Based on the Pathfinder/D&D prestige class. An Arcane Archer mixes the martial skill of a fighter with the spellcasting ability of a wizard. His signature ability is to cast spells through his arrows (obviously we can't do this in an unmodded Skyrim, so we'll have to fall back to enchanting bows instead).

I know this sort of thing has been done before, but here's my own take. It's a pretty long read, though - you have been warned.

Race: Altmer. 5 free levels of Magicka is always nice, Altmer come with a suite of magic skill bonuses, and the speedy regen power could be of use.

Stone: Warrior in the early levels to ensure that Archery advances quickly. Later, switching to the Lord stone is always a solid choice. Stay away from the Atronach due to the Conjuration/absorb bug, which I assume affects bound weapons as well as summoned creatures. Anyone have any other ideas here?

Attribute allotment: Magicka is somewhat important to this build, though the Arcane Archer doesn't do a lot of casting in combat. The Altmer racial bonus means you don't have to invest in Magicka for several levels, giving you time to work up health - though i played carefully, archers can get by with a little less health than other classes. Still, it's a good idea to work this up to avoid getting one-shotted. Finally, there's Stamina - an important attribute for the class. Without Sneak (more on this later), an Arcane Archer needs to be able to kite, and Stamina keeps him running longer. It's also needed to pull off those emergency bow-bashes when an enemy gets too close.

In the end, a distribution of something like 2 / 3 / 2 for Magicka / Health / Stamina would probably be fine.

Skills:

Archery - the signature skill of the Arcane Archer, obviously.

Conjuration - Exclusively for the Bound Bow. Perk up the middle of the tree to add a few tasty effects to your ethereal Daedric weapon, like soul trap and banishing/turning. The only downside here is that the soul trap effect can lead to you accidentally trapping a petty soul in a grand gem, for instance. To avoid that, reserve Bound Bow for situations where you want to soul trap or banish/turn specific enemies. Otherwise, use your physical (enchanted) bows.

Destruction - Mostly for Rune spells, which make a nice, cheap trap for enemies once you get Rune Master and can cast them far away. Slap down a rune to draw out foes, and wait with an arrow at the ready. Destruction is also nice for those times when enemies get too close; you've whittled them down with arrows, but they still have some health left. Out comes Flames, Firebolt, or Fireball. Think of Destruction as your melee backup - kind of like a dagger. Not a major skill for the Arcane Archer, but it does have some utility if used carefully. My sample build, linked below, doesn't go too deeply into the perk tree for this school, but I can easily see grabbing dualcast along with augmented/intense flames. (No need for Impact here; Power Shot from the Archery tree should be giving you all the stagger you need.)

Alteration - Why carry around bulky armor when you can make your own out of thin air and good intentions? Needless to say, the ___flesh spells aren't as effective as constant armor, but as an archer you shouldn't be getting hit as much as melee types anyway. There's also some nice utility here - some of the light spells can be used as distractions, Detect Life is obviously useful, and eventually Paralyze becomes a nice crowd control spell. And the perks are constant, passive defense. (But avoid Atronach perks for the reason stated above.)

Enchanting - This skill simulates the Arcane Archer's ability to 'imbue' his arrows with spell effects. Be sure to disenchant early and often to get access to the standbys of fire/frost/shock damage, as well as other 'utility' effects for your weapons. Carry around several bows with different enchantments to match to the situation. And don't neglect enchantments for your clothes, hood, boots, gloves, ring, amulet, and what-have-you.

Skills Notable By Their Absence:

Sneak - Most people probably consider Sneak essential for an archer. But the fact is, perk out Sneak and you won't need an enchanted bow, Alteration, Destruction, or ... anything, really. You'll be making sneak attack after sneak attack all day long. This is fun for awhile, but eventually.... yawn. Ultimately, Sneak doesn't really fit with the typical Arcane Archer - but I could be persuaded to grab 3 perks in the tree, up to Deadly Aim, if I thought I could discipline myself to save sneak shots for those really critical situations. I'm a weak, weak man, though...

