Pathfinder Build Advice

[Acanous]

Hey Playground! My gaming group is being more and more stubborn on "Pathfinder only" sources for our sessions, despite my best efforts. I am required to make a level five character before next thursday to begin this (Evil) Campaign.
Starting level is five, and any (Pathfinder) races and classes are allowable.

My biggest problem here is that I do not own any pathfinder books, and do not have access to the PFSRD, don't link it, the firewall here will block it. No I cannot bypass the firewall.

So my plea here is for someone proficient in Pathfinder to set me up with a workable build. My starting stats are 18, 16, 16, 14, 14, 12, before any mods. They can be applied in any order. The only restriction (Aside from "Pathfinder only") is that the character must be Neutral to Evil on the GVE axis.

I've kept my last few 3.5 characters toned down in an effort to maintain my 3.5 privilidges, but seeing as this session is in fact going to be limited to Pathfinder only, and is only about 4 sessions long, feel free to build with as much cheese as you like.

Thanks in advance to any of you willing to spend your time helping me out here.

Addendum: No, this game is not taking place on these forums.

[Frosty]

What kind of character do you wish to play? You need to be more specific than just a stat array and a level.

[Krazzman]

LE: Red Mantis(PrC) looks solid.
Else: Casters/Gishes (Cleric, Wizard, Sorceror / Bard, Magus, Anti-Paladin or Inquisitor) and the Rogue.
Maybe an Evil Alchemist would be fun too, or Summoner.

Personally, I don't think a Oracle would be fun in a evil group.

Keep in mind, unless you can be an evil whorshipper of sarenrae, you cannot take dervish dance.

Have a nice day,
Krazzman

[Acanous]

To explain my playstyle;

I favor Prepared casters over spontanious, and having more skills over a higher bonus to a few skills. I excell at being more of a toolbox than a sledgehammer. This applies to when I am playing melee, support, ranged, or debuff.

That said, I can make a decent sledgehammer when I have to ;)

Summoner: I've heard about the variant for that where you wear your eidolon. Never played the class, though (And the one person who I've seen play the class did a very poor job at it, so I'm slightly biased against it, while aware of said bias.)

Rogue is something I'm considering. In 3.5, you really only stayed a rogue for the first 4 levels before picking up a new class and hitting a PrC. For a lv 5 party, I could probably make it work just off of my 3.5 knowhow.

The other party members so far are a N/E Cleric (Focused on Necromancy) and a C/E Bard. We've got 6 players, total.

I've seen Oracles, don't get the hype. They seem to be a crippled variant of Favored Soul, which was worse off than a Cleric to begin with. So I agree that playing one is probably not for me :3

Alchemist is a strange thing. I'd be willing to try it, but unsure of how to play it.

What is a Red Mantis?

[Killer Angel]

What kind of character do you wish to play? You need to be more specific than just a stat array and a level.

Pretty much.


Summoner: I've heard about the variant for that where you wear your eidolon. Never played the class, though (And the one person who I've seen play the class did a very poor job at it, so I'm slightly biased against it, while aware of said bias.)


This (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=184592) is worth a link... :smallwink:

[Hamburgers]

With that lovely stat array, I would say the Hellknight PrC would be a fun choice. It is similar to a paladin, but requires only Lawful for alignment. You need 5 ranks intimidate / 5 bab / 2 knowledge planes to enter, and must slay a devil in single combat.

They can smite chaos / gain aura of law, detect chaos, they gain a special set of armor (which tends to be pretty Sauron-y), which is fullplate, they get + to the max dex, fullspeed running, eventual fire immunity, some other bonuses, a lot of special abilities based on order which use Charisma, and some other goodies. Full bab / good fort.

Normally, Paladin into Hellknight is amazing, but Paladin doesnt work here, and Antipaladin is CE. If possible, I would talk about bending either alignment with your DM (Either a more "People's Elbow" sort of LN paladin, or an Antipaladin who can be Lawful instead of Chaotic Stupid).

Otherwise, any full bab chassis works well for entry, particularly a two handed fighter archetype, Swing dem heavy weapon around!

Traits = There is a hellknight Ancestery trait, gives + diplomacy with hellknights and their allies, and + intimidate with their enemies. Obviously, if you ARE a hellknight, your enemy is an enemy of a Hellknight. Therefore, INTIMIDATEEEEEEEEE


EDIT - Since Synthesist Summoner came up, I feel obligated to plug Psionics Expanded - Unlimited Possibilities, which just dropped from Dreamscarred Press. The Aegis class summons armor from the astral plane, and it gives him/her abilities. The most cursory of readings should show most folks familiar with the core that the "Customization points" gained by the armor match the evolution point table for Eidolons by level, and the customizations are just like evolutions. However, unlike the synthesist, they were built from the ground up as things affecting the base character and not a pet, so incredibly less weirdness. It's also a full bab d10 class, but noncaster outside certain tricks, so a pretty good fun beat em up time will be had by all.

