Martial Training on a Stalker

[Ualaa]

I'm trying to help a friend, with a character for another friend's campaign. The other campaign won't start for a while, but we're playing around with builds. The other friend said to make tough characters.

We're gestalt and I was mixing my classes like this:
We'll gain a mythic rank (using Mythic Hero's Handbook) at each even level.

01. Conscript 01 | Soulknife 01... (F.01 Improved Initiative)
02. M. Knight 01 | Soulknife 02
03. M. Knight 02 | Soulknife 03... (F.03 Combat Expertise)
04. M. Knight 03 | Soulknife 04
05. M. Knight 04 | Incanter 01.... (F.05 Dodge) (MK.04 Martial Training I)
06. M. Knight 05 | (Sp) Sorc 01
07. M. Knight 06 | (Sp) Wiz 01..... (F.07 Extra Martial Talent = Mageguard)
08. M. Knight 07 | (Sp) Wiz 02
09. M. Knight 08 | Stalker 01..... (MK.08 Martial Training II) (F.09 Martial Training III)
10. M. Knight 09 | Stalker 02
11. M. Knight 10 | Stalker 03..... (F.11 Extra Stalker Art)
12. M. Knight 11 | (Sp) Wiz 03
13. M. Knight 12 | (Sp) Wiz 04.... (MK.12 Martial Training IV) (F.13 Ex. M. Talent = Punishing Rebuke)
14. M. Knight 13 | Incanter 02
15. M. Knight 14 | Incanter 03.... (F.15 Martial Training V)
16. M. Knight 15 | Incanter 04
17. M. Knight 16 | Incanter 05.... (MK.16 Martial Training VI) (F.17 Ex. M. Talent = Swift Guardian)
18. M. Knight 17 | Incanter 06
19. M. Knight 18 | Incanter 07.... (F.19 Extra Martial Talent = Steel Hedge)
20. M. Knight 19 | Incanter 08

The Soulknife will be a Warsoul (and Soulbolt, for Point-Blank shot, as the bonus feat), for some Path of War maneuvers -- mostly overlapping the Stalker disciplines.
Stalker has an initiator level of +4, for each of it's levels (from 1/2 IL per non-Stalker previous class). I was looking to go primarily Riven Hourglass.

The Mageknight will be going Doomblade, for melee touch attacks with their Destructive Blade. Soulknife gets Wisdom to attack and Wisdom to AC as a dodge bonus with Combat Expertise. Stalker 2 stacks Wisdom (with Dex) for Reflex saves and Initiative. Three stalker arts, would be Murderous Insight, Combat Precognition and Evasion.

I'm looking for a recommendation on which discipline to take, for Martial Training I-VI.

[upho]

We'll gain a mythic rank (using Mythic Hero's Handbook) at each even level.Whoa! :smalleek: What are you going to fight? Gods?


The Soulknife will be a Warsoul (and Soulbolt, for Point-Blank shot, as the bonus feat), for some Path of War maneuvers -- mostly overlapping the Stalker disciplines.Why the Soulbolt levels? Seems most of the benefits will only apply to your mind bolt, which it appears you typically won't be using when in combat.

Probably since I'm not very familiar with SoP, I also find it difficult to decipher the actual intended combat and non-combat role(s)/function(s) of this build. I get that it will be pretty Wis SAD and accurate melee build with a high AC and some minor ranged power, but beyond that I can't really tell what the character is supposed to do or what you're trying to accomplish. If you could write a few lines about this and its key mechanics, I'd be happy to help with some advice on disciplines.


Stalker has an initiator level of +4, for each of it's levels (from 1/2 IL per non-Stalker previous class). I was looking to go primarily Riven Hourglass.In case you've missed the recent errata (http://dreamscarred.com/path-war-errata/), note that initiator classes may now swap maneuvers based on their IL instead of their class level (at IL 4 and every second IL). Which means you can continue to upgrade the maneuvers you've gained via your your 3 stalker levels also when gaining levels in other classes, and there's less need for delaying the dip in order to access higher level maneuvers. The same goes for the War Soul maneuvers, now also using the same progression/max level table as that of other non-initiator archetypes. In addition, the War Soul full-round recovery no longer requires expending psionic focus.


