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quote:Well, the character I have in mind (assassin/spy posing as a diplomat) are obviously at odds with also being able to be super effective in melee. I don't want to play a completely different character just to achive that. So guess what I am really asking for is how to get the most out of my character concept. What's the best way to build a non-magical assassin character that isn't a total pushover in melee? A (slightly reflavored) Ninja is pretty much strictly superior to a Rogue, so that would be the first thing I'd change. Ninja is basically just a big archetype for Rogue, swapping out some of their less effective class features for ones which are far superior. And going pure Ninja actually isn't a bad way to build a character; Ninja Tricks are really very good, they have a reason to bump CHA a bit which will help with your talky/spying skills, and they have boatloads of skill points to spend. With that said, I'll let people with more focused building advice give you advice on the rest. :p
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Jan 30, 2014 21:59
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The Ninja even gets a Death Attack, except it only takes 1 standard action to study. Classes the base Ninja is better than at it's own game: Rogue Monk Assassin
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Jan 30, 2014 22:05
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Nihilarian posted:Do you care about supernatural or spell-like abilities? If they're really subdued and subtle, then yes, maybe, otherwise not so much.
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Jan 30, 2014 22:08
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Tarquinn posted:If they're really subdued and subtle, then yes, maybe, otherwise not so much.
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Jan 30, 2014 22:17
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Nihilarian posted:The Ninja even gets a Death Attack, except it only takes 1 standard action to study. The Ninja's Death Attack can also be used from range, which is very significant. As written, the Assassin really can't just use Stealth to perform their assassination, since they need to get into melee range to attack, and as soon as they come out of cover to do that, they can be seen and Death Attack no longer functions. They either need actual invisibility (which they can't give themselves because Pathfinder took away their limited casting) or to use something like Disguise instead. Ninjas can do a stealthy assassination without turning invisible - although if they want to turn invisible they can also do that.
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Jan 30, 2014 22:35
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Breaking away from the whole "Ninjas are better rogues than rogues" issue, how would one go about optimizing the Carnivalist? I actually really like this archetype, but I'm not sure how to get the most out of it. It does occur to me that if you can combine it with an alchemist you can have a dancing tumor familiar, which is hilarious and gross.
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Jan 30, 2014 22:48
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Nihilarian posted:Breaking away from the whole "Ninjas are better rogues than rogues" issue, how would one go about optimizing the Carnivalist? I actually really like this archetype, but I'm not sure how to get the most out of it. The way to play an effective Carnivalist is to play a bard, use Eldritch Heritage (arcane) to get a familiar, and give it the Pilferer familiar archetype. You get most of the benefits that Carnivalist grants without having to give up half the class features of an already-starved class to get them, and the character is aesthetically the same. Seriously, I like the idea of Carnivalist but it's just... really, really bad. Giving up half your sneak attack and three talents for a familiar and the worst bardic performances is awful, since those are basically all the rogue has going for it to begin with.
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Jan 30, 2014 22:58
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Nihilarian posted:Breaking away from the whole "Ninjas are better rogues than rogues" issue, how would one go about optimizing the Carnivalist? I actually really like this archetype, but I'm not sure how to get the most out of it. That archetype seems fun to RP, but not too spectacular in combat. It seems a little weird to me that they'd give a familiar sneak attack, because I'm pretty sure that things need to have at least a 5' reach to provide flanking bonuses, which rules out anything smaller than a Small familiar as a flanking buddy. The obvious improvement would be to use Improved Familiar to get something that can cast spells and turn itself invisible. A Faerie Dragon can use Greater Invisibility three times a day, for three rounds each time. They can peck away an an enemy while completely invisible, getting sneak attack dice on each hit. They can also cast Grease (DC 14), a few illusion spells and cantrips, and have a DC 12 (scaling with CON) breath weapon they can use every 1d4 rounds that makes poo poo staggered and sickened. An imp can be invisible on demand, though it's not Greater Invisibility. It has a weak poison that scales with CON, is capable of speech, and it constantly has detect magic going. It can change shape into a boar or giant spider, which means it can be medium and capable of flanking with you. Quasits are basically like imps, but with a few differences. Taking a small Earth Elemental as a familiar would be interesting too, it could earthglide up behind an enemy through the floor to flank with you, and they're built to take hits and slam the poo poo out of things.
