Commoner....with a crossbow.

[Drevius]

So in my most recent campaign I am playing in, most of the players are incredibly new and my DM didn't want me to make to ludicrous of a character (he has nightmares about my factotums). I decided to create a more RP character, a wood elf bartender, Commoner 5 with the Elite Array, given Standard level 5 starting gold

Stats are: 13 STR, 20 DEX (Gloves of Dex +2) 14 CON, INT 10, WIS 10, CHA 8.

I wanted to give him a fighting chance and took EWP: Great Crossbow and Weapon Focus Great Crossbow. With his Meager 26 hp and adventurer gear he seemed out of place to me and not telling the party what he was, they assumed him to be some sort of ranger. First encounter we have is while the party is resting in camp, everyone decided to sleep in a tent with a fire lit while I took watch in a tree stand with my big crossbow ready. 4 dire wolves attacked the camp and surprisingly my character killed 2 of the wolves and drove back another one with effective use of alchemist fire and oil. The rest of the party ended up tripped and the warlock nearly bit the dust several times. I was surprised at how effective my character was and am now seriously thinking about where to go with this character. Party consists of a Half orc barbarian (new player), Human? Warlock (Newish player) and a Human Cleric (new to playing casters).
Since the warlock is debating on going glaivelock, I would be more of the ranged fighter and was thinking of actual PC class levels to get into and feats/items to get since my DM plays fast and loose with rewards and gold/magic items. (I have a infinite quiver of +1 bolts and a size large great crossbow +1 with gnome scope along with strongarm bracers.)

So suggestions on feats/classes/items? Ranger? Fighter? Scout? Wand of arrow storm if I am a ranger, splitting property/exit wounds? Crossbow Sniper, Rapid Reload etc?

[Cieyrin]

The first thing I should point out is, unfortunately, 1st level Commoners can't take Exotic Weapon Proficiency, since it has a BAB requirement of +1. :smallannoyed:

Putting that aside, the most common path of advancement for Commoners is going into Survivor (Savage Species), which helps with survivability immensely, though the lack of BAB advancement would hurt your archery. If you want to blossom into archery god territory, and you have access to Tome of Battle, I'd recommend Warblade going into Eternal Blade, which works with archery fairly nicely, though you'll be scuppered a bit by the long reload time of your great crossbow as you finally break your way into iterative attacks. Should you be able to switch your feats around for legal ones, I'd recommend focusing on a light crossbow, with Crossbow Sniper, Rapid Reload and then your bread and butter archery feats along the Rapid Shot line, with whatever's needed to get into Eternal Blade.

Actually, now that I think about it, you can use Warblade as your excuse to switch feats around because of an ability of the Warblade that lets you change the focus of your feats, so you could switch it to Great Bow and save some feats from having to deal with Rapid Reload.

[Drevius]

Feat retraining at 3rd once I had the BAB for it, since we started at 5th my DM was okay with it. but the idea of eternal blade sounds interesting, not a fan of ToB but I can check it out. I think I will stick with the Great Crossbow, cumbersome as it is, it does solid damage with a good crit range and I think I will keep slapping on more magic enchantments and mods (gnome scope and bayonet, wand chamber if possible) I may just stick to base classes, ToB isn't out of the question.

[Seonor]

You want quick loading (MIC, page 41) and self loading (Arms and Equipment Guide. page 116) on your weapon eventually to keep your rate of fire up.

[Figgin of Chaos]

Stay commoner just for the sheer badassity of doing so.

[Jude_H]

Stay commoner just for the sheer badassity of doing so.
YES!

Also, the title of this thread leads me to believe your character has SCUM scarred across his chest.

And to say something to the point, um, here goes:
The Skillful Weapon enhancement from Complete Arcane is your friend. It's probably also in the Magic Item Compendium.
Abusing Handle Animal would both be your best bet as a powergrab, and would reinforce your Ranger shtick.
The Master of Poisons feat from Drow of the Underdark might be a good idea if you want to diversify your attack options.
The Great crossbow's a pretty dodgy weapon to use, way worse than a light one or a longbow (which elfs should be proficient with). You'll probably want to keep several loaded at a time, if you want to generate decent damage.
Good luck!

[dsmiles]

Too bad you can't get a bigger crossbow. (Though, honestly, I'd go for a firearm if they were in play.)

