Note: You have to search for "Shaman Enhancement" (not "Shamanic Enhancement") to find this.
Yeah, I've noticed that, but couldn't figure it out - the book says "shamanic", as does the PFS aadditional recourses page, but both d20pfsrd and AoN list it as "shaman". Anyone has any idea why?
I've also been debating the merits of Paired Opportunist for such a build.
In theoretical DPR calculations it's gonna do a lot of damage. But I reckon that in many instances where you score a critical hit with your two hander and your bloodthristy doggy takes a big bite you have likely suceeded at taking down your foe anyhow and won't be able to take extra AoO anyhow.
Yeah, but at higher levels, you are more likely to get enemies with enough hp where you get to use that dog bite. The dog might be the thing that does the finishing strike. That is more likely to happen since hunters do not have damage bonuses that get multiplied like a barbarian does- your dog is your bonus to damage.
Additionally, it is also possible to get this on any hit, such as after you move in on a foe. So your dog moves in to bite, you move in and crit, and then your dog gets another bite- a fairly good set of attacks after a move action, eh?
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Back to more useful advice. Sorry about the diversion.
I would talk about trample. For example.
Deinotherium has trample and sweep. Trample means it is really good at getting on the other side of enemies. Lessening, but not eliminating, the need for pack flanking. Sweep allows you to knock enemies prone which makes them easier to hit. These beasts can also use tusk blades so they can then us sense vital. This is true for mastodons and several other animals.
I would tend to give any multiclass that helped accuracy a higher rating than other classes. Brawler using dedicated adversary, barbarian, bloodrager (especially id ragers as you also get access to long arm for more aoo). The reasoning for the force on accuracy is this build is hit twice as hard by missing as any other build. So they will make you much more likely to confirm especially on iteratives.
I did see that amplified rage was purple which is a good call. The guide is coming along nicely.
For my outflank hunter, I like using the sense vitals spell in combination with Improved Spell Sharing. I ride my wolf, cast that spell, and split the duration between myself and him. That way we both get +2d6 sneak attack damage for a few rounds, and we're basically always flanking because I'm riding him.Sense vitals is for manufactured weapons only, how does that work for the AC ?
It doesn't, he's just not always on the up and up on some the rules that he uses. And it happens to us all sometimes, we just remember there's a spell that gives sneak attack and gloss over the limiter to the spell.
If you put prestige classes like mammoth rider in the guide, also consider evangelist of Erastil...
A second Animal Companion as a standard action is crazy good on any class that is focused on its AC, but a second AC on an outflank hunter that AC that has bonus teamwork feats it must be obscenely good
( Twin fang ability Evangelist of Erastil level 11)
Thanks, will update when I have time. Keep the suggestions coming!
I also plan to revise the single vs multiple attack and add a spell section.
Anything else that is missing?
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I've also been debating the merits of Paired Opportunist for such a build.
In theoretical DPR calculations it's gonna do a lot of damage. But I reckon that in many instances where you score a critical hit with your two hander and your bloodthristy doggy takes a big bite you have likely suceeded at taking down your foe anyhow and won't be able to take extra AoO anyhow.
Absolutely take Paired Opportunists -- it's the best martial feat in the game.
In fact, get rid of the rogue stuff and go fullbore 2hPA. You won't regret it.
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I'm noodling around with this concept right now: Ping, a half-orc (of Tian Xia human ancestry), with Pong, his animal companion. (Yeah: it's a terrible pun, but they're just working-titles for the moment.)
str 17 (15+racial, 20pt-buy half-orc)
dex 14
con 14
int 14
wis 12
cha 7
Racial Trait: Sacred Tattoo
Character traits: dirty fighter, fate’s favored
1 Barbarian1 (Savage Technologist and Drunken Brute archetypes) Combat Reflexes
2 Hunter1 (Primal Companion archetype)
3 Barbarian2 (rage power: Ferocious Beast) Power Attack
4 Cavalier1 (Order of the Seal) (teamwork feat Amplified Rage)
5 Fighter1 (drill sergeant archetype), Combat Expertise, Improved Trip
6 Hunter2 (precise companion: Outflank)
7 Cavalier2 (Keeper) Greater Trip
8 Hunter3 (hunter tactics)(teamwork feat: Paired Opportunists)
9 Fighter2 (drill sergeant: Pack Flanking, Improved Reposition), Boon Companion
10 Mammoth Rider1 (Gigantic Steed +2 Str, +2 Con)
11 Mammoth Rider2 (Colossus Hunter)(feat:Iron Will) Greater Reposition
12 Mammoth Rider3 (Gigantic Steed +4 Str)
Equipment: Champion’s Banner, Vambraces of the Tactician, Commander’s Helm (Teamwork: Precise Strike), Belt of Giant Strength +4 (belt), Opalescent White Pyramid (cracked, Fauchard), Fauchard (+1/Fortuitous/Keen)
Companion feats at 12th (5): Combat Reflexes, Power Attack, Improved Bull Rush, Greater Bull Rush, Quick Bull Rush
Teamwork feats shared by Hunter Tactics: Amplified Rage, Outflank, Pack Flanking, Paired Opportunists, Precise Strike
~ ~ ~
...No, you're not any good in cramped holes, but then you probably weren't going to be anyway as a mounted concept unless you're a halfling on a dog which is absolutely fine but nowhere near as awesome.