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Jan 30, 2014 23:25
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Inverse Icarus posted:The obvious improvement would be to use Improved Familiar to get something that can cast spells and turn itself invisible. The text of Improved Familiar calls for a certain arcane spellcaster level, not for a level in the class that grants the familiar, so I suspect that strictly speaking you can't take Improved Familiar on a carnivalist. Any reasonable DM would allow it, though.
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Jan 30, 2014 23:42
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Benly posted:The text of Improved Familiar calls for a certain arcane spellcaster level, not for a level in the class that grants the familiar, so I suspect that strictly speaking you can't take Improved Familiar on a carnivalist. Any reasonable DM would allow it, though. Edit:Got it! The blue ringed octopus has 9 attacks. Take two levels of rogue, maximize sneak attack through other classes. Rogue 2/x 3/assassin 9 gets 6d6 sneak attack for a total of 54d6 damage if they all hit. Only underwater of course. And he's tiny, so no reach. Anyone else have any thoughts on optimizing it? I can mix in a level of beast-bonded witch to transfer feats, too! Edit2: Oh my god the evolved familiar feat. I wonder how many tentacles I can give this little guy. Edit3: Familiar Figment! He'll be able to flank whenever he wants! This is amazing. He'll be a better assassin than me! Nihilarian fucked around with this message at 05:22 on Jan 31, 2014 |
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Jan 31, 2014 00:45
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Nihilarian posted:The Ninja even gets a Death Attack, except it only takes 1 standard action to study. I'd argue that the Monk's game is actually doing combat maneuvers like Disarm or Trip or Sunder and not Ki abilities.
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Jan 31, 2014 05:50
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Xelkelvos posted:I'd argue that the Monk's game is actually doing combat maneuvers like Disarm or Trip or Sunder and not Ki abilities. It would help if monks had any abilities that helped them do those things, or if those things were actually worth doing.
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Jan 31, 2014 06:03
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Yeah it would help if the Monk was actually any good at that. I know it isn't Pathfinder but I really like this reworked Monk someone made for 3.5. At first level it got something called Versatile Attack that lets it use Str or Dex for attack and damage of unarmed attacks and to all contested combat maneuvers (such as bull rush, disarm, grapple, overrun, sunder, or trip checks). At 3rd level it also gets Empty Strike which adds Wisdom modifier to attack and damage and to all contested combat maneuvers (such as bull rush, disarm, grapple, overrun, sunder, or trip checks). So by third level they could be using Dex+Wis or Str+Wis to attack and damage and to things like bull rush, grapple, trip, etc. It also has a bunch of other nice changes to monk including giving them an actual enhancement bonus to attack and damage. It looks really good and I want to try it in a game at some point, if anyone would actually allow homebrew.
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Jan 31, 2014 07:19
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Combat maneuvers are a problem with the whole system. Monsters tend to base their high attack modifiers on just BAB and ability scores, which give them a much higher CMB and CMD compared to the numbers normal humanoid PCs deal with. Additionally, monsters tend to be simply immune to maneuvers by nature of their form--you can't disarm a monster of their natural attacks, or trip a flying creature, and they also tend to be Large or larger, or have four legs (or no legs), further buffing their defenses. CMD becoems a lot more manageable when you're facing humanoid opponents, and it's irritating that an entire style of play can be so easily invalidated while staying within the same CR range simply by changing the type of opponent. The answer shouldn't be to buff the monk's maneuver bonuses to ridiculous levels either, because then they can just completely overwhelm humanoids by using the numbers appropriate for monsters (and half the time the monster is outright immune anyway). A better fix would be to flatten the maneuver system in general, with the expectation that PCs use (and have a right to use) maneuvers consistently, instead of having it as such a secondary concern to enemy design. But yeah, that monk is neat. I like flurry as an attack action (not even as a necessarily standard attack, allowing it to be used with Spring Attack etc).
