THE GOBWOOD
Goblin, Fantasy, and RPG Blog
At long last, for all you rules sticklers out there (which is none because nobody has ever seen this website), we have a by the book, rule as written, no fun at all, perfectly legal character (almost). Using elephant in the room, as always, but also allowing an unchained skill and one third party cavalier order. I would cry booooring but honestly this is a great build where the rules just happened to give us everything we need.
Another note is that this character is inspired by a bad guy faction I’ve used in a game. I’ll probably make a couple of characters from this “Eclipse” faction and probably eventually an rpg blog about the faction itself, but here and now the short of it is that they’re a group adventurers from evil races who share the goal of finding and consolidating black fragments. Not all of them truly understand the reality of their cult’s aim but they all believe that obeying this voice in their minds will eventually lead them on a journey to the stars where they will fulfill their destinies as conquerors. Also they all wear this earring which is a flat metal disc painted mostly black to look like the waxing of a solar eclipse.
Character
Bal’lod was born to the highest caste of hobgoblin society- the oligarchy. There are no sprawling nations of goblinkind, no metropolis of goblin culture, no diplomatic relations… there is only war. Bal’lod grew up in nomadic camps- the warband always moved on after conducting a raid to avoid attention. Local militia were hardly a threat, but enough activity in an area would attract the ire of a kings army. Bal’lod hated having to abandon every foothold and every hard-won resource just after securing it, but this was life as a hobgoblin. In time leadership fell upon the shoulders of his generation and decisions were in the hands of others like his mind. The old breed who feared mankind’s retribution were gone; the young and ambitious would drive goblinkind forward… or so they thought. Raids no longer left burned palisades behind but instead left a garrison in each fortress taken. Trade routes were blocked and caravans detoured only to find themselves ambushed in even less defensible places. Villages were overrun and slaves were taken- made to till hobgoblin fields and dig in hobgoblin mines. Leather tents were cast aside for wooden structure, and the makings of cities took root filled with hobgoblin residents.
An army was raised to fight against goblinkind, but they were weak and unprepared while the hobgoblins had been planning this war for years. Time and again the humans marched upon goblinkind, their ranks bristling with swords and screeching with bluster. Sickened by this affront from the unworthy, Bal’lod refused to allow the lines of mankind to reach his forces unbroken. He would lead a charge of cavalry into enemy ranks, splitting their company and trampling their courage before they even clashed with the real hobgoblin force. His fearless charges were spoken of as if legend, and human soldiers dreaded being positioned in the center fearing that they might be overrun by black riders before the battle even began. In time the attacks slowed and then ceased, the humans were gone, and goblinkind was free to advance across the country only to find a land already in ruins. They had not defeated the kingdom of men alone… rather, they had occupied an eastern front and weakened the kingdom while a much larger invading force swept in from the west. Mankind had conquered mankind and goblinkind was next. Bal’lod’s kin were slaughtered, his nation destroyed, and any trace that goblinkind had ever built anything was erased.
He survived the calamity but afterwards fell into a morbid depression. He was born into a world where power was given only to those with power, passed between the hands that already held it but never built nor earned. This world was not fit to conquer or rule… only to abandon. Having given up on it, sitting on the edge of annihilation by his own hand, he received a vision. He saw the night sky all around him, looking down upon the land as he had seen it upon maps. The world was enormous, there was so much more of it than he had known but it shrunk away as others appeared. His world became a tiny speck and soon disappeared completely as hundreds, thousands, innumerable worlds streaked by him. He was overtaken by the vastness, and by the opportunity for a world that was worthy. He rose again, knowing his calling, and began a journey to seek others who share it.
Bal’lod has long black hair, a powerful build, and a big sword. A solid black tattoo encompasses the top half of his face but is cleft by a fresh scar. His draft horse is a massive beast; tall, broad, muscular beyond reason, and as imperious as a keep tower. Its hoof steps can be felt in the earth, and its breath will blow your hat off. Frank Frazetta wishes he was this metal.
Build
Goals:
While it is easy to make a terrifyingly dangerous mounted charger, it kinda stinks to have only 1 trick up your sleeve and, so we’re going to trade optimization for options.
