3.5 archer build... Need help.

[D4rkh0rus]

I'm building a 1 shot 1 kill character. The build will focus around 1shot that crits and kills 1thing.
Although when it comes to killing the big baddies they often have more hp that what I can deal.

Asuming I'll be using a +5 hank bow with collision and with kaorti resin arrows but not deep wood sniper

Also that I'll be able to add str (hanks bow), dex x2 (hit and run targeteer 1) and wisdom (shiba protector)

I'll be having chameleon as the main class, and I'll have a turning pool to persist spells.

I'll also have a level of rogue with craven.

So, what else can I add in form of dmg (doesn't necessarily need to be multiplied by crit)

Spells, items, wands, etc. Wha other weapon enchantments.

No class levels or feats though.

I'm going for a total of 900ish dmg dealt in total


Splitting can be added too, but considering that it's a separate roll so it won't auto crit (but I'll have quite a bit of to-hit) and it won't apply precision damage.

While con dmg could work... How would this deal with creatures that don't have con, like undead.


Remember that this has to be only 1 shot.

Stats will be
Str 8
Dex 14
Con 12
Int 18 + 2 from lvls
Wis 18 + 3 from lvls
Cha 14

Assume I'll have a belt of +6 to everything and +5 tomes.
So, what can you guys come up with?

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Check out the Targetteer variant of Fighter from Dragon issue 310, page 38. That gives you different proficiencies, class skills, and bonus feat options, and it gives you several special abilities that can be selected in place of bonus feats, as follows:
Arrow Swarm – (prerequisite: Rapid Shot) As a Full Round Attack, the
Targetteer may make two extra ranged attacks at his/her highest attack
bonus, but all attacks receive a –5 penalty.
Sniper – As a Full Round Attack, the Targetteer may “sacrifice” one shot to
gain +1 critical threat range on a shot in that Full Round Attack. Multiple
attacks may be sacrificed. The bonus is only for one shot & does not “carry
over” from round to round.
Vital Aim – When shooting an opponent who is vulnerable to critical hits, the
Targetteer may use his/her Dexterity modifier as a damage bonus instead of
his/her Strength modifier. This ability can only be used if the Strength
modifier is positive –or– both modifiers are negative.
So if you get both Arrow Storm and Sniper, you can take a -2 to all attacks for Rapid Shot, -5 to all attacks for Arrow Storm, and trade all three of those extra attacks for +3 threat range (19-20 would go to 16-20).

At +16 BAB, with both of those and Haste, you would normally get eight attacks, so you could take a full attack action to make a single attack that gets a +7 threat range (19-20 would be 12-20).

[D4rkh0rus]

Check out the Targetteer variant of Fighter from Dragon issue 310, page 38. That gives you different proficiencies, class skills, and bonus feat options, and it gives you several special abilities that can be selected in place of bonus feats, as follows:
Arrow Swarm – (prerequisite: Rapid Shot) As a Full Round Attack, the
Targetteer may make two extra ranged attacks at his/her highest attack
bonus, but all attacks receive a –5 penalty.
Sniper – As a Full Round Attack, the Targetteer may “sacrifice” one shot to
gain +1 critical threat range on a shot in that Full Round Attack. Multiple
attacks may be sacrificed. The bonus is only for one shot & does not “carry
over” from round to round.
Vital Aim – When shooting an opponent who is vulnerable to critical hits, the
Targetteer may use his/her Dexterity modifier as a damage bonus instead of
his/her Strength modifier. This ability can only be used if the Strength
modifier is positive –or– both modifiers are negative.

So if you get both Arrow Storm and Sniper, you can take a -2 to all attacks for Rapid Shot, -5 to all attacks for Arrow Storm, and trade all three of those extra attacks for +3 threat range (19-20 would go to 16-20).

I already mentioned I would be using targeteer... Please read the whole post before posting.

Crit will be made through hunter's mercy.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

I already mentioned I would be using targeteer... Please read the whole post before posting.

Crit will be made through hunter's mercy.

I didn't notice, I didn't think you were since you have Str 8 which disqualifies you from adding Dex to damage via Targetteer.

[D4rkh0rus]

I didn't notice, I didn't think you were since you have Str 8 which disqualifies you from adding Dex to damage via Targetteer.

Id have 25 str after adding divine power, +6 enh bonus and +5 from tome.

[infomatic]

Divine Power is enhancement bonus, doesn't stack with that other +6 bonus. So Strength 19.

[Biotroll]

How about (Greater) Psionic Shot? The cost might not be worth it but it's an option. Wand of Sniper's Shot for swift action to sneak attack at any range? Also, get bigger. :smallsmile:

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Id have 25 str after adding divine power, +6 enh bonus and +5 from tome.

