Pathfinder Pathfinder: Kingmaker - Enhanced Plus Edition - now with turn-based combat

[Adreth]

Hunter is a good class and better for the game than the two classes it's a hybrid of but there's so little it does that a Nature Fang Druid doesn't do better or have something way stronger in its place. Total bullshit archetype.

 

[Desiderius]

Hunter is a good class and better for the game than the two classes it's a hybrid of but there's so little it does that a Nature Fang Druid doesn't do better or have something way stronger in its place. Total bullshit archetype.

It's ok, but it's no Slayer and Druid wants to be casting anyway. If you're fighting like a bad Slayer you're not casting. Is Nature Fang even in game?

Hunter gets Lead Blades/Hurricane Bow, Effortless Armor, Chameleon Stride, Vitals, etc that Druid doesn't, and gets them with full caster level that Ranger doesn't. Animal Focus now stacks with Enhancement bonuses so's pretty good.

 

[Adreth]

Meh. Slayer vs Nature Fang has a Sneak Attack, BAB, and 1 slayer talent lead in comparison to full casting, curtailed MAD with 2 feats, and an animal companion. Hunter's got ranger spells and free teamwork feats and a marginally stronger animal companion in comparison to studied target that as far as I remember amps their spell DCs, full casting, 1d6 sneak attack, full slayer talent level progression minus one talent, and ranger combat styles letting them get away with going full WIS as an archer. Bonded Mind makes half of those ranger spells a moot point with a rounded party too.

And if fighting like a bad Slayer still does the job of shooting shit better than the Hunter, whose job is to shoot shit...

 

[Desiderius]

Share Spells/Bonded Mind is eating more feats for what Hunter gets for free on a class that's already Feat starved. Druid needs Focus, Penetration, Meta, Augment, etc to get the most out of what it does best.

If you want to shoot shit like a Slayer play a Slayer. d20 Fang doesn't have full Slayer talent progression and Studied is less likely to automatically trigger from the initial Sneak on a 3/4 class with no skills to help it hit stuff initially. If you want to apply it manually that's even more action econ invested even once it's Swift (which does help but Druid can Quicken spells there instead). It gets one Sneak to apply Studied but no Vitals while Hunter gets full CL.

Hunter also has Martial Prof and doesn't need WIS to hit since it (usually) isn't trying to beat saves. Hunter wants DEX anyway for Stealth. WIS to hit eats another two Feats that Druid doesn't have to waste.

+2 to a stat (or +4/6/8 to a skill as needed) from lvl one growing to +4 and +6 isn't marginal. People shit themselves trying to put Mutagens on everything after all, or Focus can be traded for some very powerful alternatives in the archetypes.

Relevant Spells Hunter gets that Druid doesn't*:

Lvl 1: Hurricane Bow/Lead Blades
Lvl 2: Sense Vitals, Effortless Armor (can also wear Metal Armors), Chameleon Stride (latter two essential for scouting and Hunter gets Stealth as class skill)
Lvl 3: Greater Chameleon Stride, Prot Energy Communal
Lvl 4: Aspect of the Wolf, Animal Growth, Shield of Dawn, Inspiring Recovery (Rezzes are important for tinman, and Shield of Dawn + Thorn Body adds up)

* - some of these Druid gets at higher level which kind of doesn't matter since its spell progression is faster, but having a rez is a big deal as are the Vitals, weapon enlargement, and the scouting spells

 

[Average Manatee]

Hunter is a joke class, we've been over this a few times by now.

 

[Desiderius]

Hunter is a joke class, we've been over this a few times by now.

Full pet classes *that boost the pet* are already good and Hunter has Martial prof and full CL casting including Barkskin. Once Focus started stacking it got very solid.

CotW version lets pet turn on Ranged TW Feats so is must have.

Main downside* is 3/4 with no native way to boost AB. Focus helps a little and it can always Snowball hard targets with a Rod. Once Aeonbane and Divine Favor kick in along with Vitals, Aspect of Falcon, Hurricane Bow, and Enlarge effects it hits like truck.