1. Damage output- of course we have to fill our role so we’ll still focus on charging and pump our damage with spirited charge, but we’ll also be getting multiple conditional attacks instead of just the charge attack.
2. Prone- we’re going to be using overrun with our mount to do a lot of things, but first knock em down.
3. Fear- our 2nd control option will use demoralize to cause shaken or worse.
4. Synchronized Charging- our big cool ability will allow us to give allies an extra charge attack when we charge, which will be as much as possible, but not always.
Traits/Racials:
Scarred(Racial): +1 to natural armor, lose darkvision. Darkvision is really great so losing it hurts, and the natural armor can be soon acquired from magical items so why would we choose this? For roleplay! This character was part of a small army that got gobliterated so surely he must have scars to show for it. He also spent time self-harming out of depression so it fits but not only with his character; also with a feat we’re taking.
Bandy-Legged(racial): land speed reduced to 20ft but gain +2 to climb, ride, and CMD vs bull rush and trip while on foot. The speed reduction is harsh but ideally we’ll be mounted and just enjoy the +2 to ride. When we are forced to dismount, however, we’ll be even worse off than a regular cavalier. This one is optional.
Fearsome(racial): +4 to intimidate, replaced sneaky. We don’t plan to utilize stealth, and we do plan to demoralize so this is a pure positive and a HUGE boost to intimidate right off the bat.
Bully(Trait): +1 to intimidate, becomes a class skill. Boosting this skill has inherent value, plus this guy really does like to oppress folks.
Inspiring Rush(Trait): Once per day your charge gains +1 to hit and damage, and so does everyone who charges this round. This fits both the character, and the build later on- but can you remember to use it? I know I won’t…
Skills:
Ride: Max it! A gobvious choice for a mounted character.
Intimidate: Max it! We don’t want to simply succeed at demoralize attempts, we want to beat the check by at least 10 or even 20. You’ll see why later.
Anything else: your choice. If we’re dumping INT a bit then you’ll have 1 other skill point per level to play around with.
Scores:
STR- More is always better, but we’re going to be doubling, eventually tripling, our greatsword damage and a good portion of our power is coming from the mount anyway who doesn’t benefit from our STR. Get at least 15 to start with some value out of the 1.5xstr to 2h wpn dmg and then bump it up as you level.
DEX- we’re going to want 16 by mid/high level so we can make great use of combat reflexes on AOO’s that we’ll hopefully be triggering a few of. Since we get a racial +2 we can buy up to 12 here and have 14, slap on a magic item later and we’ve met our goal with ease.
CON- normally we’d want a lot but with the way overrun works and some of our feats we’ll hopefully be able to charge over a target into less disadvantageous positions to avoid eating many full attacks when they really get dangerous. Take 12 and we’ve got 14, that’s probably good enough for now.
INT- this our dump. We aren’t building for anything that needs it and as a cav we get 4 skills/lvl but we only care about 2 skills anyway. Drop it to 8, or lower if you literally don’t want any other skills.
WIS- hopefully the DM will completely forget about making you roll to teach your horse tricks so the only use this will be is in bolstering will save. We… will definitely have a weak will save.
CHA- While we are investing in multiple scores we’re not nearly as dependent upon them as some other builds would be so we can afford to invest here to boost our intimidate a bit more. Take it up to 14 for now, because we’ll have a ton of boosts aside from this already, but more is always better and it could be worth a headband slot later..
Archetypes/Options:
Fell Rider(Archetype)- this makes our hobgoblin less effective at charging, but makes our mount better at charging overrun and gives us access to fear effects.
