# All about the Horizon Walker (Optimization)



## StreamOfTheSky

The Horizon Walker prestige class has always interested me, but especially the PF version.  Ideally, this will get formatted into a guide or handbook of sorts, but for now is going to just be my disjointed observations and ideas organized as best I can.

First off, how should you enter Horizon Walker?  The great thing about the class is it only requires one awful feat and some awful skill ranks, the rest is just BAB.  The bad part is...wasting feats sucks, and the BAB +6 makes it kinda late entry for medium BAB classes.  That said, here are the paths I think are best for coming in (not all intend to go 10 levels):

[sblock]- (Guide) Ranger 6.  Seems to be the intended path.  Lots of synergy including a favored terrain, you get your level 6 style feat (Improved Precise Shot, perhaps?) just beforehand.  Guide works very nicely with HW and fits thematically.  Most notably, favored enemy doesn't stack with Terrain Dominance's benefit.  Ranger's Focus *does*.  If you have no intentions of going back to Ranger, also take the Trapper archetype.  At level 1 you get Disable Device as a class skill and Trapfinding for absolutely no loss.  At level 4, you'd lose spellcasting, but you won't be around for that anyway!
- Rogue 2+.  In UC, Rogue gets the poorly named "Terrain Mastery" (same name as a HW class feature with a different benefit...) talent, which he can take multiple times.  Unlike Ranger's Favored Terrain, the rogue's adds plus 2 to ALL your favored terrains (presumably including ones you pick up afterwards) instead of just one.  Add that a Rogue can get this every 2 levels and spend feats to get it some more, and...yeah.  I think my favorite entry into HW currently is Guide Trapper Ranger 3 / Sniper Rogue 4.
- Unbreakable Fighter.  He gets Endurance and Diehard at level 1 instead of a bonus feat.  Probably best as a dip with Barbarian or something else than straight Fighter 6.
- Barbarian.  Has no favored terrains or endurance feat, but likes to go to HW 3 for Terrain Dominance (desert).
- Zen Archer Monk 8.  Qualifies just after getting his 2nd bonus attack from flurry.  The main reason to enter is for 2 levels for Terrain Mastery (Ethereal).[/sblock]

Next up, how many levels should you take?  IMHO, Horizon Walker is very strictly either a 2, 3, or 10 level class.  1 level gets you pretty much nothing, but some of the Terrain Masteries are useful enough to warrant a 2 level dip.  3rd level potentially gives Fatigue immunity (desert) or, combined with a strong wisdom score, enough Dimension Doors (astral) to power the Dimensional Dervish feat most days.  Since a full BAB class / HW 3 can have Dim Door by level 9, this means he can have Dervish by level 13, the level a monk is just STARTING on the feat chain (he gets dervish at 17th)!  Beyond 3rd level, you've basically commited yourself to basing your offense on terrains, and there's simply no better thing to with your levels than HW all the way to 10.  Well, possibly go back to Rogue, but then you'd drop out after 3, as well.


Terrain Mastery (levels 2/4/6/8)
There are some nifty benefits here and a lot of garbage.  IF you plan to go past level 2, be careful which you pick, as you may end up trapped at 3rd level into taking another Mastery instead of Dominance (this is pretty much always a really bad trade).  Specifically, don't take Ethereal, Earth, or Swamp at level 2 if you are going to HW 3.
[sblock]
Astral: Extremely situational, very poor.

Cold: Bleh.

Desert: Exhaustion becomes fatigue!  Not bad, though you basically need the next HW level to make this amazing.

Ethereal: Amazing!  Drops full concealment to 20% concealment.  Combine with anything that ignores non-full concealment (Improved Precise Shot; the feat ["Shadow Striker"?] to SA in 20% concealment but not full) for fun.  Notably, a Water Oracle 1 can let you just plain ignore any concealment from fog or mist (Water Sight) and even gives you a bunch of spell slots for Obscuring Mist, possibly making it a better path if you don't mind losing BAB and your cha isn't negative.

Forest: Terrible.

Jungle: Terrible.

Mountain: Slightly less terrible, for keeping AC while climbing.  Why are you climbing at level 8+, though?  Use fly.

Plains: Fighter 3 or Emissary Cavalier (UC) 1 basically grant you this.  Or just being a dwarf.  Unimpressive.

Plane of Air: Pass.

