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Anbu002
2014-07-21, 09:38 AM







The Marksman




http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/dmg2_gallery/90082.jpg




Marksmen
Any force on the move, whether it’s an army or an adventuring group, needs someone who can attack from a distance and can maintain foes entertained. Enter the Marksmen, Marksmen specialize in picking out foes and dealing massive damage from a distance.

Adventures: Marksmen adventure for numerous reasons. Many have a role in a military organization. Whether serving as outriders for a large army or as foresters for a small border fort, these Marksmen venture into the wilderness under orders. Although more common than other Marksmen, those attached to the military are unlikely to have the time or permission necessary to undertake regular adventures. Instead, adventuring Marksmen come from rural villages, having honed their skills over a lifetime of wandering the woods or being trained as hunters.
Others have left their military service behind and find themselves attracted to the
adventuring lifestyle. Many adventuring Marksmen begin their careers as guards hired to lead other adventurers through the wilderness or guarding a caravan. Those who find the excitement and challenge of adventuring to their taste then seek out a group of their own.

Characteristics: A Marksmen has some training in simple weapons and a unique combat style that favors ranged and devastating attacks. He excels in performing during running battles, which allow him to maximize his special fighting techniques and high movement rate. Although a Marksmen can hold his own in a fight, he’s at his best before combat begins, when he can use his powers of stealth and observation to find an enemy and give her companions accurate information about what they face. The Marksmen is a ranged expert, exceeding even the Ranger’ or Scout’s ability to attack and deal damage out of harms way. The Marksmen also excels in a dungeon environment. As a Marksmen advances in level, his senses become amazingly acute, and he can eventually exploit weaknesses on most enemies.

Alignment: Marksmen can be of any alignment, and a Marksmen’s alignment is often shaped more by her personal background than from any training. The notable exceptions to this are the many Marksmen who receive their training in a military organization—such Marksmen are carefully and rigorously taught, and are almost always lawful in alignment. Outside of military organizations, more Marksmen are neutral than any other alignment, but every alignment and philosophy is represented within the class.

Religion: Marksmen have varied and individual takes on religion, and no single religion stands out as typical of the class. Marksmen occasionally pay homage to deities of Nature or discipline, but these devotions are more a personal choice
on the part of an individual than any outgrowth of their training. Most Marksmen however are not religious preferring to devote themselves to perfecting their art.

Background: Although most wont admit it, a vast majority of bowmen are failed fighters who for some reason or another failed at becoming proficient in melee combat. Many Marksmen receive military training and serve for a time like scouts as outriders for an army. They perfect their techniques while trying to spot and hide from large groups of foes. The crucible of military service turns out tough, independent Marksmen accustomed to working on their own or in small groups. Such steady individuals make great additions to adventuring parties, and their expertise is often sought by members of other classes. Other Marksmen come from a wide variety of backgrounds. Some train with foresters and rangers serving a rural lord, and others simply grow up among the common folk of the countryside, spending month after month exploring the wild in their leisure time. Marksmen from such diverse backgrounds often take up adventuring to leave their home communities behind. Having exhausted the potential for exploration in their home region, they seek a wider variety of experience and wish to see a broader portion of the world.

Races: Humans make excellent bowmen. Their adaptable nature allows them to perfect a wider variety of skills than most other races, and they make good use of the Marksmen’s many abilities. Elves and halflings are the most naturally gifted bowmen; both races have produced nimble Marksmen with amazing abilities of stealth and observation. While halflings have more innate talent for sneaking
than elves do, the greater speed of elf Marksmen gives them advantages of their own. Dwarves and gnomes make respectable underground bowmen, Combined with the dwarf’s knack for operating in areas of earth and stone, Marksmen training can turn dwarves into impressive underground explorers—although most dwarves prefer a more straightforward approach to combat and dislike the ranged fighting style of the Marksmen.

