I played through a Kingmaker campaign, and a friend was a Bow-wielding Slayer. He was easily the best DPR in the group.
I have a half-elf Slayer w/ an Elven Curve Blade (and Improved Critical) that has become quite the DPR king. The Paladin in the group only beats that w/ Smite Evil. I took Trap Finder as a trait, but the only trap feat per se I've taken is Trap Spotter, which is a Talent. Currently 8th level.
It took a while for him to start being so dependable in the DPR area, but he's "online" now, as they say. Furious Focus (APG p. 161) helps out even more. I also recommend Improved Initiative, as that will help you get your Sneak Attack dmg when your foe is flat-footed, once Studied Target becomes a swift action (7th level??) as opposed to just a move action.
It's a straightforward class w/ a lot of room to build, thanks to the Ranger Combat Style Talent you can choose.
My main PFS character is a Tengu Slayer using aldori dueling sword and shield.
It's a great class- very adaptable. Ranger combat style let's you get early access to a powerful feat at 6th level, or sets you up for TWF on a STR build since you don't need to meet requirements.
Sneak attack is ok, but you aren't dependant on it at all.
Overall, it plays like a fighter with skill points, but I know you could use feats and talents to make it very different (I didn't take the option for Disable Device, for instance).
You'll probably only need one trap feat, which is Skill Focus: Disable Device. The cool thing about Slayer is that you can skip the high DEX score and even out your other scores a bit, but that'll come at the cost of lower DEX skills, such as Disable Device. Hell, if you're not worried about staying full-BAB, a single level dip in Rogue might be worth it for it and a quick boost to Sneak Attack (and hell, if you're going Unchained, maybe even free Weapon Finesse). I've never really bothered with TWF, but the image of TWF-ing with a warhammer and a handaxe is pretty badass.
The beauty of Slayers is that you can specialise in niche areas without losing out on damage output. Fighters get a lot of feats, but need to build for special builds with stat/skill requirements (meaning a lot of potential gets lost while going for sub-optimal stats). Slayers can cheat prerequisites (I still want to make a DEX 10 TWF monster) and have skill points to spare. And even if their chosen specialisation isn't useful, they're still a full-BAB class with a built-in damage boost. I've built a Slayer focused on tripping, and a different one focused on dirty tricks. And if it's untrippable or doesn't need to be dirty tricked, I still hit like a truck. Honestly, unless you're going for a special build or archetype, I don't know why you would want to pick Fighter over a Slayer.
Despite how similar most archer-builds are, I wanna see a Slayer in action. Winning initiative and absolutely sneak attacking someone to death while they're flat-footed must be amazing, and something most Rogues will never be able to pull off.
Despite how flavourfully bland the class is, I love how simple it is. No bells and whistles to keep track of, but simple and effective. In PFS, we often give new players the Slayer pregen to fiddle around with, and every time I'm amazed at how much damage it can dish out. To be honest, I hope PF2 replaces the Ranger with the Slayer (or an equivalent). The Ranger feels like a legacy thing, and I was never really sold on the class in the first place. It seems like it's only there because people want to play Aragorn, who was technically called a Ranger, but feels much more like a Slayer to me. The magic is pretty cool, but the underpowered animal companion is something I've never really understood. With some flavour tweaks, a Slayer can just be a woodsman just like a Ranger can, and if you want the magic and/or companion, that could easily be an archetype of the Slayer. To me, a Ranger feels like a needlessly complicated Slayer, with its conditional Favored Enemy/Terrain. A Ranger is either a decent Fighter, or an absolute murder-machine, but rarely something in between. A Slayer can be the latter almost all the time.
I've been playing a Slayer in an online campaign for over two years now. He's a ranged slayer, but able to fight in melee in needed. He deals out decent damage, and even more so if he's able to gain sneak attack. If he can get a full attack off within 30 ft. of the studied target, he can do a lot of damage. Knowing what feats to pick is the key. I have Rapid Shot, Many Shot, Deadly Aim, Snap Shot, Point Blank Shot and several others. I've played him ranged, which he excels at, and I've played him in melee with a sword, and he's a good in both, but ranged is more his thing. But I've loved every minute of playing this class, I've been very satisfied with it. It's a good hybrid of both Ranger and Rogue.
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Hi gang!
I'm playing a Slayer in our upcoming podcast campaign and I was furkling about the web trying to find players experiences of such.
There seems to be a wealth of information and handbooks for other classes, but not so much for the Slayers?
I was wondering what all your experiences are with them? If you have played one, how was it, if your friend played one in your campaign, what was your experiences?
Sad tales and hilarious experiences also appreciated!
(For transparency mine is a half-orc, looking to go TWF but also worried at the lack of rogue in the party so will have to sacrifice damage output feats for trap feats)
I played one. They can do a lot of damage even without getting a flank for snake attack. They also have some utility. However they still don't have access to magic, so having another class in the party that can solve magic based problems is still nice.
I went with the sword and board version using TWF. I started with power attacking, and had a quickdraw shield. That allowed me flexibility for the times I had to deal with DR. DR hurts TWF builds a lot more than it does power attack builds.
I'm running an NPC Slayer who has split his specialties between ranged and melee combat fairly equally. He's acting as a bounty hunter along with a Soulknife and a Generalist Psion. In the last game one of the players got a good look at what he can do.
I have one in Mummy's Mask. Only level 3 but he took two weapon fighting or some feat and has been doing pretty good with a quarter staff.
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I played one. They can do a lot of damage even without getting a flank for snake attack. They also have some utility.
Snake attacks are my favorite kind of attacks. ;-)