The Gaming Den

Based on the discussion about non-magical warriors I started thinking about making a non-magical archer; one that is at the very limit of ludicrous Extraordinary abilities. Not a ranger or sniper but a PC that will stand in the open in front of a charging horde shooting furiously at them. So they don't get spells, their arrows don't glow with electricity or drip with poison, they just prepare their ground and fire an astounding number of arrows. They don't even go Green Arrow with special arrows since that is too dependant on equipment- they can take a basic bow and wooden arrows and take down a giant.

To make it not quite so focused a schtick I also decided to have the class be so focused they refuse to accept what isn't real and force their vision of reality based on their experience onto the rest of the world.

Unfortunately I'm not entirely sure how to do one of the main abilities so I've made two versions, one in blue and one in red.

Marksman

Alignment: Any
Hit Die: d10
Base Attack Bonus: Full
Good Saving Throws: Fort and Will
Skill Points: 4+Int
Class Skills: Balance (Dex), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Intimidate (Cha), Knowledge (All) (Int), Listen (Wis), Sleight of Hand (Dex), Spot (Wis) and Survival (Wis).

Level	Abilities
1	Prepared Stance (+1d6, Quick Draw) / Prepared Stance (+1d6), Point Blank Shot
2	Pinning Shot, Wing Clip, Weapon Focus (Ranged)
3	Solidity (Ghost Touch), Defensive Reflexes
4	Prepared Stance (+2d6, Hasted) / Prepared Stance (+2d6), Shoot Anything, Scattered Arrows
5	Solidity (Make Real)
6	Volley, Supersonic Shot
7	Solidity (Reality Defence), Weapon Specialisation (Ranged)
8	Prepared Stance (+3d6, Swift Action) / Prepared Stance (+3d6), Snipe
9	Solidity (Force Real)
10	Trick Shot, Multishot
11	Solidity (Pinch Me)
12	Prepared Stance (+4d6, 10ft movement) / Prepared Stance (+4d6)
12	Solidity (Definite Effect)

Class Features:

Weapon and Armour Proficiencies: The Marksman is proficient with all Simple Weapons and all Ranged Weapons including all Exotic Ranged Weapons. The Marksman is proficient with Light and Medium Armour.

Prepared Stance (Ex): As long as the Marksman is not wearing Heavy armour or more than lightly encumbered, as a move action they can prepare their weapon for quick access. The Marksman gains the Prepared condition until they move more than 5ft including 5ft steps. While they are Prepared they do an extra 1d6 competence damage with all weapons and get the benefits of the Quick Draw feat.
At 4th level this damage bonus increases to 2d6 and the Marksman gains the benefits of Haste while Prepared.
At 8th level it increases again to 3d6 and they may use a Swift action instead of a Move action to become Prepared.
At 12th level it increases to 4d6 and the Marksman can move up to 10ft per round while staying Prepared.

Prepared Stance (Ex): As long as the Marksman is not wearing Heavy armour or more than lightly encumbered as a move action they can prepare their weapon for quick access. The Marksman gains the Prepared condition until they move more than 5ft, including 5ft steps.
While they are Prepared they deal an extra 1d6 competence damage with all weapons they are proficient with. Each turn after the first they must use a Swift action at the beginning of the Marksman's turn to stay in a Prepared condition.
At 4th level the damage bonus increases to 2d6 and while they are Prepared they can make a Full Attack action as a Standard action.
At 8th level the damage bonus increases to 3d6 and while Prepared they can make a Full Attack action with a Move action. In doing so they can make two Full Attack actions in one turn if they want.
At 12th level the damage bonus increases to 4d6 and ????.

Point Blank Shot (Ex): The Marksman gains Point Blank Shot as a bonus feat. This can be either the [Combat] feat or the PHB based on the campaign.

Pinning Shot (Ex): The Marksman can attach a number of creatures to the ground. As a Standard action the Marksman can make a number of ranged attacks with a weapon equal to the number they get from their BAB at any target within range. If it hits with a normal ranged attack it does normal damage and goes through the body and into any wall or floor they are adjacent to. This reduces their movement to 0 unless they make a Strength check (DC 10 + 1/2 hitdice + Dex mod) as part of the movement or a Heal check (DC 15 + 1/2 hitdice + Dex mod) as a Standard action. If they attempt a Strength check they take 1d6 damage. The original damage taken is considered "ongoing damage" for the purposes of Concentration checks while they are Pinned.

Wing Clip (Ex): When attacking any flying creature with wings with a ranged weapon, the Marksman can choose to do half damage and stick the wing with the arrow, bolt, dagger or other throwing weapon. This stops the creature from being able to fly for 2 rounds. During this period if they are in mid-air then they fall to the ground, taking the damage a normal fall would do.

Weapon Focus (Ranged) (Ex): The Marksman gains the Weapon Focus feat usable with all ranged weapons.

