Pathfinder Pathfinder: Kingmaker Builds and Strats Thread

[Yosharian]

Multiclassing and staying pure both have benefits, it depends on the specific build you are trying to make.

 

[Efe]

what else does it help other than stack ac?

Also arcane Enforcer on nenio ?? why?

 

[Yosharian]

what else does it help other than stack ac?

Also arcane Enforcer on nenio ?? why?

Main reasons to multiclass are to obtain multiple benefits that normally cost feats and are important to get, such as armour or weapon proficiencies, bonus feats, special abilities etc

 

[Mortmal]

I read you can make a mystic theurge combo with a rank 3 ability of the lich giving stat damage by hit.

Negative stats with magic missile is an old meme. It is icing on the cake, not really powerful and its not really a special combo for mystic theurge. That said if all you want is casting power then you don't want to mystic theurge at all. At least not with lich. Lich gets to spellbook merge with arcane casters, which means you get higher CL and faster spell progression. IE Wizard 9 Lich 3 casts as a Wizard 12. It is arguably broken in a bad way but I don't think anyone but really anal people even give a fuck at this point. A mystic theurge build even with spellbook merging is going to net you a CL 18, CL 22 caster. By just not merging you'll be CL 20 / CL 20, and by merging you can be CL 30. It's just not worth it unless you're doing a fun build of 'oh look, I am feyspeaker/thassilonian conjurer/mystic theurge/angel and can cast every spell ever'.

Thats the kind of answer i was expecting. Could not know it was a meme i am just discovering stuff on WOTR.

 

[Seari]

That's a cool Nenio build Desiderius, I might use it if I have too many ranged characters.

 

[Desiderius]

I mean Kitsune has bite + pounce so...

I've given her the ranged feats last two times through for her Blind beam thingie and because the game has great xbows but with abundant casting you should just be able to cast and then pick up melee stuff mid to late. Low starting STR kind of a bummer but you can power thru that by the time you get the Pounce. Finessing the Bite with Agile Fists currently not working or she'd also be fine tank as DEX-based.

 

[Desiderius]

Could not know it was a meme i am just discovering stuff on WOTR.

It was a P:K meme that turned out to be wrong. You were looking down your nose based on obsolete theories from previous game.

Slayer gives Nenio a variety of benefits (there's equipment that triggers off of Studied Target for instance) but main motivation here is Martial Prof for EK and EK to get to 10 BAB to qualify for Kitsune Vulpine Pounce Feat.

Pounce + Dragonform = pretty good.

11 Move Action teleports per rest from Archetype is gravy but incredibly good when you've got Cones to position. Spells are Standard Action so Move Action teleport is exactly what you're looking for.

She ends up down two caster levels total so still gets to lvl 9 spells and by the time you hit the splash you've got decent Spell Pen from Mythic so Caster Level not as crucial.

 

[Efe]

Dont get me wrong, teleport as move, charge as standart into full attack pounce sounds really great.
but like you said, not that much on nenio

 

[Desiderius]

Designing a Scroll Savant from scratch is a different problem than designing a Scroll Savant given Kitsune.

She's already paid that price, it's a matter of cashing in on it. By the time you get to the splash the difference between 8 base STR and 16 base STR is rapidly becoming not trivial but close enough given the other benefits.

 

[Desiderius]

For TB (easier to manage Swift Actions) go SS10/EK10 and burn the Feat for Martial Prof to get EK capstone depending on how fast you get to 20.

Thing to keep in mind is quality of life from lvl 11 to 20 and how feat starved she is tho and how strong teleport effects are (see D:OS II). On other hand no TP in Abyss.

 

[Desiderius]

Salient feature of a game where inactive companions still gain experience (unlike BG for instance) is that you can design different companions for different stages of the game. If you really want lvl 9 spells and EK capstone for endgame you can just play Wolj until you get there then switch.​

 

[Darkwind]

11 Move Action teleports per rest from Archetype is gravy but incredibly good when you've got Cones to position. Spells are Standard Action so Move Action teleport is exactly what you're looking for.

Sorry to intrude but I also just started a new game with the CotW classes added. Which class/subtype has teleport as move? That sounds interesting to me and I need a last character idea to round out my group.

 

[Desiderius]

I think it’s a roll-your-own from Wrath. Monks are supposed to get Move Action as Ki ability but it’s working in-game as Standard.

Wrath also has a version of Oracle Hermit archetype that ai think is in CotW too.

 

[Tomasety]

Hello again.

I found out this piece of information on reddit regarding "fighting defensively" which was something I had many doubts regarding how it was applied on in-game. Also, I've been trying to stay away from using crayne style in every single melee build as I started to realize it was not a good idea at least in normal difficulty.

