Pathfinder: Ranged Character Help

[Arillius]

Alright so I'm working on a Goblyn Ranger/Fighter who uses ranged weaponry. I'm either going to go with the heavy crossbow or the longbow. My question is what should I use, the crossbow or the longbow? The below is all thats going on with both choices

Being small the heavy crossbow does 1d8, the longbow 1d6. My Goblyn is going to start at level 3 and I believe Ill go with 2 ranger/1 fighter and continue down the fighter line. The APG is allowed, so I'm thinking using the guide alternative for my ranger levels, the enemies we fight vary so much its better to just have a straight +2 for the big fights, and a fighter alternative depending on which weapon I choose. Stats are

Str 12
Con 10
Dex 20
int 10
Wis 12
Cha 6

I got four feats. If I go longbow I'm taking rapid shot, precise shot, point blank shot, and deadly aim.

If I go crossbow I'm going to take precise shot, point blank shot, rapid reload, and rapid shot, then the next level I get another fighter feat Ill take crossbow mastery which lets me use that rapid shot.

I'm using 5th level as my example for this, because thats the party level and I'm just a little behind.

At 5t level with the crossbow this Goblyn will hit at +12, and with deadly aim and rapid shot will hit at +8/+8 for 1d8+4 damage each.

At 5th level with the Longbow this goblyn will hit at +12, and with deadly aim, rapid shot, and a Composite longbow, will hit at +8/+8 for 1d6+5 damage each shot.

Which would you, the playground, suggest?

[Telasi]

Longbow, no contest. You can't make Rapid Shot attacks with a crossbow unless you have the load time down to free, which is a minimum of one feat, and impossible with a heavy crossbow barring 3.5 magic items (or an exotic weapon proficiency), iirc. The larger damage die is, in this case, offset by the composite bonus on average damage, and the extra shots mean the longbow comes out on top.

[Arillius]

Actually with the pathfinder APG the crossbow mastery feat allows for rapid shot attacks with the heavy crossbow. That being said I actually need rapid reload to get it. so it takes 2 feats.

It should also be noted that the Fighter alternative allows me to add half my dex to readied shots with the crossbow. Higher levels increase that to my full dex bonus. I forgot to mention that part, so I apologize. However I'm not sure how often I can take a readied action to get shots out. Battle might not allow it. With my plan I should be able to get that by level 5.

[Toofey]

(admittedly not knowing the system)
Is the damage bump good enough that it would be worth being decent at both, so you could use the crossbow in your surprise round then switch to the longbow?

Can't hurt to be good at a different weapon (sometimes you have to take what's available, I know every guard in my campaign is good with crossbows because the characters aren't) And it sounds like you're using a lot of the same feats for both so your crossbow skill would be good out of the box.

[John Campbell]

Longbow, no question. The difference in base damage between 1d6 and 1d8 is only 1 point, on average, and the ability to use your Strength bonus with a composite longbow already makes up for that, even with your relatively low Str. And you need to invest more feats in an already feat-intensive fighting style to do things with a crossbow that you can do without further investment with the longbow.

The longbow is a martial weapon, and basically just better than the crossbow, which is a simple weapon. Pathfinder added some alternatives to make the crossbow suck less, if you've really got to use one, but it's still the inferior weapon.

Tangentially... you're Small. You can ride Medium creatures that can fit into standard human-sized spaces. You can make ranged full attacks while your mount is moving up to its single move without penalty, and with penalties even at a dead run. And the Ranger animal companion no longer completely sucks...

[Telasi]

Dex to readied attacks still doesn't make the crossbow better, since you'd only get one attack with that bonus. I would still say to go with the longbow, since you save two feats and get to add at least some Str to every shot.

[Arillius]

@ Toofey: I was thinking of using the longbow until I got the crossbow feats but it seems the 1d8 is made moot by the damage from my strength.

@ John: you make some good points, especially with math which I kinda suck at. If I go longbow I can also ditch the fighter levels and go straight ranger since I don't need nearly so many feats.

@ telasi: My thanks. I don't have any experience to draw on when it comes to ranged characters.

Which brings me to my next to questions. Which i must apologize for since I don't want to keep you guys here to long bothering with me. What would you suggest getting first, deadly aim or Rapid shot? If what little math I can do is right, deadly aim will be adding +4 damage at level 4 for a -2, where as rapid shot will get me an extra shot at -2 for 1d6+1. Ill eventually get them both, but I won't be able to afford it will level 5, and it wouldn't be wise to have a -4 till then anyway.

And My second question is this. I have the option of using the Infiltrator alternative, which allows me to give up favored terrain in return for giving me some special abilities depending on my favored enemy. I can use these abilities for 10 min/ ranger level a day, they don't need ot be consecutive but they do need to be sent in 10 min intervals. I was thinking of going with Animal for my favored enemy, essentially wasting my +2 for most of the time, but which would allow me to get a climb speed of 15 feet instead. Is that worth dropping favored terrain?

