#ultimate combat

(art by Kjdragon on DeviantArt)

Ah, the marvelous pig. Truly an animal that is as charming as it is delicious. We have all sorts of stories in the modern era of heroic and endearing porcine heroes and companions, and they’re clever too! It’s no wonder that the domestic farm pig has in turn spawned breeds meant for keeping as pets instead of as food. Heck, porcine beasts show up all the time in medieval heraldry as well!

And you might wonder why pigs as a symbol go so far back… if you had never heard of wild boar. Boars are powerful and massive creatures known for their voracious appetites, but more importantly their territorial ferocity and capacity to endure pain. Indeed, they literally had to invent a type of spear with a sturdy crossguard for hunting them (that is still used to this day!) because you didn’t want to get close to them, and if you tried to use a normal spear the damn thing would run up the shaft, impaling itself further in order to rip you to shreds. Indeed, the message of a boar on a coat of arms is quite clear: “Mess with us and not even God can save you from our wrath”.

Is it any wonder then that there would be druids that choose such primal and powerful beasts as their totem? Such animal shaman druids revere boars not just as symbols of ferocity and might, but also of cunning, as psychopomps (thanks to their nature as carrion-eaters), and even as beings associated with the sun and renewal. As such, it would be foolish to assume a boar shaman is a mindless brute, but instead a philosopher that balances the terrible wrath when roused to anger with the gentleness of a wild sow watching over their young, and the harmony such pigs can exhibit with other species that are not potential threats to their territory.

Like other animal shamans, these mystics must choose a boar companion, or barring that, the Animal, Destruction (with Rage subdomain), Protection or Strength Domains. The former option gives them an enduring companion that will stand up to any foe and keep going, while the latter offers defensive and offensive options.

Naturally, their wild empathy works best on porcine beasts.

They also gain the partial totem transformations of the animal shaman archetypes, in this case granting either enhanced running speed, senses, ferocious ripping tusks, a knack for trampling foes, or thicker skin.

These mystics can also weaken or enhance their summons to summon porcine allies at a greater range of levels. This ranges from a young boar with a second level spell all the way to 1d4+1 advanced giant dire boars with an eighth level slot. Not a lot of variety, but boars are tough and keep fighting when injured, making them a quite viable option for overwhelming foes and providing plenty of distractions. What’s more, all such summoned pigs prove especially tough anyway, enduring more.

Finally, these shamans gain access to greater porcine forms faster with their wild shape, but prove weaker with other forms. Unfortunately, this archetype is one of the animal shamans that suffers the most here, since there’s literally two types of boar in the game, not including magical beasts that have boar elements that wild shape cannot replicate anyway. Which isn’t to say that boars and dire boars don’t have a lot of good strengths, but until you get high enough level, your wild shape tactics are pretty much limited to rushing in and enduring hits more than your foe can thanks to ferocity.

All in all a fun archetype. Like all animal shaman druids, it suffers from a lack of flexibility, but having some especially tough summons can do a lot to turn the tide. I recommend a build centered around buffing your summons and increasing your own durability as well.

While these druids are absolutely free to be fully realized and nuanced characters in their own right, they probably do take advantage of the perceptions about them thanks to their associations with boars. Foes are much less likely to be bold when they think the local mystic can sic angry and hungry pigs on them.

Not every culture enjoys pork for dinner. In the white cities of Bulas, pigs and boars are considered fashionable, if aggressive pets. The local shamans constantly speak of emulating the hardy nature and endurance of the beasts, as well as their cleanliness, which will certainly come as a shock to foreigners used to the idea of swine being filthy things.

Verna Bristleback has vowed that the people of Ardenfell have flaunted the sanctity of nature for the last time, and is preparing a powerful spell meant to teach them humility by turning the townfolk into her favored animal: boars.

(art by Andres Agostini on Artstation)

And it’s time for another round of me going back to my earliest posts and redoing them to my current standard of quality, and this time we’re looking at the beastmorph archetype for alchemist!

This was the first alchemist archetype I covered on the blog, and it’s baffling to thing that was over 10 years ago. How my life has changed since then.

