Pathfinder and 3.5: high level archer feats

[Elder_Basilisk]

One of the problems for high level archers in Pathfinder and 3.5 is that the powerful feats tend to make play less interesting by removing soft counters rather than adding new options. In 3.5, Improved Precise Shot is the main offender but in Pathfinder it is joined by Point Blank Master.

These feats remove interest by removing the reasons that archers have to do anything other than full round attack. Move to get a better shot? Nah, with improved precise shot, there is no better shot. Move to avoid being in melee? Point Blank Master let's you use your bow in melee. So, with no soft counters, every round tends to be the same until and unless the DM breaks out hard counters like wind wall, wall of force, or vision blocking spells. (Pathfinder paladin archers at least mitigate this a little bit by having fewer feats and having lay on hands and smite to manage; Pathfinder inquisitor archers also have a variety of special abilities to manage).

So what noncore/unusual feats are out there as alternatives? Something like a good version of the melee deadly stroke (which is itself a bit of a trap--high cost and while good in the few situations it's useful, those situations are too rare to make it actually good) would be nice. Or alternately, what design space is available to make worthwhile feats. Some kind of "piercing shot" as a version of 3.x Cleave (extra attack at same bonus when you drop a target, but target of the new attack has to be in a line drawn between you and the original target (see line definition from area effect spells)) would be one possibility though perhaps better at lower levels. Ranged pin/immobilize as a combat maneuver would be worth a feat but might be overpowered. Also, is there a way to revise improved precise shot to be worthwhile without eliminating the significance of battlefield positioning?

One other possibility is that a redesign of Haste might also contribute to providing meaningful choices to archers. The contrast between ranged and melee martial attackers' ease of making full attacks is exacerbated by haste which makes the difference between full and standard attacks more pronounced. If haste gave an extra move action (or a standard action in conjunction with a 5e style hard cap of one normal+ one swift action spell per round) rather than the bonus attack as part of a full attack, there would be less opportunity cost to moving and the ranged/melee distinction would become less pronounced.

[Ramza00]

If we are doing 3rd party Pathfinder the answer is a Zealot, lots of things to do with your move actions and single action maneuvers.

And you can be an Archer on the side as well.

[ciopo]

I am not entirely sure what you are asking, I don't see improved precise shot or point blank master as being problem feats. "Move to get a better shot" does not compute to me, i stand still to rapid shot or manyshot anyway, what is the archer doing in the nominal frontline being threatened, that IPS or PBM are a factor? I'm putting them at 80% useless because "the problem they solve is solved by a 5ft step".

Anyway, I do feel some lack of option for meaningful archer feats later on. I'm playing a hunter on my monday games and I'm outta ideas what to do woth my feats at levels 9+ because after rapid shot many shot and deadly aim, I'm left with ??? The snap shot chain I guess, but meh

[Kitsuneymg]

The real killer feat is cluster shots. Stack all damage before applying DR? Okay

[pabelfly]

If you want to move while shooting, why not pick up the Vital Strike feat line instead? It also has the benefit of being used with different weapon types so if you want to use another weapon type besides archery, you can

[liquidformat]

To be frank I feel like you have completely ignored the actual problem with ranged attack builds. In 3.5 the issue is that they are strictly worse than other combat methods. For mundane you either have to go power attack which doesn't exist at range without a magical bow from an obscure source that not everyone recognizes or you have to use precision damage which keeps you very much within melee range and at a considerable disadvantage in melee range. Also your only bfc options are strictly worse than your melee counterparts with very little in the way to optimize. On the other side magic without a bow normally has as good of a range, is more powerful, and has more diverse options of what to do in and out of combat. Finally, most encounters across all games tend to start within range of a charge action which really kills most of the allure of ranged builds. So you end up in an odd situation where ranged builds are a crappy option since you have to jump through more hoops to be worse, forcing you to heavily invest in the spells of rangers which come online too late or doing silly things like dipping arcane archer to do what any other caster could do to start or convince your dm to let you use a really cheesy bow and yet you can still be shut down by pretty dumb things like a gust of wind spell or wind wall spell. Which really relegates ranged to a backup plan for beatsticks when things are flying or low level games when you have an early consistent source of flying. Granted PF did a decent jump of cleaning up a number of these problems they still exist and you tend to still tend to have to jump through hoops to still end up slightly worse than everyone else.

