I’m aiming for a character who will focus on the spear as his sole weapon. Rather than a shield, he’ll be relying on mobility and feats for defense. Through Focused Study, he’ll be demoralizing the opposition, getting up close and personal with the opposition and upending them, and—eventually—will use flying to close down distances.
Human (Focused Study)
Traits: Crowd Dodger, Serpent Runner
This character will be fighting with a vanilla spear. I’m eschewing more complex weapons in the Spears group so I can eventually have a Tactically Adapted spear (as a martial weapon) with the Trip quality (so I can use my Weapon Training, etc., on trip attempts). My character’s style (see feats below) will preclude a reach weapon, so no longspear, etc.
1. Combat Expertise (Fighter bonus feat), Dodge (Archetype bonus feat), Power Attack (1st level bonus feat), Skill Focus: Intimidate (Focused Study bonus feat)
2. Pushing Assault
3. Mobility
4. Spring Attack
5. Weapon Training: Spears; Whirlwind Attack
The first few levels are nothing special. Pushing Assault is there to provide some localized battlefield control. Spring Attack is a short-term safety net and a stepping stone to Whirlwind Attack, which will be the real safety net (however situational).
6. Cornugon Smash
7. Hurtful
8. Canny Tumble (Fighter bonus feat), Skill Focus: Acrobatics (Focused Study bonus feat)
9. Weapon Training: Advanced Weapon Training: Warrior Spirit; Improved Trip
10. Tumbling Upset
11. Greater Trip
12. Sliding Dash
The first question here is whether Pushing Assault is worthwhile enough to keep, or if I’m ultimately better off retraining it to Hurtful at 4th level—since Spring Attack makes it kind of redundant. That would also give my character an extra attack at my highest BAB at 6th level, and also brings the Canny Tumble/Tumbling Upset/Sliding Dash trifecta online a level earlier.
Alternately, I could retrain Pushing Assault to Hurtful, but instead of moving the Acrobatics-focused feats up, I can take Intimidating Prowess with the 7th level feat slot—giving me a very healthy bonus to demoralize.
On the other hand, since my character won’t be using a reach weapon, Pushing Assault in conjunction with Whirlwind Attack and a 5-foot step could prevent an encirclement. Or am I better off just tripping those opponents anytime, regardless?
The second question is whether I should prioritize a different Advanced Weapon Training for 9th level. I like the idea of having starting a couple of battles each day with the appropriate Bane setting on my character’s spear, and the next feat needed in the build—courtesy of the Training magic weapon quality.
13. Weapon Training: Advanced Weapon Training: Combat Maneuver Defense; Combat Reflexes
14. Tangled Limbs
15. Advanced Weapon Training: Item Mastery: Flight Mastery
16. Barroom Brawler, Skill Focus: Fly (Focused Study bonus feat)
I would qualify at this point that while not rare, procuring magic items is not as simple as going to the nearest community and visiting Ye Olde Magick Shoppe. It’s very much a case of local spellcasters being able to produce items that make sense culturally and racially, and according to the spells they’re likely to have available. So given that Boots of Flying may not be randomly pop up, does it make sense to switch Flight Master and Combat Maneuver Defense?
Combat Reflexes also comes too late for my tastes (especially if my character is ahead on initiative count of the enemy he’s tripping, which means potentially losing out on an AOO).
17. Weapon Training: Advanced Weapon Training: Abundant Tactics; Cut from the Air
18. Smash from the Air
19. Spellcut
20. Weapon Training: Advanced Weapon Training: Fighter’s Reflexes; Weapon Mastery (Tactically Adapted Spear)
Abundant Tactics is obviously there to maximize Barroom Brawler, but I’m hoping that it will also work on Flight Mastery—since it’s technically gained through a Combat Feat.
The humble spear is no crit-fishing weapon, and it feels like there’s a dearth of higher level Combat Feats. Penetrating Strike and Greater Penetrating Strike are tempting, but then I recall that a high enough enchantment bonus will overcome almost all DR. Stunning Blows doesn’t feel worthwhile given the high Fort saves at this level. On the other hand, Cut/Smash from the Air and Spellcut feel like they’ll provide really good utility against almost all missile attacks and many spells, as well.
Thoughts?
since you allready got hurtful and power attack, maybe see if you can squeeze pile on in.
Demoralizing some1 after a failed (or after he got better) attempt get +5 to dc each time you try again in the same hour. with this you can just extend the duration without need to demoralize again as long as you keep hitting it.
side bonus is you can use this feat on ANYONE who is "is shaken, frightened, or panicked" even if you were not the one to cause it. and even without using power attack or even a melee weapon, all you need to do is attack it and deal damage.(which is halved when you use the feat).
i have it on a ranger with an animal companion set on frightening his prey (via final embrace horror, shaken x2 turn to frightened). the ranger make the duration last all fight as he can shoot at least 4 shots a round by then and only need to hit once to keep the target frightened. and since the target is grappled by then it is mostly dead unless it has amazing escape artist. frightened can't attack and using grapple is attacking so he can't get out of it with a grapple check.
