Devout Swash-Barian of the Drunken God!


Advice

Dark Archive

So I'm about to start a multi-campaign adventure with a brand new character, and I'm revisiting an idea I had during the advanced class guide play test. I'm attempting to build a swashbuckler-barbarian character, who's a devout worshippers of Cayden Cailean. I have a decent concept down on paper, but I'm looking to see if you guys have any ideas to make it a "tighter" build, meaning, is there any kind of funky combo that fits the general idea, or a different set of rage powers that would fit better? Basically, here's what I have, what all can you think of to make it better? The build I'm thinking is an intimidation build to debuff in combat, and to eventually pull enemies off of party members with boasting taunt, and then use opportune parry and riposte to keep them from attacking me and to hit them back. With the build currently, once I hit the eighth level of barbarian I'll be looking at terrifying howl.

Human Inspired Blade Swashbuckler/ Urban Barbarian
(Favored Class Bonus: Barbarian, +1 Skill Point, Escape Artist)
25 Point buy:

Str: 13
Dex: 16 (Racial Bonus for Human)
Con: 14
Int: 14
Wis: 12
Cha: 14

Traits:
--Indomitable Faith: +1 to Will Saves
--Accelerated Drinker: Drink potions as a move action as long as you started the round with it in your hand (GM is allowing this to apply to alcoholic beverages as well)

Skills:
Acrobatics
Bluff
Diplomacy
Escape Artist (Barbarian Favored Class Skill Point)
Intimidate
Perception
Survival

Level up plan:
1st: Swashbuckler, Swash. Finesse, Weapon Focus Rapier, Fencing Grace, Power Attack
2nd: Swashbuckler, Charmed Life 3/day
3rd: Barbarian, Raging Vitality (or Extra Rage), Rage, Crowd Control
4th: Barbarian, Abil. Score Inc.- Cha, Good for What Ails You, Uncanny Dodge
5th: Swashbuckler, Extra Rage Power- Lesser Chaos Totem, Nimble +1
6th: Swashbuckler, Weapon Specialization- Rapier
7th: Swashbuckler, Combat Reflexes, Swashbuckler Weapon Training +1
8th: Barbarian, Abil. Score Inc.-Cha, Trap Sense +1
9th: Barbarian, Rage Power- Chaos Totem -or- Intimidating Glare, Iron Will?
10th: Barbarian, Improved Uncanny Dodge
11th: Barbarian, Rage Power- Boasting Taunt, Improved Iron Will?

Dark Archive

I'm also possibly considering going the improvised weapon route, and possibly using a flask in my off hand as a weapon, but it's looking extremely feat intensive and would require quite the rebuild. Hmmm....


Any time your off-hand is occupied fencing grace turns off so that flask doesn't sound terribly useful.

To tighten up the build I'd make the swashbuckler a 1-level dip. Extra rage & extra rage power become unnecessary. And/or, replace barbarian with primalist urban bloodrager. A few spells make life easier.

Dark Archive

avr wrote:

Any time your off-hand is occupied fencing grace turns off so that flask doesn't sound terribly useful.

To tighten up the build I'd make the swashbuckler a 1-level dip. Extra rage & extra rage power become unnecessary. And/or, replace barbarian with primalist urban bloodrager. A few spells make life easier.

Yeah, the flask would take way too much of a rebuild and complete overhaul of the character to be a feasible option, so I quickly decided against it. There's already going to be two full casters in the party (a wizard and an arcanist who uses one of the gun-archetypes) so I decided on going full blown melee. Otherwise I was going to go bloodrager and roleplay his spells as being a cleric of Cayden.

The one level dip idea does sound nice. I was actually going to focus more on the swashbuckler levels than barbarian in the first iteration of the build, but they keep getting less and barbarian keeps getting more every time I go through the level progression. The only issue is that I want the character to be very much the agile duelist type, and those extra Swash levels really help that concept and provide quite a bit of free extra damage for the rapier. However, I'm really leaning toward a one level dip and calling it a day.


I've always thought swash/3 was the perfect number to get the fencer feel, but then I'm an avid lover of multiclassing, so that may just be me.


I would recommend Unchained Barbarian. Instead of an increase to an ability score, it just increases your attack and damage directly so you don't have to worry about stats. Just a +1 difference, but hey, you never know.

Your charisma is high, I suppose if you're gonna rebuild you can save yourself a couple points there by lowering it.


I would have a hard time doing this concept without going Drunken Rager on the Barbarian side and picking up Cayden Cailean's Blade and Tankard Divine Fighting Technique for the low price of buckler proficiency on the Swashbuckler side.

