|
I trying to make an Eldritch Guardian as a backup character for my RotRL campaign and I'm going bug-eyed trying to figure out the best way to do this. The things I know for sure is currently our characters are lvl 6 and I want to take the Wasp Familiar and Mauler archetype for the imp-statted wasp. A Gnome or Halfling would be preferred so I could ride it but it isn't necessary. If anyone knows good things to include it would be greatly appreciated.
Add the mutation master archetype to your build. Take the wings discovery, so now you have insect wings to match your wasp.
I prefer to go with maneuvers. Specifically, dirty tricks. The mauler basically allows you to double your action economy on things like that, since the familiar with share all of your combat feats. So you and your little buddy can go around, causing ton of status conditions left and right.
At level 6, you could grab everything up to greater dirty trick, which makes it so that enemies either have to accept the status condition (such as blind).... or waste their standard action curing the condition (which means you can make two enemies useless for a turn).
The 'capstone' of a dirty trick focused eldritch guardian is dirty trick master at level 11. This allows you to make an existing dirty trick condition WORSE. And the best option is to start with sickened and make it into nauseated. Nauseated will remove their standard action (so no attacks, and spells are exceedingly hard).... and remember how greater dirty trick makes it a standard action to cure? Yeah- complete shut down for 1d4 turns, which basically removes them from the fight entirely (since it will be almost over by the time they are back up). And it can be just a swift 1-2 with you and your familiar, letting you potentially take out an enemy each round. Maybe not a guarantee against big, beefy beasts.... but a squishy caster? Making the enemy wizard almost completely unable to cast spells seems VEEERY valuable.
Another thing to be aware of: some great teamwork feats are also combat feats. You and your familiar with share the feat and its benefits. One of the best ones is your other 'capstrone' at level 10: coordinated charge. Send out your pet to do a charge, and you can also do a charge as an immediate action (ie- your next turn's swift action, or basically free for a fighter).
Coordinated charge is great because it allows you to move outside of your turn... and you might just end up next to your intended target when your turn rolls around, allowing you to full attack. This serves as a 'pseudo pounce', allowing you to pull off far more full attacks.
Halfling Eldritch Guardian 2/ Maneuver Master 2/ Brawler 2
Eldritch Guardian
1. Weapon Finesse
2.
Brawler
3. Wasp Familiar*, IUS(B), Martial Flexibility**
Maneuver Master Monk
4. Improved Disarm(B)
5. Piranha Strike, Combat Reflexes(B)
Brawler
6. Improved Disarm Partner(B)
Your familiar will use TWF without the feat to make 3 attacks per round with a great penalty at all attacks (-5 for secondary Natural Attack), while it switches out all attacks for Disarm Attempts.
Since it will probably fail all of them (-4,-8,-5) you'll get 3 AoO's on the enemy your wasp familiar tried to disarm. (At level 7, with BAB +6, that would be 4 attacks per round)
*If you already have some way to get a Wasp Familiar without taking the feat, then switch it out for Boon Companion.
**At level 3, you'll use Martial Flexibility to take Piranha Strike, but at level 6 you'll use it to take Paired Opportunists.
+4 to AoO's, and your familiar will get 3 AoO's since it gave you 3 AoO's. (Up to it's Dex Modifier, which should be 2 if it uses the statistics for a Greensting Scorpion)
While I'm not sure if you would be able to make a AoO loop and let your Wasp disarm on those AoO's to give you more attacks, atleast it would give your Wasp 3(2) attacks at its highest BAB.
============================================
As you may have noticed, this Disarm tactic would only work on enemies you can actually Disarm.
If you encounter many enemies that aren't wielding weapons, you'll want to take the Two-Weapon Trick Arm Bind which will allow you to attempt a Disarm Maneuver against someone who isn't wielding any weapons.
That will require TWF, Two-Weapon Defense and then Weapon Trick: Arm Bind.
If you keep going Eldritch Guardian after level 6 you'll have those feats at level 9.
7. TWF
8. Two-Weapon Defense(B)
9. Weapon Trick: Arm Bind
You can also go Martial Master archetype and start swapping out Feats left and right, for your Wasp to take advantage of.
It's a good archetype, but not as tempting as it used to be, since Weapon Training has been improved so much
I remember a discussion about this recommending 2 choices beyond the standard Mauler build.
One was using a monkey with 2 guns.
This one I found more interesting, a fairy style familiar or Imp depending on alignment using dervish dance. With this you could use improved familiars and there high dexterity without worrying about terrible strength scores.
Idea was you would play the fighter with your high crit weapon, take the teamwork flanking feat and combat reflexes so you got extra attacks when either made crits. The familiar also did decent damage at dex +power attack or piranha strike + other bonuses you could stack up.