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So far, Lore Warden looks to be the best.
The character is essentially a sub-par soldier whose survival has been due to his luck, cowardice, and occasionally a great idea.
Design Manager
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This was posted over on the Dreamscarred Forums by PimeTaradox:
With the release of Bastards of Golarion, Fighters may have become much more powerful than before.
The culprit in question: Dirty Trick Master
Example Build:
Dirty Harry the 1/2-orc Fighter(Dirty Fighter archetype)
Half-orc qualifies for archetypes/feats/magic/whatever as 1/2-orc, human, and orc => there was a relevant ruling on that some time ago that I can't be bothered to dig up now. Anyhow, the ARG is actually pretty clear on that(humanoids qualify as whatever race they have the subtype of, 1/2-orcs are humanoid(human, orc)).
So...
15 Pointbuy: 17 STR, 12 DEX, 14 CON, 13 INT, 10 WIS, 8 CHA
1st:Endurance(Shaman's Apprentice), Power Attack, Cleave
2nd:Dodge
3rd:Mobility
4th:Spring Attack, Swap Power Attack for Whirlwind Attack; +1 STR
5th:Combat Reflexes
6th:Lunge
7th:Combat Expertise
8th:Improved Dirty Trick, Swap Combat Reflexes for Greater Dirty Trick, +1 STR
9th:Weapon Focus(any reach weapon)
10th:Greater Weapon Focus(any reach weapon)
11th:Dirty Trick Master
12th:-Open-, +1 STR
13th:-Open-
14th:-Open-
15th:-Open-
16th:-Open-, +1 STR
17th:-Open-
18th:-Open-
19th:-Open-
20th:-Open-, +1 INT
The feats from 12th level onward are non-essential to the build.
"Speedy Tricks" allows you to perform a dirty trick maneuver in place of an attack. ANY attack. You get this ability at 9th level.
You can perform a lunging whirlwind attack that applies a greater dirty trick at (9 BAB, +5 STR, +1 WF, +4 improved/greater DT, +2 maneuver training, +4 from a +1 dueling bardiche and the trait Fate's favored)..+25 CMB before buffs like Haste, Heroism, Inspire Courage etc.
Your strength score might be higher than 20 at this point -buffs like enlarge person or simple magic items to provide an enhancement bonus to STR might be available at level 9.
At level 13, each dirty trick applies TWO conditions, and each requires a seperate action to remove!
At level 17, each dirty trick applies THREE conditions, and each requires a seperate action to remove!
And the beauty of Dirty Trick Master, the final piece in this puzzle:
Once you hit someone with Nausea or Daze, they cannot take a standard action to rid themselves of whatever condition your Greater Dirty Trick inflicted, so they are practically out of the fight.
I REALLY like this! Very cool. Only downside is the orc racial requirement, which my DM can occasionally pretty reluctant to allow. I'll definitely pitch this idea to him!
...I am ready to squeal in terror.
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Design Manager
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I REALLY like this! Very cool. Only downside is the orc racial requirement, which my DM can occasionally pretty reluctant to allow. I'll definitely pitch this idea to him!
Yeah, it's one of the more awesome Fighter builds I've seen. I really love that it can basically turn a Fighter into a battlefield control / shutdown expert. You could probably get pretty close to the same build even without going half-orc, I feel like there's a trait humans can take to allow them to pick from other races goodies.
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Design Manager
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To be fair, a maneuver master monk 2 / lore warden fighter 18 with quick dirty trick is more effective than the above fighter, except maybe for the fact that you lose tour capstone if it bothers you. It can also do the dirty trick + attack right from lvl 1.
Even as a single classed fighter, the lore warden is better than the dirty trick fighter. With access to Quick Dirty Trick from the 6th lvl the 9th lvl feature of the dirty trick fighter becomes much less interesting, and the most important thing is that the lore warden recieves a scalable bonus to his CMB, so that his maneuvers are effective even at the tougher of opponents. The lack of such a bonus is teh downfall of the dirty trick fighter, and is why I see it as an NPC mostly archetype and not one for high lvl PCs.
