Well getting the most out of Vital strike means more then just damage. Like using it while moving (which should have been its main use in the first place.) Spring attack does not work but flyby attack does. Also the Barb rage power Bestial Leaper does as well.
Also 3 lvls of two handed fighter can get X2 str to damage on that one hit.
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Druid 4/Barbarian 4
Shaping focus for wildshape as lvl 8.
- Stegosaurus has a 4d6 tail attack.
- With Imp Natural Attack, that is 6d6.
- Strong Jaw'ed that becomes 12d6.
- Vital Striked thats 24d6.
- Furious Finish deals 144+various bonusses.
Flyby Attack is a must for any vital strike build. The ability to vital strike twice a round is far too powerful to pass up.
This creature can make an attack before and after it moves while flying.
Prerequisite: Fly speed.
Benefit: When flying, the creature can take a move action and another standard action at any point during the move. The creature cannot take a second move action during a round when it makes a flyby attack.
Normal: Without this feat, the creature takes a standard action either before or after its move.
For fun lets start with a human synthesist and assume you can access the spell lead blades such as with a wand and UMD. Take Synthesist until level 13. Take the flight evolution for flyby attack. Start with a Glave (1d10) then through evolutions size up to huge (3d8) then cast enlarge person and lead blades (6d8) Then you will want to take barbarian for furious finish and to access the final vital strike feat. What we are looking at once you have 4xDice for vital strike is Gargantuan you flying around smashing things for 24d8 twice a round, one of which is maximized.
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Druid 4/Barbarian 4
Shaping focus for wildshape as lvl 8.
- Stegosaurus has a 4d6 tail attack.
- With Imp Natural Attack, that is 6d6.
- Strong Jaw'ed that becomes 12d6.
- Vital Striked thats 24d6.
- Furious Finish deals 144+various bonusses.
If you dip a level of oracle after that and take the lame curse, you become immune to the fatigue condition and can Furious Finish every round.
If you're going the manufactured weapon route, a large bastard sword/Dwarven waraxe/Great terbutje/Taiaha would give you 2d8 as a starting point.
Flyby Attack is a must for any vital strike build. The ability to vital strike twice a round is far too powerful to pass up. ** spoiler omitted **
For fun lets start with a human synthesist and assume you can access the spell lead blades such as with a wand and UMD. Take Synthesist until level 13. Take the flight evolution for flyby attack. Start with a Glave (1d10) then through evolutions size up to huge (3d8) then cast enlarge person and lead blades (6d8) Then you will want to take barbarian for furious finish and to access the final vital strike feat. What we are looking at once you have 4xDice for vital strike is Gargantuan you flying around smashing things for 24d8 twice a round, one of which is maximized.
I think flyby attack is meant to be spring attack for flying. As in you can take an attack while moving before and/or after it. Not granting extra attacks.
Though looking at your bold areas in the text it is possible how it could be that way. Interesting.
@ Inconvenience: This is sort of a situation where RAW is messed up. Flyby attack doesn't give an extra standard action. What it does is let you move, and take your standard action at any point during that move.
I know the writing does not show that very well, but I'm pretty confident that is how it's meant to work.
Great point Bearded Ben. That would bring my own total up to 32d8 twice a round. Of course mine would have to be manufactured a Gargantuan Bastard Sword. Rend the earth dragging that behind you while not in eidolon form.
@ Inconvenience: This is sort of a situation where RAW is messed up. Flyby attack doesn't give an extra standard action. What it does is let you move, and take your standard action at any point during that move.
I know the writing does not show that very well, but I'm pretty confident that is how it's meant to work.
Yeah after some digging I found that JJ cleared this up. No free standard action from one feat. Otherwise every caster alive would have it.
Darkwolf, I'm not sure how you can say how RAW is wrong when even the flavor text mentions attacking twice before the body uses language stating that you get another standard action as part of your move action. The flavor text shows pretty clearly that it's RAI as well.
Yeah after some digging I found that JJ cleared this up. No free standard action from one feat. Otherwise every caster alive would have it.
May I ask where exactly? This is actually the second time this situation has come up, and I haven't seen official (relatively, I suppose) word of it.
I was pretty sure that was the case as honestly how could anyone think an extra standard action from one feat is anything short of stupid?
Much appreciated! Now if this crops up again, there's some more or less official word for it :)
For something noted in 2009, I'm surprised it hasn't been FAQ'd at some point though. Huh.
@ Inconvenience: I know, that's why I said the RAW was fairly messed up. The entire feat, both rules and flavor text, are kind of backwards on it. Like Stome said, it's sort of a 'that's terribly messed up if it is meant to work the way it's written' scenario. Imo, at least.
Back on topic. If i was to make this build I would go 6 barb for rage and Bestial Leaper. Then 3 lvls of two handed fighter for overhand chop.
After that 1 lvl dip in Oracle with lame curse will get you immunity to fatigue.
From that point its kind of up in the air. Perhaps vivisectionist for mutagen to get even higher STR and some SA dice as a bonus. Not to mention the useful potions.
The best method of maximizing Vital Strike is a Monk of the Four Winds 15/Fighter 5 with a Monk's Robe and UMDing wands of Enlarge Person, Lead Blades, Animal Aspect (Gorilla Aspect) and Strong Jaw. This nets you a 16d8 punch with a Greater Vital Strike of 64d8. Since you are a Monk of the Four Winds, you can spend 6 Ki to take 3 standard actions in one round, netting your 3 Greater Vital Strikes, each dealing 64d8 on a punch.
