Is Archery Bad?

[Gale]

I’ve never really understood archery in D&D. So far my main problems with archery have always been:


Feat taxes. Having to take two feats, point-black shot and precise shot, simply to avoid hitting your friends in melee is a pain. I’m aware that precise shot can be made into a weapon enhancement, but this ends up making future enhancements to your bow far more expensive.

Lack of flexibility. I could never figure out what archers were supposed to do other than keep their distance and shoot arrows for damage.

Low damage output. It’s fairly easy for melee characters to do damage with power attack, charge feats, and tripping. Archery doesn’t seem have any of these same luxuries or any real analogues; they can’t even take attacks of opportunity with their bow without using a spell.

Perhaps some of these problems come from my lack of knowledge about archery, but I’ve approached it multiple times in attempts to make an archery-focused character only to end up ditching the build in the end for something else. I’ve so far only really played one archer, specifically a Scout/Ranger or Swift Hunter, and I ran into all the problems listed above except for the last one. But then I was sacrificing my range advantage for damage, which overall seemed senseless.

Is archery in D&D is genuinely bad or am I simply missing something here?

[Snowbluff]

It's bad in that it takes effort. You can actually pull off some sick work with a good archery build.

My favorite is Arcane Archer with Arrow Split and a Splitting bow. Channel a Fell Drain Hail of Stone for a no save, no SR 2d4+2 negative levels. Of course, you can always improve this very easily by twinning the Hail of Stone, or maximizing the Arrow Split. :smalltongue:

[Seward]

Archery is fine for what it is.

It is pretty much the most reliable way to do single-target damage. Yes, it takes some feats, but that's what feats are for and why martial classes get bonus feats. Unlike a lot of the physical-weapon feats, the archery feats all help with what an archer truly cares about - reliably hitting the target and putting damage on it.

Advantage over a melee is that you get to full attack much more often - only stopped by things that block visibility or physically stop arrows such as wind-wall. If you encounter either, you do what a melee does - you move and maybe get only one attack.

After 3.5, damage reduction is also easier to defeat with archery than a melee - special material ammunition is relatively cheap, later specific bane arrows in small quantities are also pretty inexpensive. Get a GMW from the party spellcaster and you have all the buffs you need.

A well designed archer can generally remove one CR-appropriate enemy a round, or take a big chunk out of a stronger enemy. As with a rogue, some situations can shut down an archer (underwater at range, very high winds) and some hinder (darkness, fog). Archers should invest in Spot and Listen to make sure they can find a target every round.

A melee who is moving isn't full attacking, barring a pounce-build and a clear charge lane. Pounce-builds are shut down by the same things that shut down archers (lack of visibility or barriers) and combat maneuvers just slow you down from killing things.

Yes, all an archer does in combat is reliably put damage on stuff. That is pretty much the point. The skill in playing one is picking the most important targets and making sure you aren't wasting combat actions on anything but full attacks, whenever possible. Outdoors a horse can really help - it lets you move around while full attacking, and if you don't go too fast you don't have to waste any feats or take any penalties.

Out of combat, most archers make pretty good scouts (high dexterity, usually no armor check penalties, good perception skills). If they've got any Ranger in them, they'll also usually have a bit of tracker in them. Once you've got the basic feat set nailed down, there's room for a fair bit of customization if you want to mix in a little magic or skills other than spotting the stuff you want to kill before it spots you.

I played a bog-standard arcane archer (wood elf, 18 strength, 4 levels of fighter, 2 ranger, 1 wizard, rest arcane archer - basically a ranger with intelligence and wizard spells instead of wisdom and druid spells. The bat familiar helped a ton with invisible enemies). He got to about level 11 and was dishing out about 110 damage/round most of the time and his tiny bit of arcane gave him small but oddly useful). He never felt overshadowed by anybody and got to do some very cool stunts in his career.

(my favorite was having a flying mount killed out from under him, shooting the bad guys all the way down, feather falling the final bit and continuing to shoot at extreme range using Guided Shot. They would have done a lot better to target someone else's mount)

[Troacctid]

Yes, archery is pretty bad, mainly because all it does is damage and the damage it does is pretty pathetic.

[Crake]

I made a pretty successful archer character not too long ago. It was gimped by the DM constantly pulling bs, but ignoring that it had pretty amazing output.

The full build was fighter 4/ranger 4/feat rogue 4/Swordsage 3. Used swordsage to get assassin's stance and the craven feat to boost it up to decent damage. Additionally got cloak of deception which let me trigger my sneak attack most of the time. Fighter and feat rogue gave me 6 feats combined, along with ranger 4 giving me a combat style feat. Funnily enough I picked up weapon specialization on the build, as the flat damage helped a lot, as well as ranged weapon mastery. Had the DM not been an ass and actually let me get some decent weapon enchantments (he thought the force weapon enchantment was broken... yet he allowed 2 divine metamagic clerics in the party, yeah, ok m8y), it would have been even better. Manyshot and greater manyshot were also pretty nice for those times when I just HAD to move.

It also helped that I knew what we would be fighting and got to pick favoured enemy for that race, though my DM didn't let me get bane arrows because you could use it with a +4 weapon to get an effective +6 enhancement, allowing you to bypass DR epic before epic levels, which he apparently for some reason thought was broken (yeah, like it was gonna happen sometime soon, which to be fair, the DM was terrible, so he probably would have done it :smallannoyed:). It takes a bit of work, yeah, but archery is definitely possible. A seeking weapon and blindsense (from hearing the air) is also pretty damn sweet.

[Beheld]

Archery has good access to more attacks than melee. You get to full attack every round without standing next to monsters, so you can just do that every round, you also get access to things like Splitting Bows and Arrow Demons. It therefore basically has to be balanced for sources of extra damage, not for just a regular full attack. The best archers are therefore: 1) Clerics. Cleric spells that add +3 Damage look a heck of a lot better on a character with haste, rapidshot, and two splitting bows being dual wielded by a polymorph effect into an arrow demon than they do by a guy swinging a big old sword. 2) Rogues, if you have SA, you can shoot a bunch of arrows that do SA, and that can murderate people. 3) Scouts that bolt on extra move actions. 4) You can sort of voltron together specific arrows, and every random feat from every random source to get enough static bonuses to not be an actual hobo when it comes to damage. But this is way less likely and way harder than just being one of the first 3.

[Âmesang]

Yes, archery is pretty bad, mainly because all it does is damage and the damage it does is pretty pathetic.
I figured that was the point. :smalltongue: You want to do damage from far away? Great, but you won't do much. You want to do a lot of damage? Great, but you have to get in close and run a greater risk of getting yourself hurt. Even melee guys have the choice between extra defense (carry a shield) or extra damage (two-handed weapons) — and if you want your cake and eat it to, you need to pay out the nose one-way-or-another (like composite bows for a juicy Strength bonus to damage).

I'm not saying one's good or bad, I just figured that was the "risk/reward" system of D&D. :smallsmile: Granted, I had a hard time explaining that to my last group's ranger/assassin who felt he should be able to sneak attack from any range. Guess he's never heard the phrase, "don't shoot till you see the whites of their eyes." ("But they don't have eyes!" "Then they're probably undead!")


…though my DM didn't let me get bane arrows because you could use it with a +4 weapon to get an effective +6 enhancement, allowing you to bypass DR epic before epic levels, which he apparently for some reason thought was broken.
Bah! That's what I like about bane weapons — the idea of crafting a customized weapon to take out a specific threat, like an unholy good outsider bane dagger, the "angel's tear," or a merciful magical beast bane greatsword, the "tarrasque slayer" (just double-checked it and I never noticed merciful could be turned on and off).

[Necroticplague]

My favorite is Arcane Archer with Arrow Split and a Splitting bow. Channel a Fell Drain Hail of Stone for a no save, no SR 2d4+2 negative levels. Of course, you can always improve this very easily by twinning the Hail of Stone, or maximizing the Arrow Split. :smalltongue:

Funny, I actually did a pretty similar build before.
"Missed me"
"Wasn't aiming for you"
*sound of 12 fell drain hails of stone going off in the square they were in*

[Psyren]

It's very bad in 3.5. Pathfinder included a number of improvements to it that you may want to look into, like Deadly Aim, Clustered Shots, Called Shots/Targeting Feats, Point-Blank Master, magic weapons beating DR, Rapid Shot stacking with Manyshot and with Haste, Cyclonic bows, Fogcutting Lenses, etc. Goodies for archers continue to be released as well, such as the new options found in the recent Weapon Master's Handbook.

[Eldariel]

In 3.5, it's bad without effort. With effort, on higher levels you can make it good enough to oneshot everything even remotely level appropriate unless it has problematic defenses (e.g. Wind Wall, Ironguard, damage immunity, etc.; your ability to overcome those depends on DM judgment and specific magic properties and spells) - and on low levels you do have the advantage of getting easy double attacks with Rapid Shot. It's still only damage and you suffer of the problematic MAD of needing Str for damage and Dex for hitting, but of course, killing enemies is still a fairly efficient way of dealing with many of them. Bows are a good way to get a lot of attacks thanks to Splitting/Arrow Split, Rapid Shot & potentially Hail of Arrow [Targeteer Fighter in Dragon Magazine], so stuff that applies on shot such as poison can also be spammed for the natural 1s on saves if enemies are vulnerable. DR ignoring is available at a few places and you'd be well-adviced to pick one up just for the inevitable DR/- (or DR/Epic) enemies you'll encounter.

Woodland Archer potentially (depending on whether it stacks with itself - DM ruling can go either way) makes hitting anything fairly easy; AC 100+ can be hard for many non-casters but if you get a ton of attacks each turn and can stack the +4s, you can ramp up fairly hefty bonuses towards the end of your attack run especially with ways to get multiple full-round actions in one turn. That's a nice advantage to have as AC is pretty easy to buff and martials often have a bit of trouble keeping up with their attack runs vs. targets with magically buffed AC on high levels. Of course, you'd still rather be a high level caster but a martial being able to play the number game is at least not-utterly-failing at their own job.


In short, bad out of the gates, takes some work, never truly ridiculous but can be a competitive combat style with its own set of advantages with a lot of work.

[Snowbluff]

It's very bad in 3.5. Pathfinder included a number of improvements to it that you may want to look into, like Deadly Aim, Clustered Shots, Called Shots/Targeting Feats, Point-Blank Master, magic weapons beating DR, Rapid Shot stacking with Manyshot and with Haste, Cyclonic bows, Fogcutting Lenses, etc. Goodies for archers continue to be released as well, such as the new options found in the recent Weapon Master's Handbook.

Half of which you only need if you sucked really bad at 3.5 archery. :smalltongue:
Seriously how is DR a problem with archery. Metallic is a cakewalk for archers.
Don't forget Named Bullets.

Also, Haste always stacked with Rapid Shot, which isn't considered a similiar effect. Further more, Splitting Bows and Arrowsplit and Iaijutsu let you crank out a lot of damage really easily.

[Flickerdart]

Archery is kind of tricky.

It's really easy to be okay at archery. Grab a bow, shoot it at anything you and your party's melee dudes can't reach, buy a dozen cheap magic arrows for when you need them.

It's getting past that point that's really annoying, mostly because there are very few ways to be good at archery, compared to being good at melee combat. There are feats you need to take on every archer. Your bow better be a Splitting Hank's Energy Bow (and your name better be Hank).

But archery is good if you play up its strengths, of which there are a few:
Full attacks: A warrior needs to run around before he can hit people, and you don't. Hell, you can jump on a horse and run away while getting all of your full attacks. This advantage is negated by a party that needs to close in, a low Spot check that prevents you from seeing targets, and a lack of line of sight.
Range: A fireball's maximum range is 1200 feet, at level 20. A level 1 peasant picking up a greatbow can shoot it just as far. Enlarge Spell wins out against Far Shot (eventually), but very few spells are Long range. Again, your party needs to be able to support this fighting style, and your accuracy blows unless you put work into it.
Flexibility: A demon? Let me pull out my silver arrows. A humanoid? Let's grab some of these poisoned arrows. An ogre? Good thing I bought a few giantbane arrows in the last village.
So many attacks: So many! At level 1, a barbarian with whirling frenzy, rapid shot, and two-weapon fighting has 4 attacks with throwing weapons. Accuracy is also not great here, though.

[Psyren]

Half of which you only need if you sucked really bad at 3.5 archery. :smalltongue:

I wouldn't say "need." Deadly Aim is just really nice to have. Clustered Shots less so, especially with enhancement overcoming DR in PF, but it does trigger things like massive damage rules.


Also, Haste always stacked with Rapid Shot, which isn't considered a similiar effect.

Pretty sure my post said all three of them stack in PF, which wasn't the case in 3.5 because Manyshot is a standard and RS requires a full-attack.

Also, the Iaijutsu thing is likely to earn you a DMG upside the head.

[Anlashok]

iaijutsu archery sounds pretty damn cool though. Reminds me of the like, three weeks PoW characters could use mithral current counters with ranged weapons. Before DSP arbitrarily broke that functionality.

[Snowbluff]

Archery is kind of tricky.

It's really easy to be okay at archery. Grab a bow, shoot it at anything you and your party's melee dudes can't reach, buy a dozen cheap magic arrows for when you need them.

It's getting past that point that's really annoying, mostly because there are very few ways to be good at archery, compared to being good at melee combat. There are feats you need to take on every archer. Your bow better be a Splitting Hank's Energy Bow (and your name better be Hank).
You're nickname is Hank. :smalltongue:

Really, the worse thing about Archery is being able to see far enough. Hopefully you have an absurd telepathy range and mindsight or a lot of spot (-1 per 10 feet away :smalleek:).



Pretty sure my post said all three of them stack in PF, which wasn't the case in 3.5 because Manyshot is a standard and RS requires a full-attack.

Also, the Iaijutsu thing is likely to earn you a DMG upside the head.
Manyshot being a standard is actually good, since some effects are better when you can take a move action before. High level scouts, for example, like to able to use the Improved Many Shot, trigger Skirmish by moving, and using their swift for another bonus (in place of using Travel Devotion, which is a Swift and limited times/day).

Also, Iaijutsu Elven Craft Bows are totally legit. Iaijutsu is entirely about style (it's a Cha skill), so anything that makes sense is invalid. :smalltongue:


iaijutsu archery sounds pretty damn cool though. Reminds me of the like, three weeks PoW characters could use mithral current counters with ranged weapons. Before DSP arbitrarily broke that functionality.

Yeah, I'm not a fan of Mithral Current. It's a much better school if Iaijutsu is allowed, though.

[CharonsHelper]

It's very bad in 3.5. Pathfinder included a number of improvements to it that you may want to look into, like Deadly Aim, Clustered Shots, Called Shots/Targeting Feats, Point-Blank Master, magic weapons beating DR, Rapid Shot stacking with Manyshot and with Haste, Cyclonic bows, Fogcutting Lenses, etc. Goodies for archers continue to be released as well, such as the new options found in the recent Weapon Master's Handbook.

In 3.5 archery is a potent combat style if you invest in it and make sure to have an efficient quiver with all sorts of arrow materials etc. - though not that great if your group mostly dungeon crawls. Also avoids your character being worthless against flying enemies without other investments. (fly potion etc.)

In Pathfinder archery is the MOST powerful martial combat style - and they removed the primary disadvantage. (Point-Blank Master is a stupid feat - my home group has banned it.)

[Troacctid]

"Optimizing archery" is essentially code for "Using archery as a vehicle for precision damage and/or weapon enhancements," because the base damage of a bow is craptastic. You don't even add your Dex to damage. When your optimized Fighter/Ranger is getting outdamaged by a Warmage who spent all her feats on Toughness, you have a problem.

[Âmesang]

That reminds me… I spent the better part of a day awhile back trying to stat out a gnome cowboy (urban ranger) with Exotic Weapon Proficiency (firearms), wanting to re-purpose Rapid Reload (using the breech-loading option from Dragon Magazine #321) and Manyshot (double-barreled rifle? Hell, it's a gnome — triple-barreled rifle!). For the proper flavor he'd be trained in Craft (alchemy; rangers are spellcasters!, it counts!), Craft (firearms), and cross-class with Knowledge (architecture and engineering).

Unfortunately if I make him a FORGOTTEN REALMS® character with Shooting Star/Sword of the Arcane Order he'd have an easier time enhancing his own weapons but won't have an animal companion; no pony to ride into town on (and there are no feat spots open for Wild Cohort, not without taking a second flaw, anyway).

…I've been watching way too much of The Rifleman on AMC. :smalltongue: The Gnome with Gno Gname?

[Psyren]

In Pathfinder archery is the MOST powerful martial combat style - and they removed the primary disadvantage. (Point-Blank Master is a stupid feat - my home group has banned it.)

It's strong but it's actually not ban-worthy. It's hard for non-Fighters and non-Rangers to get, and they're supposed to be the best archers anyway. Furthermore, archers tend to have bad AC and can't use any of their toys when grappled, so standing around in melee is a bad idea even if you can get some shots off without provoking.



Manyshot being a standard is actually good, since some effects are better when you can take a move action before. High level scouts, for example, like to able to use the Improved Many Shot, trigger Skirmish by moving, and using their swift for another bonus (in place of using Travel Devotion, which is a Swift and limited times/day).

You can move while full-shooting easily in PF, just get a mount.



Also, Iaijutsu Elven Craft Bows are totally legit. Iaijutsu is entirely about style (it's a Cha skill), so anything that makes sense is invalid. :smalltongue:

pbbblt

[CharonsHelper]

"Optimizing archery" is essentially code for "Using archery as a vehicle for precision damage and/or weapon enhancements," because the base damage of a bow is craptastic. You don't even add your Dex to damage.

No - you add your STR.

[CharonsHelper]

It's strong but it's actually not ban-worthy. It's hard for non-Fighters and non-Rangers to get, and they're supposed to be the best archers anyway. Furthermore, archers tend to have bad AC and can't use any of their toys when grappled, so standing around in melee is a bad idea even if you can get some shots off without provoking.

I didn't mean to imply that Point Blank Master would break the game. It won't... because even archers aren't nearly as powerful as well built casters are in Pathfinder. (Though I will point out - Point Blank Master is actually easiest to get for Zen Archer Monks - they get it at 3rd level.)

Mostly we banned it because the vibe of it seems contrary to how combat is supposed to work in the system. (I'm not sure anyone was even planning to take it - as our group's current archer is a Hunter anyway.)

[Troacctid]

No - you add your STR.

Right, your Strength, which is low because you focused on Dexterity, because you're an archer.

[Flickerdart]

Unfortunately if I make him a FORGOTTEN REALMS® character with Shooting Star/Sword of the Arcane Order he'd have an easier time enhancing his own weapons but won't have an animal companion; no pony to ride into town on (and there are no feat spots open for Wild Cohort, not without taking a second flaw, anyway).

You know you can just buy a pony, right?

[Dread_Head]

You know you can just buy a pony, right?

Or take Wild Cohort if you want a more survivable mount.

[Flickerdart]

Or take Wild Cohort if you want a more survivable mount.

Wild Cohort is mentioned in the quote - there is no room for it, which is pretty much expected since archers have trouble with feats.

[CharonsHelper]

Right, your Strength, which is low because you focused on Dexterity, because you're an archer.

It's not low if you know what you're doing. Likely 1-3 modifier or so behind a melee character.

