Two Handed Fighter VMC?


Advice


Ok, well I'm working on a Two-Handed Fighter Archetype with the new weapon master book out. Looking for a good or interesting VMC to take. Obvious choice is barbarian for the damage and strength stance, plus ground breaker rage power if I feel like it.
Still, I'm looking for something more than simple combat, but I'm coming up with some blanks as to how. Cavalier could be interesting. So could Magus.
Overall, I'm just looking for some possible options other than the very obvious barbarian. Cavalier and the Order of Vengeance could be good.


Magus has the problem that Spellstrike is useless for you since you don't cast spells, thus making 11th level a dead level.

Also see the guide Amateur Night - A Guide to Variant Multiclassing.

Note that VMC can do some good things, but it has AN AWFUL LOT of trap options -- both options that can be traps (such as VMC Magus on a non-spellcaster), and options that can only be traps (such as VMC Monk, VMC Paladin, VMC Ranger, and VMC Witch), plus an awful lot of stinkers that fall short of being complete traps but still aren't very good (usually VMC Cleric, VMC Oracle, and VMC Sorcerer when you could have gone Eldritch Heritage feat chain instead). Examples of potentially good options: VC Bard on a martial commander, VMC Barbarian on a martial bruiser, VMC Cavalier on a martial commander, VMC Magus on a Gish spellcaster, and VMC Rogue on an Arcane Trickster that didn't start out Rogue.

Scarab Sages

Sorcerer can be very good on a martial depending on the bloodline picked. Orc/Abyssal/Ghoul/Nanite are all great options for a martial.
It's also better than Eldritch Heritage because you gain 4 bloodline powers instead of three, you don't have a wasted skill focus, and you have no need of CHA which can lock you out of high level Eldritch Heritage unless you are a paladin.


^This can be true, but it's situational:

VMC Sorcerer: If you want ALL of the Bloodline powers, BUT you don't mind them being up to 6 levels late, AND you also happen to want one of the Bloodline bonus feats or Eschew Materials at approximately 11th level, AND you don't have enough Charisma for the Eldritch Heritage feat chain, then this is for you.

Eldritch Heritage feat chain: If you can figure out a use for the Skill Focus feat (better if you are Human or Half-Elf), and you want the Bloodline powers no more than 2 levels late, and especially if you want the option to skip either the 3rd or 9th level Bloodline Power and/or you want to stop short of going all the way, AND you have enough Charisma to qualify for the level of Eldritch Heritage you want, then this is for you. Note that the Charisma requirement for the 1st feat isn't all that harsh, if you don't want anything after it, as long as you aren't using a race that has a Charisma penalty. Also note that it is possible to take Improved Eldritch Heritage 2 times for the same Bloodline if you really wanted both the 3rd level and 9th level Bloodline powers, and then you can take Greater Eldritch Heritage to get the 15th level Bloodline Power, thus getting everything that VMC would get you except trading a Bloodline Bonus Feat for Skill Focus, and Greater Eldritch Heritage also upgrades your effective Sorcerer level to your full character level; if you wanted to skip the 3rd or 15th level Bloodline Power but want the 9th level Bloodline Power, you can use Greater Eldritch Heritage to get the upgrade in effective Sorcerer level, although then this comes 8 levels late instead of 2 levels late, but at least you got the earlier powers only 2 levels late, assuming they didn't get bumped back by something else. Granted, the Charisma requirement for Greater Eldritch Heritage is pretty steep, and the Charisma requirement for Improved Eldritch Heritage is considerable, but some Cavaliers, many Paladins and Swashbucklers, and almost all Bards, Oracles, Sorcerers(*). And Summoners should make it.

(*)You can't go Sorcerer VMC Sorcerer, but you CAN go Sorcerer Eldritch Heritage (some other Bloodline). This is actually sort of relevant to what we are talking about for martials, because I was toying with using this to make a Gishy Sorcerer, although the feat consumption turned out to be still harsh enough to wind up with a character that was both not very good in combat and not very good at spellcasting -- still need to toy with this a bit more, though, given some low level spells that came out in the ACG without my noticing until yesterday (or in one case saw for Alchemists but somehow missed that it was also Sorcerer/Wizard).

