I'm sure someone has done something like this before, but I want to build a character that is tiny (if possible), rides a flying mount (like a butterfly, or something like that), and does charge lance attacks. Unfortunately, I don't really even know where to start with such a thing. I figure it will need to be a paladin or a cavalier. We have a 25 point buy and we are building a lvl 15 character. I don't mind bending strict RAW a little bit, but nothing too wild. Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.
If you want a character that is naturally tiny, you are bending the rules more than a 'bit' you are firmly is custom designed race and GM permission issue.
There are two races that I am aware of that can gain the ability to transform into tiny creatures, Kitsune and Werebat Kin shifters, but neither are suitable for lance wielding. Class abilities can also alter size, but usually for a very limited duration.
Play a small-size character, like a Wayang, Halfling, or Gnome.
Pay for a spellcasting of "Permanency", combined with Reduce Person. Boom, you are now Tiny. Whether this is actually good or not is another matter.
Now make sure you have either an Animal Companion or a Familiar from your main class.
Pick a size Small companion/familiar.
Or, if you can't, but your primary class allows you to cast Enlarge or Reduce Person, pay for another casting of Permanency to get your critter to be the correct size.
Or, get a Tiny companion and the Undersized Mount feat. And probably something to help the companion with weight issues.
Example: a Wayang Magus is Small, and can have a Shimmerwing Dragonfly as a Tiny familiar. Two Permanency's later, job's a good un.
Note 1: If changing the critters size, you cannot take a Familiar archetype or class archetype that costs your critter the "Share Spells" feature.
Note 2: just because you can do something doesn't mean it will be effective.
Good luck. :-)
Note, if you just want to fly around on an insect, a shimmerwing dragon fly familiar, the maular familiar archetype and a small character can make this possible early on.
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Go with a Goblin Winged Marauder archetype Alchemist.
Be a Goblin flying on a giant bat.
Claim to be a butterfly knight.
You might also want to go for a dex build rather than a strength build. If you can get Dex to Damage, getting smaller gets you more dex.
/cevah
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This is easy
At level 15 you can be a fully functional Eldritch Knight. This means you can cast beast shape IV and turn into a tiny magical creature, for example, a coral capuchin. A winged monkey with apposable thumbs, which is therefor capable of holding a tiny weapon.
The spell infers a +8 to Dex and +2 size bonus to hit and to AC for being tiny.
You want your martial Dip to be in Swashbuckler (inspired blade) to grab Dex to Damage when fencing on the cheap.
I recommend the arcane be a sorcerer for more panache, arcane bloodline for a familiar, get improved familiar and pick one that can fly and add the mauler archetype.
This can also work with a wizard but like I said panache is fun.
I’m sure there are also tiny magical creatures without wings, you’d just have to look, if you don’t want the ability to fly yourself.
Besides permanency there are a few other ways to be tiny without stealing standard actions from you in combat. The first is quicken spell. Any 6-level caster or better can cast quickened reduce person at the level you're looking at. An occultist could have the proficiencies and other abiliies to be a convincing knight, including full BAB with trappings of the warrior.
Next is an ability from the shapechanger sorcerer bloodline, mutable flesh, which can make a transmutation spell cast on yourself last hours/level. Improved eldritch heritage can grant it to non-sorcerers. A nature fang druid could use this on fey form 2, 3 or 4 to good effect.
Then there's a bloodrager bloodline power of the shapechanger bloodline to transform as you enter a bloodrage. A bloodrager with that bloodline is the most obvious way to use this, but eldritch scion magus is another.
Getting a flying familiar isn't hard given your starting level for any of these.
baggageboy wrote: Note, if you just want to fly around on an insect, a shimmerwing dragon fly familiar, the maular familiar archetype and a small character can make this possible early on. Take a couple levels in Fighter with the Eldritch Gaurdian Archetype, and you can get your Familiar. Furthermore, your Familiar will now have all the Combat Feats your character has. So, as you level your lance and raise your battle cry, You can take Ascetic/Panther/Snake Style along with Broken Wing Gambit and Paired Opportunist and get multiple hits on multiple opponents with your lance inflicting double damage every time.