I'd certainly grab the divine fighting technique *regardless*, as there's no penalty to using a buckler with a -0 ACP anyway - you may as well know it.


MageHunter wrote:
I would recommend Unchained Barbarian. Instead of an increase to an ability score, it just increases your attack and damage directly so you don't have to worry about stats. Just a +1 difference, but hey, you never know.

Also no threat of intantly dying when dropping out of rage. Only downside is no rage-altering archetypes like urban...


Urban Barbarian doesn't add to CON (unless you're taking CON instead of DEX, which makes no sense), so there's no issue with sudden CON loss.

The big advantage to Urban Barbarian over Unchained is that Unchained is taking a -2AC from Rage, while Urban is gaining +2AC from DEX. An overall 4-point gain to AC is a pretty big difference.

As far as Swashbuckler goes... everyone and their dog tends to jump on Inspired Blade, but while it's a nice archetype in many ways, never gaining Panache from a killing blow is a huge downside that people seem to miss at first (until they run into a crit-drought and realize they rely heavily on luck for their Panache supply).

Swashbuckler levels get +1/level Precise Strike damage, so they really add up as far as overall power goes. Barbarian levels... well, that depends on what kind of Rage Powers you're using - but ironically, there's nothing that really equates to the power of Precise Strike. So unless you have a good reason to stack up Barbarian levels, I'd potentially favor Swashbuckler and just take some Extra Rage. A Swashbuckler 8/ Barbarian 1 is going to have a massive +8 damage advantage over a Barbarian 8/ Swashbuckler 1 because of Precise Strike, and a bonus like that is an even bigger deal when we're talking about a character that gets only one-handed damage.


Bad News:

You won't be happy with the character you posted. With a Char of 14, you only have 2 points of panache. This makes it very difficult to parry/riposte multiple times -- plus, not having combat reflexes until level 7 also makes that difficult.

Here are my suggestions ...
Urban Barbarian for 2 levels
Swashbuckler for only one level.
Monk for 2 levels (Kata Master)

1st Swashbuckler -- panache, riposte
2nd Kata Master Monk -- flurry, using a weapon 2 handedly
3rd Unchained Barbarian

The rest of the levels are based on which aspects you value more.

Swashbuckler 1 .. gives you panache
Unchained Barbarian ... gives you rage / rage powers
Kata Master Monk ... Flurry with your weapon (cracked Ioun Stone gives you weapon familiarity with the chicken saber monk weapon)

Now ... the reason why you'd want to use this instead of the extra levels in swashbuckler for the extra damage from Precise Strike is that you wield your monk weapon in two hands (still regaining panache), which means power attack counts for a two-handed weapon, and you add additional damage from your high str.

Drawback ... you are using a 19-20 instead of a 18-20, and instead of gaining Improved Crit at level character level 7, you are gaining it at level 10.

Featwise, you'd want to move things around somewhat -- a level of monk gives you the will save bonus that Iron Will does (freeing up a feat), gaining combat reflexes earlier makes the riposte more attractive.

Lastly, I'd swap the Str 13 and the Dex 16 around as with these changes, you'll be more of a Str build.

Dark Archive

I considered the loss of a killing blow for panache pretty heavily, but that's why I decided on raising the charisma and the intelligence both so high, and also plan on investing in a headband of charisma pretty early. I may not get it back as fast, but I have a larger pool to play with. Still, pretty luck based as far as getting it back, but that's just a downside of the build. Currently I'm looking at 5 Swash levels for the precise strike damage, which I agree is the best part of a swashbuckler, and far outpaces anything a barbarian gets, especially for this build.

I love the look and feel of the blade and tankard technique, but it would completely nullify fencing grace, wouldn't it? I don't see any rulings that allow the tankard to "count" as a buckler, even though you're replacing proficiency. Add that to the fact that you're fighting with it and it counts as a hammer, and as a GM I would say that using it disallows using fencing grace at the same time. Otherwise, it's a massively good roleplay device that also sounds good mechanically. If there were a way to get slashing grace to work for a rapier, it would be worth going the two weapon fighting route since this is a Dex build anyway. I'm still working on an alternate build idea with this and the drunken rager archetype to see if I can make it work.

I've done quite a few changes to the original progression, but all my notes are at home and I'm away from them currently. The biggest is that it's looking more like swashbuckler 5, barbarian 6, and I took the chaos totem stuff out. Instead, I take combat reflexes much earlier, the progression starts off with one level of Swash and two levels of Barb. The rage powers still focus on intimidation and alcohol.

