Whos good at building Bow users 3.5 need help!

[aajj1987]

we are on a 3.5 game at level 10 currently. im playing elf ranger. all 10 levels in ranger. The DM has given me the option to switch my guy up the way to story unfolded by letting him leave the party but i have to bring in a Drow do to where we are at in the game. We currently do not do homebrew. We all got 1 free level adjustment so my drow would be only level 9.

anyone got any good bow builds. the only thing i would really need is track. was thinking 4 levels of scout with the rest as Order of the bow initiate.

[Venger]

this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?284283-Piggy-Knowles-Archer-Build-Thread) is a good resource for all things archery.

[Manyasone]

Maybe a swift hunter type if you are planning on taking scout as well. Don't take order of the bow initiate, it sucks. Have you taken the woodland archer feat? Maybe some info as to your build, mate. Would be handy.

[Venger]

swift hunters are decent out of the box options. have a handbook (http://dictummortuum.blogspot.com/2011/09/swift-hunters-handbook.html)

[aajj1987]

i usually leave my sheet at the DM's house since he has a full apartment behind his place we play DND out of.

maybe i should just ask for someone to put together some awesome bow classes and use one lol. my biggest complaint is when i rapid shot i cant move at all and without rapid shot im not doing much damage.

[Darrin]

anyone got any good bow builds. the only thing i would really need is track. was thinking 4 levels of scout with the rest as Order of the bow initiate.

Don't go near Order of the Bow Initiate unless it's the 3.0 version. The 3.5 version locks you into a single standard attack with Ranged Precision. Iron Chef LXX has some interesting ideas on what you can do with that (the builds start around page 9 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?425634-Iron-Chef-Optimisation-Challenge-in-the-Playground-LXX/page9)), but overall the 3.5 version is not worth it.

As far as Swift Hunter goes, my typical advice:

Typical Swift Hunter Archer
Race: Human, Azurin, or Strongheart Halfing, or Frostblood Orc/Half-Orc
1) Ranger 1. Feat: Travel Devotion, Bonus: PB Shot, Bonus: Track
2) Ranger 2. Bonus: Rapid Shot
3) Scout 1. Feat: Precise Shot. Skirmish 1d6.
4) Scout 2.
5) Scout 3. Skirmish 1d6AC+1.
6) Ranger 3. Feat: Swift Hunter. Bonus: Endurance. Skirmish 2d6AC+1.
7) Ranger 4. Swap Animal Companion -> Distracting Attack. Skirmish 2d6AC+2.
8) Ranger 5.
9) Ranger 6. Bonus: Manyshot. Feat: Greater Manyshot*. Skirmish 3d6AC+2.
10) Scout 4. Bonus: Improved Skirmish. Skirmish 3d6AC+2/5d6+4.
11) Highland Stalker 1.
12) Highland Stalker 2. Feat: Improved Rapid Shot. Skirmish 4d6AC+2/6d6AC+4.
13) Ranger 7. Skirmish 4d6AC+3/6d6AC+5.
14) Ranger 8.
15) Ranger 9. Feat: Travel Devotion (x2). Skirmish 5d6AC+3/7d6AC+5.
16) Ranger 10.
17) Ranger 11. Bonus: Improved Precise Shot. Skirmish 5d6AC+4/7d6AC+6.
18) Ranger 12. Feat: Travel Devotion (x3)
19) Ranger 13. Camouflage. Skirmish 6d6AC+4/8d6AC+6.
20) Ranger 14. 4th level spells.

* = Note: This assumes you want to go the Greater Manyshot route, and Scout 3/Ranger 6 is the fastest way to get the prereq Manyshot without wasting your 2nd bonus feat from your Ranger Combat Style. If you'd rather skip Greater Manyshot and go with Improved Rapid Shot at 9th instead, then take Travel Devotion (x2) at 12th, and maybe throw Woodland Archer (from RotW) in there later.

If you'd like more Skirmish damage (up to 10d6), you can replace a large chunk of your Ranger levels with Dragon Devotee 4/Unseen Seer 4, but it's a bit more complicated.

[Piggy Knowles]

this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?284283-Piggy-Knowles-Archer-Build-Thread) is a good resource for all things archery.

Thanks for the thread shout-out, Venger. Glad to see my old archery thread still gets views.

It's worth pointing out that it is primarily a thread focusing on archery builds that I found interesting, rather than attempting to be a comprehensive guide to archery. A lot of the builds have a lot of moving pieces because I was trying to do something specific with archery that normal classes don't support. That doesn't mean that it's impossible to build a more straightforward archer build; it just isn't what I was really focusing on in that thread. Probably the only really straightforward build there was the Dragonfire Inspiration-focused archer bard.

