I'm helping a friend build a dual-wielding martial character who will crit often. Flavor-wise, his character is a city-prowling gambler, who likes to hustle others. This is what I have, but I'm bringing it here to see if I missed anything. Core races only, level 4.
Human Ranger (Urban Ranger); Two Weapon Style
Str 18 Dex 14 Con 13 Int 10 Wis 14 Cha 10
Traits: Anatomist, Suspicious
Feats: Dodge, Power Attack, Two-weapon Fighting (Bonus Feat), Weapon Focus (Kukri)
Favored Enemy: Human
I went Ranger, because I figured he wouldn't need to invest as much in Dex - being able to ignore prerequisites for his Two-weapon fighting feats - which would also eliminate the need to take Weapon Finesse. This lets him have a higher Str, making him a pretty good damage dealer as far as Two-weapon fighting goes. The extra skill ranks from Ranger also play to his character's flavor, especially since the Urban Ranger archetype gives him Knowledge (Local) and Disable Device. Obviously, he's going to pick up Imp Critical (Kukri) ASAP, and probably go down the Crit Focus tree at some point.
Have I missed anything important yet? Are there any key feats he should get ASAP as he levels? Thanks for any input!
I'm not the greatest optimizer around, but it looks good to me.
Another option is the Warpriest.
He's a bit more MAD, but has a few options, especially if you go Human as the race.
A Human Warpriest can have 21 total Feats (3 at first, 9 more from level progression, 6 Bonus feats, and 3 more from Human FCB). This means, with careful planning, has plenty of Feats for the build. He can't ignore pre-requisites, unfortunately, but that really just slows down the build relative to the Ranger.
The Cleric buff spell list, coupled with Swift action Fervor casting easily makes up for being 3/4 BAB, assuming you take the almost obligatory Fate's Favored Trait. Additionally, the Sacred Weapon class ability means that the Warpriest doesn't need to spend as much to keep two fully enchanted weapons.
The correct Blessings can also make a dramatic impact on the damage dealt. Taking Destruction will, by level 20, add 10 damage to every hit that is multiplied on critical hits.
Lastly, the weapon damage for the Warpriest scales with level. While the Ranger's kukris start out at 1d4 damage and end with 1d4 damage, the Warpriest starts at 1d6 and ends with 2d8. Anything you do to the Ranger's kukri to increase that damage die (Impact, size increase, etc.) would have an even greater impact on the Warpriest's weapon.
I have a dual-wielding warpriest and I couldn't be happier. Stumbled across the Fate's Favored/divine favor combo myself (without reading any optimizations) and wow does it work well. Self-buffing a +2 to attack/damage and then making a full attack in the same turn at level two is awesome. If I were optimizing, I'd switch his shortswords with kukris and... that's about it, build-wise. The Dual Enhancement feat will let you put enhancement bonuses on both weapons, so buff yourself up and go crazy.
If going Ranger, Guide and Skirmisher are really great archetypes that stack with each other and with Urban Ranger as well. Guide replaces Favored Enemy with the same bonus, but on-demand several times a day - so you've got your extra power against the foes where it really matters. The Skirmisher's Hunter's Tricks are really great stuff - particularly Tangling Strike to drop enemy AC for your whole TWF full attack.
If you have access to the Effortless Lace item, dual falcata is awesomely brutal stuff and way more stylish than the painfully-beyond-cliche kukris. Even without Effortless Lace you can substitute Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Falcata for Power Attack and pretty much get the same thing (-2 attack for +2 damage and better crit damage).
One other quite potent TWF option for a Ranger is to cross a good one-handed weapon with a cestus - your offhand is weaker and doesn't benefit from your weapon feats, but in exchange you can two-hand your stronger mainhand weapon for every attack that doesn't involve TWF. I had a Guide Ranger build that used a 1-2 handed scimitar and worked Dragon Style unarmed strike into an offhand sledgehammer, but that's probably a little more esoteric than most people are looking for.
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If you're going to do an unchained rogue, daggers are better than short swords or kukris. They do the same damage as a short sword with the river rat trait, but more importantly, deific obedience Pharasma will give you a +2 sacred/profane bonus to hit with them as well, offsetting the TWF penalty.
Kukris are wasted on a rogue as they cost a feat and sneak attack damage isn't multiplied on a critical hit.
My suggestion is to ditch dodge and power attack for Combat Expertise and Butterfly's Sting. Sure you lose a little damage from power attack, but that can be picked up later.
What this combo does is since you count as your own ally, you can pass yourself Critical hits with Butterfly's Sting. Wield a Kukri in one hand an a lovely 4x critical weapon like a Heavy Pick in the other. Set them up, knock them down.
