Can anyone take this build to level 26?

[aloofscarab]

Ok all so here's the build

Ranger 3/ Fighter 4/ Soulknife 4/ Soulbow 8/ Shiba protector 1

This is an old build by a guy named Carnivore that I'm co-opting for my own use, but the campaign is as mentioned level 26..how do I take this the next 6 levels for best effect?

[Emperor Tippy]

Leaving aside the fact that that is a spectacularly bad build, throw on Martial Monk 2 for Infinite and Exceptional Deflection and spend a feat on Reflect Arrows.

Then throw on 4 levels of Swordsage and take Balance on the Sky as one of your Stances known.

You are still going to suck but you are going to suck a lot less.

Spend a feat on Distant Shot so that you can ignore range limitations. Now use Balance on the Sky to stay well out of reach and snipe away while whacking any ranged attacks used against you right back in the face of your attacker.

Again, if the DM is playing epic remotely competently then you are going to be pretty much superfluous and contribute minimally but at least you will probably survive long enough to make that minimal contribution.

[aloofscarab]

Ok Tippy I'm admittedly curious why this build is bad? The actual stats on it at level 20 looked nice in the thread I found it at; you could scout with the right feat/skill selection as well as snipe and the damage looked decent if not great. What would you do to improve/change it? Or could you point me to some other ideas for an epic level build? I'm trying to avoid a caster despite the loss in power just to save myself the headache of all the homework involved in an epic caster. Thanks for any advice.

[Khatoblepas]

Leaving aside the fact that that is a spectacularly bad build, throw on Martial Monk 2 for Infinite and Exceptional Deflection and spend a feat on Reflect Arrows.

Tippy, that is bad advice. Martial Monk doesn't give you epic feats, only Fighter feats (and not Epic Fighter feats, which are completely different). I've been through this before. There is no way you can twist RAW to cover what you suggest.

Anyway, to optimise this build, you'll probably want to know what you're doing with the build. It seems like an archery focused build, but what is it you want to do?

Personally, I'd recommend a War domain cleric with DMM: Persist (If you have access to Dungeon Compendium, get a dip in Paladin for Serenity! With 26 levels to work with, I'm sure you have room in your build for it, as you only need 17 levels of actual casting), so that you only have to worry about your spells in the beginning of the day (to cut down on the amount of times you have to think about spellcasting), and you could get a +9 untyped bonus on damage rolls with Holy Warrior along with all the rest of your Wis SADness, and get up some Divine Power.

Unfortunately, epic levels are not kind to noncasters. If I could recommend a good epic noncaster, I would.

[aloofscarab]

Thanks Khatoblepas! http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=2664.0 here's the link to the thread and the actual post is about half way down. You can see there what he's doing with it.

I agree that Epic isn't very good to non-casters..but then non of D&D is very good to non-casters. I might just have to suck it up and make one whether I like it or not.

[bekeleven]

Ok Tippy I'm admittedly curious why this build is bad? The actual stats on it at level 20 looked nice in the thread I found it at; you could scout with the right feat/skill selection as well as snipe and the damage looked decent if not great. What would you do to improve/change it? Or could you point me to some other ideas for an epic level build? I'm trying to avoid a caster despite the loss in power just to save myself the headache of all the homework involved in an epic caster. Thanks for any advice.

Not Tippy, but a few issues with the build are:

Ranger 2 is solid. Ranger 4 is sold. Ranger 3 doesn't do much, it was a wasted level unless it's continued.

Fighter is a pretty terrible class, but Fighter 2 can be solid if you need feats for a specific build or PrC prerequisite. Taking fighter past 2 is always a mistake. The smallest optimization would be Fighter 2/PsyWar 2.

Soulknife is a terrible class. Worse than fighter, in fact. Both are useless out of combat, and can only do one thing in combat, and not as well as Tome of Battle, PsyWar, Factotums, etc. and with less versatility than a Barbarian, Scout, Ranger, etc. doing the same thing. However, at least the fighter gives access to melee powerhouse feats like leap attack and shock trooper. Soulknife gives you a melee weapon. Soulbow salvages it, but never makes it a great choice, just a bearable one. AFB so I can't explain the Soul-X better, and I'm not familiar with Shiba Protector.

[aloofscarab]

Thanks Bekeleven! I wasn't really familiar with how good soulknife/soulbow was until you mentioned it. I think I'll scrap the build and go look for something else! Thanks for the help!

[bekeleven]

Thanks Bekeleven! I wasn't really familiar with how good soulknife/soulbow was until you mentioned it. I think I'll scrap the build and go look for something else! Thanks for the help!

No problem. If you're not familiar with the Tier System (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?PHPSESSID=vu2kudhek7l853a2nab84smq77&topic=5293.0) (JaronK's Opus over at BG), you should at least read Why Soulknifes are Tier 5 (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=4869.0).

