Just stumbled upon this old thread -- now that more material has been released, more possibilities existing for making a skill monkey Hellknight. In particular, Slayer should work, and even let you get Ranger Combat Style feats in Heavy Armor -- the only bad things about Heavy Armor for a (vanilla) Slayer are that you have to spend a feat (or a martial dip) to get it, and of course Heavy Armor applies the usual Armor Check Penalties to some of your skills. Might want to go all the way to level 7 of Slayer to get Swift Action Studied Target before going into the Hellknight prestige class, or alternatively enter the prestige class as soon as possible but then take Slayer up to level 7 before taking more Hellknight levels. VMC Rogue would be a good option to get more Sneak Attack dice.
Just looked up Ranger Combbat Style feats for Slayer (including following the links), and it looks like Slayer really does give a loophole to let you use these in Heavy Armor. Wonder if this is going to get Errata'd.
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Huh, that's weird.
Ranger Combat Style (Ex): The slayer selects a ranger combat style (such as archery or two-weapon combat) and gains a combat feat from the 1st-level feat choices for that style. He can choose feats from his chosen combat style, even if he does not meet the prerequisites. At 6th level, he may select this talent again and add the 6th-level ranger combat feats from his chosen style to the style's feat list. At 10th level, he may select this talent again and add the 10th-level ranger combat feats from his chosen style to the style's feat list.
That's also weird. Looks like a simple mistake.
But about heavy armor? I dunno. I'd lean to "this talent basically copies the Ranger class feature, with all its restrictions". Notice that Slayers also don't gain heavy armor proficiency normally.
Of course you could circumvent this with mithral armor.
There's considerable debate on the Rules question forum on the issue.
Not sure if any consensus was ever achieved on the issue. I definitely wouldn't try it in PFS though.
Contributor
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I'm actually on the other side - I read it as working in heavy armor.
Note how the ability seems to go out of its way to not say "You gain the ranger's combat style" or "this works like the ranger's combat style". Instead, it tells you to select a feat from those available to the style, and includes some - but not all - of the relevant text. It seems (to me) to be intentionally worded to dodge the ranger's other restrictions.
That's just how I see it, though. ^_^
It is not simply a get a feat from this list you find under combat styles, but expliciitzly tells you "The slayer selects a ranger combat style".
You really do have the Style, not merely a feat from a restricted featlist. --Thus Style restrictions, like not in heavy armor, apply.
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I'm on the no side of this arguement. My reasoning.
At 2nd level, a ranger must select one combat style to pursue. The choices depend on if the APG is being used.
Core Rules only: archery or two-weapon combat.
Core Rules + APG: crossbow, mounted combat, natural weapon, two-handed weapon, and weapon and shield).
The ranger's expertise manifests in the form of bonus feats at 2nd, 6th, 10th, 14th, and 18th level. He can choose feats from his selected combat style, even if he does not have the normal prerequisites.The benefits of the ranger's chosen style feats apply only when he wears light, medium, or no armor. He loses all benefits of his combat style feats when wearing heavy armor. Once a ranger selects a combat style, it cannot be changed.
The Tag line is under the ability that you would be gaining. You Gain everything quoted as well as the Feat you selected from the chosen combat style.
The Feats work exactly like you where a ranger picking those styles through progression. You do not just gain the feat without taking the entirety of the ability upon yourself.
My inclination so far is to read the Rules As Written as Probably YES, but Rules As Intended as Probably No. Although if they're going to Errata this, it will probably be quite a long time (unless PFS does its own Errata), because the long-awaited ACG Errata Pack wasn't all that long ago.
Still, even if ruled NO, Slayer can still use a fair variety of Talents in Heavy Armor.
Here's a Hellknight skill monkey build I came up with last night (actually this morning :-P ). This is made with the assumption that Ranger Combat Style is going to get Errata'd to prevent its use while wearing Heavy Armor. (The Reign of Winter reference is from the thought of making a Chelaxian Hellknight Party that includes this character that will challenge the Taldor-originated PC party in their mission, but also be necessary for it.)
Human with 15 point buy yielding Strength 15, Dexterity 13 + 2 = 15, Constitution 12, Intelligence 13, Wisdom 10, Charisma 10 (if using 20 point buy, add 1 point to each of Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution); Ability Score Increases go to Strength, except that the one at 8th level goes into Dexterity to take advantage of Hellknight Armor Training, and the one at 12th level goes into Intelligence to help compensate for low skill ranks in Hellknight levels.
