I would say fighters make the best pure crit-fishers, since Critical Mastery is fighter-exclusive, and their capstone allows them to automatically confirm critical hits with their weapon of choice.
Rangers mostly aren't as good as the fighter at pure crit-fishing, but but a lot of other tricks to make up for it. ignoring prerequisites on your style feats and possibly doing some teamwork feats with your animal companion can open some nice tricks in that regard, but overall the ranger is less of a damage/crit machine, but compared to the fighter her gets a much more diverse skillset. Fighters are a lot weaker than rangers when it comes to any problem that can't be solved with "I stab it for massive damage."
An outside possibility would be a Monk with the Sohei archetype. Being able to flurry with a nodachi let's them put out a lot of attacks with an 18-20 weapon, with the added bonus of it being two-handed for stuff like power attack. And there's Mounted Skirmisher as a bonus feat, providing more full attacks.
Either a TWO WEAPON WARRIOR (lock down specialist) or a DAWN FLOWER DERVISH/MOBILE WARRIOR.
I wrote a couple of guides on twf for Rangers and fighters.
The the guide to the guides sticky.
I even included a couple of sample builds.
DPR. Fighter wins. Ranger just behind but gets to do other cool stuff.
TWF usually does it best, double wakisashis (or katanas yay TWF archetype) (excuse my spelling) (if UC is allowed) gives you a 16-20(?) threat range. either TWF or mobile fight is usually the best bet. as said a ranger could do it as well but eh.
15-20.
If you dont wan to use a exotic weapon proff. Feat kukris is also a good option.And to the OP. When you ask for a crit fishing build what is your criteria for best?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
i don't know anything about your campaign or this other player, so maybe this is an option that will have 0 appeal... but there is one feat that (IMHO) will radically improve any crit build--> Leadership. (not what you were expecting?) the most effective crit build is to have two 'people' in on it:
1) 2WF kukri fighter- Dex based, doesn't really care about damage/hit, completely focused on getting as many 15-20 threat attacks/round as possible; may instead be barb for greater beast totem or dip horizon walker to open up dimensional dervish (both to allow more full attacks)
2) 2hand tetsubo fighter- Str based, all about damage per hit; doesn't have to be actual fighter- any high damage/hit build=great.
it doesn't really matter which one is the character/cohort (though kukri-guy needs multiple attack, and to hit with whole crit range on iterative attacks, he'd be a more optimized choice). either way the whole build hinges on Butterfly's Sting... kukri-guy attacks 2-8(?) times (depending on level, etc) for very little damage but with 15-20 crit range, he confirms 1 crit and then passes it to tetsubo-guy; TG only needs to hit and his massive damage will get the tetsubo's x4 crit multiplier (plus any crit feats)!
Has anyone thought of the swashbuckler for this yet? Extra damage to your attack after level 3 and early access to improved crit.
This. The Path of War material is excellent and Stalker can make you feel like a serious crit king.
+1 for Path of War material in general. Honestly, the problem with the Stalker is that it makes critfishing so awesome it feels like a waste to do anything else with it.
probably a fighter or sword saint samurai.
the former because they get hilarious bonuses to their chosen weapons with the right build, the latter mainly because dat bonus to crit confirmation, built-in katana/najinata love, and being able to qualify for greater weapon focus/spec for their chosen weapon.
special mention to the DDance kensai magus, since they really really REALLY want crits and can keen their weapon almost for free.
Ranger is great with it, but the weapon and shield build with weapon finesse works really well. Rapier in the main hand, spiked light shield in the off hand. Lvl 10 get bashing finish and every time you get a melee critical hit you get a free shield bash with the shield, every time you crit in melee even if is with the spiked shield or on the free shield bash. Take improved critical spiked shield for a 19-20 crit range with the shield, and keen that rapier for 15-20. Just a nifty trick, but not optimal.
If you want to see absolute best critfisher with published material that I can make (aside from cheating by using Pun-Pun to give you an ability that says "I get infinite attacks per round, always critting"), here's a fully TO build. Warning: This build relies on 3.0 material, and specifically on material that was written under different assumptions for how critical threat ranges work. A DM is perfectly reasonable in interpreting how it works in another way, in which case this build is still plenty good at what it does but nowhere near as ridiculous: I assume the maximally permissive interpretation, as this is intended to be TO and not actually played.
LE Human Factotum 1/Martial Monk 1/Factotum +7/Disciple of Dispater 8/Swashbuckler 3
1 - Disciple of Darkness
H - Font of Inspiration
F - Combat Expertise
F - Power Attack
M - Improved Critical (Rapier)
3 and beyond - more Font of Inspiration (9 total)
Requires: INT 30, STR 13 (though more of either won't hurt)
You end up with 17 BAB. Get yourself a Rapier (but any 18-20 critical weapon will work, I just use a rapier for style) enchanted up the wazoo, and it's a 15-20 threat weapon thanks to improved critical (for which we dodge the requirements thanks to a level in martial monk). Disciple of Dispater's 8th-level ability explicitly stacks with Improved Critical, so now it's a 3-20 threat range weapon. With all of those Font of Inspirations we have 60 Inspiration Points to use with Cunning Surge, letting us spend 3 IP to get a standard action attack, with up to 20 extra attacks made this way each encounter (and we can use them all on the first round if we want). Most of those will threaten.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Combat Expertise + High Dex + Enlarge Person + Reach Weapon w/high crit range. Add in Whirlwind Attack to attack once everyone in reach.
