Good idea?(archer priests)

[Hugh Manatee]

I kinda want to have some fun with the bows you can construct, and I got this idea for self blessing archer priest artillery. I'm thinking of trying this with the tien chi, they get masters of the way and masters of the dead, cheap self blessing sacreds and making the pretender the enchantress for the free pearls(and build in construction), going high death and maybe high astral or fire.... Basically I want to see how much pain a sniper squad can cause, maybe with bless>fire>retreat or something.

(this has nothing to do with that episode of samurai jack with the archers on top of that tower.... nothing at all... nope... [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Cold.gif[/img])

[sum1lost]

Death would be better for causing damage.

[Cor2]

Fire bless does not apply to ranged weapons. Only the first part of death does (the afflictions).

You can still do a elite sniper squad but it will have little to do with bless.

You could take you highest precesion commanders and outfit them with cheap bows: bow of war, banefire, etc. Boots of quickness allows two attacks with a regular bow but not a cross bow.

My version of a dom 3 sniper is the cheapest commander i can find with a rod of the phoenix and reinvig items.

[Potatoman]

I think I read somewhere that the water 9 bless alows archers to fire twice.

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

I would think archer mages would be overall better than the priests. Putting aside all the other spells they might be able to cast, Eagle Eyes or Aim (not sure on name, equivalent, non-stackable air counterpart), boost precision by five- in most case an effective precision boost of ten.

I think the manual has an interesting little calculation on the effects of precision. You'll still have a huge problem if you face tower, kite, or other high parry shields. Flaming arrows will definetly help - but so will focusing on one target.

[sum1lost]

Windguide is the battlefield wide aim.

[Chris_Byler]

Some nations can use mage-priests with air or nature. Tir n'an Og (and possibly Eriu), Fomoria, Vanheim (at least EA and MA), Helheim, Mictlan (all ages) and Marverni all have air or nature mage-priests IIRC. Arco Priestesses used to have N1, I don't remember if they still do. I think Serpent Acolytes have N1. So do some of Sauromatia's amazon priestess-mages (I forget the exact name).

If you're going to allow more expensive options, Nagarajas, Theurgs, Raksharajas and many others also have some air or nature combined with priestly powers. For a strength-dependent weapon you could even use a Fomorian King (although it might be rather a waste).

If you have those, you can combine EE/Aim with a death bless and forged weapons. I don't know if there's any way to deal with shields or Air Shield though. (AN bows like Vision's Foe might get through normal shields; I don't remember if a shield-blocked missile still gets to roll against prot+shieldprot, which if true would make a shield block irrelevant just like it is against an AN melee attack).

[Sombre]

AN missiles may still be parried - the AN only works if they get past the shield.

With missile weapons, if the parry check works, then the missile is blocked, no need to check prot values. So a little hide shield can actually parry a jotun boulder :]

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Oh.. and if you want to field a (bow-based) sniper force that won't be bothered by large shields? Figure out a way to fatigue your enemy.

More on page 77.
Magic weapons will give +2 to your DRN roll to hit _something_ in the square.
Every Twenty points of fatigue will penalize their DRN roll by one.
As support... Skelly Spam + Rigor Mortis? Your archers won't be seeing much fatigue, since they're out of melee.
With earth, Curse of Stones.
With Water (and CR) Grip of Winter.
Then there are heat and chill auras... Some other possibilities as well.

[Rytek]

The one problem with quickness on bows commanders is that they tend to run forward and shoot, getting themselves killed. quickness on crossbows is beeter