The book also has a PrC which blends some of that armor progression with the Pathfinder updated soulknife (which is also a heck of a lot better than 3.5 version >.> )

[Acanous]

So far it's looking like Hellknight or Summoner, then. Not sure if the psionics would count as "Pathfinder" in the eyes of my DM. The group as a whole has a stigma against supplimental material not published by Paizo, much like they had against material not published by Wizards.

If it appears in the SRD, I could make the argument, but I can't check the SRD myself :<

[Krazzman]

Ah, finally schools out!

Ok, I advised towards Red Mantis (LE Assassin of an Organisation mentioned in the Pathfinder Campaign Setting. This Class has a few bad prerec feats (like alertness or weapon focus: Sawtooth blade) but it seems to be a really nice one (I'm tempted to say it's better than the normal Assassin, but that ones for the theorycrafters).

The problem with casters on that level is the squishy ness. You might have some ways to protect yourself from your allies, but afterwards would be awfully "useless" if you have to use all your spells for that. It might be of interest if your 7-man-evil-group will end in PvP-TPK.

For Anti-Paladin, Rogue, Summoner, Ranger, Inquisitor and so on are quite good guides online. At least as long as you don't consider Ultimate Combat and for Treantmonks guides (only core).

Of course you could also look into the Ninja if Rogue is what you like and think this one fits better. Alternate Class Features for the Rogue are also a consideration, as well as Racial Substitution Bonuses (like instead of 1 Skillpoint or 1 HP per level, you can choose other benefits [Advanced Players Guide]).

For Gishes I would recommend the Inquisitor, because who never wanted to play a totally pissed of "Witchhunter" with pretty neat class features.

But for your caster thing: since Cleric is already locked, you can either play an cleric also and would have to interfere with clerical godly arguments about how better his god is than yours... or take the same god, what would probably take his fun.

The Summoner has thanks to 1 Minute/CL duration for summoning spells a nice quantity of qualitative good minions. For this one there are also other ACF where you can seek some fluff. You don't have to wear your Eidolon.

To Oracles. I think they don't fit in a non-good aligned Group. They else might be the laughing spot of the whole group since they are Blind/Deaf/Crippled etc. but don't underestimate them, they can, thanks to their mysteries be better than a favoured soul.

But let's consider the Alchemist. As Alchemist you have also nice Abilities. Bomb is a pretty nice one. Formulae-Casting and Bomb are 2 not to underestimate abilities on that level.
You can either make the Mad Alchemist that throws bomb at anything moving, or be a tricky one, that sells potions with various side effects to people. You could make a Jackyll/Hyde thing or so on.
BUT, yeah a negative point... If your DM is quite stingy with book keeping, you will have problems with this class. You should consider to not take this class if you have to keep track of every ingredient.
The approach I like most is that the material cost of bomb are like the Material Component Pouch. You buy them in a package and can make x bombs. Everytime you come in town you buy your lot of ingredients or you pick them up everytime you see an ingredient.

Hope that helps for your consideration.

Have a nice Day,
Krazzman

[Retech]

Yes, psionics does appear on the PFSRD. Although one cool thing that I should forward to you (actually two cool things):

Summoners and Magus

Firstly, take the master summoner archetype. This allows you to summon AS MANY MONSTERS USING YOUR SUMMON SLA AS YOU WANT. Say you're preparing for an ambush. Oh hey, you just summoned a herd of Auroch. Trample trample trample. Summoning is probably the single most versatile thing, except for maybe gate or wish. (But those cost money, so not reliable) Not to mention you can use the Summoner's evolution "Skilled" to give it a +8 racial bonus to a skill. Use all your points for that and flight, and you've got a mobile scout. Your main firepower would be the summoning.

It's true that you're a 2/3rds caster, but you get many gems of spells at lower levels. (Haste as a level 2 spell anyone, earlier than even a wizard gets it?)

Alternatively, Magus is excellent. Spell combat is intended to let you basically TWF with a melee strike and a touch spell, but you can use it more creatively. Consider striking once, five foot step, and then casting a buff spell. You can buff yourself during a long fight while getting your hits in.

Once I made a character on a magus chassi that was basically Yoda. Flipping, jumping, using the force. Very versatile what you can do with it.

--

If you're allowed Psionics, try a Soulknife. It is very rougish, but it has a gem of a dip: pyrokineticist dip for a 15 foot whip of fire! And you can use your soulknife abilities with it. That's sheer cool! Combine with the prehensile whip trait and the various feats, and you've got Indiana Jones + more skills + whip made of fire + throwing whip.

