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Hi everyone,
I will probably start playing Kingmaker and I wanted to finally give a go to a construct builder character that I've been wanting to play for a long time, however I cannot decide between a few options. I have read a couple of guides online (the most recent one being this), but I still can't make up mi mind. I hoped you might help :)
Disclaimer: it'll be a long post!
First, a few specifics about the campaign and crafting rules:
- Student of Philosphy and Clever Wordplay on face skills are not allowed: if you want to be good at talking, do not dump Charisma.
- No +25/50% cap on WBL due to crafting: we will already be filthy rich, being more rich is not a problem, as encounters and loot will be dynamically adapted to the power/wealth of the team.
- One free story feat and campaign trait.
- Max rank in one Craft skill.
- 2 traits + up to 2 traits/drawbacks
- Age modifiers are allowed.
- Retraining is allowed.
- No 3rd party and Occult material.
The idea is to focus on constructs, of course, as well as Wondrous Items, Magic Arms/Armors, Rods (and maybe Staves later on), and spellcasting in combat. In all cases I was planning to pick Protector of the People as story feat, to get eventually Craft Construct for free, and Spark of Creation/Clever Wordplay[UMD] traits.
Here the three builds (stats already include race and age modifiers):
(or vanilla Wizard with Universalist[Arcane Crafter] school)
Focused Study alternate racial trait. Thinking about Dimdweller/Fey Thoughts/Heart of the Field as well (instead of Skilled).
2 extra traits: ?/? (suggestions?)
Stats: 6 12 14 21 12 8
Feats (* = bonus feat):
1) Wizard: Skill Focus[Linguistics]*, Orator, Protector of the People*, Scribe Scroll*
2) Wizard
3) Wizard: Magical Aptitude
4) Wizard: Craft Wondrous Item*(Exploit; move it at 3rd level if Universalist)
5) Wizard: Favored PrC, Craft Magic Arms and Armor*
6) Pathfinder Savant
7) P. Savant: Prestigious Spellcaster
8) Loremaster: Skill Focus[Knowledge]*, Arcane Builder*(Loremaster's Secret)
9) P. Savant: Craft Rod
Parrot valet familiar (+3 Linguistics) is picked at 1st level via Exploit (or via Arcane Bond if Universalist)
The Human Wizard build allows me to have access to the Wizard spell list, which is the best list in terms of combat power, versatility and spells known when crafting. These aspects are further addressed by the Pathfinder Savant levels, that enable me to know even more spells from multiple lists, and use my CL on when casting spells from Scrolls (which I can craft), hence expanding even more the plethora of spells I can cast in combat. Not to mention the bonus to Spellcraft and UMD, and Perception/UMD becoming class skills. Additionally, Orator+Skill Focus+Parrot familiar make this character also an amazing face.
The downside being that, as a Wizard, low HP, low saves and low defenses make this character is quite fragile, especially at low levels (and from what I know, this campaign is brutal at low levels). Plus, crafting abilities are nothing to sneeze at, they sometimes fall behind when compared to the next builds.
The magic crafting potential of this build is 4000gp/day, up to 5000gp/day for the set of items selected with Arcane Builder (constructs?).
Craftsman, Industrious Urbanite alternate racial traits.
2 extra traits: Fate's Favored/? (suggestions?)
Stats: 6 10 16 16 20 6
Select Universalist[Arcane Crafter] arcane school.
Feats (* = bonus feat, [7]A/[8]B = feat retrained at 8th level from A to B):
1) Cleric: [7]Breadth of Experience/[8]Torag's Blessing, Protector of the People*
2) Cleric
3) Cleric: Craft Magic Arms and Armor*, Familiar(VMC)
4) Cleric
5) Cleric: [7]Craft Wondrous Item/[8]Guided Hand
6, Soul Warden
7, S. Warden: [7]Craft X/[8]Craft Wondrous Item (VMC)
8, S. Warden: Channel Smite*
9) Cleric: Craft Rod
Thrush valet familiar (+3 Diplomacy).
Knowing all the spells on his list and being able to cast in medium armor and shield make this Dwarf Cleric a very resilient and versatile full-caster. The Soul Warden levels make Perception and UMD class skills without delaying anything important (Runeforger and Artifice domain are less than negligible), and make me qualify for Guided Hand which, together with Torag's Blessing, Harm, Lead Blades, Righteous Might, a large +1 Spell Storing, Training[Vital Strike] Warhammer, make for good damage spikes a few times per day. It is not even that bad at talking with people despite the -2 Cha, thanks to Diplomacy being a class skill, Thrush familiar, magic items and the Ancient Splendor rune, although quite far from the Human Wizard's level.
