Dex Build - What can I do here? :(


Advice

Silver Crusade

Hey all. I'm near starting up a game/sessions with Pathfinder Society at a local game store, and I wanted to build a Dex/Widom MoMS Monk2/SF Warpriest.

What options can I do to get my Dex to Damage, before I manage to get my hands on an Amulet of Mighty Fists with Agile?


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The only direct Dex to Damage feat I know is Dervish Dancer which works only with scimitar. You have to get Weapon Finesse, first. The sexy thing about scimitar is that it has a threat range of 18-20. If you are going to do scimitar, then you should really do Improved Crit. and Crit. Focus. If you do, then get the Teamwork Feat Seize the Moment, which lets you get an Attack of Opportunity whenever your Ally threatens a crit. And funny thing is, in Pathfinder, you always count as your own ally.

I really like Attack of Opportunity builds, and my very favorite feat for that is Snake Fang. Snake Fang is an Attack of Opportunity hair trigger. You get to make an unarmed AoO every time someone attacks you and misses. If your AoO hits, you can make another unamred strike as an Immediate Action: awesome! My preferred way to get Snake Fang is with 2 levels in Monk Master of Many Styles. MOMS Monks don't get Flurry, anyway, and also since they only get those AoO's when attackers MISS them, I have these characters wear armor. I like Mithril Lamellar and a large shield or maybe Mithril Agile Breastplate (&shield). That way, I can still gain the advantage of Evasion. With a 3rd level in Monk, I can take the Monastic Legacy Feat which lets half my nonmonk levels count as Monk levels for the purposes of Unarmed Strike Damage. I like the idea of playing a race with a natural weapon, taking Feral Combat Training, and taking 2 levels in Ranger, with the Natural Fighting Style, taking the Feat Improved Natural Weapon. Then your natural weapon gains the benefit of MUS damage AND increased size. Considering that this is an AoO build, you will be able often to get 4 attacks/round, and they might do 2d8/hit before any bonuses like Strength or Amulet of Mighty Fists.

Since the number of AoO's you can get via Combat Reflexes = your Dex Mod, I think an AoO build qualifies as a Dex build.

I just about never dump St for Dex myself, lately I like having these AoO characters with St 14 and Dex 16, but then I like to take a couple of levels in Alchemist for the Mutagen. Usually, the DPR increases more if I pop the Dex mutagen than for the St one.

Even if your Dex is low, you can still gain the benefit of Power Attack, which scales with your BAB, not with your Strength.

You can get into Precision Damage. A few levels in Rogue combined with something that set that up for you can go a long way for your damage. I like Dirty Tricks. If you get the Quick, Great dirty trick feats, you can regularly Blind your opponents and get Sneak Attack Damage all the time. Agile Maneuvers is a feat that lets you substitute Dex for St for your Combat Maneuver Checks.

Silver Crusade

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Honestly, for the sacred fist/MoMS build, you're better off going Str based anyway.

Silver Crusade

Scott Wilhelm wrote:


I really like Attack of Opportunity builds, and my very favorite feat for that is Snake Fang. Snake Fang is an Attack of Opportunity hair trigger. You get to make an unarmed AoO every time someone attacks you and misses. If your AoO hits, you can make another unamred strike as an Immediate Action: awesome! My preferred way to get Snake Fang is with 2 levels in Monk Master of Many Styles. MOMS Monks don't get Flurry, anyway, and also since they only get those AoO's when attackers MISS them, I have these characters wear armor.

That's precisely what I'm going for. I'm just trying to get Dex to Damage early on, before I acquire an AoMF w/Agile; If I can. I just hate those first 5 levels of suck as a Dex build.

I'll have Snake Fang at level 2 as MoMS, then 22+AC at level 3 once I convert to Sacred Fist Warpriest. Throw some Mage Armor and/or Shield on me, and I'm good to AoO like a madman. Only 5 extra attacks per round, but I can make some of those trips, special moves like stunning fist, or disarms. It's nice in theory, I just hope it works out. With the Feats and Bonus Feats from Sacred Fist, I plan on getting Pummeling Charge by level 8. Then I'll essentially have a Pounce and all the AoOs. I feel like I have my bases covered for the most part.

