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 building a build for Dexter Morgan.

Ha! I played my hand early after all! The final build for the Know Direction Network’s Occult October is modeled after everyone’s dearest serial killer, Dexter Morgan!

Of course, we’re talking about the book version. Right? RIGHT?!

Build Concept

Any information important to understanding the build or its roots goes here.

• Human: Although he likes to remind us otherwise, Dexter is human.
• Rogue (Bandit): Dexter is almost certainly a rogue. About the only thing that you can’t do with this set up that I REALLY wish you could do is pick up the poison use ability. Oh, how I WISH you could pick up poison use! But alas. Bandit is awesome for Dexter, however, because it specializes in getting the drop on your opponents, which is what we’re going to try and build Dexter for.
• Spiritualist (Fractured Mind): We’re only going to be taking one level of spiritualist, but oh, what a level it is! Spiritualist gives us access to psychic wands, a small boost to Will saves, but most important of all, the phantom. Yes, the phantom is freaking INCREDIBLE for a 1-level dip. Not because you’re going to be fighting with it or even manifesting it, no, but because while its locked up in your noggin, you get the Skill Focus feat with two skills. That is freaking INCREDIBLY good, especially with the lists available to the various phantoms, and we’ll be using this ability to simulate Dexter’s dark passenger, who constantly urges him to kill. There isn’t a “murderous psychopath” phatom yet, so I’m going to go with the jealousy phantom for Dexter; in the books, the phantom actually gets jealous of Dexter’s familial relationships and leaves him, and jealousy also has the best skills for what we’re looking to do (mainly Bluff, but also Appraise). In addition, I’m taking the fractured mind archetype, which switches the spiritualist’s spellcasting to Charisma-based. Honestly, I’m taking it for the flavor; I like the idea that Dexter’s dark passenger might simply be a conscious manifestation of his own inner demons.
• Brawler (Snakebite Striker): We’re going to be building Dexter’s entire design after his stone-cold poker face, which is basically his Bluff skill. Snakebite Striker has an ability at 3rd level that we need to make this a heck of a lot more fun, so we’re taking it!

Early Levels (1–7)

• Classes: spiritualist (fractured mind) 1, brawler (snakebite striker) 3, unchained rogue (bandit) 3
• Feats: Improved Initiative (Bonus), Combat Reflexes (1st), Weapon Finesse (Bonus), Improved Unarmed Strike (Bonus), Combat Expertise (3rd), Improved Feint (Bonus), Two-Weapon Feint (5th), Surprising Combatant (7th)
• Abilities: danger sense +1, etheric tether, finesse training (dagger), hidden blade +1, knacks, phantom (jealousy), shared consciousness, snake feint, sneak attack +3d6, trapfinding +1
• Rogue Talents: surprise attack (2nd)
• 1st-Level Spiritualist Spells Known: burst of adrenaline, death watch
• Spiritualist Knacks Known: bleed, detect magic, detect psychic significance, read magic

Wow, that’s a lot of feats early on! The basic build progression for Dexter is Spiritualist 1, then unchained rogue 1, then brawler 3, then unchained rogue 3. Our primary objective is to focus on Dexter’s fist fighting, though since he’s a 3rd-level brawler with brawler’s flurry, he could also pick up something like a punching dagger and use it for his amusement. (I’d totally recommend that or something like a garrote, by the way.)

The build has two major components: dominating initiative (especially the surprise round) and feinting your pants off. Dominating initiative requires a simple combination of Improved Initiative and Surprising Combatant, the latter of which allows you to make a Bluff check in place of your initiative check for the purpose of acting during the surprise round. This is CRAZY powerful for Dexter because skills scale so much faster than initiative normally would, and as a result Dexter’s almost always going to get to go first. Dexter also has danger sense, which gives him a small bonus on Perception checks to determine if he can act during the surprise round. Dexter also has the surprise attack rogue talent, which means his opponents are always flat-footed during the surprise round AND he gets a bonus on damage rolls during the surprise round equal to his rogue level. NICE.

The other part of this equation is feinting. Dexter grabs snake feint from the snakebite striker archetype by 5th level, which allows him a free move when he uses his Improved Feint feat to feint. He also manages to pick up Two-Weapon Feint for when he’s using brawler’s flurry, and both the snakebite striker and the unchained rogue have delicious sneak attack damage. Even better, Dexter’s jealousy phantom gives him Skill Focus in his feinting skill, meaning he’s even better at doing what we need him to do.

This is one of those rare builds that let’s better with age, so let’s move on!

