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So, a Daring Champìon Cavalier, with the Order of the Eastern Star, fighting defensively using Crane Style...
You have...
+1 Dodge [feat]
+1 Crane Style
+1 to +5 Nimble
+1 to +6 from your Challenge
+2 fighting defensively
+4 Crane Wing
+10 to +19 dodge bonus to AC... is that a lot? Sure, some of them are situational, and all of it depends on not being flat-footed... blah, blah, blah... but look at it, just look at it. It seems like a lot. It seems almost too good to be true... and this isn't including Dodging Panache adding a dodge bonus equal to your Charisma modifier as an immediate action.
Am I reading this correctly? Does this work the way I think it does?
I was honestly just messing around looking for Cavalier challenges that did not give morale bonuses... I was looking to make me some Undead Cavaliers, and morale bonuses don't do me any good. I kind of stumbled upon Order of the Eastern Star... already knew Daring Champions get Nimble, and Crane Riposte is kind of close to Opportune Parry & Riposte [which the Daring Champion does not get, nor can one get it from Amatuer Swashbuckler]. We will also have to take Combat Reflexes and Weapon Trick for Stylish Riposte. Having both Crane Riposte and Stylish Riposte will have to make up for lacking the actual Opportune Parry & Riposte deed.
The silliest "so many dodge bonuses" I have seen is the Water Dancer Monk into the Devoted Muse PRC using Osyluth's Guile, who adds their ChaMod to their AC as a Dodge Bonus *three times* plus all the other stuff you can stack there.
But Dodge Bonuses can be stacked as high as you can see and that doesn't make you invincible since "Any situation that denies you your Dexterity bonus also denies you dodge bonuses" so have fun, but watch out for feints.
So, a Daring Champìon Cavalier, with the Order of the Eastern Star, fighting defensively using Crane Style...
The unfortunate thing about Stylish Riposte is that it can only be used against a given foe 1/day.
Fighting Defensively as a full-round action in conjunction with Crane Wing and Crane Riposte is amazing. The only thing is, the driver for Crane Riposte is someone missing you by 4 or less, which in turn makes Crane Wing’s +4 dodge bonus go away until the beginning of your next turn (and honestly, I’m not sure it’s intended to be an additional +4 on top of Fighting Defensively and Crane Style).
Anyways, at 8th level, you’d still have a +9 dodge bonus, which, when combined with Dexterity and (presumably magical) light armor, is pretty amazing. I’m hardly an expert on the Bestiary, but I’m guessing most humanoids and monsters you’ll face at that level won’t easily hit you with their iterative attacks.
I would offer to you, however, that a better way to maximize your Dodge bonuses in the long term would be to combine Snake Style with the Fleet Standard as your Banner. Assuming a human’s Favored Class Bonus for the Cavalier class, the former would give you a +2 to +6 dodge bonus during any round in which you moved at least 10 feet (something that you can’t do when Fighting Defensively as a full round action).
By 9th level, when Snake Fang comes online, you’d have a +8 Dodge bonus (overall) that only goes away under the same conditions as Crane Style. Snake Fang allows you to make an attack of opportunity with an unarmed strike against any enemy whose attack missed you. As your unarmed strike will deal piercing damage, it will benefit from both your challenge damage and your precise strike damage. Thanks to Combat Reflexes, you can take those AOOs even when flat-footed; and, unlike your iterative attacks, they’re all at your highest base attack bonus.
Even better, by 11th level, Daring Champion gives you Fighting Defensively anyways… as a swift action, with a +4 Dodge bonus and only a -2 to attack (only marginally worse than the -1 Crane Riposte affords you).
For the Fleet Standard, you could go with a build of:
(1) Dodge, Improved Unarmed Strike, (3) Mobility, (5) Spring Attack, (6) Snake Style, (7) Snake Sidewind, (9) Snake Fang, (11) Combat Reflexes, (12) Nimble Moves, (13) Improved Spring Attack, (15) Acrobatic Steps, (17) Greater Spring Attack, (18) …
The idea here, obviously, is that you use Spring Attack to get away form your Challenge target and get back to an adjacent square with them as part of the same action—allowing you to get the Fleet Standard dodge bonus without provoking attacks of opportunity. At higher levels, you can also take a cheap shot or two at other combatants before returning to your actual opponent.
Alternately, you could ditch the higher-level mobility-based feats in favor of maximizing your attacking potential: (12) Stunning Fist, (13) Weapon Focus*, (15) Weapon Style Mastery, (17) Ascetic Style, (18) Ascetic Form, (19) Ascetic Strike.
* Initially, Improved Unarmed Strike; at 17th level, retrain to a light or one-handed piercing weapon of your choice.
