As I feared, DM nerfed my Kobold Alchemist with a Feeblemind before he had a chance to level even once. (At the moment he's Baleful Poly'd into a goldfish). So I'm trying something new, a class (Fighter, mostly), race (Half-Orc) and alignment (Neutral) that I haven't played before.
Why a switch hitter and not pure melee? This is a pretty high magic campaign, and full of all kinds of brokeness - stats are top 3 of 4d6, reroll ones, elements/artifacts are snatched from APs with little regard for level appropriateness, party is fabulously over-wealthy due to lots of dead PCs who leave behind their gear, etc. In other words, there'll be lots of times when my character will be cut off from melee due to geography or flight. Also, there's a bit of a dearth of ranged firepower in the party at the moment, thanks to my Alchemist biting it.
Anybody with experience switch hitting or just a good two cents from seasoned melee peeps is appreciated.
Bahkt
Half-Orc Ranger 2/Fighter 10
Str 20(18+lvl)
Dex 17 (15+race)
Con 18 (17+lvl)
Int 11
Wis 14
Cha 9
1 Power Attack/ Combat Reflexes
2 Weapon Focus: Greatsword
3 (Ranger 1) Quick Draw (Favored Enemy: Giant)
4 (Ranger 2) Rapid Shot (Terrain: Dungeon?)
5 Cleave
6 Step Up
7 Following Step (Weapon Training: Heavy Blades)
8 Step Up and Attack
9 Great Cleave
10 Manyshot
11 Critical Focus
12 Improved Crit: Greatsword
For gear I'd like to get a Vorpal Greataxe and a Speedy Greatsword. Whatever's left over will go to cloak of Saving Throws and Armor.
How does the enhancement cost work, exactly? Is it 50k for a Vorpal Weapon + Weapon Cost and then you get a +5 Weapon that is also Vorpal?
No, that's not how it works.
A Vorpal weapon is the equivalent of a +6 (+1 for base enhancement, +5 for vorpal) and therefore costs 72k gold. You get a +1 weapon that's also vorpal. If you want a +5 Vorpal weapon, that's a +10 equivalent and costs 200k gold
I was speed reading and misread the thread title as "switch Hitler's build" and thougt 'we have stats on Hitler?'
Um...
Godard's law?
Thanks for the heads up re: weapon enhancement.
Okay, so now the build is looking more like:
Half-Orc Ranger 2/Fighter 10
Str 22(18+lvls+Belt)
Dex 17 (15+race)
Con 18 (17+lvl)
Int 11
Wis 14
Cha 9
Anatomist
Legacy of Sand
1 Power Attack/ Combat Reflexes
2 Weapon Focus: Greatsword
3 (Ranger 1) Step Up (Favored Enemy: Giant or Dragon)
4 (Ranger 2) Rapid Shot or Far Shot or Precise Shot
5 Iron Will
6 Following Step
7 Greater Iron Will (Weapon Training: Heavy Blades)
8 Weapon Specialization (Greatsword)
9 Critical Focus
10 Improved Crit: Greatsword
11 Greater Weapon Focus (Greatsword)
12 Lunge or Step Up and Attack or Disruptive or ? (Weapon Training: Bows)
Gear: +1 Vorpal Greatsword (72K)
+23/+18/+13 Crit Range 17-20. +5 to confirm crits.
Compound Longbow +5 (600)
+17/+12/+7
Belt of Giant Strength
Boots of Striding and Springing
Full Plate
Longsword
Heavy Shield
So originally the plan was to take Rapid Shot as the free Ranger feat and then simply take Manyshot later, assuming that the only prereqs are base attack 6, 17 Dex, and Rapid Shot (because that's how it appears on the d20pfsrd's Feat Tree). It was only upon writing up this post that I realized that you need PB shot, too, which is not something this character will ever use (because if it's within 30', why not cut its head off?). Still, the levels of Ranger give you +3 Reflex save, 8 extra skill points, and a whole bunch of class skills. Not to mention a favored enemy bonus.
Looking at the numbers, though, I'm wondering if I should scrap the Ranger levels and just go for pure Fighter; so much is put into the Greatsword that the bow is basically for emergencies anyway, and a feat in Lightning Reflexes gets most of the Reflex bonus. Rapid Shot seems like a waste, since most of the bow uses will probably be to shoot and then drop it as I move in (a double move to get within Step Up death range would probably also be a good idea). Access to Greater Weapon Specialization would also be nice.
I know that spending 72K out of 108 on a Weapon seems like a silly idea, and probably is in violation of the "don't spend more than half on one item" rule (not sure if this is official or just a houserule I've run into), but I can't resist the allure of the Vorpal Sword. Seriously, how often does anyone get to use one? Why not make it the cornerstone of your character concept? Incidentally, I plan on going one step further than a weapon cord and getting a custom Mithral chain to lock the Greatsword to the Half-Orc's gauntlet. None of this "oops, your Weapon Cord burned up in the acid pit and now it fell and melted while you were climbing out" jazz. The longsword and shield is for situations when it would, for some reason, be bad to cut the head off the opponent.
