What a Scoundrel (Spheres in Review)

[SangoProduction]

Link (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Yqkbxu7wA7BuECNEiGEE5b0TRt2MkV5zNRtjvuH5cTI/edit?usp=sharing)

Preamble: I mistook this sphere as only being about the steal maneuver, which is just objectively garbage as something to build around. But then I was reminded of dirty trick, and thought “Hmm. Yeah, why doesn’t that have a sphere of… oh, it’s probably handled by the Scoundrel sphere isn’t it?” And… it is.
Granted, dirty trick users *really* have to try for anything even resembling the debuffs that even a sphere caster can get - especially from the death sphere. But, it at least has my interest.
Kind of funny that you can pull down your opponent’s pants, and then 1 round later, they are magically back around their waist without the need to use an action.

Post-Review Analysis:
I am surprised with how good it seems.
They managed to make Dirty Trick seem very viable and fun to play - even as an alternative to Trippers. While the largest proportion of talents of any sphere I’ve seen yet are in the N tier, those that aren’t more than make up for it. And I love that it manages to stick to the scoundrel theme.

Maximize Ranks? No rank-reliant scaling to speak of. But you’re definitely going to want to improve your CMB as much as possible. Or to have a bunch of summons (see Combat Hustle).

[Kitsuneymg]

I feel you in how meh the combat maneuver spheres are. The irony is, you can do a heck of a good CM build, but SoM ends up being the smallest part of it.

A PFSFG Lore Warden with a dip into Sphere Wizard to nab some War(personal conflict for totemic aura, squadron elite for squadron commander, alternate rally for empower, and alternate totem for Totem of Allegiance,) and then Tactical Momentum(assuming your GM allows this to stack with Knowledge is Power) and Eternal Vigilance. As you get a specialization and 2 more spheres, grab Divination(drop the sphere to a line for 2 bonus talents, drop read magic for another, have your divination be blocked by stuff for another: grab divine future 4 times.) Nab yourself two other spheres. Maybe Fate for the hermit? Or Destruction and Energy Blade for a bit of extra damage when you have to move and attack? And lastly, being a wizard gives access to Knowledge is Power for int to CMB/CMD. You’ll have to take it as a feat though.

Do a standard Lore Warden build, except you drop armor and weapons for a martial tradition to get your Scoundrel and/or Wrestling on. Lore Warden is good for +10 above your bab for combat maneuvers.

Grab martial totem to make totem of allegiance better. +2 +2/10 bab. Maybe your GM does fractions and you get 2 +1/5? Martial reflexes lets you spend 5 stamina for an empower (+4 morale to attacks.) with the trait Community Minded, or Alchemy talent War Paint, and the feat Extreme Mood Swings and maybe Barroom sphere for unambiguous drunkenness, that’s +6 morale for 3 rounds.

Divine future is one minute of doing nothing to get 4 uses of 1d4 insight to any roll. Advanced magical training at some point allows a few more +1s atop that.

Add in spending feats (or giving up 5 character feats for a martial progression) to get specific scoundrel or wrestling talents, including Improved Grifting which neatly bypasses all prereqs for improved steal and improved dirty trick, and Iron Grip, which does the same for Improved Grapple.

Remember too that Lore Warden gets Combat Expertise as a bonus feat. At 4th and every 4 levels fighters can change one bonus combat feat to a different feat. Assuming you can’t find an associated talent that is better.

It would be great if lore warden could be stacked with a sphere archetype of fighter. But I think they all replace armor training or bravery. Not that anyone cares about the ability Soldier grants in place of bravery.

Anyway. You’re looking at str/dex and int to combat maneuvers. +8 unconditional with +2 dependent on a knowledge check, 1d4+2 from divine future, half your int again from Tactical Momentum (unless your GM decides it’s the same type as KiP) 6 from your improved X stand-in talents, 6 from empower, 5 from enhancement bonus on weapon (7 if you warrior spirit bane onto it,) and 20 from ranks instead of bab. 49+d4+int+str/dex+1/2int seems like a good place for trying to make combat maneuvers work. Plus, if you do steal or DT, you can make an attack. So action economy is better.

Get a friendly caster to drop the Hermit on you for another +7 as a swift.

As a last ditch increase, the PFSFG dueling enhancement added to your weapon will add twice the weapons enhancement bonus as a luck bonus to dirty trick maneuvers (and other, but DT is called out.) another +10 (or 11 with dates favored) seems like it would make your combat maneuvers pretty much auto-hit.

But yeah. It seems like the spheres stuff only kinda helps.

[SangoProduction]

What the CM sphere talents excel at is opening up the options for CMs. Doesn't matter the bonuses, without Scoundrel sphere, you aren't getting to AoO a dirty trick.

They are definitely not good at making CMs successful. Which is pretty awkward, because CMs require so damned much investment just to make work. (Ignoring Combat Hustle, because it's a major anomaly in the spheres. An appreciated one, but still.)

[Thirdtwin]

Do you not review the legendary talents?

[SangoProduction]

Do you not review the legendary talents?

Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don't.
I am cat incarnate.

[Hunter Noventa]

Scoundrel is an interesting sphere, and there are a couple archetypes made for it. an Unchaned Rogue with the Grinning Brigand and Canny Scoundrel archetypes has some amazing flexibility in doing dirty tricks, and I'd love to play one some day.

[Rynjin]

There aren't very many "combat maneuver spheres", really. Some have a side-focus on it, but there aren't many that are super hard focused. Eg. Berserker has a lot of Sunder synergy, and it's an ultra-powerful Sphere. Open Hand is solid too, with its larger focus (proportionally) on Trip.

The only hard focused CM Sphere I know of is Wrestling, and it's really good if you wanna be a grappler.

Oh, and Brute, but like Berserker it's also just super duper strong if you grab the talents that completely ignore combat maneuvers and use it to slammajam people for lots of damage.