Is there any slayer's guide?

[Gun Dragon]

can someone post a slayers guide please?

[Richard McGuffin]

There is no guide. Everyone just says use a ranger build. Heres one of my preferred builds. Feel free to modify it how you want.

20 pt. buy

16,14,14,10,14,10

half-orc
Sacred Tattoo: +1 luck bonus to all saves
Chain Fighter: weapon prof Dire Flail

Traits: (i forgot the names but here's what they do)
+1 will, ignore armor check penalty by -1

1 Iron will
2 Two Weapon Fighting
3 Power Attack
4 Trap Finding
5 Weapon Focus
6 Improved Two Weapon Fighting
7 Furious Focus
8 Blood Reader
9 ??? Your Choice
10 Greater Two Weapon Fighting

*With this build your will save should keep up with your other saves until level 9 or 12 depending on how closely you follow it. your saves should always be around your level or higher if you keep up with the cloak of resistance.
*You should invest in a Mithral breastplate when you have the cash.
*Keep investing in Str as you level, alternatively add 1 to dex and pick up double slice for real damage.
*Carry a sling until you can buy a composite longbow.

You get a variety of attack options using the dire flail power attack and two weapon fighting. Few other classes can accomplish this. (fighter, ranger) With Studied target you can choose to balance out your negative modifiers a number of ways. When you pick up Blood Reader It really starts to pay off to have the math ready so you can choose the correct attack option and not suffer more penalties than you need to.

By level 6 your attacks should look something like this
(+6bab +3str +2studied target +1magic +1 weapon focus)

norm:+13/+8
PA: +11/+6
TWF: +11/+11/+6/+6
PA+TWF: +9/+9/+4/+4

Damage varies by 1 handed and 2 handed math, double slice is highly recommended and completely worth it when you can pick up.

Biggest drawback is the same as all TWF fighters, you spend twice as much on you weapon as anyone else. However your combat options reflect that.

[Melkiador]

I've been tempted to make a slayer guide lately, but it would just be theoretical. The "problem" with the slayer is that he has no clear focus. You could make a good slayer using almost any fighting style: two-hander, reach, range, sword and board, two weapon fighting and probably others are all possible.

All of the abilities are good but not worth talking much about. You always use Studied Target once it becomes a swift action. The sneak attack dice are so few that it's not really worth going out of your way to get them for damage. The talents are feat level abilities. Everything works together to up your overall DPR, but it doesn't make any combos that do anything that "changes the game".

A slayer guide would consist of:
Races
Skills
Talents
Popular builds
Archetypes

[lemeres]

Eh, there are actually a number of options other than dire flail

The base half orc has the orc double ax, which is a nice double weapon. A lot of the core races have such an option.

Not that it is necessary. There is now a decent double weapon in the simple category- the weighted spear (spear with a bashy bit at the other end).

And even ignoring that, you could always go gauntlet/cestus+ 1 handed weapon (probably a sword, like a scimitar). Just 2 hand the sword, and then take the 2nd hand off when you want to TWF. Of course, that doesn't fit with weapon focus quite as well..but this isn't a fighter, slayers have little dependence on weapon focus. Nice, but not strictly necessary.

Overall, anyone with even simple weapon proficiency at least has the weapons for pulling this off, to some degree or another.

Anyway, since race is not a big issue, I like half elves personally. While the half orc's tattoos are nice since they add to all saves, half elves have an alt trait that gives +2 to will (the weak save). And they also get another +2 against enchantment effects (ie- the saves against vampires trying to get you to kill your party). And they even have a racial trait that gives another roll against a failed enchantment 1/day (which could go well with improved iron will to make it very, very hard for the GM to dominate you)

[Eltacolibre]

If slayers had anything unique, it would be worth making a guide about. Quite honestly, if you know how to play any melee class...you basically know how to play a slayer. Choose a fighting style, stick with it and you are golden.

Guess preferably, if you want to be a little more than the dpr machine, you should consider making some kind of a slayer scout max perception, max disable device, max acrobatics, max stealth, Max survival then take trapfinding as one of your talents. Look for traps, sneak around and if you catch an enemy by surprise, you can benefit from studied target+ sneak attack for one big opening hit and in later levels, even assassinate.

I mean beside that...not even sure what else it would be worth talking about.All other archetypes are terrible, Stygian Slayer is decent enough or might be better than standard slayers depending on what kind of what kind of build you are doing.

[Melkiador]

There are a few good slayer archetypes, but most of them are too niche focused.

Bounty Hunter: Lets you perform a free dirty trick anytime you could deal sneak attack damage. With a dirty trick you could blind, which would let you get more sneak attacks. And then it lets you deal sneak attack damage anytime you grapple for damage, which can trigger your dirty tricks. You will want most of the dirty trick feats.

Pureblade: Good if you know your campaign is going to have a lot of aberrations.

Grave Warden: Good if you know your campaign is going to have a lot of undead.

Vanguard: At 7th level you can always act in the surprise round. You can combine this with talents that let you go first in the surprise round or let you treat anyone as flat footed in the surprise round.

Sczarni Executioner: Good for being an evil killer of humanoids.

Deliverer: Good, but basically requires you to play extreme alignments to increase the odds of your enemies being 2 alignments away from you. It strongly favors lawful good slayers as lawful neutral and neutral good characters aren't likely to attack you without a good reason anyway.