The Obnoxiously Awesome Guide to the Hunter

By Brom the Obnoxiously Awesome

Disclaimer: This is a very rough first draft that was made only shortly after the release of the ACG. It is yet to be the most efficient or accurate guide. Please interpret responsibly.

Introduction

        The hunter is a new class that was only recently introduced in the new Pathfinder Roleplaying Core book: The Advanced Class Guide.

        The class is a combination of the Druid and Ranger, both of which are “Natural” Spellcasters (aka Divine Spellcasters with nature-based spells), and both have animal companions. So, as you could tell, it’s a match made in heaven for the Hunter.

        The hunter’s main niche is that it is very effective as either a melee or ranged combatant with animal friend who works as a flanking buddy and a possible mount (and, with some thinking, a level 1 means of flying). Not to mention, as an added bonus; they get spells!!! If you haven’t already realized, the hunter is a great new class that can fit well in any party.

Ranking

I would have to imagine this is your first guide if you don’t already know the ranking system. Nonetheless, this is it:

Blue ****: This is the best option. I recommend it!

Green ***: This is a great option. You might have a better

option, but it’s doubtful.

Orange **: This is… okay I guess. You most likely have a better option, and you should go with that.

Red *: IT’S A TRAP!!!1

Race

Dwarf: Dwarves are really good hunters. With their bonus to your primary spellcasting stat, dwarves are a solid option. You might say that their penalty to charisma might hurt your wild empathy, but that shouldn’t be a huge deal. If only their favored class bonus was better...

Elves: Once again a solid option. Their Constitution penalty hurts, but they do get a bonus to dexterity, which you’ll be using a lot for ranged weapons. If you are using melee weapons, however, Elves are decidedly meh, but not cripplingly bad.  Not to mention that your bonus to intelligence will help with your skills. A nice bonus.

 Gnomes: It might be my own favoritism towards gnomes that makes them green instead of orange. However, Constitution is an important stat to you, as it increases hit points, and that’s always appreciated. While Charisma isn’t as important, that doesn’t mean it’s not, and your animal companion will surely benefit from tricks gained from your great Handle Animal. Not to mention that the Gnome’s favored class bonus will give your animal friend DR/Magic. Sure, you’ll be dealing with magic, but DR is still phenomenal.  The last point is that you can turn your companion into a mount, meaning you can fly around at level 1. Never play a gnome if you are going melee, however, as you will be pitifully useless.

Half-Elves: The races than can just put an extra 2 in any stat are great. Skill Focus is pretty neat, and the favored class bonus gives your companion more movement speed. Yay!

Half-Orcs: They can put their bonus anywhere! They get darkvision! How could they not be green? Well, they’re okay, but the only problem is that their other bonuses kinda suck. Orc ferocity is decent, but bonuses to intimidate aren’t useful, and neither is the thing that counts you as both orc and human. They can be hunters, but they don’t get as many cool bonuses as other races.

Halflings: Halflings are by far the superior race if you want to go mounted, or stealthy. You get a dexterity bonus instead of a constitution bonus, which is great for a ranged fighter. They get a bonus to their saves, and get proficiency with the sling-staff which in my experience is an awesome weapon for what it is. Once again though, never go melee.

Humans:  Do I even have to talk about these guys?

Sigh… yeah yeah… They get a bonus feat and junk. They’re everywhere… They’re awesome, I guess.

Class Features:

Hit Die: It’s an 8. That’s pretty good. It could be better.

Class Skills: Lots of skills, some of which are somewhat uncommon. One of these is Perception. And you get a sizeable number of skill points. YAY!!!

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: It doesn’t get much better than this. Sure, some other martial classes get heavy armor, but fo’get that! You get both simple weapons and martial weapons, which I didn’t expect to get both, I must admit.

Spells: Okay, so you get spells. That’s nice, but you don’t get spells above level 6, you are extremely limited, and I don’t know if I’m the only one that has a problem with this, but it’s REALLY hard to calculate which spells you have without the long list at the end of the chapter. That’s not counted against it, but hey. Most of your spells will probably just be utility spells and buffs, so don’t rely on offensive spells. That’s what bows and crossbows are for. Luckily, you’re still better than a sorcerer, because you get Summon Nature’s Ally for free, and gain more spells per level. That’s awesome.

