Pathfinder Pathfinder: Kingmaker Builds and Strats Thread

[aweigh]

Is the Improved Tripping Large-sized Spiked Chain Whirlwind With Reach And AoO's machine build doable in Pathfinder or did Paizo put something in there to trip it up?

It was always my favorite martial build in 3.5, tee hee.

 

[Yosharian]

Is the Improved Tripping Large-sized Spiked Chain Whirlwind With Reach And AoO's machine build doable in Pathfinder or did Paizo put something in there to trip it up?

It was always my favorite martial build in 3.5, tee hee.

Lunge is in, Trip/Greater Trip is in, some Trip feats like Fury's Fall are in, Combat Reflexes is in. Dunno what else you need?

 

[Rinslin Merwind]

Vivisectionist is quite flexible, you can multi or single with it. I'm using a pure build.

Arcane Trickster: you can use Sorc, sure. I don't really rate Arcane Trickster though.

Thank you for answer very much, I guess I will experiment.

 

[rashiakas]

What about the bard archeologist kit? Are those special class bonuses worth it, or are the other kits better (when comparing pure bards)?

Heroism and Greater Heroism can replace your lost Inspire Courage, so actually, yeah, it's pretty good. The biggest problem is that Archaeologist's Luck just doesn't last long enough. So that's quite bad. You'll run out, and then it's just a weak bard.

Minor correction; Heroism is morale bonus, inspire is competence bonus, so they stack.

 

[deuxhero]

deuxhero
I don't think this 'spell sharing' is in, or I just didn't find it with my sylvan sorceress. The animal companion was her level, so I don't think you need boon. The issue is that you don't level that fast early on (think Baldur's Gate), so I'd rather pick up offensive spells (e.g. laughter with the fey bloodline).

Share spells refers to this ability in PNP

The druid may cast a spell with a target of “You” on her animal companion (as a touch range spell) instead of on herself. A druid may cast spells on her animal companion even if the spells normally do not affect creatures of the companion’s type (animal). Spells cast in this way must come from a class that grants an animal companion. This ability does not allow the animal to share abilities that are not spells, even if they function like spells.

It could be automatic. Quickest check would be if Enlarge Person works on the animal companion.

 

[Urthor]

After a few tries, best build for a blasting wizard is an arcane sorceror human who takes spell specialisation in burning hands at lvl 1 and unlike most wizardy types does something useful before lvl 2 & 3 magic, dragging the team through the early game with 2 extra glorious class levels of aoe.

Blasting sorceror is, as always, 100% less useful than taking a spellbook of haste spells in a typical wizard dumping necromancy and enchantment, specialising in almost anything it doesn't really matter because you don't roll for Haste casts.

It seems like Owlcat included basically zero aggro gaining skills unless there's 1 in Stalwart defender, unlike in tabletop where I believe there's 1 or 2, so I am slightly regretting teching Valerie as a sword and board.

Better approach is summoning a shit load of junk summons for the harder fights and then taking DPS melee and glorious Wakanda archer, because unlike PoE it's pretty much impossible to keep aggro on your tank

Most of the difficulty spike fights so far on base rules is solved by save reloading until whatever outsized fucker who needs a 18 to hit after priest buffs starts hitting my wolves instead of my party.

 

[Yosharian]

What about the bard archeologist kit? Are those special class bonuses worth it, or are the other kits better (when comparing pure bards)?

Heroism and Greater Heroism can replace your lost Inspire Courage, so actually, yeah, it's pretty good. The biggest problem is that Archaeologist's Luck just doesn't last long enough. So that's quite bad. You'll run out, and then it's just a weak bard.

Minor correction; Heroism is morale bonus, inspire is competence bonus, so they stack.

Oh snap. I didn't realise Inspire Courage was split into Morale/Competence bonuses like that. Is that a recent change? I could have sworn all the IC bonuses were morale...

 

[jungl]

the wakanda archer is great for killing really hard optional enemies early. He can get high attack with his bow and if u can get bow that does 2d6 acid damage the acid damage alone can kill these dr resistant enemies. All you have to do is survive long enough in fights for him to kill these baddies.

 

[Ruchy]

How are people Building Jaethal? I have taken a dip in two handed weapon specialist for proficiencies, but not sure If I should go back to inquisitor.

 

[hell bovine]

deuxhero
Enlarge person is a targetable spell, you can cast it on anyone. But I don't think you can cast shield on your companion, for example.

