Outlaws and Recommended "Bad" Character Classes?

[Harles]

Repeatedly I see Inventor and Alchemist come up on lists of the worst classes in Pathfinder - either confusing to play, very situational, or just underpowered.

Considering that two of the three recommended classes for this AP are underwhelming - AND I'm considering this to be a group of teenagers' first experience with Pathfinder - maybe I should pick another Adventure Path?

(One player in the group has already played Abomination Vaults & Frozen Flame - so I don't really know what else to consider.)

[Bag of Marbles]

Harles wrote:

Repeatedly I see Inventor and Alchemist come up on lists of the worst classes in Pathfinder - either confusing to play, very situational, or just underpowered.

Considering that two of the three recommended classes for this AP are underwhelming - AND I'm considering this to be a group of teenagers' first experience with Pathfinder - maybe I should pick another Adventure Path?

Bit late, but: yeah, I'd pick another AP or homebrew something. The OOA Player's Guide is fine for flavor and lore, but atrocious for making useful build choices, because it prioritizes being on-theme over being up-front about what will actually be effective/fun to play. My group is currently about 3/4 of the way through this AP and the party gunslinger is having an awful time--too many mindless enemies with physical damage resistance, so there's not much the character can do. And the PG puts Religion, Occultism, and MEDICINE (?!!) on the "Not Recommended" list--all three of which have proven to be either incredibly useful or absolutely necessary.

[Zoomba]

Currently mid-ish way through this AP as a player party's a ways into book 2

To echo but elaborate a bit on the above: the AP can be quite fun but the player's guide for it I found to be a bit rougher than most. The 'Recommended Skills' section I know was called out at the time and the Devs' response was Medicine was on the 'Not Recommended' list because there was nothing/little in the three adventures where it came up. While that may be true that there may be almost no 'Medicine Check' bits in the AP, the skill itself is just as useful for an adventuring party to heal as ever. I would definitely have just left it off entirely if that was their thought process - 'Not Recommended' makes it seem like the skill should be actively discouraged (which it absolutely should not be unless you have plenty of other healing methods) not merely 'no special uses here'

Regarding the classes, as Bag of Marbles says they are listed much more in a 'theme/setting commonality' way than 'use in an adventuring party. Take the Wizard - it's lumped into 'Appropriate' because narratively magic is super unreliable in Alkenstar and so there's little reason for wizard schools to be set up there. note the 'recommended' magic classes are all sorc and oracle (spontaneous casters where thematically their control of magic is already more fluid and less playing by normal rules), bard (whose non-spell abilities and general face-skills and lore-gathering is always found in a city) and clerics (every city has priests). But Mechanically the AP sort of handwaves all that and says magic's assumed to function reliably for the players. While it doesn't make any sense for a party full of druids and wizards to join up in alkenstar, the AP itself would work just fine with them.

I will say the alchmeist isn't quite as bad as its reputation after a progressive series of buffs and new releases since the edition launched we have one in our party and he's very much a good addition. Inventors too are fine well, some imo; construct inventors are similar to other pet classes and armor has some interesting tricks. Weapon still is underwhelming in my experience - they're not a 'top tier' but in general APs aren't meant to require higher-end optimization to work. That said, both classes are on the more complicated side to build/play enjoyably, so they might not be the best for brand new players to the system.

One question OP: if this is some of your player's first experience with PF at all, have you considered running an Adventure module instead? An AP could be a long commitment if they're not sure if they'll even like playing Pathfinder yet (or even if they do like the game, they may quickly realize they don't love the first class they tried). Especially if the most obvious low-level AP is out (AV), a module like Crown of the Kobold King might be a middle ground.

[ottdmk]

So, my party & I just finished Book Two. We are as follows:
- Dwarven Vanguard Gunslinger.
- Dwarven Armor Inventor.
- Human Maestro Bard.
- And finally, my guy, Halfling Alchemist Bomber.

So basically, we're straight out of the Player's Guide, with the small digression of the Bard. However, as a lot of what the Bard is doing is focus spells and cantrips (especially composition cantrips) he's been doing quite well.

We've been having a great time. The Vanguard and the Inventor are front line, the Bomber & Bard are back line, and the tactics have been generally solid.

I'm really looking forward to Book Three.