Unchained Rogue Sap Master: ranged rake or melee thug?

[Xomenin]

I believe that Sap Master has a high potential. And the rogue debuffer role is really better in Unchained mode. But after searching a lot, I've came with two possible pathways:

A) Rake / Scout / Sap Master / Short Bow Merciless Blunt arrows user / Shatter Defenses

Rake and Scout archetypes can make a viable archer rogue. With Sap Master and the use of Merciless Blunt Arrows, you can nearly do high damage while in distance of 30ft. At level 8th we can Skirmish to start rake's Bravado Blades to get a not free but certain intimidate. We would get +5 circunstance bonus for each SA 1D6 you give up. This would have some synergy with Rogue Edge (Intimidate), giving the opportunity to insta frighten, panick or cower a enemy. And after the first SA with skirmisher, Shatter Defenses gets online. And you can just sit down anywhere and Rapid Shot that enemy while you never got close. If someone gets too close, start moving and use debilitation to hamper its movement, even if it would get you an AoO. But here, we can't count with the Sickened condition from Thug. It gets good in level 8th but, before that, we can still charge for SA with the sap and still use Blades Bravado and etc. This opens a good ton of combos with other Archer Feats.

B) Thug / Scout / Sap Master / Enforcer / Sap user / Shatter Defenses.

I have to stick in melee and use Enforcer in order to trigger intimidate. And I'll be getting the Brutal Beating effects, that means sickened, and a whole life shaken with a flexible frightening option. On top of that we have debilitation injury. With Offensive Defense you can actually have good survival chances in melee. At level 4th you can actually charge for 4d6 SA, and be able to inflict -6 penalty on attack rolls and still get 4+ on AC. Of course, it gets harder when we have more enemies around. At lvl 8th then, we can Skirmish with the bow. We can move up to 30ft then make a sap mastering attack with a bow. But, it will not be using any of the Enforcer feat. In other hand, it would be a good retreating way: hampering in debilitation injury while moving and hittin' tons with the bow with 0 archer feat costs.

OBS: I would be using both weapons in any of those paths. So, both ways of fighting. Both weapons would benefit from Dex because of finesse weapon. And forget Undeads, Constructs and others.

Which one of those would be the best? A or B? Rake ranged or Melee Thug?

[666bender]

Offensive defence can't work on unchained.
I prefer spring attacker with hide I. Plain sight

[Red Griffyn]

If you're thinking about doing a ranged rogue and acting as a debuffer you should consider a ranged mesmerist. Mesmerist has hypnotic stare and various debuffs he can tack onto it. He'll have various enchantments, illusions, or other schools for battlefield control or debuffs. DCs for his spells are helped by high charisma/his hypnotic stare.

You can trigger ranged lethal precision damage from painful stare without requiring these extremely long feat chains like shatter defenses. Followed up with taking archery feats (i.e., deadly aim, rapid shot, many shot, cluster shot, etc.) to increase your damage output per round. You'll only get precision damage on one attack per round, but with the psychic inception bold stare upgrade it is at range and avoids most of the immunities other rogues struggle with (i.e., uncanny dodge, can't be triped, immune to mind affects, etc.).

Build - 2 Paladin (Divine Hunter) / X Mesmerist:

Race: Ifrit

Racial Traits:
- Magical Knack (pump CL back up for mesmerist levels)
- Deadeye bowman (weaker form of improved precise shot, must worship Erastil, which is okay for a paladin)

Stats Level 1:

STR: 14
DEX: 16 (14+2 from race) - Get a +4 Belt eventually
CON: 12
INT: 12
WIS: 5 (7-5 from race)
CHA: 18 (16 +2 from race) - Get a +4 Headband

- Eventually put 2 points from leveling into CHA or DEX if you want to be a better spell caster/face/better saves or archer.

Racial Traits:

- Take the +4 initiative,
- Take +1 DC to spells that cause fascinate
- Take 1/day Enlarge/Reduce Person
- Note the race has has Darkvision

Class Level Highlight:
Paladin 1 - Smite (1/day), Detect Evil (At Will), good archer out the gate.
Paladin 2 - Lay on Hands, Divine Grace (CHA to saves)
Mesmerist 3 - Spells, Trick 1, Painful Stare (+1), Hypnotic Stare
Mesmerist 4 - Trick 2, Towering Ego (doesn't stack with Divine Grace)
Mesmerist 5 - Touch Treatment (minor), Painful Stare (1D6+1), Bold Stare 1(Psychic Inception)
Mesmerist 6 - Trick 3, Painful Stare (1D6+2)
Mesmerist 7 - Manifold Trick (2 tricks implanted at once), Mental Potency (increses the HD limits on various spells)
Mesmerist 8 - Trick 4, Painful Stare (2D6+3), Touch Treatment (Moderate)
Mesmerist 9 - Bold Stare 2 (Sapped Magic or w/e you want), Painful Stare (3D6+4)
Mesmerist 10 - Painful Stare (3D6+6)
Mesmerist 11 - Painful Stare (4D6+6), Manifold Trick (3 tricks implanted at once)