Charger(Mount Archetype)- this is pretty overpowered for a cavalier because we don’t care about most of the stuff that it gives up. Bottom line, this lets our mount be good at charging overrun without having to boost its INT immediately (normally necessary to access feats not on the animal companion feat list, and we will do it later on)
Order of the Claymore (Class Option)- Ok.. it is third party and its definitely powerful but not way out of line. I mean… each of the abilities is good, none too good individually, but when you compare it to other orders you see the difference. Most orders have 1 or two good abilities, and 1 or two suck. All of our abilities are great- even the challenge ability, while certainly less powerful than order of the sword’s, synergizes super well with this build. Honestly, it’s mostly a flavor choice because I didn’t want us to use a lance, and this lets us use a greatsword the same way instead, but its definitely something that might need to be toned down. The unclearly written 15th level spirited charging greatsword whirlwind attack, for example, might need some review… Our edict is a pretty good fit though: take no smack from anyone and prefer the biggest baddie. If we play according to the edict we’ll be facing off with the toughest target of all and will need every bit of advantage given to make our abilities stick to the boss.
Mount- Horse. Its not really an option because the fell rider requires a horse, but I figured it should be stated that our mount is a dark black draft horse, not a classic cowboy ride. If he can plow a field he can plow your mom, and if he can do that he can overrun up to gargantuan size creatures by level 5.
Lastly, our favored class bonus adds +1 to ride and intimidate per 2 points invested. I think I’m going to make it alternate rather than waiting 2 levels to get both but… that’s neither here nor there. Both ride and intimidate are essential foundations of our build so this is fully amazeballs and we should invest all favored class points into it.
Feats, Choices, and Features
Since we have an animal companion there will be a segment for his build throughout as well. I don’t feel like talking about tricks, though, and hopefully your DM won’t either.
Fell Rider Claymore Build:
1- Brute Steed, Order, Tactician (Scarred Legion[Teamwork]), Challenge (+intimidate), Mounted Combat
2- Mighty Blade
3- Rampage, Ride-By-Attack
4- Dread Rider, challenge x2
5- Fell Presence, Signature Skill (Intimidate)
6- Spirited Charge(bonus)
7- Challenge x3, Intimidating Prowess
8- Punching above Your Weight
9- Greater Tactician (Escape Route[Teamwork ]), Wheeling Charge
10- Challenge x4
11- Deadly Rampage, Coordinated Charge
12- Furious Focus(bonus), Demanding Challenge
13- Challenge x5, Dreadful Carnage
14- Terror
15- Sweeping Charge, feat of choice
Charger Animal Build
1- Link, Mounted Challenge, Powerful Maneuvers
2- Charge Through
3- +2NA, +1STR/DEX, Barding Training
4- +StatUp, +2STR and +2CON advancement
5- Hefty Brute
6- +4NA, +2STR/DEX, Indefatigable
7-
8-
9- +6NA, +3STR/DEX, +StatUp(INT), Barding Training
10- Greater Overrun
11-
12- +8NA, +4STR/DEX
13- Spiked Destroyer
14- +StatUp
15- +10NA, +5STR/DEX, Stalwart Steed
Exposition
Level 1:
Brute Steed gives our mount +2 to STR but -2 to DEX. This is a fair trade any day but especially for us since we’re much more concerned about our mount’s ability to stick the overrun than we are about AC/reflex.
Mounted Combat is our first feat and lets us negate attacks on our mount, practically nullifying the dex loss from brute steed. Furthermore, we need this to be eligible for most other mounted feats. Note that using mounted combat is an immediate action- this will matter later.
Challenge is our signature cavalier ability which designates one target to get bonuses against. You get to add your level to damage against the target but take -2 to AC against everybody else. You also get a bonus effect based on your order which, for us, is +1 to intimidate growing every 4 levels.
Tactician is another cavalier ability that lets us learn and share teamwork feats because nobody wants to take them and they’re already published so you might as well force it, right? Whenever tactician grows you get a freebie teamie featy (I’ll stop, I’m sorry) and our first one will be Scarred legion. This gives us, and those we share it with, +2 to intimidate and Will saves but only so long as we’re adjacent, or at least started our turn adjacent before we charged away. This seems like a crappy feat for most characters but for us its thematic, shores up a weak save, and boosts a skill that will become a core ability and we didn’t have to spend on of our few “pick any” feat slots on it. Tactician is a standard action for now and only lasts a few rounds so it is best used before combat.
Link(Mount) is an animal companion ability that basically exists to handwave all the actions that are written in the rules about making animals do what you want. The key take-away is that you get a +4 to handle animal your animal.
