Chameleon archer?

[danielxcutter]

I hear that the Chameleon prestige class(from Races of Destiny) is good for making an archer build. I can see why - for one, they can cherry-pick lots of spells that support ranged attacks, and for another, they can swap out their bonus feat every day, among others.

Could someone help me with this?

Entry classes are important... let's say Rogue 1/Ranger 2/Totemist 2. That allows Sneak Attack support such as Sniper's Shot, Rapid Shot and Track as bonus feats, and a bit of fun with Incarnum goodies.


Traditional or crossbows?

On one hand, tradtional archery - that is, using bows - uses less feats, has a bit more support(such as Hunter's Mercy), and gets your full Strength bonus to damage with the right composite longbow. On the other hand, crossbow archery allows Crossbow Sniper, which adds half of your Dex bonus to damage and upps the range of precision damage up to 60 feet, and you don't have to worry about getting specifc bows like Bow of the Wintermoon or Hank's Energy Bow.

What do you guys think?


Arcane or divine?

Should I mostly use Arcane Focus, or Divine Focus? Obviously I should be using both when I get Double Apitude at Chameleon 7, but before then I can only have one up per day.

I think that Divine Focus might be a bit better, but I'm not positive. What do you guys think?


Items?

What items should I grab? Boni to ranged attacks and Sneak Attack are great, and I'm sure there are quite a few great gems in the right books.



Any other advice is welcome, too.

[Crake]

Who lied to you and said chameleons could be good archers?

Edit: Jokes aside, spellcasters who rely on spells to make their archery good kinda defeat the purpose of archery, being able to pump out sustained, consistent damage at range. If you're gonna use spells to boost your archery, why not just instead use those spells on the enemy, or cast those spells on a dedicated archer? Totemist also does little to add to archery, so i'm not sure why you picked that, beyond trying to add to your utility, despite that being practically everything that chameleons are about already.

[danielxcutter]

Who lied to you and said chameleons could be good archers?

Edit: Jokes aside, spellcasters who rely on spells to make their archery good kinda defeat the purpose of archery, being able to pump out sustained, consistent damage at range. If you're gonna use spells to boost your archery, why not just instead use those spells on the enemy, or cast those spells on a dedicated archer? Totemist also does little to add to archery, so i'm not sure why you picked that, beyond trying to add to your utility, despite that being practically everything that chameleons are about already.

I thought the purpose of archery was to make a character who shoots arrows in combat. :smallbiggrin:

On a more serious note, why not? By that logic, doesn't that mean all gish characters are pointless?

After all, you can play a caster or a pure beatstick instead. Yes, full casters are more optimal, but some of us like being able to provide our own damn buffs, thank you very much.

As for Totemist, that's for Incarnum support. Incarnate is better, true, since you get native access to Sighting Gloves and it fits the "swap your skillset out daily" schtick of Chameleons, but Totemist still works okay. Great Raptor Mask gives a bonus to Spot, and when bound to Totem gives Evasion, for example.

It's not the most optimal choice, yes, but it does the job.

[Crake]

I thought the purpose of archery was to make a character who shoots arrows in combat. :smallbiggrin:

On a more serious note, why not? By that logic, doesn't that mean all gish characters are pointless?

After all, you can play a caster or a pure beatstick instead. Yes, full casters are more optimal, but some of us like being able to provide our own damn buffs, thank you very much.

As for Totemist, that's for Incarnum support. Incarnate is better, true, since you get native access to Sighting Gloves and it fits the "swap your skillset out daily" schtick of Chameleons, but Totemist still works okay. Great Raptor Mask gives a bonus to Spot, and when bound to Totem gives Evasion, for example.

It's not the most optimal choice, yes, but it does the job.

My point was more that you sacrifice too much in terms of combat efficacy for utility. Chameleon's can make very versatile spellcasters, having out of the box access to double 6s, including the best access to spell lists in the entire game, but their spells per day aren't exactly massive within the early to mid game levels. Sure, maybe it'll ramp up near the end and become on par with a pure archer, but unless you're starting there, the gruelling path to that point will be very mediocre.

