Whip using build

[Master of the Dark Triad]

What class would be best?

Would a cleric dip for growth domain be worth it?

Other than the whip mastery line and combat maneuver feats, what feats are needed?

Other advice? Success stories?

[Master of the Dark Triad]

I guess I'll bump.

[chaiboy]

fighter class. the problem with whip builds is the number of feats needed to make it useful.

Some people mentioned that half-orc is a good bet since you can pick a chain whip as a trait.

I don't have a list of all the feats needed but there are 4+ feats you will need.

[Master of the Dark Triad]

A lot of them are spread out due to BAB requirements, so I thought maybe it was possible for another class. With that said, I figured fighter would be best.

Any other advice?

[chaiboy]

here is a link to a dual whip fighter.

http://www.icheckfortraps.com/dual-whip-fighter-control-build/

Another option is to use Magus (Kensai) they automatically get one exotic weapon. so pick whip. then you can be human to get the extra feat. You also get whip mastery for free when you pick that kind of Magus. You need mastery to get whip master, without whip master people can get attacks of opportunity on you because of the whip. It also makes the whip do lethal damage. You could use a scorpion whip instead. it does 1d4 instead of 1d3. and it is lethal, but still causes AOO.

Benefit of a magus is that 2nd level they can cast touch spells through the whip... perfect for shocking grasp. Combine with tripping feats (Toppling spell metamagic feat, causes spells to trip people from force of spell)

Feat path to use a whip
whip proficiency (city raised half-orc-free, Kensai-free, exotic weapon feat)
Weapon Mastery(whip) +1 hit(free for Kensai or Weapon Master)
Whip Master Lethal damage with whip, no more AOO from using it.
Improved Whip Mastery (AT 6th level+)
damage wise I would think the magus would give the biggest bang for the buck.

Monk is also an option but without the extra feat it is not as good as fighter. You do get flurry of blows with it if you take weapon Adept. Which also gives weapon master at 2nd level. Perfect strike at 1st level.

Personally I can't see them working at low level. and you need the +2 BAB to get whip mastery which stops the AOO on you. So Fighter or fighter magus seem like a great fit.

[Krodjin]

chaiboy wrote:

Monk is also an option but without the extra feat it is not as good as fighter. You do get flurry of blows with it if you take weapon Adept. Which also gives weapon master at 2nd level. Perfect strike at 1st level.

Personally I can't see them working at low level. and you need the +2 BAB to get whip mastery which stops the AOO on you. So Fighter or fighter magus seem like a great fit.

Monk can't flurry with whip unless you dip Cleric of Calistra (and take Crusaders Flurry). Perfect Strike does not work with whip, unless your GM house rules it. So check that first.

The Weapon Adept Monk does not suffer for feats (actually gets more than the Fighter by level 12) it's the lack of BAB that really hurts.

[LoneKnave]

My whip build is usually Magus (spire defender)/Lore Warden Fighter. Spire defender is an oft overlooked archetype, but it gives you more feats, and can use armor and cast without failure (once you have the maneuver master dip). You may also want to get a dip of the maneuver master Monk archetype for flurry of maneuvers (and some more feats).

Finally, you may want to take a look at the pit fighter PrC as that lets you make Dirty Tricks (the most useful maneuver) with your weapon.

Another interesting build I discovered was a Monk with Rope Dart and the Equipment Trick[rope] feat, which would let you alternate between using a rope dart as a rope dart and a whip as far as I can tell.

[Kolokotroni]

Do you use 3rd party material? I've had alot of success with whip users using the 3rd party archetype the blacksnake from the genius guide to Martial Archetypes

Gives you everything you need to make whips work well. The genius style archetypes(created originally before the apg so they function differently then paizo's archetypes) can be added to any class by trading one or more abilities from the base class for the archetype package.

The one I played was an inquisitor, who traded his spellcasting for the blacksnake archetype.

[Jorin]

Click on this avatar for whip kensai that I am currently running. he is only 3rd level at the moment, but is prodding buttock.

He is using wand wielder to cast true strike just before tripping or disarming serious opponents. That +20 lets him almost auto trip or disarm anything he encounters. At least up until we get to the level for some really big creatures.
Then he will spell strike like a normal magus.

chaiboy wrote:

...

You also get whip mastery for free when you pick that kind of Magus.
...
Weapon Mastery(whip) +1 hit(free for Kensai or Weapon Master)
...

I think you mean weapon focus.

[drbuzzard]

I've got a samurai/lore warden I've been playing and he's fairly effective. Samurai was taken to get heavy armor and shields back after doing lore warden. The build is centered on tripping and fairly able tanking. It's more about battlefield control than damage. Whips will always be a bit lacking in the damage category of course, and it's hard to get past material DR with them.

[LoneKnave]

For that, you can just the Scorpion whip.

I think. The rules are a bit hazy on that.

[drbuzzard]

I go with what Hero Lab says, and even though I think a whip which says it has metal edges installed ought to be able to, Hero Lab doesn't agree, so I don't try it.

[Jorin]

You have to have a weapon that is all (or at least primarily) metal in order to make it out of alchemical silver, cold iron, or adamantine.

But you can use the versatile weapon spell. And the transmitted spell should damage normally.