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 halfling giant slayer build.

Today’s build is sort of new because its inspired by someone else’s character, rather than actually based on it. That someone else is my friend Rachel Ventura, who’s best known for her association with Legendary Games. Rachel has a halfling rogue named Tiny the Goblin Slayer, and while today’s build isn’t based on anything she’s ever done in either of the games I’ve played with her, it is based on the idea of being small with an attitude!

Today, we’re setting our sights high by building Tiny, the Ogre Slayer!

Build Concept

Halflings are a lot of fun to build martial options for because they have a lot of weird feats, provided you can look past the Strength penalty. Today’s build will utilize the following:

•  Halfling: Its in the title, practically. You’re going to need to swap halfling luck for the adaptive fortune alternate racial trait, from the Advanced Player’s Guide. Personally, that’s one of my favorite traits because of how active it is. (Although I wish they would have let you add your Charisma to the number of uses per day; that would have been fun and thematic.)
• Fighter: We need feats for this one, folks!
• Variant Multiclass – Sorcerer: This can be replaced with taking Eldritch Heritage instead of Variant Multiclassing; just take Skill Focus: Knowledge (history) at 3rd level, Eldritch Heritage at 7th, and Improved Eldritch Heritage at 11th. I took Variant Multiclassing because its simplier in the long run, plus your effective sorcerer level is higher.
• Fate’s Favored: Yup, this is one of those silly luck-bonus builds. So grab a jingasa of the fortunate soldier and get to work!

With everything explained, let’s begin!

Early Levels (1–7)

• Classes: fighter 7
• Variant Multiclassing: sorcerer
• Feats: Power Attack (1st), Steadfast Slayer (Bonus), Weapon Focus: Greatsword (Bonus), Furious Focus (Bonus), Fortunate One (5th), Risky Striker (Bonus)
• Variant Multiclass Abilities: harrow bloodline (1st), bloodline power: twisted fortune (3rd), improved bloodline power: see it coming (7th)
• Abilities: armor training 2, bravery +2, weapon training (heavy swords) 1
• Traits: Fate’s Favored

So basically we’re going greatsword halfling, which means a minimum of Strength 13. If my bloodrager can do it, so can your halfling! We’re going to be offsetting some of the disadvantages of being a halfling with an array of interesting feats; first, Steadfast Slayer. This feat gives you a bonus on damage rolls with two-handed weapons whenever you meet a number of requirements. First, you need to be the only character threatening an opponent. Easy enough. Second, your opponent needs to be larger than you. This bonus is +2 for every size category larger your opponent is than you, meaning it can add up FAST, but it isn’t particularly reliable most of the time. After all, chances are that you’re going to want at least ONE other ally in the fray with you, right? Think of it as a bonus for all those times it activates. The real heavy-hitter damage-wise is Risky Striker, which gives you a penalty to AC in exchange for a damage bonus. Nifty!

Fate’s Fortune is a bit of a no-brainer in this build, seeing as it boosts the luck bonus provided by the adaptive fortune trait. But why variant multiclassing / Eldritch Heritage? The answer lies within the 3rd-level bloodline power, see it coming. When you first get it, it provides a nifty luck bonus to a saving throw of your choice that can be changed as a full-round action. Fate’s favored boosts the bonus to +2 right off the bat, making it instantly better than any saving throw bonus feat, and the bonus just keeps getting better as you level up. This is why I took variant multiclassing over the feat chain; your effective sorcerer level from the feat chain is at –2 until you take the final feat around 17th level, while the variant multiclassing ability gives you your full bonus from the get-go. Also, variant multiclassing lets you take Alertness during the mid levels (not great, but acceptable) while taking the feat chain requires Knowledge (history) in the early levels; aka the worse feat of the two earlier in the game when you need the feats more. This is just my preference, but you can switch to Eldritch Heritage if you want to be good at Knowledge (history) or if you want to use this build in PFS.

Alright, let’s enough for now. To the mid levels!

Mid Levels (8 –14)

• Classes: fighter 14
• Variant Multiclassing: sorcerer
• Feats: Power Attack (1st), Steadfast Slayer (Bonus), Weapon Focus: Greatsword (Bonus), Furious Focus (Bonus), Fortunate One (5th), Risky Striker (Bonus), Weapon Specialization: greatsword (Bonus), Greater Weapon Focus: greatsword (9th), Improved Critical: greatsword (Bonus), Alertness (Bonus), Greater Weapon Specialization: greatsword (Bonus), Adaptive Fortune (13th), Critical Focus (Bonus)
• Variant Multiclass Abilities: harrow bloodline (1st), bloodline power: twisted fortune (3rd), improved bloodline power: see it coming (7th), bloodline feat: Alertness (11th)
• Abilities: armor training 3, bravery +4, weapon training (heavy swords) 3
• Advanced Weapon Trainings: armed bravery (9th), fighter’s reflexes (13th)
• Traits: Fate’s Favored

Small strides here, folks. I get Alertness as a bloodline feat and pick up armed bravery and fighter’s reflexes as advanced weapon trainings. By 14th level, I’m looking at an extra +4 to each of my saves from these AWTs, plus a floating +4 luck bonus (thanks, fate’s favored!) to one saving throw of my choice. That’s a PRETTY potent saving throw lineup; +9 Fort, +8 Ref, +8 Will, and +4 to any one of those three before accounting for ability scores.

On top of that, you can REALLY pile out the damage to big opponents. Between Power Attack (–3 on attack rolls, +9 on damage rolls with a two-handed weapon), Risky Striker (–3 to AC, +6 on damage rolls), Weapon Specialization and Greater Weapon Specialization (+4 on damage rolls), weapon training (+4 on damage rolls), and Steadfast Slayer (+2 on damage rolls per size category larger your opponent is than you), we’re looking at a fairly massive bonus on damage rolls, and that’s before counting for Strength bonuses, enhancement bonuses, or anything else! Those giants better watch out….

Let’s finish off at the end game.

Endgame (15+)

• Classes: fighter 20
• Variant Multiclassing: sorcerer
• Feats: Power Attack (1st), Steadfast Slayer (Bonus), Weapon Focus: Greatsword (Bonus), Furious Focus (Bonus), Fortunate One (5th), Risky Striker (Bonus), Weapon Specialization: greatsword (Bonus), Greater Weapon Focus: greatsword (9th), Improved Critical: greatsword (Bonus), Alertness (Bonus), Greater Weapon Specialization: greatsword (Bonus), Adaptive Fortune (13th), Critical Focus (Bonus), Combat Reflexes critical (Bonus), Cut from the Air (17th), Smash from the Air (Bonus), Bleeding Critical (Bonus)
• Variant Multiclass Abilities: harrow bloodline (1st), bloodline power: twisted fortune (3rd), improved bloodline power: see it coming (7th), bloodline feat: Alertness (11th), invoke the harrow (15th), harrowed home (19th)
• Abilities: armor mastery, armor training 3, bravery +4, weapon mastery: greatsword, weapon training (heavy swords) 3
• Advanced Weapon Trainings: armed bravery (9th), fighter’s reflexes (13th), Trained Initiative (17th)
• Traits: Fate’s Favored

You can basically do whatever you want at 15th level; I simply decided to have fun with some Weapon Mastery feats. Since big monsters often have rock throwing, I took Cut from the Air and Smash from the Air alongside Combat Reflexes, so I basically have Opportune Parry and Riposte versus all ballistic threats. Pretty terrifying stuff to a Small or Medium archer, let alone a giant with a boulder!

And that’s all for this week’s build. What did you think? Leave your comments and questions below, and I’ll see you back next week for another article and another installment of Guidance. 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.