Eptaceros's page

You're right, although i didn't mention that GM house ruled i could racial heritage them that since i wasn't gaining anything except the feat train which would make it 5 feats now to gain wings with two wing attacks. Looking back, its not very optimized but I still find it fairly intune.

That being said, I'm liking the idea of taking 'additional traits' as a first feat, grabbing one trait that makes sense motive +2 and a class skill, and another. Then getting the improved unarmed and snake style feats, especially if I pick beastmorph as it will put me in much less time without mutagen readily available.

So basically, our homebrew game that's expected to go level 20/mythic tier 10 is going to start in a couple weeks. Our party currently is a rogue sniper/mythic vital strike build, some sort of barbarian/paladin hybrid and a melee cleric.

I've read N. Jolly's alchemist guide and enjoyed it; just wanted to bounce some ideas off here.

I want to avoid vivisectionist for multiple reasons, most importantly that fluff wise it seems very out of character for mine, secondly i'm already playing a mythic arcane trickster with melee/sneak attack focus in another game, and thirdly the archetype just seems... overpowered but that's just me.

Anyways, half-orc and orc are off the table. So far, my primary idea is playing a half-elf of drow heritage. Our GM houseruled that since half-elf can do human or elf favored bonus, I could take the drow favored bonus for 10 minutes extra time for mutagen.

The basic concept of the character is someone who, due to having apparent heritage of an evil/hated race, spent a lot of time alone studying alchemical means and eugenics. I want to avoid all things obviously 'magical' as he believes magic is a temporary way to change the world; science and evolution is true progress.

The archetypes I was interested in were beastmorph for obvious reasons (finding some of the strongest biological traits of monsters and finding ways to incorporate them into mutagens), homunculist and clone master (ways to create life and modify it).

Here's a basic roadmap of what I think i'll do though til level 12
(20 point buy, no traits)
STR 19
DEX 12
CON 16
INT 16
WIS 8
CHA 7

Half elf dual minded alternate trait

1. Racial Heritage (Aasimar)
2. Feral Mutagen
3. Power Attack
4. Infusion
5. Combat Reflexes
6. Frost Bomb
7. Angelic Blood
8. Preserve Organs
9. Angelic Flesh (Brazen)
10. Mummification
11. Angel Wings
12. Greater Mutagen

Haven't decided what i'd like to do with the mythic side. But aside from fluff wise liking the idea of wings being part of his 'evolved form', I feel the two extra wing attacks (with metallic wings at 13) would come in at a good time for having 5 attacks (compared to the other melee characters.) That being said, i'm kind of partial to getting mythic improved unarmed, ditching all those feats for wings and getting snake style feats (whilst getting better dex.) I'll have an AMF which shouldn't be too hard to upgrade as the campaign should be on the wealthier side.

tl;dr: I'm basically looking at making a fairly good hyde alchemist without taking vivisectionist. Fortunately mythic opens things up a lot more to make other options more viable. I'd appreciate any input or suggestions; thanks!

So basically, i'm playing a homebrew mythic campaign and decided to go arcane trickster. The party layout is currently myself, an oracle, wizard, zen archer monk, fighter. 25 point buy

Here's the current build (relatively):
Elf Rogue 3/Wizard 3/AT 1
STR 7
DEX 20
CON 15
WIS 12
INT 20
CHA 8

Feats:
1. Improved Initiative
2. Weapon Finesse (rogue talent)
3. Great Fortitude
5. Combat Expertise
7. Improved Feint

Mythic tier 2:
1. Dual Path, Mythic Weapon Finesse
2. Legendary Weapon (Elven curved blade - Upgradeable, Undetectable)

The only items off the top of my head are some pots, the legendary curved blade +1 (getting keen on it soon), and a ring of invisibility. I believe there's a headband of int +2, dont have the character sheet ATM though.

Anyways, I think with mythic tiers there's a lot of great options possible, but I suppose 25 point buy mythic games make almost anything viable.

