Build Help: Order of the Bow Initiate Skirmisher

[Seripham89]

So i had an idea for a character that moved around the battlefield, making tactical strikes against foes that are weakest/ lowest in HP or doing enough damage in a single strike to distract and disorient big targets so squishier players have breathing room. I figure a Scout/ Order of the Bow Initiate with some Fighter Levels is the best place to start. I know OotBI never reach the same damage thresholds of other characters when making full attacks, but I am really focused on the mobility aspect, constantly doing damage, while still being a difficult to hit and ignore threat. This is still pretty conceptual, so all I really have is a level spread:

Fighter 1/ Scout 9/ OotBI 10

I'd probably take a level of Scout first to maximize my skill points since they will lag after moving to OotBI. I am picking human as my race for this same reason. I might switch a level of Scout to a level of Fighter if there was a feat choice that would make up for the skirmish damage lose (and I'm sure there are but I'm still researching it). I'll be looking to max Spot, Listen, and most of the movement based skills. My DM is open to homebrew tweaks, so if you have any suggestions for that I would be super grateful.

I'll post a finished build after all is said and done if there is any interest.

Thanks again.

[animewatcha]

You will need sterf to make use of hide / move silently and the like. Otherwise, deflect arrow will shut that prestige class down.

[Aegis013]

The feat Swift Hunter will let you stack Ranger levels with Scout levels to determine Skirmish bonus. If you're not looking for anything else out of Scout, that's a better way to go. More BAB, access to Ranger spells via wands (Hunter's Mercy?).

If you have access, a level of Monk with the Training Dummy of the Master from the 3.0 book Arms and Equipment Guide will allow you to take 10ft steps as a free action, freeing up your move action for...anything else you can find to do with it than move. That is, if you can find a use for it that isn't moving.

Depending on what you want out of the Fighter level, there may be better options. A Warblade dip will give you some nifty utility you likely wouldn't get otherwise, for example.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Order of the Bow Initiate is one of the least useful classes, simply because you have to spend a standard action to make an attack that benefits from its damage bonus. Since that bonus damage costs your standard action, you cannot combine it with any other special attack that also costs a standard action, such as Manyshot. Compare that to spending a standard action to use Greater Manyshot (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/psionicFeats.htm#greaterManyshot) to add Skirmish damage to every arrow you fire.

Instead go Scout 4/ Ranger 16 with the feats Swift Hunter from Complete Scoundrel and of course Greater Manyshot. That gets the Skirmish ability of a Scout 20, the Favored Enemy bonuses of a Ranger 20, and all the benefits of the Ranger chassis. You can even take Hidden Talent from XPH p67 for Chameleon (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/chameleon.htm) and get a Dorje (psionic wand) of that, along with a Wand of Camouflage, and each gives you a +10 to Hide for 10 minutes and they stack with each other. That's +20 to Hide, which makes up for the hide penalty for sniping, but you need access to the Ranger spell list for Camouflage.

[Seripham89]

Order of the Bow Initiate is one of the least useful classes, simply because you have to spend a standard action to make an attack that benefits from its damage bonus. Since that bonus damage costs your standard action, you cannot combine it with any other special attack that also costs a standard action, such as Manyshot. Compare that to spending a standard action to use Greater Manyshot (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/psionicFeats.htm#greaterManyshot) to add Skirmish damage to every arrow you fire.

Instead go Scout 4/ Ranger 16 with the feats Swift Hunter from Complete Scoundrel and of course Greater Manyshot. That gets the Skirmish ability of a Scout 20, the Favored Enemy bonuses of a Ranger 20, and all the benefits of the Ranger chassis. You can even take Hidden Talent from XPH p67 for Chameleon (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/chameleon.htm) and get a Dorje (psionic wand) of that, along with a Wand of Camouflage, and each gives you a +10 to Hide for 10 minutes and they stack with each other. That's +20 to Hide, which makes up for the hide penalty for sniping, but you need access to the Ranger spell list for Camouflage.

This has always been a point of confusion for me. Everyone seems to believe that you may apply precision damage to all your arrows, but Manyshot indicates you can only apply the damage once. On top of that every arrow suffers an attack penalty. So my math tells me I get full attack precision with damage being weapon + 3d6 + plus 5d8, while the many shot option you suggest is 4 arrows at base weapon + bonuses from Favored Enemy (which isnt constant) + 5d6 on one arrow and there is -8 to hit for each shot. Am I doing this wrong?

[Snowbluff]

Greater Manyshot disagrees.

[Seripham89]

Nevermind I just reread the feats after having coffee and time to wake up. My bad. Weapon damage + 3d6 + 5d8 = an average of 34 assumming longbow vs. (Weapon damage + 5d6) x 4= average of 19 per shot so if you shot four and only hit half you still do more damage.

In short, Yeah coffee!

[Kane0]

If your DM is willing to look into homebrew, there are a couple scout and ranger fixes that work with the skirmish concept. Maybe something there will be of interest to you.

[ngilop]

If your DM is willing to look into homebrew, there are a couple scout and ranger fixes that work with the skirmish concept. Maybe something there will be of interest to you.

or better yet! I can fix the bow initiate for you in my insert fixed Prs (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?311379-Insert-fixed-PrC-here!)thread :)

[Seripham89]

Since I will be going with the Scout/ Ranger Build suggested, I now wonder whether or not a strength bonus composite longbow is worth it. Considering each point of damage is only an extra hundred gp, money wise it seems very cheap in conjunction with magical enhancements, however I am more worried about my abilities. The rule I have always heard is that you should only focus on three abilities at most and the Scout/ Ranger already has Dex, Wisdom, and Intelligence. Including Strength means dropping one or spreading the build a little thin. Is this extra damage worth it or does it even stack with magical enchantments at all?

[Kane0]

Don't forget Constitution, you should never be dumping that either. In fact i'd argue that Con is more important than Int 90% of the time. So i'd recommend Dex -> Con -> Wis/Str/Int -> Cha.
For Str, there should be some sort of variable compound gear that allows you to change the Strof the compound bow, increasing it as you get yourself some gloves of ogre strength, bull's strength wands, etc.

Edit:
For 28 Point buy i'd recommend something like:
Str 14 Dex 16 Con 14 Int 10 Wis 12 Cha 8
For 32 Point buy i'd recommend increasing Int to 12 and Wis to 14
Racial choice may alter these of course.

Edit 2: Dont forget to go carefully over the Ranger and Scout classes to figure out how much you want of each. They both get class features that are worth weighing up, depending on your goals and party members.

Edit 3: Obligatory Handbook Link (http://community.wizards.com/forum/previous-editions-character-optimization/threads/1117216)

[Flickerdart]

If you have Sword of the Arcane Order, you don't need to worry about Wisdom - you'll be casting wizard spells with Intelligence more often than not.

[ngilop]

there seraphim89 :) I did your requested OBI fix (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=17523842&postcount=55)

[Seripham89]

there seraphim89 :) I did your requested OBI fix (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=17523842&postcount=55)

Thanks ngilop. I will be making two builds, one with my original idea with your fix, and another swift hunter and do some testing.

[ngilop]

Thanks ngilop. I will be making two builds, one with my original idea with your fix, and another swift hunter and do some testing.



cool. with my fix you move then deal Xd8 extra dmg where X is OBI level and if you make a spot check POW!!! they are staggered so you deal decent damage anmd you have a bit of crowd control

at max level you will be doing bow dmg +3d6 +10d8 as a standard action. not too shabby