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Building a Character Effective with Aid Another

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I came to consider such an idea because of reading this Improved Initiative article about using Aid Another in Pathfinder.

Current build idea, with consideration of starting the character at 5th level.
Class: Order of the Lion Inspiring Commander/Bard/Battle Herald (PrC)
Traits: Adopted, Helpful (Halfing)
Race: Human
Feats: Combat Reflexes, Bodyguard, Combat Expertise, Swift Aid

What do you want Bard for? Inspiring Commander qualifies for Battle Herald without it. Unless you just need an arcane caster to help set up the Gloves of Arcane Striking?
Grand Lodge

You might think about Duettist for the Bard levels, with either a Mascot, Protector, or Emissary familiar. Mascot gives a +1 luck bonus on top of Aid Another, Protector gets Combat Reflexes and Bodyguard if you want to stack Bodyguard aids, and Emissary gets Guidance at will, if regular Aid Another can't be used for some reason. At Duettist 4, you can use either to start your bardic music for double the cost in rounds.

Inspiring Commander looks cool. I'm not really seeing how Order of the Lion fits, though? You might want to check with your GM if Inspiring Commander levels stack with regular bard levels. If they don't, you might try to find a Bard archetype that trades Inspire Courage for something similar with a different bonus type.

Inspiring Command 1/Duettist 4 would be a good base to head into Battle Herald.

Agreed on Order of the Lion. Order of the Dragon gets actual bonuses to Aid Another, use that.
kestral287 wrote:
Agreed on Order of the Lion. Order of the Dragon gets actual bonuses to Aid Another, use that.

Stacking the Aid Another bonus from Order of the Dragon with the Helpful trait is dicey at best (since they both state a numerical value for the result). Most GMs I know won't allow it, but you might be able to get your GM to houserule that it works.

Of the two, Helpful is active at level 1, and the scaling bonus from Order of the Dragon doesn't beat it until level 14. So unless you're planning to play most of your career at level 14 and up, Helpful is a better bet.

The Honor Guard cavalier archetype gives you Bodyguard for free at 3rd level, and it increases the aid bonus to AC by 1.

You'll also want to look at the Benevolent armor and weapon enhancement. Maybe guarding, if you use a shield.

Though it's not directly Aid Another, additional methods of passing out teamwork feats might be interesting. If you go with a Bard, the Masterpiece "Battle Song of the People's Revolt" will give you additional rounds of teamwork feat sharing for your party.

The Archon Style tree is a nice trick for a martial aid build, but you'll need some feat investments.

And if you're willing to actually play a halfling instead of just being adopted by them, you can pick up Cautious Fighter and Blundering Defense.
Scarab Sages

Technically, the Order of the Dragon ability doesn't modify the bonus that Aid Another grants, it adds to it. I've seen most DM's allow it to work that way, though I can understand concern. I'm currently playing a character built around Aid Another, and I was pointed to the [/url=http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/rings/ring-of-tactical-precision]Ring of Tactical Precision[/url]. That plus Gloves of Arcane Striking is about as good as it gets... unless you can grab the Harrying Partners teamwork feat to share with Tactician, because the only thing better than giving your ally a +8 to hit, is giving him a +8 to hit on ALL of his attacks.
Dark Archive

Ring of Tactical Precision
Sovereign Court

Pathfinder Chronicler or Ulfen Guard are great for Aid Another...
Dark Archive

@kestral287
I didn't realize Inspiring Commander qualified for Battle Herald by itself.

@Markov Spiked Chain, @kestral287
I picked Order of the Lion partly because of the table variance when it came to using Order of the Dragion, and because I felt it was fairly flavorful when it came to having Bodygaurd.

@Gwen Smith
The question is, which of Inspiring Commander and Honor Guard is more useful when trying to get the most you can out of Aid Another? I ask because a big goal is maximizing the helpfulness of Aid Another and having it effect as many as possible. I will say, I would rather not worry about a mount, so in that case Inspiring Commander is a bit more beneficial to me.