Furthermore, its crafting abilities are astounding, both at low and high levels. At low levels, this build is twice as effective at mundane crafting as the Human Wizard build, and four times more effective at crafting metal items from level 5.
At higher levels, when magic crafting becomes more accessible, the magic crafting potential of this build has the same base of 4000gp/day of the previous one, but goes up to 8000gp/day for any metal item, which is arguably a much bigger category of items compared to constructs. Does this improvement apply to metal constructs as well?
The problem of this build is the Cleric spell list which is, in my opinion, quite lackluster in terms of combat options (apart from condition removing and healing spells, with the best buffs being personal) and crafting prerequisites, which will inevitably lead to higher crafting DCs, eventually reducing the overall crafting speed. Plus, I can't really see what my role would be in combat at lower levels, apart for spamming Murderous Command and heal my allies.
A few variants for this build could be:
- no Guided Hand/Torag's Blessing/etc. I wouldn't know which feats to pick instead though: Prestigious Spellcaster + Pathfinder Savant maybe? Please help me :)
- a level dip into Unsworn Shaman instead of VMC to get familiar and Craft Wondrous Item at 1st level, plus an extra pool of 1st level divine spells, but at the cost of one spellcasting level.
- going Aasimar (+2 Con, +2 Wis) with a Dwarven legacy and be Forgemaster via Scion of Humanity/Racial Heritage (I might ask my GM to make Scion of Humanity count as Racial Heritage[Dwarf], since he is half-Dwarf, not half-Human). This would negate the age penalties to physical stats via the Immortal Spark alternate racial trait, but I would lose the bonuses to saves and mundane crafting.
- getting Torag's Divine Fighting Technique instead of the 1st level Artifice domain power to get a pseudo Combat Reflexes for free.
Finally, the best(?) of the two worlds:
(or vanilla Wizard with Universalist[Arcane Crafter] school)
Craftsman, Industrious Urbanite alternate racial traits.
2 extra traits: Glory of Old/Diplomacy-class-skill
Stats: 6 12 16 19 14 6
Feats (* = bonus feat):
1) Wizard: Breadth of Experience, Protector of the People*, Scribe Scroll*
2) Wizard
3) Wizard: Arcane Builder
4) Wizard: Craft Wondrous Item*(Exploit; move it at 3rd level if Universalist)
5) Wizard: X, Craft Magic Arms and Armor*
6) Soul Warden:
7) Wizard: X
8) Wizard:
9) Wizard: Craft Rod
Thrush valet familiar (+3 Diplomacy) is picked at 1st level via Exploit (or via Arcane Bond if Universalist)
Suggestions for the X feat slots?
Everything of this build is halfway between the previous two: better saves and higher Con, making the character more resilient than the Human Wizard, but not as much as the Dwarf Cleric. Arguably, the Wizard spell list is better than Cleric's, but skill-wise it's the least impressive build. The lack of free Skill Focus makes Orator less appealing, while the need of the Dwarf-Wizard's FCB makes prestige classes not viable (although a dip into Soul Warden makes both Perception and UMD class skill without much loss).
Mundane crafting is still twice as effective as the Human counterpart, but he does not get a boost for metal items, while the magic crafting potential has still a base of 4000gp/day, and goes up to 5000+(200/lvl)gp/day for a specific set of items via Arcane Builder and the Dwarf Wizard FCB, which eventually reaches the Cleric's whopping 8000gp/day for metal items, but not before level 15 (at 5th level it's 6000gp/lvl, at 10th is 7000gp/lvl)
I'm open to discussions and suggestions. Thank you in advance!
Does this improvement apply to metal constructs as well?
Yes. While never stated explicitly (as far as I know), Constructs follow the rules of Magical Items.
Also: go Cleric. Your suggestions have all the bases covered, but a Cleric has religion as a roleplaying tool in Kingmaker. And everybody loves a Cleric in the party, so there's that too.
Not really sure how to evaluate these builds, but I'll throw Alchemist with the Promethean Disciple discovery into the ring.
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Not really sure how to evaluate these builds, but I'll throw Alchemist with the Promethean Disciple discovery into the ring.
I have decided to "limit" myself only to full-casters :)
I will however add to the Wizard options the Mage of the Third Eye PrC, which I had totally forgot.On another note, it seems that many people online add the Dwarf FCB before any multiplication, rather than after, as I did. This means that, according to this method, a 5th level Dwarf Wizard will have twice the magic crafting power as a Human Wizard, which becomes three times at 10th level, and four times at 15th. Is there any official source addressing this matter?
