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Most martial classes have ways to boost their accuracy baked into the class. In some cases, those boosts may be bonus feats, especially fighters. Feats like weapon specialization and greater weapon specialization may be boring and seem not to be worth taking, but they are very useful. For archer builds or other builds relying on large number of attacks will make them particularly useful. The ranger ability to ignore the prerequisites for their bonus feats and early access is also something you need to take advantage of.
Many of the martial classes combat abilities focus on specific types of foes. A paladins smite evil or a rangers favored enemy can be make a huge difference in the right circumstances. For rangers make sure to choose your favored enemies wisely. Talk to the GM and see what type of foes are going to be common or significant. Undead and Evil Outsiders are usually good choices, but it depends on the campaign. Humans are also another good choice but may not need to be maxed out. A +2 to hit and damage lots of low-level threats is more useful than it seems.
Rangers and Paladins also have spells that can boost their combat ability. Since they do not get a lot of spells and have a lower caster level these can be very effective. Divine favor can grant up to a +3 bonus to hit and damage vs all targets, Bless weapon allows you t automatically confirm a critical hit on an evil opponent. The paladin has a better list for this, but the ranger still has some useful spells. Aspect of the Falcon only gives a +1 bonus to hit but changes the critical range on a bow/crossbow to 19-20/3. Doubling the critical range on an archer may not increase his chance to hit, but it makes it more likely to bring down a foe.
From the sound of it your best choice would be a Ranger. They are one of the few martial classes with decent skills. Their bonus feats not only ignore the prerequisites they often gain early access to them. Gaining improved precise shot at 6th level is a huge advantage.
A well built fighter can be very versatile with advanced weapon training. But I’m not sure if you’d find that fun. I assume that you probably like a little spellcasting in your character?
It’s really too late, but it’s strange that your eidolon was that level of inaccurate. The scaling bonus to strength and dexterity should keep your attack bonus relevant, though you will likely have an experience very similar to the monk’s flurry of misses. But you could boost these bonuses higher with other evolutions, like the large evolution, and your buffing spells. Another way to keep them relevant is by focusing on grappling, as the grab evolutions gives you +4 to grapple and the size bonuses also apply
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I'd throw in the slayer:
● full BAB
● can be archer, melee or switch-hitter
● studied target gives bonus to hit and damage
● slayer talents can be used to gain ranger combat style feats to get access to combat feats without needing prerequisites
● 6+Int skill ranks
● good class skills
● skills and studied target help with social encounters, even if you dump charisma
● sneak attack is a nice bonus (though harder to trigger for archer playstyle)
● Stygian Slayer can give you a little magic
A well built fighter can be very versatile with advanced weapon training. But I’m not sure if you’d find that fun. I assume that you probably like a little spellcasting in your character?
It’s really too late, but it’s strange that your eidolon was that level of inaccurate. The scaling bonus to strength and dexterity should keep your attack bonus relevant, though you will likely have an experience very similar to the monk’s flurry of misses. But you could boost these bonuses higher with other evolutions, like the large evolution, and your buffing spells. Another way to keep them relevant is by focusing on grappling, as the grab evolutions gives you +4 to grapple and the size bonuses also apply
Agreed - in our experience, Eidolons are some of the highest damage dealing members of the party.
I worry that my language may not have been clear enough. The eidolon shouldn’t be so innacurate as to require 19+ on the d20 to hit. They aren’t super accurate either, but they eventually have a lot of attacks so they can have pretty good average damage with some lucky streaks and unlucky streaks.
Is your group fighting well above their level on average? I’m wondering how hard on accuracy we actually need to go here if your GM is going well above expected CR. Gunslingers are very accurate against most things.
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I’ll also suggest slayer. Studied target is better than the Ranger’s favored enemy.
I was thinking about the Fighter with a 1 level dip into slayer that I played. A Suli, was a lot of fun, but the Bloodrager in our group outperformed me in melee. But not at ranged, the archer build wizard did that. Of course the wizard was always happy to have my character at her side. Good protection don’t you know.
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I think the INVESTIGATOR is one of the most accurate classes in the game. They're only 3/4 BAB, but they get a scaling bonus to-hit equal to half their level, which means their final class bonus to hit is +25 . On top of that they have access to Heroism, Mutagens and other accuracy buffs. Also since they're getting a big chunk of damage from Studied Combat/Studied Strike, they're often better off not using feats like Power Attack, which means that unlike the Fighter they're probably not taking that penalty to hit. Oh yeah, and the Combat Inspiration talent means they can be even more accurate when they want to, and hit harder with the INSPIRED weapon property is pretty ludicrous.
If you really want to max out an Investigator's attack bonuses, play a Half-Elf. Their Favoured Class Bonus doesn't sound that amazing, but I did a breakdown of how good it gets a few years ago in THIS THREAD, by 9th level it's great, and by 13th level it's actually phenomenal.
