Alright me and my group are starting up another campaign but this time we are being challenged to bring a fair amount of tactics to our game. Dm wants none of the usual I swing for this amount turn after turn. So far my group has gone with a fighter crossbowman focusing on a overwatch style feat chain, a Oradin, and a unchained rogue. The setting is low magic so we are restricted to dipping into a full caster class for a few levels or a 2/3 casting class. I just want some suggestions on a fun build, preferably melee, that has some versatility beyond swinging every round at hit points.
maybe a trip build or a grappler? of you could even go with a polearm build with combat patrol and such to give AoO's like mad....
Well I'm currently playing a build I find really fun.
I'm playing a character that has the Blade of Mercy Trait. its a trait that removes the -4 penalty when dealing nonlethal damage and actually gives you a +1 bonus to it.
couple that with a feat called enforcer. every time you deal nonlethal damage you can make an intimidate skill check. if you are successful the enemy is shaken for a number of rounds equal to damage dealt. also, the target is frightened for a round on a successful crit.
you can do lots of damage and instil fear into the hearts of your enemies. kinda like batman haha.
I'm told this build works very well with the thug rogue archetype, however I'm not playing a thug and it works well with any melee build.
theres also a number of feats that would work well with this.
Dazzling Display, Skill Focus Intimidate, Intimidating Prowess, Dreadful Carnage. I'm sure there are more out there.
anyway, thats my one idea to throw out there.
Well, the group looks physical-damage heavy and doesn't have anything that looks like a Battlefield control or Arcane caster character.
I'd recommend a Bard here. No archetype, just straight Bard with no dips or shenanigans. Either go high-Charisma and use control spells or high-Strength with a Longspear +/- Flagbearer & Banner of Ancient Kings. The Charisma-type has higher save DCs for spells, the Strength-type is more a buffer/second-line melee/AoO fisher.
Honestly, a number of 6/9 casters could work equally well. Skalds could be very good with this setup.
ooh, I Just remembered another build. The Shield Champion Brawler. Basically its Captain America in Pathfinder. it takes a while to come online but when it does you get to do a bunch of combat manoeuvres at range with your shield. Disarm, Bullrush, Dirty Trick Trip. like I said it takes a while to come online but you'd be a great martial controller.
Distance control focused reach build. It is very class agnostic (pretty much every class you can take in your home game would likely be able to pull it off), and requires relatively little investment of feats and actual play change compared to normal melee types.
The essence of distance control comes from lunge and pushing assault. These two feats allow you to keep enemies in a sweet spot 15' away.
When you are the first one to attack while using a reach weapon, the enemy ends up 10' away. That is a 5' step to you, which gives them their full attack adn denies you an AoO.
With lunge, you attack from 15' away. That means they most likely need to move 10' to reach you. That draws an AoO, and they can't full attack unless they have pounce. You can attack first without abandoning the advantages of reach weapons. Great quality of life change.
Pushing assault serves a similar use, but it is for turns after you start to engage a particular enemy. When an enemy is next to you (ie-5' away), you take a 5' step back, and then use pushing assault to push them another 5' away. Thus they are in the sweet spot 15' away again. This allows you to get AoOs against the same enemy time and again. This feat can be grabbed fairly early, and lunge later supplements it (since it lets you continue your full attack after pushing an enemy away- lunge only comes up when you even have full attacks).
Once you have distance control, you can also aim for area control (typical trip builds; you can probably fit in dirty fighting and improved trip by the time you can grab lunge on any class if you are human). But distance control means getting all of the full attacks, getting extra attacks from AoOs, and denying your enemies full attacks seems like a good strategy. Offense and defense.
And you are no turtled monk. Enemies that try to avoid you have to deal with the fact that you are a 2 handed user that can full attack everything in a 45' wide circle (due to lunge). And you are also a circle of pain 25' wide that can make them think twice about going after squishier party members. So you can fulfill your need to get 'tactical' while staying fairly simple and effective. Thus is the beauty of reach builds.
Lore warden x, maneuver master monk 2.
Saves ? Checked.
Infinite feats? Checked.
Free action dirty tricks? Yes plz.
Super, scaling cmb, it just gets better...
It's a nice, skilled, wide option build, with ok defence and offence.
Another good path, hungry ghost monk with a temple sword, trip, stun and kill.
They changed it. You no longer can flurry of maneuvers when wearing any type of armor, and since lorewardens still use light armor, no use dippping maneuver master now.
Just a Mort wrote: They changed it. You no longer can flurry of maneuvers when wearing any type of armor, and since lorewardens still use light armor, no use dippping maneuver master now. Where ?I can't find anything on the matter...
