Jose Hernandez 622's page

Claxon, using the wise words Syndrome, from The Incredibles:

*Everyone* can be super! And when everyone's super...

[laughs maniacally]
Syndrome: ...*no one* will be.

Under a lot of conditions the "point arrays" may be as overwhelming (or underwhelming) optimized as, let say, an Aasimar with +4 in STR and +2 in CHA. A lot depend on the DM, the campaign and the personal preference of the players.

And yet, 'decoys' can't possibly ever be a good idea?

OMG, no!!! Decoys are wonderful as tactics that require to defend a target, particularly if that target is not presented in the battlefield (the classic trope of "the princess is in another castle" kind of thing).

Decoys as part of an aggressive combat strategy are not good. The thing is that the player have to win (unless scripted) and that led to use decoys in an aggressive strategy as a defensive option (do you see the problem here?). And when you put CR into play, that 1/x decoy may be the difference between a good fight and a "uh? the caster died in a single hit" kind of moment.

Nevertheless, decoys are to alpha strikes, what fake "evil" enemies are to paladins. It may trick them once in a while, but they are not going to stop trying. They just have to know when and to whom "alpha strike".

For me, it would be better just to use different strategies that put theirs in a bad position: Spear attacks, alpha strikes (first to hit win), pincers, swarms, ball of death (synergy teams), and back-doors... almost any strategy that put them in a defensive position.

Also good ones are feints attacks (similar to decoys, but not quite), skirmished by weak enemies (preferable replaceable ones), battle of attrition if the alpha strikes are dependable on (big) resources, and almost every strategy that make the alpha strike moot because there is no target to alpha strike.

^Talking about the Scaled Fist Archetype (and seeing that your guide don't have a multi-classing section); it works wonder as a dip for Iroran Paladin (and no, I'm not referring about the CHA stacking armor bonuses, that is a debate for another time).

For 1 level dip you get your CHA to stunning fist DC, flurry of blows and bonus feat... and it can be Dragon style (and stunning fist open the path for the full chain if wanted).

For 2 level dip you get evasion (your reflex saves are so-so thanks to CHA to saves) and a second feat. A second dip would be pushing too hard but depending on the campaign, evasion might be worth its salt, and dodge might be good as the second free feat.

On the other hand, if you can afford a 2 dip level in Iroran paladin as a Scaled Fist monk you boost your two good saves to ridiculous levels while not losing your will saves, a not so restrictive conduct code (even thematically in some sense) and wands from the paladin list if that worth something... and once a day trial that might or might not be useful. Ok, that does not look too good.