Powerful maneuvers (Mount) is the elephant in the room equivalent to Improved Overrun consolidated with some others. +2 to overrun and no attack of opportunity are all we really care about. It should be noted that elephant in the room makes power attack not a feat- everyone can always sacrifice accuracy for damage by default, and thus it is not a requirement for anything anymore.
Mounted Challenge(Mount) is an animal companion archetype ability that gives your mount half the benefits and penalties of your challenge ability. You only learn half as many tricks as normal, but we don’t want to think about that anyway. The damage will be great, but its not a core part of the build.
Level 2:
Mighty Blade is our big cool order ability. Since lances are for little boys, this lets us deal double damage when charging with our greatsword, or triple when spirited charging. It seems very overpowered, but hey that’s third party the difference between a lance and a greatsword is 1d6 which becomes less significant as we level so its only slightly overpowered. Also we’re not taking spirited charge right away because we like smooth progress don’t we… DON’T WE?!
Charge through(Mount) is a feat that lets you pick a target to charge and overrun 1 creature between you and your target. We’ll be using it to overrun 2 targets in a row. The overrun in the middle is a free action.
Level 3:
Ride By Attack is a feat that lets us do our attack in the middle of our mount’s movement rather than at the end. For now we’ll be using it to either hit the middle target of our charge-through overrun or to hit a target and then get away. Don’t forget that you can attack a target you ride by at any point during your mounts movement so your targets are not limited to your mount’s target.
Rampage gives our mount trample, +2 to overrun and +2 to hoof damage. Trample basically gives us a free hoof attack when we successfully overrun, but don’t forget that they’re prone for this so you get a +4 to hit them. Note that if your mount gains the trample monster ability later then that also gains the +2 to damage. The hoof attack is not an action; it is a component of the overrun action.
Barding Training(Mount) is literally armor training for mounts. It reduces AC penalty by 1, increases max dex by 1, and allows full speed in medium armor. This increments every 6 levels and at level 9 you can move full speed in heavy armor. Our mount does not get evasion or multi-attack because of this. The loss of evasion hurts but the loss of multiattack is ok because we don’t care much about staying to full attack anyway.
Level 4:
Dread Rider gives us one free demoralize against a target which we either trampled or charged. We also get to add half our level to intimidate. The trample or charge has to hit, I think, in order to trigger the demoralize but still this is fundamental to the expanded functionality we’re adding at next level. The demoralize is a free action.
Our mount gets to advance at this level but he is already combat trained so we just get the +2STR and +2CON. We do get a +1 of our choice from increasing HD which will be STR this time.
Level 5:
Fell Presence is an aura that imposes a -2 penalty to saves vs fear effects, growing by 1 every 5 levels. Sadly this is kind of a waste because our fear inducing effect, demoralize, is a skill check with a DC and not a save but hey, if our allies have any fear effects they’ll appreciate it.
Signature Skill: Intimidate is an unchained skill feat that lets us add some functionality to our demoralize checks. Right now if we beat the DC to demoralize by 10, we can make the target frightened for 1 round and shaken after. At 10 ranks if we beat it by 10 we can panic for 1 round or frighten for 1d4 then leave them shaken after. With 15 ranks and beating the DC by 20 we can make them cower for 1 or panic for 1d4 then frighten after. 20 ranks and beating the DC by 20 makes them cower for 1d4 then panic after. So by high level its pretty amazing, almost unfair, but only if you exceed the DC by a lot.
Hefty Brute (Mount) is an animal companion feat that makes our mount count as 1 size larger for CMB purposes. Specifically, we’ll get an additional +1 to CMB/CMD and can [try to] overrun gargantuan creatures.
Level 6:
Spirited charge is going to let us triple our rider’s greatsword damage on a charge. Simple flat numerical superiority- Great!
Indefatigable (Mount) is a beautiful word that I would love to use in conversation but always get too tired to remember. Our mount is now immune to fatigue. Immune! I’m sure there are a ton of ways to abuse this, but that’s not for our build.
Level 7:
Intimidating Prowess will allow us to add our (by now) formidable STR modifier to our already robust intimidate skill giving us even better odds to beat that DC by 10 or more and stick a frightened effect.