I think at tier 3 I am going for mythic improved feint (swift action makes life so much easier.) and the Archmage passive armor feature (it's like 3 + your tier? So right off the bat it would be 6 free armor.) I was thinking of taking mythic combat expertise later as if I'm doing feints properly, hopefully I'll be hitting flat-footed fairly often and will be able to afford the penalty to hit.

Arcane strike with mythic seems like it will be pretty good... much later on when its +2 or 3 to damage. For now it seems a bit meh.

Anyways, if anyone has any ideas or cool suggestions, I would appreciate it, thanks!

That is a good point, so if I go 12 sorc/8 DD, I'll still get level 9 spells it seems. As I haven't gotten a ninth level yet, that sounds like a good idea.

(I've read Oterisk's guide, most of his example builds all involve dips or more 'exotic' build ideas. I really want to just do 10 sorc/10 dd)

I forgot to mention I have one mythic tier. I was considering as an alternative to crossblooded, that I take eldritch heritage, then mythic eldritch heritage so that I get both powers simultaneously.

I'm not interested in doing draconic/orc with abyssal EH if you are suggesting that. Just doesn't seem to fit in lore wise, or murks the character's background.

The only thing that irks me about mythic EH is with claws houseruled as permanent, some of the powers are certainly redundant. The natural armor from orc bloodline doesn't stack with DD/sorc nat armor as far as I know either.

Overall, I would really prefer to avoid a situation that basically implies having 3 bloodlines or more.

So, I'm entering the game at level 13 after my recent character joined the choir invisible. I've always wanted to try dragon disciple, so here's a barebones layout of what I've got.

Half-orc
Orc/Draconic Sorc 5/Dragon disciple 8
Sacred Tattoo (alternate trait)

BAB: 8
CMB: 17
CMD: 27

atks: +22 (+9 str, +5 nat attacks)
damage: +14, +19 on bite

STR 28
DEX 10
CON 14
INT 10
WIS 8
CHA 22

AC: dex 0, armor 6, nat armor 7 (4+3), 0 = 24

25,030 silken ceremonial +5
16,000 robe arcane heritage
30,000 potions of greater magic fang permanency (x3)
16,000 headband charisma +4
16,000 cloak resist +4

saves:
fort 12
refl 9
will 10

Bloodline Powers:
1. Claws
3. Draconic Resistances
9. Power of Giants
15.Wings (Arcane Heritage)

Feats:
1. Eschew Materials
3. Sorcerous Bloodstrike
5.
7. Improved Initiative
9.
10. Intimidating Prowess
11.
13. Quicken Spell

The reason there are so many feat gaps is I'm not sure what are good feat chains to take. I was considering the dimensional dervish or dragons style feat chains, but both are pretty expensive. The ones currently picked are the bonus feats from bloodline/DD. Don't have traits yet either.

I should mention the DM has house-ruled that the claws are permanent and not "per round" basis, so I'm definitely focusing on natural weapon style for melee.

As far as casting goes, I can't decide whether to go for the spell perfection route. It would certainly simplify my feat selection, but who knows.

Anyways, any help or critiques would be appreciated, thanks.

EDIT: Forgot to mention, I chose Wings over Power of Giants in bloodlines, as while it seems like a great ability, as far as I know size bonuses wouldn't stack up with form of the dragon, and the natural armor bonus doesnt stack with any of what i've got already.

Hey all, so we're starting a gestalt campaign in a couple of months, so I've got time to come up with concepts. One concept I've been thinking of doing is a Half-Orc Paladin/Sorcerer (orc/draconic crossblooded) who later on go DD 10. A few questions.

1. I like the idea of a natural attack based thing. The DM ruled that draconic claws can be permanent (not 3+Cha times a day or whatever). What could I do to make that viable?

2. Which of the base classes should I take to 20 whilst I sub the other one for DD? I'm thinking Paladin since DD sort of advances Sorc at the same time anyways.

3. Does the 'DD spellcasting progression' advance both paladin and sorc spellcasting levels?

4. If I were to be leveling both DD and sorc at the same time, would the bloodline progression from DD be useless, or would it proceed draconic powers while Sorc levels would progress Orc bloodline powers?

