Wizard Scout

[corwyn]

So my gm wants a character with magic and wilderness skills to guide his other mostly new/casual players. The group is solely melee aside from the Cleric. I ended up going with an Elven Wizard tweaked a little. Now I'm wondering, is it possible to use him as an archer with spells.

I'll be heading towards a moderate bow skill - 17 once I have maxxed out Forest Guardian - plus Heroic Archer but not WM Bow. What spells could help me out. I'm playing with Great Haste-20 and plan on using it to Ready the bow and fire it in "one" turn so I don't have the -3 most of the time. Not very efficient but it might be fun for less brutal combats.

[Polkageist]

Check on the feasibility of incorporating the 'magic staff' attribute to your bow. That'll give you flexibility to either cast a spell with the added reach of the staff or shoot an arrow. Whether or not that'll take a ready action to switch contexts is between you and your GM.

Get a cornucopia quiver, because those are baller for any archer.
Learn and cast flaming missiles, icy missiles, lightning missiles. As a capable archer, managing the logistics of casting it (being next to the recipient, timing) is much simpler.

Deflect missile to protect yourself from opposing ranged attackers.

Grease/Glue to impede movement and give yourself more time to pepper opponents with arrows.

Levitation to elevate yourself to a superior firing position.

Nightvision to see clearly past the pool of party torchlight.

Think about the obstacles that an archer faces and choose spells that overcome or mitigate those things.

Oh, and there's an 'Arcane Archer' type build in the DF books that allows you to cast spells through arrows and do cool things like center area spells around where you land a shot instead of whatever your reach or acceptable range penalty allows. And more.

[corwyn]

I have most of these, Thanks.

I would really like the quiver; I have yet to see how magic item heavy the campaign is, the group hasn't seen any yet.

Staff spell, check
Deflect missiles, Flaming missiles, Night Vision, Levitate, Hinder, Rooted Feet
What book is Arcane Archer stuff in?

[Dalin]

I don’t have my books with me right now, but isn’t there a spell that makes you harder to see? Like blurry? That could be useful to a scout, certainly, along with stealth and/or silence. (If you cant hear the bow, it will take longer to pinpoint where the arrows are coming from.) Invisibility is useful, obviously, but it only helps until your first shot.

The spell-arrow rules that I recall were in DF3: The Next Level.

[corwyn]

Originally Posted by Dalin

I don’t have my books with me right now, but isn’t there a spell that makes you harder to see? Like blurry? That could be useful to a scout, certainly, along with stealth and/or silence. (If you cant hear the bow, it will take longer to pinpoint where the arrows are coming from.) Invisibility is useful, obviously, but it only helps until your first shot.

The spell-arrow rules that I recall were in DF3: The Next Level.

That would be Blur. I'm intentionally staying away from Light and Illusion spells due to overlap with the last gurps wizard I played who also had a lot of outdoor skills and specialized in Illusion/Invisibility - a Hybrid Thief Wizard with outdoor stuff. However, he does have a very high Camouflage skill due to IQ 16 and Forest Guardian - 16 now, 19 when he's done, plus an outdoor version of Dungeon Camouflage. Sort of a low-tech gillie suit.

Ooh, Spell-Archery is just a spell - that does sound intriguing.