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Whip-using Lore Warden

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So I'll be making a Human Lore Warden for the current game I'm in, and I'm thinking about using a whip for all my Combat Maneuver needs, and an Urumi for all my damage needs (yeah, I have to buy the weapon prof feats, but if I'm going for a whip concept, I gotta sacrifice a lil, yeah?)

I'm just wondering what traits and feats are going to be must-haves. I plan on picking up Power Attack (as ridiculous as it seems, it works with an urumi!) and the Weapon Specs (Urumi) and that should take care of my DPS needs.
As for the whip, I'm going at least as far as Imp. Whip Mastery (I don't know how I feel about Greater - pros vs cons?) but aside from that, I'm not really sure what my options are.

And since both Urumi and Whip are exotic weapons, and since Imp. Whip Mastery makes Prehensile Whip useless, I have no idea what would be good thematic traits.

All advice/help is appreciated. :)
Grand Lodge

As a Lore Warden, you do get Combat Expertise for free at 2nd level, which is a nice bonus.

Assuming that you are giving your PC at least a 13 Int, you might want to consider the Trip and Disarm feat chains.

Improved Trip & Improved Disarm mean you can do either against adjacent opponents without provoking, in case they get near you too quickly.

Greater Trip is just ugly, if your CMB for Trip is high enough. Against an armed humanoid opponent, being able to trip and then disarm before he gets close to you sucks. For him, that is.

Greater Disarm is not as necessary, but the +2 never hurts.

I am not a great fan of Greater Whip Mastery, since you really need Improved Grapple to make it work, or you just do swashbucklery things with it. YMMV.

Improved Critical or Keen on the Urumi would be a way to take advantage of that 18-20 crit range. Add in critical feats, or Butterfly's Sting, and you get to go golden.

Butterfly's Sting (Faiths of Purity) is great in combo with another melee ally who uses a high crit multipler weapon, along with delays and readies to get the combat order optimal. You go first, confirm a crit, do normal damage and give the crit to your next ally that hits the target; the high crit guy goes next, hits, and he auto-crits. Effective 15-20 crit range on an x4 weapon?

Another feat to consider, if your party make-up supports it, and you have the room to take it, is Gang Up. Getting a +2 to hit never hurts...

Serpent lash and greater serpent lash, when you trip or disarm, you get to do it to an adjacent enemy. Greater says anyone in range, so with imp whip master it's your room to control.

Not human, but with reason, you get to count as higher level for bard music with the lore warden abilities.

Azata Blooded Aasimar Lore Warden 7/Bard Archivist 5 (FVC fighter)

Gets trapfinding as rogue, half bard level on spellcraft to identify, take 10 on knowledge checks, use any skill untrained, song applies to attacks, ac, saves, spell resist, against anything you identfy.

Str 10 Dex 18 Con 10 Int 14 Wis 10 Cha 16(human gets 14 cha) 4/8 to dex

Free Combat Expertise and +4 to all manuevers, +2 additional attack and damage to anything you identify, +2 from bard song, +1 weapon training whip group = +24 disarm/ +29 trip without even counting magic/gear/stat buffs

Toss in belt of dex 6 add +3/+6, gloves of dueling +2, buffs and magic weapon and you hit pretty much everything.

Weapon Finesse, Ex Prof Urumi, Imp Disarm, Imp Trip, Fury's Fall, Serpent Lash, Gr Serpent Lash, Combat Reflexes, Whip Master, Imp Whip Master.
Grand Lodge

Well, Scorpion Whip is nice because all your whip feats can be used with it.

It deals lethal, even to armored foes, and is light.

Thought about going the Serpent Lash route, but Weapon Finesse would be wasted. I decided to go Str high instead of Dex high, so that when Combat Maneuvers don't work, my Urumi/Power Attack damage won't have to suffer.

Here's what I ended up with:
Human- Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Whip
1st - Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Urumi
Ftr1 - Combat Reflexes
Ftr2 - Weapon Focus: Whip
LrWd2- Combat Expertise

3rd - Whip Mastery
Ftr4 - Improved Trip

5th - Improved Whip Mastery
Ftr6 - Sea Legs (Largely a ship-based game, so not necessary but helpful)

7th - Greater Trip
Ftr8 - Power Attack

9th - Improved Disarm
Ftr10- Martial Versatility (Weapon Focus: Whip)

11th - Critical Focus
Ftr12- Bleeding Critical

13th - Staggering Critical
Ftr14- Critical Mastery

15th - Tripping Strike
Ftr16- Martial Mastery

17th - Weapon Specialization: Whip
Ftr18- Greater Weapon Focus: Whip

19th - Greater Weapon Specialization: Whip
Ftr20- ??? (If I ever make 20, I'll worry about this feat then.)

