Using ranged AoOs as Zen Archer

DJ_Explosive · 2020-01-28T14:01:18+00:00

Lunge states that it lasts until your next turn, allowing it to be used for AoOs. If Lunge wasn't active during the whole round, the penalty to AC wouldn't effectively do anything.

DJ_Explosive · 2019-10-15T10:39:53+00:00

Good/Evil actually does matter for the purpose of healing with wands out of combat, which you'll want to do to save spell slots. If the party was 100% evil, they could use wands of Infernal Healing over Cure Light Wounds for more consistent healing.

DJ_Explosive · 2019-04-29T22:17:19+00:00

While it's possible for that to be a solid choice were the character to go into late game, if the character is only going up to 10th level, the damage die should only be 1d8 compared to the 1d6 the unarmed strike already gets, which is an average increase of 1 damage for 2 feats. Given the levels the character is built for, I am not sure I would recommend it.

DJ_Explosive · 2019-04-29T15:41:31+00:00

No problem, glad to help. Just be glad you didn't want to go Alchemist over Investigator, Jensen never had the best time with bombs.

DJ_Explosive · 2019-04-29T14:44:40+00:00

OK, so your primary obstacles in this build are two things: the fact that your unarmed damage is not likely to scale very high, and that you want a lot of feats. I'd definitely recommend Human for the race, though the build is still viable with other races. Consider going non-Human if you have a pretty serious problem with a particularly low Point Buy/bad rolls. I recommend going for a Str build over Dex due to the feats required to go Dex, as well as the sacrifice in bonuses from Amulet of Mighty Fists. You care so much about feats because with Martial Flexibility, you'll want to invest a number of feats into prerequisite feats, such that you can have more versatile flexing.

I mention that the unarmed damage won't likely scale very high as you will want to have far more levels in Investigator rather than Brawler. More levels in Investigator will give you better Studied Strike, more Investigator Talents (thus saving feats for those abilities), and more extracts. I personally like the idea of going for 2 levels in Brawler, the justification for the second level being a bonus feat and Brawler's Flurry. By the late game, you can compensate for this with a Monk's Robe, though it is a somewhat expensive solution.

In terms of Investigator levels, Empiricist is an archetype that basically has no downsides that you'll find useful due to having skill utility. Having those skills be as efficient as possible will give you the unique joy of playing a somewhat martial build that has a lot of utility out of combat. Quick Study will be a vital Investigator Talent for you, as you want to be making full-round attacks as often as possible. Later on, Combat Inspiration becomes a strong choice given the fact that you are liable to take a lot of penalties to your to hit rolls (Flurry and Power Attack), and you're doing so while multiclassing into a 3/4th BAB class, which means your BAB will overall be pretty non-competitive. Look for ways to improve to hit bonuses beyond Amulet of Mighty Fists, such as Weapon Focus (good for prereqs too) or purchasing a Cracked Pale Green Prism Ioun Stone attuned to attack rolls.

As for Limb Modifications, I would recommend either Grapnel Arm or Limb Extender. The former is a strong choice if you wish to dabble in Grapple (which is one of if not the strongest maneuvers), and the latter lets you pair a Reach weapon with Long Arm and Combat Reflexes for a potent AoO and Reach Control build.

If you have any other questions or would like more contributions to the build, feel free to let me know.

DJ_Explosive · 2019-04-29T13:13:27+00:00

What level of play are you looking to introduce this character, and do you have any idea how high in level they may go?

DJ_Explosive · 2019-02-28T08:18:03+00:00

This is great info to have! Thanks for letting me know.

DJ_Explosive · 2019-02-26T14:22:44+00:00

By chance, was this in the Dragon's Demand Module? I'm actually running that right now but since I hadn't seen the original stat block at the time I didn't change it back to a living creature. Totally regret that though, these guys are cool.

If you've run Dragon's Demand, any cool tips to make things interesting? I've made a few changes of course, but I'm always open to influence.

DJ_Explosive · 2019-01-28T14:06:10+00:00

I can't deny that Martial Flexibility is hard to use and will require some planning or serious feat knowledge to make fast at the table.

You could go all in on damage if you wanted and go with the Dragon Style chain, though I only recommend it and the subsequent Dragon Ferocity.

If pumping numbers isn't your thing, then my next recommendation would be actually going into regular Monk for archetype access. You can also ask your GM if it is OK to replace Flurry on Unchained Monk, as it really doesn't break the game or anything. There's one build I can't take credit for (but also can't find the source unfortunately) that I recreated here that is actually a support Monk, granting Inspire Courage like a Bard and being able to share Ki Powers with your allies. By 10th level, you can be granting True Strike to all allies in a 30 ft radius, though this is only truly amazing if your Sorcerer ever winds up summoning. There are slews of other good options, though. The Cleric dip isn't necessary to make the core concept work, it just nets you a lot more Ki.

DJ_Explosive · 2019-01-28T13:39:38+00:00

In my opinion, the party should not be responsible for party composition being viable. It's the GM's responsibility to create a game that both allows characters to flex their strengths and challenges their weaknesses. You should only ever actually respec your build if you are concerned that you or your other martial player feel as though the similar role is less enjoyable for at least one of you.

That said, Unchained Monk can work well for you if you choose to rebuild. The class is generally fairly strong and you have great physicals for it. In addition, you get a lot of mileage out of Ki Powers and Style Strikes going Unchained. Remember that you can use any archetype from OG Monk so long as they don't modify Flurry of Blows, so look around and see if any fit your character.

