The Archery Handbook

[snakeman830]

Full Attack with Imp Rapid Shot and Greater Flurry =
+43/+43/+43/+43/+38/+33/+28

I'm probably missing something obvious here, especially given that I am completely unfamiliar with Psionics, but how exactly are you using Flurry with a non-monk weapon like the composite longbow?

Flowing Blade lets you flurry with a Mind Blade.  Mind Arrows can have all feats applied to them that apply to Mind Blades.

[Prime32]

Why do you have 4 levels in monk? Why not put one or two of them into soulbow? Those last two levels will get you another bonus feat, and, if your DM allows it, even the splitting enhancment.

Monk 4 gives you Ki Strike (magic) but your natural weapons are magic anyway thanks to VoP, as well as slow fall 20ft which is rather pointless given that you can fly non-magically. Monk 3 gets you +10ft speed, which can be useful (though you're better off dipping barbarian or Celerity-domain cleric), and Still Mind, which is only good as a prereq.


EDIT: Any advice on this build? It's more of a skirmisher than a sniper - there's room for an extra feat by adding another flaw.
[spoiler]

Kalashtar Monk 2/Soulknife 2/Cloistered cleric 1 (Celerity, Knowledge Devotion, Travel Devotion) 1/Soulbow 10/Atavist (aggresive) 5
Feats: Combat Reflexes^B, Extra Turning, Flowing Blade, Improved Precise Shot^B, Improved Rapidshot^B, Improved Unarmed Strike^B, Knowledge Devotion^B, Manyshot^B, Path of Shadows, Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot^B, Rapid Shot^B, Snap Kick, Stand Still, Stunning Fist^B, Travel Devotion^B, Tashalatora (soulbow), Two-Weapon Fighting
Flaws: Murky-eyed
Equipment: Gloves of the balanced hand/deep crystal mind blade gauntlets, Monk's belt

Take advantage of your ability to use mind arrows in melee without provoking AoOs to dual-wield them with flurries of unarmed strikes. Combat Reflexes + 10ft reach + Stand Still makes it hard for enemies to get away (be sure to combine your AoOs with Snap Kick).

[/spoiler]

[carnivore]

Why do you have 4 levels in monk? Why not put one or two of them into soulbow? Those last two levels will get you another bonus feat, and, if your DM allows it, even the splitting enhancment.

Monk 4 gives you Ki Strike (magic) but your natural weapons are magic anyway thanks to VoP, as well as slow fall 20ft which is rather pointless given that you can fly non-magically. Monk 3 gets you +10ft speed, which can be useful (though you're better off dipping barbarian or Celerity-domain cleric), and Still Mind, which is only good as a prereq.

BAB mainly .... notice:

Monk 4/ Soulknife 4/ Fighter 4/ Soulbow 8 : BAB +16

Monk 2/ Soulknife 4/ Fighter 4/ Soulbow 10 : BAB +15 ... so you lose an extra Attack

but with Practiced Mindblade ... you dont need the last level for Mind Arrow enhancement anyway

EDIT: Any advice on this build? It's more of a skirmisher than a sniper - there's room for an extra feat by adding another flaw.
[spoiler]

Kalashtar Monk 2/Soulknife 2/Cloistered cleric 1 (Celerity, Knowledge Devotion, Travel Devotion) 1/Soulbow 10/Atavist (aggresive) 5
Feats: Combat Reflexes^B, Extra Turning, Flowing Blade, Improved Precise Shot^B, Improved Rapidshot^B, Improved Unarmed Strike^B, Knowledge Devotion^B, Manyshot^B, Path of Shadows, Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot^B, Rapid Shot^B, Snap Kick, Stand Still, Stunning Fist^B, Travel Devotion^B, Tashalatora (soulbow), Two-Weapon Fighting
Flaws: Murky-eyed
Equipment: Gloves of the balanced hand/deep crystal mind blade gauntlets, Monk's belt

Take advantage of your ability to use mind arrows in melee without provoking AoOs to dual-wield them with flurries of unarmed strikes. Combat Reflexes + 10ft reach + Stand Still makes it hard for enemies to get away (be sure to combine your AoOs with Snap Kick).

