Kingmaker character ideas

[dkr]

Okay, I will be playing in a kingmaker campaign in a few weeks. I am working through many character concepts. The rest of the party is also undecided; we will have 4-6 players (I know 4 have committed, there are 2 more thinking about it).

As I am unsure which role(s) any of the other players may hope to gain, and what classes or builds they will be grabbing, I am trying to come up with ideas that can easily fill 2 or more roles.

Also, I was hoping to be a craftsman style character; a humble smith or artisan who rises to greatness, but is still a craftsman at heart. Both mundane crafting and magical item crafting. I am not familiar with KingMaker, beyond the intro handout; will there be enough downtime in a typical campaign to do any crafting?

So given that, what race/class/build would you recommend for me?

[T.A.U.]

Without the party composition it's hard to recommend some class/build; in the Kingmaker AP the Party should have both a combination of Wilderness exploration capabilities and Politic-Diplomatic interactions ability.

The downtime is really GM and Party dependant, if they want to spend many sessions in the Kingdom's turns your pc could have toons of days for crafting (1 kingdom turn is 1 month, but you need to spend only 1 week/month for ruling/council working) but if the Kingdom is in background mode the pc will not have time to craft.

[Randarak]

Having run the AP up through the third part (still going), and without giving anything away, I would recommend characters with a woodland flavor. Elves, half-elves, and humans from a basic racial starting point, coupled with druids, rangers, barbarians, and clerics of nature based deities.

T.A.U. is correct that your downtime will be entirely based on how the GM intends to work with the kingdom building aspect. Until you know that, you won't be able to answer the crafting questions.

[Major_Blackhart]

Well, if I were to be honest about it, I'd suggest either a Wizard or Cleric for crafting purposes. I've never been a crafter myself, but those types make the most sense. Alchemist makes potions, but he's not necessarily the crafting type that the Cleric and Wizard could be.

One example that I could think of that would be a specific crafting class would be the Forgemaster Archtype. It's dwarf only though. I'll be honest, it's an interesting class, but it would be more suited to a cohort or an NPC than a PC.

[XMorsX]

The Aldori swordlords are a nice fit to the adventure path, either the fighter archetype or the PrC.

Being a dedicated crafter might not be the best choice as pathfinder is mainly about combats. However, a Wizard with Craft Wondrous Items will be a major help for any group. Craft Rod and Inscribe Magical Tattoo are also great crafting feats for your needs.

You may want to check this Construct crafter guide

[pennywit]

Depending on how your GM runs it, there may be time for crafting. (In fact, there may be a lot of time for it). KM gives GMs a lot of flexibility in how they want to run things. Decide what you want to do with your crafting and how your GM will adjudicate it. There are differences between, say, churning out a +1 longsword for every member of your kingdom's military (which has implications for consumption costs and game balance for your military); running a magic shop in your downtime and bringing in profits (which may implicate the Ultimate Campaign downtime rules), forging great weapons for the most favored of your kingdom's retainers, and simply being "the city blacksmith" as an RP function in addition to your roles as a nobleman and adventurer.

More generally:

As others said here, diplomacy is important in Kingmaker. In addition to a party face, I think every character should have at least some ranks in at least one interaction skill -- Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate, or Sense Motive. Even if you're not the party face, you can still use "aid another" to help.

I also think you ought to see if your GM is willing to give you some inkling as to the sort of campaign he wishes to run. I've seen a LOT of divergence in KM campaigns, particularly among creative GMs. You'll want to customize your characters off of what he tells you.

[Phntm888]

I'm currently playing in a Kingmaker campaign as a Warpriest of Gorum (formerly Cleric). XMorsX is correct about Pathfinder mainly being about combat, however, if there were any game where being a dedicated crafter could work, it's Kingmaker. Our party Wizard (Conjuration-focused) has taken Extra Traits twice to get several traits that help with Item crafting, and just took Craft Wondrous Item (we just hit 5 at the end of last session). While I don't believe he intends to take all of the crafting feats, he is going to take several.

Otherwise, the advice I've seen is pretty good. Cleric-wise, Erastil is heavily tied into this AP, and Gorum has some relevance further down the line, according to my GM. Other nature-based deities would work as well, and both Ranger and Druid are highly useful. Bards will see plenty of chances to excel, and due to the more open nature of the AP, Cavaliers can really shine with their mounted abilities.

