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Hey everyone,
My pfs character is set to head into seeker tier (12+) in about two months or so. From what I've read, both of the adventure paths available to these characters (eyes of the ten and all for immortality) are supposedly extremely deadly. I'm trying to avoid spoilers on the modules, but I would to ask some advice on how to gear/feat up for the higher levels of play with the remainder of the time and gold I have left (any advice from higher level play in general is welcome, not only specific to these modules).
Character is a human paladin x/bloodrager 1 with a 2 handed crit nodachi build and liberal UMD usage. He has rediculoulsy high saving throws as a main defensive feature.
The current feats are feywild foundling, extra rage, power attack, improved critical, vision mastery, ability mastery (+2 con), level 11 feat unpicked. Ability mastery here is a placeholder until I can spare 6 k to buy a belt for it, though it might be used to qualify for unsanctioned knowledge for access to some otherwise unavailabvle level 1-3 spells. I'm currently tentatively saving for a couragious weapon and a gloves of the merciful knight. On 12, basically 2 feats are as yet unused.
Currently I have the following specific counters:
-Winged boots for flight
-Vision mastery for darkvision and invisible enemies
-Swarmbane clasp for swarms
-I have one chronicle boon which allows me to self-ressurect if I were to die, once.
The main weaknesses I currenty see is that I have nothing vs level drain, negative levels, automatic grappling enemies, blink, enemies with large amounts of reach, and nothing to really protect other party members other than killing the enemy as quickly as possible.
I realise one character can't counter everything, but I am curious as to what others would find most important to cover and with what?
Kind regards,
Trevor
I'm curious as to why a high level paladin might want a courageous weapon. Aren't you immune to fear?
One of the very few ways in PF to get swift action movement is a batrachian helm. If you can find the 26K required then you have an answer to enemies with a lot of reach. A perfectionist shavtoosh (~4K) would at least give you something you can do while grappled. Mirrored armor or a shield (you'd want either the shield brace or the unhindering shield feat) could improve your touch AC vs rays, which is one of the more likely ways for negative levels to be delivered while making gaze attacks easier to deal with too.
Note, all of this is in a happy state of lack of knowledge about PFS seeker tiers. I've recently been reminded why I really don't like PFS...
I'm curious as to why a high level paladin might want a courageous weapon. Aren't you immune to fear?
It's a misinterpretation of the wording ...
...any morale bonus the wielder gains from any other source is increased by half the weapon’s enhancement bonus (minimum 1).
Since the Bloodrager strength bonus is a Morale bonus he gets up to +2 strength from Corageous. Just for the record Trevor86 this has been stated to be a false interpretation of how it works. The estra morale bonus is only to saves vs fear.
Getting a Furious weapon would be great though, giving you a further +2 to hit and damage while in a Bloodrage.(Sorry for no link, the site apparently went down between creating the link for Corageous and trying to create the link for Furious. I assume THIS will work if/when the site comes back up, but I can't test it to find out).
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I'm curious as to why a high level paladin might want a courageous weapon. Aren't you immune to fear?
One of the very few ways in PF to get swift action movement is a batrachian helm. If you can find the 26K required then you have an answer to enemies with a lot of reach. A perfectionist shavtoosh (~4K) would at least give you something you can do while grappled. Mirrored armor or a shield (you'd want either the shield brace or the unhindering shield feat) could improve your touch AC vs rays, which is one of the more likely ways for negative levels to be delivered while making gaze attacks easier to deal with too.
Note, all of this is in a happy state of lack of knowledge about PFS seeker tiers. I've recently been reminded why I really don't like PFS...
Well, prior to reading this I believed the wording on courageous weapon was very clear on that it would increase morale bonusses in general, from any source. So basically the idea was to combine a +4 (actually, +2 furious) courageous weapon with rage and heroism effects. If this has been stated to not work then i'd be really interested on the quote on this. If that's true then i guess it's 14 k to spend on other things.
*edit: never mind, found it. Well, that's a bummer again. Back to the drawing board.
I like the helm, it's expensive but affordable. Mirrored armor is also a great suggestion. Will definitely keep an eye on that. I sadly can't use the shield brace since it's locked to polearms and I'd have to sell my main nodachi weapon to buy it and then optimally retrain 3 feats to use it (guillisarme proficiencyu, improved critial, shield mastery and additionally pick shield brace), which would be a fairly expensive loss. Also, I could just use a wand of shield liberally.
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FAQ referred to by MrCharisma for reference.
I don't have a lot of general advice, so this is a really fancy dot in many respects. for some of your specifics though, maybe:
Lesser metamagic rod of reach spell - far less risk of the targets wandering out of range of your shield other.
Your vision mastery already reduces blink miss chance to 20% (but you can stock up on potions of see invisibility if you fear running out of uses), ghost touch will negate that remaining 20%. Probably not worth it though.
Dim door to beat reach? Teleportation Mastery or cape of the mountebank? Invisibility or displacement also greatly increase your chances of not being hit.
I sadly can't use the shield brace since it's locked to polearms and I'd have to sell my main nodachi weapon to buy it and then optimally retrain 3 feats to use it (guillisarme proficiencyu, improved critial, shield mastery and additionally pick shield brace), which would be a fairly expensive loss. Also, I could just use a wand of shield liberally.
