Gloomblade: No One Style Build


Advice


I find the Gloomblade interesting. Generally though, my martial characters (and even my half-martials) tend to be focused on their chosen fighting style. Whether it's martial arts in the dark, or hitting someone with a shovel.

I wanna try to take full advantage of the Gloomblade's versatility in being able to make weapons on the fly with enhancement bonuses. One minute I wanna be swinging a shadowy greatwpsword, the next tossing knives, only to become a two-weapon weilding dervish when surrounded on all sides.

Is this possible to do effectively? Or would it be spreading the fighter's feats too thin, since I don't think they can take things like "Weapon Focus (Shadow Weapon)".

Grand Lodge

You would need a pretty good Str and Dex to be able to take advantage of both 2h weapons and TWF, you'd probably want pretty high Dex anyways since you lose heavy armor and shield proficiency.

Unfortunately you cannot take Weapon Focus or Weapon Specialization in your shadow weapons as a group, you would have to pick 1 or 2 favorites, or just bypass them in favor of more utility oriented feats.

Look at the Barroom Brawler feat from the ACG, it lets you use a combat feat you qualify to get for a minute at a time...could be useful for temporary weapon focus or specialization, or improved maneuvers on a weapon with trip or something. Or maybe multi-class into Brawler for full blown Martial Flexibility.

Dark Archive

Play a human, take Martial Versatility, then stick to a weapon group that has options that fit all of those. Axes is a decent one, since you can use handaxes for TWF, greataxe for 2-handing, and throwing axes for ranged.

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16

I suggest taking Power Attack and investing in Weapon Mastery feats. The archetype explicitly gives you weapon training that applies to all gloomblade weapons, which allows you to apply Weapon Mastery feats on almost any weapon you transform them into.

You don't really need to invest heavily in ranged combat feats right away because you can just switch weapons if your allies get in the way.


I ended up taking all this into consideration and tried to find the most versatile weapon. And of course pick a race.

Idea one was Tengu. Swordtrained opens up any sword and means no need for EWP on the two big ones I found.

The Aldori Dueling Sword is Finessable so could go full Dex build with the TWF and Slashing Grace. It isn't Light so TWF with it once you've got TWG would still be -4/-4, but with Possessed Hand and Hand's Autonomy you could lower that nicely. It can also be used 2h for 1 1/2 Str (I don't think it can get 1 1/2 Dex damage though, just because of how Slashing Grace and Two Weapon Grace works).

The Estoc. Also Finessable, also optional for 2H, however since it isn't a Rapier, it doesn't qualify for Fencing Grace, so no Dex-Damage.

Idea two was to go Suli and just focus the TWF aspect. Dualborn Electric-Fire (I know base Suli has more resistances and can use all four element types, but I like the 2 at once idea on a TWF build to diversify damage on targets, however the all 4 is more versatile in the long run if you can identify a creature beforehand so not 100% sure), and Almost Human so they can be targeted by spells that target humanoids, and can take Human feats and options if she so chooses. Early Incremental Elemental Assault in order to make it a more useful ability and not 1/day.

Weapon of choice was still the Dueling Sword idea, but with a Str mod there's not as much necessity to getting a Grace feat. However I'm not 100% sure, as there's probably a pretty cool EWP light weapon which would TWF better for this character.

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