So I'm fairly inexperienced with actual play (as well as this website, just started actually), though I do know more about the game than my friends (my DM has been playing for quite a few years though), and we were about to start our new campaign in a couple of weeks. We have a couple of options to pick atm but I'm not sure which we're going to do. All my friends already picked out what characters they're doing next campaign, but I'm having trouble picking mine. So far we have:
- N Fetchling Summoner (Shadow Caller archetype)
- CN Sylph Inquisitor
- CN ??? Battle-Cleric (Glory and either Chaos or Destruction domains)
- CG ??? Ninja (This guy is a wild-card, I'm not 100% on what he's doing)
And we may have some other people joining, but that'll probably change, and I don't know their characters.
So, I'm stuck between two of my characters:
- CN Skinwalker (Seascarred) Druid-I have a concept for this one I really like; he's a pirate shark defending the oceans and sealife. I've also wanted to play a Druid for a while, and so I'm interested in playing this one
- CG Human Magus (STR-based)-The character of this one is much more expanded upon personality/backstory-wise
This next campaign will be more character-based than our last one, so for character interactions, the latter may be better.
Thanks in advance!
Edit: I just realized I may not have been clear with what I'm trying to ask: Which of the two would be better to fit the party? I could see both as useful, but I dunno which would be better for party synergy.
I would lean towards your druid, your team already has a lot of melee and while the druid can potentially still be up there with the rest you can also provide support on the back line with entangle and similar... but that's just my opinion.
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You should ask the GM whether there will be a nautical element to the campaign. If it is all dungeoncrawling or urban adventuring the druid might not mesh in very well thematically.
You group looks like it has a ton of melee already, some scouting/skills, support and divine magic as well... not seeing much in the way of an arcane heavy role though. Have you considered a 9th level arcane caster or a psychic of some kind? Is anyone doing ranged combat at all? A Ranger/Slayer/Hunter/Zen Monk/Physical Blast Kineticist could have a niche in this group. Or closer to your actual question, there is an archer based Magus archetype that might work.
As is you will have to be fighting with your party for a place in melee against the Eidolon, Inquisitor (unless they are ranged?) Cleric (are they playing a reach build?) and ninja.
If you play a druid right, you can be a force to be reckoned with in both melee and casting.
Druids are so wonderfully versatile, you will almost NEVER find yourself without some option to employ, both in combat and out.
Pick up wild speech, natural spell, and you are golden. The only drawback is that you won't be able to use scrolls while shifted. Other than that, druids are amazing, in my own opinion.
Thanks everyone for your thoughts on it.
The Inquisitor is mainly there to be a party face, ranged combat, and divine casting. However, he has a 20 in INT, which I took some issue with considering their roles, but he argued that he was going for character instead of usability, so I didn't say much else about it.
The Summoner will be buffing/debuffing while her Eidolon is going to be Serpentine-based, and I'm not sure how viable it is in combat.
And in response to Torbyne, I was considering a Psychic actually, but I'm not all to familiar with them, and I wasn't sure how to go about making a useful one, let alone playing it well.
ForkOnTheLeft wrote: Thanks everyone for your thoughts on it.
The Inquisitor is mainly there to be a party face, ranged combat, and divine casting. However, he has a 20 in INT, which I took some issue with considering their roles, but he argued that he was going for character instead of usability, so I didn't say much else about it.
The Summoner will be buffing/debuffing while her Eidolon is going to be Serpentine-based, and I'm not sure how viable it is in combat.
If that's the sort of people you're playing with you may need to be prepared to carry the party when combat does come up. If it's primarily a social campaign there shouldn't be much combat so a magus might have enough staying power, but if there's ever a day that has a lot of combat he's not so good. Druids can have combat endurance to spare by the mid-levels, but may not fit as well into a social campaign.
Skinwalker is not a good race for druids because they can't be both transformed and wildshaped, making them miss out on stats compared to other races. It's not horrible, but far from ideal. Unless you're going to be playing a pirate campaign I'd save this concept until you are, by which point hopefully the other players will have a better idea of what does and doesn't work and won't be playing with 20 in one mental stat on a multi-attribute dependent class that casts from completely different mental stat.
Of the two characters I'd go magus. A different druid or an investigator might be slightly better, but a magus can have the skill points for a social game and can shift some skills to int. I wouldn't play a magus without this trait in a social campaign, though, and if your fleshed out backstory can't fit that he, too, may be best saved for another campaign.
As a brand new player I suggest you not worry so much about complementing the party. I would pick something like Magus or Warpriest so you can start to familarize yourself with both melee and spellcasting. Properly understanding how touch spells function with regards to the Magus is a bit more involved, so I would favor the Warpriest out of the gate. Good luck and hope you have a good group.
Druids can be extremely versatile.
You could begin as reach melee combatant (Combat Reflexes & Power Attack for feats 1 & 2), and still cast spells like a reach cleric. At 4th level, you can wildshape, and at 8th (I think) when you're Large, you'll have reach and strength enough to use Power Attack with your natural attacks. Your 5th level feat is obviously taken with Natural Spell. 7th and 9th could be Spell Focus conjuration and Augment Summoning if you want (although you already have a summoner in your party).
I played a 3.5 elf druid archer that was really fun. My first two feats were Point Blank Shot and Rapid Shot, and it synergized pretty well with produce flame--at 8th or 9th level, I could use a 1st level spell to do 3d6+15 points of damage for 2 or 3 rounds. Not too shabby.
But the magus might work really well, too. Most of your combat types are 3/4 BAB, so you might need to use more teamwork than normal (flanking and maybe even Aid Another), as well as self-buffing (inquisitor judgments, ninja Vanishing Trick, battle cleric stuff) and the summoner's eidolon, as well.
The shark pirate might work well as a ranger, too. Ranger is a GREAT introductory class.
Thanks for the advice, everyone. I have a much better idea for what I'll be doing for the campaign. As it turns out, a friend of mine is hoping to join and she's wanting to play a magus, so this works out fairly well, I'd think.
I was looking over some Druid archetypes and Nature Fang looked like what I had in mind for the character. I wasn't planning on using wildshape all that much anyways. How would my playstyle change? Would ranged combat be a better option with that?
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