Are there any 18th-ish level builds that are:
A. Able to effectively grapple/stun/disable humanoid opponents
B. Able to coup de grace and kill grappled/pinned/stunned/disabled opponents
C. Able to do it in a surprise round, or the surprise round + first round, or less
D. Reasonably stealthy
E. Have good initiative
Build starts at 18th level. Assuming similarly-leveled opponents. Anybody?
pinned is not helpless. You need to tie them up first.
Finlanderboy wrote: pinned is not helpless. You need to tie them up first. I'm looking for a build that can execute someone in the first round or surprise round. If that involves tying up, that's fine, but it needs to be able to kill quickly. What it does after the first round doesn't matter.
Make a Dex-build. Agile maneuvers. Skill points in Stealth. There is a class (cavalier I think) that lets you Tie up without pinning that you dip into. Take the typical grapple feats. Use almost any martial class. Brawlers, Monks, and Barbs (urban for Dex) will be good at grappling. Rogue will be better at the coup de grace. Heck, you could be an Alchemist and use a Dex mutagen and take vivisectionist archetype.
My Self wrote: Finlanderboy wrote: pinned is not helpless. You need to tie them up first. I'm looking for a build that can execute someone in the first round or surprise round. If that involves tying up, that's fine, but it needs to be able to kill quickly. What it does after the first round doesn't matter. coup de graz is a full round action. So what free or swift action would make someone helpless?
Be a slumber witch. Surprise you slumber, next round coup de graz.
Good point about the full round action coup de grace. Probably your best bet for 1-rounding someone is a death effect. There are quite a few classes that get save-or-die effects
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A. Generally, yes. Until they meet the human fighter who put their FCB into resisting it. Or the barbarian with Strength Surge. Or any of a variety of ways to get a huge boost to defense. But generally, yes. And it's called Tetori (otherwise you can add freedom of movement and dimensional slide to the list of things you can't touch).
B. Pinned only, and it's called Throat Slicer.
C. If you allow third party, yes. Otherwise, no. There's just no way to reduce coup de grace down below a standard and no way to reduce grapple below a standard. In theory you could use Grab on an AoO then Greater Grapple to pin and Throat Slicer to coup de grace but that requires that they provoke an AoO (and grab succeeds).
D. What, max ranks in Stealth? Everything gets 2/level, it's not that hard. Or do you mean some way to get invisibility? Or do you mean all the feats to make you super stealthy? What's reasonable? And if it's related to opposed checks from other humanoids... well, you're going to need way more than "reasonable" to stand a chance.
E. ...put some points in Dex? What's "good"? +10? +20? Again, if this is opposed checks against other humanoids, you're going to need a lot more than "good". Either they built for it (and will destroy you) or they didn't (and you don't need to put in any effort).
If the goal is to kill someone in one round... well, how do you want to go about it?
Quickened Hold Person followed by a coup de grace works.
Mounted Barbarian pouncing with a lance for obscene damage.
Mounted Cavalier with a lance challenging and charging for obscene damage.
Archer pumping someone full of slaying arrows.
Gunslinger with only named bullets.
Assassin or Ninja with a death attack.
You're going to need to be a lot more specific what you actually want, as "kill someone in one round" is a very generic goal with a lot of solutions.
The idea is to kill an 18th level Cleric (with Darkvision) who has max ranks in perception. Cleric has good saves, has 1/2 of the old Divine Protection, good charisma, maxed out save bonuses (resistance, luck, CON belt), and constant Death Ward. The idea behind grapple is to get it so that even if the Cleric wins initiative, casting will be difficult at the very least. Cleric has allies with them, so being alive enough to take a 2nd turn isn't a likely situation. This will be inside a room, not just out in the wild.
Is there a way to grapple on a charge? Between surprise round + 1st round, that might be enough time to put them down.
a persistent phantasmal killer.
Finlanderboy wrote: a persistent phantasmal killer. Death Ward, remember? Oh, and Cleric.
My Self wrote: Finlanderboy wrote: a persistent phantasmal killer. Death Ward, remember? Oh, and Cleric. Death ward doesn't make you immune death efects anymore. Get a high enough DC and the +4 won't matter.
You're probably better off at level 18 with some kind of full caster, though - not a rogue at all. A wish-geas foresight divination wizard if you want to get silly. Prismatic sphere would help isolate said cleric. Contingency gets you back out if the plan fails. Planar binding or gate gets you backup allies.