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Jan 31, 2014 08:35
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zachol posted:Combat maneuvers are a problem with the whole system. Monsters tend to base their high attack modifiers on just BAB and ability scores, which give them a much higher CMB and CMD compared to the numbers normal humanoid PCs deal with. Additionally, monsters tend to be simply immune to maneuvers by nature of their form--you can't disarm a monster of their natural attacks, or trip a flying creature, and they also tend to be Large or larger, or have four legs (or no legs), further buffing their defenses. A fairly big part of this that you didn't even touch on is Size, as well. Bigger monsters take a hit to their regular AC and regular to-hit (and have high strength scores to help make up for it so that they can still hit the PCs without trouble), but their size adds to their combat maneuver stats on top of the huge attribute scores. And even if the player manages to optimize their CMB to overcome those inflated numbers, they can still run up against rules that simply prevent them from acting that maneuver on the enemy in the first place because the size difference is too great. It's an alternate play style for martial characters that could be really cool and interesting if only monster encounters were designed with anything but the most straightforward party compositions in mind.
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Jan 31, 2014 09:04
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Xelkelvos posted:I'd argue that the Monk's game is actually doing combat maneuvers like Disarm or Trip or Sunder and not Ki abilities. With so many dependent stats and Int a dump stat with Cha, they actually aren't much good at Disarm or Trip either, as they can't even access the full feat tree without archetypes.
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Jan 31, 2014 09:09
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MoonwalkInvincible posted:It's an alternate play style for martial characters that could be really cool and interesting if only monster encounters were designed with anything but the most straightforward party compositions in mind. I could see myself having a lot of fun playing a CMB-based monk in a short-running module where I was reasonably certain there would be a lot of run-of-the-mill humanoids. I ran Masks of the Living God a while back, and I really think you could go far in that module as a tripping/diarming monk.
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Jan 31, 2014 09:12
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Sunder is also just a dumb maneuver in general. If you use it against an NPC, you just destroyed loot you could have retrieved after the fight, so now you're set back thousands of gold. If an NPC uses it against you, you lose your magic item and even if you win the fight you're now set back thousands of gold. It's not even that great for either side when it comes to actually winning the combat; using it just ensures that post-combat the PC's end up poor.veekie posted:With so many dependent stats and Int a dump stat with Cha, they actually aren't much good at Disarm or Trip either, as they can't even access the full feat tree without archetypes. Speaking of archetypes, I was just looking over Maneuver Master's Flurry of Maneuvers and it seems oddly worse than the regular Flurry of Blows. You still use your 3/4 BAB for your regular iterative attacks, your bonus maneuvers get full BAB but suffer enormous penalties (-12 if you want to get all three extra maneuvers!), and if you want to make a maneuver in place of one of your regular iterative attacks, you suffer both the 3/4 BAB and the huge maneuver penalty. Am I reading this wrong or did they go out of their way to make this aggressively lovely?
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Jan 31, 2014 09:32
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Lottery of Babylon posted:Speaking of archetypes, I was just looking over Maneuver Master's Flurry of Maneuvers and it seems oddly worse than the regular Flurry of Blows. You still use your 3/4 BAB for your regular iterative attacks, your bonus maneuvers get full BAB but suffer enormous penalties (-12 if you want to get all three extra maneuvers!), and if you want to make a maneuver in place of one of your regular iterative attacks, you suffer both the 3/4 BAB and the huge maneuver penalty. They did yes. A regular Monk who somehow qualified(high stats, stat boost items) for Combat Expertise and Greater Trip would be better at combat maneuvers than the maneuver master as it can freely interchange flurry attacks with combat maneuvers and get full BAB anyway.
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Jan 31, 2014 09:38
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Lottery of Babylon posted:Sunder is also just a dumb maneuver in general. If you use it against an NPC, you just destroyed loot you could have retrieved after the fight, so now you're set back thousands of gold. If an NPC uses it against you, you lose your magic item and even if you win the fight you're now set back thousands of gold. It's not even that great for either side when it comes to actually winning the combat; using it just ensures that post-combat the PC's end up poor. Welcome to Pathfinder monks.
