Apologies in advance for a wordy first post here.
I've been a payer and a GM since the dim and distant days of 1983 and my first AD&D player's handbook.
After a fairly lengthy break away from the hobby, I recently introduced a bunch of friends to the delights of RPGs. One of them has since discovered Pathfinder and decided to take his first stab at being a GM himself. (I've tried to warn him what he's letting himself in for....)
I've decided to play a fairly swashbuckler type character. I'm aware there's an actual Swashbuckler class in the playtest material, but my friend only has the core rulebooks at moment, so I'll be sticking with the classes and feats from those.
I was planning to play the character as sort of a mix between one of the Musketeers and Inigo Montoya from 'The Princess Bride' but a bit rougher round the edges. He wouldn't be adverse to smashing a barstool over someone's head and if someone slaps him in the face with a glove to challenge him to a duel they're likely to get a knee in the groin as a response (or a return slap with a glove stuffed with some brass knuckles perhaps).
I also want a fairly broad selection of skills to cover some eventualities that might not be covered by the more inexperienced players. So taking human as my race for the extra feat and skill points, I'm thinking probably either a Rogue/Fighter or Rogue/Ranger and maybe aim to pick up Duellist later on.
I'm totally new to Pathfinder but obviously I've got a fair bit of experience with other systems. I'd welcome any advice on possible feats or other class combos to consider. I'm not looking for the best maths or min/maxing options really, just some good ideas to enhance survivability and usefulness in both combat and non-combat situations.
Ok, I'll stop waffling now
One suggestion I advise is as your party encounters fuzzy rules and your party comes up with their own ideas on what these rules mean: someone should write down and keep a list of these rulings. Our table has 23 rulings at the moment.
I'll respond to your post next.
fatbaldbloke wrote:
I was planning to play the character as sort of a mix between one of the Musketeers and Inigo Montoya from 'The Princess Bride' but a bit rougher round the edges. He wouldn't be adverse to smashing a barstool over someone's head and if someone slaps him in the face with a glove to challenge him to a duel they're likely to get a knee in the groin as a response (or a return slap with a glove stuffed with some brass knuckles perhaps).
I also want a fairly broad selection of skills to cover some eventualities that might not be covered by the more inexperienced players. So taking human as my race for the extra feat and skill points, I'm thinking probably either a Rogue/Fighter or Rogue/Ranger and maybe aim to pick up Duellist later on.
Either of those could be good choices. There's also nothing that say you can't do a straight Fighter. If you put more points than usual into Intelligence and spend some of your millions of feats on Skill Focus and similar skill boosters, you can have a very highly skilled Fighter who is still better in combat than your Fighter/Rogue.
A straight-up Ranger would also work well.
Also, have you considered a Bard? As a 6 level caster, you don't need an extremely high Charisma if you don't worry about spells-with-saving-throws, and you'll have lots of skill points plus the classic swashbuckler weapons.
I would suggest to build a straight ranger, perhaps urban ranger is it suits your likings better. Multiclassing in pathfinder often makes your character less powerful. And for a completely new party deciding when to add sneak attack dice and when not to makes the things unnecessarily complicated.
If you're playing a social campaign with lots of other humans as foes and allies, your concept can work well. For a more "dungeon-crawl" sort of adventure you might want to consider specializing in a single class
The duelist is a particularly challenging beast; if you build it *just so* you can their AC quite high.
Assuming an elite array (15 pt), this would be a very simple core rulebook only build
Human
Str 13
Dex 17
Con 12
Int 14
Wis 10
Cha 8
1. Fighter: Catch Off-Guard, Combat Expertise, Weapon Finesse (BAB 1)
2. Rogue (BAB 1)
3. Rogue: Combat Talent (Dodge); Improved Disarm(BAB 2)
4. Fighter: Power Attack; add +1 to Dex (BAB 3)
5. Rogue; Mobility(BAB 4)
6. Fighter (BAB 5)
7. Rogue (BAB 6); Improved Feint
8. Duelist; +1 to Dex
9. Duelist; Improved Trip
10. Duelist;
You can use Improved Disarm in combination with Catch Off-Guard to get sneak attack, and it fits your "dirty-fighter flavor", I think. You fight with a rapier.
