Cleric archer build questions

[FlappyTungsten]

Hello all. I've been downloading wisdom and amusement from these forums for a while now, and have always meant to join; what better time to do so than when I have a few pressing questions about a character build?

Eolas Taisteal is a wandering human priest; he goes from place to place seeking knowledge, righting wrongs, spreading the love of the gods (as we usually play Eberron, I expect he'll be a vassal of the Sovereign Host), consecrating libraries and drinking camomile tea.

Now, I want to play a cleric archer archetype, but for reasons mostly concerning flavour I have already made two choices: I haven't min/maxed his stats, and I'm not taking any of the usual routes into cleric archery (elf with elf domain, outsider, war domain with bows as a favoured weapon etc). His domains are travel and knowledge, and I expect his main roles will be knowledge bank and secondary party face (out of combat) and support character (in combat), buffing and sniping and healing where necessary (as well as shouting things like 'I read that the gills are their weak spots!' or 'The arrow severed your carotid, leave it in!').

Zen archery and knowledge devotion are absolute musts. As for cheese, I plan to go the DMM quicken route - it just fits with my idea that this guy can't really be surprised and can act at a moment's notice, BAMFing around the battlefield and getting stuff done.

To hasten to the point:

I have two viable routes to cleric-archery goodness, both with the same 28-point buy stat spread (Str 10, Dex 10, Con 12, Int 14, Wis 15, Cha 14). The first involves a 1-level fighter dip (probably at first), the second involves being a bit inefficient with feats.

OPTION 1:

Fighter 1 / Cleric X
Feats:
1 (H) Point blank shot
1 (FB) Precise shot
1 Zen archery
3 Knowledge devotion
6 Quicken spell
9 Holy warrior*
12 DMM quicken

* This is assuming the requirement 'access to the war domain' only means war spells; DM's discretion, obviously.

Pros:

Already a good archer at first level, and by third should be getting at least +1/+1 on all attack rolls from knowledge checks
A couple of spare feats to play with, potentially three

Cons:

Lose a caster level
Bad skill set if dip is at level one; sub-par archer for a level if dip is at level two
I see Eolas as a 'non-violent solutions first' sort of chap, so this dip might be slightly out of character and need to be RPed: i.e. if the dip is at L2, it might be because one of his more martially-inclined companions teaches him how to swing a sword and fire a bow in case he's ever caught without magic


OPTION 2:

Cleric X
Feats:
1 (H) Exotic weapon proficiency: greatbow**
1 Point blank shot
3 Precise shot
6 Zen archery
9 Quicken spell
12 DMM quicken
15 Knowledge devotion

** I reason that if I'm burning a feat to become proficient in a bow, I may as well become proficient in a better bow than a longbow.

Pros:

Keep a caster level
Flavour - The slower progression fits with his patient and measured attitude, and he becomes 'devoted' to the idea of knowledge after nearly a whole career pursuing it
Better skills - can spread all the L1 skills between concentration, spellcraft, diplomacy and the knowledges

Cons:

Rubbish at archery until level 3, unless the enemy is standing on their own picking their nose and waving
Merely competent at archery until level 6
Fewer feats to play with


Other feats I'd consider taking include improved initiative (again, in keeping with the 'can't be surprised thing'), extra turning, rapid shot (if I can find something to buff dexterity by 3) and far shot.

My questions:


Which of these routes is better? I.e. are caster levels less vital to archer clerics than to other builds?
Without deviating from the race or domain choices, are there other, better routes to the cleric-archer role?***
As I'm quite inexperienced with caster classes, I don't have a wide knowledge of spells - which are better for cleric archers, and which potentially substitute or augment any of the build choices?
Are there any prestige classes or other feat choices, relevant to the theme, that I ought to bear in mind?


*** Our DM tends not to like Unearthed Arcana overmuch. For this reason, and the fact that Eolas is a wanderer and expressly not cloistered, the 'cloistered cleric' ACF is off the table.

Thanks all for your patience in sticking through the post, and in advance for any responses :)

FT

[lycantrope]

You can use flaws to get.the bread and butter archery stuff at level 1 and zen at 3. If youre an elf you dont have to worry about basic bow proficiency, if youre a human you can pick up an additional feat in order to open up more dmm options, the most obvious being persist. You can also skip proficiency feat altogether with war domain, which if you go the persist route will.eventually let you have full bab, thus proving that clerics are better archers than any other class.