[Thurbane]

For mundane you either have to go power attack which doesn't exist at range without a magical bow from an obscure source that not everyone recognizes or you have to use precision damage which keeps you very much within melee range and at a considerable disadvantage in melee range.

While not denying any of your points (which I agree with), I just recently became aware of another source of "ranged power attack" that doesn't require Hank's Bow: Peerless Archer 3 (Silver Marches PrC).

It's still a somewhat obscure source, but at least it's not item dependent...

Just a little FYI, for anyone who wasn't aware.

[Nihilarian]

Silver Marches is a 3rd edition book, which is a potential barrier in itself.

An idle thought i had was that the best way to get impactful feats for an archer might be to piggyback on an aptitude weapon and grab something like lightning maces or snap kick. I'd hate to be so reliant on equipment though, so I'd probably only do that on a Soulbound Psychic Warrior, who has other methods of optimizing archery anyway

[Elder_Basilisk]

Pathfinder has deadly aim which is essentially ranged power attack, but even in 3.5, archers could dish out damage comparable to melee attackers with power attack.

Anyway, maybe I didn't express what I find to be the problem with high level archery well enough. It's plenty effective, it's just boring. When I played age of worms the guy who was playing the archer was the most reliable damage in the party. He eventually put together a spreadsheet that told the DM if he did 250 or 350 damage that round. But in the end, that was his turn: pick a target and click the spreadsheet. It was as exciting as it sounds.

For melee characters such as the scout/fighter/whatever I was playing, you had to look at where the target was, ask how you could get there, then look at your remaining movement and see if that would mean eating a full attack in response. Make the decision: is it worth it? Can I do better if I risk an AoO there? If I do provoke an AoO, can I provoke it from my dodge target while flanked and make it automatically hit the guy he's flanking with instead? In short, each round brings a unique situation that has to be evaluated to find the best risk/reward combo.

Pathfinder puts high level archers in the same position in that regard: they're effective, but they get more boring the higher level you get because the good high level feats eliminate all of the soft counters that would otherwise make for interesting tactical decisions.

At lower levels, there are similar challenges for archers. If the bad guy's AC is high enough, believe it or not it is sometimes a better idea to move to where he doesn't have cover from you anymore than to rapid shot. -2 to hit on two attacks is almost always better than one attack but if you make the difference 6 (cover) or 7 (cover and point blank range), the math will frequently work out for moving. Likewise, you have to worry about getting mobbed and whether the opportunity attack is worth it to use your bow or if you should go for a sword instead. Not terribly often, but sometimes you do have meaningful choices to make. Then along comes improved precise shot and point blank master. They're very effective feats, but they also eliminate most of your meaningful tactical choices and there you are again, pushing the button on a spreadsheet and seeing if you did 250 or 350 damage this round. At least if you're a paladin, you have smites and lay on hands to think about so you do have some meaningful choices other than who your target is.

So my question is: how could improved precie shot be changed or what alternative feats/abilities could be designed to still be good feats but preserve or even create interesting tactical decisions for high level archers? (unlike vital strike which is garbage--a worthwhile version of vital strike like a non-limited deadly stroke for range would be different).

[ciopo]

Something like the (pathfinder) ranger skirmisher tricks perhabs?

[Nihilarian]

Ranger has some exclusive spells that focus on arrows in... Champions of Ruin? Of course, ranger gets them way too late because of their stunted casting, but we're talking about high levels anyway

[liquidformat]

While not denying any of your points (which I agree with), I just recently became aware of another source of "ranged power attack" that doesn't require Hank's Bow: Peerless Archer 3 (Silver Marches PrC).

Yeah I always forget about Peerless archer because it is 3.0 and a more obscure book so its often as hard to get into a game as Hank's bow.

So one quick comment, point blank master really isn't worth the feat as elvencraft bow already fixes the problem for 300gp so until this thread I didn't know about nor care about pbm because its fixing a problem that was already fixed at level 2 to 3...

Anyways, I still don't agree with your assessment. Improved Precise Shot comes on around level 12 and by that time things have already evolved into rocket tag for everyone its just archers are slightly to very much worse at rocket tag unless they have been heavily optimized. If you want to make thing more interesting then do stuff like focusing in on feat chains that will enable ranged pin, trip, and disarm to actually be effective don't shoot archers in the foot to spite your face.

[Blackhawk748]

Your main complaint seems to be less that the feats are boring and more that, particularly in 3.5, archers are forced into Volley Fire as the only really viable option.