Druid and Synthesist Summoner can pump their natural attack damage up super high if the area can fit them in huge form. Like, 8d6 or even 12d6 w/o trying hard. Then yeah, you want to multiclass with some Barb for Furious Finish and the BAB to get Greater VS. Possibly also dipping Fighter if you can't get to BAB +16 by level 19 (and thus need a bonus feat to obtain Greater VS at 20).
Both can also easily make use of Flyby Attack to skirmish with it, and will have reach enough (especially the Synthesist, huge bipedal form + enlarge person + reach evo = 25 ft reach) to avoid provoking AoOs while doing so. And both can then build around AoOs as a 2ndary schtick.
Big whole in that build. Animal aspect does not stack with enlarge person. The spell does avoid some of the limitations of most polymorph spells but that is not one of them. While it does not change your size it does not bypass this part of the polymorph rules.
"You can only be affected by one polymorph spell at a time. If a new polymorph spell is cast on you (or you activate a polymorph effect, such as wild shape), you can decide whether or not to allow it to affect you, taking the place of the old spell. In addition, other spells that change your size have no effect on you while you are under the effects of a polymorph spell."
Even if you cast enlarge first the effect stops as soon as you come under the effect of a polymorph spell.
That and lead blades stacking with strong jaw is.... suspect at best. Since they provide the same type of benefit it is likely they fall under the general stacking rules.
It is strange you would write up a google doc about this without checking these things.
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Enlarge person is a transmutation spell but not a polymorph.
I know... and? Animal aspect is and the rules specifically state other spells that effect size (polymorph or not.) stop functioning when polymorphed.
You really should read the whole post before commenting. The rule is right in my post.
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I always thought one of the best things to do with True Strike is to use stuff that cares about how much you beat an opponent by. For example, True Strike + bull rush (perhaps via Hydraulic Push?) can push your enemy back 20 or 30 feet! Good stuff if you're trying to herd enemies into an environmental hazard or pit spell.
I forget what other maneuvers and attacks vary their effectiveness depending on how much you beat the opponent's stat by, but I'd suggest you look into them.
The best method of maximizing Vital Strike is a Monk of the Four Winds 15/Fighter 5 with a Monk's Robe and UMDing wands of Enlarge Person, Lead Blades, Animal Aspect (Gorilla Aspect) and Strong Jaw. This nets you a 16d8 punch with a Greater Vital Strike of 64d8. Since you are a Monk of the Four Winds, you can spend 6 Ki to take 3 standard actions in one round, netting your 3 Greater Vital Strikes, each dealing 64d8 on a punch.
Glancing over it, I see two mistakes:
- Lead Blades is illegal. Not due to stacking similar stuff (while people might reasonably disagree with it). But due to the fact that lead blades only affect "melee weapons you are carrying".
- More importantly, the character never gets Greater Vital Strike. You don't get BAB +16 before lvl 20, which don't give you a feat. Neither Monk 15 or Fighter 5 gives you a bonus feat to use on GVS at that level.
Has anyone ever built a hurling barbarian with all those nice rage powers for more hurling damage plus twohanded throw and raging hurler feats+vital strike?
Couple of threads on this if you are interested. As small disclaimer the first one is mine :)
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2pc3x?Standard-Action-Fighter
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2ow5u?The-big-hit-build
I thought of using Shillelagh (and Lead Blade although I doubt it stacks)
Using a large Great Club you start at 2d8 and it becomes 4d8 (and 6d8 if you enlarge yourself)
(I know the spell says club or quaterstaff, but since for a giant druid a great club is like a club it should be a valid target because both a giant druid and a human druid are equally strong spell casters)
The practical part is that with wildshape you can utilize the Vital Strike feats with your animal forms as well.
You wouldn't even need to be a druid. An oil of Shillelagh works too.
Druid 4 martial x with shaping focus seems to be the way to go for big dice.
Druid is great.
However for big dice the best choice by far is the Stegosaurus.
Starting at a stunning 4d6. Improved natural attack makes it 6d6. As soon as we Strong Jaw it, the damage dice becomes 12d6.
Not as much as a Huge Monk with Strong Jaw, but the Bardruid is effective earlier on (such as making a consistent 130+ damage attack at lvl 8).
Druid 4/Barbarian 4
Shaping focus for wildshape as lvl 8.
- Stegosaurus has a 4d6 tail attack.
- With Imp Natural Attack, that is 6d6.
- Strong Jaw'ed that becomes 12d6.
- Vital Striked thats 24d6.
- Furious Finish deals 144+various bonusses.
Holy cow!
Tiefling with two levels in barbarian+Huge Impact Double Hackbut+Vital Strike Line+The Gun Equivalent of Gravity Bow if it exists.
Holy cow!
It's a hippo, not a cow.
Holy hippo!
The Stegosaurus is obsolete as of the publication of Bestiary 2.
This is the new face of Vital Strike.The monk isn't getting greater vital strike because he has to go all the way to level 20 as a pure monk to get that 2d10 base damage, but the druid can take all but 4 levels as a martial class and get greater vital strike with his 17th level feat, just like a pure barbarian. That means an extra multiple of the base damage that the monk can't get. He also gets to both vital strike and improved vital strike two levels before the monk.
That Hippo is quite insane.
Regarding the Monk, he only need to have 10 levels of monk, with Monks Robe and Monastic Legacy.
Necromancy spell: Animate Thread
Just thought I'd append this little list with some trivia involving the Unchained Monk.
Adding the new Ki powers, Wind Jump provides every Monk access to a Fly speed, making the (Flyby attack + VS chain) dreams come true all the easier.
Hooray for flyby VS-enhanced punches with Stunning Fist, followed up by next round Flying Kick-initiated flurries with Medusa's Wrath on the stunned foe! All by level 10... how nice.