So my play group recently had a little run with 5e, and while we liked it, we are coming back to Pathfinder for our next campaigns. Since I'm known as being the guy who optimizes too much, I figure I'll use a class I like a lot, and deliberately not use one of their strengths. In this case: the Magus, and Spell Combat.
So the idea is to likely play as a Kensai Magus and use probably a Nodachi, and focus on Shocking Grasp Spellstrikes with it. Since it's a 2h weapon I can't Spell Combat, and get that action economy, but I'm hoping the Spellstriked nodachi will be sufficient damage despite this.
One worry is playing a Kensai STR build has me quite weak with regards to AC since I'll probably have a poor DEX, so my survivability will be down quite a bit, but am I nerfing myself way too much to be effective, or could this possibly work? Thoughts?
Got the opportunity to join a high level game starting at level 16, so I thought I'd try a build I'd never really want to level through since it didn't come online until much later. Queue the Dimensional Feats: Dimensional Agility, Assault, Dervish, and Savant. In addition I've also opted to go for TWFing using a double weapon, the two-bladed sword. Proficiency is solved with the 1.5k ioun stone, which is easily affordable. Normally I'm the first to steer people away from TWFing, but I feel like just being silly here frankly.
Right now I've got Slayer 12/Horizon Walker 4, to get the bulk of TWFing through Slayer talents, and Horizon Walker for the dimension door SLA.
Human
STR 17+3 DEX 14+1 CON 14 INT 12 WIS 14 CHA 7
1 Slayer 1: Iron Will, Endurance
2 S 2: TWF
3 S 3: Improved Initiative
4 S 4: Rogue Talent: Weapon Training
5 S 5: Armor Prof Heavy
6 S 6: ITWF
7 Horizon Walker 1: Outflank
8 HW 2
9 HW 3: Dimensional Agility
10 HW 4
11 S 7 FCB Extra Talent: Improved Critical, Dimensional Assault
12 S 8 Rogue Talent: Slow Reactions
13 S 9 Dimensional Dervish
14 S 10 Two-Weapon Rend
15 S 11 Dimensional Savant
16 S 12: Adv Rogue Talent: Feat: Double Slice
The main things I'm questioning right now are the 4th level of Horizon Walker, and the Heavy Armor Proficiency. I'll likely be the only person in melee, so I'm not too sure I'm comfortable downgrading to a mithral breastplate. The idea was to take Plains as my 2nd terrain mastery to remove the movement penalty for wearing mithral full plate so I could dimension door for longer distances, but I'm not sure it's quite worth it. I was also considering Power Attack but it just really doesn't seem nearly as worth it with TWFing, though with a two-bladed sword I can definitely still use one end of it 2h to get some nice mileage out of it.
Looking for any advice, as well as purchasing recommendations, since 315k is frankly, a lot. 3pp suggestions are fine, but are subject to my DM of course.
Ran into a bit of confusion while I was looking at the Dhampir and the Heir to Undying Nobility alternate racial trait.
Normally Dhampirs have Detect Undead, but this trait replaces it with Command, and Charm Person. Typically a SLA DC like most spells is based on 10 + spell level + casting stat, however if this is a racially granted SLA... what is the casting stat? WIS, INT, or CHA?
My group should be starting Hell's Vengeance soon and I'm currently considering playing an Antipaladin. Normally I go for brute force 2h greatsword wielding builds, and while I likely still will be that, I like the idea of having this character being more CHA/Touch of Corruption focused while acting as a face and holding the party together.
Mixing the Dread Vanguard and Tyrant archetypes seems to be a solid choice with the Dread Vanguard providing some great buffing capabilities, with additional Touches, and Tyrant of course since it's just a LE archetype and fits the AP better.
Beyond this I'm unsure of where to go with this. I currently do like the idea of going with Dhampir as a race, likely Moroi-born, for Touch of Corruption swift healing, and I like the idea and visual of being a noble Dhampir.
Any additional advice? Also I really like the idea of a Fiendish servant for my boon but I'm extremely hesitant since the penalties for your servant dying are pretty awful to me, and the LE choices seem quite inferior to the CE ones.
So I've been playing around with the idea of a Cleric of Urgathoa who specializes in channeling negative energy combined with Shatter Resolve.
Everyone knows that clerics tend to perform poorly when they focus on channeling, but I feel like Shatter Resolve has the potential to sway things the other way. However while looking into this I've come across a number of potential options, as well as the allure of the (Un)holy Vindicator, and the question becomes, how much is enough?