Help me out here, zza ni:
The value of Pile On itself is obvious, but isn’t it undermined by the synergy between Hurtful and Cornugon Smash?
If you’re relying on something like Martial Dominance to demoralize your opponent (and thus not guaranteed to get an Intimidate check every round), then Pile On makes perfect sense: you’re getting an extra round’s worth of demoralizing out of your check—and the swift attack from Hurtful essentially refunds the damage you sacrificed and gives you a 50 percent bonus.
Cornugon Smash gives you an Intimidate check as a free action, though. While Pile On would still provide the same value, you want to demoralize every round—to get the extra attack Hurtful provides. If that attack missed, any extra benefit by Pile On would also go away. Right?
while demoralizing a shaken creature doesn't make him frighted. nothing say you can't try and demoralize him anyway. he just stay the same.
so even if you did shake him last round. and then hit him again and made it last one more round so he is shaken the next round as well, you can still use hurtful+Cornugon Smash to demoralize him for extra attack.
"Using demoralize on the same creature only extends the duration; it does not create a stronger fear condition. "
so there is no negative to using 'pile on' regarding the extra attack (beside only dealing half damage) - you won't be denied 'Cornugon Smash' free demoralize just because the target is already afraid.
it also doesn't change the fact that if you miss hurtful extra attack the target stop being shaken. this happen with or without pile on.
what it does do is allowing you to keep a target that you are not sure you can demoralize again with that +5 to dc frightened for a good few more rounds (say you hit him 3 more times in the same round. )
its up to you to decide if 1 more round of shaken is worth doing half damage. some time it is .sometimes it isn't.
say you find yourself up against a creature with dr so high your attack barely scratch it. doing a bit less damage so your wizard friend can suffocate it properly might be a good action. (i brought a spell that need 2-3 saves on purpose, your shaken might not last\pull off that long with a high cr creature)
The +5 DC is a very good point—one that I keep forgetting about!
This character will be fighting with a vanilla spear. I’m eschewing more complex weapons in the Spears group so I can eventually have a Tactically Adapted spear (as a martial weapon) with the Trip quality (so I can use my Weapon Training, etc., on trip attempts). My character’s style (see feats below) will preclude a reach weapon, so no longspear, etc.
The Trip special weapon feature is not needed to add any weapon-specific bonuses to your trip attempts. That was the case previously but the ruling was reverted in this paizo blog post.
The Trip special weapon feature is not needed to add any weapon-specific bonuses to your trip attempts. That was the case previously but the ruling was reverted in this paizo blog post.
Excellent! So, theoretically, I could invest the modification bump to make my character's humble spear a Versatile Spear instead, have it count as, e.g., a weapon from the Close weapon group, and invest in the Outslug Style chain of feats.
Hmmm...
Shield focus then shield brace allow to use a shield along with a 2 handed weapon from the pole-arm or spear weapon groups.(which let you use the high damage mode of two handed str and power attack with a shield)
With a heavy shield that is a minimum of plus 3 to ac. But can get a lot more with an encha ted shield ( which is one of the cheapest ways to magicly rise ac).
The following feats that let you block missiles and ray attacks are not bad as well.
I thought about it, and I think I'm going to stick with a shield-less concept.
Don't get me wrong, I recognize the protective value a shield and the feats in question provide, but the more I ponder it, the more they don't fit thematically with what I want this character to be. In terms of defending from missile attacks, for example, I really like Cut from the Air and Smash from the Air. I only regret having to wait so long to pick them up (more on that, below). And in terms of melee defense, I'd much rather focus on active defense: using Pushing Assault to prevent attacks from happening until Spear Parry's penalty is viable.
Besides, in order to accommodate those two feats, I'd have to do away with one of the themes my character currently has. Realistically, that would probably be Cornugon Smash and Hurtful, since I'd probably need Intimidating Prowess to consistently pull it off to begin with--which would probably come at the cost of Pushing Assault.
So I think ultimately I will do away with Focused Study and the two demoralizing feats and in their place go with:
6. Lunge
7. Improved Trip
8. Combat Reflexes
9. Greater Trip
10. Canny Tumble
11. Tumbling Upset
12. Sliding Dash
13. Tangled Limbs
14. Titan's Tangle
15. Cut from the Air
16. Smash from the Air
17. Spellcut
Leaving 18 and 19 currently blank. I need to figure out what order is optimal for those, and whether any of them should be delayed by 1-2 more Advanced Weapon Training options taken as feats, every 5 levels.