So all your teamwork fets come online level 8? Seems like you'll be be doing lots of pinging during your career...
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So all your teamwork fets come online level 8? Seems like you'll be be doing lots of pinging during your career...
Multiclass martial levels are Lego blocks; stack them in the order you like. Here's the rationale for the Ping Pong build's level-ordering:
#1: It was a DPR build attempting to cram as much stupid excess power as possible into a polearm barbarian Mammoth Rider pre-build. It was not a "get shared Teamwork feats fast" build, and is certainly the absolute antithesis of a straight-class mentality.
#2: There's little reason to rush Hunter's Tactics is you've little to share yet.
Level-by-level analysis:
1 Barbarian1 (Savage Technologist and Drunken Brute archetypes) Combat Reflexes (only one feat because we are a half-orc)
...Pure power out of the gate. AoO the whole goblin band as they charge up. Leave the rest of the party buffed with nothing to hit. (Nothing puts a goofier grin on your BSF face than pulling this off.)
2 Hunter1 (Primal Companion archetype)
...Get the mount and access to Lead Blades, Longstrider, CLW (etc).
3 Barbarian2 (rage power: Ferocious Beast) Power Attack
...Buff the mount and finish front-loading HP and rage rounds
4 Cavalier1 (Order of the Seal) (teamwork feat Amplified Rage)
...Double-stack rage bonus (this is why we are a half-orc); pick up a free trip or bull rush on every full-attack during a Challenge.
5 Fighter1 (drill sergeant archetype), Combat Expertise, Improved Trip
...There was little reason to trip prior to getting freebies.
6 Hunter2 (precise companion: Outflank)
...Not an interesting level, but at least we're BAB6 and pick up an iterative.
7 Cavalier2 (Keeper) Greater Trip
...Vambraces of the Tactician and a +1/Fortuitous weapon are front-burner budget items. Tactics: Challenge opponent in melee range; declare full-attack; take Order of Seal-granted free trip attempt; take Greater Trip AoO; take Fortuitous AoO; still have our two attacks left!
8 Hunter3 (hunter tactics)(teamwork feat: Paired Opportunists)
...Buy the mount a Fortuitous AoMF, and now it's getting two AoOs when we trip something. (Counting Ping's, this is six total damage attacks piling on the opponent now, not counting any maneuvers that the mount sends our way to bounce off of.)
9 Fighter2 (drill sergeant: Pack Flanking, Improved Reposition), Boon Companion
...begin working toward second maneuver chain (while mount is working on the bull rush chain).
10 Mammoth Rider1 (Gigantic Steed +2 Str, +2 Con)
11 Mammoth Rider2 (Colossus Hunter)(feat:Iron Will) Greater Reposition
...We'll be riding a huge megafauna companion (arsinoitherium or megaloceros) while Enlarged. Our buddy has +1/Furious/Keen tuskblades and is (usually) the recipient of Reach and Increased Damage evolutions at the start of combat. Any opponent will be the recipient of a Greater maneuver attempt, triggering another Greater maneuver attempt from the tagteam partner, triggering another Greater maneuver attempt, any one of which succeeding triggers Fortuitous attempts, i.e., unloading the whole reverberating avalanche on their head. -- Your basic pink mist explosion.
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I would skip all of it, the feat combo we are talking about generates (with a keen fortuitious weapon or crit focus) 4 attacks on a crit. If a pc is take primary, haste, iterative, and the animal is taking 3 natural attacks you're getting the combo off more than once a round. This climbs to 5 additional attacks a round if animal and pc add fortuitious weapons. Which is almost exactly the number off attacks is need to set the combo in motion again. If you need more than 16 attack in a round from a single pc to make a fight trivial that game to too hard for me.
A rage dip or brawler dip, maybe both could put the accuracy pretty high but that would be max. Spells can do a similar thing without taking 4 low will classes, having virtually no spell development, making your ac impossible to bring anywhere, and putting off the kill 3-5 bonus attack combo for 5 levels.