The idea is that Snake Fang will give you an Attack of Opportunity whenever you are attacked and missed.
Panther Claw will give you a Free Action Attack whenever you are attacked by provoking an Attack of Opportunity by moving out of a threatened square (limited by our Wis Mod).
Panther Parry will make your attack come first.
Broken Wing Gambit gives you an Attack of Opportunity whenever you are Attacked, but the opponent gives you a +2 Attack and Damage.
Paired Opportunist is so that whenever one of you gets an Attack of Opportunity, both of you do.
Finagling Ascetic Style with Lance will take some doing. Ascetic Style is for Monk Weapons, weapons in the Monk Fighter Weapon Group, and Lance is not a Monk Weapon. There is a Human Feat called Martial Versatility, which lets you apply one of your weapon-specific Feats to all the weapons in the same group. So take Ascetic Style for the Tiger Fork. Tiger Fork is a Monk Weapon; it is also a Pole Arm. Lance is a Pole Arm, too. So, take Ascetic Style for Tiger Fork, then take Martial Versatility for Ascetic Style. Now you can use Ascetic/Snake/Panther Styles along with Paired Opportunist and Broken Wing Gambit for your lance from the back of you Familiar.
Now you have to shrink to Tiny.
There is a Psionic Power, Compression, which lets you reduce your size like the Level 1 Wizard Spell Reduce Person. Unlike Reduce Person, Compression can be augmented so you can reduce your size by 2 steps. It's a Psychic Warrior Power, and I think you need to take 6 levels in Psychic Warrior to take it. But Psychic Warrior is cool.
There is the Monstrous Physique Spell. Monstrous Physique 2 will let you Polymorph into a Tiny Humanoid. It's a 4th level spell, which means you only need 1 level in Alchemist, Magus, Wizard, or Bloodrager in order to use a Wand of Monstrous Physique, or you can multiclass between Eldritch Guardian and Magus (or something), or maybe there is some other option.
I'm a little concerned that even with lots of attacks/round that do double Damage, your character will still not do lots of damage/round. For Small or Tiny Martial Characters, I recommend Sneak Attack Damage, and my build suggestions will not allow for Sneak Attack Damage. But maybe that is not such a problem for you.
Broken wing gambit doesnt give you a free AoO whenever you're attacked even with paired opportunists.
It lasts until next turn or you're attacked.
And it still wouldn't really work.
As a tiny creature you'd have reach. Your pet wouldn't. Flying in with a charge on the lance would stop your movement when you could attack so the familiar would not be reach. Since it couldn't rèach it gains no AoO, and therefore paired opportunists doesnt work either since you can't gain an AoO from an ally unable to make one. So youd have to have teammates with the feat too.
This assumes of course your pet is as tiny as you and you're using undersized mount. If your pet is small sized (few familiars are, and fewer still as flying small mounts, mauler familiar may be your only option to have it be able to carry you and have reach and be a familiar as an option.
Do you have to be mounted? There are small sized flying races that you could shrink down who may be able to do the job alone with a lot less investment.
Cavall wrote: As a tiny creature you'd have reach. Your pet wouldn't.... This assumes of course your pet is as tiny as you and you're using undersized mount. Ah, I am not assuming that at all.
Cavall wrote: mauler familiar may be your only option to have it be able to carry you and have reach and be a familiar as an option. I am suggesting using as a Mount a Mauler Familiar gained through the Eldritch Guardian Fighter Archetype. The Pet would Threaten Adjacent squares because it wouldn't be size Tiny. It would be size Medium or Small. They Threaten Adjacent Squares. A Size Tiny creature with a Reach Weapon would have a Reach of 5'. A Lance is a Reach Weapon.
Cavall wrote: Flying in with a charge on the lance would stop your movement Are you saying that the Free Action Attacks due to Panther Claw stops your movement? That kind of defeats the purpose of Panther Style Feats.
