how are you getting imp TWF and double slice at lv6?
Drop Greater TWF, it's a waste of a feat. An extra attack at a -10 just isn't worth it.
Shadow Strike is a feat you probably want to take, as darkness will invalidate your ability to sneak attack.
You don't have Power Attack, which you really should.
Also, with a Mask of Stony Demeanor and droping your int down and raising your cha to not be so negative you don't really need Slayer's Feint, but you can go either way with it.
Your 3rd Ranger Style feat that you'll pickup should be two weapon rend.
how are you getting imp TWF and double slice at lv6?
Combat Trick to pickup Double Slice?
I didn't tell you to get Two Weapon Rend at 8. I told you to get it as the third combat style feat that you could get. Which would be at level 10 as you note. Instead of GTWF.
Why would you think I was telling you to get it at level 8.
Also, I think you might be confused about how the bonus talent thing is working.
It gives you a bonus talent sure, at 6th level. But you have to choose a talent to use it with. At 6th level you already are using Ranger Combat Style talent twice (the most you can use it at this level, and cannot again until level 10) to get TWF and Improved TWF. You can't use it to pick up double slice at the same level. Because that would require using using the style feat 3 times, which you cannot at this level.
God I always forget about combat expertise. Damn that shitty trap feat.
Combat Expertise is the reason I never get Moonlight Stalker on a Stygian Slayer...
Looks pretty good, except I think you can only take the Combat Trick Rogue Talent once.
Hopefully someone else can confirm or refute that.
And, i mention this because you level second level 6 feat and your level 8 feat both appear to be coming from Combat Trick, even though you are calling the level 8 one Combat Talent.
I'm trying to think of how you should reorder you feats, and what you need to change around. But nothing obvious is jumping out at me.
I made a similar character, and I think I honestly abandoned the Sawtooth Sabers because I couldn't make the build work with them and instead used Kukris. If you do that though, you definitely want to build in Improved Critical though.
Correct, you can only do the combat Trick rogue talent once.
Claxon, I think you are right about the Combat Trick, because the Talent lacks the following setence:
"Special: A rogue can pick this talent more than once."
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/rogue/rogue-talents/paizo---ro gue-talents/ninja-trick-ex
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/rogue/rogue-talents/paizo---ro gue-talents/combat-trick
Alright, so I think have some recommendations to further improve the loadout here now that you've rearranged things.
1 EWP Sawtooth Sabre
1 Two Weapon Fight (You don't need Weapon Focus this early. It's a good feat to have, and you need it later I think but if your goal is to TWF you might as well start early.)
2 Trapfinding only if traps are something showing up in the adventure. This will depend on your GM's game style, but only pick it up if you must. Otherwise I would recommend picking up Double Slice as your first Combat Style Feat
3 Power Attack - You are only taking combat expertise because it is a prereq, you don't need it this early
4 Slayer Talent Rogue Trick Weapon Training (Weapon Focus), or Combat Style TWF depending on earlier choices
5 Fit in anything you missed earlier, possibly combat expertise here
6 Second Ranger Combat Style Improved Two Weapon Fighting and Improved Two Weapon Feint from bonus talent combat trick
These are just early level recommendations to get your build to come together sooner. Your main focus is that you are a two weapon fighting focusing on dealing damage, and you're working to get sneak attack damage on top of it.
A dex of 15 is enough for the TWF fighting feat. You said you had 15 dex in your original post.
As far as affording two, it's only 70 gold. Not that it's insignificant at level one, but you do start with an average of 175 gp.
I've played through Skull and Shackles, and there aren't a whole lot of traps. I wont go into too much detail, the only notable trap I recall being a problem is one on the first ship you're on. And at level 1 you don't have a chance to disable it. I don't recall any other traps coming up for several levels.
Honestly, my group made it through Skull and Shackles completely without anyone having trapfinding or a similar ability. Perception works just fine to find a trap, and then you just have to be a bit more carefully about how you get rid of it.
Typically a wand of mount and sending the poor creature to death was our method.
So how come with this whole thread no one mentioned the achekek faithful fighting style? Allows me to take imp two weapon feignt without needing combat reflexes.... Or improved two weapon fighting..... But hey!
