The "tactical Swiss army knife" is my current PFS character and I am loving it so far. The goal was to have a very tactics-focused PC that can adjust their fighting style to suit the situation. Right now he's a Brawler 2/Steelblood Bloodrager 1 but you can definitely go full Brawler (I'll continue taking more Brawler levels from here on out.)
He fights with a double-chained kama so he can flurry with a reach weapon. This is a cool reach weapon because you can use it at close range or reach.
Feats so far are Dirty Fighting, Exotic Weapon Proficiency (double-chained kama), Improved Trip, and Combat Reflexes.
Last PFS game was fun because every encounter I used a different weapon, a different flex feat, and a different tactic. The first encounter we were attacked by some large hard-hitting creatures, so I flexed Dodge and used a double chicken saber and a wand of blade lash to keep them tripped (possibly saving the life of another PC.) The second encounter I flexed Power Attack and used my double-chained kama and bloodrage to lay out some serious damage. The third combat I flexed Ki Throw and fought unarmed, and threw a zombie redcap down a chasm.
It's not the most trip-focused build, but it's very good at tripping, and also can do many other things. I've tried building other trip characters but they usually either come online late (level 6+) or are not very effective when they can't trip. This one is fun because it's a whole lot of fun whether or not tripping fits the situation.
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If you want an AC, go Wild Child brawler. Full BAB class and counts as full Druid levels for advancing AC, and have the class features to focus on tripping. Something I've mentioned before was a 2 level dip in barbarian, grab Ferocious Mount rage power, ride your AC and charge into battle. With greater trip, you charge, trip your enemy, both you and your raging AC ( I recommend Big Cat) get an AOO, then your mount can get their attack too. Assuming a Big Cat as your AC you'd be raging, charging, tripping, getting and AOO, raging cat gets AOO, cat pounces, grabs, rakes.
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Here's how I'd stat out the Wild Child with a Big Kitty:
Human, Str 15+2 Dex 14 Con 15 Int 10 Wis 14 Cha 7, 4th lvl +1 Str, 8th +1 Con
AC: Big Cat
Brawler (Wild Child) 1-2, grab Dirty Fighting and Improved Trip at 1
Barbarian 3-4, grab Boon Companion and Ferocious Mount Rage Power
Brawler 5+
5) Extra Rage / Power Attack
-You use 2x your rage rounds when using Ferocious Mount so its your call on how often you'll be raging. Considering you're a trip build with an AC, you don't necessarily need to have Power Attack but it's up to you. You can always Martial Flex into P.A, you can't do so with Extra Rage
7) Greater Trip, and can start martial flexing for Mounted Combat
9) Raging Vitality
At level 7 you'll be riding around a large sized cat with Pounce and Rake. Every time you charge you trip and your AC gets to pounce on them.
Are you trying to keep your Hunter level and your current build? Or rebuild the character at level 2? And by "would like an AC" you mean animal companion? I was reading it as "would like a good armor class" at first.
One cool trip build is the Whirlwind Whip Warpriest. Even without taking Improved Trip, it is nice because you can do Whirlwind Attack to try and trip everyone within 15 feet (or more if enlarged) by level 6. And it does reasonable damage as well. Basically requires you to worship Calistria, but she's a fun goddess.
Human Warpriest of Calistria
strength 18, dexterity 13, constitution 10, intelligence 13, wisdom 14, charisma 9
1: Weapon Focus (whip), Dodge, Power Attack
3: Whip Mastery, Mobility
5: Combat Expertise
6: Spring Attack, Whirlwind Attack (FCB)
7: Improved Whip Mastery
9: Combat Reflexes, Weapon Specialization
Don't worry about Dirty Fighting, you can easily sub Combat Expertise in any of the builds posted. Dirty Fighting is just a less useless feat-tax alternative to Combat Expertise.
Wild Child brawler seems like a good choice if you want the AC. Although honestly I'm not sure how Syries' build works because I would think you would need the Undersized Mount feat before level 7.
