Races of Pathfinder: Aquatic Elf

Aquatic Elf

Aquatic elves are basically elves that can breath water.  They have many of the same abilities as their land-locked cousins.

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Racial Traits:

Ability Scores: Sea elves get a +2 to Dex and Int, making them great at ranged attacks and arcane spellcasting. They suffer a -2 penalty to Con, which can definitely hurt their hit point total.

Size: Elves are the same size as humans.

Speed: Elves have normal speed of 30 feet.

Swim Speed: Water hazards, encounters, and dungeons are fairly common in Pathfinder, so you'll find a swim speed very handy at least a few times.

Elven Immunities: Aquatic Elves are completely immune to magic sleep effects, and get a bonus against all other enchantment effects on top of that. This is excellent.

Keen Senses: A bonus to the most important skill in the game is always welcome.

Elven Magic: This bonus to caster level checks can definitely come in handy for a spellcaster, obviously, but for a non-spellcaster this is totally useless. A bonus to identifying magic items is a little situational, but at least useful for everyone.

Weapon Familiarity: Aquatic elves get rapiers, short swords, tridents, and all "elven" weapons.  It's not the most useful group, but some are better than simple weapons.

Low-Light Vision: This is always useful, but not nearly as helpful as Darkvision is for dwarves.

Amphibious: The ability to breath underwater goes hand in hand with a swim speed, making Aquatic Elves excellent underwater scouts.

Classes:

Alchemist: An aquatic elf can make an exceptionally good bomb-wielding Alchemist, since both Intelligence and Dexterity are important for that type of build. The Mindchemist and Grenadier archetypes would both be great choices also, I just wish you could take both at once! You might also consider multiclassing with the Arcane Bomber Wizard for some ability synergy and the chance to use arcane scrolls.

Barbarian: With their penalty to Consitution, and Intelligence being relatively useless, aquatic  elves don’t make very good Barbarians. In general I would stick with the Fighter or Cavalier if you want to be a melee frontliner as an Aquatic Elf.

Bard: Aquatic Elves make some seriously excellent bards, since both Dexterity and Intelligence are helpful for most bard builds. The penalty to Constitution shouldn’t matter quite as much since you can heal yourself, so that’s nice too. 

Cavalier [Samurai]: There’s nothing stopping an Aquatic Elf from being an excellent Cavalier, as long as you keep an eye on hit points. At the same time, the bonuses to Intelligence and Dexterity don’t really do a ton for a vanilla Cavalier either. To take advantage of Dex, you may consider the Luring Cavalier and Musketeer archetypes (in fact, you can actually combine the two, since they replace different abilities). 

Cleric: Every race has clerics, but Aquatic elves don’t fit the bill quite as well as dwarves do. No bonus to Wisdom or Charisma, and a penalty to Con, though that can usually be overcome since you can heal yourself. You might consider the Divine Strategist archetype, which lets you add your Intelligence bonus to damage and other rolls starting at level 8.

Druid: Like clerics, Druids rely on Wisdom. Are you seeing a trend here? Aquatic Elves just don’t make the best divine casters! That being said, there’s no reason that you can’t make an excellent elven Druid, you’re just not going to be optimal. I’d also consider the Mooncaller archetype, since several of the abilities granted by it synergize very well with elves (such as gaining Darkvision at second level!).

Fighter: WIth a bonus to Dex and Int, an Aquatic Elf can make a seriously excellent ranged fighter. If you slap on the Lore Warden archetype, it just gets silly good, with tons of hit points and a bardic knowledge-like ability that comes in handy all the time. If you’re trying for melee, though, look at the Magus instead.

Gunslinger: The bonus to Dex is obviously going to help. Many of the Deed abilities use Wisdom, so it hurts a little bit that you don’t have a bonus there. I see no reason why you can’t make a decent gunslinger with an elf.

Inquisitor: This is another Wisdom-based character, so while there’s no reason that you couldn’t make a good Inquisitor with an aquatic elf (the Dex bonus just begs you to go ranged), you’re not going to be optimal. None of the archetypes do anything to chage this, either.

Magus: Now, here is a class that an aquatic elf was just born to play. Intelligence for casting and many of the Arcana abilities. You’ll probably want to make a Dex-based Magus (there is a guide on how to do that here), and that will make you want to consider both the Spell Dancer and Myrmidarch archetypes. The Hexcrafter is also a popular choice, because Witch Hexes are just amazing. Make sure to take the racial favored class bonus, which will give you an extra Magus Arcana every six levels, which is a HUGE bonus!

