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That actually sounds like a really fun build - I'm always interested in cool pirate characters! Not exactly what I was after for this, but honestly it's more the visuals I'm interested in - almost a sorta space marine character, I guess. Heavy armor's pretty important to that, but I hadn't considered a fighter dip.
We've been theorising characters for a possible game, one where everyone plays adventurers based in a university; essentially, they'd all be brains-based (rather than my usual tendency to play savage barbarian types!) I quite like the idea of a character who favours technology over magic as their area of study, going in all guns blazing with a bit of an iron man fetish; heavy armour, firearms, bombs, the works. All of which sorta suggests an alchemist with a level of gun tank (and the inevitable explosive missile discovery). But I'm not entirely sure how to build it - I'm leaning towards a level of gun tank followed by a Hyde-style character?
If you can get the Dm to okay some light 3.5 pilfering, the Necropolitan template was great for undead PCs. Letting 3.5 stuff in can open the floodgates a bit though, so it might be a hard sell. Failing that, there's always the humble Dhampir. Plus they're bringing out a new horror-themed book with vamp and ghoul options.
That's actually pretty cool, thanks man :)
Mutagenic warrior was where I started, funnily enough! I think now it'll be between some sort of vivisectionist alchemist and a barbarian now, depending on what the rest of the party does... I reckon getting some wing buffets wouldn't hurt, but anything other than that starts to feel a bit less like a huge man-bat monster.
Wait, that's it? I'd always gotten the impression that natural attack builds were a nightmare to pull off! Shows what I know... Any feat suggestions for this sort of thing?
That's definitely one I'm looking at, I think. Top choices by far seem to be a beastmorph alchemist and a primalist bloodrager/dragon disciple (with the dragon-flavour stripped out). Any ideas on how to build for natural attacks? Swords are for mortals, and all that.
Bloodmarked skinwalkers do seem a good option - flight as a feat (even if it is poor manoeuvrability), a bite attack and rage powers would take care of the rest. They lack the undead theme though, which is a shame. 'Course, it might be possible to talk the GM into allowing feat-based flight from other races - I know skinwalkers and some of the planetouched have that option.
Okay, so I've been having more of a look at this. I think the class ought to be barbarian - specifically, looking at the beast totem powers. But there are a couple of things I'd need help with. For clarity, the idea here is categorically a transforming fighter - someone who appears perfectly normal one minute, before sprouting claws, teeth and wings and tearing people apart. 1.) Wings. They're fairly vital as far as the whole image thing goes, and damned handy besides. Seems to me the optimal way to get them as part of the transformation is through a 2-level dip in Alchemist; aside from the fun infusions and the mutagen, that gets the discovery class feature, which then opens up the extra discovery feat. But RAW, I'm still not sure it qualifies anyway - you need Alchemist 6. Is there an easier way of going about this? The GM is fairly laid back and will probably allow it, I reckon. But if there are other options, I'm open. 2.) Natural weapon building. Like I said, this is definitately a character that bites and claws people to death. But honestly, I barely understand the natural weapon rules as it is! I know people think it's fairly sub-optimal - which is fine, so long as it's still functional! I'm just not sure how to go about that build wise. 3.) Should I scratch the barbarian idea and do this with a primalist bloodrager? The main temptation is to avoid confusing things any further, but a little sorcery fits the vampire image well enough as a theme.
I've never even heard of Wyvaran's. Those look a bit mental.
You know, that did enter my head. And my lot aren't optimisation monkeys, so I don't think it'd break the game either. I'll suggest it, but I think the main problem is that a synth allows you to be virtually anything - so it's almost quite dull to be a medium-sized, bipedal thing with wings.
It's looking like the campaign we're going to play next is Hell's Vengeance - so good job I've been looking at Asmodean anti-paladins, then. But the others are still debating. One of the others is really interested in playing something along the lines of Skyrim's vampire lords - a normal person one minute, a feral winged monster the next. So we're wondering how to build it. Dhamphir seems a no brainer, though I suppose there's an argument for skinwalker (with an undead bloodline, perhaps). I suggested an Alchemist, but she's more tempted by Mutation Warrior, maybe with a barbarian dip. She's mostly concerned about ripping out throats with fang and claw, but neither of us really knows what we're doing with natural attacks.
Hellknight Commander gets their armour abilities at level 2, and the entry requirements aren't bad; BAB +5, Intimidate 5 and Knowledge (Planes) 2, heavy armour proficiency, lawful and killing a devil. Biggest problem might just be that you don't want to be a Hellknight. Even if you re-fluff it you've got a bunch of law-themed abilities.
