A while back, a Dragon article went up explaining one approach to building an Arcane Archer being to use a Bard as the base. After making a comment about archery characters on the previous post, I realized there’s a better way of doing it:

Artificer with Longbow Proficiency.

Think about it: the Arcane Archer essentially is someone who channels magical spells through arrows. The Artificer class is loaded with powers that represent “instant enchantments” on weapons, adding force or lightning or fire damage to a weapon attack… and nearly every such power is set to work on both ranged and melee weapons. The daily “Sigil” powers even let you add extra damage and elemental effects to a weapon for the duration of a fight.

The Artificer only has simple ranged weapon proficiencies… i.e., sling and crossbow… but it’s a simple feat to get proficiency with the Longbow (or even Greatbow… or Shortbow for a Gnome or Halfling). As this gets you superior range and damage over the Crossbow, it’s probably worth a feat for reasons beyond getting the flavor you want for your character.

And if you’re an Elf, you already have Longbow Proficiency free.

The Artificer’s class ability to empower magical weapons could be used to represent the bond between the Arcane Archer and his or her bow. Sure, if they only ever use the power to affect their own weapon they’re giving up some of its flexibility… but that’s what you do when you adhere to a character concept. And if it ever came up that they really needed to recharge or juice up someone else’s item? “The technique I’ve learned for empowering my bow can be applied to other items, when needed.”

Artificers also get enchantment rituals for free. With the magic ammunition rules, they can now produce magical arrows. If they take the Alchemist/Master Mixer feat, they can produce alchemical arrows.

I suspect this concept will really take off when rules for a Hybrid Artificer are released and you can mix-and-match an Artificer with a Bard or Ranger. I assume that the PHB3 will include them… Artificers were brand new when the Hybrid playtest debuted. But even with just the standard Artificer available, I doubt it’s escaped everyone’s notice that an Elven Artificer would be able to loose fire arrows and lightning arrows and acid arrows and such.

And a Bow Bard or Archery Ranger could use the multiclass power swap feats to grab an encounter power like Scouring Weapon or Burning Weapon and a daily power like one of the Sigils. That actually sounds kind of devastating… if as a Ranger at level 10 you took the Adept Power feat, you could take Radiant Sigil to give your arrows radiant damage plus healing on hit for an entire encounter once per day… or the Brittle Missile daily attack, which does 2W damage, slows the target and gives vulnerable 5 to everything until they save. At that same level, you could have Icy Weapons or Vampiric Weapons from swapping an encounter power. If you wanted to swap a utility power (since you’d have to take the feat to get Paragon Multiclassing anyway), there are all kinds of useful ones even if they don’t quite fit the archery theme… though Use Magic Item would help you get the most mileage out of a magic bow. At level 11, Paragon Multiclass lets you retrain one of your Ranger at-wills for Magic Weapon or Aggravating Force. You’d probably want to go with Aggravating Force, since it gives its benefits to allies adjacent to the target rather than allies adjacent to you… it would be a useful power for when everyone’s dogpiling on a big target.

I’m AFK at the moment but I’ve just been told by Gamingdragon that the server’s not available, which means my computer probably crashed or restarted, or my router needs resetting. It should be up well before 8. No need for anyone to rush this week… all your characters are still there.

Edit: We’re back up now, folks.

And now we’re trying to get the game going… Kiva, Cliff, if you’re online, please get on Skype so we can get you in.

…because we’re only a few minutes from starting. Some people are still showing not online in Skype. Hopefully they’re just invisible.

If you’re not already, sign into ScreenMonkey and sign into Skype. I’m starting the conference call in a few minutes.