Of course main function is Leopard pet with DEX focus from lvl one and full Barkskins at 4. Used Wandering Marksman for Lawful Unfair run since Leopard gets scaling Dodge bonus. Circumstance bonus to AB is modest but relevant.

* - biggest downside is duplicating Aru, but if you don’t want to play with her it’s a great way to fill that niche

 

[Average Manatee]

Again, as always, Ranger FE bonus is busted strong and arguably the strongest martial feature in the game. And they have a pet, and it applies to the pet, so you have the strongest martial feature in the game applied to two martials. FE bonus is much stronger than Hunter's animal focus by a wide margin. Hunter is probably the worst tradeoff of any class in the game that seeks to trading away martial capability of the parent class for partial casting.

On the flip side, Druid has full spellcasting and trading that for a +3 ability bonus on your pet is an awful deal. Ontop of that if you're in Kingmaker you have Defender of the True World which boosts Druid pet to a similar extent as Hunter does against everything relevant.

+2 to a stat (or +4/6/8 to a skill as needed) from lvl one growing to +4 and +6 isn't marginal. People shit themselves trying to put Mutagens on everything after all, or Focus can be traded for some very powerful alternatives in the archetypes.

Mutagens are good because you get +4 to a stat and +2 stacking AC with a 1 level dip. If you needed more it would be trash.

If you want to shoot shit like a Slayer play a Slayer. d20 Fang doesn't have full Slayer talent progression and Studied is less likely to automatically trigger from the initial Sneak on a 3/4 class with no skills to help it hit stuff initially. If you want to apply it manually that's even more action econ invested even once it's Swift (which does help but Druid can Quicken spells there instead). It gets one Sneak to apply Studied but no Vitals while Hunter gets full CL.

Nature fang doesn't get only 1d6 sneak I think. For some reason it only appears in the ability list once rather than appearing each time it adds another 1d6 like literally every class in the game does, but if you read the ability it acts like a full scaling sneak. Owlcat weirdness.

 

[Adreth]

You don't take Share Spells on the Druid unless the rest of the party needs something from it, you take Bonded Mind because of all the insane Personal buffs other classes can dump on you, and Nature Fang provides, what, up to 5 free combat feats and 1 free general feat in total over the class' lifetime? They're not feat starved. Hitting with your first attack as a 3/4 BAB class is not hard, and really, this is a more applicable complaint to the Hunter who never gets anything major boosting their attack rolls. People shit themselves over mutagens because it's a unique type and gives natural armor, while animal focus runs into conflicts with enhancement bonuses, which is why it's at best saving you a buff spell early or going towards non-stat utility later.

Studied Target and getting Manyshot as a free feat at 6 instead of 9 makes them the clear winner in the same role as the Hunter for 3 levels of the game, shooting shit while having an animal companion and providing utility, and Imp. Precise Shot as a free feat turns off cover at 10 to seal the deal, then there's the spell advantage. It's more damage than teamwork feats and buffs they can't even keep on all the time at that point. Doesn't matter if you don't think it's an optimal use of the class or that you think it's worse than the Slayer, it matters how it fills the same role.

Edit: CotW Nature Fang definitely only gets 1d6 sneak attack.

Also, I *liked* Hunter, aside from Totem-Bonded being a buggy piece of shit that never applied the natural attacks. Ran 3 different ones, never regretted it except for the one time a boss rolled in BTSL with way over the top AC that Hunter couldn't hit. That doesn't mean I see a serious reason to take it over Freebooter or Nature Fang Druid if you're playing Unfair.

 

[Desiderius]

Again, as always, Ranger FE bonus is busted strong and arguably the strongest martial feature in the game. And they have a pet, and it applies to the pet, so you have the strongest martial feature in the game applied to two martials. FE bonus is much stronger than Hunter's animal focus by a wide margin. Hunter is probably the worst tradeoff of any class in the game that seeks to trading away martial capability of the parent class for partial casting.