The Mageknight will be going Doomblade, for melee touch attacks with their Destructive Blade. Soulknife gets Wisdom to attack and Wisdom to AC as a dodge bonus with Combat Expertise. Stalker 2 stacks Wisdom (with Dex) for Reflex saves and Initiative.How do you apply the soulknife's Focused Offense to the mageknight's Destructive Blade?

If you don't actually have the means to do so, I'd definitely trade the soulknife levels for additional stalker or sphere caster levels.


Three stalker arts, would be Murderous Insight, Combat Precognition and Evasion.Again in case you've missed the errata: the Combat Precognition art has been changed to last for 1 round, and the Murderous Insight art has been changed into:
The stalker can activate this ability by spending one point of ki as a swift action; for a number of rounds equal to 1 + his stalker initiation modifier, he can roll twice on a single attack roll each round and take the higher value.


I'm looking for a recommendation on which discipline to take, for Martial Training I-VI.With the initiator modifier now a freely chosen mental stat, I think these have become considerably less crappy. But I'd still consider getting more full initiator class levels, especially on a gestalt build.

[Ualaa]

Soulbolt gets a sometimes useful bonus feat, in Point-Blank Shot.
Power Attack bonuses don't apply to the Destructive Blade and Weapon Focus isn't that useful for the Mindblade when the character will be using the Destructive Blade from Mageknight (Doomblade archetype).

The Soulknife if pretty much for Wis to attack/damage (Destructive Blade won't benefit from the damage portion) and Wis to AC while fighting defensively.
Focused Offense was just attack rolls, not attack rolls with a Mindblade... so when you're doing a d20 attack roll with the Destructive Blade, the Focused Offense should apply.
The Focused Defense, was while fighting defensively or using Combat Expertise.

The Doomblade essentially gets a touch Destructive Blast, in the form of a blade, which does 1d6 damage per odd Mageknight level.
With Precision and Always a Chance, the character is not going to be missing all that often.
The Bloodlust Mageknight talent adds 1 damage to the Destructive Blade for each consecutive time it hits (ending/reseting if it misses). That lasts WIS (initiator mod) rounds and caps at the Mageknight's level.

Mageknight will add 1/2 level to AC as a dodge bonus and full level as DR x/-- as two of their other talents.

With haste, this is a build that will likely deal 50d6, via five attacks, at 20th level.
The other side of the build is essentially caster options, after getting the Soulknife options.

[upho]

Soulbolt gets a sometimes useful bonus feat, in Point-Blank Shot.It just seems you'd get a lot more out of 4 levels in Wis-based classes other than the soulknife, like say psy-war, myrmidon fighter and/or stalker.


Power Attack bonuses don't apply to the Destructive Blade and Weapon Focus isn't that useful for the Mindblade when the character will be using the Destructive Blade from Mageknight (Doomblade archetype).Depending on your game's optimization level, I think the fact that Power Attack doesn't apply - and especially that no stat score modifier applies - to the Destructive Blade damage could very well be a problem. Because a "build that will likely deal 50d6, via five attacks, at 20th level" when hasted, is quite low for what I assume is a primarily melee damage focused build, especially when considering it's gestalt and has mythic tiers. (As a comparison, 175 DPR is less than what a full attack from an abyssal bloodrager natural attacker can be expected to deal an "average" CR = level enemy. Using only Paizo options, no multiclassing, gestalt or mythic, at 10th level.)

