Barbarian, bard, cleric of erastil would be the best combination. Lots of RP opportunities throughout and well-balanced. Could sub bard for a fey sorcerer if you want more damage than skills.
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I'm running Kingmaker with 3 PCc's right now. We just finished the Stolen Lands AP #31. The party was a Fighter, Summoner, and a Janni (Savage Species). I let the Fighter and Summoner use a 25 point buy and the Janni used a 20 point buy.
There was one near death experience for the Fighter.
What would you do?
party build suggestions?
1. Optimize
2. Play with players that are good3. Make sure none of the players CHARACTERS was stupid. IE the characters act like they want to live and not die and know what the better part of valor is.
4. You need versatility for the party.
Elven Wizard (Either Diviner or Conjurer) Diviner played well is going to let you know what's coming. Conjurer is going to summon so your party suddenly will have 4 members. At least for awhile. I'd also seriously consider going for a bonded object (a ring) something I usually would not consider but you might need the versatility it brings. Plus you just always need a wizard.
Human Ranger. Favored Terrain Forest Favored Enemy Human Rangers can be built to melee and ranged well plus an animal companion eventually brings you to sort of 4.
Half-Orc Cleric of Desna. This is obvious right? Buffs and can eventually tank. Forget healing. You must kill as fast as possible so you don't even need to heal.
Actually so long as you don't change the AP and award the appropriate amount of treasure this party could end up very powerful. Treasure for 4 people split 3 ways can be very nice.
What would you do?
party build suggestions?
The biggest drawback with a small party is it's lack of actions. Due to this I would say that a class that increases the party's total actions is a good addition, for example druid or summoner.
Or bump up the party level by 1 or 2.
I'm running Kingmaker with 2 PCs. I also have 2 NPCs.
Our makeup is:
Human Ranger (player)
Human Witch (player)
Human Cleric (NPC)
Human Rogue (NPC)
So far - no issues.
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We're currently in the beginning of Part 2 with a 3 PC party. half elf bard (building to arcane archer), human fighter/diviner, and a human druid (combat optimized). They've done well overall, although we had not one but two near death experiences assaulting the Stag Lord's place.
Later the owlbear put the fighter/mage down in the courtyard. They went through 8 cure potions and 2 scrolls, but made it. That's about what I wanted on the difficulty scale.
As long as your party has more than one caster you should do fine. Three person parties are where classes like eldrtch knight, mystic theurge, bard or paladin can really shine. Any class with combat ability and some casting will do well.
As an alternative option, you can have the NPCs like jhod, kesten or akiros join them in the later adventures. Rotating them in and out may help build the rapport between your pcs and their NPC partners (assuming they ally with these guys).
I'm currently running a 3-person game with no cleric! Gasp!
Currently I have:
-Rogue[swashbuckler from APG] (working towards duelist)
-Cavalier/Fighter/Rogue (the party "tank")
-Fighter1/Wizard[evoker] (future eldritch knight)
However, to balance it off, I made clear on my house rules, and gave the party a boon.
The house rules:
Heal Skill-Treat Deadly Wounds: May be used every 6 hours on a character instead of every 24 (but only applies to wounds in the last 6 hours); Takes 10 minutes per check instead of 1 hour.
For every 5 points you exceed the DC of 20, you add your WIS modifier to the damage healed. For instance, a result of 30 would heal 1 hp/HD + 2*Wis Mod.
Scratch damage: The top 1/4 of a character's max hp is "scratch damage". A character heals 1 hp/4 levels for every hour of traveling/light activity/etc, 1hp/HD per hour of rest, and a full 8 hours of rest fully restores their scratch hp. Unlike other variants, there's no difference between scratch hp and regular hp (keeping it simple). Magical healing restores non-scratch damage first.
Example: A 4th-level character has 25 hp. 1/4 that is 6.25, which rounds down to 6. Hence, the "top" 6 hp are scratch damage. Our character is injured down to 7 hp. They ride on for three hours and recover 3 scratch hp, for a total of 7+3=10. If they stopped to rest for the night, they'd recover the rest of the scratch (3) and heal 4 damage from rest, putting them up to 17 hp.
The boon:
Healing Bond: Given to each expedition from Restov by the high priest of Erastil, members of a healing bond may call upon their friendship and the power of nature to recover from wounds.
Every day, the party receives a shared pool of healing, equal to party size*party level (e.g. 3 party members*4th level =12 hp/day).
*A member of the bond may use a standard action that provokes an AoO* to heal between 1 and half the total pool size (not its current size) in hp.
*Or, as a standard action, they may heal 1 point of ability damage or drain, using the equivalent of 4 hp per point of ability damage/drain healed.
