So, I personally don't like spells and I'm going to be playing a game with people that don't optimize, so I'd like to try something unorthodox and be a character with no spells.
Now, I generally feel that "Pathfinder = spells or go home," so, I understand I am sacrificing a lot of power here, but I'd like to give it a shot. I don't mind any kind of supernatural powers, spell like abilities, or anything like that, just no actual spellcasting.
I already know plenty about Superstitious Barbarians and Gunslingers in general, so, unless you've got something especially unusual (like, say, a Dex based barbarian or something), those are not necessary.
Keep in mind, this has to be an all around useful character, which includes some level of survivability.
The stat array is 17, 16, 15, 14, 13, 12. Everything in the SRD is legal except obvious stuff like Leadership.
What would be the best all around? I'm actually considering that it might be a Monk (GASP!) with Pummeling Style. What do you think?
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My current favourite non-spellcasting character is brawler(Shield Champion + Winding Path Renegadge(Air) 17 Monk(Maneuver Master) 2 Swashbuckler(Musketeer) 1. Worship Rovagug to get the combo: Shield Bash->BullRush(Free and does STR in damage)->Trip(Free)->AoO(From Greater Trip) then continue Shield Bash->Bull Rush and hope for a crit so you can get another free shield bash. The build gives you a ton of battlefield mobility, and a ton of attacks. It requires a lot of feats, but that's what you use martial versatility and the maneuver master dip for.(flurry of maneuvers stacks with brawler's flurry by the way) It doesn't actually do a lot of damage unless your strength is ridiculous. The Swashbuckler(Musketeer) dip is just a placeholder because it let's you use rapier's and Musket's very well with martial flexibility(as backup weapons). Human(+2 in str) is suggested as this requires a lot of feats and the stats would probably go Str 17; Con 14; Dex 16; Int 12; Wis 13; Cha 15
Investigator has an archetype that trades out it's extracts I think. Super good at skills and has some decent combat options.
slayer is good, 6+int skills and full BAB and free feats and more stuff.
Bloodrager has an archetype for no spells.
Paladin has an archetype for no spells.
Ranger has an archetype for no spells.
For a low/no-magic game I'm a big fan of the Tetori Monk archetype, personally.
It's even better if you take it as an Oread and devote enough race feats to get Oread Earth Glider (wanna get to that spellcaster? Just burrow past all the melee/difficult terrain/etc, pop up, and grapple him out of the fight!).
Guide/Skirmisher Ranger is one fierce combatant.
With those stats, a Two Weapon Warrior Fighter with just enough dex for Improved TWF and Two Weapon Rend could be dangerous, since they get the ability to strike with mainhand and offhand (and eventually rend) with a standard action.
A Monk with that stat array can't complain. I find Pummeling Style kind of boring in and of itself and not as powerful as people seem to think (other than Pummeling Charge), but a Sohei could exploit Pummeling Charge for the pounce, while otherwise Power Attacking with a weapon in two hands - maybe with Hurtful to get extra 1.5STR two-handed smacks in even after charging.
The Monk of the Seven Winds is also an interesting candidate for mixing things up while using Pummeling Charge, and it gets pretty intense when you can mimic 'dance of a hundred cuts' without magic for a blur of fist and blade.
EDIT: Oh yeah, and of course Swashbuckler 1 / Monk X, Slashing Grace: Temple Sword...
Alchemist. : D
Spelleater bloodrager archer. Up your dex, not your strength and use rage for cool abilities and to deal more damage once you can afford an adaprive bow.
Sure the spelleater HAS spells but he doesn't have to use them for anything but swift action self heals.
Arcane, for example, might be neat. From level 4 on you get constant blur while raging, from level 8 on haste or displacement (depending on how you read displacement it could protect from AOOs).
Aberrant gives an on crit ability that seems to work on ranged attacks, too and the increased range can help keep melees away by tripping them if they get near. Just add a weapon (or IUS) to threaten with the bow in hand.
Elemental (air) gives a fly speed which allows you to take the hover feat and rain death from the sky. But some other abilities are only for melee.
TL;DR I think a bloodrager can make a decent archer and can be played without using spells.
I second Zen Archer though I would at lest pick up Barkskin from Qinggong.
No spell casting? That eliminates Paladins right there.
I think there are two archetypes that lose spellcasting.
Investigator has an archetype that trades out it's extracts I think. Super good at skills and has some decent combat options.Which archetype?
The Sleuth and the Spiritualist archetypes replace alchemy. I guess he was referring to the sleuth.
The Sleuth gains deeds fuelled by luck, some of them combat relevant. And the Spiritualist gains some occult abilities.
Huntmaster Cavalier- full BAB teamwork and a pack of dogs or hawks to carry out pack tactics.