Monk: An aquatic elf can definitely pull off a Dex-focused monk, but the lack of a racial Wisdom bonus is definitely sub-optimal. Consider looking into the Flowing Monk and the Zen Archer, but again, this isn’t the best class for an elf.

Oracle: The Charisma-focused nature of the Oracle doesn’t lend itself to elven mastery, sadly. 

Paladin [Antipaladin]: Paladins rely almost exclusively on Strength and Charisma, which your elf isn’t the best at, so generally a Paladin is going to be a suboptimal choice. However, you can definitely mitigate this by choosing the Divine Hunter or Holy Gun archetypes, either of which will give you some excellent abilities to use at range. 

Ranger: Rangers do use Wisdom, but it’s really only for spellcasting, so if you choose a spell-less archetype like the Skirmisher, Trapper, or Urban Ranger, you’re going to get a lot more bang for your buck. You’ll probably want to go with a ranged combat style, to take advantage of the Dex bonus. Thematically, elven Rangers just make perfect sense, so I say go for it!

Rogue [Ninja]: Aquatic Elves make excellent rogues, thanks to their bonuses to both Intelligence and Dexterity. Ninjas take a hit because of the requirement of Charisma for their ki abilities, so I’d stick with the Rogue, if choosing between the two. I don’t think any of the archetypes are specifically better for an elf, but many of them have interesting abilities, so make sure to look them all over.

Sorcerer: Generally, as an aquatic elf, you’re going to want to choose Wizard over Sorcerer, because Sorcerers require Charisma. However, you can fix this very easily if you’re willing to choose the Wildblooded (Sage) bloodline, which makes every single one of your normally Cha-based Sorcerer abilities based off of Int instead! This makes an aquatic  elven Sorcerer much more feasible, though you don’t get your choice of bloodlines anymore, which means you can’t customize the character nearly as much. 

Summoner: Like Sorcerers, Summoners require lots of Charisma. Unlike Sorcerers, there’s no Sage bloodline to switch them over to Int. Flavor-wise, the First-Worlder Summoner is pretty cool, since your eidolon become a fey creature instead of an outsider, and you get summon nature’s ally spells instead of summon monster. I would stay away from the Synthesist archetype, because Constitution becomes very important for you when your eidolon is nothing but a shell around you, and Con is not an elf’s best stat.

Witch: Witches are Intelligence-based, and that makes them an awesome choice for an aquatic elf. If you want to be a good healer, the Hedge Witch archetype is probably one of the best ways to get an Intelligence-based party healer, so if you’re set on playing an elf but being the party’s band-aid, that’s the way to do it.

Wizard: Aquatic Elves are long-lived and patient, in addition to being very intelligent, and that makes them incredibly good wizards. You may want to look at the Arcane Bomber archetype if you’re trying to do a bunch of damage. The Spellbinder, which is specifically for elves, is only okay, because you’re trading the ability to cast any one spell in your spellbook once per day for the ability to trade your currently prepared spells for spells that you’ve learned very well. This means that you could be giving up a casting of any one of your highest-level spells. The tradeoff here is that you don’t have an item that could cause you to fail at spellcasting if it’s lost. If you want versatility, stick with the normal Arcane Bond, or even pick up a familiar instead.

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Races of Pathfinder: Shobhad

Shobhad

Shobhads are four armed giants who live in the deserts of a low-gravity planet.  A bit underwhelming for 29RP, this advanced race has fairly broad bonuses and no real penalties.  They are very similar to the four armed, desert dwelling Kasatha, right down to their ability scores and defensive training.

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Racial Traits:

Ability Scores: +2 Wisdom, +2 Strength (adjusted for Size). There are plenty of martials that key partially off Wisdom, so this is a strong ability score distribution.

Size: Shobhad are large.  This gives them reach and bonuses to CMB and CMD, but it also gives them some penalties to AC and attack.  The fact that they get to use large weapons bumps size up to a net positive.

Speed: Shobhad have a normal, 30 foot move speed.

Defensive Training, Greater: +2 to dodge bonus is great.  It goes away if you are flat footed, but that shouldn't happen too often.

Ferocity: Ferocity is a great ability, especially at low levels.  It allows you that extra turn to get out of combat or heal yourself when you are nearing death.