Level 8:
Punching Above Your Weight is one of our order abilities that boosts our Cavalier level, if necessary, to match the CR of our challenge target for the purpose of calculating bonus damage. As an example, if we are level 8 fighting a CR12 monster then our challenge will give us +12 damage instead of +8. When you factor in the triple damage from spirited charge and the mount getting half our bonus, its pretty banger.
Level 9:
Greater Tactician is the upgrade to tactician, obviously, and gives us another freebie teamie featy (hah you thought I would really stop?) for which we may select Escape Route. Escape Route lets us, and anyone we share it with, not provoke AOO’s when we move through squares adjacent to our allies. In essence, if I’m next to you and want to charge out, I don’t take an AOO from the target threatening us. It’s like making a little tiny 3×3 safe spot, or 3×4 in our case, where allies don’t have to worry about AOO’s. Yea it’s pretty narrow in use but when its useful it could be lifesaving and there aren’t many truly useful teamwork feats out there. Feel free to pick anything else you fancy; some suggestions are Distracting Charge for +2 to any charge attack, Paired Opportunitsts for a +4 on those AOO’s from prone foes getting up, or Focusing Blow which lets us punch an ally to give them a 2nd chance at a save vs ongoing mind-effects (needs to be real dmg so use a spiked gauntlet to minimize injury). Whatever you pick it doesn’t matter a whole lot because scarred legion is still great, and in 2 levels we’re going to get a much much better teamwork feat to share. Lastly, and importantly, tactician can now share feats as a swift action.
Wheeling Charge lets us make a 90° turn in the middle of a charge. While this isn’t super important, it could guarantee a use of charge-through on every charge because we no longer have to position for a straight line before charging.
Barding Training (Mount) is just the upgrade mentioned earlier, now your mount can move at full speed in heavy armor which is nice only because it saves you the added cost of mithril for your barding.
StatUp (Mount)- at this level you can increase any ability score by 1. While STR seems like the obvious choice, its wrong. Choose INT at this level because normally animal companions can only select feats from the animal companion list, or those specifically added to their list, such as the overrun related feats we’ve been taking so far. Animal companions with 3 or more INT can pick any feat that they can physically, sensibly, perform and for us that means combat reflexes at level 13. You’ll see why shortly.
Level 10:
Greater Overrun (Mount) gives our mount yet another +2 to his overrun attempts and also grants an AOO against targets knocked prone. For now the value is mostly in the +2 but since we big pumpered horse INT to 3 we can synergize with this at level 13 with another feat.
Nothing is what the cavalier gets at this level, sucka, aside from another use of the challenge ability so that’s cool.
Level 11:
Deadly Rampage allows us to avoid taking an AOO if we attempt to overrun, which is redundant since our mount took powerful maneuvers at lvl1 but who cares because the real fun is that now we get to make a free attack at any target upon which our overrun succeeds. So by now its getting pretty hairy- we overrun something and then a LOT of things happen so let us review. When our mount overruns successfully: 1- the target goes prone, 2- mount gets to make a Trample attack, 3- mount gets an AOO, 4- we get to demoralize, 5- we get a free attack. The attack granted by deady rampage is a free action and this is important right now.
Coordinated Charge is a teamwork feat that we’re taking in a regular multipurpose pick any feat you want and qualify for slot, and now we qualify. I would have taken it last level if we had a feat at lvl10 but hey, we got it now! This feat lets our allies make a charge immediately when we make a charge. There is a weird range requirement too but otherwise it’s a pretty simple feat. The crazy strong thing here is that the charge your allies can take is an immediate action- it doesn’t affect what they can do on their turn at all! It isn’t just a free attack for your allies, its free movement too, and it only costs an immediate action! Greater still is that we can share this with tactician as a swift action, then charge, and give our buds their immediate charges without any prior notice! You can use it to get the whole crew on target simultaneously and set them up for full attacks, or you could even use it to give your ally a chance to charge away if you also shared escape route. Note that sharing teamwork feats is only limited by daily uses and the actions required to share them, we could share all three of ours at once by now if we wanted. This is why I’ve been detailing what type of actions all your freebies are, because you’re going to need to keep track of that and plan whether to use free actions, a swift action, or none because you want to use your immediate action to get an extra charge from an ally with this. You can also share this with your mount and, while there is argument that a mount and rider gaining the benefit of teamwork feats from each other goes against the spirit of teamwork feats, your mount can (and must) benefit from other allies you shared this feat with in order for you to benefit from it because he’s the one charging you around. Lastly, this feat is what that narrow little remember-to-use trait was for; rrbody gets +1 hit+1dmg on their charge once per day.
