Why is Arcane archer bad?

[ExtravagantEvil]

Good morning, the dark lord returns to the playground and demands an answer to his question.
Why does Arcane Archer Suck? I presume that one key component is no Caster level increase, but is there something more than that?
I ask because a PC of mine wants to Do Fighter/Rouge/Assassin/Arcane Archer (yes, he's qualifying for an evocation prestige class with Assassin spells).

[Lord Vukodlak]

Its not that the class is bad its the class isn't good. Back in 3.0 when the weapon and ammo stacked it had an edge a +5 bow with +5 arrows meant +10 to hit and damage. You also needed magic arrows to overcome DR because bows didn't bestow that for DR purposes onto ammo.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Good morning, the dark lord returns to the playground and demands an answer to his question.
Why does Arcane Archer Suck? I presume that one key component is no Caster level increase, but is there something more than that?
I ask because a PC of mine wants to Do Fighter/Rouge/Assassin/Arcane Archer (yes, he's qualifying for an evocation prestige class with Assassin spells).

Because of the following reasons:

1) It is a PrC which requires arcane casting, but does not promote or advance arcane casting

2) It's primary class ability is replicated with a 3rd level spell

3) All the other abilities are 1/day, or, in the case of Imbue Arrow, is dependent on spells which the class does not have any means of acquiring.

[Soranar]

because the whole class can be replaced by a magic bow

[Eldariel]

Because of the following reasons:

1) It is a PrC which requires arcane casting, but does not promote or advance arcane casting

2) It's primary class ability is replicated with a 3rd level spell

3) All the other abilities are 1/day, or, in the case of Imbue Arrow, is dependent on spells which the class does not have any means of acquiring.

To expand upon the last one:
All the other abilities are 1/day and not even very good. The most saddeningly hilarious part is the capstone, which may work against some creatures you face but they'll make the save on anything but 1 ('cause you can't add any ability modifier to the save DC). And then you need to spend some day fletching another one...

But also, both Seeking Arrow and Phasing Arrow are Standard Actions so they can't be used with full attacks or Imbue Arrow, making them quite useless (even with infinite uses per day) and Hail of Arrows is only marginally better than full attack in the most beneficial circumstances (but it's actually a non-fail class feature...except it's 1/day).


And yeah, Enhance Arrow is just sad; it doesn't stack with bow enhancement bonuses and even if it did, Greater Magic Weapon would do the same thing and you can get that for free from party Wizard/Cleric most likely, or if you were a real caster, you could just cast it yourself. Which leaves Arcane Archer as a class that's strictly worse than just going Eldritch Knight ('cause Eldritch Knight needs exactly one 3rd level slot to replicate the entire AA class and then gets all the other spell slots to go with it).


I made a fixed Arcane Archer long ago; you can see just how much bonus crap can be crammed into the class without breaking it in any way.

[Starbuck_II]

Good morning, the dark lord returns to the playground and demands an answer to his question.
Why does Arcane Archer Suck? I presume that one key component is no Caster level increase, but is there something more than that?
I ask because a PC of mine wants to Do Fighter/Rouge/Assassin/Arcane Archer (yes, he's qualifying for an evocation prestige class with Assassin spells).

You ask why bad? I ask you to reverse. Tell us why it is good: why Arcane Archer? Is it the name?
A rose by any other name can smell as sweet.
Is it it the +X to arrows? A Magic bow does the same in 3.5 (they don't stack).
It might be the fireball arrow thing? Okay, but then you are only dipping.

[ExtravagantEvil]

All excellent points, and I think its odd no one has yet commented on the build

[Private-Prinny]

I made a fixed Arcane Archer long ago; you can see just how much bonus crap can be crammed into the class without breaking it in any way.

And if that's not enough, I actually made a fix myself (though I think Eldariel's is better), and there's always the Pathfinder Arcane Archer. Just don't use the DMG version. It's bad. Really bad.

BTW, what Assassin spells can even be imbued on an arrow besides Obscuring Mist, because I can't think of anything else?

[Eldariel]

All excellent points, and I think its odd no one has yet commented on the build

Sure, I'll comment on it: Fighter doesn't make much sense in a Rogue-shell. Swashbuckler seems better, or just straight Rogue. Assassin is kinda fine, but AA gives him nothing. Straight Ranger or Swashbuckler e.g. would be much more conductive to...achieving something. Or hell, Eldritch Knight. Two-level dip for Imbue Arrow would be fine except, yeah, Assassin-list doesn't really go with that.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

If you want to be a ranged sniper type, go into Shadowdancer, who not only picks up Hide in Plain Sight, but also gets Shadow Jump for maneuverability.

Honestly, what were your plans concerning Arcane Archer? What did you hope it would do for you?

[Snake-Aes]

If you want to be a ranged sniper type, go into Shadowdancer, who not only picks up Hide in Plain Sight, but also gets Shadow Jump for maneuverability.