Mid Levels (8 –14)

• Classes: spiritualist (fractured mind) 1, brawler (snakebite striker) 3, unchained rogue (bandit) 10
• Feats: Improved Initiative (Bonus), Combat Reflexes (1st), Weapon Finesse (Bonus), Improved Unarmed Strike (Bonus), Combat Expertise (3rd), Improved Feint (Bonus), Two-Weapon Feint (5th), Surprising Combatant (7th), Improved Two-Weapon Fighting (9th), Greater Feint (Bonus), Improved Two-Weapon Feint (11th), FREEBIE (13th)
• Abilities: advanced talents, ambush, danger sense +3, debilitating injury, etheric tether, fearsome strike, finesse training (unarmed strike), hidden blade +1, knacks, phantom (fear), shared consciousness, snake feint, sneak attack +5d6, trapfinding +5
• Rogue’s Edge: Bluff (5th), Stealth (10th)
• Rogue Talents: surprise attack (2nd), follow clues (4th), certainty: Bluff (6th), combat trick: Greater Feint (8th), double debilitation (10th)
• 1st-Level Spiritualist Spells Known: burst of adrenaline, death watch
• Spiritualist Knacks Known: bleed, detect magic, detect psychic significance, read magic

In the mid levels, Dexter gets some AWESOME tricks. The first of them is the ambush ability, which he gets from his bandit archetype. Ambush allows Dexter to take a move, standard, and swift action during a surprise round, and because of his snake feint ability Dexter can essentially move up to his speed, feint, and attack all in the surprise round. Yes, feinting isn’t huge during the surprise round because Dexter already considers his foes flat-footed, but when get gets Greater Feint at 11th level from the combat trick feat, his allies are going to be awfully happy that thoughtful Dexter decided to catch their enemies off guard for them, won’t they?

Most of Dexter’s build at this stage of the game focuses on making him better at feinting and fighting. He upgrades his brawler’s flurry to Two-Weapon Fighting the hard way (by taking a feat) and eventually grabs the deliciously wonderful Improved Two-Weapon Feint. And just when it seems like the build is ramping up … you’re done. There’s nothing else that you 100% need in terms of dominating the surprise round or soaring the initiative checks, so you’re basically done. Starting at 13th level, take whatever feat you want. Yahoo!

Let’s wrap up his build.

Endgame (15+)

• Classes: spiritualist (fractured mind) 1, brawler (snakebite striker) 3, unchained rogue (bandit) 16
• Feats: Improved Initiative (Bonus), Combat Reflexes (1st), Weapon Finesse (Bonus), Improved Unarmed Strike (Bonus), Combat Expertise (3rd), Improved Feint (Bonus), Two-Weapon Feint (5th), Surprising Combatant (7th), Improved Two-Weapon Fighting (9th), Greater Feint (Bonus), Improved Two-Weapon Feint (11th), FREEBIE (13th), FREEBIE (15th), FREEBIE (17th), FREEBIE (19th)
• Abilities: advanced talents, ambush, danger sense +6, debilitating injury, etheric tether, fearsome strike, finesse training (unarmed strike, ANY ONE), hidden blade +1, knacks, phantom (fear), shared consciousness, snake feint, sneak attack +8d6, trapfinding +5
• Rogue’s Edge: Bluff (5th), Stealth (10th), Perception (15th)
• Rogue Talents: surprise attack (2nd), follow clues (4th), certainty: Bluff (6th), combat trick: Greater Feint (8th), double debilitation (10th), improved evasion (12th), slippery mind (14th), FREEBIE (16th)
• 1st-Level Spiritualist Spells Known: burst of adrenaline, death watch
• Spiritualist Knacks Known: bleed, detect magic, detect psychic significance, read magic

Okay, so the meat of this build wrapped up at Level 11. Most of what you get here is just preferences. Now, I’d hate to leave you without any ideas, so what I’d likely end up doing is grabbing things for Dexter to do to his enemies if he should find something he can’t feint. Namely, I’d probably take advantage of the fact that I already have Combat Reflexes and pick up Improved Dirty Trick and some of its later builds. That said, grabbing Extra Rogue Talent a whole bunch of times and picking abilities that really allow Dexter to rip his toys apart, like bleeding attack and pressure points, also would work.

And that, folks, is the FINAL Occult build for Occult October! You’ll still be seeing me craft some occult NPC builds here and there, but now I’m free to do whatever I please. Free, I tell you, FREE!

And as weird as it sounds, I’ve had like twelve people request various kitsune builds from me, so I think I know where I’m going to start next week….

Leave your questions and comments below, and don’t forget that if YOU have a request for me to do, leave it on Facebook or on the Know Direction site and I’ll see what I can do to help you out. Until then, take care!

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.