So the character I'm about to start playing is a going to be a Human Bard(Dervish Dancer) with a Sawtooth Saber and a Kukri as his weapons of choice. He's an agile, acrobatic fighter who jumps around the battlefield and also is very charismatic. A ladies man and a killer of deadly skill. My question is, what would the best way to build him be, feats, traits, etc to make him efficiently perform as both a vicious and deadly killer but be able to perform as the face for the party if need be.
Wrote a big long message, and then realized it all applied to Dawnflower dervish. Curse you, similarly named archetypes!!!!
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First the Feat Dervish Dancer only applies to Scimitar. Unless somewhere I missed it could be used with other weapons. I recommend a Dex build to a Str build when dervish dancing. Since you want a Acrobatic type I am just recommending based on that description. Now I haven't a clue What point Buy your using so I will go Buy PFS rules in my recommendations. Feel free to take from them and do as you wish.
First you have 3 ways to accomplish a Dervish Dancer Bard. All 3 are Archetypes. You have Dawn flower dervish, Dervish Dancer, and Arcane Duelist. Each have their Pros and Cons. You should read all 3 and find out what you loose and What you gain by taking each. Now me Personally I favor the Dawn flower Dervish a.k.a Dervish of the Dawn. But to take that Archetype you have to Worship a good goddess that doesn't like blood thirsty killers. SO I will give you my suggestions following just the Normal Dervish Dancer Archetype.
Bard Dervish Dancer
20 point buy:
Str: 10 Dex: 15 +2 17 Con: 14 Int: 10 Wis: 8 Cha: 16
(First increase into Dex)
Traits: Indomitable Faith (+1 Will saves)
Reactionary (+2 Initiative)
Feats:
H-Arcane Strike
1-Weapon finesse
3-Dervish Dance
5- Piranha Strike or Power Attack (your choice)
7- Spell Focus- Enchantment
9- Spell Penetration
11- Improved Critical- Scimitar
13- Greater Spell Focus- Enchantment
Skills:
Pick your own but Have 2 ranks in perform dance at least by level 3 for Dervish dance feat. Also Perception is godly.
Spells:
I recommend Classics like Haste, heroism, Greater heroism, or Good hope (both moral bonuses so don't overlap), Charm person, Hold X, Confusion, Invisibility, Mirror Image, Terrible Remorse, Grease, and silence.
Pick others to your liking as well to fit your flavor or to enhance your combat abilities or social abilities.
Well I hope my recommendations help. It is really up to how you Role Play your character with skills and decisions that make up his personality. So he may be generic feat wise but he works efficiently and effectively in many situations.
I was under the impression that the Dervish Dancer archetype could use whatever weapons they preferred when they did their dances? It made no mention of any weapon restrictions that I could see anywhere in the SRD. Could anyone clarify for me just to be on the safe side?
The Dervish Dancer archetype has nothing tying it to either the Dervish Dance feat or to any particular weapon. That said, I wouldn't use a sawtooth sabre as your main weapon. It can't be finessed, and if you want to fight with two weapons, you're going to have a higher Dex than Str. And if you don't want to Finesse it, then there's no reason to use it over a longsword as your main weapon.
Ahhhhh... I think I had just assumed that the sawtooth was finesseable due to it being counted as a.light weapon for TWF purposes as per: "If you have the Exotic Weapon Proficiency (sawtooth sabre) feat, for the purpose of two-weapon fighting you can treat it as a light melee weapon; for all other purposes it is one-handed melee weapon."
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There is some confusion in the advice here. There is a Dervish Dancer archetype for the bard, a Dawnflower Dervish archetype for the bard, and the Dervish Dance feat that the Dawnflower Dervish (but not the Dervish Dancer)get for free.
The op is asking about the Dervish Dancer archetype, and not the other archetype or feat.
I have to agree that Sawtooth Saber isn't worth it for a finesse build or a TWF build. It's just a longsword without an EWP, and using one can be a disadvantage if you are playing in Golarion as they are the signature weapons of the Red Mantis.
I would stay away from the Dervish Dance feat, as an agile weapon is an option and feats are worth more than gold.
Whichever weapon you choose, you'll be able to have a pair of +1 Agile <Weapons> by about L7, if your DM cleaves close to WBL. If they tend to be sparing with handing out loot, consider the Dervish Dance feat. If they give out a lot - all the better, you can get the swords quicker. If the character is for PFS, I can't really give any advice there.
If you opt for getting +1 Agile weapons, then pick up Arcane Strike and possibly Piranha Strike early on, to compensate for low early game damage output (Arcane Strike is amazing on any bard, anyways). Having 12 STR wouldn't hurt you either, if you can find a way to work it in without sacrificing Dexterity too greatly.