Personally, if I made a Wis-based build intended to primarily attack with Destructive Blade, I'd instead look into combining it with Deadly Fist (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/psionics-unleashed/classes/soulknife/archetypes/dreamscarred-press/deadly-fist) soulknife levels. Unlike with the soul bolt or other mind blade or most normal manufactured weapons, unarmed strikes can be used to deliver touch attack spells. In effect, Empowered Strikes should AFAICT allow you to add the Destructive Blade damage and other hit effects to your "mind blade unarmed strike" attacks. And since the Destructive Blade touch attacks replace regular weapon attacks, it can thus be made with unarmed strike full attacks, AoOs etc. You wouldn't target touch AC this way of course, but you can add all benefits of Focused Offense and really pile up the damage through options such as Power Attack, Dragon Style/Ferocity and Broken Blade maneuvers.

(And yeah, Weapon Focus is generally a very sub-par way to spend a feat slot anyways, at least unless you really need it for meeting a prerequisite of something which completes a great combo or similar. However, you can get WF for very little cost by finding/crafting/buying a cracked opalescent white pyramid (or COWPIS :smallbiggrin:) and a wayfinder, which has a total market price of only 2k. This transforms WF into a pretty darn good investment in many cases, especially since a martial or exotic weapon proficiency is included in the deal.)


The Soulknife if pretty much for Wis to attack/damage (Destructive Blade won't benefit from the damage portion) and Wis to AC while fighting defensively.
Focused Offense was just attack rolls, not attack rolls with a Mindblade... so when you're doing a d20 attack roll with the Destructive Blade, the Focused Offense should apply.The soulknife's blade skills feature says (my emphasis):
All blade skills may only be chosen once and require the soulknife to be using her mind blade unless otherwise stated in the skill’s description.Focused Offense makes no mention of being an exception. I'd assume this means the Wis to both attack rolls and damage rolls Focused Offense grants only applies to attacks with your mind bolt, regardless of whether you're also making attacks with other "non-mind blade" weapons during the same action. And if an FAQ entry, dev post or similar actually says it's enough you wield your mind blade/bolt for blade skills to apply to all weapons you use simultaneously, then the Wis to damage should also apply to your Destructive Blade damage.

Or am I missing something here?


The Focused Defense, was while fighting defensively or using Combat Expertise.Yeah, and since you make touch attacks, you can pretty much use Expertise constantly without having to worry about the attack penalties. This seems like a nifty trick for stacking additional Wis to AC. I like it!

But I also question it's value on a build which will not only have more than decent AC anyways, but most importantly doesn't have any means to further capitalize on its very high AC. I mean, without defender mechanics (such as a warder's armiger's mark) or similar, it doesn't seem like it would be worth the costs in this case. (But of course, I think it would be a much better investment if you also do get to apply Focused Offense to your Destructive Blade.)


The Doomblade essentially gets a touch Destructive Blast, in the form of a blade, which does 1d6 damage per odd Mageknight level.
With Precision and Always a Chance, the character is not going to be missing all that often.Considering that it's touch attacks, I believe you likely won't be needing Precision or Always a Chance. I'd opt for adding more damage or control/debuffing power instead.


The Bloodlust Mageknight talent adds 1 damage to the Destructive Blade for each consecutive time it hits (ending/reseting if it misses). That lasts WIS (initiator mod) rounds and caps at the Mageknight's level.Can you reduce the activation action of this below the move action which Time Shift enables? If not, aren't there better choices for improving damage?


Mageknight will add 1/2 level to AC as a dodge bonus and full level as DR x/-- as two of their other talents.Again, while being highly resistant to weapon hits and damage isn't bad per se, having more than "enough" of it is rarely worth the costs, at least without defender mechanics or similar. It may even be counter-productive in a real game, resulting in your GM adjusting the hit chance and damage of your enemies to compensate.

Going back to your original question, what would be the best discipline for you is primarily dependent on what you're trying to achieve. Are you looking for dealing more damage with your Destructive Blade, gain additional defensive options, or to improve control or debuff power?

[Ualaa]

One of the players in my current campaign plans on running a scenario type campaign, once the current campaign ends.
I'm not really sure what that will entail exactly. He said there are 20 challenges, and each challenge will be a session and a level.
With a final challenge, that might be 2-3 sessions, once we're 20th.