[Emperor Tippy]

If you actually want a decent archer, build around Factotum 8.

For level 26 I would actually probably go Factotum 8/ Psion 17/ Monk 1.

Spend some of your WBL on a Rudimentary Intelligence Shadesteel Golem and a Skin of Proteus and then True Mind Switch with it immediately after the game starts (use a Power Stone so that you can ignore the XP cost).

Then go and take another 8 levels of Factotum.

Use Kung Fu Genius and take Infinite and Exceptional Deflection along with Permanent Emanation: Selective Antimagic Field. You are now immune to all magical attacks.

Spend the money to get Lesser Ironguard as one of your powers known via Psychic Chiguery and a Spell to Power Erudite and Persist it.

Do the same thing to pick up all of the spells and powers that are helpful to an archer on any spell list (Wyrm Wizard can get them onto the Spell to Power Erudite's powers known list).

---
Regardless of what you do though, get yourself true mind switched into a Shadesteel Golem body. It makes Epic massively more survivable, especially if you are a non caster.

[bekeleven]

Tippy, as much as your advice is... perhaps technically optimal, it sounds to me like you are planning for a vastly different game than what this guy is joining.

I mean, this soulbow was in-use in the game. You are like 600% above the op-floor. I generally stick to, at most, doubling the op-floor. True Mind Switching, StP Erudite, Wyrm Wizard, these are all regarded as TO in the groups I've played with. Permanent Emanations... eh, it's epic, but the rest is iffier.

[Emperor Tippy]

It's epic. Unless the DM is exceedingly easy on you then less than at least moderate optimization means that you stand not a chance in hell of surviving.

And Archers (followed only slightly by other builds focusing on ranged attacks) are perhaps screwed the worst of anybody. One epic feat and every single archer is totally and completely shut down, regardless of build.

[Mr Adventurer]

Infinite Deflection required IUS, Combat Reflexes, and Deflect Arrows as well as Dex 25. It's mot hard to build toward it but if you haven't then you're pretty much SOL without shenanigans.

[Balthanon]

Not Tippy, but a few issues with the build are:

Ranger 2 is solid. Ranger 4 is sold. Ranger 3 doesn't do much, it was a wasted level unless it's continued.

Fighter is a pretty terrible class, but Fighter 2 can be solid if you need feats for a specific build or PrC prerequisite. Taking fighter past 2 is always a mistake. The smallest optimization would be Fighter 2/PsyWar 2.

Soulknife is a terrible class. Worse than fighter, in fact. Both are useless out of combat, and can only do one thing in combat, and not as well as Tome of Battle, PsyWar, Factotums, etc. and with less versatility than a Barbarian, Scout, Ranger, etc. doing the same thing. However, at least the fighter gives access to melee powerhouse feats like leap attack and shock trooper. Soulknife gives you a melee weapon. Soulbow salvages it, but never makes it a great choice, just a bearable one. AFB so I can't explain the Soul-X better, and I'm not familiar with Shiba Protector.

The build is built around Wisdom optimization-- Shiba Protector grants Wisdom to attacks and damage. (Technically any-- ranged or melee.) That was the focus of most of the builds in the thread this originally popped up in from what I recall, since it was one of the best features of Soulbow.

I assume Ranger 3 was used because the build didn't want XP penalties for its base classes and wanted the feats from fighter, the enhancement bonus from Soulknife, and the class ability from Shiba Protector. Ranger provides decent skills, good BAB (necessary, since it is at 16 at 20 already), and decent abilities-- Endurance isn't great, but it's used as a pre-req for plenty of feats.

Soulbow plus Shiba Protector gives double Wisdom to attack and damage assuming the DM allows it. This was a build put together prior to Tome of Battle, so adding a splash of that probably isn't going to hurt, but if you don't want to go that route there are options. One is actually taking Moon-Warded Ranger out of Dragon-- that will give you Wisdom to AC in light armor to build on your Wisdom focus. Another alternate class feature from Soulknife that lets you trade psychic strike for a bonus feat wouldn't be bad either. I'm not sure either were published when the build was created originally.

I would also check with your DM to see if he'll allow you to substitute Wisdom for Dex on feat requirements if you take Zen Archery-- without it you lose that mono-stat focus.

I actually like Ardent Dilletante in epic levels if you've been splashing prestige classes all over the place (and are a caster) since it allows for a true bonus feat which can be Epic. In your case though, you're also pretty close to finishing off Soulbow. I would consider just going Soulbow 6 to finish things off if you want to keep things simple-- the only reason the build stops at 8 is because of BAB. Work with your DM to create a decent epic progression and you should get at least two epic feats out of it plus progress your soulbow abilities (maybe start penetrating epic DR, get additional enhancement options in the epic category, etc....)