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Jan 31, 2014 09:39
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zachol posted:But yeah, that monk is neat. I like flurry as an attack action (not even as a necessarily standard attack, allowing it to be used with Spring Attack etc). Flurry as an attack action means infinite attacks. Flurry of blows is a full attack. Full attacks consist of multiple attack actions. Better to just reword Spring Attack to be identical to Flyby Attack except without the flying. Attack actions are one of the most idiotic and confusing (even to the Paizo staff) things Pathfinder introduced.
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Jan 31, 2014 09:42
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Piell posted:Welcome to Pathfinder monks. Don't get me wrong, I'm used to Pathfinder monks being useless - I was just shocked they would make such an obvious downgrade from the base monk. I guess I was surprised because I've seen Maneuver Master mentioned as a good monk archetype before, but I think the context must have been "good for a 2-level dip" rather than actually good as a class. Jesus though, -12?
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Jan 31, 2014 09:53
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Lottery of Babylon posted:Sunder is also just a dumb maneuver in general. If you use it against an NPC, you just destroyed loot you could have retrieved after the fight, so now you're set back thousands of gold. If an NPC uses it against you, you lose your magic item and even if you win the fight you're now set back thousands of gold. It's not even that great for either side when it comes to actually winning the combat; using it just ensures that post-combat the PC's end up poor. Sunder at least has the legitimately good Spell Sunder rage power attached to it to justify using it as a barbarian. Or you could find the nearest nerd and sunder his spell component pouch, I guess. The Crotch fucked around with this message at 10:35 on Jan 31, 2014 |
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Jan 31, 2014 10:18
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Lottery of Babylon posted:Don't get me wrong, I'm used to Pathfinder monks being useless - I was just shocked they would make such an obvious downgrade from the base monk. I guess I was surprised because I've seen Maneuver Master mentioned as a good monk archetype before, but I think the context must have been "good for a 2-level dip" rather than actually good as a class. When people say that "Pathfinder hates monks" they don't mean "monks aren't all that great in Pathfinder", they actually mean "the lead developer at Paizo literally hates the fact that monk is a class that exists in Pathfinder, and wants to actively punish anybody who dares to play one". Edit: That said, this... Ryuujin posted:I know it isn't Pathfinder but I really like this reworked Monk someone made for 3.5. ...looks pretty good, for a 3.5 core-class fix. It's no unarmed Swordsage, but then, what is? J. Alfred Prufrock fucked around with this message at 10:41 on Jan 31, 2014 |
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Jan 31, 2014 10:36
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Wait, Sundering actually completely destroys things? I always thought magic items retained their properties even if broken, unless they were atomised with Disintegrate or something afterwards, and could usually simply be fixed up with Mending, a 0th level/infinite spell for any caster. Or at least that's the impression I got from reading various Sunder builds, I didn't think it would be that punitive given its already poor utility. Regarding Monk's, I've heard fun things about Monk's tweaked towards combat manoeuvres, pinning dragons from midair being the highlight from my memory. Though I think that game had combat manoeuvres tweaked in some way as well. Isn't it SKR that hates monks? James Jacobs hates Gunslingers.
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Jan 31, 2014 11:01
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Nostalgia4ColdWar fucked around with this message at 03:55 on Mar 31, 2017 |
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Jan 31, 2014 16:04
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I like zachol's point about monsters and high CMD. I think it points to what the Monk could be, in contrast to other martial classes. If this distinction between BAB-vs-AC and CMB-vs-CMD is accentuated, you could imagine Monks as a sort-of specialized "anti-personnel" weapon that is strong vs NPCs and weak vs monsters. To achieve this balance, of course, you would need to rebalance such that the Monk is actually able to meet or exceed other martials in terms of damaging NPCs and have easy access to lockdown and battlefield manipulation when attacking via CMB. For instance, you give a free bonus to CMB that brings it up to full AB standards and matches the figher's weapon training, you give a free Su ability that counts the Monk's fists as Agile weapons, you make melee attacks works off CMB, and maybe you give a standard action combat maneuver that emulates a rogue's backstab. Summary: +1/2 Monk level insight bonus to CMB and CMD (to bring BAB in line with weapon-trained fighter with respect to CMs) fists count as Agile weapons, Weapon Finesse feat for free make melee attacks using CMB vs CMD Of course you still need to fix itemization to really bring the combat-maneuverist in line with a geared fighter, but basically you now have a martial class that controls and destroys humanoid NPCs via combat maneuvers at the expense of sucking vs higher CMD monsters.