On the flip side, Druid has full spellcasting and trading that for a +3 ability bonus on your pet is an awful deal. Ontop of that if you're in Kingmaker you have Defender of the True World which boosts Druid pet to a similar extent as Hunter does against everything relevant.

+2 to a stat (or +4/6/8 to a skill as needed) from lvl one growing to +4 and +6 isn't marginal. People shit themselves trying to put Mutagens on everything after all, or Focus can be traded for some very powerful alternatives in the archetypes.

Mutagens are good because you get +4 to a stat and +2 stacking AC with a 1 level dip. If you needed more it would be trash.

If you want to shoot shit like a Slayer play a Slayer. d20 Fang doesn't have full Slayer talent progression and Studied is less likely to automatically trigger from the initial Sneak on a 3/4 class with no skills to help it hit stuff initially. If you want to apply it manually that's even more action econ invested even once it's Swift (which does help but Druid can Quicken spells there instead). It gets one Sneak to apply Studied but no Vitals while Hunter gets full CL.

Nature fang doesn't get only 1d6 sneak I think. For some reason it only appears in the ability list once rather than appearing each time it adds another 1d6 like literally every class in the game does, but if you read the ability it acts like a full scaling sneak. Owlcat weirdness.

Yes obviously FE is very good since they gave in to the whiners and let it apply to 70% of the mobs in the game full blast. Here’s your participation trophy for playing Story Mode. Was merged Angel too much of a challenge?

Still only buffs AB and damage on a pet that isn’t even there until lvl 4 when what I want is a tank with an AC bonus at lvl one. I can make up for the rest by the time all those FE bonuses really kick in. A class that sucks early but dominates late is the last thing you want.

And in CotW I still want Hunter straight up for the Ranged TW Feats. Usually turning them in requires taking ranged Feats on melee for prereqs but Hunter’s Tactics takes care of that.

As for Mutagen splash nuce job nerfing your class progression the whole game with that -1 BAB Mutagen. Nets out to same as Animal Focus but the latter keeps class/BAB progression going and ticks up to +4 at lvl 8 (or gets +4 to a skill right away).

Don’t blame Owlcat for anything on Nature Fang - it isn’t in the base game. The reason the d20 version only has one Sneak is to trigger Studied Target but if you actually play one you’ll see that doing that consistently on a Druid without Studied Target helping isn’t trivial.

I played it in CotW and was thoroughly disappointed. Druid already needs to use the few Feats it gets to make its casting useful. Burning them to become a less shitty Slayer is running in circles. Tacking a pet on with no pet abilities just doubles the suck.

 

[Cael]

Bleh. My Shitmaker main was a Sacred Huntmaster with a 4-level dip in a full BAB class. Ended up with 16 BAB, max level Animal Companion (elk), level 6 casting (Heal), all skills as class skills (most important to me for all the skill checks), etc. It is good enough in a party with 4 other animal companions and an Arcane Trickster.

 

[Desiderius]

You don't take Share Spells on the Druid unless the rest of the party needs something from it, you take Bonded Mind because of all the insane Personal buffs other classes can dump on you, and Nature Fang provides, what, up to 5 free combat feats and 1 free general feat in total over the class' lifetime? They're not feat starved. Hitting with your first attack as a 3/4 BAB class is not hard, and really, this is a more applicable complaint to the Hunter who never gets anything major boosting their attack rolls. People shit themselves over mutagens because it's a unique type and gives natural armor, while animal focus runs into conflicts with enhancement bonuses, which is why it's at best saving you a buff spell early or going towards non-stat utility later.

Studied Target and getting Manyshot as a free feat at 6 instead of 9 makes them the clear winner in the same role as the Hunter for 3 levels of the game, shooting shit while having an animal companion and providing utility, and Imp. Precise Shot as a free feat turns off cover at 10 to seal the deal, then there's the spell advantage. It's more damage than teamwork feats and buffs they can't even keep on all the time at that point. Doesn't matter if you don't think it's an optimal use of the class or that you think it's worse than the Slayer, it matters how it fills the same role.