Except the Dirty Fighter can eventually slap up to three conditions on with a single use of Dirty Trick, and he can do it with as many attacks as he wants. Quick Dirty Trick only allows you one use a round. That means you're looking at locking down one enemy, with one condition. The above Dirty Fighter is way better at taking enemies out of the fight, and keeping them out, and he can do it to multiple enemies in a single round. The Dirty Fighter is getting +2 to his Dirty Tricks from class, +4 from feats, and isn't losing the point of BAB for going Monk, so while he doesn't get quite as high a CMB as the Lore Warden, it shouldn't be much of an issue for him. When he drops a condition on someone with Dirty Trick, they're looking at staying out for the duration. Using the Whirlwind trick is something the Lorewarden can't touch, and that's a potential encounter ender.
It also has the advantage of using current materials, and not relying on an archetype from a book that has been redesigned twice in the 3 years since it was printed, dropping the Lore Warden as an option in the most recent iteration, which should make it a bit more palatable to a concerned GM, who might say "hmm, this dirty fighting Lore Warden seems a bit strong, let me research it" and stumble upon one of the primary designers of Pathfinder commenting on how it is an overpowered archetype.
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Design Manager
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Your reading is incorrect. The "Quick" feats only allow you to replace 1 attack with the listed maneuver in a given round.
Also, while you may not think Lorewarden is overpowered, the guy who wrote about a quarter of all the core materials thinks it is, took the time to explain why, and is probably the judge I would go with on that particular issue.
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Design Manager
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The guy also thinks crossbows are balanced as they are.
No need for personal attacks there LK. And to clarify that, I think they're balanced to say, a club or a sling, not to a longbow, because crossbows are simple weapons, not martial weapons, and they should be compared to other simple weapons.
**EDIT** Just occured to me that you responding to me not XM, and "the guy" you were referring to was SKR. My bad. I still stand by the response though. A crossbow is not balanced to a longbow, and from a game perspective, it shouldn't be. It's a simple weapon, and longbows are martial weapons. A longbow should be the ranged equivalent of a longsword, and a crossbow should be the ranged equivalent of a club or mace. Mission accomplished, I'd say.
As to the Dirty Fighter's ability to "keep up" with CMDs:
The one listed has between a 50% and 95% chance of success against level appropriate challenges. That's a 50% chance for an unbuffed Fighter to completely remove a same CR dragon from the fight in a single attack. Seems pretty solid if you ask me. He's even got a 95% chance at level 12 to take a creature like the CR 17 Mythic lich out of the fight with a single strike. Does he really need to have more? Is more really balanced? Against the highest CMD enemies at most levels his odds are typically right around 50%, and that's pretty damn good.
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I believe a 1/2 orc Skulking Slayer might be of interest, getting the ability to essentially get Dirty Trick on each attack in a full attack on top of normal damage, and up to a +10 bonus if he can sneak attack. The wording is a bit ambiguous on the ability, but its still great if it works how I understand it.
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Design Manager
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I believe a 1/2 orc Skulking Slayer might be of interest, getting the ability to essentially get Dirty Trick on each attack in a full attack on top of normal damage, and up to a +10 bonus if he can sneak attack. The wording is a bit ambiguous on the ability, but its still great if it works how I understand it.
Wow, that seems like it really could give someone a bad day.
I'll have more later but I kind of like the idea of combining dirty fighter with the Greater Trip/Quick Drag/Riptide attack combo.
Drag into Trip into Dirty Trick attack all in one go.
After one attack Your opponent is dragged to the place of your choice, tripped, and dirty tricked all at once. 5 feat combo altogether. Huge investment but I think worth it in a number of situations.
Also, I find any build that replaces combat reflexes with anything dubious.
Combat reflexes is easily one of the best feats written.
Use the Wolf Style featline instead imo. The second one lets you have a tripped opponent positioned anywhere around you. That's usually better than drag.I'll have more later but I kind of like the idea of combining dirty fighter with the Greater Trip/Quick Drag/Riptide attack combo.
Drag into Trip into Dirty Trick attack all in one go.
After one attack Your opponent is dragged to the place of your choice, tripped, and dirty tricked all at once. 5 feat combo altogether. Huge investment but I think worth it in a number of situations.
Also, I find any build that replaces combat reflexes with anything dubious.
