Witch-Hunter's page

I think Bluff would be the appropriate skill...

"These are not the droids you are looking for..."

That quote is actually the Suggestion Spell, at least imho.

Some modules have the tendency to feel like CSI:Pathfinder so having a bard or rogue or any number of classes with good skills is wonderful at the table.

Bards while not always combat monsters in themselves can very quickly turn a mediocre table into one that can kick tail and take names. They can also do this without any loss to non combat abilities.

Bards can be difficult and frustrating for people who are not good at role-playing a smooth talker or Sherlock Holmesian investigator. Not many judges will allow for a dice roll to get you past situations you can't talk out of even if your die roll is good. So if you are up for playing that role then it is loads of fun. Just remember that sometimes talking doesn't work.

Also remember player rule 0 - You are there to have fun, so play something you will enjoy.

As I have played a barbarian for 11 levels I have to say it is a lot of fun. While mixing barbarian and fighter is more damage output I stuck with what I set out from the beginning to go barbarian every level and it has been worth it. I will hit 12th level at Gen Con this year and I can't wait to play him in the future higher level events. So I applaud your barbarian plan!

Now I started my barbarian before the APG came out so I didn't have the right setup to do a totem build of and it kind of conflicted with my personality however serendipity was on my side as a few rage powers enhanced what I was already doing.

I play Witch-Hunter who was bound and determined to get to the "witches" (before witch was a class mind you). So at first level I took power attack and step up, my first rage power was no escape and my 3rd level feat was overrun. 5th level was going to be nimble moves and 7th level was going to greater overrun. Then low and behold the APG came out and I was in heaven since there were overrun rage powers.

Overbearing advance and overbearing onslaught AWESOME! plus raging vitality and the many other rage powers.

The core of the build is as follows.

Feats:
Power Attack
Improved overrun
Greater overrun
Combat Reflexes
Charge Through

Rage powers:
Overbearing advance
Overbearing onslaught
Reckless abandon

I know that many people ooo and awe over the charging pouncing barbarian builds but honestly I think this is way more fun. My friends have been calling me the bowling ball after seeing my overrun maneuvers on every enemy with in range too many times. Now I have to admit my AC is craptastic but with greater rage now and raging vitality the nearly 200hp really helps A LOT.

Basically I delay/wait for the bad guys to get reasonably close then begin overrunning as many as possible. ( 40ft movement and haste/boots of speed help a lot.) Since ohh 7th level I have been getting 3-4 attacks around every round at my highest base attack bonus. Greater overrun’s AoO’s and combat reflexes is wonderful when you can use overbearing assault and onslaught to overrun so many people. Overrun do 11 damage (overbearing assault) then knock them prone take my AoO (Greater Overrun) do 2d6+30ish and then repeat with the next guy (Overbearing Onslaught). I consistently end up doing more damage than a pouncer. Now it is very likely that a pouncer will do more damage to one single target but PFS has a lot of minion fights where I really shine.

This build is also useful with a buddy. I usually travel with another fighter or fighter barbarian who has combat reflexes and a much higher AC. They go to the middle and get surrounded by the typical minions then I bowl them all down and between our two AoO’s most things die rather quickly. It was really great in the "falling elevator" scenarios.

Now all you need is a combat bard. With Percise Strike, Outflak, and Paired Opportunists. Bards are such a force multipliers that when combined with groups set up for combat. It makes it very tough on DM's.

Two things to consider.

The first thing to consider is the Gang Up feat. This allows you to flank in less optimal positions and allows archers to be considered flanking as well if they have the feat. When you have this with paired opportunist and outflank it becomes doubly more effective. It does however work best with 3 people in melee.

The second thing to consider is greater maneuver feats. Greater Overrun, Greater Trip, Greater Drag, Greater Reposition etc… make the enemy provoke AoOs setting off another chain and possibly a crit which can start the chain of AoOs all over again.

I will be playing as part of a Trio who all will have Outflank, Paired opportunist and Gang up all by 5th level. At 9th level or so we will also be taking precise strike. What makes our approach slightly different than yours is we are all using high crit range reach weapons and armor spikes. Fighter 1 also has improved trip/greater trip and tripping strike to provoke AOOs, The Rogue/Fighter has Reposition, Greater Reposition and Repositioning strike for further AOOs, and the third guy (me) who is mostly there for extra crits, threatening is a Battle Herald with some lovely bonuses to help things along. (bard 1, cavalier 1, fighter 3, battle herald to the end)

The idea is for the enemy provoke a chain of AoOs from movement, trip or reposition and crit our way into happiness creating more AoOs. We can stand 3 abreast and flank this way allowing for more full attacks. Arrange it so that the one who does the least damage is the one that moves the most to make positioning work. (me the battle herald in this case).

