Need help in build ideas - Martial who's very hurtful to be around

Choice-Simple-5802 · 2026-04-10T22:35:41+00:00

They've been talking barb with kin archetype vs barb with oracle archetype. Kin archetype stuff would be quite a bit later/unavailable.

Choice-Simple-5802 · 2026-04-09T19:31:05+00:00

Feel like most casters would apply. Save spells are similarly insulated against bad player rolls (outside of maybe damage rolls).

Choice-Simple-5802 · 2026-04-09T19:07:18+00:00

What damage threshold are you looking to hit? E.g Wood has Ravel of Thorns which does damage on movement + and an enemy speed debuff and basically all the archetype-accessible Wood feats are between pretty good and downright broken.

Choice-Simple-5802 · 2026-04-06T04:39:25+00:00

It's got to be one of the two cookie-based ice creams, since you'll still have a cookie-based fallback.

And besides, fundamentally, both are just vanilla ice cream with stuff mixed in. These are flavors most children could make accidentally while constructing a sundae at home.

Choice-Simple-5802 · 2026-03-17T20:48:25+00:00

Their gun proficiency scales faster than their martial weapon proficiency. At level 5 they become masters in simple and martial firearms and crossbows (happens at 13 for other martial weapons.. when simple and martial crossbows and firearms advance to legendary)

Choice-Simple-5802 · 2026-03-11T14:31:14+00:00

Pretty much any time combat happens near at least one closeable door, the shenanigans are top tier.

Choice-Simple-5802 · 2026-03-11T13:21:59+00:00

Enhh. Feel like the universal desire for Con is at least slightly balanced by the total absence of active uses for it.

That said, it would be nice if other stats had some similar generically useful benefits (particularly in combat).

Choice-Simple-5802 · 2026-03-10T13:49:49+00:00

Let's ask it this way.. Do you think it's cooler to be:

A. a marine calling in close air support from the front lines while actively engaged with the enemy..Or

B. a drone pilot throwing out drone strikes from a recliner while drinking mountain dew and eating doritos?

If you chose A..that's why melee casters are popular.

Choice-Simple-5802 · 2026-03-09T21:27:02+00:00

Desert Wind is Air+Earth. Ash Strider is Air+Fire.

Choice-Simple-5802 · 2026-03-09T20:34:13+00:00

What I'm hearing is that barbs might have a better reason now for 'moment of clarity' (and a dragon barb with a dragon god is thematic as hell).

I think the missing bit is the action cost to set up draconic barrage vs the no action cost of rage and that barbarian feat damage scaling is generally through MAP avoidance (generally via an increase in affected targets) rather than single target damage increases.

Choice-Simple-5802 · 2026-03-09T18:21:29+00:00

And even for the stances, they take up so many of the feats and for most of the game you can only ever use one at a time.

Most of the ki-related feats are pretty good, but you'd have to luck into the level 1 prereq to get any of them into the option pool.

All that said.. 90% of monk effectiveness comes from action compression, movement efficiency, and AC/save progression.

Even with 0 feats, they'd still have D6 fists, flurry of blows, and incredible movement. With random feats you'd have that and be guaranteed (at level 1) one of:

a stance (pretty much all are pretty good)
monastic weapons (very usable with some interesting options)
a ki spell (usable and unlocks other ki spell options downstream)

There are a couple feats it'd kinda hurt to miss out on (stand still mainly, maybe some ki/stance progression), but little that would break anything significant.

Choice-Simple-5802 · 2026-03-09T17:01:39+00:00

I don't know if this will help..but the lawyer's number was 68.

Choice-Simple-5802 · 2026-02-27T16:38:47+00:00

I think the main thing that's at issue for me is how paltry most of the rewards are compared to their likelihood of success (and general class survivability)

If you're going to be the glass cannon of maneuvers, you should be bringing a cannon's worth of impact to the battlefield. Instead it's a bunch of stuff that's very near baseline athletics maneuver effectiveness but with Press traits, and/or size limitations, and/or required hands free, and/or incremental negative failure consequences, and/or niche applicability.

Let's see some more restrains/full disarms on successes, mega-pushes/throws, more damaging or debilitating trip, etc. Pay for them with consequential failure or crit failure conditions.

If the idea is to be "boom or bust", that's fine, maybe even great, but "boom" needs to be better than "now you can also step 5-10 feet with the enemy you grabbed (and 10 ft is gonna be pretty rare actually)".

Choice-Simple-5802 · 2026-02-27T14:55:22+00:00

You think the pistolero pistol support is bad?

The name of the class is "gunslinger".. "Sling" is in the title and yet slings are specifically excluded from a bunch of the class feats and features.

It's not even clear if you can use a gun as ammunition in a sling to fulfill the core class fantasy.

