I've wanted to make a samurai for a while but the low to-hit ruined it for me.
and I like Slayer as the non-fighter non-magic caster, adventurer guy. good with a sword but not a barbarian or went to some military training regimen.
still my barbarian is pretty good
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Weapons other than the rapier tend to be one of the following:
-Whip: reach. Reach is very valuable
-Sawtooth Sabres: Most straightforward way to build Dex-based TWF
-Katana: +1 damage per swing
-Falcata: Best crit range in the game
-Unarmed Strike: Huge feat selection. Snake Style is particularly awesome and makes them piercing.Rapier's edge over those is that it's easy. All of those are exotic weapons. Further, for the Swashbuckler in particular, Inspired Blade makes the rapier even more advantageous.
As to Sawtoothed Sabre - if you're going Dex-TWF - you shouldn't go Daring Champ. You should dip into Swash and then into a different class entirely.
For the Falcata - while normally an excellent choice - it's not very good for the Daring Champ. Much of their damage comes from Precise Strike, and that doesn't multiply on a crit, so much of the x3 goes to waste. Therefore, you'd be better off sticking to a 18-20x2 weapon to recharge your panache faster.
What different class should you be going into than Daring Champion, who has one of the highest static damage bonuses in the game? Slayer's an option, but that's about it and the difference in their static bonuses is low enough (assuming Order of the Dragon, +1 to hit for the Champion with a bonus +6 to-hit for the entire party versus +6 average damage for the Slayer) that it ultimately comes down to player choice in which one they feel is easier to trigger.
And Challenge is multiplied on a crit, so the falcata can still do nice damage. I agree it's not as nice for them as it is for some classes, but it does add a solid chunk of damage.
If you really want Challenge combo-ing with Dex TWF - 1 Swash and into Samurai is the superior option. You get Spec/GWF, Weapon Expertise, & Resolve points (resolve is awesome) over Daring Champ. Heck - if your campaign allows Effortless Lace you can TWF katanas.
As to the falcatta - it isn't terrible. However - when using Challenge - about 1/4 of your damage won't multiply, making the falcatta average slightly higher damage than 18-20x2. But that doesn't count wasted damage from x3 overkill, that you're not always using Challenge, when you use a deed to double Precision damage, and that you recharge panache faster with 18-20.
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I've wanted to make a samurai for a while but the low to-hit ruined it for me.
If it bothers you - just take one of the orders which gives a morale bonus to-hit in addition to boosted damage when you challenge. Once you grab chain-challenge at 7 you will be using Challenge more often than not, and before that they're only a point or two behind other martials.
Greater Weapon Focus at 8 helps a bit too.
I've wanted to make a samurai for a while but the low to-hit ruined it for me.If it bothers you - just take one of the orders which gives a morale bonus to-hit
not many of those, they all seemed to have some weird prereq, but dragon appears to just be great all around.
Swash/Samurai... I'm not fond of.
The big drawback to TWF in my mind has always been what happens when you can't full attack. It's a pretty massive drain on damage, because you're even more dependent on standing still and swinging than most. Daring Champion counteracts that by flipping Precise Strike back on in those occasions; still not good damage but much better damage.
Falcata I agree with, and more or less called out myself. Xp
that's why i love the unchained barbarian, you can dex to damage if you want barbarian don't care.
All and all I've found swashbuckler is a great dip and daring champion is a good thing to focus.
Regardless of what you do any one handed slashing weapon or rapier is your friend as the class assumes you're going to pay the feat tax of weapon focus + slashing grace (or fencing grace).
Swashbuckler provides a lot as a base class and can be great to focus (even makes sword+gun easier to pull off and lower levels with the picaroon archetype) so as long as you have the proficiency along with weapon focus + slashing grace you can get dex to damage for your weapons. Tengu makes a nice race for it just to get proficiency with whatever exotic you want like the falcata or katana. Depending on the level you start though you may need to use some 1h piercing weapon so you can at least hit stuff before you get slashing. So good backup is a rapier for low levels.
Other than that you can either continue it or dip into just about anything because you've removed strength as a requirement stat.
Cavalier's Daring Challenger is a good option but more as a focus class as you can get a lot of the deeds allowing you to challenge enemies as well as precise strike an enemy netting you double your level in damage per level extra damage.
