Pathfinder Pathfinder: Kingmaker Builds and Strats Thread

[ga♥]

Dueling swords aren't considered light weapons Kit Walker, so double the -2 on attack, since I guess your rougue with aldori dip would be TWF, or what were you suggesting?

Not a TWF but rather a Finesse rogue. The rogue is the only class that can live off of dex builds because of sneak attacks and how they work in this game. If you really put points in Cha, take two pala levels and 1 Scaled fist level, then you have a terrific build. You get Dex2AC and Cha2AC and all the sneak attack dice from the sneak attack increase feat and the neckless. Use a single dueling sword and get that aldori dueling mastery and have another 2 AC + init. The game provides deflection robes and bracers of armor +8 to fill in AC. This way you have good saves (the biggest problem with the Rogue) and ridiculous damage. If you take the thug route, this becomes even more sickening, quite literally, because the rogue now sickens target on *every* hit.

Seems nice... for a tank though with very nice touch AC, single weapon style can't possibly outdamage a TWF or 2H.
Do you even need the sneak attacks?

 

[Ent]

Knife master 4 / Vivsectionist X is pretty crazy damage wise. Going 4 levels of rogue to get the weapon finesse, martial weapon proficiency for kukris and dex to damage along with that debuff on sneak attacks and then getting the spell utility and and scaling power and tankiness from the mutagen pretty much sets you up for the rest of the game as long as you get some items and feat to cover your poor will save.

Flat footed causes dex to AC not to be applied. That is one of the possible conditions (no dex to AC) for a sneak attack. So as far as a rogue is concerned flat footed and denying dex to AC is similar.

I was wondering if being denied dex to AC from any status effect was also considered being flat footed because the Sword saint gets a feat that adds int to damage on flat footed enemies so I was thinking of a way I could get that consistently through combat.

 

[Ent]

So I did some digging and it seems like you can use dazzlingly display + shatter defenses to apply flat footed on enemies beyond the first turn of combat. This interaction won't come online until lvl 13 but its a nice little side bonus you can build towards.

 

[ArchAngel]

are strength builds as worthless in the pnp as in this game?

seems like a glaring oversight to have dex effectively be both offense and defense

There are a couple of issues regarding strength vs dex.

1) Dex is more efficient as a rule as long as you are prepared to find 3/4 of the weapons in the game useless for you, since you are effectively limiting yourself to Agile weapons. There are some incredible non-Agile weapons in the game.

2) Str (which usually means 2H) requires almost no feats. Power Attack and you're good to go. Dex on the other hand requires Weapon Finesse to even function.

3) Then you really need the TWF feat line to really start pulling ahead in terms of damage. Power Attack is just straight up better. Unless you have TWF. So that's 4 feats vs 1, and hefty Dex requirements as well.

4) One key PA feat, Furious Focus, is missing from the game. That limits Str builds' effectiveness vs TWF.

5) There are many excellent spells that boost Str as part of their package. Enlarge Person, Legendary Proportions... The Str boosts here are worthless to a Dex character.

6) Str Power Attack builds are superior to TWF builds at beating damage reduction, unless you have enough Enhancement to beat the DR. Then TWF pulls ahead dramatically.

Not to mention that in PnP you got to carry your shit yourself and going into encumbered territory fucks up your defences while Str characters don't have such problems. Also breaking down stuff (including webs) is easier with Strength without extra feats. Then you got stuff like Shadows that drain your Strength, they will kill a Dex based character much faster. Also Dex based characters need Uncanny Dodge and Blind Fighting or they use their bonus AC way too often. Strength guys just carry heavy armor and don't care.

 

[Haplo]

Also "Hold" type spells (paralysis effects) cause flat-footed. Stunned (like from monk stunning fist or sonic effects) might also.
And I think a character might be considered flat footed when he does not see the attacker (either due to invisibility or blindness).

But yeah, Shatter Defenses should be pretty great on non-undead, non-construct, non-insect, intelligent enemies.

I definately plan to get it on my Sword Saint (and pretty much all other melee characters, considering how easy it is to aoe mass shaken all enemies).

