Looking for build suggestions for a Siege engineer/Commander/Archer

[Farengar]

Ok, so, I am a total noob at 3.5. I've played a significant amount of Pathfinder games, but 3.5 is different enough both balance and mechanics-wise that i consider myself a noob. If you have any suggestions for non-core PHB things, please post names of locations or links or something, since I have no physical copies of any books myself. Now, on to the ACTUAL request.

Me and two others are making characters for a campaign we've dubbed the "Overlord" campaign, because the theme is going to be leading armies, conquering land, etc, in the service of an overlord that may or may not be overthrown by us at some point.
The campaign is meant to be making us POWERFUL eventually, so it starts at level 10 and is planned to go to level 40. There's very few limitations on races (Even monstrous), classes, settings and feats, and to emphasize, we are getting a feat every level instead of regular feat progression. Furthermore, all three of us get the Leadership feat for free. We also get our personal armies in addition to Leadership, starting off with 25 CR worth of creatures in any combination we'd like, which will obviously increase in size as we progress the campaign.

So far, I've settled on wanting to be the guy that does the siege engineering part, so leading siege weapon crews, sappers, setting up/repairing fortifications, for which the Expert Siege engineer feat, the Knowledge and profession skills and the Master siege engineer class should cover it decently.
I also want to be a competent commander, for which I've found the Legendary Leader PrC

Any suggestions on getting those concepts in even deeper are appreciated, however, my current main concern is to also have a role in combat outside of leading crews. I should also be a threat on my own, like a PC should be at these levels. I'm thinking of going the archery route, since my standard position will be near the siege engines or at fortifications, so that will allow me to pelt a battlefield with tons of arrows and take units down at a distance or focus-fire a major threat before it reaches anyone (Yay, extreme ranges actually happening for once)
And SHOULD people close in anyways, then I have my leadership guard and with the combat archery feat I can keep going too.


So far I'm thinking of going the following general build:
32 point buy for character generation

Human

10 STR
14 DEX (General archery focus)
10 CON
16 INT (For the necessary skill points and theme of being an engineer)
10 WIS
16 CHA (Commanding theme, as well as for diplomacy/intimidate/gather info/morale and rally checks)

Golarion Targetter Fighter 4/Legendary Leader 5/Master Siege Engineer 1

Fighter 1: Educated (1st level feat), Able learner (Human Feat), Point Blank Shot (Fighter Bonus feat)
Fighter 2: Vital Shot (Targetter bonus feat replacement), Rapid Shot (2nd level feat)
Fighter 3: Weapon Focus (Longbow) (3rd level feat)
Fighter 4: Weapon Specialisation (Fighter feat), Iron Will (4th level feat, prereq for Legendary Leader
L.L 1: Improved Followers (5th level feat)
L.L.2: Precise Shot (6th Level feat)
L.L.3: Manyshot (7th level feat), Natural Leader (Bonus feat)
L.L.4: Improved Rapid Shot (8th Level feat)
L.L.5: Another Archery feat/Ballista Proficiency
M.S.E 1: Expert siege engineer (10th level feat)

I'm thinking of going Deepwood sniper 7 (Extra range, keen, improved critical and concealment reduction) and Peerless archer 5 (Cover reduction, power shot), but any other class suggestions are welcome.
As an extra note, we already have a sorcerer and an assassin/infiltraty rogue, and we are generally shying away from classes that draw power from deities since we are serving an overlord, or maybe even ruling ourselves later on, but drawing divine powers from things other than god-like entities might be alright if it fits the theme.

I think that should cover enough for my first post on this forum. Feel free to correct things in my build if they don't work or could be more efficient, or my formatting if it really is that bad.

[Venger]

welcome to the boards!

thanks for asking a specific, detailed question about what it is you need:

going to level 40 is completely nuts. will you and your friends be switching over to epic rules after level 20, or will you keep using the normal rules, and have epic spellcasting off the table?

since you're using targeteer and master siege engineer, it looks like random issues of dragon magazine are allowed in your game. is that correct? what sources are you allowed to draw from in your game? (I lack a copy of 295, what does master siege engineer do?)

dread commando (heroes of battle) is a fun leadership-themed class you might be interested in as well.

if you've got 40 levels, you may also look at dread pirate, since it fits in with buffing unmanageable hordes of cohorts.

