Pathfinder Pathfinder: Kingmaker Builds and Strats Thread

[Sykar]

Anyone else wiped out kobolds and mite by the way?

The irony is that they turn out to be your most loyal subjects. Never complain like the rest of the peasants, don't stage any riots like the rest of the peasants, and will have your back should you go against the big bad.

Damn now I wish I could have both but not possible even if I go to my save from the start of Sycamore and start over since I am CG. From a rational stand point siding with Mites is the logical choice since they have not attacked me at this point and are not manipulated by Tartuccio.

 

[hell bovine]

Anyone else wiped out kobolds and mite by the way?

The irony is that they turn out to be your most loyal subjects. Never complain like the rest of the peasants, don't stage any riots like the rest of the peasants, and will have your back should you go against the big bad.

Damn now I wish I could have both but not possible even if I go to my save from the start of Sycamore and start over since I am CG.

You have to be some sort of neutral to keep both, yep. It's actually kind of hilarious, because you can convince them to leave their holy artifacts to you and worship your gloves instead.

 

[ArchAngel]

No need. Just turn Valerie into Kinetic Knight at lvl 2 and keep leveling her as that. First element Earth, second Water (pick Cold damage version). After that she both tanks and does more damage than any other melee except rogues. You don't need to shatter or anything.
And since all the attacks are touch she almost never misses. And she can freely use a shield as her weapon is one handed.
At high levels you can also remove the shield and use water shield instead.
So far this is the most broken shit I've seen.

Earth Element blasts are actually all physical and only the energy based blades (fire, cold, electric etc.) target touch AC.

I know, it is why I said take water second. Earth is more useful early game for the free DR and free trip.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[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.