[PF] Viability of Ninja / Fighter (Archer)

[NightbringerGGZ]

So I had planned to play a TWF Ninja in an upcoming game, but the group is completely lacking a ranged fighter. I'm wondering how viable a ranged Ninja would be if I were to take 3 or 4 levels of Fighter with the Archer Archetype.

At Fighter 3 I would be able to make a Feint maneuver at range, and the author of the archetype has clarified that the Archer can benefit from his own ranged Feints. This gives me a way to set up sneak attacks during the mid levels. At higher levels I can use the Invisible Blade ninja trick to stay invisible all through combat and get tons of Sneak Attacks.

[Xerxus]

It could work, but in order to be a really good archer the feat tax is high. Without improved feint, it's kind of a let down to have only one sneak attack every two rounds.

[Ravens_cry]

Eh, I'd just go Ninja for an Archer sneak attacker. They get the ability to go invisible at 2nd at soonest and get improved invisibility at 10th. A lot of things make invisibility useless, but then, so do a lot of things make feinting harder or even impossible. Combined with the already severe penalty for making feint at range . . .

[Karoht]

I'm currently playing a Ninja going doing a 3 level dip into gunslinger. Why? Because sneak attack damage where I only have to hit a flat-footed touch AC is pretty keen.

Ninja's get Smoke Bombs->Poison Bombs. They obscure line of sight as per a Fog Cloud.
Buy Fogcutting Lenses. Lets you see through smoke, fog, mists, etc. Very handy to have.
Hit target with Smoke Bomb.
Proceed to make as many attacks as you would like VS their Flat Footed Touch AC because they can't see the attack coming. Being Invisible helps.
I also recommend a Wand of Silence and a decent UMD to activate it. Why?
If you can see through fogs and if you can get a means to see through darkness, then sound becomes the only way for the badguys to home in on you, assuming they survive your volley of sneak attacks.
Add Rapid Shot and spend Ki points on extra attacks as needed, watch things die to buckets of sneak attack damage.

If you don't want to invest in the Smoke Bomb/Poison Bomb stuff, just use Smokesticks. Heck, get the rest of the party to use the Smokesticks in the first round/surprise round of combat for you.

@Invisibility Trick
It's cool to get it as early as you can, but given how many things can negate invisibility, is it really worth spending a feat on? Or is it better to just wait until you can get an item or some scrolls to make yourself invisible with? That's your judgement call to make.

A successful stealth check means the next time you hit the opponent they are flat-footed, unless of course they somehow make a perception check to find you prior to you attacking. Stealth checks are actually pretty easy to boost.

[Ravens_cry]

I've actually planned something similar. You don't have to spend a feat to get invisibility at 2nd level; you can simply take invisible blade as your first ninja trick. Still, if you do go the Fog route, pick up a Goz Mask (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/m-p/mask-goz) as soon as you can. It's a little better than Fogcutter Lenses and the same price.

[Karoht]

I've actually planned something similar. You don't have to spend a feat to get invisibility at 2nd level; you can simply take invisible blade as your first ninja trick. Still, if you do go the Fog route, pick up a Goz Mask (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/m-p/mask-goz) as soon as you can. It's a little better than Fogcutter Lenses and the same price.
That.
Is remarkably better for the same price.
Thanks for the tip!

Yeah, the eventual plan with the Gnome Gun Gninja is:
Launch Choking Poison Bomb with poison (nightmare vapor, double dose, DC22), everyone in the area saves or is staggered, plus makes saves against poison. They're also considered flat footed VS my gun. One target takes a bunch of attacks worth of damage, + charisma mod to damage, + sneak attack damage, +strength damage (target loses strength), and make yet more saves VS poison (Dragon's Bile, double dose, DC28). Rapid Fire is a possible option because flat footed touch AC's are easy to hit.
Swift Action Bewildering Koan one of them so they don't leave the Choking Bomb cloud.

[Ravens_cry]

I'd pick up the invisibility line as well. Lots of things are immune to poison and it's also mighty expensive. It's only two ninja tricks, so it shouldn't be too hard to fit in.

[Karoht]

I have a few spare feat/trick slots which I could use, but squeezing them in delays other features. Invisibility and good Stealth are easy enough to acquire without a class feature.
But, I will be taking Forgotten Trick just in case, which basically lets me pick ANY trick I qualify for and use it, it just costs me more Ki.

[Ravens_cry]

I have a few spare feat/trick slots which I could use, but squeezing them in delays other features. Invisibility and good Stealth are easy enough to acquire without a class feature.
Been able to get greater invisibility the lasts as long as the spell at your level for only 1 ki? I'd consider that more than worth it, even with all the things that have see invisibility.

[Karoht]

Been able to get greater invisibility the lasts as long as the spell at your level for only 1 ki? I'd consider that more than worth it, even with all the things that have see invisibility.
And it is a Swift action and all...
Hmmm. Yeah, maybe that does have more value than I'm giving it credit.

[ericgrau]

It doesn't hurt to pick up some cheap poisons, around 100 gp. They are good around levels 5-10. Like quicken spell as non-actions they are amazingly useful even for minor effects. Especially drow poison. Even a 25% chance of success is an extra 25% or more effectiveness on top of your normal damage; that's a lot of power. A power boost to do better in fights is cheaper than a resurrection, and even after several uses it will be cheaper and more effective than spending your money on permanent items. Applies to expendables in general, really. The action in an adventurer's life is amazingly short, so they are the way to go. Consider sleep arrows for double the saves rolled.

