorious domain feats.

although a training dummy of the grandmaster would effectively do the same.

EDIT: I'm indecisive tonight :smalltongue:

Yorrin
2010-08-17, 12:19 AM
It's certainly viable, but for the sake of BAB conservation I'd go with a Scout 4/Ranger 11/Master Thrower 5

And then only if you need all 5 levels of master thrower. If you can get away with just 3 then you'll pick up the final offensive skirmish die.

gallagher
2010-08-17, 12:28 AM
It's certainly viable, but for the sake of BAB conservation I'd go with a Scout 4/Ranger 11/Master Thrower 5

And then only if you need all 5 levels of master thrower. If you can get away with just 3 then you'll pick up the final offensive skirmish die.
swing a wildshape ranger, get a flying type, or become a wolf. have fun

EDIT:i fully realize that this wont work well with master thrower... unless you become a monkey. you could then also win the game of fun

SylvanPrincess
2010-08-17, 12:56 AM
ok, so no throwing then. guess ill stick to my great bow. whats the best thing to dip into a scout/ranger build? ive been cleared to use peerless archer from 3.0 silver marches, do you think that 10 levels of that would detract from the build? it would get a sneak attack prog up to 4d6, and maybe with a way to go invisible (ninja 2?) i could really do a hurtin'.

new build critique,
ninja 2/scout 4/ranger 4/peerless archer 10

gallagher
2010-08-17, 01:05 AM
ok, so no throwing then. guess ill stick to my great bow. whats the best thing to dip into a scout/ranger build? ive been cleared to use peerless archer from 3.0 silver marches, do you think that 10 levels of that would detract from the build? it would get a sneak attack prog up to 4d6, and maybe with a way to go invisible (ninja 2?) i could really do a hurtin'.

new build critique,
ninja 2/scout 4/ranger 4/peerless archer 10

you could instead go with a Ranger12/Scout3/Paladin of Freedom5, and take devoted tracker. your paladin and ranger levels stack for your celestial pegasus, which is both your animal companion and your mount. you can move and shoot your bow, or you can charge with a lance.

SylvanPrincess
2010-08-17, 01:14 AM
EDIT:i fully realize that this wont work well with master thrower... unless you become a monkey. you could then also win the game of fun

this was funny by the way :P

nice thought there, i was interested in devoted tracker at one point, and this would let me do devoted tracker AND swift Hunter feats... hmm. ima think about this some.

heres a tidbit of info though, i am going to be a lesser aasimar, with +2 wis, -2 con, for story purposes. that was the way the dm changed aasimar so thered be no LA, by not letting it have +2wis, +2 cha, and no negatives. if i wanted to i have the option to have it be +2 wis, +2 cha, -2 con, -2 something else, but im not sure what. int isnt incredably important, and i have good numbers (with a -2 my int would be a 12)

can i has samurai in there too? i is a japanese aasimar. that would be cool to do a holy-flying-on-a-pegasus aasimar-samurai!

Wonton
2010-08-17, 01:17 AM
whats the best thing to dip into a scout/ranger build?

Cleric 1. Pick up Travel Devotion, free Skirmish Full Attack all day (with 12 Cha, you have 3 encouters' worth/day).

SylvanPrincess
2010-08-17, 01:22 AM
my base numbers are 18, 18, 16, 16, 14, 11 - though i could change them up a little bit

gallagher
2010-08-17, 01:43 AM
my base numbers are 18, 18, 16, 16, 14, 11 - though i could change them up a little bit

first of all, if you want to be a samurai, call yourself a samurai and gear yourself to look like one. see if you can find a japanese-themed flying mount (flying is very important), instead of a lance, use a naginata or some pole-arm. or better yet, talk to the DM about having a japanese themed lance so you can have all the same bonuses.

with +2Wis and -2Con, i would have it go:
18-Str
18-Con (which will go to 16)
16-Dex
16-Cha (for your saves)
14-Int (skill points, and you need to be able to have at least 13 Int for feats)
11-Wis

you may be wondering why you would have your wisdom be 11. you need only 14 in Wis to cast all your spells. your +2 gives you 13. you wont need to have 14 to cast spells, because you wont have many anyway. your spells are for wands, as you can wield a lance 1-handed. this is important because you will be able to have a wand out, cast a swift spell (you have a few) and then charge with your lance.

