We are about to start our Giantslayer game (finally) and I plan to play a Skyseeker.
The party will be all dwarf with perhaps a gnome as a face.
My build will incorporate:
- Ranger (Trapper/Dungeonrover*)
- Cleric of Apsu (Travel + Dragon)
- Skyseeker
I will start Ranger 1, then go Cleric 4, Skyseeker 4, a second level ranger and continue with skyseeker.
As everyone will be dwarves I thought it the perfect occasion to play a Xenophobic, so I decided to take it as both an alternate racial trait and a drawback.
Racial traits: Xenophobic, stonecunning, Mountaineer, Darkvision, hatred, Greed, Hardy, slow and steady, defensive training
Traits: Roll with it, Glory of old, Rich Parents, Magical knack (cleric)
Drawback: Xenophobic
Stats:
Strength: 14
Dexterity: 13
Constitution: 16
Intelligence: 10
Wisdom: 16
Charisma:10
Feats:
Level 1: Power attack
Level 3: Divine Barrier
Level 5: not planned
Abilities (With Choices):
Ranger 1: Favored class (Giant)
Cleric 1: Domains (Travel + Skalykind (Dragon subdomain))
Gear: Chainshirt + armored kilt, quickdraw shield, dwarven waraxe, silver dwarven boulderhelmet, cold iron boarding axe, several holy symbols, some alchemical gear, masterwork thievestools, traveller's anytool.
Anything I might have missed? Any gaping holes in my build?
Any pieces of advice regarding feats?
The party will be rather melee heavy but I guess I'll stick to this build. He will have some versatility in the form of his spells for situations in which our melee power will not work.
Power Attack is pretty bad if you are hitting with a 14 STR.
Any reason you are not dumping CHA? Those points might be needed elsewhere...
What's the "roll with it" trait? And it's hard not to justify fate's favored for someone capable of casting fate's favored.
What's up with Skalykind Domain? I'm really not seeing neither from a mechanical nor flavor perspective. The fact that you get an AC at level 4 is hardly worth anything as said AC won't progress once in Skyseeker...
-Power attack: You might be right on this
-Not dumping cha: I plan on saving the party from elemental effects by using channel energy with divine barrier so I wanted to retain cha for channel uses/day.
-Roll with it: It is a campaign trait allowing you to treat critical hits from giants as non-crits. Once per day or 2/day for dwarves. We get 2 traits + 1 campaign trait + 1 trait for a drawback. So I have to choose a campaign trait and this was the most fitting.
- I have the dragon subdomain of the scalykind domain which gives a dragon breath at 4th level. Why I took it was a mix. First it fitted to being a cleric of Apsu, second it gives an ability at 4th after which I leave cleric. Third Apsu doesn't have the best of domains. And to get the divine barrier feat it had to be Apsu. It's for his followers only.
Apsu's domains:
Domains Artifice, Good, Law, Scalykind, Travel
Subdomains Archon (Good), Archon (Law), Construct, Dragon, Exploration, Judgment, Toil, Trade
Source Inner Sea Gods pg. 210 (Amazon)
You have trained in the art of blocking breath weapons.Prerequisites: Channel energy class feature, worshiper of Apsu.
Benefit: When you are within an area effect that deals acid, cold, electricity, or fire damage, you can expend one use of your channel energy ability as an immediate action to shield yourself and all allies within 30 feet. You and allies within your shield only take half damage if they fail their save against the effect, and those who make a successful save take no damage from the effect.
And my plan is it to use the scalykind 1st level power to deny opponents their action. I ready for their turn to begin and use it. If they fail their save they are fascinated (and are deals nonlethal damage). Even if being attacked should break the fascination, their turn should be over.
It is a "free" SoS effect usable to take captives. At least at lower levels. But most 1st level domain powers are rather lacklustre later on.
As a standard action, you can activate a gaze attack with a 30-foot range (Pathfinder RPG Bestiary 300). This is an active gaze attack that can target a single creature within range. The target must make a Will save (DC = 10 + 1/2 your cleric level + your Wisdom modifier). Those that fail take 1d6 points of nonlethal damage + 1 point for every two cleric levels you possess and are fascinated until the beginning of your next turn. You can use this ability a number of times per day equal to 3 + your Wisdom modifier. This is a mind-affecting effect.
As a standard action, you can activate a gaze attack with a 30-foot range (Pathfinder RPG Bestiary 300). This is an active gaze attack that can target a single creature within range. The target must make a Will save (DC = 10 + 1/2 your cleric level + your Wisdom modifier). Those that fail take 1d6 points of nonlethal damage + 1 point for every two cleric levels you possess and are fascinated until the beginning of your next turn. You can use this ability a number of times per day equal to 3 + your Wisdom modifier. This is a mind-affecting effect.
But Venomous Stare doesn't improve it's DC as you level. Equally your breath weapon doesn't improve as you level.
I now understand a bit more where your coming from I'm just not sold that divine barrier is worth making such otherwise lackluster choices.
Also from a flavor perspective why should Dwarves follow Apsu? Isn't that a thing for Kobolds?
I'd look for 2 front loaded Cleric domains such as Travel, Growth, Memory, Darkness or maybe go with Forgemaster or another archetype and get into the PRC as quickly as possible. Screw Charisma and Channel Energy, and be a battle Priest cause what other reason is there for going Skyseeker if not to get almost full casting and good BAB.
I'll think about it.
But my thought was that being able to hand out improved evasion to the whole group (divine barrier) three times per day in a games that has dragons and all kinds of giants including air and fire as enemies is worth it
Based on Apsu's domains the only ones that look interesting to me for dip purposes besides Travel are Law or Judgement.
Law looses some of it's appeal at later levels though, Judgement might be too marginal considering you likely won't be casting much in combat.
Alternatively I'd look into Inquisitions many of which gtrant abilities at 1 and 4. There's one which grants some skill bonuses at 1 and a permanent merciful ability at level 4.
Alternatively you can look into Archetypes that trade out a Domain or Separatist which lets you choose any Domain.
Divine strategist would be a possibility.
The caster support ability might come in handy if some status needs to be removed via a caster level check. Like remove disease or neutralize poison.
Not sure yet.
In any case, thanks for you advice.
This is very similar to a build of mine, except I follow Cayden (for story reasons, not mechanical ones), and use an earthbreaker.
I might need to change the stats slightly, decreasing cha and increasing int because the PrC prerequesite includes two skills at 5 and with only int+2 skillpoints of the cleric that would mean having no few other skills.
"Traits: Any dwarf racial trait or the adopted social trait"
Something I've been wondering for RAW on these guys, by "racial trait" does this mean the racial traits any character gets simply by playing a member of said race (i.e. Stonecunning), or does this mean a race trait as in the 2 traits you get to choose when making a new character?
"Traits: Any dwarf racial trait or the adopted social trait"
Something I've been wondering for RAW on these guys, by "racial trait" does this mean the racial traits any character gets simply by playing a member of said race (i.e. Stonecunning), or does this mean a race trait as in the 2 traits you get to choose when making a new character?
Racial Traits and Race Traits are explicitly different things despite the similar naming, so "dwarf racial traits" means abilities like Sonecunning indeed