Typically gishes are made to be better than their mundane counterparts, even if some would say they're worse than their pure spellcasting cousins, though the difference in my opinion is slight, and worth it for the flavour. But a chameleon seems to end up worse as an archer than say, a pure archer would.

Take a look at your build level by level, and look at the attack bonuses you'd expect, the damage you'd expect, consider things like damage reduction, how many spells you'd need to spend, how many rounds buffing, how many combats per day would you be able to fight at that effective power, and for how long.

Look for example, at your bab at level 6. You'd have 3 bab. You wouldn't even have 6 bab until level 9, when you can finally get manyshot (via your level 9 feat) and improved manyshot (via your floating bonus feat) to allow you to volley from invisibility and actually get more than 1 sneak attack. And even then, you'd be limited to the number of invisibilities you can cast per day, and be stuck with the same floating bonus feat day after day until level 12, when you can finally get improved manyshot innately.

And that's at the mid levels. At the early levels, you're a) forced to be a human, and b) need to spend your bonus feat on able learner, so levels 1 and 2 you'll be enjoying the chunky -8 for shooting through allies and into combat for 90% of your shots while you wait for precise shot at level 3, at which point you can eliminate -4 for shooting into melee, and as soon as you can pick up goggles of foefinding, to remove the -4 for shooting through allies, aka soft cover (really it's actually +4 AC to your target, which goggles of foefinding lets you ignore, along with all other cover AC bonuses, basically half the benefit of improved precise shot, the other half being possible to overcome with the seeking enchantment, one I would recommend if you're going to use sneak attack).

You could still achieve this by, for example, using the feat rogue at level 1, and picking up sneak attack fighter at some point, perhaps even 2 levels of feat rogue for evasion, and 1 level of sneak attack fighter, instead of rogue 1/ranger 2. That would at least let you get point blank shot and precise shot at level 1, and then at level 2 of feat rogue, you could pick up rapid shot, and with your level 3 feat pick up craven to boost your sneak attack damage.

I guess the real question is though, what does chamelon offer you, beyond spells that will run out really quickly due to the chameleon's really tiny pool of spells per day, that help you become a better archer. A sorcerer would at least offer cha synergy with charm the arrow, though I suppose you could do the same with wis synergy and zen archery, focusing on chameleon divine spellcasting? That way you would significantly reduce your MADness, eliminating dex from your requirements, though str would still be necessary for damage.

Edit: I want to make it clear that I'm not at any point saying that you can't make an effective chameleon archer, the point I'm contesting is your statement that they are "good for making an archer build", which I disagree with due to their lack of benefits to an archer. Based on my knowledge of the chameleon class, it does very little to add to your ability to be an archer.

[danielxcutter]

My point was more that you sacrifice too much in terms of combat efficacy for utility. Chameleon's can make very versatile spellcasters, having out of the box access to double 6s, including the best access to spell lists in the entire game, but their spells per day aren't exactly massive within the early to mid game levels. Sure, maybe it'll ramp up near the end and become on par with a pure archer, but unless you're starting there, the gruelling path to that point will be very mediocre.

To a point, yes, Chameleons are pretty back-loaded. I admit that. How do they compare to a Ranger, or maybe an Assassin? Those seem like fair measuring sticks, especially since an archer Chameleon will likely pull a lot from both lists. Rangers have a lot of good archery spells.


Typically gishes are made to be better than their mundane counterparts, even if some would say they're worse than their pure spellcasting cousins, though the difference in my opinion is slight, and worth it for the flavour. But a chameleon seems to end up worse as an archer than say, a pure archer would.

Take a look at your build level by level, and look at the attack bonuses you'd expect, the damage you'd expect, consider things like damage reduction, how many spells you'd need to spend, how many rounds buffing, how many combats per day would you be able to fight at that effective power, and for how long.

