Ranged Support

[DoctorHobo]

Bows VS Crossbows VS Thrown Weapons

Who wins the contest of best ranged support?

Personally I have to with bows. Bows can add your strength modifier to damage, though I admit that anyone focusing their build on archery would probably focus more on Dexterity than Strength, they'd probably still put one of their bonuses in Strength, which is better than the whopping nothing crossbows give you.

Actually, I take it back. There's that crossbow sniper feat that allows you to add half your dexterity to damage. I suppose who wins there depends on whether or not your strength modifier is better than half your dexterity modifier.

Thrown weapons, though. I don't like thrown weapons. For one, it's way more expensive to enchant every thrown weapon you plan on using than a single bow or crossbow. Two, the thrown weapons all seem to have mediocre range and damage.

[SurlySeraph]

You can do awesome things with thrown weapons with Bloodstorm Blade and Master Thrower. Making 22 attacks per round, for example (4 BAB, 1 Whirling Frenzy, 1 Flurry of Blows, 1 Rapid Shot, 3 GTWF, 1 Haste, doubled by Palm Throw), all of which can be touch attacks and/or trip attempts as well. Combined with Wounding Shuriken, that can be pretty terrifying. And Bloodstorm Blade gives you convenient abilities that cover most of the problems with throwing (letting you use strikes and Power Attack at range, your weapons instantly bounce back so you can full attack with a single weapon at range).

Bows can get even more attacks than that using the Splitting enhancement, which is rather hax. Plus the Force enhancement sweeps away a lot of the problems with archery. And the Energy Bow on the WotC site, which is very nice. And there's the Bow of the Solars, which is ridiculously expensive but extremely nice if you get enough attacks.

Crossbows can be great, too, but usually take more work than normal bows do.

Also, Factotum or Swiftblade can make for quite impressive archers, using Greater Manyshot to get a bunch more attacks on their extra standard actions. Adding in some ToB maneuvers, particularly Raging Mongoose and Time Stands Still, improve things further.

[DoctorHobo]

This Bloodstorm Blade intrigues me. What book is it found in?

[Zhalath]

This Bloodstorm Blade intrigues me. What book is it found in?

That would be Tome of Battle. It's for all you warblades (or feat sinking other classes) that have always wanted to throw your sword at something and be good at it.

[dgnslyr]

Throwing weapons, because I haven't seen a bow or crossbow build anywhere nearly as ridiculous as the Katana Chucker (tm).

[tyckspoon]

Bows are the best baseline and have reasonable support without having to delve too far into optimization- you can grab a +5 Bow and Rapid Shot your way through a quiver of +1 Collision Shocking Frost arrows and you'll do alright. Not excellent, but you'll be performing more or less like you're supposed to, and you may even be considered a bit overpowered in a low-op environment.

Throwing gives the best return on optimization effort, IMO, but it's the weakest ranged option at the base level.