Gunslingers and Bomber-Alchemists target Touch AC, and both naturally have high attack bonuses as well, meaning by level 10 or so they should be hitting on a 2+ with even their lowest attacks.
The UNCHAINED MONK doesn't have in-class accuracy boosters like the Fighter or Slayer, but their Flurry of Blows is an extra full-BAB attack, and at level 11 they get a second bonus attack. They can also spend Ki to get another full-BAB attack, so a Hasted 11th level Unchained monk can make 5 full-BAB attacks in a round if they want to. Even without accuracy boosters your chance to hit is pretty amazing.
Speaking of Fighters, the MOLTHUNI ARSENAL CHAPLAIN Warpriest basically makes the base fighter obsolete. You get a lower BAB, but you can more-than make up for that with spells, and you can get full Weapon Training with as many weapons as you want .
Oh, a Magus gets TWF with 1 weapon, as well as a bunch of buffs to improve their accruacy. You can also take SPELL PERFECTION and Quicken Spell at high levels to have essentially 6 attacks per round, 4 of which are essentially at high level. Or instead of that extra attack from a quickened spell you could take the Accurate Strike arcana and target Touch AC like the Gunslingers and Alchemists.
Beyond that you can also look at different combat styles to see how to land the most attacks.
Archery is good because Manyshot and Rapid Shot provide bonus attacks at your full bonus, and since you don't need to move to full-attack you're likely to make more attacks than anyone else, and therefore hit more often than anyone else.
In melee, getting feats like CLEAVING FINISH or combos like CORNUGON SMASH and HURTFUL can give you bonus attacks at full BAB.
I'm sure there are many other options I've missed, but those are some classes, feats and weapon options to consider.
We are level 13, My Eidolon currently has +22 to hit with three of her attacksa and +21 with the other two (Weapon Focus on the ones that hit a bit better) and I managed to hit the boss on a nat 19 with the +22 attack only because I had flanking...
+21 at level 13 is pretty awesome, if the BBEG has a +40AC, then your GM is building encounters well above your APL or flat out cheating, or building things to counter you. (I've never encountered a bad guy with a +40AC).
I'd have a long talk with your GM about the game and what kind of game everyone should be expecting.
Random musings:
--+22 attack at level 13 is fairly significant, if you hit on 20s that means AC 42, which seems odd.
--Do you have power attack/combat exerptize active? It may be prudent to turn them off.
--Is it possible that you are missing due to concealment/blur and not due to AC?
--Is the BBEG parrying/riposting you?
The BBEG of the campaign is a Tiefling Kensai Magus (Well, He was a tielfing, Then his human grandfather stole his body, Then Mammon stole the body and now sometihng else is in the body), With some Devil minions we are deailing with easily. We are level 13, My Eidolon currently has +22 to hit with three of her attacksa and +21 with the other two (Weapon Focus on the ones that hit a bit better) and I managed to hit the boss on a nat 19 with the +22 attack only because I had flanking...
Yeah, average AC for a CR 13 is 28, going up about 1 per CR over that. You were describing an AC of around 42+. So that encounter sounds very atypical. Even for a boss fight, that AC looks about 10 higher than you would expect. Were most of the fights in the campaign like this or was this just a special case?
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I mean, AC42 is not that odd for a Level 15 PC, and since he is a BBEG he probably has a template.
10 base
+ 4 mage armor
+ 4 shield spell
+ 4 from crane style
+ 3 from combat exerptize
=25 without knowing any stats
+ wis mod if Monk dip
+ Dex Mod
+ Int mod
If all of these are between +5 to +8 (not unreasonable for a BBEG), you would already be at the 42ish.
Funnily enough this is prior to things such as deflection (be that form template acquired smite good or some other source) or natural armor (of which a templated half fiend, which seems to be what you are possibly describing, could have a fair bit)
I would recommend targetting him with dispells, as both the shield and the mage armor should be fairly easy to get rid off.
Getting rid of either already means that you quadruple to quintouple your chances of hitting.
How useful favored enemy will be is dependent on the nature of the campaign and level. If the campaign focuses on a specific type of opponent favored enemy is incredibly powerful. In the undead focused campaign, I ran the ranger with maxed out favored enemy undead worked very well. The campaign also had a paladin focused on killing undead and in some ways, he was better than the paladin. The paladins smite evil gave the paladin the edge in a boss fight, but the ranger was better at taking down large number of opponents.
Once a ranger gets access to Instant Enemy he can treat any opponent as a favored enemy of your choice. Instant Enemy only takes a swift action so the ranger can get this off and still make a full attack. This spell can allow favored enemy to exceed studied target in a boss fight.
