Alberic Strein's page

Maybe he won't enforce it, but I wouldn't bet on it.

We are indeed starting at level 1, but I don't expect a lot of fighting at 1st level. The plan was to invest in an Enlarge Person wand (or ask the magic caster of the group) before using the sword and just using something else in the meantime. I had forgotten that I do need to neither wear nor carry the sword to avoid it jumping up in size, so I'll either need a hireling squire to carry the sword on the regular, or drop it before the spell and picking it back up again after.

But yeah, the need to squeeze any form of size increase as soon as possible was another part of the problem. I was looking at cha based classes hybrid classes with the enlarge person spell, but I couldn't make it fit and the GM was really into the paladin for some reason. That's also why I went for Unsanctioned Knowledge in the first place, I thought the spell would be on at list one of the spell lists, or I could get access to another size increase spell like Righteous Might, but no.

So yeah no, don't worry, I am fully aware that as a small creature I am completely f'd trying to use a 2 handed medium weapon, it's part of the reason I made this thread.

The best Pathfinder GM I ever had is starting a new campaign, and a direct sequel to one I was in. In the last campaign I got an Artefact medium greatsword, and according to the GM, since I got it fairly the first time, he is okay with me having it in the sequel. Even though I have a new character. Consider this the square peg.

This new campaign is split between the Good team (us) and the evil team (the USA team), with no direct competition or PvP. According to the GM, our victory will come from being good. The little guys flying under everyone's radar. And this is actually a plot point, our characters cannot be over 3"6', and it's better if we're all halflings coming from the same village. The halflings in this specific village are under a curse making them think they're Humans, and they only worship the halfling god of good food and appreciation, with the frying pan as their favored weapon. So clerics and warpriests are pretty much out of the equation. Consider this the round hole.

I was thinking making a hospitaler paladin, with this god awful stat array:

STR 15 -> 13 (+1)
DEX 10 -> 12 (+1)
CON 14 -> 14 (+2)
INT 13 -> 13 (+1)
WIS 10 -> 10 (+0)
CHA 16 -> 18 (+4)

Since the goal is to wield the artefact sword, I aimed for 13str for power attack. Unsanctioned Knowledge sounds like a good way to put some buffing spells on my list, to use wands or scrolls of these spells without having to roll UMD, and since I get a racial bonus to charisma, I might as well invest in it. Through hospitaler paladin I can rarely smite evil, but it allows me to add another pool that grows with charisma.

Grab some skills with traits (perception, UMD), as well as fate's favored and the naive drawback, fey foundling for my feat, and trade racial traits for fleet footed. And that's pretty much were I was. The GM seems pretty clear on this not being a normal campaign, with the opportunity to gain new traits/feats based on our actions.

So yeah, wacky campaign, square peg round hole, and I am more than a little lost here if I am to be honest.

With the unhelpful character he already is, give him the role of treasurer of the group.

Adventurers HATE not to be able to use their hard money the way they wish.

Force them to go through some administration based shenanigans with the character to enrage them some more.

Is Han Solo. Constantly reminds others how they AINT

Add some melodramatic tension due to a tragic TRAGIC I TELL YOU ! backstory AND some hysteric fits of straight ANGER, with some tunnel vision thrown into the mix... Oh, and a total fan of homoerotic subtext, constantly trying to pair male members of the party together, trying to prove the existence of some inexisting sexual tension, and talking the Face and/or womanizer of the group into how he is actually a refrained gay.

WARNING !!! WARNING !!! WARNING !!!

This is not a diatribe against gay characters, or romances in the group, it is about the refusal to accept that the percieved pairings DO NOT exist, and refusal to stop the bullshit related to that. The gay thing is just added "sexual uncertainty" bonus. It can be about anything else, but for having such a player in a campaign, this gets old REAL FAST.

My personal favorite I use to annoy the hell out of people : Nicknames. Derogatory nicknames, oddly fitting nicknames, etc, etc, etc... Of course, refuse to adress to a character by his proper name under any circumstances. Barbarian ? Hairy Fighter. elven/dwarf with impossible names ? Long Ears / Beardy. Referenced names ? Use that against them !

I drove a GM mad by calling his "Milamber" "Pug" until everyone referred to him as such, and he, himself, lapsed into using it too.

Nicknames catch on, nicknames WILL be used and abused. Call the barbarian a Hairy Fighter ONCE, wait, and watch as all Hell breaks loose.

Also, a mistake I made while still new to role playing : Refusing to take a situation seriously. No. Matter. What.