 

[hell bovine]

So... any feedback?

Human will give you three feats at the beginning, so you can start with the two archery feats that negate close range penalty, and get spell focus enchantment on top of that.

I haven't found much use for illusion at lower levels, because it's easy to keep the enemies from getting to your backline. But from playing with a sorcerer - the enchantments are very, very useful early on. Get the laughter spell asap, I think bards get it at level one, as opposed to mages.

edit: I'd disagree you need Linzi to help your bard out, at lower level I found her songs underwhelming (her offensive spells were very useful, though). Also, you will double on skills and the thing about Pathfinder is that all skills have non-combat uses, including in dialogues, so ideally you'd want a party that has a specialist for every skill. Therefore, if you want Linzi, play a proper archer and if you want the archeologist, drop the little twerp.

 

[Yosharian]

deuxhero
Enlarge person is a targetable spell, you can cast it on anyone. But I don't think you can cast shield on your companion, for example.

Shield can only be cast on yourself.

 

[hell bovine]

deuxhero
Enlarge person is a targetable spell, you can cast it on anyone. But I don't think you can cast shield on your companion, for example.

Shield can only be cast on yourself.

Yeah, I meant the animal pet, sorry for being unclear. Anyway my sylvan sorceress is no more, so I can't test it.

 

[Urthor]

So how do you build Wakanda as well as possible. Do you do the normal thing and dip a bunch of levels or is there a better way to build archers?

 

[rashiakas]

You can cast Mage Armor on your AC though.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

Spoiler

How would you build Eldritch Archer? low str, high dex and int too?

That's one way to do it, but an Eldritch Archer has many more reasons to have decent strength than a Sword Saint does. DEX doesn't do anything to add to your ranged damage, but with a composite bow you can add your STR bonus to damage. Also, Eldritch Archer can wear armor, which will quickly encumber you without okay STR. You can definitely do a INT/DEX build, but you're getting less out of both of those stats. CON is also easier to dump if you're planning to stay in the back row.

Should sword saint go with low str and high dex or try get high on both? estoc with finesse could be great.

Depends what armour you're going to use.

Oh wait, Sword Saint.

Hmm. Dex is better I think.

Yeah go Dex and try to pick up an Agile Estoc later on.

Agreed, I think it’s a mistake to try a STR based Sword Saint. I’m playing as a regular DEX based Magus with weapon finesse and fencing grace, which seems to work with spellstrike and spell combat even though I hear that it shouldn’t in the p&p version. Your Magus needs to be able to get up close and personal and a Sword Saint needs to do it without armor. You want that extra AC. For a Sword Saint, strength is a dump stat.

If you play as human, you’ll have enough feats to take slashing or fencing grace from level 3. The only problem in the prologue is that you should really make your chosen weapon an estoc, which means your Sword Saint won’t be able to use the rapier the game gives you. You’ll have to get by using only simple weapons until you can buy an estoc at Oleg’s.

Zero Credibility an estoc is better for a Magus than a dueling sword because it has a larger crit range (18-20 vs 19-20) and your crits apply to touch spells cast via spellstrike. If you take improved criticals down the line it becomes 15-20 as opposed to 17-20 for a dueling sword: estoc makes you a magical damage dealing machine. I think that’s worth the tradeoff of not getting the extra 2 AC from dueling mastery. Although for a sword saint I admit it’s a tougher call. By the time you’d get it at level 5, you’ll have mirror image and your spells will be renewable by tapping your arcane pool.

You get the chosen weapon by default, same with the clerics and inquisitors with their deities favored weapons. I was thinking 16 int, which is enough to get lvl 6 spells. I can't decide between sword saint, eldritch archer, tactician inquisitor and sacred huntsmaster...with mastodon abviously, my own miniature mammoth would fucking cool.

You do? They must have patched that in, because I got a rapier on day one.

Keep in mind that a Sword Saint adds his INT bonus to his armor class, so you get more out of intelligence than most other classes. Also, you’ll go through a lot of spells—I would go with 18 but you can get away with 16. Might want to play as an elf for the +2 to DEX and INT, but then you’ll have to wait a couple extra levels for fencing/slashing grace.

EDIT: you can take fencing/slashing grace from level 1 as a human.