Specific Bloddlines you list for a martial:

Abyssal: You really don't want to wait for Strength of the Abyss to be 6 levels late as VMC would make it, and Added Summonings doesn't do anything for a martial unless you actually have summoning spellcasting (possible but not the usual situaiton).

Ghoul: One of the few Sorcerer Bloodlines that actually has a good 1st level Bloodline power, and the other Bloodline Powers are also good for a martial, and if you manage to find a good use for a mid-late Skill Focus Knowledge (Religion) (you are either not going to want the other Bloodline feats or will want them earlier), VMC could work out okay for this one, although I would still lean towards the Eldritch Heritage feat chain if I could swing the Charisma.

Nanite: Like Ghoul, but with more Bloodline Feats that are useful on a martial and not necessarily needed right away, and the Skill Focus (Engineering) prerequisite for the Eldritch Heritage feat chain is less likely to be useful in its own right -- could go either way.

Orc: You really don't want to wait for Strength of the Beast to be 6 levels late as VMC would make it, and you really don't want to wait for Power of Giants to be 4 levels late as VMC would make it, so definitely go for the Eldritch Heritage feat chain if you can swing the Charisma requirement. On the other hand, if you're going Orc, you are likely to have problems making the Charisma requirement for even Improved Eldritch Heritage, let alone Greater Eldritch Heritage, so you might have to go VMC (and this Bloodline even has a decent selection of Bloodline Feats that you might want around level 11).


Editfail: If you are going Nanite Bloodline, chances are you also won't have the Charisma to make it all the way through the Eldritch Heritage feat chain, so again you would be stuck with VMC.


Now I'm a bit torn. I'm creating a character, devout Gorumite, loosely based on Roman Von Ungern Sternberg hailing from Imperial Molthune.

Two handed fighter will be the mainstay class, and I will work enough feats in for him to be able to get a mount and some mounted combat feats.

Now, I've decided to make his charisma high enough for me to get Eldritch Heritage Orc bloodline, for the boost in killing potential.

Now I'm a bit torn. Should I vmc Cavalier and go full challenge potential for major battles via order of the flame and chain challenge or go the mystic route and vmc him into a cleric and emphasize the destruction domain, negative energy, and picking up feats like channel viciousness and that armor training feat for Gorumite clerics.


UnArcaneElection wrote:

^This can be true, but it's situational:

VMC Sorcerer: If you want ALL of the Bloodline powers, BUT you don't mind them being up to 6 levels late, AND you also happen to want one of the Bloodline bonus feats or Eschew Materials at approximately 11th level, AND you don't have enough Charisma for the Eldritch Heritage feat chain, then this is for you.

Eldritch Heritage feat chain: If you can figure out a use for the Skill Focus feat (better if you are Human or Half-Elf), and you want the Bloodline powers no more than 2 levels late, and especially if you want the option to skip either the 3rd or 9th level Bloodline Power and/or you want to stop short of going all the way, AND you have enough Charisma to qualify for the level of Eldritch Heritage you want, then this is for you. Note that the Charisma requirement for the 1st feat isn't all that harsh, if you don't want anything after it, as long as you aren't using a race that has a Charisma penalty. Also note that it is possible to take Improved Eldritch Heritage 2 times for the same Bloodline if you really wanted both the 3rd level and 9th level Bloodline powers, and then you can take Greater Eldritch Heritage to get the 15th level Bloodline Power, thus getting everything that VMC would get you except trading a Bloodline Bonus Feat for Skill Focus, and Greater Eldritch Heritage also upgrades your effective Sorcerer level to your full character level; if you wanted to skip the 3rd or 15th level Bloodline Power but want the 9th level Bloodline Power, you can use Greater Eldritch Heritage to get the upgrade in effective Sorcerer level, although then this comes 8 levels late instead of 2 levels late, but at least you got the earlier powers only 2 levels late, assuming they didn't get bumped back by something else. Granted, the Charisma requirement for Greater Eldritch Heritage is pretty steep, and the Charisma requirement for Improved Eldritch Heritage is considerable, but some Cavaliers, many Paladins and Swashbucklers, and almost all Bards, Oracles,...