Benevolent is definitely an enhancement I plan on getting, at least eventually.

@Davor, @Eponine Lokrien Savet
Ring of Tactical Precision is something I was also considering getting.

Involving The Order of the Dragon, I would like to avoid that which has table variance, as I would need to consider the DM not allowing it to stack.

@Purple Dragon Knight
Pathfinder Chronicler is a PrC I was considering, though I'm not sure f it would allow for more benefit then what is above.

Yup, Battle Herald just calls out that you need the Inspire Courage class feature, which is a subset of Bardic Performance, and the Inspiring Commander specifically calls out that "This ability is similar in all respects to bardic performance as used by a bard of the same level (including interactions with feats, spells, and prestige classes)".

A level of Bard isn't a terrible plan anyway to qualify for the Gloves, though I think there are other arcane casters who would do better in that regard.
Grand Lodge

What do you mean by table variance? Since Inspiring Commander is third party, I assumed this was for a home game where you've got a single GM (or group at least) to ask for clarification, once?
Dark Archive

@kestral287
Well for not I will put Bard aside and see to keeping the build less cluttered.

@Markov Spiked Chain
By table variance I mean you can have disagreement on whether or not RAW allows one to stack certain things like the Helpful trait and Order of the Dragon. While some DM may allow it to stack not all would allow such.

Admittingly though that I didn't realize Inspiring Commander was 3rd party, so thanks for bringing that up and I will make sure the DM knows... or if I am the DM that is easy enough to wave off, since I made a habit of allow some 3rd party material and Elghinn's Multiclass Archetypes.
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You could swap out the Helpful Trait for the Fools for Friends Trait. It's a normal +1 as opposed to "Becoming +4".

Let's you roll as a OoDragon to grab the same +4 to AC/AB/Skill at level 2 with the benefit of continued stacking every 6 levels, though of course if you want to jump into Battle-Herald at level 5 I can see why you'd prefer OoLion.

Yeah, Inspiring Commander is a third-party class and... frankly a pretty poorly balanced one. Next to that, figuring out if Order of the Dragon works with Helpful is a secondary worry.

Inspiring Commander is 3rd party and not allowed in PFS. If you are concerned with what your DM would rule in a private game just ask him before you play.

I can tell you from personal experience that Order of the Dragon is definitely the way to go for such a build. Table variance is something you will have to deal with but it should be a quick thing before each game. Just let the DM know that you don't have a dog in the race but you just wish to know which bonus to apply. No argument needed, just a ruling.

Fools for Friends is a campaign trait and not PFS legal. Also, from my experience, DMs in most private home games also disallow campaign specific traits.

I'm not an expert on the build, but THIS GUY has been pretty amazing at aiding in our PFS games.
Dark Archive

Just to let everyone know, I have no interest in Pathfinder Society... at least not much interest. Most campaigns I will be a part of or run will be private home or online sessions not held back by the structure, limitations, and restrictions of Pathfinder Society. Particularly those that are in place merely so the a session doesn't take so long.
------------------------

Getting that out of the way:

@kestral287
What might I ask is wrong with the balance of Inspiring Commander? Is it something that could somehow break the game, allow a player to overshadow other players, or ruin the plans of the DM?

@Lune
What of what is said doesn't apply but I will still keep in mind what you have said, mostly that of using Order of the Dragon though I will be consider Fools for Friends.

@ElterAgo
I will see if their is anything I can use, thanks for the link.

A bodyguard mount is extremely good at the Aid Another stuff. You utilize the stat bump to push int to 3, then take Additional Traits for Adopted (Helpful). My Brawler/Bloodrager/Cavalier has an Axebeak mount with this setup and the second trait is A Friend In Every Town (diplomacy improvements) to have the mount Aid Another on those checks, as well.
JonathonWilder wrote:

@kestral287

What might I ask is wrong with the balance of Inspiring Commander? Is it something that could somehow break the game, allow a player to overshadow other players, or ruin the plans of the DM?

