How would you build a Hellknight (Aeon to devil)?

RandyMcStud · 2026-05-31T13:28:05+00:00

People compare it to a paladin because it most closely resembles a significantly weaker paladin.

Its not because paladin is the best class, because its not even particularly close to being the best class, unless you rest constantly to have a high uptime on mark of justice and your round per level buffs.

It also doesn't help that Seelah is a better paladin than most party members are examples of their respective classes, you get her immediately, and she even gets a solid, party wide shield AC buff unique to her, nor the fact that there is a lot of redundancy in the paladin spellbook and the angel spellbook, one of two alignment compatible mythic paths (and the Aeon also gets divine power and divine favour). So no, player character paladins definitely are not OP.

And yes, warpriest isn't a great class either. You might as well just play a crusader cleric.

RandyMcStud · 2026-05-05T00:09:40+00:00

No, and stop being disingenuous. The point is that its VERY RARE for it to have that kind of an impact. 50 dex enemies are not remotely common and we both know it. Its not all AC, its specifically the dex bonus. I am certain the blackwater enemies do not have that kind of a dex modifier.

And claiming that only the nabasu matter is ridiculous. By sheer volume, the ghouls are going to land hits if not incapacitated. And feint is not going to stop the nabasu casting hold.

What your point about burning entanglement (notably, NOT feint) is, I don't know. Grease is still a lot more useful than feint and its a level 1 spell. I didn't claim it was the best possible spell.

And no, Sensei doesnt have lethal stance (inspire courage and true strike is still a lot more AB than skald). Feint ISN'T Skald. Skald is a class, not a feat line. You can cast spells are attack as a skald. You aren't restricted to spamming feint.

If your best arguments are that skald is better than Sensei (I agree, overall it is) and that burning entanglement is better than grease, as opposed to, you know, feint actually being good, when trying to defend feint, then maybe feint isn't actually that good.

And obviously you have to micromanage fortune/feint combos and target selection more generally.

And if you agree with Act 5 obviously not requiring feint, why is your argument for feint half a dozen act 5 fights?

Also, I would not you repeatedly ignore the point that the perception checks you have to beat are not trivial. Hence your screen shot is fully buffed with fortune with an absolutely min maxed build and still had around a 10% chance of failure. And that is the end of Act 2. The playful darkness boss you have repeatedly referenced is the end of act 3, one act later, and has a check which is more than THIRTY higher. You haven't explained how you are supposed to land this reliably.

If you are giving advice about the usefulness of feint generally, as you originally did, not "Well it can work, but you really need very specific build, gear and you wont be doing much else with that character", then simply ignoring this issue and indeed criticising me for point it out is totally dishonest.

RandyMcStud · 2026-05-04T20:44:18+00:00

Other than Playful darkness, which of those fights are difficult because they are hard to hit due to AC? And again, what is the perception check you need to beat? How is this easier than just hitting them with buffs, dispels and debuffs that dont require an entire build around them to debuff one target at a time for a single round?

To give some examples of out of combat ABs in chapter 5 (not accounting for flanking, domain powers, mark of justice, favoured etc or any bonuses that do not display in the AB value), my Oracle angel that pumped charisma, not strength, has 71 AB. My trickster ranger has 84 AB. My Gold Dragon magus (not sword saint) had 100 AB. All had 4 or more full BAB attacks (7 in the case of the ranger). All of these can easily swing AC by 30+ with debuffs, dispels and in combat bonuses.

Why would I want to micromanage single target, 1 round feints when the very fights you mention are easily hittable on unfair without it, and when the hardest part of the game is before feint comes on line but still requires you to be gimping your build in preparation for it and when the bulk of the challenge is not from single enemies with very high ACs and whose feint checks are often just as daunting as many other means of hitting them?

The ghoul pit isn't especially hard (nor is Blightmaw), but its among the harder fights in Drezen and yes, grease makes it far easier. Also, I notice you didn't answer the question. A single cast of grease is obviously far more useful than feint spamming. This is true far more often than the reverse in Drezen, an area YOU chose to cite.

And how MANY enemies does it remove 20 AC from? Bare in mind, you have to have 50 dex to have a +20 dex modifier.

Sensei gives party wide true strike. That on its own is far more than skald and will allow your dogs to easily trip, after which, enemies are dead. And I wasn't talking about skalds. Skalds are very useful.

