Pathfinder Pathfinder: Kingmaker Builds and Strats Thread

[M. AQVILA]

What's the best class for a summoner build? Monster Tactician or Herald Caller? Has anyone here tried those two classes?

Depends on what you want to do apart from summoning. Apparently (haven't tested it though) in order for the teamwork feats to work on summons, the tactician needs to be in melee range. With the herald caller you could stay behind the frontline and just spam summons. The other question is whether they have fixed spontanous summoning; when I tried it with a druid, it was one summon per converted spell, which kind of defeats the purpose. But that was a few hotfixes ago.

Or you could try an abyssal bloodline sorcerer.

I already played through act 1 as a sorcerer back when the game released, I want to try another class. After I try either MT or HC then eventually I'll decide whether I'll go sorcerer or one of those two classes.

So if I understand it correctly:

Monster Tactician

• Frontline fighter.
• Summons last much longer.
• Teamwork feats.

Herald Caller

• Backline healer/support.
• Free summoning feats.
• Can sacrifice other spells to cast summoning spells.

Anything else?

 

[Seari]

If you plan to use Monster Tactician in the front, use a reach weapon, if they get ko'd their summons despawn.

 

[Incendax]

what if i decide for my bard to wear small shield and grab shield wall. Will I potentially drop 1AC from my tanks?

Yes, if your Bard is the only other ally with Shield Wall. So if your ally is only using a light shield you get +1 from them. But the feat will use the highest value among all nearby allies, so a single light shield won't spoil things if you have 2+ people with Heavy Shields nearby.

what is best agile weapon? Must be agile since dex to dmg feats dont work with shields.

Depends on your build. I love Tears of Blood for a Monk/Knife Master. A crit fisher might love Bloodhound or Twin Crystals. Dexterity Magus would love Thundercrack.

EDIT: do halflings have issues with rapiers due to size?

No. They have slightly lower damage, but it's not really important.

 

[Sykar]

Who besides Valerie can be an effective tank? I really do not want to be overly dependent on Val all the time so I wonder if anyone knows if Harrim or Regongar can serve that role as well. I am not interested in hiring mercenaries btw.

 

[Incendax]

Who besides Valerie can be an effective tank? I really do not want to be overly dependent on Val all the time so I wonder if anyone knows if Harrim or Regongar can serve that role as well. I am not interested in hiring mercenaries btw.

Harrim is actually amazing because he can put an absurd amount of undead on the field.
Jaethal is a damn good tank with her host of immunities.
Kalikke can be a good tank with a little elbow grease.
Linzi can be a good tank if you focus her dexterity.

 

[ArchAngel]

Who besides Valerie can be an effective tank? I really do not want to be overly dependent on Val all the time so I wonder if anyone knows if Harrim or Regongar can serve that role as well. I am not interested in hiring mercenaries btw.

Jaethal is a damn good tank with her host of immunities.
Harrim is actually amazing because he can put an absurd amount of undead on the field.
Kalikke can be a good tank with a little elbow grease.
Linzi can be a good tank if you focus her dexterity.

Jaethal can also gets 3 animate dead per day after you do her first quest. That plus her undead immunities make her the best tank in the game if one wants to build her that way (even as a pure Inquisitor she can work well as a tank). Only advantage of Valerie is that she is lawful so one can take one level of monk and pick up crane style feats.
Linzi is not a good tank because she has low Con, tank characters do get hit and need to live long enough to be healed. Also if her life drops too low she teleports out and stops being a useful tank
If Valerie dies you can Breath of Life her.

 

[Haplo]

Harrim is probably not very good due to low Dex. Jaethal is good. I guess you can also build Regognar reasonably well to tank. Mirror Image should help a lot.

 

[Lhynn]

Who besides Valerie can be an effective tank? I really do not want to be overly dependent on Val all the time so I wonder if anyone knows if Harrim or Regongar can serve that role as well. I am not interested in hiring mercenaries btw.

Amiri can work very well as a tank.
Regognar is good but at high levels.
Undead waifu is probably best tank tho.

