Help with a Raptoran Swift Hunter

[Schala_Zeal]

I am working on a Raptoran Swift Hunter to enter in the Daeardy Chropia game.  Main limitations are:

House Rules

• The PHB: All material from the PHB is banned unless cleared through me. This includes spells and feats that appear within other classes's lists.
• Custom Material: I would prefer (this is not meant to be a requirement in any sense) people to use custom content that I have written. All house rules that I have written will be in effect. They can be found here, here, and here. There is also the Book of Ritual Magic, the classes of which I have detailed below. Those interested should PM me.
• UA Material: No LA buyoff, 1 flaw, no traits, no bloodlines, no UA classes.
• Starting Level: 2, wealth 1/2 normal, 32 point buy.
• Material Preference, Part #2: Sandstorm will feature heavily in this campaign, so it is recommended to read through that book.

The Swift Hunter from the handbook sounded interesting and gave me some ideas.  There will be four other players, one of whom is playing an Unraveller

[dman11235]

I'd get rid of your (pretty useless) animal companion for the Solitary hunter ACF.  Basically it grants you a bonus to attack against FEs equal to your FE bonus (might be just damage bonus, so a hunting weapon...).  I don't really have much to add as I don't usually play melees other than monks.

[Schala_Zeal]

Ok, I did not catch that Great Flyby Attack probably does not work with two weapon fighting.  I am not sure what to replace it with - archery looks very feat intensive, trying to get the following feats:

Rapid Shot
Point Blank Shot
Many Arrows
Greater Many Arrows

The other alternative I see would be to focus on being like a flying spring attacker, possibly getting rid of the two-weapon fighting style feats.  I might have a plan or two, but I'll have to kick them around a bit before posting them.

Solitary Hunter looks great - thanks!

[Dictum Mortuum]

I'd get rid of your (pretty useless) animal companion for the Solitary hunter ACF.  Basically it grants you a bonus to attack against FEs equal to your FE bonus (might be just damage bonus, so a hunting weapon...).  I don't really have much to add as I don't usually play melees other than monks.

In which book can i find solitary hunter?

[Schala_Zeal]

Solitary Hunter is from Dragon Magazine 347.  I don't know if that will be approved or not.

[Stratovarius]

I'm not sure I have that particular supplement. I'd need to look through the collection. A brief rundown, if you please (I'm the DM for the campaign )

[dman11235]

Wellll...check out CK.  It's almost word for word.  Mechanics are exactly the same.

As for archery: it's actually a LOT easier to get it to work than melee.  I'll link you to my level 10 one here in a second...or I would if MW wasn't kablooy.  I've got...Dark Stalker, PBS, MS (from ranger), RS (from ranger), Precise Shot, GMS, Swift Hunter, and one other feat (I've got two flaws).  I can't think of what it is right now, I don't think it's.....Fly-By Attack, that's what it is.  With your four levels and no buy off in effect, you can have all of these for the low, low price of one flaw.  It's all you need....other than the warlock dip for infinite hiding, but that can come later, or you can have a cleric cast Deeper Darkness on an object that you can hide (thus blocking LoE...and thus blocking the darkness) and tie to a 10' pole strapped to you or something so they can't target just the center of the darkness and have a 50% chance of hitting you.

[Schala_Zeal]

Strat: You give up your animal companion to gain your favored enemy bonus on your attack roll against favored enemies.  I had not realized it was from a magazine.

I will be taking Stratovarius' Spell-less Ranger substitution (waits for gnashing of teeth from the two Char-Op members reading to subside).  It gives an extra favored enemy and extra combat style feat at each of the levels Ranger would gain a new spell level (4th, 8th, 11th, 14th).  I am assuming the favored enemies start at the lowest bonus (+2) and it does not raise the value of any other favored enemy - if I am understanding this wrong, please correct me. 

So that's four more feats that can:

There is no direct list of feats because the sources are meant to be open ended. For my purposes, any feat that directly affects and requires an ammo using ranged weapon is fine.

I am devoted to the idea of using Greater Manyshot while flying as my combat style, and I will be taking Hover as we will be doing dungeon crawls (we'll see how useful flying is).  So my build is:

Ranger 2/Scout 4/Ranger 11/Scout 3

With feats and class features:
1: Point Blank Shot; Favored Enemy; Track; Wild Empathy
2: Combat Style (Rapid Shot)
3: Heat Endurance; Skirmish (+1d6); Trapfinding
4: Battle Fortitude +1; Uncanny Dodge
5: Fast Movement +10 ft; Skirmish (+1d6, +1 AC); Trackless Step
6: Hover; Swift Hunter (Scout 4); 2nd Favored Enemy; Skirmish (+2d6, +1 AC)
7: ; Skirmish (+2d6, +2 AC)
8: Manyshot (Spell-less ranger 4 variant); Favored Enemy (Spell-less ranger 4); Animal Companion
9: Greater Manyshot; 2nd Favored Enemy; Skirmish (+3d6, +2 AC)
10: Improved Combat Style (Manyshot); 3rd Favored Enemy
11: Sandskimmer (Sandstorm - lose Woodland Stride); Skirmish (+3d6, +3 AC)
12: Improved Skirmish; Swift Tracker; (Spell-less ranger 8 feat); Favored Enemy (Spell-less ranger 8 variant)
13: Evasion; Skirmish (+4d6, +3 AC)
14:
15: (Feat); Combat Style Mastery (Improved Precise Shot); 4th Favored Enemy; (Spell-less ranger 11 feat); Favored Enemy (Spell-less ranger 11 variant); Skirmish (+4d6, +4 AC)
16:
17: 4th Favored Enemy; Skirmish (+5d6, +4 AC)
18: (Feat); (Spell-less ranger 14 Feat); Favored Enemy (Spell-less ranger 14)
19: Skirmish (+5d6, +5 AC)
20:

So I have a couple of feats I am not sure on, I am not sure how the DM will rule on what happens if later ranger levels give combat style feats that are already possessed, and I do not know what favored enemies I should take.

I should listen to dman and put in Dark Stalker from Lords of Madness.  We are totally going to get jumped by some big nasty in the desert hiding under the sand with tremorsense at some point.  Probably right before we get thrown into a pit with the 'Invisible Mind Thingies'.  We're all gonna die...

[dman11235]

Dude.  Improved Flight.  Gives you good maneuverability.  No need for Hover.

Also, if hiding, you need a means to hide.  FBA is half the battle (hiding takes place as part of movement, therefore you use it with the second half of movement).  But you still need something to hide in.  I gave my darkness method.

Also, find something better to do with those levels of Scout, rather than the last 3 levels you have.  Stalker of Karesh gives you ranger spell casting (if you didn't before....so you gain spells back....yeah, it's awesome).  And that's not all: FE (evil).  Yes, you can now do skirmish damage to all evil creatures (and arcanists, you are taking FE (arcanists), right?) whether or not they are immune to crits.

Also, though this may be cheesy, aw, heck, it is cheesy, after level 11 of ranger you can take this feat, since a ranger of level 11 ignores all other prereqs (being epic is a prereq) as long as you're in light armor.  Or no armor.  If not, get a seeking force collision splitting bow.  With raptor arrows.  With other bonuses you want on them.