Polearms: bardiche, bec de corbin, bill, crook, glaive, glaive-guisarme, guisarme, halberd, hooked lance, lucerne hammer, mancatcher, monk’s spade, naginata, nodachi, ranseur, rhomphaia, tepoztopilli, and tiger fork.
Though actually unhindering shield and a buckler might be better - I think in PFS shield brace makes your spear/polearm treated as one-handed for strength & power attack. The reason to get a shield of some sort is to have another item to place enchantments on, it's cheaper to get AC up with two items than with one, especially if you're considering adding mirrored to one of them.Edit: and with 3rd-4th level paladin spells available, wouldn't you usually rather use one of them than shield?
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I sadly can't use the shield brace since it's locked to polearms and I'd have to sell my main nodachi weapon to buy it and then optimally retrain 3 feats to use it (guillisarme proficiencyu, improved critial, shield mastery and additionally pick shield brace), which would be a fairly expensive loss. Also, I could just use a wand of shield liberally.Polearms: bardiche, bec de corbin, bill, crook, glaive, glaive-guisarme, guisarme, halberd, hooked lance, lucerne hammer, mancatcher, monk’s spade, naginata, nodachi, ranseur, rhomphaia, tepoztopilli, and tiger fork.
Though actually unhindering shield and a buckler might be better - I think in PFS shield brace makes your spear/polearm treated as one-handed for strength & power attack. The reason to get a shield of some sort is to have another item to place enchantments on, it's cheaper to get AC up with two items than with one, especially if you're considering adding mirrored to one of them.Edit: and with 3rd-4th level paladin spells available, wouldn't you usually rather use one of them than shield?
Yeah, fair enough. I'll definitely be grabbing a shield then. Thanks :)
Nodachi: The sword so big they had to call it a polearm. I'll have to remember that next time I feel the ill-gotten urge to make a polearm master fighter. Though the 2nd-level ability won't be terribly useful.
Though actually unhindering shield and a buckler might be better - I think in PFS shield brace makes your spear/polearm treated as one-handed for strength & power attack.
This is correct. Also Unhindering shield is not legal for PFS. Archives of Nethys has labeled the feat incorrectly.
"Feats: All feats in this book are legal for play except Mobile Stronghold and Unhindering Shield. "
Since in PFS shield brace reduces your damage to that of a one-handed weapon it just makes it so you're sword and boarding, which it seems is what you're not wanting since you went two handed this entire time.
reach is the only maybe hinderer that you probably should be able to deal with, so do you get access to the grace spell? Cast that as a swift to not provoke and then get into position and then rage and hit things. Though provoking and healing works well too.
I've played through Eyes, what I'll say is that you should be quite fine with what you have as is. So if you want to get better go for it, but you'll do your job well enough as is.
Oh, lunge is a really nice feat, I like it on my melee guys, also helps with reach issues as now you can attack 10ft and getting large can attack 15.
Wands of enlarge or longarm are helpful too and don't need UMD cause of the bloodrager dip.
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Since in PFS shield brace reduces your damage to that of a one-handed weapon it just makes it so you're sword and boarding, which it seems is what you're not wanting since you went two handed this entire time.
reach is the only maybe hinderer that you probably should be able to deal with, so do you get access to the grace spell? Cast that as a swift to not provoke and then get into position and then rage and hit things. Though provoking and healing works well too.
I've played through Eyes, what I'll say is that you should be quite fine with what you have as is. So if you want to get better go for it, but you'll do your job well enough as is.
Would you happen to know where this was posted? The additional resources document nor the source material or reference document mention that using shield brace would turn the weapon into a one handed weapon, and A quick search on the topic also doesn't reveal anything.
If this is the case, I must admit i'm getting a bit frustrated with all the bans. After angel bond, courageous weapon and now this it seems like everything that is really exciting to use for a martial character keeps getting banned, with a number of those bans/nerfs also not being mentioned in any clearly accessible source. I'd almost feel like this was done intentionally to make you buy book X first then state 'oh sorry, you can't use this due to obsucre reddit post from developer X here'.
That aside, it's good I know I'm generally in a good place at the moment seyup wise, so thanks.
That's a bit ridiculous. They're both house rules documents.
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It'd make sense if this was indeed the case. The problem is that the Additional Resources document is already chok full of rules changes.
What sort of money do you have? It's probably worth it to drop 40 k on this:
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/h-l/ioun- stones/lavender-and-green-ellipsoid-ioun-stone
I have roughly 40 k to spend on items, if I saved up all the money from all level 10 and 11 adventures.
Current equip: +3 fullplate, +2 furious nodachi, +2 cloak of res, lucky horseshoe, winged boots, +2 amulet of natural armor, eyes of the eagle, handy haversack, pearl of poweer (level 1), a crapton of level 1 wands, some backup nonmagical masterwork coldiron or mythral weapons.
Should be noted that I'm not that worried about enemy spells. My unbuffed saves at level 12 with the current gear are +22 fort, +16 ref and +18 will. I think I can fairly realiable use rage and heroism to increase this to +26 fort, +18 ref and +22 will. This should shrug off most spells without the need for a 40 k ioun stone. If I were to spend 40 k on one item I'd probably take the ring of freedom to be immune to grabs and some other movement impairing conditions.