Greetings and salutations!
My current campaign, where I'm DM-ing is approaching an end after three years and recently we have started a new one, this time with long exp progression and me as a player. Me and most of my friends have a history of making challenging and brutal campaign/sessions so this new story line was no exception. Anyways I had a great idea and story for a dex-based vivisectioinist but he ended up being gutted during the first session, because being forced to climb a rope when being chased by an angry mob of hobgoblins and bugbears while having no climb skill and an amazing strength score of 7, has never in the history of rpg failed before and I was just really unlucky...<cough,cough> ;)
I need a new character. When we create characters we roll 4d6 and then remove the lowest number. This leads to sometimes very good characters and sometimes not so good, but in the end we like the rng factor of it. My stats are as follows: 18, 18 , 17, 12, 11, 9 so these stats have some potential...;) Currently my party member is an Arcanist-occultist (crowd control and summons) and that's it. We are a two man party for the moment. Usually 1-2 guys joins eventually but for now it's just us two and we need to survive until more shows up.
We are starting at level 3. All books are allowed except 3rd party and the new occult stuff/classes so that would be Core, apg, um, uc, stuff from inner sea etc...My initial thoughts was some sort of melee. DPR is important but is not alfa/omega, he needs to be self sustained and have survivability. At first i was thinking of a melee oracle: lunar for the sake of pet, war-sighted for the sake of feat and versatility and ancient lorekeeper for the sake of replacing the shitty bonus spells of lunar oracle.
How would you guys build such a character? I am also open for another ideas/builds, doesn't have to be a lunar oracle...I just need something durable with good dpr that can pull his weight in a two man party...
Thank you for your time and effort
Kind regards
VictorH
What is availability of magic items like in your campaign? In Pathfinder Society, you can usually pretty much buy magic items at their market prices. Just about every other GM I've played with keeps a tight grip on availability, and magic items are available if and when he places them.
|
1 person marked this as a favorite.
|
I did just post a melee build, Father Maxwell MacKenzie , inspired by 2 Beatles' songs, Elanor Riggby and Maxwell's Silver Hammer.
Father MacKenzie fights Thunder and Fang. He has levels in Inquisitor to exploit Teamwork Feats: Broken Wing Gambit, Harder they Fall, and Paired Opportunist. He has Shield Slam via 2 levels in Ranger and Greater Bull Rush to give your partner and himself even more Attacks of Opportunity.
Part of the reason I Gave Father MacKenzie a level in Paladin was with the expectation of wearing Heavy Armor and wanting to use a Wand of Swift Girding. But your character can have 18s in Strenth, Dexterity and Constitution by level 4, and you start at level 3, so you can totally have a Dex Mod of +4, and that means you don't really have to wear Medium or Heavy Armor. with your Dexterity, you can wear Lamellar Leather Armor and have an AC Bonus of +8. You can wear an Agile Breastplate and have an AC of +8, or you can wear Full Plate and have an AC of +9. Worth it? Maybe. Making your Agile Breatplate Mithril increases your Max Dex Bonus to +4 or +5, I forget which. That would cost 4000gp, usually worth it.
Another thing, since a martial character with an 18 Dex could well be in your future, an Attack of Opportunity build makes a lot of sense: 5 AoOs/round!
Interesting concept with thunder and klar + broken wing gambit, as mentioned earlier, I'm alone in the melee fray so taking advantage of broken wing gambit might be a bit difficult as I have no idea when the rest of the party will show up (might be after 1-2 sessions or 7-8, we are 3 committed folks who usually have time weekly and the rest takes a bit for them to commit). Anyways, maybe swap the pally level with another level of fighter and go animal domain on the inquistor + boon companion?
Regarding magic items...our campaigns has usually been on a large continent with many different kingdoms and one dominant empire in the south desert area (a mixture of roman and Persian empire regarding the culture) so any magic items we wish for are attainable, we just need to travel to the capital and provide the cash. And also we start with wealth by level in regarding to the starting cash...so at level 3 that is 3000g if I'm not entirely wrong.
