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Harkone
2007-02-18, 02:51 PM
Peerless Archer

Requirements:
Base Attack: +7
Feats: Far Shot, Manyshot, Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Weapon Focus: Longbow
Skills: Craft: Bowyer/Fletcher 10 ranks, Spot 5 ranks


HD: d8 Base Attack Bonus: +1 Favored Saving Throws: Reflex

Class Skills (2+Int): Balance, Climb, Craft, Hide, Jump, Listen, Move Silently, Spot, Survival, Swim

-Gains no new weapon or armor proficiency

Class Abilities:

1st: Expert Bowyer/Fletcher
Range Bonus
Ranged Precision

2nd: Fletch: +1
Keen Arrows

3rd: Bonus Archery Feat

4th: Fletch: +2
Ranged Precision

5th: Improved Critical: +1
Extended Precision

6th: Fletch: +3
Bonus Archery Feat
Steady Hand

7th: Ranged Precision

8th: Fletch: +4

9th: Bonus Archery Feat
Hail of Arrows

10th: Ranged Precision
Fletch: +5
Improved Critical: +2

Expert Bowyer/Fletcher: The Peerless Archer adds +1 per Peerless Archer level to all Craft: Bowyer/Fletcher Checks.


Range Bonus: The Peerless Archer adds 10’ to the range of his bow for each Peerless Archer level.


Ranged Precision: At 1st, 4th, 7th, and 10th levels, the Peerless Archer may select one of the following abilities, thus by 10th level he will have all 4:

1. Critical Shot: As a standard action, the Peerless Archer may take a single precisely aimed shot with his bow against a foe within 30’. This shot automatically threatens a critical, regardless of the actual number rolled.
2. Object Shot: As a standard action, the Peerless Archer may take a single precisely aimed shot with his bow against an object within 30’. This attack does full damage to the target object.
3. Target Shot: As a standard action, the Peerless Archer may take a single precisely aimed shot with his bow against a foe within 30’. For this shot the Peerless Archer can make a ranged touch attack instead of a normal attack.
4. Trip Shot: As a standard action, the Peerless Archer may take a single precisely aimed shot with his bow against a foe within 30’. If this attack hits successfully, the Peerless Archer can make a trip attack with this shot. In addition to inflicting normal damage, the Peerless Archer makes a DEX check with a +4 bonus opposed by the target’s STR or DEX (target’s choice), applying other defensive modifiers as one would any other opposed trip check. If the Peerless Archer wins the opposed check, the target is tripped.


Fletch: The Peerless archer can create magical arrows, as if he possessed the Craft Magic Arms and Armor feat and met all other requirements for the arrow he wishes to make. The enhancement bonus is +1 at 2nd level, +2 at 4th level, +3 at 6th level, +4 at 8th level, and +5 at 10th level. Up to 1,000 gp in magical arrows (base price) can be made each day. The arrows require 3.5 gp in materials for the MW arrow itself, and an expenditure of gp and XP as indicated below:

+1: 20 gp (1 arrow)/1,000 gp (50 arrows), 4 XP (1 arrow)/200 XP (50 arrows); base price/arrow: 40 gp
+2: 80 gp (1 arrow)/4000 gp (50 arrows), 16 XP (1 arrow)/800 XP (50 arrows); base price/arrow: 160 gp
+3: 180 gp (1 arrow)/9,000 gp (50 arrows), 36 XP (1 arrow)/1800 XP (50 arrows); base price/arrow: 360 gp
+4: 320 gp (1 arrow)/16,000 gp (50 arrows), 64 XP (1 arrow)/3,200 XP (50 arrows); base price/arrow: 640 gp
+5: 500 gp (1 arrow)/25,000 gp (50 arrows), 100 XP (1 arrow)/5,000 XP (50 arrows); base price/arrow: 1,000 gp


Keen Arrows: All arrows fired by the Peerless archer are now considered keen arrows.