 

[aweigh]

Yeah, carry limits will fuck you up in this game too. I spent like 15 minutes poring over my Sword Saint's character sheet trying to find where and how I was receiving some maluses and negative effects on my character, i was just about ready to come bitch about a "new bug" too when I realized my min/maxed munchkin Sword Saint character with a STR of 7 was overburdened and had a bunch of maluses because of that.

keke

 

[Haplo]

Well, a Vivisectionist "werewolf" type character does seem very potent indeed. 3 max bab attacks per round at level 2, lots of bonus sneak damage (including sneak attack from cloak of winter wolf bite cold bonus, though that is certainly a bug), large mutagen strength and natural armor bonuses (later also dex and con), shield spell and a rich suite of self-buffs (which you could share with infusion discovery).

But the interaction with a monk dip seems buggy. After drinking mutagen, you get claws and bite, but with monk the claws seem to soon (before I finish buffing) randomly revert to fists. The combat animations are obviously very different as well. No big deal, I still get the max BAB bite (with cloak trip and extra cold sneak amplified damage) and also I think the extra flurry attack. Hm, 4 max BAB attacks at level 4, each with 2d6 sneak, free trip attempt on bite and another 3d6 cold damage?

I wonder if vivi feral mutagen with monk dip and progressively better amulet of mighty fists isn't actually end-game worthy. Sure, twf get more attacks late game... But with AB penalties . Not having the secondary attack AB penalty on the free bite (which trips with the cloak) sure is nice. I now wonder if I even need the Fauchard. If anything, it'll be late game before the sneak feral monk combo can be beaten using weapon attacks.

 

[ga♥]

Late game I rarely missed (against Wild Hunts, on hard, so they had +4AC) with my TWF ranger tbqh. So the penalty on the additional attacks shouldn't be a worry. Real problem in my case was not getting hit since my AC was sheeeeet, but with a DEX build this would be better I guess.
I could even pull a power attack, after Pitax IMHO, but I didn't, mostly because feat starved.
Also there's a Sai that's perfect for off hand since it gives +2 attacks per round at full BAB (speding a feat for it sucks, but worth it).

 

[ga♥]

I also wish the game would tell you how many attacks/round you have

 

[Haplo]

I wonder if changing the claws back into fists is a bug and, if so, if might be fixed.
Otherwise could be nice to invest in Dragon Style on this char for 2x/1,5x Str damage on unarmed attacks (with up to +16 Str mod end game).

 

[Haplo]

Okay, so I narrowed it down to changing the natural attacks to unarmed (blunt) attacks when I try to use stunning fist. Also I still seem to attack 3 times per round (but Bite gets full attack, doesn't become secondary). Probably not worth building around this, as it might be patched later.

 

[Yosharian]

Okay, so I narrowed it down to changing the natural attacks to unarmed (blunt) attacks when I try to use stunning fist. Also I still seem to attack 3 times per round (but Bite gets full attack, doesn't become secondary). Probably not worth building around this, as it might be patched later.

Natural attacks and unarmed strike are completely incompatible, it's not surprising

 

[Haplo]

They can be compatible, sorta, with Feral Training, or whatsitcalled. Anyway, the feat is not in the game.
But the interactions between feral attacks and monk unarmed attacks are a little fishy. Got Claw attacks changed to unarmed again, without invoking Stunning Fist btw., so it seems its not that.

 

[Cael]

They can be compatible, sorta, with Feral Training, or whatsitcalled. Anyway, the feat is not in the game.
But the interactions between feral attacks and monk unarmed attacks are a little fishy. Got Claw attacks changed to unarmed again, without invoking Stunning Fist btw., so it seems its not that.

This is due to cRPG unable to programmed in that line in the description that says that Unarmed Strikes need not be a fist. It can be feet, elbows, knees, etc. In fact, it very explicitly stated that you can do Unarmed Strikes with your hands full.

In RAW, you can go full Unarmed Strikes with Flurry and everything, and add natural attacks on top of that as secondary attacks. It is explicitly stated that you can add natural attacks on top of a full attack, assuming the limb was not used in the normal full attack. Therefore, a level 1 half-dragon Monk with TWF can get 3 Unarmed attacks at -4, and 2 claw and 1 bite attacks at -5 (but good luck getting them to connect...!)