Well, at the first few levels I suppose Chameleons aren't that great. At all. That extends to everything, however, so it's not really archer specific. If you mean they're bad in general at that stage, though...


Look for example, at your bab at level 6. You'd have 3 bab. You wouldn't even have 6 bab until level 9, when you can finally get manyshot (via your level 9 feat) and improved manyshot (via your floating bonus feat) to allow you to volley from invisibility and actually get more than 1 sneak attack. And even then, you'd be limited to the number of invisibilities you can cast per day, and be stuck with the same floating bonus feat day after day until level 12, when you can finally get improved manyshot innately.

Um... actually Manyshot sucks a lot. Most archers go with full attack + Rapid Shot I think, especially ones that deal precision damage. Which this build does, since there's a level of Rogue to qualify for Craven. If I wanted to use Manyshot I'd be a Psychic Warrior with Fell Shot.

Also a 6th level Rogue has +4 BAB at that level, only one point's difference. Rogues do deal more Sneak Attack damage though.


And that's at the mid levels. At the early levels, you're a) forced to be a human, and b) need to spend your bonus feat on able learner, so levels 1 and 2 you'll be enjoying the chunky -8 for shooting through allies and into combat for 90% of your shots while you wait for precise shot at level 3, at which point you can eliminate -4 for shooting into melee, and as soon as you can pick up goggles of foefinding, to remove the -4 for shooting through allies, aka soft cover (really it's actually +4 AC to your target, which goggles of foefinding lets you ignore, along with all other cover AC bonuses, basically half the benefit of improved precise shot, the other half being possible to overcome with the seeking enchantment, one I would recommend if you're going to use sneak attack).

Well, point taken, but I exclusively play PbPs on this forum. Most don't start that early. And as I said, Chameleons are really back-loaded, so I wouldn't play that kind of build unless the starting ECL was 7~8ish at least.


You could still achieve this by, for example, using the feat rogue at level 1, and picking up sneak attack fighter at some point, perhaps even 2 levels of feat rogue for evasion, and 1 level of sneak attack fighter, instead of rogue 1/ranger 2. That would at least let you get point blank shot and precise shot at level 1, and then at level 2 of feat rogue, you could pick up rapid shot, and with your level 3 feat pick up craven to boost your sneak attack damage.


I guess the real question is though, what does chamelon offer you, beyond spells that will run out really quickly due to the chameleon's really tiny pool of spells per day, that help you become a better archer. A sorcerer would at least offer cha synergy with charm the arrow, though I suppose you could do the same with wis synergy and zen archery, focusing on chameleon divine spellcasting? That way you would significantly reduce your MADness, eliminating dex from your requirements, though str would still be necessary for damage.

Hmm... Nah. Most archery feats need Dex anyways. I'd probably start with about 14 Wis and pump that up with level-up bonuses, tomes, and items.


Edit: I want to make it clear that I'm not at any point saying that you can't make an effective chameleon archer, the point I'm contesting is your statement that they are "good for making an archer build", which I disagree with due to their lack of benefits to an archer. Based on my knowledge of the chameleon class, it does very little to add to your ability to be an archer.

It's not that clear, but I get it. I agree that they're rather poor choices at lower levels, but I think they'd be pretty good at mid-to-high levels. Especially after getting Double Apitude, though that's ECL 12 at the earliest I guess. I'd play one in a higher-level game.

[Menzath]

While I do agree with some of what is being said, I obviously don't agree with a large portion of the rest.

The biggest issues I see are what you are doing before you enter chameleon.
The only reasons to do incarnum classes is to either reduce your need of magic gear, or to get manticore belt for easy ranged attacks.
Yes ranger gets you the archery styles and BaB, but not really anything else.
Rogue nets you a very minor amount of sneak attack, not worth it until you can make multiple attacks.

So all in all you seem to be spreading out to early on instead of focusing on key aspects.