Stalker: Perception and Stealth are always class skills.  This isn't quite as broadly useful as a flat bonus, but it can potentially deliver more umph.  

Racial Weapon Proficiency: You get the Shobhad long rifle proficiency, a sniper rifle that only functions on low-gravity worlds. Unless you spend time on low-gravity worlds, this is absolutely useless. 

Jumper: This essentially halves the DC for jumps where you don't have a running start.  Usually you can get running starts in needed situations, but it's still useful.

Desert Stride: I'm not going to complain, but non-magical difficult terrain in desert environments probably isn't that common.

Multi-Armed: What can you actually do with four arms?  There are six things that stick out as options, but the rules get a bit muddled in these waters.  First, you can wield two-weapon fighting two different weapons with two hands each.  However, wielding a light weapon with two hands gives no advantage on damage, so you'd want to wield two large weapons and take the penalty to attack.  You could also potentially take two-weapon fighting and wield two projectile weapons.  Second, you have extra hands to reload firearms and crossbows, which is much more of a clear bonus.  Third, you can use a two-handed weapon and grab a shield as well.  If you can't think of another use for them, I would highly recommend going the shield route. Fourth, you can carry a litany of wands or metamagic rods for various uses, and be better able to choose on the fly without having to rifle through your backpack.  Fifth, if you grow two claws, you can use them in conjunction with two hands holding manufactured weapons.  There's even an argument to be made for being able to gain four claw natural attacks. Sixth, you can gain a bunch of extra attacks with multi-weapon fighting.

Classes:

Shobhads have bonuses to Strength and Wisdom, opening up a range of classes.  With an AC bonus and Ferocity, melee classes are at an advantage.  Four arms allow them to either dual wield more effectively, quickly reload guns, or grab a shield.
The Gunslinger is the obvious choice.  The Shobhad can dual wield pistols while reloading them with his two free hands.  Hell, he can even grab a shield and then reload both pistols with his remaining free hand.  The Wisdom modifier also helps.  Consider the Pistolero archetype.
Inquisitors, Monks, and Rangers, all gain from the Wisdom modifier and Strength modifier, the AC buff, and the four arms.  On the more casting side, the Cleric and Druid have much to gain.
The Emyreal Sorcerer is another good choice, and can wield multiple wands and rods simultaneously.
A bit lower on the scale but still firmly in the blue come the straight martials: The Fighter, Barbarian, Cavalier, Rogue, and Ninja can all benefit from the strength, AC, and arms, and even the Wisdom buff provides a small bonus to lacking Willpower.  The Paladin falls into this category as well, able to wield a massive great sword in two hands and heavy shield in another. The Magus will be able to hold a two handed weapon in two hands and use spell combat with another, keeping another hand free for wands, rods or anything else.
The Bard and melee Oracle can still be competent, but don't gain to their main casting ability.
The Alchemist and pure casters, the Sorcerer, Wizard, Witch, and Summoner, have little to gain but also don't suffer any penalties to their main casting abilities. Their four arms can be used to wield multiple wands and rods in any case.

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Races of Pathfinder: Vanara

Vanara

Vanara are furry monkey humans who live in the forest.  Agile and with a climb speed and tail, they play pretty much as you'd expect.

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Racial Traits:

Ability Scores: +2 Dexterity and Wisdom, -2 Charisma is a good distribution.  Charisma is a classic dump ability score, and everybody benefits from Dexterity (and, to a lesser degree, Wisdom.

Size: Medium - these are big monkeys!

Speed: 30 ft with a 30 feet Climb Speed.  Next to Fly, Climb is probably the most useful speed in the game.  It's great for getting around, preventing fall damage, and being generally monkey-like.

Nimble: +2 to Acrobatics and Stealth, which works well with the Climb speed.

Low-Light Vision: I'll take low-light vision over nothing.  Not as good as Darkvision, but still handy dandy.

Prehensile Tail: This trait is pretty deep into GM fiat territory, but it can range from harmless fluff to game breaking cheese (I'm looking at you, firearm reloading). Results may vary.

Alternate Racial Traits:

Tree Stranger [Climb Speed]: The loss of your climb speed is a pretty harsh price to pay, but treating all Knowledge skills as class skills is pretty good.  Still, out adventuring you are more likely to use climb.