Important skills are Bluff, Acrobatics, and Perception; the rest are to flavor.
If you're using traits, Threatening Defender or Reactionary (+2 initiative) is nice (both combat traits, so you can only pick 1). Indomitable Faith, a Faith Trait, gives +1 to your (rather poor) will save. The free character traits download is found here - normally players get 2 traits (of two different types), and npcs get none.
The three classes you mentioned: Fighters, Rangers, and Rogues are the only ones that make sense for The Musketeers. Fighters get feats, Rogues get skills, and Rangers are the most diverse class out of the three.
With your goal being duelist, you have plenty of time to get the three feats. Rogues lose 1 BAB (+1 to hit) per 4 levels. With your goal of being a duel class, your first Duelist level will likely be 8th level. The three mandatory feats are Dodge, Mobility, and Weapon Finesse. Power Attack helps kill things faster. Weapon Focus gives a +1 to hit with your chosen weapon. Level 4 fighter grants Weapon Specialization which is a +2 to damage with a weapon you have weapon focus in. Rangers are one of the better classes in core. The two most common terrains are urban and underground (caves and dungeons). The most common enemy is Human.
Is the Swashbuckler (and related) info all available here...?
http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/
Thanks for some quick replies, much appreciated.
@Tangaroa - as it's his first time as a GM I think we'll most likely starting out as 'dungeon-crawl' style as he gets to grip with the mechanics. Thanks for the build advice there and the heads up on traits.
@Orfamay - I did consider Bard, actually a class I've never tried before. I'll be honest I've never been great at playing casters, think I maybe have too much of a 'brawler' mindset. (oddly I play casters better when I'm GM and running them as NPCs)
@Umbranus and Sarrah - Rangers are a class I've always been fond of, whether it's pen and paper gaming or in MMOs. Like the diversity that Sarrah mentioned, and the 'Urban Ranger' sounds right up my street, cheers.
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Does your friend not use the d20pfsrd? The ACG playtest document is also freely available as far as I know.
One thing that I'd also suggest, esp. with newbies: don't multiclass. It adds complexity without adding effectiveness.
It's also a bad habit to get into, in my opinion. It's very easy to get caught in a trap of stereotypes, where if you need a fighter with some rogue-like abilities, you have to multiclass, because,... well, because fighters are just fighters. Players should be able and willing to refluff characters within the rules of a single class . That's usually more effective (Paizo by design makes multiclassing ineffective) and also encourages more creativity. There's no reason that a Fighter can't spend feats on social abilities.
Orfamay Quest wrote: One thing that I'd also suggest, esp. with newbies: don't multiclass. It adds complexity without adding effectiveness.
It's also a bad habit to get into, in my opinion. It's very easy to get caught in a trap of stereotypes, where if you need a fighter with some rogue-like abilities, you have to multiclass, because,... well, because fighters are just fighters. Players should be able and willing to refluff characters within the rules of a single class . That's usually more effective (Paizo by design makes multiclassing ineffective) and also encourages more creativity. There's no reason that a Fighter can't spend feats on social abilities.
This is both good and bad advice. Fighters gain a LOT by multiclassing because everything aside from their BAB either sucks, or is too generic to be of use for most concepts. Also, if you want to be powerful, just don't take PrCs, period. The only exception here would be the Aldori Swordlord, who gets to add his Dex to his damage; that's pretty nice for a duelist build.
You should probably just convince your friend to use the ACG swashbuckler, it's exactly what you want (even though using all PF material you could probably build a better "Duelist" relatively easily).