Overall though i'd suggest what has been suggested and take an effortless lace and go rogue because free dex to damage + finesse without any feat investment as well a +1d6 sneak attack (or more depending on how far you go).
So in my opinion daring challenger or rogue wins out for doing a dex based damage melee just because of cavalier challenges with precise strike makes you fairly competitive without an offhand or 2h weapon
or
uncahined rogue who can sneak attack with less feat requirements and do some two weapon fighting with it. (I'm personally a fan of catfolk claw blades + scout archetype as you can get pounce + sneak attack at the end of a charge).
Honestly if you want full on optimization i'd do Katana or Falcata. Or Estoc rogue (basically a katana but 2d4 damage meaning a better average of damage).
Otherwise for a build like this crit range is more important so simply stick to things with 18-20 so you can get stuff like keen for 15-20 crit range.
And if you have someone with a x4 or higher weapon i'd drop your damage slightly in favor of butterfly sting because the barbarian with a x4 weapon and no crit range will be a lot stronger than either of you separately.
The Daring Champion
Fastine Dangerous, Human Daring Champion 10 (Order of the Dragon)
20 point buy:
Str: 10
Dex: 24 (16+ 2race+ 2levels+4belt)
Con: 14
Int: 10
Wis: 10
Cha: 14Feats:
1: Two-Weapon Fighting
1: Improved Unarmed Strike
3: Snake Style
5: Combat Reflexes
6: Improved Two-Weapon Fighting
7: Chain Challenge
9: Pummeling StyleTactician feats: Paired Opportunists, Outflank
Weapon & other gear: Amulet of Mighty Fists +2 (16,000/31,000 gold spent)
Belt of Incredible Dexterity +4*While under Challenge&Haste: IUS+21/IUS+21/IUS+21/IUS+16/IUS+16. Each hit deals 1D3+19+10 precision. Due to Pummeling Style his crits are odd, but his chance of landing at least one critical threat is 22.6%. Because Pummeling Style crit confirmation math is a royal pain, I'm going to assume crits are auto-confirmed-- the same benefit will be extended to the Barbarian, of course.
Fastine has four challenges per day and Chain Challenge, so he can be assumed to have it active in every fight.
A CR8 creature has an AC of 21, a CR10 24, and a CR12 27.
Thus, against a CR8, Fastine has a 95%/80% hit rate, dropping to 90%/65% for the CR10 and 75%/50% for the CR12.Average full attack/single attack:
CR8: 161.703/30/5
CR10: 147.753/28.95
CR12: 124.503/24.3With Outflank in play, which he can deliver to allies, this jumps significantly:
CR8: 171.003/30.5
CR10: 164.803/30.5
CR12: 149.303/30.5AoOs/counters come really easy to Fastine, so it's probably safe to assume he's landing a single hit each round, unless he feels his opponent is going to die anyway (since his counters use up immediate actions, which he'd like to save to keep Chain Challenge rolling).
This is somewhat incomplete, in that ideally we'd have the numbers of his flanking partner for Outflank, and really for his entire party to determine how much of a damage buff Order of the Dragon is. But it'll do for now.
Note that this is not particularly optimized: this was the work of thirty minutes and built largely out of my...
Sorry for the slight necro but I found this interesting. Now if you built this guy with a one level dip into Sohei you could flurry with a cestus and add your precise strike damage to each hit on top. Wouldn't that be stronger than your build above or does missing the later iterations of TWF lose you that much damage?
I would recommend for any Swashbuckler build that includes using Unarmed Strike (especially kestral's) for a one level dip in Kata Master/Master of Many Styles Monk. They stack. And it works very well for a lightly (might as well go unarmored, IMO) build.
Also a +0 Agile Amulet of Mighty Fists costs only 4K.
4 levels into those archetypes for Monk gives you Ki to your Penache pool as well as some other goodies along the way. It also makes Monk's Robes far more useful.
This could be flavored as a pugalist style duelist type. Tons of swashbucklery flavor going on in a build like that.
That said, I'm not seeing any real value in Sohei frankly. The Kata/Styles Monk has more value but the same problem insofar as concepts are concerned.