Level 12:
Furious Focus is a feat that lets us ignore the power attack penalty on our first attack. This is generally nice for anyone but for us its more importantly a pre-requisite for a feat at next level.
Demanding challenge is simply an upgrade to our challenge ability. Now, as long as we threaten our challenge target, they also take a -2 to AC against everyone else’s attacks (not ours). Now hopefully we’ll be charging around serving hoof and blade to the baddies but if and when we end up stuck by the boss and we actually remember that this exists then we’ll have a neat little no-save debuff.
Level 13:
Dreadful Carnage is another chance to demoralize triggered only when we drop a target, but this one affects every foe within 30ft who can see both us and the dead npc. Paired with spirited charge we can expect to see some good use out of this and paired with signature skill: intimidate we can expect to see some devastating effect. It will also combo well with a lvl14 ability.
Spiked destroyer (Mount) is a fantastic feat if you bought spiked barding for another attack with your overrun and a nice consolation prize even if you fail your CMB. By now I’m sure your party is fed up with all the rolls you make on your turn, but what’s a few more eh? You could also add any other feat here if something specific might help your campaign. This attack is a swift action.
Level 14:
Terror is our last Fell Rider ability before the capstone and is a pretty useful tool. This allows us to spend a standard action to cause fear in a 60ft radius. 60ft is really wide so that’s a LOT of targets, and anything within 30ft suffers our -2 to fear saves aura. Now, it only causes shaken but it can frighten goobs who are half our level and it lasts for a round per level. It would be amazing if the fear effects from demoralize could be incremented up with other fear effects such as this one but demoralize specifically says that it doesn’t, and the sig skill feat doesn’t change that. Unfortunately, against actual threats, this is strictly inferior to charging because that gives us damage and likely more severe fear effects. Still this can, and likely will scatter all the goobs and at least spread a few good -2’s around. It is also a good option if you’re low HP and can’t afford to be in the mix again just yet- better than a crossbow shot anyway.
Your mount gets another +1, which will make the most sense in STR naturally.
Level 15:
You get a feat at this level, but honestly we are now full build and I can’t think of any feat necessary to further define the identify and functionality of this character. That said there are always good options such as indomitable mount which is like mounted combat for mount saves, or trick riding which lets you use mounted combat more and make ride checks less. Classic core feats are also good like improved initiative, skill focus: intimidate, save feats, or even toughness (+15hp right now). Take your pick.
Stalwart Steed (Mount) is just the stalwart ability of other archetypes, which is just evasion for fort saves, but for mounts. It is not an important part of the build but I love how it helps describe our big beefy Belgian boss of a hoss.
Lastly, and most painfully, we must discuss that third party cavalier order’s final order ability.
Sweeping Charge appears to let you hit everything when you charge. More specifically, you can attack everything in an adjacent chain that you threaten. You only attack once though, and at a penalty of -2 per target (which is -4 just for 2 targets), but that attack gets applied to every target’s AC to determine a hit and you roll damage separately. So yea, the rules are really weird; basically the more targets the less accurate but we probably won’t have to worry about it much- how often do you really get more than 3 targets in reach anyway? There is no explanation of how this interacts with ride-by-attack but I figure it all happens when you attack your declared charge target, wherever that may be relative to your mounts movement. Doing this is just an optional way of executing your charge so nothing really changes action-wise. Now the accuracy loss is going to make this not always the best choice but when you factor in spirited charge and the chance to trigger Dreadful Carnage for the AOE demoralize, it would be worth it if the targets were softened up by a fireball or something.
