what are good archer builds?

[djwood]

WHAT I NEED

a build for archery

for level 1

that doesn't really need to multiclass

[Shining Wrath]

Ranger, archer specialist at level 2. You'll get Rapid Shot at level 2 and Multishot at level 6. Take Point Blank Shot at level 1 and Precise Shot at level 3. After that you're just getting incrementally better - more shots, more range, whatever.

Elf or Halfling for the bonus to Dexterity, or Human if you want to have Precise Shot from level 1.

[Tragak]

Either Scout (extra damage in turns where you move 10+ feet before attacking) or Ranger (extra damage against specific types of enemy).

If you're not going to multiclass, then I would say Ranger if the campaign will have lots of Undead, Constructs, Plants, Oozes… and Scout if the campaign will not, but ultimately multi-classing Scout/Ranger is generally considered to a better archery option than any single class.

[Karl Aegis]

Cloistered Cleric

Take the Elf domain and trade the Knowledge domain for Knowledge Devotion.

Use your feat on Zen Archery.

[DEMON]

Cloistered Cleric

Take the Elf domain and trade the Knowledge domain for Knowledge Devotion.

Use your feat on Zen Archery.

This. If we're not supposed to multiclass, this is as good as it gets in my opinion.

Make War domain your third one (free Weapon Focus, later qualify for Holy Warrior).

Take a flaw and grab Precise Shot and you're basically set up from the get go.

Runner ups are Mystic Ranger and Archivist, thanks to the archery spells on the Ranger's spell list.

Mundanes are a lot more dippy than casters.

[Darrin]

Piggy Knowles' Archer Build Thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?284283)

Bird of Prey (Tippy's Awesome Flying Sniper) (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?286818)

[Snowbluff]

The Cleric 1 with the Devotions has my bet. Tippy's Archer is nice, but I'm not a huge fan of polymorphy, purchased casting, and item dependent builds.

As for things off the beaten track, I suggest:

Arcane Archer2 with a Caster heavy base. Pick up Arrow Split 1d4+1 of your favorite area spell. I like Felldrain Hail of Stone. A splitting bow would double this.

Another funny one I thought of is Iaijutsu Master. Arrows are melee weapons if used as one, and drawing it for Iaijutsu is a use for a melee weapon. Pick up a Charisma base, like Bard, and find a way to Flat Foot your enemies. Then shoot enemies with a huge return on your charisma to damage. :smalltongue:

[DMVerdandi]

Cloistered Cleric

Take the Elf domain and trade the Knowledge domain for Knowledge Devotion.

Use your feat on Zen Archery.

Furthermore, if 2 levels of paladin are taken, You can take serenity so that you can get Wis to Turn Undead AND Divine grace.
Get a monks belt , and you now have wis to bonus spells, turning, saves, and AC.

Theoretically, you could take some flaws, take the magic domain to be able to use spells as a wizard, and get a rune staff of Heroics and Haste.

Go about getting the Divine metamagic(persist) feat chain, and then use heroics to get whatever fighter feats you need for the build to work.

[deuxhero]

PF or 3.5? They're really different

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

I'll agree that Cloistered Cleric (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#clericVariantCloistere dCleric) is going to be your best choice if you're determined/forced to stay single-classed. If your party is a bit low powered or you struggle with complicated mechanics though, you may want to make a Fighter as long as you can customize your bow, whether via spending money on specific upgrades or taking Ancestral Relic or Item Familiar to choose the upgrades yourself.

If you're able to use minimal/intended multiclassing, Ranger is usable if you get three or four levels of Scout and the feat Swift Hunter from Complete Scoundrel. Barring that, Ranger and Scout should be two of your last choices for a mechanically powerful dedicated archer.

If you're able to take one or two classes and then a prestige class, three levels of anything decent such as Swordsage with two levels of Soulknife (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/classes/soulknife.htm) to go into Soulbow (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20060403a&page=2) is quite good for an easy to play character, especially if you cannot reliably obtain certain magic items. You can even use two-weapon fighting with your mind arrows! Ideally it would go Swordsage 1 or 2/ Soulknife 2/ Swordsage 2 or 1/ Soulbow, but you wouldn't get all ten Soulbow levels at once, you would grab a few more Swordsage levels every so often when you would have the right initiator level to pick up a particular maneuver or stance. You would want to have at least eight Swordsage levels by 20th level with that, and never more than two Soulknife.

[Seharvepernfan]

Having spot as a class skill is pretty important for an archer, because you need to see your enemies in order to shoot them, which is harder at a distance. However, to be an effective archer, you need a source of damage. Elf Ranger for two levels, then rogue, is hard to beat in core. Outside of core, Elf Ranger into swift hunter is probably your best bet, with a dip into cloistered cleric as people have mentioned.

However, mounted archery for a small-sized character on a medium-sized mount is good, because the mount can move while you full-attack, and your mount can go in most of the places that an ordinary medium-sized character can.

[Amphetryon]

Cloistered Cleric

Take the Elf domain and trade the Knowledge domain for Knowledge Devotion.

Use your feat on Zen Archery.

Beat me to it. If this is too plain for your tastes, consider Archivist.

[djwood]

PF or 3.5? They're really different

3.5 friend!

[djwood]

but friend I'm sorry but what are flaws?


Go for broke:

Human Fighter 1, take the Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, and Rapid shot for feats. This makes you good to go immediately. You can drop Rapid shot to get another feat, but as a human fighter you get 3 starting feats, 1 for being first level, 1 for bonus fighter, and 1 for being human. If you add in two flaws, you can have 5 total feats to spend. Pick flaws that benefit you like non-combative which give you a -2 to melee attacks and something else. You could pick up Two weapon fighting here or at second level, this all gives you everything the ranger would get for their special fighting methods to start and you can spend feats to get both of what a ranger has to pick to get.