Ultimately you aren't looking for a stealth kill build here, you are looking for a rocket tag build that wins initiative and kills on first round. At 18th level, any 9th level caster is going to be able to deliver that rocket tag more efficiently than a martial.
So as far as I can tell you're trying to kill an 18th level cleric in a room who has super good saves, constant Death Ward, and is surrounded by allies. And you're trying to... well, suicide bomb them. Because if the allies would kill you before you get to round 2, won't they still do that after you kill the cleric?
So there's probably some more information you can provide to help (size of the room, alignment of the cleric, god of the cleric, AC, touch AC) but a much better question is why? You're asking for a super-high level build (which is a chore to make) that will have a lifespan measured in seconds. You're asking for a Fabergé egg so you can tie an M80 to it and blow it up. Grapple just complicates things because clerics aren't generally known for their super initiative. Grappling the cleric probably isn't going to do anything except make your own AC go down while the cleric's higher initiative friends turn you into a pincushion. As Blakmane said, you're not looking for a "sneaky" build. You're looking for a rocket build. So, take a cavalier/paladin/anti-paladin/barbarian, max strength, use a lance and a mount with spirited charge (and narrow frame if necessary), charge-murder the cleric.
If you want more than that you're going to need to explain what you actually need this for instead of keeping every detail obfuscated as long as possible. If it's a spoiler you can always use spoiler tags. Otherwise this feels an awful lot like you want us to do your homework for you.
Bob Bob Bob wrote: So as far as I can tell you're trying to kill an 18th level cleric in a room who has super good saves, constant Death Ward, and is surrounded by allies. And you're trying to... well, suicide bomb them. Because if the allies would kill you before you get to round 2, won't they still do that after you kill the cleric?
So there's probably some more information you can provide to help (size of the room, alignment of the cleric, god of the cleric, AC, touch AC) but a much better question is why? You're asking for a super-high level build (which is a chore to make) that will have a lifespan measured in seconds. You're asking for a Fabergé egg so you can tie an M80 to it and blow it up. Grapple just complicates things because clerics aren't generally known for their super initiative. Grappling the cleric probably isn't going to do anything except make your own AC go down while the cleric's higher initiative friends turn you into a pincushion. As Blakmane said, you're not looking for a "sneaky" build. You're looking for a rocket build. So, take a cavalier/paladin/anti-paladin/barbarian, max strength, use a lance and a mount with spirited charge (and narrow frame if necessary), charge-murder the cleric.
If you want more than that you're going to need to explain what you actually need this for instead of keeping every detail obfuscated as long as possible. If it's a spoiler you can always use spoiler tags. Otherwise this feels an awful lot like you want us to do your homework for you.
CE Cleric, has Mithral breastplate, buckler, natural armor amulet, ring of protection, and DEX modifier all +5. Also another couple misc AC bonuses. Room is undetermined (I don't know what the room will be like, only that there will be a room), but I assume it's a midsize to small dungeon room. A lot of this thing is to make the rest of the party (Non-clerics) feel good about killing something that killed one of their party members. Charge lance build would be fun, except that this also needs to be undead, and the Cleric most likely won't be in front in a charge lane.
Character build must be nongood.
I don't need a whole build, just a direction to whatever guides or feat combos might be able to pull off a targeted strike that isn't a TPK.
Wait so.... you're trying to make an NPC build to specifically kill the player character cleric? And this is going to be fun or interesting for the players... how?
Small size flying mount paladin charging from the roof is probably a better bet, but no matter what you do it is going to seem contrived --- which is fair enough, because it really is contrived. Why bother with an NPC? Just make a custom monster that does a million damage, 30+ initiative and has 1 HP and let it loose.
Blakmane wrote: Wait so.... you're trying to make an NPC build to specifically kill the player character cleric? And this is going to be fun or interesting for the players... how?
Small size flying mount paladin charging from the roof is probably a better bet, but no matter what you do it is going to seem contrived --- which is fair enough, because it really is contrived. Why bother with an NPC? Just make a custom monster that does a million damage, 30+ initiative and has 1 HP and let it loose.
It needs to be something that could reasonably be fought by a party. Cleric player is fine with death, plus, it's at a level where death is trivial (See: Breath of Life scroll). Plus, death is fine for this character, because:
I won't be running this, I'm just here to build monsters, and I'm looking for advice. Monsters that are reasonable to defeat- hyper-specialized builds are easy to counter.