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My noble rake
3 lore warden, rest Rogue Rake. Feat tree includes catch off guard, shatter defenses, sap master, eventually getting improvised weapon mastery.
Uses a cane made of adamantine as an improvised weapon. Intimidate to cause a shaken condition, then shatter defenses for flat footed, sap master till unconscious. For an added item talk the gm into making a mithril sword cane have an adamantine housing to kill anything too dangerous to bring back alive.
Variants add maneuver master 2 for dirty trick (blind) a little umd and a wand of true strike youll rarely if ever miss the cmd.
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What would be the best all around? I'm actually considering that it might be a Monk (GASP!) with Pummeling Style. What do you think?
Just embrace that a Monk's damage is poopoo. Grabbing Pummeling Style for them is a waste, and there are better styles out there. Unarmed isn't really worth it, unless you are mixing Monk and Druid for Colossal unarmed damage(late in the game though).
As a Monk, I'd focus on Defense and Control - It's worked out incredibly well for me in the past. With this build, the best Offense truly IS the best Defense.
I'd like to recommend my Qinggong-Flowing Monk build:
You'll want 1 Crusader Cleric level(probably at level 3), so you can take Crusader's Flurry and get the bonus feat of Weapon Focus with that weapon. I'd recommend an Elven Curve Blade(ideal) if you can get it, a Spiked Chain(Hembad), or Something else with a high crit range if you cannot obtain something One-Handed or Two-Handed. This Cleric level is both to give the flavor of a Monk with his favorite and familiar weapon, and his fists as a great and still strong backup. It also serves it's mechanical purpose. Plus the Domain of Luck can be used for yourself(re-rolling all d20 rolls is ludicrously strong) or a teammate that's having a tough time, or Repose can be combined with Conductive at some point to stagger... everything ever.
Qinggong-Flowing Monk the rest of the way.
Abilities Gained:
1 - Redirection, Flurry of Blows, Improved Unarmed Strike, Weapon Finesse, Improved Trip, Combat Reflexes
2 - Evasion, Unbalancing Counter
3 - Crusader's Flurry, Aura, Channel Energy, Domain(Luck or Repose), Orisons, Weapon Focus(weapon)
4 - Flowing Dodge, Maneuver Training, Still Mind
5 - Snake Style, Ki Pool(magic), Power Attack
6 - Elusive Target(1), Barkskin
7 - Snake Sidewind, Stand Still
8 - Ki Pool(cold iron/silver), Ki Stand
9 - Snake Fang
10 - Improved Evasion
11 - Stunning Fist, Ki Pool(lawlful), Tripping Strike
12 - Elusive Target(2)
13 - Elusive Redirection, Ki Leech
14 - Diamond Soul
15 - Punishing Kick, Repositioning Strike
16 - Volley Spell
17 - Ki Pool(adamantite)
18 - Diamond Body, Quivering Palm
Dex/Wis based.
It's wise to only focus on one style tree, as Monks are rather feat-starved.
To start, always carry potions of Mage Armor or have someone casting it on you. I'm not sure if you can acquire potions of Shield, but that'd be nice too. Always quaff one of these at the start of every battle. That plus whatever magical items you have, plus Flowing Dodge, plus Ki, plus Fighting Defensively, plus your Dex/Wis, plus Barkskin, should all be enough to keep your AC relatively high in the longrun and shortrun. Tripping will serve you and others well for at least until mid-level(10 ish, at which point you'll have Snake Fang). Trip will still serve it's purpose even after, just more than likely less often than the previous levels. Prone enemies help you and your teammates by both keeping them still, providing AoO(in which Unbalancing Counter can Flat-Foot them), making them way easier to hit, and making it harder for them to hit you. Redirection has huge advantages, if you succeed the maneuver. Trip is one, and self-explanatory - The other is Reposition. Reposition can straight up foil an opponent's full attack or one single BIG attack, and becomes even easier to succeed if they are charging or using power attack. To top it off, they'll be sickened afterwards for several rounds. You'll always have Snake Style to help with AC once per round, so keep that sense motive high! Also, Flowing Dodge always helps AC depending on how many surround you. Once you have Snake Fang you'll be dishing out a LOT of AoOs, and each one of those can flat-foot a foe. Evasion and Improved Evasion speak for themselves, and help with avoiding even more damage! Elusive Target is absolutely hilarious, especially in combo with Elusive Redirection - You can make opponents stab themselves in the face... or at the worst, make them stab the opponent flanking you or anywhere within their reach. Also, SR that can potentially help you reflect a spell back onto the user. The best thing about all of this, is most of the Flowing Monk's DCs are REFLEX based; so you should be seeing at least a 50% success rate, as compared to the 25% success rate of Fort DCs.
Sorry for the wall of text :D It's just exciting to talk about and share.
