With the above mentioned combination it looks like you can build a pretty capable knock out artist who can end most fights before they start. Here's the idea.
...if she makes a sneak attack during the surprise round using a concealed weapon that her opponent didn’t know about, she does not have to roll sneak attack damage, and the sneak attack deals maximum damage. A rogue can only use the underhanded talent a number of times per day equal to her Charisma modifier (minimum 0).
As a move action, you can draw a light, concealed weapon for which you have Weapon Focus. If you have the Quick Draw feat, drawing this weapon is a free action.
Sap Adept+Sap Master means every sneak attack die is worth 16 damage in the suprise round. A fith level Rogue (or better Ninja) can dish out 1d4+STR+48 nonlethal damage with a Kunai (a simple light bludgeoning weapon usable at range) in the surprise round. This damage increases by 16 every two levels so you should be able to knock out a level appropriate foe in the surprise round CHA times per day.
Here's a rough outline for such a build
Human Ninja for Bonus Feat and extra Rogue Talent every 6 levels
STR 8 DEX 18 CON 12 INT 8 WIS 12 CHA 16
Traits: Always threatenig/ Initiative boost
1 Quick Draw, Bludgeoner
2 Rogue Talent: WF: Kunai
3 Sap Adept
4 Underhanded
5 Sap Master
6 Ninja Talent:Vanishing trick/Finesse Rogue
This could be made more awesome by getting a full round action in the suprise round and chucking multiple Kunai's (only way to do so I know of is the lookout teamwork feat). For the remainder of combat you'd have to rely on your Ki-Pool to get foes flat footed and bash them with sneak attacks.
All of this might be way easier to pull off with a combination spring loaded wrist sheaths, the watching taldor trait or the bandit archetype.
What are people thoughts?
Nice combo with Always Threatening, I always wondered how Underhanded was supposed to work when drawing a concealed weapon is a standard action.
You should look into an Amulet of Hidden Strength to make an extra attack during the surprise round. Once per day and 9,000 gp, but it takes you from one hit wonder to two hit wonder.
Nice combo with Always Threatening, I always wondered how Underhanded was supposed to work when drawing a concealed weapon is a standard action.
You should look into an Amulet of Hidden Strength to make an extra attack during the surprise round. Once per day and 9,000 gp, but it takes you from one hit wonder to two hit wonder.
A dip into diviner wizard for a valet familiar+lookout+the diviner ability would allow for full round surprise rounds all the time.
The problem I'm seeing currently is that the build is geared too much towards the surprise round stick. If surprise rounds aren't happening as often as you would like then you don't get sufficient return on your investment.
If Watching Taldor/Ready for Battle or springloaded wrist sheath work out then basically you are only investing 1 Ninja Trick and one trait or 5GP to pull this trick off regularly. The return is definetly worth it here and Vanishing Trick/Scout and Sap Master is strong enough to carry you otherwise.
Edit: Just stumbled across this thread that has some ideas on a ranged Sap Master Build.
Where would you be getting pounce from as a straight Ninja/Rogue? Or are you thinking along the lines of Snakebite Striker-->Pummeleing Charge?
Good call on weapon versatility there. However it eats your swift action every round. Not sure if that's worth it.
Another issue I've come across is how often can you use underhanded. The rules text states you can use this ability Charisma times per day. But does this mean one sneak attack or
I'm also currently considering whether Scout with Charging Hurler makes sense for such a build.
I definitely recommend scout, the ability to apply sneak just for moving helps greatly
After reading up on the rules a bit I’m pretty sure that a pair of Springloaded Wrist Sheaths should be able to do the trick here. Here’s a new build for Halfling Ninja with the Scout Archetype.
Ability Scores
STR 8 DEX 18 CON 14 INT 10 WIS 10 CHA 16
Traits
Initiative boost/Irrepressible
1 Bludgeoner
2 Vanishing Trick
3 Sap Adept
4 Underhanded/ Scout’s Charge
5 Sap Master
6 Combat Trick: ???
7 Feat???
I'd been debating charging hurler but it wouldn't come online till level 7 and at level 8 you have acess to skirmisher so it becomes rather moot.Human could pull it off one level earlier but halfling seems better here for the charisma bonus and bonuses to hit AC and stealth.
Edit: Is there any weapon that would work here that would allow for nonlethal damage? If one wouldn't need bludgeoner then Charging hurler could be had level 1 for a human
Pounce an be gotten as a Kitsune with vulpine pounce (useable less regularly than regular pounce, possibly).
prototype00
ahhh so ninjas can take the archetype if they have the class abilities to switch out?
so no knife master ninja , but scout would be ok ?
