Swift Hunter Help

[Socko525]

Well I'm planning on making a level 6 Swift Hunter and I had a few questions. I'm basically going to follow everything listed in the Swift Hunter handbook, but with a few exceptions. I will be a human and be taking 2 flaws, so I'll have access to more feats up front. Dragon Magazine is allowed, so I'm thinking of throwing in Far Shot to qualify for Ranged Skirmisher (Skirmish damage works out to 60' instead of 30'), but on to my question...

My main question is: Is it worth dipping one level into Cloistered Cleric with a diety with Travel Domain and taking the CC ACF to get both Travel and Knowledge Devotion? I would still get another domain, but my main reason would be to have Turn Undead to power Travel Devotion multiple times per day, not to mention as a bonus I'd have a few 0/1st level spells, all knowledge skills as class skills, and the Lore ability. So is it worth it to gain all of this in exchange for 5th favored enemy?

[Darrin]

My main question is: Is it worth dipping one level into Cloistered Cleric with a diety with Travel Domain and taking the CC ACF to get both Travel and Knowledge Devotion?

Yes, it's worth it. I think Sehanine Moonbow is the preferred deity, since she has Knowledge, Travel, and Elf domains (Point Blank Shot as a bonus feat).

You mentioned human, though... I'm not sure which deity is best for humans. Probably worship an ideal, and pick Knowledge Devotion, Travel Devotion, and then take something like Magic, Planning, or Undeath domain.

[Cog]

You only get the knowledge skills as class skills for that one level of cleric, and that's only if you keep the Knowledge domain. You can keep Knowledge and get the Inquisition Domain, trading the latter for Knowledge Devotion, however. You'd still need Able Learner to keep your ranks decent, but if the group isn't relying on you having more useful skills or if you being the knowitall lets others spend their skill points elsewhere, then the attack/damage boost can be pretty handy. A Cloistered dip is often recommended for Skirmishers for TU uses anyway, though, so it's not a poor choice at all.

You're presumably using a bow, but if you happen to be using a crossbow instead, Crossbow Sniper from PHBII is another way to boost the range of your skirmishing: no prereqs, and it gives partial dex to damage, letting you ignore Str. You can afford to pump Dex higher instead, likely giving you slightly better attack for slightly less damage, but most of your damage should be Skirmish anyway.

[GeekGirl]

I'm thinking of throwing in Far Shot to qualify for Ranged Skirmisher (Skirmish damage works out to 60' instead of 30'), but on to my question...

I was just making a Scout, I know it wasn't your point, but what was the feat that let you increase the range. I looked all over and couldn't find it.

[Cog]

I was just making a Scout, I know it wasn't your point, but what was the feat that let you increase the range. I looked all over and couldn't find it.
Dragon 346 has that and some other Scout material.

[Socko525]

It's in Dragon Magazine #346.
It's called "Ranged Skirmisher" and it lets you apply skirmish damage out to 60' instead of 30'.

Prereqs: Skirmish ability, Dex 13, Wis 13, Point Blank Shot, Far Shot

[Socko525]

I'm not sure which deity is best for humans. Probably worship an ideal, and pick Knowledge Devotion, Travel Devotion, and then take something like Magic, Planning, or Undeath domain.


Well I looked around and couldn't find anything with undeath and travel or plannining and travel, or time and travel. I'm thinking I'll porobably go with law and travel and trade them both for their respective devotions.

[The Cat Goddess]

Knowledge Devotion, at it's base (without putting more than a couple ranks in the various skills) is essentially +1 to hit, +1 Damage all the time, and on lucky rolls, +2 to hit, +2 Damage.

To me, that trumps Law Devotion. Especially if your campaign has a "focus enemy" (like Giants, or Dragons, or Demons) that you fight most of the time. It's much easier to focus on one Knowledge, after all.

[Darrin]

Well I looked around and couldn't find anything with undeath and travel or plannining and travel, or time and travel. I'm thinking I'll porobably go with law and travel and trade them both for their respective devotions.

If you worship an "ideal" rather than a god, you just pick your domains to be whatever.

Cyndor (Complete Divine p. 121) should work for either Law or Time (although you may have to ask your DM to add Time to his portfolio, since it didn't exist when Complete Divine was published).

Liir (Complete Divine), Io (Draconomicon), Temet-Nu (Sandstorm), Odin (Deities & Demigods), or Taiia (creator aspect, Deities & Demigods) should work for Magic.