Combat reflexes is easily one of the best feats written.
You still need a reliable method of getting AoO's with that ability. So greater trip is still necessary.
Same amount of feats, slightly different results. I like riptide attack since it has fairly low requirements.
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The difference between a longsword and a club is what, a dice of damage?
A damage die and a point of crit range, which are a pretty substantial step.
But again, you're comparing simple weapons to martial weapons, and there's already a whole feat separating the two just to use them.
If you look at what it would take to make a club equal to a longsword (essentially two feats improved critical, and weapon specialization)
you've actually got a lesser degree of separation between a light crossbow and a longbow (rapid reload). A Heavy crossbow with Rapid Reload and Crossbow Mastery is better than a longbow, but doesn't match up with the potential of a composite longbow. Strength to attacks is a feature of the composite longbow, and one that is paid for point by point, not a base assumption of the longbow itself. So the balances between simple weapons and martial weapons are actually very consistent, whether you're talking about a club compared to a longsword, or a crossbow compared to a longbow. There's just a further "evolution" available in the composite longbow which there isn't a direct equivalency for in the crossbow, and that's fine. A Heavy Crossbow with two feats is equal to a Composite Longbow (STR +1), and that's pretty solid for a weapon that anyone can use, compared to an advanced version of a martial weapon that has to be specially made with additional cost. It's actually a better equivalency than you're getting between the club and longsword.
So this got a bit derailed, and that is fine.
So I'm gonna drop my 2 cents here.
Pretty much after 1st level, "specially made" and "cost" typically fly out of the window.
Str to damage will always put the bow miles ahead of the xbow. Which is weird, considering SKR loves to tote simulationism with PF, but he totally forgets the part where crossbows were used to kill heavily armored dudes.
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If the game was going for realism, all crossbows and normal bows would have a Str score like a composite bow and allow that str bonus to damage with penalties if you don't have the needed strength. Crossbows in the real world have varying draw weights just like regular bows,and the heavier the draw weight the greater penetration of the arrow or bolt. The difference is if you are't strong enough to fully draw a longbow, you can't are inaccurate and won't do much damage if you do hit. If you aren't strong to cock a crossbow, you just get a tool to help you, it take a bit longer to reload and can shoot without penalty.
Historically, the reasons that crossbows were so deadly was that they had a FAR greater draw weight than an equivalent bow. They were impossible to cock by hand and had levers or winches to pull back the string. They were far easier to shoot too. The longbows advantage was in rate of fire, shot for shot, the crossbow was much deadlier.
Pathfinder isn't a simulationist game though. If you want simulation, GURPs is more than capable of giving realistic combat and bow/crossbow variances.
Use the Wolf Style featline instead imo. The second one lets you have a tripped opponent positioned anywhere around you. That's usually better than drag.I'll have more later but I kind of like the idea of combining dirty fighter with the Greater Trip/Quick Drag/Riptide attack combo.
Drag into Trip into Dirty Trick attack all in one go.
After one attack Your opponent is dragged to the place of your choice, tripped, and dirty tricked all at once. 5 feat combo altogether. Huge investment but I think worth it in a number of situations.
Also, I find any build that replaces combat reflexes with anything dubious.
Combat reflexes is easily one of the best feats written.
You still need a reliable method of getting AoO's with that ability. So greater trip is still necessary.
Same amount of feats, slightly different results. I like riptide attack since it has fairly low requirements.
With riptide you are focusing on two combat maneuvers, with wolf style only one. And to get the same benefits, you have to roll over their CMD by, like, 15. 20 with a reach weapon. I think 35 if you are large. I don't even want to start calculating if you are huge, wielding a whip, and using lunge.
To get them adjacent? Drag doesn't work that way. You move with the target regardless of reach.
Drag is there to move the target away from things. Reposition and wolf style have their uses and are often better. But I find it easier to build with Int 13 and bab rather than Int 13, bab, skill ranks I might not have, and somehow fit improved unarmed strike and wis 15 into it.
So yeah, same amount of feats for slightly diffirent results.
Ultimately we can also do it with Ki Throw which throws people into a square you threaten which is superior to wolf trip and riptide attack in different ways.
I think it's hard to argue that one is superior over the other. Largely it depends on character and desired result.