So far for a preliminary feat set up we have
R Selective Channeling
1 Shatter Resolve
3 Extra Channel (or Improved)
5 Improved Channel (or Extra, or Quicken)
If we decide to go HV then lvl 7 needs to be Alignment/Elemental Channel. There is also the potential of the Channeling Force feats as well, or Channel Smite, or even Guided Hand.
The end result is a seemingly very fun character concept, but one which I'm feeling paralysis by the number of options I'm seeing, and the inability to choose many.
To top it all off, Undeath as a domain appears a no brainer, but what for a 2nd? Ferocity? And then would Undead Lord be a worthwhile archetype since I'm already going for Undeath, or would the loss of that 2nd domain hurt significantly? What of other archetypes?
Lots of questions regarding this build and I'm open to any thoughts on the matter.
This idea got brought up over in the other impaling critical thread but I figure the discussion was getting pretty off topic, so I figured I'd start this up.
The concept here is to use Ascetic Style to apply monk unarmed strike damage to a cestus, then through Improved Critical or Keen to achieve a 17-20/x2 crit rate and then crit somewhat reliably for Impaling Critical shenanigans.
Using Unchained Monk we can actually take the Hamatulatsu Master archetype, allowing us to pick up Weapon Focus (Cestus) as our lvl 1 monk bonus feat, and use our normal lvl 1 for Ascetic Style. At lvl 6, we use our bonus feat to gain Hamatulatsu, allowing us to deal piercing damage, and sicken on a crit. At level 9 we can theoretically take Improved Critical (Cestus) or have it enchanted to Keen by this point, and lvl 10 we finally take Impaling Critical (Cestus) for our fun impaling shenanigans, and since we take it as our monk bonus feat, the prereqs are not required.
However, I'm not much of a monk player, so beyond this basic framework, I'm unsure how to make this work even better. It also brings up a variety of questions due to Ascetic Style: Do Weapon Focus for Unarmed and Cestus stack to give +2 to hit? Say I have a Keen Cestus, and an AoMF +2. How does that even work? Do they stack? What takes precedence?
Lots of questions, but impaling people with fists is too great a concept to ignore.
So I was looking at Eldritch Archer Magus and realized... they can use guns with their arcane bond, spell combat, and spellstrike.
Normally guns are pretty terrible, but I can see some fun opportunities here with a dip into Spellslinger to really get that whole Outlaw Star caster gun feel, especially through Spell Blending to get Named Bullet, and now you got a pistol shot auto critting for x4, and a Disintegrate that auto crits at x3.
I'm sure there are plenty of better combos or uses, but that in particular sounded fun.
Thoughts? Does this seem doable? Highly considering something like this for an upcoming campaign down the line.
I never really paid much attention to uncommon races but seeing the Sleep Venom feat has me very interested in performing some manner of cheese with the Vishkanya.
Sleep Venom:
Prerequisites: Vishkanya.
Benefit: As a swift action, you may alter the effects of your venom so the target falls unconscious. This changes the initial and secondary effect of your venom to the following: initial effect staggered for 1d4 rounds; secondary effect unconsciousness for 1 minute. You must make the decision to alter your venom before you apply it to a weapon.
Normal: Vishkanya venom deals Dexterity damage.
The key figure here is I am not interested in "poison" as a general term, but specifically the Vishkanya sleep venom, and to best utilize it. The imagery of tapping the BBEG, staggering him for a lucky 1d4 roll of 1, and then promptly having them fall unconscious is something that sounds hilarious, and particularly fun.
So how appears to be the best means of going about this? Would Alchemist's Sticky Poison count for Vishkanya poison?
I'm probably starting a new module pretty soon and I recently got the idea of playing just a hulking brute of a bloodrager, punching, or clawing the hell out of his opponents.
What I have so far is Demonspawn tiefling, with Abyssal bloodline. The question is where do I go from here?
Someone recommended going down the Eldritch Heritage: Orc route, since the later Orc powers are pretty nice such as:
Strength of the Beast (Ex): At 9th level, you gain a +2 inherent bonus to your Strength. This bonus increases to +4 at 13th level, and to +6 at 17th level.
Power of Giants (Sp): At 15th level, you may grow to Large size as a standard action. At this size you gain a +6 size bonus to Strength, a –2 penalty to Dexterity, a +4 size bonus to Constitution, and a +4 natural armor bonus. You may return to your normal size as a standard action. You may remain in this size for up to 1 minute per character level per day; this duration does not need to be consecutive, but it must be used in 1 minute increments.
