Point Blank Rogues, Crossbow Whipping, and the Eradication of Evil

[Violinist]

This started as a short post asking for Society-relevant build tips but whoops. (Sectioned for your comfort and convenience.)

Point Blank Rogues

My first Pathfinder Society character to make it past level 1 just hit her third Rogue level. Retrained from a Monk once she hit level 2, I had a large pool of resources to work with and managed to strike a decent balance between ranged combat and melee combat and a decent assortment of skills. I decided I wanted to focus more on range because crossbows are cool.

Feats at the time of her first level 2 session:

• Skill Focus (Bluff), by virtue of being a half-elf.
  
• Rapid Reload (Heavy), to be able to attack more than once every other round.
  
• Two-Weapon Fighting, thanks to the Combat Trick Rogue Talent, because dual-wielding is cool.

Of course, it didn't take me long to spot the many, many flaws in the build. Without Precise Shot and with how most enemies in encounters tend to engage in melee in the first round, ranged attacks are pot shots at best, and without some serious spec-ops shenanigans I might as well leave my d6's at home 'cause I'm never getting that sneak attack.

So I started looking around. Shopping for some prime cheese. The first angle I considered was taking a level in Oracle and sniping people through fog. Tempting, but I wasn't entirely sold on the concept.

Then I found the Point Blank Master feat, and was inspired. Unfortunately, it requires Weapon Specialization, and I don't feel like taking four levels of Fighter. Whatever, I can take a punch or three.

The plan: Get my sneak attack dice the old fashioned way and fight with a crossbow at flankin' distance.

This is gonna require a hell of a lot of feats (and is also going to be RAD as HECK), and I was wondering if the community might know of a more efficient way to make the concept work than what I've come up with. Near as I can tell, the bare essential feats would be:

• Point Blank Shot
  
• Precise Shot
  
• Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Repeating Crossbow)

The latter so that I won't be provoking attacks of opportunity twice every round I'm in melee range by reloading every round, and opens up stuff like Rapid Shot etc. Will likely also end up taking Snap Shot for ranged attacks of opportunity.

Does anybody know of a way to reach this point in fewer feats/levels? Perhaps some item or something?

tl;dr; I'm a dumb hipster tool who wants to use a heavy crossbow like a melee weapon looking for tips.

Crossbow Whipping

A simpler, shorter question. Is it possible to use a ranged weapon as a melee weapon? Would it then count as an improvised weapon?

The Eradication of Evil

A couple of days ago, my rogue ran through

majestic fields of wheat:

the Night March of Kalkamedes, and unquestioningly liberated the poor gnome in the Dark Edifice from his prison, talking the party into helping her and holding Kalkamedes back so that he wouldn't walk off into some kind of acid spike pit. Needless to say, things escalated.

So, along with pouring a bunch of skill points into the more arcane skills, she'll be looking to find ways to make herself less palatable to demons, and the forces of evil in general. I think I've got the basic preparations in hand - cold iron bolts, aligned weapons, holy water, etc - but I'm interested in finding out if there's any way for a Chaotic Good Rogue to detect and/or smite evil.

[talbanus]

WAY too much to digest there. Only thing I can say is remember your character is part of a TEAM. You aren't expected to be able to handle every contingency yourself -- you have teammates. Another way of saying this is SPECIALIZE. If you try and cover so many bases you'll end up being sort of OK at a lot of things and not good at anything. And if you want to bash people with ranged weapons be a rogue/gunslinger combo. :-p

[BigNorseWolf]

Violinist wrote:

This started as a short post asking for Society-relevant build tips but whoops. (Sectioned for your comfort and convenience.)

This is going to be rough, but I would say either start a new character or send the design folk a LOT of cookies hoping to get retraining rules in.

Rogues ... take a lot of optimization to bring up to baseline, much less do well. It CAN be done but its very hard and even then usually takes a bit more cooperation than normal from your party (who usually work like a herd of cats). You are almost always better off taking levels of ninja if you want to sneak around. If you don't like the black pajama's route just file off the serial numbers and wear something else.

Crossbows are horrible. I have never seen a way to make them halfway viable.

Put them both together and i wouldn't be surprised

Quote:

Of course, it didn't take me long to spot the many, many flaws in the build. Without Precise Shot and with how most enemies in encounters tend to engage in melee in the first round, ranged attacks are pot shots at best and without some serious spec-ops shenanigans I might as well leave my d6's at home 'cause I'm never getting that sneak attack.