In 3.5 (point-buy) an archer will start with a STR of 14 while a melee character (which isn't half-orc) will probably start with a STR of 16. Higher than that and he has to start making sacrifices in other stats.

As you level the melee character will put points into STR every 4th - you'll get as many as 3 higher modifier than an archer.

[Dread_Head]

Wild Cohort is mentioned in the quote - there is no room for it, which is pretty much expected since archers have trouble with feats.

Now I feel stupid, not sure how I missed that.

[Âmesang]

You know you can just buy a pony, right?
That's like a 100 gp! 30 for the non-war pony. You think he's made of money? :smalltongue: Of course looking over the prices makes me want a war donkey, now.

EDIT: Though if I had him use a rifle than I suppose he doesn't necessarily need Quick Draw, so there's Wild Cohort right there…

EDIT II: Another thread made me wonder — are there any 3rd Edition stats for giant space hamsters?

[Snowbluff]

I’ve never really understood archery in D&D. So far my main problems with archery have always been:


Low damage output. It’s fairly easy for melee characters to do damage with power attack, charge feats, and tripping. Archery doesn’t seem have any of these same luxuries or any real analogues; they can’t even take attacks of opportunity with their bow without using a spell.


Also, just to address this, get an elven craft longbow if you really need AoO.


You can move while full-shooting easily in PF, just get a mount.


Mounts suck without a class feature, so most Scouts elect to move on foot. Personally, I go for the combat Improved Familiars or Celestial Animal Companion in 3.5, but you need arcane caster at the very least to do that.

[Eldariel]

"Optimizing archery" is essentially code for "Using archery as a vehicle for precision damage and/or weapon enhancements," because the base damage of a bow is craptastic. You don't even add your Dex to damage. When your optimized Fighter/Ranger is getting outdamaged by a Warmage who spent all her feats on Toughness, you have a problem.

You forgot "and every other bonus damage source you can tack on"; there's plenty beyond weapon enhancements and precision damage (stats to damage, feats to damage, Power Shot if Hank's Bow/Peerless Archer, spells that enhance all attacks, etc.). Knowledge Devotion alone goes ways towards making life easier as an Archer if you have the 6 key Knowledges available. Also, since you tend to incidentally pump your To Hit skyhigh anyways, you can almost afford to max out Str over Dex and just rely on your natively high Dex to hit while maxing out damage and being decent in melee while at it; though Dex for Initiative would be nice too so it's kinda give-or-take. Either option is valid tho.

[Troacctid]

It's not low if you know what you're doing. Likely 1-3 modifier or so behind a melee character.

In 3.5 (point-buy) an archer will start with a STR of 14 while a melee character (which isn't half-orc) will probably start with a STR of 16. Higher than that and he has to start making sacrifices in other stats.

As you level the melee character will put points into STR every 4th - you'll get as many as 3 higher modifier than an archer.

Yes, 14 is low. It means you're dealing 1d8+2 damage per shot. I am quite comfortable classifying that as craptastic.


You forgot "and every other bonus damage source you can tack on"; there's plenty beyond weapon enhancements and precision damage (stats to damage, feats to damage, Power Shot if Hank's Bow/Peerless Archer, spells that enhance all attacks, etc.). Knowledge Devotion alone goes ways towards making life easier as an Archer if you have the 6 key Knowledges available. Also, since you tend to incidentally pump your To Hit skyhigh anyways, you can almost afford to max out Str over Dex and just rely on your natively high Dex to hit while maxing out damage and being decent in melee while at it; though Dex for Initiative would be nice too so it's kinda give-or-take. Either option is valid tho.

All that and you're still doing less damage than the unoptimized Warmage.

[Seward]

No - you add your STR.

Yeah. One of the traps you can get into with archery is thinking you don't need strength.

18 strength is two weapon specializations over strength 10. It's similar to the folks who don't think monks need strength, barring things like Pathfinder's Agile amulet of mighty fists.

Seriously, damage is how you end encounters. 95% of the time you kill things instead of bypassing them, because if you bypass them they'll come after you down the road. Also if you want to bypass things, most archers are decent scouts, so can help identify the thing to bypass.

An archer is good if he does enough damage to remove a single level appropriate enemy once a round. He's average if he merely burns off most of its hitpoints and can still do ok if he does focus fire on damaged enemies, as he should. He sucks if he isn't killing enemies on a regular basis. That is as often a player problem as a build problem, although I have noticed that the people who can't seem to remember to spend their actions attacking are the same people who build 10 strength archers.

An archer isn't MAD. He needs only 2 stats, strength and dex. Everything else is optional, although a little con is nice and not dumping wisdom or int too far means you'll be able to keep up with your all important spot skill.

Here's the damage per round of my arcane archer. He did better than warmages on single targets. They do better against multiple. YMMV, it's possible to crank an arcane caster to higher damage by burning out top tier spell slots quickly but the archer does it every round. I had quickdraw by level 3, so I always got to full attack.
I'd have done a bit more in Pathfinder, with Deadly Aim and +1 atk/dmg from the L3 fighter weapon master archetype, but it's pretty similar.

These assume all arrows hit, but with a full BAB class and no power attack to worry about, hitting was
rarely a problem.
L1: d6+5 for a thrown weapon point blank shot, or d12+6 with a two handed melee weapon. Most level 1 enemies have 6-10 hitpoints.
L2: 2d8+8 = 17 (rapid shot, strength 4 bow). +10 if point blank, but I'll ignore that from now on.
L3-5: 2d8+10 = 19 (magic bow) Damage started to seem weak near end of level 5, but the warmage is doing only 3d4+3+edge with magic missile or 4d6+edge scorching ray at L5, so it's in line and was still getting enemies dead pretty quick, killing mooks in one round and more solid monsters in 2.
L6: 3d8+3d6+18 = 42 - yes my damage doubled at level 6. This is quite typical of archers. In my case it was weapon spec adding +2, an iterative attack and finally being able to afford upgrading my bow to Merciful.
Even when I had to go to my backup, nonmagical strength 4 bow for things like undead or constructs, I was still doing 29 damage a round. The warmage gets his second scorching ray by level 7, so 28+edge is what you compare to. I also got woodland archer, which helped a ton with concealment.

L7 was my wizard level, and the go-to spell was guided shot. There isn't a pathfinder equivalent, but this was a BFD (in Pathfinder, sticking with ranger to level 6 gives improved precise shot. The effects are similar). My bat familiar gave me a way to pinpoint invisible targets and I often used surprise rounds to swap places with it to get a nice perch using benign transposition. Naturally I had pearls of power to swap back any spells used.

L8 the arcane archer stuff finally started. No real help yet, but eventually the free enhancement bonuses meant I was dangerous with any bow, not just my preferred one. (I eventually picked up an aquatic bow, and enchanted my backup bow with something that defeated DR evil and did extra damage vs undead, leaving constructs as a rare thing neither bow did well against, but I had adamantine arrows and they don't have all that many hitpoints relative to their level.

L9 boots of haste kick the damage up to 56, although improved crit adds a small amount of extra damage, call it 60 overall. The warmage meanwhile is doing an empowered scorching ray for about 42+edge, or orb spells for about 33+edge. If he's got a lesser maximize rod, he might get to 64+edge damage.

L10-11 +2 arcane archer enhancement plus enough cash to add +d6 lightning to the merciful bow (most things I want to shoot that are resistant to lightning I use the the other bow on anyway). With 4 attacks, that brings damage up to 78 against a typical opponent. I think I added evil outsider bane to the other bow at 11, against those guys I was doing 100 damage even, not considering crits. The warmage can do an empowered scorching ray for 63+edge damage, or maximized to 72+edge, assuming he spent the feats. With a lesser rod of quicken and a maximized scorching ray he can get up to 114 damage, but that's cash similar to what I spent on both bows combined (actually more, 45k to about 36k), and I can shoot to 1000' a few rounds each combat and 110' with no penalties reliably, defeat any DR except elemental and ignore SR, where his rays end at 50'. All of his other options do a lot less damage - down in the 45ish range.

L12 the warmage can finally empower his orb spells - that's still only 63 damage+edge using a L6 slot. With quicken he can also add a scorching ray with another L6 slot. Really, same potential as level 11. For my archer, L12 meant improved precise shot, enhancement on my weapons brought up to +3 and more importantly another iterative attack. I'm doing 100 points of damage/round routinely, evil outsiders are taking about 120. That's enough to drop anything damaged, or kill damn near anything in 2 rounds.

He was just entering the range where a splitting bow was affordable when his campaign ended.

This is not an optimized archer, and in Pathfinder, by level 12, a bog-standard fighter-archer could outperform him with little effort. The monster hitpoints haven't really changed though. Nobody was ever sad to have him at the table (this was organized play, random groups of strangers at each table, not a campaign where we all got the benefit of reliable teamwork)

[CharonsHelper]

Yes, 14 is low. It means you're dealing 1d8+2 damage per shot. I am quite comfortable classifying that as craptastic.

And the melee character with a long-sword doing 1d8+3 at 1st level is amazing?

Though I'll also point out - as an archer it's not that hard to get two shots at 1d8+2 EACH at level 1. Level 3 at the latest.


All that and you're still doing less damage than the unoptimized Warmage.

I don't think that anyone has said that archers are superior to casters. Straw-man argument.

[Troacctid]

And the melee character with a long-sword doing 1d8+3 at 1st level is amazing?

Though I'll also point out - as an archer it's not that hard to get two shots at 1d8+2 EACH at level 1. Level 3 at the latest.
The melee character with 18 Strength and a greatsword is doing 2d6+6 at 1st level, which is pretty good. The archer is probably doing a flat 1d8, because you can't afford a composite bow yet.


I don't think that anyone has said that archers are superior to casters. Straw-man argument.
It's not about caster supremacy, it's about baseline level-appropriate damage.

[CharonsHelper]

The melee character with 18 Strength and a greatsword is doing 2d6+6 at 1st level, which is pretty good. The archer is probably doing a flat 1d8, because you can't afford a composite bow yet.

1. Most 1st level characters don't have an 18 STR in 3.5. Unless you're a half-orc it costs way too many stat points - and half-orcs have plenty of their own issues. So - 2d6+4 if you're not sacrificing other stats. (Or if you're in a really high stat game - in which case the archer has STR 16.) Frankly - past the first couple levels two-handed combat isn't that great anyway since more and more damage becomes about static modifiers.

A human fighter can be plinking away at 2d8+2 a round even before they can afford a composite bow. Once they get it they're at 2d8+6 a round.

2. Until you can afford rapid-shot and/or a composite longbow you just use javelins for 1d6+3 damage.

Edit: Forgot to include the extra damage from Point-Blank Shot.

[Seward]

Wood Elf was +2 to Str and +2 to Dex. That's how I started with strength 18 on my archer (and dex 17, statbumps into dex. As I said, never had any trouble hitting things)

See above for my damage on a fairly normal character, not especially optimized. (I was playing a freaking Arcane Archer. So many good PRCs came out later after I'd committed to that...)

[Aleolus]

Archery in DnD isn't bad, but it is hard. Which is actually fairly historically accurate. It was fairly simple to be a hunter who used a bow, but wartime archery is a completely different creature, requiring a very different skillset and type of training. Many of the warriors killed by archers in old style warfare died from friendly fire, in fact

[Quertus]

The group's I've played in have always claimed that archers were bad; I've built several who worked just fine.

Massive damage from stacking every bonus you can find is good.

Massive damage from crazy strength (half golem half dragon half ogre), get your BAB (and more boosts) from friendly cleric spells is better.

Druid into arcane archer was a fun build. Lots of options.


Really, the worse thing about Archery is being able to see far enough. Hopefully you have an absurd telepathy range and mindsight or a lot of spot (-1 per 10 feet away :smalleek:).

Actually, that's the best thing about ranged combat. Optimize yourself an amazing hide score, get hide in plain sight, and attack from a range. Solo the world.

[Snowbluff]

Druid into arcane archer was a fun build. Lots of options.


Oh man I want to see your build.

[CharonsHelper]

Wood Elf was +2 to Str and +2 to Dex. That's how I started with strength 18 on my archer (and dex 17, statbumps into dex. As I said, never had any trouble hitting things)

Oh right - forgot about the 'elf for every class'. Every group I was ever in banned them.

[ericgrau]

I’ve never really understood archery in D&D. So far my main problems with archery have always been:


Feat taxes. Having to take two feats, point-black shot and precise shot, simply to avoid hitting your friends in melee is a pain. I’m aware that precise shot can be made into a weapon enhancement, but this ends up making future enhancements to your bow far more expensive.

Lack of flexibility. I could never figure out what archers were supposed to do other than keep their distance and shoot arrows for damage.

Low damage output. It’s fairly easy for melee characters to do damage with power attack, charge feats, and tripping. Archery doesn’t seem have any of these same luxuries or any real analogues; they can’t even take attacks of opportunity with their bow without using a spell.

Perhaps some of these problems come from my lack of knowledge about archery, but I’ve approached it multiple times in attempts to make an archery-focused character only to end up ditching the build in the end for something else. I’ve so far only really played one archer, specifically a Scout/Ranger or Swift Hunter, and I ran into all the problems listed above except for the last one. But then I was sacrificing my range advantage for damage, which overall seemed senseless.

Is archery in D&D is genuinely bad or am I simply missing something here?
Anything is bad compared to shocktrooper. For lower optimization I'ved played decent archers all the time.

You have to wonder why there aren't more high optimization archers out there though. It has a big tactical advantage over melee and you can still optimize the damage or special effects enough to kill even if you don't pump it into the thousands.

Maybe it just gets a lot of flak because of criticism? Like wind wall. Except that's pretty dumb because no one ever prepares wind wall and it doesn't even work that well when you do. That's like saying I don't play wizards because clerics can just AMF me or I don't play melee b/c ironguard or I don't ever dominate because protection from evil. Defenses are far from absolute and unavoidable; and 95% of the time they aren't even there to begin with.

Or people will say "melee does more damage so archery is pointless". Except like I said you can still do enough to kill and it has tactical benefits. Or in low-mid op the relative damage isn't too bad.

So yeah maybe it's just the bad criticism more than anything.

Swift hunters actually do less damage and have less range than bog standard volley archer fighters. But they're more popular and the supposed reason why they're better is because you also get skills. If you don't like your damage output or range then look for other builds and tricks that have what you do want.


The melee character with 18 Strength and a greatsword is doing 2d6+6 at 1st level, which is pretty good. The archer is probably doing a flat 1d8, because you can't afford a composite bow yet.

It's more like 2d6+4 vs. rapid shot & point blank shot for 2d8+2. Weapon focus and power attack for example could change that to 2d6+8 vs 2d8+2 at the same attack bonus (same AB is super important in low-mid op). So 15 vs 11 except one has range. Then you add in more melee feats, composite bows and magic items and so forth. The similar bonuses to both make it more of a wash as level goes up while the archer has the tactical advantage, plus a variety of arrows that overcome DR and more ways to boost attack bonus. As said with high optimization you get shock trooper but archery can still do well and it's at range.

[Seward]

Basically, archery works fine in D&D if the character which does archery focuses all of their feats, most class options and a significant chunk of wealth by level on it.

Which is also true of any melee build.

What doesn't work is a random character grabbing a bow and expecting to do meaningful damage. A lot of people who call themselves "Archers" aren't, and they give the idea a bad name. (example, the "Bard Archer". At mid-high levels this can work out, but in low levels if you don't have all of point blank, precise and rapid shot by level 3, and preferably level 2, you aren't really an archer. The BAB hit is also a problem and what is more problematic is the opportunity cost of all the other things bards are expected to do to support the party. Indeed, without full bab and a lot of feats in hand, you can't really do a decent archer in the level 1-10 range. Level 11-20 is a lot more forgiving, and you'll see some solid cleric and bard archers in that range, or weird stuff like Wizard6/Fighter1/Edritch Knight 6/arcane archer 2 builds to shoot antimagic fields out of their bow)

I've got a similar beef with monks in 3.5 - there are a number of common traps players get themselves into that prevent monk damage from being meaningful. The easiest way to avoid most of those traps is to put the same strength on a monk you would put on any other melee character, and give up a few points of AC. Then take the same feats that make any other melee strong, starting with power attack.

[gadren]

It's funny, I never noticed Pathfinder's change to manyshot before. Is there a way to move and get multiple ranged attacks per round in pathfinder?

[CharonsHelper]

It's funny, I never noticed Pathfinder's change to manyshot before. Is there a way to move and get multiple ranged attacks per round in pathfinder?

The Quick-Runner Shirt. But that's just a way of getting a full attack that anyone can use. (it's freakin' awesome)

[CharonsHelper]

I've got a similar beef with monks in 3.5 - there are a number of common traps players get themselves into that prevent monk damage from being meaningful. The easiest way to avoid most of those traps is to put the same strength on a monk you would put on any other melee character, and give up a few points of AC. Then take the same feats that make any other melee strong, starting with power attack.

Are monks ever good in 3.5? I thought that the whole class was a trap. (besides as a potential dip)

Pathfinder buffed monks - and even then they're really weak unless you combo archetypes or use their more recent Unchained Monk class.

[Troacctid]

Are monks ever good in 3.5? I thought that the whole class was a trap. (besides as a potential dip)

They have some decent ACFs and splat support. They're pretty bad, but they're still better than some of the worst classes, like the Samurai and Swashbuckler.

[gadren]

The Quick-Runner Shirt. But that's just a way of getting a full attack that anyone can use. (it's freakin' awesome)

I meant a way to do it as often as you want.

[Platymus Pus]

A lot of these complaints are nullified with ranger 3.5/PF spells.
Range with no penalties even at 10k+ feet. You can even make AoO up close like melee it depends on your size.



An archer isn't MAD. He needs only 2 stats, strength and dex. Everything else is optional, although a little con is nice and not dumping wisdom or int too far means you'll be able to keep up with your all important spot skill.


As an archer that uses a crossbow I find it's only dex and wis.

[Seward]

I've never seen a crossbow archer that worked. You pay a bunch of extra feats to get the same effect as a composite longbow plus adequate strength.

Maybe it's like the caster archers and is more of a 11-20 level thing, when you've had time to build up all the feats and the ability to focus strictly on dex starts to pay off.

I've seen two highly effective monks in 3.5, and played a pretty effective monk (he did battlefield control in lower levels, switched over to light infantry+damage dealing in mid levels. After level 12, I exited monk because I didn't want spell resistance, but the basic character played well through level 15). I've also seen about a half dozen really badly designed and ineffective monks. In 3.5, the system mastery needed to play a monk is brutal, it is much easier to play an archer. The balance is better in Pathfinder and I've seen an Unchained Monk exactly once (at about level 5) and he seemed quite effective, stronger than the vanilla Pathfinder version with a mini-pounce ability (he could effectively pounce up to his extra movement bonus) and a quite solid flurry (full BAB class, extra attack from flurry doesn't lower attack roll and stacks with everything).

What Pathfinder did right in Monk (and in Zen Archer) was allow a newbie who took the "defaults" to have an effective character. The key stuff was built into the class. Feats and gear matter to get the most out of it, but the floor of the class was raised quite a bit. Fighter and ranger archers are a little more iffy than Zen Archer, because players can still screw up some key choices but archers aren't nearly as tricky to play as light infantry in any 3.x/Pathfinder system.

