TRAITS
Blade Bravado - Race
Fencer - Basic (Combat)
FEATS
1. Combat Expertise (Character), Combat Reflexes (Human)
3. Improved Called Shot
4. Improved Dirty Trick
5. Cat and Mouse
7. Greater Called Shot
8. Vital Strike
9. Cloak and Dagger Style
11. Cloak and Dagger Subterfuge
12. Fencing Grace
13. Greater Dirty Trick
15. Pin Down
16. Cloak and Dagger Tactics
17. Dirty Trick Master
19. Dastardly Trick
20. I'll try to convince my GM to accept the Inspired Blade's Rapier Training as suitable for Advanced Weapon Training (Focused Weapon)
What I envision is a fencer who cedes the initiative and focuses on parrying away and acrobatically evading attacks. He will use a combination of Vital Strike and attacks of opportunity at his highest BAB to both deal damage and, eventually, inflict Dirty Tricks with every single attack.
Between 1st and 6th level, this character will progress from one attack and a riposte attack to dealing a Called Shot or a Dirty Trick and then a riposte (or vice-versa).
From 7th level, the default mode for this character will be to use Vital Strike, but the real impact will come from Superior Feint paired with Dodging Dance. He'll use Cat and Mouse as able to build up bonuses to Dodge and Improved Trick combat maneuvers, and by 11th level each of the attacks of opportunity he hits with will be followed by a free action Dirty Trick. All attacks will be Called Shots, purely for the purpose of de-buffing by way of crit-fishing. Individually, none of those effects are that great, but collectively they can hamper movement, sicken, and inflict attack penalties for a minimum of a round even without crits.
By 16th level, practically every attack -- Vital Strike, attacks of opportunity -- will be followed by a free action Dirty Trick.
I foresee three main combat-centric challenges for this character, not including magic:
1. Total Defense opponents (Crane, Misdirection Style, etc.), who will essentially play my own game against my character, though with fewer attacks of opportunity. I don't foresee too many of these.
2. Reach opponents. I think I should be fine with these, for the same reason that I'm fine giving up initiative. I want them to attack me, so I can parry them and stack up Dodge bonuses and unnamed bonuses to my combat maneuvers. The worst-case scenario here is that they only have a single attack of opportunity to expend against me when I move through their threatened squares, meaning I'll only be able to get on attack of opportunity (and free dirty trick) against them.
3. Ranged opponents. I toyed around with picking up Martial Focus and Cut from the Air... but I want to save my attacks of opportunity for parries and damaging others. I'm not sure I can address this without trying to get a dedicated magic item (e.g., Cloak of Displacement) or not be a specialist.
I would love to have some way to consistently get my opponents to use attacks of opportunity on me. I know this character will be fine on a "regular" Full Attack (especially with Called Shot effects), but the idea of every attack using his full BAB is delicious. I love Seize Advantage, but it's an every-other-round feat. I equally love Redirect Attack, but it comes with a feat tax and its tactical requirements feel situational to me.
I wonder if I'm reaching too far with the Called Shots. Would I be better off ditching those feats and taking Focused Study, instead? That way, I'm strengthening my Acrobatics for Dodging Dance and giving my character the resources needed to demoralize as a swift action with Menacing Swordplay with some hope for success.
The 20th level feat is there as a placeholder. If my GM does let me go for that, I will grab it at 12th or 13th level. I'd love to have it at 9th-11th level, right as the damage die goes up to 1d10 (and thus worth the feat), but I don't want to delay Cloak and Dagger Subterfuge (which takes this character to the next level).
What else am I missing? What have I got wrong?
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Vital Strike sucks and can't be your primary damage source (just to be clear, it doesn't work with AoOs): It's intended as a 'band-aid' for when you can't take a full attack, and it's not even very good at that.
Fencing Grace is far too important to leave until level 12: Inspired Blades qualify for it at level 1 due to their bonus feats, so take it right away.
Remember that you can parry multiple times in a round (with Combat Reflexes) but you can only riposte once (it's an immediate action).
Honestly, you are really overthinking it: Max your Dexterity, get Fencing Grace and Combat Reflexes as early as possible, and everything else is just gravy...
Taja,
Vital Strike is a prerequisite for the Cloak and Dagger feat chain, which is the basis for this build. It’s just a feat tax, and—to be clear—one I only plan on using when neither Dodging Dance or full attack are viable options. Hence why I didn’t get IVS or GVS.
I hear you on Fencing Grace. I rolled for this character’s stats, and was quite lucky; enough so to go for a somewhat MAD concept. Unless I run into a belt that doesn’t enhance Strength, I’ll only miss Fencing Grace about as much as Weapon Specialization. I hope that explains my preference for Improved Called Shot early on.
The limitation you pointed out, re: Opportune Parry and Riposte, is precisely why I love Dodging Dance. Rather than relying on a single riposte, every missed attack of opportunity will provoke an AOO from my character.
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Might I suggest this One-Handed Weapon Trick? “Stylish Riposte (Combat Reflexes, base attack bonus +4): When your AC exceeds the result of a foe’s melee attack against you by 5 or more, that foe provokes an attack of opportunity from you. Once you make such an attack of opportunity against a foe, you can’t again use this trick against the foe that day.” It essentially gives you one free riposte per foe without the need to spend panache.
That’s a great suggestion! It effectively makes up for those occasions when my character doesn’t succeed at his Acrobatics check while using Dodging Dance.
