Hey folks my friends and I are starting a Kingmaker campaign in the next month or two and I was looking for some advice on what to play. There are 5 players counting myself in the group and here are what the other 4 people have decided to play.
1) Half-Orc Inquisitor of Gorum. This player has dumped CHA but took the Conversion Inquisition and plans on having a jacked through the roof Intimidate score. will also have some Knowledges and Sense Motive.
2) Human Cleric of Erastil. Plans on building an Archer Cleric. The player hasn't decided on Domains yet but the DM has strongly suggested Law as one of them.
3) Human Slayer. Plans on taking TWF, Weapon Finesse, and Slashing Grace tree. Will most likely be our skill monkey and outdoorsy character with Survival. This character has also dumped CHA all the way down.
4) Elven Wizard. Plans on Controlling and Buffing I believe and will be the Knowledge Monkey. This character has also dumped CHA all the way down.
Now a Few Notes:
1) Using Point for Stats with 20 points to spend.
2) Mostly everything in the Paizo line is available to take but no 3PP
3) The 4 players listed above are very new to Pathfinder and Roleplaying all having started playing in the last year or so. The DM and myself are very experienced with both Pathfinder paper based roleplaying games.
4)The player playing the Inquistior and myself were hoping to both worship Gorum and attempt to build a society were only the strongest have the right to rule.
Obviously at this point we need somebody with a good CHA, but I am also thinking we might need a frontliner to go with it. I have thought about Cavalier but I am not super blown away with the class. I would be curious to see what (if any) suggestions everybody would have and maybe see if something I haven't thought of pops up.
You're right about needing Cha, it's flat out the most important stat once the kingdom building starts. Cavalier really is a solid choice, kingmaker is about as mount friendly as published adventures get and if you wanted you could play a halfling to get the racial Cha bonus and a medium mount that can go into what dungeons there are.
Other than that I'd say to prioritize a class that can utilize a decent Cha score over being a front line fighter. If you play a melee bard then the inquisitor, the slayer and yourself will be more than capable of holding down a front line. Gaining access to the social skills will be a big boon as well. Perhaps an arcane duelist who maintains a friendly (if at times hot blooded) dueling rivalry with the resident inquisitor?
Thanks pipedreamsam. My concern with the Cavalier is that 1) I won't realistically have a CHA higher than 14 which isn't really much better than the Cleric's 12 and 2) if I am going to spend on a high CHA I think I should pick a class that leverages a high CHA score better.
It seems though that yes I need to pick something that is going to be a high CHA class which leaves me with:
Bard
Oracle
Sorcerer
Skald
Paladin
Bloodrager
Unless I am missing simething?
Yes those are the main ones. Although if you're worried that 14 won't be enough (and you really can't have enough) then I can't really recommend a paladin, skald or bloodrager as getting any more out of them without compromising elsewhere is unlikely. Bard is still my top recommendation but it sounds like that isn't your preference.
The "Ask your GM" advice states the obvious but if you have a particular concept in mind it's worth a shot. In our Kingmaker game the GM allowed me to switch the roles of Cha and Int for the Arcanist so I could fill a particular kingdom role and he quickly became one of my favorite characters of all time. If your GM would agree to something similar you could off the top of my head swap Cha for Wis into the Druid class (essentially Cha based casting and domains if you go with that and Wis for wild empathy). This would allow the group to have a character with a good Cha and you could function as a very capable front line fighter via wild shape/animal companion.
EDIT: Just remembered that the swashbuckler's panache pool is based off of Cha, and with Dex to damage would actually be able to afford taking a higher starting Cha.
Daring Champion Cavalier or Swashbuckler. Both can focus only in Dexterity and Charisma and be very efficient.
You can also be specialized in using the Aldori Dueling Sword that is finessable and also very thematic for the AP (Swordlords of Restov).
I have been giving the Swashbuckler a close read for the first time and I am intrigued so thanks to both pipedreamsam and T.A.U. I didn't realize until last night the wording on Swashbuckler Finesse allows for the finessing of one handed piercing weapons which, in turn, with Slashing grace allows the finessing of one handed slashing weapons. Swordlord is the first place my mind went to after figuring this out.
