Pathfinder 1E Need Pathfinder Duelist building help -Shackled City Campaign

[furbs178]

Sorry for this super long post, I'm a bit long winded.

So I've been trying to build a duelist (or future duelist) for my campaign. We are doing Shackled City set in Greyhawk with only the Pathfinder core book. If I want anything from the Advanced Players book I have to get the DMs permission.

Here's the background first:

My character will be lvl 4 but I intend to be a duelist at level 8 and go straight to the end of the duelist levels then fill in the remainder with whatever. My previous character was a ranger and saved the group time after time with my incredible luck and the fact that I was just staying behind, shooting... >.>

However, we went to recover some wands that were stolen and found the enemy base camp. We stumbled into a room and one guy got away (I couldn't hit the broad side of a barn it seemed) and called in 1-2 more encounters worth of reinforcements. We were only level 3 and our sorcerer on his 2nd day on the job (his previous character died to the first boss right after hitting lvl 3) died to a lightning bolt. My character got captured, I was kind of bored with him so when I went unconsious I just told the cleric to run away (Yes we are only a 3-person party). The DM felt a little bad about overwhelming us, but it was just bad luck and bad tactics on our part.

ANYWAY, so now I am buildng a level 4 character. We realized we dont really have a frontline melee person or a rogue, so the cleric changed a little to be able to handle the frontline if absolutely necessary, and I am trying to build a rogue/fighter.

I went with 2 levels fighter and 2 rogue, human. My favored will be fighter since I intend to have more levels of it for the feats. The rogue levels are necessary as I was the previous skill-person. I intend to go duelist at lvl 8. The problem is that I can't seem to focus my character on what I want him to do. Our DM will allow Improved Crit to stack with Keen as far as I know so with a kukri or rapier I can have a 12-20 crit range when I am high enough. My goal is to be a bit defensive fighting until I'm able to get improved crit. I'll be the main frontline person so I'm trying to get my AC high, but I also want to have damage to be a bit decent. I was intending to do either 1 rapier and 1 kukri but after realizing I'll only be slightly better at one with weapon focus I figured 2 kukri would bump my to hit to be much better so that when I fight defensively it wont be so bad. I also have 6000gp to buy whatever items in the core book I want. Also our new wizard (the person who played the poor sorcerer) picked up craft wondrous items so I'll eventually be able to get +str belt and +int headband(?), rings of protection, etc. He will get haste when it becomes available as well.

Eventually at lvl 20 I would be 4rogue/6fighter/10 duelist or 5 rogue/5 fighter/10 duelist. At level 7 I would be 3 rogue/ 4 fighter.

Its a 16 point buy (yes 16 not 15) and I put my level 4 attribute into dex and my human stat increase into dex.
My stats:
Str: 10
Dex: 20
Con: 10
Int: 15
Wis: 10
Cha: 7

Feats that I have so far (and these are changeable as my new character hasn't been put into the game yet):

1st (human bonus): Two-Weapon Fighting
1st feat: Dodge
1st (fighter bonus): Mobility
2nd (fighter bonus): Weapon Focus: Kukri
3rd Two-Weapon Defense
4th (Rogue Talent): Finesse

For the remaining feats I'm not sure what to go with.
Improved Crit, Crit Focus, Bleeding Crit (or Stunning Crit), Weapon Specialization (at fighter lvl 4) are a must

I kind of wanted these: Improved Two-weapon fighting, Greater Two-weapon fighting
OR these: Combat expertise, imp trip, (maybe) greater trip, (maybe) agile manuevers

These are others that might be nice: Imp initiative, blind fight, spring attack

Duelist gives me Combat Reflexes and Deflect Arrows

I don't really know if I want to stay in combat (except against some nastier stuff) or to hit and run which is my first problem. I also want to be able to do decent damage but I feel like until I start going deeper into duelist I will be hitting a lot but only doing small damage because of lack of str.

I bought +1 Mithral Chain Shirt and 2 masterwork Kukri and I sit at 22 AC and with fighting defensively I get +4 ac (+1 additional from acrobatics, and +1 additional from TW defense). I considered a ring of protection as well. The equipment, feats, and stats are changeable, the classes and race are not.

I figure in the upper levels, if money permits I'd have a +(1-5) Kukri with keen and maybe defender. Then the second kukri, either the same or try to stack as many elemental blasts on it (flaming blast, cold blast, electric blast) so that when I crit with the elemental one it will at +3d10 in addition to the +3d6 from the standard hit. In ideal conditions, if I had to use precise strike then run away, at lvl 10 duelist I would have 1d4(kukri)+12(precise, weap spec)+3d6(elemental)+ 2d6(sneak attack) <with +3d10 +1d4 if I critted> or something like that...

 

[Dingo333]

If your DM will allow it, I recomend scrapping the fighter/rouge levels and going for 4 levels of Inquisitor.

It will require a lot of approval (inquisitor spell list) but at 5th level, they are able to put bane on their weapon, swift action, lasts as many rounds as your level

They also have 6 level spell progression, cure spells, buffs, Judgments (your bread and butter) skills like a ranger, tracking, intimidating, sensing motive, monster lore

it is a d8 progression, and very limited in weapons (simple, bows, crossbows, and diety's favored weapon)

If inquisitor is thrown out, and it probally will be as it is so powerful, Try for a fighter archtype. There is the Free hand fighter (slides perfectly into duelist) and 2 weapon figher (eventually eliminates the penalty for TWF and allows you to use regual 1 handed melee in off)

Finaly, Human will get you an extra feat, but Elf will net you a bonus to INT (skill points) and Dex (needed for your style) with a cost to con

If you don't feel like changing anything I have mentioned so far, the kuriki is not bad, but you might wanna consider the shortsword over it. Yes it is 1 less in crit range, but you do gain an increased damage size. Also, there are some nasty shortsword magic weapons in the back (check out the sun blade) that you could ask your wizard to make once they pick up craft magical arms and armor.

Feat look good so far, if you get any strength bonus you will wanna grab double slice (add full STR to offhand), double slice is also a prereq for two weapon rend (hit with offhand and primary in 1 full attack, deal 1d10+1.5str additional damage)

Weapon Properties will be important, you will want keen and all the burst properties you can get (fire, ice, electric, acid is in APG) and I will also recomend Merciful. It adds 1d6 to the damage, but turns all damage to nonlethal (good for taking prisoners), the nonlethal and 1d6 are surpressable. One last property, Viscious, it adds 2d6 to damage but you will take 1d6 with each hit. Risky, but an idea if you are looking to live dangerously and merciful will conver the backlash damage to Nonlethal as well

 

[Thanael]

*deleted*

 

[furbs178]

Thanks for the advice. I couldnt change to inquisitor, but I did change to shortswords and elf race. I tried it out and it works pretty well so far. I definitely would have hated having double kukri in the game I played yesterday.

 

[buddhafrog]

"poor sorcerer"

 

[buddhafrog]

Your character is pretty sweet - very effective - and the move to short sword looks to be a good choice. We were quite deadly even with my poor decision to cast "stone's call" to start our final battle.

One tip: don't fight defensively when your wizard is down and the lone remaining threat is hovering over him with only 3 HP remaining. With that said, you did eventually save my life (again).

My worry now is that the DM will see how easily we took down mini-BBEG and decided to amp up the threat level. That is what he did last time which led to our previous characters' demise.

Smoke some leaf with me in remembrance of the heroes who failed and fell before us.