Anyways, those are basic ideas for now. Would y'all consider this a decent gestalt idea? Any feat or equipment ideas? All help would be appreciated, thanks.

Hey, so I'm playing a campaign where our characters were story-killed, brought back by the gods and gained a mythic tier. I'm playing a level 12 bladebound/kensai magus, but I'm new to mythic stuff and not sure which route to take. Champion seems more appropriate than archmage for this build , but it says rewards more strength based characters.

I'm playing a dervish dance high DEX/INT build. I can post full build later if curious. Anyways, any ideas would be appreciated, thanks

Both GM's i've played with said that... maybe they just both prefer to houserule that and never said otherwise, but it's kind of silly that natural weapons can still crit fail -_-

Okay, making a few changes. Taking out Deflect Arrows and replacing it with improved grapple. I guess for the level 10 I will take Snatch Arrows. 11, I think I will get rid of Improved natural attack and replace it with something else, no idea what though.

Does fast movement still apply to the animal form? IE Add 30 ft to tiger base 40 ft?

Rake says:
A creature with this special attack gains extra natural attacks under certain conditions, typically when it grapples its foe. In addition to the options available to all grapplers, a monster with the rake ability gains two free claw attacks that it can use only against a grappled foe. The bonus and damage caused by these attacks is included in the creature’s description. A monster with the rake ability must begin its turn already grappling to use its rake—it can’t begin a grapple and rake in the same turn.

So if I understand correctly, you can only use rake when you already had them grappled at the beginning of the turn, so you could never use it on a pounce then, right? But granted you land one of the claws and get the CMB to grapple, you get the rake afterwards and thus 5 possible natural attacks in a full attack.

Do I get any of the Tiger bonuses to CMB?

Another thing, it says the dire tiger has improved critical for the bite, which has a threat range of 19-20. I thought natural attacks could never crit?

Yeah, I think those are the stats I was going off of. How is there 4 claw attacks? It just says there are 2.

Now, let's say I have feral combat training, that means the natural attacks in tiger form still have the monk base damage, except for a large monk? IE at level 11 it would be 2d8, or with a monk's robe, 3d8?

You can use style feats when you're in tiger form? And does anyone have a link to the Dire Tiger page? The only one I found is this: http://paizo.com/prd/monsters/tiger.html
It only shows 2 claws and a bite.

I'm not quite sure how the morph works in general still. So since a Dire Tiger is apparently a Large Animal, you get: +4 size bonus to your Strength, a -2 penalty to your Dexterity, and a +4 natural armor bonus.

So this just augments your current stats, and you don't take the listed animal stats, right? Do you just gain the special attacks it has, or also the feats and whatnot?

Natural attacks do work with FoB with the Feral combat training feat.

And where is everyone getting this bite from? I still don't quite get how Feral Combat benefits TWF, and I don't think it's a route I want to go in but meh.

So is the Nimble Guardian archetype overall pretty good? It seems like the abilities it replaces aren't missed too much, and the Beast Shape thing is cool.

That seems pretty feat intensive, taking MoMS, using all the bonus feats (and probably a lot of regular ones) for style feats, then getting TWF feats.

What about equipment? I figured a monk's robe... and that's about it for now. Some basic things like cloak of resist, ring of protection, headband of wisdom, belt of con/strength perhaps.

Hey, so basically I'm making a new character; last played a Magus so thought I would go monk. A Catfolk monk that uses claw attacks for flurry sounds like a cool idea, so I've got a basic idea set up. For the record, I'll be coming in at level 11, with a starting budget of 88k.

Catfolk Monk 11
Alternate Trait: Cat's Claws

STR 14
DEX 16
CON 12
INT 10
WIS 16
CHA 9

Feats.
1. Improved unarmed, Dodge, Crane Style
2. Deflect Arrows
3. Weapon Focus (Claw)
5. Crane Wings
6. Combat Reflexes
7. Feral Combat Training
9. Crane Riposte
10. Improved Critical (Claw)
11. Improved Natural Attack

I'm probably going to focus more on defensive play, as our only other frontliner is a glass cannon barbarian. (Total party is a Witch, Cleric, Bard, Barbarian, and someone joining the game with an undisclosed character lol.) I like the Crane Style feat train, although the Snake Style looks pretty good too for defensive play.

