Build Help: OSP Fighter


Advice


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So I'm trying to make a really bad idea come as close to possible to working. I'm attempting to make a fighter-style character that rarely carries a weapon beyond a round or two. He isn't a unarmed striker though, he's Mr. On-site Procurement and All Weapons are disposable. I know this goes against the sort of built-in loot mechanics of the game, but the idea of the swordsman who in a large melee kills his foe leaving his sword stuck through the enemy only to grab that guy's battleaxe and hurl it at another enemy while grabbing the dead guy's boot knife to continue on through the fight, is such a cool aesthetic, at least to me. And at the end of the battle he leaves with a sword that isn't the one he started with. But when he wakes up in the morning from his bender, he forgets his new one in the inn and is weaponless once more. So I know I need feats like Grab and Go and Throw Anything. I like the idea of the brawler but not the close weapons or the fact that unarmed strikes are really his best option, the varisian free-style fighter is cool too, but I just can't seem to make it come together. I'm missing something, some key piece. I typically play in adventure paths, so I don't care about capstones and I don't want to look at some cheese build that comes on-line at level 15. Honestly, I know this whole concept is probably a mistake, crunch-wise, but I play for the cinematics, so long as my build isn't so bad as to be a burden on the table by not being able to pull my weight.

Thanks


This is going to be difficult because Pathfinder rewards specialization especially for a fighter. A lot of feats are weapon specific or at least weapon type specific. Feat chains also make this difficult because often the cool abilities require you to take one or more feats to get what you really want. To pull this off you are going to need a class that has proficiency with all martial weapons that does not rely on feats that much. That kind of eliminates the fighter and other classes that get bonus feats.

A barbarian or paladin is probably your best bet. A barbarians combat ability comes from rage and boosting your STR and con is effective with any melee weapon. The Paladin offensive combat abilities work with any weapon at all including ranged weapons. You can use smite evil and weapon bond on any weapon you use. Weapon bond can make any weapon magical which is a big advantage for this concept. Smite evil allows you to bypass all DR which can be even more important to someone using weapons of opportunity. They also have a lot of self-buff spells that work with any weapon.

Try using a paladin and pick up feats like power attack that can be used with any weapon.


Mysterious Stranger wrote:

This is going to be difficult because Pathfinder rewards specialization especially for a fighter. A lot of feats are weapon specific or at least weapon type specific. Feat chains also make this difficult because often the cool abilities require you to take one or more feats to get what you really want. To pull this off you are going to need a class that has proficiency with all martial weapons that does not rely on feats that much. That kind of eliminates the fighter and other classes that get bonus feats.

A barbarian or paladin is probably your best bet. A barbarians combat ability comes from rage and boosting your STR and con is effective with any melee weapon. The Paladin offensive combat abilities work with any weapon at all including ranged weapons. You can use smite evil and weapon bond on any weapon you use. Weapon bond can make any weapon magical which is a big advantage for this concept. Smite evil allows you to bypass all DR which can be even more important to someone using weapons of opportunity. They also have a lot of self-buff spells that work with any weapon.

Try using a paladin and pick up feats like power attack that can be used with any weapon.

Yeah, I get the difficulty, I know it's not a "smart" build, but it's definitely a build I want to figure out. So far, the closest I've come is a free-style fighter with a dip in brawler. Feats are just a hot mess of Throw Anything, Grab and Go, Two-Weapon Fighting, and Point-Blank Shot, followed by Weapon Focus, Spec, and Improved Crit all in Chakram, using the martial flex to proc martial versatility mostly.

Not at all nay-saying the advice or anything but I'm not looking for a paladin or a barbarian, think Mad Martigan but a bit less disney, more game of thrones.


I think you and your GM might benefit from looking at the Automatic Bonus Progression or the Innate Item Bonuses rules from Pathfinder Unchained. Those would go a long way to removing the sting of "losing" magic weapons and other items all the time.

The problem with this is that the weapon attunement rules allow you to attune your character to a single weapon per day. If your GM is open-minded, though, you could plausibly argue that this is to prevent a character from being able to attune themselves to an entire arsenal in their own possession... and thus have the right weapon for every situation. By contrast, if you got attunement on the go you would be effectively at the mercy of the GM, who would dictate what weapons your character got and when.

Next, consider the Varisian Free-Style Fighter, who loses out on Weapon Training... but in exchange gains the Brawler's Martial Flexibility AND gets a "Free Fighting Style" that allows him to have two or more style feat stance active at the same time (to a maximum of five at 15th level).

If your GM allows this, you'd essentially have a Fighter who can lend any weapon currently wielded a level-dependent enhancement bonus. Your character could also intuitively (or by way of diverse experience) not only wield most weapons proficiently, but use styles complimentary to them.


If paladin and barbarian are out a slayer may work. Studied target works with any weapon as does sneak attack. You could use some slayer talents to pick up two weapon fighting without needing to meet the DEX requirements.


Drexes01 476 wrote:
... think Mad Martigan but a bit less disney, more game of thrones.

Madmartigan was EXACTLY what popped in my head when I read your initial post!