have your mount take the feats necessary for trample, as it will be able to trample people in the way of your target for your mounted charges.

this is my super recommendation. you can still buy a bow and fly above people and shoot from the skies. i am sure you will have some type of bonus for your location. even if not, rain from the skies.

you can actually also take Dragon Cohort to have a dragonnel. it flies, has a fly speed, and has wings, so it can fly. it can roar too. gear it up so it can also be a capable fighter

The Rabbler
2010-08-17, 01:45 AM
if you're getting rid of the throwing, you can't really go wrong with your average scout 4/cloistered cleric 1/ranger 15. if you have access to the spell compendium, there are some nice ranger-only spells that make you less of a one-trick-pony.

It's a matter of preference, of course, but I always liked being able to do stuff other than "I shoot him" with my swift hunter builds.


also, ask your DM about the training dummy of the grandmaster. definitely worth the investment if it's allowed.

EDIT: if you want to make yourself into a samurai, you could turn yourself into a TWF swift hunter. They work surprisingly well, though you are somewhat gimped if you are in a confined area.

gallagher
2010-08-17, 01:55 AM
if you're getting rid of the throwing, you can't really go wrong with your average scout 4/cloistered cleric 1/ranger 15. if you have access to the spell compendium, there are some nice ranger-only spells that make you less of a one-trick-pony.

It's a matter of preference, of course, but I always liked being able to do stuff other than "I shoot him" with my swift hunter builds.


also, ask your DM about the training dummy of the grandmaster. definitely worth the investment if it's allowed.which is why paladin of freedom makes a really nice investment here. depending on your DM, you can have your mount make a move action, but you still have all your actions. it allowed me to charge on my warhorse, who would trample people, trample the guy i want so he is on the ground for a penalty to his AC, full attack with a lance, power attack, destroy. Cha to everything makes for fun times.

your gear will be spaced out a bit. you will need a good lance and some good armor (a +1 lance with some other bonus equivalent to a +1, and a +1 mithral chainshirt will cost you about 10k gp) some armor for your dragonnel and an exotic saddle, plus an item to increase his/her natural attacks, and then the price of your wands... lets just say you wont be owning too many luxury items

The Rabbler
2010-08-17, 02:03 AM
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details
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what is the build you suggest? something along the lines of scout 3/ranger 12/paladin of freedom 5? certainly an original way to build an ubercharger.

EDIT: though I'm not sure whether you're advocating a melee-focused charger or a flying sniper.

EDIT2: I just realized that we never actually responded to the OP's revised build. ninja 2 doesn't work well with the build because you won't have a way of going invisible more than two, maybe three, times per day. Peerless Archer is a very good PrC, but it's hard to get those sneak attacks in consistently without building yourself around it. and as for the scout/ranger, you get the maximum benefit from swift hunter if you end the classes at an odd-numbered level. I would change the build to be scout 5/ranger 5/peerless archer 10 or, if you want the ninja, ninja 2/scout 5/ranger 3/peerless archer 10. assuming you do still want to be ranged-focused.

Eldariel
2010-08-17, 07:26 AM
Peerless Archer doesn't really work that well with a Skirmish-shell due to...well, not advancing Skirmish. That combined with the fact that you don't have too much excess To Hit to throw at people makes Power Shot rather weak.

Peerless Archer shines in casting Archery-builds and is a nice supplement to many traditional volley archer builds. For Swift Hunter tho? You want Skirmish. If going Skirmish, I'd go all the way. I wouldn't bother with Ninja as activating Sudden Strike for the entire turn is such a hurdle.


I suggest something like:
Mystic Ranger 9/Scout 5/Cloistered Cleric 1/Stalker of Kharesh 2/Unseen Seer 1/Dragon Devotee 2

This gets you very broad Favored Enemies (Favored Enemy: Evil, among others), quite decent Skirmish, 5th level spells off Mystic Ranger (get Sword of the Arcane Order [Champions of Valor] to advance it with Unseen Seer too), +6d6/+3 base Skirmish (+8d6 Improved Skirmish) and overall, is quite good.

You could take two more levels of Stalker of Kharesh over Dragon Devotee for Hide in Plain Sight, and some such. Costs you +1d6 Skirmish but c'est la vie. Cloistered Cleric is there just to provide you with Travel Devotion, turnpool to fuel it & Knowledge Devotion.