Can you site the rule that says that?
Cavall wrote: Do you have to be mounted? There are small sized flying races that you could shrink down who may be able to do the job alone with a lot less investment. My ideas for the OP's build would probably be more powerful without the complication of having to be mounted, but if that's what the OP wants, that is what I will try to find a solution for.
I didnt say you assumed any size Scott. As you yourself stated the idea was go to with the OPs idea.
The OP wanted a mount like a butterfly and wanted to do charge lancing.
I'm speaking to the OP when I say the familiar would need undersized mount to be as small as possible as still ride, or be a mauler. Had nothing to do with your statement.
However, charging with a lance is not panther strikes. Again, the OP wants charge with lance. So charge DOES stop with movement. And things under small dont have reach so the lance prevents the AoO. So a waste of at least 3 or 4 feats there.
It has to do with incorporating what the OP wants and what you offered and showing they dont work together.
Cavall wrote: I didnt say you assumed any size Scott. As you yourself stated the idea was go to with the OPs idea.
The OP wanted a mount like a butterfly and wanted to do charge lancing.
I'm speaking to the OP when I say the familiar would need undersized mount to be as small as possible as still ride, or be a mauler. Had nothing to do with your statement.
However, charging with a lance is not panther strikes. Again, the OP wants charge with lance. So charge DOES stop with movement. And things under small dont have reach so the lance prevents the AoO. So a waste of at least 3 or 4 feats there.
It has to do with incorporating what the OP wants and what you offered and showing they dont work together.
So you DO believe that the Retaliatory Strikes taken as Free Actions do not end movement.
I detailed a way to apply Panther Style Feats to a lance. They totally work together.
So lets do it the easy way.
Step 1: Be a small race.
Step 2: Go Cavalier for all that mounted goodness.
Step 3: Take a Bird (small creature) as your Mount.
Step 4: Pay 2500gp to get Permanency cast on your Reduce Person.
Now you are tiny, and on a small mount. Requires zero feats, and so little investment that it should all be considered free. The Bird can be any sort of bird, from a pigeon to an eagle. If you want a butterfly you might ask the GM to let the bird be an exceptionally intelligent butterfly (as in, it has the stats of a bird, including animal intelligence instead of being a vermin).
Note that a small lance does 1d4 of damage. Most small weapons are going to do 1d2, 1d3 or 1d4 of damage. Then again, most melee types get their damage from adds, not dice. At least the Reduce Person only drops your strength by 2.
You probably want to aim for ride by attack so you can get in your one good strike and get away. With a base move of fly 80' that ain't bad.
You can get a Butterfly/Moth as a familiar. Add a Permanency Enlarge Person on your familiar and it is now Tiny rather than Diminutive. Add undersized mount. Done.
If you don't want to use a Permanency and an undersized mount, go for the Mauler archetype for the medium sized battle form, Again, done.
/cevah
Cevah wrote: You can get a Butterfly/Moth as a familiar. Add a Permanency Enlarge Person on your familiar and it is now Tiny rather than Diminutive. Add undersized mount. Done.
If you don't want to use a Permanency and an undersized mount, go for the Mauler archetype for the medium sized battle form, Again, done.
/cevah
My thought exactly. Either pick the feat, or pick a Small race.
Also, Familiar Folio had a bunch of archetypes for classes that don't get familiars, such as the fighter (Eldritch Guardian) and the magus (Beastblade).
Cevah wrote: You can get a Butterfly/Moth as a familiar. Add a Permanency Enlarge Person on your familiar and it is now Tiny rather than Diminutive. Add undersized mount. Done.
If you don't want to use a Permanency and an undersized mount, go for the Mauler archetype for the medium sized battle form, Again, done.
/cevah
Well not quite done unless you're tiny as well. So shrink yourself and grow it.
You need the mount to be one size greater than you to ride, undersized mountlet's it be the same size.
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