Animal Companion: I wish I had a rating higher than blue. Your companion is your signature ability, and it should be the reason you’re a hunter. It can give you an awesome flanking buddy, and if you’re small enough, you can even fly at first level. You heard me right- you can fly at first level.

Animal Focus: This ability is so very great. Allowing you to gain so many great powers. There’s only 1 or 2 stinkers in this list, but nonetheless all the powers will surely come in handy from one time to the other.

Nature Training: This is okay. Allows you to pick up lots of cool feats I suppose.

Wild Empathy: Wild empathy is decent. It’s very situational, but in an animal-heavy campaign it can be great.

Precise Companion: This is great as it gives you one of two great feats. If you’re melee, you should probably choose Outflank for you and your companion so that you can really take advantage of flanking, but if you’re ranged, take Precise shot because your companion will be in melee all the time, and you don’t wanna deal with crappy penalties.

Track: I’ve never heard or seen of a situation where this is useful. Maybe your GM will throw you a bone. If you’re in PFS… oh yeah, that’s a waste of an ability.  

Hunter Tactics: Your animal companion fighting buddy just got so strong… this is such a great ability.

Teamwork Feat: You essentially just got all of the teamwork feats. And so did your companion. It’s absolutely brilliant. Also, you can play around with different teamwork feats, and then stick with the best one. This ability is so dang good.

Improved Empathetic Link: This is pretty great. If you have a smaller companion, you can send it into small areas. Sadly, it’s not as good as a familiar because by level 4, most companions are going to be medium or large.

Woodland Stride: Yet another situational ability. It’s… decent I guess, especially for forest adventures. It doesn’t even do anything for magical entanglement, which is probably more common than the normal kind.

Bonus Tricks: This is pretty good, but it’s not a huge boon IMO. However, if you are a Verminous Hunter, this is huge, because Vermin are mindless and that’s annoying.

Second Animal Focus: You know that AMAZING ability you have? It just DOUBLED!

Swift Tracker: If this ability is ever helpful, it’ll blow my mind.

Raise Animal Companion: Many GM’s don’t kill players, but they will kill off your companion without batting an eyelash. Sometimes, they even ENJOY it. This is the glorious middle finger to those animal killing GMs. Relish it. Sure, you get a negative level, but that goes away in 24 hours! That’s AMAZING.

Speak with Master: This is a cool ability. I have a hard time figuring out the practical or offensive use, but it’s still a cool ability.

Greater Empathic Link: 10 miles? That’s cool. But do you really have to be that far away from your best friend? You shouldn’t be.

One with the Wild: This is really cool if you’re facing animals like your companion often. Even if you end up in one of these encounters ONCE this ability is going to be awesome for you.

Master of the Wild: Originally this was blue, but for a 20 level ability, this sucks. I’m sorry. The first part of this skill allows you to move at full speed when following tracks without penalty. That is laughably useless. However, the second part is amazing, allowing you to have 3 Animal Focus at once, one of which is permanent all day. What, you don’t like your permanent one? Change it in the morning. This is AMAZBALLS!

It’s still a great ability, but for a 20th level ability, it’s bad compared to others. Most campaigns don’t reach level 20 anyway, so you shouldn’t feel like you’re missing out on much. Except for the permanent thing… I bet you wish you had that.

Animal Focus: Man’s OTHER Best Friend

Bat: Hooray- Darkvision! Sad to say though, that if you have darkvision already, you will never use this.

Bear: Constitution's main use for hitpoints, however Fortitude saves are a thing, so if you are dealing with something that poisons or something like that, this can be very useful.

Bull: Temporary strength bonus is great. Wanna go and flank with your animal friend? Bull Aspect! About to climb down a mountain? Bull Aspect! About to go into a bar fight? BULL ASPECT!!!

Falcon: Perception bonus? Yes please!

Frog: I didn’t wanna make this orange because I love frogs, but jumping and swimming… not as useful as some as the other things here. Swimming is good in an aquatic campaign though, and I love the creativity that comes with the jump skill. It’s not great, but go ahead and find a use. I would love to hear it.

Monkey: Climbing happens, and when it does you can use this. The only problem is that you won’t use it as much as some of the other things here.

