So...
I'm trying to brainstorm out an odd build... I know what I want to do, but I am not sure how to get there.
I want:
1. High Dexterity/High Charisma
2. Paladin Levels
3. 1 Level of Unchained Monk: Scaled Fist
4. Celestial Obedience: Arshea
So... Here is my plan at the moment:
Human
10/18/12/10/8/16
Level 1: Paladin (No Archetype at the moment, Virtuoso would be nice, but the loss of Spellcasting is a non-starter.) 1
We will be tossing a Rank in Knowledge: Planes for at least the first 3 levels and Knowledge Religion in at least the first 7. This is why I didn't dump Intelligence.
Feat(s):
Note: Straight up, I would pull this with a Desna Worshipping in a freaking heartbeat if Paladins could be Chaotic Good. This is, in fact, the main reason I am glad that Paladins can't be Chaotic Good. The mechanical twisting I could do with it would be ridiculous.
For this level we are basically a Fighter, we are pretty accurate, but we do crap for damage. We have a good AC and that is about it. We're not going to get much better for another couple levels either, so here we are just going to have to suck it up.
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Level 2: Paladin 2
Okay, we are here for the Lay on Hands and for the Grace, you know it, I know it, the world knows it.
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Level 3: Paladin 3
Right, we are just getting this out of the way now while we can. We should enjoy ourselves after all right? Sure. Lets go.
Feats:
Okay, finally we are doing mediocre damage. We're fighting with an unmodified Starknife for crying out loud. There is also no excuse for this at all. At least not yet. Still, we're at least now hitting like an adult.
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Level 4: Paladin 4
Second verse same as the first. We're just racking up Paladin stuff here. Nothing to see here. Moving along. We will want to buff our Dexterity though and, assuming we have our first +2 item here, we're going to want to jump up our Charisma. This should make our stat block look like this:
10/19/12/10/8/18
Other than that we are keep on keepin' on. It is almost time to say goodbye to our Paladin.
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Level 5: Paladin 5
We need to stay with Paladin for a little bit longer...
Feat:
Nothing much to see here, we hit okay, we do terrible damage, we're really not that good at our job, we're not terribly durable, Piranha strike has jumped our damage to 1d4+8, its not that we do completely horrible, but we don't do great. Any other frontline fighter is mocking us as we speak. Still... We're not terrible... It might have been a smarter idea to get a Rapier... Unless we aren't sure the extra 3-4 damage per hit would be making a huge difference...
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Level 6: Paladin 6
It is time to say farewell my old friend. We won't be touching you again. But 6 levels in we do have 3d6 healing as a swift. If we had taken Fey Foundling and gone two handed we'd be obliterating everything in our path right about now... But we didn't... Sad face.
By this point we've also gained our second +2 item... Which we added to dexterity... Giving us the stats of...
10/21/12/10/8/18
This jumps our damage by 1.
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Level 7: Paladin 6 / Unchained Monk (Scaled Fist) 1
This is a weird time to duck out of Paladin to be honest, but... Its your character... So why are we doing this? Well... For what we plan to do we need to have 7 ranks in Knowledge: Religion before we can take it. We thus need to be 8th level... But for something we want later we need this now... So we are getting it now... If you want to toss some of the self healing (and another spell level in Paladin) we could have done this at level 6 and 7 to grab Evasion. The second Mercy though is really useful.
Feat:
We don't gain much here... We can ditch our armor if we want though... If we do our AC becomes a 20. That isn't too bad. We can also Smite Evil to jump that to a 24... So there is that.
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Level 8: Paladin 6 / Un. Monk 1 / Mystery Cultist 1
Interesting... So, now we're going into something odd... I dig it. We probably took Magical Knack Paladin or something so we're still at the CL we'd be if we were a straight Paladin without the trait... So... We're okay... This class is more built for Clerics or Oracles though... Seems an odd combo.
We raise our stats here:
10/22/12/10/8/18
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Level 9: Pal 6 (Cast 7) / Un. Monk 1 / Mystery Cultist 2
Well, we have our first 2nd level Paladin Spell. Moving on.
Feat:
We do get the neat ability to temporarily jump our Charisma by +4 when we need to, not super useful, the fear affect is nice, we can only do it for 2 rounds though. Still, combined with our Smite it can grant us a nice little surprise... So I can dig it.
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Level 10: Pal 6 (Cast 8) / Un. Monk 1 / Mystery Cultist 3
We get our first boon...
disguise self 3/day, mirror image 2/day, or charm monster 1/day
Not bad, not bad at all, we can also buff our Charisma for three rounds...
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Level 11: Pal 6 (Cast 9) / Un. Monk 1 / Mystery Cultist 4
We're... Okay? At best... We do meh damage... We are still accurate, though we aren't full BAB anymore. If we've managed to grab a Bracer of the Merciful Knight then our Lay on Hands is equal to a 10th level Paladin.