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Jan 31, 2014 16:09
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J. Alfred Prufrock posted:Edit: That said, this... Made one of those myself some time back. Probably not the approach I'd have taken now, but the idea was to stick to a monk-like monk, keep it effective in the same sense as the barbarian or paladin rather than dramatically alter the play style.
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Jan 31, 2014 17:00
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Tarquinn posted:I don't think I've ever even heard of the classes you're talking about. They're in the Advanced Player's Guide. The Magus is a class that has a feature called "Spell Combat" which basically allows you to "Two-Weapon Fight" with a sword in one hand and a spell in the other, and at level 2 they can deliver any spells that require a touch attack through their sword, giving it a huge critical range. They also have a very buff and control-centric spell list that includes things like create pit and bull's strength, et cetera. The Summoner is basically a Wizard who has sacrificed some of his raw magical ability for a fully-customizable pet (think druid animal companion, only arcane in nature) called an Eidolon. The Summoner gets a pool of points to apply various "Evolutions" to the Eidolon, up to and including extra sets of arms/legs, extra natural attacks, extra magical damage dice, flight. pretty much anything you can think of. The Synthesist Archetype fuses the Eidolon and the Summoner, granting the SUMMONER all of the eidolon's physical stats as well as it's evolutions and hit dice. So a level 2 summoner would have 2d8+2d10+con*4 HP. As well as another very buff-centric and control based spell list. And "Summon Monster" is a class feature that lasts minutes/level instead of rounds/level. Not that any of that matters, since you're married to your concept(Which I totally respect, by the way). That said, if you're going for the faux-diplomat assassin, I would recommend going Fighter/Ninja instead of Fighter/Rogue. The Ninja has access to nearly all of the Rogue class features, as well as a myriad of abilities to make a fighter vastly more potent in melee. And for that I would recommend going up the TWF tree wielding a longsword (or a bastard sword if you want to spend the feat) in your main hand and a shortsword in your off hand, get your dex to a 17/19, wear light armor, and then focus on cranking your strength as high as possible for the damage output, unless you want to go the weapon finesse route, in which case you should use rapier and a dagger in the off-hand and commence the stabbin'.
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Jan 31, 2014 17:59
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Tactical Bonnet posted:Not that any of that matters, since you're married to your concept(Which I totally respect, by the way). That said, if you're going for the faux-diplomat assassin, I would recommend going Fighter/Ninja instead of Fighter/Rogue. The Ninja has access to nearly all of the Rogue class features, as well as a myriad of abilities to make a fighter vastly more potent in melee. And for that I would recommend going up the TWF tree wielding a longsword (or a bastard sword if you want to spend the feat) in your main hand and a shortsword in your off hand, get your dex to a 17/19, wear light armor, and then focus on cranking your strength as high as possible for the damage output, unless you want to go the weapon finesse route, in which case you should use rapier and a dagger in the off-hand and commence the stabbin'. If you can stomach 11 level of fighter, the Mobile Fighter and Dervish of Dawn archetypes provide pseudo-pounce.
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Jan 31, 2014 18:12
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Ambi posted:Wait, Sundering actually completely destroys things? You party should probably have someone capable of casting Make Whole if you want to smash stuff, which explicitly states that it restores magic properties to damaged/destroyed items.
