Hey everyone,
I'm a somewhat adept player of the game, but have come to a cross roads (one in which I'm come to most of the time when I hear other people talk about their classes). I'm going to be playing in a fairly large game of Pathfinder which will be broken down into 5 parts at given levels (4, 8, 12, 16, 20) where parties will be constantly shifting and nothing is wholly consistent.
Last year I played a heavy DPS character, but outside of that I didn't fill much of a roll (as well I was outclassed as a Ranger by a Zen Archer!). This year I want to play more of the team game and hope to accomplish the goal of making everything better for everyone while still holding my own. As of this moment I have considered the Musket Master gunlsinger for its decent damage output and the fact that it can debuff the enemy consistently. However, I am beginning to feel less and less useful the more I hear about what others are doing! Hahaha, a bit of a jam really.
Anyway, I have come to you fine forum folk in order to be bestowed knowledge on what you would consider the most useful class to a party that's always changing. This can be filled by archtypes or cross classing or what have you. I'm hoping to fill the role of buffer/debuffer, while being able to dish out some punishment of my own when the time comes for it!
The paladin would suit both of those qualifications: solid fighter (especially against evil creatures), back-up healer, channels positive energy and gives bonuses to allies. Hard to complain, really.
Cleric sounds like a good option. You have access to your whole spell list, so you can swap around which spells you're using each day depending on what the rest of your section of the party currently looks like, unlike prepared casters. Having a healer around is always nice, and Clerics are very versatile. When it comes to combat, they can buff allies, debuff enemies, or self-buff and charge into melee - exactly the role you asked for.
Hmm...Cleric, Paladin, Oracle, Magus, Ranger...(possibly Bard); generally, these classes have multiple functions and have multiple features that assist in different roles. Rangers can heal (and buff some), be good in melee (and ranged), as well as be a great skill monkey. Magus' can buff, use wands of healing, melee, range attack, and have some useful skills.
Oracles can be great in melee, as well as heal, buff, and have great utility as well.
Paladins have crazy saves, lots of immunities, limited spells, amazing features, and be as great in combat as a fighter (if not better).
Clerics function a lot like Oracles, except with minor differences.
Should be a broad list that helps you out; good luck!
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Surprisingly, not to some but still, the divine classes are all good solid character options. Paladins are good all around if you are a solid roleplayer. Inquisitor is a jack of all trades give them a level of rogue and they can do anything. Clerics and oracles are solid buffers and blasters (depending on what you pick) with armoured staying power. On a lesser respect cavaliers, alchemists and gunslingers, but they are more specialized.
Ok, well the Paladin keeps popping up at least once in everyone's post so I have to admit that I'm a little intrigued by what they're capable of. As well, the cleric seems to be a very interesting class as well. I have to admit, I always assumed the Cleric to be a fairly healy class and the paladin more of a niche "I kill dead/evil things" sort of class.
Can we elaborate on what these particular classes are capable of doing (R. Yang gave me something of an idea of what the cleric can do)? Such as, what the Paladin's can do to help others other than 10ft auras and lay on hands, or what the Cleric can do to buff others and debuff enemies while killing things? Are there any truly astounding archtypes of either class?
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Wanna be a good party buffer, with solid skills and decent combat ability? Go Bard. Trust me. You'll be glad you did.
Inspire Courage is an amazing buff, and they get plenty of spells that both buff and support allies (Timely Inspiration for example). They have great skill points, even more thanks to Versatile Performance, and if you slap Power Attack on them they can even put out decent damage. They can heal if necessary, and get plenty of crowd control abilities.
*edit: Or Freebooter Ranger. Their archetype ability is just SICK, working like a group-wide inspire courage against a single enemy, usable an unlimited number of times per day. Good skills, good spells, good combat ability. /win
Paladins are primarily melee fighters. The auras are your main way of helping others, though your limited spells do provide a few nice options. Lay on Hands can be used to help others outside of combat, but the fact that it's a standard action to heal anyone else but a swift action to heal yourself, combined with the fact that you're a front-line fighter, means most of those will go towards healing yourself. In terms of damage output, you'll be decent most of the day but outstanding when you use Smite Evil. As nice as the auras are, I don't really think of it as a "buffing" class, though. Be careful to work out with the GM or GMs exactly what the Code entails.
