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I need some advice on a character build I’m planning for an upcoming Shackled Cities campaign. All the players agreed to try building a character they’ve never played before. In my case, I’m going for a half-orc urban ranger (using info from the new APG). I pictured a stealthy half-orc bounty-hunter who prowls the city’s streets and alleys for his target. He would be a two-weapon fighter, wielding twin kukri’s in the close-combat environment of a city (I love the imagery, plus I’ve read discussions about the effectiveness of the high-critical potential of the kukri).

My plan was the make Dexterity my main attribute (placing the +2 half-orc bonus there), then placing the following attributes in order of next importance: strength, wisdom, constitution, intelligence and charisma. I was going to take Weapon Finesse as my first feat, taking advantage of my high dexterity and then choosing two-weapon fighting as my 2nd level ranger combat style. The rest of my feats from 3rd level on will fall into place as normal (double slice, etc etc).

I was going to replace orc ferocity with bestial from the APG to increase my perception (with orc bestial plus perception as a class skill, plus a minor wisdom adjustment, plus level ranks, plus ranger abilities, I should have a pretty good perception score).

This all sounds good in planning but my biggest worry is how effective I would be at first level. I’m going to be using a light weapon as my primary damage doer, and hitting pretty well with weapon finesse, but my damage output is going to be low (kukri 1d4 + str), especially for a fighter. I won’t have two-weapon fighting yet (or I’ll have some huge negatives if I try to do it, offsetting any bonuses from WF).

My only thoughts are to use a different weapon at first level (say short sword and shield) and switch at 2nd level, but that sounds weird.

Any advice?

Hey guys,

I'm an old-time gamer who jumped from AD&D to Pathfinder (skipping 3.0/3.5 entirely) and loving every minute of the Pathfinder system.

I'm in one group who is just about finishing Savage Tides (I have a 16th level Paladin) and I'm in another group that is just starting Age of Wyrms. I've never played any of the Pathfinder series before Savage Tides, so this is all new to me (very exciting).

I've always played fighter-types, but for the new campaign I decided to try something completely different and run a single class wizard from level 1 to 20.

Here are my questions:

1.) do ranged touch attacks suffer the -4 to hit if you cast the spell at a target engaged in melee (or is that only for normal ranged attacks)?

2.) I know you can use Weapon Focus and choose ray spells. Are there other weapon feats that can give bonuses for casting spells?

3.) are there any tips sites that I can go to to help me create my familiar. I have the core rulebook, beastiary and APG and I'm having a heck of a time fleshing out my familiar.

I created a Wizard/necromancer spec for Age of Wyrms and chose a scarlet spider (APG) as a familiar. I'm trying to get all the numbers together for a tiny-sized spider.

Thanks all.