zapbib's page

well you can't get angel wings without angel flesh.

However, if you have the lame curse, your speed can never be reduced by armor, so I guess you can use angel wings with heavy armor. (you still only have 30 foot flying speed however, not very good.)

If you like the dirty trick maneuver, 3 level of slayer(bounty hunter) can get you a free dirty trick each time you hit someone denied dext bonus.

Note that dirty trick work on anything and if allowed, dirty trick master can make it worth using later. You just need to talk with your dm before, because dirty trick was purposefully designed to bring the worse out of your dm.

While trip disarm and sunder can be done with weapon almost always, disty trick can be done with it sometime, depending of dm's fiat.

If you want 2-weapon fighting with a swashbuckler you loose precise strike. Since most deeds are fairly useless, its not too much of a loss to just dip swashbuckler and go with any other martial class.

Now if you want 2-weapon fighting you also need to use sawtooth saber, nothing else works unless you get agile enchantment.

Make no attempt to try to emulate the classic sword and dagger guy. It doesn't work at all. Also, if rules were patched, it would be fun, and half this forum would hate you forever for that.

If you want a cookie cutter scimitar and buckler guy, get the swashbuckler. If you want any little piece of build uniqueness, go somewhere else. If you think these limitation are kinda stupid, dont try playing PFS and go into a heavily houseruled game, as anyone who dislike barb, wizard and cleric went long ago.

I think i need to remind that what he wrote is pretty much in favor of improving dex-to-damage possibilities.
(also, piranha strike doesn't work for dex because you cant get dex-to-damage on light weapon right now)

Most people don't want to diminish the dex to damage cost, they want to limit the number of ridiculous hoops and jump required to achieve it.

For example, the way slashing grace work you might have weapon focus in a weapon that doesn't work for you for a while before you spontaneously become a master of using it. Also, why the requirement of a level in swashbuckler? There is the same things for the dwarvish dance things.

Basicly, the major gripe people have is not that it doesn't exist or that it is bad, it's that the only way of making a dexterous character is by following a very limited number of cookie cutter build. The debate about character build is ultimately pointless thread derailment, the fact that all build shown have very similar degree of power merely show that expended options would not warp the metagame, and even less your home game.

Brutal Defense

Perquisites: Str 13
Benefit: You can use your Str score in place of your Dex score for AC as long as you use do not use a weapon two-handed.

Brutal Archer
Perquisites: Str 13
Benefit: You can use your Str score in place of your Dex for all ranged attacks.

Brutal Speed
Perquisites: Str 13
Benefit: You can use your Str in place of your Dex for initiative and reflex saving throws.

The first feat would have a light load requirement and 13 dex instead of strength. Also, armor still needs to be restricted to light, or at least have strength bonus be limited by armor. Then it's a decent feat, good but not gamebreaking. Oracle can get cha to armor, it's good, not warping all the game. So you loose on the first feat, since its perfectly viable. Maybe make power attack requirement be dex, since dex user need strength to use it, but that's only to properly mimic the effect of dex.

The third feat is the only one that could be debatable, however a proper parallel would add to the requirement to have both prior feat that you came up with. With that, those 3 feat together? I mean a 3 feat investment are fairly expensive, of course, a character with this would be a bit more powerful then a character that would get the same through dexterity (no carrying problem or str check problem) but that only further support my point. So while this one is closer to a draw (not too good or too bad) I think the overall picture is that it would not ruins anybodies game.

So what do you have? pointless fear, that is all. It as been shown, times and times again, that with proper limitation, getting dex to do a couple more things over srength is no problem. Remember, no one suggest pure dex to everything at no cost. The most general things asked for are:
A dervish dance that work for other weapons. (since it already exist, we can conclude there would be no problem)
A feat that follow the finesse one that allow dex-to-damage with the requirement of not 2-handing. (basically a less contrived slashing grace)

I'm gonna help you here, because you need some. The only things that could create a balance problem, considering these things are 2-weapons build. Of course, they would still be less damaging than ranged weapon build, but they would be boosted unless some limit were inserted in the proposed change.

