Is this the right board for discussions about those?
If not, can someone direct me to the appropriate location?
If so, id like to hear your thoughts on potential options for an unarmored charisma build for use with the nereid's grace spell.
(Druid/Witch spell list, 1 round per level duration, +CHA mod to AC while unarmored,
Its been a long time since last i was playing (and referencing this forum), and i gathered previously that too much multiclassing was unviable, so that's also a thing. I will probably save up funds to get a magic item with the appropriate spell effect instead of taking witch or druid manually.
I was thinking a monk and/or oracle of some description to limit the necessity of weapons by using unarmed combat feats and/or spellcasting.
Unfortunately I don't have a lot of information on the game itself since the DM is still sorting out what kind of campaign they want to run in terms of setting or tone. I only just received the invite earlier today. Likewise I have no idea who I'll be playing with or what they'll be playing as, so the ability to flex into different party roles as needed would be a massive benefit.
For race, ill most likely either play a human or mostly-human subspecies of a demihuman race for the bonus starting feat. Personally i always have a hard time passing that up.
You're looking for the first edition forums; this is the second edition forum.
That being said, this is a fairly easy question so I'll go ahead and answer it - unarmored charisma builds are fairly well supported with a couple Monk archetypes, namely the Scaled Fist and the Nornkith. Both work well enough though I'd recommend the Scaled Fist since it can be an Unchained Monk archetype.
You can do this as a full build, or as a 1 level dip to get charisma to AC on a different class.
Yes, there are still people active on the first edition boards and probably will be forever, as there is a sizable contingent of players who have expressed a preference for PF1 over PF2.
So this is sort of off topic, but I poked my nose in the 1e forum about a week or two ago and they are still having the "why won't Paizo let martials have nice things" conversation and I didn't have the heart to tell them.
Meanwhile I am seeing the occasional posts talking about how fighters and rogues might be OP now.
I love this edition.
Yeah, they were specifically talking about how hard Rogues and Fighters have it. Granted, I can't tell who was doing it ironically or trolling, but still.
So this is sort of off topic, but I poked my nose in the 1e forum about a week or two ago and they are still having the "why won't Paizo let martials have nice things" conversation and I didn't have the heart to tell them.
With all the material, martials can be really OP in PF1 now though. Like easy 300-400 DPR at level 11 kind of OP. Makes PF2 fighters and rogues feel like amateurs ;)
So this is sort of off topic, but I poked my nose in the 1e forum about a week or two ago and they are still having the "why won't Paizo let martials have nice things" conversation and I didn't have the heart to tell them.
With all the material, martials can be really OP in PF1 now though. Like easy 300-400 DPR at level 11 kind of OP. Makes PF2 fighters and rogues feel like amateurs ;)
I don't think DPR was ever the problem with PF1 martials though.
I'm almost sure the 400 dpr thing was a bit of an exaggeration (sounds like something from the dpr Olympics thread).
But, yes PF1 martials are much better now then they were a few years ago. Lots of ways for them to get some level of utility without directly needing to get spells, although it still takes some work.
As for PF2, there is a slight chance they overcorrected, given how straight jakected concepts relating martials can be by comparison; Even if base stats are better due to 3 action economy.
I'm almost sure the 400 dpr thing was a bit of an exaggeration (sounds like something from the dpr Olympics thread).
Not at all, most of my characters except wizard, sorcerer, etc. do at least 150-200 DPR by level 11 and a few martial do 250+/300/400. And I play mostly PFS so I'm not even taking about vivisectionist shenanigans.
A Fighter would do more damage than a Druid in a target dummy situation starting from day one, and that never really changed.
The difference was stuff like flight. It does not matter how much damage your falchion fighter does if he can't reach the enemy.
Celestial armor, potion of fly, winged boots are all pretty much mandatory options for mid level martials in PF1. With UMD and wands that work more than once per day it is also pretty easy to be versatile, obviously not as much as a full caster.
Okay, so after discussing matters with the other players, there's interest in trying out 2e. Specifically because theres less expansion content to keep track of, and the streamlining of various processes and formulae, which eases the burden on both players and the dm.
Im strongly considering the monk still, because it looks relatively user friendly being focused on unarmed and unarmored abilities to save sp and attunement slots for other magical items rather than worrying about arms and armament.
Is it u?reasonable for a monk to attempt to be all of extremely physically gifted (exceptional in both brute force as well as finesse and agility) AND reasonably charming and intelligent (more of the cute and slightly above average ability to absorb knowledge level than the god-seducing genius level) if im willing to take a hit on naivete and fragility?
I'm thinking of a veratile human monk with general training at 1st level for the two general feats that offers.
