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OK, so my group met last night and, huddled around my laptop, we decided on our first post-APG party. We'll be starting Kingmaker next week. Here's what we came up with:
Half-Elf Cavalier, using the Half-Elf Racial trait to gain proficiency with the Aldori Dueling Sword, which he will use upon dismounting after utilizing his lance. He has the Precise Strike Teamwork Feat.
Human Inquisitor of Erastil, using the Growth Subdomain. Obviously, the ability to Enlarge Self multiple times a day will be huge (NPI) here.
Human Witch, the player's general idea is to spend every feat they get on the "Extra Hex" feat, which should afford maximum versitility in combat.
? Summoner - this player was just really reading the Summoner for the first time, so we didn't get too far into what exactly he'll be doing.
And my character, a Human Druid. I'm using the "Eye For talent" racial Trait to give up my Bonus Feat at first level in order to grant my companion (a horse) an intelligence of 4 straightaway. This offers several benefits. 1) I've given him a skill rank in Linguistics (Druidic), so he can follow spoken commands, completely negating the need for trick-teaching and really just making managing the horses that much easier. 2) This is the important one - my horse, having a Dex 13 and BAB of +1, also has the Precise Strike Feat (LOL). This gives my horse(!) 3 attacks, a +4 bite and 2 hooves at +0, with the bite doing 1d4 + 1d6 (when flanking with the cavalier, which is the plan), and the hooves doing 1d6 + 1d6 (again, when flanking with the cavalier). Obviously, flanking with the cavalier is crucial, but I think this is an amazingly cool concept. My Druid will otherwise be focused on Spellcasting - I won't ever be ON that horse when it gets in combat, I'll tell you that!
So, that's our party. It should be pretty hilarious to play, I am absolutely loving the amount of options available to us now. I am so excited to play!! Your thoughts welcome :-)
Cool! Nice use of the new rules!
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And my character, a Human Druid. I'm using the "Eye For talent" racial Trait to give up my Bonus Feat at first level in order to grant my companion (a horse) an intelligence of 4 straightaway. This offers several benefits. 1) I've given him a skill rank in Linguistics (Druidic), so he can follow spoken commands, completely negating the need for trick-teaching and really just making managing the horses that much easier. 2) This is the important one - my horse, having a Dex 13 and BAB of +1, also has the Precise Strike Feat (LOL). This gives my horse(!) 3 attacks, a +4 bite and 2 hooves at +0, with the bite doing 1d4 + 1d6 (when flanking with the cavalier, which is the plan), and the hooves doing 1d6 + 1d6 (again, when flanking with the cavalier). Obviously, flanking with the cavalier is crucial, but I think this is an amazingly cool concept. My Druid will otherwise be focused on Spellcasting - I won't ever be ON that horse when it gets in combat, I'll tell you that!
It's an interesting group. The witch needs to choose a familiar carefully because you don't have another arcane caster. I think arcane power is likely to be an issue for your group in the future.
I don't like to see people spend feats on mounts/companions which are not always going to be available. The cavalier spent a feat which relies on your animal companion. You have spent a trait and a feat on your horse animal companion, but if you are in a dungeon, underwater, etc., it may be difficult or impossible to bring your horse along.
Warriors who follow the mounted combat tree run into the same issue, unless you are a small race and are riding a medium mount. The other issue that you will run into is that active use of animal companions tends to make them a big target and their defenses tend to lag behind those of the characters. It's going to be much easier to kill your horse than to take down the cavalier.
It's a interesting idea and the Kingmaker AP is likely to be more open to the concept than most adventures, but relying on the animal companion is still going to bite you in places.
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Good stuff
Too true, too true - I'd never have thought to try such a thing in any campaign other than Kingmaker, though, which as I understand it takes place predominantly in open areas.
Is the summoner not an arcane caster? I thought it was.
In fairness to the cavalier, he chose that Teamwork feat knowing that he'd be able to 'broadcast' it to nearby allies for X rounds/day. Strictly speaking, I didn't have to take it for my horse to get the benefit of it (at least occasionally), but I wanted it to be 'always on'.
