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My brother and I have a build very similar to what I will outline below, but built quit a bit less optimally. Still, we basically can't play those characters (level 7) if there are any other martials in the group, out of a sense of guilt at rendering anyone else expecting to deal damage obsolete.
I will be using standard WBL at level 13 with 20 pt. buy to showcase this build, but it really begins to come online immediately, and becomes a powerhouse by level 5. Keep in mind, the build below is actually for 2 characters in the party rather than one. Each may have some slight specialization, but that will largely come from equipment (such as having one with an adamantine rapier and the other with a Swarmbane Clasp).
Race: Human or Half-Orc. The build is feat intensive, but human is not required and the half-orc Sacred Tattoo alternate racial combined with Fate's Favored trait helps us shore up the Swashbuckler's only true weakness, their saves.
Traits: Fencer is a must. Both the fluff and the crunch fit so nicely into this build that you'll never stop being glad you have it.
Your second trait should probably be something to shore up your will save, which will suck. Fate's Favored if you went half-orc, something else for hoomans. I'd avoid reactionary, as you will have a pretty great Init mod most of the time, and frankly I don't think initiative has the importance that most people attribute to it.
Stats: DEX is most important, INT after that, CON after that. Anything else can be left by the wayside, including CHA. The inspired blade gets a minimum of 1 from CHA, even if it is dumped to 7, so getting our INT high makes us a good skill monkey out of combat. That said, if you want to be a party face I think it is also very good, considering you will then benefit from Charmed Life. Just make sure that between CHA and INT you start off with 3 panache in your pool.
STR - 10
DEX - 27 (18 +3 from levels, +6 from belt)
CON - 14
INT - 16 (14 +2 from headband)
WIS - 12
CHA - 8
FEATS:
This build is all about feats. You will get ludicrous amounts of mileage from pretty much all of these. Things in [square brackets] are from class features. If the number is, it means it's a bonus feat.
1. [Weapon Finesse: rapier, Weapon Focus: rapier], Fencing Grace
3. Combat Reflexes
[4.] Paired Opportunist
5. [Improved Critical: rapier], Seize the Moment
7. Iron Will or Broken Wing Gambit (depending on if you want to be more offensive or defensive)
[8.] Greater Weapon Focus
9. Weapon Specialization
11. Signature Deed: Opportune Parry and Riposte
[12.] Greater Weapon Specialization
13. Pretty much whatever you want at this point. Something to shore up Fort or Will is probably good, or you could do Effortless Lace and pick up Piranha Strike at some point. If you're human, you may already have Lace by now and can grab Piranha to increase your DPR madness.
GEAR:
There is a lot of flexibility here, but there are a few items you will ABSOLUTELY want.
1) Swordsman's Flair: blue scarf - make your rapier reach up to 10 feet without sacrificing melee capability, as a swift, for a minute, and it uses panache + 1 free use a day. This item will end battles before they begin, by allowing the pair of swordsmen to advance until two squares are between themselves and the enemy and readying an attack. When the enemy advances, they will provoke. You will see why provoking is suicide against this built in a bit.
2) Weapon Enhancement: Fortuitous - WOW. I didn't even know this existed until last night, and holy moly! We now get a second AoO the first time we succeed with one in a round at a -5 penalty. That penalty hurts a lot less when we have +5 from Paired Opportunist + Fencer.
3) Weapon Enhancement: heart-seeking - things with blur and displacement effects come up frequently, and negate precision damage. This negates those effects (though does not help you against things inherently immune to criticals such as elementals and oozes)
3) Celestial Armor - our DEX is through the roof, and being able to fly never hurt anyone.
4) Stat items: Dex belt is an absolute must, obviously. INT headband will be nice, or CHA if you went with that as your primary. Heck, a +2 to both could be nice.
How it works:
By getting more AoOs than anything under the sun, and using Dex to damage.
With our 10 foot reach, potentially broken wing gambit, and seize the moment on a 15-20 crit range weapon, AoOs will happen constantly. I'll use a simple example of how this could work.
Let's say it is round 1 of combat, and the Inspired Blades are up first (whoever rolled the higher initiative should ALWAYS hold until they can go at the same time, you must always be adjacent). They both use a panache to power their scarves as swift actions, and advance to leave two squares between themselves and the enemy, then ready attacks against anything coming into melee.
The enemies then advance: big mistake. When they are moving from 10 feet into melee range, the provoke. Both swordsmen take their first AoO, the one everybody gets. They then take an AoO from paired opportunist, having been triggered by their partner having taken one. The THEN get their iterative AoO from the Fortuitous enchantment at the -5 penalty (negated by feats and traits), and yet another from Paired Opportunist. Now the enemies, if they are not swiss cheese, get into melee range, where they are promptly hit by readied attacks. Oh, wow, you're still alive! Good thing our readied attacks used Broken Wing Gambit! Before the enemy attacks even get rolled, they provoke again. This leads into the paired opportunist, fortuitous, and fortuitous paired opportunist attacks again.
My goodness, are you still here? Well, then I'll simply have to use my Signature Deed, and Parry/Riposte your attack.
Keep in mind, I assumed not a single one of these attacks was a critical. With a 30% chance of critical on any given attack, the odds of an individual Inspired Blade not having had one before we try to parry is 2.8%. For both, its a 0.08% chance. On any given attack (even those on your own turn), there is a 51% chance that one of the two of you gets a crit, which begins the AoO storm.
Your damage isn't too shabby either. We are getting +8 from DEX, +4 from weapon training, +1 (at least) from our weapon, +13 precision damage, 4 from weapon specialization, and potentially another 8 from Piranha Strike (if you took it and Effortless Lace, which is really over the top at this point). I will probably come back and calculate expected damage for the outlined scenario against a CR 15 average AC (which is 30). Suffice it to say, it is a lot. Not many creatures can survive 18 attacks coming at it before it even gets to do anything.