[Gavinfoxx]

Have you seen this?

http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=10961

[Piggy Knowles]

Something to think about with the cleric archer...

With the exception of some very specific builds, you will be doing less overall damage and be less effective at archery than a decent dedicated archer. (For my "baseline decent archer" I'm thinking of, say, a bard archer or swift hunter or the like.)

You'll be decent at archery, don't get me wrong. Size boosts + Divine Power + Zen Archery will mean you'll do better than, say, a straight fighter who doesn't get buffing help. And if you get access to an energy bow, you can put out pretty nice damage.

But ultimately, clerics are somewhat limited in what they have that actually boosts damage for an archer. They've got a few nice options, but only a few, and unless you're playing a game where you can stack nightsticks for more or less unlimited turning, you're probably not going to have enough turn attempts to keep every buff in the book up.

THIS DOES NOT MEAN I'M BASHING THE CLERIC ARCHER! On the contrary, I think it's a great build, and a ton of fun. But the cleric archer is a cleric FIRST, and an archer second.

What you WILL be is a defensive powerhouse, more or less unkillable with the right selection of spells/buffs/items. You will have some incredibly powerful and versatile tools. Your archery component won't be KOing enemies every round (except for mooks, of course). Instead, it will be a way of putting out decent, consistent damage on the rounds when you don't feel like wasting spells.

I say this because a lot of people say, "Oh, hey, a cleric makes a better archer than (insert class here)" all the time. And it's true - but that's because archery, without a lot of support, isn't actually that good. What makes a cleric better at archery than, say, a Swift Hunter, isn't that a cleric produces better damage - he doesn't. What makes him better at archery is that, in the instances when archery isn't that useful, the swift hunter can, I don't know, search for traps or something. The cleric, on the other hand, is still a cleric. A more accurate way of saying it would be, "Oh, hey, a cleric can make a pretty solid archer without costing her anything more than a couple of feats and a few spells, which is honestly going to be a lot more useful for your party than building a dedicated archer."

[FlappyTungsten]

Have you seen this?

http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=10961

I had stumbled upon that, yes - the spell list is good, and I hadn't considered getting a precise enhancement bow and retraining precise shot to a different feat. I'm not following it to the letter because the BG guides tend to be all about optimisation and, as I said, I want to reach the build in the most efficient way within the scope of the character. That means certain stats, a certain race, and certain domains. It's kind of a challenge, narrowing the scope of the optimisation, but still trying to get the best character with the tools given. I always prefer to start with a concept and then work on the numbers.

Lycantrope, thanks for your reply. As I stated, UA is generally out of bounds, so no flaws. I'm also not going elf, not taking the war domain (Sovereign Host's favoured weapon is the longsword at any rate) and I'm choosing quicken over persist - which, I suppose, is a feat fewer, as I avoid having to take extend spell.

It occurred to me that, if sacrificing a caster level was do-able, a second level dip into ranger wouldn't be so bad. We tend to run on 'once a class skill, always a class skill', so the superior skill points of a ranger could be put to good use. Also, all of the L1 ranger abilities work in heavy armour.

How important is that one caster level to a cleric who'll mainly be targeting spells on himself or other willing targets? Thoughts?

Thanks both for your replies.

~ ~ ~

EDIT: Piggy Knowles, you must have replied whilst I was typing. I agree completely, and that's exactly what I wanted to achieve with this character - someone who's useful both in and out of combat, and versatile, without overshadowing any of the dedicated damage-dealers overmuch. A solid support character with lots of mobility.

Perhaps, this in mind, the caster level is more important than feat efficiency. Hmm...

[Garwain]

1 level dip of Ordained Champion (CC) might be better than 2 levels of fighter. As Ordained Champion, you can swap out your domain powers for fighter feats, and you get the War domain for free on top, which essentialy makes up for the feat tax. You do loose 1 lvl of spellcasting though. But combine Quicken with spontaneously casting from the War domain and you have your buffs always closeby.

[drack]

If your GM likes the A&EG then a lorathan (Probably misspelled) protector might not be bad. Lets you use turn checks for extra archery damage though the standard action to charge it means it's better suited to someone calm an patient who has other things to do during combat then fire off twenty arrows. If you expect to be doing some healing and such it can give decent output though.