Ask your GM of course, but technically, per RAW, you can use Broken Wing Gambit even all alone.
Broken Wing Gambit
Broken Wing Gambit wrote: grant that opponent a +2 bonus on attack and damage rolls against you until the end of your next turn or until your opponent attacks you, whichever happens first. If that opponent attacks you with this bonus, it provokes attacks of opportunity from your allies who have this feat. Thing is, according the FAQ, you count as your own ally.
FAQ wrote: You count as your own ally unless otherwise stated or if doing so would make no sense or be impossible. Thus, "your allies" almost always means the same as "you and your allies."
posted October 2010
So, all by yourself, because you count as your own Ally, you can use Broken Wing Gambit to get attacks of opportunity, but if your allies take the Feat to, then so much the better. Then you can make it so that if any of you are attacked, all of you get Attacks of Opportunity.
Now, I have heard it argued that the simple fact that BWG is a Teamwork Feat means that de facto counting "your allies" as meaning "you and your allies" makes it "make no sense or be impossible," but that depends on the false assumption that Teamwork Feats only work if other people take your Teamwork Feat with you. But that is just not what the rules say about Teamwork Feats.
Teamwork Feats wrote: Teamwork feats grant large bonuses, but they only function under specific circumstances. In most cases, these feats require an ally who also possesses the feat to be positioned carefully on the battlefield. The rules say "in most cases." That means not is all cases. We found us a corner case here! All the rules only work at the pleasure of your GM, but per what the rules literally say, the character build I just gave you should work per RAW. So this is something you can ask your GM about.
Actually, though, this character build considers the possibility that a GM might balk at this use of Teamwork Feats. Recall the character is taking levels in Inquisitor. At level 5, the character get his 3rd level in Inquisitor at the same time as he gets Broken Wing Gambit, and level 3 Inquisitors get Solo Tactics.
Solo Tactics wrote: At 3rd level, all of the inquisitor’s allies are treated as if they possessed the same teamwork feats as the inquisitor for the purpose of determining whether the inquisitor receives a bonus from her teamwork feats. So my idea is that this character should be able to us Broken Wing Gambit, Harder they Fall, and Paired Opportunist even his allies don't have the Feat themselves.
The only raw when you have text like "would make no sense or be impossible" is asking your gm. There is literally no other raw reading.
That said here is the most grammatically consistent reading the requires the fewest interpretations.
"require an ally who also possesses the feat to be positioned carefully on the battlefield"
There is a single whole criteria in the sentence that applies to "an ally who possesses the feat" which is the subject of the sentence. It can't be separated into two criteria. That means that normally they have to fulfill the whole sentence together. Ally has to have the feat then more often than not be in the correct position.
Consider the definition of teamwork.
"the combined action of a group of people, especially when effective and efficient"
So either the definition of teamwork is optional or positioning is optional. Broken wing gambit has no positioning requirement thus the most grammatically consistent ruling is that positing is optional and that changing the definition of the word teamwork clearly falls into does not make sense.
So the question come down to which makes more sense, back to the only raw point that matters in this set of ruling.
1) it makes sense to change the definition of teamwork.
2) positioning is optional (many team work feats don't have positioning so this is true reguradless)
So option 2 is full internally consistent, applies equally to ever teamwork feat and requires no new definitions for English words.
There is another build I've had some success with in PFS.
