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Hi!
I'll play the Iron Gods AP, and I'm thinking in take the Robot Slayer trait. The PC is a survival of a massacre did by a robot (or other kind of construct, he doesn't know certainly) in his community or tribe, I did not decided it yet. He becomes some kind of specialist in destroy robots and other kinds of constructs.
The point is: I don't know which class choose. I had thought about Ranger, Barbarian, Fighter, even Alchemist. I want a melee focused build that hit with a real big weapons, to deal well with hardness.
So, I expect suggestions about an interesting build from you, guys! Stats, feats, class, skills, spells and any other tips about the AP (whitout spoiler) to improve the PC, will be welcome.
Thank you! :)
If you hate robots, the Galvanic Saboteur ranger archetype from People of the River is nice.
It's a bit out of the box you listed, but an Iron Priest archetype cleric with negative channeling could channel to damage constructs (including robots) while bypassing hardness. Gorum as a deity gives you a nice big sword for bot-whackin, and add in the Numeria regional trait Ancestral Weapon and you can have a MW cold iron greatsword to start with. It's a bit unorthodox, but the Racial Heritage feat (storm giant) lets you eventually get a feat to add electricity damage to your attacks. Bots hate electricity damage.
Barbarians are pretty thematic for the region. Bloodrager with the air elemental bloodline would also be effective against robots.
Keep a feat available for an Exotic Weapon Proficiency at level 7.
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Why would an Iron Priest ignore a robot's hardness?
Anyway, Rangers are a decent class, good favored enemies include (obviously) humans, constructs and undead - the sort of things you might expect to meet while exploring ancient (technological) ruins.
Slayer is also a fine choice (as the dirty cityboy ranger).
Why would an Iron Priest ignore a robot's hardness?
Channeled energy ignores hardness. Unless there's something I've missed...
*EDIT: The "while" in my origin post is a bit confusing. Apologies.
Perhaps a Breaker Barbarian? Maybe use an Earthbreaker and focus on Sunder manuevers, grabbing Improved Sunder, and then going down the Smashing Style/Smashing Crush/Smashing Dent route. Sunder is an especially good tactic if your group uses Automatic Bonus Progression, though you may still get grief from other players about destroying loot.
Not exactly what you were thinking, but a Steel Breaker Brawler could also be a decent fit.
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In my experience, the Magus is a fantastic robot slayer. Your One True Spell deals electricity damage and lots of it. Pearls of Power are fairly cheap, so even a fiddly archetype combo that lowers your spells per day can last a while.
A Brawler with the Steel-Breaker archetype lives up to the name. It lets you Sunder with the best of them and ignore targt creature's hardness. It also has great synergy with Snake Style. With the hardness bypassing mwchanic, you can even go with a primary Dex focus and be fine.
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How about an Unchained Rogue/ Unchained Barbarian Android? Using two-weapon fighting and high crit chance weapons such as Kukris.
Say Rogue 3/ Barbarian 10 sounds pretty effective with dex to hit/damage with both weapons. And if you can get two +1 adamantine furious kukris.
Maybe using the Savage Technologist if you can get your GM to make some changes to it to make it compatible with the Unchained Barbarian.
Here is a build I made when it looked like we would be playing Iron Gods. Android Rogue Barb. sheet
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Why would an Iron Priest ignore a robot's hardness?Channeled energy ignores hardness. Unless there's something I've missed...
*EDIT: The "while" in my origin post is a bit confusing. Apologies.
I don't see any text saying it ignores hardness.
Hardness isn't like DR, it applies against damage of any type, not just weapons. Fireball, magic missile, and yes, channel.
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How about an Unchained Rogue/ Unchained Barbarian Android? Using two-weapon fighting and high crit chance weapons such as Kukris.
Say Rogue 3/ Barbarian 10 sounds pretty effective with dex to hit/damage with both weapons. And if you can get two +1 adamantine furious kukris.
Maybe using the Savage Technologist if you can get your GM to make some changes to it to make it compatible with the Unchained Barbarian.
Here is a build I made when it looked like we would be playing Iron Gods. Android Rogue Barb. sheet
Why have to be Unchained Barbarian and not the standard Barbarian?
Unchained barbarian can more easily be dex based. And it doesn't offer morale bonuses, which the android is immune to.
How about a Savage Technologist Barbarian so that you can use giant laser guns in addition to giant swords? Best of both worlds!
How about a Savage Technologist Barbarian so that you can use giant laser guns in addition to giant swords? Best of both worlds!
Savage Technologist Barbarian with Opening Volley and TWF stuff is plenty fun. Dip 3 Rogue for DEX to damage with both guns and your melee weapon.
In a TWF chain you can swing/shoot/swing/shoot etc.
Avoiding spoilers, but just think of Numeria (the place you're in) as alien tech meets Conan the Barbarian's homeland.
Chew on that.
...professional robot-puncher...
Oh. My. Groetus.
How is this not a real job? I feel like I've wasted my life not figuring out how to make this my real job.
Eff it. It's going on my LinkedIn profile anyway.