 

[Incendax]

Linzi is not a good tank because she has low Con, tank characters do get hit and need to live long enough to be healed. Also if her life drops too low she teleports out and stops being a useful tank

Linzi has base 14 Constitution and 14 Intelligence. You can make her an Aldori Defender/Duelist and hit 60 AC with that sweet Steel Web + Crane Wing + Cautious Fighter + Uncanny Defense combo. And she only teleports away when she actually 'dies' which almost never happens.

I mean, I would still rather have Jaethal tank. But the little halfling can be a beast.

 

[ArchAngel]

Linzi is not a good tank because she has low Con, tank characters do get hit and need to live long enough to be healed. Also if her life drops too low she teleports out and stops being a useful tank

Linzi has base 14 Constitution and 14 Intelligence. You can make her an Aldori Defender/Duelist and hit 60 AC with that sweet Steel Web + Crane Wing + Cautious Fighter + Uncanny Defense combo. And she only teleports away when she actually 'dies' which almost never happens.

I mean, I would still rather have Jaethal tank. But the little halfling can be a beast.

The point of the tank is not just to have good AC. Tank needs to be able to take it for the party, not get charmed or disabled and still be able to hit enemies and do some damage. I noticed enemy AI give up on attacking a tank if they don't do shit to them for a short while.

 

[Incendax]

The point of the tank is not just to have good AC. Tank needs to be able to take it for the party, not get charmed or disabled and still be able to hit enemies and do some damage.

All of which Linzi can do. You know she can equip the Bloodhound, right?

I noticed enemy AI give up on attacking a tank if they don't do shit to them for a short while.

Did you also notice that the AI will alternate between two tanks forever? The AI does not remember who it has previously attacked.

 

[Sykar]

Burning Arc vs Acid Arrow vs Molten Orb. Anyone using any of those or just Scorching Ray?

 

[Haplo]

Scorching ray wins for Arcane Tricksters.
But I hear Burning Arc is pretty good too.

 

[Crichton]

Speaking of arcane tricksters, as I understand it, the devs are on record as saying:

- 2 melee opponents = flanking is working as intended
- 1 sneak attack per ray (rather than 1 per spell) is not working as intended.

Does anyone know if they have weighed in on ranged attacks against flanked opponents getting sneak attack damage? As I understand it, you need the ranged flank feat for that in PnP. Be a shame to roll a ranged sneak attacker if that is going to get fixed.

 

[Haplo]

They are not gonna change the flanking conditions.

It is not even clear if they intend to fix issue No. 2.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Does anyone know if they have weighed in on ranged attacks against flanked opponents getting sneak attack damage? As I understand it, you need the ranged flank feat for that in PnP. Be a shame to roll a ranged sneak attacker if that is going to get fixed.

stop rocking the boat, everything is working as intended

https://i.ibb.co/gd0zH8M/201812011514368185.png

 

[Sykar]

Does anyone know if they have weighed in on ranged attacks against flanked opponents getting sneak attack damage? As I understand it, you need the ranged flank feat for that in PnP. Be a shame to roll a ranged sneak attacker if that is going to get fixed.

stop rocking the boat, everything is working as intended

https://i.ibb.co/gd0zH8M/201812011514368185.png

Four rays? Isn't it capped at 3 rays?

 

[hell bovine]

Burning Arc vs Acid Arrow vs Molten Orb. Anyone using any of those or just Scorching Ray?

Glitterdust & web. Boneshaker is quite good too, but Harrim covers that one.

 

[Haplo]

Meh, web is too annoying to use (and lasts way too long). Maybe if you have a pure ranged party. Glitterdust - sure, that's gold.

As for the bug/feature of sneak attacks triggering multiple times from a single source, it can also be a double-sided blade. Interestingly, the DR is also applied separately for each "part" of the attack. So if you face a 10 DR enemy and deal, say, 13 base damage and 12 sneak damage, it will be reduced to 3+2 = 5 instead of 15. Of course this issue can probably be overcome with higher weapon enchantments and likely becomes a non-issue later on.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Haplo]

Well sure, that's good, but its a considerably higher level spell.

