I have a character (half-elf fighter 1, rogue 2) in pfs, and the pathfinder delver prc seems perfect for what i envision him being like (minus knowledge history...why not dungeoneering!?). However, looking at it more, it seems like it will not be very useful for pfs and maybe i should just continue going fighter/rogue until 12 (provided he lives that long). has anyone had any experience with higher level play and/or playing a delver and have an opinion/facts about if it is worth it or not?
if not i can just be a delver in a home game instead. thanks!
One of my lvl 12 PFS characters is a Pathfinder Delver and I love it. It's not particularly useful if you want a class to help you do damage, it doesn't advance sneak attack or spell casting.
It does help out your skills quite a bit. It gives you bardic knowledge, along with a bonus to disable device and perception.
You get to ignore 99% of difficult terrain.
You get a untyped bonus to initiative.
At 5th level it's nearly impossible to die 1/day.
So Delver will likely do less damage and have less cool tricks related to attacking things. In exchange you'll gain mobility, skill bonuses, initiative and eventually the inability to die. You also get a flavor excuse to shirk off your reporting duties.
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Welcome, lad. How's it going?
Often, I'll find m'self the only member of the team that can recognize a threat or disengage a trap that's older than my grandfathers. More 'n once, I've had a colleague ask, with a certain shock, "You're disabling that trap?! But you're a cleric. How are you ---"
An' I always answer, "Cause I'm a Pathfinder cleric*, you yahoo."
*Best to correct 'em one at a time, y'know.
Thank you for your input guys, i love it.
However, if i am already very handy with some thieves tools (being a half elf helps with that) is it still worth it to try? i heard those fancy magic types tend to take care of traps without the need of any thieves tools. The path of the delver calls out to me greatly, but if i can help out my fellow pathfinders by continuing my current path better; then i would rather do that to help our society.
also i tend to adventure with a halfling bard. She's already a know-it-all about stuff so i would hate to step on her hairy toes... (however thematically, it totally works out that her knowledge is just rubbing off on me)
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It's worth it if you are a skill/Perception rogue, not a combat rogue. I'll explain point by point based on my experiences in PFS here in Boston. He just hit 12th level and is now Rog4/Ftr3/Delver5.
1) Bardic Knowledge: Meh, sometimes handy if there's not a true bard or wizard at the table. Fun for role-playing sometimes.
2) Master Explorer: Huge! Taking 10 on Disable and Stealth basically means that there aren't any traps that my PC can't disable. While Stealth isn't my character's main purpose, Taking 10, especially when coupled with a potion of invisibility, means nothing detects him, even if it can see invisibility, unless it has a ludicrous Perception check. This, for me, comes in less handy than the Disable Device application of this ability but I could see it being huge for a stealthy sniper delver.
3) Surefooted: Pretty nice benefit, rarely matters at higher levels either due to flying or boots of speed increasing mobility enough for terrain to no longer impact close quarters fighting.
4) Thrilling escape: I think I've only ever had to use this once because my PC's Perception is cracked out. It's a good benefit but a Perception-maxed rogue will never need it as trap DCs fail to scale well after APL 8-10.
5) Guardbreaker: Meh, who cares? A Delver's job, imo, should be finding traps and disabling them, not combat. However, these can come in somewhat handy, I guess.
6) Resourceful Disable: Never matters in PFS.
7) Vigilant Combatant: *shrug* My Init went from +13 to +15. Mostly I just set up a flank for the tanks or get in front of the big bad monster and get my AC up into the low-40s so that it can't hit me when I block its charge path.
8) Left for Dead: MY PC took his 5th level of Delver at 12th level due to poor planning on my part. This will probably be a very nice perk as he begins playing the higher-level modules.
9) Fortunate Soul 1/day: This would be huge if a) I didn't already own a re-roll t-shirt for PFS, b) my PC didn't have Improved Iron Will.
My PC will probably be going back to rogue for levels 13-20 as the benefits of Delver levels 7-10 aren't that great.