Hey all. I've been working up a character for TarkXT's upcoming campaign. No idea if I'll get in, but I've been very intrigued with my first foray into the Warlord, and I want to keep tweaking the character regardless.
Here is a link to my character's alias, with complete stat sheet, and here are the instructions we were given:
Character Creation
~20 Point Buy
~LVL 3
~Full HP at 1st. Half+1 every level after.
~Dwarves, Humans, Half Orcs, Halflings, Gnomes, Tieflings, Aasimar, the elemental races, and Samsarans.
~No 9th level casters. Yup, no wizards, witches, clerics and all that. Magic is ubiquitous and powerful but not to that level. Also no Summoners.
~No Brawlers, Barbarians, Cavaliers, Gunslingers, Swashbucklers, Slayers, Rogues, Fighters, or Monks. Including Unchained versions.
~Sphere’s of Power (except Cleric sphere archetype), Path of War (including the new harbinger and mystic stuff) and Machinesmith allowed. Other 3pp allowed with discretion (though it’s an automatic no on 9th level casters)
~We’ll also be utilizing These Feat Tax House Rules to alleviate many feat taxes and allow for a stronger variety of characters.
~Two Traits or Three with a meaningful drawback
~Abilities that raise caster level in the case of sphere casters can only raise it up to character level. Never beyond.
Can you all spot anything I can do to improve the character?
Also, while it's a ways off now, is there any reason I shouldn't eventually take the Dragon Fury prestige class? It looks like the only real trade off is losing some maneuvers, but everything it gets looks way better than the last ten levels of Warlord, even if I don't multiclass to make use of Dragon Fury Training.
Personally I wouldn't suggest dumping str all the way to 7 since it's very easy to become encumbered or str sapped into uselessness.
At str 7 a chain shirt pushes you into medium encumbrance. Yes I noticed the muleback cords, but those come at the expense of not wearing a cloak of resistance. So you have the choice of being encumbered in combat or having better saves.
Gambits:
Brave: good Choice
Gate Crasher: Cool, but less effective in most builds than the two I will suggest
Victory Gambit: Sure, it SOUNDS like it's ineffective, but using the text
A warlord may attempt the actions of a gambit, but without declaring the attempt a gambit attempt by spending a swift action to do so, the character does not regain any maneuvers nor does he suffer a rake for failure.
You can use it risk free to provide a rather large hit bonus whenever you need to hit. In your case +3.
Unbreakable Gambit: Makes Fort/Reflex saves much, much safer and success nets you a little healing. Though if you're running a counter heavy build this can become obsolete.
Dragon Fury:
From what I understand it's under review for the upcoming errata.
So, my minimum gear is something for armor (currently chain shirt at 25 lbs), two kukris for another 4 lbs, the backpack itself is 4 lbs, and then lets assume I get a handy haversack -- 5 lbs -- at some point to carry everything else. That leaves me at 38 lbs to start with, though with an eventual mithral breastplate, I can bring that down to 25.5 lbs.
I need to be able to deal with clothing and other gear, as well, so lets see what that comes out to...
Physical stats belt is 1 lb.
The only particularly good body slot item I see is the Bodywrap of Mighty Strikes, since it's a cheaper Amulet of Mighty Fists that will work perfectly fine for my Bite. That's another 1 lb.
The only chest slot item I see is a Spectral Shroud for the see invisibility effect. That has no weight.
Eyes of the Eagle cover the eyes slot, and also has no weight.
Boots of Speed are a shoe-in (pun intended) for the feet slot, and weight 1 lb.
I'm not seeing anything great for gloves.
Circlet of Persuasion seems good for the head slot, since I'm already going to be good at Charisma skills. That weighs nothing.
Mental stats headband is 1 lb.
Amulet of Natural Armor in the neck slot weighs nothing.
Cloak of Resistance in the shoulders slot weighs nothing.
Bracelet of Bargaining overlaps a bit with Circlet of Persuasion, but it still seems like the best wrist slot item. It weighs nothing.
So I need space for another 12 lbs, or a total of 37.5 lbs. I can hit that pretty much perfectly with a 9 strength, so I'd need to find 3 points of point buy to shift around. I can get that by reducing my Dexterity by 1. Does that seem worthwhile?
Question about gambits. The Warlord Guide I found mentions that Gambits can only be used once per encounter until they've all been used; taking a second look, though, I'm not seeing where that's called out. Is that the case, or was that changed at some point? That somewhat changes my thoughts on gambits, as I was prioritizing things that I thought would occur regularly early on and be easy to accomplish.
That makes sense that Dragon Fury would see some errata; it just seems too good. Where would I find any upcoming errata? I'm not seeing anything obviuos on DSP's site.
Yeah, starting with 19 dex is a bit much anyway lol. 18 is a great starting stat, so getting up to str 9 should be good.
Yeah, that guide hasn't been updated for the book release of the class. Gambits can now be used as much as you want and the quoted part from my last post essestially lets them be boosts/counters you can't run out of.
They talk about errata on a Giant in the Playground thread and in the Paizo boards thread. Also if you talk to a dev one on one. I only know about Dragon Fury because my brother mentioned it to a dev and was told they were looking into it.
Huzzah, I got in. :D
So, looking at some changes at this point now that I know who I'll be playing with. It's a melee heavy party including an Inquisitor, so teamwork feats seem like a good call.
Outflank seems a little less useful than normal, since I get to use my Charisma modifier as a flanking bonus. Still, since I'm looking at a high chance to crit, giving everyone else the extra AoOs seems good.
Paired Opportunists still looks great, though, especially with Outflank. We have a Warder, so I believe I should get a good number of AoOs through that alone.