Thanks for the advice, I guess I'll just have to suck it up.


Bigdaddyjug wrote:
Honestly, for the sacred fist/MoMS build, you're better off going Str based anyway.

I have found mathematically describing the optimal DPR is nuanced. But I don't know Sacred Fist, or any advanced class, really.


I have 2 builds kind of like this.

I was thinking with starting with a level in Ranger with Freebooter. The level 1 feat would be either Combat Expertise or Improved Grapple.

Then 2 levels in MOMS Monk. This character is quite formidable by level 3.

Then with 1 build, I would take some levels in Rogue and Fighter, and get Improved Dirty Trick, Quick Dirty Trick, and Great Dirty Trick. Because I realized I made a mistake about a Style Feat, I have 3 feats I haven't accounted for. I'm thinking maybe False Opening.

With the other build, I'm thinking of a few levels in Alchemist, growing a tentacle and applying Feral Combat Training to it, which I believe (Some people think my idea is illegal. I'm arguing with them on the thread Feral Combat Training Combined with Other Natural Attacks.) will relieve the Tentacle of the -5 for being a secondary natural weapon, let me do the Monk Unarmed Damage, use the Tentacle for the Attacks of Opportunity, and use the Grab ability for to catch and release opponents. The character will wear armor spikes and do armor spike damage with every hit. She'll the 3rd level in Monk at 5th level and take a second level in Ranger and take Improved Natural Attack at about 7th level.

She will then get the feats Greater Grapple and Potion Glutton and the Cavalier Order of the Penitent ability Expert Captor. With the combination of Greater Grapple and Expert Captor, when my character begins the round adjacent to her opponent, she will be able to Initiate a Grapple as a Standard Action and Tie Up her opponent as a Move Action. With levels in Alchemist, she can put True Strike on herself the round before, and then throw back and Extract of True Strike as a Swift Action after Initiating a grapple, meaning she has a fair chance of defeating VERY powerful opponents very fast.


I really like Attack of Opportunity builds, and my very favorite feat for that is Snake Fang. Snake Fang is an Attack of Opportunity hair trigger. You get to make an unarmed AoO every time someone attacks you and misses. If your AoO hits, you can make another unamred strike as an Immediate Action: awesome!

I was curious to point out, it says under AO's

"Combat Reflexes feat, This feat does not let you make more than one attack for a given opportunity, but if the same opponent provokes two attacks of opportunity from you, you could make two separate attacks of opportunity (since each one represents a different opportunity)."

Now an opponent that attacks you 4 times in a round and misses all 4 times, is only 'One Given Opportunity' correct???

Saying Snake Fang allows you to attack back 4 times, if you have a 16 dex at least, seems unclear to me, its all the same oportunity.

Anyone see any clarification on this?


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Each attack is a separate opportunity. If someone whiffs on you four times, that's four separate instances where you would have an AOO.

Do not miss a Snake Style practitioner.


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Kazumetsa_Raijin wrote:

Hey all. I'm near starting up a game/sessions with Pathfinder Society at a local game store, and I wanted to build a Dex/Widom MoMS Monk2/SF Warpriest.

What options can I do to get my Dex to Damage, before I manage to get my hands on an Amulet of Mighty Fists with Agile?

Prepare yourself, this is going to be ugly... You need to be a Human and start off with one level of Swashbuckler. Take Weapon Focus and Slashing Grace with the Double Chicken Saber. You're going to have to use this as your weapon for a while. Once you take your 3rd level in Warpriest, you can take Martial Versatility (Slashing Grace), allowing all Monk weapons to be used with Slashing Grace. You now have dex-to-damage with unarmed strikes. And it only took you three feats and four levels, and you don't have your MoMS levels yet.

Silver Crusade

Nocte ex Mortis wrote:

Each attack is a separate opportunity. If someone whiffs on you four times, that's four separate instances where you would have an AOO.

Do not miss a Snake Style practitioner.

True story!

Silver Crusade

Scott Wilhelm wrote:
Bigdaddyjug wrote:
Honestly, for the sacred fist/MoMS build, you're better off going Str based anyway.
I have found mathematically describing the optimal DPR is nuanced. But I don't know Sacred Fist, or any advanced class, really.