If you believe light infantry has no place in D&D, then of course Monk is bad. It's a Tier 4 class - good at one thing plus some secondary stuff that's mostly overshadowed by spells in later levels. But there's a difference between being good at Light Infantry and being ineffective. When I say "effective monk", I mean the former. All of those Tier 1-2 Wizards, Sorcerers and Clerics he took down in his career can attest to the fact that the tier system isn't about power, it's about flexibility and plot-breaking abilities. If you're in reach of a monk and he goes before you do, it won't go well for you. If he can get to you, he'll have a fair chance to force you to spend your next action trying to get out of his reach, assuming you aren't stunned or whatever. What won't happen is you dropping him with one standard action. He'll dodge your rays and shake off your spells (not true of most barbarian and rogue builds, the light infantry competition).

I suspect you can make a decent tank-monk too, but I've not seen it done. My own work along those lines was a mutt, getting monk-like saves because of multiclassing.

[Seward]

I meant a way to do it as often as you want.

Ride a mount. Anybody can do that outdoors. Indoors you want to be a size small archer on a war dog, pick up the undersized mount feat or have some other shenanigans to have your mount fit (I saw one guy with a giant gekko mount...it clung to the ceiling and he rained down death from above. Worked great until the mount gets targeted....). If you are a ranger or druid, you can eventually get a dire bat mount animal companion. Other classes have to work harder. (my druid loaned her animal companion to a party wizard for this purpose in Red Hand of Doom. She was an air-walk-pounce build, and her companion was too weak to help much compared to her, so it was more helpful to have both our archer (ranger with bat) and artillery(wizard with bat) airborne)

Frankly though, once you get improved precise shot there isn't much reason to move. You can hit anything you can see, regardless of what crap is in the way. You only move if all enemies are under full concealment or cover (and full concealment isn't enough of a problem to make you give up a full attack if you know what square they're in). That's where a mount is nice, and also to get by the occasional wind wall.

Even before then, cover is only -4, and a -4 on all attacks vs only getting one attack? The -4 is usually something you can just suck up and still deal more damage in the long run. So being able to move and shoot is nice, but hardly essential.

[Platymus Pus]

I've never seen a crossbow archer that worked. You pay a bunch of extra feats to get the same effect as a composite longbow plus adequate strength.
1.5x dex actually vs the str bonus and it's hassles. (you'd have to do something crazy like a footbow, cheaper I'll give you that, but how silly do you want to look?)
Greater crossbow for 2d8 dmg, scales 1d8 per size increase, crit range is larger(18-20), range is larger, no str cap because it's feat dex dmg.

Maybe it's like the caster archers and is more of a 11-20 level thing, when you've had time to build up all the feats and the ability to focus strictly on dex starts to pay off.
That's when you'd probably get it. the dump into wis with a monks belt instead of str pretty much means your dex score becomes your AC bonus and Dmg score, saves,skills. Wis becomes a focus because of saves and spell bonuses and AC, perception bonus. Come epic level you simply retrain into two weapon fighting, you're going to be beating bows by 1 hand with next to no penalty all bows are two handed after all. So like 24 dmg rolls with just two crossbows with a 1.5 dex bonus. If you have the body of a hecatoncheires that becomes 200 dmg rolls with, 30 feet of AoO thrown in, basically get something with lots of arms.

[Amphetryon]

Are monks ever good in 3.5? I thought that the whole class was a trap. (besides as a potential dip)

Pathfinder buffed monks - and even then they're really weak unless you combo archetypes or use their more recent Unchained Monk class.

Tippy is on record as heartily recommending the Martial Monk, due in large part to the 'even if you don't meet the prerequisites' clause on Bonus Feats.

On topic, this discussion needs more Zen Archery.

[Psyren]

It's funny, I never noticed Pathfinder's change to manyshot before. Is there a way to move and get multiple ranged attacks per round in pathfinder?

Yes, ride a mount. Animal Ally, Figurine of Wondrous Power, VMC, archetypes, leadership, there are a bunch of ways to get one that won't crumple at higher levels.

But the thing with archers is that you don't need to move all that much, unless you're playing one specific 3.5 class who needs to do that or else they suck, and too bad for them. You full-attack, drop one target, and aim at the next one. If your melee and casters are doing their job you should have little reason to reposition.


I've never seen a crossbow archer that worked. You pay a bunch of extra feats to get the same effect as a composite longbow plus adequate strength.

There are a couple of ways for crossbows to get dex to damage, or you can rely on bonus damage from another source (e.g. Sneak Attack or Bane/Judgment) or both. While it's true the feat taxes aren't fun,

Slings are a personal favorite of mine though as you get strength to damage built right in. Like a crossbow it takes a few feats to make work, but they've been getting a lot of love lately too, like the ability to ricochet your shots to multiple enemies or the ability to treat splash weapons as sling bullets.

[Fizban]

An archer is the best vehicle for delivering the best damage buffs (aside from Greater Mighty Wallop and Fires of Purity which are melee only). Look up every spell that can buff ranged weapon damage (Greater Magic Weapon Fell the Greatest Foe Bane Weapon Frost Weapon Sonic Weapon Burning Blade Blessing of the Righteous Righteous Wrath of the Faithful/Good Hope/Bard Stuff Enlarge Person and probably more I've been missing), get your party to lay them all down at once, murder everything without trying. There's a very good campaign journal here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?139572-Campaign-Journal-Seven-Kingdoms) where Saph's super sorcerer is constantly soloing fights, but the endgame is only possible with the ranger becoming the "railgun" and just murdering eveything at maximum efficiency. I don't know if they were using Splitting: I actually consider that way too cheesy, but you can do plenty enough damage with the right build and/or some team effort as long as the rest of the team isn't using Splitting level effects themselves.

Actually, that's the best thing about ranged combat. Optimize yourself an amazing hide score, get hide in plain sight, and attack from a range. Solo the world.
You don't even need an amazing hide score. It's only 200' to negate the entire d20, another 200' to negate the whole sniping penalty, all you need is a bush or large rock to allow the hide check and Guided Shot or anther method of removing the range penalty. As for spot: you don't need spot if they're not hiding, and they can't hide unless they can break line of sight. You really really should have spot because you're not going to fight every battle on a featureless plain and they only need to break LoS for a moment, but as long as you get the first attack and light them up with something like Faerie Fire so they can't hide you're fine.

[Aleolus]

All these people talking about full attacking with archers. The problem is that technically speaking, you can't full attack with a bow unless you're using Manyshot.

By RAW, drawing an arrow. from your quiver is a free action, and you only get one free action a turn without using action conversion (which prevents a full attack)

[Snowbluff]

By RAW, drawing an arrow. from your quiver is a free action, and you only get one free action a turn without using action conversion (which prevents a full attack)

You're thinking of swift actions. You may have as many free actions as you like.

Swift Actions take the same amount of time (they can happen any time on your turn), but you may only use 1/round, and you can't convert another action into one.

[Psyren]

All these people talking about full attacking with archers. The problem is that technically speaking, you can't full attack with a bow unless you're using Manyshot.

By RAW, drawing an arrow. from your quiver is a free action, and you only get one free action a turn without using action conversion (which prevents a full attack)

You get multiple free actions, because they don't cost you anything. That's what "free" means. :smalltongue:

[Seward]

I concur on the spot thing - you absolutely need it (it is funny as hell to spot that Rogue ambush from more than 30' away and alert the party to their presence by shooting into the bushes and hearing them go "ow!")

And on the distance thing - I could shoot flying enemies from a 1000' fall because they're in the air on a bright sunny day - no cover or concealment.

Regarding 3.5 manyshot - I have seen exactly one character make good use of that. He was a ranger that had progressed to the "hide in plain sight" ability when there was any natural terrain, plus he had woodland stride.

So he'd sneak up within 30' of people by moving along a hedge or whatever, and he'd manyshot, snipe, 5' step and hide, doing a respectable chunk of damage each round and they couldn't figure out where he was. He could Evade most AOEs, although I got him once because the maximized fireball burned away the hedge he was using to hide. (fun fact - by RAW most spells don't actually affect objects, including plants, because they aren't "creatures", unless they say they do in the description as burning hands, fireball and lightning bolt do. A lot of GMs ignore this because it's kind of stupid but the campaign we were in was pretty strict about that kind of thing).

Frankly I prefer the "don't move and just full attack from wherever the hell you are" approach. Once I had boots of haste I routinely trailed the party by 40' or so when there was room (unless I was the scout, in which case I was about 40' ahead) and avoided all kinds of AOE spell alpha-strikes that way. Another fun fact is that most will-save spells (a common archer weakness) are short range. Stay more than 50ish feet away and prioritize the mindbenders before they have a chance to close the range.

[Flickerdart]

Frankly I prefer the "don't move and just full attack from wherever the hell you are" approach. Once I had boots of haste I routinely trailed the party by 40' or so when there was room (unless I was the scout, in which case I was about 40' ahead) and avoided all kinds of AOE spell alpha-strikes that way. Another fun fact is that most will-save spells (a common archer weakness) are short range. Stay more than 50ish feet away and prioritize the mindbenders before they have a chance to close the range.

That sounds like a fantastic way to get ambushed and surrounded before the rest of your party has time to turn around and come back for you. Wolves hunt the members of the herd that lag behind the rest for a reason.

[Platymus Pus]

That sounds like a fantastic way to get ambushed and surrounded before the rest of your party has time to turn around and come back for you. Wolves hunt the members of the herd that lag behind the rest for a reason.

50' away not really. 1000' on the other hand.

[Flickerdart]

50' away not really. 1000' on the other hand.
50 feet away is outside charge range for armoured characters, outside of Close spell range until level 10, and outside of ranged SA range. Your warriors can't reach you, your mages can't buff you.

[Platymus Pus]

50 feet away is outside charge range for armoured characters, outside of Close spell range until level 10, and outside of ranged SA range. Your warriors can't reach you, your mages can't buff you.
That's why you use overrun. That and you're forgetting the movement bonuses some races and classes get. It matters more than you think. Also charges should be 60' in light armor. Still 60' feet if they have a +10. Wizard buffs warrior, he charges. Monk just get there, Another archer supports. His party composition was obviously fine for that.

[Flickerdart]

That's why you use overrun. That and you're forgetting the movement bonuses some races and classes get. It matters more than you think. Also charges should be 60' in light armor. Still 60' feet if they have a +10. Wizard buffs warrior, he charges. Monk just get there, Another archer supports. His party composition was obviously fine for that.
His post pretty clearly implies that he was never ambushed. And yes, any dumb tactic can work better when the party compensates for its deficiencies.

What does Overrun have to do with it, though? It does not even let you move and attack, or double-move.

[Platymus Pus]

His post pretty clearly implies that he was never ambushed. And yes, any dumb tactic can work better when the party compensates for its deficiencies.

What does Overrun have to do with it, though? It does not even let you move and attack, or double-move.

Because it changes that 50' to 20' simple math. The archer is basically 20' away at all times with one move.
Archer should be able to win ini over most of the party itself. No one in the party can act during an ambush anyway unless built for it (I believe there is a spell). It's about the same as being next to the party. Ranger Archer has AoO even close range, can't be provoked close range even featless for loading his bow or crossbow. +4 ini for 24 hours, have uncanny dodge for free. Swift spells and free actions for spells. If not encircled, move towards party+ Entangle or just full move. Any archer I make is going to be faster than the majority of the party(60' at least) as kiting is a thing.
Could also be horseback.

[Flickerdart]

Because it changes that 50' to 20' simple math. The archer is basically 20' away at all times with one move.
Overrun lets you move through an enemy square as a standard action during your move.



Archer should be able to win ini over most of the party itself. No one in the party can act during an ambush anyway unless built for it (I believe there is a spell). It's about the same as being next to the party. Ranger Archer has AoO even close range, can't be provoked close range even featless for loading his bow or crossbow. +4 ini for 24 hours, have uncanny dodge for free. Swift spells and free actions for spells. If not encircled, move towards party+ Entangle or just full move. Any archer I make is going to be faster than the majority of the party(60' at least) as kiting is a thing.
Could also be horseback.
I have no idea what you're saying here. Can you try rephrasing this with full sentences?

[CharonsHelper]

His post pretty clearly implies that he was never ambushed. And yes, any dumb tactic can work better when the party compensates for its deficiencies.

He did note that he had a max Spot check. Assuming a ranger - he'd have a decent Wis - and such a character is difficult to sneak up on to ambush in the first place.

[Platymus Pus]

Overrun lets you move through an enemy square as a standard action during your move.

You always expect to full attack every round or something? You move out of the range, you are saying is a problem.
An ambush may have been a terrible idea when you proceed to wipe them out.




I have no idea what you're saying here. Can you try rephrasing this with full sentences?

I'm guessing you don't play archer that often huh.
Ranger takes a small amount from the rather large druid list of spells.
These spells can give uncanny dodge for 24 hours per day for free, boost perception, boost ini among other thing.
Spells that let you AoO like melee with ranged and not take AoO from melee when you load your bow.
Some spells outright warn you of ambushes and these are low level spells.
These are the best spells a Ranger has and pretty much the only ones he'd want unlike a druid who has a large array of choices.
Also really good perception checks. Ambushing the archer doesn't really work.

[Flickerdart]

You always expect to full attack every round or something? You move out of the range, you are saying is a problem.
An ambush may have been a terrible idea when you proceed to wipe them out.

Oh, you want the archer to overrun the enemy? The archer's dead, hon. He got mobbed by a challenge intended to take on the entire party, because he lagged behind.



I'm guessing you don't play archer that often huh.
Ranger takes a small amount from the rather large druid list of spells.
These spells can give uncanny dodge for 24 hours per day for free, boost perception, boost ini among other thing.
Spells that let you AoO like melee with ranged and not take AoO from melee when you load your bow.
Some spells outright warn you of ambushes and these are low level spells.
These are the best spells a Ranger has and pretty much the only ones he'd want unlike a druid who has a large array of choices.
Also really good perception checks. Ambushing the archer doesn't really work.
It's funny how easy it is not to care about spot checks or initiative, then.

Also, rangers make some of the game's worst archers.

[Psyren]

In 3.5 they do, but in PF they're pretty solid. Lots of archery feats (prereq-less too), built-in mount, FE applies to accuracy as well as damage, and useful archery spells (Gravity Bow, Hunter's Eye Instant Enemy etc.)

I agree though, splitting the party up can be more trouble than its worth.

[Platymus Pus]

He got mobbed by a challenge intended to take on the entire party, because he lagged behind.
50' feet away. No, apparently the DM hates the person playing the archer and would have mobbed him regardless.



It's funny how easy it is not to care about spot checks or initiative, then.

That means the problem is a **** DM, not the ranger.
The ranger also gains a constant scent ability from spells and has +20 ini easily.
They also have animal companions with scent. They also have the party to make checks.
In addition the archer has to be visible to the enemy ranger gets access to spells that make hiding easy as well as still moving fast while hiding.
An ambush shouldn't happen.


Also, rangers make some of the game's worst archers.
Whatever you say. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpdZwuyEmRk)
I'll just take my ability to shot my max range with no penalties and ignoring everything besides total cover while full attacking at level 4 and the ability to shoot in pure fog,cloudkill,etc or make it go away and then go home.

[Flickerdart]

Okay, let's assume that ranger spells make them worth a damn, and impervious to any sort of ambush and perfect archers and whatever.

Look on their spells per day table and tell me how many they get.

[Gnaeus]

Okay, let's assume that ranger spells make them worth a damn, and impervious to any sort of ambush and perfect archers and whatever.

Look on their spells per day table and tell me how many they get.

Well, some of the spells he mentioned last hours or all day, and are well worth wanding or memorizing. Any ranger at that optimization level will get a wand of Arrowmind and stick it in a wand chamber in his bow.

[Platymus Pus]

Okay, let's assume that ranger spells make them worth a damn, and impervious to any sort of ambush and perfect archers and whatever.

Look on their spells per day table and tell me how many they get.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/h-l/ioun-stones/vibrant-purple-prism-ioun-stone casting time is 1 standard action if flawless. Store standard action spells in it, save your swift and free ones for yourself. A very small amount of preparation from one day ends up saving you the next.
I focus on wis/dex. If you go for str/dex go fighter or something. I find the answer is plenty. The DC hardly matters because it's the utility that does. Most of a ranger's utility comes from first level and second level spells. Both of which fit in with that stone nicely. In addition you can give people your BAB and many other things with this stone using spells you normally shouldn't. Slotless of course.

If you're in a group with other spell casters you're using these for yourself or for what the spell casters ignore that is vital in some situations.
Like say dispel fog,resist energy,etc. Solid,but not often used spells or ones that are forgotten because the shiny new ones they have.
The personal spells let you shoot from ten football fields away with no penalties in real fog and last fairly long.
Mist sight
Hawkeye
Arrowmind
Primal instinct
heightened-awareness
Anticipate Peril
Guided shot
etc.
Admittedly spell list is fairly lacking even when taking in the 400+ spells the ranger has access to into account, but you only really turn out to use that sort of stuff as an archer anyway, so it ends up working out.

Well, some of the spells he mentioned last hours or all day, and are well worth wanding or memorizing. Any ranger at that optimization level will get a wand of Arrowmind and stick it in a wand chamber in his bow.

Small stuff like that just makes a difference.

[Psyren]

That means the problem is a **** DM, not the ranger.
The ranger also gains a constant scent ability from spells and has +20 ini easily.
They also have animal companions with scent. They also have the party to make checks.
In addition the archer has to be visible to the enemy ranger gets access to spells that make hiding easy as well as still moving fast while hiding.
An ambush shouldn't happen.

To be fair, there are a number of monsters that ignore all that stuff e.g. ethereal or teleporting ones. You can greatly reduce the chances of a (plausible) ambush, but not necessarily remove one entirely.

I do agree that Ranger spells make them stronger archers than they get credit for though, and pearls solve the slot issue while also being pretty cheap since they are 1/2 casters.

[CharonsHelper]

In 3.5 they do, but in PF they're pretty solid. Lots of archery feats (prereq-less too), built-in mount, FE applies to accuracy as well as damage, and useful archery spells (Gravity Bow, Hunter's Eye Instant Enemy etc.)

I agree though, splitting the party up can be more trouble than its worth.

Once you start talking PF - archery goes from 'solid if you optimize' to 'most powerful martial combat style'.

In PF - the general consensus is that Ranger is one of the three best archers - competing with Fighter & Zen Archer Monk.

Fighter gets the most static damage added on - with Armor Expert and an archer's high DEX their AC will be solid - but they have all the disadvantages of low Will save and limited utility.

Zen Archers have the saves/mobility/AC/Qinggong powers - and with Flurry they get the most shots off per round.

Rangers get a companion, Favored Enemy (or something that they trade it for), and spell-casting.

All three are pretty-much neck-in-neck for top tier PF archer.

[Flickerdart]

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/h-l/ioun-stones/vibrant-purple-prism-ioun-stone
Pathfinder content, not relevant for 3e thread. Pearls of power, as Psyren suggests, don't really help you with spell diversity since they only work on things you've already cast, and standard action recall time makes it prohibitive to reuse a spell in combat.

So yeah, a piddly few times per day, you can cast spells that don't help you in the situation in question. Great job. In the meantime, cleric archers are over there being useful.

[Platymus Pus]

To be fair, there are a number of monsters that ignore all that stuff e.g. ethereal or teleporting ones. You can greatly reduce the chances of a (plausible) ambush, but not necessarily remove one entirely.