If bard is a direction you want to go, it's a great one. It would require a race with the dragonblood subtype, but luckily there's an easy option for you: the deepwyrm drow, found on page 6 of Dragon Magic. (There is also a half-drow version, which is probably even better if your DM is willing to go that route and let you avoid any LA.) It's not a complicated build: basically, take the feat Dragonfire Inspiration to add fire damage to your attacks, and focus on volley archery and on keeping your inspire courage as high as possible. (Inspirational boost and the Song of the Heart feat are good starts.) You'll deal good, consistent damage, you'll have decent spells and your whole party will love you.

As others have mentioned, swift hunters are a great and fairly straightforward way to make archery effective. In addition to being a robust chassis with good skills and decent damage, Swift Hunter's ability to bypass the precision-immune status of some foes is great. The only problem is that if multiclassing penalties are in effect for your game, there's really no good swift hunter build that won't subject a drow to such penalties.

Another interesting archer option is to focus on psionics. Psychic warriors or ardents in particular have some interesting options, and can be built without having to jump through many hoops. With psionics, instead of focusing on precision damage (which is easy to shut down), focus on generally buffing yourself and relying on things like size increases via expansion to increase your damage output. By focusing on Zen Archery with an ardent or psywar, you not only get more PP out of the build, you also avoid suffering from the Dex drops that are associated with expansion. Plus, it's really fun to blow up to colossal size and fire off a volley of arrows the size of saplings.

Finally, though it requires a bit of work, you can make surprisingly good ToB archers. While the majority of the strikes require melee attacks, several boosts and stances work just as well for archers as they do for melee brutes. My favorite such build is the Heavy Weapons Elf by Andarious (I'm on mobile so I'm having trouble adding the link, but if you google it I'm sure it'll come up). It's a warblade 10/eternal blade 10 that has some really cool archery options. It comes online a bit slow, but that isn't a problem for you since you'll be starting at level 9... and as an elf, you definitely qualify. It does work best with a bard or similar support to help boost its damage, but even without that it's a really solid little build.

Enjoy the game. If these options or any others sound appealing to you, I'm happy to help you fine tune a build from there.

[Extra Anchovies]

Consider taking a level of Cloistered Cleric with the Travel, Knowledge, and Celerity domains, trading the Knowledge and Travel domain powers for their corresponding devotion feats from Complete Champion. Travel Devotion allows for easy skirmish with full attacks, and Knowledge Devotion gives nice bonuses to attack and damage based on Knowledge check results. Maybe your ranger took some time off from killing monsters to contemplate a spiritual connection with nature, or studied under a druid without fully adopting the traditions of their teacher's faith.

Here's a nice simple Swift Hunter build which manages to squeeze all three of Swift Hunter, Greater Manyshot, and Improved Skirmish into ten levels.

Scout 1/Ranger 6/Scout +3
1: Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot (human bonus)
2: Track (Ranger bonus)
3: Knowledge Devotion, Rapid Shot (Ranger bonus)
6: Swift Hunter
7: Manyshot (Ranger bonus)
9: Greater Manyshot
10: Improved Skirmish (Scout bonus)
Skirmish +5d6/+4, BAB +9

And here's an alternative build using the cleric dip. No Greater Manyshot but can use Travel Devotion 4/day, and has one free feat slot. I recommend Darkstalker or Woodland Archer.

Scout 1/Cleric 1/Scout +2/Ranger 5/Scout +1
1: Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot (human bonus)
2: Knowledge Devotion (Cleric bonus), Travel Devotion (Cleric bonus)
3: Extra Turning
5: Track (Ranger bonus)
6: Swift Hunter, Rapid Shot (Ranger bonus)
9:
10: Improved Skirmish (Scout bonus)
Skirmish +5d4/+4, BAB +8

[Karl Aegis]

If you're going for Travel Devotion anyway, might as well go Holy Monk from Dragon Magazine #310. Pick up Zen Archery at level 3 and Rapid Shot at 9. Normally you would go Wood Elf for the Composite Bow proficiency and the strength, but you might be able to make it work with a Drow and a hand crossbow. The highlights are Wisdom +1 AC, Improved Evasion, Deflect Arrows and all good saves without having to rely on dexterity beyond 13.

[Skevvix]

The resource I found most helpful when I was building my Archer was http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?269705-Toxophilite-The-Archery-Handbook