Mind-controlling archer - how?

[Shin]

Hey there!
We did talk about me modifying my Walker in the Waste in another thread, and now I need help with my teammate's character. I'm not that experienced so that I could certainly find the best options on my own.

What my mate wants to play is, basically, a character fighting with bow and arrows, having full spellcasting progression and being a mind controler.
The character's race isn't set yet, although it seems that my mate is strongly driven towards human or at least humanoid. He started with a sorcerer but that could change.

I came up with the idea of soulbow + thrallherd.
Do these two synergize? Do they work together?
And: Does the soulbow have manifesting class progression like the thrallherd has?

If that doesn't work, are there other combinations which will let him become a mind-controlling caster archer?

Your ideas and opinions are welcome.

[Jeff the Green]

Hmmm. Is refluffing and minor homebrew okay? Because I'd go with Warlock/Thrallherd. Swap the prerequisites for something more appropriate, give eldritch blast and invocation progression farther than manifesting, and give charm and dominate as SLAs rather than powers known. Refluff eldritch blast as a magic bow and go to town.

If not, Psychic Warriors make decent archers and can get into Thrallherd with Expanded Knowledge, but the low BAB hurts archers. A psion specializing in bolts could be refluffed to a mindbow.

Mindbow doesn't get manifesting, unfortunately.

Maybe a cleric? Clerics have some decent Enchantment spells and can be pretty deadly archers.

[nedz]

Half-Fey Ranger.
Using the Savage Species Half-Fey racial levels, available online here (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sp/20040213a), you can delay the flight bit so that it doesn't break the game and progress the character's archery from level 2.

Half-Fey gives you lots of enchantment style SLAs — look at the list.

Ranger (or any other suitable class) gives you the archery.

[Uncle Pine]

I don't think that soulbow and thrallherd synergize well. In fact, while the former doesn't progress manifester level because it's based on the soulknife, the latter require 5th level in a manifester class.

On the other hand, an archivist could work pretty well: he gets full attack progression (via divine power) and he gets a lot of archery-like spells from the ranger spell list and IIRC you should be able to get some mind-controlling spells (but I'm away from books, so I'm not sure about this).

[Eldariel]

Well, you have plenty of options. My favorite would probably be:
Bard 8/Arcane Archer 2/Sublime Chord 2/Sacred Exorcist 4/Abjurant Champion 4

Basically, you get full Charisma-based casting including the Bard-list which has a lot of mind magic. You also have 16 BAB and you qualify for Divine Might (adds Charisma to damage for a Turn Undead attempt, and Turn Undead is gained through Sacred Exorcist), you have some decent Bardic Music (some Inspire Courage, Inspire Greatness, Song of Arcane Power) and then you have your spell slots to use to boost your archery and for mind control spells.

You have to be Elf for Arcane Archer but Imbue Arrow is really good here so it's probably worth it.


Other obvious option is Cleric 20 - with appropriate domains they get all the big mind control spells and Clerics are amazing Archers.

You could do something with the Ardent or the Psychic Warrior, too. In general tho, spells make you great at archery so that combination is easier than it would appear.