Strong Melee fighter with lots of skills?


Advice


First of all: Sources are Core and APG only. 20pt buy, 2 traits (also from APG only).

I joined a new Kingmaker game. Currently Level 2. Party is a dwarven cleric (domains are fire and one unknown) wielding a greataxe, a human controler sorc (Fey bloodline) and a rogue I haven't met yet. I've heard he won't be a party face, so I expect more of a sneaker or bruiser.

This party is lacking two things: Skills (face and knowledge mostly) and a solid frontline. I've build an Inquisitor to fill those gaps and he fits the party quite well. However, to be prepared for anything, I'd like to make another character. Similar skillset (face and knowledge) and an equally good frontliner.

Problem is: I have no idea how to do this with another class. I don't want level dipping. Any multiclassing must serve a "real" purpose like granting access to a PrC.
Every class has either good skills (rogue, bard, and maybe alchemist) or good combat abilities. Ranger would be a nice combination of both but his class skill list is lacking. Bard is unimpressive in melee (not counting party buffs) unless you go Arcane Duelist which gives up everyting great about skills.
A Wizard-based Eldritch Knight could cover melee and knowledge but I'm already playing one in another group.

I thought about a Lore Oracle/Barbarian/Rage Prophet but even with Lorekeeper and Sidestep Secret to reduce MADness, the skills are still lacking (melee isn't too great on a rage prophet either).

So... has anyone some bright ideas I can't think of?

Grand Lodge

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If you can talkk the GM into allowing the Pathfinder Society Field Guide, the Lore Warden archetype for Fighter might be fairly close.


There are a few options to go about this. But getting "Face" AND "knowledge" skills will be very difficult. One way:

Cavalier: this will make you tough, you'll have decent skills, and you can be a face (or at least they are class skills). Knowledge will be poor though.

Paladin: same as cavalier, and has a better excuse to ma cha.

Cant think of anything decent for knowledge skills though. You have a pretty limited choice.


Why can't the Sorcerer cover the "Face" skills? That would just leave you to cover holes in the knowledges, which is much easier.

Also if the cleric player builds his cleric correctly, he can be a pretty solid frontline.


You could always make something like an elven summoner with the breadth of experience feat and a heavy frontline eidolon.


A strength based arcane duellist bard should be able to be a decent melee guy.
From level 5 on he can choose a two-handed weapon as his arcane bond and cast spells with it because he can use the weapon for somatic components.

Or you just save the spells for out of combat and start two-handing from the get go.
At later levels the AD gets better armor profs and can cast with them, no problem. And you could ask your GM if you could take the armor prof feats early and retrain them once you get the armor profs as class abilities. That might be beneficial because by going the strength route and only having light armor you're a glass cannon.

As an alternative: Bard then cavalier to go into battle herald PrC.


Blave wrote:
So... has anyone some bright ideas I can't think of?

Cavalier is designed to fit your requirements (martial frontliner with some skills and face skills as class). I've heard bad things about the cavalier mechanically, though.

Failing that, just go ranger. Pick up Diplomacy via trait if you're really desperate for the class skill bonus. Other than lacking face skills as class, Ranger is probably the most solid choice by a long shot, especially in Kingmaker.

Dark Archive

Core books you don't have many (good) options; I'd set up as a face and let knowledges go wasteside. Honestly it's hard to do both AND melee, since Int/Cha with melee is counter-intuitive (especially lacking Magus and such). It'd be too mad and you'd split too much.

The smartest route would be dump Cha and take a trait for diplomacy as a class skill (with +1), then be a human with 12 int. Barbarian with 1 level thug dip can make an awesome "fear machine"; and as that build requires you to have a 12 Cha and Str-to-intimidate, you'd be good to go.


The best choice for what you want is an inquisitor, but you already know that. You are not going to find another class that fits what you want as well. That being said I would suggest that a ranger can be made to work. All you really need to be the party face is a good diplomacy, and maybe sense motive. While neither of these are class skills for a ranger you can use the traits ease of faith, and suspicious to not only make them class skills, but to get an additional plus one. Bluff is nice for a face but is not really needed.

