Bowsage -- Martial Archer Base Class

[dspeyer]

Bowsage

Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.

Level	BAB	Fort	Ref	Will	Special	Known	Readied	Stances
1	1	0	2	0	Point Blank Shot	4	4	1
2	2	0	3	0	Wise Cover	5	4	1
3	3	1	3	1	Weapon Focus	6	5	1
4	4	1	4	1	Wise Motion	7	5	2
5	5	1	4	1		8	5	2
6	6/1	2	5	2	Bonus Feat	9	6	2
7	7/2	2	5	2		10	6	2
8	8/3	2	6	2	Distant Perception	11	7	3
9	9/4	3	6	3		12	7	3
10	10/5	3	7	3	Bonus Feat	13	7	3
11	11/6/1	3	7	3		14	8	3
12	12/7/2	4	8	4	Prolonged Boost 1/day	14	8	4
13	13/8/3	4	8	4		15	9	4
14	14/9/4	4	9	4	Bonus Feat	15	9	4
15	15/10/5	5	9	5		16	9	4
16	16/11/6/1	5	10	5	Prolonged Boost 2/day	16	10	5
17	17/12/7/2	5	10	5		17	10	5
18	18/13/8/3	6	11	6	Bonus Feat	17	11	5
19	19/14/9/4	6	11	6		18	11	5
20	20/15/10/5	6	12	6	Prolonged Boost 3/day	18	11	6

Hit Die: d8
Skills: 4+int
Class Skills: Craft, Hide, Knowledge (a&e), Listen, Martial Lore, Move Silently, Search, Spot
Weapons: All simple weapons, all martial ranged weapons, hand- and repeating- crossbows
Martial Schools: Falcon's Eye, Iron Rain, Nightengale Feather, Shadow Hand

Recovery: A Bowsage can recover a single spent maneuver as a move action. He cannot, however, both recover and execute a single maneuver in the same round.

Point-Blank Shot (ex): At level 1, a Bowsage gets Point Blank Shot as a bonus feat

Wise Cover (ex): If you spend enough time standing behind a rampart and shooting things, you get better at standing behind ramparts. At level 2, a Bowsage with partial cover adds 5 percentage points of mischance per point of wisdom modifier (if positive), to a maximum of 95% miss chance.

Weapon Focus (ex): At level 3, a Bowsage gains Weapon Focus with a ranged weapon of his choice.

Wise Motion (ex): At level 4, a Bowsage adds his wisdom modifier (if positive) to move silently checks.

Bonus feat: At levels 6, 10, 14 and 18, a Bowsage gains a bonus feat. The feat must have either point blank shot, weapon focus (a ranged weapon), or a Falcon's Eye, Iron Rain or Nightengale Feather maneuver as a prerequisite. The Bowsage must meet all the feat's prerequisites, except that he may treat his fighter level as half his Bowsage level (plus any actual levels in fighter).

Prolonged Boost (su): When executing a boost that normally lasts until end of turn or for one round, a Bowsage may choose to prolong it. This causes the boost's effects to last for a number of rounds equal to his wisdom modifier. At level 12, he can do this 1/day (16: 2/day, 20: 3/day).

[DracoDei]

Consider granting proficiency in repeater crossbows. This would help Small races.


EDIT: Or, if you think that is too powerful (which it probably isn't), then add those EWPs to the bonus feat list.

[JKTrickster]

This class seems a little...empty. I mean besides the prolonged boost it basically relies on maneuvers. The other ToB classes at least had unique abilities, not just upgrades of one ability.

[dspeyer]

Well, yes. It's full BAB, lots of maneuvers and a good recovery mechanism (at least if you don't need your move actions for anything else). Putting powerful class features on top of that seemed like the route to OPdom.

Though, really, how important are class features to a warblade or swordsage (apart from the ac bonus)?

[ForzaFiori]

Honestly, unless your extra features are "immune to magic" or something similar, it's pretty hard to overpower a melee class, and is usually ok to go all out. While the full BAB, bonus feats, good maneuvers and great recovery are awesome, This lags behinds most of the initiator classes from the lack of unique abilities other than extending boosts. Maybe more features that add wisdom to other abilities, to mesh with what you already have.

Even without having a huge amount of use, unique abilities are what makes your class appealing. It's why some people will even play monks. Because of the unique abilities. It's also part of what the problem with a normal fighter is. Simply having them shows at a glance that a class has a set "goal" in mind for what makes it different.