The Archer [3.5 Base Class, P.E.A.C.H.]

[chrisrawr]

Comments bolded :3

As pointed out by Knaight, Sniping seems a little weak. I love the idea of a sniper character, and I feel that they're almost impossible to do well. I understand that the class is intentionally built low and unfinished right now, but you may want to check out the Sniper for inspiration. It's not perfect (I have a few modifications I make to actually use it), but it's very nice.

Agreed, I like it very much, and will probably find inspiration from it.

I agree that the damage seems low as well; that's ranged combat's biggest problem, really. I think that if the Precision Shooting ability came every three levels (3, 6 ,9, 12, 15, 18) it might help the issue a little bit.

Close to what I was thinking; I'm going with 4/7/10/13/16/19 for now, and also moving the Arrow Theory to 3/8/13/18 - I want to have enough arrows to tailor to a broad range of campaigns, without making the choice of arrow a big deal, but still keeping your choices limited so they feel speshul. You should be able to say "ooh, there's lots of crackly undead, let's take incendiary arrows.", or "ooh, we're going to be sneaking into a castle, let's take an arrow that can anchor our climbing rope." I've also added the last two paths... they feel kind of uninspired at the moment :c

Multiplying the damage on a crit's a little strange; maybe just add it on a crit like Telling Blow? My only issue is that it's strange language not found anywhere else (to the best of my knowledge) that actually goes against the standard definition of Precision Damage, whereas a built-in Telling Blow-like ability does have some precedent.

I'll look into it; Precision Damage is just the crappy placeholder name I gave it for now; "Damage that applies to Chink in the Armor victims" just doesn't have the same ring to it. Having it apply on criticals against non-chink'd targets seems about right.

I look forward to reading your playtesting information.

Hrawr; I had one DM turn it down because it was overpowered. The rest of the party looks like full casters. Though, Swiftblade was also turned down. Apparently having the ability to simulate spells and shoot arrows is more powerful than being able to cast genesis all day without restriction :I