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As the title says, I'm curious as to what people think on this subject. While the reach cleric is a popular build in these parts, thanks to the option of buffing oneself while still having attacks of opportunity in spades for offense, I'm wondering which Martial classes with full BAB tend to get the most out of reach tactics, so having some limited-resource to expend when moving positions or not preparing an attack works out.
Just going to say, I played a Reach Bloodrager and only good things came from it.
All the rage of a Barbarian, lots of buffs including Long Arm and Enlarge Person, and several really good bloodline abilities like a sorcerer.
The fighter archetypes Polearm Master and Phalanx Soldier get some nice reach bonuses, however Phalanx Soldier is much more defensive. Polearm Master gives you options to counter enemies getting inside your reach and other decent reach features.
If you want to get dippy, Swashbuckler 1 with Phalanx 3+ can have dex to attack and damage with a slashing polearm while wielding a shield, which is pretty nice for getting super high numbers of AoO.
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Sohei Monks are great reach weapon specialists. The ability to flurry polearms, combined with early access to mounted skirmisher make you a mobile melee battle platform, while retaining IUS to threaten adjacent if needed.
Dragoon Fighter is also great, with the best weapon training available, banner, and the ability to threaten adjacent via spinning lance.
Both need animal ally/boon companion to get the mounts they should have though.
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I haven't run one yet - but I think that a manuver focused brawler (brawlers are probably now the king of manuvers due to having nearly fighter level feats along with inherent bonuses and not needing an Int of 13) who is primarily unarmed but carries a longspear would be pretty handy. The longspear would be to give manuver AOOs and to keep casters from 5ft stepping away to cast.
Sohei Monks are great reach weapon specialists. The ability to flurry polearms, combined with early access to mounted skirmisher make you a mobile melee battle platform, while retaining IUS to threaten adjacent if needed.
Dragoon Fighter is also great, with the best weapon training available, banner, and the ability to threaten adjacent via spinning lance.
Both need animal ally/boon companion to get the mounts they should have though.
Ah, sohei is certainly a fine choice, even if you do not get an animal companion. I know they are not exactly true full BAB, but they get enough bonuses from weapon training and gloves of dueling that they can still hit extremely well with their AoOs.
If you grab lunge, then the sohei can full attack anything in a 45' circle, which should allow a lot more flurries.
Cavaliers. Reach helps hit thing from horseback. Or camelback, if you like charging into battle and...spitting. Anything that can gain a bite attack does good too, since they can kinda ignore the one penalty of reach weapons.
Cavaliers. Reach helps hit thing from horseback. Or camelback, if you like charging into battle and...spitting. Anything that can gain a bite attack does good too, since they can kinda ignore the one penalty of reach weapons.
There's actually something I want to try eventually, and that's an Honor Guard of the order of the shield using a reach weapon, Stand Still, and Intercept Charge to prevent any opponent from reaching and attacking the party.
Cavaliers. Reach helps hit thing from horseback. Or camelback, if you like charging into battle and...spitting. Anything that can gain a bite attack does good too, since they can kinda ignore the one penalty of reach weapons.There's actually something I want to try eventually, and that's an Honor Guard of the order of the shield using a reach weapon, Stand Still, and Intercept Charge to prevent any opponent from reaching and attacking the party.
stand still is adjacent squares, unfortunately.
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Fighter? Lol.
You even have all those free combat feats to persue improved maneuvers.
Lets say fighter drrinks a potion of enlarge person before he gets to business.And has combat reflexes. Said giant charges the fighter, provoking aoo for movement.
"I trip the giant. Because I have greater trip, I get an aoo as the giant comes down. I disarm the giant's club with greater disarm and put it 15 ft away from the giant."
Giant stands up, takes an attack of opportunity. If giant does not, on the fighters turn he gets full attacks on a prone, unarmed giant.
Another one:
Half orc paladin with beast rider and combat reflexes. Stegosaurus companion. Anytime an enemy provokes an aoo (ie by movement), both the paladin and his stegosaurus mount lash out. The stegosaurus has a chance to trip on hit, so there may be cases of a prone foe.
Fighter? Lol.
You even have all those free combat feats to persue improved maneuvers.
