I have started up a Tengu Swordmaster (ARG, pg. 164-165) using a base of Unchained Rogue for use in PFS.
I've mostly got the personality now, still fussing over some of the details.
Male tengu rogue (unchained, swordmaster) 1 (Pathfinder RPG Advanced Race Guide 164, Pathfinder RPG Bestiary 263, Pathfinder Unchained 20)
NG Medium humanoid (tengu)
Init +3; Senses low-light vision; Perception +7
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Defense
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AC 16, touch 14, flat-footed 12 (+2 armor, +3 Dex, +1 dodge)
hp 10 (1d8+2)
Fort +2, Ref +5, Will +1
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Offense
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Speed 30 ft.
Melee cold iron dagger +3 (1d4/19-20) or
. . aldori dueling sword +3 (1d8/19-20) or
. . sap +3 (1d6 nonlethal) or
. . silver light mace +3 (1d6) or
. . bite +3 (1d3)
Ranged shortbow +3 (1d6/×3)
Special Attacks sneak attack (unchained) +1d6
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Statistics
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Str 10, Dex 16, Con 12, Int 14, Wis 12, Cha 14
Base Atk +0; CMB +0; CMD 14
Feats Dodge, Weapon Finesse
Traits life of toil, muscle of the society
Skills Acrobatics +7, Disable Device +10, Knowledge (local) +6, Knowledge (nature) +6, Linguistics +6, Perception +7, Profession (merchant) +5, Sense Motive +5, Stealth +9, Use Magic Device +6; Racial Modifiers +2 Perception, +2 Stealth
Languages Common, Orc, Skald, Tengu, Varisian
SQ glide, swordtrained, trapfinding +1
Combat Gear cold iron arrows (30), cold iron arrows (20), smelling salts[APG]; Other Gear leather armor, aldori dueling sword[ISWG], cold iron dagger, sap, shortbow, silver light mace, bedroll, belt pouch, flint and steel, grappling arrow[UE], masterwork backpack[APG], masterwork thieves' tools, mirror, silk rope (50 ft.), soap (2), trail rations (6), waterskin, winter blanket, 366 gp, 3 sp, 8 cp
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Special Abilities
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Glide DC 15 Fly check to fall safely from any height.
Low-Light Vision See twice as far as a human in dim light, distinguishing color and detail.
Sneak Attack (Unchained) +1d6 Attacks deal extra dam if flank foe or if foe is flat-footed.
Swordtrained Tengus are automatically proficient with swordlike weapons (including bastard swords, daggers, elven curve blades, falchions, greatswords, kukris, longswords, punching daggers, rapiers, scimitars, short swords, and two-bladed swords).
Trapfinding +1 Gain a bonus to find or disable traps, including magical ones.
I am planning to go for the Circling Mongoose feat (Advanced Class Origins, pg 7) which requires Dodge, Mobility, and Spring Attack. That plus the Tengu Wings feat means that I've used all the character's feats until level 9 assuming I don't dip Fighter (Lore Warden). Yeah, that is a lot of feats.
I would like to hear of other's experiences with the Swordmaster archetype or any rogue using the Circling Mongoose feat. Any constructive feedback welcome.
Thanks!
The only problem I've run into (albeit in a home campaign) was that Swordmaster didn't have enough 'time' to do things and it required something to handle the after-activation fatigue. If those two items could be circumvented, then all sorts of builds could be accessible.
I was hoping to be able to go into the battle trance while stealthed and hopefully the group would finish the fight before I run out of time on the trance. Obviously, that isn't always going to work.
Stealth is not Invisibility.
You'll be hard-pressed to find GMs that respect a truly stealthy character without some sort of magical assistance, based on personal experience.
you need something to hide behind. Often there's just not sufficient stuff to hide with.
I know that stealth sees a lot of table variation, but that is the only time I could see taking a full round action for the trance.
Should I just ignore the trance ability?it sounds fun, but giving up a full round to go into it during combat really doesn't sound practical except possibly for dragon stance since you might be able to make up for it in increased movement.
On the other hand, I realized that I could get to Circling Mongoose at 8th level as a pure rogue by using a Rogue Talent.
1: Dodge
3: Mobility
5: Tengu Wings
7: Spring Attack
8: Rogue Talent: Combat Trick: Circling Mongoose
Now if only I had Fly as a class skill...
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1. Also take the Scout archetype. It gives you the potential for a level pounce with SA starting at level 4.
2. So long as you can scout effectively you should be able to enter a trance before some fights (expect both table & module variation). Just don't expect to always have time for it. The trances are useful, but situational.
(I have a buddy with a Tengu Swordmaster/Scout, though he went claw/claw/bite)
@Imbicatus
Thanks for suggesting Shadow Dancer. Normally I ignore prestige classes, but in this case it might be worthwhile. Dipping two levels would give me Darkvision.
@Charon's Little Helper
Thanks for the suggestion on Scout, but I like Uncanny Dodge. The ability to charge in order to get Sneak Attack is certainly useful, but I'm going to say no in this case.
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Re-reading through the various Rogue Talents, I realized that Get-Away Driver (which is usually an awful selection) would actually give me Fly as a class skill. Since I'm going for both the Glide and eventually the Wings, this might actually be worthwhile for my Tengu.
I'm also seriously considering changing around the attributes a little bit.
Str 11, Dex 16, Con 12, Int 14, Wis 14, Cha 12
It would give me a little more carrying capacity, +1 Will Save, +1 round of trace, and I think this character will have more Wis than Cha skills that it focuses on.
Thanks to everyone who has responded.
The character is still first level, so by PFS rules I can still do some changes.
Is Muscle of the Society purely for carrying stuff? A masterwork backback gives you +1 str for carrying things for 50 gp. It's not that hard to stay unencumbered for PFS. You might be better served to snag Reactionary. Every single sneak attack you can squeeze out helps.
Burning a rogue talent to get fly in class feels like overkill. You can get it high enough for practical purposes with your dex, skill points, and items (griffon mane clothing, masterwork tool). You could also use floating feather feather tokens instead of Tengu wings (450 gp per use) although it would admittedly be less thematic.
Yes, Muscle is just for the carrying capacity. I already have a masterwork backpack.
In the past, I've had problems with encumbrance on lightly armored moderate strength characters. I need to double-check, but I believe I was very borderline at 11 strength -- so close that something like the wrong pair of magic footwear would put me into medium encumbrance.
I could fix this via other means, such as a wand of ant haul, but would rather not get to that point.