Archery Feat: The Peerless Archer gets a bonus feat at 3rd, 6th, and 9th levels. The bonus feat must be chosen from the following list (others may be added subject to DM approval): Deflect Arrows, Greater Weapon Focus: Longbow, Greater Weapon Specialization: Longbow, Improved Critical: Longbow, Improved Precise Shot, Improved Rapid Shot (Complete Warrior), Mounted Archery, Penetrating Shot (PHB II), Power Shot (*), Quick Draw, Ranged Disarm (Complete Warrior), Rapid Shot, Shot on the Run, Snatch Arrows, Weapon Mastery: Longbow (PHB II), Weapon Specialization: Longbow, Weapon Supremacy: Longbow (PHB II). The Peerless Archer must meet all prerequisites for the bonus feat. He may use his Peerless Archer level as his Fighter level or add his Peerless Archer level to any Fighter levels he possesses when a minimum Fighter level is required.


Improved Critical: The critical damage for the Peerless Archer’s arrows becomes x4 at 5th level, x5 at 10th level.


Extended Precision: The Peerless Archer may now apply sneak attack, favored enemy, and similar bonuses normally limited to a 30’ range out to the first range increment of his longbow. This includes all Ranged Precision effects.


Steady Hand: In light or no armor, the Peerless Archer now threatens nearby areas with his bow and may now fire his longbow in melee without provoking attacks of opportunity. This allows him to flank opponents and threaten an area up to 10’ (as a reach weapon) with his bow.


Hail of Arrows: 1/day, the Peerless Archer may fire an arrow at his primary attack bonus at each target within range (maximum 1 target/Peerless Archer level, maximum 1 arrow/target).

The Great Skenardo
2007-02-18, 10:02 PM
Just off of the top of my head, Critical Shot looks overwhelmingly powerful. To automatically threaten a critical on an attack each round is a supremely-powerful ability, especially with the improved critical. I'm fairly certain that there are variant arrows that deal slashing damage instead of piercing (Bullhead arrows or similar), and such arrows, combined with a simple (albeit rather costly) Vorpal Bow would instantly kill nearly anything it hits.

Harkone
2007-02-18, 11:13 PM
Just off of the top of my head, Critical Shot looks overwhelmingly powerful. To automatically threaten a critical on an attack each round is a supremely-powerful ability, especially with the improved critical. I'm fairly certain that there are variant arrows that deal slashing damage instead of piercing (Bullhead arrows or similar), and such arrows, combined with a simple (albeit rather costly) Vorpal Bow would instantly kill nearly anything it hits.

I hadn't even thought of the Vorpal Bow possibility; none of the campaigns I've ever DM'd got to the point where anything goes Vorpal (they all tend to wrap up around 15th level or so). Still, to get the Critical Shot, you're giving up all of your attacks that round but one (and for high-level archers that's trading 3-4 or more attacks), and it still has to be confirmed. It's all about trading many shots for the one well-aimed shot (there's another post about a set of feats that do something similar around here somewhere; Deadly Aim I think). And the pre-requisites for the prestige class assume the taker will be at least 7th level before qualifying.

The Great Skenardo
2007-02-19, 08:01 AM
Here's a thought for you, suppose instead of it being an automatic threat, it simply does extra damage as if a critical, i.e. by the end of it, if you hit with that shot you do 5x damage. This bypasses some of the abuses that critical hits are sometimes subject to, and in exchange increases its versiatility (undead and constructs). This would make it a prime tool for overwhelming damage reduction.

Harkone
2007-02-19, 11:08 AM
Thanks; that's a good idea.

Arbitrarity
2007-02-19, 06:18 PM
Vorpal... bow? WTF?!

Vorpal can only be applied to slashing melee, and on top of that, only applies on natural 20's (NOT criticals!). Thankfully. This is 3.5.

And really, making a shot that bypasses DR essentially, owns undead and constructs, doesn't sound OP?

And I wanna see my 425 ft range increment on my +1 distance composite greatbow.

Does trip shot work with improved trip?

Lastly, I bet my DM wouldn't allow this. I probably wouldn't... seems a touch too powerful...

Harkone
2007-02-19, 06:50 PM
Vorpal... bow? WTF?!

Vorpal can only be applied to slashing melee, and on top of that, only applies on natural 20's (NOT criticals!). Thankfully. This is 3.5.

And really, making a shot that bypasses DR essentially, owns undead and constructs, doesn't sound OP?