How about a Monk of the Empty Hand? (Or any monk really)
You're going to take your opponent's weapon and beat them to death with it then contemptuously drop their own weapon on their corpse as you stalk toward the next opponent.

Lean into disarm and improved disarm, catch off guard and improved weapon mastery too.


Drexes01 476 wrote:
the idea of the swordsman who in a large melee kills his foe leaving his sword stuck through the enemy

The problem with your concept isn't actually picking up other weapons or lakc of magical bonuses, or not focussing on a single weapon, but rather this part. There is no "leaving his sword stuck through the enemy" mechanic, at least not by default.

With no meachancal reason to stop using your weapon, your character would be an utter joke, literally dropping perfectly fine weapons for no reason.

There's the Impaling Critical feat, bit it requires BAB+11 (making it way too late to have it as a central theme) and Weapon Spec (making it not usuable on just any weapon you grab). Plus, it requires a crit to trigger, which means you could go entire fights without getting to use it. There's also the Anchoring weapon enchantment, but in order to use that with different weapons, you need an unrestricted temporary weapon enchantment ability (e.g. Transmutation Implements), and even than it only makes sense to use it when you don't want to kill an opponent, something hard to justify in most fights.

Mysterious Stranger wrote:
You can use smite evil and weapon bond on any weapon you use. Weapon bond can make any weapon magical which is a big advantage for this concept.

Divine bond is a standard action to use, and affects the weapon, not the character. If you change weapons in a fight, it stops working.


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Have you considered Aether Kineticist? Most of what you want is baked into the class. The basic telekinetic blast functions more or less as throw anything. Kinetic blade functions more or less like catch off-guard. Your attacks count as magical and scale with your level. You also gain scaling attack bonuses from elemental overflow. The esoteric knight prestige class could work with this as well. The Elemental anihilator archetype could work as well if you need extra feats. It’s up to you how much you want to play up or down your kineticist abilities for thematic reasons.


Derklord wrote:
With no meachancal reason to stop using your weapon, your character would be an utter joke, literally dropping perfectly fine weapons for no reason.

And Miyamoto Musashi supposedly fought a duel against a famed swordsman using an improvised wooden sword carved out of an oar—which offered him no advantage whatsoever. History and fiction alike are full of similarly unlikely, even ridiculous tales. This line of reasoning is entirely unnecessary, man.


Phoebus Alexandros wrote:
Derklord wrote:
With no meachancal reason to stop using your weapon, your character would be an utter joke, literally dropping perfectly fine weapons for no reason.
And Miyamoto Musashi supposedly fought a duel against a famed swordsman using an improvised wooden sword carved out of an oar—which offered him no advantage whatsoever. History and fiction alike are full of similarly unlikely, even ridiculous tales. This line of reasoning is entirely unnecessary, man.

As Deflator Mouse once said, " The look... is key..." iykyk.


So this weird, earlier this morning I swear I read someone posting about a Makeshift Scrapper archetype, because I went and looked it up and I've been using it to support the free-style fighter that I was already doing. So credit where credit is due. To the person whose post I can't seem to see that suggested the makeshift scrapper. Noice! I'm not sure I love all of it, but as a dip, it rocks!

What I have so far
Human
Level 1 Rogue Makeshift Scrapper
Feats Throw Anything (Bonus), Catch Off-Guard (Bonus), Improved Unarmed Strike (Human), Point-Blank Shot (1st Level)
Level 2 Fighter Varisian Free-Style Fighter
Feats (None)
Level 3 Fighter
Feats Grab and Go (Fighter Bonus), Dirty Fighting

At second level he can give himself one of the feats he hasn't gotten from 3rd level or precise shot. At third level he can use more precise shot. At later levels, once he starts taking weapons specific feats in chakram (which is both heavy blade and thrown) he can use his flex to opt into martial versatility to make any weapon in those two groups use the chakram feats.

Thoughts?


Drexes01 476 wrote:

Level 1 Rogue Makeshift Scrapper

Feats Throw Anything (Bonus), Catch Off-Guard (Bonus), Improved Unarmed Strike (Human), Point-Blank Shot (1st Level)
Level 2 Fighter Varisian Free-Style Fighter
Feats (None)
Level 3 Fighter
Feats Grab and Go (Fighter Bonus), Dirty Fighting

I'm not sure what's the idea here. Throwing improvised weapons? But what's Varisian Free-Style Fighter for, then? If it's for Martial Flexibility Hinyasi Brawler would probably be better.

Grab and Go only lets you make more than one throw per turn under rare circumstances. Two level in Feral Gnasher Barbarian let you pick up unattended objects as free actions, that plus Rage could be worth a two level dip.


Phoebus Alexandros wrote:
And Miyamoto Musashi supposedly fought a duel against a famed swordsman using an improvised wooden sword carved out of an oar—which offered him no advantage whatsoever.

Are you honestly putting taking a handicap in a duel to show that you're better on the same level as (to make a simile) a soldier throwing away their prime condition assault rifle to pick up some crap gun from a fallen enemy, endangering both their teammates and whatever mission they're on? Not becasue they're out of ammo or their own gun isn't workign, but becasue they think leaving the fight with a different weapon they started with was cool?