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So, a Daring Champìon Cavalier, with the Order of the Eastern Star, fighting defensively using Crane Style...The unfortunate thing about Stylish Riposte is that it can only be used against a given foe 1/day.
Fighting Defensively as a full-round action in conjunction with Crane Wing and Crane Riposte is amazing. The only thing is, the driver for Crane Riposte is someone missing you by 4 or less, which in turn makes Crane Wing’s +4 dodge bonus go away until the beginning of your next turn (and honestly, I’m not sure it’s intended to be an additional +4 on top of Fighting Defensively and Crane Style).
Anyways, at 8th level, you’d still have a +9 dodge bonus, which, when combined with Dexterity and (presumably magical) light armor, is pretty amazing. I’m hardly an expert on the Bestiary, but I’m guessing most humanoids and monsters you’ll face at that level won’t easily hit you with their iterative attacks.
I would offer to you, however, that a better way to maximize your Dodge bonuses in the long term would be to combine Snake Style with the Fleet Standard as your Banner. Assuming a human’s Favored Class Bonus for the Cavalier class, the former would give you a +2 to +6 dodge bonus during any round in which you moved at least 10 feet (something that you can’t do when Fighting Defensively as a full round action).
By 9th level, when Snake Fang comes online, you’d have a +8 Dodge bonus (overall) that only goes away under the same conditions as Crane Style. Snake Fang allows you to make an attack of opportunity with an unarmed strike against any enemy whose attack missed you. As your unarmed strike will deal piercing damage, it will benefit from both your challenge damage and your precise strike damage. Thanks to Combat Reflexes, you can take those AOOs even when flat-footed; and, unlike your iterative attacks, they’re all at your highest base attack bonus.
Even better, by 11th level, Daring Champion gives you Fighting Defensively anyways… as a swift action, with...
Stylish Riposte being used only once per enemy per day is fine... I have found that even the most hardcore enemies seldom last that long when toe-to-toe with the party. Plus, it's a choice... you don't HAVE to take the AoO the first time they miss you 5, or more.
Same with Crane Riposte... just if they miss you by 4, or less... I love the synergy with Stylish Riposte here... if you miss me by a mile, AoO from Stylish Riposte. If you barely miss me, AoO from Crane Riposte... either way, if you miss me, AoO. It's hilarious.
It doesn't matter how many times these tricks can be used against any given combatant... how many AoO can they take out of turn before they are no longer a threat? They are trading missed opportunities to deal damage, for taking damage themselves.
I played a "Swashbuckler" with Panther Parry and Crane Riposte, and Opportune Parry & Riposte, and Stylish Riposte... so much damage out of turn. Straight up punished people for even trying to hit me. By the time it was my turn to attack, I was already a few hits ahead... it was short work, every time. Variel went three levels without taking damage, and I retired him because it was boring. Lol.
I went out of my way to assemble Variel into the monster he was, though. I just kind of stumbled across this Daring Champion with the Order of the Eastern Star thing... sometimes it's nice to find single-class builds that just work. I will have to look at your Snake Fang suggestion a little closer. I wasn't really trying to optimize with Crane Riposte as much as I was trying to fill in for the lack of having the Opportune Parry & Riposte deed available.
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A fun little bonus synergy with stylish repost is to pick up Paired Opportunists and either have a way to share the feat or convince the other melee combatants in your group to take it too and stay adjacent… then you don’t even have to take your AoO from Stylsh Repost ever… since every time someone misses you by 5 or more they will provoke from you and all your friends, let them all take their AoOs and then if the foe is still standing and you think you can drop them take yours, if you don’t think they will die before their turn comes back around, then hold off to get another round of AoOs from your friends.
I had a build that uses Brawler (Exemplar) VMC Cavalier (Order of Eastern Star) to get upwards of +28 dodge AC (post is here) when fighting full defensively. Drop that AC by four otherwise. See if you can pull any inspiration from it.
I had a build that uses Brawler (Exemplar) VMC Cavalier (Order of Eastern Star) to get upwards of +28 dodge AC (post is here) when fighting full defensively. Drop that AC by four otherwise. See if you can pull any inspiration from it.
That's no joke.
There's a lot of useful stuff in that build that this Daring Champion could find useful. Thank you for sharing... I will probably steal a bunch of it just to flesh out this Cavalier in my notes.
Glad to be of help. Feel free to snag whatever you feel is useful and improve upon it. That character saw play up to about level 10, the rest of it was projected progression and theory crafting, never meant to actually be played.
Interesting thing was I intentionally built that character to show off that a purely mundane (no magical or supernatural abilities) character could hold their own. It was many years ago too. I could probably go back and tweak a few more things to bring them fully up to date.