Oh no, the BBEG is escaping. But wait, you have a jump check of +40 or +50 and a 15 ft long rope. Jump ten feet and use your awesome whip (which I'm not sure if it can grapple initially, but there is a soulknife power that lets it) to grab onto their foot. And the whip hits on touch attacks, wheee!

[Mad Gene Vane]

Though squishy, an evil Witch can be interesting. With hexes, you can inflict pain or temporary ability damage (-2 to AC or attack, for example), as a supernatural ability. Add the Cackle Hex and you can keep this going for a long time.

Has a limited list of arcane spells, but I think the hexes make up for it.

You prepare spells and aren't a spontaneous caster.

[stack]

Regarding for master summoner, with that stat array, so can still nicely defend yourself while summoning (synthesist is great when you need to dump stats, but you don't here). No spells have to be spent on your eidolon, which will be useless in combat after a few levels (still can skill monkey though), so you can use them all to buff the party.

Also removes any guilt when you get the aspect ability. Your eidolon doesn't need the evolutions as much as you anyway.

I believe there is a trait to boost evil summons as well. Diabolical dabbler (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/traits/magic-traits/diabolical-dabbler), +1 HP per HD for any fiendish animal you summon.

Maybe take half-orc, but the +2 into CHA (for 10 summon monsters/day), then carry a falchion to look scary (16 in STR to be able to defend yourself in melee).

[Acanous]

Hmmm........ I've seen a witch played, it worked quite well. Sort of an anti-bard.

Been reading that summoner guide, it has no entry for Synthesist summoners. I don't think this microcampaign is going to get beyond level 8, so I'll have to take a look at Red Mantis and Hellknight when I get the chance, see if they do anything cool in the first three levels. Otherwise I may as well go Summoner or Witch.

The DM said we're beginning play dead, so I think Alchemist might be a bad plan, as interesting as rolling an atheist with bombs that hates all gods would be. Especially with the Cleric. Oh yes. Maybe I could work something out with the Ethergaunts.

[Krazzman]

an atheist with bombs that hates all gods would be.

This is made out of win, you can be sure I'll be stealing this.^^

Have a nice Day,
Krazzman

[Psyren]

Has a limited list of arcane spells, but I think the hexes make up for it.



Hmmm........ I've seen a witch played, it worked quite well. Sort of an anti-bard.

Pretty large understatements here. Witch is widely considered to be the latest addition to the T1 club :smalltongue:

[Zagaroth]

Well, as a quick note, while the PFSRD migth not be available to you, it is possible the PRD is. Entirely different website, and more official

http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/

[Psyren]

Well, as a quick note, while the PFSRD migth not be available to you, it is possible the PRD is. Entirely different website, and more official

http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/

Yeah, was just going to suggest this. It includes all of the 1st-party Paizo material (including Magus, Witch etc.) and is updated for the latest errata. What it doesn't have that the PFSRD does are copious hyperlinks in every article a la the d20srd. So it's a bit tougher to navigate but all the info you need to build an official PF character is there.

[Paul H]

Hi

I agree that Synthesists & Magii are good classes - got some in the PFS campaign - but just came across Zen Archer.

It's a Monk Archetype. You gain bows as weapons known, your bonus feats are bow based, and you use Flurry with bows not other weapons. (Flurry of Bows)! :P

You do lose some things like evasion, but can use your Wis mod instead of dex, don't draw AoO for using bows, can use bows in AoO on adjacent targets.

At 5th lvl you get 2 attacks with your 'flurry', with a +3 bonus to both. That's Bonus, not penalty!

Str 18 Wis 20 at lvl 5, +1 Comp Bow +4 Str, only using free feats & abilities:
Attack: +13/+13 (Inc Wpn Focus & PBS freebies)
Dam: D8+6/D8+6 (Inc PBS)
Note: Excludes Deadly Aim (Attack -1/+2 Dam), plus Wpn Spec (gained at 6th lvl). Also can fire adjacent w/o AoO. Can also use Ki point for extra attack. Etc etc....

Thanks
Paul H

[DrDeth]

Try the PRD as has been suggested. Yes, it’s about time, Pathfinder now has enuf stuff so that dipping into 3.5 just confuses things.


Synthesist is just about the most confusing and broken archetype around, the debates and questions rage on & on. It’s a bad choice.

Witch could be a great match here. Some serious de-buffing, light healing, and even a few blasty spells.

Remember to get Cackle.

[Retech]

Imo Synthesiest is more versatile than the Witch, but with the preset definitions of tiers basically defaulting to full prepared caster means T1, that doesn't seem to be the case.

If you go into witch expecting wizard with its own flavor, you'd be disappointed. It has its own playstyle.