If you're going to go that heavy into greatsword use I'd consider dropping the ranger class levels and seriously check out the archetype two handed fighter. Sadly devastating blow won't work with the vorpal effect, but the sheer amount of damage that you'll be dropping will be frightening once they come into charge range.
If you're going to go that heavy into greatsword use I'd consider dropping the ranger class levels and seriously check out the archetype two handed fighter. Sadly devastating blow won't work with the vorpal effect, but the sheer amount of damage that you'll be dropping will be frightening once they come into charge range.
^This. I don't usually have much use for archetypes, but this one's too juicy to pass up. I especially like that the Weapon Training works on all two-handed weapons, meaning I'll get the same bonus for a backup greataxe, or a backup reach weapon for things I can't get too close to (Glaive, Lance, etc). And since I'm still proficient with the longbow, I can still keep it for emergencies (though I doubt it will see much action).
What I don't like is the replacement Armor Training. Even though a breastplate is what I had in mind for this guy (flavor-wise), I hate the reduced speed. Apart from a one-level dip into Barbarian or a couple of Fleet feats, how does one get around this?
EDIT: Scratch the Fleet strategy. No good with Medium Armor.
Picking up boots of speed rather than striding and springing would give you the advantage of 30 ft movement when activated, and the extra attack on a full attack. Useful in more situations
edit: also, are you really married to vorpal? its truly not a terribly efficient weapon enchantment. for +5 in enchantments, you can really do a lot better. Most of the time, the things you crit would die anyways, and vorpal only works on a 20, not the 17-20 crit range you have.
Even a +4 Holy Weapon is going to be worth more overall, since the majority of things you fight in PF tend to be evil (dragons, undead, demons, devils, etc). This gives you another +3 to hit, +3 damage (multiplies on crit) and another 2d6 to anything evil.
Also, being a +4 weapon this will also automatically overcome cold iron/silver/adamantine DR, which is helpful.
Also, an item you want to consider is gloves of dueling. +2 to your weapon training class feature for 15k, plus a number of other benefits.
Were I you, and wanted to min/max, I'd strongly consider getting a +3 holy weapon (+5 equivalent) and saving 22k gold, of which you can spend 15k on the gloves, and 8k to get a +2 bow for emergencies.
my thoughts
I'm pretty sure you can just grab some mythril armor which should knock that breastplate down to a light category at least as far as move speed is concerned. I'd still probably grab the boots of speed though, but more for burst damage.
I would also consider something other than vorpal as a effect. I love vorpal weapons, they can be frightening if you're lucky, but you're dropping seventy two grand on one. That is a hell of a lot of other upgrades you could be snagging and with the damage you're going to be doing you're going to be dropping people left and right anyway.
Magic Mithril armor (medium, than you can pass to the complete one when you have money and talents), great sword is a good choice (I prefore Falchion), than of course the strongest composite bow you can get. You will also need an efficient quiver, you will need a magic belt with str and dex (I think is the best balance between money and bonuses)... about abilities: based on how many points you have to spend, consider that strength is your main attribute and you don't need constitution so much, and Cha is the one you don't need at all and you can lower it to improve let's say Str.
If you want to be a switch hitter, I would go full ranger: the spells are very nice, the bonus feats come with no prerequisites (rapid shot, multi shot, improved precise shot), the animal companion IS useful (you can give him an ability increase in INT and give him class level!) he can flank and help you hold the line while you shoot.
I also suggest "Iron will" and "improved iron will" as feats, since you will notice how will saves are not exactly your cup of tea (you will have most probably a +1 tops +2 modifier on wisdom to add just a 1/3 will save)
Vorpal is not my kind of weapon. I would prefore a +4 flaming explosive falchion (+6tot) to a +1 vorpal weapon (that count as well as +6).
I don't know how long this character's going to last, anyway, since this campaign is chock full of broken nonsense. So I'm going to go for Vorpal.
Yeah, I know, it's a silly thing to spend almost 3/4 of your wealth on a Vorpal weapon, but this party is so swimming in loot that I'm probably going to have my choice of things like Bags of Holding, Rings of Protection, Amulets of Natural Armor, and yes, boots of Speed (from my last character, now Feebleminded).
Metagaming? Yeah, probably. But the last character I rolled up for this campaign was built as a loner before meeting up with the party. This character is going to be the last survivor of a near TPK, and built to be a team player. His part of the mission is cutting people's heads off.
Vorpal stays, because it's what I've had in mind for a melee character for a while now. It's the core concept, much more so than the switch hitter idea. So I'm dumping the Ranger levels in favor of a Two-Handed Fighter with Weapon Specialization.
Mithral Breastplate's a good idea. Thanks.
I don't think people were arguing that its a bad idea to spend 3/4 of your gold on vorpal. I think we were arguing (or at least I was) that its a bad idea to spend any of your gold on vorpal, pretty much ever. Spend the same money on a different weapon, do way better.
It's cool that you're keeping it, I just dislike people misunderstanding my points, so I wanted to clarify.
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My only suggestion? Go either all Ranger or all Fighter and you'll do what you do better and sooner.
And if you go full Ranger, get Boon Companion so your Animal Companion doesn't suck and take the trait Magical Knack so your spell-casting is only at -1 rather than -3.
If you go Fighter and like crits, just go Falchion and get it Keen.