And I wanna see my 425 ft range increment on my +1 distance composite greatbow.

Does trip shot work with improved trip?

Lastly, I bet my DM wouldn't allow this. I probably wouldn't... seems a touch too powerful...

The vorpal bow possibility was raised just as a contingency, in case there's magic that can make arrows count as slashing weapons. I figure that won't be the case 99% of the time.

The long range increment is part of the flavor of this class.

Improved Trip would NOT apply to trip shots.

I know the class is a bit powerful, but I have found that archer-types at high levels are often substantially weaker than their melee counterparts (unless they have unusually high Strength, overly powerful magic items, etc.). This class is a way to make the archer-type on par with the big melee guy swinging his greatsword/axe.

Matthew
2007-02-20, 05:48 PM
So, why Weapon Focus (Long Bow)? Could it not be Weapon Focus (Short Bow) or Weapon Focus (Great Bow)?

Harkone
2007-02-20, 06:47 PM
I thought the Longbow was most in keeping with the flavor of the class, but I can't see why it wouldn't work with a shortbow or greatbow as well.

ArmorArmadillo
2007-02-21, 04:29 PM
Overpowered to the extreme and really lacking a goods focus as a PrC.

Just making characters obscenely powerful at archery isn't really what PrCs are meant to do.

Ditch Critical Shot, automatic criticals are way to good. Period. Compare this to Order of the Bow Initiate, (1d8 per two levels bonus damage, not triple damage like an auto-crit)

Also, object shot is more powerful than it seems.

AoO with bows is also way too powerful.

The class has way too many abilities; Trim it down to about 1 per level. Also, if you have so many useful abilities, it shouldn't get so many bonus feats, the PrC shouldn't powerful focused abilities and versatility.

Finally, the number of required feats makes this class more or less only accessible to human fighters (and maybe rangers), but that isn't necessarily a huge problem.

The class has potential, but needs major nerfing. Also, by cutting it down you'll make it a lot less clunky.

Harkone
2007-02-21, 10:09 PM
The idea was to make an archery class that was powerful. As I said earlier somewhere in this thread, the archer-type warrior often pales in comparison with his melee counterpart, so this class is a way to address that problem. Comparing it to the Order of the Bow Initiate is pointless; the main reason I put this class together in the first place was that the archery classes it was founded on (including the Order of the Bow Initiate) were on the weak side (and a bit silly, in my opinion, particularly regarding the Order of the Bow Initiate).

If it's too powerful, you could eliminate the bonus archery feats, but keep the powers. The automatic critical (as I addressed earlier in this thread somewhere) is about the idea of firing one good, "aimed" shot rather than 3-4 or more regular shots. This is something the standard rules don't really allow for; according to the PHB, it's always better to just Rapid Shot away (especially with feats like Improved Rapid Shot that eliminate the attack roll penalty) than to aim and fire one good shot.

I agree that it may appear clunky, as well as overly powerful, primarily because it is the result of welding together several very similar PrC's. However, it has pretty tough entry requirements and it results in a pretty versatile and intersting archer character, with a variety of powers and options available to them. Unfortunately, an archer-type created using the standard rules usually ends up just firing lots of relatively low-damage shots each round, supporting his melee ally or allies but only minimally contributing to the defeat of enemies. No warrior-type wants to be rendered negligible/forgettable in their combat contribution.

Icewalker
2007-02-23, 01:28 AM
overpowered. ArmorArmadillo is completely right, it is uninteresting as a PrC as well as far too powerful, especially Critical Shot. Having tough reqs is barely an excuse for a powerful class, and definitely not this powerful. I have no idea why archer types seem underpowered to you, I'd say the ability to kill someone from 1000 feet away is pretty powerful, especially when the heavily armored melee type is charging towards you at....80 ft per round. Not particularly underpowered when you're getting off 5 arrows each round huh?

Also, if you think the only point of an archer based unit is to shoot lots of weak arrows into melee, I suggest noticing that not only do longbows deal as much damage as a longsword, but they can get ridiculous sums of arrows into each round, using feats that lower accuracy, not damage.