 

[Sykar]

Burning Arc vs Acid Arrow vs Molten Orb. Anyone using any of those or just Scorching Ray?

Glitterdust & web. Boneshaker is quite good too, but Harrim covers that one.

Those are great spells for sure and I got Glitterdust as a SLA on my muse-touched Aasimar. I am just pondering which school I should pair my Illusionist Eldritch Sorcerer with. Illusion targets will, sometimes will and fortitude, so having spells targeting dex would be a good idea. I guess and Evocation is premier among all 8 schools.
My idea so far for the next 3 levels is to get Lightning Bolt for level 3, then Haste and Resist Energy (Communal) so I can use Controlled Fireball with reckless abandon since it will deal at most 10 damage to my party members unlike the regular Fireballl and Lightning Bolt offers a different element for immune or resistant enemies.
The second benefit would be that evocation does well against enemies which are basically immune to illusion spells like constructs and undead, though Conjuration might be even better due to spells ignoring SR but half of the schools strength are summons and besides Summon Monster IX and Summon Elder Elementals I am anxious to get anything else because those summons would become useless soon enough.
I am also going for Enervation since it does not allow a save and reduces all resists nicely though it is single target only and some enemies might be immune.
For debuffing saves via party, I got Valerie for Dazzling Display and thinking about getting Cornugon Smash on either Amiri or Regongar. I am thinking about specializng Harrim in Necromancy and getting those juicy Bane/Doom debuffs to stick more, though it is hard to balance that with him being somewhat tanky enough for late game on Challenging difficulty.

 

[hell bovine]

Sykar
An alchemist's bomb spam is superior to fireball: targets touch ac, party friendly, applies status effects or knock enemies prone (force bombs), can throw more than one per round. It's not worth it to try to emulate it with a sorcerer; just take Jubilost along. He will do a far better job.

For a sorcerer, lower levels are best left for disabling spells like stinking cloud and slow, because they will be useful throughout the entire game. Stinking cloud ko's wisps, for example, and you can protect your party with delay poison. Hasting your party while slowing the enemies works wonders on melee groups, of which there are plenty. It's only later in the game that evocation catches up with the ridiculous sirocco, and the reason is the status effect it applies, not the damage. That's because the enemy immunities are one thing (though you can target undead with illusions if you have the undead bloodline), the hp/stat/saving throw bloat is another.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Four rays? Isn't it capped at 3 rays?

What are you trying to pull here, capped at 3 rays? rocking the boat? I didn't even use those rods to empower+maximize although I could've if I wanted, yet here you are complaining.
can't you see the damage is (reduced) in the combat log? What else do you want, you buzzkills? The game is so hard it can't be completed even on story mode, yet ppl are shitting their pants over a few harmless (reduced) rays and want to cap them at 3. Shame on you.
Isn't it enough punishment that you have to roll for SR for each ray?

Spoiler

That was at level 15 I guess, so Octavia had 2 rays. The hellfire ray has 2 damage components, one fire, one divine or unholy damage or whatever. And of course each get their own set of sneak dice, as it should be. That's what makes it look like 4 rays, I presume. You can see that in the combat log, 1 roll for SR for 1 ray then 2x damages.

 

[ArchAngel]

Sykar
An alchemist's bomb spam is superior to fireball: targets touch ac, party friendly, applies status effects or knock enemies prone (force bombs), can throw more than one per round. It's not worth it to try to emulate it with a sorcerer; just take Jubilost along. He will do a far better job.

For a sorcerer, lower levels are best left for disabling spells like stinking cloud and slow, because they will be useful throughout the entire game. Stinking cloud ko's wisps, for example, and you can protect your party with delay poison. Hasting your party while slowing the enemies works wonders on melee groups, of which there are plenty. It's only later in the game that evocation catches up with the ridiculous sirocco, and the reason is the status effect it applies, not the damage. That's because the enemy immunities are one thing (though you can target undead with illusions if you have the undead bloodline), the hp/stat/saving throw bloat is another.

You forgot Icy Prison. Pretty awesome evocation disable spell.