I stumbled upon these Spear Dancing Style feats and ideas started working in my head on using a build like this. The idea of a nimble scout fighter using a spear like a quarterstaff and darting around the battlefield is pretty cool in my opinion. However I've been out of Pathfinder for a few years and may be missing some critical feats or classes that could benefit it more.
Right now I was leaning towards a Hunter build but would like to know if this build would be pretty good to use. We rolled stats, which I was going to use on my Hunter but would use these possibly. 18,16,15,14,13,12 all before Racial mods.
Starting with Half-Elf, using the alternate racial trait swap of Adaptability for Weapon Familiarity.
Starting with Fighter, then 4 Unchained Rogue levels with Scout/Swashbuckler archetypes. Fighter I can't decide if I want to give up Armor Training for an Archetype or not. I'll have a really high dex and I know the campaign will be magic item scarce.
1. Fighter- Two Weapon Fighting, Weapon Focus Elven Branched Spear.
2. Scout/Swash- Weapon Finesse (free), Spear Dancing Style.
3. Scout/Swash- Spear Dancing Spiral
4. Scout/Swash-
5. Scout/Swash- Spear Dancing Reach, Combat Reflexes.
6. Fighter- Spear Dancer.
7. Fighter- Lunge.
8. Fighter- Dodge?
9. Fighter- Mobility?
So at 4th level I'll have Dex to damage as well as on my attacks.
5th level I'll be able to charge and deal sneak attack damage and have debilitating injury. 7th level I'll get an extra +1 dex allowance to my armor by Armor Training. 9th level I'll have Weapon Training.
Feat wise I'm unsure if I should grab Spring Attack chain before I get Weapon Specialization and Improved Critical and Improved Initiative. Elven Battle Training would give me another AoO amount but I'm not even sure if that's needed or not.
Traits, the only one coming to mind right now is the +2 Initiative one, could probably use a Will Save trait.
Only things I would love to have in this would be Solo Tactics, Teamwork feats and Spellcasting to get Enlarge Person, Longarm and movement based spells.
I'd love to hear anyone's thoughts on making this build work better or faster.
I'm not a big fan of the Spear Dancing Style because you give up reach, which is the point of having a reach build and incur TWF penalties. I think you are far better off dipping monk/brawler/or paladin (Ironian) to pick up Improved Unarmed Strike which will help you threaten everything. I also wouldn't bother with dodge/mobility they seem like traps to me if you aren't going all the way to combat patrol. Better to go for Power Attack feat chains.
I would also strongly recommend Phalanx Formation to avoid softcover with reach. Dragon Style to help with the scout archetype for charging (Scaled monk gets early access without meeting the STR requirement though my build below does not exploit this). Grab UMD for a wand of enlarge or long arm.
If you are worried about AC and aren't going monk you can also do Shield Focus and Shield Brace so you can hold a shield in one hand and spear in the other.
I built a UnMonk 1 / Paladin 2 / UnRogue 8 build that is an Intimidate, Switch hitting full dex to damage reach build. You can check it out here:
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2u33l?Paladin-2-UnMonk-1-8-UnRogue-DEX-Intimida te#1
Red Griffyn wrote: I'm not a big fan of the Spear Dancing Style because you give up reach, which is the point of having a reach build and incur TWF penalties. I think you just haven't gone far enough in the chain, the last feat gives you reach back again.
I am a big fan of the spear dancing style feats, mostly because of another feat called Martial Versatility though. It allows you to do very interesting things with this style chain, although it encourages you to not use spears so i guess that doesn't help this build.
I recommend you look at the quarterstaff feats since the second Spear Dancing Style feat lets you apply them to your chosen spear.
Quarterstaff Master in particular will let you use your spear as a one-handed weapon, there are also another couple quarterstaff feats that will give you trip bonuses.
Thanks Ridiculon, I was going to mention to Red Griffyn that he might have not seen the part about Spear Dancing Reach giving me the option of having Reach property on one end of the "double weapon" part of my spear, leaving me the ability to attack close foes and reach foes until the end of my turn.