Now, I know that Feral combat lets the claw attacks benefit from Monk unarmed damage progression. What I'm not sure is if it bumps it up by 2 (ie from 1d3 to 1d6, therefore 1d4 to 1d8) or it just puts it at the same monk damage level. I'm going to assume the latter, but we agreed that Improved natural attack will go off the unarmed damage progression. So at level 11 (which is typically 1d10 unarmed damage) it will be 2d6. Let me know if that is straight up wrong.

For the Claw Blade weapons, since they just enhance the natural attacks, they don't interfere with flurry of blows, right? And while it seems like RAW that I could simply enhance one Claw Blade and use that one claw for flurry of blows, seems like a pretty cheesy tactic. That's of course if it's possible at all.

Anyways, if you guys have any other suggestions, or archetype ideas, please let me know, thanks.

Thank you frodo, good to know. What about Shield (spell)?

People think it's broken cause Kensai can actually get good AC. The main equipment I have now is:

Silken Ceremonial +5 (6 Armor)
Bracers +3 (9 armor, including armor)
+6 Dex Belt (Makes it +7 dex mod)
Ioun stone (making INT 20/ +5 mod)
Ring of Protection +3 (3 Deflect)

AC 34
Touch 26
FF 22

Of course, that's without any mage armor, shield, or whatever other possible defensive buffs

The GM really had it for me the last encounter we played. Whether he cooked the numbers or not (he had Will saves of 30 at level 11 I failed against) I know if the players aren't on the level of me, I have to readjust and... almost not pay attention at all to making really strong characters.

I'm just naturally bad at that cause I'm an extremely competitive person. I'm not trying to 'win' the game, but I don't want to be, at least, not the useless chump lol

I actually have great friends and we all RP quite a bunch; that's the best part of the game. I played a Bladebound magus cause I thought it was fun to have this cocky douchebag character with a brooklyn accent talking trash to his sword (that the GM played well) but other people think it's too strong and is 'bogarting' combat now.

Let's ignore that one of them has Leadership, playing two characters incorrectly (He both completely made the character and is playing them at all times) but him and the GM seem to think i'm trying to powergame so.. -.- I don't know how I can convince them Leadership is way...way..way better than a simple Magus

Let's just say, with the stat and feat distribution, do most people consider that as powergaming? I've seen plenty of players in real sessions dump stats to 7 or worse (like 5 with penalties) all the time but I get flack for putting something to 8 -_-

At this point, I'm making a new character to avoid the 'powergaming' stigma, so I'm making a rogue so there's no way I'm overpowered lol

I'm not worried about beating anyone at all, I actually wanted a bunch of ideas to beat my character so I can tell my DM he's not broken by a stretch. I realize I should just make characters around the same power-level as my buddies, but it it still hardly an OP concept at all.

To be somewhat fair, I never use power-attack and it the houserule is to help every other melee character. I get where it doesn't make sense though. I didn't think having 8 strength was so much of a powergaming dumpstat, especially when we're playing with a dwarf monk with 5 charisma -_-

Tiefling Magus favored class is 1/4th of arcane, I spent all the favored class for the extra arcana, that's why I have that many.

I'll say, all the people that are playing are good buddies of mine, that's why it disappoints me that everyone thinks I'm trying to cheat. I'll bring up some of these points why it's not that great.

My Arcana are:
Arcane Accuracy
Spell Shield
Prescient Attack

Sorry, I did not make two, and I'm trying to find a way to delete the other -_-

That said, I made the magus recently, and almost all of our encounters since I brought the character in were 'once a day' encounters, which when I can use all my arcane points in 1 fight, makes me look OP. I've told people to give it time in actual days, but meh...

