I'm looking at my first character, and I want to do a grenade specialist. Specifically a Kasatha that holds 4 grenades in its hands and runs in and out, dropping activated grenades (as no action cost!).
The Core book implies that grenades only detonate when thrown, but there is the detonator item that can be programmed to explosives (I could hold 3 grenades and a detonator, run in and drop grenades and run out, and then press detonator) but there's also mention of a delayed fuse in the Pull The Pin feat which does not seem to be in the Core book anywhere but implies that grenades with a delayed fuse can be activated and explode 1 round later. Would this work as of now? I'm thinking that I'll have to settle for a detonator and 3 grenades to drop at a time at the moment until we see a delayed fuse come out.
Would Bombard and Blitz be the best for this type of character? I like Blitz for the land speed increase but Hit and Run also fits very well for the concept!
How can you pick both bombard and blitz?
At 9th level you get a Secondary Fighting Style
A few things.
The Quick Draw feat lets you draw thrown weapons as a free action including grenades.
4 arms won't give you extra attacks with grenades even if you are just dropping them.
Why grenades exactly? You can't specialize in them so no adding a bonus = to your level. And they always grant a save. Either vs the effect or vs the damage.
Since you are planning for 9th level or higher then Bombard does sound like the style you want.
I'm actually making the same build focusing on melee early and then mixing it up later on.
Level 1 you get a free grenade. Probably want to use Entangle early on for battlefield control.
At 5th level you get Heavy Fire allowing you to add Str dmg to automatic, explode, or unwieldy weapons.
At 7th the gear boost powerful explosive adding 5 feet to the radius of your explosive weapons.
At 9th level blitz of course but you also get Debilitating attack which works with blast or explode weapons.
Now you could just stock up on a bunch of grenades but there is another option. Shock caster weapons. The level 6 version has a range of 40 feet, can be fired 20 times before reloading, and has the explode and unwieldy properties.
So you carry it in 2 hands and in a 3rd hand you hold a melee weapon should an opportunity attack presents itself.
If you can get 2 or more enemies in your 10(15)ft radius blast you Heavy Fire dealing 1d12 + your level + your str dmg. They do get a save for half. But the big draw is the debilitating attack. The save is based on your str mod and if they fail it is for 5+ rounds of flatfooted or off target.
Then you just wade in hitting things with your melee weapon. If enemies are foolish enough to stand near each other again just shoot them all again.
A variant build would focus on the Blast property. Instead of Powerful Explosive at 7th level you take Sonic Resonance instead and take a Screamer weapon. It works with both Heavy Fire and Debilitating Attack. The level 5 version is a 30 foot cone, The level 9 version is a 60 foot cone. No save and you are at -2 to hit but you should have a good chance of hitting anyway.
Of course if you are using a blast weapon your allies will need to stand out of the cone.
Yeah the arms don't give extra attacks but I wanted to Sprint through mobs and drop 4 primed grenades and have them explode behind me :)
Good advice on the rest, I still need to digest some things to make some zany yet useful combos.
You can't drop primed grenades, activating them is part of attacking with them.
Or to put it in simple words: No sane GM will let you do multiple attacks as free actions.
Technically with a detonator I can drop 3 grenades and press the button to explode all 3 at once.
Connecting the detonator to the 3 grenades takes 1 minute so it would only be once per combat. You are dropping them by you so you will be caught in all 3 blasts.
However as far as I can tell it does work per RAW. In fact since dropping the grenades and activating the detonator are all free actions you still have your regular turn. You could pull and fire a weapon or with the Quick Draw feat you could pull and toss as many grenades as you have attacks.
It would cost a lot of credits and be dangerous but yea, It seems to work.
Yeah, a kamikaze Kasatha sprinting through and dropping grenades seems like it would be hella fun to play. I WOULD have to spend a minute after each combat to reprogram the detonator but I can still chuck grenades after the kamikaze run.
I really hope that delayed fuse that's mentioned in the Pull the Pin feat comes out in another book soon. That's exactly what I'd need for 4 dropped grenades.
Eventually this becomes cost prohibitive, or the damage becomes trivial. Either way, long term it isn't particularly viable.