Traits: Armor Expert (decreases Armor Check Penalty), Dangerously Curious (gets Use Magic Device in class -- for Reign of Winter campaign, use Adaptive Magic instead, which does the same thing but also gives a bonus)
1. Vanguard Slayer 1 (Studied Target, replaces Track with Lookout to get better Initiative checks); level 1 character feat = Two-Weapon Fighting; Human bonus feat = Quick Draw; joins the Order of the Gate and uses their favored weapon, the Dagger, both in melee and for throwing; wears a bandolier to have a lot of them at the ready
2. Vanguard Slayer 2 (Tactician replaces level 2 Slayer Talent with bonus teamwork feat Lookout, and can give this to nearby allies prerequisite-free once per day for 3 rounds + 1/2 Vanguard Slayer levels)
3. Vanguard Slayer 3 (Sneak Attack +1d6 -- will be used for applying debuffs rather than for damage increase -- problem: can't do that for a few more levels); level 3 character feat = Combat Reflexes
4. Vanguard Slayer 4 (Vanguard's Bond replaces level 4 Slayer Talent with Vanguard's Bond, enabling granting half of Studied Target Bonus to allies)
5. Vanguard Slayer 5 (2nd Studied Target); level 5 character feat = Heavy Armor Proficiency; at some point during this level, our Hellknight Armiger passes the Hellknight Test
6. Hellknight 1 (officially confirmed in Order of the Gate; Aura of Law; Detect Chaos; Smite Chaos 1/day)
7. Hellknight 2 (Hellknight Armor Training 1; Discern Lies); level 7 character feat = Improved Lookout (now uses this with Tactician instead of the normal Lookout feat)
8. Vanguard Slayer 6 (Sneak Attack 2d6; Slayer Talent Surprise Attack)
9. Vanguard Slayer 7 (replaces Stalker with Ever Ready -- can always act in the Surprise Round, and depending upon circumstances, will use Tactician with Improved Lookout to grant all allies the ability to act in the surprise round); level 9 character feat = Extra Slayer Talent (Rogue Talent Snap Shot -- can use this to throw Daggers at opponents to get ranged Sneak Attack against them)
10. Hellknight 3 (Order of the Gate Discipline Summon Devil, Force of Will +2 vs Compulsion -- use Summon Devil to get a disposable flanking partner)
11. Hellknight 4 (Smite Chaos 2/day); level 11 character feat = Extra Slayer Talent (Rogue Talent Slow Reactions -- the Sneak Attack debuff FINALLY comes online)
12. Vanguard Slayer 8 (replaces Slayer Talent with extra use per day of Tactician)
13 through 18. Hellknight levels (next Discipline is Fearsomeness; last Discipline is Censor; next Force of Will is +2 vs Charm; last Force of Will is +2 vs Fear
19 onward. Go back to Slayer progression
As noted above, this build has the problem that it takes a LONG time to get really online, due to Vanguard replacing the first **2** Slayer Talents to get the tactical abilities in. Also, the 1/day limit on Tactician (until you spend more Slayer Talent replacements on it) really hurts. Also, while Ever Ready is good, the ability that it replaces (Stalker) actually seems really useful. So maybe I need to rebuild this without the Vanguard archetype (probably no archetype unless a Hellknight-specific Slayer archetype(*) comes out sooner than expected. It would also be worth giving Unchained Rogue another look -- the only Unchained Rogue core class feature that gets completely locked out by using Heavy Armor (as opposed to just suffering a whopping Armor Check Penalty that the build is going to reduce) is Evasion -- and Evasion can be traded out for something better with the Underground Chemist archetype, which would increase the debuffing options (and synergize with Quick Draw and Two-Weapon Fighting to be able to do it quickly).
(*)Suggested Hellknight Stalker archetype of Slayer: Gains Heavy Armor Proficiency and the ability to use Ranger Combat Style in Heavy Armor in exchange for losing the first instance of Studied Target, so that the first Studied Target is gained at 5th level, and thereafter the Hellknight Stalker (compared to a standard Slayer) gets a bonus 1 less on Studied Targets and gets 1 fewer Studied Target (this otherwise works like the normal Studied Target).
Thread Necromancy time! In my most recent attempt to create a Hellknight Party concept, I partly fleshed out (but have not created a build yet) of a Hellknight Rogue using the Underground Chemist concept I posted above -- this is copied here for convenience, and in case somebody else wants to take a shot at it before I get back to it:
Hellknight Stalker: Underground Chemist Unchained Rogue (trades out Evasion and some other traditional Rogue abilities for ability to be awesome with alchemical items and splash weapons). Use a Fighter (or Cavalier or Gun Tank Gunslinger) dip to get Heavy Armor and Martial Weapon proficiency (the former being required to qualify for the martial Hellknight prestige class. Heavy Armor doesn't hose any Underground Chemist Rogue class features (because Evasion is traded out) except for adding Armor Check Penalty, which Hellknight Armor Training reduces. Goes into Hellknight prestige class after 1 or 2 levels of martial dip (exact amount and timing depending upon feat requirements) + 4 levels of Underground Chemist Rogue (thus losing only 1 BAB); even keeps Trapfinding in case those pesky Chaotic types leave booby traps around. Uses Sneak Attack for debuffing rather than for extra damage. It has come to my notice that this character can actually make good use of the normally bad VMC Alchemist option to make pretending to be an Alchemist look better, because Underground Chemist gets the Intelligence-to-splash-weapon damage feature that VMC Alchemist lacks for not having the Throw Anything class feature (Alchemist's Throw Anything is more powerful than the Throw Anything feat, which might be good to have but isn't enough by itself). Of course, also use Glamered armor to help disguise true identity.
Of course, another possibility is to go Avenger Vigilante with the Armor Skin and Heavy Training talents -- no Sneak Attack (Stalker can't take Heavy Training and therefore can't use Armor Skin with Heavy Armor even if proficient by other means), but other Vigilante abilities are helpful if you want to be an undercover Hellknight, although a number of Vigilante Talents (including Armor Skin and Heavy Training) suffer from interruption of Vigilante level progression to go into the Hellknight prestige class).