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Hello Forum!

I hope you all are well. It's time for another thoerycraft build that I want to try to make as effective as possible around the feat : Deadly Dealer.

First, to go over the objective. This exercise is foremost a way for me to practice building character, which I love to do. I want to be better at making effective, and sometimes completely optimized characters. But I love finding cool or unusual premises for my characters and I want to see how well I can make an effective character around something. I invite you to critique me, give me advice, or ideas. Please don't be afraid to post your own ideas and builds following the parameters set forth.

Alright, on to the Parameters:

20 pt buy
11th Level, with WBL
any race except custom ARG
any Paizo on the SRD, no 3PP
no houseruled, try to stick to RAW

Must have Deadly Dealer feat, and be combat effective, if not optimal. Primary damage should come from the feat, but not necessarily all damage.

Here's my attempt:

Human Bard (Archaeologist)
Level 11
Stats:
Str 15
Dex 20
Con 12
Int 12
Wis 12
Cha 14

Feats:
1: Arcane Strike, Point Blank Shot
3: Precise Shot
5: Deadly Dealer
7: Rapid Shot
9: Deadly Aim
11: Lingering Performance

Rogue Talents:
4th: Combat Trick: Weapon Focus (Dart)
8th: Combat Trick: Snap Shot

Spells Known:
0 : Detect magic, Mage Hand, Light, Prestidigitation, Read Magic, Sift
1st: Grease, Magic Aura, Feather Step, Identify, Detect Secret Doors, Comprehend Languages
2nd: Allegro, Glitterdust, Invisibility, Silence, Versatile Weapon
3rd: Dispel Magic, Haste, Harrowing, Good Hope
4th: Greater Invisibility, Freedom of Movement, Dimension Door

Skills:
Acrobatics 11 ranks
Bluff 5 ranks
Craft (Harrow Deck) 4 ranks
Disable Device 11 Ranks (+5)
Diplomacy 8 ranks
Knowledge (Local, Arcana, Nature, Dungeoneering, Religion, Planes) 1 rank each
Perception 11 ranks (+5)
Sleight of Hand 5 ranks
Spellcraft 11 ranks
Use Magic Device 11 ranks

Special Abilities:
Bardic Knowledge
Archaeologist's Luck +3
Uncanny Dodge
Trap Sense +3
Lore Master
Rogue Talents x2
Evasion
Jack of All Trades

Equipment: Starting at 82000 gp
1x Wand (50 charges) Greater magic Weapon, CL 12) 27000 gp
50 Harrow Decks 5000 gp
Mithril Chain Shirt +4 17100 gp
Belt of Dexterity +4 16000 gp
Cloak of Resistance +3 9000 gp
Handy Haversack 2000
Bag of holding II 5000 gp
Masterwork Theives' Tools 100 gp
Mithril extenders 820 gp
Various adventuring gear equaling no more than 1980 gp

Time for some calculations for To Hit and Damage with playing cards.

To Hit:
assuming the ability to buff, using Greater magic weapon for a +3, Good Hope, Haste, Arcane Strike, Rapid Shot, Archaeologist's Luck, Deadly Aim:

+18 /+18 / +18 / +13

Damage:
Assuming the above buffs:

1d4 + 17

So assuming 4 hits (which may be realistic, or not, I'm not sure), the bard does average 78 points in one round. With Harrow Cards. I like it.

Now it's not awesome damage, but I feel it's respectable, considering the Bard covers skill monkey, face, scout, and a buffer. I chose spells based off of what I saw being a helpful buff, or alternative benefit. Skills were chosen based off of filling face and skill monkey. I am horribly simplistic when it comes to items, I'm sure there are better combinations out there, so please weigh in with what could be improved.

I just love the idea of a poker playing card shark swindler using cards as weapons. Not only would this be a fun roleplaying character, I feel he wouldn't just be sitting back doing nothing during combat.

Please weigh in, tell me your opinions, your thoughts, your concerns. I am trying to become better at building characters. I'm open to anything constructive.

Hello MESSAGEBOARDS!

I have fallen in love with the cleric class, there isn't a role they can't fill, though there are spots that they lack or are limited.

I was thinking the other day about optimizing a heavy hitting Cleric, and how to build one. They would revolve around a standard attack, dealing as much damage as possible with one swing. That's the goal I am trying to reach. I decided an 11th level Cleric would be a good place to start, and can reverse engineer it down to 1st level if needed.

Now my thoughts were that they would channel negative energy, the majority of the time you will face living creatures, but sometimes you need to hit that undead baddy hard,so versatile channeling will make it into the build if I can get it to fit.

Starting out, I'm going to pick human as a race, with a 20 pt buy stat spread.