That's anyone ever really, but yes can't really avoid those sorts of things without getting true seeing and the like. (which you should get as an archer for several reasons and combine with mistsight, suddenly that fog that blocks truesight isn't so effective)
Teleportation... Well, no answers for that, just make sure to not dump your con score. Though if your Dm is scrying and dying, you probably did something wrong.

Last two levels in Ranger are pretty much negligible even in PF, even if you're trying to go straight ranger.
Replace it for fighter for the last two get two feats, maybe druid if you want to open up your spell list and options a little more for fun, could go for archetype urban barb for constant uncanny dodge and a dex bonus to hit and dmg when you rage(though since a level 1 and 2 spells achieve the uncanny dodge and a level 3 and 4 give improved uncanny dodge with those for so long...) No penalty when it wears off if you buy night alls. Once you get a good handle on Ranger you'll start optimizing easily martial and spellcasting classes alike since they fill a role.

I do agree that Ranger spells make them stronger archers than they get credit for though, and pearls solve the slot issue while also being pretty cheap since they are 1/2 casters.
There are tons of nice short cuts for Rangers. If you play a Ranger you'll probably get used to actually using items and spells along with combat abilities. Make them mesh well.
I'd recommend it to new players, starts out martial introduces spells slowly. Have them find out what works. Also find out why ranged in a party of melee only people isn't a bad idea.:smallbiggrin:
Move onto classes like druid later to where they can play it better.





Pathfinder content, not relevant for 3e thread. Pearls of power, as Psyren suggests, don't really help you with spell diversity since they only work on things you've already cast,

Considering PF is backwards compatible with 3.5 and 3.0 and that a great deal of items are very similar...
Also what you're saying doesn't really make sense of course they work on things I've already cast, I want to use those spells over and over.

and standard action recall time makes it prohibitive to reuse a spell in combat.

Well, some of the spells he mentioned last hours or all day, and are well worth wanding or memorizing.
You can also extend spells to last two days instead of a entire day fairly cheap too.


So yeah, a piddly few times per day, you can cast spells that don't help you in the situation in question.
Oh I'm sorry, is resource managing ahead of time not a thing now? Cynicism has a time and place.

Great job. In the meantime, cleric archers are over there being useful.
That's just sticking a bow on a cleric that learned stuff by being a ranger to begin with.
No one is going to start out with a cleric with a bow. It's going to be a Fighter or Ranger. May as well state pun pun as an archer. The cleric is going to be a spellcaster not an archer and generally the cleric isn't going to have access to the spells a ranger has without miracle(why.avi) or deciding to buy the ranger and range/druid only spells that make the ranger good at what he does. And if you're going to put that much effort into it why not be the actual spellcaster you are instead of trying to show up a class made for archery by buying spells away from that class. Anyone can do that.
I do just fine with my 200-400+ dmg a round on a level 9 ranger in a group full of several druids,clerics,psychic warriors, and monks with 1000' movement speed. I don't need your bitter sass over how bad you think Ranger is.

[Snowbluff]

That's just sticking a bow on a cleric that learned stuff by being a ranger to begin with.
No one is going to start out with a cleric with a bow. It's going to be a Fighter or Ranger. May as well state pun pun as an archer. The cleric is going to be a spellcaster not an archer and generally the cleric isn't going to have access to the spells a ranger has without miracle(why.avi) or deciding to buy the ranger and range/druid only spells that make the ranger good at what he does. And if you're going to put that much effort into it why not be the actual spellcaster you are instead of trying to show up a class made for archery by buying spells away from that class. Anyone can do that.
I do just fine with my 200-400+ dmg a round on a level 9 ranger in a group full of several druids,clerics,psychic warriors, and monks with 1000' movement speed. I don't need your bitter sass over how bad you think Ranger is.

Ranger is like one of my least favorite classes ever, and cleric with a bow is pretty viable at all levels, and they get more of the good spells sooner, and then some with Samsaran. So in short, Ranger is like... blegh. It's still worse than the classes it's mine by just having shrunken versions of the divine casters, like in 3e.

[Platymus Pus]

Ranger is like one of my least favorite classes ever, and cleric with a bow is pretty viable at all levels, and they get more of the good spells sooner, and then some with Samsaran. So in short, Ranger is like... blegh.
BAB and feats means Ranger basically gets 4 extra dmg dice for archery over you no matter what along with a ranged power attack, least in PF. He's always going to out archer you unless you pull cheese(wait that's some spells...). I can see how cleric would be an idea in 3.0, but again you're just playing standard cleric that happens to use a bow, not really an archer.
Which is answering the question of " Is archery bad?" with "it's okay if you use a tier one class." Basically it's an answer of yes, archery is really bad.

Also don't picture a cleric with a bow, doubt most people do. The clergy in RL and fictional art are shown with Melee the most.
Because clerics are supposed to protect as a role how are you going to heal people from far away or defend the weak up close showing the glory of your god?
It's why clerics go Melee most times. After all. What are you, some coward who doesn't want to get into the fray? Are you going to dishonor your god?
Samsaran is a rather unconventional race, this would probably would work in a Avatar campaign with bows thematically though.




I’ve never really understood archery in D&D. So far my main problems with archery have always been:


Feat taxes. Having to take two feats, point-black shot and precise shot, simply to avoid hitting your friends in melee is a pain. I’m aware that precise shot can be made into a weapon enhancement, but this ends up making future enhancements to your bow far more expensive.

Lack of flexibility. I could never figure out what archers were supposed to do other than keep their distance and shoot arrows for damage.

Low damage output. It’s fairly easy for melee characters to do damage with power attack, charge feats, and tripping. Archery doesn’t seem have any of these same luxuries or any real analogues; they can’t even take attacks of opportunity with their bow without using a spell.

Perhaps some of these problems come from my lack of knowledge about archery, but I’ve approached it multiple times in attempts to make an archery-focused character only to end up ditching the build in the end for something else. I’ve so far only really played one archer, specifically a Scout/Ranger or Swift Hunter, and I ran into all the problems listed above except for the last one. But then I was sacrificing my range advantage for damage, which overall seemed senseless.

Is archery in D&D is genuinely bad or am I simply missing something here?


To the op, conversations here convinced me you'll probably want to rip an archer class straight from PF and just work it backwards keep the spell limitations 3.0 and stuff like that, keep feat access. Talk it out with a GM see if he'll understand.
After all if your only option for a satisfying archer is cleric what's the point fluff wise?
"Oh I'm a cleric that shoots a bow, that makes me an archer. (casts spell that razes the enemy into cinders)"
"Oh you're an archer? I swung a sword once, I'm a swordsman.(wizard casts spells to make swords swing themselves for him)"
"And I read books, that makes me a booker.(a very confused Barbarian eating books)":smallconfused:

So I can see your problems with making a proper archery build because of something like that.
Because that's sort of the point of an archer at all.
If you want to get flexibility you'll have to branch out with odd things like trick shots and arcane archer, take advantage of the spells ranger has to the highest degree, get special ammo and poison's to coat them with. Like troll's bane to negate regeneration. Basically item research is a basic keypoint in a true archer. You're the batman of arrows. You're this guy. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nD-SAigXitc)
I'll give one of the best examples I can shoot at you.

A member of the avengers, Hawkeye!
You ARE the arrow.
http://ifanboy.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Hawkeye-3.jpg
http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/12/127692/3416599-hawkeye39.jpg
http://38.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_me07xz50sq1rubt96o2_r2_1280.png
http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/scale_small/11/117763/3240812-hawkeyesquiver.jpg
http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/marveldatabase/images/a/ae/Trick_Arrows_and_Hawkeye's_Quiver.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20130203225334
http://i.imgur.com/WGIDc.png

Your thing is arrows, nothing else even your spells as a ranger are devoted to making you a better archer for the most part. (it's why a ranger isn't built as flexibly as people would like)
The feat Taxes are unavoidable, being an actual archer takes skill.
As for the dmg...
http://i.imgur.com/enzB4QY.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/67QmvqA.jpg
http://mcuexchange.com/content/images/2015/01/hawkeye.jpg
Archery can do that well.


Bonus if you got the time (https://youtu.be/KehZYh0a6lk?t=8m21s)

[Seward]

That sounds like a fantastic way to get ambushed and surrounded before the rest of your party has time to turn around and come back for you. Wolves hunt the members of the herd that lag behind the rest for a reason.

When your spot score is +20, listen is about +18 and your bat familiar has both blindsense and a listen score in the mid 20s, the wolves should be worried about being ambushed. (this ranger was an arcane archer, so he got his senses via the arcane list+familiar, not the ranger spell list. It is still about the same thing. I also coughed up for the dirt cheap eyes of the eagle, had elf keen senses, familiar alertness bonus, etc).

Actually bump those by 2 if it really is wolves. My guy was favored enemy animals (hey, his first level was ranger and before he was an adventurer he made his living hunting in the forest....). Man he did well in the werewolf adventure - they had lots of wolf minions.

The only stuff that could easily sneak up on him was incorporeals, and they tend to go where most of the life is. Well, there was the barbed devil incident, but those assassins were actually picked to defeat him - sent by the Greyhawk Thief/Assassin's guild because he'd kept spotting and destroying their ambushes using guild members.

He was 40' away from the nearest party member because all the fireball template spells (fireball, confusion, unholy blight etc etc etc) couldn't target him unless they wanted to ignore the rest of the party. 40' is plenty close for support in the levels where he did this (level 9+, after he had boots of haste...worst case he has a 120' withdraw, assuming benign transposition can't get him out of trouble)

He ended his career as a Greyhawk Town Council member, and got himself assigned the Thieves Quarter. His goal was to turn it into the Merchant Quarter by exterminating the Thieves Guild. He was that good at spotting ambushes. (in the City, his bat fajmiliar with maxed spot and listen ranks and huge natural bonuses to stealth and perception would scout ahead, and report back. He wasn't actually an arrogant person - they just ticked him off because they kept trying to kill his half-elf druid daughter too and he decided to get serious about ending the random attacks. The futility of trying to ambush both him and his daughter when they were together was just....she also had great spot/listen and complementary senses.)

If the party had nobody with a decent spot check in front, he'd take point instead, but as a rule he preferred being in the back. I can't tell you how many close-range spells, gaze attacks and breath weapons he never had to save against because of this policy, but it was significant, and we all know how bad a dominated or confused archer can be.

He wasn't that good at hiding - just a few ranks in it plus sky-high dex, but his perception was so good that he tended to win the "hide+perception" combination vs potential ambushers. And if they somehow didn't get spotted until 30', well, that's what the scroll of obscuring mist is for.

[Psyren]

Also don't picture a cleric with a bow, doubt most people do. The clergy in RL and fictional art are shown with Melee the most.


While I (mostly) agree with your overall point, for this one you're forgetting a pretty major archetype:

http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/inuyasha/images/d/da/Kikyo_resolve.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20120513070621

[Platymus Pus]

While I (mostly) agree with your overall point, for this one you're forgetting a pretty major archetype:

http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/inuyasha/images/d/da/Kikyo_resolve.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20120513070621

Ah, well women japanese clerics are a given. Fire away.

[Snowbluff]

BAB and feats means Ranger basically gets 4 extra dmg dice for archery over you no matter what along with a ranged power attack, least in PF. He's always going to out archer you unless you pull cheese(wait that's some spells...). I can see how cleric would be an idea in 3.0, but again you're just playing standard cleric that happens to use a bow, not really an archer.
Which is answering the question of " Is archery bad?" with "it's okay if you use a tier one class." Basically it's an answer of yes, archery is really bad.
Well, you can do the same spell combo with a Paladin, in which case it's still strictly better. Same goes with Inquisitor, to a lesser degree. It's just better with Cleric for the same reasons it's good with Paladin, and then some.

You can easily do like 160 per shot on CL alone, before any other bonuses.


Also don't picture a cleric with a bow, doubt most people do.

Woah man. Clerics of War in DnD use bows if they worship a deity that favors the bow.

[Piggy Knowles]

Rangers in PF are significantly more useful as archers than rangers in 3.5, and since this discussion has been about 3.5 up until this point, I don't really think that's relevant. The lack of Ranged Power Attack alone makes a significant difference, as no easy bonus damage is one of the biggest faults of archers in general.

The ranger archery spells are good but as has been discussed, rangers are not the best users of them in 3.5. Terrible caster level and spells per day, and while I know the stock answer is "buy wands/pearls of power", if you're sticking to WBL it's actually pretty hard to do in practice. Far better would be to play a Chameleon, who has access to all of the relevant spells, plus a whole lot more that a ranger would love to have, gets them faster than the ranger, and has a good caster level to boot. Plus Chameleon actually has combat utility as well, which isn't nothing. In my sig there are a whole boatload of Chameleon-based archers that solidly outclass anything a ranger can do.

Regarding far range archery, it's a cool idea in theory, but in actual games I find that anything beyond a few hundred feet rarely comes up. Every now and then you can show off your awesome sniping skills, but largely I find that most encounters aren't going to be set up in a way where you can hide half a mile away and snipe. It's a nice ability to have in your toolkit for when it's relevant, but I wouldn't really build a character based around the idea of super long distance sniping unless you know it's going to come into play on a regular basis.

Anyhow, to the basic question of whether or not archery is bad, it's more that it is poorly designed. The limited number of ways in which archery damage can be boosted means that at mid to high levels, you're going to need to build around archery to remain relevant in a way that really isn't the case with a melee class. That said, archery doesn't have to be bad. It's not impossible to build wildly effective archers, and if your DM is amenable to porting in Pathfinder material then all the better.

[Platymus Pus]

Woah man. Clerics of War in DnD use bows if they worship a deity that favors the bow.
http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=10961

The cleric also provides access to the war domain, which gives us free martial weapon proficiency and weapon focus with the favorite weapon of our god. Now, if you find a god with favorite weapon longbow or shortbow, there's your martial weapon, right there. The problem is that it's very difficult to find deities (which aren't race-specific) that provide the war domain and are associated with a bow as a favorite weapon. Using the old crystalkeep index I've only found "The Silver Flame - Knights Militant", which is an Eberron deity. If you are an elf, there are two deities: Shevarash and Solonor Thelandira, which have longbow as a favorite weapon and war as a domain, but unless you're using a weird elven subrace, you already have the longbow as a weapon. However, we're not totally missing the point, as there are options out there to help the cleric-archer-with-the-war-domain out, even with overlapping proficiencies. At this point, I'll also mention the deity Ehlonna, which has longbow as her favorite weapon, but does not grant access to the war domain; she is mentioned, because of a beautiful magic item located in the Magic Item Compendium, the Raptor Arrows.

Remember that while you don't have to be an actual elf to pick the elf domain (which grants the point blank shot), almost all deities that offer it list "elves" as their typical worshipers. According to the Revised Player's Handbook, if the typical worshipers of a deity include the members of a race, a cleric must be of the indicated race to choose that deity as his own. As such, in the rest of this guide, I'm going to assume that the elf domain is typically (barring DM permission, or a rule that I seem to have ignored) open to elves, only.
I'm not exactly favorable of that restriction, also the archer can use any bow (http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/9/99449/3906983-clinthasmorerodsthenyoudo2.jpg) and just happens to favor a certain kind. The main exception in mind comes from feudal japan.

As far as why I go for the puritan approach for archery.
http://i.imgur.com/41QN3xT.jpg
http://33.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lzlkabvgaf1r3j5ra.jpg
I might make an ultimate archer class here someday, I'll admit that the Ranger class currently doesn't do it full justice.

[Snowbluff]

I'm not exactly favorable of that restriction, also the archer can use any bow (http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/9/99449/3906983-clinthasmorerodsthenyoudo2.jpg) and just happens to favor a certain kind. The main exception in mind comes from feudal japan.


No he can't. The viable kind is an elvencraft longbow. That's the one kind of bow. :smallconfused:

[gadren]

The most powerful "archer" I made for 3.5 would not be possible in a PF game and actually dual-wielded two quickloading hand crossbows. I was permanently rendered tiny with reduce person, so the crossbows only did d2 damage, but at level 10 I was making 6 highly accurate attacks on a full attack and adding +10d6+46 damage to each hit against any foe that was denied dex to AC (which was easy to do with my spells and insane initiative bonus). So I was often opening (and too often ending) combat with 6d2+60d6+276 damage.

I was a fighter/spellthief/unseen seer, with the sneak attack and hit-and-run ACF for Fighter, and the trickster ACF for spellthief (my only bit of Dragon magazine stuff on the char.)
Hit-and-run fighter let me add my dex to damage against flat-footed foes, and stacked with Dead Eye for adding dex to damage again, and stacked with crossbow sniper for adding half dex to damage, for +2.5*dex mod.
Of course, I also did the typical sneak attack buffing (craven for +level to damage on SA, hunter's eye, etc) on top of that.

She would've continued to get stronger, but the DM asked me to roll up a new character.

[Platymus Pus]

No he can't. The viable kind is an elvencraft longbow. That's the one kind of bow. :smallconfused:

You mean the one you use as a melee weapon when people come close?
Pretty sure I've seen better bows than that floating around.

[Âmesang]

Cleric archers don't fire arrows. They fire shooting stars that hit with an impact like unto Lucifer when he fell from the Heavens…

Allow the cleric the chance to let his enemies feel the same anguish.

[Snowbluff]

You mean the one you use as a melee weapon when people come close?
Pretty sure I've seen better bows than that floating around.

It's also got 2 extra ends for enhancements like Defending and initiative bonuses (as well as other iffy uses, like blurstrike), is usable with Flurry of Blows/Decisive Strike, potentially extra wand chamber (depending on who you ask), doesn't require an exotic weapon feat to use (for relatively low benefit like some other bows), and yes, you can "use as a melee weapon when people come close."

[Platymus Pus]

It's also got 2 extra ends for enhancements like Defending and initiative bonuses (as well as other iffy uses, like blurstrike), is usable with Flurry of Blows/Decisive Strike, potentially extra wand chamber (depending on who you ask), doesn't require an exotic weapon feat to use (for relatively low benefit like some other bows), and yes, you can "use as a melee weapon when people come close."


Defending
A defending weapon allows the wielder to transfer some or all of the sword’s enhancement bonus to his AC as a bonus that stacks with all others. As a free action, the wielder chooses how to allocate the weapon’s enhancement bonus at the start of his turn before using the weapon, and the effect to AC lasts until his next turn.
You have to use it as a staff for the defending effect, you can't dump all the enhancement you put into it for AC then switch to bow.
Initiative bonuses might work if you find ones that are flat considering what's available, but you'd have to always walk around wielding it as a staff before battle starts wouldn't you? I prefer to avoid arguments with the DM of "Were you holding that bow as a quarterstaff?" Both are still useful admittedly in a pinch.
As for blurstrike same problem as defending. You'd have to fight the DM to get away with most of this stuff.:smallfrown:

This property can be applied only to melee weapons.

Looking into it, it's not actually a bow(well it is, but I wouldn't just put it on a normal longbow), it's a cheap flat enhancement
Apply it to hank's energy bow (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ask/20061227a) (it's even 3.0)and go for flat ini effects and you've probably have the best bow you can get due to powershot
Or maybe a footbow for that 1- 1.5 str bonus, It'd synergize pretty well with str bonuses. Be on horseback or fly.

