Lord Wimpy's page

My playgroup is coming back to pathfinder and I’m planning on playing Tengu Eldritch Scoundrel Rogue (unchained) in an upcoming Carrion Crown AP. I’m wondering what the best fighting style is. I’m sure I’ll mostly be using my magic for skill monkey purposes but will be able to save a couple spell slots for combat buffs, especially as levels progress. I understand that my damage isn’t going to be optimal, but I’d like to be at least viable. Tengu receive a free bite attack and can further choose between proficiency with all swords/knives OR two claw attacks. There are three options (that I can see) which are available to me: natural attacks, elven curve blade, or TWF. As far as damage goes, are these roughly on par with each other, or does one outshine/ fall behind the rest? Has anyone run the numbers on these styles with the reduced sneak attack damage dice? Has anyone run the numbers on these styles with a secondary bite attack? I’m looking to the forum wisdom to guess which style is best.

I would prefer natural attacks or elven curve blade, unless TWF is far and away the best. If all styles are roughly equal, there are other things to consider:
Natural Attacks
Pros-
Free hands for casting
No mandatory feats that I’m aware of: this allows space to pick up extra rogue talents, accomplished sneak attacker, etc. to make up for the class features I’m trading away for spells. Effectively trading feats for 6th level spellcasting.
3 attacks at no BAB penalty (5 later on with helm of the mammoth lord and wyvern cloak): Works well with sneak attack; 3 attacks early and 5 attacks later at full BAB keeps up with the number of iteratives that have a chance to actually hit if you go TWF. Amulet of Mighty fists + no BAB penalty from TWF means Piranha Strike will be used a lot more too.
I get to be a crow man who claws zombies in gothic horror: CAW

Cons
Wyvern cloak takes the slot of the mandatory cloak. Offset by the +4 Will but losing 1 Will and 5 Fort hurts.
Dex to Damage: No dex to damage on Bite until 11th, then that’s it. An agile AoMF takes care of this but it feels bad buying it for only two attacks (gore and sting)

Elven Curve Blade

Pros:

Free action to take one hand off to cast: effectively have a free hand at all times
Not feat heavy
Best damage when you don’t get to full attack
Fewer attacks means shorter turns in combat (this belongs under Cons if overall damage is worse than the other options, but this option is hurt the least by the reduced sneak attack die progression.)

Cons:

Need Str 13 for Power Attack: I’m not delaying spell progression by dipping ranger

TWF

Pros

Drow razor looks like a great weapon
Weapon Focus and buff spells have the highest impact.

Cons
Feat heavy
No free hands

Does anyone have a rough idea or suggestion? Is there something I'm missing that makes one choice obviously better than the others?

Well apparently goblins of the Thistletop tribe are blue-skinned. (This tribe is nearby to the starting town)
Source: http://paizo.com/products/btpy9hg8?Pathfinder-Thistletop-Goblin

That, combined with the fact that Blues are supposed to be very rare would probably make it a DC 15 knowledge local check for NPC's to identify a Blue instead of assuming it's a regular goblin. Of course if you really want to play one, your DM can say they are common enough in the area, most people can identify one on sight, and they are tolerated in human society to whatever degree your DM says. Perhaps somewhere between half-elves and tieflings. Probably as much as half-orcs.

There will be some anti-goblin sentiment early in the adventure, so a rank in Disguise at level 1 may serve you well. Your DM might be nice and toss in a Hat of Disguise early on. Limited in power to only make small creatures look like halflings, and only work for small creatures. What ever to make sure it's only used to make your character fit in.

Alternatively, your DM can write you in with a reason to be accepted. I DMed book 1 with a goblin PC. He arrived in town with a locally famous goblin hunter, a sight unusual enough to make everyone in town remember him. He had a note written by the goblin hunter and the town mayor expressing his permission to be in town; this was a good enough reason to keep any violence from occurring. After a few adventures, you'll have helped the town enough that your character will be celebrated, so this is all a short term problem.