One really interesting option is a character who works Domain Strike or similar Whatever Strike abilities into a build - if multiclassing a full-caster to mimic a 2/3 casting class you can still work up a decent DC with such powers.
A really strange, crafty example would be a multiclass Cleric of Irori using Cornugon Smash with Domain Strike: Command (Inevitable Subdomain). On hitting Cornugon Smash inflicts a -2 to saves, and then you can swift-action the Command power to command the enemy you just hit to flee from you for 1 round (eating an AoO and throwing away their positioning).
Some other options for delivering nasty tactical effects through a strike would be Gentle Rest (Repose Domain, no-save stagger), Laughing Touch (Fey Bloodline, no-save shutdown), Venomous Stare (Scalykind Domain, gaze attack causes fascinated), Chaos Touch (Chaos Domain, brutal no-save curse).
If you're allowed to use the new Ascetic Style you can use a weapon to trigger Domain Strike; otherwise you can just create a weapon-using build that also has the ability to deliver an unarmed strike.
EDIT: Oh, and 4 levels of Druid with Shaping Focus would let you spend all day as a medium air elemental with a weapon, which has pretty great tactical applications. You could even do an Ancient Guardian/ Swashbuckler taking Slashing Grace with a Terbutje and using Gentle Rest.
666bender wrote: Just a Mort wrote: They changed it. You no longer can flurry of maneuvers when wearing any type of armor, and since lorewardens still use light armor, no use dippping maneuver master now. Where ?I can't find anything on the matter... Ultimate Combat third printing errata. You can see the new text on the PRD
Quote: Flurry of Maneuvers (Ex): At 1st level, as part of a full-attack action, a maneuver master can make one additional combat maneuver, regardless of whether the maneuver normally replaces a melee attack or requires a standard action. The maneuver master uses his monk level in place of his base attack bonus to determine his CMB for the bonus maneuvers, though all combat maneuver checks suffer a –2 penalty when using a flurry. At 8th level, a maneuver master may attempt a second additional combat maneuver, with an additional –3 penalty on combat maneuver checks. At 15th level, a maneuver master may attempt a third additional combat maneuver, with an additional –7 penalty on combat maneuver checks. A maneuver master loses this ability when wearing armor, using a shield, or carrying a medium or heavy load. This ability replaces flurry of blows.
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grimdog73 wrote: maybe a trip build I haven't had a Trip build in Pathfinder. I had one in 3.5 and D20 Modern. The key Feats for a Trip build are
Combat Expertise or Dirty Fighting (pretty sure)
Improved Trip (duh)
Combat Reflexes: Personally, it's not about the Tripping: it's about the bonus attacks!
Fury's Fall: Add your Dex and Str mods to the CMB
Vicious Stomp: An AoO trigger when your opponents fall prone: stacks with Greater Trip!
Greater Trip
Punishing Kick: Sort of like Stunning Fist, but instead of making opponents Stunned, you make the Prone. That's not as good as Tripping them, but there is no Size limit. You can't Trip anybody who is more than 1 size bigger than you. I HATE, HATE, HATE, HATE that rule. It is a stupid rule for stupid stupidheads that is redundant with the rules mechanics and goes against the whole idea of heroic fantasy.
Also, if you can play a Goblin, you have to consider Tangle Feet and Roll with it.
My 3.5 tripping character used Elusive Target and Greater Trip, which allowed a free Trip attempt whenever you were missed by an Attack of Opportunity which you provoked by moving out of a Threatened Square. My d20 Modern Trip build used Improved Combat Throw, which allowed a Tripping Attack of Opportunity whenever anyone attacked you and missed. If I were to make such a character in Pathfinder, he would probably just take Panther and Snake style feats to get the bonus attacks without Tripping at all.
I like Trip weapons. I have been tripped by my own trip attempt in the past, and I don't want that to happen again. Because that is my concern, I favor small, disposable Trip weapons such as Sickles and light Flails. If I would get Tripped by my own Trip attempt, I just drop the weapon. If my Trip Weapon were something big and awesome like a Halberd, I would miss it when it's gone. If it's just a Sickle, I just shrug my shoulders and pull out another one as a Move Action!
Take Thunder and Fang, but instead of the Klar, use a Sickle in your Off Hand. Hammer and Sickle: you'll be the Soviet Union! Get a Qucikdraw Throwing Klar, the Quickdraw Feat, and a Blinkback Belt. If you decide you want to start Tripping, throw the Klar, pull out the Sickle, then get to work.
