I’ve made an attempt to build an Arcane Archer using Ultimate Ranger here. Race was selected for pure power-gaming purposes. I chose Harper Scout to qualify for Arcane Archer because it has a decent skill list, no experience penalty, and I didn’t see the character as evil. Between them that ruled out all the other possible choices.
Race: Avariel Alignment: Any non-Evil
Ability Scores (Initial/Final) STR 14 DEX 20/34 CON 12 INT 16 WIS 10 CHA 10
Final Stats HP (Maxed): 402 AC (Naked): 32 AB (Longbow): +54/+49/+44/+39 AB (Rapier): +43/+38/+33/+28 Damage (Longbow): 1D8+8 (Critical 19-20/x3) Damage (Rapier): 1D6+2 (Critical 18-20/x2) Fortitude: 23 Reflex: 32 Will: 22 BAB: 30
Skills She has a grand total of 301 skill points to distribute. I divided them as follows:- Craft Trap 5, Disable Traps 1, Discipline 43, Hide 43, Listen 43, Lore 6, Move Silently 43, Open Locks 1, Persuade 8, Search 14, Set Trap 10, Spellcraft 17, Tumble 40.
Magic Item Wishlist Most importantly a mighty bow. A Haste item would also be very useful.
Strengths The UR Special Abilities make her a much better sneaky archer than a Ranger would be. HIPS, Uncanny Dodge, Sneak Attack and Fast Movement are all useful. Dodge FE Bonus adds +8 Dodge AC against her Favoured Enemies. Bane of Enemies adds +2AB and +2D6+8 Damage against some of the toughest foes she is likely to meet. Her Winter Wolf Animal Companion is quite a useful meat shield. Pity she can’t buff it at all.
Weaknesses Although her melee AB is OK her melee damage is poor and her HP aren’t great so best avoided where possible I think. Except for Reflexes her saving throws aren’t great although she gets +4 vs. magic from Spellcraft and +2 vs. traps from HS.
Varients Too many to list but here are a few that occurred to me. Since she should be trying to avoid melee where possible Weapon Finesse could be dropped, maybe for Toughness or Luck of Heroes. This would make her less playable before she gets all her archery feats and UR special abilities though. If more melee presence is required WF, IC and EWF in rapier (or any other finessable weapon) could replace other feats. This would require a bit of juggling around of feats though depending on what was dropped. Bard or Assassain could replace HS. The main benefit would be to give her access to UMD which would be very helpful to her. She could use some more skill points. If she moved some ability points from STR, CON and/or CHA to INT she’d have a few more to play with.
I have tested the build and it can be built as shown. The manual seems to be wrong about Bane of Enemies. It doesn’t require 5 FE and an Epic Character, just an Epic Ranger. I took a 5th FE anyway and Bane of Enemies could be swopped with EWF: Longbow if there were doubts about the legality of the build. _________________ Teaching men a lesson in combat etiquette.
Edited By Amazon Queen on 07/05/05 02:12
Sneak Attack should be noted as an UR Special Ability as well. Too late to edit now I do try and proof-read these things before posting, honest _________________ Teaching men a lesson in combat etiquette.