The rest? nope, no ground for debate. Dex-to damage possibilities would not even come close to break something in the game if we follow the usual guideline for the creation of such possibilities.

Also on the subject of the cat thingy. I'm not sure anyone sane can agree with the premise of the debate. Basically your offended the small cat would do the same as the big one with one feat? What is the problem with that. The stat block you gave pretty gives both cat similar combat prowess with small variation, how is that a problem?

I would give a feat that allow strength to init and reflex and one that gives str to armor if it meant 1 handed only, if it was limited by armor, and if it didn't allow 1.5 str, and didn't give power attack unless you get 13 dex.

No hesitation no doubt. There is no valid reason to think of that trade off as a problem for the game. No one as even remotely proven that these "bonus" are worth more than a feat. And I write "bonus" because they realy don't improve much the character since they take the space of others feat.

Ghostwasp, you are wrong, plainly and obviously. It is inherently balanced by the feat cost, by weapon style and by armor. You still need to invest in strenght (for power attack), you need to get 2-feats (to actually get dex to damage) and you are stuck with a 1 handed weapon, or at least no 1.5 str(or dex) to damage. You also get LESS ac then a str character unless you get quite hight level.

You know, I just noticed in this thread that some people use bad gming as an argument for dex being so good.

Someone said that str check never happen in a campaign, well thats gm dependant and have nothing to do with the debate.

Also, disable device to bust down a door, most gm I know wouldnt let that past unless its a very specific kind of door.

It is obvious that just strait up replacing strenght with dex would upset balance, but right now things are wuite stacked against dex user. assuming you get the duling sword for dex to damage:
-3 feat
-no 2-handing
-no 1.5 power attack
- less ac then strenght at low level, equal mid level and barely more at hight level
-some skills less needed(but still usefull)
-no reach
-encumbrance problem at low level (unless your gm is a tool)
-no ways to make strength check

the 3 feat are already a huge loss, like immense to anyone that is not a fighter, and even then its considerable.

The swashbuckler class actually bring the dex to damage to the level of a not too optimised fighter but have some specific problem of their own. (low fort is deadly, very front loaded, very limitating style (not much flavor variation))

It doesn't seem that bad, he delays his paladin spellcasting for some bloodrager abilities. It's not broken, and since he took the celestial bloodline it could actually be fun to roleplay.

Why are you looking for rule blocking this? Because unless you got a good reason I would hesitate to help someone that seem to just want to be mean to his player.

If you describe it, the character sees it. If you say there is a spider, don't make them roll perception for the spider. Make them roll perception first, then tell them if there is a spider. To not go in that way is just gonna break immersion and can ruin your game fast. Remember that only hidden things need perception, be descriptive as a gm.

Initiative should always be rolled at the start of combat. It's a physical roll after all, how fast can they react to what they see. This is why some class have bonus like: always armed even if they miss initiative etc.

You can give bonus/malus to initiative roll according to if your players were dubious or expected a betrayal etc. But yea, this is as close to an absolute as it can be: always roll initiative.

I did. I don't hate it because it's powerful, I hate it because it's annoying. From the time i started playing, i realized that dice don't really matter. The people I gamed with thought dice were king and i was a newb for not using a bastard sword or playing a monk because big dice man. I still saw this well into 4th edition where players would choose a d10 over a d8 when the 1d8 wep had a better chance to hit over all. It's a minor thing that...FOR SOME REASON, bothers me to no end.

It's perfectly acceptable to have these little illogical gripes. It is not acceptable to use very subjective and illogical gripes to make broad judgment about newly released class.

I mean, you planned to ban these classes simply because they are not as powerful as people would think they are? (because they like dice?).

The goal of a forum is to discuss, there is nothing to discuss if all you have to say is: I dislike them because of "trauma in the past". If you want to say that you can get yourself a blog.

While there was a lot of good point, a lot of them were also really stupid in this thread.

The only class from the acg that could, perhaps, be banable for power creep is the arcanist, time and experience will be required to evaluate it more.

All the other class could only be justifiably banned for thematic reason, they are far from overpowered.

The brawler seems fine, it could however slow down gameplay because of the rule searching involved in martial flexibility. Not a class for the neophyte that's for sure.

