Questions about archery

I'm curious how to make archery a viable build and what effects the chances to hit.

For example, is there any penalty to shooting something too close or too far away?

How do the feats like point blank shot and rapid reload work in ToEE?

Every time I have someone use a bow I'm just fill with regret as they just usually miss everything..

Is there no compound bows or anything ? Do they enchant the same?
Does strength help at all?

Do ranger's lose their feats in elven chain or plate mail in ToEE?

 

In elven chain, no. Plate? I am not sure but I think so.

 

High Dexterity will give you a better chance to hit.

Take these feats as early as possible:

- Point Blank Shot (+1 to hit at close range, prerequisite for Precise Shot)
- Precise Shot (fire into melee without a -4 penalty to hit)
- Rapid Shot (fire one extra shot each turn, but all at a -2 penalty)​

Use a Longbow, preferably a Composite Longbow when available.

The range on a longbow is long enough so that range penalties are not an issue for most encounters in the game.

Point Blank Shot - see what I wrote above.
Rapid Reload - related to Crossbows, which you won't be using as a serious archer.

I hear this a lot, and the main reason archers miss a lot are:

1) They don't have Precise Shot feat and are suffering as -4 penatly to hit when firing into melee.

2) They are firing at a target who has 'cover' from another person between them. The target gets a +4 AC bonus from this cover. This AC bonus can only be seen by examining the target's AC in the combat window. This is often overlooked by player's since it seems that the arrow is passing through just fine. You want to aim your shots as often as possible so that there is no one between you and your target. ​

Those 2 reasons combined are the main reasons archers seem to 'miss everything', as thy effectively give you a -8 to hit penalty.

Composite Longbows are a must for an archer. They add your strength bonus to the damage roll. They are sold by Armario the cabinet maker after you make the Decklo wood available. He also sells masterwork versions for crafting.

Elven chain is fine, but a ranger is not proficient with heavy armor. But it wouldn't affect the feats.

 

I just have a few things to add to what marc said above.

While a ranger has a few extra perks, the best archer will be a fighter build, as they have the bonus feats you're going to want early. I recommend going to fighter 4 at least to get weapon specialization (longbow).

I second marc's recommendation that you need to get point-blank shot, rapid shot, and precise shot ASAP, which is why the fighter class is better for this. I in particular recommend a human fighter, to get all three of them at level 1.

The most commonly overlooked thing is cover, which marc also mentioned; you will want to move whenever possible so that there is nothing in between you and your target. There is nothing in ToEE that lets you ignore the penalties from cover, so you want to avoid it. It may be confusing, but note that precise shot lets you ignore the penalties from shooting at someone who is fighting someone else in melee; it does not let you ignore the cover penalty.

My recommended build:

Human
Fighter for first four levels; get Rapid Shot, Precise Shot, Point Blank Shot, Improved Initiative (note that with your high dex, you will very often go before your opponents, which will let you get off a rapid shot attack before they have cover), Weapon Specialization (Longbow), Weapon Focus (Longbow)

Fifth level, dip barbarian: you will not be wearing heavy armor as an archer, and the extra 10 feet of movement is extremely useful for tactical combat. The rage is also a nice fall-back in case you get forced into melee.

Sixth level, dip ranger: very nice boost to saves from level 1, pick up some skills, and grab a favored enemy of choice.

After that, more flexibility; you can continue with fighter to get more feats, go barbarian 2 to get Uncanny Dodge, or dip rogue to get some sneak attack for the first combat round, and evasion. Be careful with multi-class penalties, though. For this build, all of your levels but fighter levels have to be within 1 level of each other to avoid multiclass penalties.

STRATEGY TIPS:

* When you have multiple characters acting together in initiative, move them around in the initiative order so that the archer can attack before your melee characters charge in and give cover to your enemies

* Know when to use rapid shot, and when not to. If your enemy has cover, you are likely to be better off moving to get a single shot at them without cover, than trying to rapid shot them through cover, especially if their AC is high.