I like Grappling. I realized if you have Greater Grapple and took 2 levels Cavalier in the Order of the Penitent, you get a Class Ability called Expert Captor, which lets you Tie Up a Grappled, not Pinned, opponent, and you don't take the -10 you usually take, so if you begin your round adjacent to your opponent, you could have them Grappled and Tied Up in a single Round! You totally bypass DR. You totally bypass hit points! The question is how to increase your Grapple bonus. Cavaliers get a bonus Teamwork Feat and the Tactician Ability to help them use it even with no other friends with the Feat. So maybe Coordinated Maneuvers which gives you a +2. Improved and Greater grapple give you +2 each. I like to take at least 4 levels in Alchemist. The Tentacle Discovery gives you a +4 on your Grapple Checks. A King Crab Tumor Familiar gives you a +2. There are Magic items: Armbands of the Brawler +1, Gauntlets of the Skilled Maneuver +2, Belt of Giant Strength +1 (assuming a +2ST) Adhesive Armor Enchantment +2. There is the Brawler Armor Enchantment, but that has become expensive. There is the Amulet of Mighty Fists, but that has been ruled to not work on Grapple Checks, but it will work on your Tentacle, so is your Tentacle "incidental" to your Grapple Check? Ask your GM.
You can't get Greater Grapple before level 6, so I was thinking that for the first few levels, I would have the character just be a Ranger-Archer. Take the Freebooter Archetype. Take Precise Shot as the Level 2 Bonus Feat. Acquire a Wand of Gravity Bow so the Base Damage on the arrows is 2d6. Take a 3rd level for Endurance so she can sleep in Medium Armor. Then take a level in Monk to get Improved Grapple, then your 2 levels in Cavalier, then take Greater Grapple at level 7. I have had a Grappler Character in Pathfinder Society before that managed to get a Full-Time Grapple Bonus of +30.
Since this build is for Pathfinder Society which ends at level 12, I was going to take the Extra Discovery Feat a lot. I might have been a Vivisectionist, which is not PFS-legal, but instead will be a Grenadier, putting flasks of Alchemist Fire on my arrows. I'd take Infusion, Tumor Familiar, Tentacle, and Explosive Missile all within 4 levels of Alchemist. I'd make the Familiar a Protector Familiar so I'd get a +2 AC and Shield Other offset by the Familiar's Fast Healing 5. Another trick I'd play is to cast Touch Injection using Share Spells to make my Familiar the Caster. Then I'd give the Familiar an Infusion of True Strike. The next Round, I'd cast True Strike on myself and close to melee with my opponent. The following Round, I'd Initiate a Grapple as a Standard Action benefitting from the +20 from True Strike. My Familiar with use Touch Injection to hit me with the Infusion of True Strike as a Readied Action, then I would Tie Up the opponent again benefiting from True Strike's +20 again as a Move Action. As I said, in the past, I've had a level 9 Grappler with a Full Time mod of +30, so that would mean that I'd have almost any single opponent done and dusted as long as it didn't have a CMD over 50. A Balor Demon's is 54.
So this character would start off as an archer for 3 levels, then by level 7 be a good archer and a good grappler, then between the Discoveries and Mutagens, develop as both through levels of Alchemist.
Grandlounge wrote: The only raw when you have text like "would make no sense or be impossible" is asking your gm. There is literally no other raw reading. I stand behind my advice, and what you are advising here is the first piece of advice I gave!
the first thing I wrote: Ask your GM of course Grandlounge wrote: "require an ally who also possesses the feat to be positioned carefully on the battlefield" Battlefield positioning is not specifically at issue for Broken Wing Gambit. Nothing here that says "flanking," "adjacent," or anything like that.