In any case, today’s subject taps into the classic mad scientist trope of “turn yourself into a hybrid of man and beast”, which is always a classic. However, unlike most fictional mad scientists, the abilities granted by the archetype don’t transform you permanently, (though that could be fun to explore using a modification of the lycanthropy corruption, hmmm…)

Instead, as we’ll seen see, this archetype is all about adding powerful additives to mutagens to give the imbiber animal features!

So let’s get down to it, shall we?

When these alchemists brew and prepare mutagens, their formulas call for ingredients that result in the them gaining minor bestial features that grant additional abilities, though at first only one and drawing only from what could be granted by a simple humanoid-mimicking polymorph spell.

Over time though, the number of abilities they can gain from a single dose, as well as the depth of those abilities grows greater and greater, granting more and more animalistic abilities.

The archetype also has a short list of recommended discovery, namely those that cause the imbiber of a mutagen to grow claws, improve the mutagen itself overall, those that improve bodily health and regeneration, and of course grow various permanent extra limbs like tentacles or wings.

A mutagen that grants various abilities from the alter self and later beast shape 1, 2, and 3 has a lot of potential to be very versatile, giving the user the full use of their physical faculties while still gaining the mobility and combat powers. (the only disadvantage being you don’t get the powerful damage dice natural attacks or the advantage of size from true polymorph). Important caveat here though: you have to decide what powers the mutagen is going to grant when you originally brew it, but that’s what the infuse mutagen discovery is for, letting you craft multiple mutagens with different forms for different situations. Another discovery that is pretty much required is feral mutagen, because you need natural attacks to use certain abilities like grab, constrict, rake, and so on. Needless to say, this archetype leans pretty heavily into a melee combat build, with bombs providing ranged support when out of mutagens, and extracts meant to buff and complement the build.

There are a lot of ways you can play this sort of alchemist. Maybe they seek to find perfection in the animal kingdom, or maybe they think one specific animal is really neat, or maybe they seek the unifying factor behind all animal life? How do they view their transformative mutagens? Maybe they view them as a minor apotheosis, or maybe they’re just useful means to an end?

Terror grips the town of Gardenvale, for during the night, villagers are abducted one by one, each by a different, horrific beast-man. Meanwhile, the local surgeon has become a shut-in, obsessed with finding a cure for his dying wife’s illness. None have begun to suspect that the two events may be connected.

The touch of a chaos beast is a debilitating curse, trapping the victim in a constantly-changing, unstable form. However, the creature formerly known as Sven Lamplighter has discovered a way to temporarily achieve a semi-stable form, even though conventional magical wisdom dictates it should have no effect. Tragically, Sven has gone mad during his time under the curse, and can no longer remember what traits define a member of the halfling race. Now he wanders the tunnels of the city in a semi-amorphous form, with strange appendages and growths.

(art by thomaswievegg on DeviantArt)

Something that I think most really enjoy about fantasy settings is being able to ride upon exotic beasts into battle. Unfortunately, many fantasy rpg systems really don’t like giving that to players, and that’s understandable, having an exotic beast can be very powerful, after all.

Now, we’ve seen how this works in the past. Druids and by extension hunters get a pet with basically no restrictions, rangers are normally limited to animals that can in theory be domesticated or at least trained, and cavaliers and paladins… are pretty much limited to horses, camels, ponys, and wolves/riding dogs if you’re small sized.

And isn’t that just some munitions-grade bullshit? Like, I get it, you want the martial classes to be good at fighting things with a few other abilities, but that really is absurd when you think about it. Having a truly exotic mount as a riding-themed class basically requires you to spend money to get something like a griffon or whatnot, and without the benefits of being an animal companion, such beasts are doomed to be very irrelevant to outright a hinderance at high level play when the baddy one-shots your Pegasus mount right out from under you when you fail the ride check to protect it.

Luckily there are ways around this with feats like monstrous mount and beast speaker for truly exotic mounts, and archetypes like today’s subject for mounts that are less magical but still fantastical, like riding a dinosaur.

Of course, in retrospect this archetype is very much a product of the assumptions of the time, still restricting your list of options, sometimes in outright contradictory ways.

But it is what it is, and as a player and GM, I encourage you to alter this as needed.

Starting off, these cavaliers gain access to a much wider variety of mounts… at fourth level, meaning for those first three, you’re stuck with an ordinary mount for some reason. Once you get there though, their list is pretty decent… especially since the archetype gets around the limitations of certain animal companions being “young” versions of the animal for balance by letting you rebuild them as larger creatures, making several mounts on the medium list more viable (especially since this archetype predates the Undersized Mount feat by several years).