Yes.

Aid Another is extremely powerful when you put the tools together for it already-- you can starting adding a lot of points to an ally's AC or attack rolls. Double digits are reachable, and +10 to your ally's AC is a Pretty Big Deal, especially when it's easily spammable thanks to Bodyguard. But you're still fairly limited on applying it to their hits (as Bodyguard can only be used for AC), so really this just makes fights longer. Fair enough, as trades go.

Inspiring Commander takes that and turns it up to eleven. Right off the bat you can aid as a move action, meaning that once you take Swift Aid three aids in a turn is downright easy. And then it gets better-- you add your Int modifier to the check. Instead of +10, you're adding +17, assuming a fairly modest Int investment (And realistically this setup only ever needs Dex and Int, so go all in).

So. +17 to your buddies' attack rolls two-three times a round, and with delaying fun you can use that to set up things like that -15 iterative attack. +17 to your ally's ACs until you run out of AoOs or the other guys pick you up and drag you away. And that's before their virtually unstoppable Bardic Performance.

That's going to require a large-scale shift in monster tactics to avoid trivializing fights, and it'll do so in a way that most players won't enjoy: Area of effect spell spam to make you split ranks. Save-based attacks to bypass AC. Ambushes to catch you flat-footed. Any straight slugging match becomes "surround the superBard and win", unless your group is really terrible at tactics, and that's going to force a GM to break out the parts of the playbook that most people don't want to play.

From a class-building perspective it also suffers from poor general design, with things like replacing abilities at different levels than they're originally granted.

*Shrug* Table variation is a very real thing of course, but I sure as hell wouldn't allow one of these in my game, and that's not something I say often.

I scared my DM when I talked to him about doing a build with Bodyguard, Covering Fire from Ranged Tactic toolbox and Harrying Partners from Melee Tactic toolbox.

Covering Fire: Benefit: You can use the aid another action with a ranged attack against an opponent, regardless of whether the opponent threatens an ally. Range penalties apply to this attack roll. Choose one ally when making the attack. If the attack is successful, that ally gains a +2 bonus to AC against that opponent’s next attack, as long as the attack comes before the beginning of your next turn. All allies with this feat also gain this bonus against that opponent.

Harrying Partners: Benefit: When you successfully use the aid another action to improve the Armor Class or attack roll of an ally who also has this feat, the benefit from aid another lasts until the beginning of your next turn.

Both are teamwork feat so you will need to either have help from your team or give them the feats via things like tactician or Ring of tactical Precision. Whenever an ally is hit, you lose an arrow to give him your team the aid another bonus for the rest of the round (only against this opponent I think). At some point the only way to hurt the team will be on one big attack, by killing you first or moving outside bodyguard range.

Inspiring Commander gets free teamwork feats and can hand one of them out for free to a far greater degree than the baseline Cavalier, so really your allies are probably talking about shelling out for Harrying Partners (unless they can free up the Ring slot) and letting you hand out Covering Fire.

Harrying Partners alone shatters almost all of the drawbacks on the Inspiring Commander.

A build that I just started playing:

Either a straight bard or a bard with a splash in Cavalier (the effectiveness of this depends on how your GM views the reading of Order of the Dragon's 2nd level ability).

It uses the following tricks to make Aid Another awesome:
- Covering Fire - Aid Another as a ranged attack; those who have this feat also receive the AC bonus (teamwork feat)
- Harrying Partners - If you aid another to an ally, they get the bonus for the entire round, not just one attack (teamwork feat)
- Song of the People's Revolt - Bardic masterpiece that shares a teamwork feat
- Coordinated Effort - 3rd level bard spell that shares a teamwork feat
- Swift Aid - Aids as a swift action

Combining all the parts, the character will around 8th or 9th level or so, be using a standard to share Harrying Partners, a move to begin the Song of the People's Revolt, and their swift to Aid Another which everyone gets and lasts all round. After that first round, you use your swift to aid and can either aid against a second creature or to cast more spells.