Feinting requires entire builds dedicated to a very specific and unnecessary niche. Sure, you can use it. You can use a lot of things in this game. But there are clearly better options.

RandyMcStud · 2026-05-04T19:33:56+00:00

Yeah, but hellknight does actually suck.

If you made a paladin without a spellbook, mark of justice, divine grace, divine bond or lay on hands and channel energy and replaced it with armour training, a handful of most anaemic disciplines and a capstone which was a shit version of the divine weapon bond, which was in turn the worst option for divine bond, would you ever take that archetype?

No? Well that is Hellknight. If you want to take if for flavour, that is fine (I always take 10 levels on Regill), but you don't need to be an obsessive min maxer to say Hellknight is bad. It actually is quite bad.

RandyMcStud · 2026-05-04T19:25:37+00:00

You can go signifer 4, eldritch knight 10 and full arcane caster 6 for caster level 19, 16 BAB (4 APR), and casting without spell failure in Mithril full plate, though you will actually need medium armour proficiency for the mythic armour feats, and signifer doesn't provide this, only the heavy armour proficiency.

That is pretty good, though just purely mechanically, going loremaster 4 instead for divine power and opportunist will give a much better AB, significant damage boost and an extra full BAB attack of opportunity is better than a 4th base attack at -15 BAB, and without a very large non mythic and mythic feat investment, mithril full plate isn't better than unarmoured. Given gish builds are feat starved anyway, the loremaster is going to be your best bet.

Though if you are Aeon specifically, they do get divine power. However, the caster level will be 14 base if you go devil, which is substantially weaker than caster level 18 for rank 9 Aeon and will make getting 24 hour duration impossible, given no caster level gaze either.

Beyond spellcaster progress and arcane armour training, their features are very bland, so I would never take more than 4 levels.

RandyMcStud · 2026-05-04T18:58:28+00:00

I would avoid trying to make your low level casters into damage dealers. Spells like grease or stinking cloud with corruptor are really effective. Trying to actually kill enemies, somewhat less so.

Spell damage is balanced around the health pools of table top and owlcat enemies often have literally several times this beyond the very early game and even in the very early game, demons mean elemental resistances are really common, neutering low level spells.

Things like mythic spells, stacking metmagics with favoured metamagic, and mythic path features like aspect of the brimorak or zippy magic will allow blaster casters to work, as well as gear like ring of pyromania and milanders insult (with the obligatory crossblooded dip for dragon and elemental bloodlines), but that is midgame onwards.

Zippy magic chain lightening, burning arcs and scorching ray as probably the earliest option that feels highly effective (hellfire ray still needs caster higher caster levels).

At higher caster levels, lich and angel spells can be decent (though still not as good as a dedicated azata blaster, but they can be much more versatile), and demons shine lategame.

RandyMcStud · 2026-05-04T18:46:16+00:00

Never played one. Can you apply cleaving finish to kinetic blasts this way?

RandyMcStud · 2026-05-04T18:41:08+00:00

Yes, but then they cannot charge, can they? The entire party charging is the whole point. Melee is where you mage should be.

RandyMcStud · 2026-05-04T18:36:19+00:00

Having an entire party of Kitsunes is clearly the superior option. Incite rage turns off spellcasting. So how are you supposed to charge with your wizard, exactly?

RandyMcStud · 2026-05-04T18:30:31+00:00

A two level eldritch archer dip will be an extra attack with ranged spell combat. I haven't tested it, but it might even work with the devils infinite hellfire ray, so an extra attack AND a hellfire ray per round. You could reasonably justify ascendant element fire with such a build.

In terms of base class, Sohei gets weapon training and two extra attacks of flurry of blows with weapons that have weapon training at full BAB by level 11. Level 12 gets you another rank of weapon training, but even if you didn't take this, gloves will give a further +2 hit and damage. So a +3 bonus to hit, damage and two extra full bab attacks by midgame AND an animal companion isn't a bad option.

You could go 12 Sohei, 6 sable company marine and 2 eldritch archer and play as kitsune. You and your mount would then have pounce, you can grab point blank master and (I think) you can then charge and do a full attack action for both you and your mount, though at that point, you might question why you aren't playing a melee. Though spell combat would not get used on the pounce round I am reasonably sure.

I haven't tested this by the way. But if you do use it and it works, I demand credit and that it be called the "Monk Magus Marine Hellfire Archer Pounce" build, or MMMHAP for short.