Rangers also get favored enemy which in also applies to knowledge’s, bluff, and sense motive. Taking favored enemy human is going to give a big advantage when dealing with any human. Combine a decent WIS, with a good sense motive (from suspicious) and favored enemy human it is going to be almost impossible for a human to lie to you.

Rangers also get enough skill points where you can afford to a decent amount of them into non class skills. A paladin may be able to get a higher diplomacy but that is about all he will have. By 6th level the ranger has an additional 24 skill points over the paladin. That is almost like having 6 more class skills.

A Ranger is also going to be a much better combatant than a bard. Not only does he get a better selection of armor and weapons he can ignore prerequisites for feats. The classic switch hitter as per Treantmonk is a very versatile character.


Umbranus wrote:


As an alternative: Bard then cavalier to go into battle herald PrC.

This.

Bard(Arcane Duelist)/Cavalier(Flag Bearer) -> Battle Herald


Summoner. Summoners can do whatever the heck you want them to do.

Need a good frontliner? The eidolon is an excellent frontliner, particularly when buffed by the summoner.

Need social and knowledge skills?
Take one of the traits that gives you dimplomacy as a class skill, and as a charisma based character you will be a great face.

Need knowledges? Well the summoner can do some of that (has access to all knowledges), and the eidolon can do the rest. Remember it gets skill points, and can have know planes and 4 other knowledges of your choice as class skills. And the 1 point skilled evolution makes it an expert in whatever knowledge you want it to be very easily. (2 or 3 points mixed with skill ranks is a relatively minor investment long term for the eidolon).


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Magus with the student of philosophy trait for face skills.

Bards and inquisitors can both do the party face gig and can do the front lines if you build them for it. There's more than just arcane duelist for bard, you can easily put him in a mithral breastplate and use something like dervish dancer.

Vivisectionist/Beastmorph can be pretty beastly in melee, student of philosophy again for face skills. Buffed up a vivisectionist is pretty terrifying.

Sylvan Sorcerer can bring in a buffed up pet and has charisma as a casting stat.

General advice for face is that if you totally dumped charisma there is a trait called Student of Philosophy that uses intellect instead of charisma for 2 important uses of your face skills. Gives more options as far as face characters go and can even make a wizard or magus with 5 charisma a really good face. General advice as far as frontline AC goes is that if you take armor expert you can wear a mithral breastplate at no penalty, and if you have max dex in it, its only one AC off from a mithral full plate.

Mysterious Stranger wrote:
The best choice for what you want is an inquisitor, but you already know that. You are not going to find another class that fits what you want as well.

I think there are a number of choices that can do it just as well. Lots of builds and character options out there.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

summoners are pretty much the best at everything (funny thing about getting two characters...); kolokotroni's suggestions are good (though i wouldn't suggest spending points on Skilled for knowledge checks).

i'm not very familiar with the golarion pantheon, but if there's a god available to paladins that has Knowledge as a domain a paladin/lore oracle would be a really solid fit- Cha will be a super important stat and you can take sidestep secret to buff your AC for frontline combat, and spend a feat on lore keeper to also use Cha for all your knowledge checks (that way you only need 1 oracle level, though you could take more extra skill points); the lore mystery gives all knowledges as class skills and pallies get diplomacy and sense motive. skill points will really be in short supply but you'll have access to all the skills you want and plenty of survivability?

also (as long as i'm suggested multi-class options you said you don't want, lol)- a while back i played a ranger/bard (not a dip, but legit multi-class- played up to r6/b4); he was kind of aragorn/strider-esque, a traveling adventurer skilled as a woodsman but also well-versed in history and culture, favors light armor but is handy with a variety of weapons, can inspire others in combat, and even knows a little 'elvish medicine' (the cure spells)... when i played him i really spread out his stat points, so he was more a jack of all trades who was a secondary everything rather than the primary anything, but with a little tweaking it could probably do what you're looking for: great skill points, all the right class skills, good melee (only miss a little BAB and gain performance buffs plus favored enemy bonuses), and rangers are proficient with medium armor so you can pick up mithril breastplate as early as possible and have a solid AC with no ASF%.


With just the Core book and the APG, Ranger or Inquisitor, picking up Diplomacy through a trait if you have to.


Thanks for all the advice so far!

