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In our Gatewalkers game, my barbarian bit the dust in book 1. Very sad but more importantly, an opportunity arose; I could play this little awakened hedgehog dude! Only, there were some troubles. First off, Awakened Animal PCs aren't officially supported until the next splatbook comes out, so I needed to jury-rig a hedge hogman ancestry.

This was very easy.

The next hurdle was to find out what kind of class fits this little dude and worked with our party's already quite janky setup.

This was very hard.

ANCESTRY DETAILS

Hedge Hogman

Traits: Rare, Animal, Humanoid, Hedge Hogman;

Ancestry HP: 6;

Stats: +STR +CON +FREE(CHA) -INT;

Heritage: Quillcoat Hogman (Stolen from Shisk's "Quillcoat shisk");

Senses: Lowlight Vision;

Feats: 1-Animal Elocutionist (Gnome), 5-Renewing Quills (Shisk), 9-Critter Shape (Beastkin)

BACKGROUND

Dance Prodigy: +CHA +STR. Dance Lore, Virtuosic Performer (Dance, naturally)

CLASS

Swashbuckler

Key: Dex.

Final Boosts: +STR, +CON, +WIS, +CHA;

Subclass: Battledancer (Naturally);

Class Feats: 1-Focused Fascination, 2-Antagonize, 4-Leading Dance, 6, Combination Finisher, 8, Reactive Strike, 10-Derring Do;

Skill Feats: 2-Intimidating Glare, 3-Distracting Performance, 4-Lengthy Diversion, 5-Assurance: Acrobatics, 6-Assurance: Stealth, 7-Steady Balance, 8-Battlecry, 9-Catfall, 10-Terrified Retreat;

Free Archetype Feats: 2-Bard Dedication, 4-Multifarious Muse: Versatile Performance, 6-Uplifting Overture, 8-Rallying Anthem, 10, Lingering Performance;

General Feats: 3-Armor Proficiency, 7-Toughness;

Juiced Skills: Performance (Master @ 7), Deception (Master @ 9);

Equipment: Greatsword, Handwraps of Mighty Blows, Breastplate, a million scrolls of Bless, Jolt Coil, Dancing Scarf;

Spells: Shield, Musical Accompanyment

IN REVIEW

Our hogman friend here specializes in the Performance Skill to the extreme. On its own, Performance is good for... building panache. That's it. After snagging every feat, putting on some sick tunes w/ Musical Accompaniment, and doing a prepatory headspin or two, Hedge Hogman Capoeria takes off.

Once Panache is obtained (stupid easy for Battledancer), Performance is now rolled with 5e-style Advantage, can be used to Demoralize, Aid every skill check, Distract to make teammates Hidden in plain sight, perform an MAP-less Reposition, make good impressions on people and animals, MMO-style taunt on spellcasters, and extend a defensive buff/prepared aid over the course of a fight.

There's also a sneaky trick in there, did you catch it? Hedge Hogman Capoeira also subtly encourages enemies to attack the Swashbuckler while debuffed via the Antagonize feat (cutely enough, this also uses performance!), potentially triggering a nasty Opportune Riposte with a big greatsword, or at the very least a faceful of Quillcoat Spikes.

Howdy folks, I posted this little dude in the CharArt community, and thought I'd ought to post his funny numbers here too.

Shitty Artwork

Yogi Troubles, Professional Forgettor and Part-Time Grenadier. Goblin culture warns that practicing literacy steals thoughts from your head, so in order to make ends meet, Yogi has to constantly be learning staggering amounts of information on an enormous amount of subjects. Although he's best suited for exploration and a bit of downtime activity, it'd be unwise to underestimate his combat ability.

Note: This build benefits from an origin in Alkenstar, Dongon Hold, The Shackles, or some other place with access to guns. You can also just ask for Access from your GM.

Ancestry:

Goblin, naturally. Goblin grants access to the Goblin Weapon Familiarity feat, which gives you Martial Scaling on the Explosive Dogslicer and Crit Specializations for it and the Big Boom Gun at lv 5. Unbreakable Heritage is probably best, but I chose Charhide.

Chassis:

Lv 1 Statline should be | STR +3 | DEX +0 | CON +1 | INT +4 | WIS +1 | CHA +0 |

You might wonder why a gun-toting, finesse weapon wielding investigator would dump dex. The answer is because DEX only meaningfully modifies your Reflex and AC, and your soft-cap for the latter is only a +1 as early as lv 3. Devise a Stratagem is how you'll aim your gun, and you can just swing your Dogslicer around with STR if you don't have time to aim. You can use Athletics if you want to forget a bad Devise a Stratagem Roll, especially since you can brew up Fury Cocktails to wrestle huge enemies.

Alchemical Sciences Investigator grants you a small pool of wildcard items, but they can only be Elixirs or Alch Tools. This is pretty huge, but kind of restrictive. Some seriously useful tech can be pulled from this pool, though, so don't underestimate it. Cognitive Mutagens remove the potential of crit failing recall knowledge checks. Fury Cocktails as described before can make you Large. Juggernaut Mutagens can clear non-combat mutagens from your system.

Speaking of Cognitive Mutagens, Investigators get a Lv 3 Feature that lets them attempt any unskilled Recall Knowledge Check as if their proficiency Modifier was equal to their level, rather than 0. Use Specific Lore + Cognitive Mutagen + Dubious Knowledge to guarantee useful information no matter what you're thinking about.

