I need to recover from whatever bit me to really reply right to this conversation. I'll do more later when I'm better. For the record, I just reread Tark's guide before thinking about this. I have reasons for saying what I did independant of any desire to play a ranger (though I like them too) but I'm not up for the explaination for what I'm thinking (assuming I'm not delusional from fever).
Remember Tark's rule #1 Clerics are not band-aids.
I agree that clerics are support characters but that's a very broad term. Supporting what and how. And on that thought I'm going to go to bed.
A pity ur dex is higher than yr wisdom... Zen archer is the gift that keeps giving for archer clerics, allowing you to improve yr casting stat (needed for spell dc's) and making you better at combat at the same time. Maybe Dm Ego will allow a minor rebuild in swapping these stats?
Edit - cant seem to find a zen archery feat
On that note if there was ever a class that could be tweaked a little and then reskinned for this campaign its the samurai - replace katana with Aldori sword, ditch the other asian weapons and its perfect.
Question... are you allowing crane style as a feat tree?
Yes, crane style is fine. But if you start busting out power avoidance builds expect to come across things with annoying attack profiles later on!
There are ways and means to challenge crane style, i look forward to trying a few of them.
I'm sure Egan has some tricks up his sleeve as well but to be honest without that sorc dip for the extra damage most caster damage doesn't hold up past mid level, though a max damage fireball has altered many a gm's plans.
Like i said Maksim, i think your premise is sound. Its just a hard build to get working well. Personally i like reach weapon cleric with a longspear but Erastil archer cleric is such a great concept that i'm not sure i could resist for kingmaker either, its great that your taking the feedback so well.
Band aides are less needed when HPs get above 20. When a companion's HP are one Crit away from death, I would think a cleric with the community domain would think healing was important. Tark was talking about full healing builds ie life oracle. A timely heal is a TPK saver. You spent 10 of you 15 point buy (66%) on archery.
The amazing Zen Archery feat is great! The first proto-Maksim was designed around it. Then reality crashed in, it's not a Pathfinder feat! ZA belongs to the 3.5 edition of what was "The world's best-selling role-playing game." I was very disappointed.
Yeah, zen archery is now a class ability of the.. zen archer monk archtype. The closest thing is guided hand, but like i said the pre-req channel smite is pretty poor.
I'm fine with it but its a terrible feat, not sure why people would have any issue with it. +3 to two skills and a couple of languages is overall about as powerful as the dual skill focus feats and they rarely if ever get selected outside of extremely specialist skill monkey builds.
A ray of light finally break through my thick skull. I do not really agree with the above statement but it depends on playstyle. In light of what you've said here and other places I have to conclude that you do not think skills are paricularly important. I do notice, DM Ego, that you call for very few skill checks, compared to many DM's, even in situation that seem to call for it. I not a total stickler for the rules, check that, I am a stickler for rules but I believe in Rule 0, your game, your way. Many people think Cosmopolitan is OP, but that could only be true in game where skills were very important. I doubt any here would be surprised to note that I'm a Storyteller/Simulationist player, but lots are not; I can adapt now that my brain is working, I'll get on the same page. Do you think I now misjudge your priorites DM or am on target? It's important as it influences builds and play a lot.
-Yeah I knew about Zen Archer Monk, but the ability requires 3 levels in monk too much for a dip, and I'm sure that is intentional on the designers part.
Not sure how to reply to that Silva, stats barely matter in terms of a cleric and healing power, hit the bare minimum and you're not much worse than any dedicated build, at least with a cleric. The best low level healer in the game is a wand of CLW, which I think we might want to consider. And strength is useful for far more than just archery.
The take-away I have with Tark's guide is that time spent buffing in combat, and healing is a kind of buff, is time not stopping your enemies. And stopped enemies is damage not done therefore less healing needed. Pre-combat buffing is great, in combat less so, it's a balancing act. Now, yes, sometimes rescue healing is needed, and I should have gone for it, but that a specific case not the general.
I do use skills quite a lot depending on the situation, however i like to use skills as a fall back for roleplaying like during the encounter with the boggard or for purely mechanical things like knowledge checks, perception checks and in encounter skill use.
I feel that using skills for mundane activities is just that, why roll diplomacy to see how well you perform in the tavern when we can roleplay it. I see the rules as a framework for things that have to be done mechanically and optional for other aspects of the game.
Maksim is very similar in concept to cleric of Ersstil I made for a different Kingmaker game, except that I gave myself a high enough charisma score to later on take channel feats to switch my focus more on healing and spells as we progressed in level. Sadly the game died fairly quickly so I never got the chance to see how well it worked out.
As for Arielle's leveling up, needless to say her next level is sorceress. There's nothing else I can think of wanting to multi-class in at this point.
Taking suggestions for my next feat, having a hard time choosing one.