[Dgrin]

You have to use it as a staff for the defending effect, you can't dump all the enhancement you put into it for AC then switch to bow.
Initiative bonuses might work if you find ones that are flat considering what's available, but you'd have to always walk around wielding it as a staff before battle starts wouldn't you? I prefer to avoid arguments with the DM of "Were you holding that bow as a quarterstaff?" Both are still useful admittedly in a pinch.
As for blurstrike same problem as defending. You'd have to fight the DM to get away with most of this stuff.:smallfrown:


So you're implying that I am not using the bow I am shooting right now? :smallconfused:
A character wielding an elvencraft bow can freely interchange melee and ranged attacks during the same round, and it is still one weapon. You don't wield it "as staff", you can just use it in two ways. I don't see anything that stops you from doing just what was described. You have to pay for that enchancements separately, after all. I am not going to argue what bow is better but in my reading, Defending should absolutely work.

[Platymus Pus]

So you're implying that I am not using the bow I am shooting right now? :smallconfused:


Not as a bow, it functions just like every other bow to melee weapon. You just aren't allowed to have melee effects on ranged. Feel free to try enhancing melee enhancements on a ranged weapon that can't change to melee. You'll basically get a weapon with useless enhancements that can't apply to ranged.

A character wielding an elvencraft bow can freely interchange melee and ranged attacks during the same round, and it is still one weapon. You don't wield it "as staff", you can just use it in two ways. I don't see anything that stops you from doing just what was described. You have to pay for that enchancements separately, after all. I am not going to argue what bow is better but in my reading, Defending should absolutely work.
Unless there is an actual case of defending working on a ranged weapon, I wouldn't agree.

Bow, Elvencraft:
One of the biggest problems facing any archer is deciding what to do when a foe gets within melee reach.
Does one stand fast and take the consequences (which can prove painful if not deadly), fall back (not always practical), or drop the bow and draw a melee weapon (inconvenient at best).
Elf bowyers have made the choice somewhat less difficult by crafting bows that can stand up to melee combat.
Thanks to elven ingenuity, these weapons work just as well as melee weapons as they do as ranged weapons.
An elvencraft bow is thicker and heavier than a normal bow.
An elvencraft shortbow functions as a club when wielded as a melee weapon.
An elvencraft longbow functions as a quarterstaff when wielded as a melee weapon. The wielder incurs no penalty on attack rolls when using an elvencraft bow as a melee weapon.
A character wielding an elvencraft bow can freely interchange melee and ranged attacks during the same round. When wielding an elvencraft bow, the user threatens the squares around
him no matter how he last used the weapon.
Magical enhancements to an elvencraft bow only affect its
use as a bow. Enhancements to the melee capabilities of the
weapon must be added separately.

[Anlashok]

All that says is that melee enhancements have to be added separately. Nothing to really disagree with defending working.

[Platymus Pus]

All that says is that melee enhancements have to be added separately. Nothing to really disagree with defending working.

If it has to be added separately why would you think the enhancement you can only get on a melee weapon would apply to ranged? Why not just put defending on the bow.
What's next the bow effects transferring to melee?
I know people try to find loop holes and all in rules but, this isn't one of them. Because we refer to the natural order of things, which in this case is melee enhancements not working on ranged and vice versa.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/magic-weapons/magic-weapon-special-abilities/defending
Table 7–14: Melee Weapon Special Abilities in the DMG. pg 223
Defending is under it.

A defending weapon allows the wielder to transfer
some or all of the sword’s enhancement bonus to his AC as a bonus
that stacks with all others. As a free action, the wielder chooses how to
allocate the weapon’s enhancement bonus at the start of his turn
before using the weapon, and the effect to AC lasts until his next turn
So, no. A sensible DM would never let you do this.

[Dgrin]

If it has to be added separately why would you think the enhancement you can only get on a melee weapon would apply to ranged? Why not just put defending on the bow.
What's next the bow effects transferring to melee?

I would think so because that's how enchancements work - you add them to your weapon to receive bonuses. Elvencraft bow is melee weapon as well as ranged. That's why you can put Defending on it. It is added separately, just as rules say.


I know people try to find loop holes and all in rules but, this isn't one of them. Because we refer to the natural order of things, which in this case is melee enhancements not working on ranged and vice versa.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/magic-weapons/magic-weapon-special-abilities/defending
Table 7–14: Melee Weapon Special Abilities in the DMG. pg 223
Defending is under it.

So, no. A sensible DM would never let you do this.

First of all, stop trying to imply there's "a sensible DM" that rules in one way only. We are not talking about DM rulings cause every DM can play the game in a way he considers to be the best. Also there's no "natural order of things", there are rules. Defending, as a melee enchancement, works on the elvencraft bow cause it is considered a melee weapon. Period.

[gadren]

I don't have a description of the bow handy, but wouldn't you just treat it the same as a dagger or short spear or any other weapon that is both a melee and ranged weapon?

signed,
a "sensible DM" :-P

[Snowbluff]

I don't have a description of the bow handy, but wouldn't you just treat it the same as a dagger or short spear or any other weapon that is both a melee and ranged weapon?

signed,
a "sensible DM" :-P

He pretty much quoted in post 93, IIRC.

Generally you treat it like a double weapon. It's a bow with two quarterstaff ends attached.

[Platymus Pus]

I would think so because that's how enchancements work
Certain enhancements only work on certain things, if you think that's how they work go back and read how they work.



Defending, as a melee enchancement, works on the elvencraft bow cause it is considered a melee weapon. Period.

Not when you use it as a bow. "Before using the weapon." This is in reference to a melee weapon it'd only work in melee, some later weapon niche doesn't override the rule for melee only.
It's the same as no longer having a melee weapon when you no longer wield it as a melee weapon. The enchantments won't apply when you use it as a bow.

An elvencraft shortbow functions as a club when wielded as a melee weapon.
An elvencraft longbow functions as a quarterstaff when wielded as a melee weapon. The wielder incurs no penalty on attack rolls when using an elvencraft bow as a melee weapon.
it only counts as a melee weapon when wielded AS a melee weapon, you have to attack with it AS a melee weapon to get the bonuses, not simply have it on the bow.
That's why I stated that Ini bonuses would not apply when applied to the melee side of the bow unless you're wielding it as a melee weapon at all times until ini is rolled.


I don't have a description of the bow handy, but wouldn't you just treat it the same as a dagger or short spear or any other weapon that is both a melee and ranged weapon?
Do most people throw their bows at people? :smallconfused:
I posted the rules word for word unlike what some googles searches will show you.

[Dgrin]

Certain enhancements only work on certain things, if you think that's how they work go back and read how they work.

I've read it and interpreted it differently, there's no need to attack me personally just because I was one of the people to disagree with you.


Not when you use it as a bow. "Before using the weapon." This is in reference to a melee weapon it'd only work in melee, some later weapon niche doesn't override the rule for melee only.
It's the same as no longer having a melee weapon when you no longer wield it as a melee weapon. The enchantments won't apply when you use it as a bow.
it only counts as a melee weapon when wielded AS a melee weapon, you have to attack with it AS a melee weapon to get the bonuses, not simply have it on the bow.
That's why I stated that Ini bonuses would not apply when applied to the melee side of the bow unless you're wielding it as a melee weapon at all times until ini is rolled.

You wield the bow. You're not choosing how to wield it in the beginning of your turn. You can freely switch between both forms. You stated a lot of things as facts while they are not.
Also, where did you get the requirement to attack with melee weapon to get Defending bonus from it? :smallconfused:

When you wield double weapon, each head of it enchanted differently, you benefit from both sets of enchancements, even though you get only one of them on hit.

One of the biggest problems facing any archer is deciding what to do when a foe gets within melee reach. Does one stand fast and take the consequences (which can prove painful if not deadly), fall back (not always practical), or drop the bow and draw a melee weapon (inconvenient at best). Elf bowyers have made the choice somewhat less difficult by crafting bows that can stand up to melee combat.
Thanks to elven ingenuity, these weapons work just as well as melee weapons as they do as ranged weapons. An elvencraft bow is thicker and heavier than a normal bow.
An elvencraft shortbow functions as a club when wielded as a melee weapon. An elvencraft longbow functions as a quarterstaff when wielded as a melee weapon. The wielder incurs no penalty on attack rolls when using an elvencraft bow as a melee weapon. A character wielding an elvencraft bow can freely interchange melee and ranged attacks during the same round. When wielding an elvencraft bow, the user threatens the squares around him no matter how he last used the weapon.
Magical enhancements to an elvencraft bow only affect its use as a bow. Enhancements to the melee capabilities of the weapon must be added separately.

If you want to stick to "choosing forms", treat it as if I wielded it as melee weapon all the time except when actually shooting. As I can switch freely between melee or ranged attacks, I can shoot while still getting benefits from Defending. That ruling is more weird for me but if you want to stick to it, that's how I can get it to work

[gadren]

Do most people throw their bows at people? :smallconfused:
I posted the rules word for word unlike what some googles searches will show you.

As for throwing vs firing, the enchantments in question don't differentiate between the two. The only real mechanical difference between a thrown and fired melee weapon is ammunition.

When a DM is presented with murky rules, it is generally recommended that she use the next closest thing in the rules as a rules guideline. Double weapons are more or less mechanically identical to just wielding two weapons. So ruling on a bow that is also a quarterstaff seems like it should work pretty similar to dual wielding a club and a hand crossbow.

[Platymus Pus]

You wield the bow. You're not choosing how to wield it in the beginning of your turn. You can freely switch between both forms. You stated a lot of things as facts while they are not.
Also, where did you get the requirement to attack with melee weapon to get Defending bonus from it? :smallconfused:

Freely switching isn't the same of being both forms at once. It's not a cat in a box, you know what it is. The AoO is because you can change it back to melee at any time not that it's constantly melee.
when wielded as a melee weapon. as in when you actively decide to use it for melee. That's when it becomes a melee weapon.
Defending has certain restrictions you have to read carefully that get in the way aside from it being melee only.


If you want to stick to "choosing forms", treat it as if I wielded it as melee weapon all the time except when actually shooting.
You lose defending as soon as you choose bow form. The weapon granting the defending enhancement no longer exists in that moment even if it's a free action and can be freely changed back.

As a free action, the wielder chooses how to
allocate the weapon’s enhancement bonus at the start of his turn
before using the weapon, and the effect to AC lasts until his next turn
You are allocating the weapon's enhancement bonus before the attack(the attack that requires use as a melee weapon).
You allocate it before attacking granting a bonus to AC equal to its enhancement bonus, this effect lasts until next turn not the AC bonus itself, but the effect to AC. Note that.

You switch to bow form before even using melee, your enhancement bonus from defending becomes 0 since the enhancement bonus no longer exists, you aren't actively using that weapon, the one wielded anymore and you certainly haven't used it before changing to bow form, and you can't regain it back because it has to be before attacking at the start of his turn so constantly switching it doesn't work.
It isn't even the same as throwing knives or spears since those stay as they are, they are the ones you are actively using aka wielding even if you're throwing them.
The bow has a special condition for melee and it's that you have to use it for melee to count as wielding a melee weapon. You gain effects from enchantments you wield not something that exists one moment and not the next due as a free action due to balancing measures.

There is a reason they separated melee from the ranged enhancements to begin with on the last sentence, an attempt at balance. They KNEW you'd try this, but apparently people did it anyway.
It's just supposed to be a nifty little thing that lets you get melee abilities when using melee upclose and ranged abilities when using ranged. Not melee enhancements to ranged.
I know the art of the munchkin is the norm here, but I think some perspective is needed.

As I can switch freely between melee or ranged attacks, I can shoot while still getting benefits from Defending. That ruling is more weird for me but if you want to stick to it, that's how I can get it to work
I'd have to have a person from high authority in dnd(as in writes the core books) tell me,that switching a weapon from melee to ranged or ranged to melee when the text states that the enhancement is only melee or ranged only; Can apply the melee only effects to ranged or the ranged effects to melee. That is what it'd take to convince me. That's also when the game would change and you'd add splitting to melee attacks.


So ruling on a bow that is also a quarterstaff seems like it should work pretty similar to dual wielding a club and a hand crossbow.
Hmm, that means they aren't actually interacting with each other like people implied though there. Almost as if though... they are separate.

[Quertus]

Not when you use it as a bow. "Before using the weapon." This is in reference to a melee weapon it'd only work in melee, some later weapon niche doesn't override the rule for melee only.
It's the same as no longer having a melee weapon when you no longer wield it as a melee weapon. The enchantments won't apply when you use it as a bow.

it only counts as a melee weapon when wielded AS a melee weapon, you have to attack with it AS a melee weapon to get the bonuses, not simply have it on the bow.
That's why I stated that Ini bonuses would not apply when applied to the melee side of the bow unless you're wielding it as a melee weapon at all times until ini is rolled.


Do most people throw their bows at people? :smallconfused:
I posted the rules word for word unlike what some googles searches will show you.

From your quoted text, note that it says that you always threaten with it, no matter how you use it. So it always counts as a melee weapon.

Now, you could argue that it doesn't always count as a ranged weapon...

And, IMO, this still feels less cheesy than enchanting your locked gauntlet, armor / shield spikes, and/or the weapons you're holding in your Arms of the Naga.


Oh man I want to see your build.

Eh,
A) it was made for a (relatively) low-op game;
B) I designed the character, someone else played it;
C) there was no such thing as 3.5 when the character was first designed (although later versions utilized additional content);
D) the computer with my notes died long ago.

But...
A) elf druid 8 / wizard 1 / arcane archer... advances to druid 20 / wizard 1 / arcane archer 9999.
B) like most archery builds, all of the build's feats - and most of its wealth - are dedicated to archery.
C) low level, you're a druid, with an animal companion, and spells. 20 dex makes up for slightly reduced BAB compared to a "real" archer.
D) the druid's player focused on battlefield control and utility spells.

Not always the party's primary damage dealer (she was best when boosted by friendly spellcasters, but dealt less damage than certain other builds she sometimes adventured with), but she always had plenty of options for how to deal with a situation.

[Snowbluff]

Eh,
A) it was made for a (relatively) low-op game;
B) I designed the character, someone else played it;
C) there was no such thing as 3.5 when the character was first designed (although later versions utilized additional content);
D) the computer with my notes died long ago.

But...
A) elf druid 8 / wizard 1 / arcane archer... advances to druid 20 / wizard 1 / arcane archer 9999.
B) like most archery builds, all of the build's feats - and most of its wealth - are dedicated to archery.
C) low level, you're a druid, with an animal companion, and spells. 20 dex makes up for slightly reduced BAB compared to a "real" archer.
D) the druid's player focused on battlefield control and utility spells.

Not always the party's primary damage dealer (she was best when boosted by friendly spellcasters, but dealt less damage than certain other builds she sometimes adventured with), but she always had plenty of options for how to deal with a situation.

Hm... I think I'll take a crack at it. :smallsmile:

Maybe Aspect of the Dragon instead of Wildshape, Zen Archery, a feat for the arcane requirement, Druid 8 into AA2...

[Quertus]

Hm... I think I'll take a crack at it. :smallsmile:

Maybe Aspect of the Dragon instead of Wildshape, Zen Archery, a feat for the arcane requirement, Druid 8 into AA2...

That would be sweet.

At the time, wizard 1 gave her a connection to the party wizard (my character), and feats are always tight for an archer. But that sounds like it would be better optimized for some of the groups I've been in.

[Troacctid]

An interpretation of Defending weapons that only lets you allocate their bonus when you attack with them is highly dysfunctional, because it means that on any turn where you don't begin with an attack as your very first action of the round, you can't use the effect, because, remember, you have to make the decision at the beginning of your turn. Move, then attack? Sorry, beginning of your turn is over, it's too late.

Luckily the text only says you have to decide how to allocate the bonus before using the weapon—not necessarily immediately before. Of course, anything could happen between the beginning of your turn and the first opportunity you have to attack. You might assign your Defending weapon's bonus to AC, move into melee range to engage an opponent, and be surprised halfway by an invisible Pixie Monk who slams you with a Stunning Fist as an attack of opportunity. Would your Defending weapon still apply its bonus to AC? Well, maybe not, since you drop held items when you're stunned, so it's a bad example, but assuming you couldn't drop it (maybe you used the Graft Weapon power to attach it to your arm), I'd imagine most people would say yes, you do keep the bonus, since it explicitly lasts the full round.

[Snowbluff]

Would your Defending weapon still apply its bonus to AC? Well, maybe not, since you drop held items when you're stunned, so it's a bad example, but assuming you couldn't drop it (maybe you used the Graft Weapon power to attach it to your arm), I'd imagine most people would say yes, you do keep the bonus, since it explicitly lasts the full round.

If you're worried about dropping your weapons from this:
1) Locked Gauntlet. Depends on how many hands you want free and when.
2) Glove of the Master Strategist. I take AoO on my turn? Hide the weapon as a free action so it's ready when I come out of the stun.

Off topic, but FYI. :smallcool:

[Dgrin]

Freely switching isn't the same of being both forms at once. It's not a cat in a box, you know what it is. The AoO is because you can change it back to melee at any time not that it's constantly melee. as in when you actively decide to use it for melee. That's when it becomes a melee weapon.
Defending has certain restrictions you have to read carefully that get in the way aside from it being melee only.

Is not the same in your interpretation only, that's first. And I offered a different explanation for your interpretation.


You lose defending as soon as you choose bow form. The weapon granting the defending enhancement no longer exists in that moment even if it's a free action and can be freely changed back.

Rules quote on this one please? You said yourself that you want to treat the weapon as two weapons. That means the melee weapon still exists. even though I am not using it right now.


You are allocating the weapon's enhancement bonus before the attack(the attack that requires use as a melee weapon).
You allocate it before attacking granting a bonus to AC equal to its enhancement bonus, this effect lasts until next turn not the AC bonus itself, but the effect to AC. Note that.

I allocated the bonus at the start of my turn (as it is said in rules text you quoted) into AC. It lasts until my next turn. Not before the attacking, that's something you invented from nowhere. And the effect is actually the bonus to AC.


You switch to bow form before even using melee, your enhancement bonus from defending becomes 0 since the enhancement bonus no longer exists

Rules citation? You were the one to treat melee and ranged as separate weapons, not me. So don't try to shy away from your own interpretation when it doesn't suit your theory. If they are two separate weapons, the bonus still exists.


you aren't actively using that weapon, the one wielded anymore and you certainly haven't used it before changing to bow form, and you can't regain it back because it has to be before attacking at the start of his turn so constantly switching it doesn't work.
It isn't even the same as throwing knives or spears since those stay as they are, they are the ones you are actively using aka wielding even if you're throwing them.

What is "using the weapon" in D&D 3.5 rules? Why is it different from wielding it? Even if it is only attacking, why does the bonus I already allocated suddenly disappear if I did not use it?
What if I used my move action and then attacked? Does that mean I cannot allocate my bonus cause it is not the start of my turn anymore?
What if I tried to charge but was stopped by difficult terrain? Does my bonus disappear suddenly cause I failed to attack with my weapon?


The bow has a special condition for melee and it's that you have to use it for melee to count as wielding a melee weapon. You gain effects from enchantments you wield not something that exists one moment and not the next due as a free action due to balancing measures.

I wield my Elvencraft bow, so it exists. It does not suddenly disappear and reappear. The weapon is in my hands, even if I am not using it to attack in melee.


There is a reason they separated melee from the ranged enhancements to begin with on the last sentence, an attempt at balance. They KNEW you'd try this, but apparently people did it anyway.
It's just supposed to be a nifty little thing that lets you get melee abilities when using melee upclose and ranged abilities when using ranged. Not melee enhancements to ranged.
I know the art of the munchkin is the norm here, but I think some perspective is needed.

