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Pathfinder: KingmakerNeed help with a build.(6 posts)(6 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted March 11, 2019
So I have seen that the exotic weapon artisian can make some pretty darn good Faucards and wanted to make a character around that weapon 1D10, reach and trip(not sure if trip feature is in game), but as I am not used to heavily specialized builds I wanted some tips on starting ability scores(to qualify for specific feats that is good for the weapon and so on) and what feats to take were thinking 18 two handed fighter, 1 vivisectionist for mutagen and SA, 1 thug perhaps for a focus on critting/fearing/tripping up your opponents, race human to get the feat train going quicker.

Order of levels would prob be 1-6 Two handed fighter for 2nd attack asap, 7 thug for frightening feature and 1d6 SA, 8 Vivisectionist for another SA and mutagen, 9-20 Two handed fighter.

So in short wanted help with starting abiltiy scores and feat selection for such a build. :)
Post edited March 11, 2019 by jimmybackman
Posted March 11, 2019
lets go over things you need to trip decently well:
1. A way of automatically trip with your attack. that could be done with monk feats, kineticist, aspect of the wolf.
-Given you want a weapon kineticist and monk don't fit in.
-We are left with ranger and druid or with manually spamming trip attempts which is real bad for fauchard user as it forces you into melee. 13+ lvls of ranger or lvl 9+ Druid.

2. We also acsees to all trip feats. There are 2 ways to go about it.
-13 int and combat expertise.
-A level of kinetic knight

3. As much CMB as we can get.
-2HF would help us with AB and damage, but is utterly useless in terms of CMB as we are not gonna sunder or disarm.
-What we actually can do it to take Hungerseed for +2 CMB.
-Fauchards are Str weapons, so you gotta max your STR as that helps with CMB as well.
-Some Dex and Fury's Fall
-All General trip Feats

4. A way to proc your Tandem Trip.
- Level 3 sacred huntsmaster(or regular inquisitor)
- Taking tandem trip on everyone in the party(unrealistic)
- A lot of Master Tactician levels

6. AC or not to AC. If you want AC you need:
-Wings
-LG monk robes and bonuses along with crane style
-Mutagen

Generally speaking trip with weapons is pretty meh as it forces you to use it manually for most of the game. Even worse with reach weapons cause it forces you into 5ft range no matter your actual reach and pole users generally prefer to stay back. So for Trip Fauchard user you will likely want to abuse a level of monk monk AC as that will net you around 50 AC much unlike armor. The question of ranger/druid as a main class is up to you as you will not see aspect of the wolf for most of the game anyways, but at least you would get a leopard or a doggo.

If I absolutely had to do a conventional trip build I'd go for Druid 9/Sacred 3/Monk 1 as a base cause it would at least present the bonuses in a reasonable time-frame and net at least some AC and probably 3 levels of 2HF to soup up those AoO or just continue with a druid. On the theory-crafting level Ranger14/Sacred 3/2HF 3 looks amazing, and would would work nicely if only you got 20 well before the end of campaign. Alas, this is not the case and most people should aim for 16-18 lvls, so ranger would start auto-tripping in the house for most people.

For reference check Tripping balls. It's a shifter druid, but the baseline Idea is the same.

PS I wonder what Roahin has to say about it, as he played a lot more trip builds than I did.
Post edited March 11, 2019 by InEffect
Posted March 15, 2019
A lot of good advice.

But one method of reliably auto-tripping is missing: bite attacks and Cloak of the Winter Wolf (available as early as start of Act 2).

You'd probably want to start with a Motherless Tiefling, as that's a permanent free bite attacks.
But you can actually get more and they stack (whether intentionally or as a bug)!

1. Vivisectionist can get a bite at level 2 with Feral Mutagen Discovery (as well as Claws, 4 max AB attacks with sneak attack damage bonus at that level are just insane, particularly for a Strength build, who doesn't need to care about dex to damage bonus). At level 4 mutagen lasts 40 minutes already, which is enough to carry you trough most locations (and you can get some more Discoveries with more levels, like resistance to critical hits/sneak attacks). I actually like to take at least 12 Vivi levels for the Greater Mutagen, Improved Invisibility, Echolocation, Haste, Shield, +5 Nat AC Barkskin (and Trips will benefit both from Str and Dex bonuses it can offer).