Sohei allows you to forgoe DEX if so inclined, it gives you a useful bonus feat (Combat Reflexes) boosts your saves and crazily upps your damage output. If that's not value then not sure what is...
Yeah, I'm not seeing Sohei helping at all. It doesn't really have anything that ups damage output over the Swashbuckler except Weapon Training which is arguable because for every level you don't take in Swashbuckler you are giving up damage. I don't know if the levels required in Sohei are worth it.
Kata/MMS Monk on the other hand only takes a single level.
kestral: I never mentioned the TWF thing with this. You can do perfectly fine with just your iteratives if you wish to forgo the entirely legal use of TWF with Unarmed Strikes routine. On TWF and Precise Strike, while I can see where you are coming from it doesn't work that way. Feel free to house rule as you like but if you use that same logic I think you know how it would affect a number of other Styles that require an open "off hand". I would just ask you to think about how that change would affect things with similar wording before settling on resorting to house ruling it.
IMO, it is fine balance wise (monks need a boost anyway), thematically (works for a pugalist or stylist type of monk fine in my creative mind) and mechanically (well, this one is obvious and I don't think argued by anyone). So I don't see any reason to purposefully disallow it for a Monk, Swashbuckler or any martial character. Hell, even the full casters can take it if they want to throw feats away at things they aren't likely to benefit from. ;)
IMO, it is fine balance wise (monks need a boost anyway), thematically (works for a pugalist or stylist type of monk fine in my creative mind) and mechanically (well, this one is obvious and I don't think argued by anyone). So I don't see any reason to purposefully disallow it for a Monk, Swashbuckler or any martial character. Hell, even the full casters can take it if they want to throw feats away at things they aren't likely to benefit from. ;)
someone who gets it.
Yeah, I'm not seeing Sohei helping at all. It doesn't really have anything that ups damage output over the Swashbuckler except Weapon Training which is arguable because for every level you don't take in Swashbuckler you are giving up damage. I don't know if the levels required in Sohei are worth it.
Sohei gives you Flurry of Blows. Flurry of Blows allows you to stack Precise Strike and challenge on all attacks. All you need is a one level dip.
Oh, and Fastine really needs Agile.
Flurry of Blows = Two Weapon Fighting.
You can use either one. Sohei has nothing unique in that department. You can stack Precise Strike on any bonus attacks you could get.
Flurry of Blows = Two Weapon Fighting.
You can use either one. Sohei has nothing unique in that department. You can stack Precise Strike on any bonus attacks you could get.
Not exactly. Flurry of blows allows you to make all your attacks with a single weapon. Thus the precise strike clause "a swashbuckler cannot attack with a weapon in her other hand" is not violated when using flurry whereas it is when using TWF.
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Not exactly. Flurry of blows allows you to make all your attacks with a single weapon. Thus the precise strike clause "a swashbuckler cannot attack with a weapon in her other hand" is not violated when using flurry whereas it is when using TWF.Flurry of Blows = Two Weapon Fighting.
You can use either one. Sohei has nothing unique in that department. You can stack Precise Strike on any bonus attacks you could get.
An unarmed strike is your entire body and you can use TWF with unarmed strikes without violating the precise strike clause "a swashbuckler cannot attack with a weapon in her other hand."
Not exactly. Flurry of blows allows you to make all your attacks with a single weapon. Thus the precise strike clause "a swashbuckler cannot attack with a weapon in her other hand" is not violated when using flurry whereas it is when using TWF.Flurry of Blows = Two Weapon Fighting.
You can use either one. Sohei has nothing unique in that department. You can stack Precise Strike on any bonus attacks you could get.An unarmed strike is your entire body and you can use TWF with unarmed strikes without violating the precise strike clause "a swashbuckler cannot attack with a weapon in her other hand."
I recall having discussed this before and disagreeing for the simple reason that for a monks flurry there are no off hand attacks but for twf these are clearly defined.
Not exactly. Flurry of blows allows you to make all your attacks with a single weapon. Thus the precise strike clause "a swashbuckler cannot attack with a weapon in her other hand" is not violated when using flurry whereas it is when using TWF.Flurry of Blows = Two Weapon Fighting.
You can use either one. Sohei has nothing unique in that department. You can stack Precise Strike on any bonus attacks you could get.An unarmed strike is your entire body and you can use TWF with unarmed strikes without violating the precise strike clause "a swashbuckler cannot attack with a weapon in her other hand."
