Trying to build a knife fighter that isn't a Knife Master/Scout Rogue with a Weapon Master dip.
Obviously want to go STR based TWF Ranger for maximum damage potential. Ranger is great for the utility and versatility the class brings. Freebooter is attractive for the move action buff against any single opponent. it also goes well with the River Rat trait, a must for any serious dagger wielder.
beyond that i am stuck.
Any help?
An options would be tolook for a race with an arcane SLA an take arcane strike. That would give a damage bonus without to hit penalty. And as far as I remember the ranger doesn't need too many swift actions.
Arcane Strike...Good idea.
I am also not opposed to ditching TWF. as long as you can make daggers work without it...
Throwing daggers, wielding them in melee, or both?
Melee. Great thing about daggers though, is that you can indeed throw them in a pinch...
With the river rat trait, is the dagger anything except a more versatile short sword? The average damage comes out to the same(3.5=2.5+1), although the dagger is actually more reliable since it will always do a minim of 2 before adding everything else.
So any decent TWF ranger is fine, since the short sword is the standard.
Anyway, you do not necessarily need to use a race with an SLA to get arcane strike. You could get a trait that grants one. The problem with these traits is that they are usually only give you a Caster level of 1 or your highest gained CL. Luckily, rangers are casters in their own right. It is at level-3, but that still allows the damage to scale with you later on.
So a human with the Trifler trait (prestidigitation 3/day) would work out. Of course, a tiefling or aasimar would still be nice choices since they would get full CL plus lots of things like resistances and darkvision.
daggers are versatile because a.) slashing or piercing, whereas shortsword is merely piercing, and b.) they can be thrown with no penalty.
Hence, versatility.
Seems like Tiefling would be much better to use, with a scaling SLA, and option for +STR/WIS -CHA, and Alter Self as said SLA. (Oni-spawn, i think?)
Just keep in mind that there's a feat and gear investment as well, for throwing.
Blinkback belt, Quick Draw, Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Rapid Shot, Deadly Aim, etc.
The price of great is not as much if you use arcane strike. With that, you can pierce DR/magic (the most common one). Throw in some special material daggers, and you can handle most challenges.
Of course, you would still want a nice pair of daggers with all the enhancements and such for when you do melee. The cheap daggers are the disposable ones.
With the race choice: Oddly, there does not seem to be a STR/WIS aasimar. Of course, the angel-blooded ones get STR/CHA (maybe since there only 6 bloodlines compared the tiefling's 10; just more evil creatures in the bestiary since they are the ones we encounter/kill the most). This would allow you to dump CHA completely while maintaining a decent score and then put those points into your wisdom. Not quite as good, but it can work out well enough for the relatively low scores needed for ranger casting. They also get alter self.
Sticking with Ranger, Want/need the skills.
With the race choice: Oddly, there does not seem to be a STR/WIS aasimar. Of course, the angel-blooded ones get STR/CHA [...] This would allow you to dump CHA completely while maintaining a decent score and then put those points into your wisdom. Not quite as good, but it can work out well enough for the relatively low scores needed for ranger casting. They also get alter self.
For Wisdom 14 and a Charisma of 9, the point cost is exactly the same whether Wis or Cha has a +2 racial adjustment.
What you could do is to pick a deity with dagger a favourite weapon and take a level of divine scion later on. that way you can take weapon specialization (dagger).
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: A divine scion gains no additional weapon or armor proficiencies. She can select Greater Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization, and Greater Weapon Specialization as feats once she qualifies for them normally (although she does not have to fulfill the prerequisite of having fighter levels in order to select these feats).
You'd loose a point of BAB but it might be worth it. Using two identical weapons practically screams for having the weapon focus and weapon specialization lines. And as a ranger you can get everything to qualify without further multiclassing.
A bit of a left-field suggestion:
Weapon Adept Monk or Martial Artist Monk (if you don't wanna be lawful). You get bonuses with a monk weapon, which includes daggers, and you qualify for fighter bonus feats such as Weapon Specialization. As a big bonus, you only need one weapon so you save a lot of money on enchanting. If you take Cornugon Stun you can even use Stunning Fist with your dagger.
Dagger, or Dagger-like?
well... I am open to suggestions.
Right now, I am thinking of a Tiefling Ranger bristling with daggers, TWF with a paired set of adamantine, mithril, and cold iron respectively. Plus plenty of throw away pairs. Going to wear a breastplate.
Arcane Strike is a great idea, and i will look into Divine Scion for Weapon Specialization.
Anyone have any ideas as to what TWF feats I should get in what order... Besides the obvious TWF, ITWF, etc.?
I'd stay away from the freebooter on a TWF as the TWF needs his or her move actions to close with opponents. For two weapon fighting rangers Suprise shift is good for exactly this reason.
Don't forget your quickdraw bracers.
Hows this for a quick and dirty build plan:
Tiefling (Oni-Spawn) 20 point buy
STR 16 (18)
DEX 14
CON 14
INT 12
WIS 12 (14)
CHA 7 (5)
traits:
River Rat, Armor Expert/Reactionary
1 Arcane Strike
R2 TWF
3 Weapon Focus: Dagger
5 Iron Will
R6 ITWF
7 Power Attack?
9 Quick Draw / Weapon Specialization (With Divine Scion: Shax)
R10 GTWF
11 Quick Draw/Big Game Hunter?
Depending on what you hope to have when it comes to strength boosting equipment later on double slice might be worth it.
As it is on the TWF Ranger bonus feat list you don't need the dex prerequisite.
If you take it at level 10 instead of GTWF you trade one attack (that is not likely to hit) for a damage bonus to the two offhand attacks you get.
If you stay at strength 18 this is only a +2 bonus to strength compared to a third attack doing 1d4 + 8(2 strength + 2 weapon spec + 1 river rat + 3 arcane strike) which I'm not sure is worth it.
If you reach a strength of 22 by level 10 you got:
+ 3 bonus to two attacks vs. a third attack doing 1d4 +9
with arcane strike, i think power attack can be delayed a bit... i think it still works.
So he is misses out on 1 point of damage on one weapon in return for 1 point to his attack bonus on both weapons by going with arcane strike instead of going with power attack.
The math is slightly more complicated when he would the next step of power attack at level 4 and his second iterative at level 5, but it is still a good reason for not picking it until later. The fact that he can get around DR/magic from level 1 is also a nice little bonus. The idea of waiting until level 7 seems about right for this.