Basically that's what I've thought to. Funny thing is, one of the main dudes trying to call me out is playing a character with the Leadership feat, and not even the way it's designed. He basically just made another character two levels below and plays them both. That's way stronger than my character but still... everyone is convinced my character is gamegenie -_-

I guess I'm looking for tactics beyonds the one's I've described that can ruin my character. Aside from basically any bad will save, anything that ruins Dex will ruin my character, because having so much in one stat makes it real easy to ruin my character by that one stat. Yeah...

Accidentally made two threads, gonna try condense it to to the other one. Thank you though :)

I've said that, and the GM has really been trying to f*%$ me over every game. Basically making every caster prepare feeblemind or magic jar, or anything to f%#! over my dex; he's had it for me cause he thinks my character is OP :(

Let's say I got the Catfolk feat "Catfolk Exemplar" increasing my claw damage to 1d6, then Improved Natural Attack to 1d8, would that RAI make all my claw blade attacks 1d8 + whatever or no?

Right of the bat, I am not the GM. I am the bladebound/kensai player. I made this character as a fun concept. Everyone thinks I am powergaming now, playing some sort of broken "game genie" character design and trying to cheat the game. Here is the basic character stats:

(after 20 point buy, currently levely 11)"
Male Tiefling Bladebound/Kensai Magus

STR 8
DXT 20
CON 12
INT 18
WIS 8
CHA 9

(GM houseruled that noone had to take Power Attack since he considered it a feat tax on pretty much every martial class)

Feats:
Weapon Finesse
Cleave
Dervish Dance
Empower Spell (bonus)
Weapon Focus - Scimitar
Improved Critical
Critical Focus

They say it's basically a 'downloaded online powergaming build'. I won't lie, I'm a number cruncher and I like to make things strong, but I want to know how people can beat this so I can tell them. I thought the intelligent sword and badass unarmed swordsman character would be fun, and I want to find a way to tell them it's not OP, but I can't convince them yet '~'

So I'm thinking the next character idea is a ninja, and the catfolk seemed pretty cool for them. I'm mostly confused about the Cat's Claw natural attacks and how they might interact with the claw blade equipment.

1. I was told that natural attacks can never exceed the amount of limbs you had in a round (so with 2 limbs, the most I could full attack with ever is 2 attacks, even with haste)?

2. With the claw blade equipment, since that changes the claws into light weapons, does that mean they benefit from TWF?

3. How would that work if you only had one clawblade for 1 hand and the other just a regular claw?

4. Since the claw blade stats are "your claw attacks with a +1 bonus" do they still get the natural attack feat bonuses I may have gotten by that point?

5. If I do something like, magic fang to my claw attacks, and then put on claw blades, do they alter the magic fang buffed claws?

6. Can the claw blades be enhanced/enchanted like most equipment (IE to a +5 or whatever magical enchantment)?

I'd like to make a fun build using these, just want to make sure I know how it'll work though. Any help is appreciated

I'm not doing any dips. I suppose I could just do enlarge person; I think I have a pretty good base AC (without spells) at 31 for level 11, so the AC penalty for enlarge won't hurt too much. However, playing as a complete dex build with little strength (8) it seems the only reason I would ever cast enlarge person is for the reach.

So basically, I'm playing a bladebound kensai wielding a scimitar, currently level 11 and just got 5 bonus AoOs. Just curious if there's any way I can increase my threat range or perhaps some other way I can get use of all the bonus AoOs?

I've seen combat patrol but doesn't seem very fitting, not to mention rather feat intensive

Perhaps we are over, but I'm just saying the equipment I already have. The players got very creative in the campaign and we essentially ended up taking over a town, all its income, doing slave trades, and a lot of business ventures basically. That's how we've gotten fairly rich so far.

I do use mage armor as well for a decent caster AC of 26. As far as the sorcerers strength, I am playing him to a theme for fun. That being said, I know this theme is by far not the strongest, but I'd like to still make it comparable in combat and has done pretty well so far.

I'll look into the rest of the gear.

As far as spells, I can't list them all out because my character sheet is over at the GM's house. Though the only real damage spells off the top of my head are the bonus spells (burning hands, scorching ray, etc.), fireball, lightning bolt, and a couple others. I have most of the staple buffs like haste, invis, fly, energy protection and a few others.

