I'm getting close to finishing the first book of the Kingmaker Adventure Path and my characters are leveling up to level 4.
Question: There is a Sylph Rogue in the party who is wielding an Aldori Dueling Sword (which i gave her proficiency with after she took the Sword Scion Trait). She has three levels in Rogue and is wanting to take the Aldori Swordlord Prestige Class. What would be the best build for entry into the Prestige Class? (She wants to play a duelist character, dex based, and having dueling sword in primary hand and nothing in the other)
Maybe start taking levels in Fighter?
Her stats are 12 Str, 16 Dex, 11 Con, 16 Int, 12 Wis, 14 Cha
She has already taken Weapon Finesse and Weapon Focus (Aldori Dueling Sword).
Any ideas?
Thanks in Advance!
Maybe some Ranger levels?
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Is the party such that he needs to be a significant damage dealer? There is no BaB prerequisite, just feats. Weapon Master fighter certainly fits the swordlord duelist theme, and gives the bonus feats he needs for both PrCs eventually.
I would go Weapon Master 2, taking weapon focus, dazzling display, and either dodge. Take one level of the Aldori Swordlord PrC (which is really only good for the 1 level dip sadly) then another level of fighter to pick up mobility before going full duelist.
The other class I can think of to work with this is Cavalier/Samurai order of the cockatrice for the free dazzling display. The mount would have reduced effectiveness, so I'd suggest sword saint or another archetype that trades it out.
Well, we have a monk, paladin, and oracle for the other characters.
I'm not sure if its the best group, but it works well.
I think the fighter idea sounds good, the aldori swordlord prestige class is only good for 1 level? That's kind of depressing.
Would it just be better to do duelist and just use the flavor? Is it really that bad?
Thanks for the help so far!
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The Aldori Sworldlord PrC is very front loaded. In the first level you effectively get Dervish Dance, and the signature feat. If you look on, however, you get a small buff to your intimidate only for Dazzling Display(and the skill already scales better than the DC usually). At third level you get a very minor boost to AC only when full attacking, two things that generally don't work well (full-attacks are hard to pull off and AC doesn't scale as well as attack bonuses). If you do performance stuff it's a tad better. The penalty reduction to fighting defensively and Combat Expertise is very slow.
Duelist on the other hand has a bunch of cool abilities that scale well throughout. It has a constantly scaling damage boost (very useful) as well as various defensive abilities (parry, mobility) and more offensive opportunities in the form of riposte ad acrobatic charge.
Another suggestion I forgot of it two levels in MoMS monk. The crane style synergizes very well with this type of build (so does snake style-side note, you can go into TWF and get the duelist damage bonus if you wield an applicable weapon in one hand and snake style ff hand. This uses a bunch of fears but can be very powerful). With all the crane style and acrobatics and high level duelist AC actually has a fighting chance sometimes. Plus sheer attack negation is good. Your player may want to look into the feat chain to get Wings of Air, because fly speeds are awesome.
I think she's going to go fighter levels, then swordlord dip, then duelist.
Thanks for the help Kiinyan!