The only class that isn't particularly supported by the AP is Gunslinger, because the AP was published prior to Ultimate Combat. That just results in a shortage of class-specific magic items, though, and doesn't hamper the overall effectiveness of the class itself.

In the end, with the rest of the party undecided, you have the chance to really lock in your role in the party and snag "first pick" for lack of better term. If you want to be a crafter, do it, just make sure to distribute skills and some feats towards being able to do something else as well.

[Zahir ibn Mahmoud ibn Jothan]

Make an Archer Rogue that follows Erastil.

[Thausauron]

I play a half elf Cavalier in my kingmaker campaign. Order of the dragon, and gave him a decent Intelligence score. Skill wise he plays a lot like a ranger. Feat wise went a combination of mounted feats and intimidation route from Dazzling display chain. Pretty fun to play. Only thing I wish I would have done differently would to take beast rider archetype.

[Snowleopard]

I actually use an Aasimar Paladin with super high bonusses on Perception and diplomacy. +9 on perception and +10 on Diplomacy at level 1 and that works really well against parleys as well as not being surprised too often. The perception is so high because I used a trait to make perception a class skill and add a +1 of the trait and as the trait was a Abadar trait I immediately made my Paladin worship Abadar (I was toying with the idea anyway, but after seeing the trait I was sold).
He plays an excellent frontline fighter as well as an extinguished negociater. I in fact talked my way out of several difficult situations and attempted to do so (to no avail) at others ;)

[EsperMagic]

Cavaliers are fairly awesome. A halfling/gnome cavailer(emissary) with order of the sword is pretty great. Also going into battle herald is also rather awesome since you get the martial abilities of the cavalier and the bardic performances.

[Captain Zoom]

dkr wrote:

Also, I was hoping to be a craftsman style character; a humble smith or artisan who rises to greatness, but is still a craftsman at heart. Both mundane crafting and magical item crafting. I am not familiar with KingMaker, beyond the intro handout; will there be enough downtime in a typical campaign to do any crafting?

So given that, what race/class/build would you recommend for me?

Not so much a recommendation, but our Kingmaker group has a Mad Dog Barbarian multi-classed to Ranger with a Badger Companion and maxed out ranks of Profession Tinker. He's married and has a shop in the Capitol, but officially, he's the Royal Assassin.

[thebigragu]

For Kingmaker flavor, party effectiveness, and crafting, I would go with a Cleric of Erastil. I'm in the middle of the fourth book playing a Paladin of Iomedae. I'm sure we all wish we had a dedicated, single-class cleric. Really, you can't go wrong.

[pendothrax]

I would reccomend the soul forger archetype for the magus. You can qualify for magical crafting feats and there are many bonuses to mundane crafting. A little more fighter/mage than humble craftsman, but very oriented to mundane crafting skills such as weapon and armorsmithing.

[pennywit]

My players are currently in the second module. I asked them for what they would tell someone starting a new character. They said:

1) Even though it is heavy on wilderness exploration, the social skills are very important.

2) Coordinate character creation with other players if possible. They said they've used a wide variety of skills and roles, so it's important to have the bases covered.

[Twoswords]

I echo what Pennyworth wrote above: do not skip on social skills, and try to coordinate character building. The group I play with have many different roles and strengths, and that has served us well.

[Sindakka]

In the game I participated in, we did have a lot of free time, and could craft quite a bit - in fact, we had a portable alchemist lab set-up in a cart to drag along with us when exploring.

But that was our GM, and he kind of regretted it. Still though, later arcs in the AP still offer downtime for the PCs, since ruling a kingdom for 1 month requires only 1 actual week of work (huh...), but your GM may decide it takes longer or fill in the gaps with random encounters.

Cavalier has a lot of opportunities in this AP, and I kind of wish I ran one of those... as stated, druids/rangers/barbarians/clerics-who-worship-nature fit thematically, but there's nothing barring wizard-alchemists/fighter-smiths/rogue-carpenters taking up the call to form a kingdom.

[pennywit]

Another of my players chimed in. He suggested having one player make a bard character and max out knowledges; he's found that knowledge skills have come up a LOT during play. Of course, that could just be my GMing style.