So my GM is going to be starting a new campaign soon, Kingmaker, and to prepare a bit I started to look through the Player's Guide for the adventure path.
Currently, what interests me the most would be a Human Fighter of the Aldori Swordlord archetype but I'm having some problems with determining what feats I should be picking. I have a list of 15 feats that I want and the level I am considering to take them at.
1Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Aldori Dueling Sword), 1Weapon Finesse, 1Combat Expertise
2Weapon Focus (Aldori Dueling Sword)
3Quick Draw
4Aldori Dueling Mastery
5Weapon Specialization (Aldori Dueling Sword)
6Improved Disarm
7Improved Initiative
8Greater Weapon Focus (Aldori Dueling Sword)
9Improved Critical (Aldori Dueling Sword)
10Improved Feint
11Greater Disarm
12Greater Weapon Specialization (Aldori Dueling Sword)
13Dodge
14Mobility
I am also considering Dazzling Display and Gory Finish, as well as Leadership.
The concept of the character is a finesse based fighter, no big surprise there, who will be using disarm and feint to manoeuvre his opponents into less favourable positions. The damage will be upped by a custom ring with a permanent version of the Lead Blades spell, making the Aldori Dueling Sword deal 2d6 damage instead of 1d8. I'm open for ideas on new feats, items, and restructuring of the feats I already have here.
Good, but... The money you would put to the custom ring, which sounds a bit like new pathfinder cheese to me, could be better spent on your first settlement, or on equipping guards in a better fashion, or hiring mercs to protect your people.
In kingmaker, or at least in my kingmaker, it wasn't all about the magical crafting and custom rings; it was more about how you react to situations and are you enough of a bad as* to keep your land.
That ring only flies if the GM allows it.
@ the OP:I would drop improved feint. It won't really help you I would also add in Iron Will within my first 3 levels. I would also drop weapon finesse. Now that I think about it dropping weapon finesse to get iron will help you do more damage because you won't focus on dex, and you will not have to worry about any dominate spells making you stab your friends in the face. Well you will get to worry less anyway.
You won't be able to craft custom magic items before mid way through the second book if your GM is running it as written, but that is neither here nor there other than to inform you to have a plan for upping your damage before level 6.
your static bonuses to hit are going to be quite high as will your bonus damage as you level, i would recommend using power attack and having a strength of at least 13 or if you think your GM will let you looking up the feat Pirahna Strike on the prd and asking if he will allow you to apply it to a dueling sword. the agile enhancement for your weapon would be an excellent idea as well, it will be a higher scaling bonus than the lead blades ring and will probably work out cheaper unless your GM is a push over for custom item pricing but once again will probably not be available until towards the end of the second book.
your feat selection looks good and once again if your gm is allowing it leadership is one of the best feats you can take and is also very thematic in kingmaker, i'd suggest getting a cohort who can cast lead blades and saving yourself some messing about with the ring (transmuter wizard for keeping haste up, diviner wizard with some teamwork feats to make you act even faster, cleric to buff and heal you as well as flank, battle or life oracle for buffs and heals and flanking.
one thing i would suggest is avoiding the disarm route, from memory there are not many things which you will be able to disarm that are worth disarming over attacking or are actually effected by disarm (ie have natural weapons) in the first book or even the second or third really, i would go the trip route and accept that the disarm ability from the sword lord archtype won't come into effect very often. you also do not appear to have combat reflexes, while not a neccessary feat fighters have so many that it seems a shame not to pick it up at some point before 12, it works will with combat manouvers as one of the punishments for being tripped or disarmed is forcing an AoO for recovering.
I keep forgetting about those feats/abilities that let you add dex to damage.
I would get an Agile weapon for dex to damage.
I DMed that campaign. It was a community which came together under the guidance of the heores. Crafting was pretty far from things to be done. If that's what you want to spend your resources on, no problem. However, those resources would be better spent on aiding the people of the settlement. Building fences, cheap but available housing, hiring craftsmen, mercenaries as temporary guards....etc.
Well there was that wizard equalizer who was interested in trade over solving the regions problems. Problem is, the regions problems were initially so important they just had to be sorted out. Trade or crafting had to wait.