[unseenmage]

For my part, at some point I always wanted to play a Warforged (Eberron Campaign Setting) who has a souped up magic ballista built into himself as an Embedded Warforged Component (not sure on book, pretty sure it's still in the ECS though).

In battle he'd pose dramatically, to line up the ballista parts correctly, then his underlings would load his ammo and he'd flex dramatically to fire.

I imagined him to be an irritating combo of green bodysuit clad Guy from Naruto, glittering Major Armstrong from Fullmetal Alchemist, and Gaston from that Disney movie.

Glorious but horrifying.


On another note, will you be chaining Leadership (your Cohort takes it, then so does theirs, etc) and if so have you considered adding Thrallherd (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/prestigeClasses/thrallherd.htm)?

[Farengar]

We are indeed planning to do Epic Levels. I'm not too familiar with what they involve except epic feats which sound stupid powerful, but I've also only heard the spellcasting ones since one of others is very familiar with near everything 3.5 has to offer.
And as I said, there's very few restrictions on anything, although I'd think psionics might be out of the question because the other two people have a general distaste for it *shrug*. Everything else is assumed to be ok unless the DM says it's not allowed upon presenting it.

At level 10, we're not going to be the hottest **** this side of the plane yet. I don't know exactly what rank and everything we'll be, but I do particularily like the idea of having the To Hell and Back from Legendary Leader, being able to lead my leadership party on even suicide missions if I need to as long as we get the job done. I'm imagining that I was a commanding officer somewhere else earlier in the campaign, but now am working for the Overlord for reason.

Dread Pirate does look sorta nice, but we're in the middle of large swathes of land so the chances of seeing large amounts of naval involvement anytime soon is small to tiny, unfortunately.
I can see Dread Commando, but that would be more for the rogue-y type. I wouldn't really do the stealth/infiltration schtick (And it feels a bit like it would be spreading my abilities thin, being a jack-of-all-trades but master of none which wouldn't hold up at higher levels. But if you can prove me wrong with a build involving it, I'm all in for hearing it)

It's a shame dumping the cohort part of the leadership feat, otherwise I might consider the Ballista Warforged as a cohort. That would be funny as ****, but I'm going to have a siege golem (Cityscape page 126) as a part of my starting army, as something of the pride of the company I think. That can be the pseudo-warforged

[DarkSoul]

So far I'm thinking of going the following general build:
32 point buy for character generation

Human

10 STR
14 DEX (General archery focus)
10 CON
16 INT (For the necessary skill points and theme of being an engineer)
10 WIS
16 CHA (Commanding theme, as well as for diplomacy/intimidate/gather info/morale and rally checks)

Golarion Targetter Fighter 4/Legendary Leader 5/Master Siege Engineer 1

Fighter 1: Educated (1st level feat), Able learner (Human Feat), Point Blank Shot (Fighter Bonus feat)
Fighter 2: Vital Shot (Targetter bonus feat replacement), Rapid Shot (2nd level feat)
Fighter 3: Weapon Focus (Longbow) (3rd level feat)
Fighter 4: Weapon Specialisation (Fighter feat), Iron Will (4th level feat, prereq for Legendary Leader
L.L 1: Improved Followers (5th level feat)
L.L.2: Precise Shot (6th Level feat)
L.L.3: Manyshot (7th level feat), Natural Leader (Bonus feat)
L.L.4: Improved Rapid Shot (8th Level feat)
L.L.5: Another Archery feat/Ballista Proficiency
M.S.E 1: Expert siege engineer (10th level feat)

I'm thinking of going Deepwood sniper 7 (Extra range, keen, improved critical and concealment reduction) and Peerless archer 5 (Cover reduction, power shot), but any other class suggestions are welcome.

What do you think of making your first level Factotum? With Able Learner, it will essentially make all skills class skills forever, and will give you a nice boost in skill points. This would save you a feat (Education).

