Any way a martial class can make use of a good int score for combat purposes?

[noble peasant]

I'm mainly looking at like feats per se, as I'm mainly deciding between slayer and an unchained rogue. I'm not completely out of the realm of playing something else but I want sneak attack and a lot of ranks. I thought about Kensai but idk if I'm feeling it, also the only two ranks thing bugs me and I don't see any realistic Int score equaling what I'll get as the other two classes with a decent int score

So what are some ways that I could make a good int score contribute to my combat abilities while playing a martial character?

EDIT: This is for Pfs

[mourge40k]

Knowledge (engineering) and an Adamantine weapon.

[noble peasant]

What does that do? also gonna throw in an edit up top to say it is for PFS.

[Just a Guess]

The student of war PrC gets int to AC at level 2. So a two level dip might help.

[noble peasant]

Oooo that'd be cool. I love not being hit. :)

EDIT: Ugh it uses INT instead of dex so I'm digging that a bit less, especially since I wouldn't be getting that particularly early. :/

[mourge40k]

To quote Mr. Greenhilt....

[JonGarrett]

Artful Dodge allows you to forget about dexterity as a martial. Kirin Strike, especially if you can use the Stamina system, is well worth two levels into an Unchained Master of Many Styles Monk. As mentioned Student of War is nice.

And if you use a Slayer you'll have Skill Points coming out the wazoo.

[chuffster]

The Getting X to Y guide is probably the best resource for this kind of question. I think taking a level in Witch to grab prehensile hair is your best bet to do some real damage with your INT. Not sure if it's really an optimal move for anything other than that, though.

[Lord Phrofet]

Swashbuckler, Student of War and Duelist use Int to good degree. The Kirin style feats also let you use Int + knowledge skills for some decent bonuses. Lastly Kitusne rogue gets int to several social skills.

EDIT: Totally got ninjaed as I was typing this

[lemeres]

JonGarrett wrote:

Artful Dodge allows you to forget about dexterity as a martial. Kirin Strike, especially if you can use the Stamina system, is well worth two levels into an Unchained Master of Many Styles Monk. As mentioned Student of War is nice.

And if you use a Slayer you'll have Skill Points coming out the wazoo.

I never quite got artful dodger.

Even with fullplate, you have at least a +1 to AC from dex, and it adds to reflex, initiative, and AoOs from combat reflexes (since reach is a fantastic path for martial characters). So it makes a lot more sense to have a relevant dex score than a relevant int score (and it doesn't need a feat tax to do it).

Artful dodger would be a lot more useful if it added int to dex for the purposes of feats. That would mean you could count for an 18 DEX using the same amount of points in a point buy as a 16. Then it would be easy to qualify for both TWF feats and combat expertise.

[Rerednaw]

Out-smarting and out-thinking your foe work better in games that are more open to player driven narrative (i.e. Apocalype World, FUDGE, Cortex).

Pathfinder makes it difficult, unless you go beyond RAW.

I suppose you could RP being smart enough for Combat Expertise :).

Or...were you open to a martial Arcane? Or did you mean pure non-magical martial?

I have a structural engineering / architectural background IRL...but when I try to use that in Pathfinder (Knowledge Eng / Arch plus Int 20+ which is way smarter than me) I usually get "the rules don't say that."

[Kaboogy]

If you can get a wizard discovery knowledge is power is great. IDK how you'll get it, but there you go.

[Blackwaltzomega]

Kaboogy wrote:

If you can get a wizard discovery knowledge is power is great. IDK how you'll get it, but there you go.

Wizard Variant Multiclass from unchained makes this fairly simple.

You'll be out some feats, but you can get familiars and school powers instead as well as an arcane discovery.

Although the discovery comes pretty late so you're often better off just grabbing True Name a lot of the time so you can whistle up an outsider buddy when you need a favor...but that's not relevant to the discussion at hand.

[Kaboogy]

He said that the build is for PFS, so no VMC and no level 15 :(

[Pounce]

Tactician Fighter, perhaps?

[My Self]

noble peasant wrote:

I'm mainly looking at like feats per se, as I'm mainly deciding between slayer and an unchained rogue. I'm not completely out of the realm of playing something else but I want sneak attack and a lot of ranks. I thought about Kensai but idk if I'm feeling it, also the only two ranks thing bugs me and I don't see any realistic Int score equaling what I'll get as the other two classes with a decent int score

So what are some ways that I could make a good int score contribute to my combat abilities while playing a martial character?

EDIT: This is for Pfs

Take a peek at the inspired blade archetype. Gets precision damage at 3rd level, dex and int-based, and also decent as a single-level dip. Not exactly a feat, but look into it.

[lemeres]

My Self wrote:

noble peasant wrote:

I'm mainly looking at like feats per se, as I'm mainly deciding between slayer and an unchained rogue. I'm not completely out of the realm of playing something else but I want sneak attack and a lot of ranks. I thought about Kensai but idk if I'm feeling it, also the only two ranks thing bugs me and I don't see any realistic Int score equaling what I'll get as the other two classes with a decent int score

So what are some ways that I could make a good int score contribute to my combat abilities while playing a martial character?

EDIT: This is for Pfs

Take a peek at the inspired blade archetype. Gets precision damage at 3rd level, dex and int-based, and also decent as a single-level dip. Not exactly a feat, but look into it.

Some people argue that it take too much int to get actual returns on inspired blade.

There is no difference between 7 int and 12 in- you alway get a minimum of 1 for everything involved.

With CHA still tied to things like charmed life, it get some questions asked.

...What? Oh, I was never someone that argued that. The return is nice enough for me to get 14/14 in those mental stats. But I can see the argument.

[Just a Guess]

lemeres wrote:

JonGarrett wrote:

Artful Dodge allows you to forget about dexterity as a martial. Kirin Strike, especially if you can use the Stamina system, is well worth two levels into an Unchained Master of Many Styles Monk. As mentioned Student of War is nice.

And if you use a Slayer you'll have Skill Points coming out the wazoo.

I never quite got artful dodger.

Even with fullplate, you have at least a +1 to AC from dex, and it adds to reflex, initiative, and AoOs from combat reflexes (since reach is a fantastic path for martial characters). So it makes a lot more sense to have a relevant dex score than a relevant int score (and it doesn't need a feat tax to do it).

Artful dodger would be a lot more useful if it added int to dex for the purposes of feats. That would mean you could count for an 18 DEX using the same amount of points in a point buy as a 16. Then it would be easy to qualify for both TWF feats and combat expertise.

The trick is to combine artful dodge with a level of brawler so both your int and dex count as 13 for feat prerequisites while you actually dump them.