A word about the Throwing Shields. A Throwing Shield is unclasped and thrown as a Free Action. A Blinkback Belt returns your Throwing Weapons to itself instantly after the Attack is resolved, and if you have a Quickdraw (, Throwing) Shield and the Quickdraw Feat, re-drawing your shield is also a Free Action. Theoretically, this can be an infinite Free Action Attack loop, but GMs are specifically empowered by RAW to impose "reasonable limits" on how many Free Actions you can take in a round, presumably for just such an occasion. So ask your GM in advance how he would limit this use of a Shield. He should give you something for it: at least 1 free attack/round and maybe more. He might let you do something like use this configuration in conjunction with Snapshot feats, which is not exactly square with RAW, but a lot of GMs might allow it. Your GM is encouraging novel tactics, you said, so he may smile on this attempt to incorporate some Throwing capacity into this melee character.
grimdog73 wrote: or a grappler? of you could even go with a polearm build with combat patrol and such to give AoO's like mad.... More later.
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grimdog73 wrote: or a grappler? Grappling can be devastating and versatile. The 2 basic things I like using Grappling for are inflicting Damage and imposing the Tied Up condition on my opponents.
For inflicting Damage, I acquire Natural Attacks with the Grab Ability or take the Hamatula Strike Feat. Also, I wear Armor Spikes. With the Grab Ability, every hit allows a Free Action Grapple which a Developer intended to be part of the attack action and therefore should work with Attacks of Opportunity, but that is not official RAW to my knowledge. If you can also get Constrict, say by taking 4 levels in Druid, the Shaping Focus Feat and Wildshaping into a Giant Octopus, you also get Constrict: awesome. But even if you don't gain Constrict, you still can do Armor Spike Damage with every successful Grapple Attack. And since Armor Spikes constitute a separate attack using the Grapple Check as the Attack Roll, you get to add your Strength Mod to this damage, too, as well as such things as Sneak Attack Damage, if any.
Hamatula Strike gives you something like that Free Action Grab Ability, but it works for Piercing Weapons. If you develop a Natural Attacking build, perhaps like the Druid I described above, or via other means such as with a Half Orc, Tengu, Tiefling, or maybe the Feral Mutagen Alchemist Discovery, it's not too hard to get a 2 Claws and a Bite. 1 level in White Haired Witch gives you a Hair Attack. A Helm of the Mammoth Lord gives you a Gore Attack, so it's not too too hard to get a whole bunch of natural attacks: Gore/Hair/Bite/2 Claws/Hair/and 1 or 2 Unarmed Strikes (Monk and Brawler unarmed strikes count as Natural Weapons, so no -5 or damage penalty.), so that's 8 attacks plus Armor Spike Damage for each of them. Unarmed Strikes and Claws aren't Piercing or have a Grab, but if you take Snake Style, your Unarmed Strikes will do Piercing Damage, and if you take Feral Combat Training, you can apply Snake Style to your Claws.
Corvino wrote:
Honestly, a number of 6/9 casters could work equally well. Skalds could be very good with this setup.
Sorry - but a Skald would be pretty terrible. I agree with you about the bard, but the Skald would combo horribly with the Unchained Rogue & the crossbow focused Fighter.
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Scott Wilhelm wrote: grimdog73 wrote: maybe a trip build You can't Trip anybody who is more than 1 size bigger than you. I HATE, HATE, HATE, HATE that rule. It is a stupid rule for stupid stupidheads that is redundant with the rules mechanics and goes against the whole idea of heroic fantasy.
Also, if you can play a Goblin, you have to consider Tangle Feet and Roll with it. I hate that rule too. People trip over lots of stupid little shit all the time. Heck woman be tripping over nothing.
All jokes aside I believe it certainly reasonable to remove that from trip. I might start contemplating adding it to my own house rules.
Charon's Little Helper wrote: Corvino wrote:
Honestly, a number of 6/9 casters could work equally well. Skalds could be very good with this setup.
Sorry - but a Skald would be pretty terrible. I agree with you about the bard, but the Skald would combo horribly with the Unchained Rogue & the crossbow focused Fighter. Unless you went Spell Warrior skald. Both the unrogue and crossbow fighter would greatly benefit from weapon song.
