Making a Starcraft Ghost?

[Chyrone]

What would be the best way to translate these stealth snipers to PF?

My 1st idea was a stygian slayer with a gunslinger or taking a few feats to use a musket, since stygian slayers can go invisible from lvl 4 onwards.

What are the your thoughts on this? Is it plausible or would there be a far better combination.

[p-sto]

My first thought when reading the title was stygian slayer as well. I think I'll point out that the sniper archetype for slayers is compatible with stygian slayer, so if you want to build a committed ranged build you may want to consider that. There's also a fair bit of synergy between the two archetypes which is a bit of a bonus.

[Hark]

I don't see a good way to call a nuclear strike in Pathfinder, so a Ghost is pretty hard.

[Imbicatus]

Shadow Bloodline Sorcerer would be a good option to match the abilities, if not the flavor. They have the ability to increase vision, lockdown, stealth, and nuke.

[p-sto]

Not a bad point, Imbicatus. Ghosts were always among the more squishy units you could field as well.

[Eltacolibre]

Use a spellslinger and cast spells like greater invisibility for stealth or meteor swarm for nuclear strike. You are most of the time, shooting touch ac...so heh, don't need a very high attack roll.

[Chyrone]

Nice suggestions to look into, but
@ Eltacolibre& p-sto: I'm not looking to make it a very squishy character, despite the ghosts not being as enduring as their grunt marine brethren. Even dropping the nuke (pun intended) wouldn't matter so much as it would be cool to just be an invisible long range support that takes out a few prior to the fight itself.

[p-sto]

The tentative errata on the sniper archetype is also pretty interesting. The one downside is that I'm not sure if even the Paizo staff has a clear idea of when the change will be made official.

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2rwsg&page=1?Three-ACG-Errata-You-Didnt-FAQ

[Chyrone]

Thanks for the tip p-sto.

[Petty Alchemy]

You could also try a longbow archer Inquisitor. They can cast Invisibility I believe, and Flame Strike.

[Chyrone]

No, an inquisitor is off the concept, that's bluntly 'an archer with spells'.

It's supposed to become a gun wielding sniper.

[Xethik]

You could use a gun with Inquisitor. There is the Blackpowder Inquisition, if I recall.

[Petty Alchemy]

I suggest the bow because the technology level in Pathfinder is considerably less that of Starcraft, there's a lack of high powered sniper rifles and the mechanics make firearms best at close range.

The longbow has the best range increment (110ft) to the Musket's 40ft (and loses any advantage beyond that, plus has a cap of 5 increments rather than 10 as the Longbow does). If you can use advanced firearms, the Rifle is a little better off (80ft increment, can go to 10).

I'm used to reflavoring mechanics as needed, but if you need it to be a gun, I can accept that.

[Imbicatus]

Or if you want the rifle aesthetics, crossbow. Bolt Ace is good, and has a longer range.

[LoneKnave]

The absolute most twinked out singleshot (well, double shot) damage I could come up with was using a combination of Spellslinger, Myrmidarch magus, and Eldritch Knight. It's somewhere around 300d6 if you go all out. It's obviously using a gun (what gun depends on what you want to use).

This character also has access to "cloaking" and any number of psionic ghost abilities you'd like.

[Skaldi the Tallest]

LoneKnave wrote:

The absolute most twinked out singleshot (well, double shot) damage I could come up with was using a combination of Spellslinger, Myrmidarch magus, and Eldritch Knight. It's somewhere around 300d6 if you go all out. It's obviously using a gun (what gun depends on what you want to use).

This character also has access to "cloaking" and any number of psionic ghost abilities you'd like.

Well, you've certainly piqued my interest. Could you post some snapshots of this build? Maybe how they'd play at level 6 or 10?

[LoneKnave]

The maximum-est damage doesn't get online until 15 (when you can get the EX capstone the soonest), and of course, maxes out at 20. You also need Disintegrate and Named Bullet for it. As such, low level builds aren't that great, but I'll try to do some in another post if you want.

How it works is you take 1 level of spellslinger, 4 in Myrmidarch magus, then EK.

Spellslinger lets you do this:

Quote:

At 1st level, the spellslinger decides whether he wants to have one or two arcane guns at a time. If the spellslinger chooses to have only one arcane gun at a time, spells fired through the arcane gun that require an attack roll have a ×3 critical hit multiplier.

4 levels of Myrmidarch lets you do this:

Quote:

At 4th level, a myrmidarch can use spellstrike to cast a single-target touch attack ranged spell and deliver it through a ranged weapon attack. Even if the spell can normally affect multiple targets, only a single missile, ray, or effect accompanies the attack.

EK capstone

Quote:

At 10th level, whenever an eldritch knight successfully confirms a critical hit, he can cast a spell as a swift action. The spell must include the target of the attack as one of its targets or in its area of effect. Casting this spell does not provoke an attack of opportunity. The caster must still meet all of the spell's components and must roll for arcane spell failure if necessary.

Named bullet (needs spell blending sadly)

Quote:

You imbue the target with deadly accuracy against a selected creature type (and subtype for humanoids or outsiders) or a specific creature you know and can name. When used against the selected creature, the ammunition never misfires and is unaffected by concealment (but not total concealment), and at a range of 30 feet or less, the attack targets the selected creature’s touch AC. When the target hits the selected creature, you must overcome that creature’s spell resistance, or this spell has no effect. A normal hit scored using the target against the selected creature is considered to be a critical threat and deals 1 extra point of damage per caster level (maximum 20), which is not multiplied on a critical hit. A natural critical hit deals the same extra damage, but that damage is multiplied due to the critical.