As always, if you and your DM work together, you can make it work.

When I make a purchase, one of the things I do consider is who I'm giving my money to. Sometimes it sways my decision, sometimes it doesn't. Since it's my money, I'm allowed to do that. Just like it's your money, and you're allowed to spend it how you like.

That's the best part about capitalism, in my opinion, and I feel the same way about statements he's said. But in a world where I have to give money to OPEC just to get to work in the morning, giving a few euros to a bad guy who, at this point in his life, is just raising his kids in the woods isn't what keeps me up at night.

Frankly from a game design perspective, the first edition of MYFAROG, the copy I have, is garbage. The base d6 system isn't bad, but it suffers from too many convoluted tables and charts. Also, the type face for every word in the book is Papyrus. It's bad enough that I wouldn't have thought to ever buy a newer edition until I saw just how much physically smaller the new books are. It looks like much of the crunch has been consolidated into something manageable.

Although a few interesting things I did like, such as "fighters" (so to speak; the game doesn't have classes) do have an incentive to make use of Charisma, such as by forming a warband. A magic paradigm based off of something other than the modern western tropes, or far eastern tropes, both of which are common to play with. I do really want to play a more "tribal" caster with a magic system flavored as such. Normally one just re-skins the fluff of their character to use voodoo methods of casting Fireball and Haste. Having a pagan-based magic system fundamentally changes the stories that gaming groups will tell. Playing in a MYFAROG-like setting with a D&D magic system would shift the lens to modern western perspective, breaking the whole point of the setting.

I should say something about the setting, since MYFAROG is a system designed and tailored for it's accompanying setting. There are details that people will find objectionable. Different stats for different human ethnicities is a line some people don't want to bother crossing for fun in their spare time. There are negative caricatures of the Abrahamic religions. There are rules to see if a woman dies in childbirth. Despite all this, or maybe because of, I think the setting is the best part of MYFAROG. The author based it on what he perceives to be reality, but I know better than he does, and once I got over my initial reaction, I looked at everything with a more anthropological eye, and discovered a great setting that sparked my storytelling imagination.

The general feel of the setting is primitive people living in a gritty, dangerous wilderness. They are beset on all sides by hostile forces: foreign imperialists, religious crusaders, magical beasts, or otherwise. The geography is a series of islands, increasing the feeling that danger could come from any direction. On top of that, alien beings called Ettins move into land and terraform it, causing it to be incapable of supporting human life. It's a gritty and pessimistic setting. The tribes fight to survive even though given enough time, players can see that their characters will die, perhaps their tribes will die. They persevere in the spirit of real-life viking age scandinavians, which the setting is obviously inspired by. They fight on just like Thor and the other gods, even though they knew Ragnarok was coming and that in the final battle, they would be defeated. Anthropologists seem to agree their mythology helped morale whilst fighting to survive in the inhospitable north. You can tell some good stories in this setting, but it is specialized for certain kinds of stories.

The setting is a fantasized version of Roman/Christian domination of Europe from the pagan perspective. People seem to forget that the first victims of European imperialism were the Europeans. This is definitely not a setting to play out your power fantasies. The best game would be one in which the players all adopt a primitive, pagan mindset. In a high fantasy game, a female PC dying in childbirth would be bad storytelling; an abrupt and unsatisfying end to a power fantasy. In this setting, it would be an important plot point; they mourn, they revere the divine feminine, they persevere, the child is accepted into the tribe. It's just a different kind of game. Sorry for the wall of text, but just saying, "the racism and unempowerment of women are good storytelling tools" without explaining why would draw troll comments from people who haven't read the book, especially from west-hating fanatics of my generation. This is definitely a setting that requires mature players, considering how the source material was written, but I think it can be salvaged and enjoyed.

Please cancel my adventure path subscription. I believe the final volume of Hell's Vengeance has already been shipped, but just in case, I will clarify that I would like it to ship before the subscription is cancelled.