It just wrote: If that opponent attacks you with this bonus, it provokes attacks of opportunity from your allies who have this feat. Grandlounge wrote: There is a single whole criteria in the sentence that applies to "an ally who possesses the feat" which is the subject of the sentence. It can't be separated into two criteria. That means that normally they have to fulfill the whole sentence together. Ally has to have the feat then more often than not be in the correct position. Again, Battlefield positioning is not an issue with BWG. There aren't 2 criteria here. There is only 1. Do you count as your own ally? Well, I have found, quoted, and linked to the FAQ that answers this question. here it is again:
Ally: Do you count as your own ally? wrote: You count as your own ally If we were talking about a Feat like Seize the Moment or Outflank where you had to be Flanking with an Ally that had the Feat, you'd have a point, but this point which you would have, but you don't has already been considered in my build. This build has the character taking 3 levels in Inquisitor. The Solo Tactics ability lets the Inquisitor benefit from Teamwork Feats as if his allies had them, too. Again,
Solo Tactics wrote: At 3rd level, all of the inquisitor’s allies are treated as if they possessed the same teamwork feats as the inquisitor for the purpose of determining whether the inquisitor receives a bonus from her teamwork feats. Grandlounge, I stand behind my advice. My advice is well-researched. My advice has already been vetted with this highly-critical community. It is well-considered, and all the objections you have raised have been considered in earlier debates. Furthermore, this build has even been proactively adapted to accommodate GMs that are uncomfortable with what the rules technically allow, even though the OP characterizes his campaign as one which is sympathetic to powergamed builds.
The title of this thread wrote: Optimizers unite, please help out a fellow optimizer with build / ideas :) And that is what I gave him!
Reach Hunter?
18 17 12 11 18 9 before racial modifiers. Dwarf or Fates Favored/Sacred Tattoo Half-Orc might work.
You get a companion, 6/9 casting, Good Fort & Reflex saves (and lots of reasons to boost Wisdom/Will saves because of spellcasting and Perception and Survival), CLIMB AS A CLASS SKILL, Teamwork feats, Martial Weapon Proficiency, etc.
Grab a glaive or dorn-durgor.
1. Combat Reflexes
2. Precise Companion: Outflank (which your companion gets too!)
3. Power Attack, Precise Strike?
Sacred Huntmaster Inquisitor works too.
With such great stats you could make a killer cleric or paladin. Or your original idea of oracle. If you need to eat and dish out damage, you could certainly do worse than paladin. Since you're in such a killer campaign, it seems like a great opportunity to play something truly ludicrous. I'd like to point your attention to the paladin variant milticlass cavalier, order of the star. Smite and challenge together give you respectable damage (by which I mean there's nothing under the sun what can survive a single full attack) and order of the star lets half your cavalier level stack with your paladin for lay on hands. Meaning that you'll lay on hands like a paladin of one and a half times your level. Or, in plainer terms, that and fey foundling will heal more damage than you have hit points as a swift action every round.
Paladins are feat starved, but they really don't need a lot of feats.
1. Fey Foundling
3. VMC Cavalier Order of the Star
5. Power Attack
7. VMC
9. Combat Reflexes, Improved Critical, or Lunge
11. VMC
13. Combat Reflexes, Improved Critical, or Lunge
15. VMC
17. Divine Interference?
19. VMC
If you were allowed 3pp stuff, Mystical Healer really ups your durability by providing a scaling bonus to all types of magical healing you do from 1d4 to 4d6 (1d4+2 to 4d6+4 with Fey Foundling). Or 19d6+38 at 20th level when using Lay on Hands on yourself.
EDIT:
With your stats: 18 Str, 12 Dex, 17 Con, 9 Int, 11 Wis, 18 Cha, before racial modifiers.
Maybe go Fate's Favored Sacred Tattoo half-orc, with Magical Knack (paladin) if you want to take Divine Interference at 13th level. Maybe even putting your racial +2 into Int so you can get 2 skills per level.
I would go with the Paladin and keep it simple, IE, straight Paladin.
Str 18
Dex 18
Con 12
Int 9
Wis 11
Cha 17 (-> 18 at 4th)
Hmm, no race specified, so racial mods added. Bumpt the Con for more HP, or Int for more skills?
Give this guy Kikko armor to start (AC 19), then upgrade to Mithral Tatami-Do (AC 21).
One-hand weapon and buckler isn't bad, as it still let's him use his Adaptive Longbow, now he's +4/Stat in melee or at range. Or give him a two-handed weapon... All three saves are well covered by base pluses or stats, and he will get another +3 across the board from his Cha. +4 at 4th level. By playing this guy straight, you start getting the paladin's Divine Bond / Weapon at 5th level...
