non-stealth archer??

[Supernautilus]

I was wondering today if it would be viable to make a marksman-based character that doesn’t rely on sneak. And it was tough, since marksman and sneak go so well together. It’s an iconic combo for a reason.

Still, I like theory crafting, so I came up with a sort of “commando” type class. Heavy armor, to make up for lack of stealth. Alchemy for poisons. Main stats would be strength, agility, and endurance. Play style would be sort of “stand and fight”. Initiating combat with bow and then just face tanking stuff instead of running away.

It sounded interesting. I might try it out one of these days.

[Varanus]

Theres no real reason you cant do it. Just feels awkward to me to be pulling back a bow, with a dude up in your face.

[MAD]

I am not sure how well summons hold aggro from enemies, but you could try throwing in use of summons to try to not be shooting someone who is at point blank range.

[FTWO]

If you get your Acrobatics, Athletics, and Speed 100+ this build of yours is very fun. But before that, you're ganna get your head crushed in quite a bit trying to launch arrows while moving everywhere with your enemies right in your face constantly moving side to side as they're bashing and slashing you. But it's all doable.

[Supernautilus]

Yeah you guys all made a good point. Shooting an enemy at point blank range can be tough. Especially if they are jumping all around. That could probably be the hardest part of this playstyle.

Ogres and Minotaurs probably wouldn’t be an issue since they’re huge and hard to miss. But smaller enemies would be a pain in the butt.

[Ommamar]

Smaller enemies like rats and mud crabs generally take one maybe two hits. So I have a similar concept except I mix in destruction magic in between bow shots. Things like burden, paralyze, and drain fatigue poisons are very effective. Also if you can get them to come up a slope towards you while having a high speed they really struggle to get to you. Your bain of course will be other archers and casters. For casters a drain magic potion or ranged spell works well. For archers I like using paralyze poisons or spells which interestingly don't seem to be effected by the paralyze shot bug. This actually might be where the build would flounder as it can get annoying to crash for just using your bow. A way around it might be to switch to a ranged spell when you see the enemy fall over.

[[TG] zac]

Originally posted by MAD:

I am not sure how well summons hold aggro from enemies, but you could try throwing in use of summons to try to not be shooting someone who is at point blank range.

Main problem you will run into with summons is that many of them die very easily.
The Ghosts/wraiths and ones with damage resistance are probably the best but even then only against enemies that won't do natural/unarmed attacks or use specific weapons.