Marshal + Scout = Skirmishing Full Attack?

[Curmudgeon]

Buy an trained dog, or get a familiar or animal companion. Have them Grapple you each turn. You can choose to automatically fail an opposed check.
...
Buy an trained dog, or get a familiar or animal companion. Have it Bull Rush you each turn. Again, you can choose to automatically fail an opposed check.

Can you point to where in the rules it says "you can choose to automatically fail an opposed check" for either grapple or bull rush, please? Because I can't find anything that would allow such choices.

[Ascension]

Ehh, that option's too cheesy for my tastes anyway. Getting dragged across the battlefield by my dog as a normal combat tactic would be impossible to justify from a role-playing perspective. And I've already got the fighter wondering aloud how movement could possibly improve my damage practically every time I skirmish. Allow me my class abilities, okay? If you're looking for logic, how come being a hippie allows the druid to turn into a giant cat? Explain that!

[Skjaldbakka]

You could pick up mounted archery.

[RTGoodman]

You could pick up mounted archery.

I think the errata says that Skirmish doesn't work while mounted.

[Person_Man]

Can you point to where in the rules it says "you can choose to automatically fail an opposed check" for either grapple or bull rush, please? Because I can't find anything that would allow such choices.

I can't find a quote online, I'll have to dig through the books later. But I've seen it on the optimization boards a bunch of times. Perhaps the internet is lying to me?

But at the risk of killing catgirls, I think its self evident. Bull Rush's and Grapples depend on Str. If someone pushes me or tries to pick me up, I can choose to go limp and not resist them.

Of course, common sense has no place in D&D RAW. So if I'm just plain wrong about this I apologize.

[Chronicled]

Dervish: I hate this class for a variety of reasons. But it works.

I like the link set, but this especially picqued my interest. What don't you like?

[Person_Man]

I like the link set, but this especially picqued my interest. What don't you like?

Why I dislike the Dervish:

1) Heavy pre-reqs: 4 feats, 3 of which are garbage.

2) Dervish Dance: The primary class ability. You can move and attack. That's nifty. But it's only usable a limited number of times per day. And there are numerous other ways to make sure you always use all of your attacks each round and/or prevent enemies from using full attacks on you; Thrown weapons, ranged weapons, 10 ft + reach, Pounce, Hustle, White Raven Tactics, Evasive Reflexes, etc. And the alternative ways can all be used in every combat, and require less of an investment to get.

3) Mediocre class abilities: A few bonus feats, slightly higher AC, a little fast movement, etc. Nothing exciting. Nothing that you can't get other ways, but more efficiently.

4) Thousand Cuts: Wow. Great capstone ability. But you can only use it once a day. And the earliest you can get it is ECL 15, and by then casters are throwing around all sorts of wildly powerful spells.

5) Weird fluff: A dancing warrior? Ugh. OK if you're playing in a historical or comical campaign, but otherwise, most players are just going to change it.

In sum, the Dervish requires a very large investment for some pretty modest abilities. And I think its just plain silly.

[Thinker]

4) Take the Ancestral Weapon feat from Book of Exhalted Deeds. It lets you sacrifice items or gp to improve your weapon. This saves you some gp, since you don't have to sell items that you find at the standard 50% mark down.

5) If you don't want to be a Skill Monkey, be a Kensai. They get a very powerful, very cheap magic item as their main class feature. This frees up a huge pile of gp for magic arrows. Stack effects.

Would taking Ancestral Weapon and levels in Kensai stack?

[marjan]

Would taking Ancestral Weapon and levels in Kensai stack?

I think they would (sort of), but you could only choose what to spend on your item: gold or xp, since IIRC Kensai's weapon bonuses along with bonuses from weapon can't exceed +10.

[Person_Man]

Would taking Ancestral Weapon and levels in Kensai stack?

marjan is correct.

You could use Ancestral Relic and Kensai levels to get a +10 weapon faster then normal. But you can't go above +10.

Also keep in mind that a Kensai pays a minor XP cost, and Ancestral Relic still requires you to sacrifice items or gp, and that a +10 weapon normally costs 200,000 gp. If you invested 90% of your standard wealth by level in it, you might be able to pull it off a +10 weapon around ECL 12ish, and even then you'd need 5-7 levels of Kensai.

But if you wanted to go for the ultimate non-epic weapon, I guess you could go Whatever 5/Anointed Knight 5/Kensai 5. You could have a 1+ Composite Bow of [Insert +9 worth of enchantments], with Sentience and Unicorn Blood (Evil enemies must Save or take 1d3 Str damage). Have a friend cast Greater Magic Weapon on it. And buy a lot of specialized ammo (different materials, Bane properties, Holy, Exploding, etc).

You'd only be doing one thing over and over again (firing arrows), which would be boring. But at least you could have a bunch of different arrows to choose from.

[Megafly]

I second dervish. the "crazy attack bonuses" are great. The only drawback is that you are useless against flying opponents.

RAW doesn't have any rule against Dervishes flying. It just talks about moving "up to her speed" winged boots, wings of flying, or whatever could resolve this issue.

[Frosty]

Here's what I'd do. Ancentral Relic increases your item based on total cost. Kensay does it based on effective total bonus. Use your ancestral relic feat to pile on as *many* fixed-cost add-ons as you can, and use your Kensai to give your weapon actual enhancements. Ask your DM if you can raise the GP limit of the Relic a bit.

As for Dervish, I'd make Thousand Cuts once per encounter.

[Ascension]

But at the risk of killing catgirls, I think its self evident. Bull Rush's and Grapples depend on Str. If someone pushes me or tries to pick me up, I can choose to go limp and not resist them.

Of course, common sense has no place in D&D RAW. So if I'm just plain wrong about this I apologize.

I find it somewhat funny you're invoking the name of common sense to defend a strategy revolving around being dragged across the battlefield by your dog.

[Person_Man]

I find it somewhat funny you're invoking the name of common sense to defend a strategy revolving around being dragged across the battlefield by your dog.

LOL.

Point conceded.