53 left over, suggested placement in Taunt, Heal or Lore.
You can get the base AB slightly higher by taking two more great STR, dropping lingering and using the AA bonus feat used on Epic Toughness on EWF longbow using that CoT feat for Armor Skin and moving toughness up pre-epic. Will lose 20 HPs.
Bardsong will boost your AB and AC by two most importantly and you get one 4/4, 4/4, 4/3 and 3/1 for bard spells. _________________ .:\_/:. Only those who have known darkness in (OvO) their hearts will see the shadows in life... (|__|) ..".."..
Edited By Jennalee on 10/24/05 14:23
Pretty well balanced. The ranged AB is very low for an AA character but using AA is actually a great way to bring up ranged AB in a strength build.
For party play, assuming the party already has frontliners I'd adjust the build somewhat to use more dexterity and thereby increase its ranged AB (say, 18 or 20 dex base) and then probably use AC 2 light armor with +6 max dex bonus (getting the last dex points from extended cat's grace). You'd lose 1 or 2 points of melee AB and damage, but in a party situation you'll be better able to stay out of melee and your +10 enchanted arrows will probably not only outdamage your melee weapon, but serve as your party's ace in the hole against creatures with DR.
AC 30 in medium armor + shield really is quite good; a character in heavy armor with max tumble usually only hits 32 or so. You might consider however using a chain shirt or scale armor instead of a breastplate or chain armor, and using cat's grace from Bard to buff your dex to 18 (or higher). That will give you +8 AC instead of +7 from armor/dex bonus, nudging your AC in mundane gear up to 31. It also has a lower arcane failure rate. YMMV of course but I'm a fan of the AC 4 "lighter" medium armor because it has +4 maximum dex bonus compared to the AC 5 medium armor's +2.
I think this build has very strong RP potential either way and easily could be used to emulate many classic fantasy archer-swordsmen like Legolas from the Lord of the Rings, or even Odysseus. _________________ Experience is the mother of good judgement; bad judgement is the father of experience.
Yep, I listed the AC in BP because it is the highest he can get with mundane items but if I was playing, I would have intended to use the chain shirt at the heaviest. _________________ .:\_/:. Only those who have known darkness in (OvO) their hearts will see the shadows in life... (|__|) ..".."..
My version is 1-8 Bard 9-18 AA 19-28 CoT 29 Bard 30-33 AA 34 Bard 35-39 AA 40 Bard I started with 16 STR and 14 DEX, and ended up with the same STR as Singer of B&B. I didn't get lingering, imp. crit. (longbow), called shot, toughness, and 2 less GRT STR's, but I got great cleave, Dev. crit. (scimitar), power att. and epic reflex. AB is Scimitar- 41/36/31/26 Longbow-43/38/33/28 I think yours is a bit better, but I like Dev. Crit
