Hunter or Sacred Huntsman?

[Ahkavady]

I am planning on playing a bowman who works with an animal companion. I was looking at the Sacred Huntsman and the Hunter, and it seems to me the Sacred Huntsman has more bells and whistles to it than the Hunter.

What am I missing that makes the Hunter worth taking or the Inquisitor archetype?

Also I looked at the Primal Companion Hunter, but it seems to me that it takes one of the few things that makes the Hunter good, only to make the focus be the companion rather than the character, like the issues with the summoner. Am I missing something there?

Thanks

[Chess Pwn]

for the hunter the focus already is on your animal companion. Your companion will be better than any other.

[born_of_fire]

I built both to level 12 when I was trying to decide which to play for one of my PFS characters. I found that the pets are virtually identical and the characters themselves end up shockingly similar. The main thing that distinguishes them from one another are their spell lists. Hunter gets access to some cool Druid and Ranger spells whereas the Inquisitor gets access to the very serviceable but rather boring Cleric spell list.

It depends on whether you feel a domain is more or less valuable than being able cast things like Lead Blades, Gravity Bow, Barkskin, Magic Fang and several other really nice buff spells for yourself and especially your pet. There is very little difference between the two classes otherwise. FWIW, I ended up going with Hunter because I wanted access to the spells I mentioned as well as the Carry Companion spell more than I wanted a domain. YMMV.

[Chess Pwn]

and you know the inquisitor wisdom to initiative and bonus to knowledge and other skills. Bane against anything you want. And the inquisitor doesn't use the cleric list, it has it's own list that has cleric, paladin, and some other neat stuff.

[Mysterious Stranger]

A hunter is able to use all martial weapons and has access to both ranger and druid spells. Hunters also get all the summon natures ally spells in addition to the normal spells for their level. They also get improved empathic link and the ability to see through their companions eyes. Wild Empathy also allows them some influence over normal animals. Woodland stride gives him an edge when it comes to moving in the wilderness.

[Imbicatus]

Don't forget Bane. That makes a much bigger impact than the domain imo.

[born_of_fire]

Chess Pwn wrote:

and you know the inquisitor wisdom to initiative and bonus to knowledge and other skills. Bane against anything you want. And the inquisitor doesn't use the cleric list, it has it's own list that has cleric, paladin, and some other neat stuff.

Yes, my mistake on the Inquisitor spell list being its own. It does get some cool spells over and above the Cleric spell list that I neglected however I still found the Hunter spell list more attractive. Definitely much more focused on buffing animals in general, natural weapons and your pet than the buffs available to the Inquisitor.

[lemeres]

I disagree with the bit about primal hunter. The thing that got me interested was when your animal companion got killed off.

The last paragraph in primal transformation says that you can apply the evos meant for your animal companion to yourself if it dies. That is basically a balanced and watered down synthesist (which might be why it is not PFS legal, if I remember right; understandable since there are questions like 'can you get pounce if you have a quadruped eidolon?' that would bring every summoner problem down on their heads..again).

Let's take a melee build (I have less experience with making ranged eidolons). Just applying the ability increase and the natural armor evos can give you something more than on par with inquisitor judgments, and your 'uses per day' are equal to your level (since most fights last less than 1 minute). Just looking at level 1, you can grab a +2 to str and natural armor, and by level 12 you could grab +6. And that is not even taking into account stuff like large, wings, and extra senses.

I will agree that I never fell in love with the vanilla hunter though. Overall, the class is generally about trying to improve the companion, so it ends up being lack luster itself (since it has an animal companion that could use scent to do the cool investigative/tracking stuff that inquisitor has and just so happens to keep with this new archetype) And even though I love the primal hunter, it can't both be an awesome killing machine and have a pet at the same time.

[born_of_fire]

Mysterious Stranger wrote:

A hunter is able to use all martial weapons and has access to both ranger and druid spells. Hunters also get all the summon natures ally spells in addition to the normal spells for their level. They also get improved empathic link and the ability to see through their companions eyes. Wild Empathy also allows them some influence over normal animals. Woodland stride gives him an edge when it comes to moving in the wilderness.

Sacred Huntmasters get Greater Empathic Link too. What they don't get is shared spells so you won't be able to use Personal range spells on your AC as a Hunter could.