Lets say fighter drrinks a potion of enlarge person before he gets to business.And has combat reflexes. Said giant charges the fighter, provoking aoo for movement.
"I trip the giant. Because I have greater trip, I get an aoo as the giant comes down. I disarm the giant's club with greater disarm and put it 15 ft away from the giant."
Giant stands up, takes an attack of opportunity. If giant does not, on the fighters turn he gets full attacks on a prone, unarmed giant.
Another one:
Half orc paladin with beast rider and combat reflexes. Stegosaurus companion. Anytime an enemy provokes an aoo (ie by movement), both the paladin and his stegosaurus mount lash out. The stegosaurus has a chance to trip on hit, so there may be cases of a prone foe.
I also like to throw on some decent roles with the feats. Cornugon smash and Riving strike gets your party's Save or Die wizard to love you since you can make enemies take a -4 to saves when you smack them in the head.
Works well for reach if you have lunge due to the 45' wide circle thing. A full attack gives you plenty of chances to get those hits in and get that intimidate check in.
Sure, anyone can pull all that off with the right feats, but fighters get it in early, which is generally nice.
How about Paladin? Probably not the champion of benefiting from reach, but still should be pretty good, and while you don't have a Cleric's spells, you do have some spells, some of which are pretty good (for instance, Litany of Sloth to shut down your opponent's reach user or tripper for long enough let your own martials and Sneak Attackers get into position without getting reach AoO'd). You also get Smite Evil to use on AoO's if the big bad tries to get past you to your squishier members, and if teleporting Fiends are giving you trouble with getting by you anyway, you can eventually swear an Oath against them and make this a lot harder for them. Lay on Hands and Channel also aren't too shabby to have available in between AoO's. (Now if only you had some way to apply Smite Evil benefits to Combat Maneuvers, this would be really awesome.)
For a non-spellcasting full BAB character who wants to go the Combat Maneuver AoO route, shouldn't Lore Warden be really good? You get CMB increasing faster than full BAB, which should keep you in business doing Combat Maneuvers even after monster CMD would render most other Combat Maneuverers largely ineffective, and the bonus to your own CMD is also very nice. You get more Skill Points than a Cleric, too. You get worse armor, but you're going to want your Dexterity through the roof anyway, and not having to pump Wisdom or Charisma saves you Ability Score Points for all 3 physical Ability Scores, plus enough to get your Intelligence to 13 (14 if you want another Skill Point per level) for all those feats that need it.
EDIT: Ninja'd!
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Lets go for it, we try not to dump stat.
Nameless half orc fighter (polearm master lv 7)
Str 19 (insert racial bonus here, +2 str belt, all stat additions here)
Dex 14
Con 14
Int 14
Wis 10
cha 10
traits: reactionary, sacred tattoo
Of course you could dump cha to 7..but lets not go into that, shall we.
lv 1: combat expertise, combat reflexes
lv 2: power attack
lv 3: improved trip
lv 4: improved disarm
lv 5: weapon focus (favourite polearm)
Lv 6: greater trip
lv 7: greater disarm
Hill giant is CR 7, CMD of 24. Lets go.
Our fighter has a +1 magic weapon. Comeon, that ain't too much to ask for.
Enlarged so you can catch aoos, here is the cmb : 7(Bab), +5(str, enlarge person gives +2 str), + 1 (wep focus polearm), +1 (wep training) +1 size(enlarge) +1 steadfast pike (its an aoo)+4 from improved and greater trip -2(power attack)
Total +18 to beat cmd 24. 30% chance of failure. Not too bad.
Once he is on the ground, its +18 to beat cmd 20(penalties and bonuses to ac apply to cnd as well for disarm), so 10% failure chance.
I also tried to minimise splat book use(yes, fury's fall, I'm looking at you), and not dump stats. Some would happily dump cha to 7, drop int to 13 so as to use fury's fall better with starting dex of 16. And I used no fancy ioun stones that would give +1 to attack which cost 4k gp.
And yes, lorewardens would be even better, but lone knave asked for a baseline fighter. Nothing wrong with a poleaem master, you still do lots of dmg when you aren't tripping things.