We're talking about doing a self-imposed (!!!) challenge in a situation where it puts the lifes of others (as well as your own) in acute danger.

Phoebus Alexandros wrote:
This line of reasoning is entirely unnecessary, man.

Like hell. It's every players duty to bring a character that works as part of the party. If your PC deliberately endangers the other PCs by doing some stupid nonsensical garbage, you're forcing the other players to either stop roleplaying, or stop playing, because at that point, the only reason the other PCs would take your PC with them is because you are sitting at the same table as the other players. You're forcing the other players to completely disregard their own character's motivations just so you can play your lame-ass gimmick.


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You were being rude to someone where there was no reason for it, and now you’re trying to excuse it on the basis of personal opinion (in terms of what makes sense to you) and assumptions (with regard to how their table functions)—as if you’re doing his fellow players some kind of public service by calling him out. Believe it or not, it is not that hard to offer or withhold advice without being judgmental or rude about it, Derklord.

Feel free to have the last word.


Phoebus Alexandros wrote:
You were being rude to someone where there was no reason for it (..) as if you’re doing his fellow players some kind of public service by calling him out.

If you want to criticize me for something, at least do it for something I actually did. I didn't call the OP out on anything. I pointed out the consequences of doing the concept [i]without a rule option to make it mechanically sensible[/url]. That's it.

If you think that it's rude to point out that an idea isn't well supported by the Pathfinder rules, than I'll gladly be considered rude.

Unless you meant that using the term "utter joke" was rude? In that case you calling such concepts "ridiculous" was rude, too.


Feral Gnasher is an archetype for Goblins...


Gah, misses that, thanks for catching that. Weird that there's no PFS warning that only Goblins can take that.

Still, could be worth asking the GM about, it's not as if this concept was particularly overpowered...


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Derklord wrote:

If you want to criticize me for something, at least do it for something I actually did. I didn't call the OP out on anything. I pointed out the consequences of doing the concept [i]without a rule option to make it mechanically sensible[/url]. That's it.

If you think that it's rude to point out that an idea isn't well supported by the Pathfinder rules, than I'll gladly be considered rude.

Unless you meant that using the term "utter joke" was rude? In that case you calling such concepts "ridiculous" was rude, too.

Stop being disingenuous, Derklord. You said what you said, and then tried to double down on it by calling his concept “stupid nonsensical garbage” and a “lame-ass gimmick.” And this, in response to being told your original comment was unnecessary. I’m only responding now because of your selective attempt at acknowledging your comments. Own what you said, and in the future consider that you can be critical of others without being rude.

Deuces.


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for the op.

if you want the coolness of switching weapon on mass without the hassle of having to worry about the weapon down-preforming on you. maybe look at the gloomblade fighter archtype. sure he doesn't leave his weapon behind nor pick up his enemy's but he start empty handed. pull out almost any kind of melee (and at higher level thrown) weapon he think would be good for that attack and can switch to an other just as fast.

it can stack up with the venomblade archtype -if you got access to the Nagaji race or pick racial heritage(nagaji). which can build on (and improve) the spit venoom feat tree chain for an effective long range attack with a ton of debuffs (the 5 feats in the tree scale up with the levels).

I call the combined fighter archtypes the 'Voomblade'


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Phoebus Alexandros wrote:
You said what you said

And what I said was in conditional mood. Do you know what that is? Do you know what that's used for? I didn't call the OP's concept an utter joke, I said that a character with that concept without mechanical support would be an utter joke. For anyone with proper understanding of the English language, the phrase "would be" made it perfectly clear that I wasn't talking about something eisting by default. It's called a form of irrealis moods for a reason, irrealis literally meaning "not real".

And yes, I stand by what I said. With no mechanical reason to stop using their weapon, the character would be an utter joke, literally dropping perfectly fine weapons for no reason. Of course, all it takes for the character to not be an utter joke is a mechanical reason to stop using the same weapon throughout the fight.

Phoebus Alexandros wrote:
and then tried to double down on it by calling his concept “stupid nonsensical garbage” and a “lame-ass gimmick.”

I doubled down on calling the hypothetical character that I'm very sure the OP doesn't want to build that drops perfectly fine weapon "stupid nonsensical garbage" and "lame-ass gimmick". Not the OP's concept itself. The reason you believe me to be rude is because you don't make the distinction between the OP's concept and a character with that concept without mechanical support.

And yes, I stand by what I said in that post, too. A character who drops a perfectly fine weapon they're holding to grab a worse one is 'doing some stupid nonsensical garbage', and has a 'lame-ass gimmick'. But again this is conditional, I was only talking about a character who does that dropping of their weapon for no reason. If there is a reason, like the mentioned Impaling Critical feat or the Anchoring weapon enchantment, what they're doing is not 'some stupid nonsensical garbage', and they are not using a 'lame-ass gimmick'. If you stop your self-righteous would-be holy crusade and look at the other posts in this thread, you see that the OP seems to currently be aiming for a throwing build. That, too, has a reason to let go of their weapon, and all that I've said does not apply to such a character.

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