Feat:
Our biggest boon at this point is that we've picked up Startoss Style. This is a cute little thing. Oddly it doesn't say we have to throw it in order to gain the bonus damage off of it. So it works in melee. Funky.
We also get Heal once a day, as a high level spell that ain't bad.
Oh and we can cast effectively Summon Monster VI... Which is... Pretty sweet, not gonna lie.
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Level 12: Pal 6 (Cast 10) / Un. Monk 1 / Mystery Cultist 5
If we were a PFS character this would be it. We were mediocre if we worked at all. Fortunately we're not. We know that, in this campaign, we're going until around level 18. So let us move on.
We do get Fervor here, which is neat. We can buff our damage up a bit, get a DR 5/Evil, and we can get a CL bonus. We're not a caster really though, mostly using our spells to buff ourselves.
We do get level 3 Paladin spells though. Which... Lets us turn into an Angel?! Sweet!
We're also going to assume that at least one of our +2's is a +4 by this point. If so, we want to chuck it in Charisma while buffing our Dexterity as we go.
Stat increase:
10/23/12/10/8/20
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Level 13: Pal 6 (Cast 11) / Un. Monk 1 / Mystery Cultist 6
First let us grab a feat
Feat:
Okay, we get our second boon and... What the heck just happened?!?
Suddenly our Armor Class has skyrocketed.
We're sitting next to naked with a 26 AC... Or a 31 if we smite... Neat, we can also Glorious Aura to jump it even higher. This is funky and weird. We are... Also officially done with the Mystery Cultist. Put a fork in it.
Our BAB is +11... So now lets return to our home... Namely back to Paladin.
Our damage has slowly crept up too. We've gotten our 2nd +4 stat boost (at least) so our stat block looks like this:
10/25/12/10/8/20
We have a Piranha strike attack cycle of: +16/+11/+7 (not counting magical weapon bonuses of course)
And we hit for a base of 1d4+17
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Level 14: Pal 7 (Cast 12) / Un. Monk 1 / Mystery Cultist 6
More Smiting goodness...
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Level 15: Pal 8 (Cast 13) / Un. Monk 1 / Mystery Cultist 6
We get our aura of resolve, 4th level Paladin Spells, and we get more feats:
Feat:
Our damage goes up a notch here as we go up a little...
Now I have been told this is where I should have one of my +6 items... So... Sure. Why not. I guess I'll get the next one next level.
10/25/12/10/8/22
Our un-augmented AC is a 24 right now... 26 on a Glorious Aura... 33 on a Glorious Smite... Not too shabby.
Our damage went up by 2 more... Every little bit helps when you hit by a wet noodle.
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Level 16: Pal 9 (Cast 14) / Un. Monk 1 / Mystery Cultist 6
We get a mercy and another 4th level spell per day... Not much else.
Our final stat increase with our last +6 item.
10/28/12/10/8/22
Our AC, attack, and damage go by by 2. Not bad.
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Level 17: Pal 10 (Cast 15) / Un. Monk 1 /Mystery Cultist 6
Feat:
We get our very last feat... Better make it count... We have everything we're going to need to face the Demon/Dragon/Whatever the final boss is... So... For poops and giggles... We took Greater Mercy... Because of course we did.
Actually, our healing isn't that bad... With the Bracer of the Merciful Knight we're acting like a 14th level Paladin as far as Lay on Hands goes... We have a boatload of Lay on Hands per day.
13 per day at 7d6 with a Mercy, 8d6 without a Mercy? Can't complain.
We have lost a total of 2 BAB, putting our BAB at +15/+10/+5
Making our total Piranha Strike attack cycle a:
+20/+15/+10
We hit for: 1d4+23
We can assume we can have a Holy +5 Weapon... At least... Because we can cast a spell to do that, so assuming we do...
+25/+20/+10
Hitting for: 1d4+28
We can drop a Glorious Smite in the last battle...
+32/+27/+17
Hitting for: 1d4+2d6+48 on the first hit, and +38 on subsequent ones...
Our AC during that time would be somewhere around 41 give or take.
So, I mean, I think that would be enough to burn down whatever big bad awaits... Probably avoiding any major hits... Our saves would be rather nuts... Especially if we have the Cloak of Resistance for this level combined with our Grace... We can self heal, cast heal, summon an Angel... Be an Angel with one of our 3rd (or 4th) level spells.
If we have the right things we could even full attack at range with our Starknife, though for a bit less damage...
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My biggest concern is how long it takes to get going, and even then its damage is never impressive. It doesn't have the support spells either... It is cute... It has a decent AC once it goes... The lack of need for armor frees up some WBL...
Opinions? Thoughts?