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Bloodrager is tempting, and a whip-using Swashbuckler sounds like loads of fun.
How quickly would the Swashbuckler "Come Online" with that build? I'd have to either go with a half-elf, a half-orc or a human to pick up proficiency with the whip, then grab weapon focus as the first feat in order to have the prerequisites for Slashing Grace and Whip Mastery. I'd pick up one of those with the 3rd level feat and the other at 4th level, and lastly pick up Greater Whip Mastery in order to threaten. Add on top of this that I'd still need combat reflexes. Unless I'm missing something, this is a build that 'comes online' at 7th level, in which case, no thank you.
Lastly, one thought that's come to my mind is an Urban Barbarian, I could use the controlled rage to bump up dexterity and/or strength, giving more AoO's and AC, or better to-hit and damage bonuses.
Mysterious Avenger has Whip proficiency as a Swashbuckler. That means you could be human, have Whip Proficiency AND have Whip Finesse at level 2. That gives you level 1 weapon focus Whip and Combat Reflexs. Level 3 gives you Whip Mastery/Slashing Grace...but you lose your 4th level feat so you still need to grab Combat reflexes and Greater Whip Mastery...so you still come online at level 7 :(
Whips are so expensive to use as Dex weapons, that is for sure.
My vote goes Bloodrager for maximum reach shenanigans (At level 11 you can get something silly like 20ft from being large with a reach weapon, 5ft from raging (with a Rage power), and 10 extra from Combat Patrol for a grand total of 35ft of reach.
Even earlier when you have to burn a turn on casting Enlarge person, around level 5 you still have 20ft of reach, 5ft from being a Bloodline with more reach (Or Arcane bloodline for all their goodies >_>), and combat patrol for 5 more feat. So you still manage 30ft of threatened area.
Or go for a Paladin, a reach paladin who also goes for some Body Guard shenanigans would be pretty powerful. Or an Honorguard Cavalier.
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Enlarge person I think is one of those things you want in potion form. So you can drink it quickly. I think the point about reach weapon users is to get people to come to you, so you can capitalise on the aoos, granting *extra* attacks per round. Extra reach is very helpful. Not to mention a tripping defensive line against ground based melee beatsticks. I don't like dex based combat maneuver characters as they take penalties when they try to increase their reach via enlarge. Also feat taxes for weapon finesse/slashing grace. It's easier to booststr then dex via magic, boosting dex may screw your reach as well (reduce person).
Reach barbarian is cool too once youre using unexpected strike, come and get me.But I think fighter is better as they actually have the feats to invest in combat maneuvers.
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I would say lorewarden fighter is my first choice, for obvious reasons, then I would argue that the magus comes in second with spell strike + lunge + spell lunge. That's base 20, 25 with enlarge person. Empowered intensified maxamized acidic shocking grasp anyone? With a spell storing weapon you could land 2 of them in one hit lol.
If you go with the whip build, a level of warpriest is a great dip. You get proficency, weapon focus, and a damage upgrade.
Warpriest gets whip proficiency? I never found where it says that.
I would say lorewarden fighter is my first choice, for obvious reasons, then I would argue that the magus comes in second with spell strike + lunge + spell lunge. That's base 20, 25 with enlarge person. Empowered intensified maxamized acidic shocking grasp anyone? With a spell storing weapon you could land 2 of them in one hit lol.
How do you get Magus to work with a Reach weapon without a heavy feat tax to get Whip Mastery or something like that? Magus (except Skirnir) needs to have a hand free (for spellcasting), which is normally incompatible with Reach weapons.
Only if Mythic Sweeping Strike stacks with Vital Strike, otherwise it would be a awesome way to play reach. Paizo should really look into fixing vital strike...
How about the good old fighter?
The reason they work so well with reach is that when you stack weapon training with maneuvers, a maneuver fighter with a reach weapon is absolute dynamite, and still retains a mass of DPR to dish out with it. Rack up Combat Patrol with it, and you have a mobile deadly trip/disarm/reposition machine that pounds out the DPR with it.
