Hey everyone, so I've been tinkering with ideas for a skirmisher style character, made to be able to get in and out of combat quickly, but still manage to do some frighteningly good damage. Obviously, this is a bit of a narrow concept, and about the only thing I found that was functional with it, was a cavalier, making use of the Wheeling Charge and Lunge feats. Give the mount some stacks of Fleet to boot, and you get a guy who can hit on a charge with a lance, from 15ft reach, then turn and bolt a different direction with speed. Obviously, a ranged weapon would keep me out of danger entirely a little bit better, but I wanted to tinker with going melee to see just how far I could push it.
So, if anyone cares to join me in this little thought experiment, most of what I'd be interested in would be:
1. Any builds you make or have made around the same concept.
2. A way for a fighter/cavalier type guy to increase his reach (for purposes of the build, assuming no party support for the moment, so no spells like Long Arms for now).
3. A way to increase the speed, maneuverability, or anything else that could build upon that idea of get in, hit, and get out unmolested.
4. In the spare margins of feats and whatnot, anything that can help make those strikes on the way in have more punch, like Power Attack, Weapon Specialization and the like.
Thanks to anyone who cares to join me on this little experiment.
Well, a Ranged Weapon would keep you out of Danger entirely, but a lance does double damage when charging from your horse, so you have good reason to do that.
My first thought was adding Greater Overrun and Charge through for extra attacks. And what, Trample and Spirited Charge Maybe. Combine that with Spring Attack. If your Cavalier is leading others in the charge, then Paired Opportunist will let you hand out a couple of Attacks of Opportunity along the way.
You might be stymied by encounter design - there's usually not enough room to provide for such a strategy.
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My current favorite skirmishing build is a Goblin that combines Roll with It, Tangle Feet, Snake Fang, and Panther Parry. I'd have him wear a Crown of Swords for good measure.
So this little Goblin will run right through the middle of melee making Acrobatics checks to Tangle everybody's feet. If any Acrobatics fail, then Panther Parry goes off, and he gets to make an Unarmed Strike as a Free Action. If that Attack of Opportunity misses, he gets an attack of opportunity via Snake Fang. If that Attack of Opportunity hits, the Crown of Swords activates, summoning a Spiritual Weapon to attack who hit him, and he gets to make a Reflex Save vs Melee Attack by virtue of Roll with It. He picks a direction that has the maximum possible Threatened squares, and off he goes, knocking everybody down like a little green bowling ball.
Consider being or taking 4 levels of Hunter and picking up Escape Route. Hunter 4 is great for a mounted character anyway.
Your main problem with manuevering is being large, so you may also want to look at a Belt of the Weasel for your mount.
xDemoquinx wrote: Nice build Scott It has its weaknesses. The Base Damage/attack never gets very high: the build requires extensive multiclassing, and that means slower progression on Monk Unarmed Strike Damage even with the Monastic Legacy Feat, and on top of that, Small Size.
But it does look effective and ridiculously fun.
Meanwhile, hopefully, there are some ideas within the build that could be helpful to someone building a skirmisher such as Snake Fang and Panther Style Feats. Usually, I wouldn't take both Snake and Panther style feats. They do stack, but no perfectly. And what I normally like to do next is take a few levels in Alchemist for the Dex Mutagen. You get a +4 Dex, which means 2 more attacks of opportunity/round off of Combat Reflexes and Snake Fang, but then your Wisdom drops 2 points meaning 1 less Retaliatory Strike off of Panther Claw. It still helps, but all that does mean I usually find better things to take before I get around to taking Panther Style feats on top of Snake Style feats.
I have persued an idea for a halfling martial character who combined Snake Fang, Dirty Tricks, and levels in Rogue. He was going to use Dirty Tricks to make opponents Blind, and that would lock in the Sneak Attack Damage. Base Damage scales down with size, but Sneak Attack Damage does NOT! Sadly, Carl Wolfgang von Grignrsbane was part of a TPK at level 2, so I never really got to test my ideas :(
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