Ranged build and class help

[caddmus]

Hello!

So, I was traveling resentfully and this left me with a bunch of down time for my mind to wander about, and i have an old tablet with to many PDF's and a few movies. (dangerous I know)

so i started making a few char's that popped into my head, one is annoying me because i can't settle on a build for it, Also I've been on a lot of cold meds...so that might have some thing to do with it?

I'm also thinking of using it for my next game or as my current game backup char,

Now with help from the forum i made a spellwarp sniper, which i made some of my own adjustments to and am having alot of fun with, but I like ranged char's and i want to try one that dosn't depend on sneak attack dmg,

Char idea,
system is D&D 3.5
A john wick type of range char, (gunman basically)

I was thinking maybe go with a soul-bow build with TWF, and just hands akimbo style :D ( How 'bout the power to kill a yak from 200 yards away...
with mind bullets! That's telekinesis, Kyle.) It was that or someone that uses repeating crossbows, buuuuttttt, soul-bow seemed interesting to me :D


the gaming group i play with right now, allows all the books, and some dragon mag stuff, with GM approval of course, but this also gives the problem of so many options.
traits and flaws are in play, 1 extra feat for every 2 flaws,

as stated above I was thinking of TWF with high wis and high dex, light or no armor, (magic pajamas? maybe) wasn't sure if i should dip into monk or not, my main concern of course is damage progression and scaling,

What do you guys think? Also I'm not above silly ideas either since i did play a gnome on roller blades and an aviators scarf once :D But its the crunchy bits that i'm having issues with more then the concept ya know?

[Zaq]

The biggest question is what level you're starting at. Archery tends to take a lot of obnoxious buildup through prereq feats and stuff, so it's going to kind of make a difference whether you have time to build up to the really big stuff or whether you need something quick and dirty that will work right away.

Soulbow has about two and a half primary means of optimization. First, you can try to do a WIS-stacking thing if you want to do that, with Zen Archery and all that. I think a one-level dip in Shiba Protector (which has bad prereqs, mind you) is one of the main recommendations, though you shouldn't need more levels than that. I think there's another way to get WIS on there without too much effort, but I forget offhand what it happens to be. The downside is that many archery feats require DEX anyway, so you can't just dump absolutely everything into WIS.

You can also do your best to get a much higher than average number of attacks per round. You hit on TWF already, and of course you can always stack on Rapid Shot and similar sources of extra attacks. Remember that by pure RAW, the pluses you get on your mind arrow at Soulbow 3 and Soulbow 7 retroactively increase your BAB on your Soulknife levels. ("Likewise, these enhancement bonuses also improve your soulknife base attack bonus." CPsi pg. 36) So that might help you get more attacks a little bit faster, given that you aren't going to have as many full-BAB levels as many other builds might.

Don't forget that since every mind arrow you fire is unique, the Lucky enhancement (available at Soulbow 2) should apply to each and every one of them, effectively doubling your d20 rolls. This will help offset all the penalties you're taking from TWF/Rapid Shot/etc.

If you have the stats of the gods and somehow have enough for good STR, WIS, and DEX all at the same time, remember that mind arrows are like those "shot from a composite longbow," so you should add your STR to the damage as well. You can also look up the feat Dead Eye from Dragon Compendium (check the errata; the prereqs are about a hundred times easier with the errata) to add DEX to damage on top of this. But you're already pretty MAD, so adding lots of stats only helps if you have lots of high stats to add.

Depending on how many levels you actually take in Soulknife before you get into Soulbow, remember that you can get a Fighter bonus feat instead of your horrible Psychic Strike (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20070214a) feature. Full attacking is basically always going to be better for you than spending a move action charging up a d8, so this isn't a loss. The bonus feat can be any one that can apply to your mind blade, and since you've got Throw Mind Blade by that point, archery feats like PBS or Precise Shot are legal choices for you. And remember that the Weapon Focus: Mind Blade granted by Soulknife 1 counts as WF on a mind arrow, too, which can help with other prereqs.

[Maat Mons]

You could go jermlaine (Monster Manual II, p131). It gets +6 wis, and its tiny size gives it +2 to attack and AC, and +8 to hide. It was assigned LA +0 in the 3.5 Accessory Update Booklet.

Since you're planning to have a wisdom focus, You could take two levels in one of the paladin variants, and take the serenity feat (Dragon Compendium, p106) for wis to all saving throws.

You could maybe even dip something for wis to AC.

[Darrin]

Thank you for "traveling resentfully"! Can I borrow that phrase?

Hmm. My TWF OffHandbook (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?279079-3-5-The-TWF-OffHandbook") doesn't really cover Soulbow... Psionic is an area where my system mastery is a little weak. I'll have to take a closer look at that tomorrow.

Is the mind blade exotic? Will it work with Exotic Weapon Master?