In another thread, Georgel wrote "For Dex bards here's what I usually play: Half Elf or Elf (if you don’t mind the xp penalty) Bard 21/Rogue 10/Arcane Archer 9. It's an excellent combination, gives you 4 attacks per round (6 with haste and rapid shot), full arsenal of spells, Sneak Attacks, Evasion, Uncanny Dodge, +5 Arrows to cut through any non-epic damage shields, Fireball Arrows, an extra Rogue Feat (Improved Evasion, or another as desired), maxed out Rogue Skills, Tumble, Use Items, SpellMastery, and a maxed out Bardsong and Curse Song that will quickly turn the tide of any battle. Best of all, you can do almost EVERYTHING in the game and it's extremely fun to play."

This idea intrigues me. Could some of you draft up a level by level build for this character? I'd really appreciate input from the master builders here. I've asked Georgel to post his build in the Epic Builds thread, but it hasn't shown up yet. So I'm turning to the general public here

Thanks,
Kaliban This is a slight variation of what you asked for. The reason I went with 13 Rogue lvls rather than 10 is that you need 2 Rogue feats to get Epic Dodge. You don't lose much in terms of Bard Song, and you only lose a couple 6th lvl spell slots, so overall I think it's a pretty good trade-off.


Rogue 13/Bard 18/AA 9
(pre-epic Rogue 4/Bard 8/AA

Race: Half-Elven

Stats

Starting:

Str 10
Dex 16
Con 14
Int 14
Wis 8
Cha 14

2 points into Cha, 8 points into Dex

Ending:

Str 10
Dex 26
Con 14
Int 14
Wis 8
Cha 16


Feats

1 Point Blank Shot
3 Rapid Shot
6 Dodge
9 WF: Shortbow
12 Toughness
15 Called Shot
18 Curse Song
21 Epic Weapon Focus: Shortbow
24 Epic Prowess
27 Armor Skin, Rogue: Improved Evasion
30 Lasting Inspiration
33 Great Dex I
36 Great Dex II
39 Epic Dodge, Rogue: Defensive Roll


Epic level progression

21 AA
22-27 Rogue
28-36 Bard
37-39 Rogue
40 Bard

Skills:

Concentration: 43
Discipline: 43
Healing: 10
Hide: 30 *
Move Silently: 30 *
Spellcraft: 40
Taunt: 43 *
Tumble: 40
UMD: 25 *

* These skills are not critical to the build. You could use these points for something else if you wanted to, although personally I think they are nice to have.

Total: 304 skill credits

AB: 27 base
+8 Dex
+1 WF
+2 EWF
+1 Epic Prowess
+5 Enchant Arrows
____
44 w/ mundane Shortbow

AC: 10 base
+8 Dex
+8 Tumble
+2 Armor Skin
____
28 Naked AC

HP: 396 unbuffed (assuming max possible HP every level)

Variation

Bard 21/Shadowdancer 10/AA 9 - Allows you to get 3 more Bard lvls and still pick up Epic Dodge. Although you lose the sneak attacks, you gain HIPS. Thanks Crispy. I'll take a good look at this tomorrow. Quick question - why shortbow over longbow?

Thanks!
Kaliban.
Quote: Posted 09/13/04 05:49:28 (GMT) -- Kaliban99

Thanks Crispy. I'll take a good look at this tomorrow. Quick question - why shortbow over longbow?

Thanks!
Kaliban.

Half Elf nor Rogue or Bard can use a longbow, with AA you CAN use it, but you need a weapon focus in longbow or shortbow before you get AA. So he took shortbow probably to save him a feat (martial weapon proficiency) to get longbow.
Quote: Posted 09/13/04 17:37:24 (GMT) -- Dimundome

Quote: Posted 09/13/04 05:49:28 (GMT) -- Kaliban99

Thanks Crispy. I'll take a good look at this tomorrow. Quick question - why shortbow over longbow?

Thanks!
Kaliban.

Half Elf nor Rogue or Bard can use a longbow, with AA you CAN use it, but you need a weapon focus in longbow or shortbow before you get AA. So he took shortbow probably to save him a feat (martial weapon proficiency) to get longbow.
Ah, makes sense now. Is the shortbow much weaker in the hands of an AA than a longbow? Or does it depend on the hardware available on the PW? My PW uses most of the campaign equipment if that helps.

Thanks,
K. Shortbow is 1d6 as opposed to 1d8 with a longbow, so you will do maybe 1 point less damage on average. The only real advantage of the longbow is that you may be able to find a better longbow than you could a shortbow if you use the weapons in the OCs. If you know there are some good longbows that you will want to use, you could take another Weapon Focus in Longbow once you took your first Arcane Archer lvl, but personally I wouldn't bother unless the longbows that you have access to are really that much better.