If it comes to you as a shock that fighters make excellent ranged damage-dealers then you either had your head up your ass or you didn’t read the rules.
The Archer Path
The Archery path starts with Point Blank Shot and moves through a number of bow-and-arrow tricks untill you have a highly effective missile-launching deathmachine at the back of your party. PBS opens the door to Far Shot, Precise Shot, Rapid Shot, and Shot on the Run. This entire path can be achieved by level 6.
- Point Blank Shot, Dodge
- Mobility
- Shot on the Run
- Rapid Shot
- –
- Precise Shot, Far Shot
Point Blank Shot gives a +1 attack and damage bonus to ranged attacks within 30 feet of the target. Also useful to Rogues with their sneak attack skills.
Dodge, again, gives a +1 Armor Class bonus against a single opponent at a time. It’s not very impressive, but gives access to much more weighty feats.
Mobility adds a +4 Armor Class bonus against attacks of opportunity provoked by entering or leaving a threatened area. As archers don’t get a melee attack of opportunity against people for such movement, many smart melee types will rush archers. As attacking with ranged weapons while threatened provokes an opportunity, it is in an archer’s best interest to leave before firing. The feat makes parting easier.
Shot on the Run is the ranged moral equivalent of Spring Attack. It lets you move, fire, then move again, splitting your movement action around your attack action. An excellent application of this is to make use of cover. Move 5 feet out from behind 100% cover, fire, move 5 feet back behind cover before anybody gets to act again. The only effective defenses against these are delaying an attack action until the archer pops out (the actions take place simultaneously), or rushing the archer’s position.
Rapid Shot lets you get another attack per round with a ranged weapon. This lets your pre-6th level fighter get two attacks per round, though each attack is at a -2 penalty.
Precise Shot lets you fire into the midst of a melee without suffering a -4 attack penalty due to the tumultuous nature of melee. Your front-line melee types will love you for taking this feat, allowing you to provide them with support fire.
Far Shot lets you take your ranged weapon’s range increment and multiply it by 1.5. This makes the range increment for a Long Bow 150 feet. Note that all shots taken past the range increment incur a -2 attack penalty. A Far Shot archer can shoot a target at 200 feet with only a -2 penalty. A non-Far Shot archer would make the same shot with a -4 penalty.
The Archery Path includes four feats that improve the ability to strike with ranged weapons (extra attack or circumstantial bonuses) and three that reduce vulnerability to melee types (dodge, mobility, and shot on the run). The use of this path is obvious: long range support for the team, out of harm’s way. Ranged weapons do less damage than melee, so these feats help the archer hit more often and keep him safe while he’s doing it.
ranged fighters rock, i have a lvl 9 fighter who is the bomb (i like to think so) when he is weilding his repeating crossbow, Scarlet.
also you may want to mention the lovliness of bayonets on crossbows, as they are a very effective weapon when the enemy gets too close for you to draw a weapon without provoking an attack of opportunity. (stabbity stab stab)
however, dont forget the fact that close combat is inevitable, so some feats to help in that department (like dirty fighting, power attack and even improved unarmed strike for those without backup weapons)will lend to your ranged fighters combat effectivness.
back to work.
The intention of this article was to show how fast a fighter could achieve “core rules” mastery of the ranged weapon feat cluster. Naturally, the addition of a feat such as quickdraw (you know the opponent is bearing down on you, so get your melee weapon out), etc.
Of course, as a player if I saw an opponent with an expensive-looking repeating crossbow, with an affixed bayonet… I’d probably rush in and sunder that sucker. Your average crossbow is made of wood, and the hardness value is likely quite low 🙂
yes, sunder…have you been talking to my DM, because i now have a defunct repeating crossbow!oh well, i will just have to use those ranged feats to pelt my foes with alchemist fire and throwing axes. 🙂
you cant keep a good man down
I promise that isn’t the case: very few people read this content. I have the stats to prove it 🙂
One thing that probably should have been mentioned in this series of Fighter Path posts is that specialization breeds weakness. Any character can eventually pick up most of the Ranged Combat feats (with the exception of Weapon Specialization, of course). The advantage of a Fighter is that through the liberal application of bonus feats, he can make himself into a very well-rounded combatant.
Generally speaking, I would recommend somebody thinking of planning out a Fighter’s feat progression to pick up the ones that prevent or create attacks of opportunity, along with Combat Reflexes. While acquiring those, slowly pick up the feat cluster (such as the Ranged Combat feats) that best fit your character.
You won’t have Shot on The Run quite as soon, perhaps, but regardless of what weapon you have at hand, you’ll be quite dangerous.