The starting stats will look like this:

Str 16 (+2)
Dex 12
Con 12
Int 7
Wis 14
Cha 14

Ok, first off, Str will be primary, and probably the only stat getting the bonus points. I wanted a positive Cha, for extra channels, and a positive Wis, to increase the DC of channeled energy as much as we can afford. This guy isn't being built to take a lot of hits, he's built to hit a homerun in one round, quite possibly killing a BBEG in one hit, maybe two if he survives.

So next up, we have domains. Now my DM allows "ideal" worshipping, so We have a ton of flexibility. Rage (destruction) fits in with the smite ability, doesn't even cost an action, and at 8th level you can enter a rage like a barbarian. Protean (Chaos) is one of my favorite domains, and witha conductive weapon, allows us to force the creature to reroll their will save, granting us a better chance to deal full damage. And as a bonus, Gorum has access to both domains, and has the greatsword as a favored weapon. BONUS!

So next come the feats.

1st: Improved Channel, Channel Smite
3rd: Power Attack
5th: Furious Focus
7th: Weapon Focus
9th: Vital Strike
11th: Extra Channel

Improved Channel to up the DC, Channel Smite because that's what I'm trying to build around. Power Attack is a great feat, adds a great bonus to damage. Furious focus because it allows us to ignore the Power Attack penatly, for the first attack of the round. It fits great because our cleric is being built for only one attack a round. Same goes for Vital Strike. Weapon Focus is there for the bonus to hit. Extra Channel is there to help increase our ability to smite more often.

Equipment! Who doesn't like buying equipment? Arguably one of the better aspects of building a character! HAHAHA

Weapon, weapon, weapon is our primary item, our build is dependent on it.

We have 82,000 gold to spend on our equipment. Lets start going over abilities:
Spell Storing: a great way to add some bonus dice to our damage, even though we are limited to only 3rd level spells.
Conductive: a great ability, allowing us to use our Touch of Chaos on our opponent.
Flat enhancement bonus: A great way to add some much needed static damage and bonus to hit.

So perusing the magic item list, a +4 Spell Storing Conductive Greatsword will cost us 72,000 gold.

A hefty price for a great weapon, but that only leaves us 10,000 gold for other items to buff our damage. Let's list a few good ones, and we can pick and choose what we want.

Belt of Giant's Strength +4: 16000 gold

And honestly I looked for awhile, but nothing really increased our base damage that I could find. Maybe you know of some other abilities I could look at.

If we drop our greatsword to +2, we will have enough to buy a Belt of GS +4, a headband of wis+4 and have some left over for armor, even though for the purpose of this build we aren't worrying about surviving after the first hit.

So our gear looks like this:
+2 Spell Storing Conductive Greatsword
Belt of Giant Str +4
Headband of Wisdom +4
+3 Mithril Breastplate

Honestly, not too shabby compared to other 11th level characters, but lacking some potentially serious gear to survive long, but we aren't worried about that for this. Headband is to help with the Channel Smite DC, and to cast spells. Belt of GS is to help hit and damage. Nothing new or exciting there.

So our revised stats look like this:

Str 24
Dex 12
Con 12
Int 7
Wis 18
Cha 14

All ability increases went into Str.

So let's look at our potential to hit and damage. Finally, the meat of the topic.

Assuming you are within melee, and are not suffering any effects that affect anything, really... We are looking at:

+8 (base) +7 (str) +2 (Magic) +1 (Weapon Focus) = +18 to hit

Could be better, but lacks the buff of a full BAB progression.

Add in Divine power at CL 11, that becomes a +21.

Base Damage, using Vital Strike, Channel Smite, Power Attack and Inflict Serious Wounds stored in our sword:

2d6 + 2d6 (vital) + 10 (Str) +2 (Magic) + 9 (Power Attack) + 6d6 (Channel) + (3d8+11) (inflict Spell stored = (average rolls) 80.5 damage

80.5 damage assuming average rolls. And if the target fails both will saves, due to our conductive touch of chaos.
At level 11.
7/day....

You can double check me on my math, but for the most part, I think I'm right...

Just play a big hit build fighter. HAHAHAHA
So our big hit cleric is really a small time hitter. So he isn't going to deal great damage, but you have to admit, the idea of a holy warrior dropping the pain on a BBEG in one hit was a good one. I'm sure there are other ways, more efficient ways, to build a nasty hitter like I want. I'm just not seeing the best ways to go about it. But you only get better at optimization if you work at it, right?

Thank you for participating in my theory craft. Please leave a comment, correct my errors, weigh in with other options, or viable channel smite builds. I'm only human, and therefore fallible.

Have a great one!

Hi guys, I've been tooling around the forums and have had a great time reading and contributing (admittedly, not much yet). So I look to the webs to ask a few questions about what I should do in the predicament I am in.

