Those of you who still wonder what
swift hunter is, i'll enlighten you.
Swift Hunter is a feat from the supplement
complete scoundrel (Yes, it's that good that it got its own handbook). Its requirements are a total of +1d6/+1
skirmish and one
favored enemy. It stacks
ranger and
scout levels for the amount of
skirmish you get and your
favored enemies. You can also apply
skirmish damage to your
favored enemies, even if they are normally immune to it.
Ranger, but more!As you can imagine, with just a small dip in scout you get a very nice bonus on all of your attacks. Moreover you get to continue your favoured enemy progression and apply the precision damage to them. Ranger is actually a wonderful class if you examine it closely: full BAB, two good saves, 6+int skill points, utility spells and a wide array of bonus feats.
Not what you had in mindHowever swift hunters are
not martial characters nor damage dealers. They have significant handicaps. They need to constantly move to get their bonus to damage. Also skirmish works in a specified range (30ft). It's better to view them as a ranged rogue than an archer. It's important to understand that in an iconic party of four (martial character/arcane spellcaster/divine spellcaster/skillful character) swift hunters occupy the role of the skillful character. If you want your character to be able to shoot arrows and deal damage, the calculations have shown that a single classed fighter volley archer is actually better than a swift hunter and works at any range. This is probably not the guide for you.
Swift hunters are all-around characters. They can disable traps, scout for the party and generally provide their wide range of skills. They also have utility spells that can prove useful and can even help in item creation (providing the spells needed at a lower level than they generally are for primary spellcasters, thus resulting to cheaper spell trigger items). They can deal significant damage in combat, especially if they can activate their skirmish ability.
This is a quick chart to determine your abilities from your combined ranger + scout level. As you can see it is not optimal to take levels in ranger + scout that their sum equals to 2, 4, 6, 8, 12, 14, 16 or 18 levels.
- Favored Enemy, Skirmish +1d6/+0
- .
- Skirmish +1d6/+1
- .
- Favored Enemy, Skirmish +2d6/+1
- .
- Skirmish +2d6/+2
- .
- Skirmish +3d6/+2
- Favored Enemy
- Skirmish +3d6/+3
- .
- Skirmish +4d6/+3
- .
- Favored Enemy, Skirmish +4d6/+4
- .
- Skirmish +5d6/+4
- .
- Skirmish +5d6/+5
- Favored Enemy
Observation: As you can see, ranger 16 is a rather bad level, and that's why ranger 16/scout 4 is a bad choice. You gain far better benefits by going ranger 15/Scout 5, Ranger 15/Scout 3/xxx 2 or Ranger 15/Scout 4/xxx 1 (if you have no problem with favored classes, or multiclassing penalties don't apply).
What about Favored Enemies?Check out the swift hunter feat. It offers a great boon! You get to apply your full skirmish damage to normally immune monsters if you have selected them as favored enemies. If you check the monster manual, the following types are immune to precision damage:
Note 1: This guide assumes precision damage transparency. That means that spells and items that mention that work on sneak attack also work on skirmish damage. Examples are: vine strike, golem strike, truedeath crystal, etc.
Note 2: The monster statistics are from the following books: SRD, MM I - IV, Sandstorm, Fiend Folio, Frostburn, Stormwrack, Libris Mortis.
- Construct: 94 creatures of this type exist. It's a nice favored enemy. You can use golem strike on an eternal wand if you have the ability to cast arcane spells (magical training regional feat) or from a normal wand if you have the ability to use spell-trigger items (e.g. magic domain). There is also the demolition crystal from MIC, see truedeath crystal below.
- Elemental: 84 creatures. This is an ok pick, because there are not any alternative ways for you to skirmish elementals.
- Ooze: Only 26 creatures of this type exist. It's a bad pick, since you won't statistically encounter many on this type.
- Plant: Only 36 creatures. Also a bad pick, since you also have vine strike on your ranger spell list.
- Undead: There are 119 undead creatures out there and this type is quite common. I think you should select this as one of your favourite enemies. There is an alternative though: truedeath crystal from MIC. Also if you have taken the cloistered cleric dip you gain access to grave strike (and the ability to use it from wands).
So, your first favored enemy should be the alternative class feature arcane hunter. That way you will still be able to skirmish some arcane users with fortification armor or liches. Also works great on dragons. Your second pick should be a favored enemy that matches the campaign theme. For example, f you encounter undead all the time, you shouldn't spend money on wands or crystals! Just take it as a favored enemy. Next should be constructs or elementals, as both categories are quite large.