Honestly, what were your plans concerning Arcane Archer? What did you hope it would do for you?

cragtop archer for range silliness!

[ExtravagantEvil]

Honestly, what were your plans concerning Arcane Archer? What did you hope it would do for you?

No, no no its not I who wants to play the Fighter/Rouge/Assasin/AA, its one of the players in a Red Hand of Doom game I'm running, he was going 3 levels of fighter, then rouge, and then assassin probably from the get go. Then sneak into arcane archer, he plans on using darkness with imbue arrow so that he can catch them flat footed when it is over, or shoot at them while they are in the fog, which is not a good plan in my opinion, seeing as how he, even with Blind fight, has 50% miss chance.

[DragoonWraith]

You can put Darkness on an arrow and shoot it by default. You don't need Arcane Archer to do that. Reread how Darkness works.

[CyMage]

he was going 3 levels of fighter, then rouge

Unless he's taking Fighter AFCs, odd levels of fighter are not optimal.

[Coidzor]

Just sounds like a poorly thought out build.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

No, no no its not I who wants to play the Fighter/Rouge/Assasin/AA, its one of the players in a Red Hand of Doom game I'm running, he was going 3 levels of fighter, then rouge, and then assassin probably from the get go. Then sneak into arcane archer, he plans on using darkness with imbue arrow so that he can catch them flat footed when it is over, or shoot at them while they are in the fog, which is not a good plan in my opinion, seeing as how he, even with Blind fight, has 50% miss chance.

First off, Darkness doesn't block LoS, it grants Concealment, so it would only negate his precision-based damage (since his opponents would now have concealment).

Second, as previously mentioned, you can cast Darkness on an object, and it stays with that object... like an arrow.

Third, a dip in Warlock nets you Darkness as a Spell-Like Ability with unlimited uses. A two-level dip nets you:

1d6 EB (almost worthless, unless you use it as a carrier for sneak attack used as a touch attack, even then still almost worthless, but better than a crossbow)
2 Invocations of your choice. If you want, Darkness + Devil's Sight lets you pull something similar, however don't forget your allies have problems with Darkness as well.
Detect Magic - at will

[TooManyBadgers]

I'm confused. Darkness grants concealment. It's a buff. Why does he want to buff his targets?

Especially when that buff is one of the best ways of negating his primary damage source?

The build itself is mediocre; he could do worse (with, say, straightclassed Fighter or Ranger), but he could do a whole lot better (with Rogue/Assassin, he'd be able to do all the same things, but he'd be better at them).

But yeah, the things he wants to do don't work the way he thinks.

[Kalrik]

Pathfinder Arcane Archer isn't as bad as the 3.5. Fighter 2/Wiz 8/AA 10 nets a +16 Bab and base 9/6/10 saves. 8th lvl spell progression with a CL 15; 19 if DM allows for Practiced Spellcaster. All arrows are flaming/shocking/icy burst and axiomatic, anarchic, holy, or unholy.

Gravity Bow from the APG bumps the damage from your bow to 2d6...I rolled one up since a buddy of mine was playing an AA and wasn't doing a great job of it. I wanted to show him what it could do.

And yes, 1/day special abilities is indeed fail, but if you are looking for something with more flavor and don't care much about optimization, you could do worse.

[Eldariel]

And yes, 1/day special abilities is indeed fail, but if you are looking for something with more flavor and don't care much about optimization, you could do worse.

It kinda sucks when the signature abilities of your class are unusable, flavorwise or otherwise...

[ExtravagantEvil]

I'm confused. Darkness grants concealment. It's a buff. Why does he want to buff his targets?

Especially when that buff is one of the best ways of negating his primary damage source?

The build itself is mediocre; he could do worse (with, say, straightclassed Fighter or Ranger), but he could do a whole lot better (with Rogue/Assassin, he'd be able to do all the same things, but he'd be better at them).

But yeah, the things he wants to do don't work the way he thinks.

Yes, he has no sense of build, sure that is mildly ok in the sense that he plays the game for its own sake, not just as a thought exercise with tactics. I'll point out the darkness bit to him.

[dsmiles]

because the whole class can be replaced by a magic bow

This. No need to say more.

[Draz74]

Ranger 7 / Assassin 8 / Arcane Archer 2 / Eldritch Knight 3

does sound like a fun, though not super-optimal, Core-Only archery build.

[Dr.Epic]

Personally, I like it, and I've always wanted to play one.

[Prime32]

See if you can modify the duskblade's arcane channeling so that it works with ranged weapons instead of melee ones. There is precedent for this (an elf paladin RSL which grants ranged smite).

[Boci]

See if you can modify the duskblade's arcane channeling so that it works with ranged weapons instead of melee ones. There is precedent for this (an elf paladin RSL which grants ranged smite).

If RAW is required, you can do it by taking a 2 level dip into BB, which isn't too suboptimal, but it will eat up your swift action.