Unless you want to do a ton of unintuitive things to make a good single shot archer. Which I agree is an issue. Sniping shouldn't have been this complicated

[Kitsuneymg]

If want you want is decent, single shot shenanigans, look at spheres of might’s sniper sphere. It doesn’t do amazing damage on its own, but it does let you debuff and do other neat things with a single shot.

[Seward]

I guess I don't see the problem.

A volley archer that isn't an idiot never wants to do anything but full attack, and appreciates feats that mean he doesn't have to move. It's the primary reason to invest in any kind of defense for a volley archer, in case he is somehow under threat he'd prefer to just kill the offending opponent with a full attack than scurry about and fire one ineffectual shot.

If you want to build an archer who has an effective move+attack routine, you have to ignore all those high level feats you are complaining about and somehow get something like Greater Manyshot. It is a completely different set of class, archetype and feat choices. Although you will still want improved precise shot so a 20% miss chance doesn't ruin your massive single attack. And also some kind of attack-reroll option so a single "1" doesn't waste your entire phase.

As for being boring - you don't build a volley archer to do a variety of things. His entire job in combat is picking the most dangerous threat and reliably full attacking it. It is like complaining that the best use of a core bard in most parties during combat is to open with inspire courage and follow with haste, and then maybe inspire greatness a couple levels later. Doing those 2-3 things it almost doesn't matter what else he does, his contribution to the party's success is already assured.

If you want complexity with a wide variety of combat options play a druid, or a sorcerer with carefully thought out spells, or a combat maneuver melee. Volley Archers aren't built for that, any more than a typical barbarian is. Their players chose that option to get kills, not to be clever, and if you game as relief from a hard day of thinking and making decision (or it is the last day of the convention where you stayed up late, drank too much bear/ate too much junk food and are wrecked, but don't want to screw things up, those are also good classes)



Unless you want to do a ton of unintuitive things to make a good single shot archer. Which I agree is an issue. Sniping shouldn't have been this complicated

It is ironic that the best single shot archers can only do it within 30', which kinda defeats the whole point of being a sniper. The only actually good standard action snipers are spellcasters with long range spells and appropriate metamagic to boost them into "archer full attack damage range" which is also a pretty specialized niche. I do think the game designers thought that an undetectable sniper wouldn't be much fun for the players to be on the wrong end of, or to challenge if you had a whole party of them so made it quite difficult to go down that road.

OTOH my volley archer did just fine in sniper roles, although extreme ranges only worked while his guided shots+pearls of power lasted. If he was far enough away to really use the range of his bow, nobody could spot him anyway and it didn't matter if he was full attacking or doing single shots. (our typical castle approach strategy involved archers way way back in the darkness, well past darkvision distance and dancing lights over the target, and maybe a distraction if the party had a tank to let the enemies shoot at while the archers and other long range attackers gunned them down.

[Blackhawk748]

It is ironic that the best single shot archers can only do it within 30', which kinda defeats the whole point of being a sniper. The only actually good standard action snipers are spellcasters with long range spells and appropriate metamagic to boost them into "archer full attack damage range" which is also a pretty specialized niche. I do think the game designers thought that an undetectable sniper wouldn't be much fun for the players to be on the wrong end of, or to challenge if you had a whole party of them so made it quite difficult to go down that road.

OTOH my volley archer did just fine in sniper roles, although extreme ranges only worked while his guided shots+pearls of power lasted. If he was far enough away to really use the range of his bow, nobody could spot him anyway and it didn't matter if he was full attacking or doing single shots. (our typical castle approach strategy involved archers way way back in the darkness, well past darkvision distance and dancing lights over the target, and maybe a distraction if the party had a tank to let the enemies shoot at while the archers and other long range attackers gunned them down.

It's not that it's difficult, it's near impossible to make a proper Sniper without digging through a dozen sourcebooks, otherwise you're playing a shotgunner if you wanna one shot stuff, because that's necessary to be a sniper.

The only one I saw that actually worked was a Targeter Fighter/Decisive Strike Monk doing absurd Crit fishing tricks in order to get reliable single shot kills, and Monk is no something you do to be an archer

[Gruftzwerg]

Archers & Moving
Imho in 3.5 (and I assume also in 3.P) archers use mounts for their movement in most chases. Because you can still make ranged full attacks while the mount moves.