Other Classes: Marksmen work well with members of almost any other class. Skilled and adaptable, they thrive when they can complement a slower and louder group of adventurers or soldiers. Marksmen move ahead of such a group for brief periods, stealthily checking the next room or forest clearing for foes, and then circling back again to ensure that enemies are not sneaking up on the group from behind. When combat is joined, however, the group remains as a stable base to which a bowmen can fall back when pressed. Clerics, wizards, and others willing to cast spells that enhance a Marksmen’s mobility or stealth make her job easier, and are welcome companions in combat as well. Conversely, a Marksmen also welcomes a group made up entirely of stealthy characters such as rogues, rangers, ninjas, and fellow scouts or Marksmen. This group moves much more quietly than a normal adventuring party, and it is seldom surprised.

Role: A Marksmen plays several roles in most adventuring groups. First and foremost, a Marksmen excels at detecting an enemy or creature before being detected himself. Whether moving well ahead of the group or guarding the rear, a Marksmen is the character most likely to discover a potential threat and be ready to act in combat. Serving as a ranged expert in battle, he provides support for the more straightforward fighters in the group and confuses and distracts the enemy. A Marksmen’s stealth ability make him the natural choice for picking and decimating high value targets.







Game Statistics

Marksmen have the following game statistics.
Abilities: Strength is especially important for Marksmen because it
improves their ranged attack and damage rolls on bows. Constitution is
important for giving Marksmen lots of hit points, which they need in
their many battles. Dexterity is important for Marksmen who want
to be good archers or who want access to certain Dexterity oriented
Feats.

Alignment: Any.
Hit Die: d10.
Class Skills
The Bowmen’s class skills (and
the key ability for each skill)
Balance (Dex), Climb (Str),
Hide (Dex), Jump (Str),
Listen (Wis),Move Silently (Dex),
Ride(Dex), Search (Int), Speak Language
(n/a), Spot (Wis),Survival (Wis), Swim
(Str), Tumble (Dex)Use Rope (Dex),
Craft (Int),Handle Animal (Cha),
Intimidate (Cha), and Swim (Str). See
Chapter 4 PHB: Skills for skill
descriptions.
Skill Points at 1st Level: (3 + Int
modifier) × 4.
Skill Points at Each Additional
Level: 3 + Int modifier.
Class Features
All of the following are class features of the Bowmen .
Weapon and Armor Proficiency:
A Marksmen is proficient with all simple weapons and all form of bows and crossbows but not exotic ones as well as the quarterstaff and long staff. Marksmen are proficient in light and medium armor but not heavy armor or any kind of shields.
Specialized training: Marksmen are trained to be extremely proficient with ranged weapons gaining the Weapon focus and Point blank shot feats as a result.
Marksmen are also trained to only wear Light to medium armor as any heavier armor interferes with there abilities. Because of this training Marksmen incur 1½ times the Dexterity penalties for wearing heavy armor or using any shield on top of any proficiency related penalties. Marksmen have little to no aptitude for melee combat as such they take 1½ time the proficiency penalties for melee weapons(except as noted above in proficiencies)
Bonus Feats: At 1st level, a Marksmen gets a bonus ranged combat-oriented feat in addition to the feat that any 1st-level character gets and the bonus feat
granted to a human character. The Marksmen gains an additional ranged combat bonus feat at 2nd level and every two more levels thereafter excluding (4th, 8th, 12th and 14th )at which point he gains Weapon Specialization(bow or crossbow)at 4th, Greater Weapon Focus(bow or crossbow) at 8th
Greater Weapon Specialization (bow or crossbow)at 12th and extended precision or crossbow sniper at 14th.The bonus feats at ( 6th,10th,16th,18th, and 20th ). must be drawn from the fighter bonus feats on Table 5–1: Feats (page 90 in the PHB). A bowmen must still meet all prerequisites for a bonus feat, including ability score and base attack bonus minimums. (See Chapter 5: Feats for descriptions of feats and their prerequisites.)
These bonus feats are in addition to the feat that a character of any
class gets from advancing levels (see Table 3–2: Experience and
Level-Dependent Benefits, page 22 in the PHB). A Marksmen is not limited to the
list of fighter bonus feats when choosing these feats.
Steady aim(Ex): Starting at 3rd level the bowmen can add +1 to damage or +1 to the attack roll to the bolt or arrow he fires as a standard action. This bonus increases every two levels by 1.
Ranged Precision (Ex): Starting at 6th level as a standard action, a Marksmen may make a single precisely aimed attack with a ranged weapon, dealing an extra 1d8 points of damage if the attack hits. When making a ranged precision attack, a Marksmen must be within 30 feet of his target. An Marksmen’s ranged precision attack only works against living creatures with discernible anatomies. Any creature that is immune to critical hits (including undead, constructs, oozes, plants, and incorporeal creatures) is not vulnerable to a ranged precision attack, and any item or ability that protects a creature from critical hits (such as armor with the fortification special ability) also protects a creature from the extra damage. Unlike with a rogue’s sneak attack, the Marksmen’s target does not have to be fl at-footed or denied its Dexterity bonus, but if it is, the initiate’s extra precision damage stacks with sneak attack damage. Treat the Marksmen’s ranged precision attack as a sneak attack in all other ways. The Marksmen’s bonus to damage on ranged precision attacks increases by +1d8 every two levels. An Marksmen can only use this ability with a ranged weapon for which he has taken the Weapon Focus feat.
Close Combat Shot (Ex): At 7th level, a Marksmen can attack with a ranged weapon while in a threatened square and not provoke an attack of opportunity.
Greater Weapon Focus (Ex): At 8th level, a Marksmen gains the Greater Weapon Focus feat with a single ranged weapon for which he has taken the Weapon Focus feat even if he has not attained 8th level as a fighter.
Sharp-shooting: At 11th level, an Marksmen gains the Sharp-Shooting feat (see Chapter 3 of Complete warrior) even if he does not meet the prerequisites or
Extended Precision (Su): At 14th level the Marksmen senses and feel for “the shot” become so attuned that he may make ranged precision attacks (sneak attacks and or skirmish if he has the ability) at a range of up to 60 feet. This acts like the crossbow sniper feat but on bows. If he focused on crossbows he gains the before-mentioned crossbow sniper feat.