The list of possible mounts even leaves things open for the GM to allow other possibilities, albeit with two caveats which immediately don’t make sense. The mount must not have less four legs (which the base list already breaks that rule with allosaurus and T. rex already being on the list), and it can’t be a flying mount. Which I get, but also boooooring.

I get why this archetype exists. Non-equine animals were seen as too powerful at the time for martial characters to have by their sides, but honestly it doesn’t feel like that big of a deal. Also, I’d let players take flying mounts as long as they could make the size work (like, say, with a rock companion), but perhaps limiting them to level 7 or higher. In any case, the archetype trades out some armor proficiency and animal training skill, but it’s easy enough to get around.

Now, the wording of the beast rider version of the mount ability mentions that the rider can switch out their mount each time they level… but most animal companions can be dismissed and replaced anyway, so that seems weird and useless to include, and it’s not like 3.5 where animal companions actually used the normal stat block and therefore bigger, scarier animals actually were mechanically better anyway. However, despite that, It does bring up an interesting question about how these knights view their companions. Do they see them as useful beasts to be replaced on a whim, or do they stick with them through thick and thin?

In his youth, Verdand Silkskinner delighted in taking and breaking new exotic mounts wherever he could find them, often retiring his current mount whenever a new beast caught his eye. He always honored each mount’s devotion to him, building a multi-acre menagerie for them to roam and live in comfort. However, when a freak storm tears through the grounds, our adventurers will have to act quickly before the escaped beasts wander near civilization, harming people out of hunger and confusion.

Evil beast riders have a tendency to treat even their mounts like tools to be exploited, and have no qualms about cowing much more intelligent creatures into serving such a role. The lammasu Star March needs protection from one such rider, who has been stalking him for months, waiting for the right moment.

(art by dusint on DeviantArt)

Highwaymen, hijackers, muggers, brigands, bandits. If there’s any iconic antagonistic role for humanoids in fantasy games and fiction, it’s hard to go wrong with some bandits if you want a travel encounter that uses more advanced tactics than animal instinct.

Of course, being a bandit is hardly fun and games. Choosing that life or having it thrust on you by circumstance means forgoing many of the benefits of civilization while ultimately still relying on it by way of raiding for supplies and sellable plunder.

However, not every fictional bandit is a villain. After all, Robin Hood was by all accounts a highwayman, even though he was typically more heroic, using his talents and those of his followers to undermine the power of a corrupt ruler (at least once the figure became associated with that story. Turns out Robin Hood is much, much older).

Also, remember that not everyone who is a bandit professionally is going to have this archetype, or even be a rogue. I’m sure by this point most Pathfinder fans recognize the difference between class and profession, even when they share a name.

In any case, we’ll soon see that this particular flavor of rogue is a master of coercion and ambush, very important skills when you strike at foes from the wild, where the comforts of civilization have been stripped away and failing to comply with an armed stranger could mean being stranded even if one is not slain.

These bandits are the masters of surprise attacks, and are able to perform several actions at once within those first few critical moments to gain the upper hand.

Fear is a useful tool, and all the better utilized when they manage to get in an especially grievous blow against a foe they already have gotten past the guard of.

This archetype recommends talents that utilize the terrain, help coordinate with allies, improve combat prowess, striking suddenly and without warning, and even combining their efforts with traps they set up as well.

This archetype is fairly simple, but effective, and can easily be combined with other archetypes for greater effect. As a general rule, the ability to get a full suite of actions in the surprise round can be quite useful in a proper ambush, and their ability to inflict fear on critical sneak attacks is a bit niche, but lends itself well to a critical focus build. Whatever your build is, it probably will include feats that let you work well with others, including teamwork feats, as well as ways to keep up in protracted fights, such as improved feint to make sure you keep having ways to sneak attack once the battle is joined.

Like I said, there’s plenty of precedent for these sorts of characters to not be evil, whether they are noble rebels, anarchist misanthropes with their own code, or maybe even former traditional bandits that abandoned that life but retain the skills. Either way, they likely still understand that strength and cunning have the power to rule just as easily as rules and law. How exactly they feel about that, however, is up to them.

