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Hi, looking for advice on mechanics of actualy using the UC variant multiclass rules. My group just wrapped up a 3year RotRL run and we're starting Iron Gods. I'm playing an aasamar fighter splashed with starsouled sorcerer Str17, Dex10, Con14, Int12, Wis12, Cha16. Note I'm the only player who didn't dump cha so I am the party face. It seems straightforward on paper but I've never used those rules before. Any suprise pitfalls or caveats. Also recommendations for feats since her pool is smaller? She's going to wear heavy armor once I can afford it for her and wield two handed weapons.
Thanks in advanced for the help.
VMC is typically always a bad idea. It's just almost never worth losing half of your feats.
Wizard VMC is surprisingly strong for the cost of half your feats. Nabbing Transmutation school powers can improve your physical stats, you get a familiar based on your level, which you can give archetypes such as the Mauler archetype, and you get an Arcane Discovery, of which there are very nice options.
Doesn't VMC not give spellcasting unless it is your primary class? As in a VMC Sorcerer/Fighter can cast spells while a VMC Fighter/Sorcerer can not?
It's probably not something to do without knowing exactly what you WANT to do with it. XD If you have your whole build planned out and like how it looks, you're probably find. (And note that you don't have to go for perfect optimization all the time.)
I wouldn't suggest doing it without a fully-planned build, though.
I know WHAT I want her to be able to do. Basicly I want a heavy damage dealer who can do a few off the wall things that wouldn't be expected of a fighter. I'm not looking for fully optimized just a playable offbeat character with their own niche in an oversized party(7-8). It's more HOW to do it that I'm unsure of. She's going to be a front line heavy armored tank with some help from a black blade magus and gunslinger. She's also party diplomacy and intimidate person, background was a bouncer at a bar when campaign started. Thematically the bloodline powers fit for Iron Gods and they fit her backstory.
I was just looking at the variant classes a few minutes before I saw this.
Looking at them, its not worth it. You trade half your lifetime feats for weaker versions of class features. Most of the features are stand-alone and dont fully give you the WHOLE class feature so you dont get spells, rage powers, or bonus feats.
Some are tempting, but not worth it. for example, ever want barbarian rage? Well Youll have to trade 5 feats for it, and you only get one rage power and you never get immunity to fatigue so just go make an Unchained barbarian.
The caster ones are particularly bad as you dont get spells at all.
Now if you traded FEATURES from one class to another rather than feats, that would be different.
Only combo I can see maybe working is Slayer+rogue to get 10d6 sneak damage.
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OK to clarify since apparently I was not clear enough. (flame on) NEGATIVE NANCYS I AM PLAYING THIS! STOP TRYING TO SAY NOT WORTH IT! FOR THIS CHARACTER IN THIS PARTY IN THIS CAMPAIGN IT'S WORTH THE TRADEOFF! (flame off) *Dose the Disney Hades reeling the flame back in thing* Doing this will give me fewer feats,that means I need to make good use of the ones I get. It's been a long time since I played a primary melee character (way back in 3.5), so aside from Power Atack, what are the most important feats for wading in to do lots of damage with 2 handed weapons like great swords and great axes?
Whoops, misunderstood initially. I thought you were splashing levels in Sorc and picking a VMC class. Glad I caught that before posting…
Anyway, I've only got limited useful advice, but Advanced Weapon Training is great. Lots of different uses, from shoring up your will saves or boosting your skill points to getting a shield bonus. Similarly, Advanced Armor Training has a lot of handy options. Your good charisma score will lend itself to Conugon Smash and other intimidate options, but with low skill points, it's understandable if you don't want to sink a bunch into Intimidate instead of other social skills.
Cool stuff: Cut From the Air followed by Smash From the Air is great. If you can sneak extra AoOs on there, it's even cooler, but really… deflecting lasers with your sword is too cool to pass up!
Now if you traded FEATURES from one class to another rather than feats, that would be different.
You kind of just defined archetypes, hehe.
OK to clarify since apparently I was not clear enough. (flame on) NEGATIVE NANCYS I AM PLAYING THIS! STOP TRYING TO SAY NOT WORTH IT! FOR THIS CHARACTER IN THIS PARTY IN THIS CAMPAIGN IT'S WORTH THE TRADEOFF!
I do apologize. I was attempting to be constructive, and am sorry I gave a bad impression.
I'm experimenting with it right now actually.
My plan is a half-orc Alchemist going into Master Chymist Prestige class. Losing some feats hurts of course, but the fact that Mutagen stats and Rage stack... make this a really fun combo. Also, the Barbarian abilities are really worth a feat. I don't feel cheated on those added abilities.