However now that I'm thinking about it, if that part is only until the end of my turn, I'm losing the ability to attack creatures outside my threatened area if they are more than 5ft away. I'll have to spend another swift action to get reach back again on one end or end the style.
I'm going to have to rethink this again.
if you dip 3 levels into unchained rogue you can get 1.5xdex to damage
Lady-J wrote: if you dip 3 levels into unchained rogue you can get 1.5xdex to damage I did have 3+ levels of Unchained Rogue, I also used the Scout & Swashbuckler archetype for it.
I'm now trying to search for Quarterstaff feats besides, Quarterstaff Master, Tripping Twirl and Tripping Staff. I'm not seeing those last 2 as particularly useful to the combat style I'm wanting.
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The quarterstaff thing is mostly applicable to multiclassing with (Unchained) Monk, since you can then use Flurry of Blows with your Spear Dancing weapon.
If you do that, Spear Dancing Style and TWF become unnecessary (except as prerequisites); you upgrade from normal TWF mechanics to two-handed flurry strikes, which have no attack penalty and get full two-handed bonuses - including Power Attack, which is payed for by not taking the TWF penalty and which dramatically ups damage. You also don't need Spear Dancing Reach anymore, since you're using Spear Dancing Style purely for the flurry and aren't wielding your weapon as a double weapon.
If you can use the Weaponmaster's Handbook, there's an Advanced Weapon Training ability called 'Trained Grace' that gives you a major damage bonus for using Weapon Finesse, but adding STR damage - it basically makes dipping Unchained Rogue unnecessary. There's also an Advanced Weapon Training ability called 'Defensive Weapon Training' that grants you a shield bonus from a weapon. So a Trained Grace Weapon Master Fighter with one level of Unchained Monk could flurry an elven spear while wearing no armor, using their DEX and a weapon-block ability for AC; and they could use Weapon Finesse to attack, and some STR and a huge extra 'grace' bonus for damage.
EDIT: The Weapon Master Fighter can grab Advanced Weapon Training abilities (with the Advanced Weapon Training feat) over and over again even in early levels, which helps a lot on a build like this. Plus they have stronger Weapon Training to use with it all.
BadBird wrote: The quarterstaff thing is mostly applicable to multiclassing with (Unchained) Monk, since you can then use Flurry of Blows with your Spear Dancing weapon.
If you do that, Spear Dancing Style and TWF become unnecessary (except as prerequisites); you upgrade from normal TWF mechanics to two-handed flurry strikes, which have no attack penalty and get full two-handed bonuses - including Power Attack, which is payed for by not taking the TWF penalty and which dramatically ups damage. You also don't need Spear Dancing Reach anymore, since you're using Spear Dancing Style purely for the flurry and aren't wielding your weapon as a double weapon.
If you can use the Weaponmaster's Handbook, there's an Advanced Weapon Training ability called 'Trained Grace' that gives you a major damage bonus for using Weapon Finesse, but adding STR damage - it basically makes dipping Unchained Rogue unnecessary. There's also an Advanced Weapon Training ability called 'Defensive Weapon Training' that grants you a shield bonus from a weapon. So a Trained Grace Weapon Master Fighter with one level of Unchained Monk could flurry an elven spear while wearing no armor, using their DEX and a weapon-block ability for AC; and they could use Weapon Finesse to attack, and some STR and a huge extra 'grace' bonus for damage.
EDIT: The Weapon Master Fighter can grab Advanced Weapon Training abilities (with the Advanced Weapon Training feat) over and over again even in early levels, which helps a lot on a build like this. Plus they have stronger Weapon Training to use with it all.
So if I'm understanding some of what you're saying correctly I could do something like this?
1.Unchained Monk Archetype Monk of the Mantis- Weapon Focus Elven Spear; Combat Reflexes (monk)
2.Scout/Swash Unchained Rogue- Two Weapon Fighting; Weapon Finesse
3.Scout/Swash Unchained Rogue- Spear Dancing Style; Spear Dancing Spiral.