Well there was that wizard equalizer who was interested in trade over solving the regions problems. Problem is, the regions problems were initially so important they just had to be sorted out. Trade or crafting had to wait.
Yep. Mr 18 Int who couldn't figure out securing the safety of the land should take precedence over mercantile matters. That and other decisions the character made really tempted me into docking Int or Wisdom.
I learned a lot from your game.
I would weigh the pros and cons of a tactician instead of a sword lord, also use the heirloom weapon trait instead of the exotic weapon proficiency (if there was ever a time when this trait was story appropriate its when you are playing a sword lord).
Also work Piranha Strike into the build.
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On a 20 point buy? Human NG (bonus to dex)@ 1st level
13 str
18 dex
12 con
13 int
10 wis
12 Cha
Feats: Weapon Focus and Finesse. Exot Wpn (Aldori D Sword)
Traits: Reactionary, Sword Scion
@ 2nd level get quick draw
@ 3rd Dueling Mastery
@ 4th raise str, then preference
Personally I would take Dodge and Mobility earlier. Opens up for Spring attack which is useful and up in the higher levels what is 1 AC really going to do for you? Really more useful at the earlier levels
I'd go
Level one: Traits: Heirloom Weapon/Sword Scion Feats: Finesse, Piranha Strike, Expertise
Level two: Weapon Focus: Aldori Dueling blade
Level three: Quick Draw
Level Four: Weapon Focus
Level Five: Aldori Dueling mastery
Level Six: Additional traits: Reactionary and 1 character driven trait
Level seven: Leadersthip
well crap, it turns out Piranha Strike requires a light weapon, I would take power attack instead.
Instead of wasting a feat on Ironwill, look at taking a dip into Monk, especially the master of many styles for two levels. You will lose a BAB and some HP, but get some better saves and access to some cool style feats. (Look at the Crane Style specifically and then the next feat after that, Crane Wing I think. Crane style lets you negate one physical attack when fighting defensively, and Crane Wing reduces the penalty of fighting defensively.)
@rat bastard:
I am unsure if Heirloom Weapon works as it is for only simple and martial weapons, the Aldori Dueling Blade is an Exotic
First of all the new heirloom trait doesn't work for exotic weapons.
Second of all the monk dip is only good if you are going to get dragon style (which isn't very needed for your character but can help), other than that i don't think that the 2hp and the BAB loss compensate for the bump in the saves.
Other than that get piranha strike and agile weapons if you are going for a DEX fighter, also get iron and improved iron will (if you don't go for a monk dip).
Also tell your DM to ban crafting feats, they can really break a Kingmaker game because there is A LOT of time in that campaign, when we run it in our group we had to remake our characters around level 10 because we all had nearly double the WBL and the game was a walk in the park.
I would also recommend not taking money from the kingdom because it's pretty easy to make the kingdom a very very good money genarating machine and make the drawing money from the kingdom a non-issue quite easily.
@leo:
I disagree. Crane Style and Crane Wing is pretty nifty for the freehand fighting Aldori Sword Lord as they lend themselves to alot of defensive fighting.
Here are the links for Crane Style and Crane Wing
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/crane-style-combat-style
The Master of Many Styles Monk Archetype lets you qualify for them for free. If you can figure out how to work in Crane Ripsote, good times.
Also Piranha Strike is not going to work with the Aldori Dueling Sword
@OP:
There are alot of threads that posted suggested builds for the Aldori Dueling Master, I would search for them to get more ideas.
More of a RP question, but I think for this AP you need to ask yourself:
What is my PC contributing to building the kingdom?
The ability to be an effective dex fighter by itself does not necessarily help build a kingdom. Do you have...
Leadership feat
Diplomatic skill set
Divination spells
However, it doesn't have to be something in the build.
I'm going to be the king's bodyguard.
I'll donate 2/3 of my income to the infrastructure.
I'll put alot of effort into convincing skilled NCP's to relocate there.
I'll help found a community church.
Etc...
Any of these are valid. They will all help the 'goal' of the campaign. I think that if you just concentrating on being the ultimate dex deulist, you may not find this a very satisfying campaign. Because you won't be participating very much in the central goal.
Why is everyone talking about running the kingdom? Your character needs to be effective in the game, the kingdom is a game for the players, you need a few skills but its mostly roleplay. Its a great opportunity for role play but your character creation does not need to put any thought into it at all.