As for a few of the suggestions:

Summoner - Not gonna happen. I just don't want to play one. I'm an optimizer. A summoner would be too strong and just break the game.

Cavalier - Decent face, yes. But everything else is just meh. I don't really care for an animal companion or mount. Mounted combat is just not for me. And a cavalier could - depending on his order - have not a single knowledge as clas skill.

Battle Herald - Need to take a closer look at that one. I doubt the class features are worth loosing all bard spells and other abilities, though.

Paladin - No skills beyond diplomacy are good. Sense Motive is ok but I'd most likely dump wisdom.

Ranger - Again, I don't really want an animal companion and the alternative hunter's bond is complete rubbish. There's also no archetype that replaces it with something useful.

Bard - Probably one of the better choices. However, I still think a vanilla bard is too weak in melee (especially his defense) and the AD gives up everything that makes bards great with skills. The vanilla bard is still decent at melee but hardly a good primary frontline character.

@MrSin: All decent suggestions. None of them are within my reach due to the limited sources.

Ah well, I guess I'll just have to live with a character that's significantly weaker in at least one aspect. Or I simply never die and keep plaing the Inquisitor. That could work, too.

Thanks again!


Last try as a suggestion :)

Concept: A nearing middle age dwarf who travelled the world and seen a lot of things.

Dwarf (age 100+) Ranger 1 Urban Barbarian 1

Str 15
Dex 12
Con 14
Int 12
Wis 14
Cha 12

Skills 7/ranger level 5/barbarian level

Diplomacy 2 (+6)
Know Dungeoneering 2 (+8)
Know Nature 2 (+8)
Know Geography 2 (+8)
Know Local 2 (+8)
Know (all others) 0 (+3)
Perception (ranger levels only) 1 (+6)
Edit: I forgot Survival 1 (+6)
and Profession (all) 0 (+4)

Feats
Breadth of Experience

Traits
Your call here as it's kingmaker I would suggest noble born orlovsky with the backstory that he acted as tutor for some of that family's children for the last few years (+1 diplomacy and +1 cmd).
Or sword scion if you want more combat prowess.

I know you were against dipping but the dip here is for ranger 3, favoured terrain and free endurance feat to qualify him for the horizon walker prestige class.

Hopefully this fits the bill for what you are after. :)


Honestly the Inquisitor is the best answer to being knowledgable, a face, and good combatant. The judgements and bane will eventually make you comparable to a full BAB class. The inquisitions and archetype combos can effectively replace charisma while maintaining face skills where u need em. And then the inquisitor has monster lore to aid in his lower than bard or wizard knowledge levels.

If that class isn't wanted then I would agree that sorcerer could pick up the face slack so u can be a magus. That would have decent knowledge but being a wrecking machine in battle.


Bertious wrote:

Last try as a suggestion :)

Concept: A nearing middle age dwarf who travelled the world and seen a lot of things.

Dwarf (age 100+) Ranger 1 Urban Barbarian 1

Str 15
Dex 12
Con 14
Int 12
Wis 14
Cha 12

Skills 7/ranger level 5/barbarian level

Diplomacy 2 (+6)
Know Dungeoneering 2 (+8)
Know Nature 2 (+8)
Know Geography 2 (+8)
Know Local 2 (+8)
Know (all others) 0 (+3)
Perception (ranger levels only) 1 (+6)
Edit: I forgot Survival 1 (+6)
and Profession (all) 0 (+4)

Feats
Breadth of Experience

Traits
Your call here as it's kingmaker I would suggest noble born orlovsky with the backstory that he acted as tutor for some of that family's children for the last few years (+1 diplomacy and +1 cmd).
Or sword scion if you want more combat prowess.

I know you were against dipping but the dip here is for ranger 3, favoured terrain and free endurance feat to qualify him for the horizon walker prestige class.

Hopefully this fits the bill for what you are after. :)

That's a nice build. Still don't think it's quite what I'm looking fr but I'll keep it in mind and consider it. Thanks :)

@Renegadeshepherd: The Inquisitor is not unwanted. The class is great and I'm currently playing one. I just don't want my second character to be yet another Inquisitor. ;)
Magus would be a good choice but is off limits due to sources.

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