Our previous campaign was coming to an end, and we were discussing what classes we would like to try out. One player quickly claimed the Inexonerable Iron Magus, another wanted to be a Cloistered Cleric having previously played a Barbarian. I had my sights on the Bard, and the final player said he'd like to be a tanky and protective fighter or champion.
"Perfect!" I thought. We'd have reliable healing and generous buffs supporting two flanking martials in the fray! This looked like it was going to be a well-oiled machinery. Come session zero last Tuesday, and the "fighter or champion" had suddenly switched out his character for a Witch, making our party consist of the aforementioned Primal Witch, a Cloistered Cleric, a Maestro/Warrior Bard and only a magus left to front the party in combat.
Needless to say, this doesn't look like a party that's going to benefit as much from having a bard as it would have being rounded out by a different class, so it seems like I'll be tossing 4-5 months of meticulous planning, character development, spell selection, and item & equipment research out the window.
I've been looking towards playing a Champion so I can at least keep some of the charisma I had envisioned for my character, even if it might be a bit wonky pre-remaster.
My questions:
1) Is redeemer champion a sound choice to round out this party?
- (Witch, Redeemer champ, Iron Magus, C.Cleric)
2) What do you think of this build? It's a bit hastily put together, all things considered. Might be open to try Liberator as well. We are allowed two bonus ancestry feats at lvl 1 & are playing with Free Archetype.
Female Fleshwarp Champion
Background: Amnesiac (three attribute boosts)
Str: +4, Dex: +0, Con: +3, Int: +0, Wis: +1, Cha: +2
1 Cause: Redeemer, Class: Weight of guilt, Heritage: Nephilim, Ancestry: Nimble Hooves (+5 speed), Startling Appearance, Pitborn, Skill Feats: Intimidating Glare, Quick Jump
2: Class: Deity's Domain - Sorrow, Skill feat: ?, Free Archetype: Oozemorph dedication
3: Incredible Initiative/Fleet, Shield Ally
4: Aura of Courage, Free Archetype: Disturbing Defense, Skill feat: ?
5: Ancestry: Gaping Flesh/Uncanny Awareness (will pair well with vacate vision next level)
6: Class: Shield Warden, Free Archetype: Vacate Vision, Skill feat: ?
7: Toughness
8: Class: Quick Shield Block, Free Archetype: Golem Grafter, Skill Feat: ?
9: Ancestry: Embodied Dragoon Subjectivity (Phantom Steed/Feather Fall)
10: Class: Shield of Reckoning, Free Archetype: Quicken Heartbeat, Skill Feat: ?
11: Fleet/Incredible Initiative
12: Class: Lasting Doubt, Free Archetype: Legs of Stone
13: Ancestry: Augment Senses
14: Class: Divine Reflexes, Free Archetype: Peculiar Anatomy, Skill Feat: ?
15: Canny Accumen: Perception
16: Class: Shield of Grace?
Not really married to the archetypes, but trying to cram in as much body-horror flavor as possible. Fleshwarps are cool!
I have no advice that I can offer you for how to build and play a character that you didn't want to play in the first place. Sorry.
Maybe the background information as for why I was seeking advice wasn't really a needed inclusion. I guess the mercurial bitterness was a bit hard to toss away as I wrote this. It's a relatively fresh blow after all :P
And while you might be right in that I'm still not all too pleased with the outcome, I do think it's necessary for this party to function and for me to feel like I contribute.
So my questions were genuine;
1) Is a champion a good fit for this party, or are there other, better, suggestions?
2) Does the build look okay? I've never committed to playing a champion and I'm getting the impression that there are some fairly linear ways you need to build them in regards to ally choice & feat chains for instance.
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I think you should play the character you want to play. Give yourself background and personality that draws you to the character, give that character some starting goals that you the player want them to strive for, some ideals to strive for, things to strive against.
If you can do this you can play any class be happy with it.
I say be your bard if thats what you want to play. If the game is more difficult for your party thats just a part of the challenge. Enjoy it make different decisions of how to tackle problems using the strengths your party does have but dont make a character you dont want to be.
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Yeah, the entire purpose of this thread leans towards a Pathfinder1e mindset. Where there is a 'right' way of building a character and a 'right' party composition - which implies that there is also a 'wrong' way to build a character and a 'wrong' party composition.
PF2 doesn't tend to do that.
For character survivability, even the spellcaster characters have reasonably good AC, saves, and HP. Lower than martial characters, sure. But they don't go down when sneezed at.
The current party is Inexorable Iron Magus, Cloistered Cleric, Witch, and whatever you decide to bring, yes?
I don't see anything wrong with playing a Bard in that. I also don't see anything wrong with playing a Champion in that.
Ultimately, the difficulty of the game is set by the GM. Relative level has a lot more impact on combat success than party composition. Teamwork also has more of an impact on combat success than party composition.
Yes, if you leave the Magus to try and face-tank the combat encounters alone, then that isn't going to be good teamwork. But I have been melee support off-tank with a Witch before. Shield cantrip, some temp HP or some other defensive buff spells, something like that. It doesn't work for very long - not more than a round or two - but it doesn't need to. Just long enough to take some of the heat and tip the scale of combat balance in our favor.
In an attempt to be helpful to the original request, here and here are some guides to Champion that I am finding.