However I must also admit that many of the Antipaladin's class features do not lend themselves especially well to the theme of Asmodean worship. Yeah, I know what you mean on that front. Even in an evil campaign you're more likely to be fighting other evil-types day to day! And while plague-bringer is cool, it doesn't quite fit the mental image. Although... They also left the archetype itself pretty barren so it could be compatible with other archetypes. Dread Vanguard is one of my favorites. Fingers crossed for more antipaladin archetypes that swap them out! Dread Vanguard looks really cool, fair play. Loss of spellcasting is big, but then I suppose antipaladins don't get the fun spells anyway. It's got a vibe I could see working with Asmodeus too. Are there any other books which go into detail on the Church of Asmodeus? I think I've got all the obvious ones, but little gems have a habit of cropping up all over the place.
That makes sense. Was playing the character as much fun as I kinda expect?
From memory, Hellknights get to move their full speed in hellknight plate.
I've had a look through the various Faith books recently (Purity, Corruption, Balance), and one of the cool things in them is the variant paladin/antipaladin codes - the antipaladin of Besmara has a particularly cool one. I was particularly hoping to find one for an Antipaladin of Asmodeus in Faiths of Corruption, but of course the book predates the Tyrant archetype from Ultimate Intrigue. Which is a shame, because I quite like the idea of a Chelish holy knight who's every bit as dashing as a regular paladin! So, what would people suggest as something to put on a more formalised code for that sort of character? Personally I think it needs a bit of good old Cheliax patriotism thrown in to kick it off and really drive home the Lawful aspect.
...also, I really need to read Sense & Sensibility & Sea Monsters. Is it any good?
Having slept on it, maybe it's wise to dump the draconic aspect - looking at the PrC again, as nice as the ability boosts are I think I'd rather the spellcasting progression. 'Course, that was half the fluff I had in mind gone. The advantage there is I can rejig the concept a bit - I'm now quite tempted by Gillman, actually. Reckon it'll be a good one in Skull and Shackles (though I'll probably take Riverborn to be on the safe side). I definitely want to keep Antipaladin - I'd have probably been open to changing that before, but the Besmara stuff from Inner Sea Faiths is just too damn tempting - I think it'll be really fun to play. That last line, "I will suffer no restraint. Those who seek to pacify
Which would leave me with Antipaladin for two levels, then into tattooed sorcerer and on to eldritch knight. No archetype on the antipaladin as yet, and I'm open on sorcerer bloodlines - Abyssal does seem nice. Also, as nice as reach is I'd feel weird doing this without a cutlass. I'm mostly gutted there's no way to shoehorn a pistol in!
...do they do that? I missed that! Maybe for another character, though. Pirates aren't big on armour, and the plan is for tattooed sorcerer with the draconic bloodline, going into dragon disciple :)
Oh, I'm not feeling too shoehorned (though I have fallen into that trap before). Bloodrager would make for a killer pirate character, either as a spellcasting swashbuckler with anger issues or as some sort of islander native gone pirate. But I fancy the mechanics of this one, break out of my usual habits. Bloodrager and vigilante are likely next on the list :)
Hmm. I hadn't given much thought to this side of things - I've mostly been thinking terms of the fluff. Given the fluff though, it would make sense to wreak havoc rather than meekly buff the others. Playing a role in ship-to-ship combat is also ideal - we haven't playtested those rules yet, but they're a part I'm particularly looking forward to! I'm not adverse to buffing charisma either - all the better to scheme, manipulate and boast with. I'd also figured on including a few levels of Dragon Disciple too. The stat boosts and flavour are really tempting, but the loss of yet another caster level is worrying me.