Undeath and Planning don't really appear anywhere with Travel. Well, the Traveler aspect of the Dark Six (Eberron) should get Planning, but doesn't.

[Socko525]

If you worship an "ideal" rather than a god, you just pick your domains to be whatever.

Cyndor (Complete Divine p. 121) should work for either Law or Time (although you may have to ask your DM to add Time to his portfolio, since it didn't exist when Complete Divine was published).

Liir (Complete Divine), Io (Draconomicon), Temet-Nu (Sandstorm), Odin (Deities & Demigods), or Taiia (creator aspect, Deities & Demigods) should work for Magic.

Undeath and Planning don't really appear anywhere with Travel. Well, the Traveler aspect of the Dark Six (Eberron) should get Planning, but doesn't.


Is there any place for rules on worshipping ideals? This is actually the first time I'm hearing of this and I'm quite interested.

[Amphetryon]

Is there any place for rules on worshipping ideals? This is actually the first time I'm hearing of this and I'm quite interested.
From the SRD:
If a cleric is not devoted to a particular deity, he still selects two domains to represent his spiritual inclinations and abilities. The restriction on alignment domains still applies.


If you play in the Forgotten Realms, that option is removed, RAW, and you are supposed to worship a deity.

[Akal Saris]

You might also consider the celerity domain for another +10ft untyped speed boost and some superb spells to cast from a wand or scroll.

My own experience with a swift hunter was that the level in cloistered cleric wasn't really necessary, and I retrained out of it and simply took travel devotion as a feat for the ability to use it 1 combat/day. But there's certainly nothing wrong with the dip either :P

[begooler]

The cleric dip is also going to give you access to a few additional level one spells a day, which is nice for a swift hunter since your ranger spells won't come until quite a bit later. You also gain access to the cleric spell list for the purpose of using magic devices. (Which means you have access to wands Divine Power, though that may not be worth it to you since your BAB should already be pretty good.)

Of the level one spells, Grave Strike is good if you don't already have undead as a favored enemy and swift hunter, because you can apply skirmish against them for one round.
The cloistered cleric swift hunter in the campaign I run enjoys using Ebon Eyes, a good spell if you are the party's scout.

The Elf, Travel, and Knowledge domains are solid. There are many other good combinations. (I think Celerity is great.)

These are the domains that two people I know of who play swift hunters.

(Ranged) Human Cleric of Vandria Gilmadrith (Elf God from Races of the Wild) War domain for Longbow proficiency and Weapon Focus. I don't remember his other domain, perhaps Elf for PBS. He took travel devotion as a separate feat. His DM allowed him to choose an elf deity despite being human, and not having the appropriate alignment. (I don't think this is the best really, but he was really happy with the build.)

(Melee, TWF) Human Cloistered Cleric of Wee Jas with domains Knowledge (Devotion,) Undeath (Extra Turning,) and Time (Improved Initiative.) He took Travel Devotion as a separate feat. Neither Undeath or Time are actually listed as Wee Jas's domains, as they aren't in the PHB, but I allowed him to use these because I thought they were appropriate.
I know he also thought about picking Celerity (Speed Bonus,) which I ended up not allowing, or Pride (Slippery Mind) in place of the Time Domain.
This guy also took EWP with pistols in exchange for a flaw, and opens a fight by activating Travel Devotion, jumping in, shooting both pistols, then tossing them back and drawing his melee weapons (which have the crystals on them to draw as a free action.) Adds a nice cinematic effect.

Edit: readability

[Curmudgeon]

Yes, it's worth it. I think Sehanine Moonbow is the preferred deity, since she has Knowledge, Travel, and Elf domains (Point Blank Shot as a bonus feat).
You don't actually need to pick a deity with Knowledge domain in their portfolio, since all Cloistered Clerics get Knowledge in addition to those offered by their gods. That means you could also opt for Fenmarel Mestarine or Rillifane Rallathil, for instance.

Human isn't going to allow for a Cleric with the Elf domain, though ─ at least without a DM willing to twist the rules. (That's the whole "Typical Worshipers" restriction from page 32 of the Player's Handbook. Every Elf deity has Elf typical worshipers, which automatically excludes Human Clerics.)

[Socko525]

Yeah I'm obviously planning a deity/ideal with travel for obvious reasons. As for the second domain I was thinking possibly law(for law devotion)the bonus that scales to either AC or attack would def not be a bad thing, time for free improved initiative feat and true strike as a domain spell, or planning for free extend spell feat and again true strike as a 1st lvl domain spell. Which one do you think is best?