I do agree that a lot of them look like trap options, and I was confused about the effect my prestige class has on it at first. But the idea that VMC isn't attached to a 'base class' but the character level cleared that up a lot. Those extra abilities/Feat loss kick in on the character levels, regardless of what else you dip into wasn't something I found clear on first reading.
Stone Oracle VMC lets you grab Rock Throwing which allows you to make a wonderful rock throwing Fighter or Barbarian without ever having to dip.
Anything that gives you a familiar is nice because you can get a Bodyguard familiar which will spend all its actions in combat giving you bonus AC.
A lot of VMCs are actually pretty strong if you use them the right way/cheese hard enough. You just gotta look for things the right ways.
Click advice, click sticky for guides, click link at bottom to go to another list of guides. Near the end of this list are two guides for vmc's. I will agree with one of the guides that ghoul sorcerer vmc with unarmed is potent with paralyze.
Edit:orc is 6 str, NA bonus, and ability for large size.
I'm doing variant multiclass in Iron Gods myself! An Android Witch, VMC-Cleric (well, Witch/Technomancer, VMC-Cleric as of last weekend's level up). It's going great even though I do end up converting basically all of my spells into heals, and I'm in a prestige class that required me to dedicate both of my pre-9th-level feats in order to qualify.
Honestly, being a Fighter should have you covered. That class will more than make up for trading 5 feats out, especially since you probably won't need to hyper-optimize. My biggest suggestion is that with Dex 10 and heavy armor, you should be ready for your touch AC to get hit a lot. Being an aasimar, your inherent energy resistances will help with that, since a lot of what hits touch is energy damage, but you should still be prepared for that. Maybe look into ways to deal with ranged touch attacks.
BearsDragon, I think a lot of people misunderstood that (unless I'm mistaken instead) Starsoul Sorcerer is your VMC, and that's why you're getting tons of advice on which VMC to go with.
Fighter definitely gets enough feats to casually trade away half their regular ones on a whim, especially if going with two-handed Power Attack. There's just not much that needs to get added on. Shore up your two biggest weaknesses (will saves and ranged touch AC), and then the rest is mostly a matter of preference. If you're out of ideas, Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization, and Toughness are boring, practical choices.
I enjoy VMCing myself I think it makes a great way to customize a character without giving up much of your main class.
As a fighter you aren't going to be starved for feats, Plus you still get a feat from the Sorcerer, so I don't see a problem there.
Starsoul isn't an ideal mix with fighter but I think it's still interesting.
As an aasimar you already get Cold resistance so I'm not sure if that stacks or not with the bloodline. Even if it dosen't stack you still end up with 4 energy reistances so that gives you a nice bonus.
However you could also get that Fire resitance just by taking the Angelic Flesh feat. So honestly you are only getting about half the benefit from the Voidwalker power (Lowlight + don't need to breath)
Not being a spellcaster you loose the +3 CL bonus for Breaching the Gulf but the teleport into space power is still good.
A Heaven Oracle could give you a similar feel but with a little more customization.
Have you considered the Stormborn Bloodline. I think that's a pretty good one for a fighter.
-Add Shock to your weapon
-Electric and Sonic resitance + limited Blindsense
-Bolt from the sky
-Turn into lightning and zap from point A to point B. Not only great for closing distance but damages everything inbetween
Feat Wise: Furious Focus is always a nice one for 2Handers and Power Attack and Shield of Swings can help if you find yourself in need of AC.
are you taking an Archtype?
Power Attack+Two Handed Weapon is all you need to keep your damage competitive.
The rest is preferances:
You could go for a Reach weapon and pick up Combat Reflexes, if you want to.
You could pick up some Maneuver feat chains, trip is a solid one.
With your Starsoul stuff, I would pick Aasimar or Racial Heritage Aasimar and Angel Blood+Angel Wings to fly with my feats.
The Bloodline feats you get at lvl 7 and 11 could be Iron Will and Improved Iron Will.
VMC guides:
Amateur Night - A Guide to Variant Multiclassing
The ABCs of VMC - Variant Multiclassing and its discussion thread
Updated version of my original ratings of VMC options:
Core Classes
Barbarian (rated Green/Orange): Not too shabby in the first part; too bad the last 40% is gives you its stuff way too late.
Bard (rated Green): A solid VMC overall, although too bad Lore Master is stuck at 5th level.
Cleric (rated Orange): Has some potential use, but too bad it eats up 60% of itself getting Channel Energy (almost) up to speed. Since it invests so much in Channel Energy, you better have something specific you want to do with that . . . But you may not have enough feats left over to do so.
