[3.5] Building something like a Diablo 3 Demon Hunter

[AnimeTheCat]

So, I think I've got a pretty solid idea of feats to make something like a Demon Hunter from Diablo 3. For those who have not played the game, its a dual crossbow weilding, light armor wearing hunter type. The feats I know the character will need are:

Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Hand Crossbow)
Rapid Reload
Point Blank Shot
Rapid Shot
Two Weapon Fighting

This is the bare minimum feats I think are necessary to mechanically do what I want to make. The thing that I would like to query the audience for is, what classes are the best fit here? Some that pop in my head initially are Rogue (skills, EWP Hand Crossbow), Ranger (Moderate Skills, Free Rapid shot freeing up PBS), Fighter (Feats). Ranger seems to fit best in my mind, it's a good mix of skills and martial ability, but maybe I'm missing a better class.

What does the playground have to offer?

[inuyasha]

Everything about this screams ranger to me, easily. I think you've got it otherwise nailed, but if you (or your DM) allow pathfinder material, there's an option for crossbow-combat-styled rangers, and another for trading an animal companion for the possibility of a hunting party instead (granting half your favored enemy bonuses to members of your party)

[Menzath]

Sounds like ranger/cavestalker. Throw in something to make enchanted constructs if you want the traps, artificer? Could also work well in making specialty ammo.

[AnimeTheCat]

Everything about this screams ranger to me, easily. I think you've got it otherwise nailed, but if you (or your DM) allow pathfinder material, there's an option for crossbow-combat-styled rangers, and another for trading an animal companion for the possibility of a hunting party instead (granting half your favored enemy bonuses to members of your party)

This is primarily and Idea at the moment, but I'll keep that in mind for later.


Sounds like ranger/cavestalker. Throw in something to make enchanted constructs if you want the traps, artificer? Could also work well in making specialty ammo.

I was thinking maybe just taking Craft (trapmaking) for traps to be honst, but those wouldn't be enchanted. I tend to avoid artificer for PCs, but that doesn't mean it's not an option. Still doesn't really seem to fit in my opinion. I think more tools, tricks, and wit when I think of this, less magic and enchantment.

[tyckspoon]

Hand Crossbow Focus (Drow of the Underdark) would probably be useful - it's basically Rapid Reload plus a sort-of Weapon Focus (it's not Weapon Focus, but it gives the same bonus and counts as Weapon Focus for qualifying for other feats.) If you have access to Champions of Ruin and/or the Spell Compendium there's some nice spells in there for attack/arrow enhancements; Champions of Ruin has the Arrowsplit spell and the infamous Splitting enhancement based on it. It also has the Justice of Weald and Woe prestige class, which has a couple of sort of nice things like accelerated Ranger-style casting progression (with a spell list focused on those arrow-enhancing spells), Sneak Attack, and the ability to count as a Fighter for qualifying for Fighter-only feats.. and dual-wielded Rapid Fired possibly-Splitting/Arrowsplitted crossbows puts out a ton of shots at low per-hit damage, so Weapon Specialization/Ranged Weapon Mastery can actually be pretty helpful for your damage.

Note: Justice of Weald and Woe is built around using a Longbow. If I were to try this in a real game and not just a build idea/spitballing exercise, I would consider it a very reasonable request to ask my DM to change the Longbow based stuff in the class requirements and class features to pretty much any other ranged weapon - mechanically, the Longbow is pretty much the best ranged weapon already, so it'd be largely a matter of fluff and appearance to modify it to suit your preferred image.

[Sian]

Yeah, Ranger (swift hunter?) into Cavestalker is probably the mechanically most sound way of doing it

[Sagetim]

With 3.5, you might want to crack open the Tome of Battle and see what might work for supplementing your movement and attacking capabilities, if nothing else Shadow Hand maneuvers are going to help you get around, even if you aren't using them to melee. Dance of the Spider and Assassination Stance are going to be handy, and potentially something you can swing if you have enough feats open. Of course, taking later level dips of multiclassing into one of the base classes would probably give you more to work with, but the maneuvers would fit the feel of at least some of the demon hunter's abilities.

In Pathfinder, there's a trap variant of ranger that might fit the bill, and I would of course suggest mixing in some of the material from Path of War to get some abilities that have more of the beyond-normal feel that Demon Hunters (and all playable characters in Diablo 3) have.