Scout (D&D)

Your average Scout, busy doing Scout things.

The Scout (not to be confused with the Scouts of the Space Marine) is a class from 3.5e Dungeons and Dragons designed around moving fast while shooting at the enemy with deadly aim. Think of them as 60% Ranger, 30% Rogue and filled out with equal parts Druid, Barbarian and Monk. They are 3.5e's other class that primarily uses a bow, and they're quite good at it. Though they only have 15/10/5 BAB, one good save (REF), a limited D8 HD and not too wide a weapon selection, they possess a staggering 8+INT skills and can be used as competent melee fighters as well.

The Scout's main class feature is Skirmish: if they move at least 10ft they get a bonus to both their AC and get an extra d6 Precision Damage. These abilities grow as the character levels up: every odd numbered level the damage or the AC go up by 1, taking turns until they max out at 5d6 and +5 AC at level 19. This makes moving around very important in order to deal lots of damage. Remember: the more damage you deal, the quicker a fight will be over and the less damage will be dealt to you. Note that Skirmish is not limited to ranged attacks and that your melee attacks also get the bonus if you can close the distance. The fun thing about Skirmish is that while it deals precision damage (and as such can only be trigged once on a creature per turn), it is not limited by on how many creatures per turn it can be used. Take Greater Manyshot and with a good roll you can deal your precision damage aganst multiple enemies in one shot.

The Scout also gets a large number of class features pilfered from a variety of core classes: Trapfinding, Battle Fortitude, Uncanny Dodge, Fast Movement, Trackless Step, Evasion, Flawless Stride, Camouflage, Blindesense (Blindsight at 20) and Hide In Plain Sight. They also get a permanent Free Movement effect at level 18 and get a bonus feat (from a limited list) every 4 levels. What should be noted is that many of the Scout's class features are limited by their encumberance: if they hit a medium load they immidately lose a good chunk of them including the excellent Skirmish.

Various races can play an effective Scout: Humans work as always, as do Elves. Halflings can pull it off too: while their smaller weapons deal less damage, Skirmish does not scale to size and manages to deal enough damage to make up for the lost damage. The Xeph from the Expanded Psionics Handbook make for an interesting addition as well: they get a bonus to DEX, have a racial ability that speeds them up even more (allowing for 80' movement per turn at level 12 in combination with Fast Movement) and they are psionic to allow for things like Speed of Thought and Up the Walls.

Scouts have a notable list of skills taken from a mix of the Ranger and Rogue lists: they have plenty of stealth and nature skills alongside movement skills and a few odd ones like Sense Motive (perfect for spying) and Disable Device (added via Errata: note that a Scout cannot disable nonmatical traps). Hide, Move Silently, Tumble are the most important ones: Disable Device, Spot, Listen and Search make for good others. Investing in Use Magic Device as a cross-class skill is very useful: not only does it allow interaction with magical items it also allows for using the Sparring Dummy of the Master to turn the Scout's 5' step into a 10' step, making it even easier to trigger Skirmish.

When dealing with magic items, things that increase your Dexterity take the priority, followed by things that increase your mobility, items that allow you to deal more damage, items that increase your skills like Hide and Move Silently and items that protect you against magic.

Pathfinder made them a rogue archetype, with Skirmish replacing Uncanny Dodge. Essentially, this means that the AC bonus is gone, but the scout now gets full Sneak Attack progression, but can't make Sneak Attacks at once.