Stop calling people munchkins, loophole-finders and so on just for their disagreement with you.
You're not a designer to say what things were supposed to do. You and me can just read what is written and interpret it. Or houserule in our own games.


I'd have to have a person from high authority in dnd(as in writes the core books) tell me,that switching a weapon from melee to ranged or ranged to melee when the text states that the enhancement is only melee or ranged only; Can apply the melee only effects to ranged or the ranged effects to melee. That is what it'd take to convince me. That's also when the game would change and you'd add splitting to melee attacks.

That's your right. You can think whatever you like. But using Slippery Slope fallacy won't make you right. Splitting applies to ranged attacks. Defending applies to your AC. That has nothing to do with our argument.

[gooddragon1]

I feel like it depends on what your DM throws at you for some parts. Damage reduction and hardness will badly hurt your already low damage output. If you add on other damage output it can be worth it. Like adding energy enhancements or the splitting quality. You can't just take it in a vacuum. The DM might not give you access to special material ammunition. However, you might not fight many things with DR or they could give you the electricity damage enhancement and not throw anything with resistance to electricity against you. If you're super paranoid (like me), you're always worried about going up against a DR 15 monster in an antimagic field with a sufficiently strong wind blowing your arrows away. Whether or not that will happen can depend on the DM running the game.

[Eldariel]

I feel like it depends on what your DM throws at you for some parts. Damage reduction and hardness will badly hurt your already low damage output.

Like I said a couple of times, there are ways around this, ones an archer would be well-adviced to go for. Force-property (or Hank's Bow shooting Force projectiles) allows an archer to ignore DR, first of all (there are few other ways, but this is broadly the best unless you expect to face nothing but Force Dragons/Force-immune enemies in general). Then, e.g. Eternal Blade or Factotum provide the means to negate Damage Reduction entirely. And before that becomes relevant, it's actually rather cheap to buy a stack of Adamantine/Silver/Cold Iron Arrows and fire them from a +1 bow. You can add blunt arrows (Complete Adventurer IIRC) and those slashing Arrows to the mix to cover all the common types of non-alignment Damage Reduction for basically free.

You can get aligned arrows for a bit more - they're admittedly more expensive, but if you only carry a few of each type on your person at any given time, you'll be fine (stock up when engaging in a campaign where you expect a lot of e.g. Outsiders, however; no going to Mechanus without stocking up on +1 Anarchic Arrows for instance). They cost less than getting aligned weapons, at any rate. And once you get some easy catch-all answer to Damage Reduction, you can start stocking up on various Bane arrows as those are incredibly efficient for their intended target.

[Snowbluff]

I would just get around to making your bow Holy/Unholy. DR/Chaotic and Dr/Lawful are much less common, and you really shouldn't ever be shooting at something that matches your alignment, e.g. has Dr/Evil if you're good.

[Quertus]

I would just get around to making your bow Holy/Unholy. DR/Chaotic and Dr/Lawful are much less common, and you really shouldn't ever be shooting at something that matches your alignment, e.g. has Dr/Evil if you're good.

Well, shooting at something evil when you are playing the anti-hero...

[Platymus Pus]

You said yourself that you want to treat the weapon as two weapons. That means the melee weapon still exists. even though I am not using it right now.
Yes, and you can't wield a bow and a staff at the same time even in the rules for the elvencraft weapon. You can switch to one or another using a free action but you can't wield both.
It's like saying air exists so I can breath in space even though I'm not breathing it right now.

Not before the attacking, that's something you invented from nowhere.
"Before using the weapon." The statement is in regards to melee, not a bow. You could use it by attacking or a defensive action or such. Actions that actually use the weapon.

What if I used my move action and then attacked? Does that mean I cannot allocate my bonus cause it is not the start of my turn anymore?
What if I tried to charge but was stopped by difficult terrain? Does my bonus disappear suddenly cause I failed to attack with my weapon?

RAW,yes. That's why you do it before moving which is still before using your melee weapon you are wielding.
No, you just used the weapon in a charge and you're still wielding it.Even though your charge failed you still charged.
You'd lose it if you decided to change it to a bow for some odd reason.
Defending isn't even that great, it's the bad precedence that has been set if you decide if melee enhancements work with ranged ones even when you longer have that melee weapon effectively.
You're using the enhancement bonus from the melee weapon to boost AC, "The effect to AC" it says so right in the text. You can't use the enhancement bonus if you aren't wielding the weapon.


The weapon is in my hands, even if I am not using it to attack in melee.
It's not in your hands, you have a bow in your hands because you're using it as a bow.
In the real world you would have a point, but this is dnd, this is how it mechanically works because it was written as such.

You and me can just read what is written and interpret it.
It's made pretty clear they are separate any interpretation past that is an attempt to twist the rules.


Splitting applies to ranged attacks. Defending applies to your AC. That has nothing to do with our argument.
And defending is an AC bonus from a MELEE weapon from a enhancement bonus that can apply ONLY to melee weapons because that's the only thing the enhancement goes on.
It has everything to do with the argument.
You can't use enhancements for weapons you aren't wielding. Else you can just pile on +1 weapons on your person you aren't wielding and get every effect.
If you aren't wielding the weapon you can't get the effect regardless if it says next turn.

Else I can do this.
I use defending with my melee weapon, after using it I drop it. I clearly keep the bonus of enhancement from the weapon despite not wielding it until my next turn.
Someone else picks up the same exact melee weapon after my turn and does the same. He gets the enhancement bonus from the weapon and drops it.
A 3rd person picks up the same exact melee weapon after that person's turn and gets the enhancement bonus from the weapon and drops it.
A 4th person... etc.
X number of turns later the enhancement weapon has granted X amount of enhancement bonuses despite being a mere +1 weapon with defending and still hasn't reached the first person's next turn.

[Eldariel]

I would just get around to making your bow Holy/Unholy. DR/Chaotic and Dr/Lawful are much less common, and you really shouldn't ever be shooting at something that matches your alignment, e.g. has Dr/Evil if you're good.

Mid levels, yes; I definitely like Holy bows in general (hell, the handbook lists Holy/Unholy at blue for that very reason). But at a point you'll have to deal with DR/- and DR/Epic stuff which gets to be quite the hassle unless you can bypass it entirely.

[Dgrin]

It's like saying air exists so I can breath in space even though I'm not breathing it right now.

Stop attempting to twist my words. You wield this weapon. It is not somewhere away.


RAW,yes. That's why you do it before moving which is still before using your melee weapon you are wielding.

But you cannot allocate the bonus before cause you are not using the weapon before moving, there's nobody to attack. You are merely wielding it.


No, you just used the weapon in a charge and you're still wielding it. Even though your charge failed you still charged.
You'd lose it if you decided to change it to a bow for some odd reason.

First of all, your interpretation of rules is not RAW just because you said so. I provided my interpretation and you did not prove that yours is the only one and clear. I understood what you are trying to say and disagree with you. Secondly, your interpretation is highly disfunctional as proved by these examples. Thirdly, if you want to speak about RAW, you should notice that there's nothing at all about losing the bonus until the start of your next turn in the text of Defending.
And, by the way, I did not use weapon in my charge. I merely ran in straight line with it in hands.


Defending isn't even that great, it's the bad precedence that has been set if you decide if melee enhancements work with ranged ones even when you longer have that melee weapon effectively.
You're using the enhancement bonus from the melee weapon to boost AC, "The effect to AC" it says so right in the text. You can't use the enhancement bonus if you aren't wielding the weapon.

As I already said a lot of times, I argue that melee enchancements work cause the weapon you wield right now can be considered a melee weapon. Also I have to admit that I do not understand what you're trying to say by repeating "the effect to AC".


It's not in your hands, you have a bow in your hands because you're using it as a bow.
In the real world you would have a point, but this is dnd, this is how it mechanically works because it was written as such.

Finding out how to interpret what was written was the point of our argument from the very beginning. Please, stop acting as if you are just quoted the rules which explicitly and unambiguously prove your point. It is impossible to constructively argue with a person who does not listen to anyone except for himself. Honestly, I should've realised that some time ago.


It's made pretty clear they are separate any interpretation past that is an attempt to twist the rules.

No, it wasn't. If it was, we would have no such argument right now. You see only 2 ways - yours and wrong.
I am not twisting the rules, I am explaining why they work as I said. Do not try to portray me as cheater, munchkin or whoever else trying to maliciously twist the rules of the game to break it and be the most powerful archer ever™.


And defending is an AC bonus from a MELEE weapon from a enhancement bonus that can apply ONLY to melee weapons because that's the only thing the enhancement goes on.
It has everything to do with the argument.
You can't use enhancements for weapons you aren't wielding. Else you can just pile on +1 weapons on your person you aren't wielding and get every effect.
If you aren't wielding the weapon you can't get the effect regardless if it says next turn.

I am wielding the Elvencraft bow. I am just not using it for attacking. That was your terminology. Why are you suddenly trying to shy away from it?


Else I can do this.
I use defending with my melee weapon, after using it I drop it. I clearly keep the bonus of enhancement from the weapon despite not wielding it until my next turn.
Someone else picks up the same exact melee weapon after my turn and does the same. He gets the enhancement bonus from the weapon and drops it.
A 3rd person picks up the same exact melee weapon after that person's turn and gets the enhancement bonus from the weapon and drops it.
A 4th person... etc.
X number of turns later the enhancement weapon has granted X amount of enhancement bonuses despite being a mere +1 weapon with defending and still hasn't reached the first person's next turn.

You were the one to argue that we absolutely have to differentiate between using the weapon and weilding it. But now weilding it is enough just because it helps you with your argument? :smallconfused:
Even if it works like that (and it shouldn't), each of those people just wasted a standard action to receive +1 bonus to AC? I guess that's awful and breaks the game completely.


I am tired of that argument. It leads to nothing. Let's stop quoting each other and see the whole picture.

I will just try to summarise the points made:
My interpretation: Elvencraft bow works as melee weapon as well as ranged weapon. It is considered both at the same time, just like throwing weapons like dagger. I can put two sets of enchancements on it, as it is written in the description of Elvencraft bow. If I add Defending on the list of enchancement to the melee capabilities of the weapon (which I can do because the bow functions as club/quarterstaff), I can allocate the bonus into AC. It works even if I am using the bow, cause those are two separate pools of enchancements put on one weapon, which I am wielding right now.
Alternative interpretation: Elvencraft bow is the ranged weapon. You can freely switch it to melee form, where it functions as a club/quarterstaff. Defending enchancement applies only when you wield it in the melee form. You can switch the form to ranged for shooting, then switch it back to melee form, where you receive the bonus to AC (the enchancement bonus of your melee form which you allocated to the AC thanks to Defending enchancement). You can effectively wield a melee weapon al the time except when you're actually shooting the bow because, as written in Elvencraft description, you can freely switch between using the bow as melee or ranged weapon.
Your interpretation as I understand it: Elvencraft bow is the ranged weapon. You can freely switch it to melee form, at which point the bow ceases to exist and it works as the club/quarterstaff. As you consider the Elvencraft bow to be two separate weapons, Defending enchancement cannot apply cause the melee weapon does not exist when you're using the bow. And switching forms repeatedly (having the bow in ranged form just for shooting) does not work cause you already failed to allocate the bonus, which could be allocated only at the start of your turn. So when you're switching to the melee form after shooting, you do not gain the bonus to AC because the weapon you're wielding at the moment just appeared and did not exist at the start of your turn, the only time when you could allocate the bonus. You did not use it to attack. You get no AC bonus.

Tell me please if I understood your point correctly and if not, where I am mistaken.

[Snowbluff]

Mid levels, yes; I definitely like Holy bows in general (hell, the handbook lists Holy/Unholy at blue for that very reason). But at a point you'll have to deal with DR/- and DR/Epic stuff which gets to be quite the hassle unless you can bypass it entirely.

Epic is easy to get around, even without an energy bow or force arrows. Like, snoresville. As long as you have the appropriate Bane and +4 or +5 enhancement bonus, it improves to +6 or better.

[Eldariel]

Epic is easy to get around, even without an energy bow or force arrows. Like, snoresville. As long as you have the appropriate Bane and +4 or +5 enhancement bonus, it improves to +6 or better.

Aye, I know, I used this to a rather good effect in the Tarrasque challenge. It's still kind of a pain, having to ensure you have access to the appropriate Bane and high enough attack bonus. But granted, this does work and rather well at that. Especially since both, GMW and Bane Arrows are worth it anyways.

[Seward]

I feel like it depends on what your DM throws at you for some parts. Damage reduction and hardness will badly hurt your already low damage output.

You're kidding right?

I can wander over to the arrow store and purchase blunt, cold iron, silver and adamantine arrows (the latter deal with hardness just fine). In 3.5 (but not Pathfinder), I can also buy slashing arrows for the annoying plants and zombies. If I have not got around to enchanting my bow to beat alignment DR, oil of align weapon is only 300gp for emergencies, but something to toast evil outsiders is pretty much normal by the time they start having DR better than cold iron or silver. (align weapon for the non-evil alignments is best done on an oil, evil alignments should be enchanted into a bow in most campaigns. I've encountered DR/Good, DR/Lawful and DR/Chaotic in my adventures and it's annoying when it happens, but that's what consumables are for. Use the cash you don't have to spend on a potion of flight, like all the melee fighters do.)

Archers have the LEAST problem of any martial class dealing with DR. The only DR that is a problem is elemental DR (barbarian DR is so weak it's hardly worth mentioning), and by the time you hit DR10 on the elementals, most archers have some elemental damage on their arrows if nothing else. If you encounter them more than once in a blue moon, coughing up 800gp or so for 10 elemental bane arrows pretty much fixes the problem.

Of course in Pathfinder, even elemental DR is no big deal, what with Deadly Shot (power attack for bows, core feat) and if noncore is allowed, cluster shot means the DR only applies once for all of your arrows. But seriously, I never had any trouble with DR at all with my D&D 3.5 archer, levels 1-12.

[gooddragon1]

You're kidding right?

I can wander over to the arrow store and purchase blunt, cold iron, silver and adamantine arrows (the latter deal with hardness just fine). In 3.5 (but not Pathfinder), I can also buy slashing arrows for the annoying plants and zombies. If I have not got around to enchanting my bow to beat alignment DR, oil of align weapon is only 300gp for emergencies, but something to toast evil outsiders is pretty much normal by the time they start having DR better than cold iron or silver. (align weapon for the non-evil alignments is best done on an oil, evil alignments should be enchanted into a bow in most campaigns. I've encountered DR/Good, DR/Lawful and DR/Chaotic in my adventures and it's annoying when it happens, but that's what consumables are for. Use the cash you don't have to spend on a potion of flight, like all the melee fighters do.)

Archers have the LEAST problem of any martial class dealing with DR. The only DR that is a problem is elemental DR (barbarian DR is so weak it's hardly worth mentioning), and by the time you hit DR10 on the elementals, most archers have some elemental damage on their arrows if nothing else. If you encounter them more than once in a blue moon, coughing up 800gp or so for 10 elemental bane arrows pretty much fixes the problem.

Of course in Pathfinder, even elemental DR is no big deal, what with Deadly Shot (power attack for bows, core feat) and if noncore is allowed, cluster shot means the DR only applies once for all of your arrows. But seriously, I never had any trouble with DR at all with my D&D 3.5 archer, levels 1-12.


Like I said a couple of times, there are ways around this, ones an archer would be well-adviced to go for.

The arrow store in a small hamlet? Or the one who doesn't believe in stocking special material arrows for <plot reason>?

While playing D&D with various groups I discovered the lesson that the Item Emporium doesn't always exist. This extends to Eldariel's reply as well. You guys shouldn't always assume that you'll just be able to buy those things. Some DM's will allow it, but others might not. To compensate they might not throw things that would negate your damage output. I have found that classes with a much heavier dependence on specific items tend to run into this limitation much more than those that could go through the game without them (like druids).

[Seward]

If you are an archer, you make it your business to stock up on arrows when you're in a large market. You also use normal, "can get anywhere" arrows as your default, to minimize the drain on the special material arrows. (if your adventure is taking place in Greyhawk City, go nuts with the special arrows if you want - you can buy more, but if on the road be more cautious)

My archer stored hundreds of arrows on his mount, because yeah, he'd fire 20-30 arrows in a fight at higher levels, and he couldn't be assured of resupply. It's basic to the class, the same way spellcasters have a spell component pounch and foci (and often spares if not too expensive) and fighters (if you aren't Roy Greenhilt) have backup weapons.

If you are an archer without arrows, you are as screwed as a paladin who violated his oath. Arrows are cheap and don't weigh much. Buy them in bulk when you have the opportunity. Once you're past level 6 or so, you have extradimensional storage options for reasonable prices. (which is good, because you burn a lot more arrows per round when you have boots of haste and multiple iterative attacks. A quiver of Ehlonna is not really enough for more than a single combat, given the need for diverse ammo)

And just a note by RAW the game assumes even Adamantine arrows can be bought in lots of 20 in any community that can support an 800gp item, which is generally a large town or greater, and even the smallest settlement can support silver or cold iron ammunition (gp cost only 2 for cold iron, slashing or blunt, 41 for silver). The game is balanced around those assumptions, and any discussion of archery has to assume that most of the time the GM will agree, barring a major plot-relevant reason why not (such as the vampire overlords confiscating all the silver, making silver a black market item only).

Worst case, get some crafting skills and raw materials, if it really is the kind of campaign where you can't buy stuff every once in a while. Go on a quest for raw materials if you have to. Arrows are cheap enough your downtime won't be much, and it isn't like you have to make them masterwork if they aren't adamantine.

Look, sometimes the campaign will screw with your character choices. I played a crafting wizard in a campaign where I knew I wouldn't get much downtime (and it turned out to be even worse than the GM indicated at the start of the campaign). I did it anyway because she was religious and her god was Vulcan. She also learned spells like Greater Magic Weapon, Fabricate and Stone Shape because it was her style, even though her spellbook past about level 2 was pretty much only level-up spells, because there were no other high level wizards to trade with on the continent. (only getting teleport started to help with that). So yeah, Annest wasn't the most powerful wizard ever played, but she did pretty well with what she had and working with the campaign restrictions was part of the fun. I didn't expect her to perform as well as a Living Greyhawk or Pathfinder Society wizard where you have access to both markets and downtime to build your spellbook and craft or buy consumable items and as such she isn't used as an example by me when talking about game balance or class viability issues.

If you intend to play an archer, asking the GM about the resupply situation is fair before you enter the campaign. It's similar to finding out you can't buy heavy armor (yes, this happened to me, low tech campaign - ancient world-roman level technology) - you can't build a first rank sword+board tank - all melee are light infantry if they aren't something like a monk (also banned from that campaign). You literally couldn't tank a brute-style monster in that game, you had to deal with them entirely with battlefield control or DPS races.

If you choose to play an archer anyway in a campaign where you can't reasonably resupply arrows, then you can't whine about poor damage output. The class assumes you can get arrows. Ditto any arguments about martial characters sucking based on campaigns where the GM doesn't give out the expected wealth by level. Restricting access to magic items makes spellcasters more powerful, full stop.

[gooddragon1]

If you intend to play an archer, asking the GM about the resupply situation is fair before you enter the campaign.