While playing the D&D version of Apocalypse Now, we finally confronted Colonel Kurtz. Except he knew what we were here for. My paladin ?

"Hey Kurtz ! We're the execution platoon ! Nice to meet ya !"

In hindsight, funny as hell. Since we're busted, we might as well get a laugh at it. Ruining the dramatic tension ? Priceless. (for what you want to do)

So, yeah, you may not want to shoot yourself in the foot by destroying your own dramatic tension, and wise-cracking can be a bit hard depending on situations, but keeping the group's plans and actions REAL is a real campaign destroyer.

A few "So, we bash the head of some foreign tribe because they're GREEN and in our way, and hope fame comes along the way ? Sure, you're the good guys, no doubt."

"So, basically, let the meat shield take the heat and pray things don't get too bad for us, uh ? Groovy."

"Wait, you are planning to rescue the princess... By slaughtering everything in your way until we open the right door ? Genius."

Can be the doom of a group.

Deny, with a short, mean quip, the epic of their quest, calling it basically murder for profit, and refuse to speak about it no more...

And all hells shall break loose again.

Hope it helps ! ^^

Thanks again for the useful feedback, and thanks again to Aelryinth for taking the time to argue with me on that feat.

Phosphorus > Duely noted ! But is upping disarming strike that much really that useful ? Did I miss something ? Disarming seemed like a fine trick, but not worthy a main focus.

Crane style > I'm not exactly planning on going monk, however the feat definitely seem to prove useful, however, since i'm going the long way (by not dipping monk, nominately) Crane Style could be enough for my purposes : Eradicating that pesky malus while fighting defensively. While the other two feats are pure awesome in can, "You Vital strike me ? Oh you poor, poor fella..." Half of the bonus of crane riposte is wasted, and it only gives one AoO, which can be, awesomely enough, a disarm, which can screw a full attacking enemy HARD, yet, this is still, and yet again a bonus to defense. I find myself lagging behind way too hard damage wise, so fixing that should take priority. So Crane style is a must have as soon as I get steel net (well, not before fighter level 8 actually), but I believe the two other feats, while VERY NICE, could wait until I get something to help that damage.

Power attack > How is my attitude misplaced ? I mean, we can have fun all day long discussing power attacks, and actually, we're doing just that, and I'm actually enjoying it. However, if we take things back to the roots, meaning the feat description "you make exceptionally deadly attacks by sacrificing accuracy for strength". Jedi mind tricks excepted, adding damage by virtue of striking accurately and then using a feat that sacrifices said accuracy for moar strength to add moar damage, all the while attacking using dex and not strength because we're finessing, using quick, precise movements instead of extremely fast powerful moves... But... Wait... Actually we are ! We ARE using those fast powerful moves which are straight down STR's alley. But we're still attacking and damaging with our DEX mod, because we are finessing (not hitting like a brute, sacrificing accuracy for MOAR POWER !!!) and striking deftly ! Wait, we're even adding precision damage from the duelist class, because we're so accurate !

And with all that being relevant on Dex, finesse, precision, and utterly ALIEN to STR, being even noted in our deft strike feature that it was to be used INSTEAD of STR modifier to damage, and thus, INCOMPATIBLE with STR modifier to damage, we are still adding untyped damage which comes from sacrificing accuracy, which is our att and twice damage source (without a single malus to those, of course) and STILL adding a modifier to damage which comes from HITTING HARDER (ie WITH MOAAAAR STRENGTH)

That. Will. NOT. Fly. With. Me.

EVER.

Then, to out me as a total and UTTER HYPOCRITE, while it doesn't fly with me at all, it actually flies with my GM and is, as previously stated, totally viable by RAW. Also, the party seemed to enjoy optimizing quite a bit, and the encounters were calibrated as such. So I lowered cha to 13, raised STR to 13, and took that cursed Power attack feat, because Piranha strike won't be allowed and because being some damn dead weight to the party does not sit well with me either.

Switch gripping from Anarchitect guide, here I come !

(Said GM still made a funny face when Erwan -my character- was hit with an enfeebling ray, dropping his strength by 8 points down to 5 and I retorted "I let go of my backpack to get rid of encumbrement, and keep at it, it doesn't lower my damage output by one point."

"Wait, attacking is not totally dissociated from strength" he said.

"I paid two feats and two PrCs to do just that, actually." was my answer.