Mouse: This is really awesome if you know about things or you have a game lawyer at your service so that you know when to use it.

Owl: This is especially good for you once you can speak with your companion, because you can send it in (if it’s still small enough) and then figure out what's going on without getting involved yourself. Or DO use it on yourself and become the scout. Either way, it’s great.

Snake: With a flank buddy that you can control, a bonus to flanking is really good. Especially if you have outflank. Which you get at 2nd level btw.

Stag: More movement!!! This is awesome for both you and your companion, especially if you can ride it.

Tiger: This is great for someone who most likely be shooting things with bows. Activate the bonus, line up the shot, and suddenly you're Legolas.

Wolf: Scent is good right? Well, I think it is… It’s not- bad, I suppose. I’ll say this is green.

Skills

Class Skills

Climb: Situationally useful. Don’t max it, but if you have an extra point here or there, you can throw it in here, just in case. One point is probably warranted, but no more than that.

Craft: This is a great skill for all sorts of things, but if you’re in PFS, then this is a pointless skill and you have no reason to use it.

Handle Animal: Another great ability. You can use this to teach your animal more tricks, which is always great. The problem is that you’ll be using diplomacy for Wild Empathy, not Handle Animal.

Heal: This is decent, and you have a good Wisdom score, but most other people can handle this. It could fall to you though, so maybe just putting 1 point in there would be okay if you have some extra points.

Intimidate: I don’t know much about the usefulness of this skill, but some swear by it. I don’t know.

Knowledge(Dungeoneering): This is a decent skill, worth just a point or two eventually. It can come up a lot on underground adventures, which are actually pretty common in PFS, so it’s definitely worth a point.

Knowledge(Nature): Any skill that can identify your enemies is really good. Nature is one of those. Throw a few points in this one, just so that you can use it, because a lot of people don’t have it, and you do.

Perception: The most important skill in the game. It will save your life more than once, and probably even more than that. This means you should be putting a point in it every level. You’re just lucky it’s a class skill.

Profession: This is pretty cool. Sailor is a common one that can actually help out sometimes, but most often, it’ll just make you a few bucks on the side, which is nice.

Ride: This is a decent skill, but if you’re small and can ride your mount at first level, this is awesome. I can tell you right now that my other character is a Cavalier, and mounted combat is so fun. It helps that you aren’t super mount-oriented though, so you can run around on your mount, then jump off and start flanking and destroying.

Spellcraft: A lot of spells have a long cast time, so if you can identify a spellcaster’s spell, you can counterspell. Or forget it all and shoot ‘em from 100 feet with a longbow. Either way.

Stealth: You are actually a very good scout, and your pet is too. With certain Animal Foci, you can also boost your stealth and just sneak around freely. Pretty cool.

Survival: This was once red, but a couple people who I assume are more experienced than myself suggested I bump it up for a few reasons. The major one is that rangers aren’t the most common class, and you’ll need it if you have none. The other is that it comes up more often than I expected. So drop a few points in it!

Swim: I’ve never used this. I most likely never will. 

Feats (The Significant Ones)

Acrobatics: Meh.

Agile Maneuvers: If you have a rather low strength, perhaps from being a Halfling or being ranged-focused, and actually care about combat maneuvers, then this could be okay. If you have a decent strength, or don’t care about combat maneuvers, then this is pointless and a waste of a feat.

Alertness: More perception is good, but honestly, you don’t need a feat just to get 2 more points.

Animal Affinity; This is okay, because you can get some more handle animal, but once again, +2 for a feat is garbage. If you are also mounted, then it could be worth it, but you have better options.

Arcane Armor Proficiency: Don’t need it, or it’s tree.

Armor Proficiency Tree: You don’t need any of these, as Heavy armor is pretty useless, and you have the other two already.

Athletic: Garbage. Absolute garbage.

Augment Summoning: This could be good for your Nature’s Ally spells, but it requires Spell Focus Conjuration, which is super useless for you. Go ahead and ignore it.

Blind Fight: This is a pretty good feat, but there are better things for you.

Catch Off-Guard: If you really want to use improvised… no… You never want to use improvised weapons. So useless.

Combat Casting: I don’t recommend it, because you aren’t a primary spellcaster. Not worth the feat.