I find it's best to keep politics out of MYFAROG threads, otherwise nobody will talk about MYFAROG. It's irrelevant to game design or your gaming group having fun.

I own the first edition that came in the big hardcover but sadly haven't gotten to play. None of my friends are interested in playing a low magic game where hunting and gathering is a part of the fantasy. If I got the opportunity to play I would absolutely buy the latest edition: fewer rules are better than more rules, after all.

Pathfinder is designed for an epic, high fantasy feel. I've been itching to play a low fantasy game and the 9th level casters do not fit in the world. Fortunately, they have 6th-level versions already. A Cleric character would take levels in Warpriest, Druid in Hunter, Wizard in Magus/Eldritch Scoundrel Rogue. This covers the major spell lists, but leaves the commonly used magic-blooded sorcerer trope with nothing but the spontaneous casting Magus archetype.

In making the Sorcerer a 6th-level casting class I've come up with the following:
3/4 BaB progression, d8 hp, 4+INT skills per level, good Will save
Spells known are equal to Bard spells known for each level
Bloodline feats are gained at 2,6,10,14,18
Bloodline bonus spells are gained at 3,5,8,11,14,17

I have yet to read through all the Bloodline powers to see if they need changing; for example in this system, the earliest access to the spell Fly is 10th level.

Notably, the class is missing a mechanic to increase it's chance to hit in combat. It's role is not to be a gish (the aforementioned magus archetype covers that) but a few more bonus feats may not be enough. Should I invent a mechanic before playtesting, or leave it be and make learning a few buff spells more or less mandatory? Perhaps with the d8 chassis, melee oriented bloodlines may see their intended use.

If you're starting higher than level 1, it wouldn't be too bad to have the party caster craft wands. And if you are the caster, a lesser rod of Extend spell is only 3,000g.

If you do start at level 1, an unskilled hireling could push you around in a wheelbarrow full of water for pretty cheap.

Well feats are fortunately not super important for wizards. What separates a useful party wizard from a useless one are the spells he can prepare. Just be sure your GM is familiar with the prices of copying spells from other spellbooks, even if he wants to then houserule it to be more expensive/hand out less gold than the assumed wealth by level. Really, a wizard can honestly not take any feats at all and still be a great wizard. Augment summoning isn't necessary because of just how powerful summoning is. That being said, the extra damage it provides is extra damage, and who can turn their nose up at that?
Since you have 12 CON and 11 WIS I would take serious looks at Toughness and Iron Will. Flexible Wizardry is interesting, good for a surprise combat in the middle of a social day or what have you. It's a 3 feat line however, and Fast Study does something similar for only 1 feat, which can be taken as your wizard bonus feat at 5th. You might look at that too. If you're allowed to use the crafting rules, Craft Magic Arms and Armor is very powerful (which is why it's sometimes banned) and fits in with your character being a blacksmith. At 9th you could take Golem Constructor to really push the idea of the craftsman wizard.
Arcane Blast is just not good. If you need an emergency blast every now and then, scribe a few scrolls of blast spells and keep them in a Haversack. As for Improved Counterspell, making sure you have one spell of every school prepared is just one more thing to consider when doing your homework, and I personally prefer to just prepare dispel magic or magic missile (ready an action to blast the enemy caster with missiles, forcing a concentration check).

Your party composition would also be very useful, as well as what kind of campaign you're running. Feats for a dungeon crawl would be different than feats for courtly intrigue, although as a d6 class, Toughness is always a safe bet for a spare feat slot.

A Sacred Servant paladin with the Travel domain can cast fly 1/day starting at 10th.

In your game world, you're free to have wizard colleges administer intelligence tests (as a series of INT checks), and only intelligent people are good at magic anyway (a low INT means the DC's of your spells are low).
Mechanically though, stat requirements add nothing to the game. If something happens in the story that makes the fighter want to take classes in warlock, stat requirements would only restrict that option without adding anything of value. Fortunately, 5e was written with the spirit and intention that groups customize it to their liking.