I don't understand what is your hangup with dice scaling. It's the same as a monk and no one complain for the monk. The scaling for the warpriest is mostly useless. Only one handed user could really benefit and it takes forever to be really worth it.

The bloodrager seems fine, definitely not too powerful. They are an interesting take on the bloodlines and are full of flavor.

The book truly did waste a lot of space for fairly pointless stuff and could have used the community more before printing (it wasn't even fully released and there was scores of editing errors found)

Perhaps Paizo do gate-keeping on theme. Even If they did, it has thoroughly been shown that bard have a huge presence in lore, stories and legend, so that they have a perfectly reasonable reason to be part of the core group of classes.

The only acceptable reason to refuse bard is because you have a specific homebrew world vision you wanna stick to. It's a very good reason, but doesn't allow you to make any judgment on those that like bard in their story. The inverse is fully true, for a world that doesn't allow a bard-like character but allow wizards and cleric is a very strange world indeed.

@the secret fire: Also, how do you define "very little" If you are gonna hide behind that, how much bard or bard-like stuff do we need to find before you think it's enough?

I pointed out Orpheus as a very definitely a bard from mythology.

However I think the problem we have right now is that a "bard" as defined in pathfinder is quite ill-defined. He can dance (native amerindian war dance leader?) or he can sing (pacific islander war song can be scary, same for viking or celt, the elves from Lotr always sings, so do dwarves sometimes) or he can speak (inspiring speech are a very common thing in fictional heroes) etc etc.

So the inspire courage part of the bard is very well covered by history. The fighting part (3/4 bap) is okay too, as most heroes are at least good at fighting in most stories. Skills are definitely a fictional staple on these kinds of character.

So to be clear: music playing or tale-weaving skilled hero is unambiguously part of the stories and tales of many part of the world.

Really the only part that maybe would have a problem fitting is the spell-casting. And well it's a problem common to most caster class in DnD because casting is far rarer in fiction. Magical powers of old tales are often more vaguely defined and ominous. Even Gandalf in the Lotr did very little apparent spell-casting. However it is not unheard of to have a character weave magic out of instrument, or at least magic-like effect.

So I think that the large definition of a bard come definitly from tale and fiction, the more narrow definition is something peculiar to DnD and have the same place as Drow and gelatinous cube. That is to be part of a specific world that we define.

I disagree, the lord of the ring (written) definitely have bard. Tom bombadil is an epic level bard (even if boring). The insistence on music, song and story is actually one of the thing that make the lord of the ring special to some people.

Stories are full of people that inspires through their speech. As pointed earlier, flagcarrier and drummer have a very real presence in most armies of the past.

And when there are cunning heroes, with a knack for speaking, they could be bard.

And finally, Orpheus from Greek mythology. Very definitely a bard. If that isn't mythology no one know what it is.

You say there is little resembling a d&d Bard in fantasy and mythology. I say you have a skewed perception of what it can be. There was a definite need for this kind of character.

1-roll all the same number dice together.
2-Pick every dice that roll under 10
3- repeat 1 and 2 with the picked dice until you have a couple dice that have rolled 4-5 time under 10.

then use these dice for a couple turns, they should be less likely to roll under 10. You can preroll them and keep them into a box in such a way they don't roll and use them when you need them in game.

P.S. I perfectly know this is a bogus method (like all of them) and only have the appearance of a statistically sound approach.

Fabricate state that it can do what you want it to do, all your doing is showing that your mastery of rule reading is limited. Of course people like to use their ability in novel way. Some abilities gives such leeway, others, like the dragon breath, don't. You seem to always want to read things literally and yet always refuse to do so.

I will leave you to think about that again, and simply hope with time, experience or age you come to a more logical position.

Actually I think you got it a bit reverse.

The roleplay kind is to allow every character to take what they want, for it allow them to truly roleplay their character as they want them. The other way you describe is more the DM wanting to roleplay their character instead of the players.

example: Hmmm I would like my swashbuckler to suddenly have a great vision and decide to focus on it and take character lvl in oracle.
DM: (no, not an oracle!) Oh sorry, there's really no one that can train you in oracle, in fact the only trainer you find can teach you to be a fighter.