The Ranger may work, but it requires the second level to get the archery track, so you won't be really doing as much before hand. Yes, the favored enemy is nice, but its dicey because you have to nab the right choices or you rarely end up using it.

With minimal multi-classing, add in Rogue for sneak attacks or Ranger for favored enemy damage, but you should recognize one fact: D&D is built around characters killing enemies using two handed axes and sword more than any kind missile weapons. you will end up needing magical stuff to keep up. Damage dealing isn't really essential, hitting your enemy with more attacks to kill them faster is.

[djwood]

archivist? what is that friend?


Beat me to it. If this is too plain for your tastes, consider Archivist.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Zen Archery requires BAB +1. A Cleric can't pick it up until level 3.

EDIT: Archivist is basically a divine version of the wizard, found in Heroes of Horror. Except that they can put any divine spell in their spellbook, not just cleric spells. So cleric, druid, ranger, and paladin, just for starters.

[Zaq]

Anything that doesn't get Precise Shot ASAP is going to end up very sad. At low levels, every +1 counts, and eating a –4 to all your attack rolls when your total bonus isn't likely to be higher than maybe—MAYBE—+5 total, assuming good stats (+1 BAB and +4 DEX, I guess +1 if you have PBS) is just going to leave you frustrated and sad.

I absolutely hate that Precise Shot is such a feat tax for anyone who wants to do archery or ranged attacks, but unless your party is 100% ranged characters, you need Precise Shot. –4 is just too big a penalty to accept at early levels.

[djwood]

what page of the PHB is this in?


Cloistered Cleric

Take the Elf domain and trade the Knowledge domain for Knowledge Devotion.

Use your feat on Zen Archery.

[Flickerdart]

but friend I'm sorry but what are flaws?
Flaws are an alternate rule from Unearthed Arcana, found in the SRD (online, for free). Basically, you take one or two pretty serious penalties in exchange for getting more feats.

Are you playing under any book restrictions? I'd say that Fighter is actually better than Ranger in Core - Weapon Specialization is quite useful because damage bonuses are scarce, and it's better than Favored Enemy unless your DM tells you ahead of time what foes you can expect to fight (such as "this is an anti-undead campaign" or "this is an anti-demon campaign").

If you have the entire SRD to go off of, I'd recommend Barbarian + Whirling Frenzy. Extra attacks are very valuable for archers, and the STR boost (for use with a composite bow) doesn't exactly hurt.

[Snowbluff]

Here you go. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm) The book is Unearthed Arcana.

[Zaq]

If you have the entire SRD to go off of, I'd recommend Barbarian + Whirling Frenzy. Extra attacks are very valuable for archers, and the STR boost (for use with a composite bow) doesn't exactly hurt.

While I totally agree that Whirling Frenzy is good for archers, the STR bonus is kind of a trap unless you have (A) have a bone bow, (B) have multiple composite bows, or (C) are magically confident that you will be raging 100% of the time. Using a composite bow with a lower STR than it's rated for is bad times, and using a composite bow with a higher STR than it's rated for is a waste. You either don't meet the STR rating of your bow when you're not raging (so you're taking penalties in all but one encounter per day), or you meet the STR rating when you're not raging (so the STR boost isn't actually a bonus for you).

Whirling Frenzy is still a good idea just because the extra attack is excellent to have, but the STR boost is not going to help much until you get some more resources (either multiple bows, or a bone bow, or enough rages/day that you can be confident that you'll basically always have it).

[Flickerdart]

While I totally agree that Whirling Frenzy is good for archers, the STR bonus is kind of a trap unless you have (A) have a bone bow, (B) have multiple composite bows, or (C) are magically confident that you will be raging 100% of the time. Using a composite bow with a lower STR than it's rated for is bad times, and using a composite bow with a higher STR than it's rated for is a waste. You either don't meet the STR rating of your bow when you're not raging (so you're taking penalties in all but one encounter per day), or you meet the STR rating when you're not raging (so the STR boost isn't actually a bonus for you).

Whirling Frenzy is still a good idea just because the extra attack is excellent to have, but the STR boost is not going to help much until you get some more resources (either multiple bows, or a bone bow, or enough rages/day that you can be confident that you'll basically always have it).
Actually, it's a pretty neat thing - your to-hit remains the same when raging and not raging, since Whirling Frenzy's -2 attack penalty is identical to the -2 penalty for using a wrong bow. So what you lose in efficiency, you make up for in book-keeping. :smalltongue:

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Flaws (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/buildingCharacters/characterFlaws.htm) give you extra feats, they're originally from Unearthed Arcana. A few books and a lot of Dragon magazine issues introduced more flaws to pick, some of the better choices can be found here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?258440-The-quot-Best-quot-Flaws#30).

Cloistered Cleric (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#clericVariantCloistere dCleric) is a class variant originally from Unearthed Arcana. Knowledge Devotion is a feat in Complete Champion, at the beginning of the feats chapter of that book it explains that devotion feats can be taken instead of the domain of the same name.

Archivist (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20051007a&page=3) is from Heroes of Horror, it's particularly good for archery because it can learn any spell from the Ranger spell list, as well as any spell from any divine class spell list in the game (http://community.wizards.com/forum/previous-editions-character-optimization/threads/1023251). It's easy enough to get one level of Cloistered Cleric before you start taking that, so you get domains and Turn Undead to power Divine Metamagic, otherwise you'll want to pick up one or more levels of Sacred Exorcist to power Divine Metamagic instead.