The Bowmen
Level Base
Attack bonus Fort save Ref save Will save Special
1st +1 +2 +2 +0 Weapon focus, point blank shot, Bonus Feat
2nd +2 +3 +3 +0 Bonus Feat
3rd +3 +3 +3 +1 +1dmg/+1atk
4th +4 +4 +4 +1 Weapon specialization
5th +5 +4 +4 +1 +2dmg/+2atk
6th +6/+1 +5 +5 +2 Ranged precision +1d8
Bonus Feat
7th +7/+2 +5 +5 +2 close combat shot +3dmg/+3atk
8th +8/+3 +6 +6 +2 Greater Weapon focus
Ranged precision +2d8
9th +9/+4 +6 +6 +3 +4dmg/+4atk
10th +10/+5 +7 +7 +3 Ranged precision +3d8
Bonus Feat
11th +11/+6/+1 +7 +7 +3 Sharp shooting +5dmg/+5atk
12th +12/+7/+2 +8 +8 +4 Greater weapon specialization
Ranged precision +4d8
13th +13/+8/+3 +8 +8 +4 +6dmg/+6atk
14th +14/+9/+4 +9 +9 +4 Extended precision or Crossbow sniper Ranged precision +5d8
15th +15/+10/+5 +9 +9 +5 +7dmg/+7atk
16th +16/+11/+6/+1 +10 +10 +5 Bonus Feat Ranged precision +6d8
17th +17/+12/+7/+2 +10 +10 +5 +8dmg/+8atk
18th +18/+13/+8/+3 +11 +11 +6 Bonus Feat Ranged precision +7d8
19th +19/+14/+9/+4 +11 +11 +6 +9dmg/+9atk
20th +20/+15/+10/+5 +12 +12 +6 Bonus Feat
Ranged precision +8d8

LostDeviljho
2014-07-21, 10:25 AM
Well, to be honest, this class is kind of underwhelming. there's nothing really special about it to set it apart.

the biggest things it has going for it are a full BAB and a ton of bonus feats. however those bonus feats are limited to ranged combat bonus feats, of which there are only so many (and what made you think that many bonus feats was a good idea in the first place?).

as for multiclassing, even a 6 level dip doesn't really get you all that much, unless you want easy access to arcane archer, in which case a single level dip is actually pretty good.

all in all, I'd say this is fairly average class, but it still has some merit because of the major lack of archery devoted classes.


