| Vestax159 |
About to start a new campaign (Carrion Crow) with the following party any advice on what I should play?
Fighter - Tank of the group, mainly focused on combat
Druid - Healer / Buffer of the group
Magus - DPS
Currently my thoughts are:
Sorcerer Arcane - Controller - Pick up diplomacy
Dervish Dancer Bard - talker, skill monkey, melee
Ninja - Talker (they have diplomacy!), skill monkey, melee
Rogue (Archetype maybe?) - Not sure why to take this over ninja but same concept as the ninja
| Beebs |
If no one else has it, then anything with Diplomacy is a great choice—get it with a trait if you don't have it as a class skill.
I don't think it is too much of a spoiler to say that the undead make an appearance in an adventure path full of words like "carrion" and "haunting," and that knowledge: religion will come in handy, as well as the ability to deal with incorporeal enemies.
Don't discount vanilla bard. Fighter+Magus+summoned monsters+bard is a lot of people who can benefit from inspire courage. Versatile Performance + Bardic Knowledge can really make your skill points go a long ways. (instead of maxing your knowledge skills, you can keep them at a number of ranks equal to half your level with bardic knowledge making up the rest).
Archaeologist is another archetype to consider if you want to get both bard and rogue in a single character.
An Inquisitor would be another interesting choice.
And the sorcerer is a solid choice as well. Make sure that at least some of your spells can affect the undead. It'd be no fun if all you take is sleep and color spray and encounter a zombie ;)
I don't have too much experience with rogues, but since you can sneak attack undead in pathfinder, it's not an unreasonable choice.
Anyways, basically, those are all good ideas—I'd say just pick the one where the character/RP concept you have seems the most exciting to you.
| Joyd |
Carrion Crown isn't the most diplomacy-heavy module ever to see print, but since you're travelling with a trio of people who are likely to be pretty poor at it, I think that you're on-base with making sure that your character is something that will be decent at talking to people. Any of your four choices are pretty decent, and Beebs's suggestions are all good as well. Given the choice, I would probably lean towards Bard/Inquisitor, since it's nice to have a second person in the party with some level of healing competance, if only to act as a backup wand user.
| Vestax159 |
Don't discount vanilla bard. Fighter+Magus+summoned monsters+bard is a lot of people who can benefit from inspire courage. Versatile Performance + Bardic Knowledge can really make your skill points go a long ways. (instead of maxing your knowledge skills, you can keep them at a number of ranks equal to half your level with bardic knowledge making up the rest).
Honestly, I just don't feel like one round going "Inspire Courage" and finishing my turn. It looked like the dervish dancer got his fair share of spotlight without using one turn to cast a buff generally. Though I have never played the dervish dancer so not sure how well the archetype works out in play.
Archaeologist is another archetype to consider if you want to get both bard and rogue in a single character.
Oh this isn't to bad. I would have to see how viable a non sneak attack rogue is without bardic performance to buff himself.
And the sorcerer is a solid choice as well. Make sure that at least some of your spells can affect the undead. It'd be no fun if all you take is sleep and color spray and encounter a zombie ;)
Wow! I would of been very blue in the face! Both my sorcerer and bard were intending to take heavy mind affecting abilities and undead are generally immune to them!
Anyways, basically, those are all good ideas—I'd say just pick the one where the character/RP concept you have seems the most exciting to you.
Finding which one is most exciting is the difficult part :)
An Inquisitor can make an awesome face, even with a 5 charisma. They can actually be quite sneaky as well. Take the wisdom of the flesh trait and choose stealth, and now you can use your wisdom for stealth.
What makes the inquisitor such a good diplomat even with poor cha?
I notice nobody in the group can channel positive energy in a campaign chock full of undead.
Just sayin'.
We all knew it was undead before hand and joked about all making paladins / clerics. However, none of us were very interested in either class.
| Joyd |
What makes the inquisitor such a good diplomat even with poor cha?
Inquisitors get a bunch of bonuses to social skills, and can take inquisitions (including Conversion, available to all of them) that sub Wis in for Cha/Int for other skills as well. They're naturally best at intimidate, but can be as good at Diplomacy as about anyone.
| Oterisk |
If you go Sorcerer, you can go with the undead bloodline. They have a pretty cool Bloodline Arcana...Sleep and color spray away.
Corporeal undead that were once humanoids are treated as humanoids for the purposes of determining which spells affect them.
I actually never liked the Dervish Dancer, but that's just me. Remember that as you level as a regular bard you won't be just Inspiring courage and that's it. At level 7 with a rod of quicken, you can do three buffs in a round. After which you can go nuts on archery or some such strategy with really good effectiveness. Your combat heavy friends will love you.
Ninja and rogue are cool. But don't play one unless you really enjoy positioning and tactics in combat. They are supreme opportunists but can be disappointing to those who just want to do damage. That being said, I love Rogues for the Knife Master Archetype, but Ninjas make good candidates for the Eldrich Heritage Feats, which can be really cool (Shadow bloodline, I'm looking at you!)