You could not find the stated rule because it is a rule inherent to the attempt of making a rulebook.

You cannot attempt to make an inclusive rulebook and at the same time make the baseline assumption that there is a throng of uncalled exception. It would be unreadable and useless. Some ruleset make the explicit choice to leave some leeway to the DM on most of the rule. Such an explicit mention is not given in pathfinder. Rule make sense if they explain what a character can or cannot do. If every rule must be extrapolated with a bunch of subjective decision they are useless and you are better with a game system that gives very little rule and tell the dm to com up with DC and abilities on the fly.

The reason I hope the developer don't bother to gives you an answer is because while you seem to be quite articulate, this is a fairly stupid question. There can really not be that much arguments to show it to you, because their can be no rule if we take your premise as true. Since there are rule, and most people want to use them.... I let you draw your conclusion.

As for your "friend", perhaps you might want to educate them a little, its crazy what stuff can propagate if no one takes the time to counter even the most absurd notion. After all there are people who believe all kinds of ridiculous unlogical things outside, I will not accept that they are right simply because they exist.

Meh, it's kinda hard to take this forum seriously when stuff like dervish dance (horizontal creep at best) get put in the same category as vertical power creep like daze etc. Seeing as no matter how much theorycraft and actual play experience you get some people would rather burn their friend then admit they are wrong it makes it hard to properly gauge the creep of pathfinder. And yes, I did take it as an objective fact, its long past the time we admit that.

Now, I think creep depend on books. The ACG despite the glaring inadequacy of his editing has open very little space for powercreep. There is some outliers that seems to creep a little more, but in general it doesn't change much what was thought as powerful before.

no, it doesn't work at lvl 2 as it is written. Probably another editing problem from paizo. Since some archetype refer to abilities that don't even exist, getting a useless one for a lvl seem like a mild error in comparison.

#1: no
#2: no

the kata master is never [b]granted[\b] the swashbuckler finesse class feature, he only have a specific subset of deeds that might need a light or one-handed piercing weapon.

His proficiency are never changed, the word doesn't even come up in the part you quoted, so I don't know where yo go the idea for 2.

Let's say that there is a spell/ability that calls out that it turns *ALL* liquids in an area into drinkable water. It says attended liquids and magical items get a save, but does not specify that it only affects unattended liquids and items. It also does not specify using the word "Creature" that creatures are a valid target, nor does it call out specific effects for how that would effect a creature. It is also not a burst, and is therefore unaffected by line of effect. For argument's sake, lets say it explicitly states that it ignores line of effect.

It dosn't affect creatures, end of story.

Also you really should apologize to simon, he's been putting up with your shit and explaining everything as clear as day to you. Admitting that you are wrong would just be the best things to do.

If you want to go RAW, you cant extrapolate rules beyond a very specific subset of clearly defined situation. What your example seems to try to mix is the intent of the rule, and the rule as written. The rule as written for the blue dragon is very clear, there is no ambiguity. The rule example you gave is the same, very clear: creatures are not affected, point, end of story.

mixing bounty hunter slayer and lore warden gives you a similar build because the increased BAB and number of feat help you, also you don't need to be a half orc.

As someone said you can't stack sneaky maneuver and other sneak attack replacing stuff.

Master of maneuver monk+bounty hunter slayer can be interesting too, use the bonus maneuver to blind them with dirty trick and then every other attack gets a free dirty trick. Doing damage, blinding and sickening someone in a turn seems fun.

Also, full bAb or close is usefull because you then get dirty trick master faster (and it's a really cool bonus)

slayer 3/lore warden 7/brawler snakebite 1

+2 from sneak, +4 from lore warden, +1 from weapon training, +1 from studied target, +11 BAB, + 2 dusty rose in a wayfinder, +4 feat, +5 from main stat, + from the buckler. So that's a +32, and you can probably get weapon focus and greater weapon focus if you use a weapon for +3.