You could trade your human bonus feat for a bonus skill focus feat at 1st, 8th, and 16th, which might be worth it depending on what levels you'll be playing until. 2h power attack builds really only need 1 feat, and that's power attack. If variant multiclassing is an option, bard nets you Bardic Knowledge, which is great for the warrior-scholar trope. You'll also get a versatile performance down the line, which means free skill points. I'm playing a warrior-scholar paladin. Although 25 point buy allowed me the luxury of 14 INT, vmc bard and the bonus skill focus feats have allowed me to even use a couple extra skill points for fluff with a profession. I would change your trait if possible also, -1 to armor check pen is equivalent to having masterwork armor, which is a measly 150 gold. It does stack, but honestly if there is a skill that you identify your character with, find the trait that makes it a class skill.

Grappling is also an option, if the fighter carries rope he can bind the target.

Did your DM buff the rogue in any way to compensate for the loss of sneak attack? Sneak attack is their major class feature, it would be like taking spells away from the magus. Your DM has taken away the only tool available to the rogue to really have a moment to shine in melee, infrequently as it was.
Aside from combat maneuvers being a weak option overall, a rogue only has 3/4 base attack bonus, making it even worse. I would frankly play a bard, swashbuckler or monk at that point, depending on your character concept. Of course, some campaigns have no combat. I played in a campaign that often went four or five sessions without combat. If that's the kind of game you play, the loss of sneak attack won't be missed much. If you don't mind casting spells, the Eldritch Scoundrel archetype gives you 6th level spellcasting off the wizard spell list. With that, you could be the best at skill checks and have a few creative ways to solve problems that only magic gives you. I'd still make sure your combat ability is buffed in some way though.

I usually give my players max hp for levels 1-3 then make them roll as normal. It helps with the burstiness of low level combat, keeps the fighter from rolling 1's for hp early (it is not fun when the wizard has more hp than you), and has less and less impact as they level up, but is still a nice small bonus. I've had good results with this system.

The most versatile group would have the most versatile spell lists. Warpriest uses the cleric spell list, and an Unchained Rogue with the new Eldritch Scoundrel archetype has 6th level prepared casting from the wizard spell list. That should cover everything you want from magic. A good third choice would be an archer Bard. Between the Bard and the Rogue, all skills would be covered, and the Bard can make up for the rogues lost sneak attack dice with inspire courage. A hunter would also be a decent choice for a bonus flanking buddy.

The goblin adventure theme is great. I think that once Squealy and the gang become too high level for new players to immediately understand (Pathfinder being what it is, and also now competing with 5e which is an easy system to jump right into and doesn't suffer from the bad press that made my friends choose pathfinder instead of 4e for our first system), they should write new goblin characters and keep up the simple hijinx. In my experience, new players, almost without exception, want to play silly chaotic evil neutral characters. It's a safe premise that everyone can understand and it fun for children, too.

The easiest way I suppose would be to assemble 40 or 50 men from the local militia, arm them with longbows, and volley from hundreds of feet away.

In Pathfinder, the base hydra has 5 heads and 47 hp (+5hp per round, so a 5 round battle would be 72 hp. Your strategy depends on party makeup. If you track it to it's lair and attack while it's asleep, a high-strength martial can coup de grace. The fort save to survive would be (with a greatsword, power attack, and 18 strength) 10+4d6+18.
You could also send a two-weapon fighter into melee with it. Have another party member with a scroll of Haste ready. At 6th level with Haste, he'll have 5 attacks. With good rolls he can cut off every head in one round, unlikely as it is.
A hydra has a 10 foot reach, so an enlarged character with a reach weapon could stay 15 feet away and 5ft step back every round. The main challenge with a hydra is avoiding those attacks of opportunity. Improved sunder, 15ft reach, or again attacking from hundreds of feet away are the best ways to do it.
A head grows back in 1d4 rounds. A head can potentially grow back in 1 round, but on average 2.5 rounds. I personally would want to be reliably taking our 3 heads per round in order to go with the head strategy. Two martial characters with two attacks each would probably be able to do it reliably.

