I've got a Bard in a Kingmaker campaign, and we just leveled up to level 2. My plan was simple: I already have Skill Focus(Perform: Oratory), mostly because I envision my bard not as a musical type, but as a politician whose words are his weapon. I was planning to use Versatile Performance on Perform: Oratory to boost my diplomacy and sense motive sky high.
However, having played a couple of sessions, I find myself wondering just how much diplomacy we're really going to see in this game. I'm wondering if skills like intimidate and maybe handle animal might be more appropriate at early levels, which would mean I should focus on Perform: Percussion (or maybe some other skills entirely). But then my Skill Focus would be practically wasted until I reach level 6 for my second Versatile Performance. My Skill Focus comes from the Focused Study alternate racial trait, which would give me another Skill Focus at level 8.
So how bad of an idea is it really to ruin my build to adapt my character to what the campaign seems to be about? On one hand it seems too stubborn to stick to my original plans in the face of a campaign where these skills don't seem to get a lot of use at low levels, on the other hand it seems foolish to waste my skill focus by suddenly working on a different perform skill.
Does anyone have any useful opinions or wise words for me?
This comes down to personal preference. When I create a character that I enjoy I find that I focus on the character first. Then I make choices based on what that character would do. I have also had some characters that were very powerful and useful that I hated because they had no real "character" they were just death machines.
So my suggestion is to stick with your plan and you will have more fun.
Kingmaker has a lot of diplomatic options when you cone across intelligent monstrous races who can later join your community. I'll not spoil it by giving out specifics, but trust me, it is there.
Our Aasimar Paladin is also focused on diplomacy, and at the moment he might better at it than I am (do Aasimar get a bonus to it?). On the one hand, my Bard should be the god of diplomacy, so I don't want to be upstaged by the paladin, on the other hand, the group doesn't technically need my diplomacy (although my politician is a lot more amoral than the paladin, and sometimes an amoral diplomat can be useful too).
We don't have any Rangers or Druids (though they would have been incredibly useful in Kingmaker). Our party consists of the diplomacy Paladin, a Fighter with sword and shield, an archery Cleric, an archery Rogue, and my controller/skill monkey Bard.
Knowledges are a good point. They seem useful. I'm not sure if I should max them out or rely on my Bardic Knowledge for them.
I have put a single point in every social skill (including diplomacy and sense motive, because I just couldn't start this character without them), but I don't want to put any more points in the skills I'll be Versatile Performing soon.
I did have a plan on going big on demoralizing a lot in combat, even to the point where I was considering Weapon Focus at level 3 and Dazzling Display at level 5, so I could demoralize everybody all the time, but I probably won't go that route. I'll definitely get the Blistering Invective spell if it's allowed. But if I leave my Intimidate low, it won't be as effective as it could be.
If I'd thought this over a bit more at character creation, I might have put my Skill Focus elsewhere, although really Oratory fits the concept much better than any other Perform skill, which is probably also the reason why I should use it for my Versatile Performance anyway, even if Intimidate would technically have been more effective.
I've just finished playing the party face in our KM game (it's still running but I had to drop out.) For the record, she is an 11th-level Priest, a third-party class (Priestess, in this case.)
Diplomacy played a huge part in our game. I don't want to give too much away so I'll simply echo what the others say: it's useful. This is especially true if you have a DM that likes to run with good ideas.
I stuck a point in each of the knowledges over the first 3 levels*, starting with those that weren't covered by the other characters. I then upped them all to 2 ranks over the course of the progression to 11th level. As the game goes on, you'll get to know which knowledges are most used.
*3 at first level; 3 at 2nd; 4 at 3rd.
As an aside: the bard is James Jacobs' baby. It's not official, although he'd like it to be, but he says that the skill-points invested in the skills that are covered under VP can be redistributed when the appropriate VP is taken. It's in a forum thread somewhere.
No rangers or druids in a KM campaign?...that must be a first. :)
You seem to have enough combat capability so let the others deal with that and you concentrate on the out-of-combat situations. Incidentally, our party rogue had very little to do; you might want to suggest to the rogue's player that another class would be better suited to the campaign - my advice would be ranger. I'm not a believer that 'rogues are weak' but this campaign doesn't offer anything to challenge their unique skills.
As an aside: the bard is James Jacobs' baby. It's not official, although he'd like it to be, but he says that the skill-points invested in the skills that are covered under VP can be redistributed when the appropriate VP is taken. It's in a forum thread somewhere.
Yeah but it's not in a book, so it's probably not official enough for my GM.
No rangers or druids in a KM campaign?...that must be a first. :)
My only current wilderness campaign is also the only one without a Druid. I'm also playing in Curse of the Crimson Throne (very urban) where I'm a Druid, and in Council of Thieves (somewhat urban, though I suspect it's heading towards very dungeony) where we've got a Druid and a Ranger. Of course in Kingmaker we've got neither. Our travel-domain Cleric is a bit Ranger-like, though.
You seem to have enough combat capability so let the others deal with that and you concentrate on the out-of-combat situations.
You'd think, but so far we've had only two combats that didn't end with two PCs below 0 HP. And one of those two was against a single wolf. All of our other combats (a bandit camp, wolves ambushing us in the night, and a group of boars) all knocked out two PCs each.
Incidentally, our party rogue had very little to do; you might want to suggest to the rogue's player that another class would be better suited to the campaign - my advice would be ranger. I'm not a believer that 'rogues are weak' but this campaign doesn't offer anything to challenge their unique skills.
He has a Con of 7, so I'm already wondering how long he'll survive. Especially considering the way our combats tend to go (though usually he starts by climbing a tree to shoot from).
Personally I think a Ranger with one level of Rogue could be a very effective Rogue with a lot more staying power and combat ability.