I would look at something like this:
Tricky Card Thrower (Rogue)
Key concepts: A rogue that specializes in throwing magically charged cards
Deity: Andirifkhu
Archetype: Eldritch Scoundrel
Classes: Rogue(4), Arcane Trickster(10), Rogue(6)
Rogue Talents: Card Sharp(4th)
Feats: Arcane Strike(1st), Accomplished Sneak Attacker(3rd), Point Blank Shot(5th), Precise Shot(7th), Rapid Shot(9th), Clustered Shots(11th), Fiendish Obedience[Andirifkhu](13th), Damned Disciple(15th)
Bonus Feats: Deadly Dealer(4th)
Suggested Feats: Weapon Focus[Dart], Startoss Style, Startoss Comet, Startoss Shower,Spell Focus, Varisian tattoo, Intensified Spell, Elemental Spell, Quicken Spell, Bloatmage Initiate, Greater Spell Specialization, Empowered Spell, Piercing Spell, Spell Perfection, Spell Specialization
Suggested Gear: Belt of Mighty Hurling, Saltspray Ring, Goz Mask, Sniper Goggles, Headband of Ninjitsu, Vest of the Cockroach,
Key Features: • Since darts are ammo, the quick draw feat is not required.
• Casting is never interrupted for the class in question
• Gets full sneak attack progression at all even levels.
The main problem is, do you want to focus more on improving your spellcasting? or your physical damage? Also, the Obedience feats are thrown in there because with out them your sneak attack will drop off after 14th level.
VMC Magus is a good option for this. By taking the arcane dealer magus arcana you can still use you swift action to cast spells in the same round as throwing cards as long as you've already spent your pool point, plus you get more options for enhancements.
Well I start at level 3. What do you advise I do for combat till i get card sharp?I would look at something like this:
Tricky Card Thrower (Rogue)** spoiler omitted **
The main problem is, do you want to focus more on improving your spellcasting? or your physical damage? Also, the Obedience feats are thrown in there because with out them your sneak attack will drop off after 14th level.
It really depends on who else is in your party. You have spells and sneak attack. Maybe you can flank with an ally to sneak attack with the weapon of your choice or it makes more sense to hang back and throw cantrips and magic missiles at the enemy.
Lork K gave some pretty good advice, but I'd disagree with one point, darts aren't ammunition, you do need quickdraw, at least that's the conclusion I came to when trying to build a dart thrower previously.
I'll see if I can put together a build later.
Lork K gave some pretty good advice, but I'd disagree with one point, darts aren't ammunition, you do need quickdraw, at least that's the conclusion I came to when trying to build a dart thrower previously.
I'll see if I can put together a build later.
Ah, you are correct. I adapted a shuriken build which are considered ammo. I did a cursory search to check if darts were also considered ammo and missed that the dart ammo listed is for blowguns. Thrown darts are not and so the cards likely aren't either.
I think this bit causes confusion.
“A spellcaster with this feat can enhance a deck of cards as though it were a ranged weapon with 54 pieces of ammunition. This enhancement functions only when used in tandem with this feat, and has no affect on any other way the cards might be used.”
So the cards are ammunition in at least one way.
Question for the op, what do you want the build to do? Not how to do it, but the actual doing? Eldtrich scoundrel is a good archetype, but card throwing is hard to do effectively. You can do it a a side thing, but if it's a central focus of the character you have to spend a lot of resources on it to get much out.
It's a bit tricky to make work for Arcane Trickster (no pun intended), but honestly 3 levels of Cartomancer Witch might be an easier go of it for this specific goal.
But witches don't get sneak attack and arcane trickster requires 2d6 sneak attack. Even if you did 3 levels of witch and one of rogue you'd end up delaying your caster level by one.
Its certainly another way to go but it introduce s its own problems so I don't know that it would be easier.
I would probably say the easiest way to do this and most effective would be VMC rogue on an eldtrich Archer magus with a 1 level dip of veiled blade swashbuckler. That gives you a lot of solid options for attacking and will still let you enter arcane trickster.
Hexcrafter magus has hexes to use instead of spells & weapons when you don't want to cast a spell and aren't amazing with a weapon. Card caster magus is a specialist in thrown weapons. You can take both archetypes on the same character but there's zero synergy.
If you want to use the harrow cards that the card caster archetype suggests then your debuffing is pretty limited; the frigid touch spell maybe, or a variety of non-touch spells which you might use with spell combat but don't deliver via spellstrike. Frostbite wants you to use a melee weapon really. You could use that archetype with nets or bolas I guess but then the debuff's coming more from the weapon than the class. What weapon do you want to use?
IMO hexcrafter isn't a bad way to go as it gives you access to the brand cantrip without having to take the trait two-world magic.
If you still wanted to pursue Arcane Trickster you could look at a build along these lines
Tricky Card Throwing Caster (Rogue / Witch|Magus)
Key concepts: A character that specializes in throwing magically charged cards
Deity: Andirifkhu
Archetype: Card Caster and Hex Crafter(Magus), Cartomancer (Witch),
Classes: Rogue(1), Witch/Magus(3), Arcane Trickster(10), Witch/Magus(6)
Feats: Point Blank Shot(1st), Accomplished Sneak Attacker(3rd), Quick Draw (5th), Precise Shot(7th), Clustered Shots(11th), Fiendish Obedience[Andirifkhu](13th), Damned Disciple(15th)
Bonus Feats: Deadly Dealer (2nd)/(3rd)
Suggested Feats: Weapon Focus[Dart], Startoss Style, Startoss Comet, Startoss Shower,
Spell Focus, Varisian tattoo, Intensified Spell, Elemental Spell, Quicken Spell, Bloatmage Initiate, Greater Spell Specialization, Empowered Spell, Piercing Spell, Spell Perfection, Spell Specialization
Suggested Gear: Belt of Mighty Hurling, Saltspray Ring, Goz Mask, Sniper Goggles, Headband of Ninjitsu, Harrow Deck
Key Features: • Cards are not destroyed when thrown and gain the returning property(witch)
• Gets spellstrike via cards(magus)
• Gets full sneak attack progression at all even levels
If you want to be more debuffer focused it just means you want anything that ups your spell DCs or makes it easier to break spell resistance. So, feats like Spell Focus and Spell Penetration. Unfortunately, you'll still need Point blank shot, Precise shot and Quick draw because of the way deadly dealer works.
