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I was wondering the best way to make this build work well. I know it's a bit of a one-trick pony, but I think it would be cool to get initiative, charge in, and take out or severely damage a bad guy in the first round. Let's assume 20 point buy going to level 12.
I'm thinkning:
Str 16
Dex 16
Con 13
Int 8
Wis 12
Cha 10
Traits: Reactionary, Bully
Level 1 Sneak attack +1d6 (1d8 on a charge), Improved Initiative
Level 2 Rogue talent (surpise attack)
Level 3 Sneak attack +2d6 (2d8 on a charge), Power Attack
Level 4 Rouge talent (combat trick:improved unarmed strike), Sneak attack on a charge
Level 5 Sneak Attack +3d6 (3d8 on a charge), Dragon Style
Level 6 Rogue talent(bleeding attack)
Level 7 Sneak attack +4d6 (4d8 on a charge), Toughness
Level 8 Rogue talent (resiliency), Sneak attack if you move more than 10 feat before the attack
Level 9 Sneak attack +5d6 (5d8 on a charge), Dastardly Finish
Level 10 Rogue talent (improved evasion)
Level 11 Sneak attack +6d6 (6d8 on a charge)
Level 12 Rogue Talent (defensive roll)
Weapon will be falchion.
This is a rough draft that is far from optimized. That is why I am asking for you optimizers to look over it and tweak it for me. Thanks.
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Have you considered a non-lethal build? The Sap Adept line of feats, when combined with the Bludgeoner feat, makes for some seriously heavy nonlethal damage. Like, my nonlethal rogue kills things by accidentally dropping them below con with his greatclub. And the feats synergize nicely with d8 Sneak Attack, as it doubles the d8's, not just d6's.
Why Improved Unarmed Strike stuff? It doesn't work with Bold Strike (which requires 2h weapons only), and does very little damage with a poor critical range and multiplier. You could instead drop the unarmed stuff for the feats above, or for something like Iron Will and Extra Talent (Offensive Defense).
You only get the d8 Sneak Attack from bold strike with 2h weapons and have to wait until level 3. But you get them on all sneak attacks, not just charges.
One last thing, Furious Focus. It helps with 3/4 BAB classes as you get full attack bonuses on first attack. It also works great with mobile builds.
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Taking Dragon Style just to charge through difficult terrain is a bit meh. I mean, its useful, but situational, and its much less useful when you only have to move 10 feet due to skirmisher. If you are sold on it though, I'd recommend a level of Unarmed Fighter, which delays sneak attack by 1 level in exchange for Dragon Style, +2 Fort Saves, and +1 BaB.
For Dastardly Finish, I don't think that its worth it, unless you can stun or cower opponents regularly, and even then, coup de grace is a full round (I.E. No full attack) that provokes AoO's.
okaho pretty much listed all the ways to get reliable sneak attack. The other is HiPS, which helps too.
If you want unarmed strikes,
1. Take the rogue talent for the ninja trick for IUS as a free feat
2. Grab sap adept, sap master and knockout artist.
With those three feats at level 12 you will get 12d8+36 sneak attack damage on the charge when dealing nonlethal with an unarmed strike. (No need to get bludgeoner)
Plus whatever you hit for of course.
I was thinking of going power attack/cleave/surprise follow through with a falchion but knocking something out with a fist seems pretty cool. Of course, it would be useless against incorporeal, elementals, undead, and constructs.
True, but you already can't sneak attack incorporeals, elementals and constructs... so you won't be much help against them regardless of build.
As for undead, you can still deal regular lethal sneak attack damage against them.
With regard to cleave, it sucks. The requirements for actually getting a second attack are obnoxious and making cleave really work takes a huge feat investment and for you to be a dwarf.
Not really,
If you really want to go cleaving through people, you need the dwarf feats Goblin cleaver and Orc hewer. Surprise follow through, improved surprise follow through, cleave great cleave power attack and lunge.
This of course means being a dwarf (surprise follow through isn't racially locked)
With the dwarf feats you can cleave targets that are not adjacent to each other up to medium size (giant killer lets you do up to large). With a reach weapon and lunge that means you have a lot of squares to work with. Stick with scout and just move 10 ft before starting your cleave.
Dwarves make excellent rogues anyway, steel soul is such a good feat for a rogue since their saves are generally lousy, and I would also suggest dipping one level into fighter to grab the bonus feat, the reach weapon of your choice, and heavy armor proficiency.
Mine is a Lore Warden/Skulking slayer, fighting with a heavy Flail (d10 19-20x2 trip weapon) Using Felling Smash and Greater trip, as well as Cleave and Surprise Follow through.
It's surprisingly effective. 1d10+3d8+24 at 10th level (5/5), +28 trip, and another d10+3d8+24, or dirty trick to blind on the AoO from greater trip (skulking slayer can sub dirty trick since they're flat-footed from the charge).