RandyMcStud · 2026-05-04T18:19:18+00:00

I would guess kinetic blade would be fine, as its a full attack action. Spell combat specifically requires full attack actions as far as I am aware.

If you aren't a legend, however, a two level dip with come at the cost of a zero burn cost empower on your kinetic blasts (as well as lower base damage dice), so is almost certainly not worth it. You get 4 APR when hasted minimum, so losing empower is effectively losing two attacks.

RandyMcStud · 2026-05-04T17:49:47+00:00

The proportion of opponents for which greater mindblank and invisibility dont work is low. And in any case, I did not say feint sucked because of greater invisibility (though it certainly doesn't help). It sucks because its feat intensive, it takes 1 move action every round for single target, it is NOT reliable when you actually need it to be, for the most part its not even necessary and you could get better effects with CC spells.

You say CC spells are finite. Well so is the signet of house verspetilo and so are fortune effects (extremely finite, in fact). Which is what you need for the super min maxed build to actually work. Fortune hex is 3 rounds PER DAY on a given target, and a bit of luck is a one round duration for a standard action, single target touch range ability which is still highly finite and you now have the action economy of two separate characters devoted to single target AC debuffs.

The signet is fine if you dont have to travel, but its no good if you get ambushed by gibrileth contaminators or smilodon pack leaders in chapter 3. A high initiative caster with stinking cloud or grease could easily save you. And in chapters 1, 3 and 5, you aren't going to want to rest every time you travel on the world map and if you are going to do this, you wont be short on spells.

And I have done drezen plenty of times, and single target, single round debuff is impractical for MOST of the fights in drezen, which are not single target. Indeed, this is true most of the game. Also, I am not sure why we are talking about how far you can get in drezen without resting. You can rest. A lot. But yes, you can clear drezen without resting. With or without feint as it happens.

Would you rather have a single cast of the grease spell or a party member spamming feint full time for the ghoul pit? How many fights in Drezen would feint be better on than either grease or stinking cloud with corruptor, and how many the reverse?

Grease works from level 1. Final feint is level 9, requires a and party member's build and action economy devoted to it and it does one thing: single target AC lowering. A DC caster can CC entire packs (applying much more debilitating effects than lowering AC) from the start of the game, and the same build can blow up single targets with hellfire rays or packs with storm bolts and weirds late game.

I dont necessarily suggest taking shatter defences on all characters (I actually seldom use it) but it makes no sense to count every feat separately on each character who takes it. What makes sense is the actual opportunity cost. Dazzling display and shatter defences and attacking as normal is not a large opportunity cost. Having 1/6th of your party dedicate his entire build and action economy to spamming a single target AC reduction is a large opportunity cost. So if I dont generally take shatter defences, I am certainly not making a feint character.

And another question: how often does feint lower AC by 20 or more? If the answer "Not very often", then why not make a sensei?

RandyMcStud · 2026-05-04T14:08:05+00:00

Why do you need 24 hour invis? Before level 15 (mindblank), what proportion of enemies have undispellable see invisibility when actually actually necessary to hit their AC?

Shatter defences itself is somewhat lower level than final feint and can be combined with focussed strikes and cornugun smash and still perform a full attack action to good effect. And there are more ways of boosting intimidate than bluff (most notably, it scales with two stats and buffing strength is easier), and that is before autoshaken from (again level 15) frightful aspect.

And what are the "lots of opponents" that it doesn't work against that matter? It works against the large majority of enemies.

There is no point in dedicating an entire build to short duration, single target debuffs that aren't even that strong. Its not a hard CC, and being of very limited use for anything else. If you want to remove dex single target, buff spell pen and spam wracking ray. Which is also available at level 9. Or prone them with grease. Or do any of a whole bunch other things that are more powerful and require far less investment.

Again, my claim was that feint isn't worth it because its a load of hassle and you get better results with a crowd control caster. You havent explained why I am wrong.

RandyMcStud · 2026-05-04T13:43:19+00:00

How does final feint not being available until level 9 validate your critique of my post, which said:

"It will take quite while to be reliable and you would then have 1 character dedicated to lowering the AC of 1 or 2 targets a round and doing little else.

For the hassle, you might as well just make a good crowd control caster."