This guy isn't much help in the skills/knowledges areas, but you already have an Arcanist/Occultist to help cover all of that. And he'll be bonzo at Diplomacy.
Paladin is feat starved, and yet I wonder if the two weapon fighting line could be made to work, even with variant multiclass. That twice your level to damage is certainly tempting. Perhaps use armor spikes so we can still get a shield bonus to AC without spending a feat on shield slam.
Assuming you can last this long (since you’re only level 3), and the game will go to this level, take 6 levels in Shaman, Nature or Mammoth Spirit as main Spirit, and then take 10 levels of Rivethun Emissary, so you count as a level 16 Shaman for your main Spirit, with some Eidolon Evolution Points to spend on your Spirit Animal, that is a Mauler Archetype Familiar and also an Animal Companion of your choice due to the 16th level ability of the Nature/Mammoth Spirit. This means stacking Strength increases from both the Animal Companion side, and the Mauler Familiar side. Bonus points if you go to at least level 17, you dip a level into Draconic Bloodline Sorcerer to get the Bloodline Familiar ability to grant your companion wings when they wouldn’t normally (so you can get a stronger flying Animal Companion than the normal options of Flying ACs), and take the Draconic Companion Archetype for the Animal Companion side to gain a Breath Weapon.
If you go to level 19, take two levels of Eldritch Guardian Fighter so you share any Combat Feat you have with the Familar/Animal Companion. If you go full 20, I suggest taking a level in Mammoth Rider to make your Spirit Animal Huge sized. And since they can become Medium with Battle Form, they truly can go anywhere with you.
Make sure you take Boon Companion so it stays fully leveled up on both the Familiar and Animal Companion sides. And consider all the feats you can use for buffing the creature, such as Celestial Servant. And since they are an Animal Companion AND a Familiar, you can take Evolved Familiar to get it Reach and Pounce, since the limitation of Evolved Companion not being able to do so isn’t part of Evolved Familiar.
Have fun with this.
Asmodeus' Advocate wrote: Paladin is feat starved, and yet I wonder if the two weapon fighting line could be made to work, even with variant multiclass. That twice your level to damage is certainly tempting. Perhaps use armor spikes so we can still get a shield bonus to AC without spending a feat on shield slam. I know it's not what you asked for but improved shield bash into shield slam does work well on a paladin.
FangDragon wrote: Asmodeus' Advocate wrote: Paladin is feat starved, and yet I wonder if the two weapon fighting line could be made to work, even with variant multiclass. That twice your level to damage is certainly tempting. Perhaps use armor spikes so we can still get a shield bonus to AC without spending a feat on shield slam. I know it's not what you asked for but improved shield bash into shield slam does work well on a paladin. I once made a half-elf paladin that dual-wielded warhammer and shield slam, and also worked in the Bludgeoner and Enforcer feats for a lot of de-buffing too (Skill Focus Intimidate). Trying to squeeze in Combat Reflexes might be good, too, since you need a high Dex score to qualify for Two-Weapon Fighting.
It was a 15 point buy, I think, so Str 14, Dex 15 (13+2), Con 12, Int 10, Wis 10, Cha 14.
It was my wannabe Captain America/Ironman/Thor conglomeration...
Not very optimized, since I think it skipped Fey Foundling AND Power Attack.
1. Two-Weapon Fighting
1. Skill Focus Intimidate
3. Improved Shield Bash
4. +1 Dex
5. Bludgeoner
7. Enforcer
8. +1 Dex
9. Improved Two-Weapon Fighting
11. Shield Focus
12. +1 Dex
13. Combat Reflexes?
15. ?
16. +1 Dex
17. Greater Two-Weapon Fighting
19. ?
There were some other Shield-type feats planned, I think.
|