I figure at the earlier levels, I can focus on the Whip and Combat Maneuvers, and as I get higher and have more difficulty with CMs, I can switch my focus over to the Urumi and Critical Feats.
Grand Lodge

Is Urumi a must?

I realize I could Falchion instead for a 0.5 bump to average damage and save myself the feat... But I like the flavor for the character. So I'm going to say "yes, it's a must."
(Works well with Martial Versatility and Martial Mastery as well.)
Grand Lodge

Well, I was going to say, if you use a Scorpion Whip, you can use it as a Whip, a Scorpion Whip, or both, depending on what feats you have.

In the end, you have one weapon that does several jobs.

Don't forget, you are free to flavor up the Scorpion Whip as you please.

Since I'll be able to do lethal damage with the whip, there isn't really much incentive into buying the weapon prof to use a scorpion whip as a scorpion whip (d3 becomes d4 and gain Performance, which won't be used on this char).
So I figured, "If I'm blowing a feat on an extra prof anyway, I may as well get a lot out of it."
Grand Lodge

Gotcha.

If you're going to be a Lore Warden, you are a part of the Pathfinder society. As such you can be a member of the various pathfinder factions - see the Pathfinder Society Field Guide - in particular the Lantern Lodge faction, p17. They offer the Familiar Weapons prestige award, which can give you exotic weapon proficiencies. While few gm's would let you take WP Whip with this award, Urumi and Nine Section Whip are both much more acceptable. I would also note that the Nine Section Whip might be a better choice for a close in weapon than the Urumi; 19-20 crit (vs 18-20) in exchange for Blocking, Distracting, Trip is potentially a good trade off for a combat maneuver specialist, which most Lore Warden builds are.
Grand Lodge

The name of your class does not determine your flavor, or associations.

Yeah, it's not a PFS game. The GM is just cool with anything we can find on pfsrd.com.
Grand Lodge

Prehensile Whip and Chain Master are good traits for this.
blackbloodtroll wrote:

The name of your class does not determine your flavor, or associations.

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/fighter/archetypes/paizo---fig hter-archetypes/lore-warden wrote:

Lore wardens are the bodyguards, guardians, and soldiers of the Pathfinder Society.

...
Section 15: Copyright Notice - Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Pathfinder Society Field Guide

bolding mine.

Maybe Neo isn't playing in Golarion; but if his campaign is actually using the setting, as well as the mechanical tidbits, if he is a Lore Warden, he is pretty much associated with the Pathfinder Society at one stage or other...
blackbloodtroll wrote:
Prehensile Whip and Chain Master are good traits for this.

Ooh, never noticed Chain Master before. Is there any substitute for Chain Master for non-Tieflings, or a way around the prereq?

Grand Lodge

No.

I can be a Lore Warden in PFS, and not be associated with the Pathfinder Society.

Class name never restricts your flavor.

You are master of your own fluff.

This is not WOW.
Grand Lodge
Roberta Yang wrote:
blackbloodtroll wrote:
Prehensile Whip and Chain Master are good traits for this.
Ooh, never noticed Chain Master before. Is there any substitute for Chain Master for non-Tieflings, or a way around the prereq?

Adopted trait will grant you access to it.

Giving this a bump. Been playing around with Whip Warden builds, and the results are pretty neat. The AWT Focused Weapon is a nice boost, and a dueling Enchantment goes nicely with Sacred Tattoo/Fate's Favored. Half-Orc nets that plus free whip proficiency using Arena Bred.

The CMB on this thing can get scary, and it's flavorful as heck. You can even do respectable damage. Dirt Trick seems to be the strongest choice for maneuvers, which isn't surprising. The biggest issue that I see is that you start to run out of feats real quick. You don't really need to bother with disarm feats with your reach, but it sure would be nice to get Greater Trip, and Greater Whip Mastery only works well if you have more grapple feats.

Do people think it's worth splitting some of the levels into Brawler to gain Martial Flexibility for better whip shenanigans?
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