I wasn't referring solely to DPR, although the Str build is surely ahead in that area.


Oh.. I don't remember the whole thing but search the forums for martial versality? and slashing grace. I think there was some way to use weapon groups to change hand to hand into qualifying for slashing grace...

I think it required fighter levels. .I can't remember the details so might be easier to do aquick forum search..

Sczarni

Nocte ex Mortis wrote:

Each attack is a separate opportunity. If someone whiffs on you four times, that's four separate instances where you would have an AOO.

Intelligent foes do not bother attacking a Snake Style practitioner.

I fixed your post a little bit!

Seriously though, don't be surprised if your GM just doesn't attack you once your act grows old...

Sczarni

Scott Wilhelm wrote:
The sexy thing about scimitar is that it has a threat range of 18-20. If you are going to do scimitar, then you should really do Improved Crit. and Crit. Focus. If you do, then get the Teamwork Feat Seize the Moment, which lets you get an Attack of Opportunity whenever your Ally threatens a crit. And funny thing is, in Pathfinder, you always count as your own ally.

To the OP. Take this advice with a grain of salt. There are a couple of issues here.

First, Seize the Moment only works when a critical hit has been confirmed (not threatened).

Second, the FAQ about counting as your own ally contains some language that could give a GM grounds to disallow this... It says you count as your own ally unless otherwise stated or doing so would make no sense or be impossible.

It wouldn't be unreasonable for a PFS judge to determine that unless you actually have a team mate who also has this "teamwork feat", it makes no sense and thus you do not receive the benefit.

Just saying.


Double Chicken Saber also works really well since it is in both the Heavy Blades and Monk weapon groups... meaning that once you take it you get dex with all of those weapons.

A Scion of Humanity Aasimar can take Martial Versatility (they count as human).

Without the Swashbuckler level, you can still do the slashing grace, martial versatility thing, you just don't get dex to hit with weapons that can't be finessed normally.


Krodjin wrote:
Scott Wilhelm wrote:
The sexy thing about scimitar is that it has a threat range of 18-20. If you are going to do scimitar, then you should really do Improved Crit. and Crit. Focus. If you do, then get the Teamwork Feat Seize the Moment, which lets you get an Attack of Opportunity whenever your Ally threatens a crit. And funny thing is, in Pathfinder, you always count as your own ally.

To the OP. Take this advice with a grain of salt. There are a couple of issues here.

First, Seize the Moment only works when a critical hit has been confirmed (not threatened).

Second, the FAQ about counting as your own ally contains some language that could give a GM grounds to disallow this... It says you count as your own ally unless otherwise stated or doing so would make no sense or be impossible.

It wouldn't be unreasonable for a PFS judge to determine that unless you actually have a team mate who also has this "teamwork feat", it makes no sense and thus you do not receive the benefit.

Just saying.

Whoops, it does say confirm. My mistake. Still, I did recommend taking, Crit Focus, which increases the chances of confirming crits.

If the OP is concerned about making sure he has a Teamwork Buddy, then he can get the Teamwork Feat with 1 level in Cavalier or 3 levels in Inquisitor. The Solo Tactics ability of the Inquisitor to treat all his allies as if they did have his Teamwork Feat for the purposes of being able to use that Feat himself. And the Tactician Cavalier Ability allows him to actually gift his allies with that feat.


Krodjin wrote:
Nocte ex Mortis wrote:

Each attack is a separate opportunity. If someone whiffs on you four times, that's four separate instances where you would have an AOO.

Intelligent foes do not bother attacking a Snake Style practitioner.

I fixed your post a little bit!

Seriously though, don't be surprised if your GM just doesn't attack you once your act grows old...

That's happened to me. But it was in a 3.5 campaign. My character had Elusive Target and Improved Trip. Elusive Target in 3.5 works a little like the Panther Claw Feat, except that the Free Action Attack has to be a Trip attempt, and there was no limit to how many times/round you could do it. And in 3.5 Improved Trip worked like Greater Trip, except that you got a Free Action attack as your opponent went down instead of an Attack of Opportunity. So the idea was that he would run all over the battlefield, provoking AoO's, and tripping everybody.