I also want to be able to point at the sheet and say that it was a legitimate build and not some GM bolt from god thing. Think of this thing as the middle ground between an Alien, a Predator, and the Terminator. Unstoppable and very deadly. You can run, but you can't hide.
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Here's a glass cannon rocket. I can't guarantee that it won't TPK though, as the only reason it won't super-murder your party is because it doesn't have much in the way of defenses itself. It will murder the everloving @#$% out of anything that can't see invisible or acts after it. If the party isn't ready for the greater invisible pouncing sneak attacker, it will continue to sneak attack-full attack everything in reach (so TPK).
I'm not sure you can make something that can kill the cleric (d8 HD, apparently has a Con belt, saves better than everyone else) and won't also murder the rest of the party. Anything that can beat his saves will destroy the others. Anything that can kill him will murder everything that's not a full BAB beatstick.
That's a pretty scary build there. I suppose maxing ranks in Stealth and just having Invisibility/Greater Invisibility up while standing still (+40) works for the hiding part. That fills the role well enough- I'll use it if I don't find a grapple build that can perform just as well. Thanks.
My Self wrote: Finlanderboy wrote: pinned is not helpless. You need to tie them up first. I'm looking for a build that can execute someone in the first round or surprise round. If that involves tying up, that's fine, but it needs to be able to kill quickly. What it does after the first round doesn't matter. Yes, I know just the thing. You can get it up and running WELL before level 18, more like level 7. By level 9, you'd be able to take out a Balor Demon in 1 round.
Combine Greater Grapple and Expert Captor. With Greater Grapple, you can make your Maintain check as a Move Action, so if you begin your round adjacent to your opponent, you can Initiate a Grapple as a Standard Action then Pin your opponent as a Move Action. Expert Captor is an Ability granted to Cavaliers of the Order of the Penitent when they reach level 2. It lets you Tie Up an opponent you have Grappled, not Pinned, and you don't take the -10 you normally do. So between the 2, you can Grapple and Tie Up your opponent in 1 round if you being the round within Reach of your opponent.
More later.
Here's a build I imagine would be extremely fun and effective, using dirty tricks to pin:
Half-orc fighter (dirty fighter, mutation warrior) 13, cavalier (huntmaster) 3, monk (maneuver master) 2
You can bypass several feat prerequisites with the feat Dirty Fighting.
Some of your feats: Animal Ally, Undersized Mount, Throat Slicer, Dirty Fighting, Improved Dirty Trick, Greater Dirty Trick, Dirty Trick Master, Underhanded Teamwork, Improved Underhanded Teamwork, Stealth Synergy, Lookout, Coordinated Maneuvers
Animal Ally gives you a dog animal companion at character level -3, and your huntmaster levels stack with those to bring it up to your full character level.
Some of your dog's feats: Dirty Fighting, Improved Dirty Trick, Greater Dirty Trick, Dirty Trick Master
Discoveries: Vestigial Arm, Greater Mutagen
Skills: maxed Stealth and UMD
Magic Items: A Horsemaster's Saddle is essential, allowing you to share all teamwork feats with your dog. You'll also want as many magic items that grant natural attacks as possible, for both you and your dog: Amulets of the Blooded (Abyssal), a Ring of Rat Fangs, Helms of the Mammoth Lord, Fleshwarped Scorpion's Tails, and Animal Totem Tattoos (Eagle). Plus all the standard stat-boosting magic items and Quick Runner's Shirts. And a wand of contingent action.
Combat Strategy: Before combat, use your wand of contingent action to prepare a coup de grace (a standard action thanks to throat slicer) against any enemy who becomes pinned. Approach mounted and hidden (with Stealth Synergy and maxed stealth). During the surprise round, in which you have a full round of actions thanks to Lookout, approach with your Quick Runner's Shirts if necessary and both you and your dog can full-attack. Your dog gets a free dirty trick attempt (entangled) after every successful attack, and you can exchange all of your attacks for dirty trick combat maneuvers as well, each one inflicting two conditions (one of them being entangled). With something like 15 attempts between the two of you, you will almost certainly succeed twice at entangling the cleric, which makes them pinned with Dirty Trick Master, triggering your contingent coup de grace with the x4 crit weapon in your Vestigial Arm.
You won't be in too much of a shabby position after that, with the possibility of winning initiative and the likelihood of having inflicted many other debilitating conditions on any adjacent enemies. Plus the build has enough flexibility in open feat choices and gear to prepare a good defensive strategy.
