Deadly dealer / Cards as weapons Gambler build

[Kiba Kurokage]

As usual, I was inspired to build a character because of a series I watched, which has me wanting to build gambling-styled character who's lost his soul to a demon/devil in a game of cards, and now has to do their bidding. The character is already a cheating type of gambler and not really a good person.

But starting with looking at how to make playing cards a viable weapon, the only thing I really found was the deadly dealer feat, which lets you use playing cards as darts (1d4+strength damage) and Harrow cards as masterwork darts. It requires arcane strike, but allows you to give +1-5 damage as a swift action, and to turn the card damage to lethal damage. In my looking about, I found that basically it boils down to Card caster Magus(plus or minus Staff magus or myrmidarch magus). Though it seems that Card Caster isn't written well and requires a fair amount of GM interpretation to work well, not to mention you still destroy cards when you use them... Which leaves me with the next best option I can find, the Cartomancer Witch, and the Harrower Prestige class. I've outlined the build I'm thinking of below, with relevant magic items, my big concern is feat selection and maybe spells....

Levels 1-5 are Witch(cartomancer) for the following:
Cantrips: As usual, free level 0 spells.
Hexes: Usually standard action activation that mostly debuff foes, but there are a few buffs too. Relevant options for me are Fortune(gives "Advantage" for 1-3 rounds on 1 d20 roll each round.), Misfortune(the same but disadvantage on foes) This gives a good "cheating gambler" feel, and also ties to the inspiration character's power of "Probability Manipulation". Then looking at Cackle(reflavored to evil chuckling, to increase fortune/misfortune durations), and Soothsayer, to pre-buff or debuff allies and foes before it's needed. Though Evil eye is also atrtactive.
Patron Spells and Familiar(replaced by the spell deck from Cartomancer), to gain extra spells, though in this case, it's through a particular harrow deck. If you take the Harrow Chosen trait, you get a buffed special family deck that you can use.

Spell Deck can also deliver touch spells at 3rd level, and gives the spell deck returning, and the cards aren't destroyed.
Tying into that, you also get deadly dealer instead of your usual 2nd level hex, and you gain arcane strike, but ONLY for using deadly dealer.

This means by Level 5 we have 3 feats, up to 3rd level spells, deadly dealer, 2 hexes, and your spell deck for spells/dart weapon etc.

Then we go for Harrower prestige class, which adds a lot of flavor, and buffs some of your spellcasting. It grants you +1 spellcaster level of your base class, so you can still be a level 20 witch spell-wise, you just lose your grand hex and some other free hexes. You also gain some other fun benefits like:
- Blessing of the Harrow(do a harrow reading, gaining a random 1/6 minor buff to all allies in 20ft for 24 hours.)
- Harrow Casting(when casting spells, may draw 3 cards to gain various Tower buffs, all towers apply. Exact alignment matches grant +2, gain towers as you gain levels)
Tower of Intelligence(Harrow cast Int cards give +1 CL and Spell resist pen for each)
Tower of Strength(Harrow Cast a spell that deals damage, +1 dmg per die rolled, per card)
Tower of Charisma(Spell DC +1 per card)
Tower of Consitution(Harrow cast heals 1d6 dmg per card)
Tower of Dexterity(+1 reflex saves until next turn per card)
Tower of Wisdom(+1 effective CL per card)

Spirit Deck(Standard action to make a whirlwind of razor-edged cards of force against a target foe, Draw cards=level, if it matches your alignment exactly, 5 dmg per card, if partial, 3 dmg per card, non match, 1 dmg, and opposites are 0 dmg.)
Divination(SLA 1/day divination)
Read the signs(basically, if I draw from a deck of cards, I can draw 2 cards, keep my pick and shuffle the other back into the deck.

So by level 10 we have Everything at level 5, plus The harrow blessing, Harrow casting and the first 3 of the 6 towers, and the Spirit deck ability.

At level 15, we have the rest of the abilities, and are a Level 15 witch for spellcasting.

This just leaves the last five levels, probably for the rest of witch, to round out our high level casting and more hexes.

Which brings us to how to potentially make this work with feats, or other class suggestions... Harrowed is a mandatory feat for the prestige class, And gives you a bonus vs enchantments, and 1/day draw a card from your deck, and gain a hovering +2 bonus on any one D20 roll that is modified by the associated ability.

Otherwise, it seems like you'd just want to do a ranged build with Point blank shot, Precise shot, Deadly aim etc. Though I've only really seen people recommended Startoss style with vital strike to go with deadly dealer, which should allow you to gain more damage and bounce your attacks a bit. But is there any other good options? Trying to keep the flavor of gambler with some of these fun mechanics, but I also want to make a character that will pull their own weight as well.

[Name Violation]

Problem is with that BAB, you're never going to hit anything with an attack unless it's a touch attack

[Kiba Kurokage]

Name Violation wrote:

Problem is with that BAB, you're never going to hit anything with an attack unless it's a touch attack

So would you think that something like Ranged Feint would be an option over Vital strike? Since vital strike requires it NOT be a touch attack. Maybe some other accuracy buffs too. Belt of dex helps, +# on the cards will help, but it's still gonna be rather low, especially compared to more martial types.