Feats:

My own table uses the Free Archetype ruleset, so I'll be including that into the build here. If you're not using that variant rule, prioritize the dedication!

Lv 1: Wildcard Class feat slot. I like Flexible Studies, but you might prefer the action condensation of Known Weakness. Take Goblin Weapon Familiarity for some nice weapons that work with Investigators.

Lv 2: Duelist Dedication + Shared Stratagem. Duelist gives you Quick Draw, which is a vital feat for blasting and dart throwing. Shared Stratagem's just nice to your teammates. Be nice to your teammates. Take Dubious Knowledge as your skill feat.

Lv 3: Armor Proficiency. Medium Armor decouples you from dex almost entirely. Note that you'll need to upgrade to Sentinel Dedication at lv 18. Take Specialty Crafting: Alchemy for an even easier time making cheap bombs when you've got downtime.

Equipment:

Explosive Dogslicer: Part Scattergun, Part Knife. It's actually pretty good as far as investigator weapons go. Only use the gun half for its Critical Fusion benefit on crits, or when you're up against swarms.

Shifting Rune: Dogslicer not cutting it? Turn it into a bastard sword. or a whip. Or whatever. Any 1h strength weapon you'll ever need, all in one rune. In particular, use this when an enemy has resistance to slashing, or weakness to another physical damage type.

Adaptive Cogwheel: Slap it on your dogslicer, and bam. Now its an arquebus for a turn. Or a bigger scattergun. Honestly, between this and the shifting rune, you should always be using the right weapon for the job.

Big Boom Gun: Fatal d12 available when you roll a guaranteed crit.

Darts: Ranged + Agile, for when you roll a guaranteed hit, but dont want to close in with your knife or swap to its gun form.

Thrower's Bandolier: Put 20 darts in here and phase 16 of them out with bombs as you become wealthier. Cheap 4gp bombs only.

Blazons of Shared Power: Fuse your Dogslicer and Big Boom Gun's runes together to save money in the long run.

Cognitive Mutagen: Push Crit Fails off the table, letting your Dubious Knowledge guarantee useful information no matter what. Incidentally gives a nice scaling boost to your untrained Recall Knowledge ability.

Every Bomb Known to Man: You have guaranteed information. Combine that with every damage type you can get your hands on. Buy or make them for dirt cheap and stow them in your bandolier to scale their damage up as you level. Don't bother with higher level bombs unless they add new effects.

Tactics:

Always be learning. Remember that you can Recall Knowledge on ANY subject with Specific Lores to reduce the DC by 5. You also don't need to be in combat to recall knowledge. Find tracks? Roll a Footprints Lore to determine what kind of monster left them. It was an Troll? Roll a Troll Lore and brief your team on their strengths and weaknesses.

Swing->Devise->Swing again. When you're fighting an enemy with Low AC, don't be afraid to get a little greedy with your first hit. You've got the strength for it.

Use outcomes wisely. Don't waste actions running up to cut someone with a 20, Quickdraw your fatal d12 big boom gun. Don't pull it out for a miss, obviously, because it will blow up in your face if you do. Pull out a splash weapon keyed to your targets weakness instead. If you know you'd critically miss, then throw it at the floor beneath them instead. Did you guarantee a hit by 4 or more? Cut someone else first, then throw a dart at your original target.

> Hey as my last character, ranger died in AV, im looking to make kobold champion, but cant decide between two flavors of build: > 1. Here is the build link for Kobold champ summ. To view this build you need to open it on an android device with version 196+ Pathbuilder 2e installed. https://pathbuilder2e.com/launch.html?build=485517 > Champ, shield ally, with summoner dedication, dragon steed form.

2. Here is the build link for Kobold champ cavalier. To view this build you need to open it on an android device with version 196+ Pathbuilder 2e installed. https://pathbuilder2e.com/launch.html?build=484839 > Champ with cavalier dedication, mature draft lizard. > > Eidolon pros: dont take double damage from aoe, spellcasting, fire breathing > Eidolon cons: less hp, no "free" actions (tandems). > Cavalier pros: more hp, better attacks, better ac later due to feats, free action from mature. > Cavalier cons: takes dmg from aoe, will need to be given commands if need to double stride. > > Imo action economy is better with cavalier, but summoner provides spell casting and versatily... > Im lost.

I'm struggling to build out a Psychic that primarily uses Imaginary Weapon in melee. It is so flavorful, yet at 6 base HP per level and no armor proficiency, it feels really dangerous to get up close and personal. Sure, Warp Space amps it to be at 30ft range, but there are only so many focus points available to spend amping.

I'm looking to have this be viable at level 6 (so Parallel Breakthrough is an option). Any heritages, feat chains, or items I should look into to make it feel good to use Imaginary Weapon?

(In the absense of a WhatWouldYouBuild type of community, I figure 3d6 is the closest place here for such things, but correct me if I'm wrong.)

How would you build, in either D&D 5e or Pathfinder 2e, Cirilla of Cintra, based on her powers and abilities exhibited in the beginning of season 3 of The Witcher? She had the battle-prowess of a witcher, but she doesn't use her magic in combat. Her magic is powerful enough to stand against very strong sorcerers, but seems to mostly be reactionary rather than intentional.