We've already established that TWF'ing with a two-handed weapon and armor spikes makes the armor spikes your "offhand" weapon, the same principle applies here.
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I recall having discussed this before and disagreeing for the simple reason that for a monks flurry there are no off hand attacks but for twf these are clearly defined.
We've already established that TWF'ing with a two-handed weapon and armor spikes makes the armor spikes your "offhand" weapon, the same principle applies here.
The problem with this is that Precise Strike does not say "off hand", it says other hand. "Offhand" is defined, "other hand" isn't. There are several ways to use Two-Weapon Fighting without using hands.
Does this run into the unwritten rule of metaphysical hands? Possibly. But while the two-handed weapon and armor spikes is illegal for TWF'ing, A light/one-handed weapon and armor spikes is not.
Since the faqs on unarmed strikes specify that you can TWF with them, and that they are not specific body parts, then by RAW you can TWF with unarmed strikes and still have the benefit of precise strike.
Not exactly. Flurry of blows allows you to make all your attacks with a single weapon. Thus the precise strike clause "a swashbuckler cannot attack with a weapon in her other hand" is not violated when using flurry whereas it is when using TWF.Flurry of Blows = Two Weapon Fighting.
You can use either one. Sohei has nothing unique in that department. You can stack Precise Strike on any bonus attacks you could get.
no off-hands is part of the monk unarmed strike class ability, not flurry of blows.
also a brawler and unchained monk use TWFing i believe.
if people think this is FAQ worthy, should we bring it to another thread?
Not exactly. Flurry of blows allows you to make all your attacks with a single weapon. Thus the precise strike clause "a swashbuckler cannot attack with a weapon in her other hand" is not violated when using flurry whereas it is when using TWF.Flurry of Blows = Two Weapon Fighting.
You can use either one. Sohei has nothing unique in that department. You can stack Precise Strike on any bonus attacks you could get.
Unarmed strike is a single weapon whether or not you use Two-Weapon Fighting or not. The weapon is Unarmed Strike. There is no difference in this respect.
TWF with Unarmed Strikes is totally legal.
I do not believe that TWF with Precise Strike is, and whether or not that's a "house rule" depends entirely on how one reads the use of the term hand.
Welp, I feel we just plain disagree on the interpretation of the rules here. I doubt we will convince eachother either way. So, since I respect your opinions on everything else I have seen you post on and would rather not debate the issue with you as I see nothing to gain I would rather let the issue rest. There is nothing to be gained from debating it as I don't believe it has been ruled on in an errata or FAQ. I think it mostly hasn't been ruled on because I haven't seen your opinion shared by anyone outside of this thread before. Not to say your opinion has no merit but perhaps it is worth a FAQ if you believe in your viewpoint so strongly? I would hit that. (pun intended)
My interpretation of the rules matches Imbicatus' exactly. In fact if he hadn't refuted with what he did I would have with very close to the same words. ...its kinda spooky, actually. Like maybe Imbicatus is actually me posting when I think I'm sleeping. But I'm not. I'm sleep posting on a completely different account I created while un(sub?)conscious.
Oh, and kestral287: You were asking for a build that is "so specific that you require Precise Strike, TWF, and unarmed strikes all working in conjunction"? I happen to have one. When I get home, if I remember, I will send it to you in a PM. I believe you are familiar with it though. It is my Kitsune Mighty Fighting Fox build. I have been switching some stuff around and included both more Monk and Swashbuckler levels. While I wont say that the build depends on those things working together I will say that it uses all of them. I wouldn't be overly heartbroken if it was ruled upon that Precise Strike couldn't apply to all of his attacks. Honestly, he probably could use a little nerfing.
Let me know if someone posts this in the rules forum by the way. I'll FAQ it and would like to follow the thread.
Ah. Well, theme is tough because you can apply different imagination to the same thing and come up with different mechanics based solutions.
...I think I got nuthin on that. I'll still send you the build.
Indeed; if you're assuming that Precise Strike is actually allowing you to use weapons that aren't carried in a hand rather than being yet another victim of poor ACG editing, then literally any character with the ability can perform this trick by just slapping armor spikes on their chain mail.