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Jan 31, 2014 18:19
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50 Foot Ant posted:I've seen Sunder get a lot of work. There's the broken condition and the destroyed condition. Combat Maneuvers are often hard to do and not worth the reward, but sometimes they really break an encounter. I'm playing in Legacy of Fire, and it was alluded to several times that we would eventually be fighting this huge guy with a giant axe, so my Wizard made sure to slot True Strike and Pilfering Hand that day. Combat starts, I'm invisible. True Strike, wait, use Pilfering Hand to disarm with a +20 from 50' away, behind my more thuggish party members. Axe flies through the air and into my hands. That basically ruined the fight for the GM. The big guy with an axe didn't have his axe anymore, and there wasn't much else he could do. The GM wasn't too put off by it, but he was frustrated enough that I don't think I'll be doing that too often. I've never really run an CMB-based encounter for my party, other than grapplers and maybe a few trips. Even though Sundering and Disarming is only temporary, they both seem frustrating to play against for people who build their characters around weapon damage. Do people use Warp Wood to break their players' weapons? That seems like an easy way to piss of a bow-user.
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Jan 31, 2014 18:27
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Nihilarian posted:I agree with most of this, but you should probably use the same type weapon in both hands. Between feats that specify a single weapon and the fighter's weapon training ability, it'll probably be more effective to wield two shortswords than a longsword and a shortsword. Oh. Doing some reading, you're right. I thought the weapon training was categorized a little differently than it actually is.
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Jan 31, 2014 18:34
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Zurai posted:Flurry as an attack action means infinite attacks. Flurry of blows is a full attack. Full attacks consist of multiple attack actions. This might not have been clear. There are no infinite attacks. The monk I had linked, which I really want to try in a 3.5 or Pathfinder game, can use Flurry either on a Standard Attack or a Full Attack. They gain the normal extra attack will all attacks at -2 at 1st, with the penalty lessening as they level, level 5 and 9 I believe each reduce the penalty by 1, and at 11th they get a second extra attack from Flurry. All of that is I believe the same as normal Monks, the difference is they can use Flurry on a Standard Attack. It also specifically calls out certain feats. If they have those feats they can combine Flurry with them. These include the opportunity attack from Combat Reflexes and the one attack from things like Flyby Attack, Ride-By Attack, Shot on the run, Spring attack, or Swim-By Attack they can can combine flurry of blows with these feats to flurry on the move. If the monk obtains additional attacks via Bounding Assault or rapid Blitz, they gains the extra flurry attacks only once.
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Jan 31, 2014 18:39
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quote:unless you want to go the weapon finesse route, in which case you should use rapier and a dagger in the off-hand and commence the stabbin'. Ninjas don't get rapier proficiency, but they do get Wakizashi proficiency, which is actually better (1d6 18-20 x2 crit light weapon).
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Jan 31, 2014 19:01
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Inverse Icarus posted:I've never really run an CMB-based encounter for my party, other than grapplers and maybe a few trips. Even though Sundering and Disarming is only temporary, they both seem frustrating to play against for people who build their characters around weapon damage.
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Jan 31, 2014 19:04
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Grab -> Pin -> Hog-tie was about the only thing I ever did last time I played a monk. Just make sure you get some decent rope.
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Jan 31, 2014 19:06
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goatface posted:Grab -> Pin -> Hog-tie was about the only thing I ever did last time I played a monk. Just make sure you get some decent rope. Chain works good too.
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Jan 31, 2014 19:18
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Zurai posted:Flurry as an attack action means infinite attacks. Flurry of blows is a full attack. Full attacks consist of multiple attack actions. Haha, whoops. I should've caught that. I still think there's theoretically room for keeping the distinction,in terms of allowing certain maneuvers as attack actions and others only as standards, but allowing standard attacks for Spring Attack is probably a better fix.
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Jan 31, 2014 19:19
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RPZip posted:Ninjas don't get rapier proficiency, but they do get Wakizashi proficiency, which is actually better (1d6 18-20 x2 crit light weapon). Fighters do. Also, apparently a Fighter/ninja should totally dual wield wakizashis. Keen Wakizashis.
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Jan 31, 2014 19:25
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