EDIT: If you make it to level 11, the Discordant Voice feat is your friend. Also, if you have another melee combatant in your party, consider having both of you take the Precise Strike and Outflank feats - who can argue with an AB boost and extra damage dice?
Is there any good way to optimize a spear as his primary weapon with a kukri in his left. Maybe a shortspear since it can be used one handed?
Or is it simply too weak of a weapon compared to other options?
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Spears can be great weapons, although with spears, longer is better. Shortspear is a one handed weapon doing d6/x3 damage with the option to throw it with a 20 range. As a one-handed weapon you can't finesse it, but you can two hand it for more damage. They do piercing damage which is the weakest type, and they don't have a lot of support outside of wood oracles and dragoon fighters.
If you are going STR based, a Longspear is going to be a great option for a Dervish Dancer bard. You can use reach cleric tactics if you want to buff or cast and still have AoOs, and a d8 +1.5 str bonuses on top of you battle dances is nothing to sneeze at.
I was mainly looking to TWF with a spear + kukri(or some other weapon). I'm wanting the character to be exotic and fight with an unorthodox style not normally used but I'd like him to still fight efficiently.
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Unfortunately, TWF is the most inefficient way of fighting possible. Dervish Dancer battle dances help with that, because they give you double the bonus of a normal bard, but you are still a 3/4 BAB class, and if you you are not using Finesse weapons, then you have to be Str primary which hurts your concept.
If you do want to use a non standard TWF combo like Spear/Kukri, the best option I can think of is a one level dip into the ACG Swashbuckler. Swashbuckler's finesse counts as Weapon Finesse but with any one handed piercing weapon, so you can finesse the spear. However, the spear still can't be made agile, so the only way to get dex to damage with it (at present*) is mythic weapon finesse.
* Maybe when the ACG is released and if the stars are right, there might be another way to get dex to damage.
Ahhhhh... I think I had just assumed that the sawtooth was finesseable due to it being counted as a.light weapon for TWF purposes as per: "If you have the Exotic Weapon Proficiency (sawtooth sabre) feat, for the purpose of two-weapon fighting you can treat it as a light melee weapon; for all other purposes it is one-handed melee weapon."
Unfortunately all that feature does is let you use two sawtooth sabres (or a regular longsword with a sawtooth as your offhand) when two-weapon fighting with the lower TWF penalties.
The Dervish Dancer archetype is interesting in that since it hasn't any class features tied to Dexterity, and doesn't actually tie it to the Dervish Dance feat or any particular weapon, it's actually most effective with a high Str character with a two-handed weapon.
As an example, here's a human Dervish Dancer I have in my character pile (nothing overly complicated; just drive Str as high as possible and use power attack and arcane strike as often as possible):
CG Female Human (Keleshite) Bard (Dervish Dancer)
Focused Study to get three Skill Focuses for the price of one.
Str:20 Dex:13 Con:12 Int:10 Wis:8 Cha:14
1:Arcane Strike, Skill Focus (Survival)
3:Eldritch Heritage (Orc)
5:Power Attack
7:Improved Sunder
9:Greater Sunder
11:Improved Eldritch Heritage
13:Sundering Strike
15:Dodge
17:Greater Eldritch Heritage
19:Mobility
Oltana's parents still venerate Saranrae, evein if they aren't fully observant of all the formalities anymore. Certainly, neither of them are proper Dervishes. While their behaviour would raise eyebrows and start the gossips whispering about them if they lived anywhere in Qadira, Absalom is considerably less concerned about such nicities. Neither of them are particularly happy that their daughter doesn't worship Saranrae even in theory, instead finding Cayden's carefree attitude more her style, but given that she's more interested in the battle dance than either of them ever were, they don't say much about it. On the other hand, the main reason that she became interested in the Dance in the fist place was the same reason that she became interested in Cayden - both were excuses for her to spend her nights carousing.
Hmmm... Maybe he would be best built as a strength based character then. Now I just need to decide which weapons I'd like for him since I'm still undecided. Ideally I would like a spear/sword or some other sort of uncommonly chosen weapons for him. I've grown tired of the "cookie cutter" builds for two weapon choices, whether it's rapiers/scimitars or similar.
Maybe a pistol and sword or pistol and spear combo with a dip in Gunslinger(Pistolero? Mysterious Stranger?)
I'm open to builds and suggestions, as long as they match the concept in mind of two weapons and charismatic ladies man/face for the party.