Something like fighter 2/bard 3 would net you slightly higher BaB, 1 extra feat, and opens up a meta-magic reducer if you get metamagic song. Socrerers, although they are a power House of magic, would be a worse choice because of far lower skill points and BaB. If you went totemist, I'd take it all the way up to chameleon entry, with maybe a dip into binder .

Now for the obligatory link

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

[danielxcutter]

While I do agree with some of what is being said, I obviously don't agree with a large portion of the rest.

The biggest issues I see are what you are doing before you enter chameleon.

Fair. Early level power wasn't exactly a priority for this build.


The only reasons to do incarnum classes is to either reduce your need of magic gear, or to get manticore belt for easy ranged attacks.

Main reasons, I suppose, but not exactly "only". There are items that you can invest essentia in, for example, and there are all those Incarnum feats, like Azure Emnity. Only one favored enemy, yes, but Arcane Hunter is a thing.


Yes ranger gets you the archery styles and BaB, but not really anything else.

Some skills, Track, good Fortitude and Reflex saves, and Ranger wands of CLW without a UMD check. Rapid Shot and the BAB are the major pulls though, you're right about that.


Rogue nets you a very minor amount of sneak attack, not worth it until you can make multiple attacks.

That's to qualify for Craven. The bonus damage = character level, after all.


So all in all you seem to be spreading out to early on instead of focusing on key aspects.

Well, you're not that wrong... as I said, it's not really made for consideration for early levels.


Something like fighter 2/bard 3 would net you slightly higher BaB, 1 extra feat, and opens up a meta-magic reducer if you get metamagic song. Socrerers, although they are a power House of magic, would be a worse choice because of far lower skill points and BaB. If you went totemist, I'd take it all the way up to chameleon entry, with maybe a dip into binder.

If I wanted to optimize, I'd have gone Rogue 1/Totemist 2/Incarnate 2 or Rogue 1/Incarnate 2/Binder 2. The first has a pretty big essentia pool and a metric buttload of soulmelds, and the latter can completely overhaul the skillset to the point of essentially being a new character.


Now for the obligatory link

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

I already know about this and there isn't much I'm looking for right now. Might check it again, though.

[Crake]

To a point, yes, Chameleons are pretty back-loaded. I admit that. How do they compare to a Ranger, or maybe an Assassin? Those seem like fair measuring sticks, especially since an archer Chameleon will likely pull a lot from both lists. Rangers have a lot of good archery spells.

Archers and assassins do indeed have a lot of good combat buff spells, however, they don't require those spells do their thing, wheras I feel like your chameleon archer would rely on those spells to remain actively competitive.


Well, at the first few levels I suppose Chameleons aren't that great. At all. That extends to everything, however, so it's not really archer specific. If you mean they're bad in general at that stage, though...

The first two levels of chameleon is where you get your biggest asset in my opinion: the floating bonus feat. However, the floating bonus feat doesn't particularly lend much usefulness to an archer except getting a single feat earlier, which doesn't really utilize the full benefit of the feat.


Um... actually Manyshot sucks a lot. Most archers go with full attack + Rapid Shot I think, especially ones that deal precision damage. Which this build does, since there's a level of Rogue to qualify for Craven. If I wanted to use Manyshot I'd be a Psychic Warrior with Fell Shot.

Also a 6th level Rogue has +4 BAB at that level, only one point's difference. Rogues do deal more Sneak Attack damage though.

It was less manyshot, and more greater manyshot. Greater manyshot is explicitly a volley attack that applies precision damage to each individual arrow. As a volley attack, all the attacks will apply at the same time, which means a single normal invisibility spell will allow all of your shots to connect with sneak attack damage, as opposed to needing greater invisibility for a rapid shot full attack.


Well, point taken, but I exclusively play PbPs on this forum. Most don't start that early. And as I said, Chameleons are really back-loaded, so I wouldn't play that kind of build unless the starting ECL was 7~8ish at least.

I can't really say much for that, all my games start at level 1, so I tend to always judge builds throughout their leveling sequence. A build that's fairly under-par for the early levels doesn't qualify to me as a good build.


