Daring Champion Cavalier for PFS

[mechaPoet]

Hey all, I was hoping to get some advice for where to take a Daring Champion build. I have the credit to start this character at level 3 with 5,700 gold, but everything is mutable. Here's what I've got so far:

CG Lady Dwarf Cavalier (Daring Champion) 3
Cavalier order: Order of the Cockatrice

Stats:
STR 13
DEX 16
CON 14 (12+2)
INT 9
WIS 9 (7+2)
CHA 14 (16-2)

Feats:
1: Weapon Focus (Dwarven Waraxe)
2: Dazzling Display (bonus feat from Order of the Cockatrice)
3: Slashing Grace (Dwarven Waraxe)

Traits:
Armor Expert?????
Charming??????

I'm not particularly sure where I would want to take the build from here. Everything is technically changeable, but I still want to make a swashbuckler-y dwarf lady who's good at fighting and flirting.

For future feats, I was looking at continuing the Dazzling Display chain, although I don't know how useful that would be. I have my strength at 13 to pick up Power Attack, but between precise strike and challenge, I don't know if I need too much extra damage for PFS. If the points don't go into strength, I imagine they'd go into Int, maybe Wis? As a dwarf, I don't need that much strength to carry my equipment anyway.

For equipment, I figured I would make use of the Daring Champion's medium armor proficiency and dwarf's non-speed reduction in armor until the nimble AC bonus actually makes a difference (mithral armor in the future?).

Any suggestions?

[DethBySquirl]

Taking the hit to speed and Charisma as a dwarf is rough. And there's no point in having 9s in two stats. If you're going to drop Int, drop it to 8, put the extra point in Wis, and avoid taking a penalty.

For traits, you'll probably want something to bump up your Intimidate.

For other feats, perhaps look at the all the Cleave oriented feats that dwarves get. Demoralizing a pack of enemies, then chewing through them all with the attack roll buff from Order of the Cockatrice could be a fun trick.

[TarkXT]

Remember you still get Tactician so that's one feat missing. I'd consider Intercept Charge myself or failing that Precise Strike.

With saves being what they are and the enhanced importance of them in PFS I'd grab glory of old as a trait.

I'd just go ahead and grab combat reflexes at 5th then power attack at 6th to fill out the bread and butter feats. After that you can start looking at feats like extra panache, steel soul, and the like.

I wouldn't bother going further down the dazzling display chain unless you really want performance feats.

[LoneKnave]

Dump CHA, just pick up extra Panache/Grit. That sets you where 16 CHA would.

[Hawktitan]

He doesn't have the feat to do that.

[mechaPoet]

I can't drop my Int to increase my Wis. The latter is only at 9 because of the racial bonus to wisdom and it would take 2 points to get it back up to 10. Perhaps the Dwarf cleave feats would be something to look into, but I don't personally own the Advanced Race Guide.

Right, I totally forgot about Tactician! I don't have my sheet in front of me, but I was still considering what Teamwork Feat to take. It was a toss up between Precise Strike and Intercept Charge. I don't know if charging is a particularly common tactic for enemies in the PFS scenarios, but it would fit the character if I got the chance to use it.

My book selection is limited, so the only traits available to me are those in the Advanced Player's Guide and the PFS Faction ones. Most likely this character would be in Liberty's Edge, and I would love to take the Rousing Oratory trait if it weren't awful compared to what I could be getting.

I might consider dumping Charisma, but it's as high as it is for the social skills generally (which can be pretty crucial in PFS), boosting Intimidate for Dazzling Display, and providing a few other minor things that the Order of the Cockatrice works off of. If I wanted more panache, I could buy a Plume of Panache, or one of the myriad other magical Panache-related items. My feats are pretty tied up for the first three levels so I can get dex-to-damage with the Dwarven equivalent of a bastard sword. :P

[LoneKnave]

Hawktitan wrote:

He doesn't have the feat to do that.

Not yet, but it's worth it for when he does.

Magic items do work as replacement though.

With 13 STR, if you put 1 more point into it, you are only 1 dmg/Hit away from the two feats you invest without investing anything. Food for thought.

[Hawktitan]

It would be an annoying two levels with only 1 panche point. If he had a larger block of GM credit I might agree.

[mechaPoet]

All right, I'm back with some thoughts.

Stats
So it looks like the stat line I actually wrote down (after Dwarf racial mods) was:
13
16
13
10
9
14

But now I'm also considering:
10
16
14
12
9
14

I'm not really sure how important Power Attach is, between Challenge and Precise Strike. I'm already doing decent damage, but I don't know how much would be needed. Ability score increases every 4th level would probably go to Dex, maybe increasing Con to 14 for the first array.

Feats
For feats, I'm looking at something like this:
1 Weapon Focus (Dwarven Waraxe), Intercept Charge (Tactician), [Weapon Finesse] (Champion's Finesse)
2 Dazzling Display (Order of the Cockatrice)
3 Slashing Grace (Dwarven Waraxe)
5 Combat Reflexes
6 Disheartening Display
7 Steel Soul? Shatter Defenses?

What's neat about the bonus Dazzling Display from my Order is that it 1) ignores the Weapon Focus prereq, A) doesn't require wielding a weapon, and i) is a standard action. I already have the Weapon Focus, though, so I though maybe I'd look further down the chain.

Enter: Disheartening Display. It looks to be one of the rare (maybe even otherwise non-existent?) options for increasing the severity of a fear condition. Yes, it requires two standard actions, but using Dazzling Display to frighten enemies at a usually low(?) DC makes it so that enemies who can be frightened won't fight back. If I really want to focus on the intimidate build, I could dip one level of Rogue for the Thug archetype to turn 4 round of shaken into one round of frightened, and then increase that to panicked. Of course, I suppose that means I would have to beat the Intimidate DC by 10, and I'm not sure how long the Rogue (Thug)'s 1 round of frightened from its Frightening ability is. Are they still frightened at the start of my turn? If I use Dazzling Display again to activate Disheartening Display, how long will they be panicked? Until the end of that "one round," which means they'll be back to normal on their turn? In any case, would Shatter Defenses work well here, extra 1d6 of sneak attack damage or not?

Of course, once they're frightened and running away, I'm not really sure how I'm supposed to catch them on my stubby little dwarf legs. Honestly, if I concentrate this much energy into an intimidate build, I might be better off going with human or half-orc. Maybe Dwarves just weren't built to be Swashbucklers (although that's kind of the point of the original concept).

Other Ideas
I can also envision this character as a Bard with the Arcane Duelist archetype. With that route, though, I wonder which of three options would be most fruitful:
-Swashbuckler 1 / Arcane Duelist 11, dipping at the first level to qualify for Slashing Grace at 3rd. Not sure how often the Swash 1 Deeds' swift actions would get in the way of the swift action for Arcane Strike...
-Arcane Duelist 12 with a Strength build--although this isn't quite the same concept, it still has some nice antitheses happening, as a Dwarf that is both charismatic AND an arcane spellcaster. Would probably still go sword & board, and due to the bonus feats, could focus on more of an anti-mage thing, picking up Steel Soul earlier. Not really sure where to go with the build there, but that's probably another thread.

Thoughts?