Illusion - Seems like a natural fit for an archer, who necessarily will want to keep crowds of enemies out of his face. But the Arcane Archer isn't a sneak archer (at best, he's minimally sneaky), and Illusion doesn't seem much fun to me. In my experience, the problem with Illusion (crowd-control spells) is that there's no middle ground. It either makes combat a non-issue, or it doesn't work at all. And if I'm Frenzy-ing my enemies all the time, what's left for me to shoot?

Smithing - A case could be made here to get up to 60 in Smithing and take Arcane Blacksmith, to improve enchanted gear. Ultimately, though, I don't think it's really necessary for the build. Your gear is going to be pretty sweet even without improvements, or with the improvements you can give it without perks. Crafting a Daedric bow would be badass, but you've already got the (faster) Bound Bow.

One/Two Handed - Sure, carry a sword if you want, but it shouldn't be necessary except in those cases where you're surrounded and your Destruction spells just won't cut it. Of course, in those cases, you're probably a little screwed anyway - so plan carefully! Bottom line, you're an archer, so aim to avoid melee.

Restoration - No question, there's tons of utility in this school. But an Arcane Archer typically doesn't need a lot of in-combat healing, since he's trying to stay out of melee range. Why cast a Ward when you can just, you know, dodge & shoot the bad guy? Turn Undead is probably the best contender for Restoration spells, and in draugr dungeons you're going to have a harder time getting distance from your enemies. It may be worth it to pick up a tome early on if you're worried about that sort of thing.

Alchemy - the archer's best friend. So why haven't I included it? Well, the Archery perks are pretty great on their own. With careful tactics and planning, you can get by with the poisons you'll find and a decent bow and arrows. That said, there are some devastating poisons - particularly for slowing enemies - so feel free to experiment if you don't mind working up and perking another skill.

Here's a sample build, up to the mid-40s in level: http://skyrimcalculator.com/#123879

And, since my own characters tend to peter out in the mid-20s, here's a build up to 25: http://skyrimcalculator.com/#123895

Shouts of note:


Gear:

The single most important item in your inventory is your bow - or, rather, bows. Have several, and enchant them early, even if the enchantment is relatively weak. Merely recharging your weapon will help work up your Enchanting skill, which may be tough when you're running with the Warrior stone.

Be sure to carry bows of different weights, to take advantage of higher speed or higher damage. Sometimes you'll want a single, powerful shot; other times (when you are facing multiple enemies, and/or have Power Shot or other powerful enchants) you'll get more use out of a quicker draw weight. Hunting Bows are among the lightest available, and can be upgraded with readily-available items, even if you don't invest anything into Smithing.

The Bound Bow can serve you for some time, but at early levels it may be rather costly in terms of Magicka, and at high levels your own bows with specialized enchants will probably be more effective. It will find its niche once you perk it out via the Conjuration tree for effects like soul trap and banish/turn.

Arcane Archers can make great use of found items like potions and scrolls. Since my posted build doesn't use Alchemy, hoard those poisons, especially Paralyze. Potions for Health and Stamina are essential as well. Magicka potions will probably see less use, since you won't cast in combat often, but carry a few just in case. And of course, avail yourself of the various Resist potions.

As for scrolls, they can help fill in the gaps in your repertoire. Timed carefully, master-level Destruction scrolls can level a gang of foes who have managed to swarm you. Circle of Protection can help in those dungeons where you don't have room to kite. And the Illusion scrolls can allow you to focus on fewer enemies at once. As with every other aspect of combat, using scrolls is something an Arcane Archer needs to plan for carefully - switching from bow to scroll takes time, during which you don't want to be taking damage.

Staves are often handy, but less so for an archer, who can't fight and wield a staff at the same time. An exception here might be a staff of 'Wall of X'. With this, you can turn a hallway into a killing zone while you pelt away with arrows. Of course, timing is everything; you can't lay the groundwork for a killing zone when bad guys are shoving axes into your face. Walk carefully and plan ahead.

