Hullo everyone.
I am dealing with a problem in my current campaign. We are a three man party that consists from a two weapon fighting ranger and a sorcerer focusing mostly on blasting.
I am the third member. I was playing a witch till now, and I didnt have any fun with her anymore so I decided to reroll. T
However, we lack everything right now and I really dont know what to play. We have no frontline, and many times me and our sorcerer were near death. The ranger cannot really take a lot of damage as he is not optimized at all. Nor is our sorcerer. They are new in pathfinder (first time in dnd for the sorc and he can barely qualify for an arcane spellcaster with his optimization. He is also a sage sorcerer using his int, so no cha skills, no face party either) and their spells and abilities are all over the place. I understand and respect that, that's why I wanted to play something that can bring balance to the party, but I am not sure how to do that when we will lack healing, face party, frontline, divine spellcasting, skill monkey etc. Not saying all of them are mandatory and so far we didnt do that bad, but you can see already in our 8th lvl that we lack behind.
I was considering a summoner for the frontline eidolon and me as a back line controller buffer to make them shine in battle, while keeping down my eidolon for stealing their thunder.
I thought of playing a melee druid with an animal companion but I am disappointed when I read that they start falling off at later levels, and we are nearly 9 now.
Another idea was an eldritch knight archer that can rain death on enemies and be a part time skill-monkey out of combat and use his utility and control spells to cover as much from the other missing roles.
I know we are not in a video game where you need tank/heal/4 dps, but the more we progress, the more I realize the need for a frontliner, and I deeply miss our ex-player rogue skillmonkey T_T
Any suggestions?
A paladin is a great tank. Multiclass it with lunar oracle for more divine spellcaster. See the build in the alias.
An inquisitor can be most of the things you seem to miss. And he can be good at most. And fun on top.
Edit: The pesistence inquisition seems cool for a front liner.
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paladin. I love paladins. I played THE HELL out of paladins. So much so, I still love them, but I have to force myself NOT to play them again :P That aside, reasons why
-great hp
-great tankiness with Swift LoHs
-SMITE EVILLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL (mermaid-man)
-decent damage
-decent spells, access to swift action spells
-almost as versatile in build potential as a fighter but with clerical abilities.
Cons
-like fighter, low skill points
- really hurts to dip out of the main class, (its not dip friendly either way, unless you go for the DD/paladin build which can be ridiculously strong but hard to pull off properly)
-LG can be a hinderance, My paladins have fallen once or twice at the end due to him killing the BBEG that surrendered. (though you don't have to play lawful stupid....)
I'd look at oracle. You get divine spells and if you played with it, or added some fighter levels you could be pretty beefy. Plus, with the charisma you could handle the social skills.
Bard. focus on archery feats and buff the hell out of the rest of your party to help compensate for their lack of optimization. You'll also pull off the skill monkey/party face roll while doing it.
Summoner. Eidolon can be a tank for you, swap it out for one-action summoning- bring in a summoned creature to heal, fly, stealth, tank, etc. Limited arcane, look at the Pit spells and battlefield control.
It is a myth that Druids are no longer relevant at high levels. You're a fu divine caster with the second best spell list in the game, elemental form s give you better movement and evasion. and your animal companion buffs continue to get better. Also your spontaneous summoning ability becomes even more invaluable as the monsters you summon become stronger. Summons/animal companion can easily act as a primary combatant/tank. Your combat wild shape forms drop off, sure, but they become better at increasing mobility and protecting you. I would play a casting focused Druid who is an expert at summoning with the animal domain and the feather sub domain. This character will be the answer to your parties problems.
An Scion of Humanity Aasimar Seeker Archetype Lunar Oracle is perfect for this situation (though that is largely because all of that except the Archetype is largely perfect for *any* and *all* situations).
Make sure you grab a grab a tiger with your first revelation and you'll have a great tank. You can even make it more durable quickly by using the Aasimar favored class bonus to fast advance it and you can pick up the Celestial Servant feat to have a Celestial Tiger at 3rd.
Seeker Archetype lets you cover the trapfinding role of the scout. You have 4+INT skill points and are a CHA focused class so you make an excellent face for the group. If desired you can take Racial Heritage (Half-Elf) at 5th level so you can get paragon surge as a spell at level 6. After that you just need Skill Focus (any knowledge) and Eldritch Heritage and your ready to know all the spells at level 11.
Don't forget to grab the Noble Scion Feat (War) at level 1 so you get CHA to initiative and Prophetic Armor at 3rd so you get CHA to AC/Reflex.
Enjoy!
According to all the missing things you need, I'll second inquisitor as a solid option.
They have 6 skill points per level, all the face skills necessary, and they have plenty of abilities that could be useful in RP situations (all the detect alignment spells at will, discern lies as an immediate action for level rounds/day). Judgments keep their damage relevant, and you are at the level where you can pick 2 of the choices at once. At around that level, you could get +2-3 to attack rolls and +4 to damage, more that putting it on par with a full BAB class.
And with access to a domain, you have plenty of options (such as animal domain to get an animal companion similar to how a ranger gets theirs, or maybe travel domain so you can wear medium armors without being slowed down.)
Plus they get teamwork feats, and the ability to benefit from them even if others do not share the feats. It sounds like it could be a good way to train some of the other party members in better tactics.
Really its somewhat up to you. I like summoning to give your ally's flanks and provide bodies to soak up damage even at low levels, but you could toss some buffs on and go into combat yourself (though I'd wait til level 3). Command and Sound Burst make decent low level Save-or-lose spells.