"Unarmed" Occultist of Ng

[SillyString]

I'm sure we all know about Ng, and for those that don't, i suggest you repent your wicked ways and look him up in the wiki, or preferably for the artwork: "pathfinder campaign setting: The first world, realm of the fey", so here's a character i'm working on that's trying to emulate that deity:

Explanation:

This build pretty much is based around two things so far, the psychic anthology warrior panoply, and shield gauntlet style, specifically: "While receiving this shield bonus to AC, your gauntlet or spiked gauntlet is treated as a buckler for the purpose of using other feats and abilities (though you are also considered to have a free hand)." This is important, because it should qualify the off-hand gauntlet to be treated as a shield in order to...
1) be made into a abjuration implement at the start of the day, and...
2) be treated as an abjuration implement shield for the new warrior panoply.
Do note, that the other half of the warrior panoply will have to come in the form of a separate transmutation implement weapon, which is the role your main hand gauntlet plays, though any weapon would do - the psychic anthology panoplies description indicates that they are created by separate items, which is somewhat of a shame, because otherwise you could have a single "infinity gauntlet" style implement from the battle-host archetype and run around calling yourself Thanos.

So that's a lot of explanation, but here's the barebones of what i have so far:
1) Weapon Focus (Gauntlet) (Obvious prerequisite tax)
2) Shield Gauntlet Style (Allows you to use your warrior panoply)
3) Shielded Attack Style (Treat your gauntlet weapon damage as equal to that of a warpriest -4 thanks to the fact your warrior panoply has boosted your BAB up to your occultist level. This really adds up as you get to higher levels. +The bonus AoO and free improved steal/disarm certainly doesnt hurt. But thats not all, it also qualifies you for...)
4) Shielded Gauntlet Master (Who likes AC? Who likes being able to hold a weapon and still keep all the above stuff? Suddenly you can hold that club you just stole off that ogre without losing any benefits, or pick up any other weapon you're proficient in and start swinging it, not bad.)

Getting to the elephant in the room, yes, you could technically just use any one-handed weapon as your transmutation implement in your main hand and have a heavy shield or klar in your off-hand as the abjuration implement, avoiding investing in these feats, but I'm quite fond of the interaction of Shielded attack style and the heightened BAB, and the other benefits are certainly usable, besides doing that wouldnt be for the glory of Ng, and we cant have that.

Keep in mind that this build is an experiment. It wont be winning any DPR races, you'll never be a fighter, you've had to sacrifice four feats to get to this point (which you cant start getting until level 3), and you'd probably be more effective if you'd stuck to a scimitar and heavy shield, but that's not really important. The main thing to note is that because your "weapon" and "shield" implements are gauntlets, you dont lose the benefits until you take your gauntlets off, which followers of Ng almost never do (see the description of Ng's followers, or read his fey obedience) meaning you can safely update your character sheet's BAB and stats without fear of having to constantly adjust it, oh, and you'll look cool too.

So assuming everything's in order, what would you recommend to add to this build? Obviously being an occultist you wont have many more feats to spare, but i'm interested in how to spend the few that are left, either to add to the concept or push up its effectiveness.

(The first thing i'd consider if fey obedience, because you automatically fulfil the obedience and gain some nice goodies as you level up, besides we do worship Ng, right?)

[Plausible Pseudonym]

No.

[SillyString]

Plausible Pseudonym wrote:

No.

No?

Not sure what you're no-ing about, this should all check out.
-"Every day, the occultist selects one item from that school’s list to be his implement for the day for each implement school he knows."
-"your gauntlet or spiked gauntlet is treated as a buckler for the purpose of using other feats and abilities"
-"A single bearer must hold all of the panoply's associated implements to gain the panoply's resonant power..."

It's not like i'm trying to say the one gauntlet is an implement for both, the off-hand gauntlet is treated as a shield as per the feat, the main hand gauntlet is still a weapon.

Well, anyway... anyone have any good advice for an "unarmed" gauntlet build?

[Plausible Pseudonym]

The abjuration panoply implement has to be a shield, not something that an ability lets you treat as a shield.

[SillyString]

Plausible Pseudonym wrote:

The abjuration panoply implement has to be a shield, not something that an ability lets you treat as a shield.

Well, actually as I stated its a feat that lets you treat the gauntlet as a shield for all abilities. Which i'd imagine covers the occultist's ability to turn items into implements, or to create panoplies from said items.

Now, if you wanted to poo-poo the idea, I'd recommend pointing out (as I have just noticed) that because the Shield Gauntlet Style is a Style feat, and those require being in combat to activate (by strictest reading of the RAW), that the occultist would not be able to turn the "shield" into an implement for that day unless he was already in combat when he was making his implements. (Though by RAW it doesnt say when your style ends either, as some people like to point out, so there's an argument that it could work regardless of being out of combat. I think this is a tenuous reading though.)

I don't know if there's been anything to relax that RAW reading, but until I know for certain, I'll likely save this character for a GM that's willing to bend the "style feat requiring combat" rule.

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Just curious; everyone i've heard on the forums seems convinced a klar works as an occultist's shield, so (if it werent for the fact the gauntlet requires a style feat) what makes you think otherwise?