How would you build a Tactician?
I am curious how one would work in a party of say... 7 people, including yourself. I know probably different choices would be made with what tactics to choose and when to use them and such... Could just be a general idea behind how you'd play them.
Oh and try to only use stuff from the core books if you can, DM can be questionable about using 3rd party books that haven't been praised by Paizo/they sell it on their website.
(No traits either, he doesn't use them... already have a comment thread about that if you'd like to talk about it over there :-D)
Given this is the 3rd party forum I think he means the psionic class.
Tried it. Hated it.
Not sure what you mean by a Tactician. Do you mean
* A particular archetype/prestige class called the Tactician?
* A PC who specializes in tactics and tactical play
* A PC who helps others improve their tactics and tactical play
TarkXT got it... the Psionic Class. A friend of mine wants to play one, but I don't know how useful it'd be and if he'd be better served playing a different character from the Ultimate Psionics book.
That was short lived haha :-D. The Tactician must not be played very often.
I played it. In fact I'll let you see its entire frustrating career.
Nimroot, I'm playing one right now. Admittedly, it's a brand new game, but I've got it planned out to 20th (and 10 mythic tiers).
Now, I've played for a billion years, and by now I've exhausted most of the obvious options of "blast it, shoot it, zap it, hit it, stab it" classes, so I'm very much more interested in buff/debuff/control type casters. So this is something I want to do.
A big part with this is understanding your job. It's to enable the rest of the party to do interesting things, and do them well.
I'll be picking up powers like dimension swap to rearrange the battlefield. There's a decent list of control powers that can make for a warped battlefield.
Also, I want to do unique things. As such, I've gone with the metanexus archetype. Big thing is that it will eventually allow me to originate powers I manifest from other squares. Combining that with using Expanded Knowledge to pick up some powers from other lists (crystal shard for instance) should make things... odd.
I'm pretty confident I'll be enjoying the build.
Playing a tactician will take a lot of pre-planning and in-game coordination with your party in order to be effective.
You'll need to explain to your party members just what can do in specific scenarios.
You won't be a player that can personally take down the BBEG, or a front line combattant. What you will be is the guy who ensures that your damage dealers will have maximum efficiency.
You'll want a high intelligence for powers/power points, and a high charisma for maximum use of strategies.
Recommended strategies:
If you have a melee sneak attacker: Coordinated Distraction
Alternatively, the tactician may make the initial attack against the targeted enemy, gaining the +1 competence bonus instead of the directed member, and the directed member treats the target as being flanked, but using the strategy in this fashion makes it a full round action instead of a swift action.
If you have a Maneuver using monk (combat tripper): Coordinated Maneuvers
If you have a GM that likes to use charging/poucing foes: Disruptive Terrain -- this also is good for preventing bad guys from fleeing.
Distracting Gaze deserves special mention in that it works extremely well well with the gang up feat, allowing rogues to pew pew pew and actually shine in combat the way they really should.
Reposition: this allows 2 5' steps for those bandit/sniper rogues and their ranged sneak attacks.
Telempathic resistance is a potential life saver for all members of your collective.
This one ability is potentially the best one the tactician can bring to the table, given this feat in the Advanced Class Guide:
You and your companion creature are adept at fighting together against foes.
Prerequisites: Int 13, Combat Expertise, ability to acquire an animal companion.
Benefit: When you and your companion creature have this feat, your companion creature is adjacent to you or sharing your square, and you both threaten the same opponent, you are considered to be flanking that opponent, regardless of your actual positioning.
Normal: You must be positioned opposite an ally to flank an opponent.
Note the difference between this (which is a constant effect) vs the similar strategies. Note the synergy with Distracting gaze.
For spellcasters in the party, echo effect allows for single target spells to be echo'd onto another party member (such as yourself). Never forget to use this.
Let me give you an example of what I'm talking about: You have a tank and a rogue with you and a healer.
In a typical dungeon scenario, you are following along a 10' corridor with no branches (to keep the scenario simple). You meet the conga line of death that you have to plow through to get to the BBEG.
In the scenario, you have a static battle line and the rogue that is up next to the fighter is a sub-par combatant due to not being able to flank...in comes the tactician with distracting gaze. You are now considered to be flanking and the rogue can now go to town with full attack sneak attacks with his two handed fighting crit fishing kukri build, while staying on the front lines allowing the cleric to heal him and the fighter, and you plow through the bad guys with out having to expend tons of spellcasting resources and time to take out said conga line of death.
Getting snap shot and improved snap shot will allow you to threaten squares you can't specifically get to, but will allow your rogue friend to be a whirlwind of death.
Just got a wicked idea... Do the Tactician's and the Vitalist's collective link together so they could combo off each other if all of the same targets are in their respective collectives?
Nimroot, I'm playing one right now. Admittedly, it's a brand new game, but I've got it planned out to 20th (and 10 mythic tiers).
I call my healers that in D&D/MMO's... hahah...
Where do I find mythic rules for psions?
Just got a wicked idea... Do the Tactician's and the Vitalist's collective link together so they could combo off each other if all of the same targets are in their respective collectives?
If you are talking two different collectives for two different characters, no, they don't link together (as in a collective member does not automatically belong to a second collective if the vitalist is a member of the tactician's collective).
I'm not sure what you mean when it comes to "combo off each other".
Now, levels of tactician and vitalist (and anyone else that has a collective stack for purposes of the effective level of the collective ability.
Just got a wicked idea... Do the Tactician's and the Vitalist's collective link together so they could combo off each other if all of the same targets are in their respective collectives?
There is an archetype in Ultimate Psionics that sort of does this. Look for the Battle Medic, page 286.
As for mythic materials, Dreamscarred has posted a bunch of beta material on their forum for testing. Release is coming pretty darned soon, but what exists is completely usable. There are (I think two) mythic paths, a bunch of feats, and last week the mythic powers chapter beta was released.
Good news; yesterday was session #2 of our Wrath campaign. We've got my elan tactician, a half-gian aegis, and an elf spellslinger, so just three PCs. While it's been tough at times, in two sessions (say 10 hours combined), we've mowed through a bunch of encounters and are almost half-way to 3rd level. That's with the DM deliberately allocating XP as though there were four of us. And we're doing 15-point buy, so we're very much trying to make sure we're under-powered if anything. Mow, mow, mow.
I played it. In fact I'll let you see its entire frustrating career.
Tark, what was the problem with it? To me, they've always looked MAD as hell, which doesn't help anything.
Ghorrin
I was meaning if the whole party is in the Vitalist Collective and the Tactician Collective, could abilities be chained or anything special.
No automatically belong to 2 collectives, that'd break stuff lol.
I was meaning if the whole party is in the Vitalist Collective and the Tactician Collective, could abilities be chained or anything special.
No automatically belong to 2 collectives, that'd break stuff lol.
No, there is no chaining or anything special if you belong to multiple collectives.
For tips and tricks on playing a Tactician, we recommend this guide: Tactician Guide
Apparently this guide is OP lol....
According to my 'friend' who actually wanted to play it.
Anyone have any websites or ways to find local Pathfinder groups to connect with to play since the one I'm trying to join isn't working out >_<.
