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 an Iconic Design for Dean Winchester.

Ever since I did Sam Winchester last month, people have been asking me to do an iconic design for his brother, Dean. Well as a card-carrying member of the Supernatural Fandom, it is my honored duty to oblige with that request. Today, folks, I humbly bring to you: Dean Winchester.

Build Concept

Let’s take a peak under Dean Winchester’s hoo– NO. NO, NO, NO. I know what this fandom is like; YOU WON’T GET ME TO SAY THAT! NEVER!

• Human: This should be pretty obvious.
• Brawler: Dean is AWESOME at hand-to-hand combat, but the restrictiveness of the Pathfinder brawler (aka close and monk weapons only) doesn’t work for Dean; he’ll be investing a single level in brawler to get shortsword fists and martial flexibility, then move on.
• Fighter (Lore Warden): This is actually a REALLY good archetype for Dean. It emphasizes his smarts (of which Dean has plenty) while allowing him to build whatever fighting style he pleases. Let’s talk about that fighting style now, shall we?
• Empty Quiver Style: This new weapon style feat was actually released TODAY in Paizo’s new Weapon Master Handbook. Its kind of like cheating since I wrote this style feat (along with roughly half of the WMH), but hey! Dean NEEDS the ability to club people with his gun at will; pistol whipping is SUCH a Winchester thing to do!

With that done, let’s take a peak at the build, shall we?

Early Levels (1–7)

• Classes: brawler 1 / fighter (lore warden) 6
• Feats: Improved Unarmed Strike (Bonus), Point-Blank Shot (Bonus), Exotic Weapon Proficiency: firearms (1st), Precise Shot (Bonus), Combat Expertise (Bonus), Empty Quiver Style (Bonus), Weapon Focus: pistol (3rd), Stabbing Shot (Bonus), Empty Quiver Flexibility (5th), Power Attack (Bonus), Empty Quiver Flurry (7th)
• Abilities: Brawler’s cunning, expertise, martial flexibility (1; move action), maneuver mastery +4, martial training, scholastic, unarmed strike (1d6),
• Weapon Training: firearms +1 (5th)

Early levels, what do we got! A few simple (yet awesome) tricks, of course. First, the overall goal is to make Dean a badass with his gun, his fists, and (if possible) his dagger. In order to do this, we need to make sure that Dean is proficient and supported in his firearm use. Brawler is a nice baseline because it gives us Improved Unarmed Strike and 1d6 unarmed strike damage, which is frankly plenty. After that one-level dip, we move into Lore Warden. Lore Warden is awesome because it gives Dean two bonus skill ranks per level to play with, as well as all Knowledge skills as class skills. This allows Dean to invest in skills to identify monstrous humanoids (Knowledge: nature) and outsiders (Knowledge: planes). Of course, in a real game Dean would want a LOT more skill ranks in Knowledges, so Intelligence is definitely NOT a dump stat for him.

For the rest of his fighter-enhanced feats, Dean starts taking Empty Quiver Style, from the Weapon Master’s Handbook. Without giving too much away, this style feat chain allows Dean to use his pistol as a light mace in melee; it’s the gunslinger’s pistol whip deed at will, but without the free tripping. As a lore warden, Dean also gets Combat Expertise, which is awesome. Between martial flexibility, Combat Expertise, Power Attack, and Improved Unarmed Strike, Dean can basically get whatever he wants in terms of combat maneuver feats, which is a nice benefit for his martial flexibility class ability. This stage of the game is mostly build around setting up Dean’s versatility as a fighter, and by Level 7 we’ve certainly got it.

But no need to dally here; there’s so much more cool, Dean action to see later on. Let’s do it!