Quests:

I'm still contemplating this aspect of the character.
There are a host of minor and miscellaneous quests that would fit an adventurous gun for hire. I'm happy to hear if anyone has any specific suggestions, though be sure to use spoiler tags!

Followers:

I usually don't like followers. They get in my way and seem to glitch out at the worst moments. But if you want one, you can go ranged (spells/bow) or melee. Melee followers will get in your way often, which is terribly frustrating given the relatively slow draw speed of bows. Ranged followers are usually a better bet, but they can develop problems or quirks of their own.

Playstyle:

This is a kiting archer, who depends upon Archery perks and enchanted bows for punch. But that doesn't mean he shouldn't plan his approach. Especially in the close quarters of most dungeons, a good strategy is to cast a rune ahead into a new room, then wait for enemies to come and investigate while you cast your shield spell and nock an arrow. This allows you to avoid being surprised, and to somewhat choose your ground - being careful to note avenues for retreat/kiting, and any traps that can be used to your advantage.

If you can't take out your enemies with your arrows and you're running out of room, switch to spells, scrolls, or shouts to finish the job.

In open areas, a healthy Stamina pool will be needed if you plan to outrun enemies you just can't handle. But be sure to use terrain to your advantage as well, noting cliffs and rivers you can use to escape most foes.

If anyone has any suggestions or other thoughts, I'm happy to hear them!

couple quick notes:

Soul Trap bound bow: Yes, you will fill all your mighty gems with petty souls.... BUT!... if you drop a grand soul gem (petty) on the ground and pick it back up, the petty soul will be gone and you can try to trap another soul. So feel free to use bound bow with sould trapping as a primary.

Additionally, with Enchanting, you can enchant yourself Alchemy equipment, allowing you to create powerful potions and poisons with NO perks in alchemy.

I would recommend light armor > alteration for defense. With bow in hand you can't off-hand cast paralyze which is 1 of the best reasons to level Alteration, and you can get the elemental resistances from alteration via enchanting your armor.

Destruction: Absolutely worthless to an archer who can easily deal 2-5 times as much damage as those traps with a single arrow. The traps in general are useless. They don't scale. Even destro mages don't use them, and the only way to effectively use destruction is dual-casting for stagger. You use your bow for damage... ignore destruction.

If you focus on using the bound bow as a primary weapon (and I recommend it... it's thematic for an arcane archer, and really really powerful) keep in mind that you can't cast ANYTHING mid combat without having to recast your bound bow. For this reason, the Adept level conjuration perk is a HUGE boon.

You'll likely want "Arcane Smithing" so you can improve your enchanted bows (if you don't, they'll NEVER compete with the bound bow) It's only 2 perks to get

You don't NEED resto, but 4 perks for Apprentice + Regen (+50% healing) + Respite (Healing refills stamina) + Novice (just a prereq) is a pretty worthy investment for almost any character. You can quickly duble equip "Fast Heal" and double cast (not with dual perk) to instantly heal 150HP AND restore 150Stam.... that stam can be quite useful, especially if you're eating it up with the slow-mo zoom archery perk... but it's also really nice when running long distances.

I recommend sneaking as well. Get the 3x bow damage if nothing else. It gives you an amazing opening shot. Certainly optional, but powerful.

Also, you might consider taking the "Lovers Stone" (I believe that's the one) that gives you an XP bonus on ALL skills (instead of warrior centric which will ONLY boost archery leveling) That way your enchanting, light armor (tied to thief), and spell schools also all level up (sneak too should you decide to use sneak attack openers... again, highly recommended)

Sounds fun. I might have to try this after my current DiD character dies

Thanks for the reply. Good to know the ol' 'drop the gem' thing does work - I've heard about it, but never tried it. Also great point about the synergy between Enchanting and Alchemy. I haven't done a lot of enchanting in Skyrim, so I forgot about that possibility.

Yes, Paralyze can only be cast if the bow is sheathed, like any spell (one of the things that makes me wish for Oblivion's spellcasting mechanic), but I think it's still useful if you're careful with your timing. The ___flesh spells would generally be cast before combat (most combats are short enough that the duration of the spell should see you through). This character is a bit of a switch-hitter, which is a little clunky but also prevents things from getting too repetitive.