Skvad Irontusk, a powerful orc bandit, has recently acquired the dubious title of King of the Gnolls after defeating their chieftain in mortal combat. He is an unpopular leader, however, and unless he can lead them to further and further glory, he will soon find himself with a spear in his back, or worse, shackled in the slave pens.

Trade routes between Kyonen and Kanei have recently come under attack, merchant trains slaughtered, their goods plundered. At first, local samurai believed it was the work of greedy bandits or rebels. However, they soon discovered that the plunder has been given away to peasants who could never fully utilize the magic items and jewelry they contained, leading others to believe that whoever is doing this is not interested in any agenda, not even altruism.

(art by ShadeofShinon on DeviantArt)

And now it’s time to redo another one of the animal shaman archetypes for druids!

I still really like the animal shamans as an idea, but a lot of them are somewhat limited in their capacity to actually implement their abilities due to the lack of creatures on the summon monster list or unofficial lists of wild shape forms that match the right category.

While today’s subject certainly has that problem, I can appreciate what it is going or and the thematic elements of it, so without further ado, let’s talk about the bat shaman!

Bats are widely misunderstood creatures due to their mostly nocturnal nature, and have long cultural associations with death, darkness and evil, as well as being liminal beings on account of being flying mammals.

However, while many cultures associate bats with vampires, witchcraft or even death gods, many others view bats as bringers of fortune (particularly in China), and even associations with fertility and corn in the Zapotec civilization of Mesoamerica, which shows that even they realized the value of insectivorous bats in protecting their crops, as well as nectarivores that pollinate them.

Beyond folklore and superstition, bats are very social creatures that live in massive colonies together, flying out in droves, relying on their enhanced senses to traverse the night and find food, and are actually some of the most maneuverable creatures in the air.

I have to imagine, then, that druids that dedicate themselves to the bat totem, even those that play up their creature of the night status still understand the value of community and about recognizing the beauty and value of the poorly understood. They might serve as guardians of the night air from unnatural things on wings, or as priests of cultures that revere the animals as guardians of the harvest and the night.

Naturally, these shamans must either choose a bat (limiting them to dire bats in first-party products) or the Air or Animal domains, or the Darkness and Trickery subdomains by way of Night and Deception respectively.

Additionally, their wild empathy works best with bats.

They also gain the totemic transformation ability, able to gain sharp fangs, short-range echolocation, and with enough mastery, flight. Like other animal shamans, they can also speak to their chosen animal in this partially-transformed shape.

Like other animal shamans the bats they summon are tougher and can be modified to change the spell required. However, there is only one bat on the summon nature’s ally list (and none on the expanded lists granted by feats and other abilities). So, for context, this ability’s effective range is second level with a young dire bat, to fifth with a giant advanced dire bat (and a further plus two to seventh level if you summon multiple elephant-sized bats). That’s a decent range, but not a lot of variety. Still, such bats can make plenty of aerial attacks on foes, and fill the skies to create a lot of problems for foes that would use flight against you. Not the most damaging at later levels, but some good fodder.

They also gain wild shape at a later level, but boosted effectiveness when taking a bat form. But again, this is not extremely useful as the dire bat and different varieties of regular bat are the only forms available here. Useful for scouting and for aerial combat/fighting invisible foes, but not much else.

These druids also learn a handful of bonus techniques as well, namely those that improve reaction time, agility, and perception, as befitting those devoted to aerial creatures.

While fairly limited, the bat shaman offers some fun options nevertheless. Specializing in summoning flying creatures is pretty useful in combat situations, and having a flying battle form with greater potential is also useful especially when paired with feats like flyby attack. Also, consider taking summon guardian spirit with a celestial/fiendish/other bat as the base in order to get some more variety and an actual supernatural powerhouse added to your summons, and you can still spontaneously scale it up even if you improve it to require a higher level spell to cast later.

Sadly, even with their clear fascination with these misunderstood animals, the fact that these druids are so heavily associated with bats is going to get some negative reactions from people living in many civilizations. But how does your character react to this? Do they ignore the fear and go about their business? Seek to raise understanding? Downplay the connection in public? It’s some good food for thought there.

In the Twilight Coast, a land of endless night where the undead walk among the living in relative peace, bats have always been fashionable pets, not only for their association with the local vampires, but also for their connection to the mystical side of nature (and because they’re cuddly). More urbane bat shamans raise colonies of bats, occasionally selling a few to select owners they deem worthy, though their criteria of worth are often very strict.