4.Weapon Master Fighter- Spear Dancing Reach
5.Monk of the Mantis- Spear Dancer
6.Weapon Master Fighter- Phalanx Formation
7.Scout/Swash- Lunge
8.Scout/Swash- Shield Focus
9.Weapon Master Fighter- Unhindering Shield
10.Weapon Master Fighter- Advanced Weapon Training feat...
So on a charge at 8th level, I can add my sneak attack. On a Flurry of Blows I can also do 3d6 sneak attack which I assume means I'll need to have a flanked/feinted/flatfooted opponent. Also I can Flurry with my Elven Branch Spear with Reach as well as Lunge farther out with it. And have Weapon Training with it too. Also threaten any close range foes.
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I don't think you would threaten at close range unless you were wielding the spear as a double weapon, since that's what makes you lose the reach property; and I don't know if you could actually wield it as a double weapon while using it to flurry - if so, it would be under-powered because you're flurrying one end only. Either way, you wouldn't be able to threaten both reach and close at the same time, because they involve wielding the weapon in different ways. I was assuming a build like that would just use it as a reach weapon in general.
Anyhow, the build I've been thinking of trying would be more like:
Weapon Master Fighter 8/ Unchained Monk 1
Half-Elf (Ancestral Arms): 14STR, 15/17DEX, 14CON, 10INT, 14WIS, 8CHA
1UM. +Weapon Finesse / +M: Combat Reflexes / +Ancestral Arms: Fauchard (1d10, 18-20x2, reach)
2WM. *Chosen Weapon: Fauchard* / +Weapon Focus: Fauchard
3WM. Two-Weapon Fighting / Spear Dancing Style
4WM. *Weapon Training: +1*
5WM. Power Attack / +Spear Dancing Spiral
6WM.
7WM. Advanced Weapon Training: Trained Grace / +Advanced Weapon Training: Defensive Weapon Training
8WM. *Weapon Training: +2*
9WM. +Advanced Weapon Training: Spirit Warrior / Improved Critical: Fauchard
From levels 1-4, you wield a fauchard in two hands for all single attacks and reach attacks (using your 14STR and Focus), while using finesse unarmed strikes for flurry attacks. Once you hit level 5, you go full-on finesse fauchard combat, and Power Attack plus two-handed STR makes you very deadly with it. By level 8 you start to pick up a +4 damage bonus from Weapon Training and Trained Grace, and as soon as you can get Gloves of Dueling, Trained Grace makes your Weapon Training bonus a +8. Defensive Weapon Training grants a shield bonus; once you have a +2 weapon and Gloves of Dueling, your shield bonus from your weapon is a +3. Spirit Warrior lets you add a great bonus to a weapon a few times/day - you can even add the Bane property to it to ruin someone's day. You do threaten at close range with unarmed strike, though it's quite weak compared to your scythe-spear weapon.
If you want to keep Sneak Attack, you can use two levels of Mantis Monk and take Accomplished Sneak Attacker for a 2d6 total; but the idea with this build is to push Weapon Training up as fast as possible, since things like Spirit Warrior and Trained Grace stack with high Fighter level for major power.
Eigengrau wrote: Lady-J wrote: if you dip 3 levels into unchained rogue you can get 1.5xdex to damage I did have 3+ levels of Unchained Rogue, I also used the Scout & Swashbuckler archetype for it.
I'm now trying to search for Quarterstaff feats besides, Quarterstaff Master, Tripping Twirl and Tripping Staff. I'm not seeing those last 2 as particularly useful to the combat style I'm wanting. then why is your str higher than your dex?
I might have caused some confusion about my stats I'm first post. Those scores are before any racial mods and are not in any order. I still have a +2 to add in and was planning on going dex based. Hence the reason for unchained rogue 3 levels. I went 4 levels to get the extra combat trick feat and to be able to sneak attack on a charge.
so you should have 15,18,16,14,13,12 and bump dex up to 20 with the racials for +5 dex at level 1 and stick with vanilla fighter for armor training and weapon training for AAT and AWT eventually
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