Been rather in a overwhelmed with ideas and just need to make a final choice, I've never used leadership and feel a little dirty with Esquire but i like my idea. My group suck at team planning and i want to try a good teamwork build cavalier. So help please?
To explain quickly, it's an older dwarf taking the nephew/niece off on an adventure, clan honor and family theme seems a nice simple basis.
Going to build sword(dwarven waraxe) and board, scion of high helm feat to get around charisma so nice gruff chap, order of dragon and oh it's a 20 point buy. Very loose build atm.
So to keep it simple what class would complement a cavalier.
1. Has to be full martial weapons trained class is only restrictions arytypes allowed.
2. But they'll share all the cavalier's teamwork feats.
3. But they'll be two levels behind forever as with leadership as normal so best not be to squishy.
4. Oh and a 15 point build if i understand the cohort rules right...
5. Anything that's a dwarf and probably in heavy armour.
I've looked at barbarian but feel could run a touch risky to go squish as much as the damage might be nice. Hunter twf(waraxes and lace)+ heavy armour... gm might kill me if it has a pet but would be fun... but arytpes can fix that and a pet is also forever-2 levels to current enemies too so might be two squishy outside full tank build in later levels. Teamwork paladin? Gah plain old warrior? I'm unsure, not aiming to be overpowered but it's the balance of survival vs damage that makes this so hard.
Any advice much appreciated cheers.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
A magus can do some damage and survive as long as their spells hold out. A phantom blade spiritualist is like a magus but has weaker attack spells and wis-based spellcasting, and can get to heavy armor faster. That last could definitely work as your cohort - some healing ability might be welcome on your backup.
Well, what's the rest of the group? If your going for teamwork feats a lit of that may change based on who else will be near you.
Um as i said disorganised are those i adventure with, but we will generally get a healer, a caster, a martial mix and maybe a trap finding person. well all except that one time it's worked out ok... but lets assume it'll cover the basics, we are a 5 man party and i can probably expect 1 or 2 more in melee at least and they might even be persuaded to take the odd teamwork feat.
Sorry it's vague, but we unintentionally always fall into that "the adventures meet in the pub" adventure start that you see in many adventure paths and that's why I'm leaning into this ally idea as it lets me build nice teamwork combos at least with me and my cohort.A magus can do some damage and survive as long as their spells hold out. A phantom blade spiritualist is like a magus but has weaker attack spells and wis-based spellcasting, and can get to heavy armor faster. That last could definitely work as your cohort - some healing ability might be welcome on your backup.
Will look at those thanks and yes the extra healing is always a good idea and that arytpe sorts martial requirements and it's very nice and as an added bonus I've not actually played with any hero from the occult book, be a good reason to dust it off.
Ok done a bit of research into Phantom Blade and quite set on it, so i have a small follow up question to throw to the crowd, what weapon?
Dwarf with martial training means all the dwarf specific weapons are on the cards, was just going to go dwarven waraxe but then remembered the Dorn Dugar(reach weapon option)- chain flail master feat allows it to be used one handed with a feat req of bab 4(class feature means level=bab for feat requirements)and twf. At 7th you can reshape you class weapon after resting so i could wait till then to use the dorn Dugar and just run with a dwarven axe in the mean time?
So is dorn Dugar worth it or are there better choices?
Cheers again for any thoughts.
The level=BAB is only for the bonus feats, which don't line up with a +4 BAB req. feat - you get them at 3rd and 8th. You could get it at 7th anyway of course.
TWF is not a great feat for a 3/4 BAB class with little in the way of accuracy boosts, and a damage boost which relies on you having a hand free to cast a spell via spell combat. It's basically a feat tax for you to use the dorn-dergar. I'd just use the waraxe, and maybe get lunge with the 8th level bonus feat.
The level=BAB is only for the bonus feats, which don't line up with a +4 BAB req. feat - you get them at 3rd and 8th. You could get it at 7th anyway of course.
TWF is not a great feat for a 3/4 BAB class with little in the way of accuracy boosts, and a damage boost which relies on you having a hand free to cast a spell via spell combat. It's basically a feat tax for you to use the dorn-dergar. I'd just use the waraxe, and maybe get lunge with the 8th level bonus feat.
Yeah that's pretty logical and lunge makes good sense, cheers.
Your best choice is indeed a gish class. See if Oracle that takes Metal/Battle and Skill at Arms is legal.
As far as it goes I'd assume so since you'd get 'skill at arms' at 1st level. Martial weapon proficiency is the cavalier's requirement and arytpes are allowed so since arytpes are applied after choosing the class and can change weapon proficiency you'd assume a core class mechanic from oracle would also be allowed as long as the finished character fulfils the base requirements.
But anyhow curse you for tempting me with Oracle would be a full caster and that's always nice and saves me a heavy armour feat with 'skill at arms'.
Main question is, is it the battle oracle or the spiritualist phantom blade who is going to be more fun or balanced and make the best use of the shared combat feats?
I'm leaning still towards the phantom blade due to the dwarf nature of my charisma making an Oracle a rather expensive build (especial with a npc heroic 15 point buy). Feel free to put forward the case for a viable dwarf Oracle or anything else besides but thanks for the input heck if i ever play a non dwarf esquire and aid-de-camp a battle oracle Aid-de-camp would rock.
I really like bard cohorts. Combine the stonesinger and dwarven lorekeeper archetypes: all class features key off of wisdom, you penalize enemy AC while performing, and your basic combat performance shares combat feats with your allies.
I really like bard cohorts. Combine the stonesinger and dwarven lorekeeper archetypes: all class features key off of wisdom, you penalize enemy AC while performing, and your basic combat performance shares combat feats with your allies.
Oh i agree bards do seem one of the best choices for a cohort, but in this case the cohort character needs martial weapon proficiency as requirement of cavalier esquire archetype and as far as i can tell those bard archetypes don't add it.
Ah, I missed that being a class requirement. I would go with a skald, but the dwarven charisma penalty might be too much of an issue.