Bardic performance? I've got a "dragon herald" build built entirely around spreading the word of her golden dragon masters, making everyone around her tougher.
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On the Aid Another note you can take Bodyguard and In Harm's Way to protect your teammates. Bodyguard can give very nice bonuses to your allies' AC when combined with things like the Helpful trait, the Honour Guard cavalier archetype, or Benevolent armour.
Archon Style, Archon Diversion, and Archon Justice also let you give allies AC bonuses and take hits for them.
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Though it is a stretch to justify any form of assisting in a violent act and considering yourself a pacifist. Realistically anything beyond healing allies up after the fact would probably violate the tenets of pacifism.Something about this screams "irrelevant to the thread."
Your thread title asks the question as you point out... well, you cannot be a pacifist and be effective in combat. Something about your question screams, "This word, it does not mean what you think it means".
The title says it all, let's list them, as I'm curious what's possible.
So far I know of...
1. Bewildering Koan feat
2. Intimidating people
3. Aid anotherWhat else?
By Pacifist: what definition are we using?
a. Against war?
b. opposition to violence under any circumstance, even defence of self and others.
c. obliteration of force except in cases where it is absolutely necessary to advance the cause of peace.
d. Semi-pacifists , however, believe that if the foe is willing to hurt others, then it is justified to respond with force, even to the extent of the atomic bomb.
1) Non-violence
But some pacifists, however, support physical violence for emergency defence of self or others.
2) Non-Agression:
rejects the initiation of violence, but permits the use of violence for self-defence or delegated defence
So use nonlethal, and enforcer, and cower your enemies into peace.
Any magic weapon with the word merciful in front of it.
Any of the grapple, trip, unarmed strike, or disarm feats.
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Funny, you know because it is relevant. You just don't like the content.Though it is a stretch to justify any form of assisting in a violent act and considering yourself a pacifist. Realistically anything beyond healing allies up after the fact would probably violate the tenets of pacifism.Something about this screams "irrelevant to the thread."
'Pacifism' has a wide range of meanings. Your comment only applies to an extreme form of 'total pacifism', not to the many other variations of pacifism. Even a 'total pacifist' probably would not object to physically restraining someone who is intent on violence. For example, this author is both a 'self defense pacifist' and an expert martial artist. 'Pacifism' is not the same as 'helpless in combat'.
I've seen several 'technical pacifist' PCs who never inflict HP damage, yet are outrageously effective at combat. For example, a Witch with the Slumber hex, or a Heaven's Oracle with super-charged Color Spray, can be technical pacifists, so long as they let others inflict the coup the grace.
One option not yet mentioned is a monk specialized in binding. You grapple the foe, effectively pin them, then bind them with rope. It won't work on an otyugh, but it will work on humanoid bandits.
Another option is to use 'merciful' spells and/or inflict only non-lethal damage. There are lots of ways to do this, although most would not consider such behavior 'pacifism'.
Several people above have already pointed out that buffing your allies is a huge contribution to combat, and does not require you to strike a blow.
Well if we're considering bardic performance to be nonmagical then there are the court bard's satire and mockery performances.
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1-3: Paladin (Holy Tactician)
4-7: Bard
8: Ranger (Freebooter & Trapper)
9+: TBD probably either fighter or bard
The Paladin levels give you access to a 30' aura that grants all of your allies a teamwork feat (this doesn't cost you a feat since the archetype grants one bonus teamwork feat). The aura lasts all day, can be turned on/off as a standard action as often as desired, and can be switched between feats as a swift action. Most feats would go toward the feint feat tree.
If you were to opt to wield the fighting fan, you would gain a +2 bonus on feint attempts. Just purchase a cracked opalescent white pyramid ioun stone (1,500gp) to get weapon familiarity with the fighting fan thereby treating it as a martial weapon, (although this would be completely an unnecessary purchase as a pacifist). The best choice in teamwork feats would be Feint Partner. This would cause every single one of your successful feints to make the foe flat-footed to all of your allies for one melee strike each. Your less melee inclined allies could also try to feint with similar results. Additionally, you would have Divine Grace for absolutely ridiculous saves. A fourth level of paladin would get you access to channeling, spellcasting, and another die and usage of lay on hands. By the virtue of having a high charisma and the use of charisma boosting equipment and possibly the Bracers of the Merciful Knight, you could eventually even pick up Ultimate Mercy.