I'd go for the staples at lower levels, fortitude, toughness, initiative are all good. With the amount of downtime kingmaker has crafting feats are excellent for spellcasters who have the spare slots.
I ment what i said in the orignal recruitment post that i allow any feat, so craft wonderous item is a strong option.
Well, if we have the time, I do like crafting things
I am levelled with improved unarmed strike.
Level 4, I'll switch out power attack for crane style and then go Weapon Specialisation, add a point to strength to make up for lost damage.
Level 4, and 5 I'll sink some points into knowledge Nobility, sense motive and intimidation, take Dazzling Display and be ready for the Swordlord PrC at level 6.
Charisma helps channels and selective channeling as well a face skills. Str and dex only help archery. More points in wisdom help spells that give a save. I don't understand what you mean you 10 points in str and dex didn't hurt your cleric build.
Arielle, kingmaker's speed is entirely player driven, if you really wanted you could play an elf for so long it died of old age and still not finish the adventure path. Its really that flexible.
Tark's guide speaks about action economy and the mistake made by many is regarding buffing and healing. In combat buffing is not as efficient as out of combat buffing with long duration buffs. The same goes for in comabt healing unless it saves a life.
However the way a comabt/archer cleric needs to work is on the most efficient action, if you have +4 to hit amd your target has an ac of 22 and has high hp (just an example) rather than attack its better to buff, if your target is ac10 and has low hp its better to attack. That is a sliding scale though and management of it only comes with player experience
I totally agree DM Ego, with such weak buffs I thought attacking was better in most cases than buffing that may not be as true now, I have better buffs. I'd also need a good guess as to the armor class being attacked, I'll try to make better guesses. Note, if the buff can be cast before the battle the action cost ratio changes radically.
I've updated my character now somewhat, still needs a bit of tweaking but the board is now not letting me update him further, will try later. It should be enough to see where I'm going.
+7/+6 to hit with Longbow and a careful selection of buffs, I think this can work better. We need a discussion of who get's which buffs. Stacking Bless and Divine favor I gain an additional +2. Of course every spell cast as a buff is one less healing spell. Still recommend we get a CLW wand ASAP.
Of course if I roll below 10 90% of the time, nothing will help me. ;)
Why did you take the good domain to allow the +1 touch instead of the feather domain (animal companion) if you were worried about action economy? You won't be using it as an archer will you?
RE: feather domain, just didn't think of a reason why he'd take it role-playing wise and I 've a central familiar in another game. Good was kind of a default. I'm not claiming it's an optimised build just not unplayable.
Would love to post but i'm out with my new work mates and insurance people can drink. I'll post tomorrow when i can be sure i make sense.
If you would like to change anything Maksim now is the time to do it, i'm happy not to have over optimised chatacters though.
With buffs its nearly always worth while casting one in the first round/surprise round while you get a handle on your opponents. If your unsure if your aware of something feel free to ask.
I'll work out your quest rewards tomorrow morning so you can have a look at gear.
I see I have 740 gp of additional gold from our last run out into the wilderness... so not sure what we'll earn from this run.
I take it, like the old west, we'll need to custom order things and then wait a certain amount of time?
I am pretty sure we are way under wealth by level however that said, I believe that Kingmaker has a reputation for that in the early stages. If we do want to 'gear up' it may be a good idea to go where the money is at if we want some good coin and have a bash at the Stag Lord.
You do need to custom order anything you wouldn't normally find at a frontier outpost, however when Oleg gets an idea for what you need he'll have some adventuring goods in stock. Kingmaker is a little gear light but there are lots of oportunities after the first book, with the amou t of downtime you have as well getting your casters to take a few casting feats is well worth it as well.
By the end of book two my previous group were aying themselves a wage from their kingdom. You've also avoided the two mini dungeons so far but i'm not going to up level them to account for the wealth, the extra level should make up for the missing gear, and after those you should be looking at being around right for the final encounter.
The rewards for tuskgutters head is a mw longbow str +2 and 6 +1 animal bane arrows. Just to rekap your other rewards that aren't gear or cash based you have free spellcasting for life from a moderately powerful cleric, 25% off potions from bokken for his berries, free lodging and vitels at Olegs.
Theres also a few more mw weapons up for grabs from Kesten, 1000gp from Oleg for getting him a dragon head and 1000gp for dealing with the sootscale kobolds plus what you find on the way. Theres also a completion bonus from the swordlords when you've finished the map off and fixed the bandit problem.
cool...
That's good DM Ego, I've done the level up just need to get the board to update the spell list. I think everything else is up to date. To recap I've added Weapon Focus (Longbow) and change my default spells quite a bit, everything else is just standard level up. I do have access to 2nd level spells now and my channel heals more, so good for another couple of levels.