The gargoyles of the metropolis of Golusia have taken to raising and breeding the bats that share their towers and belfries. Some of them become so in tune with the flying beasts that they can even commune with the cunning Golusian mobats, which can reach truly exceptional size, and come armed with more natural magic than their typical counterparts, flying alongside their stony shaman partners in terrible hunting packs.

(art by John-Stone-Art on DeviantArt)

Time to take another go-around my old stuff, and today we’re starting off with the Battle Scout for the ranger class!

The original version of this entry was when I was still doing whole run-on paragraphs for the archetypes, but at least I was a little more poetic in my writing there, but definitely still needed work.

In any case, the battle scout is unsurprisingly, a specialized ranger that focuses on helping large groups (typically advancing armies) move through the terrain. As such, they have a keen eye for spotting the literal and practical pitfalls in the terrain.

Those who wonder why such training exists don’t know the history of invading armies pressing into lands with unfamiliar terrain. No matter what nation it is, such invaders always think that their technological superiority and numbers will win the day, only for the jungle, or the frozen tundra, or the desert to eat them alive long before they even encounter the defenders. Countless lives thrown away on the hubris of men who command them.

Now, while one shouldn’t necessarily shy away from complex subjects in games, military invasions is hardly the only use for an archetype like this. Scouts that guide merchants or caravans through hostile terrain, survivalist experts accompanying explorers of foreign lands, and more are all possibilities. The only consistency is their skill at quickly understanding the terrain and making the best of it for themselves and their allies.

Given their role of guiding others, it should come as no surprise that these rangers choose to bond with those they travel with over a bond with an animal.

A core part of their skillset is taking the time to study their immediate surroundings. As long as such terrain is familiar to them, they can study it and pass on information to their allies, starting with pointing out likely enemy hiding places to give allies a leg up if combat arises, then progressing to important notes about terrain features, things to watch out for, and more. Finally, but studying even further, they can point out clear paths through even seemingly impassible terrain, improving their own mobility.

However, sometimes one must venture into the unknown, but by using their keen observational skills, they can briefly treat unfamiliar terrain as familiar.

The keen tactics of these rangers eventually are honed to the point they can instruct the timing of ally movement to better serve the flow of battle, more so if they have fully studied their surroundings.

The most masterful of these scouts are able to study the terrain fully with uncanny speed, and do so over a much wider area, as far as they can see in many cases.

If your party is likely to go traipsing through terrain hazards or getting caught in ambushes, this archetype may indeed be the pick for you. In optimum conditions, they’ll halt the party as soon as they see such a hazard or detect an ambush, study the situation for a moment, then buff their allies with these signature abilites. Beyond that, remember that you don’t get as many favored enemy buffs, and build however you like.

No matter how jovial or unserious these rangers typically are, the role of a scout is a very serious duty, so I imagine that while on the job they are laser-focused, when they speak, it is of grave importance, and the wise among their companions listen.

Gadvera Bramblehide is perhaps one of the most famous still-living scouts from the Blackmouth War. Now, the elderly half-elf is retired. However, when the dragon Blackmouth returns to his mountain lair after centuries of exile, a brave new team of adventurers will need to call upon her to guide them to the site of the hidden relic that magically banished the dragon tyrant long ago, if they can put up with her sour ways.

The merfolk of the Sea of Kelp do not often go to war, but when they do, their forces are guided by battle scouts, masters of attacking from the kelp beds, only to vanish silently. Truly terrifying still is when their locathah allies cast spells to allow them to traverse land, proving their deadly skill even out of water.

(art by ArtofTy on DeviantArt)

And of course, due to the way that alphabets work, our next revised entry is also armor themed, this time with the fighter class!

(I just checked with the original entry and completely unbidden I also poked fun at my alphabetized list then as well. The more things change, the more they stay the same, I suppose)

In any case, it only makes sense that a class focused on everything martial would have an archetype dedicated to mastering every aspect of mundane combat would have a specialization dedicated to armor and shields.

However, while the armored hulk spends a decent number of it’s abilities simply negating the movement penalties of heavy armor, these warriors instead master the more defensive aspects of armor, becoming the very picture of an armored defender.

