Sledgehammer's page

Also a mutagenic mauler archytpe with either barbarian/bloodrager level, with pummeling style can out DPR most fighter/barbarians.

A martial artist/barbarian combo can work well given a 5th level martial artist is immune to fatigue so they can rage cycle. Plus the martial artist can specialize in unarmed for extra damage. They have good saving throws too. Unfortunately the AC tends to be poor.

Sledge my PFS dwarfiest dwarf went for the largest hammer he could find the Dwarven Longhammer. He is a 2handed fighter to maximise damage. He also has true dwarven attitude with a 5 charisma and rages. I chose 1 level bloodrager as it gave me access to wands of shield, longarm and enlarge. Also I took the Celestial bloodline because it gave me a good aligned weapon when raging (and +1D6 vs evil outsiders). Now when using my adamantine +1 furious, fortuitous longhammer I overcome silver/cold iron/adamantine/good DR. Let the hammering begin......

If this character is to be a primary melee combatant you could make some minor changes to improve combat abilities significantly.
Such as

Swapping 13 from con to str to allow her to take power attack.
swapping 14int to con to improve hit points and fort save(which is weak).
That would leave her with a 12 int but that's still 6points/level.

Two feats that may help dealing with enemy trying to get under your reach - Pin down and Fast draw.

Have you considered a vigilante warlock? It has energy attacks and access to wizard spells.

I'm playing an unchained monk and combat wise he is much superior to your typical chained monk. If you're the DM and happy to do it I would go with the unchained monk and the iron mountain archetype - the best of both worlds(though not PFS legal).

Should grab community minded trait. Then you can use your Heroism aura for 1 round and it lasts for 3 rounds ie 8 rounds of usage becomes 24 rounds.

No the rules are specific. Core RAW It states the Paladin get a "HEAVY horse"- specific rules over rule general.

By saying a paladin get "horse" you are choosing to ignore the rule.

Rules also state the AC must come from the list - and it does - the horse come from the companion list then is upgraded according to the definition of a heavy Horse RAW.

Your assumption seems to be that the use of "Heavy Horse" is a mistake and should be ignored.

I have a Paladin's warhorse in PFS and it is a horse from the animal companion list with a advantage template.
A "Heavy horse" is distinctly different to a "Horse". In the same way a "small cat" is distinct to a "large cat". Check out the Bestiary. They very definitely different.

sorry Phalanx fighter

This is very similar to the polearm fighter who can wield polearm or spear in one hand while fighting with a shield. Admittedly the language is different and it doesn't specifically say it one handed but given your using the shield with one hand you would only have one hand to hold the spear/polearm unless you have 3 usable hands??

Bards are fun to play but I've always thought of them as a secondary spell caster to support the team and backup the primary caster/s.

Mainly because they only cast up to 6th level spells but more importantly they're spontaneous casters and thus have a very limited range of spell they can cast compared to a prepared caster who can typically draw from a larger variety of spells.

If your GM is happy to adapt the campaign to suit then go with it. If they like to stick to the campaign then you might have problems if the bard is your primary/only caster.

I think you answered your own question.
You propose a character in who specialises in games of chance (chaos) and actively cheats (neutral to evil).
And by your own admission your only taking monk for the ability to flurry throw (which only works for monk weapons - shuriken typically).
Unless your GM is one who hates or ignores alignment (and there are a few out there)I can't see this floating....

However a chaotic martial artist ie old non-unchained monk archetype from the ultimate combat has no alignment restrictions and should work fine.

Looking at your calculation for criticals below I think your formula maybe wrong?

For example, if I have a damage of 2d6+17 (24 average) on a 19-20/x2 crit range weapon, and +11 to hit the AMCREL’s AC of 18 (70% success rate), the formula is (24*0.7)*1.07 = 17.98. This final 1.07 multiplier is the crit adjustment; your chance of confirming a critical hit multiplied by the crit multiplier – 1. In other words, a 10% chance of rolling a 19 or 20 on a x2 weapon will add 7% average damage, as there is a 70% chance of confirming the critical and a 10% chance of having rolled in the crit range in the first place.

I would have calculated it as the average damage (24) times the crit value (1.1) times the chance of the attack/crit occurring (0.7)
(24*1.1)*0.7 = 18.48 (which is an easier formula)

PS I'm no mathematician so I did the calculation long hand - ie take 20 and got 18.48

Liked the guide - I do something similar though usually comparing to actual monsters rather than standardised CR monsters. That way you pick up on things like DR and SR which become more significant at higher levels but aren't seen in the basic standardised CR monster.

Also I feel that the measurement of AC for defense is quite misleading as a low con wizard with a high AC could get false sense security till one shotted by lucky shot or totally under estimates barbarian with high HP and DR.

To counter this I think measuring survival time in rounds is better and more helpful estimate of defense as takes into account hitpoint; AC; DR etc.

I have a 2hd handed fighter dwarf who uses a dwarven longhammer (reach) in PFS who I intended to do the cleave route but in PFS I rarely had any opportunities to use Cleave and eventually swabbed out the feat.

However in a previous non PFS campaign where the GM liked to pit the party against large numbers of minions the cleave feat proved awesome.

If you were to go cleave I think you should consider a reach weapon. Also if you have a caster who can Enlarge you then Goblin Hewer allows you to cleave medium creatures.

PFS question. I have my unchained monk which I planning to take crane style then crane wing. Presently my monk fights with a 9 part whip (one handed weapon) but uses it 2hd to get extra damage. With crane style there is no problem fighting 2hd but Crane wing says you need to have a hand free. I was planning to use the 9 part whip 2hd then switch to 1hd as free action and was hoping I would then be eligible for crane wing to be in effect if attacked. The boards seemed mixed on the legality. There was a similar discussion on whether zen archers could use crane wing or not and the responses were mixed.

The sun domain lets you add your level to damage to undead and negates their channel resistances.

How about phalanx formation - means more AOO and no -4 cover for foes behind other party members.

Thank for the clarification.

There was some discussion of this in the errata thread. I think there was a ruling that they "didn't count".

The Swordmaster's Flare magic items were specifically designed with the swashbuckler in mind as they require panache and were in the Advanced classes manual. However with the changes to the feat slashing grace that requires that off hand be free it look like they are no longer usable by a typical swashbuckler who will have slashing grace(or fencing grace).

Thanks for the clarification.

Few things - my reach fighter uses Longarm spell to increase his reach then enlarged giving him total reach of 25ft (enlarge reach fighter has 20ft reach not 15ft) or 55ft across (more than enough to cover most combats). My full round actions are spent pounding my opponent and I use combat reflexes to smash any who provoke AOO. I can't see value in using full round action to set up patrol when I can use it to smash my opponents instead - am I missing something?

The Tonfa give a "+1 shield bonus" and similar bonuses don't normally add.

Regarding traits would "Fencer" (+1 to AOO) help with Parry/Ripostes as they are based on AOO?