But anyway, that cleric is going to be dead.
Contingent Action sounds awesome. Thanks.
Would a Maneuver Master Monk with Pounce (few levels in Alchemist or Primalist Bloodrager) be viable for a quick takedown? 1 level in Maneuver Master to be able to flurry of maneuvers (grapple twice on a full attack), a few in whatever to get Pounce, then Chokehold or Order of the Penitent (probably Chokehold) to be able to tie up/pin so that Contingent Coup de Grace triggers. Probably Grabbing Style to bypass having to get an extra arm.
Are there any archetypes or things that allow a full round in the surprise round? Any Rogue or Brawler or Monk or Fighter things that are particularly good for grappler dips?
You are trying to grapple a level 18 cleric? You realise your entire plan is shut down with a single 4th level spell which lasts 10 minutes per level and which is very common in ring form at that level.
Freedom of Movement, no Cleric or frankly any caster should ever be without it.
andreww wrote: You are trying to grapple a level 18 cleric? You realise your entire plan is shut down with a single 4th level spell which lasts 10 minutes per level and which is very common in ring form at that level.
Freedom of Movement, no Cleric or frankly any caster should ever be without it.
I guess the Monk part will have to be a 9th level Tetori?
Scott Wilhelm wrote: My Self wrote: Finlanderboy wrote: pinned is not helpless. You need to tie them up first. I'm looking for a build that can execute someone in the first round or surprise round. If that involves tying up, that's fine, but it needs to be able to kill quickly. What it does after the first round doesn't matter. Yes, I know just the thing. You can get it up and running WELL before level 18, more like level 7. By level 9, you'd be able to take out a Balor Demon in 1 round.
Combine Greater Grapple and Expert Captor. With Greater Grapple, you can make your Maintain check as a Move Action, so if you begin your round adjacent to your opponent, you can Initiate a Grapple as a Standard Action then Pin your opponent as a Move Action. Expert Captor is an Ability granted to Cavaliers of the Order of the Penitent when they reach level 2. It lets you Tie Up an opponent you have Grappled, not Pinned, and you don't take the -10 you normally do. So between the 2, you can Grapple and Tie Up your opponent in 1 round if you being the round within Reach of your opponent.
More later. The Bane of the Grappler is Freedom of Movement. With 9 levels of Tetori Monk, you can defeat that with the Class Ability Inescapable Grasp. My instinct is to just do without that: develop other ways of fighting in the event that you run into the disaster of an opponent with FoM, like Avoron's suggestion that you develop Dirty Tricks.
You were talking about Stealth, so you were probably thinking about Sneak Attack Damage. I was thinking about and Avoron mentioned Alchemist. So, Vivisectionist: Sneak Attack Damage instead of Bomb Damage, and a lot of Skill Points that you can develop Stealth with.
Alchemist has the fastest rate of CMB Grapple advance of any class I know, at least for the 1st 4 levels. The Tentacle Discovery gives you a +4 on Grapple Checks, the King Crab Tumor Familiar gives you another +2. In 4 levels, your BAB goes up +3. The Strength Mutagen will give you another +2. Also, there is the True Strike Extract, which also works on Grapple Checks. If you prepare for the encounter with a True Strike then close in, your next attack will be at an extra +20. Take the Potion Glutton Feat, which lets you drink any potable as a Swift Action. Extracts are drunk, so are potables. Then if you prepare in advance with True Strike and close into reach of your opponent, the following round, you can Initiate your Grapple as a Standard Action, pop your Extract as a Swift Action, the Tie your opponent Up as a Move Action.
Other ways of upping your CMD
Improved and Greater Grapple: +4
Armbands of the Brawler: +1
Brawler Armor Enchantment: +2
Adhesive Armor Enchantment: +2
Gauntlets of the Skilled Maneuver: +2
Coordinated Maneuvers: +2
Weapon Focus Grapple: +1
Bull Strength of Belt of Giant Strength: +1-3
You could could argue that an Amulet of Mighty Fists would enhance your Tentacle, and therefore your Grapple Mod, but any DM might rule against that. Same with Magic Gauntlets.
The Dan Bong gives a +2 on Grapple Checks, but having something in your hand is supposed to give you a -4, so?
But the above, including the Familiar, Grab, and the Mutagen make +21, +whatever your St and BA bonuses are, so you could quite plausibly have a Grapple Mod of +30 by level 9, and with that True Strike thing, +50. a Balor Demon's is 54.