SylvanPrincess
2010-08-17, 09:34 AM
what is the build you suggest? something along the lines of scout 3/ranger 12/paladin of freedom 5? certainly an original way to build an ubercharger.

EDIT: though I'm not sure whether you're advocating a melee-focused charger or a flying sniper.

EDIT2: I just realized that we never actually responded to the OP's revised build. ninja 2 doesn't work well with the build because you won't have a way of going invisible more than two, maybe three, times per day. Peerless Archer is a very good PrC, but it's hard to get those sneak attacks in consistently without building yourself around it. and as for the scout/ranger, you get the maximum benefit from swift hunter if you end the classes at an odd-numbered level. I would change the build to be scout 5/ranger 5/peerless archer 10 or, if you want the ninja, ninja 2/scout 5/ranger 3/peerless archer 10. assuming you do still want to be ranged-focused.

ghost step-skirmish+sneak attack, no?

just wanted to say thanks for all the advice, just wanted to mention (re: ninja), that my wis would be a 20 if i did the ninja build, and i would be able to ghost strike 6 times a day, not too shabby i feel.

idk all i wanted from this thread was some brain-storming, and advice on my sketchy idea, and ive gotten both! im going to stay away from pally i think and i always stay away from mount builds- unless im small and can ride anywhere- because theyre situational imho. originally i wanted to be a ninja/samurai (ive done 2 homebrews that are both better than the originals), but i always back out of using a homebrew at the last second. it would be cool to triple up on the astetic stalker/swifthunter feats and do something like a rogue/monk/ninja, or a scout/ranger/__? but ive not looked into it too much yet.

The Rabbler
2010-08-17, 01:22 PM
stacking the astetic feats doesn't work all that well. the point of those feats is that you can take only a few levels in one of the classes and then a bunch of levels in the other class. If you go with two of them, you aren't always progressing in one of your classes. To utilize the feats effectively, you'd have to take more than a few levels in monk. This is usually a bad idea.

in general, the feats that allow you to progress two abilities from different classes every level (tashalatora, swift hunter, astetic feats etc) help the player to refine what they want their class to do. but having two different kinds of these feats force you to decide which abilities you want to progress and ends up with you having less of all of the abilities.

I'm waiting for someone to state this more eloquently and clearly than I did :smalltongue:.

gallagher
2010-08-17, 05:24 PM
ghost step-skirmish+sneak attack, no?

just wanted to say thanks for all the advice, just wanted to mention (re: ninja), that my wis would be a 20 if i did the ninja build, and i would be able to ghost strike 6 times a day, not too shabby i feel.

idk all i wanted from this thread was some brain-storming, and advice on my sketchy idea, and ive gotten both! im going to stay away from pally i think and i always stay away from mount builds- unless im small and can ride anywhere- because theyre situational imho. originally i wanted to be a ninja/samurai (ive done 2 homebrews that are both better than the originals), but i always back out of using a homebrew at the last second. it would be cool to triple up on the astetic stalker/swifthunter feats and do something like a rogue/monk/ninja, or a scout/ranger/__? but ive not looked into it too much yet.
first, i would like one last chance to defend my build. you dont need too much to make an effective charger, and having a mount perminantly around who has skills, decent HD and feats increases your utility in combat. your mount and animal companion stack for eachother, so IIRC you dont have to summon him anymore, he is always around. if you go with paladin of slaughter/tyranny, you can also have an aura that harms your enemies.

then you would be able to take your archery combat style feats, since you want to be an archer. you can fly in the air where people cant hit you, move 10 feet, and shoot. if you get a dragonnel as your mount, he has a roar that will further harm people. your spells are all available in wand-form, so you will be able to buff really well

secondly, and this is more important: if you take too many multiclass feats, you may lose sight of what you are trying to do. its kind of like having an ultimate magus, you get some of the best things, but you are going to miss out on the absolute best unless you keep what you want in mind all the time. the build i gave gives you so many options in combat. 4d6 extra damage every time you hit, since you are always moving, a large array of spells available in wands if you can use spell compendium, an animal companion that will be more interesting than any you could have unless you are a druid, and your aura will help your allies in certain situations