Maksim could certainly use that nice longbow, but he's not the only one.
Silva does have a optimised build point that Good domain does little for Maksim, I did not want feather domain because I didn't want a animal companion for role-play reasons, Maksim's people focused, and because it'd make him too similar to another character I'm playing. Does anyone have an alternate suggestion? I don't remember ever using the Good domain so this would be a good and likely the last time to make a change.
I remember that my cleric of Erastil took the Plant Domain, but that was mainly so that I could have access to the Entangle spell. I used it to slow down a charging bear and you could have used it on that boar.
Did we actually make any money from this run we just got back from? Wasn't there a bounty on the boar?
Animal isn't a bad one for this campaign... speak with Animals would work well and a badass bear or something could be cool. If speaking with beasts ain't for you? Fur subdomain beefs up your animal companion AND gives you a nice speed buff.
Good ain't that bad at level 8.
Erastil is pretty sucktastic as a deity for domain choices.
Unfortunately the boar quest was a gear reward from a hunter, but the dragon quest you walked past was cold hard cash. Cowards!
Good will be an amazing domain later in the campaign, free holy weapon for x rounds a day is quite powerful. I'd go for the archon subdomain for erastil though to replace the saving throw increase ability with an unresistable debuff, -2 ac, to hit and saves is a huge penalty.
Well, let's rest up and head back out for that dragon then. :)
Unfortunately the boar quest was a gear reward from a hunter, but the dragon quest you walked past was cold hard cash. Cowards!
Dragon isn't likely to go anywhere :)
The archon domain I'm looking at replaces the Holy Lance power of weapon buffs with that aura, not a Saving Throw increase that I can see. Holy Lance does look good though when it arrives (gonna be a while :) ) Spells selection changes a bit but not a lot of difference at this level, could go either way. If you have a varient archon for me to look at I'd like to do so, I looking at the one here:
Planting has never been a big part of Maksim's life and since I do not want an animal companion, those others that grant it are not in the running.
Speaking with beasts is cool but based on past experiances most DM's play it reasonably, which means the beasts don't know anything people would care about most of the time.
It'd be a good idea for us to get a couple of the other things out of the way first before going to deal with the Stag Lord. The 'dragons' and the kobolds come to mind as the most important things besides the Big Bad to deal with, maybe we are good enough to take on the Owlbear nest as well now. Get better equipped and then off to the wizar- oh that a different story.
Going to update equipment soon, I'll wait on the rest a bit. Chow.
Bah, read the archon replacement power wrong, the azata one isn't bad but doesn't really suit Erastil.
Perhaps an archtype that replaces the second domain like theologian, divine strategist or crusader. Crusader might be the best option as it would help overcome some of the problems archer cleric has, the benefits would suit a community cleric well and you could reskin it as woodsman for the feats. The power to share buff spells quickly will be extremely handy when you get into the later books with mass combat or if people start picking up companions.
Hmm, hadn't really thought about a different archetype, I'll look into it. If I go that route maybe Maksim prays for divine guidence and gets it in the form of different abilities. I'll make a decision by tomorrow eve, if that's OK with you, DM Ego.
Yeah, i can wait while people finish levelling and shopping, take a look at crusader. I think the mechanics are great for Maksim even if the name isn't . The weapon training focused on longbow would suit a woodsman and it gives you access to the fighter advantage feats. Like mutliclassing without the lost caster levels.
The loss of a spell per day might impact your speed at gaining spells with your low wisdom though.
Sorry for my lack of posting while traveling. Internet has not been great and there is really very little down time. I am traveling back tomorrow and should be able to be much more active again after my return.
I may have a minor rebuild request as well Ego. I took extra revelation at first level, but in truth there are not that many great revelations at low level for a fire oracle. I need to research the build I am planning but I may ask to trade that feat for another one.
I think its fair to say everybody gets one, as long as you use them before level 4. I'll be a hard ass after level five unless you make a terrible selection, and even then i'll make you work for it.
Maksim could certainly use that nice longbow, but he's not the only one.
The bow and the animal bane arrows are perfect for your character! It will help a lot with your ability to hit and do damage! Thanks again for bearing with me on the discussion of your build. Hopefully, you heard the "I really enjoy your RPing and I am glad we are in a pbp game together" as much as the other stuff. I think Silva and Maksim will have much in common winning the land for Erastil and providing a community for all types of non evil creatures!
BTW, I am willing to chip in my portion for the CLW wand.
I think its fair to say everybody gets one, as long as you use them before level 4. I'll be a hard ass after level five unless you make a terrible selection, and even then i'll make you work for it.
I used mine to add fey foundling as a L1 feat then picking up furious focus at L3 so as not to change much. It goes very well with my name and background. Throw in my relationship with Perlivash and Egan and it goes even better.