For build points im currently looking at +dex/+int for being Human, +str/+cha for a Prisoner background (former labour slave, thus the physicality), +2 str for taking it as the Monk's primary attribute instead of dexterity, -2 int/-2 wis/+2 dex for taking Voluntary Flaws, and +2 str/+2 dex/+2 int/+2 cha as my final step ability boosts. Totals look a like this:
HP - 17 (8 Human, +10 Monk, -1 Con mod)
Str - 16
Dex - 16
Con - 8
Int - 14
Wis - 8
Cha - 14
I could potentially push the 16s to 18s if making the 14s into 12s. I dont know if either number is too much/not enough for my characterization to be accurately reflected in my stats.
For skills, im actually not super interested in what Prisoner offers, and statistically could replicate the ability boosts with other backgrounds, but im not sure if they fit the character im working on as in terms of the lore. Any ideas welcome.
Oh and, dragon stance all day long. They're very proud of the quality of their legs =3
Yeah, it will work, but you need to apply hit and run tactics, and with I mean, run to the enemy with one action, flurry of blows with the second, get out of there with the third action.
Then feats like Ki Rush, Guarded Movement and Winding Flow may be desirable for this type of tactic.
For build points im currently looking at +dex/+int for being Human, +str/+cha for a Prisoner background (former labour slave, thus the physicality), +2 str for taking it as the Monk's primary attribute instead of dexterity, -2 int/-2 wis/+2 dex for taking Voluntary Flaws, and +2 str/+2 dex/+2 int/+2 cha as my final step ability boosts.
Not quite legal as given. Voluntary flaws are taken as part of Ancestry phase, which means your Ancestry phase is
(+2 dex/+2 int)+(-2 int/-2 wis/+2 dex) = (+4 dex / +0 int / -2 wis).
The +4 dex is out of bounds; you can only boost or drop a given attribute once (net) in a given phase.
However, if you just change one of the two Ancestry dex boosts to cha and change your background cha to dex you legally get the same final stats. :-)
EDIT: Oh, and one of your two int boosts is cancelled by the flaw, so your final int is 12 not 14. This is completely independent of the comment above.
EDIT 2: Also I don't see where your con drops to 8. Maybe you meant your voluntary flaws are in con & wis, not int & wis?
And i somehow missed that it wasn't its own phase for voluntary flaws, but shuffling that around isnt hard. Might make it impossible to go 18s and 12s though.
Since bad wis hurts ki powers, and spellcasting is so powerful, and since this build (16s and 14s) would have passable cha and good dex, what do you think of taking Bard dedication feats with perform (dance) for occult magic, or perhaps sorcerer dedication feats for divine, arcane or primal magic? Wizard also an option because int = cha, but material components are a hassle. Spontaneous is easier for a primary martial.
Since right now im mostly experimenting with HOW to build characters, and since the flavor choices worked out surprisingly well if still kind of terrible, i decided to go ahead and try to generate a second monk, who is better at monk-ing and still reserves the right to spec into bard or sorcerer if they so choose, but who if portrayed accurately to stats, background, and feats is a VERY different person despite being the same race and class.
How did i do, do you think?
Ancestry: Human, Versatile (Bonus 1st level General Feat - Toughness 1 [+1 HP per level], Voluntary Flaw -2 Str, Voluntary Flaw -2 Int, +2 Dex, +2 Wis, Bonus +2 Con)
Background: Martial Disciple (+2 Dex, +2 Cha, Trained in Athletics and Warfare Lore, Quick Jump 1 Bonus Skill Feat [High Jump and Long Jump actions can be done as single actions that don't take a 10 foot stride beforehand])
Class: Monk (+2 Dex, Trained in Perception, Monk Class Features, 4+(-1)[Int] Skills)
HP - 21
Str - 8
Dex - 18
Con - 14
Int - 8
Wis - 14
Cha - 14
1st Level Ancestry Feat: Natural Ambition (Bonus 1st Level Class Feat [Monk]: Ki Strike)
Final Trained Skills: Athletics, Warfare Lore, Perception, Acrobatics, Medicine, Survival.
If future training includes barding, follow the Enigma Muse (self perfection seems fitting for a monk, and alsontrue strike is useful)
If future training includes sorcery, unlock one of the Elemental Bloodlines (again, seems appropriate given the elemental strike ki power, something else might be better though, but i have heard primal spells are good. Leaning fire, for no specific reasons.)
Trying to boost two mental stats to 14 out the gate might be a little tough and probably unnecessary. While your class DCs do key of Wisdom, not many monk powers have a save associated so you can probably do fine with a 12 in those stats. Don't forget you get 4 ability boosts at 5, one of which could easily bring a 12 charisma to 14 if you wanted to multiclass to bard or sorcerer a little later. You probably won't / shouldn't be focusing on attack spells anyway so you won't need a maxed spell attack role.
If you like the idea of an elemental themed monk, be sure to check out the Student of Perfection in the Lost Omens World Guide.
