Helf Ranger Dilettante + Zen Archery on caster focused Druid: Good idea?

[CombatLibrarian]

Pretty much what it says on the tin. I've seen a lot of people recommending fighter dilettante for casty druids, I'm wondering if picking up some archery stuff instead might be more useful in the long run with pets + staying at ranged. Thoughts?

[Izdaari]

Might be worth an experiment. Maybe a ranger/druid multi with AA? But I'm not sure what split to try. Only two problems with druids and ranged: 1) most druids have low dex, which hurts your ranged to hit., and 2) can't used ranged weapons in animal form; you can equip them, but you'll still bite rather than shoot.

[CombatLibrarian]

Might be worth an experiment. Maybe a ranger/druid multi with AA? But I'm not sure what split to try. Only two problems with druids and ranged: 1) most druids have low dex, which hurts your ranged to hit., and 2) can't used ranged weapons in animal form; you can equip them, but you'll still bite rather than shoot.

Aye, that's why I was wondering about taking zen archery. Since I'm focusing on casting and healing, I wont' be going animal form ever, and zen archery makes ranged use my Wis for to-hit instead of dex, but I'm trying to decide if it's worth the feat slot.

[Izdaari]

Aye, that's why I was wondering about taking zen archery. Since I'm focusing on casting and healing, I wont' be going animal form ever, and zen archery makes ranged use my Wis for to-hit instead of dex, but I'm trying to decide if it's worth the feat slot.

Yeah, with zen archery your to-hit would be good. But I'd really miss the manyshot and bow strength that rangers get. Ranger dile compensates for the bow strength but only a little, and provides bow proficiency. Still, it could be fun to try if you can spare the feat.

[Brennie]

Having only limited experience with Druids, I can't say for certain that this woudl be a terrible idea... but given my experience with ranged combat, i can say that the odds are certainly stacked against it.

To be "Good", ranged characters need to meet a *lot* of conditions... must have point blank shot, must have improved precise shot, must have Manyshot (And probably 10k stars, although since that is monk exclusive some build have to do without it it), must have Arcane Archer, must have enough sources of "bonus" damage (Strength, sneak attack, spells like divine favor or rams might, favored enemy, etc etc) to account for the fact that ranged characters attack slower than even sword and board fighters.

Accounting for all these "needs" on a caster character is more or less impossible. Even if it were possible, every feat, enhancement, gear slot, or feat slot you devote to archery is space that could have instead be something casting-focused. Also, considering taht druids have like 6 different spell types they will likely want gear to enhance (Electric, cold, fire and healing primarily, but also acid, untyped/force, and light), you will have a LOT of different weapons passing through your hands, depending on what spells you are flinging. That won't leave much time for pewpew. Or worse, you may have some issues swapping weapons/casting spells/other stuff when in pewpew autoattack mode (It happens to my ranged characters a lot, and is completely aggravating). And lastly, alsothough you may not want animal forms, its possible you may wish to utilize elemental forms for spellcasting purposes.

All that negativity aside, if any caster could work the ranged build, it'd be a druid. Given how "over time" druids are in their spellcastiness, it woudl be entirely possible to lay out a couple long-lasting DoTs on, say, a boss, and then spend the rest of the time pewpewing. However, You'd probably be better off with an eternal wand or flameblade or something.

[unbongwah]

I've been tempted to come up with a druid variant on wowo's "clonkcher" build: druid 13 / monk 6 / ftr or wiz 1. You get lvl 7 spells, elemental forms, 2nd-tier PrE, etc. But that's not really what you're talking about. So you might want to look at my Radiant Archer for something with more cleric lvls.

The problem is doing decent ranged DPS is very feat-intensive and the best ranged feats require high base DEX; while being a decent caster is also very feat-intensive and requires high base WIS. Just splashing rgr dilly + Zen Archery on a druid or cleric means you can hit things with a bow, but that's not enough to do much dmg.