Very nice. The pawns are great but finding a storage solution can be time consuming. For the (inner sea & regular) NPC boxes I bought a container with many small drawers, such as you would use for nuts, bolts, nails, and other small items, and separated the pawns by race, gender, and fighting type. Then I labeled each drawer. I keep it next to the play table in case we run into someone who wasn't important until the players take an interest in them (players being what they are). For the bestiary boxes and the one adventure path set I have, I took the punch-out sheets with the pawns still in them, put them in plastic protectors, and snapped them into 3-ring binders (credit for the idea goes to this video I stumbled across. The binders fit on my shelf right next to all my books. If we play elsewhere, I take the pawns I plan on using and transport them in a little wooden box I bought for cheap at a craft store, and stick it right in my backpack.

It seems a little unbalanced for me for a long-duration compulsion like Geas to exist.

However to address OP's question, it's worth mentioning that countersong only works on spells that grant a saving throw. Lesser Geas allows a save, but Geas does not.

Tucker's Kobolds.

Will this include the bonus NPC collection released in the 100th AP issue? I loved the art for the goblin character.

Str:18
Dex:12
Con:14
Int:14
Wis:12
Cha:8

Feats-
Human: Power Attack
1st level: Weapon Focus
Fighter Bonus 1: Toughness

18 Strength + Power Attack and Weapon Focus will have you doing plenty of damage. Just grab a 2handed weapon (or a 1handed weapon wielded in 2 hands) and go to town. Toughness and 14 Con keep you alive, 12 wisdom helps your Perception skill and Will save. The 14 Int may come as a surprise, but I recommend it for a very good reason. Combined with being a human, you'll have 5 skill points per level.
If you look over the Fighter class features, there is absolutely nothing that has to do with anything other than fighting in combat. I have seen more than one new player decide he didn't like the game because he decided to play a human fighter. With very few skill ranks, you'll find that you're completely useless out of combat. This may lead you to be bored whenever the group isn't fighting, leading you to initiate combat when nobody in the group wants to so you can have some fun, or just sit around quietly and watch your friends play (possibly not saying anything other than "I attack" during an entire play session).
So with 5 skill ranks per level, what skills do you take? Perception isn't a class skill, but you max it. It's mandatory. 4 points left over. If you want to help the party in social situations, you could put points into Diplomacy/Intimidate, Bluff, and Sense Motive.

To be clear, this is not a min/maxed build. This is an "I'm a fighter, but I also want to participate" build. With no spells, and no fancy mechanics like Rage (barbarians) or Panache (swashbucklers), you'll find your options are limited, but the character will also be very simple to play. From there, just come up with a good personality and backstory. This would be a good build to learn the basic rules of the game, and if you decide you want to try a more advanced character when you're more confident, you can have your fighter go on vacation and roll up a barbarian, ranger, or other martial class.

My group just wrapped up Shattered Star. It is 95% dungeon crawling; if that's the experience you're looking for, go for it.

Edit: This might actually be a good one for an all goblin campaign, as long as you can find a reason for your goblins to be Pathfinders. Your race doesn't matter in a dungeon, and one of the cities you go to is Kaer Maga, a place where everyone is welcome if you keep your head down.

Having two characters take their turns at the same time is complete house rule territory. That being said, if the babau demon was holding it's longspear or another reach weapon at the time initiative was rolled (as opposed to needing to use a move action to equip it due to the weapon being sheathed), it would get an attack of opportunity on the bard for casting a spell, as babau demons have Combat Reflexes, allowing them to make AoO's while flat-footed.

It depends on what your group likes. Could you list off some of your favorite parts of RotR? Being in the big city of magnimar, fighting the ghouls, being in a dungeon?

So hyped for this and the next AP that I ended up subscribing. Never thought I would be in the market for a tabletop adventure subscription but Paizo somehow did it.