Hmm... Nah. Most archery feats need Dex anyways. I'd probably start with about 14 Wis and pump that up with level-up bonuses, tomes, and items.

That is a fair point, most of the good archery feats come with a dex requirement.


It's not that clear, but I get it. I agree that they're rather poor choices at lower levels, but I think they'd be pretty good at mid-to-high levels. Especially after getting Double Apitude, though that's ECL 12 at the earliest I guess. I'd play one in a higher-level game.

Honestly, aside from a few key spell choices, which can be duplicated with UMD and some wands, chameleon just doesn't add enough to archery for me to consider it a "good" archery class. If archery was just a side consideration, and your main goal was utility, versatility and variety, then I would be all for chameleon, but if your main goal and focus is archery, chameleon just doesn't fit.

[danielxcutter]

Archers and assassins do indeed have a lot of good combat buff spells, however, they don't require those spells do their thing, wheras I feel like your chameleon archer would rely on those spells to remain actively competitive.

For the first few levels, absolutely. Less so at higher levels, but spells are still a major part.


The first two levels of chameleon is where you get your biggest asset in my opinion: the floating bonus feat. However, the floating bonus feat doesn't particularly lend much usefulness to an archer except getting a single feat earlier, which doesn't really utilize the full benefit of the feat.

Depends on the spell. Shape Soulmeld, anyone?


It was less manyshot, and more greater manyshot. Greater manyshot is explicitly a volley attack that applies precision damage to each individual arrow. As a volley attack, all the attacks will apply at the same time, which means a single normal invisibility spell will allow all of your shots to connect with sneak attack damage, as opposed to needing greater invisibility for a rapid shot full attack.

A common mistake is trying to always trigger sneak attack. A *very* common one.

I don't think I'll have to.


I can't really say much for that, all my games start at level 1, so I tend to always judge builds throughout their leveling sequence. A build that's fairly under-par for the early levels doesn't qualify to me as a good build.

YMMV.


That is a fair point, most of the good archery feats come with a dex requirement.

That and the existance of Divine Agility.


Honestly, aside from a few key spell choices, which can be duplicated with UMD and some wands, chameleon just doesn't add enough to archery for me to consider it a "good" archery class. If archery was just a side consideration, and your main goal was utility, versatility and variety, then I would be all for chameleon, but if your main goal and focus is archery, chameleon just doesn't fit.

In combat. I agree that Chameleons take a while to be good at combat.

[ayvango]

If you're gonna use spells to boost your archery, why not just instead use those spells on the enemy

Because you can use bows from mile away, and you never would be able to cast offensive spells from such range.


or cast those spells on a dedicated archer?
What prohibit a mage from becoming dedicated archer? Unseen seer progresses mage sneak attack and gives him access to rangers spells for improving sneak attack further.

Mage archer polymorphed into Arrow Demon performs way better any other mundane one.

[Zaq]

I don't think that archery is the best way to take advantage of a Chameleon's strengths. Chameleon is interesting because it's stupidly flexible, right? In practice, you'll still likely favor a certain setup or a small number of setups, but if you're not ever changing, then you're kind of wasting your time, since it's very likely that you'd be more effective as whatever you're pretending to be than as a Chameleon pretending to be that thing. And archery, as has been mentioned, takes an obnoxious number of feats to get it off the ground, not to mention a fairly specific stat/gear setup. So to be honest, unless you've got some kind of shenanigans up your sleeve, I can't see archery being as good on a Chameleon as a more plug-and-play fighting style might be.

(I'm reminded of an Iron Chef build I once judged. The secret ingredient had a racial requirement, and the entry I'm thinking about went changeling, took Racial Emulation, and made a big deal about how they weren't the required race, but they were constantly PRETENDING to be the required race, so it still worked. And by RAW, it 100% did work. But I remember penalizing them in Elegance because they didn't actually gain any specific benefit from being a changeling instead of the race in question, so all the time and effort they put into making a flawless copy of the required race could have been saved by just being the race—and since half the build would collapse if they pretended to be something different, they really just seemed, to my eyes, to be going for a shameless Originality grab.)