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There is another problem with twf on a bard: spellcasting. You won't be able to cast and twf at the same time because you need a free hand for spellcasting. How about a double weapon? It will let you cast, twf when you can make a full attack, or two hand it if you need to move or accuracy is an issue. Gnome Hook Hammer and Dwarven Urgosh are both rare weapons, doubly so if you are not a dwarf or a gnome.
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A problem you run into with 2 weapon fighting is having a free hand to cast. Also at this point I might look into Gunslinger or something different Because accomplishing a Uncommon DWing Bard will be rather difficult since you will need Dex, Str, Con, Cha, and at least a 10 INT. Your going too mad with your Point Buy and stretching too thin to become sub par that does nothing exceptional.
Might I suggest Mysterious stranger and a Paladin Dip? You can defiantly be a face type character and Can have some outrageous saves and burst added from the Paladin. Smiting Guns rock and with a Silver smite Bracelet you can have a decent Smite damage. I don't know too much about Building Gunslingers but I have seen a Paladin/Stranger combo played and it looks pretty bad ass. You can also role play the ladies man. Level 3 paladin gets you Divine Health...you become immune to all diseases so you can sleep with all manor of ladies.
Definitely dont want to go Paladin, but I'm liking the Mysterious Stranger archetype, letting mefocus on ccharisma and keep his force of personality. Is the archetype compatible with Pistolero? I'm liking the idea of him walking around toting a bunch of double barrel pistols and fighting up-close-and-personal with them, popping round after round into opponents.
Possibly would dip a single level of an arcane class to give him a familiar that acts as a "powder monkey", reloading his pistols while he fires this others.
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The rule of Archetypes is you can stack them as long as the abilities in which it replaces don't overlap. The thing about rules is They depend on the DM. In PFS it won't fly but if you have a very generous Home-rules DM you might be able to convince him to let you pick and choose.
That being said sadly your Familiar will not level up. He will be a paperweight when it comes to getting hit by a AoE or being targeted. Your almost better off going straight gunslinger. You could take Boon companion every 5 levels to off set it but your wasting feats that are irreplaceable.
take the arcane eldritch heritage feat if you want a familiar that levels up.
Will it still qualify for feats like Improved Familiar and/or Evolved Familiar?
absolutely
If your character is human, take the focused study alternate racial to trade in your first human feat for three skill focus feat and spend the first one on the skill focus that is associated with the arcane bloodline( can''t recall what it is, but likely something like knowledge arcane or something).
That way you don't waste a feat and get two more for your trouble.
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Feats:
H-Arcane Strike
1-Weapon finesse
3-Dervish Dance
5- Piranha Strike or Power Attack (your choice)...
Scimitars are not light weapons, and therefore Piranha Strike will not work. The Dervish Dance feat (which DDs no longer get for free, as they did in Inner Sea Magic) only works if one hand is empty.
This leads your shieldless one-weapon-only light-infantry guy with no Fort save into the trap of being MAD with higher STR/lower DEX for Power Attack in a front-line role (since you've forfeited buffing). I.e., another low-AC chew-toy sliding down a monster's gullet at 8th or so.
Make a samurai with a pair of Agile wakizashis for almost triple the DPR.
there is very little benefit to power attack outside of two handed weapons. It makes very little sense to pursue power attack if you intend to use anything else.
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there is very little benefit to power attack outside of two handed weapons. It makes very little sense to pursue power attack if you intend to use anything else.
It becomes worthwhile if you have the accuracy to benefit from it. Double strength inspire courage gives you the accuracy to benefit from it. You wont do as much damage as you would with a two handed weapon, but as a dex based fighter any source of bonus damage is welcome.
I would have to see the statistics. Double bonuses from inspire courage just bring you up to the same level as a fighter or barbarian.
I would have to see the statistics. Double bonuses from inspire courage just bring you up to the same level as a fighter or barbarian.
That is the idea...not to outperform them, but to equal them, and then to have the other bard stuff as extras.
That's why you make this build, right?
==Aelryinth
Absolutely, its a great archetype that I have enjoyed myself.
I was referring to the statement that the benefits of power attack are apparent on PC's that cannot use two hands with their weapons. I haven't seen that play out in any dpr calculations.
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I would say Having power attack damage is better then not having it even with using 1 hand. Especially when your swinging a 15-20 x2 critical weapon. You will come up equaling out with a sword and board type that doesn't 2WF. Seems fine to me since your wanting to add as many static bonus damage as you can to get that consistent critical damage.
Pimp my Dervish Dancer Bard
Okay boy, get your ass out on the street and make me my money!