* Don't forget that you can use a buckler with a longbow! An enchanted buckler can increase your AC quite a lot.

 

If you want to go straight Ranger (for the non-archery perks, like spellcasting), there are only two races worth considering (from an optimization standpoint)

Human
Pick up point blank shot & precise shot at level 1. At level 2, get free rapid shot.

Elf (for +2 dex; smaller races can't use the masterwork composite longbows in the game)
Pick up point blank shot at level 1. Level 2, free rapid shot. Level 3, precise shot.

 

One more alternate build, which I used to great effect in one game, combines Ranger/Rogue/Fighter. I ended up with four levels of each, as I recall. Won't be as good a fighter as the first build I mentioned, but can also be your trap/lock monkey, and your stealthy scout. Just be sure to start with a level of Rogue, for the first level skills.

 

I usually use elven Ranger/Fighters for my "pure" archers: Ranger at first level for the pile of skill points and Favored Enemy, then Fighter at second to pick up Precise Shot. Back to Ranger at 3rd for Rapid Shot and Weapon Focus, then just keep them within one level all the way to 10/10.

 

Thanks a lot for the advice guys. The problem I had mostly I didn't know about how precise shot and cover worked before. I also found those masterwork bows from the cabinet guy. It seems the builds could still be just about anything, How about a level 2-3 ranger, fighter, barbarian rogue! ^.^

 

Many players don't figure this out for a while, I know I didn't. But if you click on the little blue icon of a die near the bottom right, it will bring up all the game play information including all die rolls. Anything in blue is a hyperlink that will bring up an entire page of info on that particular die roll, with more links withing that page. Lots of great info that can be examined during combat to see odd things going on like the cover giving +4 to AC.

 

Human rogue with as high dex as you can get, and take point blank shot and precise shot as feats at first level. You'll probably hit as well as any other character at first level, and won't have to get within an axe-swing to do so. Add improved initiative and rapid shot and there's not much else you need as feats apart from some way of using a longbow. Dipping fighter or ranger is one way to do this, but slows your sneak attack damage progression by a level. I usually wait until I have access to 18str for the longbow, at which point I buy a Composite longbow (18str) and get my friendly crafters to add some elemental and aligned damage to it. Improved invisibilty gives you access to sneak attack dice against most opponents and haste bumps up your rate of fire. Not many foes will shoot back with anything like this power, so you're safe raining down 10-15d6 points of damage per shot from behind your front line. Other than hitting things with Scather, not much else has so consistently high damage as a rogue with improved invisibility active.

 

Not to resurrect an old thread, but ...
Shot on the Run is my new, most favorite Feat for an archer.
I recently played a point-buy created human ranger/archer in an iron man solo run just to see if it could be done. Combining Shot on the Run with Manyshot (I had both at 6th level) gave more advantages than I can describe. Easiest play-through I've ever managed, even in usually difficult boss fights or cramped areas like swamps/Imeryds Run. Longstrider spell adds to the movement distance (no need to add Barbarian class) which very few enemies can overcome. Sneak into range, run, shoot, and run. Devastating, especially against Favored enemies. Didn't die until a failed save (rolled a "1") against a Bodak in the Fire node.

 

All you have to do is enlarge gnomes or halflings and then they can use longbows (even after returning to normal size).

 

Elves also get martial weapon proficiency with bows, so you could start an archer as a Rogue and still use a longbow from the start.

 

You only get the one feat at level one with an elf, though. Personally I'd prioritise getting Precise Shot over the longbow proficiency (effective swapping +1 to damage ror +4 to hit when firing into melee).

 

I usually give my Rogue a level of Fighter at 2nd, so I'm only doing without Precise Shot for a few fights at most. Her BAB only slightly trails my principal archers (who are Fighter/Rangers), and she gets sneak attack damage to boot.