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I have a character idea but am unsure what class or classes I should pick. I’ve asked this question before, but now I have a better idea of what I want to play I thought I’d ask it again.
The idea is the following:
The character is a champion of the forest. He fights the unnatural and threats to the animal world. He is a monster hunter (kinda like a witcher, but with different skills ) who traps and fights monsters, demons, humans or ghosts. He tracks and sneaks up on his pray in an animal shape or with animal shape like enhancements (change into a owl to fly in stealth, into a raccoon to climb through small windows, change his nose, eyes and ears to improve his senses). He is skilled with a 2 handed blade and uses this for one on one combat. When the blade is not enough or he is overwhelmed he transforms into a huge grizzly bear. I don’t want to use a blade in the wildshape… this seems unnatural.
Some things I think this PC needs:
- High damage output with a 2 handed blade
- Wildshape class features
- Able to place traps to trap anything
So the keywords are: Combat, stealth, tracking and wildshape…
I was thinking about the following options:
Feral hunter or Druid/Trapper ranger (with the shaping focus and shapeshifting hunter feats) … But I’m unsure about the combat skills with the blade, how bad will it be compared to other 3/4bab classes??
In my last post I asked to Compare the feral hunter to a ranger… the ranger is a lot better due to the full BAB… So if I wanna play this character… how do I balance him and not suck at everything? My concern is that I’m not good at combat like the ranger, not good ad wildshaping like the druid, not good in casting as a full druid…. I could use some advice. A werebear ranger seems ok, but a werebear costs some levels if i'm not mistaken... so that seems also like a bad idea...
Consider also a totemist skald. Their use of wildshape will be largely outside combat, and in combat they'll be swinging a large weapon as a humanoid. Bard/Skald buffs are rather better for a weapon user than hunter buffs.
Grimlock-
So far as I know, the exact character you describe can't be efficiently built under the Pathfinder rules.
So if you build a character that it exactly like that it won't be particularly powerful, basicly for the reasons set out in your last paragraph.
I suggest you have a look at the Survivor Druid Archetype. Most Druids are nature guardians with wild shape. And if you construct your character for it they can be darn good in combat while wildshaped. The Survivor archetype adds the stealth skill and traps.
That comes close to your vision. It just lacks to 2 handed blade. Basicly the druid is good at combat wildshaped. Trying to get good with weapons is inefficient at best.
That is as good as I can do. Hope it helps.
Instead of a werebear you could take a bear skinwalker. Not a full bear form but bearlike.
Apart from that a multiclass druid/ranger might be what you look for because there is a feat, wildshaping hunter, that combines druid and ranger levels for number of wildshapes per day and favoured enemies.
As for traps: The feat learn ranger trap lets you build traps without having the trapper archetype.
The problem with my suggestions is that they don't come online before level 5 and then you can only take one of the feats, while the other one has to wait 'till level 7.
When I tired to build such a pc I'd go feral hunter 1/ranger x with a skinwalker for race. That way you can shift into your true form and have the permanent feral focus but get the combat abilities of a ranger.
And you can cast ranger spells from level 1 (or whenever you take the hunter dip)
I prefere a real bear shape over the Humanoid animal shapes because its more natural and the gear shifts into the form... I wish there was a kind of bear kisune, that would be perfect :-) i'd go bear-sune ranger style :-D
Bear-kitsune is an interesting concept.
Ill open a new topic :-)
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2sdwn?How-to-build-a-bearkitsune#1
a druid...
Half-elf with ancestral arms (any weapon) or half-orc (falchion) can pull off the druid with a two-handed sword without feat investment.
I think stealth is a class skill for druids.
The trapper trait can can give disable device as a class skill.
Play a druid. You will need to give up on the idea of being good with a blade. Sorry, you just can't do all the stuff you want but I'm going to try to help you be good at as much of it as I can.
Ranks in survival will make you good at tracking, though not as good as a ranger but you have spells that can make up for that to an extent.
You can also take the Learn Ranger Trap feat to be able to use traps if it's really important to you.
Focus on strength, con, and wisdom. Though you are a full caster, don't worry about casting offensively, use your spells for buffs. This means you only need a ~14 wisdom to start with and can buy a headband to boost it up to cast spells over 4th level. This allows you to focus on strength and con afterwards, which will get further boosted by wildshape. Focus on making wildshape your combat method. You can you Strongjaw and with Animal Soul feat you can use the Animal Growth Spell on yourself. You can became pretty damaging with this.
Wildshape can add enough utility that by putting ranks in stealth you can be quite stealthy as well. Think of it this way, eventually you can become a small earth elemental and earth glide into any place, with basically no chance of detection.
Animal growth doesn't stack with wildshape. Atavism would work, though
Animal growth doesn't stack with wildshape. Atavism would work, though
You're absolutely right. In my haste this morning I was thinking clearly.
However, it's still not terrible if he absolutely wants to fight in his normal form instead of wildshaped.