Plane of Earth: It doesn't say it stacks with anything, so terrible.

Plane of Fire: The most useful resistance 10 is still bleh.

Plane of Water: Permanent water breathing actually is sort of handy.  It's just to make up fo the fact that Water terrain is otherwise identical and will apply its favored terrain benefits in more locales.

Plane, aligned: I don't see this being useful to 99.9% of players.

Swamp: Bonus is weak, but Perception is a great skill.

Underground: Free Blind-Fight is alright, not something to get excited about.

Urban: If you're making a diplomancer, why are you here?

Water: Identical to plane of water minus the air breathing.  Unless and aquatic campaign, I'd pass.[/sblock]


Terrain Dominance (levels 3/6/9)
This is the heart of what non-dip HW's build around, while also having some goodies for the dippers.  If you're dipping, you have one prize in mind already.  The other pluses don't really matter to you.  If you're sticking around past 3, then your goal above all else is "which terrain will I fight the most creatures from?"  Getting +20 or even 30 to attack and damage vastly VASTLY outweighs any other possible benefit the terrain could give, so while I'm judging these in a vaccuum on their individual merits, for a HW 10, these views are pretty much worthless.  Aligned Plane sucks, for example, but if your entire campaign is in the Abyss, then for the love of god, _take the Abyss as your Terrain Dominance_!  Frankly, the entire point of a full HW build is for a game with a limited subset of enemies.  Yeah, you're the "master of all lands," but you only really kick ass in 1-3 of them.  Once again, the specific benefits are meaningless.  You're optimizing for the favored enemy equivalency.  The actual benefits mostly suck, anyway.  A final note, you can swap this for Terrain mastery.  Never do this.  Also, since you need TM to take TD (yay abbreviations!) and only have one TM by 3rd level, if your first TM was Ethereal, Earth, or Swamp, you've basically hosed yourself, as those have higher HW level requirements for TD.  You'll be forced to take another TM instead.

[sblock]
Astral: Dim Door!  Fairly early entry to the Dimensional feats is very nice, and unlike that poor sap the monk, you didn't even lose BAB getting there!  Compare a 16 wis HW with a level 17 monk (earliest he can get Dim Dervish feat) with 22 wis.  You can do it 6 times a day.  He can do it 7 times a day (17/2 +6 = 14 ki, 2 per use).  Except you've been able to do it those 6 times a day for far longer by then.  Since he pays 2 ki per use, the higher your respective wisdom scores go, the more the comparison works to your favor.

Desert: This is why the Barbarian is here.  Fatigue immunity sets off lots of combos, but most notably, spamming once/rage powers every round.  Do note that a Lame cursed Oracle 1 can give this at the exact same ECL (9) with only 1 lost Barb level and no wasted feats.  However, Oracle means hurting your BAB, and some rage powers and synergistic feats (like UC's Bolstered Resilience) leave you exhausted instead of fatigued, making HW potentially the better path.
[/sblock]

Items:

- Boots of Friendly Terrain (APG): Dirt cheap for only 2400 gp, pay +50% to tack them onto boots of striding and springing or whatever.  These are keyed to a certain terrain type and give you a +2 favored terrain bonus if you have none in it.  If you do have it as a favored terrain, it bolsters your existing bonus by +2.  Basically, take it on your dominance domain you're boosting as much as possible for an even more obscene favored enemy bonus.


Math:
HW gives Favored Terrain at 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, and 10.  It and Ranger (gets it at 3 and 8, and some other levels you'll never see) each time you obtain it, lets you boost one terrain type by another +2.  HW 10 also gives you +2 to all terrains.
Rogue's Terrain Mastery is identical, but boosts all terrains by +2 each time you get it.  It can be taken multiple times and as a feat.

Build: Ranger 3 / Rogue 4 / HW 10 (ECL 17)
Let's say you are in a game where the entire campaign is in a giant underground dungeon.  You take TD (underground).

Favored Terrain bonus to favored enemy...
+14 HW favored terrains
+2 Master of All Lands
+2 Ranger favored terrain
+4 Rogue Terrain Mastery at Rogue 2 and 4
+10 Extra Rogue Talent taken 5 times
+2 Boots of Friendly Terrain

= +34 favored terrain/enemy bonus!  Almost makes you wish you kept the animal companion to share that with, eh?


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