Whitecape [Prehensile Tail]: It is very possible that you won't be using your prehensile tail for anything.  If that's the case, then you could trade it for a situational CMD bonus.  It's only against bull rush or trip though, so not too useful.

Classes: 
Wisdom, Dexterity, and a Climb speed are great for a lot of classes, ranged, melee, and casters included.
The Gunslinger is an obvious choice, as are ranged Zen Archer Monks, Rangers, and Inquisitors.  Their melee counterparts are no slouches either, still firmly in the Blue.  Druid is another good option.  Less obvious is the Empyreal Sorcerer, who keys off of Wisdom, and the Divine Strategist Cleric, who doesn't channel.
Next comes basically everybody else.  Cavaliers, Fighters, Barbarians, Alchemists, Rogues, and Magus all appreciate the bonuses - their ranged counterparts more than their melee counterparts.
The Ninja, Cleric, Paladin, and Bard can all somewhat work around the Charisma penalty, and take advantage of everything else.  The Witch and Wizard are also in this category - you'd be better off with somebody who gets an Intelligence buff.
Last is the Oracle, Sorcerer, and Summoner, who can't really work around the Charisma penalty.

Racial Favored Class Bonuses:

Alchemist: +1/2 damage to your bomb damage is great - it will comprise about 1/8th of your total bomb damage.

Druid: +1/2 to Wild Empathy and Handle Animal is flavorful, but just not too interesting.

Fighter: Reposition isn't something you have to worry about too much, but trip could be.  Something to consider, but I would recommend just sticking with the extra HP.

Monk: +1 to Acrobatics to jump is loads of fun, but as a monk you'll have plenty of this anyway. I wouldn't worry about it.

Ranger: +1/4 dodge bonus to AC against favored enemies is fairly good, especially when you get more favored enemies to work with.  Better than the extra HP against those guys.

Rogue: +1/6 rogue talent is much more powerful than just an HP.  Use it to save a feat for toughness, and you will have made back more than you gave up.

Racial Archetypes:

Treetop Monk (Monk): It's flavorful, but that's about it.  You are better at climbing, and ever so marginally better with wooden weapons.  For these you give up the very useful Still Mind and Purity of Body.  The only potentially useful trade-off is one-turn freedom of movements instead of Abundant Step (dimension door), making getting out of grapple easy peasy.

Racial Feats:

Tree Hanger: You always gain +2 to CMD against trip, and when you can hang you gain +2 to bullrush, drag, and reposition.  This is fairly situational, but could be used in many forest, jungle, and some indoor environments.  However, the bonuses are really not worth justifying a full feat.  Maybe a trait.

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Races of Pathfinder: Triaxian

Triaxian

Triaxians are aliens, lets start with that.  They come from a world with long seasons, and their physical and emotional characteristics are determined by the seasons they are born into.  For some reason, however, his has limited impact on their racial traits, which prepare them for entry into a range of classes (mostly non-melee).

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Racial Traits:

Ability Scores: +2 to Constitution and Wisdom, -2 to Strength is a great ability distribution as long as you are not going into melee. Everybody likes Constitution and Wisdom, and Strength is a dump ability for many classes.

Size: Triaxians are Medium size.

Speed: Triaxians have a base movement speed of 30ft.

Low-Light Vision: Probably not too relevant in most cases, but still, it's nice to have.

Keen Senses: +2 to Perception is one of the better skill bonuses to gain.

Bonus Feat: A triaxian character begins with a bonus feat that they qualify for. This is a great way to get started early on a long feat tree like the Point-Blank Shot line.

Seasoned: Seasoned is essentially one half of endure elements, either the heat or the cold.  If you know your campaign is going to be played primarily in desert or tundra, this can be an excellent trait.  Otherwise, it probably won't be too relevant.

Classes:

Constitution and Wisdom key into plenty of classes, but you are probably going to want to avoid melee.  Druids, Monks, Clerics, Ranger, and Inquisitors are all great as long as you stick with a ranged focus (Zen Archer for the monk).  A melee focus brings all of those guys down to Green, but still very passable.  Gunslinger is also great with the Wisdom bonuses.  All of the partial-martials can also really benefit from the extra feat to kick things off.
Constitution and Wisdom are good, generic ability scores, so the ranged Fighter, Bard, Urban Barbarian, Paladin, and Samurai can all benefit.  The Cavalier and Melee versions of the above are likely Orange with the Strength penalty, though it's a close call with that extra feat.
None of the pure casters gain their primary ability scores, and they need to buff them more than anything.  Still because Constitution and Wisdom are always appreciated, and because a bonus feat is good, and because neither Intelligence nor Charisma are dumped, the Oracle, Summoner, Sorcerer, Witch, and Wizard are just as worthy of green as anybody else.
The Magus and Alchemist have little synergy here, gaining neither Intelligence nor Dexterity, so I would think about avoiding them.  Similarly, it is basically impossible to build a ranged Rogue (or Ninja, at least at lower levels), so the Strength penalty hurts.  Still, the bonus feat keeps these classes from pure red.  And again, everybody can benefit at least a little from the extra HP, Fortitude save, and Will save.

Racial Archetypes:

Season Keeper (Druid): The Season Keeper gives up a bunch of Druid abilities in exchange for some minor buffs to those near his animal companion.  Granted, the abilities she gives up aren't terribly powerful (trackless step, venom immunity, and timeless body), but the bonuses gained aren't too great.  Her wild shape is also made just worse, operating at a lower level unless she limits herself to either ice elementals or plants.  The only fun part of this archetype is that your animal companion now essentially has an aura of endure elements, and the image of a group of adventurers crowding around a radiating beast as they travel throughout the tundra is wonderful.  But really, you could just cast endure elements.  Its a shame that these aren't more powerful, as I very much like the general concept.

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10 Ways to Speed up Gameplay

1: Use Notes - Index Cards, a Tablet, or Computer

There are a lot of rules for any roleplaying game, and flipping through books is the number one reason sessions grind to a halt.  Use notes and index cards, to track monster and NPC stats, relevant rules and mechanics, and any other important information.  I personally use a laptop for all my GMing.  Not only can I quickly look through my notes, but I can very easily search online rules databases for the grappling rules.

Bonus Points: Get a responsible player with a tablet or smart phone to be on rules duty, ready to look up anything.

2: Divide GM Duties

As a GM, you are the bottle neck.  While the players simply need to keep track of their own characters, you need to keep track of all NPCs, enemies, plot, weather, and cycles of the moon.  To make your life easier, distribute some of your duties to your players, especially during combat.  After writing initiative on an easy to see location, have another responsible player track and manage it.  Make it the responsibility of the victim or instigator to track per round effects such as Sleep, Hideous Laughter, or rising water.  If a rules determination is needed, assign it to another player and move the session forward (if possible) while waiting for an answer.

Bonus Points:  After initiative is rolled, have the players switch seating order to reflect initiative.

3: Roll To-Hit and Damage together

This is a classic, and often under appreciated rule:  Roll your to-hit and damage at the same time.  Most people will first roll you save the five seconds or so it takes to pick up and roll your damage dice.  Lets say Barbar the Barbarian is attacking at +10 for 2d6+8 damage.  Barbar would roll a d20 and 2d6 all at once, only calculating his damage if the d20 was a hit.

Bonus Points:  Have separate little piles of dice on the table for each of your attacks, ready to be rolled at a moment's notice.  For example, a rogue might have two piles - one for attacks with sneak attack and one without.

4:  Prepare 3 Random Encounters and 10 Random NPCs

Note:  Drawn directly from the 10 Tips for New GMs, which has a few other time saving tips

Have a list of random encounters and NPCs ready before the game.  These do not need to be fully developed - they are just something to quickly draw on when put on the spot.  Sketch up two or three encounters that your players are likely to stumble into, be it a fight with a gang, an assassin come to kill a PC, or a random fight with an owlbear in the woods.  Get the statblocks of each of these enemies and a general gimmick for the battleground (on rooftops, plenty of trees, overlooking a cliff...).  This way you will be able to quickly and seamlessly move the game forward.

Similarly, generate a list of about 10 NPC names and choose one distinguishing feature about each (missing left hand, persistent cough, drunk).  Next time you are put on the spot for a random NPC, you have something to pull from. The heroes want to go to a shop?  The shopkeep is the first NPC on the list.  The guards come to arrest the PCs?  The captain is the next NPC.  By having a simple list of names and attributes, you can make your players believe that they are in a real world inhabited by real people.  If you respond quickly enough, you can even make them think you have planned for every contingency!

Bonus points:  Prepare one shop, one tavern, and one guard in detail, as your heroes are likely to encounter one of these each session.

5: Use advancement track, drop XP.