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To summarize, so far we have:
Human Wizard: up to 5000gp/day for one type of items, top rank spellcasting, fragile.
Dwarf Cleric: up to 8000gp/day for metal items, 2x mundane crafting compared with Human Wizard, 4x if metal, very resilient, weaker spellcasting.
Dwarf Wizard: up to 6000gp/day @5th lvl + 1000gp/day every 5 levels* for one type of items, 2x mundane crafting compared to Human Wizard, moderately resilient, top rank spellcasting
Dwarf Wizard + Mage of the Third Eye: same as before, plus up to 10000gp/day for constructs @9th level + 1000gp/day for one type of items @5th level*.
*These number are largely increased if the Dwarf FCB is added before the multiplication factors. In my opinion it should be added after as it is specifically added to the amount of wealth crafted in 8 hours, and to calculate how much I can craft in 8 hours, I must first perform the multiplications. Plus, 2x/3x/4x crafting speed every five levels at the cost of 5hp seems to me a bit too much. I am open to opinions though.
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Generally the big limit on crafting is more cost than time. If you remove the cost as a factor then these abilities which usually don't matter suddenly look much better.
I think you're seriously underrating the cleric spell list. I find the lack of skills to be the reason to avoid clerics personally, and I'd go with the dwarf wizard. The mage of the third eye PrC (actual name arclord of nex) might be interesting but I'd probably just stick with wizard.
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Generally the big limit on crafting is more cost than time. If you remove the cost as a factor then these abilities which usually don't matter suddenly look much better.
I think you're seriously underrating the cleric spell list. I find the lack of skills to be the reason to avoid clerics personally, and I'd go with the dwarf wizard. The mage of the third eye PrC (actual name arclord of nex) might be interesting but I'd probably just stick with wizard.
Thank you for the input! I won't let myself be intimidated by the Cleric spell list. It's probably because I am used to play Clerics with some martial options rather than full casters, therefore I don't really know what to do in combat apart the occasional heal.
I agree with you regarding the lack of skills on Clerics in general, however in this specific case the Cleric has the same skill points per level compared to Dwarf Wizard (+3 Int instead of +4, but FCB +1 skill point per level), and starts with more spells (20 Wis vs 19 Int, plus domain slot). Sure, with time the Dwarf Wizard will get more skill points by increasing Int bonus with level increments, but it will be +1 at 4th level and another +1 at 12th, so quite negligible.
The cost of crafting will still be a factor in terms of how much money I actually have, which is partially related to crafting time, as the more time I spend crafting, the less time I have to produce revenue/Labor/Magic/etc in downtime.
Any particular suggestions on how to build the Dwarf Wizard, apart from the crafting feats?
PS I have started a thread on the Rules board about the stacking of Dwarf FCB with accelerated crafting methods
Exploiter Wizard is probably the most powerful class/archetype in the game. Yes, like any d6 class you are fragile at low levels, but at low levels staying out of melee is often sufficient for AC. Personally my biggest worry would be making sure I didn't have a character that is going to overshadow the rest of the party, making the game un-fun and thus ending it.
I wouldn't go with the Orator feat. First off, in Kingdom Building you are actually going to need someone with good CHR to fill the 'King' slot. Likely they will end up being the face, and you can really probably use your feats for something else. Also, I expect if your DM doesn't like traits that used INT for diplomacy, they won't like feats that do it either.
I'm not sure how I would adjudicate 'Protector of the People' when you are giving the community a golem and that community, in a sense, belongs to you. It is sort of cheating the intent. In any event, I'd clarify that with the GM ahead of time.
Lastly you might want to clarify how downtime is going to work if you are counting on it. I personally wouldn't include both kingdom building and downtime in a single campaign as that is a lot of 'between adventures' paperwork. Leadership positions also take up a fair chunk of the time that would normally be used for downtime as well. I addition, trying to mesh the two systems (building created with kingdom building the the town and buildings created with downtime) would be a mess.
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Exploiter Wizard is probably the most powerful class/archetype in the game. Yes, like any d6 class you are fragile at low levels, but at low levels staying out of melee is often sufficient for AC. Personally my biggest worry would be making sure I didn't have a character that is going to overshadow the rest of the party, making the game un-fun and thus ending it.
I wouldn't go with the Orator feat. First off, in Kingdom Building you are actually going to need someone with good CHR to fill the 'King' slot. Likely they will end up being the face, and you can really probably use your feats for something else. Also, I expect if your DM doesn't like traits that used INT for diplomacy, they won't like feats that do it either.