How does that input changes anything. We are discussing the book they are releasing. If they had good or bad reason to do a poor/good job is irrelevant. We discuss what we have and the direct cause of it. Since we don't work for paizo we can neither be favorable or hostile to them.

Wait wait wait... you're saying that the statements made on the forums are non-biased judgements based on evidence, and that all the posters are in fact neutral rather than having their own personal biases?

You, sir, have made my day. I haven't laughed that hard in a very long time.

I'm happy to have made you laugh, but my intent was to point what we should do, not what we are doing. While poorly worded, it was also only intended against post that discussed the interior reason and motive of paizo. Their external output is open to be criticized in my opinion(in a reasonable manner of course). For example saying that the ACG was poorly edited is an objective fact. Saying paizo doesn't care about their customer is a subjective pointless comment.

Canny tumble is a problem (a small one though) because the feat is just wasted words, I have a hard time imagining somebody will ever use that feat.

Some people like to acrobatic a lot, and at low lvl +2 is nothing to scoff at. Of course there already was a feat that did the exact same thing for less requirement(Disorienting Maneuver) so...

Also, confounding tumble deed looks fun, could be usefull for a rogue or ninja swashbuckler. Thematically it's fairly fun. The requirement are a bit too high for what it gives, but it's not a terrible goal to pursue.

Someone mentioned canny tumble as a problem, I was curious why. I mean other than it's a weaker reprint from Disorienting Maneuver in ultimate combat.

How does that input changes anything. We are discussing the book they are releasing. If they had good or bad reason to do a poor/good job is irrelevant. We discuss what we have and the direct cause of it. Since we don't work for paizo we can neither be favorable or hostile to them.

If we did, we could just presume they care for nothing about the player and just want an easy job, this would be as valid as any other option. So we don't care, we don't discuss about these things. We discuss about the feats that are in the book and if they were well written or not. This is one part of the equivalent to the thread that looks for typo's and obvious errors, only we discuss more abstract things.

Either slashing grace was well designed, or it wasn't, or something in between. It appear obvious it wasn't, considering there was a fix announced before the book was even delivered.

I was thinking about that, but ultimately it's just giving buckler stats to your dagger as there is nothing you can really do with it. Also because of the wording, you can't have a weapon in your hand, even if you don,t use it.

A more likely answer is taking Jason on exactly what he said: Dex to damage was added to Slashing Grace, a feat designed for swashbucklers, as an incentive to make what was considered a feat taxing feat more attractive. Not for any other reason or to further any other agendas or design philosophies.

It would have been a perfectly correct thing to say. But the swashbuckler preview mention dex to damage. Where do we stop giving them excuse and just admit that something went wrong in the whole make a new book process? If it was only that, but there's a huge list of errors and balancing problem that just hint that there was poor editing and poor vision on this project.

Oracle get divine grace as a feat, is it too much to ask to have something a little more thought out than slashing grace? Like just include light and piercing?

Actually, not making a mechanically sound character will seriously hamper your abilities to role-play.

Why? because whole thematic side will be forced upon you by the game.

I have played a couple one-off lately and decided to try to not bother about the mechanic of the class but go for full flavor. After analyzing it I realized that the fiasco of those session was the unavoidable conclusion of the choices I have made. You cannot rp fully without having some kind of system backing in pathfinder. Other games maybe, not pathfinder. Because if you want to play the guy that is a mercenary, but that every breeze kill him, you can't really justify that role play.

Let's say you want to play the savvy cut purse, helping your party with deadly sneak attack and stealthy move. But you picked rogue and the party ranger/barbarian/wizard can almost do everything you can do better. Well you aren't rping a savvy cut purse, you are rping a delusional man whose friend allow to stick around out of pity, even thought any enemy they face would wipe you like one wipe dirt from his shoes.

Your rping doesn't exist in a vacuum, it only exist in your relation with the world. If you can't cast magic, you can't role play you can, if you can't kill anything, well you can't role play you are a good fighter. Class ARE fluffless statblock and MUST be, for they must give you abilities toward the world that match what you want to roleplay.

Those that insist otherwise approach role play the same way theorycrafter approach and actual in-game build: with ignorance and a detrimental vision.