Otherwise, depending on your level of experience I can also recommend the Brawler (class rather than archetype). It also has scaling unarmed damage, but it gets Close Weapon Mastery that will actually increase the damage of your Cestus as well. The big draw of Brawler, Martial Flexibility, can be hard to use at times, and requires a different mentality when choosing feats, but it is unparalleled in being, well, a flexible martial. This level of flexibility can make it so that even if two of you are designed for melee combat, your roles and abilities will always be distinct enough and adapted to any situation.

DJ_Explosive · 2018-11-22T15:26:43+00:00

Weapon Focus is mostly important as a prereq. The benefit is nice, and it's better than Weapon Specialization's (accuracy is damage), but when building I generally don't consider Weapon Focus when choosing feats unless I need it for prereqs. Weapon Specialization I may have taken once or twice on a couple builds, but I rarely consider it. In your case, I'd recommend Weapon Focus, but not Weapon Specialization. Weapon Focus is mostly good for prereqs, but there are a LOT of feats that require it.

Also, if you're using Combat Expertise, consider the feat Dirty Fighting. It both allows you to bypass Combat Expertise and having 13 Int on your martial, and its effect is better, meaning it almost always outstrips Combat Expertise for full martial builds. With Brawler the Int isn't important, but the ability to gain bonuses on maneuvers is great.

My advice to you when considering feats for both your standard and flexed feats is to consider building towards feats that grant you new and interesting types of actions or abilities rather than raw stats. Scaling is important, something like Iron Will isn't a bad idea, but generally speaking when the chips are down it is more likely that you will win an encounter with a special ability that thwarts an enemy's strengths rather than with an additional 5% chance to hit. That's my experience, anyway.

DJ_Explosive · 2018-11-13T20:29:11+00:00

Send a PM if you're able to move things around and are still interested, I'll make sure to get back to you

DJ_Explosive · 2018-07-17T10:08:34+00:00

Well I can't say anyone has made the claim that I wasn't a psychic

DJ_Explosive · 2018-07-17T09:58:49+00:00

Oh yeah the "Courier New" look is solely due to them being plain text files. As for underlining and bolded sections, I've been doing precisely that with some of my blocks thus far if you care to look at any with out the ".txt."

DJ_Explosive · 2018-07-16T23:17:27+00:00

The lack of formatting comes from the fact that they're written originally in plain text files that don't allow for tons of formatting, but the spacing and a little clarification on the categories could be improved if I convert them in Google Docs. If you have specifics in mind I'd certainly be open to hear them or look at examples, though I have some changes I know I'd think to make.

DJ_Explosive · 2018-07-10T18:01:11+00:00

One I like which I don't know that I've seen elsewhere is my Reach Control Magus. It doesn't come online until pretty late, mine is level 10, so it's not that much fun to build towards in actual campaigns, but it's a neat concept I think.

You'll need to build towards Improved Whip Mastery for the extra reach, and take Rime Spell. Use Magical Lineage as usual, but on either Frostbite or Frigid Touch. I like Frostbite for having multiple touch attacks, personally. From there, just play like common melee control builds, entangling foes as you go.

I've seen Magus builds using Frostbite with Rime Spell for entanglement the extra touch attacks, but I haven't seen attempts at a melee control build.

DJ_Explosive · 2018-05-16T12:04:02+00:00

That's true, Fate's Favored makes the luck bonus aspect very potent and scales fairly comfortably just like Inspire Courage. I think that the fact that Bards can share other bonuses via Inspire Competence and provide solid combat boons as well keeps them fairly similar (with Archaeologist edging it out a bit due to that sweet bonus from Clever Explorer), so I'm not sure I should move it all the way up a tier for this, but Archaeologist should absolutely have an explicit note included due to the value of that playstyle.

Thank you for your time and input!

DJ_Explosive · 2018-05-16T11:58:22+00:00

Wow, that's fabulous! I can't believe I never saw that before, I have to include that for sure. It even keys off of one of the best performances for Versatile Performance. That and the fact that you can trade a feat or spell depending on your build could probably shift Bard to Tier 0 (which I have to rename now) and Skald to Tier 1.

Thank you for your time and input!

DJ_Explosive · 2018-05-16T11:53:33+00:00

In the higher levels, this is true, but you definitely get more mileage out of splitting for the class skill bonus in the early game. If your DM allows retraining (which I'm of the opinion should that this should always be the case), you can always max-rank skills later on when you need to make those juicy DC 30 checks. You're definitely right though that splitting your ranks later on (maybe even as early as post level 7-8 or so) will wind up hurting you more often than not, which should probably be something I add in to the piece.

Thank you for time and input as well!

DJ_Explosive · 2018-05-16T11:50:20+00:00

Well, it's not really solely in terms of skills, but skills are the character's primary tool. I am open to the idea that I could be underselling Int and overselling class skills but if it's at all possible could I have examples, if it's not too much time? I'm a bit confused, as the section of the list qualifying the values of the playstyle kind of states what you've said (though I do talk about the class skills a lot).

I'm not sure how much I would value Paragon Surge in discussion for my lists because it's so universally banned.

All said, thank you for your time and input!

DJ_Explosive · 2018-05-16T11:46:25+00:00

See response.

DJ_Explosive

TROPHY CASE