However fitting in Skill Focus, on top of 3 EHs is pretty expensive, though the rewards are quite nice looking. Would other feats serve me much better, and what would even be a viable leveling build starting from lvl 1?
I'm a player in a Wrath of the Righteous campaign currently playing a bow using Oradin (3 Oracle/4 Paladin/3 Holy Vindicator) and I just got a pretty nice bow (+2 adaptive flaming burst that also shoots a single mythic scorching ray twice a day). My initial inclination was to turn it into a legendary item on my next mythic tier and go from there.
However, I also have a very nice set of armor currently (+2 mithral full plate, swift increases enhancement bonus by +1, and the armor also gives me an extra mythic point and an extra lay on hands). The intelligent item chain to pick up Fly is looking really, really tempting right now though. Plus the imagery of angelic wings sprouting from the armor sounds very nice.
As a side question though, I was curious if the limbs created by taking animate, as a prerequisite for fly, could actually be used, either as a way of grabbing items, or by holding a shield.
The ability itself is pretty bare-bones in its description:
Animate: This item can sprout limbs and move with a speed of 10 feet.
So, should I legendary the bow, or the armor, and can the armor with animate be used to hold a shield?
There is a lot of mudslinging going on right now with the Ninja so I'm gonna try and condense this with my own thoughts, which seem to be in agreement with others.
The Ninja right now is like a Wizard. It has the potential to be broken to game ruining levels. But so can the Wizard. So do we nerf Wizards? It ultimately comes down to the player and if they choose to abuse the cheese they have access to. With that said...
1. Remove the free uses of ki abilities.
I think this is self-explanatory.
2. Limit the uses of Forgotten Trick to maybe 1 use a day per 3 or 4 Ninja levels.
Forgotten Trick is kind of broken, won't lie. I feel it should be limited to more of an "OHSHI-!" contingency, like you're falling from a great height and to prevent your death, you suddenly remember Feather Fall. I feel that is how you should use this ability, not for cheese.
3. Increase the cost of Vanishing Trick/Invisible Blade to 2 ki. Reduce the duration of Invisible Blade to half Ninja level.
These are two extremely powerful abilities. I feel increasing their cost, and reducing the rounds of greater invisibility will help considerably in regulating their use.
4. Ghost Step should be changed to 2ft. per level and made a standard action.
So concludes the fixes.
The one fix everyone is clamoring for is that the Ninja be weakened to be equal to the Rogue and I absolutely can not agree with this. The Rogue is underpowered. We all know this. So why drag the Ninja down?
My favorite rogue build is easily the half-orc falchion wielder, so I was very curious to see how it would turn out when transposed into the ninja.
Session isn't until tomorrow, but in the meantime here is the build I will be using.
Rules Ignored: Encumbrance, ammo and "standard adventuring supplies"
20 point buy, 32000gp
Human lvl 8 Ninja
AC: 17
HP: 73
Initiative +7
Ki Pool 8
STR 20
DEX 12
CON 12
INT 7
WIS 10
CHA 18
Saves:
FORT 5
REFL 9
WILL 6
Feats:
Improved Initiative
Iron Will
Power Attack
Toughness
Weapon Focus: Bastard Sword (Katana)
Ninja Tricks:
Shadow Clone (1d4+2)
Vanishing Trick 8/r
Slow Reactions
Fast Stealth
+4d6 SA
Traits:
Shadow Child
Reactionary
Gear:
Belt of Giant Str +2
Cloak of Resistance +2
Eyes of the Eagle
Handy Haversack
Headband Cha +2
+2 Mithral Chain Shirt
+2 Bastard Sword(Katana)
Masterwork Short Composite Bow (+3)
Tactics are to Shadow Clone each encounter, get into flanking position and PA away. If things look ugly, then Vanish and tumble to regain positioning. The party also has no rogue so I'd attempt to locate and disable what I can.
The glaring issue in this is the horrible AC of course, but I'm putting my faith in vanish and shadow clone to minimize that worry, and Toughness.
As said, this won't be until tomorrow but I figured I'd post this up now and maybe get some critique on the build. I didn't post skills but Stealth, Perception, Acrobatics and Disable Device are all maxed.
Also since I'll actually be the player during this I likely won't be able to give round by round statistics, but I will present overall encounter summaries and my thoughts regarding the class.