Feats:

1 Class: Precise Shot
1 Level: Point Blank
3 Level: Rapid Shot
5 Level: Deadly Aim
7 Level: Spell Focus (Enchantment) - Retrain to Many Shot at Level 8
9 Level: Intense Pain (+ 1D6 on painful stare damage)
11 Level: Cluster Shot or Spell Focus (Enchantment)or Demoralizing Stare (with Cruel modifier on the bow)

Skills:

- You'll have enough skill points to pump Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate, and UMD every level (1 to 2 to spare for picking up other skills).

Paladin Dip:

- Light/Medium armour proficiency
- Simple/Martial weapon proficiency
- +CHA to all saves (at level 2) which is important as mesmerist has bad saves. Dex will be high for reflex and wis is dumped so they'll all scale together fairly evenly and above the normal curve (save money on upgrading your cloak of resistance)
- 1/day smite (save for the boss, go through DR and cause extra damage)
- Lay on Hands (heal yourself as a swift action or others)
- Detect Evil (useful as always)

Mesmerist:

- Decent DCs on enchantment due to charisma and stare debuff (better for singular targets)
- Take Psychic inception to allow your stare and painful stare to work on undead/mindless (something a rogue can't do).
- Take intense pain stare feat to add 1D6 precision damage.
- Bow feats will be very competitive for DPR as all archery builds are. Adding a ranged way to deal scaling precision damage really helps.
- Ranged keeps you at distance from baddies so you can drop your con, and focus on improving DEX/CHA only.
- You won't be the best spell caster compared to someone picking up Spell focus/greater spell focus, but you'll be able to shoot things with your weapon and still get off painful stares where others are stuck with a 50% chance of their spells hitting mindless/undead foes.
- Your STR is high enough to be a switch hitter as required.
- Pick up tricks to give to your allies and act as a "combat buffer" since you'll be in the back.
- Touch treatment to remove any issues with emotion/fear on yourself (and separate from your lay on hands pool so you can have both, but not on the same turn).
- High Dex/Ifrit racial trait will give you a pretty high initiative.
- Archers generally easily bypass DRs by selecting Adamantine/Cold Iron/Mithral durable arrows. But if you can't make the knowledge check, then your precision damage will help you overcome it on any single arrow that hits in a round.

Items of Interest (probably can't get all of these):

- Glove of Storing (pull out a metamagic rod with good action economy)
- Circlet of Persuasion (+3 on charisma based checks)
- Belt of Dexterity (+4 Dex)
- Headband of Charisma (+4 Charisma)
- Cloak of Resistance (+3 to all saves)
- Amulet of Natural Armour (+1 Natural AC)
- Hag's Shabble (+2 circumstance to diplomacy/intimidate checks)
- Tunic of Careful Casting (+2 to concentration checks)
- Eyes of the Eagle (+5 Competence Bonus to Perception)
- Feather Step Slippers (No adverse effects from difficult terrain)
- *Ring of the Sublime (Constant Remove Fear for a psychic caster!)
- Ring of Protection (+1 Deflection Bonus to AC)
- Metamagic Rod of Extend, Focus, Persistent
- Page of Spell Knowledge Level 1
- Page of Spell Knowledge Level 2
- Pearl of Power Level 1
- Pearl of Power Level 2
- Armour: +2 Mithral Agile Breastplate
- Shield: msw buckler (+1 AC on turns you don't shot your bow)
- Efficient Quiver
- Handy Haversack
- Bow: +1 Seeking or Cruel Greenwood Composite Longbow (+2 Str)
- 20 Cold Iron Durable Arrows
- Ioun Stone for +2 to CON, INT, WIS as desired.

Easy to buy on Prestige:
- 20 Adamantine Durable Arrows (lots of 12)
- 20 Mithral Durable Arrows (Lots of 10)
- Greenwood Composite Longbow for +2 STR (buy two and invest in 1)
- Ioun Stone +1 to Initiative
- Various wands of level 1 spells (memory lapse?)