Solidity (all Ex): The Marksman through dedicated training gains more of a connection with the world. As long as they are not incorporeal or invisible they gain a number of benefits as they increase in level:

• Ghost Touch - At 3rd level the Marksman is real on all planes. They get the benefit of Ghost Touch with all weapons, armour and shields. This includes tripping, grappling and bull rushing.
• Make Real - At 5th level if any of the Marksman's attacks successfully hit and damage or they successfully grapple any incorporeal or invisible creatures then that creature stops being incorporeal or invisible for 1 round.
• Reality Defence - At 7th level the Marksman is more aware of what is real and what isn't. They get an insight bonus to saves against Illusions, Enchantments and Transmutations equal to half their hitdice.
• Force Real - At 9th level, if any of the Marksman's attacks damage or they successfully grapple any incorporeal or invisible creature then the duration they are stopped from being incorporeal or invisible increases to 3 rounds. Also, all creatures grappled or damaged by any of the Marksman's attacks cannot Teleport or Plane Shift for 3 rounds. The Marksman can choose to stop this ability for a period, for example if they want to be Teleported themselves.
• Pinch Me - At 11th level while touching someone or an object the Marksman can remove alterations to reality. In effect they cast Break Enchantment, Remove Curse and Greater Dispel Magic all at the same time as a Full-Round Action with a Caster Level equal to their hitdice. They can do this At Will and as an Extraordinary Ability.
• Definite Effect - At 13th level all the Marksman's attacks ignore such flim-flammery as Damage Reduction or Hardness. They also are more aware of what is and isn't real, gaining True Seeing.

Defensive Reflexes (Ex): The Marksman can react and return fire so fast that incoming fire is shot out of the sky. While the Marksman is Prepared they can negate any ranged attack a number of times per round equal to the number of AoOs they can make. Before they find out whether the attack is successful they must make an attack roll higher than the enemy's attack roll, or 10 + CL for spells like Magic Missile without attack rolls. If they do so the ranged attack is negated. This can be any visible ranged attack attacking anyone within one range increment they are aware of including thrown boulders, magic missiles, arrows and rays. Doing this uses up an Attack of Opportunity.
The Marksman can also do this when not flat-footed as an Immediate action.

Shoot Anything (Ex): As a Full-Round Action the Marksman can attach any object up to 10lb to an arrow or bolt before shooting it up to one range increment. This could be a grappling hook with rope attached, a note, a tanglefoot bag or whatever. If aimed at something in particular the Marksman must succeed at a ranged touch attack to hit. As well as this, any ranged weapon attack is counted as a Siege Weapon for the purposes of Wind Wall or strong winds.

Scattered Arrows (Ex): While the Marksman is Prepared as a Standard Action they can shoot several arrows into the ground over a number of connected squares equal to half the Marksman's class level rounded down with a minimum of 3 squares. The squares designated become difficult terrain.

Volley (Ex): While the Marksman is Prepared, as a Standard action they can fire a hail of arrows at an area, crushing the arrows enough so that they split into shrapnel as they fly. It does 1d6 per Marksman level slashing damage in a 10ft square (Reflex save DC 10 + 1/2 hitdice + Dex for half).

Supersonic Shot (Ex): The Marksman makes a ranged attack with enough force and speed to create a shockwave. As a Standard action the Marksman does 1d6 per Marksman level Force damage in a 5ft wide line up to one range increment away from the Marksman (Fort DC 10 + 1/2HD + Dex for half). Doing this takes a lot of effort and strain; if they do this two rounds in succession they take half the damage done in non-lethal damage. [This is the ability that is most incredibly ludicrous, and the one least likely to be accepted as non-magical]

Weapon Specialisation (Ranged) (Ex): The Marksman gains Weapon Specialisation for all ranged weapons as a bonus feat.

Snipe (Ex): As a Standard action the Marksman makes an aimed attack with a -4 penalty. If it is a successful hit then it is an automatic critical doing the maximum damage possible.

Trick Shot (Ex): With a twist of the fletchings the Marksman can make arrows or bolts twist in the wind and do what seems impossible. Any bolt or arrow shot by the Marksman can go via any point currently possible. For example they can shoot to a corner then they can have the arrow act as if it was shot from that corner, in effect shooting around the corner. Any cover is decided from the point decided and not from the archer. The total distance is used to decide how many range increments it is, and attacks from the same full attack don't have to attack the same target or come from the same position.

Multishot (Ex): While Prepared the Marksman can shoot at all targets within an area. The Marksman can make a ranged attack against all targets without full cover or full concealment within a 60ft cone as a Standard Action. Trick Shot cannot be used in conjunction with this ability.

---

You can probably tell that the names are mostly placeholders since I'm not great with coming up with them.

I'm not sure about other abilities. I was thinking possibly the Marksman being so real that low level mooks simply have no effect on the Marksman, or ignoring spells of a level lower than a third of their class level (although that could be pretty frustrating if they don't get healed by wands of cure light wounds). Maybe at high levels ranged attacks having a Disjunction effect on the target.

In terms of the archery, I wasn't sure whether to have a permanent Haste effect while Prepared or simply twice the number of attacks. You could have abilities like being able to fire arrows into walls for grips or ladders, but that seems a bit flimsy for the space used. Others could be firing through force walls or, well, I don't know. Threaten within 30ft? Do a Detritus with an insane number of arrows and make a cone of shrapnel? I may go through the Spell Compendium looking for spells I can pretend are remotely physically possible with a bow and arrows.