LoneKnave wrote: Does your friend not use the d20pfsrd? The ACG playtest document is also freely available as far as I know. At the moment I know he has the hard copies of the Core rulebook and the Player's Guide. Just didn't want to overload him with reading material yet....(not for entirely altruistic reasons)
I'm hoping he'll really take to this GM lark and give me chance to play more again
LoneKnave wrote: Orfamay Quest wrote: One thing that I'd also suggest, esp. with newbies: don't multiclass. It adds complexity without adding effectiveness.
It's also a bad habit to get into, in my opinion. It's very easy to get caught in a trap of stereotypes, where if you need a fighter with some rogue-like abilities, you have to multiclass, because,... well, because fighters are just fighters. Players should be able and willing to refluff characters within the rules of a single class . That's usually more effective (Paizo by design makes multiclassing ineffective) and also encourages more creativity. There's no reason that a Fighter can't spend feats on social abilities.
This is both good and bad advice. I stand by it. I don't think it's bad advice at all.
Quote: Fighters gain a LOT by multiclassing because everything aside from their BAB either sucks, or is too generic to be of use for most concepts. Not in PF. The bonus feats are incredibly powerful for any build -- and the various forms of improved weapon skills make fighters substantially more powerful with their preferred weapons, almost the opposite of "too generic."
Quote:
You should probably just convince your friend to use the ACG swashbuckler, it's exactly what you want
With a newbie GM? Absolutely not. The last think a newbie needs is too many rulebooks to keep track of. There's nothing in the ACG worth breaking the game because the GM can't remember the rules over.
My advice is don't get stuck in a class you don't want or need just because it seems to fit your concept. The best thief I ever played was a human barbarian with a +17 to sleight of hand at level 1. He wasn't going to win the DPR Olympics, but he was very good at what he did. Also 40 ft movement, lots of HP and the ability to flip out and kill anyone likely to catch him at thieving instead of more skills, trapfinding and sneak attack made for a character that was fun for me to play.
LoneKnave wrote: Orfamay Quest wrote: One thing that I'd also suggest, esp. with newbies: don't multiclass. It adds complexity without adding effectiveness.
It's also a bad habit to get into, in my opinion. It's very easy to get caught in a trap of stereotypes, where if you need a fighter with some rogue-like abilities, you have to multiclass, because,... well, because fighters are just fighters. Players should be able and willing to refluff characters within the rules of a single class . That's usually more effective (Paizo by design makes multiclassing ineffective) and also encourages more creativity. There's no reason that a Fighter can't spend feats on social abilities.
This is both good and bad advice. Fighters gain a LOT by multiclassing because everything aside from their BAB either sucks, or is too generic to be of use for most concepts. Also, if you want to be powerful, just don't take PrCs, period. The only exception here would be the Aldori Swordlord, who gets to add his Dex to his damage; that's pretty nice for a duelist build.
You should probably just convince your friend to use the ACG swashbuckler, it's exactly what you want (even though using all PF material you could probably build a better "Duelist" relatively easily). To be honest I won't be encouraging any of the guys who are very new to RPGs to try multi-classing yet. I only do it myself if I think it fits nicely with a particular character concept I've had.
fatbaldbloke wrote:
To be honest I won't be encouraging any of the guys who are very new to RPGs to try multi-classing yet. I only do it myself if I think it fits nicely with a particular character concept I've had.
Well, at the risk of beating a greasy spot on the ground where a dead horse used to be, I'd go further and not multiclass myself, either. Lead by example. Show them that one can fit standard character classes to cover non-standard concepts, which will in turn help them to do the same.
Otherwise you run the risk of showing them the opposite. Since you're likely going to be much more effective than they are, they'll attribute your effectiveness not to the fact that you built a creative character and are playing her imaginatively, they'll attribute your effectiveness to the fact that you've got access to moar cheez and that therefore moar cheez is moar funne.
If you are only using stuff from the CRB I would go Ranger. On the other hand I would ask the GM if I could use an archetype from the SRD both
Urban Ranger. and Urban Barbarian will be good choices. You can easily print them out on a single piece of paper.
fatbaldbloke wrote: my friend only has the core rulebooks at moment, so I'll be sticking with the classes and feats from those.
