Archer Slayer Build Advice

[stayhoided]

I posted this on the Pathfinder subreddit but found people were more into criticizing my archetype choice than answering any questions.

My previous character, a blade bound magus, died and I need to come up with a new character.

The party I'm entering is level 4: a Cleric, Kineticist, and a Paladin. So I've decided on a Human Sniper Slayer.

I was hoping to go:

15 point buy

14 STR

18 DEX

12 CON

10 INT

10 WIS

10 CHA (Don't really want to dump for RP reasons below)

Lvl 1 - Point Blank Shot + Precise Shot

Lvl 2 - Talent: Rapid Shot

Lvl 3 - Deadly Aim

Lvl 4 - Talent: Trapfinding

My idea is to have a sneaky guy that pretty much only uses his bow and whose "motivation" is to become famous from his bow skills.

I thought about giving him some sort of super hero name to spread around. Would it be worth it to ever dip into an Avenger Vigilante, or is that something that is better to be RPed out instead?

Also, I'm intrigued by the Stygian archetype meshing with Sniper. Would it be worth it to take that archetype too and wait until level 6 to take Trapfinding as my favored class bonus talent?

Lastly, is there anyway to reliably proc sneak attack for ranged? If I'm destined to just open up with a big sniper hit before switching to full attacks, that's not the worst thing in the world, but I figured I'd ask. I was planning on taking Sig Skill: Stealth and Sniper's Eye later on to reduce stealth pen to 0 for sniping and just re-hiding.

[Florian]

Hm. I must admit that I'm more or less generally against any ranged/sniper builds that want to use Sneak Attack and are not the Ninja. Cool image, but doesn't work in PF until the later levels.

That said, you have a full BAB class with some bonus feats, so regular archery (and Ranger archery style) will always work for you anyways. Stygian is not really something I´d advice. All it does is allow you to drop UMD, but you can gain the same result with KI Pool and Ninja Trick: Vanishing Trick.

So maybe consider going for an even mix of Monk (Zen Archer) and Slayer until you reach 4/4 an progress Slayer from there. The Cassock will help you offset the Monk levels and such.

[Geddy2112]

Based on your party, ranged does seem to fill a good niche. Your stats and feats look good, although you might want to go 8 int 12 wis. Slayers have plenty of skills so you can afford dumping int, while wis shores up your weak will save and boosts perception.

I question if trapfinding is needed. With good enough perception you can usually spot traps. The cleric has good wis and detect magic which also help, and the kiniticest has perception as a class skill so between the lot of you it should not be an issue. Clerics can just use magic to disable device or the pally can bash the door in. If you want disable device as a class skill that badly take a trait.

Vigilantes make very good ranged builds as both stalkers and avengers. Avengers play out as ranged fighters if you wanna be Hawkeye, while stalkers are closer to the slayer build if Arrow is more your speed.

Stygian is decent for invisibility SLA and you get access to some really good wands, but you need to build around it to make it shine. My problem with the sniper archetype is that RAW the enemy is always aware of you after the attack, even from incredible range. They still don't know where you are, but that you are somewhere. Going stealth generally wants hellcat stealth and dampen presence as well, making your build more feat intensive. The good news is you can wait till slightly higher levels till you get these. So long as you kill your target with full round sneak attacks and have good stealth you can continue to proc sneak attack, as the enemy might not notice you. Look up the woodland sniper slayer archetype as well.

[stayhoided]

Thanks for the advice.


Vigilantes make very good ranged builds as both stalkers and avengers. Avengers play out as ranged fighters if you wanna be Hawkeye, while stalkers are closer to the slayer build if Arrow is more your speed.

If I was to dip into Vigilante, when would you recommend doing so?

[Geddy2112]

If I was to dip into Vigilante, when would you recommend doing so?

Vigilante is not really a good dip class unless you plan to use the dual identity for a major purpose. Otherwise the class does not have a lot going at the first couple of levels. Outside of a social game/one in a major city the renown social tree is near worthless, and even the good identity switching tricks don't come up till really late. A lot of the vigilante talents are there to patch the need to multiclass but several are straight upgrades, encouraging a 2nd level dip. If you wanna throw some ninja in the teisatsu is one of the better archetypes for vigilante anyways and can grab some cool traits.

If you must single level dip, you probably want social grace for a +4 to a skill in your social identity, the other major talent being obscurity. Obscurity works like renown in reverse, effectively erasing your old identity and giving you a way to blend in to the background in social situations(very good for stealthy builds).

If you don't give a flip about people knowing your real identity but you wanna put on the mask, consider the masked performer bard. You can still be the man in the mask, but now you get 1st level bard spells, wand use, cool skills, inspire, and the ability to juice your disguise skill if you wanna be the sneaky infiltrator. You don't get the vigilante sneak attack but it gives a lot of options.