I have never been a fan of XP.  It decreases roleplaying, rewards grinding, and takes away from immersion.  And now, there is another reason to hate it!  Using XP slows down gameplay, both during  distribution and calculation.  If you are using an adventure path, simply follow the advancement track and advance your players as the adventure path suggests.  If you are playing a home-brew, advance the party every couple sessions as you see fit.

Bonus Points: If you absolutely need to use XP, distribute all XP at the end of or between sessions.

6: Don't use a GMPC

Unless it is crucial to the plot, don't use an NPC in the PC's party.  The party may not have a healer, a tank, or any ability to detect traps - that's fine, its part of what makes the party what it is.  Don't get rid of that by rounding out the party.  A GMPC just takes away from the "screen time" of the PC's, and is one more thing for you to track as a GM.  It will slow down gameplay without adding anything to it.

Bonus Points: When an NPC is traveling with the party, make sure that he is either useless in combat or incapacitated and unable to contribute.

7: Buy items and level up in between sessions

There are a host of "administrative" tasks that should be taken care of in-between sessions.  Never level up mid-session, as that will bring game-play to a screeching halt.  Even worse, the quicker players will be left with nothing to do while the slower players work.  Instead, have players level up between sessions.  Additionally, unless you value the role-playing aspect of it, have players purchase items between sessions.

If a player comes to a session without having leveled up or purchased items, start the session anyway.  He plays with what he has, and next time he'll be ready.

Bonus Points:  Encourage role-play between sessions through e-mail, internet forums, or a wiki.

8:  Ensure Players Know their Combat Actions Ahead of Time

Hesitation during combat is perhaps the number one killer of game time.  Players should be experts on their characters without having to look anything up.  Make sure that they are thinking about their actions ahead of time, and are aware of their turn in the initiative order.

How to encourage this?  First, make sure that they have all of the information they need to play.  If they have power attack, make sure they have their attacks calculated with and without the feat.  If they summon monsters, make sure they have the stat blocks in front of them.

Second, and most important, delay them if they are not ready on their turn. It may seem harsh at first, but it will do wonders for your game.  If a player does not immediately declare his actions at the start of his turn, say "I'm going to delay you unless you say what you are doing."  Give him another 20 seconds or so, then move him out the the initiative order and let the next person know it is his turn.  The slow player re-enters the initiative order when he declares his actions.

Bonus Points: As the GM, make sure you are ready for your turn too!  Before the session, read every enemy's stat block and determine some basic strategies.  Fall back on those if you have to think for more than 10 seconds on your turn.

9:  Keep Side Conversations to a Minimum

You are going to have to decide early on what kind of game you want to run.  Are you okay with side conversations and a more social feel, or do you want to make sure game time is game time?  If you want to stop side conversations, the best way to do that is to directly engage the distracted players and move the session forward.  If Jack and Jill are discussing the results of the Super Bowl, have the king address their characters directly: "You still have not answered my question.  Are you ready to embark on this epic quest?"  Players get distracted because they are not interested, and the best way to keep them interested is to directly engage them.  Keep the session focused, and your players will learn to stay focused.

Bonus Points:  If you are doing longer sessions, you may want to add in a break or two.  Judge your players and act accordingly.

10: Start on Time

The last rule is fairly simple.  If your sessions start at 6pm, then the action begins at 6pm.  Don't wait for late players, they will simply miss out.  After a few sessions, players will learn to arrive on time.

Bonus Points:  If you don't want to be such a stickler, order food, chat and perform any other non-game duties at the start of sessions.  That way you can be ready to go by the time everybody arrives.

The Human Diversion's Guide to the Caster-Centric Arcane Archer

The Human Diversion’s Guide to the Caster-Centric Arcane Archer

Way back in 3.5 when Living Greyhawk was all the rage, I would often marvel at the high level wizards who went for the Archmage prestige class as fast as possible. They were able to dish out tons of damage that most creatures couldn’t resist (*cough sonic cough*) and were usually the most effective characters at the table. I had started a grey elf wizard as a ray specialist but was already too far along to take the proper feats to play an Archmage. One day someone pointed out that no one played Arcane Archers, most likely because the prerequisites were just too cost prohibitive to get mediocre abilities and if you went the traditional route - heavy on fighter or ranger - you couldn’t make good use of the Arcane Archer’s 2nd level ability:

At 2nd level, an arcane archer gains the ability to place an area spell upon an arrow. When the arrow is fired, the spell's area is centered where the arrow lands, even if the spell could normally be centered only on the caster. This ability allows the archer to use the bow's range rather than the spell's range. A spell cast in this way uses its standard casting time and the arcane archer can fire the arrow as part of the casting. The arrow must be fired during the round that the casting is completed or the spell is wasted. If the arrow misses, the spell is wasted.