Sarrah wrote: fatbaldbloke wrote: my friend only has the core rulebooks at moment, so I'll be sticking with the classes and feats from those. I am assuming you are responding to my post. Yes, I noticed that hence my first sentence. I then gave additional information. The OP might not have known how easy it was to use the SRD and how little work it would be to integrate an archetype or at least those archetypes.
In case there was any confusion, I was not recommending a multiclass urban ranger/urban barbarian. Someone could easily read my original post that way.
Orfamay Quest wrote: LoneKnave wrote: Orfamay Quest wrote: One thing that I'd also suggest, esp. with newbies: don't multiclass. It adds complexity without adding effectiveness.
It's also a bad habit to get into, in my opinion. It's very easy to get caught in a trap of stereotypes, where if you need a fighter with some rogue-like abilities, you have to multiclass, because,... well, because fighters are just fighters. Players should be able and willing to refluff characters within the rules of a single class . That's usually more effective (Paizo by design makes multiclassing ineffective) and also encourages more creativity. There's no reason that a Fighter can't spend feats on social abilities.
This is both good and bad advice. I stand by it. I don't think it's bad advice at all.
Quote: Fighters gain a LOT by multiclassing because everything aside from their BAB either sucks, or is too generic to be of use for most concepts. Not in PF. The bonus feats are incredibly powerful for any build -- and the various forms of improved weapon skills make fighters substantially more powerful with their preferred weapons, almost the opposite of "too generic."
Quote:
You should probably just convince your friend to use the ACG swashbuckler, it's exactly what you want
With a newbie GM? Absolutely not. The last think a newbie needs is too many rulebooks to keep track of. There's nothing in the ACG worth breaking the game because the GM can't remember the rules over. I can not think of a fighter concept that is not mechanically improved by multi-classing. But feel free to post a concept and an accompanying build (or if you don't want to derail the thread any further, you can PM me one).
Also, it's not like he needs to keep the entire rulebook in his head, just one class, that fits on a few pages, especially at early level. I'd even say the math should be easier if he doesn't need to keep track of the multiclassing going on.
I can think two of the best duelist builds that are based to core rules (they may require some additional feats like Dervish Dance, but you can easily find them in the pfsrd).
Fisrt one is an Urban barbarian, that uses rage in order to raise Dexterity. The fact that you can combine Dervish Dance with rage, superstition, spell sunder, strengh surge, beast totem and come and get me makes for the best single classed dex-based "core" duelist type PC IMO. Here is an example.
The builds below are more complicated.
An alternative if you are into multiclassing is a Human maneuver master monk 2 / lore warden fighter 4 / duelist 10 / lore warden fighter 4 or student of war 4.
Again use Dervish Dance, but this time maneuver master lets you use effectively dirty trick in order to debilitate the enemy, and lore warden gives bonuses to CMB and CMD. Duelist lets you scale your damage more. Also, you can be an effective tripper thanks to teh Fury's fall feat.
A deviation of the above build is a Maneuver master monk 1 / aldori swordlord fighter 4 / aldori swordlord PrC 1 / aldori swordlord 3 / duelist 10 / aldori swordlord fighter 1
With such a build and crane style you can fight defensively with zero penalty to your attack rolls and a massive bonus to your AC. You can also become pretty good at disarming, especially with the equipment trick (heavy blade scabbard).
If you absolutely need to stick into core material, your best bet is probably a Fighter or a paladin. This is why you will probably TWF, and in order to do it effectively you need good accuracy and static bonuses. Fighter is the best at these against most enemies, paladin becomes devastating when he smites.
Ranger and Rogue are not as good choices, mainly because the advantage of ranger is that he can TWF by going Str-based (if you actually like it go ahead) and Rogue has many problems that needs to deal with in order top be effective (he is fragile, has low attack bonus, sneak attack is situational etc.).
@XMorsX
I really like the look of that Urban Barbarian actually and the Lore Warden build is very interesting. Might consider them for later use if my friend decides to continue DMing after running his first adventure.