Now, you've explicitly said that you aren't terribly interested in the early game, which is a valid perspective to have. That said, I have an anecdote about an early-game Chameleon, so I'm going to share it. My old Binder/Incarnate/Chameleon that I never shut up about (and since I see you've got a similar build stub as a potential entry, you've obviously had a similar idea) did have a "pretend Ranger/archer" setup that I used once or twice. Something like Leraje, Bluesteel Bracers, Sighting Gloves, [Chaotic] Incarnate Avatar, and I think either Combat Focus or Wild Focus. (This was years ago, so I don't remember if I could have all of those things active at once, but I only had I think one level of Chameleon at the time, so this was definitely early on.)

And when you get down to it, that setup isn't much. It's basically Precise Shot (which isn't actually an "I'm good at this!" ability so much as an "I'm avoiding an obnoxious and arbitrary penalty!" ability), the ability to hit two adjacent foes, and a handful of bonuses to hit and damage. Which isn't really enough to build a character around. No firing multiple times at one opponent, no damage bonuses on par with Sneak Attack (with or without Craven), nothing like that—pretty much just basic competence from the perspective of a very low-level party. It was fun at the table because the previous day had me pretending to be a Wizard or something, and the party hadn't yet figured out exactly how my character worked at that point, so the ability to roughly match the firepower of the actual Ranger seemed impressive when it came out of nowhere (though to be fair, the actual Ranger was playing a remarkably unimpressive build). So I've played with a Chameleon doing the "dabbling in archery" thing, and it almost worked for about one adventuring day, but it would utterly fail to scale. No Rapid Shot, low enough BAB to delay iteratives, poor scaling on the damage bonuses, and no real ways to add additional tricks to what I was doing.

You'd probably be doing it differently. You mentioned using Chameleon spells, and while I agree with the consensus that you aren't likely to have enough spells per day (or enough CL, for that matter) to feel like a caster-archer all day every day, spells can help quite a bit (if nothing else, a well-placed Hunter's Mercy is flashy). That's really the one thing that a Chameleon archer might be able to do that other classes can't trivially match—you can pull together Ranger spells and Justice of Weald and Woe spells and Cleric spells and stuff like that, and unlike the Archivist, you don't have to get the GM to allow you to find scrolls of them. So I guess that's one trick that you've got in your favor, at least once you've got enough levels under your belt to be able to not run out of mojo by 10 AM. If you go that route, you're not concerned with the Chameleon being able to change focus so much as the fact that the devs used the dreaded "A" word ("ANY") when writing Divine Focus. You'd have to run the numbers on the actual build to see if you'd be better off by being an actual Ranger (especially if Mystic Ranger is on the table, though it often isn't) or an Archivist or an Unseen Seer or whatever, but it's something.

Overall, though, it really depends on why you want to make a Chameleon be an archer. If you just want unrestricted access to obscure spell lists, then you might be on to something. If you think you can pull off pretending to be different classes, though, it's unlikely that you'll have enough feats to match what you're trying to do.

[Eldariel]

Yeah, Chameleon archers are incredible. Double up on Arcane and Divine Focus, add spells like Minor Creation (poisons), Arrowsplit (and Champions of Ruin Ranger-stuff in general; you get ANY divine spells), Flame Arrow (plus metamagic if applicable), Find the Gap, Hunter's Eye (don't forget your awesome caster level), various Guided Shot-sorta things (if you can persist them, all the better; Easy Metamagic + 6th level slots or DMM seem like the best options, though you could always learn Spelldancer stuff too), Hunter's Mercy, Greater Magic Weapon, etc. You can also use normal buffs like Divine Power, Greater Invisibility, Enlarge Person, (Draconic) Polymorph, Greater Blinking, etc. to add to your volleys. And stuff like Heroics, Master's Touch and company to help in that department. Hell, you even get Brilliant Blade from Wizard-side to shoot at things through walls and you can use Scrying, Mindsight (plus Polymorph into Formian Queen or such for 50mile mindsight) or such to locate your targets. And of course, you can do all the normal caster stuff too.