Also does it make more sense to do scout 5 (for evasion)/cloistered cleric 1/ranger 14(trade away evasion for spell reflection) or scout 4/cloistered cleric 1/ranger 15 (and just keep evasion from the
ranger and have more spells)?

Thanks again!

[Curmudgeon]

Which one do you think is best?
Actually, none of those. You'll get True Strike if you go with Elf domain, but that and Improved Initiative isn't worth one of your few domains for Time. With a ranged weapon you'll almost always find some target with poorer initiative to make them flat-footed against your attacks at the start of combat, and that's good enough.

Depending on your goals, I'd select either Celerity for +10' base speed, and Expeditious Retreat for more speed when you need it; or Pride to let you reroll any 1 on a saving throw, once per die. Auto-failing your saves only 1 in 400 times is a big improvement.

[begooler]

Depending on your goals, I'd select either Celerity for +10' base speed, and Expeditious Retreat for more speed when you need it; or Pride to let you reroll any 1 on a saving throw, once per die. Auto-failing your saves only 1 in 400 times is a big improvement.

Sounds like some kind of cat deity. :smalltongue:

(Do note that Expeditious Retreat will overlap with a Scout's speed bonus, not stack. It does stack with the bonus from Celerity of course though.)

[Socko525]

Thanks for the advice, I think I'll go celerity/travel, I think they'll work well together, and iirc there are a few dieties, that both travel and celerity.

Any thoughts on going Sct 5/CC 1/Rgr 14 vs. Sct 4/CC 1/Rgr 15?

[begooler]

The advantage of taking the scout 5 is not necessarily that you can also get spell reflection later, but that you will be getting evasion much earlier, thereby decreasing the chance that you die in a fireball before you have 9 levels of ranger.


Travel and Celerity are good choices.

[Socko525]

Alright, so here's the build so far, not including th ability scores as I have rolled them yet (waiting for the inevitable death of my hexblade).

Level 5 Scout/1 Cloistered Cleric/1 Ranger

I want to use a bow, being a hunter/archer in real life, I've always had a soft spot for Rangers, although this'll be my first time going the Swift Hunter route. So I'd like to build the character with that in mind.

Feats:
1: point blank shot
human: precise shot
flaw:mercantile background (it's needed since I'm making a level 7 character, and my DM is only allowing me to take starting gold, and the party is starved for gold i.e. <2000 in gp/items for 5 lvl 7/8 characters)
flaw: Far Shot? (would only be used as a prereq for Ranged Skirmisher), if not maybe Rapid Shot?
CC bonus:Knowledge Devotion
CC bonus:Travel Devotion
3rd:Ranged Skirmisher? (to apply Skirmish damage to 60'), Darkstalker?
Scout bonus: swift hunter
6th: improved skirmish
Ranger bonus: track
9:Darkstalker?, with ranged skirmisher it would make able sniper a more viable option
Ranger bonus: endurance
12:Greater Manyshot?
15:?
18:-realistically probably won't play this long but who knows.

Other notable abilities:
Other domain is Celerity for +10 movement speed and expeditious retreat as my only 1st level domain spell.
Lore (from Cloistered Cleric)
Evasion from Scout 5,
Arcane Hunter ACF
Voice of the City ACF
I'd like to take the Shooting Star Ranger substition levels at level 4, and onward to gain the additional spell slots, in place of the Animal Companion, but I'd have to worship Mystra and that means no free Travel devotion. I'll see if I can't make a case to my DM.
Planning on getting the spell relfection ACF for the Ranger Evasion.

So as you can see the main area I'm having trouble with is feats/Ranger's combat style.

I've read that having travel devotion and using rapid shot pretty much makes manyshot/greater manyshot obsolete. If this is the case, then I guess I'll be taking the two weapon fighting style, which wouldn't be bad really since I'd have mutliple attack options if something got past my bow.

Although the archery track gives me rapid shot and eventually improved precise shot, so therein lies my dilemma.


Also on the subject of gold, since I will likely not be getting enough to buy any decent items any time soon, what's a good way for me as a swift hunter to make money?

An easy way I thought of was to exploit the bonuses of mercantile background, but at best that would only be doable once a month, and assumes I'm near a town where I could buy/sell items.

Anyway thanks again for all the help!