If you build a mage, then just focus on being a mage, no need to have a bow for special arrows and stacking perception on a focused caster is a pretty poor choise aswell.
The special arrows aren't that great anyway, ofcourse there are those situations that arise or you create when every arros has it's uses but basically the bread and butter special arrows are: knockdown, stunning, freezing, charming and the one that debuffs constitution. One could argue that that the curse arrow is good aswell however that costs 6AP to use and is too much imo. All the other arrows are mostly useless anyway.
I'm not saying special arrows are bad, just saying that even when playing a focuses archer 80% of the arrows don't ever get used. Creating situations for using the arrows usually costs more time and prolongs combat, so that is not a great option either.
The special arrows are fun, they are nice, it's great fun hoarding and collecting them, but in every playthrough I used a focused archer character and other then those 5 mentioned before the use of the other 18 arrows is just too situational.
lockpicking and pickpocketing are horrible beyond belief imo, never used it, never needed to use it and it is a waste of ability points imo. Yes I am very negative about these skills, but with good reason.
Sneak is absolutely insane after you get it to rank 5, however you can do that with 2-3 from gear and then void essences. You probably do want 1 rank of stealth so you can pick up Guerrillia.
If you really want mister versatile with spells and loads of arrows, then just make a ranger give him intelligence 8, 1 point into each caster school and pick up all the good low level spells. That way you have the bow, the special arrows and the ranger actually needs perception so it doesn't go to waste. If you don't like the idea of auto attacking and sneaking, then don't take sneaking or make a mage, however perception as said earlier is not something you would want to put attribute points in yourself.
If you can or can not detect a secret or spot something depends on the perception requirement of the trap/secret. This goes from 5-14 and yes you can actually miss loot because you don't have high enough perception, however all the stuff you will miss is not related to the campaign.
It is not feasible that you can make a spellcaster that will get to perception 12 that easily, mostly because if you raise his perception via attribute points you will be gimping him and if you stack gear on him that has perception that won't get him to 12 very fasy eithet. Assuming you will have rings with +1 perception and maybe a headpiece you will have like +3 perception from gear, once you find a level 14 bow you can add a sextant for another +2 perception on it assuming the bow already gives one, this gets you to like +6 perception @ level 14, from level 17 on you can find rings that give +2 perception and various other stats so by that time you will have like +8 free perception. together with burning eyes it is enough to spot anything, however you will have to cast burnign eyes continueously or know where the secrets are... which in a way doesnt make them secrets anymore...
Weapon swapping in combat is kinda horrible, I would call it fancy play syndrome as there should be no need to ever swap a weapon in combat. You basicly waste AP. A mage has so much CC options that I do not understand why you would need to swap to a bow and charm someone. Depending on the diffculty you play, swapping becomes even less of a good option as on harder difficulties wasting AP means you longer combats and longer combats are rarely in the player's favour.
Conclusion:
Take focused mage and forget perception and bows and special arrows
OR
Make a ranger, use the special arrows, make use of perception and if you want the ranger to be mister versatile then get his Int to 8 and put 1 point in to each caster school and pick up all the cool low level spells.
With kind regards,
rashar.