The part about using the arrow’s range for an area spell even if the spell could normally be centered only on the caster got me thinking, “what area spells would this be useful for?” Area damage spells generally don’t need an arrow’s range, but what spells are out there that can normally be only cast on the caster? While going through the spell compendium I noticed one of the first ones (alphabetically) that had an area and was target: self - Antimagic Field.

It suddenly dawned on me that I had a near-unbeatable way to take out high level casters. Get a caster high enough to cast Antimagic Field, give that caster 2 levels of Arcane Archer, and then shoot an antimagic field imbued arrow at a bad guy. As long as the arrow hits, he’s getting a spell with no SR and no save being cast “on” him and suddenly he can’t cast any spells or spell-like abilities, use any magic items, have his magic items function, receive healing, etc.

So how does one go about creating a caster-centric Arcane Archer? The prerequisites are:

Base Attack Bonus: +6.

Feats: Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Weapon Focus (longbow or shortbow).

Spells: Ability to cast 1st-level arcane spells.

The Base Attack Bonus is the biggest stumbling block. You’re going to need to be a 12th level arcane caster to get that. Since the goal is to shoot Antimagic Fields at people, that works out just fine since you need to be an 11th or 12th level caster just to cast 6th level arcane spells.

I will be using Treatmonk's color coding for convenience and coherence with the other guides

RED will be used for options that should be avoided

ORANGE will denote options that should be approached with an open mind.

GREEN will represent good options, which in certain situations may be the best

BLUE will represent options that will be regarded as "The best" most of the time. These are usual safe bets and you will be glad you have them

Race

What races work best for this extremely focused build? It used to be that you had no choice, you had to be an Elf or Half-Elf. I’m guessing someone connected with the rules decided not enough people were playing Arcane Archers and dropped the racial requirement, so now any race can be one.

Dwarf - If you’re approaching arcane archer as a wizard, this isn’t a horrible choice, but it’s not even close to the best one. The bonus to con is nice, but the bonus to wis is all but wasted. If you’re approaching arcane archer as a sorcerer, this is a clear-cut RED ranking.

Elf - The best choice, hands-down, for both a wizard or sorcerer-based AA. For a wizard the bonus to dex and int just happen to be your 2 most needed abilities. The bow proficiency helps as well by giving you an extra feat to play with. For a sorcerer the +dex and weapon feat make it closer, but still better than Half-Elf, Human, Gnome, and Halfling.

Gnome - This gets a green if you’re going with a sorcerer-based AA as the bump to charisma is obviously big, +2 to con never hurts, and being small means you get a +1 to hit. If you’re going for a wizard-based AA, I’m going to rank it an orange - just not enough going for it compared to Elf.

Half Elf - Half-Elves are a good choice but only if your campaign or DM lets you take the Ancestral Arms alternate racial trait and you use it to take a bow proficiency. You can and should apply the +2 stat bonus to int, as eventually you’re much more of a caster than an archer. Half Elves are pretty much equal to humans for both wizard and sorcerer-based AAs.

Half Orc - Half-Orcs are not a good choice for AA. About the only thing they have going for them is the +2 to any stat, and they don’t have the Half-Elf’s alternate racial trait to take bow proficiency and the human’s extra feat.

Halfling - As far as wizard-based AA’s, Halflings are in pretty much the same boat as Half Orcs, having the extra dexterity and the +1 hit for being small as the only things going for them. If you’re going to make a sorcerer-based AA the +cha isn’t bad, and brings them up to an orange rating

Human - Humans are about as good as Half-Elves for both AA builds, with the +2 to any stat and a bonus feat to spend weapon proficiency on.

Attributes

Your primary casting stat will be where you put most of your attribute credit, int if you’re a wizard and cha if you’re a sorcerer. Your second highest stat should be dexterity, as it has the dual purpose of giving you both AC and +hit on ranged attacks. Con should be third for the hit points and fort save. Str is a distant 4th, the only caveat being if you have lower than 10 you’ll take a penalty on bow damage, but we’re not aiming for bow damage here so it’s not a big deal. Wisdom and your other non-casting mental stat are your dump stats, put them as low as you’re willing to go for an RP’er.