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What this combo does is since you count as your own ally, you can pass yourself Critical hits with Butterfly's Sting. Wield a Kukri in one hand an a lovely 4x critical weapon like a Heavy Pick in the other. Set them up, knock them down.
The FAQ states "You count as your own ally unless otherwise stated or if doing so would make no sense or be impossible."
Expect table variation on if counting as your own ally for Butterfly's Sting would make no sense.
Regardless, it's clearly against the RAI of Butterfly's Sting.
If the ST is requiring core classes is he/she allowing any variants? Unchained Ninja is off the chain... And, Dual Wielding Wakizashi is awesomesauce!!!
I see nothing in Butterfly sting saying you, yourself, cannot benefit from it. You are your own ally, you forgo the crit, you grant the crit to the next ally (potentially yourself) to hit the opponent before the end of your next turn. If you miss, someone else can still take advantage of the opponent being opened up.
Butterfly's sting is effectively opening up your opponent for the next attack to do massive damage. You, yourself, can launch the next successful attack against the opponent. It wouldn't make sense to NOT be able to take advantage of a situation you yourself created.
Assuming you hit with the Kuri and threaten, your next hit with the heavy Pick would proc Butterfly Sting.
I have to say, I can't see any grounds for the idea that using Butterfly's Sting to pass a crit to yourself either "makes no sense" or "is clearly against RAI". It's 100% clear and functional to just follow the text as it's written with the long-established fact that you are your own ally. I can't think of how saying "it makes no sense" could be based on anything more than a purely subjective interpretation of "how it's supposed to work".
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I have to say, I can't see any grounds for the idea that using Butterfly's Sting to pass a crit to yourself either "makes no sense" or "is clearly against RAI". It's 100% clear and functional to just follow the text as it's written with the long-established fact that you are your own ally. I can't think of how saying "it makes no sense" could be based on anything more than a purely subjective interpretation of "how it's supposed to work".
Because it's designed to give a crit to someone else. It's the same thing as claiming Gang up only needs 2 total people to threaten to give you a flank. It's unbalanced when you use it with TWF kukri/pick to effectively give yourself a 18-20/x4 weapon.
While it's allowed under the rules, it's an exploit, and I don't allow it home games.
Because it's designed to give a crit to someone else. It's the same thing as claiming Gang up only needs 2 total people to threaten to give you a flank. It's unbalanced when you use it with TWF kukri/pick to effectively give yourself a 18-20/x4 weapon.
Is there actual designer commentary on the intent of these things? Honest question; I haven't searched for it. I'm very wary of making assumptions that go "they wrote rules that end up allowing X, but I don't think they meant to so I prohibit it on their behalf".
Balance-wise I don't think I'd characterize it as over-powered, considering that we're talking about something that requires a character to be using Two-Weapon Fighting with a mismatched weapon set while also possessing Combat Expertise and Butterfly Sting.
A character with two kukris, Haste, and ITWF has a total critical bonus potential of "30 points" (5 attacks times 6-point threat times 100% more damage). A character with two light picks and the same situation has the same (5 attacks times 2-point threat times 300% more damage). A character passing crits can combine a 6-point threat with 300% damage up to twice, which amounts to a net gain of 12 points each time; total gain 24. So overall potential critical damage is going up by less than double (80%), and that's only if everything goes right (like not missing with the -5 offhand), and only if they've got a mismatched set of weapons that are each as effective as a matched set would be, which is very unlikely. Just tossing out Improved Critical on the pick drops it from an 80% net gain to a 60% net gain compared to just using dual kukri, and losing other features on the offhand like weapon feats or weapon training loses out on overall damage, let alone criticals. Since critical hits on this kind of build will at best make up something like 25% of damage, we're talking about an extremely multiple-resource-intensive way to boost a TWF character by maybe ~10-20% full attack damage, depending on just how many feats or resources they sink into it.
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It's the same thing as claiming Gang up only needs 2 total people to threaten to give you a flank. .just opinions but:
I agree that they didn't intend it to be used like this, I think it is absurd to require a two feat chain AND three total people threatening for one of them to get an off-position flank.
Really, the clause "if doing so would make no sense" is very explicit - it's not saying "if it defeats the spirit of the feat" or "if you think that it makes more sense to interpret it another way". If you can make sense of it in any straightforward way, then the condition that you are your own ally holds; treating yourself as your own ally for the purposes of Gang Up is perfectly functional both conceptually and mechanically.
I don't actually have any stake in this stuff and wouldn't particularly care if a GM were to personally rule against it. I just think it's far better for everyone to be clear on what the rules actually explicitly allow, and not to rationalize editing the rules with speculation about RAI. Far too often people develop an interpretation of how they think something should work, and only then go hunting for a justification for why that's how it does work. I would have serious misgivings about a PFS GM editing the rules, regardless of how they rationalize it.