Edit 2: here’s how I would do it:

STR: 7
DEX: 18
CON: 12
INT: 18
WIS: 10
CHA: 10

Your attack bonus will by +5 at level 1 with weapon finesse, and your DMG with an estoc will be 6-12 with fencing grace. 15% chance of rolling a critical.

You could dump some CHA and WIS down to 7 and 8, to send your DEX or INT to 20, but I like having a PC who doesn’t fail all of his diplomacy rolls and WIS under 10 makes you too vulnerable to anything that targets will (or dump WIS & CHA to 7 and 7 for 16 CON for a more resilient character). Kind of a glass cannon, but that’s the point. You only get 1 extra AC from your intelligence per level, until you hit your INT bonus, so by level 4 this guy gets 4 more AC.

At level 7, INT gives you a bonus to intiative. At level 9, you can apply your INT bonus to critical confirmation rolls. At level 11, your INT bonus lets you make additional attacks of opportunity per round. And, again, you really need those extra spells because you’ll be casting Shield and Mirror Image a lot and it’s a pain in the ass to carry enough rations to frequently rest in dungeons.

tl;dr if you’re a Sword Saint don’t stint on INT.

How would you build Eldritch Archer? low str, high dex and int too?

You could go that route, but Eldritch Archer gets less out of INT and more out of STR than a finesse based Sword Saint. They have no AC bonus from INT and they don’t need as many spells because by level 4 you can spend points from your arcane pool to restore ones you’ve already cast. Then again, no arcane caster ever went wrong by having too much intelligence. More importantly, you can only dump STR if you use a crossbow.

You shouldn’t dump STR below 10 if you’re planning to use a longbow or shortbow since they take a penalty to damage equal to your STR malus. Plus, composite bows let you add your STR bonus to damage (you can get a composite longbow from the bandits who attack Oleg’s right after the prologue) and Eldritch Archer can wear armor, so if you don’t want him to be super squishy, you might add a few points of STR just so that he can wear a chain shirt without becoming encumbered., Since you’ll be in the back line and have armor, you can get away with dumping your CON.

Be sure to take the point blank shot feat at first level, and the second ranged feat they recommend if you’re playing as a human rather than an elf. Pick ranged touch spells like snowball and ray of enfeeblement that you can use with your ranged spellstrike starting at level 2.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[hell bovine]

Also, you will double on skills and the thing about Pathfinder is that all skills have non-combat uses, including in dialogues, so ideally you'd want a party that has a specialist for every skill.

wouldnt archeologist alone cover every skill but athletics? And I feel like might pass that one without a single point if you get bonuses from spells, archeologist luck and inspire competence.

edit: I'd disagree you need Linzi to help your bard out

its not that i need her but I will have her. I usually dig a hole for myself with a set of rules and try to min max from there.

I will be able to use only crossbow. Question is: how many feats would I really need in total?

In theory a bard can cover every skill, but in practice you won't have enough points to max them all, and you won't get bonuses from stats such as wisdom (unless you give your bard wisdom, but there is little point). When adventuring with a party the game will use the character with the highest skill for checks anyway. You can't play the competence song before every check, however, because they sometimes pop up through surprise dialogues. And the checks are not always easy; my high charisma & persuasion sorceress was still occassionally failing.

I never got far with the archer (ranger), but starting feats, assuming human, would be: precise shot > this should open point blank shot. The last one either lingering song (for the luck duration) or spell focus enchantment. After that gsf: enchantment and whatever archery / bard feats come up. Though considering the archeologist doesn't seem to be getting any special abilities or feats at level 19 & 20, unlike most classes, I wonder whether giving him two levels of fighter wouldn't solve your dilemma. It would give you access to bows and the feats to use them, perhaps even throw weapon finesse into the mix.

Edit: or you could go magus eldritch archer (I think that's what they are called), since it is also an arcane archer sort of type. There is no companion that covers that area and some of the wizard spells are great boons for archers (hurricane bow, sense vitals).

 

[Yosharian]

This is what I recommend for Eldritch Archer:

Race: Elf
Str: 14
Dex: 19 (+2)
Con: 10 (-2)
Int: 19 (+2)
Wis: 07
Cha: 07

Weapon: Composite Longbow

Early feats are Point-Blank Shot, Precise Shot, then whatever you like after that.

I'll work out a more in-depth build at some point this weekend probably.