Disintegrate

Quote:

A thin, green ray springs from your pointing finger. You must make a successful ranged touch attack to hit. Any creature struck by the ray takes 2d6 points of damage per caster level (to a maximum of 40d6). Any creature reduced to 0 or fewer hit points by this spell is entirely disintegrated, leaving behind only a trace of fine dust. A disintegrated creature's equipment is unaffected.

Okay, so lets put this together at level 20.

Since you are a freaking ghost, you know/scout what you want to kill. You make 2 named bullets to kill that thing before battle and load one.

You fire off a disintegrate through your gun as a standard action. You have 3/4 BAB basically, so your highest BAB attack should hit (ifyou can get inside 30 it's touch AC even). When it hits, because of named bullet it's automatically a critical threat, that you are pretty damn likely to confirm. Because of Spellslinger, this triples disintegrate into 40d6x3.

Then, because of the EK capstone (since you scored a crit) you do this again as a swift with your second named bullet.

So 2x120d6+whatever damage the shots dealt on top of that (should be quite high actually, guns have a good crit multiplier).

If you took Spell perfection for disintegrate (and why the hell wouldn't you) you can maximize or empower this if you feel like. I think empower puts you into the 360d6 range, but I may have messed up my math somewhere.

[Chyrone]

A little detail you might be overlooking, the EK requires the caster being able to cast 3rd lvl arcane spells and be proficient with all martial weapons.

A magus has access to lvl 3 spells on lvl 7. The build would by that kick in at character lvl 9 at earliest.

[LoneKnave]

Aw sheet, forgot early entry not being a thing anymore.

Yeah, you'll need to be like 18 to get the EX capstone then. Too bad, loved me some doubletap.

[Chyrone]

Still an interesting thought to consider.

[Chyrone]

While this is for casual play, I wonder to what extend it can be done in PFS, since spellslinger isn't society play legal.

[LoneKnave]

The meat of the thing is Named bullet+Myrmidarch ranged spellstrike=guaranteed spell crits. Spellslinger and EK are just multipliers.

[Katydid]

This just in - are there any benefits to adding a Variant Multiclass Gunslinger? I mean, you could technically get Dead Shot at 19, but 99% of games don't make it that far and I don't see how this is better than just multiclassing Musket Master.

That being said, I vaguely recall something mentioned about Unchained Rogues getting their Minor/Major Magic Talents at will, so maybe this could be used in conjunction with Vanish and Sneak Attack?

[LoneKnave]

Gunslinger VMC is freaking terrible.

You get 3/5ths (arguably, 5/5ths) as a 1 level dip into gunslinger.

I don't recommend it for anyone.

For that matter, I also don't recommend dead shot. Even vital strike is superior, which is saying something.

[Umbral Reaver]

Why no spells? Ghosts are all psychic and have a number of 'magic' abilities, depending on their training and experience.

[Chyrone]

Which brings back to mind what a stygian slayer can do, invisibility & gaseous form at later lvl.

It's 2 potential paths so far, stygian slayer with rogue tricks and feats for fire arms (or stygian slayer with 1 lvl dip in musket master)

Or that myrmidarch magus with a dip in musket master.

[Hark]

What about 3pp? Ultimate Psionics has a ton of options that could work for building a ghost.

[Skaldi the Tallest]

Would Arcane Trickster be a good fit here?

At level 15 throwing a nuke (fireball) down range that does something like 22d6 fire damage seems like a decent start for a ghost. You could have a ring of invisibility as your bonded item to help with the Cloaking. Acid Arrow with a fistfull of sneak attack dice isn't too bad as a sniper rifle option. I imagine you could actually make your way in using the Spell Slinger as well and use the gun as said sniper rifle.

[FrodoOf9Fingers]

Might be a bit late to the party, but I think arcane archer can fit the bill pretty well. Almost any AOE can now be used as a nuke, with a good range. EMP can translate well to AMF, which can only be made range by using 2 levels of AA. And snipe in SC ignored walls, trees, etc... so we can mimic that with the special shots AAs get. The only downside, flavor wise, is the requirement of using a bow.

[Dekalinder]

How do you qualify for EK if you can only cast second level spells? That build does not work. First, when shoting spell through the gun with SpellSlinger you don't actually deal the gun damage. Secondly, your opponent makes a save and if it passes, the Disintegrate damage is only 5d6, critted for 15d6.

If you want to make a sniper build, Mysterious Stranger is more solid, and you can always use a wand of Named bullet for when the need arises.

[LoneKnave]

If you read a bit, the build was made when early entry was still a thing. Also, you use Myrmidarch to shoot the bullet infused with the spell, that's why you grab Magus levels instead of just Spellslinger.

Spellslinger also adds the Gun enhancement to the spell DC, so it's actually quite likely that the target will fail its save.

Mysterious strangers make s#@+ty ghosts, they'd need a crapload of gear for all the psionic stuff ghosts are capable of.

[Adam B. 135]

Definitely a Marksman with the Shroud archetype from Ultimate Psionics. If you absolutely positively must use a gun, the Focused Precision feat allows Dex to damage with firearms.

There you have it. An inherently psychic ranged class with an archetype that gives it cloaking abilities.

[Chyrone]

Adam B., that's actually great for games with the GM allowing that.
If my magus kicks the bucket in a game, i can bring such a thing.

That said, i'm looking at something that the general GM will work with, since psionics aren't exactly a frequent item seen.