Prestige Classes: Convince Me

I did, a long time ago so the details are a bit vague. I think I went in from a pure Wizard.
The problem with the Arcane Archer is (unlike the Arcane Trickster) you don't get progression in any spellcasting by taking levels as an Arcane Archer. You need BAB of 6 and three archery-related feats to qualify, plus level 1 arcane spells, so you could enter at level 8 with a Fighter or Ranger 5/ Wiz or Sorc 2, or at the other end of the spectrum, at level 13 from Wiz or Sorc 12 if you invest in the right feats. Since one of my few recollections of this character is of firing a Cone of Cold at a bunch of Orcs in Hickory Branch, I must have built a fair number of arcane caster levels levels in.
In my opinion, this is another prestige class that doesn't really live up to the coolness of the concept. If you start out with a solid martial archer, you could go Arcane Archer from 8th level, and be firing Burning Hands spells at 9th level. (Ftr5 for BAB +5 and feats/Sorc2 for BAB +1 and arcane spells/ ArcArch2 for Imbue Arrow; Rog7/Sorc2/ArcArch2 gets you there 2 levels slower on a Rogue base). Unfortunately, this is a second-level Burning Hands, and you only have a very small number available, because you are only a level 2 Sorcerer (Sorcerer gets more spells per level than Wiz). If you add enough levels to fire a Fireball (Ftr5/Wiz5/ArcArcher2) then you have a level 12 character with a BAB of +9 who can cast 5-dice Fireballs a limited number of times a day. The thing is, if you use the Clairvoyance/Clairaudience spell and cast your Fireballs conventionally, you have functionally unlimited range on your Fireballs anyway, and if you have instead advanced to Wiz12 you (a) have more 3rd level spell slots to cast Fireball from; (b): are casting 10-dice fireballs and (c) can quite possibly be casting Fireball from a Wand/ Staff/ Scroll, the first 2 of which at least don't seem like they would allow you to use the Arcane Archer ability with them. With few exceptions (Burning Hands: weak; Cone of Cold: pretty high level for the effect it has; Prismatic Spray: ditto), the area effect spells in this game are circles which can be placed pretty much where you want to put them, and cool as it seems to be able to fire an arrow that turns into a Fireball when it hits (if it hits), the spell allows you this accuracy anyway. And of course, a Wiz12 has also has 4th, 5th and 6th level spells to chose from, and 7th (Quickened Fireball!) just round the corner. In its favour, it's just about the only way that area effect damage can by dealt by a martial weapon in this game (though you can buy bottles of eruptive acid- presumably if you keep the traders onside they replenish their stock); on the flip side, in this game you get to make a whole team and so (a) you can have a guy whose whole thing is doing area effect damage if you want; (b) if you do still really want your Rogue be able to cast Fireballs, Use Magic Device is a class skill for rogues, or a 1-level dip in Wiz or Sorc gives you perfect use of the Wand your Wizard pal crafts for you to use (no armour to avoid spell failure: better chose Mage Armor as one of your spells!). Adding magic-like effects to arrows is easier: get your masterwork composite bow enchanted to be Holy Shock Flaming Cold, and you have your 5d6 extra damage to individual targets; because you have BAB+13 at 13th level, your Ranger so equipped is firing 3 arrows a round, 4 if using Fast Shot and 5 if Hasted. You aren't doing area damage, but nor do you have to worry about friendly fire, and this is with every shot you fire, not a handful a day. Anyone who recognises my username will know I'm a fan of adding sneak attack damage to bowfire: pure rogue/ Rog5 then Assassin gets you the ability to cast your own Greater Invis spells eventually/ Rog3/Swashbuckler+Daring Outlaw feat gets you better BAB for more shots with even less chance of missing.

TLDR: If going from a Wizard/Sorc base, you can already place your fireballs and sticking clouds and cloudkills where you want to anyway, and 2 levels of Arcane Archer is significantly weaker than 2 levels of your primary class (extra damage dice, extra spells per day, new higher spell level).
If going from a Ftr/Rgr/Rog base you have to invest so much in Wiz or Sorc levels to get spells worth Imbuing Arrows with that you can't make much progress with BAB or other archery feats, and there are easier ways to get the mechanical effects (Fighter unleashes fireball!) that you are after.

One final approach: you largely ignore the Imbue Arrow stuff and get as many ArcArch levels as possible. Unfortunately, the other stuff doesn't add a lot in this game: Good BAB progression is, well, good, but take those levels as a Ftr and you pick up a load of feats, Rog picks up sneak attack etc, As you note, you can get a +1 bow faster than you could get to the lowest level at which you can be an Arcane Archer 1(8th level via Rgr or Ftr6/ Wiz or Sorc1) for Enhance Arrow +1, and a +2 bow faster than you can get to Arcane Archer 3 for Enhance Arrow +2, and so on. In this game, seeking arrow and phase arrow do very little (TBH I can't even remember if they work), and even Death Arrow is pretty poor (you need to be 17th level to have it available, which means that you have teammates who made better career choices and now cast 9th level spells, or have BAB+16 (for 4 shots a round, boosting to 6 with Fast Shot and Haste) and 9 sneak attack dice to go with their highly customised magic bow.

In a PnP campaign this might play out better, if there are situation- specific tasks you want to achieve (fire an arrow with a message through an arrow-loop high on a castle wall, or through the wall), but even these are more like 'cool powers in a low-magic setting'- Robin Hood stuff for when you don't have Sending as a standard spell.