Edit: CotW Nature Fang definitely only gets 1d6 sneak attack.

Also, I *liked* Hunter, aside from Totem-Bonded being a buggy piece of shit that never applied the natural attacks. Ran 3 different ones, never regretted it except for the one time a boss rolled in BTSL with way over the top AC that Hunter couldn't hit. That doesn't mean I see a serious reason to take it over Freebooter or Nature Fang Druid if you're playing Unfair.

Animal Focus bonuses stack now but they were already good since they’re permanent on the pet and it isn’t practical to keep Cat’s Grace up early (or to get it at all at lvl one).

I don’t need the Nat Armor on a ranged class and I *really* don’t need a zero BAB level that nerfs my class progression the whole game. Mutagen splash sucks balls.

Ah I had forgotten that Slayer Talents include Combat Style. Since I learned how to use Metamagic my enthusiasm for full caster classes that don’t cast has definitely waned. Wrath gets enough rest that there’s no reason not to just cast instead of fighting but if you’re going to fight Combat Style can definitely help.

The serious reason to take it on Unfair is because your Leopard is better on Hunter than either one and the base class is good enough not to embarrass itself. I lean toward Hunter archetypes that trade in the TW Feats for Ranged Hunter in Wrath since the ones in-game are insufficiently relevant.

Of course it’s mostly moot since Aru exists but that’s because I’m not starting on Unfair. If I were I’d either lean toward (Wandering Marksman) Hunter or burn a companion pivoting to it at lvl 2.

 

[Adreth]

+2 Dex is pretty marginal early, but it's better than nothing, and Druid gets Barkskin at 3 instead of 4 and has way more spell slots to throw around on buffs for the companion so it's only a clear lead at 1, 2, and 4, not a whole lot of the game in the main campaign and especially not in BTSL where that's where most of the easiest enemies are and it's over quick. You don't need extra features for animal companions to be bullshit in Kingmaker, though, and unless you're dead set on some Wayang 0 cost bullshit with another mod or Spell Mastery by the time it won't matter, by the time you can toss around metamagicked spells you've already got all the combat feats you'll ever need and can start buying up all the spell feats you want. Which it helpfully gives you a free one at 12 through talents.

 

[Average Manatee]

Yes obviously FE is very good since they gave in to the whiners and let it apply to 70% of the mobs in the game full blast. Here’s your participation trophy for playing Story Mode. Was merged Angel too much of a challenge?

What? "Gave in to the whiners"? I don't know what you mean, but by the rules you can just use instant enemy to apply it to anything you fight.

Also, cue the usual Desiderius "I know you're right that x class is better than y class so instead I'll flip around and say you're making the game too easy by playing builds that are good"

Still only buffs AB and damage on a pet that isn’t even there until lvl 4 when what I want is a tank with an AC bonus at lvl one. I can make up for the rest by the time all those FE bonuses really kick in. A class that sucks early but dominates late is the last thing you want.

Take a dip class that gets the pet then and then take boon companion.

As for Mutagen splash nuce job nerfing your class progression the whole game with that -1 BAB Mutagen. Nets out to same as Animal Focus but the latter keeps class/BAB progression going and ticks up to +4 at lvl 8 (or gets +4 to a skill right away).

As opposed to being a Hunter? A class which nerfs your everything progression the whole game? Yeah I'll be OK.

 

[Desiderius]

+2 Dex is pretty marginal early, but it's better than nothing, and Druid gets Barkskin at 3 instead of 4 and has way more spell slots to throw around on buffs for the companion so it's only a clear lead at 1, 2, and 4, not a whole lot of the game in the main campaign and especially not in BTSL where that's where most of the easiest enemies are and it's over quick. You don't need extra features for animal companions to be bullshit in Kingmaker, though, and unless you're dead set on some Wayang 0 cost bullshit with another mod or Spell Mastery by the time it won't matter, by the time you can toss around metamagicked spells you've already got all the combat feats you'll ever need and can start buying up all the spell feats you want. Which it helpfully gives you a free one at 12 through talents.