I have tried to work in combat patrol but there just are not enough feats to do everything else and add that in.

It's going to be bad enough when the Advanced Race Guide comes out and PFS opens up the race options*.

*only logical guess since PFS is designed to promote PFRPG.

Well there will also be a lot of stuff for the current races that will be applicable for PFS. There is no need for PFS to use all portions of a paizo book. For example we do not have words of power in use in PFS. It is possible that they will do the same thing with the advanced race guide.

As an answer to your question, off the top of my head I'd reccomend Full Plate +3 (9,000), a Cloak of Resistance +3 (9,000) and then either a Belt of Giant's Strength +2 (4,000) or a Handy Haversack (2,000) and a Ring of Protection +1 (2,000). Keep it Simple :)

These are great staples and will never stear you wrong. but consider getting an amulet of natural armor +1 and only Full plate +2.

However, as a damage oriented guy look forward to the Gloves of Dueling. They are wonderful for fighters with weapon training. however, they are 15k so you would likely have to sacrifice too much at this level to justify them. But I ouwl get them before upgrading to a +4 belt of strength since it is more bang for the buck.

The majority of the people in the libnorm Kings I believe are ulfen. The Taldor government has an elite group of warriors that are all ulfen. It is possibile that you came to serve there or your family did and that is how you wound up so much further south.

Then have them contact me. This interaction is a two-way street. I try to make game days known, post and recruit on a lot of the common locations, and show up at other games in the area that I know are happening or send a proxy. I can't reach out to people that don't reach back. If your players really want this, then have them get involved in their local game days, heck, just have them e-mail me, my address is in my profile. I may not like high level play, but that doesn't mean that I'm not going to push for what my players want. Up to now, my players aren't even at the point that it's an issue - if your friends want this brought to the forefront I can relay that information. Believe it or not, the VCs do have Paizo's ear and any of us will relay information as we hear it - I'm not hearing it though from the people I talk to and thus I don't have it to report, in fact I have quite the opposite at this point.

Ryan I live in Minneapolis, I am very interested in High level play until I found this thread I had no idea we even had a venture captain. I will send you a PM to get further information on our area. That is likely through no fault of your own, as I haven't even thought of looking for a venture captain in our area because I have a fairly stable gaming group and convention going circle built through the last 14 years or so of organized play campaigns. So I have had no need to look outside that high quality group of players. As an aside about 7 of us have one or more characters ready to retire.

As for high level play what I would really like to see is a slow evolution of increasing the level cap by 1 or 2 each year until level 15 possibly up to 17 ( but 9th level spells are murder on writers). This is still quite a young campaign and dealing with issues that many campaigns have in the past. (not to say that past campaigns made good decisions or bad decisions but they can be learned from either way). I think people outside of those who play frequently are starting to get to the higher levels and it would be great if the campaign grows with them. At some point I imagine that Paizo will publish their version of an epic level handbook having an OP campaign that gave people experience in High level play nearly to the doorstep of epic can only lead to increased sales.

I would rather see a few high level modules produced each year then tacking on a higher tier to existing modules. As a person who has written my fair share of modules, interactives, special missions and single run events for previous campaigns, as well as participated in campaign administration, I am aware of the increased difficulty of writing and judging higher level adventures.

As the PSS modules are currently (or previously) been written their scope is often far too limiting for any challenging or interesting play above 7th level. There has been a distinct lack of story line out side of go get this mcguffin and bring it back. Recently in the last year there has been some additional stories and interesting things happening with in the society. Such an example is the Dalasine Affair which was really rather a nice change. I look forward to further modules of this quality. I am delighted by the change that the society has undergone in the last year and am anticipating even greater things for year 3. (even though I am rather disappointed that the conclusion of the shadow lodge is a 1-7 module when my character that played a large portion of the shadow lodge stuff is now well over 7th level) The society and its interactions with other nations, factions etc makes for ideal higher level play. Things do not need to be need to be earth shattering events but they do need to be something you would not send just anyone to handle. World shaking events are best left for epic play, but there can be compelling story telling at every level.