[Curious]

Imo Synthesiest is more versatile than the Witch, but with the preset definitions of tiers basically defaulting to full prepared caster means T1, that doesn't seem to be the case.

If you go into witch expecting wizard with its own flavor, you'd be disappointed. It has its own playstyle.

Synthesist is not more versatile than a Witch, for two reasons.

1- The Synthesist has only 6th level spells, and is a spontaneous caster with limited spells known.

2- The Witch has 9th level spells, and is a prepared caster with unlimited spells known.

What this means is that not only can the Witch cast more spells per day (and thus has more room for utility spells), but that the Witch can learn any number of spells, even if they would only be useful one in six encounters, whereas all the spells a spontaneous caster chooses must be useful all the time.

[Retech]

Apologies, I meant Master Summoner.

The witch's spell selection is kinda meh for a spell list, while the Summoner has many gems. So at any given level, they might have the same quality of spells, but the witch just has more.

I think this is easily balanced out by summon monster, because the Summoner has it all the time, they have a dozen uses per day, and with augment summoning + other summoning boosting feats, they can easily cover for half a spell list.

1 min/level duration is just beast. You could summon a small army of powerful creatures if you needed. At level 3, conservatively 12 uses of summon monster. With augment summon + superior summon among others, that leaves us with 12d3 + 12 augmented ant workers. Maybe if your DM allows it, give one row of them longspears, and have them form a phalanx.

[Curious]

Apologies, I meant Master Summoner.

The witch's spell selection is kinda meh for a spell list, while the Summoner has many gems. So at any given level, they might have the same quality of spells, but the witch just has more.

I think this is easily balanced out by summon monster, because the Summoner has it all the time, they have a dozen uses per day, and with augment summoning + other summoning boosting feats, they can easily cover for half a spell list.

1 min/level duration is just beast. You could summon a small army of powerful creatures if you needed. At level 3, conservatively 12 uses of summon monster. With augment summon + superior summon among others, that leaves us with 12d3 + 12 augmented ant workers. Maybe if your DM allows it, give one row of them longspears, and have them form a phalanx.

The thing is that despite the numerous discounted spells a Summoner gets, the Witch spell list is still better. They get plenty of utility spells, tons of debuffs, and even healing. And, as I said, the fact that they can learn whatever spells they like makes them far better at utility casting than any spontaneous caster.

As for summoned monsters, they're great, but they also restrict you from using one of your main class features, the Eidolon. Not bad for combat, but still not a huge boost in utility, which is what is needed to become tier 1.

[Acanous]

Update: One of the other party members is now playing a Witch, and another a Shield Fighter, so Cleric/Bard/Witch/Fighter are all taken. (Sad panda)
I could go Summoner, Rogue->Red Mantis, or Ranger->Hellknight without much trouble. Or Alchemist, but a good argument needs to be made on how to do that with unknown equiptment.

Summoner and Rogue are probably the best ideas for going into an unknown situation with nondisclosed starting equiptment, with Hellknight and Alchemist next up.

[Zagaroth]

Most of an alchemist's equipment is essentially a class feature, but discuss with your DM the specifics. If a wizard would be guaranteed his spellbook, you'd be guaranteed the alchemist bomb minimal items

[Krazzman]

You have to use the Material Components for bombs and so on like the Material Component Pouch. You buy a package of 5 gold an can bomb, any items that count as ingredient are looted by you and now book keeping is much much more easier for the alchemist.

For crafting you should buy the material but for the bomb, a untyped/unspecified material component pouch would be sufficient.

Ask your DM about that one.

Hope you enjoy your choice ingame.

[Acanous]

Update!
So Alchemist and Summoner were taken, as was Rogue. I ended up going Gunslinger 4/Fighter 1 into Hellknight next level.
Gunslinger is an interesting class, but I'm glad I dipped fighter for the full plate and tower shield. I went

14
18
14
12
16
12

with my stats, and pumped Wis by 2 from the racial bonus. STR up to 15 at lv 4. I've got a total of +10 to initiative (4 dex, 4 feat, 2 class feature) so it's really been a hoot seeing the clanky tank go first.

[The Glyphstone]

Mithril Full Plate, right? Otherwise you're not actually getting anything out of it in terms of increased AC compared to a Chain Shirt.

[Acanous]

nope, +1 Full Plate. Pathfinder that equates to a total bonus of +11, including the dex bonus. I'd get +10 if I went +1 chain shirt.

I plan on selling it later. The big idea was to have valuable starting gear that I could cash in on. If the DM took all our gear when we started dead, I figured it'd be no loss. If he decided to cherry pick what gear we couldn't have, armor usually makes it under the radar.

[Retech]

Eidolon is a great skill monkey. You don't need it for combat.

Then use master summoner.