Mid Levels (8 –14)

• Classes: brawler 1 / fighter (lore warden) 13
• Feats: Improved Unarmed Strike (Bonus), Point-Blank Shot (Bonus), Exotic Weapon Proficiency: firearms (1st), Precise Shot (Bonus), Combat Expertise (Bonus), Empty Quiver Style (Bonus), Weapon Focus: pistol (3rd), Stabbing Shot (Bonus), Empty Quiver Flexibility (5th), Power Attack (Bonus), Empty Quiver Flurry (7th), Advanced Weapon Training: versatile training (Bonus), Furious Focus (9th), Rapid Reload (Bonus), Rapid Shot (11th), Weapon Specialization: pistol (Bonus), Advanced Weapon Training: weapon specialist (13th)
• Abilities: Brawler’s cunning, expertise, hair’s breadth, know thy enemy, martial flexibility (1; move action), maneuver mastery +4, martial training, scholastic, unarmed strike (1d6)
• Weapon Training: firearms +3 (5th), versatile training: Bluff, Intimidate (Bonus), versatile training: Perception, Sleight of Hand (9th), weapon specialist (Bonus), close +1 (13th)

Now I get to talk about ANOTHER new system that I freelanced for the Weapon Master Handbook, advanced weapon training! Yay! (Seriously, minimize my article, buy the PDF, read it, and come back.) So basically, with this system, you pick a fighter weapon group that you selected with weapon training and get a super cool special benefit with weapons in that group. Now, you can either pick advanced weapon trainings in place of a feat (one for every 5 fighter levels you possess) OR starting at 9th level, you can pick one in place of choosing a new fighter weapon group to apply weapon training to. So with our 9th-level bonus feat, Dean picks up the versatile training advanced weapon training, then he picks it up again for the last time at 10th level in place of his 9th-level weapon training. So what does this ability do? Basically, Dean gets to pick from a list of four skills (two that are based on his weapon training group, plus Bluff and Intimidate). Between my two selections, Dean picks Bluff, Intimidate, Sleight of Hand, and Perception as his versatile training skills, which is a nice assortment. So what does versatile training do? Simple. First, Dean gets those skills added to his list of class skills if he didn’t already have them. Second, he treats his base attack bonus as his number of skill ranks in those skills, and reassigns any skills he already has invested to other skills. Effectively, Dean has 6 + Int + scholastic skills per level, with four of those skills being pre-spent in specific skills. This is an AWESOME ability for the fighter, and it really helps us get the versatility in skills that Dean needs.

Aside from those advanced weapon trainings, Deans’ build is pretty standard. He focuses mostly on ranged attacks since melee doesn’t need much support, and picks up one feat that he doesn’t have already with martial flexibility up to three times per day. Let’s look at the end game for a final tally on Dean’s abilities.

Endgame (15+)

• Classes: brawler 1 / fighter (lore warden) 19
• Feats: Improved Unarmed Strike (Bonus), Point-Blank Shot (Bonus), Exotic Weapon Proficiency: firearms (1st), Precise Shot (Bonus), Combat Expertise (Bonus), Empty Quiver Style (Bonus), Weapon Focus: pistol (3rd), Stabbing Shot (Bonus), Empty Quiver Flexibility (5th), Power Attack (Bonus), Empty Quiver Flurry (7th), Advanced Weapon Training: versatile training (Bonus), Furious Focus (9th), Rapid Reload (Bonus), Rapid Shot (11th), Weapon Specialization: pistol (Bonus), Advanced Weapon Training: weapon specialist (13th), Freebie (Bonus), Freebie (15th), Freebie (Bonus), Freebie (17th), Freebie (Bonus), X (19th)
• Abilities: Brawler’s cunning, expertise, hair’s breadth, know thy enemy, know weaknesses, martial flexibility (1; move action), maneuver mastery +8, martial training, scholastic, swift lore, unarmed strike (1d6)
• Weapon Training: firearms +4 (5th), versatile training: Bluff, Intimidate (Bonus), versatile training: Perception, Sleight of Hand (9th), weapon specialist (Bonus), close +2 (13th), light blades +1 (17th)

And that’s right! I’m going to cheat with some Freebies. Because honestly by 14th level, you’re freaking Dean Winchester. Take whatever you want for your last six feats; you deserve them. I would strongly consider grabbing Extra Martial Flexibility so you can call on more feats more often, myself, but you can do whatever you need to in order to make this build fun for you!

One thing I do want to mention that I forgot to talk about in the mid-levels, however, is how absolutely perfect abilities like know thy enemy and know weaknesses are for Dean; they perfectly capture his ability to spot weaknesses in his opponent’s abilities and take advantage of them.

And that’s my build for Dean Winchester! Next week I’m going to be sharing another one of my PFS builds, and the weak after that I’m going to try to cook up something special for Thanksgiving / Black Friday. Until next time, I’m signing off! 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.