If I were doing the "reach brawler" build as a Wild Child, I'd probably take feats in this order:
1: Combat Reflexes, Exotic Weapon Proficiency (double-chained kama)
3: Combat Expertise
5: Improved Trip
7: Greater Trip
You could drop the reach weapon and get another feat, but having reach just makes trip builds so much better. And it's also better for magekilling (you don't need Step Up if you have a reach weapon and IUS).
Syries, how do you ride a cat as a human without Undersized Mount? Or are you taking Ferocious Mount at level 4 just so you can start using it at level 7?
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Big cat is large sized at level 7. The build doesn't go into full effect until lv7, and you can make the argument that your AC can count as your "mount" and it can rage when adjacent to you for ferocious mount
Keep in mind that you're not subpar between levels 1-6, even without a large AC with pounce. You're full BAB, you have rage, you have martial flex, and you're a trip build. You are exactly where you should be compared to other characters at your level. You just get a big payout at level 7 that kind of makes the earlier levels seem a bit less powerful. But in reality at level 4 you're raging at 22-24 str, martial flexing for feats like power attack, and you'll have allies who usually have things to help buff you.
the only "useless" class feature you have before lv7 is ferocious mount, and if really don't want that before lv 7 pick a different rage power and retrain later. Or just go without your AC raging, the big cat would already have something like 22 str at 7 anyway.
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Syries, how do you ride a cat as a human without Undersized Mount? Or are you taking Ferocious Mount at level 4 just so you can start using it at level 7?Maybe Ferocious Beast instead?
The reason I'd choose ferocious mount over beast is because you get to utilize greater trip more often. If you charge and your AC doesn't act at the exact same moment- aka you're not mounted- you lose out on an AOO on that charge. You also have to be more aware of combat placement as ferocious beast requires starting or ending their turn adjacent to you, so you don't get flanking bonuses in that regard, and sometimes there just flat out isn't the space to utilize that.
Syries, how do you ride a cat as a human without Undersized Mount? Or are you taking Ferocious Mount at level 4 just so you can start using it at level 7?
You can ride it by taking the -4 for it not being a suitable mount for you. As long as it's strong enough to carry you you're good to go.
Syries, how do you ride a cat as a human without Undersized Mount? Or are you taking Ferocious Mount at level 4 just so you can start using it at level 7?You can ride it by taking the -4 for it not being a suitable mount for you. As long as it's strong enough to carry you you're good to go.
Huh, I did not realize that (although it's actually a -5 to the Ride checks.)
Still though, whether or not you have the feat, a big cat's max load is 150 lbs. Unless your character with all his gear is less that 150 lbs, riding the cat isn't going to work at all until 7th level. Even if you can get your total weight down to the 101-150 lbs range, your cat is carrying a heavy load so they lose 2 touch AC (bringing their total AC to 12,) their speed is reduced to 30 ft., and they take a -6 armor check penalty.
If you don't have Undersized Mount, your Ride checks become really problematic - it's effectively a DC 10 Ride check every round just to guide the cat with your knees (which could be very problematic if you're trying to use a 2-handed weapon) and it's a DC 15 Ride check to get the cat to attack anything.
So basically you will be waiting until level 7 to actually use the cat as a mount. As Syries said, that isn't debilitating as the build works even without being mounted, it's just something to be aware of.
I was thinking of making a trip build recently and came across the Ninja trick, Redirect Force, which could really amp up your CMB. Might be worth dipping 2 levels into Ninja for... Especially against non-humanoid creatures(?) Not to mention Ki pool with the ability to attack one extra time per round.
Anyone have experience with this?
Also, I have no idea if this is PFS legal... Oops
I was thinking of making a trip build recently and came across the Ninja trick, Redirect Force, which could really amp up your CMB. Might be worth dipping 2 levels into Ninja for... Especially against non-humanoid creatures(?) Not to mention Ki pool with the ability to attack one extra time per round.
Anyone have experience with this?
Also, I have no idea if this is PFS legal... Oops
To me that sounds like a recipe for a dead ninja. If your AC is high then the feat isn't useful, if your AC is low then you're taking one hit on your own turn and likely to take a full-attack on the enemy's turn (granted at a -4 attack penalty, but still.) It's very cool but unless you really pump Con I'd be scared to use it. Anyway, OP can't use it because it's from Champions of Balance.