I don't think you should take Manyshot until later, if at all. You'll likely be able to stand still and full attack for quite a while, especially if the DM is going to give you a chance to use siege weaponry regularly. Instead of Manyshot, consider Arrow Swarm from Targeteer. Also, ask your DM if you can use the Arrow Swarm and Sniper abilities on the same full attack action. If so then at BAB 11 you can take three attacks at -5 each and add +2 to your threat range for all three shots. If you put a level of Deepwood Sniper in there somewhere, you'd be at 17-20 threat range. Ranged Weapon Mastery would be a good one for your open feat at Legendary Leader 5.

Factotum 1: Able Learner (Human), Point Blank Shot (Level 1)
Fighter 1: Vital Aim (Fighter), Rapid Shot (L2)
Fighter 2: Arrow Swarm (Fighter), Weapon Focus (L3)
Fighter 3: Iron Will (L4)
Fighter 4: Weapon Specialization (L5), Sniper (Fighter)
LL 1: Extra Followers (L6)
LL 2: Natural Leader (L7)
LL 3: Inspirational Leadership (LL bonus), Precise Shot (L8)
LL 4: Far Shot(L9)
DWS 1: Ranged Weapon Mastery (Piercing)(L10)

BAB 9/3. Bow Attack Bonus (Dexterity increase at 4 and 8): +15/+9; 1d8+7 (19-20/x3). This assumes a non-magical bow or ammunition, so numbers go up from here. I recommend a +1 Collision longbow which brings you up to +16/+10, 1d8+13 (19-20/x3). Critical hits are really going to hurt from here on out; 3d8+39, 4d8+52 at DWS 2, 5d8+65 at DWS 7.


I lack a copy of 295, what does master siege engineer do?5 level PrC, fighter chassis for BAB, saves, HD; increased accuracy, range and damage with siege engines, and can grant bonuses to profession checks and accuracy for multiple siege weapon teams.

[The Viscount]

If you're talking about real long ranges, then Cragtop Archer from Races of Stone is highly focused for that.

[Andor13]

Something to be aware of is that the nature of the game is going to change, radically, more than once, going from 10th to 40th level.

At 10th level, and even up to 20th (maybe) it will be very effective to buff your army with spells/bard song/auras/what have you. However once you start getting into epic, you're going to be looking at foes that can mince LARGE numbers of mooks in a single round. If your GM is going to be leveling your armies up along with you (and dear god, how does he have time?) then mass buffing will remain effective along with "Summon Outer planar army" shenannigans, but if not, you'll be reduced to only the very toughest of your followers.

[Venger]

We are indeed planning to do Epic Levels. I'm not too familiar with what they involve except epic feats which sound stupid powerful, but I've also only heard the spellcasting ones since one of others is very familiar with near everything 3.5 has to offer.
And as I said, there's very few restrictions on anything, although I'd think psionics might be out of the question because the other two people have a general distaste for it *shrug*. Everything else is assumed to be ok unless the DM says it's not allowed upon presenting it.

At level 10, we're not going to be the hottest **** this side of the plane yet. I don't know exactly what rank and everything we'll be, but I do particularily like the idea of having the To Hell and Back from Legendary Leader, being able to lead my leadership party on even suicide missions if I need to as long as we get the job done. I'm imagining that I was a commanding officer somewhere else earlier in the campaign, but now am working for the Overlord for reason.

Dread Pirate does look sorta nice, but we're in the middle of large swathes of land so the chances of seeing large amounts of naval involvement anytime soon is small to tiny, unfortunately.
I can see Dread Commando, but that would be more for the rogue-y type. I wouldn't really do the stealth/infiltration schtick (And it feels a bit like it would be spreading my abilities thin, being a jack-of-all-trades but master of none which wouldn't hold up at higher levels. But if you can prove me wrong with a build involving it, I'm all in for hearing it)

It's a shame dumping the cohort part of the leadership feat, otherwise I might consider the Ballista Warforged as a cohort. That would be funny as ****, but I'm going to have a siege golem (Cityscape page 126) as a part of my starting army, as something of the pride of the company I think. That can be the pseudo-warforged
what you need to think about is epic spellcasting. once you have epic spellcasting, you can do literally anything you want. consequently. it's essentially impossible for characters without it to keep up.

you can always... refluff dread pirate and be a dread brigand instead, it doesn't require you to do any work.