is order of the bow worth it to be a great archer?

[djwood]

is it really all that for a lvl 8 human?

[AvatarVecna]

Order of the Bow Initiate is pretty terrible. It focuses on taking single shots as a standard action for a slightly larger amount of damage for the single arrow you get to fire. The only way this could be a good idea is if you're building an archer sniper, and you're already content with firing one arrow as a standard action.

[aleucard]

Not so much. It's pure precision damage, with the only other interesting thing being the Level 2 ability to not provoke AoO when firing while in a threatened square. Your best bet is probably to just go for something with precision damage that can work off other things too.

[Extra Anchovies]

OotBI precision damage is better than skirmish damage on single attacks (5d8 vs 5d8). However, OotBI is a bad PrC. Greater Manyshot lets you (basically) move + full attack, tripling your skirmish output, and (this is the big one) OotBI precision damage only applies to targets within 30 feet. That's basically melee range; you're a single move or a charge away from having the big nasty monsters all up in your grill. And there's no way to extend that range, whereas there is a way to extend the range of Skirmish damage (Ranged Skirmisher).

[Troacctid]

I DM'd a game with a Scout/Ranger/Order of the Bow Initiate this summer. I buffed the class to make it a d8 every level instead of every two levels AND let him apply the precision damage to his Undead and Construct favored enemies via Swift Hunter AND gave him one of the feat requirements for free, and he STILL had trouble keeping up with the Warmage in damage. It is not a good class.

[nedz]

I had a Ranger 6 / OBI 5 Cohort in one game — the DM's idea. I found Rapid Shot was much better and gave up on the Precision damage. The character was a good archer, but Ranger 11 would have been much better. Ranger also gets more skill points, and has more useful skills to spend them on; also spells.

[ngilop]

take a look at my Order of The Bow Initiate fix (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=17523842&postcount=55)and see if that looks better for you mr OP :)

and yes, im still taking requests.

[lsfreak]

The prestige classes you want as a traditional (non-magic, non-psionic, non-swift hunter) archer are Deepwoods Sniper and Peerless Archer. Both are from 3.0 sources (Masters of the Wild and Silver Marches). The 3.0 version of OotBI from Sword and Fist isn't terrible either, MUCH better than the 3.5 version, but less useful than the others.