[John Campbell]

Which brings me to my next to questions. Which i must apologize for since I don't want to keep you guys here to long bothering with me. What would you suggest getting first, deadly aim or Rapid shot? If what little math I can do is right, deadly aim will be adding +4 damage at level 4 for a -2, where as rapid shot will get me an extra shot at -2 for 1d6+1. Ill eventually get them both, but I won't be able to afford it will level 5, and it wouldn't be wise to have a -4 till then anyway.
Rapid Shot is almost always going to be better than Deadly Aim. You're pushing the boundary a little, because your damage-per-arrow is fairly low, but you're still on the right side of it, and that'll go up faster than the Deadly Aim bonus. And Rapid Shot's penalty doesn't get worse as its effective bonus goes up. You'll want them both eventually, but prioritize Rapid Shot, both in acquiring the feat and when selecting what to use in combat.

(I actually ran the numbers for my archer-ranger, and found that for best damage output, I should never use Deadly Aim unless I was already using Rapid Shot and the target AC was really low, or so high that I'd need 20s anyway so I might as well stack on all the extra-damage penalties I can find. Against ACs in roughly the low half of the range of my d20 roll, I should Rapid Shot only, and against ACs at the higher end of that range, use neither. The exact breakpoints shift around a bit as my BAB goes up and I add attacks and weapon enhancements and my Deadly Aim modifiers change, but the general theme is consistent.)

You can also get Rapid Shot as a Ranger bonus feat without the prereqs; Deadly Aim isn't on that list.

Manyshot is also better than Deadly Aim (better than Rapid Shot, for that matter), but you can't get it until 6th level at the earliest. It has no real downside except for burning through your ammo faster; get it, use it whenever you can.

Precise Shot and Improved Precise Shot are also recommended. Your buddies will charge forward and block your shots, and having to eat the cover and shooting-into-melee penalties hurts. A mounted archer's got some versatility to avoid that, because he can move to a better shooting spot and still get his full attack, but it's still annoying. Also, if your friends are between you and the enemy melee guys, that means the enemy can't charge you.


And My second question is this. I have the option of using the Infiltrator alternative, which allows me to give up favored terrain in return for giving me some special abilities depending on my favored enemy. I can use these abilities for 10 min/ ranger level a day, they don't need ot be consecutive but they do need to be sent in 10 min intervals. I was thinking of going with Animal for my favored enemy, essentially wasting my +2 for most of the time, but which would allow me to get a climb speed of 15 feet instead. Is that worth dropping favored terrain?

I haven't found my favored terrains to be all that useful. Small situational bonus to initiative, big whoop, I've got archer Dex; I usually win initiative anyway. And then situational bonuses to skills that I either never use (Knowledge (geography)? The wizard has a map) or basically can't fail anyway (Survival, Perception). The Stealth bonus is the only really nice one. The untrackability in my favored terrains is cute, but pointless, because the rest of my party doesn't have it.

Not having favored terrains denies you the ability to use Camouflage and Hide In Plain Sight later, though, which only work in your favored terrains. Losing those might hurt, if you're likely to play through that far.

Infiltrator generally looks like a pretty good deal, though there are other options that I think I'd take before I went for the climb speed (Iron Will, various energy resistances, maybe Lunge or the natural armor bonus). Most of them come with better favored enemy options, too.

edit: Oh, yeah, Deadly Aim is also good when you can't get your full attack for whatever reason, and so can't use Rapid Shot, but there's still some guy taunting you with his low AC who really needs to eat some bonus damage. It's handy for surprise rounds when you're just getting one standard action attack with the bow in your hand against some squishy caster who hasn't got his AC buffs up yet or the like. Rapid Shot is still of more general utility, though.

[John Campbell]

On further consideration, it occurs to me that Infiltrator makes the Camouflage and Hide In Plain Sight abilities useless, but it doesn't actually replace them, so you might be able to also take a second Ranger variant that replaces those with something useful to you.

It appears that the only one that replaces Camo and HiPS without touching Favored Terrain (which you've already traded away) is Horse Lord, which replaces those in favor of making your animal companion better. It requires you to use the mounted combat style, though, which could make it tricky to get all the archery feats you'll want - and you have to meet prereqs for them, which means in particular you can't get Improved Precise until 11th level, whereas an archery ranger can pick it up as the 6th level bonus feat - but might be worthwhile if you're going the mounted archer route.

[gourdcaptain]

For those of us who like crossbows for no real applicable reason (I think they're cooler visually, personally) ask your DM if you can import the Crossbow Sniper feat from 3.5e - it gives you half Dex to damage. Given the Str I've seen on archers, this may actually be competitive with that.

Mind you, on my nigh-infinitely tall list of "crazy builds I want to play but either are deprioritized over others or no sane DM would let me play one" is a thri-kreen rogue/sorcerer/arcane trickster or such quad wielding repeating hand crossbows and using ghostly reload to keep the ammo flowing.