Can also slip in really great support options like Battle Cry, Gallant Inspiration, Saving Finale, etc.

Bugrom, I see you're running something similar... but the Bodyguard feat requires you to be adjacent to at least your ally. Bodyguard and Covering Fire don't interact RAW (but, hey, if your GM allows it!)
Davor wrote:
Technically, the Order of the Dragon ability doesn't modify the bonus that Aid Another grants, it adds to it. I've seen most DM's allow it to work that way, though I can understand concern. I'm currently playing a character built around Aid Another, and I was pointed to the Ring of Tactical Precision. That plus Gloves of Arcane Striking is about as good as it gets... unless you can grab the Harrying Partners teamwork feat to share with Tactician, because the only thing better than giving your ally a +8 to hit, is giving him a +8 to hit on ALL of his attacks.

The Order of the Dragon Aid Allies says "whenever an order of the dragon cavalier uses the aid another action to assist one of his allies, the ally receives a +3 bonus" (emphasis mine)

Helpful says "Whenever you successfully perform an aid another action, you grant your ally a +4 bonus" (emphasis mine)

Now, you can probably convince your GM to let them stack, but as written, they don't.

I do love the Harrying Partners feat: my Helpful Halfling cavalier is picking up that one next, and my Brawler/Holy Tactician paladin has that one her go-to list to learn as a move action (along with Outflank, Paired Opportunists, and Swap Places).

The best use I've seen for the Ring of Tactical Precision is the two characters in our area who used them as their in-character wedding rings: they each bought one, took different teamwork feats and then trade rings.

Are you set on a cavlier? I know he gets bonuses to make him numerical the best at aid another but your adding ad nauseum to one aspect will eventually make you weak. Because of this I recommend that you grab another class that helps the party beyond aid another.

For example, an evangelist cleric has the means to boost the party with performances, healing, domain powers like heroism, and even can use variant channel to help out with your own aid another actions later in the game. Another good one is a paladin that takes in harms way, since you got the prereqs anyway, and can take the damage in the place of the guy your protecting. The paladin would even be able to swift heal himself in addition to channeling and mercies.

In my opinion adding healing, spells, and such is worth a 2-3 point swing in aid another.
1 person marked this as FAQ candidate.

Gwen, you are leaving out key parts to each of those items.

Helpful (Halfling) reads: "Whenever you successfully perform an aid another action, you grant your ally a +4 bonus instead of the normal +2."

OotD Aid Allies reads: "At 2nd level, whenever an order of the dragon cavalier uses the aid another action to assist one of his allies, the ally receives a +3 bonus to his armor class, attack roll, saving throw, or skill check."

You'll notice that instead appears in the first, but not the second. Therefore, the second does not replace. It is an all-or-nothing proposition, rules as written. ((re-writing after this point, because it was all kinds of poorly written)) The Order of the Dragon Aid Allies ability places a +3 bonus, scaling with level, in addition to your aid another bonus. Now, the question is whether the two untyped bonuses stack and that depends on your interpretation of the concept of similar sources. There is no language in the game text that clearly defines what a source is, in regards to the initiation of a bonus. Can a feat and a class ability each create an untyped bonus on the same stat? Is the source the action or the feat/class ability? That's really the question to be answered... But, most definitely, there exists a +3 bonus on top of aid another's bonus that applies to a character. Aid Allies does not replace the bonus, not without the words "replace" or "instead of" or similar language in the text.

Look up Gloves of Arcane Striking from Ult Equip- you'll need the feat Arcane Strike to use them but they can give you an extra +1-5 on certain aid another actions

PS - If we begin the assumption that "receives a bonus" means "replaces the existing bonus," then Weapon Focus turns into quite possibly the worst feat of all time. Maybe even the worst character option in this history of all gaming.
heyyon wrote:
PS - If we begin the assumption that "receives a bonus" means "replaces the existing bonus," then Weapon Focus turns into quite possibly the worst feat of all time. Maybe even the worst character option in this history of all gaming.