 

[amurath]

I want to try a solo char campaign on Normal, maybe Challenging. Currently my planned build is Vivisectionist 2/Cleric of Erastil 18 (Animal/Community Domains). Is it worth swapping 1-2 additional levels of cleric for fighter or vivisectionist? Also, should I go for the Cleave, Trip or Critical feat lines, or maybe just get the leopard animal companion that can apparently use trip?

 

[deuxhero]

deuxhero
Enlarge person is a targetable spell, you can cast it on anyone. But I don't think you can cast shield on your companion, for example.

Yes, but Enlarge Person doesn't normally work on animals, but should work on your animal companion thanks to

A druid may cast spells on her animal companion even if the spells normally do not affect creatures of the companion’s type (animal).

 

[Yosharian]

I want to try a solo char campaign on Normal, maybe Challenging. Currently my planned build is Vivisectionist 2/Cleric of Erastil 18 (Animal/Community Domains). Is it worth swapping 1-2 additional levels of cleric for fighter or vivisectionist? Also, should I go for the Cleave, Trip or Critical feat lines, or maybe just get the leopard animal companion that can apparently use trip?

Why do you want to multiclass your Cleric? What is it that you think those classes, or any others, will bring to the build?

 

[amurath]

I want to try a solo char campaign on Normal, maybe Challenging. Currently my planned build is Vivisectionist 2/Cleric of Erastil 18 (Animal/Community Domains). Is it worth swapping 1-2 additional levels of cleric for fighter or vivisectionist? Also, should I go for the Cleave, Trip or Critical feat lines, or maybe just get the leopard animal companion that can apparently use trip?

Why do you want to multiclass your Cleric? What is it that you think those classes, or any others, will bring to the build?

Vivisectionist gives me +4 stackable Str and an extra 1.5xStr full BAB bite attack from Feral mutagen, some spells (Shield/True Strike) and a +2d6 sneak attack that pairs well with the animal companion due to how flanking works in the game. I guess the main reason is that I don't find the last couple levels of Cleric all that appealing, since there aren't that many good 9th level spells.

 

[Yosharian]

I want to try a solo char campaign on Normal, maybe Challenging. Currently my planned build is Vivisectionist 2/Cleric of Erastil 18 (Animal/Community Domains). Is it worth swapping 1-2 additional levels of cleric for fighter or vivisectionist? Also, should I go for the Cleave, Trip or Critical feat lines, or maybe just get the leopard animal companion that can apparently use trip?

Why do you want to multiclass your Cleric? What is it that you think those classes, or any others, will bring to the build?

Vivisectionist gives me +4 stackable Str and an extra 1.5xStr full BAB bite attack from Feral mutagen, some spells (Shield/True Strike) and a +2d6 sneak attack that pairs well with the animal companion due to how flanking works in the game. I guess the main reason is that I don't find the last couple levels of Cleric all that appealing, since there aren't that many good 9th level spells.

Storm of Vengeance? Summon Monster IX? Energy Drain? Gate?

Your Bite does no damage at all against anyone with DR, right?

Creatures with natural attacks and attacks made with weapons can use both as part of a full attack action (although often a creature must forgo one natural attack for each weapon clutched in that limb, be it a claw, tentacle, or slam). Such creatures attack with their weapons normally but treat all of their available natural attacks as secondary attacks during that attack, regardless of the attack’s original type.

According to this your bite is made at -5 attack with only half your strength modifier. Bite is a primary attack but if it's used during a full attack with manufactured weapon attacks, it becomes a secondary attack and thus uses half str mod.

Aside from that, the +4 str bonus and the +2d6 sneak attack gives you quite a decent attack/damage bonus. I'm just not sure it's worth delaying your Cleric casting by 4 levels...

Just out of interest, why the Community domain?

BTW the Animal Domain gives you access to Form Of The Dragon III (it's called Dragonkind III in this game) which is quite an amazing level 9 spell...

 

[amurath]

Are you sure about these cleric/domain spells? It seems many of them haven't been implemented in the game (yet). For reference, here are the cleric domain spells: https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder...me=Pathfinder_Kingmaker&utm_content=t3_9ldyh7
and general cleric spells: https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder_Kingmaker/comments/9kt4zp/cleric_spell_list_patch_103/
I picked community domain because it's the least bad of the options that can be taken together with Animal domain, necessary for the animal companion. I would have preferred to take Glory/Strength from Gorum, but I think getting an animal companion as a tank/DPS might be more useful when playing solo.