The problem with the cardcaster archetype is it doesn't modify spell combat, so you can't actually use the archetype as intended. If your gm is smart and allows spell combat to work with ranged weapons then it's a solid pick for doing a card thrower.
Lord Kailas's witch or magus above works well enough. The witch variant can do debuffs with thrown cards, the magus does damage.
The 'best' build is something that there are a dozen answers to. I could make a case for either of LK's, or for a cartomancer invoker witch, or for a bloodrager, or an eldritch archer magus, or a Sczarni swindler rogue, or a cabalist vigilante.
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Note that you only need 2 levels of Cartomancer to get Deadly Dealer and Arcane Strike with returning thrown cards... 3 levels if you also want to be able to deliver touch spells with the cards.
Witches also get a lot of good hexes and spells for manipulating luck; Protective Luck, Fortune, Misfortune, Evil Eye, Cackle, Guidance, Ill Omen, et cetera.
Thus, combining a few levels of Cartomancer with a Halfling Rogue, Adaptive Luck, Fortunate One, Adaptive Fortune, Fate's Favored, Deck of Silvering Fate, Gloves of Arcane Striking, Belt of Mighty Hurling (lesser or greater), etc should allow you to build a fairly strong character with the luck and cards themes. Can also use Witch spells to get concealment so you can make sneak attacks.
You could use Extra Hex and Accomplished Sneak Attacker feats to get both of those abilities up to the levels you are looking for.
Is this for a home game or for a PFS character? There are a lot of options that with a reasonable gm work great, but that don't work for PFS. For instance, an unchained rogue technically can't take cardsharp, it's not an option for an unchained rogue talent, but any reasonable gm will ok it. Slayer would be a great choice as well, but card sharp is not an option on their list of available talents, but a gm wouldn't like have a problem with it.
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Care to give advise on stats (20 point buy)
I'd suggest something close to;
Str 14 (10 pts)
Con 12 (2 pts)
Dex 12 (0 pts)
Int 16 (10 pts)
Wis 10 (0 pts)
Cha 10 (-2 pts)
The Str over Dex may seem strange given the halfling racial bonuses, but it is fairly easy to get Str to hit and damage for all thrown weapons via a belt of mighty hurling... vs very difficult to get Dex for both on thrown playing cards. If your GM allows some sort of Dex to hit and damage feat or other option then dump Str and push Dex up to 18 (or 20).
Note that you only need 2 levels of Cartomancer to get Deadly Dealer and Arcane Strike with returning thrown cards... 3 levels if you also want to be able to deliver touch spells with the cards.
Yes, but you need the 3rd level of Witch to get access to the 2nd level spell required to get into Arcane Trickster. Since it was the base topic, I'd say it's worth keeping in mind.
Dotting for interest. I think the concept of a gambler messing around with luck and cards is really cool, and mixing in a few levels in Witch for the hexes and free Deadly Dealer is nice.
Going for Str instead of Dex is a little odd, although I do understand why. Such low Dex and Con is worrying. Rogues want high Initiative and being restricted to no armor (or something with no spell failure) means your AC will suffer. I wish there was a way to get Dex to damage with cards... At least that way you can use Deadly Aim too.
Would it make more sense to go for buffing/de-buffing instead of straight damage output? Both Rogues and Witches have some nice de-buffs.
Wondering what the Feat progression would look like.
Archeologist Bard can take card sharp as a rogue talent, that is probably one of the best single class options for a gambling card thrower I think.
OK, here's how I'd do a halfling Sczarni swindler rogue (L3+) using deadly dealer in feats and talents. For abilities just max dex, have decent con and one of int or cha, and don't dump wis. As a halfing take the swift as shadows alt racial trait.
I think quick draw won't be necessary - you treat a pack of cards as a weapon and 54 pieces of ammo, which should mean you only need to draw the pack once to have them all in your hand and ready. Even if that's not strictly true by the rules it should be easy to convince most GMs it's reasonable.
Unchained rogue 1: weapon finesse
Rogue 2: card sharp (deadly dealer)
3: precise shot
Rogue 4: combat trick (rapid shot)
5: expert sniper
Rogue 6: superior sniper (master sniper)
7: skill focus (stealth)
Rogue 8: emboldening strike
9: hellcat stealth
Rogue 10: feat (double debilitation)
11: dampen presence
Rogue 12: quick shot
13: ???
Rogue 14: fast stealth, trap spotter, or whatever
15: improved precise shot
Harrow strike is an advanced rogue talent for some reason. You can squeeze it in anywhere from level 10, maybe just put it in as the L10 talent and delay the next couple of feats/talents one level. Dampen presence is a talent as well as a feat.
None of that says anything about which RL culture you'd steal names from, though 'the 3 immortals' might mean Chinese. Might not too.
Tolkein's halfling names are pre-Norman Anglo-Saxon names I think. In the default PF setting they're the shorter names from some fantasy name generator. Since your character is using the Tarot (more or less) a lot including for fortune telling you might use a Romani name I guess. Google gypsy names or romani names or something like that for a list.
Rogue's edge does very little. You might find escape artist or acrobatics useful, or you might not. Or you could pick a skill at random and lose little from doing so.