| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I'm putting together a Skald/Dragon Disciple for PFS, and would like some feedback on the build. The idea was to build a versatile character who could provide party buffs, capable melee presence, knowledge skills, and social skills, who could also be halfway decent at ranged combat if necessary.
Name: Crúac Howling Void
Race: Half-Orc
Alternate Racial Traits: City-Raised, Sacred Tattoo, Skilled
Traits: Magical Knack (Skald), Fate's Favoured
Stats: Str 16 Dex 14 Con 14 Int 10 Wis 10 Cha 14, bumping Str at 4 and 8
OR
Str 17 Dex 14 Con 14 Int 10 Wis 7 Cha 15, bumping Str at 4 and Cha at 8
1: Barbarian (Savage Technologist) 1—Power Attack
2: Skald 1—Extra Performance
3: Skald 2—Versatile Performance (Oratory), Furious Focus
4: Skald 3—Rage Power (Lesser Spirit Totem)
5: Skald 4—Battle Cry
6: Dragon Disciple 1
7: Dragon Disciple 2—Bloodline Feat (Toughness), Cornugon Smash
8: Dragon Disciple 3
9: Dragon Disciple 4—Feat(???)
10: Skald 5
11: Skald 6—Rage Power (???), Discordant Voice
Key items: Belt of Giant Strength +2, +1 Courageous Furious Falchion
Key Spells: 1—Moment of Greatness, Liberating Command, 2—Acute Senses, Heroism, 3—Haste
Crúac starts out as a competent melee fighter who quickly picks up an array of combat buffs, knowledge skills, and social skills. Savage Technologist was chosen for its (IMHO) superior rage bonuses , rather than its penchant for firearms. Lesser Spirit Totem is wonderful with Raging Song, becoming progressively more powerful with each melee combatant—though Crúac's modest Charisma tames this somewhat. While I'd love to be tossing out Cacophonous Call/Piercing Shriek/Glitterdust lockdowns, Charisma won't likely be high enough to get them to reliably stick.
By level 9, Crúac hits 30 Strength while raging or under the effects of Raging Song, assuming she can get a Greater Magic Weapon spell at CL 8 from an ally (at level 10, she can cast it herself with Spell Kenning). This puts her melee attacks at +25/+18, 2d4+25. She also has the option of picking up a Furious AoMF, for +20/+18/+20, d6+19 (bite)/d4+15 (2 claws). With a +1 Adaptive Composite Longbow, she hits at +14/+9 for d8+10. Not great, but probably adequate for situations where nothing else will do.
Any advice for improving the build—stat arrays/archetypes/feat substitutions/spells/Masterpieces, etc?
+4 Str, +3 Natural Armour, and a big chunk of Hp (19, including the bonus toughness feat). BAB is something of a moot point in PFS, as long as it's above 6 and below 11. The claws/bite are more ornamental than functional compared to the build's weapon damage--certainly not worth a 2-3 feat investment. The hit to casting is a concern though.
EDIT: The BAB is actually the same as a full Skald of the same level, or a Barbarian 1/Skald 10, so no loss there.
|
Of note - with a dragon disciple build (I started doing it with a sorceror aimed at DD but the campaign died) if you have a bite attack all of the time it's a solid nat weapon build. (I went tiefling - but not more tiefling in PFS.) A half-orc can work nearly as well if you take either the trait or alternate racial trait (only give up orc ferocity) for a bite.
You can use the bite attack on charges etc, and only use the claws on full attacks. Between casting some of the time and rounds when you only get one swing, you're unlikely to run out of claw rounds. In addition, in the rounds where you get a single swing, you'd get 1.5x strength damage due to it being your only nat weapon. (since the claws aren't manifested)
With a lower BAB you get more out of a nat weapon build since you wouldn't get many iterative attacks anyway.
The other thing - I'd reccomend leaving the Cha at 14 & bring your Wis back up to 8. You can eventually get a headband to bump it up to 16 by level 8 pretty easily. Then put every stat-up into strength.