Feats:
As 3.5 option I can recommend to have a look at martial study and martial stance. Get a nice maneuver and a stance. E.g. the Blood in the Water stance gives you a stacking untyped +1 on attack and dmg rolls for each crit. Or Assassin's stance for 2d6 sneak attack dmg. There are plenty options here.

[Seward]

Archers & Moving
Imho in 3.5 (and I assume also in 3.P) archers use mounts for their movement in most chases. Because you can still make ranged full attacks while the mount moves.
.

Absolutely. Most ranger archers go with a mount animal companion for that reason, and most tolerate getting a lot of mounts killed out from under them if they don't have that kind of action. Archers LOVE phantom steeds.

The ability to bring a mount into a dungeon combined with size bonus to hit and often a racial dex bonus is the main appeal of going with a small race, in spite of the strength hit. You might do more damage overall if you fight in constrained environments a lot if you can somehow shoehorn in a mount, or at least a cooperating mage with a tenser's disk you can stand on.

[ShurikVch]

Dragon #310 has Targeteer (Fighter Variant); one of their possible CF is

Sniper: When using the full attack option, the Targetteer can sacrifice attacks to gain deadly accuracy. For each attack from a full attack sacrificed the threat range of the Targetteer's weapon increases by 1. Thus if the Targetteer's ranged attack normally has a threat range of 19-20, sacrificing one attack from a full attack would increase the threat range to 18-20. A sacrificed attack only enhances the next attack. However, a Targetteer can sacrifice multiple attacks to further increase the threat range. A Targetteer cannot sacrifice all attacks from a full attack action.

Also, from the NWN2, the One Shot (https://nwn2.fandom.com/wiki/One_Shot):

You can attempt to deliver an extremely powerful ranged attack. The attack ignores all concealment and circumvents any arrow deflection (like that which is granted by Deflect Arrows or Armed Deflection). If the attack hits it deals maximum damage and inflicts a critical hit, even if the target would normally be immune to critical hits.

[Seward]

Also related to mounts.

We have spring attack (waste two feats to get a third feat that lets you make a single attack and retreat behind cover)

Shot on the Run (waste two feats-the same two stupid feats - to get a third feat that lets you make a single attack and retreat behind cover, only with range)

Or for any ranged attacker....

Buy a mount or cast a spell that creates a mount - spend zero feats to get the ability to come out of full cover/concealment, do a FULL attack (or spont metamagic+quicken spell if that is your jam) and still end up back behind full cover.


Is it any wonder that the only people with spring attack are NPCs? (and effective only if they're something like a dread wraith where limiting your enemies to single action responses is actually a winning strategy sometimes). You can buy a mount with starting cash if you are a martial, or after first adventure if you are anybody, it's under 200gp for a wartrained mount with all the trimmings to ride it and carry your stuff.

And if your character is actually decent at ride and/or handle animal you can do the same thing with an 8gp mule that is nearly as durable, if a lot slower than your typical riding dog/light warhorse options.

[Elder_Basilisk]

So then a couple questions: do you think that straight up converting deadly stroke to archery with slimmed down prereqs and targeting requirement would be balanced?

Something like: +11 BAB, precise shot. You may make a single attack as a standard action. It deals double damage. Against a flatfooted for within 30 feet it also deals 1 point of con bleed.

I guess ranged con bleed is asking for tarrasque (or at least high CR monsters without healing) hunting abuse. Deadly stroke doesn't get abused like that because it's melee and the prereqs and targeting requirement ensure that no one ever takes it.

It's still not going to win any contests against volley firing--especially in Pathfinder where manyshot and haste let full attack archers essentially get four attacks at their highest attack bonus -2. But it is a lot better than a single attack.

[Elder_Basilisk]

Also related to mounts.

We have spring attack (waste two feats to get a third feat that lets you make a single attack and retreat behind cover)

Shot on the Run (waste two feats-the same two stupid feats - to get a third feat that lets you make a single attack and retreat behind cover, only with range)

Or for any ranged attacker....

Buy a mount or cast a spell that creates a mount - spend zero feats to get the ability to come out of full cover/concealment, do a FULL attack (or spont metamagic+quicken spell if that is your jam) and still end up back behind full cover.


Is it any wonder that the only people with spring attack are NPCs? (and effective only if they're something like a dread wraith where limiting your enemies to single action responses is actually a winning strategy sometimes). You can buy a mount with starting cash if you are a martial, or after first adventure if you are anybody, it's under 200gp for a wartrained mount with all the trimmings to ride it and carry your stuff.