If you want to play classes as flavorless stat blocks, be my guest. I've never claimed that was bad. But a growing number of posters are outright calling the way I (and many others) play "wrong", and to them I say "don't be a jerk".

We aren't jerk because we are pointing you are wrong, you might be if you don't admit to be however.

Agreed. Up to a point.

In my case, I asked the players what they wanted me to run. They picked a 4 module mini-arc. I bought the 4 modules. Gave them the intro information that their PC's have (which admittedly isn't much) AND a bunch of background info to tell them what type of campaign it will be what types of characters, races, and abilities will be helpful. I specifically told them that nearly everyone encountered is racist against anything not human. Even more so if the are obviously from somewhere out of the country. This fact is very central to the whole theme of the arc. All of them agreed that this was what they still wanted to run. I said they could use the race builder if they did a complete write-up of the race and it made sense as a race that could survive in the world (they all agreed that was reasonable).

Then on game day:
- Two of them brought builds which were nearly useless because their specialty could not effect 90% of the opposition encountered. They said that was intentional. They wanted to find a way to uniquely use their skills and make it work. Then made no unique effort and were upset they couldn't do anything.
- Everyone of them brought a VERY visibly non-human/non-local race guaranteed to send chills to any xenophobe. I reminded them of the xenophobic aspect. They said they wanted to play through overcoming that handicap. They were all frustrated that they couldn't get anything done with their social skills (stacking penalties up to -4 to -12 depending).
-Not one even bothered using a single skill point to learn the local language until I very loudly meta-game pointed out that it was giving them another -4 penalty on social interactions.
- Three of them cobbled together a race with that made no sense and was good for nothing except the particular character they were playing. They didn't even follow the rules in the ARG. None of the 3 did any kind of write-up, background, or history for their race or even let me look at it before game day. (One said "I thought I wrote down that he was plane shifted here from somewhere else" and that was as close as I got.)

I allowed their special races as long as they could give me some sort of write-up, history, justification and the race made sense. I think that was pretty darn permissive. They couldn't be bothered to do anything like that.

They said they wanted specifically to play those special races in this exact mini-campaign even with all the problems it would give. Then they were all frustrated with it.

I wanted a race write-up. I would have been satisfied with some sort of readable character background that included, for example, a mad wizard's experiment. I got nothing. Even then, I let them use it with only a bit of eye rolling on my part.

Then their frustration was my fault for running exactly what they said they wanted in the way they said they wanted it run

You are probably the one to blame for all this. Either you didn't make sure you were understood (the old it should have been obvious stuff) or you chose to play with asshat. You should always know the people you are planing to play with.

Actualy, a slayer don't need to go stacking dex to make a twfing build.

Android got a penalty to charisma, this make a swashbuckler dip prohibitive because you cannot really use the deed abilities. You would make a good archer, but it doesn't seem to be the theme you want.

16 14 14 13 12 8 is a decent stat start if you don't want to tank any stats and is fairly well rounded.

for feat well its really simple:

1 power attack
2(style 2-weapon fighting)
3 double slice
4 slayer talent
5
6(style enhanced 2-weapon fighting)
7
8
9
10(style enhanced 2-weapon fighting)

If you want to delay your greater 2weapon fighting you can grab 2 level of master of many style at level 6 and 7 for pummeling style and charge.

I join the Q-Q-Qism by agreeing with everyone's disappointment, but i think what paizo wants to dodge here are TWF-Dex to damage builds. Paizo just needs to make the feat to Dex-to-Dmg able to light weapons but not let them TWF, or give the damage just to the main attacks and not the off-hand. i don't know, maybe is my thing, but i really hate the fact that Slashing Grace is meant to be a Swashbuckler's feat (even though kensai can make it work) then why not make it a class ability? feats are meant to be open for any class, and i don't think of a single Swashbuckler build atm that don't get Slashing grace or Fencing grace.

And I will join the endless litany of repeating that they didn't even stop TWF-dex since sawtooth saber are a thing. Really the only more powerful option they stopped is TWF kukri, every other light weapons combinations seems weaker or equal.