2. Dragon Disciple gets a bite attack at level 2 (contrary to PnP sources, its permanent here). Again the bonus Str from 4 levels can be put to good use. Bonus AC and high HPs won't hurt either. You also get a free feat at level 2.
You need another class to qualify though. My pick is Archeologist Bard. With 2 levels you get Uncanny Dodge, which is very useful in Kingmaker, particularly end-game. If you already have 10 levels of Vivi you can get Opportunist as your bonus Bard Talent. Also with Archaeologist 2 / DD 4 you will be able to cast Mirror Image, which is a great defensive boon. Plus you can use a luck boost to many stats for a few rounds per day.

3. The we have Barbarian, who can get Beast Totem powers as his Rage powers at level 2. They are active only while raging. Having a 4th Bite attack (and trip attempt) would be nice, but a Barbarian is not compatible with monks alignment wise and I want those monk defenses, so personally I skipped it.

Your Artisans (Varrask maybe?) can also deliver you a breastplate that lets you cast Aspect of the Wolf 1/day. It lasts for 10 minutes AFAIR. Not very long, but in general investing in Druid/Ranger mainly for tripping is not worth it IMO.

But your fauchard weapon choice for a tripping machine was spot-on!
Mid game Serpent Prince is the best damage dealing weapon (unless you metagame and get certain end-game loot very early, then it's more like... second best).

But late game (Act 4 in my case, but I got lucky), Sahiya can make the +5 Mastery fauchard for you. And it's crazy in combination with a tripper. It offers +5 CMB/CMD, grants Freedom, makes you immune to enemy trips and bullrushes and most importantly, it deals normal damage whenever you land a combat maneuver.
So say, you have 3 Mastery fauchard attacks (maybe 5 if hasted and with Transformation spell), then 3 bite attacks (probably with sneak damage bonus, if you went for Vivi). Each bite attempts a trip with the Cloak of Winter Wolf and when you succeed, Mastery deals its damage to that enemy too (no attack roll!). The caveat is that you can't trip an enemy who is already prone, but if you manually switch to another target in range, you can trip up to 3 enemies in a round (and deal double damage to them too). If they survive (a big if), when they get up, they will obviously provoke an AoO from all allies in range too. More is of course possible, if you for example trigger Aspect of the Wolf from the breastplate. Or went Barbarian too.

Note Mastery also allows you to damage enemies you can't reliably hit due to inflated ACs (like the dragon) if you can beat their CMD, as the regular (non-bite) Combat Maneuvers ignore AC. Of course this means only 1 attacks per round (plus AoOs), instead of 7-11.

Most notable buffs are Legendary Proportions (+6 Str, +2 size bonus to CMB) and Transformation (gives full BAB, but it's a level 6 spell for Vivi, so would need 16 Vivi levels, a short effect can be gotten from an end-game longsword from Nazrielle). A bit of a trade off there - do you want permanent bonus bite attacks and trips and boosts with Dragon Disciple or level 6 spells from Vivi - where Transformation would temporarily offer +5 AB and an extra regular attack (plus Grand Mutagen, which kind of balances the stat DD boosts - less Str, more Dex and Con).
Post edited March 15, 2019 by Haplok
Posted March 15, 2019
avatar
Haplok: A lot of good advice.

But one method of reliably auto-tripping is missing: bite attacks and Cloak of the Winter Wolf (available as early as start of Act 2).

You'd probably want to start with a Motherless Tiefling, as that's a permanent free bite attacks.
But you can actually get more and they stack (whether intentionally or as a bug)!

1. Vivisectionist can get a bite at level 2 with Feral Mutagen Discovery (as well as Claws, 4 max AB attacks with sneak attack damage bonus at that level are just insane, particularly for a Strength build, who doesn't need to care about dex to damage bonus). At level 4 mutagen lasts 40 minutes already, which is enough to carry you trough most locations (and you can get some more Discoveries with more levels, like resistance to critical hits/sneak attacks). I actually like to take at least 12 Vivi levels for the Greater Mutagen, Improved Invisibility, Echolocation, Haste, Shield, +5 Nat AC Barkskin (and Trips will benefit both from Str and Dex bonuses it can offer).

2. Dragon Disciple gets a bite attack at level 2 (contrary to PnP sources, its permanent here). Again the bonus Str from 4 levels can be put to good use. Bonus AC and high HPs won't hurt either. You also get a free feat at level 2.
You need another class to qualify though. My pick is Archeologist Bard. With 2 levels you get Uncanny Dodge, which is very useful in Kingmaker, particularly end-game. If you already have 10 levels of Vivi you can get Opportunist as your bonus Bard Talent. Also with Archaeologist 2 / DD 4 you will be able to cast Mirror Image, which is a great defensive boon. Plus you can use a luck boost to many stats for a few rounds per day.