The Lore Warden sounds ideal for what I want, but actually strikes me as a little too studious for the character I have in mind, at least to start with. So I have a quick question regarding archetypes (apologies if this is covered somewhere and I've totally missed it)
Does the archetype have to be picked at Level 1 or could a character started as a pure fighter then develop into one of the archetypes later?
I Think staying with the core book is an excelent idea let your friend be a GM without suggesting all sorts of extra stuff from the internet. It is not gonna help him have a good start. Play a Ranger and get urban as his first favored terrain. The archer style is very powerfull and you Can be a great with a sword and a bow. Swashbucklery is more in the attitude and less in the rules used.
fatbaldbloke wrote: @XMorsX
Does the archetype have to be picked at Level 1 or could a character started as a pure fighter then develop into one of the archetypes later?
Good to know. Unfortunately no, you cannot do that.
But bralwer makes for a decent dex-based twf too, if he is more of your cup of tea thematically.
@Cap. Darling
Was considering Ranger, as I said above they've always been a fave class of mine. However one of the other players has indicated he's very keen to try a Ranger, so I'll let him grab that.
I'll be the only long term gamer in the party really, so I'm steering the other guys toward the classes that immediately interest them from the core rules.
XMorsX wrote: fatbaldbloke wrote: @XMorsX
Does the archetype have to be picked at Level 1 or could a character started as a pure fighter then develop into one of the archetypes later?
Good to know. Unfortunately no, you cannot do that.
But bralwer makes for a decent dex-based twf too, if he is more of your cup of tea thematically. Thanks, I figured that would be the case.
The best swashbuckler type I've seen outside of the swashbuckler class is a multiclass fighter/rogue. Focusing on bluff and the feint combat maneuver with offensive defense rogue talent. To hone in on this character make it a freehand archetype fighter/swashbuckler rogue.
The character idea I have for this guy is someone who is pretty quick and agile, fairly clever and bit of a charmer. However he's prone to recklessness, not good at resisting temptation and tends to be stubborn not seeing when compromising or backing down would be the better choice. He'll probably start out with a fairly selfish streak.
I'm thinking that his backstory is that he's either a disowned son of minor nobility or disinherited son of a nouveua riche merchant family, now having to make his own way in the world. Probably having been thrown out due to having slept with or insulted the wrong person (or possibly both).
I want to grab Bluff and Sleight of Hand as skills as I think he's most likely been spending a lot of time round the more disreputable taverns and gambling dens, games of chance appealing to the reckless nature.
Keeping all that in mind what I'm looking at so far is something like this
15 point - Str:12 Dex:16 Con:10 Int:14 Wis:8 Cha:14
20 point - Str:13 Dex:17 Con:12 Int:14 Wist:8 Cha:14
Traits - Reactionary for the +2 Initiiative Bonus, Fast-Talker for the +1 Bluff bonus.
Fighter class using the Cad archetype which gives me Bluff, Sleight of Hand and some other rogue skills as class skills. Will give me the Catch off Guard feat, which Tangaroa suggested earlier, automatically at 3rd level. That feat and some of the other Cad abilities fit in nicely with my idea of him being willing to do what's needed to win a fightand not worry bout the 'honour' of it.
Starting feats would be Weapon Finesse and Combat expertise, then I'm dithering over Weapon Focus or possibly Two Weapon Fighting.
I know I might have cause to regret the low Wisdom, but I feel it fits with the personality I imagine for this character.
For your stat array, a Dawnflower Dervish Bard is a perfect fit. Great combat capability, makes use of the high Cha for spells and skills, and dumping Wis is actually a recomended option.
Human racial stat boost to dexterity
15 point - Str:12 Dex:16 Con:12 Int:10 Wis:7 Cha:14
20 point - Str:12 Dex:17 Con:14 Int:12 Wist:7 Cha:14
I would agree to the first response to this post. At my games when there's a rule in debate and it can not he settled, I immediately grab my phone and hit the messageboards. I post my question, and then I rule it as I feel it should be ruled. By the time the games up I usually have enough responses by the helpful folk here to explain to my group how it will be handled from then on out.