Imbicatus wrote: 666bender wrote: Just a Mort wrote: They changed it. You no longer can flurry of maneuvers when wearing any type of armor, and since lorewardens still use light armor, no use dippping maneuver master now. Where ?I can't find anything on the matter... Ultimate Combat third printing errata. You can see the new text on the PRD
Quote: Flurry of Maneuvers (Ex): At 1st level, as part of a full-attack action, a maneuver master can make one additional combat maneuver, regardless of whether the maneuver normally replaces a melee attack or requires a standard action. The maneuver master uses his monk level in place of his base attack bonus to determine his CMB for the bonus maneuvers, though all combat maneuver checks suffer a –2 penalty when using a flurry. At 8th level, a maneuver master may attempt a second additional combat maneuver, with an additional –3 penalty on combat maneuver checks. At 15th level, a maneuver master may attempt a third additional combat maneuver, with an additional –7 penalty on combat maneuver checks. A maneuver master loses this ability when wearing armor, using a shield, or carrying a medium or heavy load. This ability replaces flurry of blows. Wow,that destroy so many characters I made... All really , other than the monk druid...sad. My lore warden monk was great.
grimdog73 wrote: or a grappler? So normally, it takes 3 successful, subsequent Grapple checks, each requiring a Standard Action which therefore each can only be attempted 1/round to Tie Up your opponent: the first to Initiate the Grapple, the 2nd to Pin, and the 3rd--taken at a -10--to Tie Up. If you have Greater Grapple, you can make a Grapple Check as a Move Action, and if you have Rapid Grappler, you can make your Check as a Swift Action. Since you get 1 Standard, 1 Move, and 1 Swift action every round, if you begin your round adjacent to your opponent, perhaps, say by being DimDored there by the party Wizard, you can Theoretically Grapple, Pin, and Tie Up your opponent in 1 round, completely bypassing DR and even HP to inflict the Helpless condition on your target: devastating!
You don't need to have your opponent Pinned to Tie him Up if you have the Expert Captor Class Ability, just Grappled, and you don't take that -10.
The classic problem with Grappling is that it only works on 1 opponent at a time. I was thinking that if you take a level in White Haired Witch, you could take the Great Cleave Feat. White Hair lets you attempt a Free Grapple with every hit, and Great Cleave is a Standard Action, so you might conceivably have every adjacent opponent Grappled in your tresses (or whiskers) + 1 or 2 others Tied Up via Expert Captor and Greater and Rapid grappler, then the next round have the rest of them all Tied Up, too!
Pumping up your Grapple Mod is quite easy.
Improved Grapple: +2
Greater Grapple: +2
King Crab Familiar: +2
Grab (say via Tentacle Alchemist Discovery): +4
Alchemal ST Mutagen: +4 St, so +2 GMB
Coordinated Maneuvers Teamwork Feat: +2
Armbands of the Brawler: +1
Brawling Armor Enchantment: +2
Adhesive Armor Enchantment: +2
Amulet of Mighty Fists: will not enhance your Grapple Mod directly, but will enhance your Tentacles and White Hair
Gauntlets of the Skilled (Grapple) Manuver: +2
Bull Strength: +2 (stacks with Alchemal ST Mutagen)
Enlarge Person: +2
True Strike: +20!
True Strike can only be cast by the caster on himself and only works on the next 1 attack, and it takes at least 2 to Tie Up your Opponent. But if you take the Potion Glutton Feat, you can drink "any potable" as a Swift Action. "Potable" is just a word that means "drinkable," and Alchemists drink their Extracts of True Strike! You can plausibly pump up your Grapple Mod to +50 by level 9. Not too many things have a GMD of 50.
lemeres wrote: Distance control focused reach build. It is very class agnostic (pretty much every class you can take in your home game would likely be able to pull it off), and requires relatively little investment of feats and actual play change compared to normal melee types.
The essence of distance control comes from lunge and pushing assault. These two feats allow you to keep enemies in a sweet spot 15' away.
When you are the first one to attack while using a reach weapon, the enemy ends up 10' away. That is a 5' step to you, which gives them their full attack adn denies you an AoO.
With lunge, you attack from 15' away. That means they most likely need to move 10' to reach you. That draws an AoO, and they can't full attack unless they have pounce. You can attack first without abandoning the advantages of reach weapons. Great quality of life change.
Pushing assault serves a similar use, but it is for turns after you start to engage a particular enemy. When an enemy is next to you (ie-5' away), you take a 5' step back, and then use pushing assault to push them another 5' away. Thus they are in the sweet spot 15' away again. This allows you to get AoOs against the same enemy time and again. This feat can be grabbed fairly early, and lunge later supplements it (since it lets you continue your full attack after pushing an enemy away- lunge only comes up when you even have full attacks).
Once you have distance control, you can also aim for area control (typical trip builds; you can probably fit in dirty fighting and improved trip by the time you can grab lunge on any class if you are human). But distance control means getting all of the full attacks, getting extra attacks from AoOs, and denying your enemies full attacks seems like a good strategy. Offense and defense.