I really, really, really wish I could take the drunken rager and urban barbarian at the same time. Alas, I cannot. I want urban more because I'm not losing AC, I'm gaining damage, and I'm not going all barbarian retarded and losing the ability to use skills and whatnot in rage. That being said, I'm working on a build that replaces Urban with Drunken to see what it looks like. It also uses the blade and tankard fighting style, so roleplay wise, it's probably much more thematic than the current. I just really, really, really hate losing out on Dex to damage for this.

My biggest issue with the monk build is... Why on Golarion would an extremely devout worshipper of Cayden Cailean use a... chicken saber?

I'm really liking these suggestions. I'm getting a lot of inspiration here, and mechanical ideas as well. Keep 'em coming!


Fencing Graceno longer works withflurry so there is no point in taking levels of Kata Master.

I'd agree with Bad bird that a 1 leveldip into barbarian will be your best bet. However I'd go with Savage technologist as that gets you +2 to wil saves alongside +2 to hit and damge and AC fro rage.

Dark Archive

So what is everyone's opinion on a dirty trick focused unchained rogue 4 / drunken rager barbarian 16 build? Four levels of rogue for Dex to damage and two rogue tricks (which can be used to help the dirty trick tree get rolling), then barbarian the rest of the way for the drinking rage powers, and to get into cornugon smash and shatter defenses for the sneak attack damage and fun. This idea makes use of the blade and tankard fighting style. I may be looking at less damage, but the debuffs and effects from the dirty tricks could be fun. Still sticking with the devout warrior of Cayden theme. I'll come up with a build
progression chart to see what it looks like in a little bit.
Any ideas to help make it work before I get started?

Ideas for the original build idea are still welcome, I haven't completely abandoned it. I'm just making multiple types of buds off the same theme to see which one has the best combination of roleplaying potential and mechanical awesomeness.


Dump strength to boost up dex and get rid of power attack. Power attack is not nearly as strong when you do it one handed and the attack penalty really hurts when you have good flat damage from your class.

Sovereign Court

Gulthor wrote:
I would have a hard time doing this concept without going Drunken Rager on the Barbarian side and picking up Cayden Cailean's Blade and Tankard Divine Fighting Technique for the low price of buckler proficiency on the Swashbuckler side.

At first glance this seems to shut down Fencing Grace... but this is for fighters or swashbucklers... am I missing something? maybe it's meant for STR-based swashbucklers a.k.a. Porthos? I mean, the free Weapon Finesse would be wasted but that's it right? (wondering if some Swash archetypes trade out Weapon Finesse now... heheheh)


Unchained dex-to-damage only applies to one weapon (until 11), so it won't work with tankard damage; Dirty Trick would potentially work, though you're then running into issues with refilling the tankard and with making combat maneuvers stick on a character with penalties to CMB from TWF and BAB, and no real bonuses on the attack rolls unless you scrounge for things like Weapon Focus: Tankard.

One thing that could work very well for a Cayden disciple would be a rapier flurrying Sacred Fist with some Bloodrager.


As far as refilling a tankard goes, once you can afford it a Cailean Fighting Tankard holds 6 separate drinks. Which should be enough for one fight even with quick dirty trick. The right sort of rage does give bonuses to your CMB too.

Dark Archive

BadBird wrote:

Unchained dex-to-damage only applies to one weapon (until 11), so it won't work with tankard damage; Dirty Trick would potentially work, though you're then running into issues with refilling the tankard and with making combat maneuvers stick on a character with penalties to CMB from TWF and BAB, and no real bonuses on the attack rolls unless you scrounge for things like Weapon Focus: Tankard.

One thing that could work very well for a Cayden disciple would be a rapier flurrying Sacred Fist with some Bloodrager.

There seems to be a debate over whether or not you can enchant a fighting tankard with the agile property, which removes the issue of no Dex on off hand. I'm still trying out different build ideas to see if I can make that work


Incidentally, Boasting Taunt can be foiled by mind-affecting or language-dependent issues, or by a creature that will accept 'shaken' as the cost of continuing to snack on easy prey. Terrifying Howl will work in combo with it, but at that point you've spent two rounds not fighting.

Just to throw it out there, you can do some very intense dual-rapier (Effortless Lace) stuff with a Swash-Barian type. It's not quite 'iconic Cayden', but wielding two rapiers and running the Elemental Rage stuff with Scarred Rager Rage Cycling would be devastating. Instead of trying to pull enemies off of allies at higher levels, you just Beast Totem pounce on the offender with two rapiers that deal +2d6, +1d10(crit) elemental damage. It doesn't involve getting drunk in battle really, but wielding two swords burning with elemental death seems pretty 'godly avatar'. It would need to be strength-based with 17DEX, but doing the Scarred Rager cycling thing makes stat-distribution much easier than on a normal 15CON-required Barbarian.

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