teemuchka's page

A DM friend of mine invited me to a homebrewed campaign, where there is a much greater focus on different damage types (i.e. slashing, piercing, bludgeoning) and alchemy over magic. This also means that divine magic is nerfed, being more like long rituals than anything practical. Since I wanted to play a Switch Hitter Ranger, but have to drop spellcasting, I need some advice on how to optimize this guy.

1) How to replace spellcasting? The loss of self buffs is huge, and I'm not sure an extra feat per spell level will cut it. Are the Skirmisher and Trapper archetypes any good?

2) What to do with Wisdom? There's no real need for it without spellcasting, but on the other hand it affects some important skills - namely Heal, which will be especially powerful in the low magic setting.

3) Adding alchemy to Ranger, how? I mean, Rangers get Craft (Alchemy), but how to apply it in practice is the question. Dip arrows in alchemist's fire for non magical fire arrows?

I was thinking along these lines (20 point buy, start at level 2):

Str 14 + 2 (Human)
Dex 14
Con 14
Int 10
Wis 14
Cha 10

Feats: Dodge, Quick Draw (Human), Rapid Shot, and so on following Treantmonk's guide.

I'm also considering lowering Wisdom to 10 and dumbing Charisma. The thing is, I'm expecting that there actually won't be that many encounters since the DM likes his roleplaying, and I'm more used to tactical combat. In which case, I guess I would need more Intelligence for skills (I don't know, I'm really not that experienced with PF). Advice?

Core Rulebook + APG only, though the DM is open to suggestions.

So a good friend of mine, who is an experienced player, asked me to join a noob night with two or three others and him as the DM. I haven't tabletoped myself, but I have played computer D&D games up to Neverwinter Nights 2, so I'm pretty familiar with the general setting.

The DM is pretty lax, and lets us take pretty much any feat from any book that we want. We will be starting from level 1, however. He hasn't told us much about the setting, but I'm guessing it will be quite general fantasy with a lot of magic and no guns.

I assume everyone else just wants to do damage, so I was thinking of doing something more interesting with combat maneuvers. After lurking in these forums for the past week I came up with a build to Spellstrike with Frostbite, afflict terrible status conditions and trip the poor sobs while doing it. Here's the gist:

Magus 11 / Monk 2

20 point buy: str 15 dex 14 con 14 int 14 + 2 (human bonus) wis 12 cha 7

Traits: bruising intellect, magical knack (magus), maybe reactionary

lvl1: combat expertise, toughness (human bonus)
+ armor proficiency (light), quarterstaff master, weapon proficiency (simple)

lvl2: dodge (monk bonus)
+ improved unarmed strike, perfect strike

lvl3: enforcer, combat reflexes (monk bonus)
+ weapon focus (quarterstaff)

lvl4: str +1

lvl5: weapon specialization (quarterstaff), maneuver mastery (trip) (magus arcana)

lvl7: improved trip, rime spell (magus bonus)

lvl8: int +1, wand wielder (magus arcana)

lvl9: tripping staff

lvl11: hasted assault / arcane accuracy (magus arcana)

lvl12: int +1

lvl13: power attack / vicious stomp, dazing spell (magus bonus)

Other feats to consider: improved initiative, dazzling display, shatter defenses, felling smash

Favoured class bonus: hp +11

Skill points: 95

Props to: WalterGM (Magus guide), FrodoOf9Fingers (Frostbite build), submit2me (Monk dip idea), and ProfPotts (Staff Magus tripping theory)

Now, I wanted to ask you guys if I'm shooting myself in the foot with this. Yes, I know that it would be easier to just take a Scimitar and Shocking Grasp with it, but it sounds so boring. But I'm also worried that because it takes so long to set up all the feats, I will just be a liability for most of the game.

So, will this work? And on a side note, what exactly happens when your Charisma is 7? I have always been wondering about this, since its useless in the games I've played unless you need it for spellcasting. Thanks in advance.