I would say lorewarden fighter is my first choice, for obvious reasons, then I would argue that the magus comes in second with spell strike + lunge + spell lunge. That's base 20, 25 with enlarge person. Empowered intensified maxamized acidic shocking grasp anyone? With a spell storing weapon you could land 2 of them in one hit lol.How do you get Magus to work with a Reach weapon without a heavy feat tax to get Whip Mastery or something like that? Magus (except Skirnir) needs to have a hand free (for spellcasting), which is normally incompatible with Reach weapons.
Found a sort-of answer to my question -- not exactly, because this isn't a Magus, but close:
{. . .}
Build the equivalent of a Reach Cleric, but as an Eldritch Knight? That would be kind of cool. Use your normal actions to cast spells and use the weapons reach and Combat Reflexes to AoO people who get close. It could be interesting.
Now why didn't I think of that before?
You don't have Spell Combat/Spellstrike (until you sort-of get it by Spell Critical at Eldritch Knight 10), but the Reach Cleric doesn't either, and that is considered good. So then the Eldritch Knight just needs to either:
1. Get early entry to reduce the number of levels of d6/half-BAB class required, or
2. Be a Scarred Witch Doctor so that you can be awesome at least not squishy even with a full set of d6/half-BAB class levels.
I don't know enough about the ACG classes, so I'm not considering them for this. They do seem like a lot of fun, though!
Anyways, I imagine a reach barbarian would benefit a lot since they tend to have lower ACs and higher Strength (since most reach weapons are two-handed). I think there might be some Rage Powers that are standard actions, too, that would synergize with reach & AoOs. Also their greater than average speed lets them get into position, ad Acrobatics is a class skill for them, too.
Paladins can channel as their standard action and then use AoOs for attacks. Both paladins and rangers can do the whole cast a spell as a standard action and AoO schtick as well. Cavaliers that are not charging can sit atop their mount and AoO with their lance, too.
But fighters get all the tricksy feats. And can afford to get some of the neater exotic reach weapons, like the fauchard (18-20/x2, reach, trip).
So, um, all of them? :-P
I also like to throw on some decent roles with the feats. Cornugon smash and Riving strike gets your party's Save or Die wizard to love you since you can make enemies take a -4 to saves when you smack them in the head.
With a Cruel weapon, you automatically add the sickened condition on a second hit while they are still shaken. That's another -2 to saves (among other things). Your party's wizard will likely propose.
{. . .}
In this thread (post #3),{. . .}
Build the equivalent of a Reach Cleric, but as an Eldritch Knight? That would be kind of cool. Use your normal actions to cast spells and use the weapons reach and Combat Reflexes to AoO people who get close. It could be interesting.Now why didn't I think of that before?
You don't have Spell Combat/Spellstrike (until you sort-of get it by Spell Critical at Eldritch Knight 10), but the Reach Cleric doesn't either, and that is considered good. So then the Eldritch Knight just needs to either:
1. Get early entry to reduce the number of levels of d6/half-BAB class required, or
2. Be a Scarred Witch Doctor so that you can beawesomeat least not squishy even with a full set of d6/half-BAB class levels.
Here I partially put together a build for this (actually more like one and a half builds) -- search for "Third Character" in the post, because the first part of the post is about other characters. Check out the rest of the thread, too -- for its group-mind play purpose, it could use some more people.
Interesting looking at some videos on historical reach weapons, although no claim that these are experts:
Polearm Tests 1 (impressive damage to 1.5 mm steel plate; implied a Polearm Tests 2 video coming soon, but none is available yet)
Winged spears, boar spears, partisans, spetum and similar pole weapons (explains development of spear "wings", but unfortunately actually shows just 1 example)
Some disadvantages of polearms (and guess what: range lower limit is NOT one of them, unless you're in a cramped area)
Spear and shield - overarm vs underarm
Also interesting that these weapons don't have as long reach as implied in Pathfinder, but on the other hand, the Pike had even longer reach (and this one looks like it really would be slow and awkward to use inside a minimum range).
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Is it not rather bizarre that the Monk, supposedly master of martial arts, utterly lacks proficiency in reach weaponry, such that one must dip a level of Fighter? This despite longspear being a standard weapon of Shaolin, which is the closest model in the real world for the Monk class. Weird design oversight! :-)
Yes, but the Sohei solves that problem quite handily.