Whenever something is immune it costs you nothing to use regular arrows instead, saving the special arrows for later. Or, heck, carry undead bane and construct bane arrows too, or whatever your DM likes to use, and be ready for almost anything. PF added quite a few new arrows too. Being a regular Green Arrow is pretty easy to do.

After a sneak attack trigger like invisibility I would focus on attack bonus to make sure your attacks hit. Precise shot at first. Then once you get greater invisibility go for lesser bracers of archery and weapon focus to make up for the penalties on the extra attacks and for your medium BAB. Smoke bombs + fogcutter lenses are great too until level 10. Then I would get rapid shot and multiple attacks sooner. But only when you expect to be attacking for 3 or more rounds. For 2 rounds you might as well invisibility twice + attack twice instead of throwing a smoke bomb and then rapid shotting for 2 attacks at a -2 penalty to hit. So maybe smoke bomb round 1, then if foes leave the smoke don't bother with a second bomb just use invisibility because the fight won't be lasting much longer anyway.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Using feint means not full attacking. You're an archer, you want to be full attacking.

What is the starting level, and what level do you expect to reach, roughly? This is very important. A level 10 Ninja can full attack ranged sneak attack basically at will thanks to Invisible Blade or whatever it's called. A 9th level ninja is stuck like any other ranged sneak attacker w/ crap for options. So, a universe of difference. If you're starting at 10 or anywhere close to level 10, you want to reach Ninja 10 as fast as possible, don't multiclass until after that point! If you're starting at low levels and expect to never reach mid levels or to take months to get there, you should look into other options for obtaining full ranged sneak attack. There really aren't many, sadly, PF nerfed that tactic badly. Best option I know of is dipping Oracle 1 level for Water Sight revelation and plopping down some obscuring mist.

[NightbringerGGZ]

I'll be starting at level 1 and ending at level 16. 20 point buy, so I can afford to start with 18 Dex. Race is Kitsune, and I want to work in Realistic Likeness at some point.

I like the idea of using Smoke Bombs & a Goz Mask. The smoke cloud lasts for a full minute and I can make iterative snipe attacks from within it and the Goz Mask is under half the price of Sniper Goggles. I can use this trick during early levels. My table allows the use of Hero Points to retrain feats / abilities so at level 10 I can trade Smoke Bombs for Vanishing Trick, grab Invisible Blade and just have fun being invisible for an entire combat.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Half the price of sniper goggles is still really expensive. But if that'll work for you, have fun. I found the smoke bomb ninja tricks too costly in ki and ninja tricks (to build up the chain) when I read over ninja, maybe for your plan it works ok. Obscuring Mist is a cheap wand if not, if Goz Mask works for that.

[ericgrau]

You could pick up a bunch of smokesticks, target them on yourself and shoot from inside the smoke. They're only 20 gp each and don't require any special build efforts. As long as foes don't have gust of wind it will outlast the whole fight too. The only reason I could see for taking smoke bomb would be if you also take the related tricks.

I'd spend most of your ki on extra attacks, via the default ability or flurry of stars if you get far shot. Then I'd select non-ki tricks like bleeding attack and deadly range.

Besides that the one trick that stuck out for me was Forgotten Trick. Take that and the extra ki feat and it seems quite versatile. Take notes on the situational tricks and now you're ready for all kinds of oddball situations. Acrobatic master, darkvision, fast stealth, feather fall, high jumper, slow metabolism, slow reactions, sudden disguise, ventriloquism and wall climber. And to truly abuse it use it to get combat trick and make a list of the combat feats that are only good in awfully specific circumstances.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Cleric of War domain can swift action gain a combat feat out of his ass.

Many casters can use Paragon Surge to pull any feat out of their ass; indeed, using it merely as "an uber Heroics" is the balanced use of it (the unbalanced use involves using it w/ feats that give you additional spells known to on the spot call up any spell on your spell list you may need).

Ninja using Forgotten Trick, which Paizo in the unnecessary, over-reactive nerfing redesign of the class made quite expensive to use, is hardly abusive in comparison.

It is a nifty idea if you can afford going w/o Combat Trick in your build, though.

EDIT: Wow, ok, that Goz Mask is pretty good. Same idea as my Oracle dip advice, w/o needing the dip. Still, you would want the smoke on YOUR position, so you can just stand in it and 5 ft step back into total concealment as needed, rather than re-apply each time the enemy escapes from a smoke cloud used offensively. So I still recommend just getting a wand of Obscuring Mist, it's cheaper per use than smoke sticks, with larger radius and longer duration. Unfortunately if it's not being cast as a spell, you won't be able to use the alchemical power component (I think it's actually a smoke stick) to protect the Obscuring Mist from being evaporated by fire attacks. Which, IMO, is very nice as an option to remove one of the major weaknesses of using Obscuring Mist (others are: wind, which there's no counter for other than Control Winds spell; and enemies moving more than 30 ft from the cloud, which is solved w/ sniper goggles....though if you're an archer and they move away from you, you're probably winning anyway).

Shame it's the same slot as sniper goggles. Guess it will end up costing 12,000 instead of 8000 gp later on.