I have to disagree about the Rune spells. I know they don't scale, I know they'll only ever do 50 damage - still like 'em. With Rune Master, they're quite useful to a pure Destruction mage, too - like I've outlined above, they're a great way to 'call out' enemies you can't see and thus avoid ambushes. While the baddies investigate the sound caused by the rune, your Magicka is regenerating (at full rate, btw, since you're 'out of combat' until they see you), giving you time to cast other spells, switch to a bow, or whatever. When they do trigger, it's like a 'free' 50 points of damage, and you're already on to the next tactic. I'll take it!

Also, though it would require another thread, Impact isn't the only way to be effective with Destruction. Neither is 90% cost reduction or Alchemy. For this build, yes, Destruction spells are going to lag behind Archery. But they're a way to get some AoE which arrows, sadly, cannot (too bad there's no way to enchant AoE effects on bows! ). And when you know that bad guy is going to be on top of you in a few seconds, and one more shot isn't going to take him down, you can sprint away if you have the stamina or switch to your full Magicka pool and lay down some rapid damage. Not a lot of damage, mind you, but in certain situations it helps.

Your overall point, though, is true - the bow is the primary damage-dealer, and will outshine every other method.

Great point about those 4 Restoration perks. Stamina is going to be low much more often than Health with this kind of character.

I love sneak+shoot, but at a certain point it gets boring. My concern is that, if I start sneaking, I'll never stop. And then the whole point of the build sort of goes out the window, since enchants and even bow quality become irrelevant when you can just get endless sneak shots.

Forgot about the Lover Stone - great point there, thanks!

Have to disagree with this I play a destruction/conjuration mage and consider runes to be a great resource i don't invest in health so the extra damage from well placed runes often finishes off any enemies that happen to get past my atronach or allow me to finish them off myself. They can easily be placed before your in combat so magicka is regained before you even engage the enemy plus you can run away and still place runes saved my life on a couple of occasions although it may be slightly cheap.

On topic really like the idea of this build may have to try it out after i've done a pure no sneak archer well done, might be worth considering the atronach stone as it could be a vital tool against enemy mages as far as i'm aware it does not glitch with bound spells and if it does i've never noticed enough for it to be a problem unlike with the atronach spells.

Since you are utilizing runes, and have a good amount of magica, you may want to consider swapping the "adept destruction" perk for "dual cast" perk. That way you can dual cast the runes- making them hit quite a bit harder.

Ah yes - I forgot, the Adept destro perk was an error.

However, I don't think that dualcasting affects runes, walls, or cloak spells unfortunately.

It does affect runes. I confirm it.

Really?! That is great news! How do you confirm it, though? The spell display doesn't give you info on dualcasting.

Single cast a rune, see how much damage it deals.

Dual Cast the same rune, see if the damage increased.

Right, but how do you see how much damage it deals? Go into the menu as I'm casting it?

If you're on PC you can check the exact value of damage dealt to the enemy. On consoles, just eyeball the enemy's health bar. Not too difficult.

Ah, of course.

One of the things I'm wondering about this build is the use of both Bound Bow and enchanted physical bows. I believe (though I haven't actually tested this) that an enchanted physical bow can surpass the Bound Bow for effectiveness, especially at high enchant skill. Plus, the double-enchant perk would allow you more versatility, and you could carry around a few bows for any situation. Meanwhile, you'd still use the Bound Bow for things like soul trap and banish/turn, so you wouldn't need to have a physical bow enchanted for those effects.

But this plan sort of falls apart if one or other of these options is way better than the other - if the Bound Bow totally outclasses enchanted ones, or vice versa.

Thoughts?

I have found this to be true. Bound Bow was nice up until early mid-level. Afterwards my smithed and single enchanted hunting bow outpaced it. I still use the Bound Bow at times because I took the bound weapon soul trapping perk. At high level (60) my fire and frost, dual enchanted hunting bow is far superior to the Bound Bow.