It's a good idea to know how you will get access to items and materials in any campaign you intend to join. It just happens to matter more for some classes than others. I used to assume the magic item emporium was a constant until I played a game where it wasn't. I feel like that's one of the gaps between in game optimization and out of game theorycrafting.

[AnonymousPepper]

What about Inquisitor archers? Bane and Judgement make for hella on-hit damage mods, and Inquisitors have a fantastic selection of buffs on their spell list too. Plus, Guided Weapon is only *recommended* as melee only, not actually melee only, meaning they can get both WIS and STR to damage and WIS to hit (this is an upside of CLR and Monks too, granted, but on top of everything else...!).

[Eldariel]

The arrow store in a small hamlet? Or the one who doesn't believe in stocking special material arrows for <plot reason>?

While playing D&D with various groups I discovered the lesson that the Item Emporium doesn't always exist. This extends to Eldariel's reply as well. You guys shouldn't always assume that you'll just be able to buy those things. Some DM's will allow it, but others might not. To compensate they might not throw things that would negate your damage output. I have found that classes with a much heavier dependence on specific items tend to run into this limitation much more than those that could go through the game without them (like druids).

Of course, this applies to all martial types and it's actually one of the big issues behind the whole caster-noncaster divide. I usually don't bring it up since I figure it's well-known to most people in these circles, but yes noncasters are of course dependent on item availability while casters are not (or at least, casters can be built in a way that they are not and have built-in tools to bypass such limitations while noncasters are bereft of options). On higher levels, it's luckily enough to have a caster in the party without necessarily being one yourself (certainly, caster dependency in play here) - you can just teleport/plane shift/master earth/whatever to a metropolis in just a standard action from almost any dungeon (and back in another). You can craft e.g. special material ammo yourself though even as a noncaster if you can ever secure a chunk of the base material - my archers do this nightly during their watch. Of course, there are some spells that again speed up the process (Fabricate, Major Creation, etc.).

But yeah, if it seems like the DM is like to be stingy with items, the best way to proceed is to just play a caster and ensure you'll never run into any issues in character generation; after all, the opportunity cost of playing a caster or a noncaster is the same and thus there's no downside to picking one other than coordinating with the rest of the party to ensure that everyone gets to play (and to ensure that the DM knows what they're getting into). The lack of special materials is one thing but what really kills noncasters is the lack of magic item access, and I find if DMs make acquiring special materials difficult, acquiring magic items is a veritable nightmare (and unlike with special material items, you can't just simply craft your own magic items as a noncaster - need casters for this again). Playing gets a tad difficult when you're already behind the party curve and the one tool that could allow you to catch up a bit is swiped away.

[Florian]

What about Inquisitor archers? Bane and Judgement make for hella on-hit damage mods, and Inquisitors have a fantastic selection of buffs on their spell list too. Plus, Guided Weapon is only *recommended* as melee only, not actually melee only, meaning they can get both WIS and STR to damage and WIS to hit (this is an upside of CLR and Monks too, granted, but on top of everything else...!).

Archety on PF is really great and they have been hard at work removing all the problems with it that 3.5 had. Right now, with Pounce being a bit harder to get, it might actually be one of the best combat options.

But this discussion is about 3.5, where it is still siboptimal inless you packport some feats to it.

[AnonymousPepper]

Oh, I missed the 3e tag.

Well, in that case, you've got Scout-Ranger into Swift Hunter and then you chain on as many skirmish-progressing classes as you can - Highland Stalker, Dragon Devotee, etc. I recall Darrin has a build that ends up with like 13d6 skirmish damage per hit. Strategically-selected Ranger favored enemies let you bypass crit immunities for skirmish damage on the creatures you can't just buy augment crystals for, and Hank's Energy Bow lets you bypass DR (RAI, it fires arrows of force, and Force damage bypasses all DR and energy immunity except for straight-up Force immunity [which is only Force Dragons and Forceward, iirc?] and even arguably Wind Wall but that's for another time and place). Tag on Greater Manyshot. Put Splitting and Exit Wound on your bow as well. Splitting in particular is nice if you've got somebody like a Bard (especially a DFI Bard); the extra attacks you're throwing out means the Bard's effects affect you more than the rest of the party.

You now outdamage like... just about everything. You outdamage a pre-epic (thus, without Intensify) Mailman Sorcerer (provided he's chucking Orbs of Force and not Disintegrates [which is the correct call most times, btw] and Sanctum Spell works in a sane way), even.

No, you don't get BFC like a Wizard or a Druid. No, you're not particularly tough to kill (in fact, that build has several d4 hit dice in it) without magic items (I mean, any fool is hard to kill with Greater Mirror Image, Greater Blink, and Selective Antimagic Fields, so that doesn't really count).

But you positively crap out damage, and there's something to be said for that.

[LoyalPaladin]

Further more, Splitting Bows and Arrowsplit and Iaijutsu let you crank out a lot of damage really easily.
Please tell me you have a way around this.


If you attack a flat-footed opponent immediately after drawing a melee weapon, you can deal extra damage, based on the result of an Iaijutsu Focus check.
Because if you do, I know what I'm playing in my next campaign.

[Psyren]

Please tell me you have a way around this.


Because if you do, I know what I'm playing in my next campaign.

The argument they use is that arrows are described as (improvised) melee weapons. To which I usually reply that if improvised weapons count, you can justify anything triggering iaijutsu, even spell components, but hey.

[LoyalPaladin]

The argument they use is that arrows are described as (improvised) melee weapons. To which I usually reply that if improvised weapons count, you can justify anything triggering iaijutsu, even spell components, but hey.
... I'm totally going to try and sneak that past a DM in the future. We've got a player who plays with iaijutsu strikes on a bloodstorm blade. Archers should get nice things too.

[Flickerdart]

The argument they use is that arrows are described as (improvised) melee weapons. To which I usually reply that if improvised weapons count, you can justify anything triggering iaijutsu, even spell components, but hey.
If you have a one-handed crossbow or an extra hand, you can quick-draw a dagger, take your shot, and then drop the dagger. After all, there is no clause that the attack must be made with the weapon you drew, just that you have to make it immediately.

[Âmesang]

Maybe they're… throwing the arrows?

[Snowbluff]

Nope, just shooting them.

The argument they use is that arrows are described as (improvised) melee weapons. To which I usually reply that if improvised weapons count, you can justify anything triggering iaijutsu, even spell components, but hey.
Mhm. Broken bottles, needles...

Do you watch Gotham? We could make a good Penguin.


... I'm totally going to try and sneak that past a DM in the future. We've got a player who plays with iaijutsu strikes on a bloodstorm blade. Archers should get nice things too.

Do it!

[LoyalPaladin]

Do it!
I'd want to be some crazy mix of Marshal/Ranger/Sorcerer/Arcane Archer.

[Platymus Pus]

And, by the way, I did not use weapon in my charge. I merely ran in straight line with it in hands.

That's not a charge. That's just a double move, which doesn't use your weapon.
You can't even charge if anything is hindering you anyway.

You must move before your attack, not after. You must move at least 10 feet (2 squares) and may move up to double your speed directly toward the designated opponent. If you move a distance equal to your speed or less, you can also draw a weapon during a charge attack if your base attack bonus is at least +1.

You must have a clear path toward the opponent, and nothing can hinder your movement (such as difficult terrain or obstacles). You must move to the closest space from which you can attack the opponent. If this space is occupied or otherwise blocked, you can't charge. If any line from your starting space to the ending space passes through a square that blocks movement, slows movement, or contains a creature (even an ally), you can't charge. Helpless creatures don't stop a charge.

If you don't have line of sight to the opponent at the start of your turn, you can't charge that opponent.

You can't take a 5-foot step in the same round as a charge.

If you are able to take only a standard action on your turn, you can still charge, but you are only allowed to move up to your speed (instead of up to double your speed) and you cannot draw a weapon unless you possess the Quick Draw feat. You can't use this option unless you are restricted to taking only a standard action on your turn.
The fact that an action works like defending in multiple ways and just doesn't flat out work in certain situations should really clue things in.


Even if it works like that (and it shouldn't), each of those people just wasted a standard action to receive +1 bonus to AC? I guess that's awful and breaks the game completely.

Change that +1 to a +8 ac bonus, throw some bards on top of it.
You'd have an army that is low cost and hard to hit, so yes. That can break things. It's why it has to be wielded to be counted even after use.

Any action considered with the weapon itself grants defending. The weapon is granting the enhancement.
It's how defending works, it just doesn't mesh well with the rules for the bow which actively changes it's nature from melee to ranged.
The text never states you are actually wielding both ranged and melee at all times in fact it's shown to the contrary.





Elvencraft bow works as melee weapon as well as ranged weapon. It is considered both at the same time, just like throwing weapons like dagger.
This could be applied to anything from a tiny lance to a colossal longsword. Every weapon is considered ranged now?

It is possible to throw a weapon that isn't designed to be thrown (that is, a melee weapon that doesn't have a numeric entry in the Range column on Table: Weapons), and a character who does so takes a –4 penalty on the attack roll. Throwing a light or one-handed weapon is a standard action, while throwing a two-handed weapon is a full-round action. Regardless of the type of weapon, such an attack scores a threat only on a natural 20 and deals double damage on a critical hit. Such a weapon has a range increment of 10 feet.

Range: Any attack at more than this distance is penalized for range. Beyond this range, the attack takes a cumulative –2 penalty for each full range increment (or fraction thereof) of distance to the target. For example, a dagger (with a range of 10 feet) thrown at a target that is 25 feet away would incur a –4 penalty. A thrown weapon has a maximum range of five range increments. A projectile weapon can shoot to 10 range increments.
A melee weapon having some range doesn't count as both, it's the opposite you're using a melee weapon to inflict abysmal dmg by throwing it. That doesn't make it a ranged weapon.
It makes it a weapon you are throwing. You can't have ranged enhancements on a knife just because you can throw it.


I will just try to summarise the points made:
Alternative interpretation: Elvencraft bow is the ranged weapon. You can freely switch it to melee form, where it functions as a club/quarterstaff. Defending enchancement applies only when you wield it in the melee form. You can switch the form to ranged for shooting, then switch it back to melee form, where you receive the bonus to AC (the enchancement bonus of your melee form which you allocated to the AC thanks to Defending enchancement). You can effectively wield a melee weapon al the time except when you're actually shooting the bow because, as written in Elvencraft description, you can freely switch between using the bow as melee or ranged weapon.
Your interpretation as I understand it: Elvencraft bow is the ranged weapon. You can freely switch it to melee form, at which point the bow ceases to exist and it works as the club/quarterstaff. As you consider the Elvencraft bow to be two separate weapons, Defending enchancement cannot apply cause the melee weapon does not exist when you're using the bow. And switching forms repeatedly (having the bow in ranged form just for shooting) does not work cause you already failed to allocate the bonus, which could be allocated only at the start of your turn. So when you're switching to the melee form after shooting, you do not gain the bonus to AC because the weapon you're wielding at the moment just appeared and did not exist at the start of your turn, the only time when you could allocate the bonus. You did not use it to attack. You get no AC bonus.
My interpretation isn't that different from the alternative. Mine just makes less assumptions.

I'll make this blunt now since I tire of this, in the same book as the elvencraft bow

Swordbow: The magical swordbow takes the concept of the elvencraft bow (see page 166) and does it one better. As the name implies, the weapon can transform from a sword to a bow (or vice versa) upon a mere thought by the wielder (a free action).

If a special ability is added that can’t apply to both weapons (such as vorpal or distance), it applies only to the swordbow when it is in an eligible form (for instance, a +1 swordbow of distance is a distance weapon only in bow form).
In short defending doesn't work.

[Snowbluff]

The Swordbow is entirely different than the Elvencraft bow, as described by your own quotations, to the point that it makes it sound like an argument against your conclusion.

I'd want to be some crazy mix of Marshal/Ranger/Sorcerer/Arcane Archer.

Druid (Southern Magician for Arcane)/PrestigeRanger1(For Arrow Split adding to your List)/ Arcane Archer. Fell Drain Area spells. :smalltongue:

[LoyalPaladin]

Druid (Southern Magician for Arcane)/PrestigeRanger1(For Arrow Split adding to your List)/ Arcane Archer. Fell Drain Area spells. :smalltongue:
But charismaaaaaaa.

[Snowbluff]

But charismaaaaaaa.

Poppycock. If you want Cha, Zen Archery will give you Wis>Str>Cha if you really need.

[LoyalPaladin]

Poppycock. If you want Cha, Zen Archery will give you Wis>Str>Cha if you really need.
I like charisma on everything... haha.

[Snowbluff]

I like charisma on everything... haha.
Hmm, depending on a few things, doing a Sorc would be tricky. The advantage is that in 3.5 is that shooting spells with AA is always a standard action, allowing a sorcerer to spam metamagic.

You'll want to see about doing a low level gish into AA. Since Sorc already loses a CL (because sorc), you'll have to be careful.

[Platymus Pus]

The Swordbow is entirely different than the Elvencraft bow, as described by your own quotations
It takes the concept, as in it works the same way except it's a sword.
The elvencraft bow is a property you add to bows, it has the same property except it's a sword. :smallyuk:

If it works entirely differently then I can apply elvencraft bow to the swordbow.
Then I get 4 different ways to enhance in oneweapon . This in the same book referencing the elvencraft bow in the same passage let me remind you.
This is clearly not the case even if you think so. It's blatantly black and white.

[Snowbluff]

It takes the concept, as in it works the same way except it's a sword.
The elvencraft bow is a property you add to bows, it has the same property except it's a sword. :smallyuk:

If it works entirely differently then I can apply elvencraft bow to the swordbow.
Then I get 4 different ways to enhance in oneweapon . This in the same book referencing the elvencraft bow in the same passage let me remind you.
This is clearly not the case even if you think so. It's blatantly black and white.

Reread what you have. It takes the concept, not the function. It takes the form, but is not.

Saying the swordbow doesn't get the abilities of it's bow component and vice versa is like saying shapeshifter has his physical abilities when he transforms.

The elvencraft bow does not transform. It's a mundane property. In the above analogy, it's like the caster getting a graft.

[Platymus Pus]

Reread what you have. It takes the concept, not the function. It takes the form, but is not.

I didn't post the rest of the text, BECAUSE IT FUNCTIONS THE EXACT DAMN WAY.





The elvencraft bow does not transform. It's a mundane property. In the above analogy, it's like the caster getting a graft.
It doesn't matter if it's mundane, it functions the same way.


Saying the swordbow doesn't get the abilities of it's bow component and vice versa is like saying shapeshifter has his physical abilities when he transforms.
I'm sorry we're talking about weapons, not shape shifters and physical stats or what have you.
Non-comparative comparisons need to get out.

[LoyalPaladin]

You'll want to see about doing a low level gish into AA. Since Sorc already loses a CL (because sorc), you'll have to be careful.
Maybe some levels in Abjurant Champion?

[Dgrin]

It's blatantly black and white.

In short defending doesn't work.

Except you still did not prove that it is the case. Stop acting like you are the only one who's right here. Stop using words like "truth", "RAW", "it is made pretty clear" and so on instead of providing arguments for your position. This demagogy does not help, it just wastes time. I apologise for being a bit impolite but you don't seem willing to engage in constructive discussion otherwise.


My interpretation isn't that different from the alternative.

I'll take that as a sign that my reading of your arguments was not too far off.


Mine just makes less assumptions.

How so? Name the assumptions first interpretation is making that second does not.

Here's what both interpretations have:

Elvencraft bow is a ranged weapon but it can be switched to melee form as a free action
Each form has its separate list of enchancements
You only benefit from the enchancements of the form you're using at the moment

Here're some of statements belonging to my interpretation:

You can allocate the bonus of Defending at the start of your turn
You benefit from the AC bonus whenever you're wielding the bow in melee form until the start of your next turn

And here're those for yours:

You can allocate the bonus of Defending at the start of your turn provided you will use it as a melee weapon
You retain the AC bonus as long as you're wielding the weapon in the form you allocated the bonus for until the start of your next turn
You lose the AC bonus until you can allocate it at the start of another turn if you stop actively using the weapon, such as switching it to ranged form
You lose the AC bonus until you can allocate it at the start of another turn if you are somehow prevented of using the weapon in that turn, such as interrupting the charge you tried to make.

I think that sums up everything said, let me know if I forgot something.


So, your interpretation relies on some kind of "planning to use the weapon in that turn" which is not even in the rules since you're not locked into the action until you actually started making it. It also actually makes more assumptions about the things that stop it from working somehow. Furthermore, your interpretation leads to more disfunctional rules, as was demonstrated by, I believe, Troacctid.

[Scorponok]

Archery is awesome! It doesn't have damage output as good as a melee character, but where it excels is at making life difficult for magic casters - at least at lower levels. An archer can hit the mage with between 2 to 4 arrows before the melee gets into range, and doesn't have to worry about ray or touch spells the mage can fire back at it. A group of level 1 archers can make life difficult for even a mid level mage, at least until they get Wind Wall up. Add to the fact you can have the archers shoot and then hide or run away, and their role in a party or an army seems more suited to hit and run tactics vs. straight damage potential.

[DEMON]

Come on, guys. Could there be a constructive discussion without half of the posters acting all smug and posting like their ruling is the only appropriate way to play the game?
It's not like you're playing against each other and need to abide by the same rules to the letter, otherwise the balance will be forever skewed... Agree to disagree every now and then ;)

That being said, here are my 2 orens, bottle caps, or what have you:

@OP IHMO, whether archery is bad, good, mediocre etc. depens on the level of optimization more than anything.

At very low optimization levels, you, as an archer, are going to suck just as much as everyone else, including the melee fighter or the wizard, or you're going to do just fine, if the DM builds the campaing towards this optimization level.

At high level of optimization, you are probalby a Cleric and have countless options at your disposal besides shooting arrows at your enemies and your power level is much more dependant at your spells than your prowess with the bow.

In between these 2 extremes, your actual effectivity in any game depends on the particular campaing, party composition and your ability to build (optimize) and utilize the options available to you.

I'd say that the ability to golf pack arrows (instead of much more expensive weapons), is a big advantage in and of itself, nearly negating the DR issue in many cases.

Adding the Force enhancement to the equation basically makes DR a non-issue in a vast majority or your encounters, while adding the Splitting enhancement gives archery the most attacks compared to any other fighting style.

Splitting weapons also combine perfectly with the Woodland Archer feat (among others), as well as any damage bonuses as you can now apply those to a lot of attacks.

Also, Hank's Bow is a be all end all ranged weapon, basially bypassing most of the issues archery has, but you can simulate some of its features with less... obscure options.

One way or another, compared to 2H fighting, you're most likely lagging behind in terms of damage, as well as attack options, but comparing to the most optimal form of mundane attcks and comming up with the conclusion that that form is more optimal than a less optimal form is not really much of an achievement. But there are some features archery has, that make it a viable option in may situations, especially when compared to other fighting styles, such as 2WF, 1WF, or S+B.

[Snowbluff]

I didn't post the rest of the text, BECAUSE IT FUNCTIONS THE EXACT DAMN WAY.

It doesn't matter if it's mundane, it functions the same way.

I'm sorry we're talking about weapons, not shape shifters and physical stats or what have you.
Non-comparative comparisons need to get out.
It literally functions the opposite way.