I think for the later levels, I am going to pick exclusively non-fire spells for any damage spells I take (except maybe fire snake). I can change any other spell to a fire-spell for free and get all the benefits, but don't have to waste a metamagic feat to change them out of fire in case I come up against that resistance.

I should mention the party build real quick just in case.

My sorcerer with fire mephit pet
Halfling barbarian riding a warg pet
Cleric with a tanky dwarven fighter cohort (leadership feat)
Summoner with eidolon pet
Ranger with a tiger pet, currently also has a bone devil pet from infernal contract, although DM says he's probably gonna kill that thing.

(Yes, I'm tired of all the pets -_- )

It's also an evil campaign. Anyways, hopefully that helps.

Hey all, so I'm playing an Ifrit fire sorcerer in a homebrew campaign, here is my current build:

Ifrit Sorcerer 9
Primal Elemental (Fire)
Alternate Ifrit Traits:
Efreeti Magic (SLA=Enlarge/Reduce Person)
Wildfire Heart (Init +4)

Initiative=7

STR 10
DEX 16
CON 12
INT 12
WIS 8
CHA 24

Traits:
Magical Lineage (fireball)
+1 Will save trait (forgot name lol)

Feats:
Elemental Focus (Fire), Spell Focus (Evocation), Eldritch Heritage (arcane)
Improved Familiar, Bonus=Empower Spell, Elemental Spell

Equipment:
Ceremonial Armor +5
Bracers of AC +1
Cloak of Resist +3
Ring of protect +2
Ring of spell knowledge (dispel magic)
Maximize Rod

Familiar = Fire Mephit, currently carrying both a magic missile (lvl 9) wand and a cure moderate wand.

Anyways, I've been doing fairly good so far, with a decent chance to go first and blow s@%& up promptly before someone else gets in there.
That being said, I think the next feat I want to pick up is selective spell, followed by quicken spell and then spell perfection.
I have taken a lot of damage spells so far, and I'm mostly going to focus on utility spells from here on out, as I plan for fireball to be
the primary damage spell I can spam (with elemental and selective). Our dm has started throwing in lots of construct/clockwork s!~~ where
I've been able to do very little except haste the party and a few other protection spells.

Is there any other routes people would suggest? Any particular spells 4th level and up I should definitely get? And I'm definitely not sure
what equipment would be optimal for this build. Thanks

I chose fireball for magical lineage. Although I haven't really used any sort of metamagic feat or declared anything yet so i could probably just pick something else lol.

Most importantly, I still don't get the damage numbers. Shouldn't a 7th level caster doing empowered maximized fireball be 10d6 (7d6 + half so 3d6) and maximized is (10x6) 60 damage? Where the hell is this +75 damage coming from? I don't see anything about bonus damage.

Hey, so I'm playing in another game, homebrew campaign with evil theme. I'm playing a NE Ifrit Sorcerer (fire elemental bloodline) that's currently level 7 now. Here are the basic stats off the top of my head (don't have my char sheet right now)

Str 10
Dex 15
Con 12
Int 12
Wis 8
Cha 20

Trait: Magical Lineage
Feats: Eschew materials, Metamagic empowered spell, Eldritch Heritage (Arcane), Improved Familiar (Fire Mephit)

Just came in so aside from basic necessities, just have a ring of sustenance right now and roughly 6k gold.

Now I've been reading this guide: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qUkVlonpJHQhy9jqicCuJDw-kmc1S3eY98GANjI lDkI/edit

I don't quite understand the damage figures listed in there. From what I was thinking, empower spell basically adds on 50% damage, and maximize means every variable comes out highest (as in all the d6 in a fireball will be 6). "At 7th caster level, a maximized empowered fireball is 5d6+75" Where do those numbers come from? Shouldn't it be 7d6?

Also, don't really know much about familiars. Mostly got it for the 'fluff' aspect I suppose, but it would be nifty to find some use for it, as I hear mephits are some of the more useful familiars.

