Arcane Archer?

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The official guidance says that a wizard might take Arcane Archer levels to bolster his combat capabilities. In reality, is there any point in a wizard taking Arcane Archer levels? How useful is the ability to shoot +1 arrows? Couldn’t he just go and buy some +1 arrows? Wouldn’t he better just casting something like fireball instead?

 

You can cast Time Stop from a scroll with only 1 level of wizard?

 

But just what is the point of the Enchant Arrow function, other than to save money on magic arrows?

 

I've been meaning to try an arcane archer for some time now, but have never got around to it. Some of their other abilities sound pretty fun, but how useful are they in practice? I'm thinking specifically of the imbued fireball arrow and the hail of arrows where you can shoot at every target within a given distance. I can see how the single shot that never misses might be useful for distrupting spellcasters, although I find mages pretty hard to disrupt in NWN due to usually high concentration abilities.

I hear the rogue 10ish/wizard 1/Arcane Archer x is a disgustingly powerful character. Anyone else tried it?

 

Problem is the high levels of Arcane Archer to get to the never-miss arrow and the hail of arrows. Not much use for someone focussing on Wizard, as the official guidance suggests. But I am glad to see that the arrow enchantment stacks because that means that one or two levels of AA are not a complete waste.

 

The Arcane Archer is a suboptimal PrC even in P&P, IMO. No spellcasting progression? We are speaking about elves here.

If the Spellsword could still channel his spells through arrows in 3.5, no one would care about the AA.

 

@ Will
I played an Arcane Archer through HotU once, and found it to be a good character to play (though I, iirc, was a ranger xx / Mage 1 / AA xx - Dunno if that's even do-able, soo long ago that I cannot remember what I was). Only problem I ever found to have was *SPOILER* the one-on-one with the Valsharess *SPOILER*.

a good all-round character capable, on the later levels, of dealing quite some massive dmg.

His ability to strike multiple enemies with one shot was what I found to be the most useful (imbue arrow and hail of arrows).

@ HB
The potency of the enchanted arrows will increase as you gain lvls in AA.

 

Arcane Archers can be great if you focus on AA levels. As a class to supplement wizard, well, not a great idea.

The thing about ranged combat is it's difficult to do lots of damage with a ranged weapon. AAs, due to the increasing enchantment of arrows and the fact that that enchantment stacks with an arrow's given plusses, allows AAs to do some serious damage (100 point crits) once they've gotten enough AA levels.

 

The AA's Enchant Arrow also increases *Attack Bonus* and it stacks with all other enchantments. It's by far the best ability of an Arcane Archer in NWN.

 

Yup, as said before, they're excelent at their job if you focus on AA levels.

An extra +1 AB/damage per 2 levels, on top of everything else, with warrior BAB progression makes for a very reliable and fairly safe, as long as you keep your distance, accurate damage machine.

It's definitely not the best choice to solo with though, always best to have a tank around to take the damage, while you're dishing it out. Could be great in parties, i'll have to try it sometime on a server or two

 

Well, I am going to see if it can work as a supplement to Wizard. Otherwise it's a stupid class if you effectivly have to take two other classes to make it work.

 

If you're intending it as a auxiliary class for a wizard, i'd advise against it, thinking of a powergaming perspective. Both classes require a lot of levels to make them effective, so you'd be split between the two paths.

For OC, you'd be fine, of course, having more diversity and focusing on supporting spells, instead of resistable ones, at which you wouldnt have the edge because of lower caster level (provided the enemy has spell resistance at all)
But you'd gain some versatility, which probably would be more fun, since you dont really need all that much power

 

@ Harbourboy: You dont necessarily need two classes to make it work. I believe Arcane Archer levels can be taken by bards, which is supposed to be an excellent way of doing it. A bard would get a reasonable BAB, all the spells that matter (ie buffs, summons and abjurations) and a song that boosts his abilities immensely. Thank the Faerun Pantheon in their entirety for bards who can sing and fight at the same time.

Of course, if you're determined to make it work with wizard it should be fine, but rather than having an awesome archer you'd have a mage who was a bit better than most at using a bow when he ran out of spells.

 

My Wizard uses a longbow all the time because the spells run out so quickly. A bit of an edge in that area will be a great help and I'm determined to make it work after all your negative predictions. Especially in SoU where there are no good tanking henchmen.

 

Go for it. Should round him out quite nicely, I would think, and is vastly more feasible from a roleplaying point of view than a fighter who learned a few cantrips just to be able to channel magic into his arrows. Dunno if you were going for roleplayability, but its another bonus

 

My arcane archer was a really good tank when I needed her to be. She wore medium or light armor with plenty of dex and tumble. If she went to melee I gave her a longsword and a shield and she was good to go. Also dont forget the DR belts they save my lif every time. My character was rouge7-8/bard2-3/AA10 which gave me 4 attacks great skills and the ability to use most any item. She rocked hard core!

 

Does the +1 enchantment on arrows stack with other types of arrow? For example does a normal Fire Arrow become a Fire Arrow +1?