Hank's Energy Bow specifically accommodates a user of any Str, as a composite bow. Vital Aim from Targetteer replaces your Str bonus to damage with your Dex bonus. You can't get both Str and Dex when using that.

[Jgosse]

So how many attacks do you get with arrow swarm and Rapid shot at full attack with a BAB of 16 or over 6 or 7?

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

So how many attacks do you get with arrow swarm and Rapid shot at full attack with a BAB of 16 or over 6 or 7?

Arrow Swarm adds two attacks, for a -5 to every shot you make that round.
Rapid Shot adds one attack, for a -2 to every shot you make that round, or no penalty with Improved Rapid Shot.
BAB +16 gives you four attacks.
Haste or Righteous Wrath of the Faithful or a Speed weapon adds one attack.

That makes eight shots. If you (Draconic) Polymorph into an Arrow Demon you can use two bows and make twice that many at no penalty due to their racial ability, for sixteen shots per full attack.

[Jgosse]

Arrow Swarm adds two attacks, for a -5 to every shot you make that round.
Rapid Shot adds one attack, for a -2 to every shot you make that round, or no penalty with Improved Rapid Shot.
BAB +16 gives you four attacks.
Haste or Righteous Wrath of the Faithful or a Speed weapon adds one attack.

That makes eight shots. If you (Draconic) Polymorph into an Arrow Demon you can use two bows and make twice that many at no penalty due to their racial ability, for sixteen shots per full attack.

I did not think haste stacked with rapid shot.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

I did not think haste stacked with rapid shot.

It doesn't say that it doesn't. Typically effects that grant additional attacks for a drawback (Rapid Shot, Flurry of Blows, Two-Weapon Fighting, etc.) will always stack with any other effect that grans additional attacks, since those abilities have a cost or drawback (initially anyway, even high-level Flurry of Blows or Improved Rapid Shot are paid for by levels/feats). Effects that grant additional attacks for no drawback as soon as they're available (Haste, Speed weapon, Righteous Wrath of the Faithful) typically won't stack with each other, but they do stack with effects that grant extra attacks for a cost.

[Seerow]

Arrow Swarm adds two attacks, for a -5 to every shot you make that round.
Rapid Shot adds one attack, for a -2 to every shot you make that round, or no penalty with Improved Rapid Shot.
BAB +16 gives you four attacks.
Haste or Righteous Wrath of the Faithful or a Speed weapon adds one attack.

That makes eight shots. If you (Draconic) Polymorph into an Arrow Demon you can use two bows and make twice that many at no penalty due to their racial ability, for sixteen shots per full attack.

So then sacrifice 15 of those shots with Targeteer's Sniper ability, and have a 4-20x4 crit attack?

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

So then sacrifice 15 of those shots with Targeteer's Sniper ability, and have a 4-20x4 crit attack?

Actually, since you get to add your own effects in the most beneficial order, you can add on Improved Critical to double the current threat range after you've brought it down considerably. So make two attacks at your highest bonus, sacrificing the remaining fourteen attacks seven at a time. This gets you a 13-20 from Sniper, which is eight numbers, and Improved Critical takes it down another eight numbers to 5-20 for each shot.

Considering Hunter's Mercy, you should actually make it three shots, the first is automatically a crit, the second has seven shots sacrificed to it for a 5-20, and the third shot has six shots sacrificed to it for a 7-20. All at x4, of course. You can even use (Persistent) Choose Destiny to almost guarantee that you get a critical hit on all of those.

[Irk]

To execute a one shot one kill, I'd just load a locate city bomb into an arrow with arcane archer or spell storing. That should do it.

[Seerow]

Actually, since you get to add your own effects in the most beneficial order, you can add on Improved Critical to double the current threat range after you've brought it down considerably. So make two attacks at your highest bonus, sacrificing the remaining fourteen attacks seven at a time. This gets you a 13-20 from Sniper, which is eight numbers, and Improved Critical takes it down another eight numbers to 5-20 for each shot.

Considering Hunter's Mercy, you should actually make it three shots, the first is automatically a crit, the second has seven shots sacrificed to it for a 5-20, and the third shot has six shots sacrificed to it for a 7-20. All at x4, of course. You can even use (Persistent) Choose Destiny to almost guarantee that you get a critical hit on all of those.

How does Splitting interact with this? It's a separate attack roll, so I know hunter's mercy doesn't apply, but would Sniper? Like as a simpler example, if you had 5 attacks and sacrificed 4, would splitting give you 2 attacks at 16-20, or 1 at 16-20 and a second at 20?

I'm guessing the latter, but the former would be pretty awesome.




...either way the OP wants a single attack, so I think we're getting kind of off track. Sniper is a cool feature, but with Hunter's Mercy existing, it's irrelevant to a one shot one kill build. Are there any other ways to boost up the single shot damage?