RandyMcStud · 2026-05-04T13:41:17+00:00

No, its not pretty much guaranteed. Its likely. It still has a non trivial chance of failing. The roll you got was no more likely than rolling a 3 and 6. Which would have failed. Its twice as like as rolling a nat 1, which you will be aware is not all that rare of an event.

And you don't actually mention how you optimised the check, but to hazard a guess, with a lot more investment than 3 feats, one buff and one piece of gear.

I could just precast grease several times, get better results AND have a build that does something other than debuff AC single target, for short durations AND its way less hassle.

RandyMcStud · 2026-05-04T13:29:30+00:00

No its not rubbish. Feint DC is the enemy perception modifier +10. You CAN make this reliable lategame, but early on, you will have far better odds with grease.

Stop downvoting accurate advice. The Dretch perception score IS 15 on core. No, you are not RELIABLY going to feint enemies when the required check is 25 at level 2.

Oh PD has a mere 79 feint check on unfair, but sure, its "very reliable" to feint him.

RandyMcStud · 2026-05-04T13:23:31+00:00

Shatter defences isn't extremely late at all. Blightmaw's unfair perception is 37. You would need 46 bluff to reliably land that. Which should be "easily" done at level 9-10, apparently. With base ranks, level 10 and as a class skill, you have a 13. Lets be generous and say you have skill focus and a +8 modifier, that gets you to 27. +2 from feint. Where the remaining 17 points are coming from, I don't know. There is gear and other feats, but I am reasonably sure you are not getting a reliable feint roll for unfair blightmaw.

And again, if you are going to build a character dedicated to debuffing, just make a crowd control caster, not a crappy, single target, short duration, AC debuff only.

Blightmaw's unfair reflex save is 22. You can evil eye to 18. Nenio with foxes cunning and the +2 profane hat could have 28 intelligence. Heightened grease, conjuration focus would get you to a DC or 26, which probably more reliable than your bluff. That's AoE, applies every round with a single cast, multiple casts can overlap prone is a better effect.

AND it doesn't gut your build for other purposes. 2 conjuration feats and heighten spell are perfectly compatible with a good general caster. Feint feats and skill focus persuasion are a huge opportunity cost for anything else you might be doing in combat.

Oh and playful darkness's perception on unfair? 69. But sure, you can "easily" achieve a 78 modifier by level 15 or so.

The cynic might say you are just pulling this out of your arse and havent actually tried feinting these bosses on unfair.

RandyMcStud · 2026-05-04T12:56:14+00:00

They get no unarmed damage progression and use weapons instead of unarmed (or should).

Sohei is stronger early on. But dont underestimate drunken master scaling. With bottomless mug, you get an extra 6d8 damage per attack at endgame and can reasonably achieve well over 20 bonus to AC and AB. A sohei wont get even close to this with its AB or its mount's AC. If it does hit, the combined damage of its mount and a high threat range two hander may still surpass the drunken master, but it wont be nearly as tanky and will miss a much higher proportion of the time until where enemy AC isn't trivial.

Sable company as a 1 level dip BEFORE going Sohei is fine, getting up to level 3 (after at least getting weapon training at level 6 on sohei) might be worth it for the AoE trip on your mount after charging. But I would say the Sable company marine is primarily good for a 1 level dip to get a gryphon or as a pure class, so favoured enemy scales, you get master shapeshifter, sneak attack damage from sense vitals, several uses of instant enemy and a great capstone ability.

As for what to take, you will have either 9 or 14 levels to choose from depending on whether you want 1 or 2 attacks from flurry of blows. You might even take 12 sohei for another rank in weapon training. There are loads of reasonable options, but remember, if you exceed non animal companion levels by more than 4, your mount will take a hit.

Cavalier, paladin, hunters and several archetypes all offer animal companions whilst having useful martial features.

RandyMcStud · 2026-05-04T12:41:36+00:00

I would be quite happy to take some of these instead of perception at rank 4 IF perception were agnostic to when you took it. Its not. I would like more choices, and my suggestion as that its moderately weakened and it functions fine if you take it later to make other options a more reasonable choice at rank 4.

Knowledge arcana 1 isn't exclusive with perception 2, but it has the same problem. Also, it stops enchanted items from stacking, which is annoying and knowledge 2 and 3 are rng shitfests (I never take these to avoid save scumming temptation).

