Advice on a barbarian / fighter build for PFS


Advice

Lantern Lodge

So I want to create a highly mobile front line fighter with a focus on abilities like trip and disarm, with the goal of moving in quickly and setting the field for ranged fighters and casters to be able to move about and act safely. I was thinking of taking two levels of Barbarian, with the Knockdown rage feat and then switching over to fighter for the high number of feats I can get for Improved Trip etc. A few questions:

At first glance, is the build even viable? I've only played ranged PF characters at this point, so I'm curious whether making a combat maneuver-heavy character is desirable.

What feats should I take? I fought something in a PFS mod the other day that got a free trip attempt every time it hit me: I've looked around, and I can't figure out how it was able to do that.

Equipment: I was thinking of starting with a chain shirt and saving up for agile mithral BP. Is this smart, or should I go with some type of Mithral heavy armor? Flails get a bonus to trip and disarm attempts, so I was thinking of using one of those as my primary weapon.

The supplementals I currently have access to are UC and the APG. Thanks!

RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16

It sounds like a pretty workable concept to me. Just remember that you can't be sure what characters other people will bring, so be capable of doing more than combat maneuvers (dealing damage at melee AND range, some skills, etc.).

The tripping with every attack is probably a monster ability. I don't think PCs can get that. But if you take Combat Reflexes, you could get lots of AoO, and use trips for those.

Mithral heavy armor is too expensive with PFS capped at level 11. And Agile won't get you much with a Mithral BP; just missing the -1 on Swim and Climb, which you should have enough of for it not to make much difference.


The tip i would offer is consider how your character can play off of another class or character. Example if you are playing a highly maneuverable Barbarian, consider taking feats like Mobility to get into the middle of the bad guys, and have your party rogue use flanking maneuvers so every attack is now sneak attack.

IF your a caster class learn spells like Enlarge and Bull strength (your party warrior classes will love you) or Flaming arrow (your party archer will love you) or Invisibility, Silence, and non-detection (the rogue will love you...as will anyone in plate armor trying to NOT get into a fight!)

ETC..

Too few players ever give a thought to how to maximize on these types of combos. So much so that when you actually do so at the table don't be overly surprised if it comes as a serious shock to the others.


again, more than 2 years. I doubt he needs any advice on this anymore.

Dark Archive

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Pwn: if you don't have anything constructive to add to a resurrected thread, why post?

For anybody considering Mithral Full Plate for PFS and reading RainyDayNinja's post, please disregard: Mithral full plate (@10,500 GP)is available to PFS characters with 27 fame, which isn't very high level.


Argus The Slayer wrote:

Pwn: if you don't have anything constructive to add to a resurrected thread, why post?

For anybody considering Mithral Full Plate for PFS and reading RainyDayNinja's post, please disregard: Mithral full plate (@10,500 GP)is available to PFS characters with 27 fame, which isn't very high level.

Frankly, I don't see what anyone would add to this thread considering that it's very long dead.


Argus The Slayer wrote:

Pwn: if you don't have anything constructive to add to a resurrected thread, why post?

For anybody considering Mithral Full Plate for PFS and reading RainyDayNinja's post, please disregard: Mithral full plate (@10,500 GP)is available to PFS characters with 27 fame, which isn't very high level.

But Rainy Day Ninja has a point, doen't he? You can't buy Mithril Full Plate with just Prestige Points, can you? Nonmagical Mithril Full Plate costs more than 10,000gp, IIRC.

If you are investing in your armor incrementally, say buying chainmail then enchanting it a little at a time as you can afford to, then you be up to a lot of +'s before you are up to 10,000gp for your next upgrade: its cheaper to upgrade your +4 chainmail to +5 than it is to buy a suit on nonmagical Mithril Plate. You can sell your old armor as part of the purchase, but you lose half the value you put into your old armor when you do that. But the other option is to do without any enchantments on yoru armor until you're ready to spend 10,000gp? That seems like a terrible idea not to capitalize your character for so long. I strongly suspect every PFS suit of MFP I see came about as a result of GMing credits, not as a result of actual gaming.

Saving up for your Mithril Agile Breastplate is a lot more reasonable. It only costs like 5000gp. Painful, but worth it to a lot of PCs. It counts as Light Armor, so you can still enjoy benefits like Evasion and Magus Spells. You can sleep in it even without the Endurance Feat, though you can't put the Brawler Enchantment on it anymore :(

The other option I like a lot for Special Material Armor is Darkleaf Cloth Lamellar Leather Armor to minimize Arcane Spell Failure. I like the Arcane Armor Training Feat to eliminate Spell Failure Chance altogether, but a lot of people don't, preferring to use their Swift Actions for Metamagic Feats.

Silver Crusade RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16

Argus The Slayer wrote:
Pwn: if you don't have anything constructive to add to a resurrected thread, why post?

This wasn't the only 2 year old conversation brought back to unlife by the same necromancer within a 5 minute timespan, perhaps it was an effort to forestall any future necromantic activity?


Lazlo.Arcadia wrote:
is consider how your character can play off of another class or character.... Too few players ever give a thought to how to maximize on these types of combos. So much so that when you actually do so at the table don't be overly surprised if it comes as a serious shock to the others.

I SOOOOOO feel your pain! Cats have a saying: "It's like herding PFS Players."

It's like pulling teeth to come up with basic synergies between players at the table.

I had a character with Paired Opportunist, Tactician, and Snake Fang, so she would give out free Attacks of Opportunity to anyone near her. Hardly anyone would take advantage of that, even when I told them, "My character gives out Attacks of Opportunity, so you should form up on whatever badguy I form up on!" Almost nobody did :(

Or say, "Hey everybody, lets all wear Cleats, and then cast Grease Spells all over the place!" no dice.

I might say, "My character has a very high Fort Save and Grapple Mod, so if you want to cast Web and Stinking Cloud Spells, don't worry even a little bit about catching me in it." Never happened :(

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