As for yur build, I would caution against multi classing. It was a huge benefit in 3.5 but in pathfinder it pays off to stick with a single class. Multi classing also complicates things. Its no big deal once you have a firm grasp of everything, but it may easily be done wrong by a group new to the game.
Whatever you decide to do, good luck and have fun:)
Orfamay Quest wrote: fatbaldbloke wrote:
To be honest I won't be encouraging any of the guys who are very new to RPGs to try multi-classing yet. I only do it myself if I think it fits nicely with a particular character concept I've had.
Well, at the risk of beating a greasy spot on the ground where a dead horse used to be, I'd go further and not multiclass myself, either. Lead by example. Show them that one can fit standard character classes to cover non-standard concepts, which will in turn help them to do the same.
Otherwise you run the risk of showing them the opposite. Since you're likely going to be much more effective than they are, they'll attribute your effectiveness not to the fact that you built a creative character and are playing her imaginatively, they'll attribute your effectiveness to the fact that you've got access to moar cheez and that therefore moar cheez is moar funne. May well be doing that anyway, using the Cad fighter archetype and a decent Int, I get the class skills I want and a pretty decent number of points to use on them.
Also building a Bard and a Cleric character to use just in case most of the new guys decide on fighter types.
fatbaldbloke wrote: Orfamay Quest wrote: fatbaldbloke wrote:
To be honest I won't be encouraging any of the guys who are very new to RPGs to try multi-classing yet. I only do it myself if I think it fits nicely with a particular character concept I've had.
Well, at the risk of beating a greasy spot on the ground where a dead horse used to be, I'd go further and not multiclass myself, either. Lead by example. Show them that one can fit standard character classes to cover non-standard concepts, which will in turn help them to do the same.
Otherwise you run the risk of showing them the opposite. Since you're likely going to be much more effective than they are, they'll attribute your effectiveness not to the fact that you built a creative character and are playing her imaginatively, they'll attribute your effectiveness to the fact that you've got access to moar cheez and that therefore moar cheez is moar funne. May well be doing that anyway, using the Cad fighter archetype and a decent Int, I get the class skills I want and a pretty decent number of points to use on them.
Also building a Bard and a Cleric character to use just in case most of the new guys decide on fighter types. The Cad greatly benefits from a two-lvl dip in monk of the empty hand, so that you can use as improvised weapons that can be actually enchanced.
Otherwise you will end up fighting with a chair leg when your barbarian buddy will have a +2 Furious Courageous Falchion.
Ok resurrecting my own thread.
We managed a couple of sessions of the game before it had to take a hiatus with the DM moving to a new house and getting married over the summer.
Now we're going to be restarting shortly but in the meantime we've gotten a copy of the Advanced Class Guide and the DM is happy to let me rebuild the character as a Swashbuckler, keeping the same attributes and character background.
The rest of the party include a Fighter (Half-Orc hitting things with a big lump of steel), an Elven Ranger with the Falconer archetype (the player is fan of Moredecai & Bloodwing from the Borderlands game so he's aiming for the fantasy equivalent) and either a Wizard or a Bard (the last player hasn't decided if he is respeccing or not)
I'm planning on using the Inspired Blade archetype as my character has good Int & Cha and generally I'll be operating as the party's 'Face'. I'm aiming to pick up the Leadership feat (with the DM's approval) at 7th level to see about getting a divine caster cohort.
As a bit of character fluff I'm planning to pick up a small pet/companion, something small and nimble like a cat or monkey that my character has tag along and uses to earn some coin on his travels performing tricks (and providing a distraction for some of his cheating at cards).
I was considering taking either a one level dip into Rogue with the Carnivalist archetype or a level of Wizard to get a familiar. I think I can come up with backstory reasons for either. Which dip do folks think would be the most useful?
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