Hmmm… Looking over my list, I think I will bump Fencing Grace out, slide Weapon Trick in at 4th level, and move Improved Dirty Trick and the Cloak and Dagger Feats down one slot each. I love the eventuality of hitting enemies with Dirty Tricks with stacking bonuses, but I love the gimmick of highest-BAB attacks of opportunity/ripostes even more!
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Another suggestion. You could take a level dip in either the Unarmed Fighter archetype or the Master of Many Styles Monk archetype, either of which will get you a free style feat without needing to meet the prerequisites. Panther style may work well for this build. “Panther Style (Combat, Style)
Source Ultimate Combat pg. 112
You can strike back at enemies who attack you when you move.
Prerequisites: Wis 13, Combat Reflexes, Improved Unarmed Strike.
Benefit: While using this style, when an opponent makes an attack of opportunity against you for moving through a threatened square, you can spend a swift action to make a retaliatory unarmed strike attack against that opponent. Your attack is resolved after the triggering attack of opportunity.”
While wearing a Cestus all your unarmed strikes can deal piercing damage and thus be used with your swashbuckler deeds. You could wear one on your off hand and it should still count as a free hand.
I had looked at Panther Style—and it is such a cool style—but from a different direction.
One of my self-imposed limitations for this character is my commitment to keep him visually true to the theme. And so, I had contemplated getting Ascetic Style (in name only), to use the shang gou as a stand-in for swordbreaker dagger. Then I would use Combat Style Master to pair Ascetic with Panther style.
But ultimately, it was too much. To make it all fit, I’d have to clear out five feats, which meant no Improved and Greater Called Shot, no Cat and Mouse. Additionally, The +6 BAB requirement for Combat Style Master meant Cloak and Dagger (which already only truly comes online at 11th level) would get going much too late.
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I once had a “tank” style character for PFS that used panther style. He was a multi-class abomination (like 5 different classes) in full plate with a heavy shield. Just strolled thru groups of guys provoking AoOs left and right and popping punches at each of them. Then would take up a good position to provide flank for the party and then take a standard action to make a punch at the end(assuming I didn’t double move to get in more retaliation punches). Eventually combined it with Snake style to hit everyone who missed their AoOs to double my number of attacks. That was a fun build. He had some nasty drawbacks from all the multiclassing but he was fun to play.
I love Snake Fang. Sadly, Snake Style doesn’t do it justice, and Sidewind is even more lackluster—all in my humble opinion, of course.
Snake style is useful if your character has a bad touch AC. Being able to substitute a good Sense Motive for a bad touch AC can be quite useful situationally.
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This is starting to remind me of a character I played from levels 9-12, named Variel. I had built him as a master of all things "Panache"... he could use Panache/deeds with his bow, Rapier, and unarmed strikes... and could interchange Panache with his Ki Pool and his Magus Arcane Pool for some pretty decent resource recycling. He had Opportune Parry & Riposte, as well as Panther Parry and Crane Riposte... fusing both Panther Style and Crane Style. He had Int+Cha contributing to his Panache directly, and Dex+Int+Wis contributing to his AC. Variel was retired at level 12, because he was freaking boring... he breezed through levels 10 and 11 without taking a single point of damage... he was untouchable, it was stupid. Lol.
Thought of a couple more suggestions for this build. Since Fencing Grace is only useful to you while your Rapier is in hand, you could get this feat thru the Training weapon enchantment. This would save you a feat slot. Since you’ve freed up a feat slot now you could use one of your bonus swashbuckler feats to take a Dare specifically this one “Frantically Nimble (Ex) (Advanced Class Guide pg. 94): While this dare is active, you gain a +2 dodge bonus to AC. You regain 1 grit or panache point when any enemy making a ranged or melee attack against you misses you three consecutive times. The attacks need not come from the same enemy.” This would make you even harder to hit when you’re out of panache and give u another way to regain panache as well.
I definitely like the idea of putting Fencing Grace on an enchantment. I’m not sure about the Dare, though, as it’s specifically predicated on having zero panache. Given that this character will be threatening criticals 30 percent of the time, he should be regaining a point of panache every round from level 6 and on. Even if he doesn’t, I was lucky enough with my ability score rolls that his panache pool (INT + CHA) should easily sustain him.
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I definitely like the idea of putting Fencing Grace on an enchantment. I’m not sure about the Dare, though, as it’s specifically predicated on having zero panache. Given that this character will be threatening criticals 30 percent of the time, he should be regaining a point of panache every round from level 6 and on. Even if he doesn’t, I was lucky enough with my ability score rolls that his panache pool (INT + CHA) should easily sustain him.
can i recommend using the agile enchantment instead
Indeed!
Yeah Agile is best choice here. Would still be able to take Training enchantment for another feat though. Perhaps Piranha Strike for some bonus damage.
Not sure what the OPs STR is but if it’s at least 13 then power attack is an option.
If you took Dodge as a feat instead of Fencing Grace you could put Mobility on the Rapier. Alternatively you could put Agile Maneuvers on it.
Not sure what the OPs STR is but if it’s at least 13 then power attack is an option.
I absolutely recognize the value of Power Attack. And yes, I have considered whether it genuinely doesn’t fit (given everything else I have stacked in there) without delaying Cloak and Dagger even more… or if picking Called Shots over Power Attack is simply an instance of cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face.