Yeah, i concur he was quite surprised... Some points must not have been as clear as I thought they were... Here comes some crazy bartering with the GM again Q.Q

I actually agree with him of course, but so far, things were settled pretty much with "By RAW" and "By RAW", as far as I saw, my damage will not go down because of STR 5.)

Ps : Oh yeah, on the subject of power attacking, I tend to be a bit cautious, to me, striking once for some damage is more useful than striking 0 times for some awesome damage times 0, meaning 0 damage. So, at around which point should I power attack ? Is going from needing a dice 10 to hit with the first attack and a dice 15 with the second to a dice 13 (first) and a dice 18 (second) worth it ? What about going from needing 10 (first) 10 (haste) 15 (second) to 13/13/18 ?

I took the safe path, no power attack and a disarm on the second attack which only did 1d8+6, and was unable to drop a Dryder which already took some (a bit low) damage from a charge from the barbarian, with my full attack, even though all attacks landed and I even got a confirmed crit.

At next initiative, the dryder went down with a single arrow though...

So... More risks ?

Thanks for the feedback !

So, for the crane style, spring attack and whirlwind strike, I didn't take them yet because I don't have steel net, and I wasn't sure when I was going to get it, I thought I might have to take a few levels in duelist to grab a few goodies (and DAMAAAAGE) or maybe even Aldori Prc first for some easier dazzling display.

By the way, I would have liked your opinion : Is, when going Aldori PrC 4, taking Crane Style really necessary ? With Steel Net + Adaptative tactics net a -1 malus when fighting defensively. It becomes a 0 at Aldori PrC 8, but it leaves very, very few levels of duelist to do something about that damage...

The PrC is also clear, you lose some of the bonus it gives (deft strike actually) when making attacks with anything else than your AdS, natural attacks and unnarmed strikes included.

So is going with the style only to offset a -1 malus for 2 (or 3 ?) feats, really worthwile ?

About your build, I still believe that it is the right way to build a STR based Swordlord. The PrC merely allows the dex way not to blow hideously, while adding a nice few things. So yeah, an updated DEX Swordlord using the Swordlord PrC (and maybe the duelist, even ?) would be awesome !

But, yeah, I jumped into all the traps there ever was... I just wanted an Aldori the way the game implies they usually are, dex based and duelists. ^^

Thanks for the quick reply again ^^

I'll look into those crit feats then ^^

I also agree with your definition of Power Attack, but it still doesn't sit well with me, combining it with weapon finesse and deft strike. You might call it nitpicking, but when you go into some extreme lengths to completely dissociate strength from your attack/damage output, bringing it back with a smile saying "Oh, and while I finesse my attack and damage the orc by dextrously striking a weak point, and add some precise damage by stiking that point precisely, I put power in my blow on top of that, sacrificing accuracy to squeeze out extra damage !" just won't sit well with me.

The thing is, in real life, you don't choose between strength and dexterity, every hit is a combination of both, so real life exemples tend not to work very well when describing a combat system, yet, if I had to find an anology, I would compare deft strike to placing your sword at the right place at the right time, and let your enemies' strength do the job for you, thus, the strength of your attack would be dependent on your ability to quickly and precisely use your enemies' power, you go full skill and you let them fill the rest of the equation. The better you predict, control, their power, the better your attack is.

Hence, using power in your attack would only screw with your timing, your control, your dexterity, and would hinder your attack, more than it would help it.

Yet, this is only my personal interpretation, you can easily say that in my way of seeing it, my point is true, but that my way of seeing it is just that, personal, and has no impact on the game everyone is playing.

So, let's go back to the rules ! In Pathfinder, unlike in real life, we can't use strength and dexterity at once, we have to choose. So, correct me if I am wrong, but, while it is not technically RAW, Power Attack gives a STRENGTH bonus to damage, no ? I know the damage is untyped, which allows it to stacl with the normal damage bonus to strength, but it grows if you wield a weapon 2 handed the same way your strength bonus grows, and, honestly, what kind of bonus can POWER ATTACK give xD ?

As you said, it's sacrificing accuracy to stike harder, with more strength (though not specifically in a brutish way).

And deft strike specifically notes that it is used INSTEAD of strength bonus to damage.

So yeah, by RAW you could stack power attack and deft strike, but I would never let that fly in one of my campaigns, and find it WAAAAAAAY too dubious to create a character that uses that combination.

So yeah, your point still stands, Aelryinth, and is taken, but I hope it makes my refusal to include Power Attack in my character a bit more understandable.