Here's some background.

Group of 4 PCs, I'm one of them, started Rise of the Runelords. We had been playing for roughly 7-9 sessions, but have had a few breaks in between a few sessions due to RL circumstances. Two weeks ago, our DM sat us down and had a heart to heart, and a round table discussion about how he feels our characters aren't part of the world, have no life, no personalities. Totally true, we all felt like the AP was on rails, that we had no ability to adventure off the path set before us. So he wanted to drop the AP, and head to a homemade campaign, and wanted to add a 5th PC. We all agreed. We discussed class options and what would be available. We needed someone capable of heals, so I volunteered as Cleric. Had a great (in my mind) spellcaster cleric idea, we started at level 3, built him up, and started looking around on the forums for a few pointers...

Boy that build got thrown out fast, I found a link to Brewer's Reach Cleric, and I fell in love with it. Remade the cleric from the ground up following the guide the night before the first new session.

So the next day, we sit down at the table and I found out what everyone else would be playing....

Here goes, best of what I can remember:

Druid Bear Archetype
Custom ARG race based around bears
Bear companion
Uses a longspear, Strength is a 20+ heavy Con. He will self buff.

Monk
Custom Race based on Dwarves
Small, with medium monk damage factored into race points
20 Strength, high Dex and Wis.

Fighter, Archer Archetype
Custom ARG Race, based around riding wolves, small
20 Str, high con, high dex.

Witch Scarred Witch Doctor Archetype
Half orc
Extremely high Con, unknown rest.
took Evil Eye and healing hex

My Cleric
Human HP 26
NG alignment
Domains: Tactics, Fate
Str 17
Dex 14
Con 14
Int 10
Wis 14
Cha 8

Feats: Combat reflexes, improved initiative, Power Attack
Traits: Armor Master, reactionary
Equipment: Masterwork longspear, masterwork chainshirt, one wand of CLW, 5 CLW potions, useful to hand to monk when he scouts. Various scrolls of buffs in case i run out of spells.
Side note, DM has yet to rule on whether to homebrew Sacred summons to include all Good alignment summons, he has been unreachable to discuss one on one for the last few days.

So everything is 20 point buy, standard WBL. With one bad HP roll, I am now the lowest HP character, by 7 hp, iirc.

So now we have 4 melee characters, counting the bear animal companion of the druid. Not only is it crowded in melee, my damage is pitiful even with Power Attack compared to anyone else in Melee. The Fighter gets upset if I buff myself, says it's a waste of an action, that as a cleric I should be buffing the other guys. Ok, I can understand that, but the druid already told me he will buff himself whenever he needs it, has one CLW prepared as an emergency for someone.
The witch took healing hex instead of slumber as everyone thought, she thought it wouldn't hurt to have a back up healer, which is not a bad idea, except we have almost no control besides evil eye, since the druid prepares only self buffs, and has stated that he will summon bears. So my need to summon has dropped immensely, even if Sacred Summons is houseruled.

I fear that the witch and myself are going to be completely irrelevant to the party and just used as healbots/buffbots. And that's what I wanted to avoid by going with the reach cleric, to at least be a contribution to the party.

So I've been thinking that since we lack control, of making a bad touch cleric. Obviously that means a complete overhaul of the character. I'm fine with that, and I will post a possible build of it later in the post.
So on to pertinent questions,
1) what do you think, will I be better to stay the reach cleric or should I change to something else?
2) If I stay the Reach cleric, and the DM rules against Sacred Summons (possible, not probable) what are other ways of gaining relevance to the party? I would like to not do the same thing as everyone else, or at least not feel like it....

Ok, here is my bad cleric build that I am thinking of going. I am basing it off of Tark's build in his guide.

Human Cleric level 3
Domains Protean, Madness
Alignment CG
Stats:
Str 12
Dex 16
Con 13
Int 7
Wis 17 (+2)
Cha 7

Feats: Improved Unarmed Strike, Domain Strike (Touch of Chaos)Weapon Finesse
Traits: Armor Master, Reactionary
Equipment: Masterwork Chain Shirt, Mithral Heavy Shield, Wand CLW, 5 x Potion CLW (to supply scouts with help if needed), and that leaves 700 for scrolls.... what scrolls? I don't know...

The idea behind the character is to play him as if he was touched by pure chaos on accident, maybe hit by a meteor sent by a Protean. He'd be partially mad, talking to himself often, little things to roleplay. He'd be "worshiping" an ideal.

I would take Domain Strike again for Touch of madness, maybe, I see it being viable. What other feat progression would you recommend?

I apologize for the HUGE post. I just have concerns and since my Dm has been unreachable, I turn to you to help.
It's possible my DM will see this post, but I don't know how often he hits the forums.