I also started a new playthrough this time with double FeySpeaker (Valerie and MC) and I must admit I prefer Valerie as a Feyspeaker instead Bard. Maybe because I couldn't figure out how to make build her as Bard but I still have horrible nightmares regarding The House at the End of Time and the loss of the bard on it.

 

[LannTheStupid]

<boomer>What buffles me is that all that is written in this post is explained in-game. Yes, one needs to read the descriptions of the crane feats, but it is there. And it has been there since 2018</boomer>

 

[Desiderius]

"you can grab the Crane Style feat just by splashing monk"

The amount of damage that "just" did to this game is incalculable. We're lucky this game isn't level-scaled as ruthlessly as most games are these days but it was still pretty bad.

 

[Seari]

Spoiler

You guys are sleeping on the Conjuration Feyspeaker. Slowing Mud AoE Daze first round and Slow effect. Snowball is just great, stagger on a level 1 spell, also Faerie Fire (druid only). The most overlooked ability of the Feyspeaker is Resist Nature's Lure, +4 to saves versus all spells and abilities of the Fey and Plants in this setting? Crazy good. When not casting you can hang in melee as Wild Shaped Smilodon with Mirror Image and Displacement.

Edit: Have yet to try out the 5th level Conjuration spell Cave Fangs, might be good.

 

[Tomasety]

Spoiler

You guys are sleeping on the Conjuration Feyspeaker. Slowing Mud AoE Daze first round and Slow effect. Snowball is just great, stagger on a level 1 spell, also Faerie Fire (druid only). The most overlooked ability of the Feyspeaker is Resist Nature's Lure, +4 to saves versus all spells and abilities of the Fey and Plants in this setting? Crazy good. When not casting you can hang in melee as Wild Shaped Smilodon with Mirror Image and Displacement.

Edit: Have yet to try out the 5th level Conjuration spell Cave Fangs, might be good.

I had planned two FeySpeakers toons, MC and Valerie but with a more shapeshifting focus on both although I took Spell Focus Conjuration for MC at lvl 1. I stopped playing that playthrough around lvl 6 because 2 Smilodons were just too much, it felt a bit unfair and unbalanced. I must admit my original idea was to make MC a Summoner using Conjuration spells like Creeping Doom but didn't think about the rest spells that were affected by Spell Resistance since I couldn't find feats to fill on it.

I got the idea from Desiderious pictures and also from a gamefaqs guide which used Defender of the World archetype but adapted for Feyspeakers.

 

[Desiderius]

Cave Fangs is kind of broken, but also a pain because Feather Step doesn’t keep your own team out of it. The Entangle version is probably good enough since it’s a Free Action but it just feels like it’s own minigame that I don’t end up using much.

The more desperate you are the better it is since there’s no opportunity cost (probably used it the most in Unfair run) and outside of the Pit spells there aren’t a whole lot of ways to attack Reflex saves*.

You’re not supposed to be able to spam it in the same location so you’ve got to police yourself somewhat. Shld play as additional Swift Action (one use per turn) for best results.

* - other than damage of course. Cave Fang/Pit clunkiness is what converted me to nukage.

 

[Tomasety]

I'm sorry to bother you with a noob question but I've been trying to figure out how to make Aldori Defender + Sworlord build and I'm not quite sure about Disarm and Dazzling alltogether on this combination.

First of all, Dazzling being a Full Round action is something that I personally don't like on a potential char that needs to either hit or disarm the opponent. Second, Disarm as a Combat Maneuver feels worse than Trip and I wouldn't be over thinking this too much if I had the Thiefling race so I could potentially use Haplo's build which looked intertesting enough to try it.
Finally feats, the whole chain is feat starved if I include disarm on it.

So, the first question would be Disarm alongside a Dazzling Display user worth for Aldori Defender 10/Swordlord 1/Monk Scale First(1) ?

Feats I had in mind such as Combat Expertise + Weapon FInesse + Weapon Focus Dueling Sword + BlindFight + Dazzling Display + Crane Style + Combat Reflexes + Outflank + Shatter Defenses + Improved Critical + Piranha Strike + Weapon Specialization DF + Greater Weapon Focus Dueling Sword DF + 2 spare which could be Disarm and maybe Agile Maneuver or anything else which I can't think of (maybe critical focus and hammer the gap??)

And the last but not least question would be "I don't feel quite comfortable seeing I can get caught flat-flooted on a dex based build" which I could prevent with more dips (minimum 2 Bard Archeologist) but I try to take the least dips as possible on any build I try and think about.

