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I'm getting ready to start Kingmaker and was tossing around the idea of playing a forward scout type character, and was looking for advice.

I'm more interested in being able to move at full speed stealthly through natural terrains for long periods then sneaking past a dungeon guard.

I've not seen many spells to help my stealth that last long enough to be all that useful, so I'm steering away from using spells for stealth (not to say that a wizard with a trait and a cat familiar wouldn't be good) but I might have missed some amazing spells.

I thought about a ranger 4/rogue 2/Horizon walker character for the stacking terrain bonuses and fast stealth. I also tossed around a wildshaped druid to change into something small and scout ahead. But I'm open to whatever, just looking for ideas.
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Druids get Woodland Stride at 2, and Rogues have access to Favored Terrains as well as neat talents like Camouflage, Fast Stealth and even access to a few rounds of invisibility (Vanish) with minor and major magic. Depending on your stats you might want to look into Eldritch Heritage and Improved Eldritch Heritage (Shadow). Focus into stealth and get Hide in Plain Sight in shadows for level 11 or just go for Hide in Plain Sight <your favored terrain> as an Advanced Rogue Talent. If you take the Chameleon archetype you can take a 10 on your stealth when you're in your favored terrain. Not a bad deal.

The ranger/rogue/horizon walker is pretty good, for the reasons you listed. Some ranger archetypes may be worth looking at, as well.

Druid (with a trait for stealth) is a good bet, since you get woodland stride and trackless step pretty early (2nd and 3rd level, respectively). You might consider the World Walker archetype for Druid, which forgoes Trackless Step (rough) and Resist Nature's Lure (also rough for Kingmaker), but gets Favored Terrain as a ranger.

Pick up a Cloak of Elvenkind (if you can find/buy/commission/craft one), wild shape into a form with good stealth (a cat form of some kind, possibly), and you'd be good to go.

I think those two options are probably your best bet for stealthy wilderness travel.

EDIT: Ninja'd! Alwaysafk brings up some other good options.

Fast Stealth seems really good for someone who goes out in front of the party and scouts. Elves and halflings can get something like it, but they are kind of compromise races for what I am looking for.

As far as I can tell, there aren't too many situations where this sort of character would work in Kingmaker. Maybe a few. I'm only up to the end of book 2 though. Maybe that changes.

A Scrying divination Wizard can just place a sensor and scout that way. A bit short range though.

A scrying sensor, that usually lasts minutes per level, has a spot dc of 20+ the level of the spell. It's pretty easy to get a stealth score that's higher then that.

Is there a reason you don't think a forward scout would work in Kingmaker?

The encounters, mostly. Lots of random ones. A few dungeons though. Maybe my perceptions are skewed by the GM's way of playing.
Cheapy wrote:
The encounters, mostly. Lots of random ones. A few dungeons though. Maybe my perceptions are skewed by the GM's way of playing.

It seems like a character with good senses and a stealth skill would be ideal for that, versus a character who can do magic for 30 minutes a day.

I built a stealthy ranger for Kingmaker, and so far I haven't gotten very much use out of Stealth. There are comparatively few encounter areas that are static enough to scout -- lots of random encounters that happen as part of overland travel.

It HAS proven useful a couple of times -- once very early when we got good intel on an enemy camp site, and once later when we got the drop on some baddies. So it's a viable skill to pick up; just don't make it the sole focus of your character. Mix in some other stuff too, like, say, hitting stuff really hard. Favored Enemy helps a lot, and pay attention to the recommendations in the Kingmaker Player's guide. Some types of favored enemy show up much more often than others.

Your Ranger/Rogue/Horizon Walker build looks good, though you might see if you can get in enough Ranger level to get Woodland Stride (Ranger 7, I think). It's very handy in this AP.

A level of Oracle of Wood can get you Woodland Stride, although that would be a no BAB Charisma caster, and you have to pick up an Oracle's Curse. (not too bad with a 12 CHA for the bonus spell, but the dip hurts so many other things).

I'll have to make sure that the GM isn't going to have the random encounters rain down on us from heaven, cause you are right, that would make a forward scout pretty useless.

And I'll have to look into woodland stride.

If you want Woodland Stride and your class doesn't offer it, you can try the feat Eldritch Heritage -- sorcerers with the Fey bloodline get Woodland Stride as a bloodline ability at level 3, so you can pick it up that way. It does require you to have CHA 13 and Skill Focus (Knowledge[Nature]). But since Kingmaker takes place almost entirely outdoors, Knowledge (Nature) comes up ALL the time, so that would actually be a pretty good Skill Focus to have.

If you're playing an elf and don't have any plans to cast arcane spells, the Silent Hunter alternate racial trait from the APG would be good. There's a similar one for halflings.

Without giving up too much info...every time you move, there's a chance for a random encounter.