[/spoiler]

looks nice .... but Tashalatora requires Monastic Training(Psionic Class) ... also the BAB is very low.... BAB +12, then reduce it farther with TWF =

Full Attack Bonus with Greater Flurry and TWF and Imp TWF = +10/+10/+10/+5/+5/+0 ..... at ECL 20 ... it is lacking the ability to hit a lot of things even with +20(Wis+Enhance+etc) ...+30/+30/+30/+25/+25/+20 is on the low side

with Atavist ... why not just add Robilars Gambit + Double Hit and make the most of your reach

 

[Prime32]

Why do you have 4 levels in monk? Why not put one or two of them into soulbow?

BAB mainly .... notice:

Monk 4/ Soulknife 4/ Fighter 4/ Soulbow 8 : BAB +16

Monk 2/ Soulknife 4/ Fighter 4/ Soulbow 10 : BAB +15 ... so you lose an extra Attack

Eh, I've always used fractional BAB/saves (because a fighter 1/barbarian 1 being tougher than a barbarian 2 just doesn't make sense). In that case they would both have BAB +16. You could still have used some other full-BAB class.

I left out Monastic Training because no one enforces that multiclassing rule anyway.

[carnivore]

Monastic training is Required by the Feat Tashalatora.... it is one of the Prerequisites .... i have yet to play in a game where Multiclass penalties were not inforced..

nor have i ever played with fractional BAB

the reason i made the build the way i did... it is easily adapted to most games, if they allow the source material at all .. the build will be allowed without DM intervention

 

[nijineko]

i've never played a game where feat requirements were waived. nor fractional bab. nor multi-class requirements either for that matter. but rules are what the dm says they are - mine usually say that the rules are what's in the books with the occasional exception. might as well keep both versions (with and without the houserules) so that you can play it with a broader range of dm. ^^

[Frost Wolf]

So any chance this will be finished?

[McPoyo]

i've never played a game where feat requirements were waived. nor fractional bab. nor multi-class requirements either for that matter. but rules are what the dm says they are - mine usually say that the rules are what's in the books with the occasional exception. might as well keep both versions (with and without the houserules) so that you can play it with a broader range of dm. ^^

Feat or PrC requirements being waived, no. Fractionals? Every game I have played in, with three different groups, since UA came out has used that rule for every campaign, save for one 5 month stint with one of them. It just makes it easier for non-casters, since casters typically do not really care.

[Akkristor]

I'd like to add an interesting magic item, particularly for Manyshot users and Splitting Bows.

Glove of the Master Strategist from Ghostwalk.

it functions as a Glove of Storing, but once per day allow you to use a True Strike effect.

The kicker?  they only cost 3,600 gold, and you can wear two.

The Splitting property copies all bonuses and penalties from the first attack to the second, including True Strike.  Manyshot fires two attack rolls with one arrow.
With both, the True Strike effect will give you effectively a +20 to four attacks, per glove, as well as giving you somewhere to store that cumbersome bow where it's not noticeable.


Also, on Factotum Archer builds, personally i'm a fan of going at least 11 levels of Factotum for Cunning Breach.  2 Inspiration Points to ignore the targets Damage Reduction and Spell Resistance for 1 round.  There are cases where ignoring the targets ability to ignore your damage is better than throwing more arrows at it.

[Lycanthromancer]

Is there any way to get arrows that deal no damage (or only deal subdual) that allow you to make ranged touch attacks with them? I want to avoid brilliant energy weapons, because I want to grab them fairly soon.

Doesn't matter on crit range, base damage, or anything else, really, just that they be arrows (because bows are the best long-range weapons far as I know), and don't really deal any damage to speak of.

I'm going to be using them on my friends, and I have a Medium BAB and a Dex of 12.

[McPoyo]

Is there any way to get arrows that deal no damage (or only deal subdual) that allow you to make ranged touch attacks with them? I want to avoid brilliant energy weapons, because I want to grab them fairly soon.

Doesn't matter on crit range, base damage, or anything else, really, just that they be arrows (because bows are the best long-range weapons far as I know), and don't really deal any damage to speak of.

I'm going to be using them on my friends, and I have a Medium BAB and a Dex of 12.

check pathfinder (d20pfsrd.com), search for, I believe, "arrows, dye" or "arrows, game". Either should work for you.

[Lycanthromancer]

Is there any way to get arrows that deal no damage (or only deal subdual) that allow you to make ranged touch attacks with them? I want to avoid brilliant energy weapons, because I want to grab them fairly soon.