Unneeded optimization is waste.
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Wait, can the animal add Fortuitous? It says melee weapon only
Alternatively, this amulet can grant melee weapon special abilities, so long as they can be applied to unarmed attacks
UAS and Natural attacks should be fine. It would be different if it said manufactured weapons. For example agile uses melee weapon language and is very common on amulets.
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How does that wording imply no?
Unarmed strike are simple light weapons that are used in melee. Natural weapons are light weapons used in melee.
Relevant rules text.
Weapons are grouped into several interlocking sets of categories. These categories pertain to what training is needed to become proficient in a weapon's use (simple, martial, or exotic), the weapon's usefulness either in close combat (melee) or at a distance (ranged, which includes both thrown and projectile weapons), its relative encumbrance (light, one-handed, or two-handed), and its size (Small, Medium, or Large).
Melee and Ranged Weapons: Melee weapons are used for making melee attacks, though some can be thrown as well. Ranged weapons include thrown weapons or projectile weapons that are not effective in melee.
An unarmed strike is always considered a light weapon.
Here is the PDT on natural attacks as weapons
Weapons are melee or ranged. If they are melee they are light, one handed or two handed. These in the core rules book are fully named "Light Melee Weapons", "One-Handed Melee Weapons" or "Two-Handed Melee Weapons.
Wait, can the animal add Fortuitous? It says melee weapon only
Tusk blades are enhanced as melee weapons, and, unlike the sadly RAW-nerfed cestus (which monks have been griping about since time immemorial), they actually work as a component to natural attacks (such as a gore).
(To be kosher, I'll switch Fortuitous with Furious as I juggle the AoMF and the Tusk Blade enhancements.)
You dont need the tactician ability from drill instructor and cavalier to share the teamworkfeat amplified rage.
Actually I couldn't
even if I wanted to because the mount doesn't have orc blood (requirement)for Amplified Rage. Sharing it is the result of Hunter's Tactics, which ignores prerequisites. The two levels of fighter (Drill Sergeant) were there to get three feats with two class levels.
And you can’t rage for more than 4-5 rounds a day when you burn rounds on your mount as well. I would skip fighter and cavalier and focus on Hunter/Barbarian with extra rage feat.
I would skip all of it, the feat combo we are talking about generates (with a keen fortuitious weapon or crit focus) 4 attacks on a crit. If a pc is take primary, haste, iterative, and the animal is taking 3 natural attacks you're getting the combo off more than once a round. This climbs to 5 additional attacks a round if animal and pc add fortuitious weapons. Which is almost exactly the number off attacks is need to set the combo in motion again.The thing about the Greater maneuvers is that that they trigger freebies (AoOs from both of you (via Paired Opportunists). Therefore, the more Greater maneuver chains and other AoOs and freebie gimmicks (such as Order of the Seal) that you have, the greater the chance of triggering the whole mass enchilada every round. For instance, if you both you and your companion have a Greater maneuver ability and Paired Opportunists, any initial success triggers two AoOs, each of which can further greater Greater Maneuver attempts (and any misses are "backfilled" with subsequent attempts). Basically, you just can't miss getting ALL of them off every round versus anything with remotely appropriate AC-per-CR. (Ping Pong would have to roll like five or six ones in a row to get shut down in a round versus AC35 at 12th astride a megaloceros. If even the worst iterative connects, it unspools the entire chain of reverberating AoOs all taken at full attack bonus.)
If you need more than 16 attack in a round from a single pc to make a fight trivial that game to too hard for me.
Ping Pong was a pure supernova thought-exercise for one of those DPR threads I never got around to posting it to. I'd have to chuck out a fair amount to drag it toward a semblance of a realistic character. (E.g., Will save is currently atrocious, as you might imagine, etc.)
Then again, you never know when the Worldwound might open a fissure under your feet. If you can't dish out twelve-hundred right now, it might be the end of you!
Note: You have to search for "Shaman Enhancement" (not "Shamanic Enhancement") to find this.Yeah, I've noticed that, but couldn't figure it out - the book says "shamanic", as does the PFS aadditional recourses page, but both d20pfsrd and AoN list it as "shaman". Anyone has any idea why?
I wonder if they suffered the same Autocorrect Attack.
Finally got a chance to read this.
Archetypes and Dual Classing: Ranger: Something ("trading") is missing in the sentence "You are basically 5th and 6th level spells for some combat feats and a higher Base Attack Bonus".
İs there a reason for no one mentioning greater trip for one more aoo?
I am personally worried about the limits of my AoOs from the crits alone, since it seems to feed off of itself. It certainly makes tiger aspect appealing so you can guarantee good dex/AoO number.