Skills

Arcane Archer only gets 4 class skills, but one of them is useful as it’s not normally a class skill for wizard or sorcerer.

Perception - The best of the four, and one of the best skills in the game. It lets you notice all sorts of stuff (traps, ambushes, stuff that’s far away, etc) and not noticing stuff can do bad things like not being able to act in the surprise round, fall into the pit trap, not see the assassin about to stab you from behind, etc.

Ride - Unless for some strange reason you have a mount-flavored game or you’ve got feats to burn and have created a mounted arcane archer, this is a pretty much useless skill for you. In addition, a majority of combat encounters are built in places where mounts for medium creatures just can’t go, so that makes this a doubly useless skill for our build.

Stealth - Not a bad skill, but often the arcane caster has ways of making themselves undetectable anyway. Still, there always seems to be a situation where the party as a whole needs to sneak and it’s nice to not be the weakest link.

Survival - Again, not a bad skill, but usually there’s someone else in the party making the survival checks for the group as a whole. For most mundane uses of the skill there are magical ways of avoiding the hazard (severe weather, foraging, etc). If your party has no one who can follow tracks it might be worth it to drop a point or two in here just for that purpose.

Of course nothing is stopping you from plopping your precious skill points into things you’ve been building up all along as an arcane caster - spellcraft, knowledge: arcana, and use magic device.

Preferred Spells

Burning Hands - 1st level spell, but useful still

Grease - use the area version of grease at your bow’s range

Magic Circle - Have a party member dominated? Fire a magic circle at them (or at their square!)

Crushing Despair - hit someone with an arrow and have the bad guys behind them hit with the cone of crushing despair!

Detonate - unique in that the effect happens 1 round after you cast the spell

Dragon’s Breath - use that 30’ cone without having to be in melee range

Obsidian Flow - One of my favorites, deals damage and makes difficult terrain, now at the range of your bowshot rather than close

Shout/Greater Shout - As with Dragon’s Breath, useful in that you can use your bow’s range rather than having to get into melee

Waves of Fatigue - make people fatigued from long range

Tar Pool - Like Obsidian Flow, but better

Other Stuff (Feats, Equipment, Class Role, etc)

Once you’ve gotten to the level to make this happen, you should consider taking arcane archer only up to 4th level, as 5th level will not give you a spellcasting class. Levels beyond 5 for this class will really only give you phase arrow (not a bad trick) and hail of arrows, although if you went the sorcerer route, arrow of death could potentially be a really nasty trick, but you wouldn’t get that until epic levels anyway (level 22 for our build).

Any feat that helps a ray-based wizard should be considered useful here, including Spell Penetration, Reach Spell, Arcane Blast, and Elven Accuracy (if you went elf). General metamagic feats aren’t bad either - Empower spell and Maximize spell are nice, Preferred spell might be worth it if only to swap out spells when you need an extra Anti-Magic Field to fire.

Equipment should be as per building a wizard as well with the exception of anything that improves your attacks with a bow, so both flavors of bracers of archery are good. Boots of speed are nice if you need to maneuver a bit, and a belt of physical might is good, (obviously focusing on Dex > Con > Str). When I get a wizard up to 9th or 10th level I almost always try to acquire a ring of counterspells to put in a feeblemind or disintegrate - both of those spells can really ruin an arcane caster’s day.

Finally remember above all else, that even though you are a decent archer you are still an arcane caster above all else - the archery is just a way for you to deliver spells at a distance that you would normally be able to only cast from your square or on yourself.

Final Note

One of the stumbling blocks of this specific build is that a lot of GMs really don’t know how to adjudicate the imbue arrow class feature. I had one GM say that the bad guy could pull the arrow out and the antimagic field was still stuck to the arrow. I had another say that if the arrow hit a bad guy it technically never “landed” and therefore the spell never went off. If you’re going to use this in a home game, ask the GM first. If you’re going to use it in an organized setting like PFS, it might be wise to get a consensus of your local GMs and/or Venture Captains.

Note: I did not write this guide. This guide was in the owner's trash, to be deleted. It is saved here to prevent that. If you are the owner please make a comment or send me an e-mail if you would like to re-host it.