Archeologist Archer: You belong in a museum!

[marcielle]

Ok, so I need a roguish type(magic trap disabler). Who can also do a bit of utility casting. Base classes only, but archetypes were allowed, so I came to the conclusion of Archeologist Bard: Underwhelming at first(mainly due to the horribly limited rounds on Luck), but can we make something of it?
Standard start: Fate's Favored and Vagabond Child traits, Lingering Performance feat. Half elf because that's the only legit way to get a significant increase to your rounds per day.
Off the bat, you get +2/+2 for about 18-21 rounds a day. Add in Arcane Strike 2 out of every 3 rounds. Not bad. So we want to expand upon that. The obvious choice would be archery, for loads of attacks, but that's pretty feat intensive. At the very least you are looking at about 5 feats on top of Lingering Performance and Arcane Strike. Exacerbated by the fact you need to be a half-elf. so 7 in total. The earliest you are completely on-line is 13, which is a long time to wait.

So, do you think 1 or 2 levels in fighter would be worth it? And what about light crossbows? Most of your damage is going to come from static bonuses, so it might be worth it to invest in some crit chance. But is it worth burning ANOTHER feat on Rapid Reload?

Any other tricks I missed out?(especially from the newer books)

[RPZip]

Ok, so I need a roguish type(magic trap disabler). Who can also do a bit of utility casting. Base classes only, but archetypes were allowed, so I came to the conclusion of Archeologist Bard: Underwhelming at first(mainly due to the horribly limited rounds on Luck), but can we make something of it?
Standard start: Fate's Favored and Vagabond Child traits, Lingering Performance feat. Half elf because that's the only legit way to get a significant increase to your rounds per day.
Off the bat, you get +2/+2 for about 18-21 rounds a day. Add in Arcane Strike 2 out of every 3 rounds. Not bad. So we want to expand upon that. The obvious choice would be archery, for loads of attacks, but that's pretty feat intensive. At the very least you are looking at about 5 feats on top of Lingering Performance and Arcane Strike. Exacerbated by the fact you need to be a half-elf. so 7 in total. The earliest you are completely on-line is 13, which is a long time to wait.

So, do you think 1 or 2 levels in fighter would be worth it? And what about light crossbows? Most of your damage is going to come from static bonuses, so it might be worth it to invest in some crit chance. But is it worth burning ANOTHER feat on Rapid Reload?

Any other tricks I missed out?(especially from the newer books)

Honestly, you get a lot of mileage out of the Luck bonus from Lingering Performance/Fate's Favored, to the point where the Half-Elf racial bonus isn't that huge of a deal - it's (4 + CHA + 2*Level) * 3, which means it'll be up for most fights even at level 1 and pretty much constantly later on. Arcane Strike is good, but if you were going to go heavy into Archery I'd sideline it until much later, since you only get the benefit every 2/3 rounds and you'll get more mileage out of Point Blank Shot/Rapid Shot/etc.

Something I'd consider, depending on party makeup, is a reach build. It doesn't cost any additional resources (just grab a Longspear) and can be very effective, leaving you with free feats to do with as you please. It's not quite as effective on a Archaeologist as it is on a standard Bard, who can take advantage of the OAs/positioning to still do damage while using their standard to start their performance, but it's still very nice. You could consider a whip build, which basically requires you to sit on Weapon Focus (Whip) as a dead feat until you can pick up Whip Mastery, but it's honestly just as feat-intensive as archery is and less useful until you get Whip Mastery in place.

With that said, assuming you want to go for an archer bard... Human is probably where you want to go for the extra feat. Don't worry about Crossbows, they're not worth the investment at all - 20 x3 and 19-20 x2 are equivalent, and when you pick up a Bracers of Falcon's Aim you get 19-20 x3 regardless of what type of bow/crossbow you use. Stick with Bard and don't multiclass into Fighter, losing your casting progression and performance progression isn't worth it.

E: Huh, I'd totally missed that the number of performance rounds didn't scale. You can ignore a good bit of this, then.

[Spore]

Archaeologist's Luck is working as intended? It doesn't increase as the bard levels up (as ANY other better performance)?

[marcielle]

Half Elf Favored Class Bonus: +1 round per day.

[Spore]

Half Elf Favored Class Bonus: +1 round per day.

While I like the favored class bonus system from Paizo I heavily dislike being locked into a race just because it makes the class more playable. This is also why I dislike sorcerer's bonus on humans (extra spells albeit at a lower level)

[marcielle]

I kinda like that some races are inherently better at some classes than others, but I feel like the whole system lacked any unifying plan or forethought. If each race had one or two classes they were inherently better at in accordance with lore, that would be pretty cool, but as it stands it kinda feels pretty random who gets the awesome Favored Class bonuses and who gets trash.

[stack]

Can you ask your DM to let the rounds scale to some degree? Really reads like an oversight rather than deliberate design, not that I trust Paizo enough to be confident in that assertation.

[Spore]

Can you ask your DM to let the rounds scale to some degree? Really reads like an oversight rather than deliberate design, not that I trust Paizo enough to be confident in that assertation.

I would advise so as well. You trade in a group wide buff that scales with your level in duration that is a third of your class (next to casting and skill usage) and you get 7 to 10 rounds of "humming the Indiana Jones theme"?

I get that they wanted to use the ability in dangerous situations like "use one round to replace the golden idol with an apple", "use one round to not fall to your doom when spelling jesus on floor panels". I guess that is why it is a swift rather than a standard or move action. But it should be an immediate action then.

Either you can activate your "theme song" as an immediate action in response to something like traps, danger or a spell activating or you should get more rounds to maintain that buff to keep you safe and help you hit stuff.

[GreatDane]

Who needs a map?

Anyway, it seems like you're looking to do a lot more fighting than spellcasting or skillmonkeying, which is what archaeologists do well. In that case, fighter levels seem relevant. It delays your spellcasting, but you get to do more of the archery you're after (and you only lose 1-2 rounds of Archaeologist's Luck).

[Spore]

Anyway, it seems like you're looking to do a lot more fighting than spellcasting or skillmonkeying, which is what archaeologists do well. In that case, fighter levels seem relevant. It delays your spellcasting, but you get to do more of the archery you're after (and you only lose 1-2 rounds of Archaeologist's Luck).

If he wants to up his archery I would honestly recommend a 2 level dip in ranger more than fighter. You don't loose out on skills, you get class skills tha complement your list AND you can pick favored enemy Nazi. Or if you choose the guide archetype you get the Ranger's Focus. You may even just pick up Slayer 2 (for the same feat plus Studied Target).

And I heavily dislike early multiclassing. I'd recommend getting at least Bard 4 before dipping into Ranger or Fighter.