Welcome to Guidance, Private Sanctuary’s source for tips and techniques for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, written by Everyman Gamer Alexander Augunas. Today, we’re going to be looking at a human fighter build.

Welcome back to Guidance, everyone! Now, I know it’s a little bit boring, but today I’m got a few neat ideas for a human fighter bui—

CRASH

Wat up, Internet! Finn the Human in the house!

Oh no, this isn’t going to be like that time where I tried to build Elsa and the Ice King interrupted me, is it?

Of course not bro. I just don’t need you to talk about me when I can talk about me instead. People want their heroism from the source!

Right, and I get that, but you see this is MY blog and I don’t think Ryan or Perram would be too happy if I —

TURN DOWN THE LAME DIAL AND TURN UP THE “LET ME DO THIS” DIAL OR I’LL KICK YOU IN YOUR DIGITAL BOOTAY!

Sigh Alright, fine. Just don’t burn the place down, will you?

AAAAAAAAAAAAW YEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Build Concept

I’m not here to sit and watch you read about me! Go read about me on your own time!

Build Concept

Here’s MY stats, fool!

• Brawler: I got ALL the moves, from sick karate chops to wicked-cool combo attacks with my trusty sword! Because after all, the body is one’s most dangerous weapon, and I’m the most dangerous weapon of them all!
• Human: I’m the last human on Ooo, fool! So I get me some sick bonus feat and bonus skill rank action.

But talking is boring! Let’s look at the actual build so I can get out there and punch all of the evil in your campaign in the face. You … do have Evil for me to punch in the face, don’t you?

Early Levels (1–7)

• Classes: brawler 7
• Feats: Improved Unarmed Strike (Bonus), Iron Will (Human), Power Attack (1st), Dirty Fighting (Bonus), Weapon Focus: temple sword (3rd), Combat Reflexes (Bonus), Weapon Specialization: template sword (5th), Improved Dirty Trick (7th)
• Abilities: AC bonus +1, brawler’s cunning, brawler’s flurry (Two-Weapon Fighting), brawler’s strike (magic), close weapon mastery, knockout 1/day, martial flexibility (swift action), martial training, unarmed strike (1d8)
• Maneuver Training: dirty trick (3rd), disarm (7th)

I’m a pretty straightforward sort of guy. Don’t really appreciate too much complexity; not when there’s evil to be punched in the kisser. I make a pretty great brawler because of my rough-and-tumble attitude, plus my giant, meaty fists of righteousness. I guess technically my sword isn’t a temple sword; its more of a longsword, but your game’s brawler class is dumb; what kind of brawler can use a monk’s sword, but not a good-old fashioned longsword? Regardless, if you complain about it, I’mma gonna puncha your buns!

My biggest strength in a fight is swinging my sword good, so I picked all of the feats that make me really good at dishing out pain to evil. Power Attack! Furious Focus! Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization! But you know what? Sometimes Evil just needs to be grappled a bit. Or maybe tripped. Or bull rushed off a cliff. So I made sure to pick up the Dirty Fighting feat from the Dirty Tactics Toolbox. This awesome feat counts as Combat Expertise so I don’t need to take it. Let’s face it; I’m a buns-kicking rebel without a lick of self-preservation, and who doesn’t like fighting dirty every now and then? Plus with this feat, I can use my Martial Flexibility class feature to temporarily pick up any Improved Combat Maneuver feat that I want, so if the situation calls for me to get REALLY serious about a combat maneuver, I can handle it. No problem. Other tactics that I like to do include grabbing Dazzling Display to scare the pants off of Evil (because I’m really good at scaring people) and picking up other situational abilities that’ll help me win a fight. And ultimately, I’ll do whatever it takes to win a fight (including biting), so Improved Dirty Trick is right up my ally.

But I’m getting bored with this level; let’s move on to the next tier of my awesomeness!

Mid Levels (8 –14)

• Classes: brawler 14
• Feats: Improved Unarmed Strike (Bonus), Iron Will (Human), Power Attack (1st), Dirty Fighting (Bonus), Weapon Focus: temple sword (3rd), Combat Reflexes (Bonus), Weapon Specialization: template sword (5th), Improved Dirty Trick (7th), Greater Weapon Focus: temple sword (Bonus), Critical Focus (9th), Improved Critical: unarmed strike (Bonus), Improved Critical: temple sword (11th), Greater Weapon Specialization: template sword (13th), Greater Dirty Trick (Bonus)
• Abilities: AC bonus +3, brawler’s cunning, brawler’s flurry (Improved Two-Weapon Fighting), brawler’s strike (alignment, cold iron, magic, silver), close weapon mastery, knockout 3/day, martial flexibility (immediate action), martial training, unarmed strike (1d8)
• Maneuver Training: dirty trick (3rd), disarm (7th), trip (11th)

Yeah! Now things get tight! First, I decided to do some pretty heavy focusing on my dirty trick abilities, because they’re wicked funny to do to bad guys. Like the time I kicked the Ice King in his shins and he fell over? Priceless! From there, I picked up a lot of general feats that make me better at kicking butt, like Improved Critical with both of my major weapon attacks as well as Critical Focus and Greater Weapon Focus and Greater Weapon Specialization. All in all, I float like a butterfly and sting like a bee that just punched you where the sun don’t shine.

Let’s move on to the part where I become the best swordsman in all of Ooo: 20th level!

Endgame (15+)

• Classes: brawler 20
• Feats: Improved Unarmed Strike (Bonus), Iron Will (Human), Power Attack (1st), Dirty Fighting (Bonus), Weapon Focus: temple sword (3rd), Combat Reflexes (Bonus), Weapon Specialization: template sword (5th), Improved Dirty Trick (7th), Greater Weapon Focus: temple sword (Bonus), Critical Focus (9th), Improved Critical: unarmed strike (Bonus), Improved Critical: temple sword (11th), Greater Weapon Specialization: template sword (13th), Greater Dirty Trick (Bonus), Penetrating Strike (15th), Greater Penetrating Strike (Bonus), Stunning Assault (19th), FREE BEE (Bonus)
• Abilities: AC bonus +4, awesome blow, brawler’s cunning, brawler’s flurry (Greater Two-Weapon Fighting), brawler’s strike (adamantine, alignment, cold iron, magic, silver), close weapon mastery, knockout 3/day, martial flexibility (immediate action), martial training, unarmed strike (2d10)
• Maneuver Training: dirty trick (3rd), disarm (7th), trip (11th), grapple (15th), ANY (19th)

And there I is! All stated up and ready to wreck all of the bad guys on Ooo!

Are you done yet?

Yup! You can have your blog back now.

Good. And here I was worried that you weren’t going to leave. That would make Occult October awkward.

Ha ha! I have no idea what that means.

Good. I hope you enjoyed the build, everyone. What do you think? Would you use Finn’s build in one of your home games? What would you change? Leave your answers and comments below, and I look forward to seeing you next week as we wrap up September and get ready to start our all-Occult month for Occult October! Take care!

Bye! Don’t change a single line of text in my build or I’ll come to your home and kick your buns!

Finn!

Alexander “Alex” Augunas has been playing roleplaying games since 2007, which isn’t nearly as long as 90% of his colleagues. Alexander is an active freelancer for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and is best known as the author of the Pact Magic Unbound series by Radiance House. Alex is the owner of Everyman Gaming, LLC and is often stylized as the Everyman Gamer in honor of Guidance’s original home. Alex also cohosts the Private Sanctuary Podcast, along with fellow blogger Anthony Li, and you can follow their exploits on Facebook in the 3.5 Private Sanctuary Group, or on Alex’s Twitter, @AlJAug.