EDIT: I just worked it out against AC 30, and even using Effortless Lace it only misses on a nat 1. Expected damage is 945 with all the AoOs and readied attacks if it is not immune to precision.
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There are some small errors above. Fortuitous can only be used 1/round, so only three AoOs between both swordsmen are guaranteed from Broken Wing Gambit in the example. The damage calculation is also slightly high, as I did not take into account the -5 penalties on the Fortuitous attacks. I think assuming use of all AoOs possible from Combat Reflexes still makes sense, given our crit range and Seize the Moment.
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That's what you have wrong. When a foe provokes against both of you through movement, you each only get one AoO. At +4 because of PO. It's not 'A gets an AoO because foe provoked, so B also gets an AoO. B now gets an AoO because foe provoked, so A also gets an AoO'. That incorrectly gives you 4 total AoOs. Incorrect. The pair of you only get a total of 2 AoOs from that single act of provocation.
PO does give the other guy an AoO, when he ordinarily would not get one. Such as when Broken Wing Gambit provokes, or when one of you confirms a critical hit.
The pair of you will get a lot of AoOs, but not nearly so many as you think. Some highly competent foes will not provoke at all. It will be a very lucky combat round when you get a combined 18 AoOs. My current record is 9 AoOs in one round.
That's what my edit was about. The PRD has some clarifying text absent on Nethys, I had never read that.
Actually, I'm not even sure Seize the Moment triggers PO any more. PO gives the partner an AoO when the enemy provokes from their counterpart. Seize the Moment says you can take another AoO when your partner crits, but never says that the enemy provoked it. Hmmm.
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I am reminded of TriOmegaZero's 10th Commandment of Optimization:
X. Thou shalt call no build "The Ultimate X" unless his name be Pun-Pun, or thou shalt see thine "Ultimate" build topped by the Bretheren within five minutes of posting.
:-)
Then they shall henceforth be called the brothers Pun-Pun.
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Would one of you mind letting me know which Feat/Ability has different text on the PRD then from Nethys? I compared a few of the Teamwork feats mentioned above, but am not finding anything.
And don't forget, if you ever see anything off on my site, you can shoot me an email (nethys@archivesofnethys.com) and I'll get it corrected asap. I may not be able to always keep up on changes or errata they make, but I can at least correct it when it's noticed. :)
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Would one of you mind letting me know which Feat/Ability has different text on the PRD then from Nethys? I compared a few of the Teamwork feats mentioned above, but am not finding anything.
And don't forget, if you ever see anything off on my site, you can shoot me an email (nethys@archivesofnethys.com) and I'll get it corrected asap. I may not be able to always keep up on changes or errata they make, but I can at least correct it when it's noticed. :)
On re-reading your version of Paired Opportunists, there is none. I apparently had simply misread the feat. I can't tell you how many times I read it, I have no idea how I consistently glossed over several clauses.
BTW, Nethys is my go to for all things character building. The organization is incredible. As long as I have you here, are there any plans to make the custom spell search have a <= or >= for the spell level field? Sometimes I want to know every spell with a given descriptor of X level and below.
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That's the idea. We've all seen munchkin builds. Pun-pun puts them all to shame. Pun-pun is the one build to rule them all. That's why it's the only 'acceptable' 'The Ultimate X' build ;-)Dear lord in heaven, that is disgusting.Here's Pun-Pun :-)
Yeah, I didn't understand the reference. I thought ToZ meant that if you're going to make a claim to ultimate power, you had to give your characters a silly name so as not to come off pompous.
That thing...I think if Asmodeus was as good a contract lawyer as Pun-Pun was rules lawyer, he would already rule everything.
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Would one of you mind letting me know which Feat/Ability has different text on the PRD then from Nethys? I compared a few of the Teamwork feats mentioned above, but am not finding anything.
And don't forget, if you ever see anything off on my site, you can shoot me an email (nethys@archivesofnethys.com) and I'll get it corrected asap. I may not be able to always keep up on changes or errata they make, but I can at least correct it when it's noticed. :)
On re-reading your version of Paired Opportunists, there is none. I apparently had simply misread the feat. I can't tell you how many times I read it, I have no idea how I consistently glossed over several clauses.
BTW, Nethys is my go to for all things character building. The organization is incredible. As long as I have you here, are there any plans to make the custom spell search have a <= or >= for the spell level field? Sometimes I want to know every spell with a given descriptor of X level and below.
There weren't any, but I can't imagine it'd be difficult to do. Shoot me an email so I can flag it on my list and I'll add it into the next site changes I make. :)
One thing to consider, if you have the feats to spend on it (4-5), is Crane Riposte, since it gives you plenty of AC just in case anything manages to get close enough to hit you, and allows you to take paired AoOs against anything that misses, and this works along with Opportune Parry and Riposte, allowing you to both attack as an immediate action and as an AoO. Since you'll likely be moving around a lot rather than standing in place to take iterative attacks, the only thing this costs you (besides the feats) is -1 to hit.
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One thing to consider, if you have the feats to spend on it (4-5), is Crane Riposte, since it gives you plenty of AC just in case anything manages to get close enough to hit you, and allows you to take paired AoOs against anything that misses, and this works along with Opportune Parry and Riposte, allowing you to both attack as an immediate action and as an AoO. Since you'll likely be moving around a lot rather than standing in place to take iterative attacks, the only thing this costs you (besides the feats) is -1 to hit.
I'll look into it. Thanks!