My next question is what race works best for this sort of build? I figured human to get Slashing Grace at first level but I was wondering if there was anything more interesting? Azata-blooded Aasimar seem like a good choice as well but I am concerned about not having Slashing Grace at 1st level. Thoughts?
Not having Dex to damage for the first two levels will be rough but its far from a deal-breaker. Whats going to hurt a lot more for those first two levels isn't the low damage but the low attack bonus. That said I wouldn't sacrifice 15 levels of an enjoyable character concept for 2 levels of increased effectiveness (and the first 2 levels at that). Worst case scenario for the early game and things get real bad (i.e. you're the last one standing), just swallow your pride and pull out a rapier.
Depending on how the group optimizes you may to have your DM take a look at the community created conversions for 6 players in Kingmaker. I'm saying this because we managed to get through the first two books with 2 players (although we were pretty lucky a handful of times). This being the 15-minute adventuring day style of AP there's a good chance your party will just steamroll everything. Especially with the combat heavy group you have.
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This being the 15-minute adventuring day style of AP there's a good chance your party will just steamroll everything. Especially with the combat heavy group you have.
... although just as a caveat, don't let that last comment make you cocky :) Kingmaker is very much a sandbox, and you can definitely encounter things well above your CR which will smoosh you if you're not clever about what you fight, what you talk to and what you run away from.
Taking Slashing Grace at 3rd it's not so impossible to play.
@RobRendell: Thanks for the heads up! My DM has made it very clear that 1)There are a lot of 15 minute work days but that 2) We should be open to negotiations in encounters and 3) Be ready to run away. Its good to hear it re-iterated though so thank you.
@T.A.U and pipedreamsam: Good to hear about Slashing Grace though still seems annoying that I can't actually play my character until 3rd level. (Story of Pathfinder though right?)
Rules Questions/Curiosity:
1) Can Samurai take Cavalier Archetypes? I assume yes because the class abilities are all named the same thing but I haven't been able to find anything official.
2) If yes, if you take an Archetype like Daring Champion that swaps out Weapon and Armor Proficiencies does the Samurai retain their training with the Eastern Weapons? RAW it seems you would lose them but that doesn't seem to make sense to me from a fluff perspective. Thoughts?
Bard. When in doubt, always pick Bard. And in this case, it is even more perfect. CHR is important for Kingmaker. Your pile of strikers needs a support character. Bard is perfect.
Plus you can be Tom Petty and sing "It's good to be King"
1) Can Samurai take Cavalier Archetypes? I assume yes because the class abilities are all named the same thing but I haven't been able to find anything official.2) If yes, if you take an Archetype like Daring Champion that swaps out Weapon and Armor Proficiencies does the Samurai retain their training with the Eastern Weapons? RAW it seems you would lose them but that doesn't seem to make sense to me from a fluff perspective. Thoughts?
Without any knowledge to back this up my gut says the answer is so, especially since the archtype trades out abilities that the samurai doesn't have.
But, here's what I would do:
Ask the GM to do some tweaking (yeah I know, that again). Daring champion trades out the cavalier's mount (1st), weapon and armor proficiencies (1st), cavalier's charge (3rd), expert traininger (4th), mighty charge (11th) and supreme charge (20th).
The Samurai only shares the two first level abilities out of that list with the cavalier. However the samurai has other abilities that come online at those levels as well, and I don't see any reason that once set couldn't be swapped in place of the other. So as a Daring Campion Samurai (placeholder name) you're looking to trade out: mount (1st), weapon and armor proficiencies (1st), weapon expertise (3rd), mounted archer (4th), honorable stand (11th) and last stand(20th).
As far as the exact weapons go I would ask the GM to trade out all of your eastern weapon proficiencies for proficiency in the Dueling sword. Pretty much all of the eastern flavor is gone allowing you take advantage of the campaign setting, but you still get the very useful and cool resolve ability of the samurai.
It may sound like a lot, but in my experience I've never played with a GM that would find these suggestions to be unreasonable.