If you want to be able to drag someone off your wizard, or out of a frontline blocking a charge lane or into an area that favors you in general? Go with riptide attack.
If you want a free reposition that sucks people into you and a great flankign position with your rogue buddy? Wolf Trip.
Do you want to master your threatened area? Ki Throw.
If the game was going for realism, all crossbows and normal bows would have a Str score like a composite bow and allow that str bonus to damage with penalties if you don't have the needed strength. Crossbows in the real world have varying draw weights just like regular bows,and the heavier the draw weight the greater penetration of the arrow or bolt. The difference is if you are't strong enough to fully draw a longbow, you can't are inaccurate and won't do much damage if you do hit. If you aren't strong to cock a crossbow, you just get a tool to help you, it take a bit longer to reload and can shoot without penalty.
Historically, the reasons that crossbows were so deadly was that they had a FAR greater draw weight than an equivalent bow. They were impossible to cock by hand and had levers or winches to pull back the string. They were far easier to shoot too. The longbows advantage was in rate of fire, shot for shot, the crossbow was much deadlier.
Pathfinder isn't a simulationist game though. If you want simulation, GURPs is more than capable of giving realistic combat and bow/crossbow variances.
You are right that it isn't a simulationist game. Unfortunately, someone should have told SKR.
http://img.4plebs.org/boards/tg/image/1388/52/1388529289975.jpg
If the game was going for realism, all crossbows and normal bows would have a Str score like a composite bow and allow that str bonus to damage with penalties if you don't have the needed strength. Crossbows in the real world have varying draw weights just like regular bows,and the heavier the draw weight the greater penetration of the arrow or bolt. The difference is if you are't strong enough to fully draw a longbow, you can't are inaccurate and won't do much damage if you do hit. If you aren't strong to cock a crossbow, you just get a tool to help you, it take a bit longer to reload and can shoot without penalty.
Historically, the reasons that crossbows were so deadly was that they had a FAR greater draw weight than an equivalent bow. They were impossible to cock by hand and had levers or winches to pull back the string. They were far easier to shoot too. The longbows advantage was in rate of fire, shot for shot, the crossbow was much deadlier.
Pathfinder isn't a simulationist game though. If you want simulation, GURPs is more than capable of giving realistic combat and bow/crossbow variances.
You are right that it isn't a simulationist game. Unfortunately, someone should have told SKR.
http://img.4plebs.org/boards/tg/image/1388/52/1388529289975.jpg
The one thing I'll add to this: You CAN shoot bows incredibly fast (at least if you don't keep all your arrows in a quiver, as modern archers do), and for that it gets a cookie and would be very useful... but you probably wouldn't be able to add your full force behind each shot if you did.
The crossbow shot a Heck of a lot harder, yeah; its actually one of my favorite historical weapons, and it gets mistreated a LOT in video games. It's either interpreted as a medieval machine gun or it's the weakest weapon in whatever game it's in; it's rarely somewhere in the middle.
I feel that the crossbow's reasons for replacing the longbow are similar to the reasons the firearm replaced the everything-else: They were 1) more effective weapons, at least in terms of sheer firepower, and 2) so much easier to learn to use than the old ways. Simply put: A longbow took years of dedicated training to learn to use properly and in a soldierly way whereas training a peasant to use a crossbow took mere months, if that. I feel that D&D and Pathfinder try too hard to focus on 2) and not enough on 1), thus why they slap crossbows into the 'simple' weapon section and decide 'this weapon is inferior in every way to the bow.'
I miss the Crossbow Sniper feat from 3.5. 1/2 your DEX bonus to damage with crossbows was fair and made sense to me.
Brilliant! I forgot about that feat!
Maybe as a pathfinder equivalent feat, as a standard action you can perform a single ranged attack with a crossbow and add Dex to damage? You could flavor it as steadily aiming to strike at a vulnerable location.
Would make crossbow rogues super awesome.
Then I'd remove the crossbow mastery feat. If I'm using a crossbow. It's because I want to. Don't give me a crappy feat that turns it mechanically into a bow.
Brilliant! I forgot about that feat!
