Single-weapon-fighting support?

[weckar]

In my mind there is a duelist. An agile fighter in light or no armor that uses naught but a sword in one hand to defend himself from a single enemy, leaving the other hand free for maneuvering and balance. Preferring the one-on-one fight, he has specialized himself in avoiding those he is not engaged with.
I'm looking, but in all of PF I find little support for this character type. Leaving the second hand free can't provide benefit anywhere, it seems. As for the one-on-one combat, only a cavalier seems to come close... but comes with the mount.
Now, if at all possible, I'd like to stay away from arcane spellcasting, but other than that anything is open.

[Flashy]

There's the duelist prestige class, a lot of its abilities explicitly prevent wielding anything in the other hand. http://paizo.com/prd/prestigeClasses/duelist.html

[weckar]

Hmmm That would climbing up the mobility tree, though... Not necessarily a bad thing, but...

And what would I do with the first 6-9 levels, before the PrC?

[Flashy]

Fighter or rogue are probably the only classes that are going to be able to effectively work themselves into the archetype you want. I'd take rogue, personally. It gets you to duelist a little slower but the ability progression is better, you'll have actual skill points and it gives you 4d6 of sneak attack damage that you can still use pretty easily in combat as long as you take improved feint at some point.

[Giddonihah]

Crane Style feat tree pre-errata gives an excellent benefit for having one hand free. (It was nerfed recently into the ground, but it shouldnt be impossible to ask a GM to ignore this ill conceived piece of errata)
A Dawnflower Dervish Bard makes a decent duelist, wielding a single scimitar and getting Dex to hit and damage with it for free. You can even multiclass it with Magus, or Prestige into Duelist if you want.

Infact in a 3.5/P game Dawnflower Dervish is atrociously strong at low levels :smallbiggrin:

[StreamOfTheSky]

Your best options are Dawnflower Dervish Bard or a Magus (which...is also best w/ dervish dance feat....basically, that feat's the only thing making 1H-only style viable).

If you can use the pre-nerfed Crane Wing, that style tree is another good reason to go 1H.

There is also the Flagbearer feat. Gives all allies within 30 ft a nice little +1 attack/damage in return for taking up a hand. A DD Bard can manage that decently enough (casting might be tough, but attach weapon to weapon cord --> dropping weapon --> cast spell --> swift to pull it back into your hand might be sufficient); a Magus...really can't pull it off without an extra hand.

[weckar]

I felt the looming threat of Magus-s and bards hanging overhead, which is partly why I put the no-arcane bit in the OP. I don't suppose the magic could be archetyped out of either without ruining them?

[Giddonihah]

You could always just take a 1lvl Dawnflower Dervish Splash, then put the rest into Fighter, eventually prestiging into Duelist.

You can skip the bard lvl if you just take the feat tax and get Dervish Dance yourself. If you use Path of War your options open a bit more with things like Deadly agility, and the Scarlet Throne maneuver school. (but its 3party, by the same people that made the psionics books).

If you can get your hands on the New Pathfinder Hybrid classes beta, you could go into Swashbuckler (fuses fighter with Gunslinger swag). Its a cool class that should fit the bill. In theory it should be released onto their SRD sometime in the future.

Bard spells known can be switched out for masterpieces, but unless you are willing to make your own, there isnt enough to completely replace bard spells. Otherwise its rather uncommon for things to replace Bardic spellcasting, which is strange as the spellcasting isnt as iconic as the bardic performance which seems to get subbed out all the time.

[weckar]

Well, this 'swashbuckler' does seem to get full BAB... Overall it suits the theme better than the Cavalier (which was my idea before making this topic, but the mount and the heavier armors hindred me). A Bard dip seems like a fresh idea, but on top of Swashbuckler this leads to some minor ability redundancy, it seems.

[Giddonihah]

Oh and for completionist sake. 2 levels of Style master monk to grab Pre errata Crane Wing. Grab Inquisitor for Divine casting :smalltongue: and its various cool features, and go spring attack feat. Really crane wing+ spring attack makes for a great duelist (and prolly why they decided to errata it into the ground).

Also Samurai is a Cavalier without a mount focus, as long as you ignore the Flavor it would of been more appropriate if you had to choose.

[weckar]

Samurai still has some mount features, heavy armor and no real support for the concept beyond Challenge. And Challenge is one of those abilities that cannot be dipped (no matter how hard you try).

[Psyren]

If you're open to 3rd-party, Super Rogue Genius Games has what are called "archetype packages." (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/3rd-party-classes/super-genius-games/adept-godling/archetypes/super-genius-games---adept-godling-archetypes/physical-exemplar) (See sidebar.) These let you mix and match different abilities from the base classes as you see fit.

