Ranger Paths

[Garthis]

Is there a concensus on weather the archery path is better than the traditional TWF ranger?

I generally prefer melee focused builds utilizing weapon finesse and knockdown. Someone suggested that archery is such a powerful path that it's better to take the archery feats as freebees and play more of a switch hitter.

This makes some sense to me because the -4 to hit with a knockdown is very lame and the TWF penalties would only make they worse compared to an easy weapon finesse katana build. Still, the two sword build that works as intended right from the start just looks too cool to pass up.

If you had to make a knockdown focused ranger, which path would you take?

[Skibbles]

Depends how many Ranger levels you intend to take. I'd say if you're going mostly Ranger then choosing the melee option for the dual wield ac bonus, and of course glorious blade thirst, is a no-brainer.

If you're going to be taking mostly AA then Ranger archer frontloads a lot of the required feats very quickly so you can get into AA quickly.

[Garthis]

Depends how many Ranger levels you intend to take. I'd say if you're going mostly Ranger then choosing the melee option for the dual wield ac bonus, and of course glorious blade thirst, is a no-brainer.

If you're going to be taking mostly AA then Ranger archer frontloads a lot of the required feats very quickly so you can get into AA quickly.

Makes sense.

I've actually tried pure rangers on the level 30 server, AC was pitiful. Not sure if pure ranger is even considered viable? Either way the extra AC and double blade thirst is cool.

[Baron Saturday]

Pure anything is, with very few exceptions, pretty bad. Ranger wants, at the very least, to dip into a class that has tumble as a class skill. Monk is the preference, because you can then also get some more AC from wisdom and more attacks/round, but rogue would also work, especially if you mean to be making heavy use of KD.

[Gouge Away]

I generally prefer melee focused builds utilizing weapon finesse and knockdown. Someone suggested that archery is such a powerful path that it's better to take the archery feats as freebees and play more of a switch hitter.

It's not just the feats, generating your own ammo is a huge draw with the archery path. NWN generally wants you to just choose one weapon and stick with it but I think it would be possible to have a ranger who goes back and forth between bow and quarterstaff, or even one who doesn't do dual wielding and carries a shield/parries instead for max AC.

[Wethrinea]

If you plan to go pure ranger, you will not be doing much dual-wielding as the shield is the only thing that raises your pitiful AC to near-acceptable levels. Archer is the only viable pure ranger build, but it assumes you have a buddy to shield your unarmoured buttocks while you rain death upon your favoured enemies. Which, by level 30, should be more or less -everyone-.

I am doing a str based melee ranger, who is currently at 25, and I can't express in words how much I am clawing to get that tumbledump at 27 and onwards.

[Archnon]

So if you go the archery path you can take the two-weapon fighting feats as Favored enemy bonus feats. However, you want to catch as much content as you can with FE because that is where your damage comes from.

As far as dual-wielding vs shield, I think people are able to dual-wield thanks to the benefits of monk AC bonus. A monk dip on a pure ranger will likely net you around 8 AC + 3AC dual wield. That is going to more than beat out shields. Otherwise, without the monk dip the +3 AC is a nice offset and you still net the extra two attacks per round, with one at full BAB. Even on the archer path, monk is totally worth it. It opens up shuriken production, high BAB, and monk UBAB on the attacks. You still also net the +8AC on monk.

Using both quarterstaff and bow is an option but it is hard going and you are really feat starved unless you dip heavy fighter. Getting 3 feats per weapon (WF, Improved Crit, EWF) is almost necessary and that will nuke your other feat options. Not to mention needing to potentially burn 2 FE's for the dual wield. In addition, you cannot really viably dip more than 6 fighter as you need 3 for a tumble dump. One option might be to take 7 ranger, 4 monk and 19 COT or Fighter. COT Would net you nice saves, the feats you need, plus divine wrath on either weapon, and even if you take a negative charisma your wrath timer won't be bad. Fighter would not be as good, netting you just +2AC. However in either of these builds you will not hit +5 on your weapon, so play it as a svirf or deal with high levels of DR both in PVE and PVP.

[dallion43]

Let assume this is a dex ranger with finess.
I doubt archer path is viable on str.

Taking TWF and archery properly requires more feats that you can take on a heavy ranger.

Archery without high lvl ranger/divine damage/High AA lacks consistent damage.

If you dont like the standard ranger builds with monk, you can consider rapier(2uni+keen)+shield/bow (archer path) and skip on TWF.
The benefit of +5 on any wepon nets you 12-20*2 without a WM and with high FE damage with BS and TS you can deal considerable damage output on your Knokdown.
The second best dip after monk is bard for a ranger. SC+ cheap GR. On dex build ones refl is high as is. Plus, ranger has more then enough SPs. Etc.

Edit: addition to the above,
3 dip lvls pre 20 will convert saves and FE feat to epic feat at the cost of 1bab, WF and EFW for both will cost you +4 fort feat and ESF:disc what will lead to an...interesting gearing effort, so picking eather melee or ranged is advised.

All, above is an imho, and should be consumed with salt :p.