Comment on this build guide?

[tadkins]

Was thinking about the potential of a Wizard Archer character and went out looking for some info. Came across this guide (http://www.optibuilds.com/arcane-archer-optimized-pathfinder-build/) for an Arcane Archer that looks decent. At least to my untrained eye.

Basically I would be trying to make a decent archer with access to level 9 arcane spells and all the good stuff the Wizard class entails. To those here who are knowledgable optimizers and rule experts, would you call this guide credible? Would I be well off if I followed this guide to the near-letter? Only thing I would really change would be the race from elf to human (not a fan of elves) but other than that it looks like it might have potential. Thoughts?

[Kurald Galain]

would you call this guide credible?
Not particularly, no. It misses out on a LOT of material that was available even back in 2012 (e.g. the Greater Invis spell), neglects archetypes or alternative classes to Fighter, gives some rather poor advice regarding stat layout (for an archer, str > int), feats (you can really do better than WF/WS), and items (shocking burst is pretty bad, and you're paying too much for extend), and contains a lot of spelling errors. Sure, it has potential, but it's not very good overall. And it goes in detail on partially charged wands, so that makes it pretty clear who's written it and why he has such a modestly-named blog... :smallbiggrin:

The main question is, what level(s) will you be starting at and playing at? Depending on your answer, the Eldritch Archer archetype may be better for you, or even the Spellslinger if you can convince your GM to swap its gun for a bow. Either way you should probably avoid the Arcane Archer prestige class.

There's a whole chapter on special arrows; you may want to look into that. The wizard's biggest weakness is his poor saving throws, and he should have a counter for when people start to fire arrows back at him...

[Palanan]

Sounds like English is not quite his first language, either.

[r2d2go]

The main question is, what level(s) will you be starting at and playing at? Depending on your answer, the Eldritch Archer archetype may be better for you, or even the Spellslinger if you can convince your GM to swap its gun for a bow. Either way you should probably avoid the Arcane Archer prestige class.


I kind of agree, but if you want to play "fullcaster that delivers spells with arrows" rather than "archer who does a bunch of magical damage with arrows", neither of those is great. Spellslinger is basically a bad Evoker, since the only benefits to your spells are: x3 crit damage in spells, and you can get weapon enhancements on your spells. If you want to be a Mailman and deal lots of single target damage, this is okay (Fiery Shuriken plus a bunch of damage enhancements is pretty ok), but you're basically banning 4 schools as well as losing Detect Magic, a familiar, a specialty school, and Scribe Scroll in order to be a slightly worse rogue in terms of damage. Eldritch Archer or Myrmidarch is okay, but doesn't get fullcasting.

If you want to deliver spells with arrows, my recommendation is to enchant some arrows as improvised daggers and make them +1 spell storing (ask your dm if this works or they will throw a book at you, but it's 8000 gp to kinda quicken a 3rd or lower level spell, so it's kinda like a slightly cheaper, more conditional lesser metamagic rod Quicken). Then you can throw at 3rd level spells on your full attack. This will stay somewhat relevant for pretty much the whole game, especially if it is ruled as an enchantment on the arrow not a single use spell, and thus Arrow Eruption lets you turn that spell into an AoE.

This will probably never happen in a real game, but it's cool enough to mention: a slightly more dedicated and much more rules-questionable build throws the arrows with Startoss Shower, lets you vital strike for high damage on a poor hapless rat or something, then quicken an arrow eruption on the untriggered bolt, then all of the erupting arrows richochet and murder everything. You get like, fifty attacks in a round, and can hit someone with the same spell 15 times. In theory.