What's it even from? I'm not familiar with it. And probably because it requires worshipping a specific deity, and while it does work for your character usually I avoid such very specific recommendations.
Inner sea gods, it's red mantis themed I don't plan on doing the prestige class but still, looks awesome. But I understand your reasoning I wasn't speficlly asking for RMA presige advice.
Note that if you take the Faithful combat style you cannot get Imp. TWF as a bonus feat meaning you'll need to meet the 17 Dex requirement.
I still like it better since then you're only wasting gold on getting a +2 Dex added to your strength belt instead of burning a feat tax on Combat Expertise, but you have to decide which you think is the worse tax.
For the record, you can make Sawtooth sabers DEX based if you want with slashing grace. Takes some dipping, but could be worth it.
If you want to follow achekek more... faithfully, there's a warpriest archetype devoted to him. May be worth it.
I tried to build an all dex based character who did the sawtooth saber thing with a dip in swashbuckler and slashing grace, but I found the build too feat starved to achieve what I wanted it to at the levels I wanted. Besides, he still needs at least 15 strength for power attack (as piranha strike wont work with non-light weapons).
If he trades kukris for the sawtooth sabers it can work out okay.
I think you are better off just taking levels in crimson assassin at 7 th level on. sabre fighting and their spell list is pretty strong. it is well worth taking weapon focus and upping your chr. to 12
Problem with kukris is that you can't get Slashing grace with them.
You could mix it up and take power attack as your ranger style feat. I don't know what you'd take as your later style feats (they are kinda meh), but you could just dip 2 levels of slayer for that.
Right, right. Yeah. It's coming back to me now.
The dex based TWF build is just too difficult to accomplish. The level dip plus the extra feat just pushes everything you want back too far (for my taste). In my opinion it's just much easier to start with 15 dex and pump it up with a belt to meet the other requirements that will come up later on.
STR: 18 (16+2 from human) DEX: 15 CON: 14 INT: 10 WIS: 12 CHA: 7
Not to mention it much easier to increase strength instead of dex with enlarge person and other magic. There isn't much that increases dex (that also stacks with the belt).
Yeah, but on a slayer build thats trying to get in the feinting feats and two weapon fighting feats and everything else it just doesn't work so well in my opinoin. It sounds good, but honestly isn't really that worth it. You shouldn't bother with Greater Two Weapon Fighting and everything else only requires 17 dex. With the stats I showed you can only be down by 1 at the start of the character, and since you're not two handing you don't multiply the strength modifier so it doesn't becoming significant to rounding.
Slayer just requires a significant focus on the class to keep the relevant abilities coming and growing. Studied Target and the extra bonus feats through talents just aren't worth it in my opinion.
You could have this if you wanted to go dex based:
STR: 13 DEX: 20 (18+2 from race) CON: 12 INT: 10 WIS: 12 CHA: 7, you need the strength for power attack with non-light weapons.
Or be slightly more well rounded and have 18 dex and raise con and/or wis. But then you haven't really improved over the strength based version, and it costs extra feats.
I'm saying that the level dips and trying to get dex to damage aren't worth it. What you gain isn't worth what you lose.
Just go straight slayer and focus on strength, starting with a 15 dex. You can use items too boost your dex up to 17 later to qualify for more feats. If this isn't for PFS I would recommend you can buy the belt of strength (and later con) and just buy the ioun stone that provides +2 to dex. It's less expsensive than trying to raise all three and you really don't need more than 17 dex.
At stabinthedark, I think I can answer and say that yes, Two Weapon Feint is integral for getting Sneak Attack often.
I see what happened, when I said:
"Studied Target and the extra bonus feats through talents just aren't worth it in my opinion."
I missed typing the word losing.
Hmm... How interesting. I never thought I could include myself for gang up.
I can't get that thread to come up, the server says its busy.
But unless there is some sort of official concensus that you get to qualify for your own ally in the case of gang-up I would say it falls under the part of the FAQ (that relates to counting as your own ally) under the "does not make sense" part. The feat was written with the intention of forcing you to have to other people around the creature to use it with, not to let you flank from anywhere. At least as I understand it.