P.S. I hope I didn't come off sounding too harsh, just trying to be honest and professional. also, you may want to touch up you grammar here and there (and everywhere), "marksmen" is plural yet you seem to use it in every instance when "marksman" would be better suited.

Epsilon Rose
2014-07-21, 12:20 PM
Hey, congratulations on your first homebrew class. Archery is definitely an underrepresented style and it's nice to see some work in that direction. Unfortunately, as LostDeviljho said, this particular take on it is a bit underwhelming. I'm going go through the various parts and see if I can explain why.

Abilities: I don't normally comment on this portion, but technically it's wrong. Strength only effects the damage on composite bows with an appropriate modifier. Ranged attack rolls and most archery feats are controlled by dexterity.

Skills: You should stick to the standard skill brackets, so give them 4 points instead of 3, and you could probably get away with giving them 6 instead of 4. Beyond that, the later portion of your skill list is out of order and you have swim twice. You might also want to give them a few more social skills and some knowledge skills.

Specialized training: So, the first part of this is actually a really good idea. Point blank shot is a a prereq for a ton of archery feats, so you might as well just give it to an archer at first level. Weapon focus isn't a particularly impressive feat, but it's free and can also serve as a prereq for other things. That said, you do need to specify how this works. Are they getting weapon focus for a single weapon type (e.g. composite long bows), a category (e.g. all types of cross bows), or all ranged weapons?

The second part, on the other hand, is unnecessary and excessive. All of this class's features are already dedicated to ranged combat and it's not like they need to pay a penalty for getting anything too powerful. Just leave off the extra restrictions and assume that if someone's using one of those options it's because they don't have a choice and they're already suffering for it.

Bonus Feats: Bonus feats can be a nice way to pad out a class, but they don't work well as a main class feature for several reasons. The main one is that anyone can get feats and a lot of feats are pretty lack luster, so it doesn't make the class unique or stand out. Beyond that, most feats (particularly the martial ones) tend to only add small bonuses to things you could already do, so if you couldn't deal with a situation before they're unlikely to be of help to you. That's why the fighter is considered to be a fairly weak class for anything but dips.

The way you have the Marksman set up compounds this problem a few times. First, the fighter and the Psychic Warrior already have "Lots of Feats" as their main shtick, but they have better feat lists and and proficiencies (plus psionic powers in the case of the psywar). You also take an extremely limited feat list (archery feats only) and cut it down even further by making their actual class features reliant on standard action attacks at close range, meaning that many ranged feats simply won't work with them.

Steady aim(Ex): The bonus, in and of itself, isn't bad, but restricting it to standard actions makes it kind of pointless. On it's own, it's not enough to make up for the extra damage on 3 iterative attacks and if you use it with many shot it'll barely cancel out the penalties (actually, it leaves you at -1) and just get you back to where you'd be if you used a full attack.


Note: If it's intention actually is to cancel out the penalties on manyshot, so they can fight with standard actions and be more mobile, then that could work, but the rest of the class needs to support it. You should, probably give them the manyshot line automatically and give them some other abilities that can either key of it or help add mobility.

Ranged Precision (Ex): Bonus damage is nice, but the restrictions make it, ultimately, not worth while. The range limit and precision damage puts it in direct competition with a rogue's SA. It does do slightly more damage per attack (on average, 1 point at max dice) and is slightly easier to hit. Unfortunately, 1 point more damage isn't enough to counter the 2-6 extra attacks the rogue will get and flanking isn't hard to arrange. Additionally, rogues have ways to get SA damage on certain immune enemies and Marksman will not, this means that there will be entire campaign types where one of their main damage boosts simply won't apply.


Note: As written, this will not work with manyshot. I'm not sure if that's intentional. RP becomes much more useful if you fix that, but the large number of immune enemies is still a problem.