Improved Feint is a great feat to work towards so as to allow for more versatile usages of feinting in terms of the action economy. Getting Greater Feint would make all of your allies' melee strikes be against the foe's flat footed AC for a whole round whenever you successfully feint a foe.
With the Bard levels, you could get inspire courage +2 a level early via the aasimar favored class bonus. Versatile Performance could, depending upon your choice of performance type, make you a social-combat beast.
The Ranger level and its archetypes would earn you trapfinding and Freebooter's Bane (an untyped bonus to all allies against one foe at a time, usable all day).
Back to the action economy, this build allows you to have all of your party buffs active by the end of your first full round. Your standard action would begin bardic performance (probably perform oratory or dance/marching), the move action would be freebooter's bane, and the swift action would shift to your most desirable teamwork feat if that one is not already active.
Out of the build, only for the first two levels would you be highly vulnerable/ineffective. This is true though for the vast majority of builds out there, so this is a minor inconvenience. You primary weaknesses would be foes who cannot be feinted and areas of deeper darkness/silence.
Ultimately, you would be an amplifier of effectiveness in almost any of your party's combats.
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Well, even if you go Monk, a number of their abilities are Spell-like or Supernatural.
To completely avoid that, and only use, at most, Extraordinary abilities, is going to be difficult, in keeping with your concept.
Perhaps you could give more detail into the vision you had in mind for this concept?
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Sacred Shield Paladin is an option.
Combine with Warrior of the Holy Light, if the Paladin spells are too much.
Halfling jinx.
So would archon style plus the new crane wing with MoMS actually work as long as you stand next to your buddy? Get Archon Justice and Crane wing and if you actually do get hit your buddy gets to smack it. At 5th level you could have both archon diversion and Crane wing and able to use archon style as a move action. At 6th you get Archon Justice to be able to use it as a swift action, standard to take total defense and all the move speed in the world because of monk. Maybe take the vow of peace just for flavor.
Could you tell us exactly what your character wants to NOT do in order to follow his form of pacifism?
Then we could freely suggest things that don't violate his code.
Don't forget the most anti-violence action of all... SUNDER!
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Could you tell us exactly what your character wants to NOT do in order to follow his form of pacifism?
Then we could freely suggest things that don't violate his code.
This!
The exact code needs to be stated. You seemed irritated by the response, but using that word doesn't work under nearly all circumstances. Generally speaking, someone who is against violence in general will not amplify others ability to inflict harm. They would want to come up with solutions to avoid conflict whenever possible. By enabling others to harm "better", they are inflicting harm indirectly. Even if it was a slumber witch and you put your foes to sleep, you have the knowledge that your other party members are going to slay them while they are helpless. That is not very peaceful.
There will need to be a deeper character concept described for an accurate suggestion to be given.
I'll back up other people in this thread who are asking for a better definition of what you mean by 'pacifist'. Can't hurt? Can't kill? Just no hitting but willing to work through proxies (i.e. buffing allies?)
You say saps and nonlethal weapons are still too violent. What about grappling? Sundering items? Disarming foes? You could invest in a whip: it lets you disarm and trip with a good amount of reach, and can't cause any real harm.
What do you actually want to accomplish? I'm sure we can dig up some 'bodyguard' type functionality that lets you take hits intended for your teammates.
Adding non-magical certainly limits your options, because it removes most buffs (especially group buffs like Bardic music.) and most in-combat non-violent options (charm person, hold person, hideous laughter, sleep, etc)
If it were me trying to make a character whose shtick was not hitting anyone, I'd make a 'mad fool' style bard who tumbles around the edge of combat dispensing Inspire Courage while distracting foes with spells like grease and hideous laughter, or just old-fashioned taunts. But that's very magical.
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I like Tetori monks. Grab vows and get vow of peace. Pick up dodge and crane style. In violent situations you simply grapple them and tie them up or at worse pin them and do nonlethal.
Versus things you can't grapple, incorporeal or swarms, probably no way around those but violence but probably ok to grab a swarmbane clasp and punch away and maybe a ghost touch AoMF that you just put on and again punch away.