The previous levels, well there's always Factotum 8 with Manyshot to slam volley after volley into someone's backside (real archers don't need precision damage to compete) with the extra standard actions and that's pretty easy to pick up since you need little from the previous levels. You could of course get more casting or perhaps feats or such. But yeah, definitely solid: just use Chameleon as a 10-level double caster and go from there. Rapid Refocus and Mimic Class Feature do lend you some solid versatility while at it. And Competence bonus for bonus spells, or on top of your Polymorph-stats is definitely nice.


It's not quite as strong as a well-built full caster/theurge archer, but that's not a bad place to be at. The floating bonus feat means you can craft everything you need and use Manyshot as desired without actually having the feat. And few other uses, though it's certainly not quite at its best in this build as such. But yeah, level 8 means you start with one class worth of 3rd level spells so make your pick. You don't really need physicals that much eventually: you get Polymorph in two levels, but at this point some numbers are nice. Make sure you invest well into your caster stats and perhaps get Knowledge Devotion too. I recommend Divine focus and using mostly Ranger-spells at this point and going from there.

Whatever you do, pick up dual casting (level 7 Cham, ECL 12) first and finish something like Factotum 6-8 after that (details depend on what you do with the early levels - Cloistered Cleric dip for Devotions would be nice for instance). Cham 9 for 6th level spells is big game too - though they're a bit late on 14th level, they're more than able to augment your archery in a myriad of ways.

EDIT: For Polymorphing, being an Outsider (e.g. the Otherworldly feat or some human heritage race) nets you the ability to change into an Arrow Demon that can dualwield Bows. Just stats are a nice bonus though.

[ATHATH]

Don't forget that the Trapsmith spell list is a thing. Haste as a 1st level spell? Yes please.

[prototype00]

This thread actually made me wonder what role would fit a Chameleon the best?

They are decent Gishes - Melee is easier than ranged to optimize quickly.

Support is okay, with early access to Haste or dispel/greater dispel.

Blasting is... okay because they can potentially have a large spell list of low level spells, but save or die is actually a pretty good choice (especially if you use spells that don't have the "save" part like Shivering Touch).

Hmm...

prototype00

[Zaq]

Don't forget that the Trapsmith spell list is a thing. Haste as a 1st level spell? Yes please.

On mobile so I don't have the book open, but isn't it true that you have to scribe the arcane spells into a spellbook first, while you simply have the divine spells? I mean, if your GM allows you to find a written copy of level 1 Trapsmith Haste and scribe it, more power to you, but when I played my Chameleon years ago, I distinctly recall having some difficulty getting a wide variety of arcane spells to scribe. (And not because the GM was intentionally restricting them or anything—it's actually remarkably awkward to enter Chameleon during actual gameplay and suddenly have to fill an empty spellbook that you arguably can't have started filling before taking the class.)

[prototype00]

On mobile so I don't have the book open, but isn't it true that you have to scribe the arcane spells into a spellbook first, while you simply have the divine spells? I mean, if your GM allows you to find a written copy of level 1 Trapsmith Haste and scribe it, more power to you, but when I played my Chameleon years ago, I distinctly recall having some difficulty getting a wide variety of arcane spells to scribe. (And not because the GM was intentionally restricting them or anything—it's actually remarkably awkward to enter Chameleon during actual gameplay and suddenly have to fill an empty spellbook that you arguably can't have started filling before taking the class.)