Obviously, I'm going to want Combat Reflexes to take advantage of all of this.
Seize the Moment seems solid for other people to have, but I don't know how much mileage I'll get out of it, other than needing it to trigger for other people. Maybe this is a good choice to pass around with Warleader? That standard action hurts, but it might be worth it here.
The other questionable feat to that end is Gang Up. There will be enough of us in melee to get it going, I think, and flanking is pretty solid; starting at level 4, it'll give me a +3, and eventually it'll get up to +6 (or higher) with a good Charisma headband. But that requires me to bump my Intelligence to 13, which means I'd want to buy up to 14 for the extra skill point. If I want to get my Strength up to 9, I'd have to drop my Dexterity another point to 17. Is that worth it?
Martial Charge sounds nice, but I feel like a lot of the charging I do is going to be using a maneuver to do so.
I found a few other feats in the PoW Expanded playtest that are interesting, too, though I'm still waiting for confirmation that I can use them.
You’ve learned the art of bringing a fine cutting edge to your weapons.
Prerequisites: Knowledge (Martial) 3 ranks
Benefits: Upon spending 10 minutes with a whetstone sharpening a piercing or slashing weapon to a fine point or edge, the newly honed weapon inflicts an additional point of damage for the day; this bonus increases by +1 damage every four character levels possessed by the character (to a maximum of +5). You may only hone manufactured weapons with this feat.
Normal: You may improve your damage by +1 for the next attack you make by working it with a whetstone.
This one seems really useful since it adds a flat damage bonus to every attack, and I'll be making a lot of those. The way it's worded, it should be +2 at 4, then +3 at 8, etc. Since I don't see a lot in the way of DCs to boost, I think that makes it more useful than Discipline Focus.
Your skill with two weapons makes you as dangerous as foes who wield one larger weapon
Prerequisites: 1 or more Thrashing Dragon Stances, Acrobatics 3 ranks
Benefit: When you make a standard attack against an opponent, you can make an additional attack with your off hand weapon. If you do so, all attacks you make this round take the normal penalties for two weapon fighting.
So, first off, since I've never used styles before (though I am aware of the Fuse Styles feat), do styles go away at the end of combat? Am I understanding correctly that stances persist between combat? (That seems most likely, since I've seen at least one stance that gives an initiative bonus.) Past that, this seems like it's handy early on for getting in more attacks while moving without needing to use a strike, but I think the later feats are what's great here.
Your swift movements allow you to close the gap and strike quickly against your foe
Prerequisites: Thrashing Dragon Style, Acrobatics 7 ranks
Benefit: Whenever you initiate a strike that allows you to make a only single melee attack, you can make an extra attack with your offhand weapon at your highest base attack bonus as a free action. If you do so, your attacks take two weapon fighting penalties as normal for fighting with two weapons.
To me, this looks like possibly the best feat in the chain, as it should significant increase the damage of some strikes.
Your fury strikes out at all enemies around you.
Prerequisites: Thrashing Dragon Style, Thrashing Dragon Pounce, Acrobatics 11 ranks
Benefit: As a full round action, you can make a single attack each against every enemy within melee range with a weapon your main hand and a weapon in your off hand. You do not take the normal penalties for fighting with two weapons while making these attacks.
Special: If you have more than two arms, you can use each of your off hands to make an attack, instead of just the one.
This looks good, too, I'm just not sure how often it'll come up that there's enough enemies next to me that I'd want to use it. At 9th level, (2 levels earlier than this feat), Thrashing Dragon Twist does pretty much the same thing as a standard action but includes my Bite attack. At 13th level (2 levels later than this feat), Thrashing Dragon Frenzy would do more than twice as much damage and still only takes a standard action. So I think this should probably be a pass unless I'm seeing clusters of enemies all the time?
So, then the question is when to take what... Maybe something like this?
1 Two-Weapon Fighting
1B Deadly Agility
3 Combat Reflexes
3B Paired Opportunists
5 Outflank
6B Greater Two-Weapon Fighting (via feat tax house rules)
7 Thrashing Dragon Style
9 Improved Critical
10B Seize the Moment?
11 Thrashing Dragon Pounce
13 Hone Weapon (this feels like it should come much sooner, but where?)
14B Gang Up?
15 Discipline Focus
17 Advanced Study?
18B Martial Charge?
19 Extra Readied Maneuver?
You probably want Discipline Focus as early as possible. That 2 static damage adds up fast for a 2WFer.
I think that's a pretty good order for feats if you aim to flank a lot. Precise Strike is also a good option if you go for dem flanks.
If you wanna focus on personal damage when you can't get a flank I suggest moving up the Thrashing Dragon Style+Pounce feats a bit earlier.
Some other worthwhile feats in a TW focused Party are Stealth Synergy,
Yeah... Both Hone Weapon and Discipline Focus seem like pretty significant boosts to my damage, so I'd love to fit them in early, but I'm just not sure where to manage that.
Combat Reflexes seems like a must to get the most out of the teamwork feats, and Paired Opportunists and Outflank are both very synergistic. Precise Strike probably does belong in there... somewhere.
I agree, the style feats would definitely be nice for personal damage.. but is that worth delaying the teamwork feats? Should I prioritize them over Hone Weapon/Discipline Focus? Is it better to just go for Gang Up to achieve flanks all the time? The Inquisitor is going for a reach build, so it should be pretty easy to get two other people threatening something. I'm just not sure.
Well you'll have a few sessions to decide through gameplay how often teamwork comes into play, so for now just keep it in mind as you evaluate the game.
Additionally is anyone in the party going to permanently take up Stance of the Golden Lion? If no one besides you will, it's still worth it since a flank will give you a bigger to hit bonus than any other stance.