So remember, this isn't for a playable character. This is for an opponent for the players.
My Self wrote: It needs to be something that could reasonably be fought by a party. Cleric player is fine with death, plus, it's at a level where death is trivial (See: Breath of Life scroll). Plus, death is fine for this character, because:
** spoiler omitted **
I won't be running this, I'm just here to build monsters, and I'm looking for advice. Monsters that are reasonable to defeat- hyper-specialized builds are easy to counter.
I also want to be able to point at the sheet and say that it was a legitimate build and not some GM bolt from god thing. Think of this thing as the middle ground between an Alien, a Predator, and the Terminator. Unstoppable and very deadly. You can run, but you can't hide.
He also wants to provide proof that it's a "legitimate" build instead of GM fiat. Of course, a purpose built killer designed to murder one player with full knowledge of their build is just as much GM fiat as "rocks fall", but that appears to have escaped them. Additionally, we need some way to not also murder the rest of the party with the super murder machine.
Bob Bob Bob wrote: So remember, this isn't for a playable character. This is for an opponent for the players.
My Self wrote: It needs to be something that could reasonably be fought by a party. Cleric player is fine with death, plus, it's at a level where death is trivial (See: Breath of Life scroll). Plus, death is fine for this character, because:
** spoiler omitted **
I won't be running this, I'm just here to build monsters, and I'm looking for advice. Monsters that are reasonable to defeat- hyper-specialized builds are easy to counter.
I also want to be able to point at the sheet and say that it was a legitimate build and not some GM bolt from god thing. Think of this thing as the middle ground between an Alien, a Predator, and the Terminator. Unstoppable and very deadly. You can run, but you can't hide.
He also wants to provide proof that it's a "legitimate" build instead of GM fiat. Of course, a purpose built killer designed to murder one player with full knowledge of their build is just as much GM fiat as "rocks fall", but that appears to have escaped them. Additionally, we need some way to not also murder the rest of the party with the super murder machine.
I'm not sure what spells they're going to have prepared. That's very much a part of a fullcaster's build as any feat choices.
Both the player and GM are on board with this- it's all in good fun. Friendly competition.
Out of curiosity, can we get the full context of this situation?
Heretek wrote: Out of curiosity, can we get the full context of this situation? GM is a story-type and not a monster builder, so I build monsters, GM tosses party at them. Party is 2/6 martial, 2/6 fullcaster, and 2/6 2/3 caster. Everybody is single-classed. Cleric is the dangerous one of the fullcasters- the other caster is a sorcery, but does not have system mastery. Other caster still solves problems, just not very actively or as effectively as a full caster can. Both martials are frontliners and are reasonably competent and good at hurting things. The 2/3 casters are buffers and archers, and also good at hurting things. Cleric wants a challenge and accepts death as a risk, but not one that completely invalidates everyone else or leads to a TPK.
Staff of the Magi. Retributive strike if we're talking about suicide bombing.
Any Coup de Grace build should have Throat Slicer:
Benefit(s): When using a one-handed, light, or natural weapon, you can deliver a coup de grace to an unconscious, bound, or pinned target (though not other kinds of helpless targets) as a standard action.
This reduces the time to kill for a Coup de Grace and also adds some condition that will work: Pinned, bound.
There are also combos that get you a full round action in the surprise round. Lookout teamwork feat with a familiar or animal companion.
Can't see a Coup de Grace before the end of the surprise round tho.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/throat-slicer-combat
That's a good point, but it was already mentioned in the 7th comment almost two years ago
My Self wrote: Finlanderboy wrote: pinned is not helpless. You need to tie them up first. I'm looking for a build that can execute someone in the first round or surprise round. If that involves tying up, that's fine, but it needs to be able to kill quickly. What it does after the first round doesn't matter. I have just such a thing.
The level 2 Cavalier Order Ability for Order of the Penitent is Expert Captor, which lets you Tie Up an opponent you have Grappled, not even Pinned, and you don't take the -10. If you have Greater Grapple, and you begin your Round adjacent to your opponent, you could Grapple him as a Standard Action then Tie him Up as a Move Action.
My Self wrote: kill This might be a problem if you really need to put the Dead Condition on your opponents. Members of the Order of the Penitent would never kill their Helpless opponents. Their edicts demand never killing anybody that you would normally consider alive. I mean, I don't think there is a penalty for accidental deaths, but a OotP certainly wouldn't let opponents bleed out once the battle was over. They would stabilize them as best they could.
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