And with all that, the iconic one dagger in a hand, a sword in the other (or wakisashi and katana) is still a really useless build.

Actualy

swash
master of maneuver
slayer (4)
lore master (2)

makes a great dirty trick user if you get the bounty hunter archetype for the slayer. You can get power attack, imp dirty trick, great dirty trick and slashing grace for some fun. Just use your' weapon for dirty trick (that you can do on every sneak attack)

It would be a hassle to find it, but it does, somewhere in the main thread about the ACG.

Why would they correct this, the fencing grace reveal was just an attempt to make us shut up because the mistake was way to obvious. They wouldn't come down and admit to have poorly edited the book and left poorly written feat unless they have to. When the book will have sold and everyone will have realized the staggering number of poorly written stuff. Then they will start releasing FAQ and errata. They don't really have any advantage to do so earlier unless its beyond obvious, and I wouldn't expect them too either.

You know, the more I think about it, the more I think they should make a playtest with the community, you know, so they don't have ridiculous feat description and obvious errors...

It's nothing, it doesn't exist. It was sacked during editing, but editors couldn't bother reading the book for errors.

hmm, I like this thread, it gives me idea for a character:

a half elf, whose other half is also an elf
multiclassed ranger/ranger

and then I could use 4 bow simultaneously (it only hurt the neck a little)

I would just need to watch out for old powerful bearded wizard.

what is that nonsense about dipping swashbuckler. Use the dervish dancing feat with a scimitar. At lvl 3 you can get dex to damage and it only costed you 2 feat and didn't require a dip in another class. While katan requires 1 feat and a dip. Is 1 damage worth delaying all your class abilities? The only other thing you would get from swash is panache, but you would need to get some charisma, making your build quite mad.

You are the GM, make your homework first, then tell them the game. You define the game, you put the rule in them. Perhaps it's a world with only humans, perhaps it's a world with only kobolt. Ask them overall what kind of world they want, and then make it a coherent thing. You could make human not exist, or gnome, or you could make everything exist. Explain to them that you are defining a coherent world with specific rules that exist to help suspend disbelief. Then, state clearly what there is. If they ALL really want to live in a world where everyone is a mutated monstruosity, make such a world, make them meet monster just like them, show them what a world would look like like if there was so many different critter going around, interacting. Everything boils down to: you either need to work harder, or get new player.

actually, the group is "one handed melee", I don't think "one handed" exist.

While you can make any number of free action in a round, you usually cannot take them in the middle of an action (during a move for example). Since two weapon fighting is a full round action, you can only switch weapon before and after you start.

It's a needless distinction anyway, because you need to wield a weapon in your offhand to start a two weapon fighting attack. And the additional attack is specified to use the offhand weapon stats. So even if you could switch weapon, you would still make the additional attack with the offhand weapon you started with.

The only exception is brawler's fury in the ACG which specify that you do not need 2 weapon to use it.

yes, sawtooth sabre very definitely work with slashing grace and a dip of swashbuckler. But then again, that should have been obvious since having a level of swashbuckler is the only way to get slashing grace to work. (unless whip or dueling sword).

Dex based character only get more ac if they have other feature that can boost ac. By themselves they cannot. The reason is simple: there is a hard cap of maximum ac provided by armor+dex:
light armor: max 8, 10 with mithrall
medium armor: max 9, 11 with mithrall
heavy armor: max 10, 12 with mithrall

So unless you got some class feature (metal revelation, armor training, strait bonus to ac like swashbuckler or brawler) you cannot get a definitive more ac.

Swashbuckler (not dex char) can get some more because they can use a shield and still get similar dps to a 2-handed user, but thats a swashbuckler problem, not a dex character problem.

There are some advantage to be dex based, but there is also some clear disadvantage.

You are right its not that Dex to damage is game breaking or even more powerful than STR its that Dex would be tied to yet another ability. It already has AC, Reflex Saves, Ranged Attacks, making it also a primary melee stat would place its value out of balance with other stats. This would allow other stats to be sacrificed for a super high dex. Currently all melee fighters have to deal with a three way balance. A tank build still places something in Dex for the AC, but it also needs CON and likely has STR as its highest stat. Dex to Damage (especially early possibility) allows a melee to pump Dex and only to worry about Con. Sure might be a out DPSed by a STR build but also has a bonus to save, a high AC to keep them happy.

