Thoughts on a Horizon Walker

[Dead Davith Lor]

I'm thinking of developing a Horizon Walker for PFS... Background: he's a Mauxi half-orc from Thuvia braving the desert.

Here's the basic look:

Half-Orc (Scavenger, Toothy)
Ranger 1 (Guide, Skirmisher)

Strength 16
Dexterity 15
Constitution 14
Intelligence 12
Wisdom 14
Charisma 7

Languages: Common, Orc, Abyssal, Polyglot
Feat: Two Weapon Fighting
Traits: Child of Nature, Dunewalker
Skills: 1 point in each: Perception, Linguistics, Survival, Knowledge(Nature), Knowledge(Geography), Climb, Stealth

Main weapon: Orc Double Axe
Feat chain:
Ranger 2: Double Slice
Ranger 3: Endurance, Power Attack
Ranger 5: Furious Focus, Rattling Strike (Skirmisher trick)
Ranger 6: Improved Two-Weapon Fighting
Horizon Walker 1: Shield of Swings
HW 3: Keen Scent
HW 5: Blind-Fight

Okay, feel free to start tearing apart!

[Jaryn Wildmane]

I'm assuming your lvl 1 feat is TWF. At level 5 you should get rid of furious focus, that will only work when using a weapon two-handed, Double weapons count as if using two different weapons or they can be used one handed. You could pick up Weapon Focus in its place to improve your chance to hit.

Shield of Swings is similarly not going to work so I would move up HW 1 to have Blind-Fight to stop those invisible monsters from getting their bonus to hit. I would change out HW 3 for imp critical and pick up Keen Scent and 5.

[Pinky's Brain]

Given the blind fight feat I'm assuming you intend to use ethereal plane concealment reduction ability? Why not do something like rogue 4/ranger 2/HW X in that case?

[Dead Davith Lor]

Jaryn:

The Furious Focus and Shield of Swings would be for when I can't get in a full attack--but maybe I wouldn't need so much.

Pinky's Brain:

Concealment Reduction and Blind-Fight stack, kind of, but I'm beginning to wonder if taking Underground Terrain Mastery and Swamp Terrain Dominance wouldn't be a better solution--Blind-Fight, Tremorsense, and +4 Perception should work well.

Feat/Power chain:
Ranger 2: Double Slice
Ranger 3: Endurance, Power Attack
Ranger 5: Furious Focus, Rattling Strike (Skirmisher trick)
Ranger 6: Improved Two-Weapon Fighting
Horizon Walker 1: Keen Scent
HW 2: Air Mastery (+4 Fly, +1 vs. flying)
HW 3: Air Dominance (Fly 5/day), Smell Fear
HW 4: Underground Mastery (Blind-Fight)
HW 5: Two-Weapon Rend
HW 6: Swamp Mastery (+4 Perception), Swamp Dominance (Tremorsense)

[Davor]

OMG IZ MY CLONE!

Hail, my Osirian Half-Orc Brutha!

/high-five

[sunbeam]

I can't imagine taking this prestige class and not getting the Astral Plane Mastery and it's dimension door feature (5 a day for you?) ASAP.

Fly is great too. My favored terrains would be Astral and Plane of Air first, with my first two masteries those. Next I'd take Plane of Earth to get the tremorsense eventually.

It's up to you as far as more useful but I'd do Plane of Air or Astral at 3rd, and the other at 6th. Hmmm I never use Swamp but I see that has tremorsense too. A long time to wait, but I'd take that or Plane of Earth at 9th.

Swamp might be more useful than Plane of Earth to be honest.

But skill bonuses just aren't as good as the spell like abilities. And the fly, dimension door, and tremorsense are the best.

Heck maybe your way is best. Tremorsense is handy. But I'd definitely set things up to get dimension door at 9.

If it would fit I might try to get Plane of water mastery to be able to breathe water. That is handy sometimes.

Took another look at this. Sometimes you might want to have blindfight, even if you have tremorsense, but that isn't very often. I'd drop the Underground Mastery and take Plane of Water mastery instead.

[Dead Davith Lor]

Davor wrote:

OMG IZ MY CLONE!

Hail, my Osirian Half-Orc Brutha!

/high-five

/High-Five

Osirian Half-Orcs FTW!

[Pinky's Brain]

I disagree, I think the concealment reduction together with sniper goggles and the feat/talent to let you sneak attack something with concealment is the most powerful use of HW there is.

Are sniper goggles available in PFS?

[Dead Davith Lor]

Pinky's Brain wrote:

I disagree, I think the concealment reduction together with sniper goggles and the feat/talent to let you sneak attack something with concealment is the most powerful use of HW there is.

Are sniper goggles available in PFS?

I'd never heard of Sniper Goggles before.

Honestly, though, the HW reduction only works in fog. There's plenty of that, yes. I think that going straight Rogue and taking Improved Blind-Fight at 11th is the better solution. Heck, if you're specifically looking for HW to get the reduction at 8th, then a Rogue 6/HW 2 would probably be better even then...

[Pinky's Brain]

You can make your own fog with spells and items.

(improved) blind fight is not a replacement for the HW ability ... the big thing about the HW ability is that you can be in total concealment from your opponent (denying him dex and letting you sneak attack) while you can see and attack him with reach or ranged weapons. Tremor sense will do this too in melee, but with fog and sniper goggles you can do it at arbitrary range.

You can be 60 feet away sneak attacking from a cloud while they can't even target you.

[Dead Davith Lor]

Aha, gotcha, that's cool.

Although I'd also consider taking Wave Oracle 1, and the Water Sight revelation (or have a Ring of Revelation and a good UMD). That's "see through fog and mist without penalty as long as there's enough light". That's even better. You can even get the spell Obscuring Mist in that one level as a bonus.