[Kobold Esq]

Feat retraining at 3rd once I had the BAB for it, since we started at 5th my DM was okay with it.

Normally with retraining you can only retrain it for a feat that you would have qualified for at the time you originally obtained the feat.

But your DM okayed it, and frankly you're playing a commoner, so who cares?

[The_Admiral]

Yes use firearms if you can
Get out of my bar!****** gun*

[Drevius]

Yeah I know the Great Crossbow is a pain in the butt to reload and kind of unoptimized/unwieldly but i use it for sheer intimitdation factor mainly :smallcool: but all of the properties given so far are good and won't take long to save up for (although we are going into an undead infested tomb to fight a demon werewolf wizard or some craziness above my paygrade). Firearms aren't off the table either since my DM was asking me about firearms and where he could find proper stats for certain ones, so that would be sweet. Staying commoner also crossed my mind especially if I somehow manage to survive an encounter with the more dangerous villains my DM has made and somehow the Oversized greataxe wielding half orc tank goes down instead of the commoner :smalltongue: also on a side note we have built a war wagon out of solid mithral and have a spot on top to mount my great crossbow and attatch it to what is essentially an ammo belt similar to a Light Machine Gun.

[dsmiles]

Yeah I know the Great Crossbow is a pain in the butt to reload and kind of unoptimized/unwieldly but i use it for sheer intimitdation factor mainly :smallcool: but all of the properties given so far are good and won't take long to save up for (although we are going into an undead infested tomb to fight a demon werewolf wizard or some craziness above my paygrade). Firearms aren't off the table either since my DM was asking me about firearms and where he could find proper stats for certain ones, so that would be sweet. Staying commoner also crossed my mind especially if I somehow manage to survive an encounter with the more dangerous villains my DM has made and somehow the Oversized greataxe wielding half orc tank goes down instead of the commoner :smalltongue: also on a side note we have built a war wagon out of solid mithral and have a spot on top to mount my great crossbow and attatch it to what is essentially an ammo belt similar to a Light Machine Gun.Did someone say they need the stats for firearms (https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0BzPw7X6JvNR-NTA3MDQyZWEtNmJhOC00MzgxLWI3MDQtNWRlYTc5ZjhkZmFi&hl=en_US&authkey=COv2sIYC)? :smalltongue:

[Ashram]

If you can, see if your DM will allow you to take Crossbow Mastery from Pathfinder. Requires Dex 15, Point-Blank Shot, Rapid Reload and Rapid Shot. You can reload ANY crossbow as a free action; the type of crossbow you specifically chose with Rapid Reload can be reloaded without taking attacks of opportunity.

As a sidenote, I love the Great Crossbow. I used to grab the Halfling Crossbow Sight from A&EG, enchant them with Superior Darkvision and play a sniper with a nightvision scope. So fun. =D

[Hazzardevil]

Therer are stasts for Guns in the DM's guide, I can't remember where though.

[TheCountAlucard]

You can reload ANY crossbow as a free action; the type of crossbow you specifically chose with Rapid Reload can be reloaded without taking attacks of opportunity.Err, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it the case that free actions never provoke attacks of opportunity? :smallconfused:

[Ashram]

Err, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it the case that free actions never provoke attacks of opportunity? :smallconfused:

I never got that wording either, but I guess it's either a screw-up or reloading a crossbow still takes a bit of concentration while you're doing it at lightning speed. >_>

[TheCountAlucard]

I never got that wording either, but I guess it's either a screw-up or reloading a crossbow still takes a bit of concentration while you're doing it at lightning speed.Strange. :smallconfused:

[Fax Celestis]

Too bad you can't get a bigger crossbow. (Though, honestly, I'd go for a firearm if they were in play.)

Sure he can. Strongarm bracers don't say anything about being melee-weapon-only. Also, he can wand chamber it and slide a wand of enlarge weapon in there.

[Drevius]

I like the Iron Kingdoms book, Not sure how many weapons from it he will let in if any, more than likely it will be musket style guns and flintlock pistols. The next game won't be for a while but I will see if he has decided on gunpowder weapons and will update whether or not my commoner makes it through the next game. I have a feeling the undead in close quarters are going to be a bit much for him, also the DM liked my back up daring outlaw assassin character and made an assassin as one of the villains with which to torment us.

[dsmiles]

The closest things in IK to those would be the blunderbuss, musket, musket-pistol, and long rifle.