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Good news: undersized mount is a combat feat, therefore you can martial flex for it.
That said I wouldn't worry about mounting your cat before level 7. You're still just as brawler-y as ever, AND you have an AC.
As nice as it is to get the Big Cat raging as well, that also isn't even necessary. Rather than barbarian you could instead go bloodrager (devotion Id Rager maybe?) And have access to some spellcasting for self-buffing. You would only need a 1 level dip for that, too.
Redirect Force would be pretty cool for a Bull Rush build though. Charge at a giant, eat an AoO for 30 damage, and then fling him 25 feet back and off a cliff.
Redirect Force would be pretty cool for a Bull Rush build though. Charge at a giant, eat an AoO for 30 damage, and then fling him 25 feet back and off a cliff.
Well, to be honest I was more thinking of a 2 level dip into Ninja, 1 level dip into Brawler(for versatility), and then the rest as possibly a fighter... Or some other martial class(that could take a hit or two). Then go Improved Trip, Greater Trip and Vicious Stomp along with Combat Reflexes.
I'll definitely try it out someday. :P
A dip into Magus or Bloodrager lets you use a wand of blade lash, which gives you a +10 bonus and extends your range to 15 feet, all in a standard action. That's what I use for my PFS brawler/bloodrager. Logistically it's a lot easier than true strike and you're still almost guaranteed success.
This won't help with your current human character, but my wife has a halfling underfoot adept monk in PFS (currently 6th level), and gets a lot of mileage out of the archetype's boosts to tripping and tumbling.
Hunter with a stegosaurus bully archetyped companion, at level ten you trip, rolling twice keeping the highest then aoo, which provokes an aoo from your companion as well.
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Hunter with a stegosaurus bully archetyped companion, at level ten you trip, rolling twice keeping the highest then aoo, which provokes an aoo from your companion as well.
Holy cow. I would never have thought of that, but a Bully Archetype Stegosaurus companion is LEGIT! Give that sucker Combat Reflexes and he can single-handedly act as battlefield control. You wouldn't even need to go for tripping yourself. That is so beautiful I may need to steal the concept.
Edit: It also gives you a perfectly legitimate reason to imbue your animal companion with the Snake animal focus. That makes it worth it itself.
Good lord you're right, you don't even need the trip feats for tandem trip, so with tandem trip, paired opportunists, outflank and pack flanking, your steggo trips someone, then AOO's at +10 to hit, making you AOO at +8 to hit. Gross.
Evolved companion for reach tail.
usa a Mokele-Mbembe they start with 10 ft reach
1. Amplified Rage
2. Furious/Defending/Leveraging weapon.
Evolved companion is fine about home games, simply not for the OP as it's illegal for organized play.
God Organized play is trash
Evolved companion is fine about home games, simply not for the OP as it's illegal for organized play.God Organized play is trash
It's banned most likely because of the confusion of which base form you count as and which evolutions you count as having if any, rather than the feat being "too strong".
And as Bob Genghis has already brought up, can't even do what you're suggesting to use it for in the first place.
You're also ignoring that reach is illegal for Evolved Companion, regardless of organized play or not
Not really, its not written like that in the book and I don't go hunting down nerfs for things that aren't actually a balance issue.
You're also ignoring that reach is illegal for Evolved Companion, regardless of organized play or notNot really, its not written like that in the book and I don't go hunting down nerfs for things that aren't actually a balance issue.
It's written like that in all new books and PDFs.
But sure, if we ignore the current rules of the game some stuff gets better. Just please mention that you don't follow the current version when suggesting stuff to others. Not everyone has the luxury of using a outdated source.
I don't own new books and pdfs and don't use the SRD's for products i already own. Sorry. yay they changed it. Its a pretty needless change given that the actual balance issues in the game have gone unchecked for a decade or more. PFS doesn't allow it, fine, that makes sense that even AFTER a nerf organized play bans an option that helps more non 9 level casters than the actual problem classes. Par for the course really.