The other thing I was thinking about was to change it so that a lot of the abilities were classified as 'Tricks' or 'Techniques', and then have minor, standard and major techniques, and the player chooses one each level off a list. So you'd have something like:
Heroic Techniques: (One learned each level 2-5)

Pinning Shot
Wing Clip
Shoot Anything
Shattered Arrows
etc...

Epic Techniques: (One learned each level 6-9)

Volley
Supersonic Shot
Snipe
Shrapnel Shot (shoot lots of arrows at once causing 1d6/level slashing damage in 30ft cone)
etc...

Utterly Ludicrous Techniques (One learned each level 10-13)

Trick Shot
Multishot
Forceful Arrow (shatters Force effects, touch attack with weapon to do so)
Readied Shots (threaten within 30ft)
etc...

I could make more of the preparation and add the ability to quickly make traps, but to be honest I don't want to remove the ability to actually make wooden stakes from non-Marksmen, as well as the fact that high level traps are basically all magical which this class isn't.

This is the most boring class ever. All it does is stand in one place and shoot arrows. It doesn't even fucking move. The 3e Full Attack Archer fighter is dull, fairly effective sometimes, but dull. If you want the character to be vaguely interesting, give it a shit tonne of things to do with a standard action so that at least he is fucking moving.

-Username17

FrankTrollman wrote:This is the most boring class ever. All it does is stand in one place and shoot arrows. It doesn't even fucking move. The 3e Full Attack Archer fighter is dull, fairly effective sometimes, but dull. If you want the character to be vaguely interesting, give it a shit tonne of things to do with a standard action so that at least he is fucking moving.

-Username17

As I read it, Pinning Shot does exactly that, since it is a standard action that "make a number of ranged attacks with a weapon equal to the number they get from their BAB at any target within range."

Also, this is a lot like a Fighter in that you take 12 class levels and get 7 free feats. Giving the Marksman the various ranged combat feats strikes me as silly; you should probably be taking those anyway but if that's what you want you should be a Fighter.

I'd suggest the following for the Marksman:
* Can move and take an Aim action at the same time,
and
* Can do various shit with a *single shot* that does something nasty, if you are Aiming. At level 12, *something nasty* includes a coup de grace against a non-helpless target that is a standard action.
* Can aim, and then hold your action, and get the Aim against anyone who moves in LOS (including the *something nasty*).


So the Marksman would be encouraged to walk around with an arrow knocked, and cap people and have them go down; also, the marksman would be encouraged to stand there with an arrow knocked while the other characters did whatever they did, and when the various enemies broke cover, you shoot them with arrows and they go down.

They have the ability to make lots of attacks with a Standard Action and even later with a move action. But their damage boost is contingent on not moving more than 5' in a round. So they are going to basically sit in one place and root enemies. It's an incredibly dull tactic that isn't going to change from one battle to the next.

-Username17

My instinctual reaction is to say: "Yes. And?"

But yeah, it isn't really a 10-15 level tactic. The problem is that most archering tactics come down to one of

• Ambush and then randomly plink for the rest of battle,
• WoW huntering with a pet,
• Horse archering

Ambushing is best done with assassins, using pets is best done with druids/rangers/summons and horse archering at high levels basically requires something like a paladin mount as a class feature which is pretty magical. My thought was to have a more defensive archer which stays in one place out in the open without pets.

And I'd argue that it's fine for levels 1-3. You can do enough damage to be effective and you don't need to move away from things like stinking cloud. If the main Prepared Stance changed dramatically so from 1-3 you have standing still and shooting, 4-7 you get a new tactic but can fall back on standing still and shooting, 8-11 you get three tactics etc then it would be much better.

But what those other tactics are its difficult to come up with, especially trying to be non-magical so no teleportation or anything like that.

The 'Solidity' effects Ghost Touch, Make Real, and Force Real do not scan as non-magical. You can call them non-magical, but it does not compute.

Fun things an archer can do that don't necessarily scan as magical:

• Control the amount of cover they have as a immediate action. (this can be digging a trench, ducking behind a tree, carrying a wall shield, etc)
• Make ranged grapple, trip or entangle attacks. This sort of thing can be justified as pinning enemies by their clothes, green arrow style "bolo arrows", harpoons with triplines (best against imperial AT-ATs) or alchemical items (tanglefoot bag)
• Maintain distance to stay out of melee via immediate actions. (because backing up up is totally nonmagical. You can even have it work a lot like varous teleports if you flavor it correctly)
• Use superior mobility and camouflage/decoys/diversions to conceal their current position.
• Shoot various monster appendages to deny various monsters specific attacks or movement modes. Shooting at eyes to stop gaze attacks and eyebeams, shooting wings to limit flight and shooting the throat/snout to limit breath weapons are possibilities here.
• Get close-support abilities to work with teammates. This can be as simple as a giving them a version of the rogue's opportunist ability that works with ranged attacks or as crazy weird as swift action ranged aid another or ranged flanking.
• Allow them to make disable device, use rope, and open lock skill checks by shooting things.

Pretty much all of Josh_Kablack's ideas are pretty good ones.