Thanks for the heads up on that code, it's perfect! Inner Sea Faiths isn't one I've read, but I reckon I'll pick it up if it's gonna be that helpful! The bloodline mutations sound cool too - I'll have a look. Main issue I'm seeing here is, like most gishes, you seem too spread out and not very focused. I think that's going to be a recurring habit of mine in Pathfinder. Any suggestions? A few other things get the Sorcerer/Wizard list or a 6 level subset of it: for instance, Eldritch Scoundrel Rogue (use Unchained Rogue as a base instead of classic Rogue) and Warlock Vigilante. That's cool. Not what I'm after here, I think - but I'll keep them in mind later (especially if I wind up enjoying the arcane stuff!) This doesn't work any more, due to the SLA FAQ nerf, although if your GM wants to extensively house-rule stuff anyway, feel free to ignore this errata. Yeah, he's pretty happy to houserule stuff - we're not really a minmax sorta group, so we're pretty relaxed about stuff. But we're also fairly new to Pathfinder, so mostly he's cautious about one of us accidentally break the game. I don't *think* that's likely here. It would be nice if we got one or more official Paladinoid(?) classes or archetypes that can be of the remaining alignments not covered at all (Chaotic Good, Chaotic Neutral, and Neutral). In the meantime, your GM might want to create one. Yeah, agreed. I know he suggested I could swap out Detect/Smite Good for Detect/Smite Lawful - seems to make sense for a criminal character. I doubt he'd bother writing a whole class if I'm only going to look at a couple of levels, though. If you go 2 levels of Antipaladin, Sorcerer, and Eldritch Knight, you will lose 3 levels of spellcasting progression (by the way, take the trait Magical Knack so that you at least lose only 1 level of caster level), you will not get 9th level spellcasting by 20th level, because Sorcerer gets this at 18th level if single-classed. I totally forgot that, aye! Not that it's likely to matter too much - I don't think Skull & Shackles takes you to level 20 anyway. It's definitely a note though - throwing in some Dragon Disciple will cost me another spellcasting level as well. So getting a scroll of it is your best bet, followed by crafting a magic item (where you can bypass a spell prerequisite for the item by increasing the crafting DC -- make sure you are under Crafter's Fortune when you are crafting it, but keep in mind that recharging might be problematic if you don't actually have the spell). That's great, thank you! Cheers guys :) Happy to take any advice people can give me - this is a more complicated build than anything I've tried before now.
Hey guys! So I'm considering a Skull & Shackles character, and I've okayed a concept with the GM. The idea is to play a tiefling antipaladin for two levels, then multiclass into sorcerer - from there, dragon disciple and eldritch knight are the idea. Trouble is, I've never built a gish character before, so I'm looking for some help. There's probably a few things I should mention first. 1.) I'm not really interested in playing a magus, bloodrager or straight cleric - mostly because I'm after the versatility of the wizard spell list. I've never really played with it before. 2.) My GM mentioned that tieflings appear to qualify for Eldritch Knight through their darkness ability, so if I'm interested in jumping into that sooner he'll look into it properly and make sure it won't completely overpower me or anything. So it might be an option for the build. 3.) I really like the look of the Tattooed Sorcerer archetype. Tattoos are pirate-y. On the subject of piracy, I'd also really like to avoid armour if possible. 4.) I'll be a worshipper of Besmara, and my GM has okayed me taking a few liberties with the antipaladin in theory - again, we'd have to talk it over. But there's a good chance I'll be chaotic neutral rather than chaotic evil - it'll be re-fluffed as Besmara awakening my latent fiendish heritage in exchange for following her code (and the ship's articles) with the same enthusiasm you'd expect from a regular paladin/antipaladin. 5.) It's probably a daydream, but I really want the level 9 spell Salvage. Level 9 spells don't kick in for me until 20, so is there any way of getting that off sooner? I've got this mental image of captaining a patched up wreck from Shackles legend, like something out of Pirates of the Caribbean. It's not a deal breaker, but it is something I think would be awesome. Thanks guys!
Bump before I have to leave. Anybody? I figure I might not be explaining things very well - let me know if there's something more I can clarify. *edit* Looks like my link was bad - here's a pinterest one that'll probably work:
Also, apologies if this got posted more than once - my laptop froze mid-posting, but it seems like it only went up once!
Hello! I’m completely new to Pathfinder (and only had a tiny bit of experience of 3.5), but it looks like I’ll be playing in a campaign soon. Me and my partner have been discussing character ideas, and both really like the idea of playing her playing a mounted warrior and me playing the mount, through the Synthesist summoner. Trouble is, neither of us particularly knows what we’re doing. I know I’d like to play a wyvern-like eidolon (i.e, a winged lizard with no forelimbs), but beyond that we’re not even sure which sort of class she should play – the dragoon fighter seems obvious, but lots of classes have mounted archetypes. I’ve also been largely inspired by a new Warhammer miniature – the orc Mawcrusher: https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/catalog/product/600x620/9912020903 2_MawKrusha01.jpg I’m genuinely tempted to pick it up and dust off my old conversion skills, so I’d be looking to get a fair approximation of the beastie. Size seems to be the biggest factor – our GM has stated that 90% of the game will take place out in the open, but will include stops in towns and cities and the occasional bit of dungeon crawling – I know they’ve been reading the Jade Regent adventure path, and that we’ll either be playing that or a similar long trek with caravans. I’ve done a bit of research – a lot of people seem to think the synthesist is broken, but have also said that it’s fine if you don’t optimise it. I don’t want to break the game, but I do want to function strongly. So how should I build the synthesist? And how should my partner build her rider? Are there any tricks or play styles we should consider? If I’m not always able to turn into a giant scaly death-monster, am I going to be a lot of dead weight for the party? |