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Just embrace that a Monk's damage is poopoo. Grabbing Pummeling Style for them is a waste, and there are better styles out there. Unarmed isn't really worth it, unless you are mixing Monk and Druid for Colossal unarmed damage(late in the game though).
I cannot disagree with this more. Pummeling Style and Pummeling Charge make unarmed damage viable and basically make the monk a full-BAB class.
The crit mechanics of the feat mean that you have a better crit chance on all attacks that hit than you would if you could stack keen and improved critical like back in 3.0. This is even better if you are a Hungry Ghost and live off crits. The clustered shots portion is just gravy.
While a dex based flowing monk can be effective, a STR based monk with pummeling style is deadly.
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Just embrace that a Monk's damage is poopoo. Grabbing Pummeling Style for them is a waste, and there are better styles out there. Unarmed isn't really worth it, unless you are mixing Monk and Druid for Colossal unarmed damage(late in the game though).I cannot disagree with this more. Pummeling Style and Pummeling Charge make unarmed damage viable and basically make the monk a full-BAB class.
The crit mechanics of the feat mean that you have a better crit chance on all attacks that hit than you would if you could stack keen and improved critical like back in 3.0. This is even better if you are a Hungry Ghost and live off crits. The clustered shots portion is just gravy.
While a dex based flowing monk can be effective, a STR based monk with pummeling style is deadly.
Ah, yes you are correct. I can't say it's truly a "Waste" as I previously stated. that was rather harsh of me. It does make Unarmed more viable, and especially helps with DR, and hopefully getting the one-crit-to-rule-them-all for your unarmed strikes; even though it just makes all of your actual hits a crit, rather than making every hit connect. A str based Monk wielding a One-Handed or Two-Handed weapon would still be stronger, though, and free up the Neck slot.
It still isn't worth it, unless you are going for a purely Unarmed Build - Then it's a necessity(as I've found with my moms/sacred fist).
I can only see Pummeling Charge worth it if you are MoMS and you can combine Dragon Style with it, or somehow otherwise wade through magical and non-magical difficult terrain and allies.
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I can only see Pummeling Charge worth it if you are MoMS and you can combine Dragon Style with it, or somehow otherwise wade through magical and non-magical difficult terrain and allies.
Feather Step Slippers are cheap, and allies can be trained to keep charge lanes open.
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Feather Step Slippers are cheap, and allies can be trained to keep charge lanes open.I can only see Pummeling Charge worth it if you are MoMS and you can combine Dragon Style with it, or somehow otherwise wade through magical and non-magical difficult terrain and allies.
Does those work in both Magical and Non-Magical terrain?
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For the duration of this spell, the subject ignores the adverse movement effects of difficult terrain, and can even take 5-foot steps in difficult terrain.
Magical, non-magical, doesn't matter. If it's difficult terrain, you can ignore it.
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For the duration of this spell, the subject ignores the adverse movement effects of difficult terrain, and can even take 5-foot steps in difficult terrain.Magical, non-magical, doesn't matter. If it's difficult terrain, you can ignore it.
Ooooooh snap! I was definitely under the impression this was only applies to non-magical difficult terrain. That makes this a necessity for me! Woo.
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I think Winding Path Renegade brawler might have already been mentioned, but I feel it's a winner. You get a handful of handy monk abilities on demand, and you can grab style feats like Pummeling Style and Pummeling Charge. From there you are a versatile and mobile warrior who can adapt to situations easily and still has the mobility that comes with fast movement and high jump.
In other words a monk with full BAB and whatever feats he wants whenever he wants.
Just embrace that a Monk's damage is poopoo.
"Poopoo" isn't the word I'd use to describe potential of a weapon Monk making a whole pile of full-BAB two-handed Power attacks with a full attack action. Losing a couple points of ab and damage is hardly a heavy price for 2/3 extra strikes when you're doing 20+ with a hit. There's also nothing stopping a weapon Monk from using an unarmed Pummeling Charge when convenient, if so inclined.
I really like the stonelord Paladin, if you're open to being a dwarf. It gets no spells at all. You're super tough and you get defensive stance which I think is cool.
The thing that really makes the class stand out to me, though, is that you get an earth elemental side kick. He starts out CR1, but I think many people overlook just how sweet his abilities are. As a small earth elemental he has int 4 and speaks Terran, so you can pick that language up and have a chat with him. He has earth glide which has some amazing potential to let him sneak under gates and open them for you, or anything else like that you can think of. And perhaps most importantly, at level 5, your little buddy has Tremorsense 60. Deaf oracles get tremorsense 30 at level 15, dwarves have to spend 2 feats and wait until level 10 to get tremorsense 10. Have him inform you of literally everything connected to the ground in the area. Tell him to give you a hollar if he senses any hidden passageways, buried treasure, or subterranean beasts.
That's my next character.