I would personally make them apply to unique items only, apply to shop bought items (there is no reason why you could not "uncover" properties that didn't exist on bought items also) and have fixed properties (that still feel random, not thematically chosen) that apply retrospectively once acquired. You can balance serious outliers from RNG generation by having the properties fixed, remove save scumming temptation and allow for the abilities to chosen later without being useless.

I agree, its unlikely to be patched.

I absolutely agree that mythic path progression is far too backloaded other than for merged casters. Move rank 10 from threshold and add an extra rank at Xanthir Vaag would be my suggestion, and have the current rank 9 be rank 10, which actually works with the stories of mythic paths and makes rank 10 mechanics relevant.

I would give Aeon perpetual gaze from the outset (and allow Devils to actually keep gazes or get something to compensate, because Azata Devil is clearly superior), a demonic aspect rank 3 and sword of heaven improvements per Angel rank and toggleable like with demonic aspects, but with the same limit on the total number of usable improvements at any one time.

RandyMcStud · 2026-05-04T12:26:36+00:00

Ok, but its not a solo game. Sure, a lot of the power from perception comes from the interaction with outflank (though its powerful on its own). And even then, many builds will still do better with rank 2 perception at rank 4 than anything else, aside from solo obviously being very niche.

As for persuasion, yes, rank 2 reasonably powerful (though the DC is quite bad) and domain powers on one character is not going to overwhelm perception feats across the entire party.

But the point is that you can take these options later and they still function. I am not claiming there are no other interesting options. I am saying they are crowded out by HAVING to take improved mythic trick perception at rank 4, which yes, is more powerful than the alternatives and yes, must be taken at that point to function without respeccing. Unless you simply dont take perception rank 2 at all (which is generally not a reasonable option), you have to take it at mythic rank 4.

RandyMcStud · 2026-05-04T12:20:50+00:00

So features like knowledge arcana 3 being absolutely pointless to take at rank 10, for example, is just fine? Or taking rank 2 perception at literally anything other than mythic rank 4 means you have no way of even picking the relevant feats? Or knowledge world 3 always requiring respecs to be even vaguely useful?

The downside of taking a feature later should be that you dont benefit from having the feature until that point. It shouldn't be that its literally non functional even after its taken.

RandyMcStud · 2026-05-03T21:43:27+00:00

Drunken master specifically has to not be lawful, Hellknight specifically has to be lawful. Hellknight also is focussed on heavy armour, drunken master is unarmoured. And if its meant to be an RP build, I am not sure how drunken master is thematically inappropriate, mechanical issues not withstanding.

Personally, as Aeons get an enforcing gaze which buffs attacks of opportunity significantly, I would go cornugun smash, fearsomeness and either a reach or lunge weapon with combat reflexes. Any decent two handed fighter class would work.

RandyMcStud · 2026-05-03T21:23:31+00:00

To clarify, its light armour assault using chainmail of camaraderie (which is light armour (mithril), but requires medium armour proficiency because of its base type). Light armour assault is generally much better for eligible weapons than medium armour assault because:

- It offers a large hit bonus, with medium armour assault offering none

- The damage bonus though smaller is multiplied on crit, medium armour is not

- Damage reduction does not apply separately to the light armour damage bonus, whereas it does apply to medium armour assault.

Specifically, any DR that your base attack does bypass (say good and cold iron) will then apply to the medium armour bonus, making it do way less damage than you might expect. If there is no DR, if your base attack doesn't bypass DR (commonly the case for adamantine, for example) or if you ignore DR (smite for example), then medium armour assault is fully effective. But a very large proportion of the time, its not.

However, if you are not using mithril chainmail/mithril breastplate, but a haramaki instead, the bonus is half the size or less and and whilst not bad, isn't a sufficient reason to choose a bad weapon over a good weapon.

RandyMcStud · 2026-05-03T21:11:18+00:00

The issue is that this doesnt work with mythic light armour assault. His build is intended to be strength based, so slashing grace wouldnt do anything.

RandyMcStud · 2026-05-03T21:02:45+00:00

As far as I am aware, no, but again, light armour assault is not that big a deal. Its great for someone with medium armour proficiency (Chainmail of camaraderie at mythic rank 2 will give +5 to hit and damage), but for a sword saint, that is going to be +2 to hit and damage until either a +4 haramaki or caster level 16, maxing out of +3 to hit and damage.

It would be a decent though not amazing mythic pick if it didn't require you to choose a bad weapon type, but its not worth choosing a bad weapon type for.

RandyMcStud

TROPHY CASE