And you are no turtled monk. Enemies that try to avoid you have to deal with the fact that you are a 2 handed user that can full attack everything in a 45' wide circle (due to lunge). And you are also a circle of pain 25' wide that can make...
This is a nice rundown of how a reach-build "works" for combat, and how you can keep your distance after the first closure.
How often does soft-cover from your fellow party members being in the way come up?
Since reach is a melee attack - you can assist with flanking and gain the +2 as well?
grimdog73 wrote: you could even go with a polearm build with combat patrol and such to give AoO's like mad.... I was thinking it would be cool to have a character take 5 levels in Fighter with the Phalanx Soldier Archetype. They can wield a Pole Arm in 1 hand and a Shield in the other. I would take Great Cleave and hit everybody adjacent to me with my Bashing Shield and 10' away with my Lucerne Hammer or Horsechopper. I would take Shield Slam, Greater Bull Rush, and Paired Opportunist via 3 levels in Inquisistor or Warpriest, Divine Strategist.
I might also do that Throwing Shield thing.
Another solid Choice would be Thunder and Fang.
GM 1990 wrote: How often does soft-cover from your fellow party members being in the way come up? There's a Feat for that.
GM 1990 wrote: Since reach is a melee attack - you can assist with flanking and gain the +2 as well? Yes. Reach attacks are melee attacks they are only treated as ranged for cover rules. You can provide and benefit from a flank.
*high-fives 666bender*
I was trying to do that when I got slapped with a rebuild letter. Couldn't remember what was source of it except for armor proficiency issues.
Anyway. Phalanx formation to negates soft cover, but so does good positioning,
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Scott Wilhelm wrote: GM 1990 wrote: How often does soft-cover from your fellow party members being in the way come up? There's a Feat for that. Phalanx Formation.
Just a Mort wrote: *high-fives 666bender*
I was trying to do that when I got slapped with a rebuild letter. Couldn't remember what was source of it except for armor proficiency issues.
Anyway. Phalanx formation to negates soft cover, but so does good positioning,
Arranging yourself on the grid so that you don't take any penalties is what I usually call good positioning, but putting pikemen in your 2nd rank to double the hitting power in front of your first rank is a solid tactic. That's what Alexander the Great did: stacking ranks of pikemen 1 behind the other, 5 deep so that before you even reached the first rank of his formation you had to contend with the first 5 ranks of pikes first.
In PFS, there have been a lot of times where there just wasn't enough room in the passageway for all the martial characters who wanted to be in front to be in front, so being the one with the Reach Weapon who can reach over the front rank has often been just the thing.
Wow this blew up all of a sudden. First of thank you everyone for your suggestions. As of right now based on everyone's suggestions I'm going a 2 handed reach bloodrager primalist. I'm going to try and get rage cycling in early so I can use action surge to fuel my CMB and put my feats into grappling and tripping.
There's always "Knowledgeable Dervish";
Elven Teleportation Wizard 1/ Whirling Dervish Swashbuckler 8
10STR, 16/18DEX, 14\12CON, 14/16INT, 10WIS, 10CHA
Traits: Blade of Mercy, Bruising Intellect
Elven Favored Class Bonus: +Panache
1S. *Swashbuckler Finesse* / *Panache* / Combat Expertise or Dirty Fighting
2S.
3S. +Bonus: Improved Trip
4S. Combat Reflexes
5W. *Shift* / Knowledge is Power
6S.
7S. *Improved Critical* / Greater Trip
8S. *Whirlwind Dance*
9S. Enforcer / +Bonus: Weapon Focus: Scimitar
Whirlwind Dance: Attack multiple enemies while moving as full round action.
Knowledge is Power - add INT to all trip maneuvers on top of Weapon Training and Gloves of Dueling.
Swordmaster's Flair: Blue Scarf - scimitar gains 10 foot reach.
Shift - teleport 5 feet as a swift action.
Enforcer / Blade of Mercy/ Bruising Intellect / Whirling Dervish: inflict shaken/frightened while attacking.
So by 9, you can trip and AoO 2-3 enemies with Enforcer using a reach scimitar while moving around, then sit back and make reach AoOs and parries with or without trip.
Imbicatus wrote: GM 1990 wrote: Since reach is a melee attack - you can assist with flanking and gain the +2 as well? Yes. Reach attacks are melee attacks they are only treated as ranged for cover rules. You can provide and benefit from a flank. Just 1 potion of enlarge person away from being able to provide flank assist to a -very large- footprint of your party. That's nice.
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