[Togo]

The seeking and blood seeking abilities are generally worth adding to a bow. The first (DMG) allows you to ignore concealement, the second (Cwarrior) allows you to ignore cover, including total cover. In combination, they allow you to shoot at people behind walls, at no penalty, provided you know what square they are in. Shooting at someone inside a house, and watching your arrow plunge down the chimney trying to find them, is generally kinda cool.

[D4rkh0rus]

The seeking and blood seeking abilities are generally worth adding to a bow. The first (DMG) allows you to ignore concealement, the second (Cwarrior) allows you to ignore cover, including total cover. In combination, they allow you to shoot at people behind walls, at no penalty, provided you know what square they are in. Shooting at someone inside a house, and watching your arrow plunge down the chimney trying to find them, is generally kinda cool.

That actually sounds fun... Does it pass walls of force/wind walls?


Also, I'm not asking for crit chance... I need actual damage... Although I'll keep that stuff in account.

[Piggy Knowles]

OK, let's see...

You need, what, 225 damage before crit is applied?


4.5 base damage from the arrow
20 damage from Hank's bow
20 damage from Craven
17 damage from Wis boosted with CL 24 owl's insight
14 damage from Dex*2
5 damage from Collision
5 damage from being a +5 weapon


...and we're only at 88.5. That's 354 on an auto-crit, which is not even halfway to where you need to be. If you CAN somehow add on a 25 Strength bonus, then you're at 95.5 instead.

You can start stacking on spells... Divine Favor is +3 luck damage, Battlecry is +5 morale damage. Look at all different sources of bonuses - insight, profane, sacred, divine, energy damage, etc. Also, if you can go up to colossal in size, your arrows will deal 4d6 instead of 1d8, so that means base average damage of 14 rather than 4.5. I don't have my books in front of me, but I'd guess you can go up to at least 125 or so that way by adding on those types of spells. That still puts you a far cry from the 225 necessary to generate 900 points of damage, though.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

OK, let's see...

You need, what, 225 damage before crit is applied?


4.5 base damage from the arrow
20 damage from Hank's bow
20 damage from Craven
17 damage from Wis boosted with CL 24 owl's insight
14 damage from Dex*2
5 damage from Collision
5 damage from being a +5 weapon




You get your Str bonus for the mighty bow, or you get your Dex bonus from Targetteer, you can't have both. Targetteer's ability specifically says you add your Dex bonus instead of your Str bonus.

[Seerow]

You get your Str bonus for the mighty bow, or you get your Dex bonus from Targetteer, you can't have both. Targetteer's ability specifically says you add your Dex bonus instead of your Str bonus.

He was using Hank's Bow for the Power Shot ability (-20 to hit for +20 to damage), not +20 strength to damage. As far as I can tell, that is still Kosher (though honestly is going to make it pretty hard to hit unless you can get that as a touch attack somehow)

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

He was using Hank's Bow for the Power Shot ability (-20 to hit for +20 to damage), not +20 strength to damage. As far as I can tell, that is still Kosher (though honestly is going to make it pretty hard to hit unless you can get that as a touch attack somehow)

I see, all that talk of how high he could get his Str made it look like he was trying to add that in. On the topic of making it a touch attack, casting Find The Gap can do that for you. You can even DMM: Persist it.

Edit: Since he's making a single important attack, you may as well blow a Moment of Prescience on it as well.

[Piggy Knowles]

Yeah, sorry if that wasn't clear, but I was referring to the power shot feature.

Regarding MoP, I thought it could only give a boost to an attack roll, not a damage roll, so it won't get you any closer to 900, unfortunately. Still, there have to be other spells that give a decent chunk of static damage to multiply on a crit.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Yeah, sorry if that wasn't clear, but I was referring to the power shot feature.

Regarding MoP, I thought it could only give a boost to an attack roll, not a damage roll, so it won't get you any closer to 900, unfortunately. Still, there have to be other spells that give a decent chunk of static damage to multiply on a crit.

I meant use Moment of Prescience to help make up for that -20 to hit.

For getting extra damage, there's really not that much out there. If you don't take that -20 to hit for the energy bow, doing only about 65 damage per shot, making 16 shots per round gets you over a thousand damage per full attack without accounting for crits. You'll double that with a splitting bow, and since the damage is divided between multiple shots you can switch targets once an opponent drops so you're not wasting as much damage in excess of your target's hp.

The idea of making a single huge ranged hit just doesn't have the mechanical support in this game, especially considering how many different effects can give you more attacks. The only reason melee attacks get that big is because so many different effects multiply the damage. With ranged attacks your multiplier is your number of shots.