I suppose I could more focus on being a bad touch Witch, and use the deliver touch spells through thrown cards part, and use default card throwing if I can't do anything better or need to save spells. Once I hit harrower, I can do the draw three and modify the spell being cast, throw the card and deal whatever touch spell. And those are ranged touch by default.

[Pizza Lord]

You could go halfling, that would be +2 to attack for size and with throwing weapons.
If you didn't want to be a caster, you could take Caster's Champion. You would need to have an arcane spellcaster ally, but they can be any level. It only works 3 times per day (and they need to be within 30 ft, but that shouldn't be too hard). But since you aren't a caster, you could be going rogue (for sneak attack) or fighter, and the +1 enhancement bonuses scale to BAB faster than Arcane Strike scales to caster level. Since you can't really get Deadly Dealer until 5th anyway, that will put your attack and damage higher, and with a greater BAB, you are likely to be able to throw more cards in a round, especially if took Rapid Shot as a bonus feat.

Blooded Arcane Strike could work if you were a bloodrager, specifically.

The Rough and Ready trait can get you a +1 trait bonus to attacks, assuming cards are part of your profession (ie. gambler or fortune-teller (with cards)).

You could possibly get away with Splintering Weapon since that says 'the fragile weapon feature or a similar quality' which could be viewed with the fact that the cards get destroyed when used to attack. Assuming it was a primitive material (ie. not iron or steel, maybe bronze if that's considered primitive. Stone would be, but not sure how many decks of cards are stone, but I guess there could be some), most cards are made of paper, cloth, or wooden placards more commonly, you can cause bleed damage which can wear foes down.

I haven't really crunched numbers, just did some quick searches.

[Trokarr]

I don’t know how important being an arcane caster is to your character thematically but if you want to chuck cards hard enuff to really dish out the hurt I would suggest aether kineticist. Since any object of the allowed weight limit will work then u could just chuck cards with your telekinetic blast. The cards will be destroyed but that’s a problem you would have anyways. Your attack rolls would certainly be better as a kineticist with 3/4 BAB and elemental overflow bonus. As a side note with the Telekinetic Finesse talent you can do slight of hand at a range with your Basic Telekinesis. Should be pretty easy to cheat that way. You could even slip a few aces into your opponent’s pockets and the accuse them of being the cheater ;)

[Azothath]

the harrow deck and similar niche builds just don't work out for PCs but are fine for flavorful NPCs.

I'd suggest just a standard Wiz(diviner) build and throw in a deck of cards with some well spent skill ranks for card theatrics (which are just for show/RP). Prof(gambler) is a skill. That way you get the best of both without hobbling your build.
If you need to throw in a feat, Stylized Spell(MMag):+1 (or the old Spell Thematics) is the card to pull.
Adding some alchemical power components to the back of some cards would be a good trick vs those without Spellcraft.

A standard Witch build could do the same thing but it's debuffing, hexes, and less wizarding tricks.

Otherwise the Aether Kineticist (above) is the (noisy & obvious) way to go about it and again the cards are just theatrics.

[Trokarr]

I think it’s worth pointing out that it’s not necessary to be an arcane caster to take the Deadly Dealer feat. The Elemental Strike feat can also be used to qualify for Deadly Dealer. So any of the elemental native outsider races (or count as one through Planar Heritage feat) can use Deadly Dealer with any class they choose. This opens up a lot more possibilities to make an interesting and effective build. The Rogue class seem thematically appropriate and if you can work a decent ranged sneak attack build it would certainly increase your damage output.

[Northern Spotted Owl]

Name Violation wrote:

Problem is with that BAB, you're never going to hit anything with an attack unless it's a touch attack

Note that the cartomancer witch delivers these touch spells as ranged touch spells via her cards. So the 1/2 BAB is actually fine.

"In addition, the cartomancer can deliver a touch spell with a thrown card. This uses the Deadly Dealer feat (see below), except the attack is resolved as a ranged touch attack and the card deals no damage of its own. This ability can be used with any card (not just one from the cartomancer’s spell deck)."

[Kiba Kurokage]

Apologies on the delay in my reply! I see a lot of good ideas here. And while I might incorporate some of them, I think I will keep witch for now, getting the ranged touch spells, and focus on using fortune/misfortune and cackle, and ranged touch spells to debilitate enemies. I just gotta find some good options to use, like Bestow Curse, Frostbite, etc. This could also be an interesting thing to deal touch-range buffs while lingering at that 30ft range, even Cure spells or enlarge person could be applied as well.

Deadly dealer will probably apply if I want to save spells, have cast all the spells I need, or have run out or the like.

[Azothath]

Reach MMag feat(+1,2,3)
my samsaran PC wizards have a Reach Cure Light Wounds:C2 {close} memorized or available.