Your personal funds and the kingdom funds shouldn't cross over, the kingdom should be self supporting after about six months of game time why would you dedicate 2/3 of your magic item allowance to the kingdom when you can't perform to defend the kingdom against the things it can't survive without adventurers.
Just because the guy is building a dex fighter doesn't mean that during kingdom building he's going to stand there thinking about sword-chucks. I'm going to be a heroic and cunning duelist and sleep with loads of maidens, if i happen to get a knighthood out of it i'll just get more maidens, hell if i get made king...
@leo:
I disagree. Crane Style and Crane Wing is pretty nifty for the freehand fighting Aldori Sword Lord as they lend themselves to alot of defensive fighting.
Here are the links for Crane Style and Crane Wing
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/crane-style-combat-styleThe Master of Many Styles Monk Archetype lets you qualify for them for free. If you can figure out how to work in Crane Ripsote, good times.
Also Piranha Strike is not going to work with the Aldori Dueling Sword
@OP:
There are alot of threads that posted suggested builds for the Aldori Dueling Master, I would search for them to get more ideas.
Ok i didn't remember that the aldori dueling sword isn't a light weapon, then ditch piranha strike and be sure to have STR 13 in order to take power attack.
Am I the only one who thinks its positively screwed up that the aldori does not proficiency in his namesake?
Look up weapon master and free hand fighter as well.
@Caius
Exotic doesn't make it light so no piranha strike.
Oh, the reason I took the Disarm route is because of the Aldori Swordlord benefit from Disarming Strike from level 5 and onwards:
At 5th level, when an Aldori swordlord successfully disarms an opponent using an Aldori dueling sword, the swordlord also deals normal damage to the target, but without the normal Strength bonus to damage.
This ability replaces Weapon Training 1.
Taking an Agile weapon should only improve this as the extra damage would not be a strength bonus. Which is also why I would aim for that magic item with Lead Blades, lends itself to some pretty decent damage boosting, but Dex+items would take priority.
I believe that the position I'm aiming for would be Marshal with it being a position were high Dex can work in my favour, and then using the rules for martial duels from the UC whenever possible.
The archetype almost requires high Dex as it can not wear Medium armour without losing class features, so why not take Weapon Finesse + Agile enchantment?
Oh, and my DM allows all the rule books out so far, and I think she would allow the Agile and the special dueling enchants too. The ideal, weapon-wise would be for me to get an Agile, True Dueling (both Dueling enchants) Aldori Dueling Sword.
I think I might take a magic using NPC as a cohort, should I delay things slightly by picking Leadership at 7th and wait with Improved Feint until after Greater Weapon Specialization.
I may also be able to convince my GM of allowing Piranha Strikes with all finessable weapons.
Now, should I try to work in Vital Strike or just leave that by the side while I take me some Power Attack/Piranha Strikes? Any suggested levels for any of those feats? What about Lunge, Dazzling Display, and Gory Finish?
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As a general rule items that give permanent versions of a personal range spell are cheese and a very bad idea for game balance.
A ring of permanent lead blades is a perfect example of that if you are trying to price it based on the item constructions rules without considering this:
Magic Item Gold Piece Values
Many factors must be considered when determining the price of new magic items. The easiest way to come up with a price is to compare the new item to an item that is already priced, using that price as a guide. Otherwise, use the guidelines summarized on Table: Estimating Magic Item Gold Piece Values.
Using the item pricing rules it would cost around 4.000 gp. a paltry sum for the effect. That kind of damage increase is in the range of a +1 enhancement for a weapon, without using any "enhancement slot" . While there is no ring of wondrous item that has a similar power it will price it in the range of a pair of greater bracers of archery (i.e. around 25K gp) so it would be a late game acquisition.
Oh, the reason I took the Disarm route is because of the Aldori Swordlord benefit from Disarming Strike from level 5 and onwards:At 5th level, when an Aldori swordlord successfully disarms an opponent using an Aldori dueling sword, the swordlord also deals normal damage to the target, but without the normal Strength bonus to damage.
This ability replaces Weapon Training 1.
