Zen Archery Paladin

[Wytchee]

Is it viable at all? With the new changes to paladin and the flat bonus to wisdom every 7 levels, I had the mind to make a full plate paladin who wields a bow. Anyone have experience with this?

I imagine it would suffer the same things two-handed paladins suffer, namely a lack of AC.

Also am I correct in assuming that bless/holy weapon do not work on bows? (Which is silly.)

[Lorkas]

Bless weapon can be cast on arrow bundles, then becomes permanent when you remove arrows from the bundle. I don't think you get anything for holy sword on arrows, but I could be wrong.

Divine Might does add damage to arrows, so that is something to go for.

[Pavor Nocturnus]

Not very viable. If you want to go Paladin-heavy, you'll miss out on the arrow enchantment boni Arcane Archer offers, and you won't be as good as the Zen Archery Cleric/Monk either. Those extra few points in Wisdom really aren't worth taking 21 Paladin levels for, if you plan on focusing on ranged attacks.

Now, a Paladin-dip in a Bard/Pal/AA build you could go for, maybe. Just for the Divine feat(s).

[Aodh Lazuli]

If you wanted to make extremely silly arrows, it might be best to do it as a duo of paladin characters.

One with the bard/AA/pally-dip build mentioned above - dex/cha... And the other being a full blown paladin, who can vomit spells all over the archer's bronze arrow bundles.

[vaclavc]

Bard5/Paladin6/AA19, DEX based, with Divine might, can do very high burst damage, with solid AB. But such a build is still not optimal as far as archers go.
-V-

[greatfanfare]

Bless weapon can be cast on arrow bundles, then becomes permanent when you remove arrows from the bundle. I don't think you get anything for holy sword on arrows, but I could be wrong.

Divine Might does add damage to arrows, so that is something to go for.

What Lorkas said and remember that Divine Favor (and can be extended) works when you use ranged weapons, so that's another +5 magical damage if you have enough pally levels.

So if using damask bundles... the max you get is 3 types of damage from essences, divine favor, divine might, and blessed in case the target it's an undead.

If bronze bundles... 4 types of damage (two from enchant basin, two from essences), divine favor, divine might, and blessed in case the target it's an undead.