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If you want a very good melee focused construct killer then a Monk with the Martial Artist Archetype (or if you prefer another class just 5 levels of Monk and then whatever flavour of smashy class you like for the rest of your levels, Arcane Bloodrager maybe?) will allow you negate a creatures hardness vs you as a Swift action with a successful Wis+Monk level check versus a DC 10+ Hardness/DR.
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Eh. Any particular reason for fighter? I'm personally much more a fan of slayers. 95% of the combat ability, 250% the out of combat utility. And still a nice straightforward class for when you're not in the mood for complicated wizardry.
I would test the "advanced weapon training" mechanics, a thing that I want a lot and looks cool. Or it's not?
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I think that with all the advanced weapon training that by now it's probably possible, if you really know what you're doing, to make a "fully functional" fighter.
With a Slayer you just do that by building a character. It's a lot more straightforward and it works that way from level one, not level 5 or 9.
Fighters do better if you're committed to uber-heavy armor, but in Iron Gods I think it's better to keep an eye on your touch AC (let's call it "laser AC").
Slayers can score a lot of feats (if you use your slayer talents for them): ranger combat styles (3 feats that skip huge amounts of prerequisites, often getting BAB 11 feats at level 6), weapon focus, another weapon feat - until level 10 you're getting just about as many feats as a fighter. You have slightly less choice, but you skip a lot of prerequisites so you end up in a pretty happy place.
You don't get the fighter damage boosts, but you get Study and Sneak Attack and with those you keep up well enough.
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I don't think Slayer is the most optimized class ever, but it's solid, straightforward and it works. And it's pretty flexible due to combat styles. There's about 30 different combat styles to choose from.
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You need a lot of damage, a lot earlier than you might think. DR 5/[redacted] and [redacted] (that's two traits needed to overcome it) and hardness 10 both make an appearance in the very first book. And you should be aware that, if you are the only person in your party that can deliver that kind of damage, you're going to take a lot of focused fire.
If you are going to go in as a fighter, I'd strongly encourage the free-style fighter archetype from Weapon Master's Handbook. It keeps the all-important weapon training, but also gives you access to martial flexibility, which will come into play quite often with the number of Exotic Weapons you'll find over the course of the AP.
Iron Gods is a little different than other APs because of the prevalence of hardness and laser weapons. You to bring big damage to overcome hardness, and touch attacks will be rendering armor useless a lot more than normal. It's more difficult than normal to be a beefy hard-hitter.
A Warpriest of Brigh provides an interesting option. The Artifice Blessing allows you to bypass hardness for 1 minute per use. Sacred armor and spells can keep you resistant to lasers, block line of sight (obscuring mist), or increase your touch AC.
I agree with Ascalaphus. Slayers are awesome. You get a lot more skill points, early/easy access to a narrow list of very sweet feats, and damage is about on par. While I'm sure Fighters are a better option in some very specific builds, but I'm pretty sure Slayers pull ahead in general usefulness.
Ranger Combat Styles can determine your build for you without feeling too restrictive or determining your stats. If you want to do combat maneuvers, Fighters need to get either Dirty Fighting or Combat Expertise, while Slayers can skip that feat tax entirely. If you want to TWF, you can leave your DEX at a comfortable 14 (or lower) if you're a Slayer, but a Fighter needs to invest stat points. On the other hand, Fighters get a lot more choice in their selection of feats, but I think most builds follow the same standard set of feats. I'm sure there's a Combat Style that can pick them up as well. Unless you're really taking stuff for flavour, Slayer really gets the longer end of the stick until post-level 10.
Ascalaphus brings up Weapon Focus (taken through a Slayer Trick). While I agree that's a feat most Fighters take, I'm not sure if it's entirely useful. Instead of that, you can pick much different Slayer Talents such as Trapfinding, or Firearm Training or Grit. Very useful when you find all that tech lying around.
The only thing Fighters might actually be better at is damage output, but even then Slayers are damn close. Fighters get Weapon Training and Weapon Specialisation. By that time, the Studied Target from Slayers has increased to +2 as a move action. Yes, action economy-wise it's worse, but only for the first round of combat or so. After that, most people are within five-foot step range and you won't notice the difference. At 7, it's a swift, which you'll rarely have any other use for. So, at level 5, Slayers get a pretty much always-available +2 to hit and damage, Fighters get a +1 to hit and a +3 on damage with a very specific subset of weapons, and they scale about the same. Fighters get Armor Training, but I haven't seen any build really care about that. Advanced Weapon and Armor training complicate things somewhat, and there they might be better, but I haven't really looked into that. It also comes online pretty late. But, Slayers get Sneak Attack. Not a whole lot, and you shouldn't depend on it, but if you get it off, I'm pretty sure that out-damages the Fighter.
In short, Slayers are a whole lot more flexible in their build compared to Fighters. While they don't get the free choice of feats a Fighter gets, they actually get to do stuff out of combat as well, and they get sweet bonuses a Fighter can only dream of.
I would actually advise a liberator barbarian, they seem to be tailor-made for punching robots. The gearbreaker power makes it even better, if subtracting half your level form any hardness was too little for you. The bonus versus mages isn´t too bad either, as Numeria is the home of the Technic League, among others.
Fighters aren´t that bad imo, but it´s freaking Numeria, people. It and the Mammoth Lords region are basically Barbarian Central.