Close Combat Shot (Ex): This is a nice thing to have, but it could probably stand to come sooner and maybe add on the ability to threaten AoOs within 5ft. As things stand, a Marksman could simply take a 5ft step or, since the class wants you to attack as a standard action, tumble and move out of the way. It's worth noting that longer range archers wouldn't have to worry about this nearly as much, since they're much less likely to get into melee combat. Combat Archer also does the same thing, though it has some annoying prereqs.

Greater Weapon Focus (Ex) & Sharp-shooting: Free feats are nice, but these are pretty meh. If the class had lots of unique features, these would be fine as padding for dead/weak levels, but that's not the case.

Extended Precision (Su): This is nice to have, but there are other ways to get 60ft SA (which you've probably picked up by now, thanks to your bonus feats) and it doesn't really make up for your other restrictions.

The table: This is more of an organizational nitpick, but normally the table comes before either the proficiencies or the skills, so it can serve as a preview for the class.

Overall thoughts: This isn't bad for a first attempt, but it could also use a lot of work. You should try to come up with actual abilities for the class, rather than just rely on feats and you don't need to be so quick to throw on penalties. Fortunately, mundane ranged combat in 3.5 has a lot of problems, so there are lots of opportunities to create abilities that fix those problems. Off the top of my head, you could help the dps/mad issue by creating a dex to damage ability and there are plenty of ways to no-sell ranged attacks (like wind wall) so a way to deal with that would be good. You could also try giving them new abilities that don't rely on HP damage, like using trick arrows that can apply conditions, create AoEs or place traps or command/buffing abilities that let them support their allies. This class also lacks defensive abilities, which could be a bit problematic for a mid/close range fighter, so that could be another avenue for new abilities.

redwizard007
2014-07-21, 12:28 PM
I am intrigued. This seems to match up with the martial base classes fairly well but it is a little one dimensional. Its is however, a fine ranged combatant, so goal achieved, right?

HD: does d10 really fit your thoughts on the class? I picture a tough dude (no d4) but not exactly a front line fighter (no d10.) I'd personally go d6 but a military back round could easily justify d8.

Skills: Nice list of class skills but not enough skill points to make them work... Rangers get 6+int. We don't want this class whose "senses become amazingly acute" to have too few skill points to spend. 4+int is the lowest I'd advise and 6+int isn't out of the question.

Weapon Prof: Give the guy a blade. English long bowmen carried a secondary weapon such as a ling dirk (short sword) or at the least a dagger. I'd also like to suggest giving marksmen (or a marksman) the ability to use their bow as an improvised melee weapon (1d6 / 20 x2) though any magical bonuses and effects should probably not apply... at least not at early levels. Also, consider letting other cultures use bolas, javelins, spears, or even throwing axes rather than bows. It would fit a base class better to have some versatility.

Armor: medium armor allows our new friend to wear mithral full plate... Yep, light armor proficiency seems like a good fit to me too.

Steady Aim: Ranged combat is tough to stay relevant with. let the bonus apply to both attack and damage.

Ranged Precision: Break the mold here. Extend the ability to targets within the first range increment of a marksman's weapon. 30' works thematically for a rogue but for an archer it doesn't fit at all.

Close Combat Shot: Cool. 7th level is a bit long to wait, but meh.

Extended Precision: if you changed Ranged Precision then this could be a simple double-it scenario.

Final thoughts: Sweet concept. As a base class you need to add more stuff. The ranged bonus feats are cool, but you need to work in some defensive or stealth abilities and some variations of attacks (volley fire, ranged disarms, other cool stuff.) This might be more appropriate as a 7 or 10 level prestige class, but that is ultimately up to you.

Spiryt
2014-07-21, 12:34 PM
I've got to agree that any actual penalties for taking class levels really don't fit 3.5, especially not full BaB classes that are already kind of screwed.

As far as the rest - well, this seems like 'long range class' that isn't really long ranged, at least not special abilities. Since main damage dealing is 30 feet for most part.

I think that removing some 'Bonus feats' and putting some unique abilities would be indeed good idea.