I'm not sure how I would adjudicate 'Protector of the People' when you are giving the community a golem and that community, in a sense, belongs to you. It is sort of cheating the intent. In any event, I'd clarify that with the GM ahead of time.
Lastly you might want to clarify how downtime is going to work if you are counting on it. I personally wouldn't include both kingdom building and downtime in a single campaign as that is a lot of 'between adventures' paperwork. Leadership positions also take up a fair chunk of the time that would normally be used for downtime as well. I addition, trying to mesh the two systems (building created with kingdom building the the town and buildings created with downtime) would be a mess.
Hi, thanks for the input! I'll reply to all your points:
- Exploiter Wizard won't be a problem since, to me, it's the same as an Universalist Wizard, who is hardly game-breaking (if not the opposite). I would expend the two Exploits before level 5 to get a familiar and an extra creation feat, which is the same Universalist does. The only difference being that with the Exploiter I get a very small pool of Arcane points to enhance my spells a few times per day, at the cost of getting the creation feat 1 level later, no Spellcraft bonus given by the Arcane Builder Universalist subschool, and no other ar. After level 5, I will go either Pathfinder Savant or Mage of the Third Eye, so no Exploiter Exploits to be exploited.
- Charisma is important for social interactions at large scale, however there will still be plenty of interactions with NPCs. Plus the Ruler will be based on any mental stat, not only Cha (which I don't know what it means as I haven't looked at those rules yet).
- Orator synergyzes particularly well with this particular Human Wizard build, not only for the multiple bonuses coming from Skill Focus, Parrot familiar and high Int, but also because Humans can get an extra Skill Focus at level 8, which enables to dip into Loremaster and get a free feat.
- My GM is perfectly fine with Orator (he has actually read this thread). There is a HUGE difference between expending two feats and just a trait to get more or less the same benefit. The problem with Student of Philosophy is not the benefit itself, but that it's so darn cheap that literally every Wizard/Arcanist/Investigator/any other Int-based class with 16+ Int will get it, dumping Cha while being an amazing face at essentially no cost. The same doesn't happen with Orator because it actually requires some investment (and in fact is, in my opinion, very underused).
- Protector of the People seems to me far from cheating. I will be crafting a CR 5 Golem (the cheapest one costing ~15000) that I don't even want, and give it for free to someone else, practically losing ~7500gp. This means that, if I want to get full Craft Construct as soon as possible (and I want, since I plan to craft Animated Objects), I need to burn my entire WBL until level 5-6. I don't know then how the golem will be used, but even if I give it to "my" community, it still won't come adventuring with my character, and won't generally obey my character's orders, which is what I want from "my" constructs.
- I am not sure how the two systems will interacts, but I don't really need to know to be honest. I just care that I will have enough downtime to actually use my crafting feats, and my GM said that I'll have plenty.
I hope this made things a bit more clear :) Any specific advice about the builds in particular?
At the moment I was thinking of giving a chance to the Dwarf Cleric, and eventually move to Dwarf Wizard at higher levels if Cleric doesn't fit my style.
I figure if everyone with a charisma score is building something in their downtime, the wizard might as well be crafting, too.
Would throwing in a level of Investigator for Inspiration, and/or a level of UC Phantom Thief for Rogue's Edge/Signature Skill (Craft) be beneficial to this build? I don't know how dependent the actual crafting progression is on your crafting skill checks.
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I figure if everyone with a charisma score is building something in their downtime, the wizard might as well be crafting, too.
Would throwing in a level of Investigator for Inspiration, and/or a level of UC Phantom Thief for Rogue's Edge/Signature Skill (Craft) be beneficial to this build? I don't know how dependent the actual crafting progression is on your crafting skill checks.
Hi! I would definitely avoid multiclassing, as spellcasting is what I need to be relevant in combat, and helps satisfying crafting prerequisites. If for some reason I would find myself in desperate need of Inspiration, I would rather pick the Amateur Investigator feat. Same for the skill unlocks.
The Craft bonus is actually relevant only for mundane crafting, which is faster the higher your check is. Magical crafting is not affected by it, apart for beating the crafting DC.
Side question: is there any feat/trait/race that let you roll all Craft checks untrained? Something like Breadth of Experience for Knowledge.
There's no restriction on using the craft skill untrained, but if your GM imposes one I guess you could look up the improvisation feat. Human-only (which means half-elves, half-orcs, scion of humanity aasimar too) though.
Assuming a dwarf exploiter wizard as you've written up, in the Kingmaker campaign, I might get magical epiphany (1/day effects are better in short adventuring days, and without bonus school spell slots you may find it hard to prepare for everything) and steel soul as the remaining feats.