Maybe as a pathfinder equivalent feat, as a standard action you can perform a single ranged attack with a crossbow and add Dex to damage? You could flavor it as steadily aiming to strike at a vulnerable location.
Would make crossbow rogues super awesome.
Then I'd remove the crossbow mastery feat. If I'm using a crossbow. It's because I want to. Don't give me a crappy feat that turns it mechanically into a bow.
I'd probably ask for 1.5x or 2x your DEX bonus to damage with that single shot, since you're forgoing a full attack in any sense of the word, and Gunslingers already get DEX to damage for pretty much free... with a weapon that targets Touch AC, and with any and all attacks they make with their favorite gun.
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I wouldn't be opposed to a change in the Crossbow mechanics that allows for Strength ratings on the crossbow. It takes a strength check to reload a crossbow without a wench (failure means you don't reload) but a wench takes a number of rounds.
This would play out something like, a light crossbow takes a DC 5 strength check to reload, while a heavy crossbow takes a DC 10 strength check to reload. Each +1 strength increment increases the strength check by +2.
You can take Rapid Reload to fire crossbows (like it does now) but you have to make a Strength check with every shot. Failure to make a strength check stops your attacks for that round.
Enhancement bonuses would provide a cumulative +2 competence bonus when reloading which will let higher levels get reliable strength damage on the crossbows without too much worry, though they could try for higher strength bonuses if they want to risk it.
This would allow for low strength characters to reload high strength crossbows by using wenches, but it also lets those Barbarians, Fighters, Paladings etc. with high strength feel like absolute baddasses by reloading with their bare hands. Like a MAN!
It would also let things like Giants have some one-shot pre-prepared crossbows they could easily use and discard. A guy with followers might have several Crossbows that he has his minions reload with wenches while he fires.
I dunno, just a thought that crossed my mind as I was reading this. Might put more thought into it later... I'm really liking where it's going.
@TarkXT:How's drag better at getting a person off of the wizard than wolf style/how's wolf style not as good at getting people away from your guys as drag? Drag only moves the opponent 5 feet, unless you exceed the CMD by 5. Ki throw/Wolf trip gets them at least 10 feet away (if you take up more spaces because your size category is different, then more, and if your reach is longer even more than that). AND you end up between him and whoever you wanted to drag them off of (whereas with drag, you'd always end up behind them).
I can not think of a single situation Drag is better than either.
On top of that, Riptide requires yet another roll (on yet another type of maneuver), and it eats up your swift action. And while it's true that riptide has lower requirements... you can also no just bypass them by getting 2 levels of MoMS monk.
If you're bypassing requirements with two levels of another class than you're not bypassing them. You're giving something else up to meet the requirements from another direction.
In the case of dragging a guy off the wizard it makes little difference since the guy ends up prone in all three cases, only cost you an attack in all three cases. Distance is the only real difference and you only need 10ft. to do that.
However, here's the important difference. And several dozen answers to your question simultaneously.
You're focusing entirely on Trip.
Drag has every normal mechanical bonus that trip has (str, bab and bonus from trip weapons) but faces far fewer penalties. You can drag a gelatinous cube, but you can't trip it. You can drag a will-o-thewisp with surprising ease, but you can't trip it.
So, yes, drag works just fine when trip isn't a viable option. All three feats cease to function in those cases, but the riptide attack guy can still drag people around to AoO fish (or even better he can reposition).
And he can be a straight lorewarden to do that. Heck I've got a Lorewarden2/Maneuver MAster 1 who can Riptide attack right now (but I picked Fury's Fall since I wanted a bigger trip modifier). She could get Ki Throw, but given her emphasis on polearm combat rather than unarmed attacks I chose to drag first.
It's as I said, they're roughly even based on a large number of factors like character choice and such.
I have been pondering a guy just like this yet I went with the net feat line on my half orc dirty fighter. It opens up so much in terms of versatility and you will nearly always get something from a single touch attack. I'm on my phone at work so I might have to pop back onto this thread with the build later.
The dirty trick feat line, for some inexplicable reason, requires 13 Int, which I am finding enormously amusing in light of the fact that the race that has a whole fighter archetype devoted to that move is stereotypically portrayed as dumber than a bag of hammers. :)
That said, interesting stuff here.
Ghorrin