Combos and Strategies
Charging+Overrun:
This is our go-to strategy and it carries the most weight. Basically we have our mount perform a charging overrun while we perform a charge attack. At level 1 its just that. Level 2 lets us overrun another creature on the way to our target. At level 3 we add in trample damage. Level 4 adds a demoralize to a successful overrun. Level 9 lets us overrun a target not quite on the way to our target. Level 10 gives our mount an AOO when they overrun. Level 11 adds a free attack when we overrun. Level 13 adds an armor spike attack for our mount when it overruns. The amount of stuff we can tack onto this overrun is crazy and, as far as I can tell, its all legal.
Dread Rider plus Sig Skill: intimidate is what adds so much impact to our demoralize- causing frightened or worse depending our check result. Dreadful Carnage lets us do this in AOE after dropping a foe so taking out a goob npc could have almost as much value as charging through a group of tougher targets. Our intimidate skill should be astronomical at the start and throughout any campaign. We start with 4(ranks), +2 from CHA, +4 alternate racial, +2 from Scarred Legion if you can share it before combat, and sometimes a +1 from order’s challenge perk (which grows every 4 levels) for a possible total of +13 at start of play. By the time we get Sig Skill: Intimidate at 5th level we should have up to +22 from growing ranks, growing challenge bonus, and growing favored class bonus, and at level 7 we get Intimidating Prowess pumping it to around +29. By the end of this build guide we’ll have something like +47 to intimidate.
Ride-By-Attack, Wheeling Charge, and Sweeping Charge could let you charge through group, get your whirlwind attack buffed by spirited charge, and continue on to end your turn by a less threatening target. Plus you’ll get the overrun on multiple targets along the way. This has the potential for a lot of damage.
Fell Presence and Terror synergize in an obvious way. Aura of -2 to fear saves, and a fear ability. Nice.
Alternatives
For your mount there is a Bulette Charge Style feat line which optimizes overrun and heavy armor which is both effective and thematically appropriate. It requires improved overrun (powerful maneuvers) and gives you an additional +4 to overrun much sooner than greater overrun is available, but only in heavy armor (it’s a smaller bonus in lighter armor). Strangely it doesn’t require you to be charging but I think that was the intent as heavy armor adds momentum. Bulette Leap gives you +STR to acro while charging and lets you overrun multiple foes with a cumulative -2 penalty but it isn’t clear how you execute these consecutive overruns as part of a charge- do you have to be full attacking or do you just pick targets in a row? Bulette Rampage adds an automatic 1d8+1.5xSTR damage to your successful overrun. With all three you pretty much have exactly the same bonuses and extra damage as Charge Through, Hefty Brute, and Greater Overrun but trade the ability to overrun gargantuan targets for a guarantee on the extra damage. Then again… you could get them all if you drop spiked destroyer and went to 20.
If you sacrificed some feats to take weapon focus first, you could invest in the dazzling display line which can grant even more opportunities to demoralize with sig skill: intimidate but it would cost you either some intimidate bonus, mobility, or damage potential.
You could build to operate without charge and focus on doing overruns as part of your mounts movement while you make ride-by attacks. First pick another order, few fit aside from dragon. Then we’ll replace your mount’s charge-through with Bulette charge style for the +4 (You’ll need it). Then swap Spirited Charge for Mounted Onslaught which lets you overrun multiple targets with a -5 penalty to each after the first. Swap Wheeling Charge for Trick Riding which lets you make fewer ride checks and use the mounted combat feat to ignore up to 2 hits. Finally take Mounted Skirmisher as your level 15 feat which lets you make a full attack if you mount moves only up to its speed this round. The awesome is that you can just move willy nilly over enemies in any squiggly path you want, but the penalty makes it hard to stick it by the third target. The other not so great thing is that your hobgoblin’s damage, unless you use a lance like a dork knight, will be pretty lackluster until level 15 when you can full attack again, and even that limits your mount’s overrun path options possibly forcing you to either give up some overruns or eat AOO’s to get them. The primary build can only overrun 2 targets but does so without penalty, and your hobgoblin will have better damage all the way up. Still a cool option and sufficiently potent.