One of the players is going with pure melee DPS, no casting, pretty much swing his big two-handed sword and that is what he does. I believe he said he was going mostly Striker, on one side, with a mixture of Stalker/Aegis/Soulknife on the other side and a dip in Symbiat, for INT to AC (he's planning on no armor, Dex, Int, Con, and Wis to AC). He was also planning on templates, which will eat four levels of his build on both sides of it. If he sticks with the templates, we'll all come in at 5th, and will not level up for the first four scenarios.

Another player is going with a casting side (Psion) and a martial side (Harbinger) with an intention of focusing on debuffing the mobs and charms/domination. This player optimizes at a level fairly similar to my own, and more so then the other two (the 2H guy above and the player who will be DMing the scenarios).

I've got a tank type build, also with caster on the opposite side; my caster side is an Incanter and the martial side is mostly a (Spheres of Might) Sentinel. I want to make it so the mobs don't really have a good option, but that I'm their best option for attacking. Basically initiative optimization, allowing for battlefield control to funnel everything to me. The combination of Protection-Guardian on myself, for a penalty to not attack me, and Guardian's Mark on the hostiles for a penalty attacking my allies and a small bonus to attack me.

The player whom I'm trying to build for has Aspergers, so he's a slow learner and is better off with a more straight forward character. Not as boring as the swing a sword melee, and that's all I do, but not a lot of complicated mechanics or options in play.
I was trying for... caster side which has some buffs for his martial side, and a little battlefield control, via Warp... where he can change the group's placement in relation to the mobs, and have secondary healing.
And the martial side being fairly straightforward, ideally with 3-4 typical attack options to choose from.

I'm definitely open to build suggestions, or alterations. The campaign is likely a fair ways off, but it's fun making builds and tweaking them.



Hero Lab doesn't mention anything on the description for Bladeskills, that you quoted above (where you need to be using the Mindblade, to benefit from Bladeskills). Basically, it has text saying you get them at this rate, and a box to pick ones which are valid for your level... It would make sense for Bladeskills to be tied so the Mindblade.

We've been using Hero Lab to build the characters, and a requirement has been that they're Hero Lab legal. If you've got focused offense, and are psionically focused, HL gives you wisdom to attack/damage with weapon attacks, not just Mindblade attacks. The whole psionic implementation is a collaboration of the community, and not Dreamscarred Press paying someone to offer HL support of their products.

[upho]

One of the players is going with pure melee DPS, no casting, pretty much swing his big two-handed sword and that is what he does. I believe he said he was going mostly Striker, on one side, with a mixture of Stalker/Aegis/Soulknife on the other side and a dip in Symbiat, for INT to AC (he's planning on no armor, Dex, Int, Con, and Wis to AC). He was also planning on templates, which will eat four levels of his build on both sides of it. If he sticks with the templates, we'll all come in at 5th, and will not level up for the first four scenarios.So... A DPR build optimizing AC as if it was a TO exercise and stacking a total of +4 CR templates?

Well, I hope he doesn't end up feeling like his character is weak in comparison to your tank or the psion//harbinger.


Another player is going with a casting side (Psion) and a martial side (Harbinger) with an intention of focusing on debuffing the mobs and charms/domination. This player optimizes at a level fairly similar to my own, and more so then the other two (the 2H guy above and the player who will be DMing the scenarios).This seems like a combo both interesting and pretty unique. Nice.


I've got a tank type build, also with caster on the opposite side; my caster side is an Incanter and the martial side is mostly a (Spheres of Might) Sentinel. I want to make it so the mobs don't really have a good option, but that I'm their best option for attacking. Basically initiative optimization, allowing for battlefield control to funnel everything to me. The combination of Protection-Guardian on myself, for a penalty to not attack me, and Guardian's Mark on the hostiles for a penalty attacking my allies and a small bonus to attack me.A SoM supertank with SoP caster utility/buffing? Cool. If possible, I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on the SoM tanky stuff afterwards.