Combat Expertise: I don’t know much about this, but it’s an okay feat, so if you have a spare feat slaught, go ahead and grab it. I don’t recommend it over other, better feats though, as you don’t have a full BAB (which is lame).

Combat Maneuver Feats (Greater and Improved): Honestly, you don’t need this. Combat Maneuvers aren’t a focus for hunters i.m.o, and I think they’re just wasted feats.

        Whirlwind Attack: If you are ranged, this is crap, but imagine that this is great as a melee character. You might not get ganged up on as much as big front liners, but when you do, I’ve seen this save lives. It’s a really good feat under the right circumstances.

Combat Reflexes: Another feat where if you are ranged, it’s garbage, but if you are melee, especially if you like reach weapons, it’s absolutely fantastic. With the right animal focuses, you can even get bonus AoOs, and with teamwork feats like Paired Opportunist, this can become deadly.

Stand Still: Eh, it could be useful, but I don’t see too much practical use.

Critical Focus: It has a super high requirement, but is great pretty much no matter what weapon you wield. There are better feats, but this is a really good one.

        Bleeding Critical: Lots of good damage, but there are better feats.

        Blinding Critical: Meh.

        Deafening Critical: pretty darn situational.

        Sickening Critical: Not half bad.

        Staggering Critical: Out of all the feats that grant special effects when you crit, this is possibly my favorite. I’m kind of a newb, but I still understand that staggered is a cruddy condition to have. I think you could have better feats, but this is alright to have if you have a spare feat.

        Stunning Critical: Another pretty good crit feat.

        Tiring Critical: I repeat: Meh.

                Exhaustive Critical: Don’t waste your time.

Deadly Aim: If you are ranged, this is your Power Attack. Power Attack is killer, as is Deadly Aim. Take this ASAP, and use it often.

Deceitful: You will probably never use this unless you actively try to. Don’t waste your feat.

Defensive Combat Training: Because you aren’t a full BAB class, this could be useful. I have only ever had an enemy try to grab me once, and that’s the only time this would’ve been useful.

Deft Hands: See “Deceitful” above.

Dodge: This is decent, but it’s only a +1. It’s a requirement for some good feats, though.

        Mobility: This is pretty good. You may or may not be getting hit with AoOs often, but if you find that you are, this is fantastic.

                Spring Attack: If you’re ranged, this is bad, but if you are melee, this is a good feat that allows you to strike, then get out of a potentially dangerous situation.

        Wind Stance: Oh man, concealment while moving. Great feat.

                Lightning Stance: It’s costly, but if you can grab it, do. 50% concealment when you move is so good, and will pretty much make sure you won’t be hit half of the time (duh).

Endurance: I’ve never been in a  situation where this would’ve been useful.

        Diehard: This is a really good feat that can help you survive a dangerous situation.

Eschew Materials: Just carry a Spell Component Pouch.

Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Only take this if you have a specific theme in mind, otherwise, you have good weapons already.

Fleet: This is okay, but the problem is that it’s only 5 feet. If you have a scouting build, or if you are short and wanna move faster, it might be worth it, but you have the Stag animal focus.

Great Fortitude: You already have a good fort save.

        Improved Great Fortitude: It’s okay, but honestly, it’s not worth 2 feats for a rather mediocre ability.

Improved Counterspell: You won’t be counterspelling often, as your spell list and usage is super limited. No point.

Improved Critical: You can combo this with a high crit range weapon, and it can be deadly. The problem is that it fluxes based on what weapon you’re using, which will somewhat limit your usage of weapon. You can, of course, take it, but I wouldn’t. Your choice.

Improved Initiative: Going first it amazing. It’s especially great when you can charge people who are flat footed, bull rush them, or have your animal companion pounce them. So many possibilities come from going first, because you control 2 creatures, and having 2 creatures attack first is so good.

Improved Unarmed Strike (And tree): NO.

Improvised Weapon Mastery: NOOOOO. You will hopefully never have the desire to use this.

Intimidating Prowess: SOOO USELESS! Don’t buy into it.

Iron Will (and tree): Your will isn’t great, but this isn’t worth it.

Leadership: I cannot rank this. It can be very broken, but some GMs ban it. Honestly, do your own research, and talk to your GM.