Yup. thats usually a -8 effective penalty there (-4 because of shooting into melee and +4 from the fighters armored keister granting a cover bonus)

Quote:

So I started looking around. Shopping for some prime cheese. The first angle I considered was taking a level in Oracle and sniping people through fog. Tempting, but I wasn't entirely sold on the concept.

Please don't. It is incredibly annoying for everyone else in your party who can't see through the fog. Spellcasters can't target anyone, melee wind up with a miss chance, and ranged wind up unable to decide which square to attack. It makes combats take 3 times as long when many scenarios are already crunched for time.

Quote:

This is gonna require a hell of a lot of feats (and is also going to be RAD as HECK), and I was wondering if the community might know of a more efficient way to make the concept work than what I've come up with. Near as I can tell, the bare essential feats would be:

The easiest way would be the bayonet out of the advanced players guide.

Bayonet: Bayonets are close combat weapons designed to fit into the grooves or muzzles of crossbows and firearms. They allow you to make melee attacks with these weapons but render them temporarily useless as ranged weapons. Attaching or removing a bayonet is a move action.

You could have traded your elven skill bonus to get proficiency with the repeating crossbow, keep it in mind if retraining becomes a thing.

[kinevon]

Note, also, unless you can do somethign else, you aren't getting that sneak attack using a crossbow as a ranged weapon in melee. Snap Shot would cause you to threaten the enemy with an AoO, and provide a flank, but not to be able to get a flank with your crossbow yourself.

Improved Feint, Gang Up, some way to vanish/go invisible on your own hook would be what you want or need.

Also known as why Sniper is a low-value Rogue archetype...

So, there are a few other things you can do that won't adversely affect the party, but they each require a goodly amount of gold, and some of them require making sure the AE casters in your party know where NOT to cast.

At 13 Fame, you can purchase a cracked vibrant purple prism Ioun stone, if you have access to Seekers of Secrets, which would allow the storing of a first level spell that the Ioun stone user can cast. Vanish would be one possibility, but it only would last for one round.

With a bit more Fame, you could consider Mistmail, which is Core, IIRC, and allows you to give yourself concealment without giving your opponents concealment, and won't get negated by the opponent's ability to see invisible nor by your party's Cleric/divine caster using Purge Invisibility.

Overall, as mentioned, especially with the limited resources available, you need to focus on either melee or ranged with your rogue. You might consider multi-classing into something that synergizes with what you want to do, but that would be at the expense of additional sneak attack dice.

Myrmidarch Magus (I think that's the archetype) might be a possibility. Being able to use Spellstrike tghrough a ranged weapon. Pistolero Gunslinger (that the right name/archetype?) might be useful, as well, since you would need to be fairly close to get the sneak attack anyhow, and sneak against flat-footed touch AC would be nice...

[Sir Thugsalot]

A discussion like this is almost impossible without knowing what your stats are.

Observations for the OP:

1. In PFS, combats will get dangerous very fast once you're past the baby levels; and you're going to get thrown into them head-first before you're ready due to the rapid (and unstoppable) leveling mechanic of that campaign. One moment you're bouncing around having fun backstabbing for 3d6, and the next Tier up the mods are sending drooling multi-attack monsters with Rend after your scrawny light-infantry melee character. One of the most common ways to get killed in PFS is to be a 4th-level character in a party of 5s, you elect to play up to Tier 6-7, and run into a 9th-level spellcaster boss with meat-wall minions. Guess who dies first after failing multiple saves?

2. Due to the relentless grind in PFS, resource-management is of utmost importance. Keep an eye on what resources are legal in the books that own. Don't buy frivolous items (unless they're like 4gp).

3. Feats: you don't get many as a rogue, so make sure every one pulls its weight every encounter.

4. You will not always, or even often, have a dedicated healer at the table, meaning you'll have to first be aware of that fact, and then alter your tactics accordingly. For instance, if you TWF versus sword-n-board with a +1 light shield, the difference is +2/+2 attack and AC in the latter's favor. If an encounter involves a single CR+3 giant monster with reach, and your rogue successfully discovered and disarmed the 12d6 rockfall attack-trap in the previous room -- hey, buddy; you've done your job! Take a back-seat in this fight.