Hmmm - If I could do a rebuild then I'll bounce my Wis to Int and visa versa... I will think about taking a point off strength for Int, so I have a chance in hell of getting weapon expertise and Improved disarm without having to dip before level 8.
This will give me an extra 3 skill points.
I'll take perception at levels 2 and 3. I'll take a level of knowledge nobility at level 1.
For a trait correction, I'll swap out the stealth one for something else. I can still be 'Catfoot' thanks to my high dex buffing my Stealth skill investment.
Let me get back to you shortly on any feat swaps but all in all there's not a lot of flexibility for Aldori as they are feat intensive.
I think its fair to say everybody gets one, as long as you use them before level 4. I'll be a hard ass after level five unless you make a terrible selection, and even then i'll make you work for it.I used mine to add fey foundling as a L1 feat then picking up furious focus at L3 so as not to change much. It goes very well with my name and background. Throw in my relationship with Perlivash and Egan and it goes even better.
May I suggest Oath of Vengeance for your Paladin?
While all paladins uphold the principals of law and good, sometimes these ideas must have a ruthless and dangerous side. It often falls upon a paladin to bring justice in the form of vengeance upon heinous transgressors against law and good. These oathbound paladins are always on the hunt for those who have perpetrated evil, and are the instrument of Heaven’s most definitive and implacable judgment.
Good for Bandit hunters etc.
You can burn channels for Smites and your Fey background gives you better return on investment for healing... Instead of ye old furious focus, take extra lay on hands (and/or take it later... again too). It will give you a lot of versatility and at level 6+? Each lay on hands gives you +2hps per dice, so at level 6 you get 3d6 + 6 - in effect an effective average of 2 more d6. It makes you very hard to kill and when you wish to use lay on hands for smites, you should have enough in hand.
Working on a Paladin of Oath of Vengence inspired by you in many ways (Erastil worshipper with a ruddy great sword) in PFS who is running through Thornkeep at the moment.
Funny you brought that up Andrej. I have been looking at oath of vengeance. I thought about adding it, but didn't because our GM mentioned he was glad we were not super optimized. The extra smites would be nice. I guess I'll see what he thinks. DM Ego?
And Ty for the advice Andrej!
Hmmm - If I could do a rebuild then I'll bounce my Wis to Int and visa versa... I will think about taking a point off strength for Int, so I have a chance in hell of getting weapon expertise and Improved disarm without having to dip before level 8.
This will give me an extra 3 skill points.
I'll take perception at levels 2 and 3. I'll take a level of knowledge nobility at level 1.
For a trait correction, I'll swap out the stealth one for something else. I can still be 'Catfoot' thanks to my high dex buffing my Stealth skill investment.
Let me get back to you shortly on any feat swaps but all in all there's not a lot of flexibility for Aldori as they are feat intensive
.
I've decided to go for Dodge in lieu of power attack - needed for Crane style at SOME point in the future (likely level 4 or level 7) and to buff my AC if I am going to keep running into combat... along with Breastplate this would get me to AC20. Not great but better than what I am atm.
On the traits side... question - Can I take 'Defender of the Society', a PFS trait? Ignoring the fluff? +1 AC when in medium or heavy armour? I strongly suspect I am treading on your goodwill on uber optimisation if I go down this route but it would allow me to tank that little bit better.
If you want to optimise more i don't mind, combats will go a bit faster and the pace will pick up but i will take the gloves off when you start to become powerful. Just keep in mind the gaps between the pc's with your optimisation, if some are hyper optimised and some are under optimised the gap gets hard to manage.
If we have two people rocking ac21 at level 3 with low gear to creatures will be hitting the other party members on <5 if i build to challenge your tanks.
Not sure they'll go faster - I'll just get hit less. That said I'll be tickling the monsters with lighter hits.
What AC level you think is appropriate for level 3? Generally fighters are rocking full plate and a shield at that level... so AC 20-21 is not unusual. Not questioning - trying to find a happy medium so that we all have fun playing.
I could get it pretty high (24-25 before items etc) by level 4 by picking up Crane style and going defensive fighting most of the time. Given your last comment I think that may break expectations.
I went with Dodge at level 3 instead of improved unarmed strike. Defender of the Society for +1 in medium/heavy armour and 12 Int instead of 12 Wis... giving me a shot at level 8 to take Weapon Expertise and Improved Feint or Improved Disarm post level 9.
I don't think 21 at 3 is particularly high, i'd say an average ac would be 17/18 for a striker or cleric. But i think that gulf will only widen as you advance, its worth keeping a note of the distance between the groups stats so your not invulnerable amd forcing lesser protected pc's to take hits.
I do not plan on optimizing any more. I am happy with my build (18 AC-2hander/20 AC-Switch to shield). I want to be the same level as the others.