Yes -- it's part of the AP.
Liberty's Edge

the forward scouting still depends on the DM. as a DM, if someone is forward scouting, they role first for perception even on random encounters.
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Tinalles wrote:

If you want Woodland Stride and your class doesn't offer it, you can try the feat Eldritch Heritage -- sorcerers with the Fey bloodline get Woodland Stride as a bloodline ability at level 3, so you can pick it up that way.

You would need to have Improved Eldritch Heritage to get Woodland stride. I had the same though but upon closer inspection Eldritch Heritage only gives you the first level ability.

Eldritch Heritage

Yeah, if I wanted woodland stride the suggestion of Wood Oracle seems the easiest, though it's odd that nature oracle doesn't get it.

I've heard that the random encounters are based on exploring hex's.

I stand corrected; it would be Improved Eldritch Heritage for Woodland Stride, which makes it a good bit less attractive -- 3 feats is a much large investment than 2, especially when the first level Fey bloodline power is pretty so-so.

And yes, each time you enter or explore a hex, the DM and the players both make percentile rolls. If the two rolls fall within a certain range of each other, a random encounter happens. The likelihood of rolling a random encounter varies depending on some factors I won't reveal.

Why do you need fast stealth? All it does is save you a -5 penalty. I'm not convinced the penalty is all that relevant. Generally, when you really focus on a skill, you will have enough ranks to go along.

+2 from a trait, +3 from focus, +3 from dex, + 5 (?) from a cloak of elven kind + 6 from ranks.

That's +19 at level 3 if you manage to find the item.

Imho, I don't see the point to dip into rogue. I would build a strait forward ranger. With a switch hitter build, you have the survivability to survive detection and stay ranged if the situation allows for it, you can still get high on the stealth, have enough skills to survive and you can an animal companion which depending on how your dm plays might be able to help out.

P.S. However, have you considered the problem of horses? Unless your party mates don't have a problem with walking, how are you going to keep up with a 50 ft horse?

Fast Stealth helps the stealth skill more then Skill Focus before level 10 is why I was looking at it.

I was looking at rogue before going into Horizon Walker cause Terrain Mastery is really good.

Ranger is a really good class, that horizon walker build will have better skill bonuses however.

Being faster then the horses is a legit concern though.
Cheapy wrote:
Without giving up too much info...every time you move, there's a chance for a random encounter.

Sure, but that is one random encounter in a 12 mile area... your GM is NOT constrained to have the encounter appear around the corner with no warning. The screen shouldn't flash and you are suddenly in combat.

If the GM is doing his job of bringing the encounters to life (and I think that is the #1 job of GM in Kingmaker), then you should have more opportunity for a forward scout in this campaign than any other Paizo campaign.

But... like others have said, it IS GM dependent. For my money, I would plan on it being a good option. If it doesn't work out I personally would probably bow out of the game and move on as it doesn't sound that interesting to have a bunch of random encounters that don't really fit into anything so much as just happen.

Sean

Random encounters are kinda sacred to DnD, and don't always make sense. To me, having a forward scout should help, but I'm not GMing, so I will just make sure to talk to him.

I think scouting is very DM dependent. We tried it a few times early in Kingmaker and the DM either set up circumstances to make it difficult or it didn't help us in our encounters.

Since scouting didn't work well we just started kicking down doors. Which is fun too.

Our normal approach is KICK IN DOOR, MURDER FACE, so I was thinking about something different. I think it's probably a lot harder to balance encounters if the party is always prepared, so I'll just make sure to talk to the GM.
Andy Ferguson wrote:

Fast Stealth helps the stealth skill more then Skill Focus before level 10 is why I was looking at it.

I was looking at rogue before going into Horizon Walker cause Terrain Mastery is really good.

True,

though a 2 level dip into rogue will cost you more then a feat.
A 2 level dip into rogue can be interesting, I just don't think you should waste your only rogue talent on fast stealth.

From the core rule book alone, I would prefer trap spotter (kinda depends on how your gm uses traps and what he defines as traps.) or Surprise Attack.

Fast stealth seems like it's designed to take at level 2 for a game that runs not further then level 3 or 4. Interesting at first, becomes obsolete later.
Andy Ferguson wrote:

I'm getting ready to start Kingmaker and was tossing around the idea of playing a forward scout type character, and was looking for advice.

Well not specific to kingmaker, but for a scout:

I would build towards at least one way to hide in plain sight (i.e. shadowdancer (by 6th), eldritch heritage (by 11th), etc.).

I would have a way to easily find traps (trapspotter rogue talent) and likely deal with them (so the party never even knows about them).

I would have a way to disengage from combat when discovered.

I would have a means to communicate with the party (status is a wonderful spell).

What all do you want out of the character?

-James
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