Extra Spell in your Floating Feat slot, just keep switching it out every day until your spellbook is full up to n-1 level spells (where n=highest level of spells you can cast). Wizards "Knowing" a spell means it's in their spellbook.

prototype00

[Snowbluff]

Well, they can get arrowsplit natively. You can abuse Arcane archer ( though you'll need a dip in an arcane class) to get arrow split spell duplication.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Extra Spell in your Floating Feat slot, just keep switching it out every day until your spellbook is full up to n-1 level spells (where n=highest level of spells you can cast). Wizards "Knowing" a spell means it's in their spellbook.

prototype00
Even if it doesn't auto-scribe, floating Extra Spell is a good way to access obscure arcane spells like the Trapsmith stuff.

[prototype00]

Even if it doesn't auto-scribe, floating Extra Spell is a good way to access obscure arcane spells like the Trapsmith stuff.

How does a prepared caster with a spellbook like a Wizard "know" a spell without having it in their spellbook I've always wondered.

[danielxcutter]

How does a prepared caster with a spellbook like a Wizard "know" a spell without having it in their spellbook I've always wondered.

Extra Spell is... weird. WotC have said multiple times that you can only use it to get spells already on your list - which lots of handbooks seem to willingly ignore - but Chameleons can literally learn any arcane spell despite not knowing any when they first start. It's a DM call I think.

[Crake]

How does a prepared caster with a spellbook like a Wizard "know" a spell without having it in their spellbook I've always wondered.

By the dnd 3.5 glossary definition of a "known spell", for wizards, a spell is considered known if it is written in your spellbook, so by that logic the feat must scribe it. Thus, for a chameleon, getting extra spell, you literally get a new spell in your spellbook. This is very nice for chameleons, since they get a floating bonus feat that they can change every day, and presumably, once a spell is in your spellbook it stays there, so every day that they don't need their floating bonus feat they can scribe another spell in their spellbook. A neat little trick as well is to pick up a feat like snowcasting or sanctum spell to increase your effective maximum spell level that you can cast by 1, allowing you to scribe spells up to your highest spell slots available.

The only problem with this is that to qualify for extra spell, you need a caster level of 3, and none of the chameleon's class features can be used to qualify as pre-requisites for anything, so you need to have gotten CL3 from one of your first 5 class levels. My personal favourite entry is factotum 3/cloistered cleric 1/eidetic wizard 1

The domains and turning from cloistered cleric can be used in a myriad of ways (and the floating bonus feat can be used to pick up an of the variety of turn-fuelled feats), the eidetic wizard gives you an immaterial spellbook that you can add to via extra spell on your days off, eventually having every arcane spell ever in your mind, and the factotum 3 provides a tonne of int synergy with arcane focus, as well as the CL3 necessary to obtain extra spell (since SLA caster level counts for "caster level X" pre-requisites).

There are further shenannigans capable with that setup, namely involving using the floating bonus feat to leapfrog the extra slot feat into getting dual 9ths on a chameleon, but i've heard that be described as fine, aged swiss cheddar, so probably doesn't belong in this thread when we're talking about something as simple as making an archer.

[danielxcutter]

Cheese is a big problem, yes, and there's also the problem of having to sink resources to do that. Especially feats; archery needs lots of them.

[Crake]

Cheese is a big problem, yes, and there's also the problem of having to sink resources to do that. Especially feats; archery needs lots of them.

well, if you're alright with cheese, and you're basically starting at mid-high levels anyway, then having double 9ths at 12th level lets you play about with heroics and DCFS to get all the feats you could ever want. You could even use DCFS to get feats you wouldn't normally qualify for, like improved precise shot, by having divine power up at the time. Of course, you'd stop gaining the feats as soon as divine power dropped, but you would still have them, meaning as soon as you cast divine power again, they'd all immediate come back online.

But again, that's like.... suuuuper cheddar. Even if you only did the leap frogging with feats for dual 9s at 12th though, you could then go back and DCFS all the feats you had to invest in earlier (rather than generating new feats) into useful things for archery. That is one of the benefits of starting at high levels already, you can ignore the first 12 levels where you were completely incapable of doing archery at all, and jump right to the level where you go from 0 capability to 100% capability.