I need every feature I can get to survive until lvl 3 on Wrath Unfair. Cam has the Barkskin at lvl 3. Wandering Marksman scaling Dodge bonus kicks in at lvl 4.

 

[Adreth]

I ignore Wrath as a rule of thumb because I fucking hate Pathfinder's Mythic rules, so I'm talking about this in the context of Kingmaker.

 

[Desiderius]

Also, cue the usual Desiderius "I know you're right that x class is better than y class so instead I'll flip around and say you're making the game too easy by playing builds that are good"

It’s too good (there were originally three classes of Demons to prevent making Favored Enemy trivial but people demanded faceroll and they gave in) at a part of the game where you don’t need it to be and not good enough in a part of the game where you need that because the pet isn’t there yet.

Angel merge doesn’t happen until lvl 10 so that shld be a familiar concept.

 

[Desiderius]

I ignore Wrath as a rule of thumb because I fucking hate Pathfinder's Mythic rules.

Hunter is perfect for Ranged TW Feats that CotW includes. OW you have to burn ranged feats on a melee toon.

Ranged TW are how Hunter hits things at a rate appropriate for its class and the extra Feats let it get WIS to AB so Enlarge has no downside. d20 melee Hunter gets Outflank at lvl2 (Companion is supposed to as well; it’s the point) for the same purpose.

 

[Cael]

I ignore Wrath as a rule of thumb because I fucking hate Pathfinder's Mythic rules, so I'm talking about this in the context of Kingmaker.

I am pretty sure this is the shitmaker thread, not the mythfucker one.

 

[Desiderius]

Hunter isn’t in P:K unless you’re playing CotW which includes Ranged TW Feats that make Hunter good. In Wrath Hunter has some unique advantages in niche cases but the incomplete implementation hampers it.

 

[Piotrovitz]

I'm giving this another chance after dropping my only playthrough around late chapter 3.

What exactly triggers appearance of Ekun and Jubilost?

From what I've gathered if you go to ruined tower/river immediately at the beginning of act 2 they're not there - they only spawn after Troll Trouble starts, and that was indeed the case in my previous run. Now something's fucked and none of them spawn, even though I'm deep into TT (visited Bartholomew, got troll stronghold put on map etc). Is this some goddamn bug?

 

[Yosharian]

I don't think you can miss Ekun? Not 100% sure. Jubi is definitely missable.

 

[Piotrovitz]

Does anyone know what exact conditions trigger their appearance?

I don't know what I've fucked up - am considering restart from the scratch, but want to know that this won't happen again, whatever it is :f

 

[Yosharian]

Didn't you make some saves you can revert to? I can't remember what the trigger is, but this link appears to contain some useful info:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder_Kingmaker/comments/cb2ri6/where_is_jubilost/

You might just not have triggered their appearance yet

 

[Piotrovitz]

Thanks for the link - I've went through all reddit/steam/etc threads on both Jub and Ekun but can't find definite answers. General consensus seems to be that they spawn after TT start/audience with Kesten, but this doesn't seem to be the case on my current run.

Sadly don't have any manual saves from last xx hours (yeah, I know) - I'll play around some more and maybe activate some hidden trigger somehow.
Don't care much for the token noble savage, could just replace him with merc, but wanted to try Jub as a full time companion this time.

 

[BruceVC]

I'm giving this another chance after dropping my only playthrough around late chapter 3.

What exactly triggers appearance of Ekun and Jubilost?

From what I've gathered if you go to ruined tower/river immediately at the beginning of act 2 they're not there - they only spawn after Troll Trouble starts, and that was indeed the case in my previous run. Now something's fucked and none of them spawn, even though I'm deep into TT (visited Bartholomew, got troll stronghold put on map etc). Is this some goddamn bug?

Yes in my recent game Ekun only spawned at the tower after the Toll Trouble, I entered from the north and then his wolf is some distance south and he leads you to Ekun

I never found Jubilost so I cant comment on him