For your particular situation, this will allow you to, say, drop the spellcasting from the Dervish of Dawn Bard suggested above - replacing it with a Barbarian's rage, or some of a Fighter's bonus feats, or a Cavalier's Challenge, or some sneak attack.

[weckar]

We can do that, actually. We've done it before, with mixed results.
How would one estimate the power of a Dawn Dervish without spellcasting but with Challenge? Because, you know, that basically works the trope to a T.

[Psyren]

We can do that, actually. We've done it before, with mixed results.
How would one estimate the power of a Dawn Dervish without spellcasting but with Challenge? Because, you know, that basically works the trope to a T.

You'd drop a tier to 4. Still quite playable. You would have more utility than a normal cavalier due to your high skills and ability to self-buff.

Without spells though, be careful of your defenses, particularly your AC and fort save since you'll be in melee.

[weckar]

Thank you. I'll probably find a way to patch in the defenses using all the feats this method frees up.

[Giddonihah]

Course by doing so Spinning Spellcaster and Meditative Whirl are rendered useless, not that they actually mattered much for the strength of the archetype.

Dervish Dancer is anouther bard archetype that avoids spellcasting referencing and also functions for your purposes, sadly its battle dance isnt as good and you dont get the free feat, but lategame its a bit stronger than Dawnflower, which has a fantastic beginning.

Oh and as a note: Aasamar favored class bonus is nice on a Dawnflower Dervish.

[weckar]

...The battle dances look identical to me? Seems that other than the feat I would in fact be better off taking Dervish Dancer... Weapon finesse would be a required pickup anyway.

[Giddonihah]

The difference is that Dawnflower Dervish DOUBLES the bonuses from the dance. Dervish Dancer merely gives you the normal bonuses. Dawnflower gets great to hit and damage because of that, especially early on and if you have anything to gives bonuses to Inspire Courage (like 3.5 material has a feat that doubles IC, which then gets doubled again From battle Dance)

Also Dawnflower Dervish doesnt need to take Weapon Finnese, it gets Dervish Dancer feat without needing prereqs, and the wording essentially gives you WF with scimitars for free. If you need WF for other reasons then yeah that bonus is lessened.

[weckar]

Hmmmmm very true.... I hadn't noticed the doubling....

And I don't suppose DoD's casting abilities apply to UMD's scrolls/Wands?

Honestly, I could see this going either way. With DoD I might still be able to effectively PrC out at lv 9. With Dervish Dancer there really would be no point. Shame for those two deads in DoD, though...

[SlaadLord]

Thought: If you are intent on Cavalier, without the complication of a mount, you might try the Musketeer archetype. It drops the mount ability, lowers the armor proficiency to medium, and opens another avenue that may be amenable to you: firearms. This path points you toward the old-fashioned Three Musketeers in terms of flavor, but you have the Challenge, the feats for Duelist gives you the mobility you want, the Musketeer archetype fixes any issue with your range (and also may benefit from Duelist abilities, if your DM rules that pistols count as "one-handed piercing weapons"), and you use your remaining feats to provide additional defensive options (Crane Style, etc. without the crappy errata).

[Psyren]

Another big difference is that the Dervish of Dawn still gains performances that can help allies and debuff enemies. Inspire Competence for instance can still be used by a DoD, while a Dervsh Dancer cannot. Fascinate, Suggestion, Mass Suggestion and Frightening Tune (you can fluff this as a sudden and loud stamp or clap) are also still available for use against enemies.



And I don't suppose DoD's casting abilities apply to UMD's scrolls/Wands?

Spinning Spellcaster will apply to scrolls. (Wands and other spell-trigger items are irrelevant as they do not provoke AoO.)

Meditative Whirl I'm not sure about - this may be a DM question.

[Giddonihah]

To be fair those two dead abilities were replacing fairly mediocre stuff in the first place. But yeah preference is up to you, DoD is implemented in a way that is very simple, simple high numerical bonuses, while Dervish Dancer has less numbers and more varied abilities to keep track of.

[weckar]

The big question to me is why EITHER of them still has countersong while NEITHER has versatile performance...

[Giddonihah]

DoD has versatile performance, remember archetypes modify existing bard. Dervish Dancer however replaces Versatile performance with a strictly worse version that only lets you take Dance. Another weirdness is that you still have inspire competence and the ability to use it on an ally.

[magwaaf]

there's always simple things like burning a feat for imp unarmed strike so you can get deflect arrow/snatch arrow. i think pf also has a feat that lets you slap away a melee attack as well

[Psyren]

there's always simple things like burning a feat for imp unarmed strike so you can get deflect arrow/snatch arrow. i think pf also has a feat that lets you slap away a melee attack as well

That was Crane Wing, before the nerf.