Make lots of Attacks of Opportunity with your reach. More attacks = more crits.
Archer builds can also get off lots of attacks, including AoOs.
The monk's Flurry of Blows + Ki(Extra Attack) is another many attack path.
The Ninja's Flurry of Stars + Ki(Extra Attack) also works.
Add Keen to your weapon(s), or the Improved Critical feat to expand your crit range.
Use weapons with 18/x2 rather than 19/x3, as you get more crits with the about the same damage. If you are using crit feats to stack effects, this is very important.
/cevah
A human Kensai with Critical Versatility.
The best crit fisher build is a cyclops with a +1 vorpal brilliant scythe
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Druids with Improved Critical (Tentacle)
I did vanilla fighter with 1 level of barbarian. With furious wakazashis, Improved Critical, and Outflank (teamwork feat), she did 4 attacks a round at 15-20 crit threat, and every time she scored a critical hit, her partner (rogue based) took an AoO on the target.
For extra fun, she and her partner used a wand or oil of Bless Weapon: you auto-confirm critical threats against evil foes.
I'd go with 3 levels of weapon master and rest in samurai.
Deity: Shizuru (weapon = katana)
Wild Rager 2 (extra attack, stacks with everything)
Sohei 2
Weapon Master 3-6
Evangelist of Shizuru 10 (associated class: Sohei)
______Alternatively:
Wild Rager 2 / Cleric 1+ or Paladin 4 / Monk Archetype 2+
Pick up Crusader's Flurry and flurry with your Katana for up to 8 attacks base from monk (using a ki point) + one from Wild Rager + at least one from magic buffs you can have cast on you (Haste for example).
______First build is so you can get more feats and use the crit stuff more. Second one is simply for max # attacks.
You could massively simplify that build by just changing weapons. The Nodachi (1d10 18-20/x2) is in the polearm weapon group, so any level 6 sohei could easily flurry with it. And yes, that means TWF number of attacks, but with 2 handed power attack and the need for only 1 keen weapon, all on a character that could easily go full strength build. Maybe switch to fighter after level 8 so you could focus on crit feats, since you got pretty much all you would want from flurry by then.
In addition to this plan, sohei have a weird thing with no prerequisites mounted feats. So to take advantage of take, use the Nature's Soul/animal ally feats in order to get an animal companion to serve as a mount. Now, because the sohei's bonus feats are so darn vague, you could take mounted skirmisher (ie- pounce for mounted characters) early on and just make the GM cry as you get full attack after full attack with that high crit weapon.
Bonus points if you forgo the extra stength in order to grab a small race, so that you could just ride a wolf even in doors, and make it even harder for the GM to get through the BBEG's monologue.
Point that paladin to the oath of vengeance archetype, which explicitly states that lesser evils may be ignored to prevent greater ones.
I think the issue in this thread is resolver since it is from december. If the OP havent fixed his problem in 7 months it is not gonna happen. :)
|
Dotting for myself, as my GF and I are thinking about playing the same combo.
Stupid personal anecdote time:
We already have a "pair" of characters that we built to work together, with Duck and Cover and Stealth Synergy. Got a 57 stealth check at 10th level the other night, and neither of us have taken damage on a spell allowing a reflex save in 5 levels.
Looking forward to handing crits off to her!
Late to the party but the best crit fishing monster I can come up with is a kensai magus with a high crit weapon using monstrous physique 3 or 4 to become huge and then spell combat with greater bladed dash to hit everything in a 30x30 square and get a full attack at the same time. Add staggering critical and a vorpal weapon for extra bang.
TWF Slayer with high-crit weapons. Unlike the Ranger, you'll get your Favored Target bonus whenever you want it.
|
Wild Fighting (Ex) ...At 2nd level, even when not raging, wild ragers often fight with reckless, savage abandon. A wild rager using the full-attack action can make one extra attack per round at her highest base attack bonus. Until the beginning of her next turn, however, she takes a –2 penalty on attack rolls and –4 penalty to AC.
That's a pretty awful trade for two levels of paladin.
The falcata is deadliest on paper...whether it is gameplay is speculative, because large-multiplier crit weapons are the ones most likely to "waste" excess damage on an already-dead target.
I.e., if you do 35pts damage normally, and the monster has 50hp left, you're better off with a wide (15-20/x2) crit range than a shorter-but-taller (17-20/x3) for best chance of polishing it off in one more hit.
The reason no-one mentioned Slayer or Hunter is that they weren't out in 2013 or July 2014, back before the falcata necromancy - think it was August '14 the ACG came out?