Interesting ways to build a Brown-fur Transmuter?

[atm]

BFT is one of my absolute favorite classes. It supercharges your buffs to the point of absurdity, so you can end up with +12 strength more than you would have had without one in the group, and +4 to +8 more on any other stats you like. Considering a bard is only going to get you +4 to attack and damage, and this guy is going to get you twice that and also turn you into a dragon, it's like why ever have a bard. I mean, an alchemist can only get +10 stats from mutagen, and this guy will give you more than even that.

I am looking for interesting ways to make a BFT that can pull their own weight during combat. I have played BFT a lot, and always end up piling on the feats to make them sort-of-blasters, but generally feel disappointed with how they do. Wondering if anyone has found a way to make a BFT be more, and more interesting, than a buffbot.

Thanks in advance.

[Dryad]

As a note, bards add directly to attack and damage and can stack with a bft. Additionally, a bft's +12 bonus to strength only translate to half that, a +6. And, in my experience, since I'm equipping a character with belts anyways, the bft actually translates to only a +3 to attack and damage overall compared to a bard's +4, which is better. That said, since the bards and bft's buff different things and thus end up stacking with each other, you can easily run both and do even better than with just one.

Now as for how to use a bft in a manner other than a buffbot, idk. Try searching on Paizo's boards or reddit, you may find something.

[JacobTheViking]

My brownfur transmuter is Elta, from the arcade game Magician Lord. He's an Arcanist brownfur transmuter who specializes in magic missile like strikes and exploits, and shape shifting. Low Con (8) but he has feats and mythic abilities that off set this. His charisma is just a tad higher than his 18 Int, which I will raise to 20 as soon as possible.

[MjKorz]

Brownfur20 with a full focus on fighting in Dragonkind 3 form. It's not some kind of powerbuild, but it's interesting.

Start with 20 strength and raise it to 24, start with 18 intelligence and raise it to 19.

You end up with massive strength of 72 and 6 natural attacks on a mercenary without any mythic boosts. As a main character, you can hit 86 strength, depending on the mythic.

The problem is the inherently poor AC, so you have to build for maximizing AC: dodge, improved unarmed strike via Oblate background, entire crane style line of feats, combat expertise, archmage armor and all the other usual AC buffs.

You end up with something like 75+ AC, depending on your investment into dexterity. It's not super high, but on Core it's serviceable. Unfair is a different beast, you need to hit roughly a 100 and this build will struggle hitting such high AC.

[Conquista]

i like bft 9/vivi 1/arcane trickster 10
you get all important milestones
you can buff, you can clean swarms and you can remove traps without the need of some wonky navigating

[mudakonn]

BFT can in midgame spec into transmutation spam slow+obsidian flow, turn demons into dogs or disintegrate them.

[Mindeveler]

Half-bft, half-loremaster (since capstone is bugged anyway). ~20 DEX, ~20 INI (without equipment)
Extend, heighten, bolster, empower MMs.
Shatter defenses (LM), improved crit ray.
All 3 abundant castings.
Outside of combat - buffbot.
In combat - battering blaster (level 3 spell) with edge of force dagger in hand.
Quickened true strike at level 5, bolstered empowerd BB at level 6.
Also basic BBs at levels 3/4 to use with lower rods and when there is no need for maximum lvl 6 one.
Levels 7-9 are filled with buffs only, there is no room for offensive spells there.
Imo, it's the best use of him.
I had such bft on unfair, he was very helpful when I duo-ed Drezen siege and almost entire act 3 with him (MC - wildland shaman).

[ptirodaktill]

I tied BFT merc on patch 1.2 it was bugged back then. Stat bonus dissapeared at random times, so you only gain +2 to stats from legendary proportion. The selling point of BFT is casting 24H geniekinds and hurricane bow/leave blades with favorite spells+few items, the rest of package was underwhelming.

[Schlumpsha]

A Brown-Fur Transmuter focusing on polymorphing enemies instead of allies might be kinda fun to play with. Probably would work as Legend with Brown-Fur 20 / Witch 20 for Baleful Polymorph spell and Animal Servant grand hex.

[mudakonn]

Funny that polymorphed dog can't attack, its Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores drop to 1, so You will 100% land 3-rd level spell Dominate Animal since its will same will be very low due to Wisdom being 1. But i guess it still cannot attack but can move around and proc AOO-s or through some aura on it and walk around enemies :)

[Ghost]

OP you're probably already aware of this but if you equip the Stormlord's Bracers from Blackwater that converts your elemental damage to Electricity, and select the Mythic Feat for super lightning, you won't have to worry about elemental resistances anymore. Very helpful setup to keep an Arcane blaster with Hellfire Ray etc consistent.

Gear into Spell Penetration and Ranged Touch + to hit

Also btw the Arcanist trick Hellfire Ray is a weak AOE, not like the normal level 6 spell with the same name (?)

[Mindeveler]

Originally posted by ptirodaktill:

The selling point of BFT is casting 24H geniekinds and hurricane bow/leave blades

You can't cast lead blades as bft, only ranger and hunter have that spell (also cleric with artifice domain). Not even loremaster secrets allow other classes to take it.

[Raikon]

I think Odreads get it?

[Schlumpsha]

Metal oreads have it as a spell-like ability. Pretty awesome race for a Brown-Fur because of this.

[Mindeveler]

Originally posted by Schlumpsha:

Metal oreads have it as a spell-like ability. Pretty awesome race for a Brown-Fur because of this.

Nope.
You cannot use bft's "share transmutation" to cast spells from any other books, let alone with spell-like abilities.

[Schlumpsha]

Originally posted by Mindeveler:

Nope.
You cannot use bft's "share transmutation" to cast spells from any other books, let alone with spell-like abilities.

Yep.
But you can still utilize racial spell-like abilities such as this for the Brown-Fur. Just not share them with others. No biggie.