Druid (rated Green/Orange): Not too shabby in the first part; too bad the last 40% is gives you its stuff way too late.
Fighter (rated Orange/Green/Blue): With the release of the Weapon Master's Handbook and to a lesser extent the Armor Master's Handbook, this potentially got a LOT better, ASSUMING that it and classes other than Fighter (like Myrmidarch Magus) that offer Weapon Training can use this to get Advanced Weapon Training (which after several months of forum vetting seems to be the case). Bravery may be a relative waste for some classes, but Occult spellcasters will find it to be a good extra layer of security blanket. Do note that the best part, Weapon Training, only comes online at 11th level, which really hurts this if total character level is limited like in PFS, although for Occult gishes, it is potentially still worth considering.
Monk (rated Red/Orange): This is just BAD; if you can figure out how to stack its Ki Pool onto a class that can use Ki (Ninja, Magus with Ki Arcana), you just might be able to rescue something out of it, although it still seems not very good.
Paladin (rated Red) This suffers from all of the Paladin's abilities (other than Detect Evil) being severely nerfed and/or very late.
Ranger (rated Red): Track is good, but otherwise, this suffers from very limited Favored Enemy and Favored Terrain, and from Woodland Stride, Swift Tracker, and Quarry being later.
Rogue (rated Green/Orange): This one starts out pretty nice, and can make Arcane Trickster builds really work -- too bad the last 40% is stuff that you needed so much earlier that comes so late as to be only mediocre.
Sorcerer (rated Red/Orange/Green): In most cases, the Eldritch Heritage feat chain is better IF you can qualify for it, because VMC Sorcerer gives you the 9th level Bloodline Power that you probably really want **6** levels late instead of just 2 levels late, and the 15th level Bloodline Power is 4 levels late. On the other hand, if you are not a Charisma-based character, you probably won't be able to qualify for the later Eldritch Heritage feats. Of course, in some cases, you only want a couple of the Bloodline Powers anyway.
Wizard (rated up to Brilliant Blue): This is extremely dependent upon the particulars of your build interacting with your choice of Arcane School and Subschool, but if you put it together right, you can have awesomeness -- and not necessarily just for spellcasters.
Base Classes
Alchemist (rated Green/Orange): Not too shabby in the first part; too bad the last 40% is gives you its stuff way too late.
Cavalier (rated Green): A bit late on some of the abilities (especially the Order Abilities), but not terrible.
Gunslinger (rated Red -- I'd rate it Double-Red if I could): Somehow, this one manages to give you everything too late to be of use. Just dip Gunslinger instead.
Inquisitor (rated Orange): After a promising start with Stern Gaze, this gives you the rest of its stuff too late.
Magus (rated up to Blue): Arcane Pool progression only slightly delayed, 3 Magus Arcana, and Spellstrike -- what could go wrong? If you are not a spellcaster (or at least able to do a convincing j9b of faking it), 11th level will be a dead level for you; if you are a spellcaster, but your spell list does not have good overlap with the Magus spell list, you will need the Arcana Broad Study for Spellstrike to really kick in, and it will be late doing so. Another trap is that VMC Magus gives you an effective Magus level for qualifying for Arcana, but not for determining their effect, which makes Arcana like Maneuver Mastery silently fail to work. If you can avoid these problems, though, you are in good shape; note that if your primary class gives you an effective Magus level (such as Blade Adept Arcanist), you can get around the last problem (and conveniently, this primary class choice also gets you around the other problems, upgrading VMC Magus to Brilliant Blue rating if not for the fact that in a Blade Adept Arcanist build, you will be feat-starved -- see this build, and also see some of the following posts).
Oracle (rated up to Green): Despite your effective Oracle level for taking and using Revelations being **6** levels behind, you can find some gems that do not depend upon your Oracle level; too bad 7th level goes to an Orison, and 11th level is wasted partially making up for your half-speed Oracle's Curse progression.
Summmoner (rated Red/Orange): This suffers from all of the Summoner's abilities (other than Detect Evil) being severely nerfed and/or late. Check your primary class for archetypes from the Monster Summoner's Handbook -- some of them do a much better job than this. Then again, some of them do not.
Witch (rated Red -- I'd rate it Double-Red if I could): I really tried to think of a way to save this, but apart from the Familiar, it gives you everything too nerfed and too late. If you have a primary class or archetype thereof that offers Hex, you are better off taking Extra Hex multiple times than using VMC Witch.
Classes Without VMC Options
All ACG classes.
All Occult classes.
Vigilante.
All archetypes, even of all classes that have VMC options.