Anbu002
2014-07-21, 06:05 PM
Well, to be honest, this class is kind of underwhelming. there's nothing really special about it to set it apart.

the biggest things it has going for it are a full BAB and a ton of bonus feats. however those bonus feats are limited to ranged combat bonus feats, of which there are only so many (and what made you think that many bonus feats was a good idea in the first place?).

as for multiclassing, even a 6 level dip doesn't really get you all that much, unless you want easy access to arcane archer, in which case a single level dip is actually pretty good.

all in all, I'd say this is fairly average class, but it still has some merit because of the major lack of archery devoted classes.


P.S. I hope I didn't come off sounding too harsh, just trying to be honest and professional. also, you may want to touch up you grammar here and there (and everywhere), "marksmen" is plural yet you seem to use it in every instance when "marksman" would be better suited.

when i made this class i was thinking of a base class. i hated the lack of archer classes, so i wanted a class that made it worth picking up a bow or crossbow. i wanted it to be a ranged fighter but he got bonuses for being a fighter. that is why he got so many bonus feats.

also about the grammar i was not paying attention to the whole marksman, marksmen thing lol ill fix it

Epsilon Rose
2014-07-21, 06:52 PM
when i made this class i was thinking of a base class. i hated the lack of archer classes, so i wanted a class that made it worth picking up a bow or crossbow. i wanted it to be a ranged fighter but he got bonuses for being a fighter. that is why he got so many bonus feats.

Everything that's been said has been in regards to base classes. As things stand, a player would be much better off picking up a ranger, rogue or even a normal fighter than this class. Fighter is generally considered to be one of the weaker classes and rather poorly designed, so you should actually avoid taking design cues from it. In fact, you should probably avoid taking cues from most of the dmg class.

Anbu002
2014-07-21, 09:09 PM
Hey, congratulations on your first homebrew class. Archery is definitely an underrepresented style and it's nice to see some work in that direction. Unfortunately, as LostDeviljho said, this particular take on it is a bit underwhelming. I'm going go through the various parts and see if I can explain why.

Abilities: I don't normally comment on this portion, but technically it's wrong. Strength only effects the damage on composite bows with an appropriate modifier. Ranged attack rolls and most archery feats are controlled by dexterity.

Skills: You should stick to the standard skill brackets, so give them 4 points instead of 3, and you could probably get away with giving them 6 instead of 4. Beyond that, the later portion of your skill list is out of order and you have swim twice. You might also want to give them a few more social skills and some knowledge skills.

Specialized training: So, the first part of this is actually a really good idea. Point blank shot is a a prereq for a ton of archery feats, so you might as well just give it to an archer at first level. Weapon focus isn't a particularly impressive feat, but it's free and can also serve as a prereq for other things. That said, you do need to specify how this works. Are they getting weapon focus for a single weapon type (e.g. composite long bows), a category (e.g. all types of cross bows), or all ranged weapons?

The second part, on the other hand, is unnecessary and excessive. All of this class's features are already dedicated to ranged combat and it's not like they need to pay a penalty for getting anything too powerful. Just leave off the extra restrictions and assume that if someone's using one of those options it's because they don't have a choice and they're already suffering for it.

Bonus Feats: Bonus feats can be a nice way to pad out a class, but they don't work well as a main class feature for several reasons. The main one is that anyone can get feats and a lot of feats are pretty lack luster, so it doesn't make the class unique or stand out. Beyond that, most feats (particularly the martial ones) tend to only add small bonuses to things you could already do, so if you couldn't deal with a situation before they're unlikely to be of help to you. That's why the fighter is considered to be a fairly weak class for anything but dips.

The way you have the Marksman set up compounds this problem a few times. First, the fighter and the Psychic Warrior already have "Lots of Feats" as their main shtick, but they have better feat lists and and proficiencies (plus psionic powers in the case of the psywar). You also take an extremely limited feat list (archery feats only) and cut it down even further by making their actual class features reliant on standard action attacks at close range, meaning that many ranged feats simply won't work with them.

Steady aim(Ex): The bonus, in and of itself, isn't bad, but restricting it to standard actions makes it kind of pointless. On it's own, it's not enough to make up for the extra damage on 3 iterative attacks and if you use it with many shot it'll barely cancel out the penalties (actually, it leaves you at -1) and just get you back to where you'd be if you used a full attack.