The "receives a bonus" line of Order of the Dragon isn't actually relevant to this comparison.

Dragon/Helpful is an easily debatable point. Helpful uses the words "instead of", which make them a replacement of the +2-- and Dragon calls out +3, not simply "increases by +1", which would make them clearly stack.

I just find all of that a secondary point to the cheese that is Inspiring Commander. If the GM will allow that everything else will fall into place easily enough.
JonathonWilder wrote:
Just to let everyone know, I have no interest in Pathfinder Society... at least not much interest.

So you are worried about table variation and you are NOT playing PFS? How many private home games are you planning on playing this single character at?

Gwen Smith, heyyon: We have been over this before. The only thing we can give is personal opinion as there has been no ruling on this.

That being said, RAW states that untyped bonuses from separate sources stack. Being that the bonuses are untyped and the sources have different names I believe that they stack. If there is RAW that supports them NOT stacking, I have yet to see it.

This character I'm posting as is an Aid Another focused halfling Investigator, in case you want to look at a sample build for inspiration. She's been quite fun to play.

I started with 1 level of Fighter (vengeful hunter) to get whip proficiency (to aid from 15' away) and the bonus feat. Then 3 levels of Investigator, which got me Effortless Aid.

But whips don't threaten, and so deny you your AoOs don't they?

I don't think they deny them. Enemies just don't provoke.
But another problem: Whips provoke as if they are ranged weapons and aid another rolls in combat are attack rolls vs AC10 as far as I remember.

Mama Bess: You do realize that for Bodyguard (I see your character took that feat) requires your ally to be adjacent regardless of your reach, right?

edit: And, as others have pointed out, you need Improved Whip Mastery (which requires weapon focus: whip, whip mastery and BAB +5) in order to threaten with a whip. Even then, it isn't for the full reach of the whip. It is for your natural reach +5'.

IMO, it is better to go the route my son did: he went with Phallanx Soldier Fighter and wields a polearm one handed and a heavy shield in his offhand.

Whips can be made to threaten pretty easily. It's the first two whip feats that everyone using a whip takes every time.

kestral287: He didn't take them though. Click his name and check out his build. I pointed the same thing out. Being that it only extends range by 5' it seems better to just use a polearm without having to take 3 feats to accomplish the same thing.

VRMH: Right, whip doesn't threaten (yet), but her spiked shield does so she still threatens 5' around her. I intend to get Whip Mastery (& then Improved) when I have the feats available. That said, threatening isn't a big part of this build since I'm using my AoOs for Bodyguard. Eventually I'd love to be able to use them for tripping and disarming too...but I need more feats for that.

Just a Guess: Right, if I use the whip to Aid while within an enemy's reach, I provoke until I get Whip Mastery. So far that's been OK because I tend to stand right behind the front line.

Lune: Yes, Bodyguard needs to be adjacent to the ally, which I get by standing behind them. I like the Phalanx Fighter option (or any reach weapon, really) but it wouldn't work well in this case: I'm a halfling with a low STR so Weapon Finesse is important to consistently make those AID rolls, even with a DC 10.

As noted, a whip doesn't help with Bodyguard (nor would a polearm). Where the whip IS handy is with Aiding ally's rolls to hit. For that the rules say "If you're in position to make a melee attack on an opponent that is engaging a friend in melee combat, you can attempt to aid your friend"

So if I'm in position behind the front line, I can use a Move and a Stnd to add +4 each time to hit for any allies attacking foes within 15' of me, and then I can add +4 to AC for any foes who're attacking adjacent allies (up to 4/round).

If you shield bash without improved shield bash you will lose your shield bonus to AC as well. You may know this but just pointing it out in case you do not. You may be further ahead getting a spiked gauntlet on your whip hand.

Also, with Cavalier those aid checks coming in as AoOs are made a lot easier by having the paired opportunist feat that you get for free.
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