Btw, this seems to be precisely the type of build for which I believe more serious AC optimization can be more than well worth the costs.


The player whom I'm trying to build for has Aspergers, so he's a slow learner and is better off with a more straight forward character. Not as boring as the swing a sword melee, and that's all I do, but not a lot of complicated mechanics or options in play.
I was trying for... caster side which has some buffs for his martial side, and a little battlefield control, via Warp... where he can change the group's placement in relation to the mobs, and have secondary healing.
And the martial side being fairly straightforward, ideally with 3-4 typical attack options to choose from.

I'm definitely open to build suggestions, or alterations. The campaign is likely a fair ways off, but it's fun making builds and tweaking them.Hmm... I think I get what you're saying about the need for something pretty straight forward, and I think at least some of your initial build choices make a lot more sense in this context.

Your aim of a caster side mainly buffing a martial side without too many attack options seems fitting. And it's probably about the most easily played kind of build you can get if his character is going to be somewhat on par with yours, and not simply doing boring full attacks to deal damage on repeat. And using SoP instead of vancian casting should make things easier.

However, I think the current Doomblade build would actually be quite a bit more complicated to play, notably because of its rather complex "typical" action sequences and its many readied maneuvers and short duration buffs. IME, it's often perfectly fine for players like this to have a build using several simultaneously active buffs and abilities, provided they require a minimum of action planning and bookkeeping to use in combat. But situational options, action sequences which requires adapting to the situation, and/or stuff which requires careful bookkeeping are generally not.

Generally speaking, I believe most non-situational free action/contingency stuff and/or effects which can be treated as basically permanent aren't problematic, since they can typically be included in the character's default combat values. The same goes for stuff which can safely be put into a relatively simple "standard combat procedure" list of actions. This should preferably cram all the actions for the "as-soon-as-possible-once-per-combat" abilities, like short duration buffs, into the first turn, and then switch to a highly non-situational default action sequence for the following turns, with a few distinct variants for dealing with common situations (such as a few different martial strikes, boosts and counters). But options which the character isn't expected to use at the very least once per combat and/or which requires deviating from the default action sequences should be kept at an absolute minimum.

For example, a beast totem primal disciple barbarian with easy-to-use maneuvers would probably be fine, while also adding stuff like Spell Sunder, Come and Get Me or Savage Dirty Trick might push things too far. And classes like the zealot, psion, druid or conjuration wizard probably shouldn't even be considered, especially not in a gestalt game.

So in short, my tip is that you start by sorting out stuff which would neither work as default combat values or fit into relatively simple "standard combat procedure" action sequences.


Hero Lab doesn't mention anything on the description for Bladeskills, that you quoted above (where you need to be using the Mindblade, to benefit from Bladeskills). Basically, it has text saying you get them at this rate, and a box to pick ones which are valid for your level... It would make sense for Bladeskills to be tied so the Mindblade.

We've been using Hero Lab to build the characters, and a requirement has been that they're Hero Lab legal. If you've got focused offense, and are psionically focused, HL gives you wisdom to attack/damage with weapon attacks, not just Mindblade attacks. The whole psionic implementation is a collaboration of the community, and not Dreamscarred Press paying someone to offer HL support of their products.I suspect this is simply a bug in HL. But if your group is OK with blade skills applying to all weapon attacks, I don't see any reason why you shouldn't go with that, regardless of whether it's actually a house rule. (Although it does give the soulknife a very significant power boost.)

And if you do use HL's current "ruling", I also really think all the benefits should apply to the Destructive Blade as well, considering it's both weak and has limited customization options in comparison to a normal melee weapon (or a mind blade).

(Here's a link to the quoted rules text (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/psionics-unleashed/classes/soulknife/#TOC-Blade-Skills) btw. It's exactly the same as in the book.)