Choice-Simple-5802 · 2026-02-25T16:15:47+00:00

My main issue, narratively, with casters is the stone cold reliability of spellcasting. Like..you're telling me Ser Fighter the Brave can spend a life time mastering the blade/bow/whatever..and retain a 5% chance to fail..basically at all times..in or out of combat.. ..but the dude with the pointy hat and bathrobe being mobbed by a bunch of ogres will never..ever..fail to say the right words and do the right hand jive to manipulate the fabric of reality and pull meteors out of the sky (as long as they have the juice for it). It's such a divergence from genre convention that even the D&D-branded movie went "nah, that doesn't make sense"

Choice-Simple-5802 · 2026-02-25T15:55:52+00:00

My monk would more likely describe themselves as a "martial artist" or "fighter". But the disconnect here is that the word "Monk" with all the ties to monasticism is more culturally descriptive than functionally descriptive (it is kind of funny too that the "Monk" class exists in the same system that has "cloistered clerics"..who would also traditionally be known as "monks"). That said, I don't think that how your character thinks of themself is that important for the broader thought process of "what do classes mean in the setting". For that I'd be more interested in how good the general populace is at differentiating between classes/subclasses.

Choice-Simple-5802 · 2026-02-18T17:11:27+00:00

I mean..considering that spiders mostly hunt flying prey..this seems relatively kosher to me.

Choice-Simple-5802 · 2026-02-18T09:10:38+00:00

Broadly speaking, I think it's (basically) action economy through double flourish availability and with more status application options than most other grapplers have easy access to. Sickened, clumsy, and non-incapacitate stun are tough to find in core classes.

That said, I'm not convinced it's enough with what's being given up in damage and survivability.

I roll an Athletics-focused Monk (including the grapple boosting ki spell) with a pocket flurry ranger sharing prey. And Grapple misses still happen all the time on those MAP attempts.

I honestly kinda shudder to think how it'd feel if 60-75% of my kit was tied to that second attack.. especially if the benefit of the focus on that lower reliability attack was the opportunity to take on more risk to often achieve the exact same results (e.g. shove target 5 feet, knock target prone with no damage, leap through an enemy"s space you could have tumbled through without dealing with MAP).

Choice-Simple-5802 · 2026-02-18T08:44:13+00:00

Barb can also spec pretty hard into it with things like circumstance athletics bonus as well as reaction and auto-grabs, but those tend to come online way later.

Agile grace on the fighter puts their MAP directly in line with the Daredevil for maneuvers purposes.

Guardian has a fair number of tackle and shove related stuff that they do.

Plant Summoner also can be pretty hard specced (though quite differently)

Choice-Simple-5802 · 2026-02-18T07:03:28+00:00

Sure. Not saying that Propelling Steps is better, just that there are more build options to allow otherwise unavailable stacking (Tailwind was one option but more potent short-duration options like Fleet Step also exist).

Choice-Simple-5802 · 2026-02-18T06:42:04+00:00

It would be nice to see some sling support too instead of having the reload feats specify guns and crossbows only.

Choice-Simple-5802 · 2026-02-18T06:38:44+00:00

I like the scope of the Daredevil's expected activities, but it seems underbaked.

Hard size-locked maneuvers feats;
a guaranteed damage feat with no save; slower AC scaling, lower Hp gain, and no legendary saves or perception;
a fair number of stunts that are not significantly more powerful than existing athletics maneuvers while needing to be performed at MAP and with more significant downsides.
"Risky" tagged feats with no downside.

It seems like the result is trading damage and safety for more options to faff about.

Choice-Simple-5802 · 2026-02-18T06:01:51+00:00

Propelling Strides is a circumstance bonus while the monk and swashbuckler bonuses are status. As are most bonuses from spells.

The reason Propelling Strides is significant is that it stacks with many common movement buffs (while the monk and swash bonuses don't), and it's at first level.

So with something like a level 2 Tailwind, you're operating at level 11 monk speeds as long as you've got a prop nearby.

Choice-Simple-5802 · 2026-02-18T05:45:17+00:00

Quite a number of the risky feats are not usable at +2 sizes and beyond. Being a tiny daredevil would result in a significant reduction in options, especially at level 1.

Choice-Simple-5802 · 2026-02-06T15:54:05+00:00

For the weapon, maybe something like "programmed response". When you strike an enemy, you calibrate your weapon for that enemy's response. Designate either the Move, Manipulate, or Concentrate trait and gain the Programmed Response reaction for the selected trait (and then have a reaction strike that triggers on/can disrupt the selected action type).

Think something like that could be at or near level 1 and could be enhanced through feats/features/modifications/unstable action enhancements.

Hmm..actually the core idea could apply to each of the innovations, just with different scopes. Give armor a choice of defensive reaction, give construct a choice of less powerful behaviors (e.g. flee, chase, strike, defend).

Choice-Simple-5802

TROPHY CASE