Yeah Knife Master Ninja wouldn't work. The build could work as a rogue but I feel Ninja has more to offer. Then again Knife master is worth a lot of damage with Sap Master.
Amulet of Hidden Strength needs a swift action though and I heard you can't use it in surprise round.
Not true, you can take swift actions in the surprise round.
You can take a swift action anytime you would normally be allowed to take a free action.
You can also take free actions during the surprise round.
With that first build posted also take 1 level of diviner & 2 more ninja. Grab a Valet faamiliar with initiative boost, Lookout feat, point blank shot & rapid shot. Gives you 3 attacks on surprise round at 9th level. Auto 64+ points damage on each hit nonlethal.
Yeah that was my thinking hadn't been quite so fast on the math but that sounds like an amazing amount of damage...
Does the diviner wizard also come with the SLA that open up arcane trickster? And if so could aracen trickster add anything to sucha build?
Deft Palm (Ex)
Benefit: A rogue with this talent can make a Sleight of Hand check to conceal a weapon while holding it in plain sight, even while she is being observed.
I relied on this for Underhanded before.
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Good call on weapon versatility there. However it eats your swift action every round. Not sure if that's worth it.
Actually, weapon versatility only eats your swift action once:
Benefit(s): When wielding a weapon with which you have Weapon Focus, you can shift your grip as a swift action so that your weapon deals bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing damage instead of the damage type normally dealt by that weapon. You may switch back to the weapon's normal damage type or another damage type as a swift action.If your base attack bonus is +5 or higher, using this feat is a free action instead.
The feat changes your damage type until you change it back.
So I've been pondering the diviner dip shenanigans. While this enables you to go all in on the surprise round you have the problem that you have no ability to deliver flat footed full attacks during regular combat rounds which means that many of your investments (PBS, Rapid Shot, Lookout + the dip) are for naught for most of the fight. This wouldn't be all that big of a deal if the surprise round always happend but that is far from a given and from my experience in PFS is actually not the norm.
The only method to reliably get flat footed full attacks is invisible blade and with a dip it becomes available by level 11. As I'd be building for PFS that comes too late to justify such an investment in my book. Also shatter defenses won't work as Enforcer requires a melee attack.
Another option I'm currently debating is going with a one hit per round build and going Gnome Ninja to better utilize my ki-pool via Bewildering Koan. The idea would be to build more of a support character who can do crazy damage (16 damage per Sneak attack die) in the surprise round and snipes from the back for one big hit per round (with every SA die being worth ~11 NL damage). You aren't the OMG DPR monster but can still make a solid contribution to combat (you're swift action alone almost achieves that) and have enough build space to be a useful skill monkey as well.
The build I was talking about works just fiine out of surprise rounds with Ninja-Scout 8/Diviner 1. At 8th lvl moving 10ft allows sneak attacks, throw in Vital Strike later maybe.
The problem is that you can't move and full attack. So basically the only time you can pull of a full attack with Sap Master Damage is during the surprise round.
In order to maximize the full attack you need to pick up PBS and rapid shot.
In order to get a full round action you need to dip diviner and pick up a feat. The dip costs you HPs, to hit and most importantly Sneak Attack Dice and delays the aqusition of the Scout Skirmisher ability. You do get the ability to always act in the surprise round and an intiative boost in return.
So yeah the build works but you are investing heavily in the surprise round stick and have no way to get a return on these investments outside of the surprise round.
As to Vivsectionist I was looking to build for PFS so it's a non option. Also Vivisectionists don't get Rogue talents right? So kinda defeats the purpose of this thread.
What about 2 Level Ninja dip, then into Slayer?
Why? A build like this wants as many sneak attack dice as humanly possible. Slayer get's it's second sneak die at level 7 or so, by then the Rogue/Ninja has 4. Also Skirmisher seems like a really important ability and requires 8 levels of Rogue Ranger.
So does anyone know of bludgeoning weapons that can be used at range which deal nonlethal damage? Only thing I found to date was some sling bullets. However I'm not sure if you can get a sling into a wristsheath. Then again there must be good ways to hide a sling on your body (eyepatch...)
Underhanded may only be for the surprise round, but you can still use sneak attacks as well as sap attacks all day long with full attacks+
Use a seven branched sword (trip to make target flat footed)
OR
find a friend who has shatter defenses (shaken targets become flat footed)
Trip opens up additional attacks of opportunity from Gr.Trip and Vicious Stomp.