Then, for some reason, none of the enemy soldiers were willing to TAKE their attacks of opportunity, any more. Metagaming is bad form for DMs, too, and he realized that. So we worked out a way to streamline the game mechanics.

Sczarni

Yeah I don't like it when GM's meta game either. Happened to my Archer - all the foes we faced had wind wall up or some other neutralizing ability... But it happens


TGMaxMaxer wrote:

Double Chicken Saber also works really well since it is in both the Heavy Blades and Monk weapon groups... meaning that once you take it you get dex with all of those weapons.

A Scion of Humanity Aasimar can take Martial Versatility (they count as human).

Without the Swashbuckler level, you can still do the slashing grace, martial versatility thing, you just don't get dex to hit with weapons that can't be finessed normally.

The Swash level ensures you aren't completely useless for several levels; plus without it, dex-to-damage gets delayed even further. You need an effective Fighter level of 4 to qualify for Martial Versatility and your Warpriest levels only count as Fighter levels for the bonus feats. So you can get WV at Swash 1/Warpriest 3 or at Warpriest 6.


But the OP was looking at a 2 level MoMS dip. That gets you the BAB +1 you need for Warpriest 3/MoMS 2 Martial Versatility. Another level dip doesn't help him.

Now, the interesting thing is that MoMS and Kata Master stack, so if you happen to take monk 4, or have room in the build for some Cha, you can get parry/riposte, and combine it with Panther/Snake.


The prereq for Martial Versatility is Fighter 4, not BAB 4. MoMS 2/Warpriest 3 does not qualify for the feat.


yeah sadly monk offers you no help getting your versatility..

Either way it looks like you'l lbe delaying something fierce..

Silver Crusade

TGMaxMaxer wrote:


Now, the interesting thing is that MoMS and Kata Master stack, so if you happen to take monk 4, or have room in the build for some Cha, you can get parry/riposte, and combine it with Panther/Snake.

Hmmmmm. This could be an option! I'll look into it and see if it helps. I seem to hit dead ends every other way with what I'm wanting.

Edit: This actually is Perfect for what I need. Thank you for pointing this out TGMaxMaxer. It's one step closer!

I'll end up taking the Human Bonus Feat/Skill vs the +2 to my Wisdom, but I'll just have to suck it up!

I figure by level 5 or 6 at the latest, I'll have access to AoMF with Agile. I'm trying to fit in Dex to Damage before then...

Here's my level plans for 1-6:

FEATS -> CLASS ABILITY -> BONUS FEAT -- Feat Side Notes
LvL 1 Weapon Finesse -> Improved Unarmed Strike, AC Bonus(ex), Panache -> Snake Style -- Human Bonus: Weapon Focus(IUS)
LvL 2 None -> Evasion -> Snake Fang
LvL 3 Slashing Grace -> Deeds, Swashbuckler Finesse -> Swashbuckler Finesse -- Retrain Weapon Finesse to Combat Reflexes
LvL 4 None -> Aura, Blessings(minor), Orisons, IUS, AC Bonus(su), Flurry of Blows -> None
LvL 5 Pummeling Style -> Fervor 1d6 -> None
LvL 6 None -> Blessed Fortitude -> None

I hate taking more than 2 levels with dipping... but it feels like that's my only choice! The redundancy hurts, but it makes it work and it's a long-run cheaper option than waiting around for an AoMF. What do you all suggest? It's now a Master of Many Styles-Kata Master-Monk/2, Swashbuckler/1, Sacred Fist Warpriest/xx.


wait, do you really get your WIS bonus to AC twice when stacking Sacred Fist and Monk?

Silver Crusade

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Cardz5000 wrote:
wait, do you really get your WIS bonus to AC twice when stacking Sacred Fist and Monk?

Each class grants a bonus to your AC equal to your Wis modifier. The warpriest's is an untyped bonus from a (Su) ability. The monk adds an untyped bonus from an (Ex) ability. From all appearances, they stack. On top of that, 9 levels of warpriest will also get you 2 more AC from a dodge bonus, and you're going to get Dex to AC.


Pathfinder Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Now that there is an obvious way to get wisdom to AC twice, maybe we will finally get an official Pathfinder FAQ ruling on that issue.

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