(And yet I have no issues with arguing with my GM to allow piranhah strike to be used with an AdS, go figure ! XD)

What do you mean, I'm a big bad hypocrite ? No, not at all... *shifting eyes*

Thanks for the quick reply !

So, my second post scriptum already answers the part about going urban ranger to get Power Attack.

For what I want to do, yeah, I didn't seem to convey it clearly in the build, but long story short, I want to "kick ass and chew bubble gum"... As an Aldori Swordlord.

So I took the different features and tried to find a way to enhance them, weapon focus/specialization aid Disarming strike (the feature, not the feat ^^), and so does Improved Disarm and Precise Strike from going Duelist.

So I had to use 5 feats to get those 2 PrC, which, admittedly, prevented me from focusing clearly in an area of expertise.

Basically, I want to be able to tank, disarm, dish out damage and scare the hell out of my opponents with my peerless skill.

For the whole Critical chain/keen weapon, I agree that it would help a lot, and while it asks a number of feats (again), as a fighter I can afford them, my only doubt is : Is it worth it on a 19-20*2 weapon ?

For the duelist glove, I'll get it by level 9 in fighter, thanks ^^
(I actually hesitated going up to level 9 in fighter, in favor of the other PrCs, but scratch that, +3 att/dmg for two levels beats anything they can offer, so thanks again ^^)

Hello Paizo forums !
So, I'm brand new in these parts and English is not my mother language, so I apologize in advance for some stupidity you may find in this, and in subsequent, posts.

So, I just built my first Pathfinder character ever, and, looking at the different threads, got a little bit scared. If at lvl9 my character is supposed to kill a creature with 80hp in two rounds, then I failed, hard, at building that character.

Said character ? Erwan, the human with the ridiculously long title.

The point is to make him a swordlord, a competitive swordlord, if possible.

Stat array (25 points buy) : Str 12 / Dex 18 (20 with the two stat ups)/ Con 14 / Int 14 / Wis 8 / Cha 14

Yeah, I made him a Dex Based Swordlord, Anarchitect must be screaming "IDIOOOOOT" somewhere...

So, to that end I took the Swordlord and gladiator archetypes for fighters, had him take 6 levels in that, then got him into the Swordlord PrC for one level, and then the Duelist PrC for 2 levels.

As for feats, I took :
Aldori Dueling Mastery (free)
Combat Expertise
Dazzling display (Aldori dueling sword, AdS for short)
Dodge
Exotic Weapon Proficiency (AdS)
Improved Disarm
Mobility
Weapon Finesse
Weapon Focus (AdS)
Weapon Expertise (AdS)

and formerly "Agile maneuvers", until I discovered that Weapon Finesse already allowed me to do that with my AdS.

So, I'm left with a vacant feat, and I got pretty damn interested in "Piranha Strike"

And this is where I start needing your help HARD, guys. The feat is clear, it works with LIGHT weapons. Not FINESSEable weapons. And while the AdS is finesseable, it is not, and clearly stated as not being LIGHT.

So, do I give up on the feat ? If not, what kind of arguments could allow my GM to allow this feat to work this an AsD ? Or, even better, is there an errata stating that it works with finesseable weapons ?

If taking this feat is completely impossible, what should I take ?

Spring attack, to make the most out of my defensive parry class feature ?

I seem to be lagging behind really, really, really hard as far as damage is concerned, that's why I had my eye on Piranha Strike. So, what could I take to raise my damage output ?

Of course, if you spotted mistakes, or some redundancy in the build, or some things I could optimize, I'm all ears !

Thanks in advance !

Ps : It might be a good idea to post said damage output, actually, so here it is :

Weapon : +2 Adamantium AdS
+18 / +13 1D8+11

Armor : +2 Mithril Breastplate + Natural armor amulet +2 + ring of protection +1

Ca : 31= 10+8(armor)+1(deflection)+7(dex+int)+2(shield)+1(dodge)+2(natural)

Ps 2 : I didn't take the stats to use power attack on purpose, and will not take that feat if I can help it. The reason is simple, with Weapon Finesse (feat) and Deft Strike (Aldori PrC 1) I attack and damage with dexterity, while I did not find (I may have missed it) clearly stated that you cannot power attack while finessing, I can't find it in me to look at my GM straight in the eye and say :

"I attack and damage with my dexterity with Weapon finesse and Deft Strike... AND ADD +6 DAMAGE BY POWER ATTACKING LIKE A BRUTE !!! RAAAWR !!!"