Taking an Agile weapon should only improve this as the extra damage would not be a strength bonus. Which is also why I would aim for that magic item with Lead Blades, lends itself to some pretty decent damage boosting, but Dex+items would take priority.
I believe that the position I'm aiming for would be Marshal with it being a position were high Dex can work in my favour, and then using the rules for martial duels from the UC whenever possible.
The archetype almost requires high Dex as it can not wear Medium armour without losing class features, so why not take Weapon Finesse + Agile enchantment?
Oh, and my DM allows all the rule books out so far, and I think she would allow the Agile and the special dueling enchants too. The ideal, weapon-wise would be for me to get an Agile, True Dueling (both Dueling enchants) Aldori Dueling Sword.
I think I might take a magic using NPC as a cohort, should I delay things slightly by picking Leadership at 7th and wait with Improved Feint until after Greater Weapon Specialization.
I may also be able to convince my GM of allowing Piranha Strikes with all finessable weapons.
Now, should I try to work in Vital Strike or just leave that by the side while I take me some Power Attack/Piranha Strikes? Any suggested levels for any of those feats? What about Lunge, Dazzling Display, and Gory Finish?
Not in any particular order, if you can convince your gm to let you use pirahna strike with all finessable weapons you should get it some time at level 3 or before. If your planning on using disarm or trip it would also be worthwhile taking agile manouvers to boost your cmb unless your running with a house rule folding the feat into weapon finesse.
The reason i would suggest against disarm is that from my experience running kingmaker disarm just isn't that useful early on, most of the first book is animals or when you do encounter a weapon user they will die from you hitting them once without bothering to disarm, you may actually use disarm 3 or 4 times in the first 3 books. Later it may prove useful but cmd's will start getting higher after book 4, so if your dead set on disarm start picking it up at level 10ish.
Vital strike is a trap, don't get it. If you must get something like that the dazzling display line is superior and your party sneak attacker (if you have one) will love you, if you do have a sneak attacker you should get dazzling display>shatter defenses>deadly stroke as soon as you can. If not deadly stroke is better than vital strike but its a big feat investment.
Improved feint is also a trap, it does nothing for your build as you don't have any additional damage that relies on flat footed etc, wraithstrike was right about iron will as well. You are going to be making a lot of will saves over your career so getting iron will some time before level 5 and improved iron will before level 9 will be important.
Finally leadership, get it straight away at level 7. If you get a diviner cohort you can also take lookout to act in the suprise round, he can cast haste for you and use buff spells on you all day long like lead blades and stat buffs, get him extend spell straight away. An oracle would be a handy buffer as well and would also provide you with healing and condition removal that your main party happy stick user may not memorise, with the right build it can also provide a good amount of rerolls via dual curses fortune and misfortune as well as other mystery abilities. Give either of them some extra social skills and they can replace your smash happy fighter at the negotiation tables for kingdom building, heck your cohort could even be your husband/wife.
Hope this wall of text helps, good luck.
Where did you find this feat?I keep forgetting about those feats/abilities that let you add dex to damage.
I would get an Agile weapon for dex to damage.
Not a feat, a weapon enhancement.
Let's see here, current feat list is as follows:
1Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Aldori Dueling Sword), 1Weapon Finesse, 1Combat Expertise
2Weapon Focus (Aldori Dueling Sword)
3Piranha Strikes/Power Attack
4Iron Will
5Quick Draw
6Aldori Dueling Mastery
7Leadership
8Weapon Specialization (Aldori Dueling Sword)
9Improved Iron Will
10Greater Weapon Focus (Aldori Dueling Sword)
11Improved Disarm
12Improved Critical (Aldori Dueling Sword)
13Disarming Strikes
14Greater Weapon Specialization (Aldori Dueling Sword)
15Greater Disarm
16Improved Initiative/Lunge
I decided that hitting more frequently would overshadow straight up damage, which I will get anyways from Piranha Strikes/Power Attack. Leadership at 7th level I find to be a good idea (dunno why I put that at 8th). I don't quite know which of Imp. Init. and Lunge I should take, but by that point into the campaign I guess I should know.
Thank you for your time everyone. Special mentions to Egoish and his helpful wall of text, wraithstrike for the Iron Will-suggestion and Feint-advice and Rossi for the "equivalent/similar effect" which I had not thought of.