I personally wouldn't count Wild Empathy or Woodland Stride as make or break class abilities although I prolly did downplay the value of Bane in my first post considering I didn't even mention it--hehe.

[Calth]

born_of_fire wrote:

Mysterious Stranger wrote:

A hunter is able to use all martial weapons and has access to both ranger and druid spells. Hunters also get all the summon natures ally spells in addition to the normal spells for their level. They also get improved empathic link and the ability to see through their companions eyes. Wild Empathy also allows them some influence over normal animals. Woodland stride gives him an edge when it comes to moving in the wilderness.

Sacred Huntmasters get Greater Empathic Link too. What they don't get is shared spells so you won't be able to use Personal range spells on your AC as a Hunter could. I wouldn't count Wild Empathy or Woodland Stride as make or break class abilities although I prolly did downplay the value of Bane in my first post.

Uhh, Sacred Huntsmasters get Share Spells, its a base animal companion feature.

Overall, I find it hard to make an argument that the Hunter is better than a Sacred Huntsmaster. Full disclosure, I am very meh on the hunter, and I love the inquisitor, but I think the facts also support his.

Here are the unique hunter features and an evaluation::

Good Fort and Ref Saves (2 saves is nice, but neither of them is will)
Martial Weapon proficiency (Not hard to get around through favored/racial weapons)
Animal Focus (Better than the huntsmaster, faster progression to second focus, but animal focus isn't a great class feature)
Nature Training (As far as I can tell, this ability does nothing)
Wild Empathy (Very niche ability that becomes nearly useless at high levels)
Precise Companion(1 Bonus feat)
Woodland Stride(Niche ability, can be replicated by 6k gold item)
Bonus Tricks(3 Tricks, meh)
Swift Tracker(Niche)
Speak with Master(Nice flavor ability, but not that different than raising the ACs int to 3 which is standard)
One with the Wild(Very niche, useless at the levels you get it)
Master Hunter(3rd Focus on hunter, decent, meh for a capstone, but sacred huntsmasters don't have a real capstone)
Spells: Better AC buffing spells

Summarizing, the primary gains are martial weapon proficiency, better spells for the animal companion, better animal focus, 3 tricks, and a bonus feat.

For the inquisitor::

Good Fort and Will saves(Will over reflex is huge)
Domain (Plenty of good domains out there to get some really nice options, and good domain powers are usually better than feats)
Monster Lore (I personally find this ability very useful, especially since knowing a monster type is important for bane)
Stern Gaze (1/2 level bonus on two important social skills)
Cunning Initiative(Very nice init bonus, starts out worse than improved initiative usually but most inquisitors will end up with it better)
Detect Alignment (Nice RP ability)
Bane and Greater Bane(I honestly would trade all of the hunter abilities for this alone, strong attack and damage bonus when you need it)
Discern Lies(Meh rp ability, cha-based which will typically be dumped)
Stalwart(Strong ability, meshes with your strong saves, and lets you prevent a lot of effects, much better than evasion)
Expose weakness(Crits are crittier, but kinda meh)
Better spell list overall, with special access to some typically lvl 7/8 spells

So the big things for inquisitors are better saves (and stalwart), overall better spell list, cunning initiative, bane, a domain, and better at skills.

Even in a nature focus campaign with custom high cr beasts, I would rather have the inquisitors benefits. The better will save combined with stalwart and bane/greater bane are each close to equaling the hunter's pros in a typical campaign.

[Imbicatus]

You forgot one bug plus on the hunter side, the Skirmisher Tricks. Even if they do have limited use per day, they are very nice.

[Calth]

Imbicatus wrote:

You forgot one bug plus on the hunter side, the Skirmisher Tricks. Even if they do have limited use per day, they are very nice.

sacred huntsmaster gets those

[Thormind]

For more information about the sacred huntsmaster you might want to take a look at this post: http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2rmif?Inquisitor-sacred-huntsmaster-pet-VS-judg ment

For an archery build i would go with the Sanctified slayer and choose the animal domain to get a pet. Teamwork feats are not that good for archers. I did some testing and without the pet the sanctified slayer archer max dpr can reach 500+.