In addition:
If you go the route of Medusa's Wrath on top of a scout trip build, you can charge to make a trip attack, if that hits you then get a free attack and a vicious stomp. If both of those hit you will get 2 more attacks from M.Wrath.
that = 4 Sap SA's after a charge in the surprise round or +4 Sap SA's in a regular rd.
+5 if using a 7branched sword in a regular rd.
It's a lot of feats so I usually dip 1 lvl of Flowering Monk. For rogue I like Swashbuckler/Scout since you need all the feats you can grab. Vivisectionist is also great at higher lvls if tripping is in play for more str and greater size.
When you bring SA damage to the party, tell them Bladelock sent you.
@Bladelock: Sadly the seven branched sword is a Slashing weapon (So no bludgeoning damage-->no sap master) and it's exotic so that costs another feat. I don't think this is workable for PFS.
That is why I take a lvl of monk. You use the 7branch sword only for the flat footed condition and UA strikes for SA.
Flowering monk and maneuver master give you an extra trip attack per rd.
Hmm interesting. A totally different build but it does have some appeal. However how do you employ vicious stomp in such a build? Doesn't the seven branched sword replace trip with opponent becomes flat footed.
Sandals of Quick Reaction is also good, a move action and a standard action = a full round action, such as a full attack :). Not sure if it's PFS legal though.
The wording on this is the same as for the Bandit Archetype. There was a Rules question inquiry as to whether this meant a full round action and this was answered with no reply needed so by RAW this wouldn't work.
IIRC A single level in snakebite brawler puts your sneak attack 1 level ahead, if you are keen to get more sneak attack earlier..
Yeah I have been debating a Sneak bite Stiker dip. At the moment it looks to me as if the Skirmisher (level 8 scout ability) is the easiest way to get flat footed full attacks on a regular basis so I'd need a really good reasons to delay that further than necesarry.
Here's your major problem with the Kunai -- the pointy end does slashing damage and the ring on the other end does the bludgeoning damage. You cannot effectively use it at range because throwing it should give you a 50%-50% chance of doing slashing or bludgeoning. It's not weighted like a throwing axe and thusly cannot be mastered like one when it comes to throwing. Why not ditch Bludgeoner and get Throw Anything and throw your sap instead (which does 1d6 damage rather than 1d4 damage)? Or even better, why not keep your sap in your hand and since you're surprising them with the attack anyway (in order to get Underhanded) knock them out while being close to them so you dont have to throw your weapon and be helpless until the next round when you can pick it back up?
Hmm interesting. A totally different build but it does have some appeal. However how do you employ vicious stomp in such a build? Doesn't the seven branched sword replace trip with opponent becomes flat footed.
A trip attempt with the 7branched sword doesn't initiate a vicious stomp, only your trips that cause targets to become prone get the vicious stomp. If you have gr.trip, you do get that extra attack with the 7b sword trips.
Here's your major problem with the Kunai -- the pointy end does slashing damage and the ring on the other end does the bludgeoning damage. You cannot effectively use it at range because throwing it should give you a 50%-50% chance of doing slashing or bludgeoning. It's not weighted like a throwing axe and thusly cannot be mastered like one when it comes to throwing. Why not ditch Bludgeoner and get Throw Anything and throw your sap instead (which does 1d6 damage rather than 1d4 damage)? Or even better, why not keep your sap in your hand and since you're surprising them with the attack anyway (in order to get Underhanded) knock them out while being close to them so you dont have to throw your weapon and be helpless until the next round when you can pick it back up?
Hmm that would suck but where did you get this information? All I could find on the Kuani is the following although granted I do not yet own the ranged tactics toolbox.
Damage 1d3 (small), 1d4 (medium); Critical x2; Range 10 ft.; Type B or P; Special —
Crafted from a single piece of iron, a kunai has a leaf-shaped blade and a ring for a pommel. Adapted from the common trowel, the kunai has a thick blade that is sharpened only near the tip. Unlike finer weapons, the kunai can readily substitute for a crowbar or piton without being damaged in the process.
Scout's Charge + Pummeling Charge = FALCON PUNCH!
Hmm yeah MoMS dip might be in order.
Debatable. It's still not clear how precision damage is calculated with Pummeling Style. Is it applied once per successful attack roll or only once since pummeling style is a single attack?
Didn't know that...Anyhow MoMS is prolly not a choice one should include for a PFS character with developers talking about cracking down on the archetype recently.
I'm still working on my Gnome idea. It's not super jaw dropping in term of DPR but uses underhanded as a nice bonus trick on an otherwise versatile build. Currently I'm debating the merits of multiple paths to Sneak attacking.
I also want to put together a Knifemaster build as it offers better damage output.