Lightning Reflexes (and tree): You already have a good Reflex, and look to the Improved Fortitude feat for why you don’t need this.

Lunge: This is a really good feat for melee users, as you can hit things from a safe location, like from behind a meat wall.

Magical Aptitude: I’m so sick of these feats… I don’t think I have to beat this dead horse anymore.

Master Craftsman: This is decent if you aren’t in PFS, otherwise, it’s completely useless.  

Mounted Combat: If you are a mounted hunter, this is so good, but if not, you don’t need it.

        (For this tree, it is assumed you are mounted for ranking)

        Mounted Archery: If you are mounted, and also happen to be an archer, this is such a good option, but if not, it’s so laughably useless.

        Ride by Attack: As I may have mentioned before, my other character is a cavalier, and this is an amazing feat. Allowing you to strike for big damage and then run/fly to someplace safer, it really helps survivability, because you have an AC penalty for charging.

                Spirited Charge: The amount of damage that charging does just doubled. As you could imagine, your damage just got ridiculous.

        Trample: This can be good, but honestly, the other branch of this tree is better.

        Unseat: I’ve never fought a mounted enemy. It would be so amazing if they were a common thing, but unfortunately they aren’t.

Nimble Moves: This is a really good feat if you face a lot of difficult terrain, because it allows you to make 5-foot steps in difficult terrain, which will really turn the tide of battle. It’s a tad situational, but great when it works.

        Acrobatic Moves: Holy crud, this is fantastic.

Persuasive: You really aren’t the party face.

Point Blank Shot: If you are an archer, this is so good, and I recommend picking it up early, as a lot of times you won’t be shooting that far away from you, and this could improve your damage.

(assumed you’re an archer for ranking)

        Far-Shot: This is really great at higher levels, when you get farther away from your enemies, or are fighting big boys that you need to stay away from.

        Precise Shot: In case you chose Outflank at level 2, get this FAST. Why? because your companion is melee, so you’ll have to constantly take a -2 penalty, and that sucks. Precise Shot gets rid of that.

                Improved Precise Shot: A tad situational, but a very good feat if you have a slot to spare.

                        Pinpoint Targeting: You always hit. ALWAYS. At least, you will hit about 90% of the time, and I’d be shocked if you didn’t hit something while using this.

        Shot on the Run: This is really sweet. It’s kind of like ride by attack, with archery. Neato.

        Rapid Shot: Always get this. This one shoots things constantly.

                Manyshot: I’m not too interested in this, because you’re just kind of doubling your damage, if you’re lucky. If it could hit two targets at once, that would be amazing, but it can’t.

Archetypes

Divine Hunter

Alignment: Yuck. I hate alignment restriction. With the right god though, I suppose it’s not a huge deal.

Class Skills: You lose Dungeoneering, but gain Religion. Fair enough.

Domain: This is great, except that you have to give up your teamwork feats and that stinks. If you are also a Verminous Hunter and pick up the Animal Domain, then this is blue. Slap those extra ability scores into intelligence and maybe strength.

Otherworldly Companion: You give up Hunter Tactics for THIS? You can cast Summon Nature's Ally anytime you want and summon an exact copy of your animal companion with this template! Lame. I don’t like it.

Feral Hunter

Solitary: NO. NNOO. NO GODS NO!

Feral Focus: Well… okay. You basically get unlimited Animal Focus, but you get this if you don’t have a companion as a normal hunter, except you don’t look funny. At least with the normal Hunter, you can get your best friend back.

Precise Summoned Animal: Okay, so this is actually really good.

Wild Shape: This is pretty good, except you can’t even become elementals or plants. Plants are weak sauce, but not being able to be elementals sucks.

Summon Pack: Dang, this is good.

Packmaster*

Pack Bond: This is weird. It can be either good or terrible. I suppose if you have just 2, you can still have decent companions, but if you have more than 3, then their so expendable it’s dumb. I would like to say that this isn’t great, but I’m sure someone can make it work.

Pack Focus: It’s the same, but it’s nerfed. Woohoo.

Teamwork Feats: The only thing that might try to polish a turd. It will mostly likely not succeed.

Second Pack Focus: Once again, a big nerf that doesn’t help. It’s also really confusing.