This is your reminder that the kids who played The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion as their first "rpg" when they were 10 have now all graduated high school.

What do you all think about using Evangelist to advance one of the other prestige classes from Inner Sea Gods, how would that interact with Deific Obedience? The rules as written addresses unlearning Exalted boons assuming having learned them through having high HD.

Obviously in the design phase, each of the classes was intended to have it's specific boons as part of the package. On the other hand this takes an already powerful feat and cranks it up further.

I've had a lot of success GMing RotRL so far (my players love Hosk) thanks in large part to the details of Sandpoint in the back of the hardcover. I would buy a Sandpoint Box Set the week it came out. I have only been playing for three or four years but in my opinion, Sandpoint is the perfect starter town.

I'm interested in helping the test along

How about a Hellknights Primer?

Seconded. More information on each Order, advice for playing good Hellknights well or evil-aligned Hellknights without being disruptive (they do tend to draw the attention of That Guy, especially with the awesome cover art this book would have), and maybe even a new or rediscovered Order.

Player options could include:
-Rules for Hellknight Orders as cavalier orders
-A new Devil creature to summon
-Unique magic Hellknight armors (not just full-plates, but breastplates, Order of the Godclaw robes, enchanted light armor of some kind for undercover detective work, and capes)
-Class archetypes with altered low-level abilities to synergize with taking prestige class levels
-New [pain] spells and crowd control spells.

And an illustration of a kitten in Hellknight barding.

I think the name of the iconic ninja is Reiko, not Ameiko.

The wise skull is correct. I'll link the FAQ to confirm.

http://paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748nruor1fm#v5748eaic9onf

For an upcoming Kingmaker game I'm considering a worshiper of Abadar, and I'd like to kill bandits and enforce the law with his favored weapon, the Light Crossbow. I have a little leeway because I'm DMing book 1 and my character will be a DMPC, so I'm not too concerned with my performance in combat levels 1-4. I've completely given up on making a crossbow paladin work, so now I'm looking at Gunslinger (Bolt Ace) 5/ Sentinel (Inner Sea Gods) 10. This will be an RP heavy game, so I'd prefer not to dump Int or Cha, and I've found that once I reached a certain level with my Swashbuckler in another campaign, 10 Str isn't enough to carry everything you need, even with a Haversack, so I'd prefer not to dump Str either. Creation rules are 25 point buy, one combat trait, one trait from elsewhere, and our group hasn't used any 3rd party or 3.5 material whenever we've played so no guarantee of being able to use that.

So far I have:
Str: 12
Dex: 19 total (+2 Human)
Con: 13
Int: 12
Wis: 14
Cha: 10
Get 20 dex at 4th, 14 Con at 8th, and Dex the rest of the way.

Feats-
1st: Point Blank Shot
Human: Precise Shot
3rd: Rapid Reload
Gunslinger Bonus 4th: Weapon Focus: Light Crossbow
5th: Diefic Obedience (+4 saving throws vs. spells and effects made by creatures with a chaotic alignment)
7th: Deadly Aim
Sentinel Bonus 7th: Rapid Shot
9th: Clustered Shots ?
11th: Signature Deed: Sharp Shoot
Sentinel Bonus 12th: Improved Precise Shot ?
13th:

The plan is to have my character's damage "turn on" at 5th when I become a PC with Bolt Ace giving Dex to damage, and 7th is really where I get up to par. By 9th I should have at least a +1 Holy weapon, and at 10th I'll be able to treat any weapon I wield as being Axiomatic, getting through a lot of DR, so would Clustered Shots be worth taking? At 11th I'll be hitting everything within 80 feet against touch AC as long as I have a grit point thanks to Signature Deed; would I be able to retrain Precise Shot into something like Weapon Specialization, Improved Critical, or Iron Will and get away with the penalty to hit of 4?