The reason I suggested Cleric over Oracle is the prepared-versus-spontaneous thing. An Oracle can buff and an Oracle can debuff and an Oracle can self-buff and wade into melee, but the limited Spells Known list makes it difficult to switch between those functions when you move from one group to another. Being able to grab your spells from the entire spell list every day is significant if your party makeup shifts a lot. It's easy to think Clerics pretty much just heal considering that their class features are Spells (which can be spontaneously turned into Cures) and Channel Energy (which heals), but you can do much more fun things with their spell list than that, and healing can just be a nice bonus you do outside of combat.
For buffing I'd nor go with the vanilla paladin but take the holy tactician archetype.
He can grant teamwork feats to everyone without duration limit or a per day limit.
Just alternate between escape route and some offensive one like outflank or the one that gives precision damage and there are some solid buffs.
If you're really into the buffing thing you can leave your shield at home and take the flagbearer feat instead.
I'm very intrigued by the bard, 1 lvl mysterious stranger, 17 lvls bard, 2 lvls pally?
the teamwork feats seem great, but do they come up very often? It seems like everything has to be focused around people standing beside one another.
what great spells/abilities do the bard, cleric, paladin, etc have access to that make them outstanding? (other classes can be discussed here, we are debating usefulness!)
Pylfer: am I right in thinking that your last character was a ranger and yet you don't feel it was very flexible?
The ranger has got to be one of the more flexible classes in the game, surely? Combat (melee and ranged), skills, spells, animal companion, etc.
They shine in any rural environment and, even in cities, they still contribute, especially if they use traits to pick up a few class skills.
In a party that's ever changing, no-one is going to complain if two rangers turn up...and not many classes can boast that appeal.
The Savant from Kobold Quarterly #18. (Same magazine that has some official Golarion content as well as a PFS scenario or two)
This is a class that can be best described as either a story teller or a cataloger. They get the ability to emulate things they have seen in the past, and to take on "roles" of the stories they tell or the things they've seen. Their sheer versatility makes them extremely useful, although it is not a simple class and requires good knowledge of the system as well as prep time.
Well I played the ranger, but I build him to be more or less a power house, with spamming of Gravity Bow, Bow Spirit, Bark Skin, and other effective spells like that. There wasn't a whole lot of utility that I found he brought to the table other than 600-900 damage a round (which, don't get me wrong, is a great feeling to say the least). My animal companion, a cheetah, became fairly useless after 8th level module when he was more or less gimped (considering the enemies of dragon, 4 horsemen, demi-gods, gods in general, etc) and was more or less incapable of doing a lot of things (and wolf/cheetah are arguably some of the best animals to be using [lest you take a dip into druid for access to the whole list].
This year I'm looking to provide more than just the ability to kill things, though it's still high up on the list of things that I want to be able to do. I want to help my party all around and make things easier for them all (whatever they may be).
As for the Savant I should have mentioned that the only classes accepted are from the main books (core, advanced, race, etc). Sorry if there was any confusion :<
Paladins eventually have the ability to make -everyone's- attacks bypass DR, and the ability to share their smite with their friends. This is wonderful for parties with 3/4 base attack martials, who suddenly find themselves hitting every time and doing really nice damage. (A paladin is a pouncing tiger's best friend.) For parties that are more ranged casters, well, paladins can tank. They can also convert uses of LoH to channels, which means decent party healing.
Bard is always fantastic to have around, too, although they really shine in parties with a high martial/spellcaster ratio. Inspire Courage and Haste are, well, great.
Those are, imo, the obvious choices.
Not so obvious is Summoner. Potentially Master Summoner and/or Evolutionist. At each level, your Eidolon can be almost (or with Evolutionist, entirely) different, depending on what role it needs to fill in the party. A half-strength Eidolon isn't great as a melee beast (you have a wide variety of summons to take care of that, if necessary) but the Skilled evolution makes him good at pretty much everything else.