vermura's page

An excellent guide, honestly, the best I've read since it proposes something wholly new.

Just a few notes.

1) You cant use an unarmed attack when your holding a 2-handed weapon with both hands. Sure, it seems quite reasonable to transfer the weapon to 1-hand with a free action, but you can't take a free action when it's not your turn. Therefore, you cannot simultaneously threaten 5' with a spiked gauntlet and 10' with a long spear. Using a spiked gauntlet does still save you from drawing a weapon, so there is still a good reason to use one. I'm less sure that you couldn't do it with a monk, but it'd really be up to DM fiat.

2) Sacred summons is very powerful, however, if it's not available to you, there is always spiritual ally. Not quite as good, but still useful and does not require a feat. You can also ask your DM to allow it to use CHA instead of WIS if you cast it as an oracle.

3) I favor using greater magic weapon to bolster my weapons enhancement bonus, while using any extra +'s to add more damage. So for example, a +1 holy longspear in the hands of a lvl 12 cleric/oracle will still be +3 due to greater magic weapon - giving you a much needed boost to dmg/hit.

4) The more damage your doing (due to 3 above, or other abilities) the less important the damage from power attack is (your getting less of a % boost from it). However, the to hit penalty and the cost of the feat must always be suffered if your using it.

5) It's possible to avoid the "MAD" aspect some what by worshiping shelyn (favoured weapon glaive) and then investing in channel smite and guided hand (now you use +wis for hitting with your glaive). Doing so would permit you to still have a high wisdom score while being able to roll dice and connect with any melee attacks you do.

I liked the guide, but the central ideas are combat reflexes and a reach weapon while using standard actions for spell casting. The same principle can be used for any class that would like to whack things, but is busy using standard actions for other things. Using sacred summons to summon monsters is a very good use of a standard action, but it's not the only one ;)

No need to give up casting:
Sheylin: Glaive.
Domains:
Charm (love) -for immediate action immunity to melle.
Fervour (inquisition) -for a free quicken once per day to pop righteous might (reach, hit, DR) or just divine power.

Human
B. Channel Smite, 1. Guided Hand, 3. Quick Channel, 5. Selective Channel, 7. Spell Pen

Seems like a build that would actually work in play against a hard module or a challenging DM.

With quick, swift and immediate actions, attacks of opportunity and spells you can basically do 3-4+ actions in a round when the going gets tough.

Your spells (best resource) don't suffer as all you do is max wis as well!

I do believe your missing combat reflexes from your list there :D

I'd also point out the luck domain is probably the best one in the game. Clerics have quite good saves, so using the reroll on your saving throws makes it highly likely the 2nd attempt will succeed. The touch of good luck power is also quite useable combined with a glaive and combat reflexes.

If you'd like to use immediate actions to screw over the enemy, there is always divine interference (I'd like you to reroll that critical hit now pls k thx). In a lower level game, love domain would be good, but not so useful at higher levels when you can have other options.

Not a cleric, but this is a Oracle of Flame I made for a recent game. Why Oracle of Flame? Role playing reasons actually. However, they are a very effective character.

http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetview.php?sheetid=518743

Don't worry about commenting on my magic item selection, it was all restricted by the DM, so no uber metamagic rods etc.

I'm ignoring the power attack route, instead, I'm looking to simply add lots of extra dice to my attacks with the longspear.

Before combat buffs, they poke people for 1d8+9+1d6 fire +2d6 holy at +17/+12. Presuming the opponent is evil and not resistant to fire, the average damage is then 24. Not utterly devastating, but useful damage all the same. Note that this improves quite a bit by using buffs.

I am using just two combat feats: Weapon focus (helps me hit) and combat reflexes. All other feats went into spell casting, this is after all, a lvl 12 caster I have here.

I made this character for flavor, but they have a lot of flexibility. I'd like to make special mention of gaze of flame. Being able to see perfectly through obscuring mist and wall of fire? Very damn handy.

Personally, builds and the like aside, it comes down to this.

No matter how godly your melee attacks are, you have to actually be in melee to use them. It's really not that uncommon to come across situations where you simply can't reach your enemy. For example, I distinctly recall a game where the party (virtually ALL melee) came up against a Blue Dragon.

What did the Dragon do? Never get on the ground for one. Instead, it was happy to stay aloft and bombard the party with spells and breath weapons. Ok, so we use fly spells to try and catch the dragon. The dragons a spellcaster, highly intelligent, cunning and run exactly as such by the DM. A dispel magic here, moving away from the party there and suddenly where you had 2 guys flying up to meet the dragon, there is only 1 (the other had his fly dispelled by the dragon - between the fall and previous damage, that killed him). The dragon then simply moves up to his maximum range above the enemy and picks him off out of range of the rest of the party. Once that's done, he resumes the bombardment.

We had no option but to run - and have the dragon pursue us, happily blasting us to bits with his lightning breath and sorceror abilities (we did have 1 archer, which was the first person the dragon killed).

Realistically, the dragon could have killed the entire party, if the DM didn't decide to let us get away.

This is the problem you get with melee characters in all games - if the enemy is able to keep you at range, your at a big disadvantage. Archers, on the other hand, don't have this problem so much. While there are ways to shutdown archers, they still have the option to fall back to melee combat. Any decently designed archer can still perform ok in melee combat with a minimal investment in feats. Sure, you wont be nearly as good as that power attacking barbarian meat grinder of death, but, you only need to be better then your enemy.