This is what I look like at 11th so far:

Javert
Human Gunslinger (Bolt Ace) 5/ Sentinel 6
LN Medium humanoid (human)
Init +10; Senses Perception +16
--------------------
Defense
--------------------
AC 21, touch 17, flat-footed 14 (+4 armor, +6 Dex, +1 Dodge)
hp 82ish (11d10+27) 22 Con, 5 Favored Class
Fort +14, Ref +14, Will +9 (+3 Base, +2 Wisdom, +2 Resistance, +2 Trait)
--------------------
Offense
--------------------
Speed 30 ft.

Ranged +1 Light Crossbow +18/+18/+13 (1d8+17/ 17-20×3)
--------------------
Statistics
--------------------
Str 12, Dex 23, Con 14, Int 12, Wis 14, Cha 10
Base Atk +11; CMB +2; CMD 15
Feats Point-Blank Shot, Improved Critical, Rapid Reload, Weapon Focus (+1 hit), Diefic Obedience, Deadly Aim (-3, +6), Rapid Shot (-2, extra attack ona full attack), Clustered Shots, Signature Deed: Sharp Shoot
Traits: +2 Will, -1Cha-based skill check with Brevic nobility; some other trait

Gear: Mithral Chain Shirt, Cloak of Resistance +2, +1 Light Crossbow
--------------------
Special Abilities
--------------------
2 Grit Points, Gunslinger Initiative (+2), Nimble +1, Sharp Shoot (passive) Resolve crossbow attacks against Touch, Vigilant Loading (Don't provoke AoO's while loading a crossbow), Crossbow Training (add Dex to damage and increase critical multiplier with Light Crossbow), Symbolic Weapon +3 (+3 to hit and damage with diety's favored weapon), Divine Quickness (+2 Initiative while wielding favored weapon), Aligned Strike (treat favored weapon as Axiomatic), Stalwart (+2 to resist Divine spells), Obedience (+4 to saves vs spells and effects created by a creature with a chaotic alignment), Lawful Bulwark (shield of faith 3/day, shield other 2/day, or archon's aura 1/day), Unflagging Ally (1/day, summon a zelekut inevitable for 1 minute per HD
--------------------

I haven't planned out my gear yet so I added a bare minimum just to look at the stat block. Unfortunately Manyshot and Bracers of Archery only work for bows. I'm looking for advice for magic items, my questions about feats earlier, or is this not good enough to where I should abandon this altogether?

Ancient greek mythology setting (maybe with gaining one or two mythic tiers near the end).
Ravnica would be a great setting as has been mentioned, but I feel the plot would have to center around only one or two guilds mainly. Trying to give all eight guilds face time would be difficult. Unless it's more of a "band of mercenaries for hire" campaign, with little adventures (and the PCs find out eventually that they've been Dimir agents the whole time!).
As far as Warcraft is concerned, I think I recall a project to make pen&paper rules for the setting, but I don't know what rules set it was based off of, or anything else about it for that matter. I would personally like to run a few WoW dungeon crawl adventures (Blackrock Depths and Karazhan come to mind) with a system where combats are resolved quickly, and the PCs would be able to use all their favorite spells and abilities from the game.
Most of my friends at one time or another have rolled a human fighter; I'd like to have an adventure where all our human fighters meet up to drink beer and solve a mystery.
An Elder Scrolls adventure, preferably in Morrowind. Late third era political game would be great but I'd also play an adventure of resisting the imperial invasion, a Telvanni or Redoran adventure during the oblivion crisis, or maybe even a town-building campaign in the fourth era.
A Golarion all-dwarf campaign set during the period before they've tunneled to the surface.

I believe swashbucklers get to use Cha instead of Int to qualify for Combat Expertise, so if that's the only reason you went with 13 Int, you can allocate that elsewhere. Of course they may have changed that for the final printing.

Geneforge has tabletop grid-style combat. The story is unique and compelling, and has 12 or so alternate endings. The graphics are only enough to get the job done, but if that's a dealbreaker for you, you'll be missing out on a great game. The whole series was on sale on Steam last week, but it's cheap enough there either way.

A torture victim has died, and returned as a Ghost!