Any class that is the same as the one you chose as your primary class, even if you chose an archetype thereof (which is sometimes unfortunate, because, for instance, it would be nice if you could choose an archetype of Fighter that trades out Bravery, Armor Training, and Weapon Training, and then exchange 5 feats to get back some of the ranks of these features by way of VMC Fighter).
UnArcaneElection -- What did you intend to say about the Summoner VMC? It looks like part of it was copy/pasted from the Paladin VMC comment.
I'm experimenting with it right now actually.
My plan is a half-orc Alchemist going into Master Chymist Prestige class. Losing some feats hurts of course, but the fact that Mutagen stats and Rage stack... make this a really fun combo. Also, the Barbarian abilities are really worth a feat. I don't feel cheated on those added abilities.
I do agree that a lot of them look like trap options, and I was confused about the effect my prestige class has on it at first. But the idea that VMC isn't attached to a 'base class' but the character level cleared that up a lot. Those extra abilities/Feat loss kick in on the character levels, regardless of what else you dip into wasn't something I found clear on first reading.
Appreciate. Also I apologize for being tetchy last night. Probably better not to post that close to my midnight.
VMC guides:
Amateur Night - A Guide to Variant Multiclassing
The ABCs of VMC - Variant Multiclassing and its discussion threadUpdated version of my original ratings of VMC options:
Core Classes
Barbarian (rated Green/Orange): Not too shabby in the first part; too bad the last 40% is gives you its stuff way too late.
Bard (rated Green): A solid VMC overall, although too bad Lore Master is stuck at 5th level.
Cleric (rated Orange): Has some potential use, but too bad it eats up 60% of itself getting Channel Energy (almost) up to speed. Since it invests so much in Channel Energy, you better have something specific you want to do with that . . . But you may not have enough feats left over to do so.
Druid (rated Green/Orange): Not too shabby in the first part; too bad the last 40% is gives you its stuff way too late.
Fighter (rated Orange/Green/Blue): With the release of the Weapon Master's Handbook and to a lesser extent the Armor Master's Handbook, this potentially got a LOT better, ASSUMING that it and classes other than Fighter (like Myrmidarch Magus) that offer Weapon Training can use this to get Advanced Weapon Training (which after several months of forum vetting seems to be the case). Bravery may be a relative waste for some classes, but Occult spellcasters will find it to be a good extra layer of security blanket. Do note that the best part, Weapon Training, only comes online at 11th level, which really hurts this if total character level is limited like in PFS, although for Occult gishes, it is potentially still worth considering.
Monk (rated Red/Orange): This is just BAD;...
Thank you for the Data and Crunchy numbers
UnArcaneElection -- What did you intend to say about the Summoner VMC? It looks like part of it was copy/pasted from the Paladin VMC comment.
OOPS! Dain Bramage! It was indeed copy/pasted, but would have worked if only I had replaced the other piece that needed replacement. It should read:
Summmoner (rated Red/Orange): This suffers from all of the Summoner's abilities (including evolution of your Eidolon) being severely nerfed and/or late. Check your primary class for archetypes from the Monster Summoner's Handbook -- some of them do a much better job than this. Then again, some of them do not.
By the way, has anyone done official VMC for ACG and Occult classes and Vigilante? All I found were these Messageboard threads:
By the way, has anyone done official VMC for ACG and Occult classes and Vigilante? All I found were these Messageboard threads:
Support for VMC was dropped faster than a rocket full of monkeys, so no. There are some 3pp options that expand on it I think but otherwise you may as well be waiting for updates on ninja or samurai.
Support for VMC was dropped faster than a rocket full of monkeys, so no. There are some 3pp options that expand on it I think but otherwise you may as well be waiting for updates on ninja or samurai.By the way, has anyone done official VMC for ACG and Occult classes and Vigilante? All I found were these Messageboard threads:
Rogue genius games has a nice book on it. Expands it to not just to the advanced Class book but also for several Prestiege classes.
They also added Dedicated VMCing which gives up most of your feats for more class abilities including some spellcasting. (you get your 1st level feat and the rest are replaced with Class abilities)
EX: A Fighter with Dedicated VMC Sorcerer for example by 17th level would be able to cast 4th level spells, on top of the normal VMC benefits. But he has given up pretty much all of his feats
Support for VMC was dropped faster than a rocket full of monkeys, so no. There are some 3pp options that expand on it I think but otherwise you may as well be waiting for updates on ninja or samurai.By the way, has anyone done official VMC for ACG and Occult classes and Vigilante? All I found were these Messageboard threads:
"... dropped faster than a rocket full of monkeys" Awesome phrase, I'll have to remember it.