Dictum, what about swarms?Well, here's the trick: swarm is a subtype, which means you can't actually take it as a favored enemy. Now, RAW suggests that if you have the swarm's supertype as a favored enemy, you could apply skirmish damage (e.g. you are facing an undead swarm and you have undead as a favored enemy), but this seems to me completely wrong, so it'd say that there is actually some creature types immune to a swift hunter's skirmish. Work with your DM to resolve this issue.
Do i need favored enemy (evil)?No. You can get a nice feat called nemesis on that favored enemy, but there are lots of problems that occur. First of all both classes that offer it require at least two feats, which will slow you down. Second they will slow your swift hunter progression (skirmish and favored enemy gain). Third they both have alignment restrictions and not all campaigns deal with evil creatures: oozes and constructs are always neutral. Most elementals and plants are usually neutral, too. So you make a big investment (3+ feats, 2+ character levels) for 1d6 bonus damage (which doesn't count, as your skirmish damage is delayed) and the ability to pinpoint evil creatures and skirmish most undead? Thanks, but i'll pass. Nemesis however on your campaign's theme monster type is quite good (but remember that the extra damage applies only to evil creatures of that creature type).
How do i skirmish?Remember that you need to move to activate your skirmish. You can do this using:
- Move + hit: Are you joking? It may sound dumb and i have colored it red, but for the most of your career's beginning (before you get 2+ attacks from high bab or another effect) you will be using this simple way of attacking your enemies.
- Spring Attack: I don't like it very much. It requires two useless feats (although expeditious dodge is not that bad if you use races of the wild) and gives you only one attack. Also it doesn't have much synergy with the ranger's proficiency trees. You can get later on the two upgrades from PHB II that let you do more attacks, but the BAB requirements are a little extreme for a multiclassed character. I strongly advise you to rethink if you plan to use this method to deliver your skirmish damage.
- Shot on the Run: As above. Arguably works with greater manyshot, but the feats are just too much.
- Flyby Attack: There are races, even LA 0 ones which offer a fly speed. Anthropomorphic bat or raven are nice options, with the first one regarded as the best, even though it doesn't boost your dexterity. Air heritage from Planar Handbook will boost your fly speed. This is generally used with greater manyshot, a much more efficient method than the spring attack/shot on the run ones, which require a greater feat expenditure.
- Travel Devotion: Now we're talking! This feat is gold. The main problem is that you'll be using your swift actions each time you'll want to attack someone, but besides that, it's the easiest way of full attacking someone while activating your skirmish. Another problem is uses per day, but you can overcome that with a cloistered cleric dip and an average charisma (~12 points).
- Charging: A lot of people favor two weapon fighting and a barbarian dip for pounce, but i don't like it for several reasons. First of all terrain is a big issue. You can't expect people to be chargeable all the time. You also need to position your charge attack correctly and after pouncing you need to somehow get away from your enemy to be able to re-charge him (by teleporting away probably). Anyway, most of the times i get a headache trying to figure out a correct charge, so i'd say no to this method.
- Greater Manyshot: Before travel devotion, this was the best way to skirmish someone. It's still a good method, but the hit on attack rolls is too much. I can see a character who wants to use his swift actions for some reason using Law devotion and extra turning (and to my great disappointment no deity offers both Law and Undeath domains) to cover at least three uses/day, but it's still more expensive feat-wise than travel devotion.
- Items: Yeah, i'm aware of all those items that let you move 10ft as a free action or half your speed as a swift action, etc. And it's a very good idea for you to purchase some of them (the cheapest ones preferably), but you can't rely on them for skirmishing.
ErrataIn the attached file you can find the complete adventurer errata. You can also find them
here. The changes basically are that scouts get disable device as a class skill and that you need to move at least 10ft away from where you were at the start of your turn to activate your skirmish ability. The added skill is nice, because it was strange that a class could find traps but not disable them. However the change to skirmish class feature greatly nerfs melee builds. Unless your opponents are large+, you will have a difficult time hitting them in melee without reach weapons.
What about books?Well, if you want to play a swift hunter, you basically need the following books: player's handbook, complete adventurer, complete scoundrel. However if your resources are limited, you can play without even buying a single book. You can find ranger online in the
SRD. Also, you can check
this article for information on scout. Hopefully you have already read the scout's skirmish progression earlier in the guide and you can figure out some early class features they get (trackless step, fast movement) from alternative class features (hopefully from online ones, such as
cityscape web enhancement). Example: in the enhancement, the alternative class feature "go to ground" reads:
Level: 3rd.
Replaces: If you select this class feature, you do not gain trackless step.
That implies that normally at 3rd level scouts get trackless step. Also, later in the guide i have graded all of the scout's class features, so that will help you even more figuring out the class. Finally, you can find a description of the swift hunter stacking feat at the start of this post and you can read the table description from the book online,
here.