Master of the Pack: I suppose this is okay.

*This isn’t PFS legal for a reason. It pretty much sucks. It’s confusing and not as good as a normal hunter.

Primal Companion Hunter*

Primal Transformation: This is pretty neat! It allows you to really buff up your companion and can end up being really creative and cool. Sadly, you have to give up Animal Focus, which is an awesome ability.

Primal Surge: So this is just an added 4 points to Primal Transformation? That’s pretty good, I suppose, but you have to give up your other Animal Focus.

Primal Master: This is really good, but it’s not super good for a 20th level skill. This appears to be the pattern for Hunter Archetype, as well as the hunter itself.

*This one is also not PFS legal, which stinks.

Verminous Hunter

Vermin Companion: This is pretty cool. If you like bugs (like myself) you’ll love this. The only problem is you can’t give them tricks (other than the bonus tricks), which makes it harder to mount up and even fly. However, once you reach level 4, you can fly really easily (with the Wasp), and can get very powerful attacks with grab, attach and poison. They’re great combat allies.

Vermin Empathy: This can go two ways. Either it’s a big nerf and that sucks, OR your GM allows you to use it on swarms (which are vermin) and that’s AWESOME! You know why? Because Swarms SUCK.

Vermin Focus: There are more vermin options, which makes them more versatile, but they are a little bit more focused and more of them aren’t as useful as the normal options. Nonetheless, there are more than enough great options, which I will quickly disclose:

        Ant: More strength! Melee attacks, climbing and more!

        Beetle: +2 natural armor bonus at level 1 is really good.

        Centipede: Rather situational, but can still be good if you’re about to go into, say a bar fight, or just want to prevent enemies from taking you down.

        Cockroach: Another situational one, but it can be very good. Just the other night our fighter went down to cold damage and nearly died. We had some tieflings to take care of it, but if that doesn’t happen, this is a great buff from a disgusting creature that I hate and fear.

        Crab: Lots of situational ones, geez. Nonetheless, this is pretty good on a more water based adventure. If so, this is blue. It’s still good anyway.

        Flea: Jumping is more versatile and useful than you would believe, and you get disease resistance as an added bonus. That’s pretty good.

        Fly: This one is weirdly specific, but can be used to explore some otherwise dangerous areas. Falling can be a killer, so I love this one. You also get a perception bonus, which is the most important skill in the game.

        Leech: This gives a bonus to grappling, which normally sucks, but you also deal bleed damage per successful grapple. Once you can have more than one Focus, this becomes awesome because lots of animals on this list give grapple bonuses.

        Mantis: Don’t let anyone tell you that the Snake is better than this. It’s not- because they’re both great. You get AoO bonuses which are awesome due to your flanking buddy, and grapple checks. As said with the leech, stack up your grapple so that they bleed and your pet can bite/rake/sting/tongue(ew) them repeatedly.

        Moth: Just like the bat, Darkvision is AWESOME, but if you already have it, then it sucks.

        Phasmid: This one is so situational. Most people already have low-light vision, except for humans. If you ARE in the forest, then this is really good. I wish it could be better though.

        Scorpion: Stealth your pet, then stealth yourself. Jump out of the shadows, grab some dude, and have your pet and your allies wail on him. It’s a weirdly good combination. If you can also combine it with the Leech Focus, then it’s a REALLY good focus.

        Spider: Ugh… the stealth is appreciated, but others do it better, and the break out of the web bonuses… when would you ever use that?

        Wasp: Woohoo! PERCEPTION FOR DAYS!!! I can’t tell you how good a bonus this big is, especially for your pet.

        Worm: Fast healing is amazing! This Animal Focus pretty much makes this list as good as it is, and is one of the primary benefits of the archetype. You didn’t hear this from me, but if you kill your companion, you can have this forever. I don’t condone it, but…

Swarm Stride: This is pretty good, but the thing that makes it great is the immunity from distraction. This means you can get away, use Flea Focus to jump up somewhere safe or hop on your flying/climbing companion, then start dropping oil and fire or whatever else you’ve got. I highly recommend summoning an air elemental, as they can completely decimate swarms. Your allies may be getting attacked, but they can worry about themselves. This is an awesome skill, and WAY better than woodland stride.