A theoretical build might look like this (note, I've not seen a build like this in play yet so this is speculation on my part):
Theoretical Elemental Monk:
Ancestry: Human, Versatile (Bonus 1st level General Feat - Toughness 1 [+1 HP per level], +2 Dex, +2 Str)
Background: Martial Disciple (+2 Dex, +2 Cha, Trained in Athletics and Warfare Lore, Quick Jump 1 Bonus Skill Feat [High Jump and Long Jump actions can be done as single actions that don't take a 10 foot stride beforehand])
Class: Monk (+2 Dex, Trained in Perception, Monk Class Features, 4+(0)[Int] Skills)
Trying to boost two mental stats to 14 out the gate might be a little tough and probably unnecessary. While your class DCs do key of Wisdom, not many monk powers have a save associated so you can probably do fine with a 12 in those stats. Don't forget you get 4 ability boosts at 5, one of which could easily bring a 12 charisma to 14 if you wanted to multiclass to bard or sorcerer a little later. You probably won't / shouldn't be focusing on attack spells anyway so you won't need a maxed spell attack role.
If you like the idea of an elemental themed monk, be sure to check out the Student of Perfection in the Lost Omens World Guide.
A theoretical build might look like this (note, I've not seen a build like this in play yet so this is speculation on my part):
** spoiler omitted **
Student of perfection seems pretty neat, and its only a couple of feats. With all the extra class feats a human can potentially get, would it be stretching too thin to try and do that AND pick up a casting class for a familiar to gain an extra focus point and some good cantrips/1st-6th spells? Napkin math says that would be a max of 5, or a 25% focus increase from only being a student of perfection monk.
Is there anywhere i can get more information on these houses of perfection though? The abilities seem like fun wuxia film nonsense, which is awesome, but theres usually philosophical baggage a character needs to be able to mesh with.
Student of perfection seems pretty neat, and its only a couple of feats. With all the extra class feats a human can potentially get, would it be stretching too thin to try and do that AND pick up a casting class for a familiar to gain an extra focus point and some good cantrips/1st-6th spells? Napkin math says that would be a max of 5, or a 25% focus increase from only being a student of perfection monk.
Is there anywhere i can get more information on these houses of perfection though? The abilities seem like fun wuxia film nonsense, which is awesome, but theres usually philosophical baggage a character needs to be able to mesh with.
I think doing Student of Perfection + Sorcerer + Familiar would be probably overloading a bit, but it's just a single feat for one extra focus point a day, so I'm not sure how useful it really is when given the alternatives.
In the build I posted above, you'd probably take Meditative Focus at 12 so you could regain 2 focus between encounters. At that point, for focus powers, you'd have ki strike (elemental), perfect strike, and a school ki power. You could also use the Natural Ambition feat to grab ki rush. I can't personally see 1 extra point a day being worth delaying getting that 2 points on a refocus or some other high level monk feat.
The Natural Ambition human ancestry feat only gives you a first level class feat for your chosen class (which is monk). You can't use it to pick up first level sorcerer feats since the way you get sorcerer feats is through your Archetype, and those are level 4+.
Houses of Perfection don't necessarily have a code of conduct. You could get the World Guide to get some info on them. There's also a little here. You could also track down some of the original Pathfinder versions for more details.
Oh, cant use it forc1st level feats from the multiclass eh? Yeah that does prevent the shenanigans i had in mind. Oh well, such is life.
The setting could be cool, kind of an arab-persian thing. Might be neat to roleplay as a jalmeran in wider golarion, or an outsider in jalmeray. I'll have to talk to the dm about that. Already brainstorming names lol. Courtesy of pop culture i have a ton of male names like aladdin, sinbad, xerxes, and so on, but not much for females (ive been known to play characters of either gender and any age group) so ill need to do some research.
Thank you for pointing it out. Im falling more and more in love with the silly things a monk can potentially be, and even if i dont make a student of perfection (which reads almost as monk+, or like a prestige class lol) its still got neat flavor implications id like to explore.
Shame it doesnt look to allow straight up djinni summons though. Maybe another jalmeran class. Are there more of these?
Unrelated to monks (its nit on the monk weapon list as far as i see), but what kind of weapon IS a flickmace? I keep seeing how good it is, and when I looked it up it apparently becomes a reach trip weapon when not crushing heads up close.
So does that make it some kind of flail or net-thing or something? The srd table just lists it as "exotic", which doesnt actually mean much since iirc even a basic hand and a half bastard sword is "exotic".
Gnome Flickmace: More a flail than a mace, this weapon has a short handle attached to a length of chain with a ball at the end. The ball is propelled to its reach with the flick of the wrist, the momentum of which brings the ball back to the wielder after the strike.
Beginner models attach a cup to the handle so you can wrist-flick the ball up in the air and try to catch it! ;-)
I don't think it's a trip weapon though, just 1-handed reach.