Thanks and sorry for the brick of text.

 

[LannTheStupid]

For melee fighters Dazzling Display is taken as the prerequisite for Shatter Defenses, which is one of the strongest feats in the game. So do not sweat over the Dazzling Display action economy; this (usually) should not be used by frontliners.

However, you need someone to scare opponents to proc Shatter. Bardic Dirge of Doom does exactly that; however, there are many other sources.

Also: https://www.d20pfsrd.com/

 

[Desiderius]

Well I discovered it in the first place in the Valerie Bard playthrough where I had Linzi playing a joke AD6/Thug4/Bardx monstrosity and it ended up being surprisingly good so you’re welcome to play around with it yourself.

She opened combat with DD from Stealth then ran around Disarming everything. You can simulate this with AD/Swordlord but you’ll be way better than she was against thing that can’t be Disarmed.

Disarm is better than Trip because it lasts (much) longer while still neutralizing the opponent and providing AoOs.

 

[Desiderius]

You used to be able to use Dirge of Doom at the same time as Inspire Courage with Lingering Performance. Once that was nerfed Dirge got worse since Competence bonuses to atk/dam are so rare.

In Wrath with Mythic Display you can use DD at any speed up to Swift at a penalty so you can play around with using that in conjuction with Disarm.

I had a Dirge Bard with the Swift version on Autocast for awhile.

 

[Desiderius]

Here's the straight Swordlord I tested in P:K last year:

I think I'd want Shake it Off in there somewhere early. Persuasive is nice because you want Perception for Adaptive Tactics but could definitely drop Weapon Specialization and Piranha. I've had good luck with Power Attack into Cornugan (up to Dreadful) on DEX builds in Wrath since you don't really want to dump Strength all the way so you're in range to buff it up enough to keep it on with Reduce.

The big changes in Wrath is that you get 3 pieces of +3 or more CMB equipment along with a spell that boosts it +4 and a Drovier Aura (can make Lann Drovier) for another +4. The spell is personal so you've got to get it Infused from an Alchemist or from a scroll from Nenio, but you want UMD for the Mirror Image Wand in any case. Swordlord Aeon also picks up Divine Favor and Stunning Barrier immediately.

The major thing is that YOU CAN TAKE REGULAR FEATS IN PLACE OF MYTHICS which you probably want to here. Since you're not a caster you're not losing a ton other than Mythic Dazzling if you want to play with that. You get first one at Chapel where lack of Bonus Feats really starts to bite. Another option midgame is Mythic Skill Focus for Persuasion or Perception which lets you take ten.

Long lasting disable from Disarm. He's neutralized so you go Disarm something else. He'll die to AoOs.

You'll get ridiculous stats like this earlier in Wrath with Fighters (who can use Dueling Gloves) and all the stacking buffs.

Shot I found from a playthrough using this build. This is from CotW but shouldn't be that different from Wrath. You're rock solid even when you can't Disarm due to the combination of Weapon Training/Dueling Gloves, full BAB, Adaptive Tactics, Shatter Confidence, and the reduced penalties from Combat Expertise and Fighting Defensively (especially once Steel Net kicks in). Excellent combination of offense and defense.

Touch doesn't come up all that much but you're very solid there.

Likewise regular AC.

Early version of Straight-up AD with Swordlord level for DEX-to-Damage (probably don't need in Wrath).

For the splash masters out there. Decent Jack of all Trades. Straight Archeologist is probably just better.

Archeologist gets to Take Ten on Trickery at level six for free and gets Perception and Trickery bonus per level. Dodge, Image, most of what you want. Can cast with Shield so doesn't need Shield spell.

This one combined with Duelist to pick up Parry and Bodyguard for the ultimate Defender.

 

[Desiderius]

I played around with it a couple minutes in Wrath today:

Looks like you can get all the Feats you need without burning any Mythics, plus there's the Mythic version of Disarm you might want to pick up as well, tho it's not so great until you get some Mythic Levels. The only thing stopping you from actually using a Shield is Deft Strike (DEX to Dam) which I never got around to picking up on Regill and haven't missed it much so you could use the +3 CMB +5 AC Shield and probably be fine, likewise the Mithril Chain that gives you extra damage when Flanking.

I accidently went up to AD8 but that may not be the worst idea either to pick up Steel Net.

Aeon is insanely good since you get True Strike which is the thing you want more than anything, Divine Favor, and Stunning Barrier right away and you want decent CHR anyway for your Dazzling Display. With Bit of Fun for Image and +3 to skills (you use Stealth, Persuasion, and Perception in combat) you’re good to go.