you may not have to wait 6 levels with Robe of Arcane Heritage that add 4 levels to your sorc level determining their strength and when you get the blood line power them. And make the option stronger then the feats as you get the abilities at the same time with out the level of power reduction of the feat, but the Feat does give you the ability to pick and choose what abilities you want. so may cost you less feats in the long run to get the the abilities you want. I don't see skill focus as wasted feat, depending on the blood line and the class and theme. Survival for ORC works get very useful for fighter, barb or ranger, or Knowledge Planes for Demonic Bloodline and a character that plans on being a hell knight. I wonder how VMC works with Prestige classes.


I guess Robe of Arcane Heritage only works with an actual Sorcerer Bloodline, not including the Eldritch Heritage feat chain. On the other hand, since the 9th level Bloodline Power that you really want out of Abyssal or Orc comes 6 levels late with VMC Sorerer or as little as 2 levels late with Improved Eldritch Heritage, the Robe of Arcane Heritage (assuming that you can get one) just gets VMC Sorcerer to be even with Improved Eldritch Heritage, meanwhile occupying your Body slot.

From what I can determine from reading the Rules As Written and postings on these messageboards, VMC progresses without batting an eye at any normal multiclassing you do, including prestige classes. So you can do things like make an Arcane Trickster with something other than Rogue for your Sneak Attack class and also go VMC Rogue, and when you get enough Sneak Attack Dice out of it (and optionally from the feat Accomplished Sneak Attacker) to qualify for Arcane Trickster without the Sneak Attack class, you retrain the dip in that class into another level of your spellcasting class, thereby getting rid of all delays in spellcasting progression (eventually -- it takes a long time to get to the point where you can do this).


VMC would be stronger with robe then Eldritch feat chain because your powers are at full character level +4 from robe. Thus when getting that STR bonus from orc lot higher when you first get it from feat. Arrival of power would be the same as the feats though with robe.

I think the robe works with the feats personally, but does not grant your early access because the feat calls out for that it does not grant you more bloodline powers. it however does give you level = to character level -2 so with the Robe you net +2 total character level at character level. That is where i think the robe works. it is hardly game breaking and I think the cost of the item reflex this working considering the cost of the monks robe(stronger and cheaper no feat cost either)which does similar function. I see some classes not wanting to give up body slot mostly the caster classes, because most of the body slot magic items are geared towards them. The ones that are gears to combat/ melee or ranged are fairly cheep and and provide every little benefit.

I may have to play around with PrC and VMC, I enjoy playing hell knights could be useful for one of them. Maybe we will get another unchained book with some more unchained classes, more clarifications on the revised action economy that will add VMC version of the PrCs, but I doubt it, PrCs get no love.


Too bad prestige classes don't get any love, especially given that it wasn't all that long ago that Paths of Prestige came out with a LOT of them, followed by a smattering of others into even more recent times (I don't think any came out this year, but some definitely came out in 2014).

Hellknights are one of those things that need both archetypes (for the Armigers who haven't yet passed their Hellknight Initiation Test) and prestige classes (for those that have). The Hellknight prestige classes are among the better designed overall, but need tweaks to work properly with more recent content. This is especially so for Hellknight Signifer, since Magus and some archetypes of other arcane spellcasters now get means of casting while in armor without needing Arcane Armor Training, which is mostly a trap feat anyway; also, Hellknight Signifer suffers from the same problem as almost every other spellcasting prestige class in D&D 3.5/PF, which is that it is really hard to balance it for both 6/0 and 9/9 casters at the same time.

Wonder if something like VMC (but preferably with more even quality) could be used to implement prestige classes (maybe implement this as feat chains instead).

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