| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
There are so many ways to be a sword master. The most straightforward would be the weapon master fighter. A kensai magus may also have what you are looking for, if you want to be a more magical swordsman.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
If you’re primarily focused on armed combatants, you could go the two-weapon fighting route and invest feats like Break Guard, Improved Disarm, Improved Position of Power, Improved Two-Weapon Feint, Redirect Attack, Weapon Trick, etc. Maybe at higher levels your impact is felt less by conventional damage output than by Improved Critical, Critical Versatility, and Critical Mastery, so that you’re threatening to blind, stagger, etc., your opponent 30 percent of the time.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Swashbuckler or daring champion cavalier with a leaf blade would be good.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I'd go slayer. Full BAB, and beteeen ranger combat styles and other options for slayer talents you have almost as many bonus combat feats as a fighter. Studied target goes nicely with twf, and while you don't need sneak attack to keep up, when you get it it is gravy.
Plus more skill points. All around a win-win for you.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
You could do a dex build with slayer, but it’s usually strength based when two weapon fighting. I think you might prefer a vigilante. You don’t have to use the secret identity if you don’t want.
With vigilante you can get lethal grace to get extra damage when finessing the weapons. Being dex based, you could just take the two weapon fighting feat normally.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
So I firstly want to say that Pathfinder doesn't do much in the way of representing "techniques" of any fighting style.
At best you might have a specific archetype that gives you some specific abilities that might hit that flavor. But largely being a master of melee combat is just about doing the most damage, doing it before your enemy, and being able to do it basically all the time.
I don't see sneak attack as that kind of thing, mostly because of how conditional it can be.
Also, OP I'm curious about your wording about "being a threat to all but the most seasoned males"...that's some very odd wording. Why wouldn't you simply say you envision your character as being a threat to any but the most seasoned warriors? Because it Pathfinder fantasy land, there are plenty of badass women warriors.
And to further address your post, again Pathfinder doesn't really have "grace and style with technique" over strength and power. Unless you just mean you want to be a dex based fighter over a strength based fighter. But there's very little in the rules that cover "style" or "technique". It's very abstract. Swashbuckler probably comes the closest though.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
If you are willing to fight with a single weapon only a swashbuckler would actually be fairly decent for what you want. The Elven Thornblade is both a slashing and a piercing weapon which means you can use slashing grace to get DEX to damage. That is going to be fairly important to a DEX based build. Between DEX to damage, precise strike, swashbuckler’s damage and weapon specialization should be enough that you don’t need power attack.
Take combat expertise instead of power attack and pick up the trait threatening defender. Combat expertise will give you access to improved disarm and disarming strike.
On top of what Mysterious Stranger said, often two-weapon fighting isn't very good in PF1. You need a class that has class features that give bonus damages to both weapons attacks, the bigger the better. But you also have to bear in mind that Beyond the first attack for TWF you're paying extra feats to have increasing penalties to your "extra" attack rolls.
TWF always looks enticing because you think "Oh, I can get 7 attacks and each attack will deal this much damage!" but the reality is that without class based bonuses to attack and damage you're going to miss a lot of those attacks, and they're not going to hit as hard as someone two-handing with power attack.
Certain builds can make TWF viable, but honestly it's better and easier to make a single weapon work better.
On top of what Mysterious Stranger said, often two-weapon fighting isn't very good in PF1. You need a class that has class features that give bonus damages to both weapons attacks, the bigger the better. But you also have to bear in mind that Beyond the first attack for TWF you're paying extra feats to have increasing penalties to your "extra" attack rolls.
TWF always looks enticing because you think "Oh, I can get 7 attacks and each attack will deal this much damage!" but the reality is that without class based bonuses to attack and damage you're going to miss a lot of those attacks, and they're not going to hit as hard as someone two-handing with power attack.
Certain builds can make TWF viable, but honestly it's better and easier to make a single weapon work better.
I disagree, TWF is pretty awesome in PF1, and will deal similar damage to someone with power attack, the secret is to use the same weapon in both hands, light weapons if possible and of course buy effortless lace for them.
The problem with two weapon fighting vs two handed fighting is the number of feats required. With two handed fighting about all you need is power attack and a 13 STR. For two weapon fighting you need multiple feats. You spend 4-5 feats and are limited in the weapons you can use, vs spending one feat. That too me seems to be pretty bad.
I am not saying it cannot be done but questioning if the cost in feats is worth it. If you are able to ignore the prerequisite and get them as bonus feat that is one thing, but if the class does not get that the price is too high.
I've ran the numbers before and two weapon fighting is always an increase in DPR. Greater and Improved give less of an increase, but also have less opportunity investment, since you were already taking the penalties for two weapon fighting anyway.
The main problem with two weapon fighting is that you have to full attack to get the benefit, and enemies are too often more than a 5 foot step away There aren't a lot of great options to both move and full attack, aka "pounce".
I think the vigilante with avenger specialization does this well:
*You can use Mad Rush at level 12 to pounce.
*You can use Lethal Grace at level 2 to get both weapon finesse and half level to damage to make up for the lower strength damage.
*You have Combat Skill to grab fighter feats at the same level fighters can get them.
If you want a martial, dexterity-based, weapon master, who two weapon fights, I don't know if you can get any closer than Vigilante with Avenger.
What I might do to be near this with vigilante:avenger.
1 Two weapon fighting
2 Lethal Grace(Weapon Finesse)
3 Possessed Hand
4 Signature Weapon (Weapon Focus:thornblade)
5 Hand's Autonomy
*Note: If playing from level 1, you'd probably start with weapon finesse and then trade it out for free at level 2 thanks to lethal grace.
*Note2: Before level 5, you'd just use a thornblade and leafblade while two weapon fighting.
So, at level 5 you could fight with 2 thornblades, while only taking a -2/-2 penalty thanks to Possessed Hand. In addition you will have +1 from weapon focus with those plus a +1 on your main hand from Possessed Hand, which makes it more like +0/-1 to your attacks before adding your dexterity and BAB. So, fairly accurate and unique fighting style, while having a fun hand gimmick to roleplay with.
Frankly, this isn't the strongest two weapon fighter possible. But it does seem to meet your desired flavor while being as good as I can make it.
When someone says that they want to play a character with high technical combat skills, I lean into Maneuvers.
Yeah. But when they also want to two weapon fight and be dexterity based, it becomes hard to check all the boxes by level 3 to 5.
I'm not sure if everyone read the request. The poster has a fairly specific set of criteria. Seems he wants to be very "elven". If you just want to make a "weapon master", or a two weapon fighter or a dex-based fighter, there are lots of ways to do those things. But combining them all at the same time is difficult, especially within the level range of 3 to 5.