Doesn't matter on crit range, base damage, or anything else, really, just that they be arrows (because bows are the best long-range weapons far as I know), and don't really deal any damage to speak of.

I'm going to be using them on my friends, and I have a Medium BAB and a Dex of 12.

check pathfinder (d20pfsrd.com), search for, I believe, "arrows, dye" or "arrows, game". Either should work for you.

Thanks. I think the dye arrows are what I was wanting. Next stop for my artificer: aurorum spell-storing dye arrows.

[Ivory Knight]

So where does it say, that a Bone Bow does auto-adjust to the Str-rating of his wielder?

Looks like it has to be crafted with a certain Str-rating and will cost an additional 100gp for each +1, if you ask me.

The question came up, because the PsyWar Handbook simly copied the entry on Bone Bow from page 1 of this handbook.

[Garryl]

Your mind arrows improve as you gain higher levels. At 3rd level, a mind arrow gains a +1 enhancement bonus on attack rolls and damage rolls, and at 7th level the bonus improves to +2. These enhancement bonuses stack with previous enhancement bonuses gained earlier for your soulknife class levels. Likewise, these enhancement bonuses also improve your soulknife base attack bonus. If your return to your soulknife class progression, these mind arrow enhancement bonuses on attack and damage are cumulative bonuses on top of any new enhancement bonuses gained, and they benefit both your mind blade and mind arrows.

Has anyone noticed the underlined sentence quoted there? (For reference, it's from the 6th paragraph of the Mind Arrow ability of the Soulbow from the excerpt, and underlined for emphasis) This effectively makes the Soulbow into a 9/10 BaB class instead of a 3/4. It's also one of the few (or only?) instances of gaining an enhancement bonus to your base attack bonus. Is this sentence still present in the CPsi version?

[snakeman830]

Your mind arrows improve as you gain higher levels. At 3rd level, a mind arrow gains a +1 enhancement bonus on attack rolls and damage rolls, and at 7th level the bonus improves to +2. These enhancement bonuses stack with previous enhancement bonuses gained earlier for your soulknife class levels. Likewise, these enhancement bonuses also improve your soulknife base attack bonus. If your return to your soulknife class progression, these mind arrow enhancement bonuses on attack and damage are cumulative bonuses on top of any new enhancement bonuses gained, and they benefit both your mind blade and mind arrows.

Has anyone noticed the underlined sentence quoted there? (For reference, it's from the 6th paragraph of the Mind Arrow ability of the Soulbow from the excerpt, and underlined for emphasis) This effectively makes the Soulbow into a 9/10 BaB class instead of a 3/4. It's also one of the few (or only?) instances of gaining an enhancement bonus to your base attack bonus. Is this sentence still present in the CPsi version?

We've noticed it, and it is indeed the same in Complete Psionic.  However, we put it out there with a caveat that many DM's will regard that as a typo, even though it wasn't changed in the eratta.

[Sinfire Titan]

We've noticed it, and it is indeed the same in Complete Psionic.  However, we put it out there with a caveat that many DM's will regard that as a typo, even though it wasn't changed in the eratta.

CP didn't get errata: It got a footnote saying "We screwed this book up pretty badly, but don't feel like fixing everything. Here's some clarification, go fuck yourself good luck with the rest".

If they really wanted to errata it, they would have printed it under the title of 3.51.

[snakeman830]

We've noticed it, and it is indeed the same in Complete Psionic.  However, we put it out there with a caveat that many DM's will regard that as a typo, even though it wasn't changed in the eratta.

CP didn't get errata: It got a footnote saying "We screwed this book up pretty badly, but don't feel like fixing everything. Here's some clarification, go fuck yourself good luck with the rest".

If they really wanted to errata it, they would have printed it under the title of 3.51.

Well, it wasn't changed in the eratta.  Just because there was no eratta, doesn't mean my statement is invalid.

[Optimator]

One enhancement I've always found useful on a bow is the Binding ability.  No-save Dimensional Anchor 2/day for a +1 bonus seems mighty fine in my book, especially at higher levels.

[Sinfire Titan]

One enhancement I've always found useful on a bow is the Binding ability.  No-save Dimensional Anchor 2/day for a +1 bonus seems mighty fine in my book, especially at higher levels.

I'd rather put that on the arrows. More uses.

[Endarire]

Any updates?