I guess some optimization ideas would be appreciated. Just one side note, I talked to the DM who said it would be fine for me to cast spells in elemental form.

I also like the ranger specific abilities, animal companion, spells, and it just fits more with the character 'personality' type.

Having a net +6 to ability scores at level 1 does sound really good, not to mention the other aasimar benefits. While I'll have to see if the DM accepts those rules, it seems like +4 more to ability scores than humans outweighs a feat, but again maybe it's just me.

So is the idea of 'switch-hitter' essentially "be good at both melee/archery for low levels, until you're good enough at archery to ditch melee entirely"?

And if I continue to do that, should I stick to finding better composite bows that use str mod and focus on buffing str more?

Well, it seems like, at least with the feats heavily leaning toward Archery, that you would rely on that style until they get close unless party members are in danger, not actively work towards getting into melee.

Point-blank shot though, I still don't get why you would get it. Even at level 1, if I get both weapons, it seems more logical I would start with quick-draw and just switch to melee once I get within 30 feet?

I'm a bit confused as to why I would need point-blank shot if I'm just going to switch to melee combat up close anyways?

Also, is power attack really the only 'melee' feat I should get? Is cleave not worth it?

What about min-maxing or 'optimizing' on builds/classes which are seen as weak? I could see it interpreted as "wanting to do a fun concept, but not be a completely ineffective joke"

The standard core books I guess; Core, APG, ARG, UC/UM/UE.

The character design I had in mind was an ex bounty hunter/royal agent on the run. Less mystical aspect and more of a western-themed 'live by the land' vibe. The DM has randomly decided he didn't want any archetypes in this campaign, so I figured I'd concentrate more on the skills and combat then the 'divine magic' aspect at least.

So, this?

17 (15+2)
16
14
10
12
7

I assume I should just take power attack for the 2-hander early on, then focus on archery.

Are there any traits that are good? I'm playing rise of the runelords and had to take one campaign specific trait, which was Outlander (+2 to init) but have one more I need.

I decided to play Human, so the current 20 point buy I did was

STR 17 (15+2)
DEX 17
CON 12
INT 10
WIS 12
CHA 7

Is that okay? And from what I garner, I should take the 'archery' combat style, and simply get a few feats for 2 handed combat while putting the rest to archery?

Sorry, forgot to mention that we do start at level 1, and it's 20 point buy.

I guess I never really considered the bonus feat that good or interesting, but I'm always told this so maybe I should cave in lol.

So I made a thread not too long ago, but we're starting the Rise of the Runelords game and I need to make a new character. I've played Monk and Cleric the previous two games so I thought of making a Rogue, but think I'm going to make a ranger now.

Basically, I read the treantmonk guide for Ranger and got some ideas, but it only had core material, and the other two guides focused on archery or twf it seemed. The 'switch hitter' build seemed interesting, but I wanted to see if it's still considered good, or at least viable?

I only have barebone ideas on how to make it so far, and thought of doing either Tiefling, Aasimar or Fletchling if I wanted to go an interesting race. Half-elf or Human are the more plausible choices of race it seems but feel boring to me.

Beyond that, not sure what the best feats/build options are that include most of the recent material (excluding 3rd party stuff).

Also, while the skirmisher build seems cool, my DM seems suddenly against archetypes so.. not sure on that front. Anyways, any help would be appreciated.

I read the treantmonk guide about Rangers and was interested in doing the switch hitter ranger. The character design would be more around 'ex-bounty hunter/scout on the run" or whatever, but same personality and whatnot.

Is the switch hitter build still considered good or at least viable? I think someone else is going to do the party face character now so I'm putting rogue on the backburner.

I was also considering doing the 'skirmisher' rogue as it fits the character more to rely on craftiness and 'tricks' rather than divine magic or whatnot. Is the archetype okay to use? We already have two casters and I feel like the extra buffing/weak healing i'd get from basic rangers would have diminished usefulness.

Thanks. I think I'm going to make two character templates so far, one for either a rogue or ninja with decent CHA if I have to be the party face. I'm also going to make a ranger I think, in case I can focus more on the exploration/combat aspects.