Elvencraft bow is a ranged weapon but it can be switched to melee form as a free action
While I am at it, this is entirely wrong and baseless when discussing the Elvencraft Bow. "Free action" needs to be in the text or as part of general rule (the same way supernaturals are generally standard actions). This is doubly false in the case of the shortbow, as it can't be argued it doesn't have enough hands on it to function as melee weapon.

You only benefit from the enchancements of the form you're using at the moment This too.
It functions as both a melee weapon and a ranged weapon at the same time, like how a dagger is. Furthermore, it can be (rightfully) argued that using it for an enchantment is a function of melee weapon in DnD, ergo you are always using it a melee weapon.

Non-comparative comparisons need to get out.
Why don't you take your own advice and not use entirely baseless comparisons.

Maybe some levels in Abjurant Champion?

Getting there is the problem. You would need 5 BAB without missing a CL without losing a CL to meet the Benchmarks for Gish (9th level spells) and AA (2 levels).

[ben-zayb]

I like charisma on everything... haha.

Savage Ghost Progression 2 + Master of the Unseen Hand 4 is your fix. Couple it with a Sorc that nabbed the Fire Shuriken spell, and full-attack with your energy bow or some Fell Drain Searing Fire Shurikens at your leisure.

[LoyalPaladin]

Getting there is the problem. You would need 5 BAB without missing a CL without losing a CL to meet the Benchmarks for Gish (9th level spells) and AA (2 levels).
9th level spells are the benchmark for a gish? Geeze.


Savage Ghost Progression 2 + Master of the Unseen Hand 4 is your fix. Couple it with a Sorc that nabbed the Fire Shuriken spell, and full-attack with your energy bow or some Fell Drain Searing Fire Shurikens at your leisure.
I'll give this a look over- which reminds me, I want to play a sneak in the next campaign I play in with my usual table. I've never been the skill monkey before...

[Psyren]

9th level spells are the benchmark for a gish? Geeze.

It's Snowbluff's benchmark for a gish; plenty of people disagree with this viewpoint, myself included.


Archery is awesome! It doesn't have damage output as good as a melee character, but where it excels is at making life difficult for magic casters - at least at lower levels. An archer can hit the mage with between 2 to 4 arrows before the melee gets into range, and doesn't have to worry about ray or touch spells the mage can fire back at it. A group of level 1 archers can make life difficult for even a mid level mage, at least until they get Wind Wall up. Add to the fact you can have the archers shoot and then hide or run away, and their role in a party or an army seems more suited to hit and run tactics vs. straight damage potential.

Then you add in Pathfinder, where archery can do hideous amounts of damage, bypass wind walls and even punch through a wall of force.

[nedz]

9th level spells are the benchmark for a gish? Geeze.

BAB 16 and 9ths at level 20 are the usual Benchmark, not because your game will ever reach level 20, but because you will have adequate BAB and spell access during the levels you actually play through.

[LoyalPaladin]

It's Snowbluff's benchmark for a gish; plenty of people disagree with this viewpoint, myself included.
Gotcha.


BAB 16 and 9ths at level 20 are the usual Benchmark, not because your game will ever reach level 20, but because you will have adequate BAB and spell access during the levels you actually play through.
That explains the Sorcadin...

[AMFV]

It's Snowbluff's benchmark for a gish; plenty of people disagree with this viewpoint, myself included.

Notably that benchmark is used more often in 3.0 and 3.5 than it is in Pathfinder. Pathfinder introduced fairly decent "gish-in-a-boxes" that didn't get 9ths, and so that's seen as more okay there whereas in 3.5 Charop circles it wasn't generally.

[Florian]

Notably that benchmark is used more often in 3.0 and 3.5 than it is in Pathfinder. Pathfinder introduced fairly decent "gish-in-a-boxes" that didn't get 9ths, and so that's seen as more okay there whereas in 3.5 Charop circles it wasn't generally.

And moves the benchmark over from "Being able to cast and fight" to ".... at the same time"

[nedz]

Notably that benchmark is used more often in 3.0 and 3.5 than it is in Pathfinder. Pathfinder introduced fairly decent "gish-in-a-boxes" that didn't get 9ths, and so that's seen as more okay there whereas in 3.5 Charop circles it wasn't generally.

Even in 3.5 we have the Duskblade, which is BAB 20 and 5ths. You don't really need the higher level spells as a Gish: it's a wide selection of the low-mid ones which you want. Unfortunately the way 3.5 casters work: you only get that when you also get the higher level spells; not that they aren't useful on occasion, also, Quicken.

[Snowbluff]

It's Snowbluff's benchmark for a gish; plenty of people disagree with this viewpoint, myself included.


BAB 16 and 9ths at level 20 are the usual Benchmark, not because your game will ever reach level 20, but because you will have adequate BAB and spell access during the levels you actually play through.
The benchmark stand for the reasons nedz has stated. If you're building a gish, that's what you aim for.

If it's built for you, I suggest some Nyquil to help you sleep through the CharOP session or like a Magic Deck to pass the time. It should take about 15 minutes compared the arduous task of developing a multiclass build.


That explains the Sorcadin...
It does. I would tell you to emulate it, but keep in mind how many spell levels you lose if you incorporate Arcane Archer 2 into that build. You're already a few levels behind in how many spells you know and at what levels.

Even in 3.5 we have the Duskblade, which is BAB 20 and 5ths. You don't really need the higher level spells as a Gish: it's a wide selection of the low-mid ones which you want. Unfortunately the way 3.5 casters work: you only get that when you also get the higher level spells; not that they aren't useful on occasion, also, Quicken.

A bunch of the swift spells are higher level, too, aside from Blockade, Swift Haste, Swift Fly, and Swift Invisibility, which are first level, and Wings of Cover and Wraith Strike, which are second level.

[Soranar]

To go back to the main thread

is archery bad?

for tier 1 and tier 2 classes, usually archery is suboptimal (costs too many feats for what it does) except in these cases:

you're low level and you're out of spells but you're not crazy enough to go melee with your BSF
you blocked your enemy (grease spell, entangle) and you're keeping your distance while plinking away

for tier 3 and lower classes

archery has no way to trip (so no lockdown), obviously it can't tank (melee is usually problematic to an archer), but it can sneak attack fairly well (due to extra attacks from rapid shot) and it hit and run fairly well (due to manyshot letting you move and shoot)

so archery can do damage at a distance, that's it's main advantage. Is your damage inferior to an ubercharger ? well yeah everything does less damage than an ubercharger

is it worth doing?

in certain builds it's decent

a swift hunter gets all the good archery feats for free and has a solid chassis, so that's a solid option as many have pointed out

an arcane archer exchanges versatility and ability focus(tier 1 class) for archery, that's a terrible idea but you can still do it and get a semi useful character out of it (tier 3-4)

If you're willing to go into ubercheese territory, you can do obscene damage but that's all you're going to do

Be an aerenal elf fighter
take the drow fighter ACF
take the sneak attack fighter ACF (no bonus feats but you can handle it)
take the aereni focus feat (choose Iaijutsu focus)

you do normal archery damage + DEX + sneak+ iaijutsu vs flat footed opponents
invest into a crystal to be able to sneak attack undead and nearly 70% of the creatures your encounter (non crit immune + undead) should be vulnerable to you. No need for STR in a build like that

in the end the problem with archery is all the energy (feats) you put into it to be able to fight

personally my favorite archer is a simple factotum

you can manyshot multiple times with your extra actions (and iaijutsu focus them if you feel like it) + you can stop investing after you get manyshot and still be versatile (change into a cryohydra and go to town if you have to melee) since iaijutsu is not considered precision damage you can argue it works with manyshot

so, to comment, archery is not useless but it's not useful in every situation, which is ok in the DnD world. Sometimes you can't charge your opponent, sometimes you need to shoot down a flyer and sometimes somebody casts wind wall and you need to get creative

[Psyren]

Even in 3.5 we have the Duskblade, which is BAB 20 and 5ths. You don't really need the higher level spells as a Gish: it's a wide selection of the low-mid ones which you want. Unfortunately the way 3.5 casters work: you only get that when you also get the higher level spells; not that they aren't useful on occasion, also, Quicken.

The main thing you need to gish is synergy, which Duskblade gets via its action economy. Psychic Warrior does the same. Mystic Ranger and DFI bard work with buffs instead.

The fact that one or two people don't consider these classes to be proper gishes doesn't concern me when so many others rightly do.


The benchmark stand for the reasons nedz has stated. If you're building a gish, that's what you aim for.

If it's built for you, I suggest some Nyquil to help you sleep through the CharOP session or like a Magic Deck to pass the time. It should take about 15 minutes compared the arduous task of developing a multiclass build.

It's the 9th-level caster that would put me to sleep. T1/T2s can already handle any challenge without resorting to melee, so what's the real point of adding it? It's like putting tassels on a Ferrari. At least the gish-in-a-can classes are T3 and take a modicum of effort.

[Snowbluff]

It's the 9th-level caster that would put me to sleep. T1/T2s can already handle any challenge without resorting to melee, so what's the real point of adding it? It's like putting tassels on a Ferrari. At least the gish-in-a-can classes are T3 and take a modicum of effort.

It's about style. I know I don't go out in my Ferrari with the neons on and a pneumatics pumping and the stereo causing nearby ears to bleed. When I drive down a local road at 70 mph, smashing my chassis against every speed bump, I want everyone to recognize my effort and blatant expenditure of resources by the roar of the unmuffled 12 cylinders I'm packing.

Also, saying it doesn't take effort is facetious at best and foolish at worst. A Gish (a proper one) has to make significantly more choice at every stage of the game than any other build available. That includes during character building and on the field. It's pure math.

EDIT: Also, we should feel like scrubs for talking about Ferraris for performance. There are a lot of cars that get you more bang for their buck.

[nedz]

Swiftblades are like Ferraris,
Duskblades are like Porches,
DFI Bards are like a hot hatch with a Boombox,
and Mystic Rangers are like Land Rovers.

[ComaVision]

Swiftblades are like Ferraris,
Duskblades are like Porches,
DFI Bards are like a hot hatch with a Boombox,
and Mystic Rangers are like Land Rovers.

What's the Tesla Roadster of gishes?

[Snowbluff]

What's the Tesla Roadster of gishes?

Psion/Aberration Hunter or Jade Phoenix Mage?


Swiftblades are like Ferraris,


Throw in a coke snorting executive as the driver, and this is legit. :smallbiggrin:

[Soranar]

What's the Tesla Roadster of gishes?

an artificer: runs great until your batteries are dead

[AMFV]

Even in 3.5 we have the Duskblade, which is BAB 20 and 5ths. You don't really need the higher level spells as a Gish: it's a wide selection of the low-mid ones which you want. Unfortunately the way 3.5 casters work: you only get that when you also get the higher level spells; not that they aren't useful on occasion, also, Quicken.

Well the Duskblade came into play significantly after the CharOp boards had come up with their definition of gishing. Which is why it didn't shift it.

To be fair I think both extremes are probably wrong. You don't need to be able to cast and attack simultaneously to be seen as competent at both (see CoDZilla and Druid), you can have a perfectly serviceable gish who does one and then the other (although there's nothing wrong with cool synergy either it's just a different flavor). You also don't need to be able to cast 9ths to be competent as a gish, you can easily get by with significantly fewer spell levels (provided that you aren't too CL dependent).

[squiggit]

I agree that there's no necessity to have one style of the other.

That said, a least from my experience, most battlemages (of any flavor, so including paladins and dark/death knights and so on) I see in fiction are the sorts that actively mix spells and combat simultaneously, rather than the buff-and-beatdown type of gish.

And it's a shame that 3.5 is so terrible at emulating the first concept.

[Eldariel]

Even in 3.5 we have the Duskblade, which is BAB 20 and 5ths. You don't really need the higher level spells as a Gish: it's a wide selection of the low-mid ones which you want. Unfortunately the way 3.5 casters work: you only get that when you also get the higher level spells; not that they aren't useful on occasion, also, Quicken.

I disagree: I argue you'd love those higher level spells if you could get them but you rather just make do with what you have if you choose to play a Duskblade. Purely power-wise, higher level spells and lower BAB is of course much stronger than the corollary - 9th level spells are still the strongest non-epic thing in the game world in any 3.X system (3.0, 3.5, PF), and the spell levels scale pretty quickly in terms of power. Duskblade is more a sufficiently good warrior with some casting rather than the opposite; it doesn't really play the same game as real casters (as his list misses out on the key spells that allow magic to break so many of the limitations in the game) but it's good enough to keep up with mundanes so the class is rather appropriate for many groups.

Lacking access to e.g. Shapechange, Polymorph Any Object, Contingency, Moment of Prescience, Celerity, Greater Mirror Image, Greater Dispel, Disjunction, Time Stop, Bite of the WereX, Simulacrum/Planar Binding/Animate Dead (mount, mostly; flank buddies and support casters help too tho), etc. is a downside: the class's spell list isn't nearly as good as Wizard's even for pure gishing and fighting. Whether that's a failing of the Wizard or the Duskblade is a matter of opinion, of course. Either way, a gish going for 9s is ultimately gonna be stronger than a gish using a gish-in-a-can class (giving up 9s) in either PF or 3.5, but gish-in-a-can classes generally have significant advantages en route and have a more natural gishy feel to them straight out of the box, which has significant advantages in the 1-9 region in particular.

[Snowbluff]

I agree that there's no necessity to have one style of the other.

That said, a least from my experience, most battlemages (of any flavor, so including paladins and dark/death knights and so on) I see in fiction are the sorts that actively mix spells and combat simultaneously, rather than the buff-and-beatdown type of gish.

And it's a shame that 3.5 is so terrible at emulating the first concept.



And it's a shame that 3.5 is so terrible at emulating the first concept. Yeah, it's not like we could do that with the long list of options that literally let you do the two simultaneously, or any of the ones that let us do both on the same turn.

Not mention if you subscribe to the "Gish-in-a-Can don't need the qualifier and are real gish we swear," you actually miss out on that ability, since the most powerful and impressive spells are available to real gish. No Storms of Vengeance or Avalanches for you. Gish were originally envisioned as a wizard with the ability to stab as a backup option anyway, it's just that buffing is more common and easier.

After that, everyone should be against the idea that Gish-in-a-Can follows the same rules and ideas as a regular/true/proper gish. The 16 BAB and 9 Spells is goal for creating something generally optimized, but the involvement of constructing one is on an entirely different level, and it's best not to conflate the two by changing monikers.

[CharonsHelper]

I agree that there's no necessity to have one style of the other.

That said, a least from my experience, most battlemages (of any flavor, so including paladins and dark/death knights and so on) I see in fiction are the sorts that actively mix spells and combat simultaneously, rather than the buff-and-beatdown type of gish.

And it's a shame that 3.5 is so terrible at emulating the first concept.

So... you're looking for Pathfinder's magus?

[Psyren]

Snowbluff, as usual, we'll have to agree to disagree.

So how about them archers, eh?

[Florian]

So how about them archers, eh?

Like always, it will depend on the existance of higher OP stuff like regular Pounce or Ubercharger abilities. Archery is viable in 3.5 when it is the only way to full attack from the get-go.

[nedz]

I disagree: I argue you'd love those higher level spells if you could get them but you rather just make do with what you have if you choose to play a Duskblade. Purely power-wise, higher level spells and lower BAB is of course much stronger than the corollary - 9th level spells are still the strongest non-epic thing in the game world in any 3.X system (3.0, 3.5, PF), and the spell levels scale pretty quickly in terms of power. Duskblade is more a sufficiently good warrior with some casting rather than the opposite; it doesn't really play the same game as real casters (as his list misses out on the key spells that allow magic to break so many of the limitations in the game) but it's good enough to keep up with mundanes so the class is rather appropriate for many groups.

Lacking access to e.g. Shapechange, Polymorph Any Object, Contingency, Moment of Prescience, Celerity, Greater Mirror Image, Greater Dispel, Disjunction, Time Stop, Bite of the WereX, Simulacrum/Planar Binding/Animate Dead (mount, mostly; flank buddies and support casters help too tho), etc. is a downside: the class's spell list isn't nearly as good as Wizard's even for pure gishing and fighting. Whether that's a failing of the Wizard or the Duskblade is a matter of opinion, of course. Either way, a gish going for 9s is ultimately gonna be stronger than a gish using a gish-in-a-can class (giving up 9s) in either PF or 3.5, but gish-in-a-can classes generally have significant advantages en route and have a more natural gishy feel to them straight out of the box, which has significant advantages in the 1-9 region in particular.
Fair points, but most of the spells you need to Gish are in the level 1-5 range. The higher level spells you list are ones any old high level wizard can use should they feel the need to hit things. In high level play access to diverse high level spells opens up other options which you often need, but that is not about Gishing really.
And yes, Duskblade is short of many options: sustained flight for one.

[COLOR="#0000FF"]After that, everyone should be against the idea that Gish-in-a-Can follows the same rules and ideas as a regular/true/proper gish. The 16 BAB and 9 Spells is goal for creating something generally optimized, but the involvement of constructing one is on an entirely different level, and it's best not to conflate the two by changing monikers.
I thought that the metric was mainly used to do a quick sanity check whenever someone posted a "Look at my new fantastic Gish build": it is just a RoT after all.

[LoyalPaladin]

Swiftblades are like Ferraris,
Duskblades are like Porches,
DFI Bards are like a hot hatch with a Boombox,
and Mystic Rangers are like Land Rovers.
Paladins are like humvees. Not the fastest, not the most economic, but we do our job.

[Flickerdart]

Paladins are like humvees. Not the fastest, not the most economic, but we do our job.
And flip at the smallest opportunity? :smalltongue:

[LoyalPaladin]

And flip at the smallest opportunity? :smalltongue:
Definitely. But hey, we still function afterwards!

[AMFV]

Paladins are like humvees. Not the fastest, not the most economic, but we do our job.

Oh, and you have to get a Paladin licence but most people avoid it, since once you have one, then you'll always have to be doing Paladin stuff on the weekend at like 4 AM.

[LoyalPaladin]

Oh, and you have to get a Paladin licence but most people avoid it, since once you have one, then you'll always have to be doing Paladin stuff on the weekend at like 4 AM.
This is funny, because last Friday I was up until about 4am. Out on the town doing... not paladin... stuff. Don't question it.

[Seward]

To be fair I think both extremes are probably wrong. You don't need to be able to cast and attack simultaneously to be seen as competent at both (see CoDZilla and Druid), you can have a perfectly serviceable gish who does one and then the other

Indeed. I have a gish that mainly is intended to do dimensional dervish stuff with a million natural attacks in the mid levels, but her dex is very low (you can't be strong, tough, charismatic without dumping something and she needs 13 int for enough skill points to support social skills and for a key feat). So she relies on burning things with fire when she needs to work at range (or supplying some of the buffs she normally has for herself to other people). She's a very one-note blaster, but when fire doen't work....she's a gish. She hits hard. All the stuff that helps her be a decent gish also adds a fair bit of utility. Tier 3 to be sure, but a lot of fun. Were she to play to 20, she'd have level 9 spells but not 16 BAB - she relies on natural attacks, not iterative attacks, and extremely high strength so BAB isn't as important.

[AMFV]

This is funny, because last Friday I was up until about 4am. Out on the town doing... not paladin... stuff. Don't question it.

Yes, which you wouldn't have been able to do if you had to go to the Paladin Motor Pool to pick up a Paladin at 4 AM. And if you don't all have Paladin Licenses when you have to go to the range, you might be able to get to use an actual van instead of a Paladin.