It's who won at the end of the day that counts. Archers by virtue of their range have more tactical options. That is why soldiers use assault rifles not swords lol.

Save or suck isn’t all there is to Enchantment; diversify into some of the school’s excellent buffs, like Moment of Greatness, Rage, Heroism, Tactical Acumen, Blood Rage, and Greater Heroism--some of these can stack or interact in interesting ways.

Note too that enchantment as some of the best save or suck spells in the game: Confusion, Dominate and Geas jump to mind immediately.

You also had me convinced - but then I made my will save.

I've just made a Pathfinder Paladin for an upcoming game. I read all over the forums about people dipping into a new class every couple of levels, but this is not something I'm fond of - for starters you lose favoured class bonus, but mostly, I think it makes little sense from a role-playing perspective (as opposed to roll-playing). Each to their own, however!

20 point buy, lvl 8, 33000 gp of magic items (market price). There is a house rule that if you want a magic item in a different slot from the book, you can do that with a 50% premium to the cost. We are using pathfinder core rules (no 3rd party, no 3.5 etc, but official paizo books are ok).

The current core party:
Halfling Ranger
Half-Orc Fighter/Rogue
Human Fighter/Cleric

Possibly coming back is another Paladin (sword/board) and there are two other players who I have no idea what classes they are making - hopefully 1 makes an arcane caster.

Concept: I've always wanted to make an archer Paladin. I'm aware of the Divine Hunter archetype, but while the free feat is great, virtually everything else about the archetype I dislike. Instead, I've opted for the Hospitaler archetype, which retains all the paladin core abilities but also gives you channel energy as a cleric 3 levels lower. I've found in the past channel energy is really good for keeping the party alive, particularly when more then 1 player in the party can do it. As a paladin, you can also Paladin's Sacrifice an ally who just suffered massive damage and then channel energy to heal you and him and lay on hands yourself as well if you want. Strong.

First magic item to buy:
Phylactery of Positive Channeling. This takes my channel energy from 3d6 to 5d6. Without this item, Hospitaler is kinda meh. With it, your channel energy is a lot stronger. Using the house rule, I moved this from headband slot to vest, simply so I never have to worry about a conflict with it again.

Race: Human.
Without divine hunter, you just really need that extra feat.

Feats:
1: Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot
3: Rapid Shot
5: Deadly Aim
7: Many Shot
I'm just at the point where my archery is fairly good.

Feats to get: Power Attack, Quick Draw, Improved Precise Shot
Always nice to have stuff to look forward too, which as a Paladin, you always do.

Stats:
Str: 16
Int: 12 (I like skills)
Wis: 8
Dex: 16
Con: 14
Cha: 14

More magic items:
Headband of Charisma +2, Belt of Physical Might +2 (Str/Dex), Composite Longbow +1 (+4 Str)

These items give me 18 Str/18 Dex/16 Cha. While a big investment, I figure once you've got the stats, you can look at getting the gear to suit later.

Paladin Bond: Mount.
In the past, I've always taken bonded weapon, but for an archer, the mount is actually quite amazing. Without any feat investment, just ride skill, you can move using your mounts base speed and still full attack. If your in melee combat, you and the horse can both attack and the horse is quite good, the same as a equal-level druids animal companion. This was another reason NOT to take divine hunter. It costs an action to activate your divine weapon anyway. You could just as easily have spent this action casting divine favour which would give you a similar bonus. On that subject...

Traits:
Magical Knack: Increase your caster level by 2, up to your hit dice. This trait is actually quite good. At lvl 8, my caster level is 7 instead of 5 which makes some spells give bigger bonuses (e.g. divine favour, resist energy) and increases duration etc. This can be the difference between it being worth even bothering to cast a spell in the first place.

Blade of Mercy: Being a paladin, some times you DON'T want to kill people. This trait really is great for those times.

Skills/Ranks:
Diplomacy 8, Ride 8, Perception 8, Bowyer 1, Handle Animal 1 - and 6 more class with 1 rank in each.

Play style: This character has three main options. I hate one-dimensional characters, which is why I built this one the way it is.

Archery: If your outdoors, mount up and ride around shooting everything.

Melee: Wade in with Falchion. Not totally great at melee (least till power attack), but hey, good strength, dex and decent con make it possible to do it if you just need to "hold the line". If your in a place where you can use your mount, even better, because the mount itself has decent attacks.

Support: Paladins Sacrifice (awesome spell), Channel Energy, Lay on hands (mercies etc.). Not too bad, no substitute for a Cleric or Oracle, but you can make their job a lot easier by chipping in. Once you reach level 11, you get aura of healing which is, um, like, totally amazing particularly combined with channel energy. A good reward for staying straight paladin. Support and ranged combat also has good synergy tactically.

Welp that's it, just wanted to share this concept for people who might be interested in something a bit different. Just one final note about the mount - you can summon the mount as a full round action. Some times this can be worthwhile, if your having a big battle in a large room deep in the dungeon where you didn't bring your mount.

If you take ride skill and have a mount, you can do the following:
Your mount moves up to its normal movement speed. Although your mount has moved, you may still full attack using your bow with no penalty to hit.

Thus, even if your in heavy armor, you can move and shoot using your mounts speed - requiring only a DC 5 ride check (to control the mount while using a 2-handed weapon) to do it.

If you want your mount to move faster while shooting, you'll start taking hefty penalties w/o investing into feats like mounted combat, mounted archery - but you can get a quite a good benefit just from ride alone.