This is at best false. As it have been repeatedly pointed out. Remember, we are not talking about just replacing str with damage, we are talking about trading feat and combat style for one that allow to use it.

The ability to use wand and staff for some very specific spell is a wasted talent. Invest in umd and you can do all that.

A rogue get more sneak attack earlier, so that's a plus for him. With the scout archetype he can also use it a little more reliably.

slayer makes better two weapon fighter, that's for sure. They however get less talent than a two-handed rogue (the most viable build).

invisibility twice a day at lvl 8 is not exactly super great. Buy yourself a potion if you really need it.

Now, the rogue is the worst class you could pick bar none. Of course no one wanted a ACG class that wouldn't be better. Basically you purposefully ignore years of information accumulated thought experience about the game in order to make a pointless and useless comment that help neither the rogue nor the slayer.

You know, in the main dex-to-damage thread I posted that I didn't believe light weapon were excluded from the slashing grace feat. I though it was an overly narrow reading of the feat.

Well I just read the class preview and it specifically mention snake style as a feat that allow a swashbuckler to use his abilities. Since unarmed attack are light weapons for the purpose of feats, we have pretty good evidence that light weapons were meant to be included in slashing grace.

While I'm afraid of it, it would be spectacularly stupid to do so. The class preview encouraged class dipping since it mention multiclassing as a good option for swashbuckler.

Reading it, I also realized Slashing grace is meant to work with light weapons too. I always said it was a possible reading that shouldn't be discarded, but the fact that they mention snake style to go with the swashbuckler abilities (which would require something like slashing grace) is fairly damning evidence.

whip work too

a 2 feat tax on dex to damage, the loss of 2-handed damage, the problem with encumbrance and str check. Thoses are already big problem for a dex-based char. Why did we need arbitrary weapon limitation? Sawtooth sabre allow 2-weapon build without problem, so they obviously weren't afraid of 2-weapon build. The katana and scimitar are already amongst the best one handed weapon, so they weren't afraid of that.

So why the arbitrary limitation? It's dervish dance all over again. Every swash will go around with a rhoka, scimitar or katana. Every 2-weap dex build will use sawtooth sabre and everyone else that wanted something different can go screw themselves. Dagger? The horror, that would be so broken. A 2-handed spear? You would break every ap. Rapier and dagger? What kind of absurd notion, here, have your punching brawler punching dragon instead.

It's not a point of having intent clear. It's not paizo problem you can't read the rule correctly. Every time a class feature from another class is given to a class because of an archetype, it's clear that you replace the name or the original class by the name of the new class. The same way a sacred fist that get flurry of blow gets to use it as a monk.

You could also mix master of maneuver monk with slayer bounty hunter and get the dirty trick line of feat.

Use your bonus maneuver to blind them and use your sneak attack.

the build:

slayer, bounty hunter: power attack, feat
master of maneuver:imp trip
slayer:
slayer:feat
master of maneuver:imp dirty trick, feat
slayer:feat or talent
lore master fighter: greater trip, great dirty trick.

grab a big 2-handed weapon. You can replace your small sneak by a dirty trick and ou still do the damage. You can do a greater trip to trip them and get an attack in. So you can get all the fun

too much feat, slashing grace on both weapon cost a staggering 4 feat. If you're gonna go that way its a better investement to get agile on the wakizashi.

the reason for the sawtooth sabre is that they count as light for the purpose of 2-weapon fighting, that way you only need weapon focus and slashing grace once

I was thinking kat and wakis would work on a strength slayer build. Get amateur swashbuckler for the parry and riposte deed and you can get reasonable use out of it because of crit. Then you could
get:
dodge, mobility, combat reflexes: go shadowdancer (for hide in plain sight)
Dodge mobility, canny tumble, confounding tumble deed: for dennying oponents dex to ac with a tumble.

eldritch heritage shadow, so at lvl 11 you can get the hide in plain sight power.