And if your character is actually decent at ride and/or handle animal you can do the same thing with an 8gp mule that is nearly as durable, if a lot slower than your typical riding dog/light warhorse options.

I rather like the spring attack, elusive target (technically not in the feat line but shares prereqs and is a fun feat) bounding assault etc line of feats--especially on a 3.5 scout. The only problem with the build was that scout's boots are only two charges to boots of speed 10 charges. (Should be an easy DM fix to buy a greater scouts boots with more charges for correspondingly more cost. But when I was playing the character, my DM didn't go for it. I think he felt like the character was already wrecking the age of worms along with the spreadsheet archer). But shoot on the run earned all the scorn you're pouring on it.

Only problem with the mount solution is that the monsters can shut it down any time they like by targeting the mount unless you have something that's equivalent to a full advancement bonded mount/animal companion. A lot of the time, they can take out the mount trivially either with the area spell they were going to cast anyway or cleave it with a single attack and not even lose any damage on the target they really want to hit.

[Nihilarian]

Scout can't even get the last spring attack tree feat without significant multiclassing, and pounce/turn undead (for travel devotion) are so easy to get i really can't imagine actually going for that.

For non scouts the Wild Cohort nets you a no-nonsense mount capable of taking a hit or two.

For sniper types i thought about combining Hunter's Mercy with Havoc Mage. The wording on Hunter's Mercy is a bit awkward though and specifically says you have to make the attack in the next turn. Still doable if you don't mind the one turn chargeup. You could do something similar with Deathsight if you're willing to deal with death attack nonsense. But the levels in Havoc Mage will come at the expense of levels in another class that gives death attack. In either case you could get most of the same functionality from quickeningit instead.

[Gruftzwerg]

Scout can't even get the last spring attack tree feat without significant multiclassing, and pounce/turn undead (for travel devotion) are so easy to get i really can't imagine actually going for that.

If we are already talking about alternate build suggestions, imho a "ranged ubercharger" is the best out of the two worlds (melee/ranged).
Pounce (Barb 1 ACF)
Stagger (Drunken Master 2)
Bloodstorm Blade 4

With these ingredients you'll get a potent throwing build that gets charge multipliers each turn (valorous weapon, dive attack with piercing/slashing weapon, ...) and will be always moving to the best spot to attack/defend.

I've 2 builds in this forum if anyone should be interested.

[Seward]

For sniper types i thought about combining Hunter's Mercy with Havoc Mage.

While it isn't the same thing at all, the thought of adding havoc mage to an archer is interesting (full attack+spell). Might help fill out the last few levels of an arcane archer going into epic (to get the sweet sweet epic +6 enhancement from his class levels) reminded me of something I tried on a volley archer build once. (not a PC, built as an NPC for L12-16 play)

At level 11, go into seeker of the song. That class is normally pretty worthless but it does add swift action blasting effects in various elements at close range (60' frost line, 30' fire cone or some such). While the damage doesn't scale, as a swift action add-on to a volley attack, it isn't bad and also provides a bit of help for any primary caster artillery type attacks finishing off stuff damaged with area spells.

Lets see, for havoc mage and longer range archery....

elf fighter2/warmage3/figher4/warmage4/havoc mage2/arcane archer 10. You don't get guided shot, but you can put together some interesting stuff. With warmage edge things like acid arrow are actually pretty dangerous, and you can at minimum add 5 magic missiles+edge to your volley attack. You even get to keep your swift action, as battlecasting is just part of the full attack.

Lesse, pb shot, precise rapid by L2, practiced spellcaster for L3 feat, wf at 6 wspec at 7, ranged weapon mastery by L9. Bab is only 6, but arcane archer is fullbab so improved precise shot by L15, bab16 by level 20, it isn't terrible. For L12 and 18 Imp crit, Quickdraw, Woodland Archer, Far Shot, Extra Edge or whatever other archery feat you like could round it out (arcane thesis scorching ray gets it to 11, for an extra 12d6+edge at short range for those not fire resistant via havoc mage)

You'd still be stronger at short range (scorching rays) then medium range (magic missile) then long range (acid arrow) and without guided shot you can't really do long range archery shenanigans which you could with a sorcerer or wizard entry point, but I feel the flexibility the many, many ray spells available to a L4-5 warmage+edge would make up the difference, while spell slots lasted (plus a few are ok candidates for imbue arrow in the surprise round)