I was worried about the squishiness of the horse, too - but ASAP I will be buying Barding for it, and it has a generous amount of HP at 1st level - not that those will exactly scale with the rest of the party continuously, of course, but it's got pretty good durability at 1st level. My plan is to definitely take advantage of being able to give her "any feat (s)he is physically capable of using" to make her more combat-oriented than even your most well-trained equine normally is, which includes being more defensible. I'm not totally clear on the path I'm going to take to do that yet (suggestions are appreciated), but that's definitely the direction I'm headed.
Everything you said, totally true, though. I have a feeling I'll be using a Reduce wand frequently (edit: well, that won't work, but something should) to get her into Dungeons.
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I had a longer reply, but it was apparently eaten by the board troubles.
The summoner has limited spells known (like a sorcerer), so I would expect most of his spell selection to be buffs and other things to support summoning. You are right, he is an arcane caster.
Druids get reduce aniimal as a 2nd level spell, so keep your eyes out for a wand. I'm not positive how item creation works in Pathfinder, but the craft wand feat may be worthwhile for your group.
Since the horse has a 4 Intelligence, you may be able to avoid Handle Animal skill checks for "pushing" the horse when you cast Fly on it and want it to fly or cast Water Breathing and want it to swim.
I had a high level druid in 3.5 and lost a number of animal companions until I picked up a tiger at 7th level. I don't think I lost any more going tiger, dire lion, dire tiger. Do you get to replace the animal (including Intelligence boost), if it dies?
The APG does sound great!!
From what I can gather of the classes in the APG playest document, I noticed something interesting about your party: while you have not have any primary healers (aside from possibly your druid?), you will have some unusual opportunities to make up for it in other ways. Your half elf cavalier will have the horse, the summoned creatures, and possibly the inquisitor to back him up in melee. So really, your strategy here may well involve minimizing and dispersing the damage between all your front-line fighters as well as you can. But, if you pull it off, that frees your other party members to be focusing on getting those needed special attacks off. Gives the hex-packing witch plenty of time to get her curses and spells going. And your druid can focus on defensive and battlefield control with some occasional backup fire thrown in for good measure (with some possible help from the summoner on the . All in all, it seems like your party is somewhat unorthodox focus on frontline fighters. But if you can coordinate your offensive and defensive capabilities, you might do well. Certainly your success or defeat will depend a lot on how coordinated your teamwork will be on the battlefield.
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Thanks, Dreaming Psion, that was a very good analysis, and right along the lines of what I came up with, too. We definitely are weighted a bit toward melee damage, as the inquisitor is certainly a melee character with some minor off-healing in this group.
I don't even plan for my Druid to be a typical Primary Healer, but more of a battlefield control and SNA summoner (at mid levels). Obviously, I will be doing my share of healing, but I plan to do it with Cure Light wands whenever possible after combat. The other thread that's floating around here about whether or not you're "doing it wrong" when you're healing mid-combat got me thinking, so I'm going to give that mindset a try and try to heal after combat more often. The good news is, we have three characters that are capable of at least SOME healing, so the entire burden won't (shouldn't) be on me. As long as we don't hit a whole lot of DR x/magic creatures too soon, I think we'll be alright. But we don't have a lot of direct magical damage - some of the new Druid spells will be useful to compensate, I think.
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When we start Kingmaker in a month or so (as soon as we finish Council of Thieves) I am planning on playing an Oracle. There is something about that class that just seems so cool. The oracle is essentially to a cleric what the sorcerer is to a wizard. It's such a great idea! I love the idea of a spontaneous divine caster!
I can't wait to get my book next week!
Half-Elf Cavalier, using the Half-Elf Racial trait to gain proficiency with the Aldori Dueling Sword, which he will use upon dismounting after utilizing his lance. He has the Precise Strike Teamwork Feat.
This is awesome; in the current Kingmaker campaign I'm running, the PC that is the Queen of the kingdom is a Half-Elf Cavalier with the Half-Elf racial trait gaining proficiency with the Aldori Dueling Sword, which she uses upon dismounting after utilizing her lance.
Make sure your Cavalier takes Vital Strike for those Lance blows too. :)
When we start Kingmaker in a month or so (as soon as we finish Council of Thieves) I am planning on playing an Oracle. There is something about that class that just seems so cool. The oracle is essentially to a cleric what the sorcerer is to a wizard. It's such a great idea! I love the idea of a spontaneous divine caster!
I can't wait to get my book next week!
Its so much better than the Favored Soul. That class was such a disappointment for what it could have been
The Oracle is what it should have been in 3.5