Rangers also gain Quarry earlier than a slayer. Since Instant Enemy allows any foe to be treated as a favored enemy the ranger can select the target as his quarry. This allows a 11th level ranger to get a +8 bonus to hit after the first round. The Slayer does not get quarry until 14th level.
At 11th level the Ranger with a maxed out favored enemy will be +19 (including BAB) to hit and +6 to damage vs. his Quarry. At 14th level the slayer will be +19 (including BAB) to hit and +3 to damage vs his quarry. The 11th level slayer will be at +14 to hit (including BAB) and +3 to damage.
Instant enemy is great but you will likely spend most of your time as a ranger without it.
A level 11, a fighter would have 11 BAB, +1 from greater weapon focus, +2 from weapon training, and likely a +2 from gloves of dueling. So that’s +16 all of the time. Then you could use warrior spirit for bane and some extra enhancement bonus on your weapon, giving you +2 to +5 more attack bonus depending on what kind of magic weapon you use. A total of +18 to +21 on round 2. And the fighter can do this multiple times per day for a minute at a time. Those bonuses were just the fighter specific things, since we can assume that every martial has weapon focus and a suitable magic weapon, along with the regular stat items.
I mean, AC42 is not that odd for a Level 15 PC, and since he is a BBEG he probably has a template.
10 base
+ 4 mage armor
+ 4 shield spell+ 4 from crane style
+ 3 from combat exerptize
=25 without knowing any stats
+ wis mod if Monk dip
+ Dex Mod
+ Int mod
If all of these are between +5 to +8 (not unreasonable for a BBEG), you would already be at the 42ish.Funnily enough this is prior to things such as deflection (be that form template acquired smite good or some other source) or natural armor (of which a templated half fiend, which seems to be what you are possibly describing, could have a fair bit)
I would recommend targetting him with dispells, as both the shield and the mage armor should be fairly easy to get rid off.
Getting rid of either already means that you quadruple to quintouple your chances of hitting.
It's already been mentioned that this was an Adventure Path, and a 42 AC in an Adventure Path is extremely out of the ordinary. (almost no NPCs have stats over 20, and even fewer have 2 over 20). In fact most Adventure Path NPCs are subpar builds, as they are meant to be only a slight challenge for 20 point builds, with a un-optimized party of 4.
the GM is obviously pumping this NPC ever the top to make it more survivable etc.
I will reiterate my point of having a discussion with your GM.
BTW: congratulations on playing with the same group for 10 years, IMO it makes the game much more enjoyable with good friends that have been around for a while. In my group the newest player has been around for about 5 years, one at 15, one at 30 and one at 38.
Needing a 19 with a +22 and flanking means 43 AC... per the average monster stats by CR table that's the expected value for a level 25 enemy. Crazy high and does kind of sound really unfun to play with.
Do agree Fighter and Slayer are good picks for high accuracy straight martial builds but this also feels like a talk to your GM kinda scenario too.
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We’ve listed some fairly accurate martial options and really any of them could be fun to play. But I have to wonder if accuracy is even still your main goal. It sounds like your boss fight was a bit of a fluke. You may want to consider if you’d like a second option other than damage for niche creatures like this. For instance, grappling isn’t great as a primary strategy in combat, but it can be a great secondary option when your damage isn’t getting through.
Grappling, dirty ticking and feinting can all be potent secondary options.
If Elephant in the room is on, its even a fairly affordable one, featwise.
Grappling, dirty ticking and feinting can all be potent secondary options.
If Elephant in the room is on, its even a fairly affordable one, featwise.
The dirty fighting feat makes it all pretty obtainable. It’s not even a real feat tax as it’s a pretty good feat on its own. This is a very early feat pick for my eidolon builds.
In Elephant in the room, I pick one feat, Deft Maneuvers, and have access to applicable Trip, Disarm, Steal, Dirty Trick and Feint.
Which is something I can fit in on many characters, and it means for one feat I have several options which I can chose instead of direct kinetic violence, for "not dedicated CMB builds".
With dirty fighting, I have to use 2 feats, and then pick which of the 3 most commonly good maneuvers, trip, dirty trick, feint, I want to use.
Like, if I am a Bloodrager/Paladin/other type of martial with no massive amounts of extra feats, then simply picking deft maneuvers is totally a thing.
Justifying 2 feat slots, when you could instead grab iron Will/improved iron will, blind fight etc. on something only occassionally useful is a much more significant investment.
Likewise, EITR means I only need 2 feats to have access to the greater version, which is something I may "casually grab" after various must haves are in. Needing variation of dirty fighting, while also needing to specialize into one and only one type of CMB based thing just makes things much less attractive.
Of course the house rules that give you free feats gives you more feats. But those are far from universally accepted, so it was worth bringing up that you can access maneuvers fairly easily without them.