Boots of Spiderclimb to be on the ceiling and not blocked from charge lanes, replace with boots of flying at higher levels.
Single target, charge/trip/blind. multiple targets, trip blind blind.
With Surprise Follow-Through and Felling Smash, when you hit the first enemy on that charge, it requires a separate swift action to trip them. Doesn't that end the Surprise Follow-Through? Or does the swift action trip occur while the first attack is continuing to the next enemy? Are you, in effect, performing two actions at once?
Surprise follow thru can't be combined with Felling Smash, since Surprise follow thru works off of the Cleave feat which is a separate standard action. Felling smash takes its own standard action.
The things I listed in my post are different ways of getting various flat-footed options to maximize my dirty trick (usually blind).
1 way is to run in, felling smash, get the free trip, get the greater trip AoO to blind, and now they have to spend a standard to remove the blind and a move to stand up. Now they have a choice, attack while prone and blind, or remove the conditions and get no attacks.
A 2nd way is to move up, cleave into one target (hopefully the one who's still flat-footed), then surprise follow thru his friend standing there depending on how many there are and my AoO count, I can blind the 2nd guy(as an attack since he's flatfooted instead of the normal standard action) or trip the 2nd guy, his CMD is lower because no dex, and then (since he's flat footed)take my greater trip AoO to blind him on that one.
I could have spelled it out better, but there's a lot going on with those combos, in order to be very good at 2-3 ways to either get massive sneak damage or absolute lockdown control.
If I'm running in first, I actually don't go for the damage, I take the enemy's action economy instead. Once I have flanking situations, or say, another enemy comes out of a tunnel while we're already in combat, then I go for the damage.
In my area, I have a lot more system mastery than most of the other players, so I usually just lockdown the bad guys and let the other players get the kills. It makes them feel good about their characters, we still win, and I don't hog the show. When an encounter is written poorly, or unbalanced, I let loose and roll it, so we don't have to pay for the Rez. There was one where a 5th level party went up against a 7th level summoner and claw build Eidolon, plus a couple mooks. The Paladin ran in and dropped to 3 HP in the first full attack of the Eidolon, so I...
Absolutely nasty! Props!
A 2nd way is to move up, cleave into one target (hopefully the one who's still flat-footed), then surprise follow thru his friend standing there depending on how many there are and my AoO count, I can blind the 2nd guy(as an attack since he's flatfooted instead of the normal standard action) or trip the 2nd guy, his CMD is lower because no dex, and then (since he's flat footed)take my greater trip AoO to blind him on that one.
I know on the Surprise Follow-Through you can blind the second enemy. How do you get a trip on the second enemy instead of the blind? I know its not part of Felling Smash because you're using Cleave. Is there another Feat that's part of this build?
I really like the Skulking Slayer Rogue archetype and I'm trying to build without multi-classing. I know I won't have enough feats to mimic your build but I'm trying to get ideas to make the most of what I have.
First, you can sub trip for any attack (including ones in a cleave). Second, if you cleave (even if it's not damage, the target is flat-footed, making your trip more likely to hit. Then, because they fell down Greater trip grants me an AoO, and since they're flat footed at the time, I use the Greater trip AoO to blind them with dirty trick. It burns a lot of Combat reflexes, but damn, is it ever fun. Of course, at 10th level, his will save is a 3. So, you win some, you lose some.
Say, would you be kind enough to post that build? After reading how you did it, i am so gonna make myself a skulking slayer! :)
Final Build is either Lore Warden 5 Skulking slayer 7 or Lore warden 7 Skulking slayer 5. Skulking slayer adds to dirty trick and steal, so your CMB for that comes out the same.
Lore warden gets you bonus to CMB for anything, free expertise, and access to Gloves of Dueling. If you take the Heavy flails group, you have a 2 handed trip weapon and whip weapon group.
The half orc racial gets you whip prof instead of falchions.
Started with Str 17 Dex 16 Con 10 Int 14 Wis 10 Cha 8. 20 pt buy.
You want Elven Chain as soon as you can afford it since it counts as light for proficiency as well.
Feats I have at level 10: Power Attack, Cleave, Surprise follow thru (with rogue talent) Expertise(free lore warden), Imp/Gr trip, Imp/Gr Dirty trick, Combat reflexes(talent combat trick), Cleaving Finish.
I pretty much alternated fighter/rogue levels, starting with fighter since PFS maxes the first HD. You can decide which maneuvers you want to focus on first.
Looks awesome and plenty of room to adjust it. I see it is made for PFS, so my question would be: How would you make it in a campaigne that goes to lvl 20?
I'm a skulking slayer/scout rogue. However, I plan to multiclass into Order of the Land Cavalier and take Low Templar. You can check my profile for my planned build.