As per the subject of the thread, here is a Two Weapon Fighting Mounted Rogue Build Mini-Guide I made.
The concept is this:
• Use the Eldritch Heritage feat to get an animal companion you can ride; and
• Select a number of teamwork feats that allow your rogue and his animal companion to have a permanent flanking bonus and grant each other additional attacks.
The main selling point of the build is the fact that, from level 8 onward, and as long as:
• you are mounted;
• threatening someone; and
• that someone does not have concealment;
you are always flanking, which means that every single attack you make is a sneak attack!
In other words, your sneak attack damage does not depend on having other party members flanking with you and the fact that your enemy is flat footed or not is completely irrelevant!
For at home games the build requires a certain degree of DM approval regarding some Feats (which are not included in the Core Rulebook) and specific magic gear (Horsemaster’s Saddle from Ultimate Equipment or the Sky Marines Elite Saddle from Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Inner Sea Combat).
The other selling point of the build is the fact that the core of it is completely legal for Pathfinder Society Games, according to the Additional Resources list, as at January 20 2016!
Lastly, I’ve included build variants based on both the Core Rulebook Rogue and the Unchained Rogue.
I heartily recommend that you use the Unchained Rogue as the basis of your build, because Finesse Training (add Dexterity to damage with your selected weapon) and Debilitating Injury (reduce opponent’s Armor Class and/or Attack Rolls with each hit) are awesome!!
Enjoy!!!
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5u_pKVYslWORmJrSmNXVXE5aDQ/view?usp=shari ng
How is your animal companion picking up pack flanking, or raher how are you sharing your teamwork feats with your animal companion? Because it's fairly likely they cannot qualify for pack flanking ever.
Edit just found it. The whole build basically relies on having a saddle that allows you to share your teamwork feats.
Personally I would rule this build to be too gear dependent and doesn't come online till far too late to be much fun to play. Maybe if you started a game at level 10 it would be alright, but it wouldn't be much fun to play from level 1.
I'm afraid pretty much nothing in this build works as advertised. Sylvan is, quite reasonably, not remotely an option for eldritch heritage. You were looking for the feat Animal Ally.
I could have rewritten this guide, but honestly, I couldn’t bother doing that. I will,
however, present a little summary of how you can work with this feat.
....
Really? I wasted this much time reading for you to realized you messed up half-way and not change a thing?
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You can't take Eldritch Heritage: Sylvan, but you can take Nature Soul > Animal Ally > Boon Companion for a companion with the same number of feats and not have the need for a high CHA.
The gear dependance kills this though. You would be much better off with a hunter or sacred huntmaster dip to share teamwork feats.
Dipping hunter would solve the gear dependency issue.
But then you have problems with the mount advancement. You have a mount, but your rogue levels wont advance it. You can take boon companion to help, but that will only work for a few levels. So now you still have to waste feats on getting an animal companion. And you can't take Sylvan heritage, as someone pointed out. So it requires you take animal soul and animal ally.
Edit just found it. The whole build basically relies on having a saddle that allows you to share your teamwork feats.
Personally I would rule this build to be too gear dependent and doesn't come online till far too late to be much fun to play. Maybe if you started a game at level 10 it would be alright, but it wouldn't be much fun to play from level 1.
You are absolutely correct! Gear dependency is precisely one the cons of the build, as indicated at the start of page 8 of the guide.
Evil DMs might use this against you. Others might not….
Like you, Timdog and Imbicatus say, you can circumvent the issue with the three level dip in Hunter or Sacred Huntmaster, in order to grant your companion Pack Flanking, which, really, is the one feat you need to have flanking status always on. The hunter has the added advantage of being able to select Outflank as a bonus feat at level 2.
But, like you say, Animal Ally is still needed so that you are able to boost your Animal Companion’s level from two different sources.
Lastly, you are correct: one of the other cons of the build is the fact that is a late bloomer.
The whole build also relying on GM fiat, since you can't take Eldritch Heritage: Sylvan according to this faqs. So I don't thinks it will works on PFS.
Damn!!!!! I had no idea that Faq existed!
I am a victim of the Herolab software, which allows the selection of the Sylvan bloodline with the Eldritch Heritage Feat.
Back to the drawing board then, lol!
wait, why would you care for dex to damage? Are you really stealthing on your mount? Cause wicked but probably not needed :) Just go thug.
No, lol, the idea isn’t stealthing on your mount (although the concept is quite cool!).
The reason why I care about Dex to damage is because flat bonuses on top of sneak attack rolls (particularly bad ones) are always nice and, when dealing with types of creatures immune to sneak attacks (as few as they are), the unchained rogue can still dish out a respectable amount of damage.
I'm afraid pretty much nothing in this build works as advertised. Sylvan is, quite reasonably, not remotely an option for eldritch heritage. You were looking for the feat Animal Ally.
I could have rewritten this guide, but honestly, I couldn’t bother doing that. I will,
however, present a little summary of how you can work with this feat.
....
Really? I wasted this much time reading for you to realized you messed up half-way and not change a thing?
Like I said in my reply to Cleru, I did not know about the FAQ regarding the limitations Wildblooded Bloodlines.
As for the “I could have rewritten this guide” quote, it was an unfortunate choice of words on my part.
Like I said, when I wrote the guide I was convinced that you could take Sylvan with Eldritch Heritage.
Notice that out of all the builds I present in the Guide that is the exact one that I do not go into detail, as to what you can do at each level. So, instead of rewriting all the information per level using the Animal Ally feat (instead of Eldritch Heritage), I simply presented a summary of the feats you could take at each level.
The only reason why the Unchaind Rogue section (which was written after the Animal Ally section) has a detailed description per level is because it was built around the Eldritch Heritage feat, so I only needed to adjust the stats and text for Builds I and II.
I am really sorry that you feel that you wasted your time reading the guide. Do note, however, that I wasted substantially more time writing it than you did reading it ;-)
Having said that, it is clear that I have to go back to the drawing board with this one, and built it around the Animal Ally feat.
You say that nothing works as advertised in the guide. Are there any issues regarding the “Animal Ally” variation, namely feat requirements, that need to be solved?
You say that nothing works as advertised in the guide. Are there any issues regarding the “Animal Ally” variation, namely feat requirements, that need to be solved?
It's more of the sum total.
I don't know why you have undersized mount listed at all. Just play a small race? There's no reason to play humans.
Crit building or knife master on pure damage Rogues is usually more important than using a shortsword. And if you are playing a rogue why would you not go for a dip in snakebite striker brawler? It's a spare sneak attack and Brawler's Cunning for free.
Generally, people find greater two weapon fighting a waste. The chain gets worse as you go down it.
Animal Ally doesn't naturally allow for big cats. You need a 1 level dip in Brawler or Hunter to make that work.
You've got an outline for a great idea. Pack Flanking builds can be awesome. But, this doesn't feel like it helps or points out anything really synergistic. A lot of the feats feel bog standard or underwhelming.