I would also like to mention the fact that archers should be used especially as a utility character, unless you play "kick-in-the-door" style, in which case I'd say they can be slightly underpowered, and I'm not trying to insult people who like that kind of play, or the kind of play itself (I still find it fun), but I don't find it as interesting. The things you can do with bows in a more open dnd game though....

Harkone
2007-02-23, 12:46 PM
overpowered. ArmorArmadillo is completely right, it is uninteresting as a PrC as well as far too powerful, especially Critical Shot. Having tough reqs is barely an excuse for a powerful class, and definitely not this powerful. I have no idea why archer types seem underpowered to you, I'd say the ability to kill someone from 1000 feet away is pretty powerful, especially when the heavily armored melee type is charging towards you at....80 ft per round. Not particularly underpowered when you're getting off 5 arrows each round huh?

Also, if you think the only point of an archer based unit is to shoot lots of weak arrows into melee, I suggest noticing that not only do longbows deal as much damage as a longsword, but they can get ridiculous sums of arrows into each round, using feats that lower accuracy, not damage.

I would also like to mention the fact that archers should be used especially as a utility character, unless you play "kick-in-the-door" style, in which case I'd say they can be slightly underpowered, and I'm not trying to insult people who like that kind of play, or the kind of play itself (I still find it fun), but I don't find it as interesting. The things you can do with bows in a more open dnd game though....

OK. First of all, in every campaign I've played in or DM'd, archers rarely if ever get to use their maximum range. They tend to be 30'-60' from their foes at most outdoors (usually within 30', so they can use Point blank Shot and, if Rangers, get their favored enemy bonuses), and far closer indoors (which is most often, as most adventures involve indoor [dungeon] settings). So being able to kill at a distance is not as much of an advantage as it first appears to be.

True, a high-level archer w/ BAB of +16 and Rapid Shot can get off 5 arrows/round, but unlike the melee fighter simply cannot do that much damage with those arrows. Unless the archer has an unusually high Strength score and a composite bow to take advantage of it, his arrows will be causing minimal damage. Most archer seem to have Strength bonuses in the range of +2 at best, since their main ability score has to be Dexterity. Even 5d8+10 per round (plus magic and such) does not compare with the melee fighter-type, likely with at least 18 Strength (more, usually, since, this is the melee fighter's main score), doing at least 4d8+16 (plus magic and such) each round with his longsword. This is ESPECIALLY true since (and this is the key) the fighter can apply 1 1/2 times his Strength bonus when using a two-handed weapon AND can Power Attack each round.

In a party with both the melee type and the archer the melee warrior will be most "involved" in combat, while the archer supports him at best. It's true that, depending on the archer's class combination, he can be a "utility type" character, but all warriors thrive in combat, and the archer as currently exists contributes to combat far less than his melee counterpart. Hence this prestige class.

However, as always, thanks for the feedback.

pedrokraemer
2007-02-23, 03:16 PM
Why Quick Draw???:smallconfused:

I donīt see any use of this feat for an archer... specially for a peerlss arches, who will be carrying his bow whenever he goes...

Harkone
2007-02-23, 03:33 PM
The Quick Draw requirment was a bit controversial when I put this class together; you can substitute Manyshot instead.

In fact, I just went back and edited it, replacing the Quick Draw requirement with Manyshot.

dacki
2008-03-11, 07:16 AM
Excuse me but the "Peerless Archer" in unofficial ?

Night Shrike
2008-03-11, 10:15 PM
ummm is it just me or does anyone else not see the purpose in an archery class that makes it a point to use a bow within "chargeing pointy blades of death" fighter range? Unless theres a fighter that charges at less than 30ft...whats the point?
If ur gonna use a ranged weapon, use it at RANGE for peets sake....

My Vote: :smallannoyed:

Cieyrin
2008-03-12, 12:41 AM
He has his heart in the right place, if not necessarily the right intent. I do agree that an archer by no means will do as much damage as a Power Attacking melee attacker. My suggestion to alleviate the Critical Shot problem is perhaps using Dex as a damage modifier, much like the Crossbow Sniper feat, though perhaps at full dex instead of half and on maybe all attacks and maybe 1.5 dex on a Critical Shot. You'd probably need to deal it within precision range of 30'. Just a thought. ^^