Alenom the Swift, the Swift Hunter

[Darius Rae]

In May I am going to be starting the Drow War Campaign. Most of the players that will be in it are not the character optimization types so I figured that this would be a good chance for me not to play a DMM cleric.

What I am looking for is a good archer build. The requirements are Race: Elf, and Feats: Swift Hunter. I don't think we will be playing with multiclassing exp loss.

So far it seems that Scout 3/Ranger 15 is a good start with maybe cloistered cleric added in. Has anyone tried this build before? Is there any major "Must Haves" for this build, besides Greater Multishot?

I need a 1-20 and a 1-30 class list, as I do not yet know if we are going to play all the way through the epic level part of the campaign.

edit: any books and dragon mags. Mystic Ranger perhaps? And I don't care for my animal companion.

[Ranger Mattos]

Take a look at the Swift Hunter Handbook. (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=103.0) I'm sure it will probably tell you what you need to know.

[Darius Rae]

I have looked over it, I guess my questions are more about first hand experience with a swift hunter, and the idea of multiclassing into cloistered cleric.

[9mm]

I have looked over it, I guess my questions are more about first hand experience with a swift hunter, and the idea of multiclassing into cloistered cleric.

cloistered cleric throuugh use of zen archery would make you even more Wis Dependant, and let you dump the knowlege domain for knowlege devotion; but that's about it; any level not in scout or ranger is levels NOT going towards your skirmish, and you just wouldn't get enough spells to get a decent return on investment imo unless you went beyond the normal limits of a "dip."

[Vizzerdrix]

Cleric-1/Scout-3/Fighter-1 into PrC Ranger.

If you can get an okay for Fractional BAB then you can Go with this. Cloistered Cleric will not work with this build, sorry.

Fighter can be swapped for any full BAB class.

Travel and Plant/Animal domains. Crystal Keep may be able to help you find a propped god.

[Darius Rae]

If I did that, would I then be able to take the feat that lets me prepare wizard spells from a borrowed spellbook, to effectively get lots of divine and arcane spells? Could this be then used to qualify for arcane archer?

[Vizzerdrix]

Oooh. good call. See if you can get the Pathfinder AA approved. I hear it gets 7/10 casting.

[Coidzor]

I don't know if Sword of the Arcane Order works with PrC Ranger.

My gut instinct is, sure, why not. But my head instinct tells me that it's probably going to have to be ruled on directly by the DM due to its... grayness.

Well, considering the requirements for a ranger are worshipping Mystra (so, if you're in Forgotten Realms... might have a bit harder time getting that requirement waived), that might create issues with getting the necessary domains to count for PrC ranger.

Not sure what happens with the PrC if you change deities and have to switch out domains as a result.

I'm pretty sure you switchout domains when you switch deities as a cleric, anyway...