To begin, please don't spoil anything for me! I'm just looking for general opinions on what seems like it would be useful. Not specifics of the AP.
Going to be starting Ruins of Azlant Sunday. We thought it was going to be more people, but it looks like it just may be the 3 of us as players. At least for a while.
We have:
Aquatic Tengu (that a penguin?) melee slayer
Merfolk gunslinger (yeah I know, but the GM is pretty permissive and they can make it work somehow) using revolver
When I thought we had others coming, I was going to be a Wyrwood Empiricist Investigator for piles of skill points. However, with just the three of us and no casters, I feel Like I should probably be more of a caster than the investigator.
Arcanist would get pretty decent skill points just because of high intelligence. Could eventually get halfway decent as the Face by just putting lots of points into social skills, if doesn't dump charisma. But pretty squishy for a 3 person party. Could easily get a familiar for a scout if the slayer isn't up for it.
Druid would provide another meat shield. Full caster with most/many of the condition recovery spells on the list. Much less squishy. Don't usually have lots of skills and aren't really known for being face characters.
Those were my 2 leading thoughts for a full caster. I don't know, what do you think? Other suggestions?
My thought would be an Inquisitor. Pretty good at social skills with the conversion inquisition, decent skill points overall. Quite a bit of the condition removal (probably using consumables as well.)
Full caster would be nice, but it isn't 100% necessary and since you really need to take care of quite a bit for the party, I think this would suit you better.
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My suggestion would be a high-strength shaman with a longspear. Shamans have a broad spell list, with good condition removal spell coverage, and plenty of utility spells. Even with a low charisma, you can still be OK as a face if you max out your Diplomacy class skill. I might go for a Speaker for the Past with the Battle spirit, but you have lots of choices.
As I understand it, RoA almost necessitates an aquatic themed group.
Hmm... Hadn't thought about inquisitor. I don't remember their spell list real well. They do have decent skill ranks. If I bump both int and wis, he could be be a pretty good skill monkey and caster.
If I'm considering 3/4 casters like inquisitor, a summoner would let me bring in specialized creatures for a given situation. I could build the eidolon to be a fair diplomat and/or scout.
Btw: can you think of any other aquatic races that don't have much of a level bump?
My suggestion would be a high-strength shaman with a longspear. Shamans have a broad spell list, with good condition removal spell coverage, and plenty of utility spells. Even with a low charisma, you can still be OK as a face if you max out your Diplomacy class skill. I might go for a Speaker for the Past with the Battle spirit, but you have lots of choices.
100% agree with the advice for a Shaman, though I would suggest more of a casting route than melee oriented (though both can be done).
If you're covering all the utility spellcasting for the party you probably don't want a 6-level spellcaster or an arcanist because you'll run out of spell slots. A shaman will want at least some melee ability just in case, for the same reason.
My thinking is that is would be good to have a 2nd melee PC. In a 3-person party, you can't always stay out of close combat.
Of course. What I meant was that more focus should be placed on casting than melee. Some people tend to ... over-specialize in one area or the other, at their own detriment. A Shaman can get around fairly well with most of their ability scores at 14 (try to keep Wis at least at 15 to start). You can sacrifice CON (ie, no lower than 12) if you take precautions (like protector familiar to share damage).
I have found great success with a Wave (main) spirit Shaman, leaving open the Wandering spirit for Life or Battle, or whatever else you find handy. Witch Doctor archetype if you don't mind having a few less hexes (its fine, really).
Hmm... Kinda like that idea. Especially since I've never played a shaman before.
Yeah, I think I will go with that. Any suggestions on the race?
Thanks folks. I will put up a rough first pass build tomorrow sometime.
I'm a fan of the half-elf for the Shaman, mostly for being able to dip into the elf Favored Class bonus of adding range to hexes (+5ft per level), such as Cackle/Chant. Otherwise, stealing Cleric spells is very, VERY useful. And the half-elf racial spell, of course.
If you need to have a lower INT, the round ears alternate racia trait gets you the +1 skill per level of a human. Half-Elves are actually quite versatile. Thought, you can't really argue with a half-Orc. The Shaman's Apprentice, Sacred Tattoo, and Fate's Favored really blends well with an actual Shaman, flavor wise.