For the cohort I will see what I could get, other than that my previous problems are solved. Once again, thank you.
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Thanks Edinois, I feared to sound too aggressive.
Sadly I have seen some example in these forum of people trying to milk the magic item creations rules for absurd items like the "boots of CLW steps", with the boot casting CLW at each step the wearer take and pricing them as they were a use activated item with a first level, CL1 spell, so I thought it was important to point out that rule.
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I suggested the +1 enhancement equivalence based on the increased damage that a flaming/frost weapon get. A Aldori sword damage increase from 1d8 to 2d6, reasonably close to 1d8+1d6, especially when you consider that the lead blades get to deliver extra damage on a critical hit. Treating it as a +2 enhancement would be a bit excessive.
There are a few problems:
- the enhancement costs vary based on the enhancement level of the weapon (so that level of enhancement will be reflected by a differential price varying from 6K to 38K);
- the proposed item was a ring, so it would affect multiple weapons.
For those reasons I prefer the comparison to the grater bracers of archery and a price range of 20-25K.
Why is everyone talking about running the kingdom? Your character needs to be effective in the game, the kingdom is a game for the players, you need a few skills but its mostly roleplay. Its a great opportunity for role play but your character creation does not need to put any thought into it at all.
Your personal funds and the kingdom funds shouldn't cross over, the kingdom should be self supporting after about six months of game time why would you dedicate 2/3 of your magic item allowance to the kingdom when you can't perform to defend the kingdom against the things it can't survive without adventurers.
Just because the guy is building a dex fighter doesn't mean that during kingdom building he's going to stand there thinking about sword-chucks. I'm going to be a heroic and cunning duelist and sleep with loads of maidens, if i happen to get a knighthood out of it i'll just get more maidens, hell if i get made king...
If you read what I wrote, I specifically said it was more of a RP issue than a build issue. I didn't say he had to give 2/3 of his magic to the kingdom. (And yes, it was an exaggeration. I wouldn't give 2/3 away either.) It was an example of the kind of thing a character might do. And I didn't say a dex fighter would stand around doing nothing.
I disagree that he shouldn't put any thought into his contribution at all for 2 reasons.
1) Because some (not all or even most) ideas on what he would do to help the kingdom could affect the build. When he thinks about it he might decide he wants to start a mercenary school that trains hobilar troops and the way he wants to go about it is through the leadership feat. If he hadn't even considered the concept until he is 8th level he now has to decide what he wants to give up at that point to take the leadership feat because it wasn't a part of the build. However, if he decides he wants to be the king's body guard then his dex build is pretty good for that and doesn't require changes. But he has considered it.
2) Players who don't give any thought at all to the stated 'goal' of the entire campaign at character creation often don't think about any way to contribute to the goal in play. No, that is not always the case. But it happens often enough that it is worth spending a couple of moments thinking about how you will be able to contribute when you make the character. If you want examples: For a short dwarven dungeon clearing campaign I watched a character make half-celestial winged buccaneer. Unsurprisingly almost all of his skills and special abilities didn't contribute a thing. He was basically a rich NPC warrior class. For a RP heavy mystery-who-done-it. One of the players made a brute fighter that dumped all the mental stats. Yes, he shined during the very small number of combats, but he was mostly bored with constantly failed skill checks. He didn't even speak the local language (gnome). Both of them probably could have still contibuted more during play if they were thinking along those lines. But both instead spent their time trying to get the GM/group to change the campaign to revolve around them.
The AP is called Kingmaker. Taking a few minutes at character creation to decide, "How do I want to contribute to the success of the group?" is perfectly reasonable.
The success of the group depends on whether they stay alive and whether the group stops the noumerous things that want to destroy/take over their kingdom, the kingdom building part is quite easy (and can get quite boring after some point).
Also, Tinalles, a 2d6 weapon is 2 dice steps higher than a 1d8 thus the greatsword would be doing 3d6 with Lead Blades. Other than that I found your post helpful.
I have a new question. What weapon group or groups should the Aldori Dueling Sword be a part of? I couldn't find it in the normal ones and the Aldori Swordlord still has Weapon Training 2-4. I would guess Heavy Blades, (even though it doesn't look that heavy to me).