Roleplay
You are not a nice person, but this party is your family- like in fast and furious 9. You should treat your peers with peerless respect, and everyone else like they don’t matter at all. Your very goal is to leave this world behind, you care absolutely nothing for anyone who isn’t coming with you and your social roleplay should reflect that, perhaps even bordering on reckless disregard for lasting consequences. You certainly don’t want to make immediate enemies or trouble, but if your name is left behind in disgrace or with a massive bounty it matters none to you.
You should make an effort to antagonize human success when convenient. Boo performers, berate quality of food stalls, undermine human leaders in front of their subordinates, any petty immature thing you can think of just to leave a tiny emotional scar- after all there is still time before the exodus.
You should also spend time brooding darkly. You have a history of trauma from the loss of your nation, and you still struggle to keep it together sometimes. You may have been the bad guy, but your dreams were ripped away from you on this world and so were the lives of everyone you held dear. Order an extra drink at the tavern just to leave one behind in memorium, maybe finish of dying enemies in the name of a hobgoblin comrade saying “For Nohg Bal’osh!” and spitting on the corpse (make up new names each time), carve the symbol of the black riders into finely crafted wood as graffiti to satisfy all three of these roleplay ideas.
Lastly, your horse is even more of a badass than you are. Everybody wants a cool unique mount like a unicorn or a nightmare but one of this characters things is to earn your power and this horse WORKS bruh. The fact that this horse is just a horse is important, and you adore your horse for how it pushes itself, even exhausts itself, under the burden of its barding, your armor, and the rage of combat. You should spend time praising your steed, drilling it’s hoof attack, putting it to work for exercise (tilling, pulling, etc…), running it for endurance training, and should always spend your first gold on upgrading it. +1 Flaming Horse-Shoes sounds like a great investment goal.
The truly final thing we need to do is add something that is totally not in any rulebook and make a liar out of me so we’re going to give the horse custom extraordinary homebrew powers in the form of a bonus trick! Blow: as a standard action your horse may take a deep breath and forcefully blow through its nostrils at an adjacent hat-wearing creature. The target is allowed a reflex save DC10+HD+CON to hold on to their hat else it is blown off. If successful, the hat lands in the square opposite the horse and the horse may make a demoralize check as a free action. If the hat is secured with a chinstrap it can still be blown off but does not fall to the ground, it remains suspended by the strap and can be donned again as a free action. Has no effect on helmets or men without hats but may still upset them.
Unclear Rules
My wife is completely unaware of this, so please don’t tell her, but I actually don’t know everything. I know a lot… but not even close to everything and this character has a few things going on that I’m not completely sure about.
Can I share one feat with tactician as a swift, then another as a standard? There is other precedent for using a bigger action to perform a lesser action, such as using your standard action to move, and quicken spell sets a precedent for following a swift action with a standard action to do the same thing (cast a spell), and using tactician was a standard action for 9 levels before it became a swift. I think it’s a fair use of actions but, as it is written, it is not directly addressed and the simplest possible interpretation would be that it is a swift action only.
When you make a mounted charge, you and your mount are actually both taking actions simultaneously so your mounts charge and your charge, while coincidental, are not necessarily the same thing. Can your mount charge while you just take a regular old standard action? What if you don’t want to take the AC penalty from a charge but still want your mount to gain the bonus to its overrun? Can your mount charge one target, while you charge another as long as you have ride-by and threaten it at some point during your mount’s movement?
Since we’re getting a lot of extra actions from our mount’s overrun, how do the bonuses from charge and spirited charge affect those actions? Do you get the +2 to all attacks you make related to the charge? Just on the 1 action against the declared target of your charge? Should you get it on every attack made before your mount stops its movement because of the momentum but not on attacks made after your mount stops moving?
There is some debate over whether you can overrun while charging due to how specific the wording on charge is, but it is blatantly obvious that this is stupid and we won’t address is. Arguments could be made that overrun does not get the +2, again because of the wording, but that is also stupid. There is also an interpretation of overrun that would allow you replace all your attacks, as part of a full attack, with overrun attempts, just like you could with disarm or trip, but this too is stupid.