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So, recently played 7-27 Beyond Azlant ridge. If you play PFS, and you haven't played that scenario, please stop reading, there be spoilers ahead.
So anyone still reading should note that you get an item called "Slitherbane," an intelligent Heavy Flail, and I love the concept. I love that it is an intelligent item that you don't have to fork all the money out for off the bat, that you can upgrade its abilities over time, I really want to build a character around it.
There are a few problems though. First and foremost is that Slitherbane can't be improved past a +1 weapon, and this is a huge deal because it means that he can't overcome DR silver/cold irom/Adamantine because he can never get up to a +3 (or +4) weapon on his own.
So, when building a character around weilding Slitherbane, here are the restrictions:
1) Character has to be LN or LG (characters that wield an intelligent weapon that differs from their alignment take a negative level)(Source)
2) In order to compensate for the fact that slitherbane will only ever be a +1 weapon, you need to find some other way to enhance his enchantment bonus. There are a few ideas I have, but all of them are flawed, and I'd welcome other ideas.
A) Paladin/Grey Paladin. "Divine Bond" feature of a Paladin allows them to increase the Enhancement bonus of their weapon by +1, and by +2 later. Additionally, a Paladin's smite overcomes all DR, which reduces the need to further enchant the weapon in the first place.
Downside: Limited to 1 or 2 uses a day in PFS, takes standard action to activate.
B)Magus. The Magus ability to enhance their melee weapon is probably the most liberal ability and the best one out there. They get multiple times a day (limited by their arcane pool only) and it lasts a minute, only takes a swift action to activate.
Downside: The Magus playstyle is centered around spell-combat, and the heavy flail doesn't allow a magus to spell combat because it is a two-handed weapon.
b-2) One cure for the Magus downside is to take two levels of Titan Mauler to use the Dire Flail 1 handed, then convert to LN (loosing most of your barbarian powers, but keeping Jotengrip) and then become a magus. Pretty lackluster solution, but it works.
C)Warpriest: Pretty simple. Starting at level 4, you can spend a swift action to enhance your favored weapon for 1 round, number of rounds/day equal to your level.
Downside: Limited to (level) rounds per day, which is a pretty short amount of time.
D)Occultist (transmutation implement) So using Sligherbane as your transmutation implement is pretty friggin great. and you can increase his bonus by 1 (or 2 at level 6+), or even add ANY ability you want. This could skyrocket you to a +4 if you did it right (+1 base, +1 additional, +2 if you correctly bane)
Downside: Standard action to activate, requires dumping a majority of your mental focus into your weapon.
So-Those are my thoughts on what you can do to make Slitherbane Viable until level 12. Does anyone else have any ideas on what to do with him?
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Paladin Smite is a swift, not standard action to activate. You get additional Smite uses at levels 1, 4, 7, 10 and 13. (The Silver Smite Bracelet is your friend, it raises your paladin level for smite purposes by 4.)
Celestial Bloodline bloodrager/celestial bloodline for barbarians helps you overcome DR/evil, which also gets you past many "or Evil" DR.
It's also just a heavy flail, so Strength/2H Power Attack means you could just brute force it.
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Paladin Smite is a swift, not standard action to activate. You get additional Smite uses at levels 1, 4, 7, 10 and 13. (The Silver Smite Bracelet is your friend, it raises your paladin level for smite purposes by 4.)
Celestial Bloodline bloodrager/celestial bloodline for barbarians helps you overcome DR/evil, which also gets you past many "or Evil" DR.
It's also just a heavy flail, so Strength/2H Power Attack means you could just brute force it.
Sorry, I meant it was a standard action for a Paladin to use their level 5 divine bond power to increase the abilities of a weapon.
Remember, not all creatures you are going to be going up against are evil. Mages with stoneskin, Golems, etc. I was looking for ways to increase the efficicasy of the weapon, give it more bonuses to hit to scale with your level.
You are right though, brute forcing it with a bloodrager (remember, you have to be LN/LG if you don't want that negative level) could be an option, though never getting beyond that +1 might start hurting your to hit/to damage.
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Can you re-size the weapon and then use it with Magus?
MDC
PFS rules as written, I don't think so. I mean, if you buy it with a small character it becomes a small weapon, but I don't think you can buy it as a small weapon with a medium-sized character. Even if you could, you'd eat a -2 to hit every time you used it for 'improperly sized.'
