Burrowing ranger

[Mystify]

This was inspired by a pathfinder sniper build I saw a couple days ago.
Basic idea is that you take a ranger, give them a brilliant energy bow, tremorsense, and a burrow speed(perhaps from the burrow spell), and spend the battle safely underground, shooting brilliant energy arrows through the ground into enemies.

The question is whether you can actually fire your bow while burrowing underground.

An alternative route would be to have a ghost with a ghosttouch bow and brilliant energy arrows doing this with etherealness.

Anybody see any rules conflicts with either of these strategies?

[VeGaS1986]

Well given that only the arrowheads are actually affected by the Brilliant Energy property, id say the arrows would loose all power to friction before hitting anything, even if you only shoot through a very thin layer.

Cant speak for the ghost part, honestly cant be bother to look over all the rules at this hour -.-

[Mystify]

Well given that only the arrowheads are actually affected by the Brilliant Energy property, id say the arrows would loose all power to friction before hitting anything, even if you only shoot through a very thin layer.

Cant speak for the ghost part, honestly cant be bother to look over all the rules at this hour -.-
That would be pointless. So the first inch pentrates your sheild, and the shaft would still get blocked. The first inch would peirce the armor, butthe shaft would still sop and be greatly hindered. I don't see anything on brilliant energy to indicate it is only on the arrowhead.

If that is the case, switch it over to a shuriken chucker.

[VeGaS1986]

Its right in the first two lines of the Brilliant Energy description, "A brilliant energy weapon has its significant portion - such as its blade, axe head or ARROW HEAD transformed into light". Also I hardly think friction sets in in enough of a meaningful way to affect damage when dealing with the thickness of armor and shields.

Anyway, assuming you make it work, it will not be usable in alot of settings unless you get an umberhulk like ability to burrow through stone. Alot of enemies will also get wise to whats going on and either flee or use some ability at their disposal to get at you. Lastly its just (imo anyway) a really boring tactic. I mean half the fun of roleplaying battles is thinking how to get at the wizard, how to survive when in a bad spot and so forth...if you do this it just becomes sitting around waiting for your turn, rolling some dice, then repeating. The most exciting aspect of combat would become target selection.

Ill admit its a fun concept but in actual play I suspect you will be sorely dissapointed.

[Mystify]

Its right in the first two lines of the Brilliant Energy description, "A brilliant energy weapon has its significant portion - such as its blade, axe head or ARROW HEAD transformed into light". Also I hardly think friction sets in in enough of a meaningful way to affect damage when dealing with the thickness of armor and shields.

Anyway, assuming you make it work, it will not be usable in alot of settings unless you get an umberhulk like ability to burrow through stone. Alot of enemies will also get wise to whats going on and either flee or use some ability at their disposal to get at you. Lastly its just (imo anyway) a really boring tactic. I mean half the fun of roleplaying battles is thinking how to get at the wizard, how to survive when in a bad spot and so forth...if you do this it just becomes sitting around waiting for your turn, rolling some dice, then repeating. The most exciting aspect of combat would become target selection.

Ill admit its a fun concept but in actual play I suspect you will be sorely dissapointed.
The SRD only says "significant portion", but never species. I figured that a sword would have the blade, but the entire arrow needs to be brilliant energy, otherwise it would pierce armor as well as shooting arrows without heads at it, i.e. not at all. Instead, its described as passing through all nonliving matter to be unblockable, which is not the case if only the front part is phasing through.

[Tvtyrant]

The SRD only says "significant portion", but never species. I figured that a sword would have the blade, but the entire arrow needs to be brilliant energy, otherwise it would pierce armor as well as shooting arrows without heads at it, i.e. not at all. Instead, its described as passing through all nonliving matter to be unblockable, which is not the case if only the front part is phasing through.

I tend to agree; if only the arrowhead was energy then a shield would actually be amazing at blocking it. My suggestion for this is to use Polymorph as a Mystic Ranger and use the form of a Xorn to gain earthglide. Only problem is the dex is awful.

[Person_Man]

This tactic has been pulled off before via other means in a variety of ways. I think there might even be a "Mole" handbook out there somewhere.

For example, it's easy to get flight, Flyby Attack, and the ability to become Ethereal/Incorporeal/etc or some other method of moving through walls. Thus you can fly in, use a Standard Action spell or breath weapon or Manyshot or whatever, and then fly away so that you're not in harm. Or you can just cast spells (like Summons) while standing in another room. If your enemies don't have line of effect to you, they can't attack. And thus unless your enemies ready an action to attack you, you cannot be attacked by most methods.

Unfortunately, it always breaks down in the metagame if you try and use it more then once or twice. Your DM might let you pull it off once or twice. But if you do it all of the time, get ready to encounter a whole lot of high level casters, Ghosts, Ethereal Dragons, etc., thus rendering your strategy moot, and wasting the resources you invested in order to get it.

[Mystify]

This tactic has been pulled off before via other means in a variety of ways. I think there might even be a "Mole" handbook out there somewhere.

For example, it's easy to get flight, Flyby Attack, and the ability to become Ethereal/Incorporeal/etc or some other method of moving through walls. Thus you can fly in, use a Standard Action spell or breath weapon or Manyshot or whatever, and then fly away so that you're not in harm. Or you can just cast spells (like Summons) while standing in another room. If your enemies don't have line of effect to you, they can't attack. And thus unless your enemies ready an action to attack you, you cannot be attacked by most methods.

Unfortunately, it always breaks down in the metagame if you try and use it more then once or twice. Your DM might let you pull it off once or twice. But if you do it all of the time, get ready to encounter a whole lot of high level casters, Ghosts, Ethereal Dragons, etc., thus rendering your strategy moot, and wasting the resources you invested in order to get it.
You can counter-metagame. If there are a subset of things the DM has to use to counter your character, other characters can counter them in turn. There is a lot of support for anti-ethereal creatures, for instance. My proposed build isn't very resource intensive, so there is plenty of room to have more general capabilities.