Well I doubt I'll ever see lvl 60. Apparently I have Skyrim-specific ADD; it usually takes me 20 levels to get bored with a character.

But so far so good. Currently level 11, with perks in Alteration (Novice Alteration), Destruction (Novice and Apprentice), Enchanting (2/5 of the base perk and Fire Enchanter), Conjuration (Novice), and Archery (2/5 of the base perk and 1/3 of the critical shot perk).

My Conjuration is so low (around 25) that I haven't even seen Bound Bow show up for sale yet. I bought a Summon Familiar spell for the sole purpose of working it up so I could get to Bound Bow. So that's kind of a hassle, as the familiar is pretty weak.

Combat is challenging, but interesting. In most situations I'll start off by casting Oakflesh and/or Summon Familiar, then switch to my enchanted hunting bow (fire damage 5 pts; recently upgraded to a new bow for 10 pts fire dmg). I also found an Imperial Bow of Soul Snares for my soul trapping needs.

In some combats I'll drop a rune first, but I don't have Rune Master yet so I can't get the distance that I'd be really comfortable with.

When/if enemies get too close, I'll switch to Flames if it looks like they're almost dead (just picked up Firebolt as an upgrade), or bash with the bow, sprint away, and keep shooting. Switching from bow to spells is instantaneous, unlike switching from spells to bow, so that's actually pretty viable. I just need better spells and better Destruction perks to keep it viable for longer.

If you do plan on playing this kind of a class then I atleast suggest changing your take on conjuration. Its always a good idea to have a pet hold the enemy back while you shoot arrows at them.

If he takes the stagger perk he will be fine using a rapid fire bow (lightweight) when he is fighting multiple enemies to keep them staggered.

There is a static placement for the bound bow spell in skyrim. I suggest looking on the uesp- but i know for fact a breton can find it and be casting bound bow at level 4. A disk 1 cannon.

I've actually always found summons/companions to be really annoying in combat - archery combat especially. I can see the benefit, but it's more likely that I end up hitting them at least once during a fight. Sprint-kiting is also pretty effective, if you have the stamina and the distance to do it.

Thanks for the tip, Udey. Not sure if I want to check uesp just yet, but nice to know it's possible to get. I guess if I get my Conjuration up to 30 or 40 it will start showing up in merchants' lists.

This is true. Bound sword conjuring in combat also raised the skill very very quickly.

I think I would have to consider taking Mage Armor sooner in your build projection. It is available pretty early, about 30 and will double the effectiveness of a spell you are probably using in every fight already. Then maybe wait a while to take 2 and 3.

Good point Avarae, thanks! The Alteration tree is totally new to me, so I didn't realize Mage Armor (and Magic Resistance) were both available so early. While playing tonight I grabbed Apprentice Alteration and Magic Resistance 10%.

I'll definitely get Mage Armor a bit later. For now, I seem to be having an OK time staying out of melee and avoiding arrows; magic can be harder to avoid.

Looking at that tree, it seems like Alteration is one of the best-designed perk trees in the game. The spells in the school are rather unimpressive (not a lot of variety), but the perks are great.

I remember seeing a mod that have arcane archer abilities, not sure if its stable or too powerful. There alot of mods out there are not good or just plain stupid!

Yeah, no mods just yet. I have a PC, but prefer to wait until all the official stuff is released before I get any mods. I hear there are some great ones out, though.

Just the ability to make/enchant arrows would be awesome.

This build sounds very intruiging! I think I'll start a new Breton (love Bretons) Arcane Archer on my next playthrough.... The help of some mods like the peerless Better Magic (http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=4374) makes the concept that much more attractive as it IMO "fixes" a lot of the issues around Alteration and Destruction usage.

On a previous playthrough I've already done the Bound Weapon deal, so I'll stick with enchanted bows. Can always manually enchant a backup bow with Soul Trap charges. Side benefit of making it easier to level Enchanting. No Smithing, to preserve challenge

What sold it for me was the Runes tactic. Adds an element of strategy to the combat especially with no ultra-sneak skills as a get out of jail free card.

Awesome, thanks for this.