I think we are all looking for more story, and continuing our own individual stories of our characters. I look forward to having the opportunity to play the 12th level stories. However since there are only 4 of them no one wants to eat it and miss out on Erik’s module since it will be our only chance to play it. I do hope that in the future the level cap rises so that I can have my character continue with the his own personal story and the one that he lives in.

Mark Moreland wrote:

no one in Pathfinder Society Organized Play will ever reach 13th level.

I'd like to see you try and stop me!

No one can stop you Kyle, you are too awesome of a GM for that.

This is great. Is there any way to start it immediately :) I'm about to hit 11th level this weekend and it would be nice to enjoy it for 6 mods instead of 3.

I love team work feats I am hoping for a good number of those. A few of my friends and I are working creating a group of hellknights that use team work feats to create a more military/legionnaire feel to them.
I really like the idea of creating a military squad or as part of a Romanesque legion and teamwork feats are a great way to do this. The arcanis materials did this quite well, though possibly a bit too well.

I would really like to see is an archetype, pclass, feat tree that makes the whip a more useful weapon. aka the old lasher p-class from 3.0. Which could easily be done with a feat tree that makes it not provoke and one that allows you to take AoOs with it. Then it would be useful to have greater trip, you could use it to reposition (it has no threatened squares so it doesn't work currently) etc... I really liked the flavor and concept of a whip master and I would really like to create a character that uses it to better control the battle field. It will never be an optimal damage weapon, but it could be a lot easier to use in the way that it is in movies and my imagination.

I also miss the second hand like abilities the p-class gave. I think the steal maneuver does this to some degree but it would be great to do it better. Lots of fun and while mechanically not that great of a class (except the absurd 10th level power) it was full of flavorish things.

Hopefully it could be available for fighters and bards :) It could make a great arcane duelist if it was a feat tree.

Barbarian
1: Power Attack
1: Improved Overrun
2RP: Overbearing Advance
3: Combat Reflexes
4RP: Quick Reflexes
5: Charge Through
6RP: Overbearing Onslaught
7: Greater Overrun

Well I run a barb that has a very similar build. In the end the barb is a much better at overrun and can use it far more situations and on more people in one turn. Note that you don't have to overrun in a straight line (if it is not a part of a charge, charging does though give you a +2 bonus on the overrun attempt). Because you can overrun multiple opponents and you have combat reflexes you will more often get way more attacks than if you took a normal full attack action.

Look at overrun carefully. When you meet or exceed their cmd you successfully move THROUGH their square w/o provoking attacks of opp. If your CMB check exceeds by 5 they fall prone. You are now on the opposite side of the target 1 or more squares and depending on how you read the rules you are not provoking any AoOs for the maneuver, even when you leave their threatened squares behind them.. that is the whole point of overrun, to get through to the other side w/o provoking AoOs if you are taking AoOs because you leave their threatened square it kind of defeats the whole purpose since overrun can be combined with movement. However, different judges have run it differently because it is not 100% clear. Most treat it like ride by attack but for the barb its multiple targets.

If you use the charge as part of an overrun its complicated in your scenario with the barb and target Z you would run over abc (taking Attacks of opportunity if you knock them prone) then you would resolve your charge attack on Z and then your overrun on him. It then functions a lot of ways as ride by attack because you continue your movement after the charge and it does not provoke from the target or targets of your over run. Depending on the judge I guess but this is how I have seen it resolved most often.

As a strategy I suggest a traveling partner that also has combat reflexes, cleave (or other multi attack as a standard action) and a decent AC aka Bait. Let Bait move up and have the bad guys surround him or her (delay if you need to) ideally he will have readied a cleave attack for 2 adjacent opponents. Bait cleaves. Then when it is your turn overrun as many of the bad guys as you can that are threatened by the bait. Both you and the bait will get AoO's vastly increasing the number of attacks you would both get and often killing the bad guys even before the issue of if they can attack you after you leave their square even comes up.

Obviously a belt +6 strength is fantastic for this build... Since you are getting 4 AoOs currently at 4th level and you don't really need dex for more.. though a +2 dex ioune stone may help a little for a 5th AoO though I have never needed more than 4 and I'm up to 10th level.

Also consider if you have a buddy to take paired opportunist with at 9th level. Then you will get the +4 for prone and +4 for paired opportunist.. it’s nice :)