Maybe if you were doing a reach build? But that requires a companion with reach to match up so you can do paired opportunist.
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It doesn't, he's just not always on the up and up on some the rules that he uses. And it happens to us all sometimes, we just remember there's a spell that gives sneak attack and gloss over the limiter to the spell.For my outflank hunter, I like using the sense vitals spell in combination with Improved Spell Sharing. I ride my wolf, cast that spell, and split the duration between myself and him. That way we both get +2d6 sneak attack damage for a few rounds, and we're basically always flanking because I'm riding him.Sense vitals is for manufactured weapons only, how does that work for the AC ?
In this specific case, I'm even forgetting to mention all of the moving gears of my hunter's build!
I also cast anthropomorphic animal on my wolf because it transforms my animal into a humanoid creature that retains its only real natural weapon (it's bite). I also bought him a Monk's Robe (no naked wolf monsters, plz), and part of gaining the monk's unarmed strike class feature allows my wolf to treat his unarmed strikes as manufactured weapons. So SNEAK ATTACK WOLF PUNCHES!
It isn't a PERFECT strategy—the anthropomrohpc animal spell is a little bit hazy about whether I can attack with my unarmed strikes and bite attacks at the same time because of those parenthesis—essentially, so few people have ever learned anthropomorphic animal at my local PFS, let alone cast it, that it sometimes causes some confusion. But so far every GM I've had has ruled in my favor, so it's worked out alright for me. (And yeah, the mounted combat rules are wonky; my Medium-sized hunter can technically piggy-back my wolf for mounted combat bonuses, what with the later's mid-20s Strength and all. Again, expect some table variance.)
But yeah, this is all a REALLY long way of saying, "Oops; sorry for not being clearer!"
Slim Jim, you can only challenge once a day at lvl 2 cavalier, I don't think it's worth really thinking about as a part of your analysis. I'd much rather sacrifice a challenge rider via Order of the Seal to instead take Mother's Fang. At level 2 this would net you 2 additional feats over what you have now, and you would get to ignore Int 13 requirements for combat maneuver feats and pack flanking.
First Mother's Fang is normally only open to nagaji, which means I can't be a half-orc sharing Amplified Rage with my mount. The giant snake is interesting, but superseded upon Mammoth Rider's huge megafauna. The build had two Challenges per day due to Vambraces of the Tactician raising effective level to 4 for Challenge considerations. Order of the Seal's freebie maneuver means I have additional regular attack devoted to damage (instead of the maneuver).
I could cobble something together with Racial Heritage, but forfeiting Seal's additional attack results in the loss of almost 70 per round versus a Challenged opponent at 12th. I can't imagine what one or two more tertiary feats I could pick up would be better than that.
Anyway, as noted previously, the build was a DPR concept for a specific purpose, not an idealized character.
For what it's worth, it's not actually restricted to any one race, you can still be a half-orc. And you don't have to use the snake, the companion levels stack once you take Mammoth Rider since that class replaces your existing pet choices
Pretty sure it's Naga only. And for PFS it definetly is... you could be a half orc with racial heritage. Considering all the feats you get for free this might actually be viable.
Nice guide. I have a level 7 strength based mounted Hunter using Broken Wing Gambit and thought I would share some thoughts.
1. Hidden near the top of the description of the Ride skill is the fact that you get -5 to ride checks when riding an animal that would not normally be a mount. That describes most of the common AC choices. Your AC will fight without needing a ride check but you will still need a DC 10 Guide With Knees check if you are using a 2 handed weapon. With that -5 penalty you can actually fail it early on.
2. As mentioned Ape gives you the option of fighting at reach but it isn't perfect because there is no sure fire way per RAW to threaten at reach and adjacent using a 2 handed weapon. So an enemy can avoid aoos from you by 5ft stepping closer to you.
3. Tiger was mentioned as a good choice because it gets lots of attacks. In fact there is a big downside to the tiger and a few other of the seemingly good options. They have Grab. And when grabbing an enemy they can't take aoos. In a home game your GM might allow you to spend a trick to prevent them from grabbing but there is no way to do so per RAW.
4. If you are mounted the skirmish trick Chameleon Stride is amazing. It let's your AC move twice it's speed as a single move. And the limit on Skirmisher tricks are # per day not per round so you could easily have your mount move 160+ ft in one round while allowing you to attack. Note that if your animal double moves you will have to make a concentration check if you want to cast that round.
In fact I use Stone Call at the start of some combats because the hindering terrain is less of an issue for me then the enemy and it prevents them from taking 5ft steps away from me.