3. The we have Barbarian, who can get Beast Totem powers as his Rage powers at level 2. They are active only while raging. Having a 4th Bite attack (and trip attempt) would be nice, but a Barbarian is not compatible with monks alignment wise and I want those monk defenses, so personally I skipped it.

Your Artisans (Varrask maybe?) can also deliver you a breastplate that lets you cast Aspect of the Wolf 1/day. It lasts for 10 minutes AFAIR. Not very long, but in general investing in Druid/Ranger mainly for tripping is not worth it IMO.

But your fauchard weapon choice for a tripping machine was spot-on!
Mid game Serpent Prince is the best damage dealing weapon (unless you metagame and get certain end-game loot very early, then it's more like... second best).

But late game (Act 4 in my case, but I got lucky), Sahiya can make the +5 Mastery fauchard for you. And it's crazy in combination with a tripper. It offers +5 CMB/CMD, grants Freedom, makes you immune to enemy trips and bullrushes and most importantly, it deals normal damage whenever you land a combat maneuver.
So say, you have 3 Mastery fauchard attacks (maybe 5 if hasted and with Transformation spell), then 3 bite attacks (probably with sneak damage bonus, if you went for Vivi). Each bite attempts a trip with the Cloak of Winter Wolf and when you succeed, Mastery deals its damage to that enemy too (no attack roll!). The caveat is that you can't trip an enemy who is already prone, but if you manually switch to another target in range, you can trip up to 3 enemies in a round (and deal double damage to them too). If they survive (a big if), when they get up, they will obviously provoke an AoO from all allies in range too. More is of course possible, if you for example trigger Aspect of the Wolf from the breastplate. Or went Barbarian too.

Note Mastery also allows you to damage enemies you can't reliably hit due to inflated ACs (like the dragon) if you can beat their CMD, as the regular (non-bite) Combat Maneuvers ignore AC. Of course this means only 1 attacks per round (plus AoOs), instead of 7-11.

Most notable buffs are Legendary Proportions (+6 Str, +2 size bonus to CMB) and Transformation (gives full BAB, but it's a level 6 spell for Vivi, so would need 16 Vivi levels, a short effect can be gotten from an end-game longsword from Nazrielle). A bit of a trade off there - do you want permanent bonus bite attacks and trips and boosts with Dragon Disciple or level 6 spells from Vivi - where Transformation would temporarily offer +5 AB and an extra regular attack (plus Grand Mutagen, which kind of balances the stat DD boosts - less Str, more Dex and Con).
bite forces you into 5ft melee, so reach from fauchards will be useless. AC of about 50-ish is doable on str 2h melees, granted you abuse monk stuffs, but I don't think this is what he had in mind.
Also afaik bite attacks are limited to 1 per round no matter how many sources of that you have by pnp rules at least. Never bothered to test how it works in this one.
Post edited March 15, 2019 by InEffect
Posted March 15, 2019
Buffed its more like 60-ish AC for two-handed.

And number of bite attacks is not capped here. Each triggers a trip (if the enemy is not already prone), which if succeeds, also deals Mastery damage.
Post edited March 15, 2019 by Haplok
Posted March 15, 2019
well yeah I guess you could use fauchard like a stat stick pretty much. 5ft bite reach will be pita, but at least with 6 alchemist you get wings with it as well.
so, if we metagame and forget about the RP at all, not even thematically... I guess one can say it simulates wild barbarian hunter that is savvy with herbs and fights with his pet wolf wearing pretty much nothing, except for the alignment shift.
I mean It can be justified as assuming responsibility and alignments are BS anyways.

So, be motherless tiefling, start with 5 levels of mad dog, getting bite at 4th level, while shifting towards lawful, pick up 6 levels of vivisectionist for bite and wings, add 3 sacred huntsmaster for pet bonuses, 1 level of monk for unarmored AC and LG robes(taken the moment you get the robes) and maybe 3 levels of 2hf for the damage(probably not, as it will cut into the pet too much). Seems pretty legit and will have a decent pet with a talent. Probably should pick a wolf for the strength and carry weight.

this is interesting enough. I might formalize it and add it to the guide when I have time.

UPD.
Bite-barian(DLC)
Post edited March 18, 2019 by InEffect
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Pathfinder: KingmakerNeed help with a build.(6 posts)(6 posts)
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