They achieve this by truly understanding the tolerances of their armor and what blows they can turn aside and which ones they can take head on without harm.

So if you plan on playing a tanky defender, this archetype may be for you, so let’s take a look at what it has to offer!

Normally shields and armor do no good against magic that merely has to make contact to be effective, but these warriors learn to use their shields to deflect at least some of these attacks in both ranged and melee capacities. (Though this only offers a better chance of protection, not true deflection.)

An armor master knows the toughest parts of their armor, helping them to reduce incoming damage even when an attack manages to slip in. What’s more, this compounds with the toughness of adamantine armor, making such armor the perfect fit for this archetype.

They even know how to use the armor to better protect their vitals, making critical blows increasingly unlikely.

This improves later so that they become totally immune to critical hits while in armor, and said armor is protected from being sundered by their skill in turning aside blows from both their vitals and the weaknesses of the armor itself.

With a defensive build like this, having both a reach weapon and a close-range weapon is a must here, as is quick draw and all manner of defensive combat feats to better protect themselves, as well as punish those that try to get out of reach, such as step up. Also, look through the advanced armor training options for fun stuff to further improve yourself. Try to also pick up a few offensive options though to round things out, and play with durability and inescapability in mind. Additionally, options that slow your foe down are a good idea.

Naturally, armor master usually arise from among the most elite front-line troops, as well as honor guards to nobles and royals, and other positions where staying alive to protect others is very important. Indeed, such figures are almost always very well respected, because who would not respect someone that stands tall between the enemy and those behind them?

Vernand Solia is a wandering warrior. His armor is outdated, but he has been seen to withstand blows that would kill men in the strongest of plate mail. He has become a local legend, many young warriors challenging him. He has become weary of both these and the assassination attempts of less honorable warriors. He would be eternally grateful to anyone who can find a way to escape his own legacy.

Rumor speaks of so-called walking bastions, dwarves wearing heavy stone plate, marching ahead of their armies on the battlefield, their bulk and armor blocking below, while their polearms forming a lethal fence for giants and other creatures large enough to otherwise bypass them. Some claim that the most elite wear modified stone golems, carved with the faces of their greatest heroes.

(art by Jack-Kaiser on DeviantArt)

We’re back with another special on feats in Pathfinder, and we’re starting off with another combat style!

As we’ve established so far, the vast majority of combat styles are for monks and other unarmed combatants, what with their focus on unarmed strikes and the like, with only a few focused on weapons, and that division is important to note because today’s subject bridges that gap.

Another thing to note is that while brawlers have their own way of making the weapons in their arsenal viable, if you try doing that with the so-called “monk weapons”, you are generally assumed to be playing sub-optimally. Your unarmed strikes are simply going to be better than even the highest-damage dice weapon eventually, and you’d only play with such a weapon to take advantage of some combat maneuver feat chain or because you found one with a really nice enchantment on it.

Which is where the ascetic style comes into play. This style is all about making monk weapons viable at later levels, as well as gain some monk-like abilities if you’re not a monk, and improve your monk-ness if you’re multiclassing and said aspect of the class is falling by the wayside.

In this way, the Ascetic Style is less a specific style than it is weapon training with your favorite monk weapons as well as finding ways to fit in training with said monk weapons even while learning another profession. Perhaps your sorcerer figures out how to use their mystic handsigns as a focus to calm their mind, or a rogue that favors a stolen monk weapon trains with it, blending monastic teachings with their on unconventional style and so on.

So yes, it’s much more than a “make monk weapons good” style, making it viable for many to users outside of that class, even if you have no monk levels to begin with, so let’s get into it!

The basics of Ascetic Style allow the user to use their chosen monk weapon (or all monk weapons if they are a monk) with other feats that require training with unarmed combat to use, allowing them to use things like medusa strike and other martial arts maneuvers with these weapons.

By achieving Ascetic Form, they can also apply all class features that focus on unarmed strikes to their weapon. Meanwhile, non-monks and those with training in other classes use their full level when determine how often they can use things like stunning fist or perfect strike.

Finally, those that master Ascetic Strike learn to deal greater harm with their monk weapons, though slightly less powerful than an unarmed monk of the same level of mastery. It also lets non-monks or any practitioners without a still mind learn the Monastic Legacy feat.