Between the scratch damage system, healer's kits and surgeon's tools, and the healing bond, my party has been able to hold their own against the adventure as written (for 4), with one caster and no healers/support characters. Feel free to pilfer what you like. :3
*ADDENDUM: A party member must be conscious (but can be bound, paralyzed etc; the action is mental), and may only heal themselves; they can't activate the healing bond to heal another character, whether or not they're in the healing bond. Hence, against a KO'd or dying character, the party has to use the Heal Skill and/or potions to get that character conscious, and then that character can invoke the healing bond.
with the emphasis on recruiting friends, it might be less of a problem. Talk the bard around, awaken the sabretooth and so forth.. Besides, there should be something akin to a kingdom full of people looking for knighthood at the round table :p
And should they hit upon the idea of making dryad & satyr king and queen, they can liberate themselves as travelling knights.. and collect other knights to follow them..
Almost more worrying than the lack of a cleric, is the lack of nature people.. A LOT of the adventure will take place under the green leaves, with animals to awaken, birds to talk to and stones that have tales to tell :p Let alone entangle.
Lets atleast hope the rogue becomes a master diplomat.. to talk the various possible allies into being frinds of the kingdom.
We are trying a one on one game of king maker, currently playing a witch (Strix) with any one magic item the player wants at game start, went with the Helm of Brilliance, its gotten them through until the first city building stage but the stag lords fort was touch and go.
Having flight built in to the PC (due to Strix racial) really makes a huge difference.
I'm playing with two PCs, both of whom are gestalt characters (one druid/ranger, on cleric/monk). They both kick ass in normal encounters, and I usually give them fair warning before tough encounters (eg. Stag Lord, trolls), so they bring 2 or 3 NPCs along to boost party strength.
A good Kingmaker campaign should have LOADS of NPCs, but the GM needs to know when to use them, and when to hold them back to let the PCs shine.
-Gestalt
-Druids/summoners/conjurers
-(at 7th) Leadership
-add an npc
-allow them to hire minions
-buy pets (guard dogs are a very good investment at low levels)
I'm running Kingmaker with 3 PC's. I set them up with 25 point buy instead of standard point buy, and thats all they really needed. We are in the middle of Blood for Blood.
Party is:
Human Cavalier
Human Alchemist
Elven Witch
The Alchemist quickly picked up the discovery that lets other people drink his potions. This made both him and the witch partial healers. The Cavalier's horse is practically its own party member.
Generally the way they win encounters:
The Witch puts it to sleep.
The Alchemist throws four bombs a round at it (Multibomb, Two Weapon fighting, rapid shot)
The cavalier and horse charge it to death.
The Witch puts it to sleep.
While the party is really strong I think an ideal party would actually be a Paladin, Alchemist and Witch. Alchemist gives you a strong source of non SR damage and utility. Witch gives you powerful wizard/druid spells with some amazing Hexes, and Paladin has some powerful defenses.
Remember that their leveling will be faster with only 3 characters instead of four.
My group has usually 4 players but more often than not one is missing.
We have:
Elven Ranger: build as an archer, but he uses a melee weapon when things get out of hand..worships Erastil.. helps.
Human Cleric of Gozreh: Party healer, I gave him a magic trident that flows on water, grands the wielder permanent water walk, and can be turned from a +1 into a +1 thundering weapon by spending a channel energy use.
Human Rogue: Soon changed to Ninja from the UC playtest. He wields 2 shortswords, has a magic item that lets mit use vanish 3 times per day (given by me). I am allowing vanish to allow sneak attack on a full attack after turning visible... ee don´t use a combat mat and the other players are rarely flanking.
Human Summoner: My best player... at the current level (6 ) his eidolon outdamanges the ranger and he ... casts mage armor on the eidolon and haste on the party. If the gets bored he goes into melee and I knock him out.^^
I changed the fighter npc into a magus, later when the party was totally scarred of the suggested magister in the book if brought in his girlfriend (wizard).
Some suggestions for your group:
-invest in some healing items
-the spell flame arrows will be usefull, get a scroll if you have to
-crafting feats are a good idea, you have the time to scribe scrolls, and craft magic arms and armor...
-investing directly in your kingdom is a bad idea, the payoff is rarely worth it. Taking money out of your kingdom is possible, but has to be done carefully otherwise the unrest will cripple them
I've been running King Maker as well, but with only 2 PC's and the game's mode is PBP. We originally started out with 5, but because of lack of commitment, the game's shrank down just one PC and myself. For the most part, this Adventure Path is really awesome in terms of RPing.
My friend who's a Ranger does a great job of acting as Nature's Guardian. His character abhors authority and any sort of human based government in favor of the simplistic and natural world of the woods. As for myself, I'm a self taught Monk who's goal is to create a dojo / orphanage to provide the youth a suitable outlet free from abuse.
Whats been working for my campaign is the fact that I have an experienced player (he's been our DM for a plethora of adventures). Instead of fighting the whole forest as one group world, we've been using subterfuge like disguising ourselves as the enemy, or using nature lore to avoid fighting creatures that wouldn't do harm otherwise like wolves.
While the adventure may be optimal for 4 PC's, if you have a partner who generally enjoys RPing and can breathe life into the adventure, I'd say you're set then.