Note: If it's intention actually is to cancel out the penalties on manyshot, so they can fight with standard actions and be more mobile, then that could work, but the rest of the class needs to support it. You should, probably give them the manyshot line automatically and give them some other abilities that can either key of it or help add mobility.

Ranged Precision (Ex): Bonus damage is nice, but the restrictions make it, ultimately, not worth while. The range limit and precision damage puts it in direct competition with a rogue's SA. It does do slightly more damage per attack (on average, 1 point at max dice) and is slightly easier to hit. Unfortunately, 1 point more damage isn't enough to counter the 2-6 extra attacks the rogue will get and flanking isn't hard to arrange. Additionally, rogues have ways to get SA damage on certain immune enemies and Marksman will not, this means that there will be entire campaign types where one of their main damage boosts simply won't apply.


Note: As written, this will not work with manyshot. I'm not sure if that's intentional. RP becomes much more useful if you fix that, but the large number of immune enemies is still a problem.

Close Combat Shot (Ex): This is a nice thing to have, but it could probably stand to come sooner and maybe add on the ability to threaten AoOs within 5ft. As things stand, a Marksman could simply take a 5ft step or, since the class wants you to attack as a standard action, tumble and move out of the way. It's worth noting that longer range archers wouldn't have to worry about this nearly as much, since they're much less likely to get into melee combat. Combat Archer also does the same thing, though it has some annoying prereqs.

Greater Weapon Focus (Ex) & Sharp-shooting: Free feats are nice, but these are pretty meh. If the class had lots of unique features, these would be fine as padding for dead/weak levels, but that's not the case.

Extended Precision (Su): This is nice to have, but there are other ways to get 60ft SA (which you've probably picked up by now, thanks to your bonus feats) and it doesn't really make up for your other restrictions.

The table: This is more of an organizational nitpick, but normally the table comes before either the proficiencies or the skills, so it can serve as a preview for the class.

Overall thoughts: This isn't bad for a first attempt, but it could also use a lot of work. You should try to come up with actual abilities for the class, rather than just rely on feats and you don't need to be so quick to throw on penalties. Fortunately, mundane ranged combat in 3.5 has a lot of problems, so there are lots of opportunities to create abilities that fix those problems. Off the top of my head, you could help the dps/mad issue by creating a dex to damage ability and there are plenty of ways to no-sell ranged attacks (like wind wall) so a way to deal with that would be good. You could also try giving them new abilities that don't rely on HP damage, like using trick arrows that can apply conditions, create AoEs or place traps or command/buffing abilities that let them support their allies. This class also lacks defensive abilities, which could be a bit problematic for a mid/close range fighter, so that could be another avenue for new abilities.

thank you so much for your insight i will do a good amount of the suggested fixes, but i think one of the main things i was going for did not show lol
one of the things i hate the most is the fact that as an archer you pretty much follow the same path no matter what the whole manyshot/splitting path
i wanted to make an archer hat could at least do significant damage with just one arrow but i will fix it as best i can and i would love it if you gave me feed back on the new one

Epsilon Rose
2014-07-22, 01:30 AM
i will fix it as best i can and i would love it if you gave me feed back on the new one
I'll be more than happy to give your new version a look.


thank you so much for your insight i will do a good amount of the suggested fixes, but i think one of the main things i was going for did not show lol
one of the things i hate the most is the fact that as an archer you pretty much follow the same path no matter what the whole manyshot/splitting path
i wanted to make an archer hat could at least do significant damage with just one arrow but

Hmm, that is an interesting idea and I'll agree that it's one that is, sadly, unsupported at the moment. If you want to go that rout, you definitely aren't going to be able to rely on feats, because that's not what they're geared for. Overwhelming, single shot, hp damage can be a bit tricky to balance, mainly due to HP's all or nothing nature, so you might also want to consider giving them a few status inducing abilities.

Anbu002
2014-07-22, 02:00 AM
hey guys i fixed the class here is the link tell me what you think

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?363142-The-Marksman(my-first-attempt-at-a-home-brew-class)-revised-version-2-0&p=17808012#post17808012

and again thanks for your reviews