In comparison, Arcane Trickster advances both spellcasting and Sneak Attack, so you can build a character capable of, for instance, laying on significant damage with a 0-level ray when you wish to, and still have access to higher level spells, though you do (in this game at least) need 3 levels of Rogue and 5 of Wizard to enter.

 

I like using 1 PC and the rest NPCs. Point being that in the many games I've played, i've tried many various fun builds for them.

Specifically, Zaxis made a fun AA . He starts with PB,PS, race and you typically find him L5 which means next level can pick WF bow.

The biggest problem with AA is the +6 BAB prereq, which means AA comes fairly late - 9th level in the case of med BAB class.

1. Arrow enhancement is only useful if you don't craft - which I typically don't. (But can buy stuff in verbonc).
2. The key ability and fun part [imho] is the cone spells with imbue arrow. Bard misses quite a few, though.

good fun spells from memory for a bard:

• Iron horn - pretty good
• fear - depends on if you like fear
  
• cone of despair is actually useful with AA
  
• shout
• and a few more added in the last year or so.

You can use Circular spells too, but I can't even remember if any are short ranged enough that it was necessary, except for extra arrow damage (I forget the ToEE specifics).
Obviously a mage multi-class would have more cones available.

 

Ok, I see. I think it's more or less a fun build. I think I will still use my thief with a pretty high "use magic device" that will do. Thanks for sharing your experience.

 

Iirc, I never tried using scrolls/wands for AA imbue...if that is what you are alluding to. Let us know here if it works in ToEE.

 

@hammyh Good point re some of the newer, lower-level cone-shaped AoE spells that I hadn't considered.

 

Prestige classes aren't all upgrades. Some are just ideas or options.

 

I mean using a normal thief build with high rank in use magic device to use what ever spell or wand I find at the beginning to be useful. But in generell rather for pre-buff spells because of the chance of spell failure in combat.

 

Well, tbh ...if all you want is a better archer without taking advantage of the arrow spells, I think there are better choices for that direction.

Fighter gives many feats to compliment archer abilities, not to mention various feats such as specialization ranged.

But....if you really wanted to get that rogue into better archer/magic/AA play, here's what I'd do in ToEE:

• Elf Rogue 7 (Longbow-iirc in ToEE this counts as martial weapon pick - best to confirm this...) -BAB +5
  
• sorc 1 (required for abjurant champion + 1 abjuration spell = shield or pfe)
  
• Abjurant Champion 5 (reqs: BAB +5, 1 lvl wiz/sorc, combat casting, 1 Martial wpn; 5 lvls + full spell progression + full BAB progression)
• AA 2+ or could go back to rogue/go fighter after lvl2
  
• Feats in this order : pick up PB, PS, Combat casting, WF longbow, + other stuff (12, 15, etc.)

You end up with SA 4, 3rd level spells with good CL, good BAB and AA can use all the fun cones.

Edit: or you could go R6/W2/AC5/AA2 - and get access to scribe scroll and 4th level spells (ie, a decent CL greater invis for SA). But GI is available on wands at CL7.

 

Hammyh, thanks for your reply anyway but It' really hard for me as a non native speakert o figure out all the abreviations. I think that's one of the significant differences when I communivate especially with american native speakers that they use abbreviations so commonly and most of the time I have no idea what they mean: "iirc, pfe, AA, PB, PS, CL ????

 

I think AA is arcane archer, PB is point blank shot feat, PS is precise shot feat and I think CL is caster level

 

I understand

yes.
tbh = to be honest
imho = in my humble opinion
iirc = if I remember correctly
pfe = protection from evil.
BAB = base attack bonus
Prc=prestige class
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Summary:

Abjurant Champion Prc is very strong and is good for adding spells to an Archer . These are main benefits:
1. adds full BaB and full Spellcasting for 5 levels
2. Caster Level will be = BAB, if normal CL is lower. Which will be your case. BAB will be 11 by the time you finish this prc. For example, a haste spell would last 11 rounds instead of 6 or 7.
3. It has some intersting extra bonuses

Arcane Archer's best ability is imbue Arrow, but it needs a selection of spells for that.

 

Tanks for the clarification.
"Elf Rogue 7 (Longbow-iirc in ToEE this counts as martial weapon pick - best to confirm this...) -BAB +5"
I never understood the advantage of an elf as an archer. I know he gets natural ability to use a bow but a human gets thie extra feat so he can tight away chose bow proficiency.
Anyway I think I will probably just go for my classic thief with a mix of 4 fighter levels. I haveis a pure Mage in the group he can cast longer lasting spells than this Prc hybrid and I want to have that devastating crippling strike at thief lvl 10 as soon as possible. Which is imho the best thief skill.

 

The main advantage to an Elven Archer is the dex bonus

 

Mostly this in ToEE. With the new elf races options, it could be other stats - depending on the elf type.

The other advantages of elf is secret door auto-check...which is not important in ToEE - but could be for a first play-through. And the 2+ extra weapon proficiencies for the most common weapons is nice sometimes.

Humans big advantage imho is extra skills and unrestricted favored class. The extra feat is nice, but you cold use a strongheart halfling for that and more (Although in ToEE small races have less movement...)

With human, even the lowest intelligence gets enough skills. But when your primary class is a many-skill class like rogue - this becomes much less important.

More often than not, humans are a better choice for avoiding xp multiclass penalties with 3 or 4 base classes and allowing for minimal intelligence.