 

[Lhynn]

So, the knight kineticist is practically made for valerie. It actually gives her damage and some nifty skills without detracting from her tanking. Earth and Fire seem like the best choice.

 

[Incendax]

So, the knight kineticist is practically made for valerie. It actually gives her damage and some nifty skills without detracting from her tanking. Earth and Fire seem like the best choice.

Air is interesting because you can give her Evasion + Lightning Reflexes + Flameguard (the +3 Reflex and Fire Resistant tower shield). Then she can stand in your fireballs and laugh.

But it does technically detract from her tanking, since you could have gone Knife Master to get AC vs Light Weapons, and sneak attacks with Arcane Protector.

 

[Haplo]

So, the knight kineticist is practically made for valerie. It actually gives her damage and some nifty skills without detracting from her tanking. Earth and Fire seem like the best choice.

This may work well for caster/ranged oriented parties. But won't work that well for parties focused on attacks of opportunity and teamwork combos. Crits 20/x2 mean that a kinetic knight could be on the receiving end of outflank/seize the moment, but would rarely set the combo up.

She could provide weak aoe trips with earth and bouldering whirlwind though.

Edit: supposedly the kinetic blade can't even get attacks of opportunity. So that's really poor for melee oriented combo parties.

I guess I'll pick one kinetic knight level for free access to trip+tandem trip - without 13 Int and combat expertise.

 

[Seari]

Lead blades works with shields for shield bash if anyone was wondering.

 

[Ent]

Has anyone tried out an Elven Curved Blade Rogue build? If you can get 1.5 dex mod damage from using using that it could get pretty silly with sneak attack and power attack.

 

[Lhynn]

So, the knight kineticist is practically made for valerie. It actually gives her damage and some nifty skills without detracting from her tanking. Earth and Fire seem like the best choice.

This may work well for caster/ranged oriented parties. But won't work that well for parties focused on attacks of opportunity and teamwork combos. Crits 20/x2 mean that a kinetic knight could be on the receiving end of outflank/seize the moment, but would rarely set the combo up.

She could provide weak aoe trips with earth and bouldering whirlwind though.

Edit: supposedly the kinetic blade can't even get attacks of opportunity. So that's really poor for melee oriented combo parties.

I guess I'll pick one kinetic knight level for free access to trip+tandem trip - without 13 Int and combat expertise.

The thing about kinetic blade is that it does touch attacks and decent of damage, over 10d6 eventually, so its a really good source for consistent dps, which is what a tank needs to keep the enemy attention on them.
Tremorsense should in theory negate all invisibility.

Also she replaces int with Con for feats, so she could get the expertise feat for example. Water gives her a grease spell and her casting stat is again, Con. the infusions are interesting too, being able to entangle someone for a whole minute or trip with con instead of STR.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

Has anyone tried out an Elven Curved Blade Rogue build? If you can get 1.5 dex mod damage from using using that it could get pretty silly with sneak attack and power attack.

Not a Rogue build but I specialized Jaethal in Elven Curve Blades. She's already familiar with Elven weapons and had a decent damage and attack after awhile with one. Her build was a simple Inquisitor build, though, nothing fancy.

 

[Ent]

Inquisitors seem pretty neat. I was thinking of making a heavy armored greatsword inquisitor now that theres a +str +wis racial option to use.

 

[Yosharian]

If you're using Dex, you really ought to dual wield

 

[Ent]

You are probably right - the game basically throws fancy kukris and daggers at you. I'm thinking about doing a knifemaster/monk and building around some of these fancy magical sais I have but I have little to no knowledge on the monk class itself. Is the traditional monk just swapping powers for full will defense? Are the monk powers worth it on their own? Are any of the fancy style strike moves usable if I am dual wielding sais?

 

[Haplo]

I don't think flurry of blows is supposed to work with dual-wielding. Therefore a monk probably shouldn't dual wield.

Flurry is arguably better, as it provides extra attacks at max Attack Bonus (rather then at -5/-10).