Agree. In PF2 there's no real need to worry about party balance. OK depending from the party composition maybe more challenging but it's not like "we need a tank or we need a healer or we need a DPR or we need a skill monkey".
One day in the past I made a test with some friends to see how efficient the summons really are in PF2 so we made a lvl 13 party with a Wizard, a Witch, a Druid and a Cleric all them get some summon spells but the Wizard also get some AoE dmg and debuff spells and summon a dragon to help, the Occult Witch usually summon feys and attacks with EA or some few AoE mental spells or debuffs vs strong opponent usually casts a second summon with Cackle and uses evil eye with the 3rd action, the Druid was the most front-liner he made a Animal Companion + Wild Shape druid and summons feys or elemental while commands the companion and shapeshift goind to frontline too and finally the Clerics was the main party healer (but everyone except the wizard have some healing spell) he summons celestials to give buffs, heal and help the front line while uses domain spells to attack and heal someone (usually the druid and his companion) when needed.
The point was that we made this to test the summons as a 3rd action option for the casters but the party performed pretty well without any martial. The only real problem is that the druid's battle forms are too big, the companions are big, the summons are big and many encounters sometimes happened in small rooms whats makes everything very cluttered but was fun anyway.
So don't worry and just play as you want. There are many ways to compensate the party deficiencies in the game to worry about "we are missing the X role class".
Yet if you like to complete the party (I usually like to complete the party with the role that is missing, I use this to help me to choose one of multitude of builds that I like to play more randomness) just choose one of many available options to that role. Don't need to focus in some like "we need a tanker so I have to do a champion", no you can do a champion if you want or you can do fighter with a shield and uses shield blocks or a Crane Stance/Mountain Stance monk, or a Sparkling Targe Magus to protect yourself even from magic while do devastating spellstrikes to your enemies. If you are missing the ability to protect the other players to make the enemies focusing on you, you can also try to get a champion archetype if you don't want to be a pure champion you can take it via archetype and will get access to full reaction protection to protect your allies a shield ally to improve your shield and even get some good focus spells too.
In the end just do as you want and the rest you can make work during the gameplay.
I'll take a note of your feedback - It is possible to make a maestro/warrior-bard more melee-oriented with for example a champion archetype, as you mention, and mitigate some of the perceived imbalances. This campaign goes from 1-17. It might not be smooth sailing all the way, but it is possible.
One of my reasons for making this thread in the first place, however, is that my experiences with 2e is fairly opposite from what is described in the feedback. Yes, the way you build your character is less important, thankfully - though from researching champion builds in particular, I've seen people chastised for taking the "wrong feats". Party synergy, on the other hand, is way more important in my experience. The "teamwork"-part you mention.
Contrary to what it may seem like, this is a mindset we've gotten into since 2e. We've seen far more harrowing combat situations that not just relied upon performing your own role well, but performing it in a way that makes the others perform well too. I wasn't too thrilled about throwing up courageous anthem for the magus alone, or playing in a party where 3/4 members preferably stayed out of the fray, and would rather look for a solution where I could be more helpful. That would be more fun for me.
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While i agree that you should play what you want, i think a redeemer champion would be a nice addition to the group.
Glimpse of redemption is really strong with redemption witch, add weight of guilt and it's a lot of save-less debuffs prolongued by familiar of ongoing misery.
With the focus changes champion is also quite flexible, you start with a focus point and can take deity's domain to get a second one. Might domain with athletic rush would play into your strengths, but there are a lot of options to balance out your weaknesses as well.
another option for a flanking partner would be an animal companion via beastmaster.
In any case, warrior bard was recently made stronger, prolonging your courageous anthem with a strike is nice. You won't be a full martial, especially if you go for dex, but you can flank and provide very good support. Building with strength and archetyping into heavy armor via champion (also gaining lay on hands and the reaction) would give you some more oomph.
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Yeah, the entire purpose of this thread leans towards a Pathfinder1e mindset. Where there is a 'right' way of building a character and a 'right' party composition - which implies that there is also a 'wrong' way to build a character and a 'wrong' party composition.
PF2 doesn't tend to do that.
You are overstating things a lot.
You can still build a mechanically inferior character, or take a character with little team synergy. The roles that you take on in combat matter. So there are better and worse choices still.
The current party is Inexorable Iron Magus, Cloistered Cleric, Witch, and whatever you decide to bring, yes?
I don't see anything wrong with playing a Bard in that. I also don't see anything wrong with playing a Champion in that..
The thing is an Inexorable Iron Magus has a full melee routine that doesn't give him a spare action for movement (unless mounted). So he is likely to be fairly stationary. He would really like a flanking partner.
A Cleric can melee, though it would be better option if they were a War Priest. A Witch is very unlikely to be in melee. Bottom line is you will get much better synergy another character that can handle themselves in melee.I think Bard and Cleric overlap a bit as my Clerics will typically want to cast Bless. But you can quickly sort that out and it could work fine if the Bard wants to be in melee. Personally your Champion idea is a better fit. But really any class with more than 6HP base would work.
I'll take a note of your feedback - It is possible to make a maestro/warrior-bard more melee-oriented with for example a champion archetype, as you mention, and mitigate some of the perceived imbalances. This campaign goes from 1-17. It might not be smooth sailing all the way, but it is possible.
One of my reasons for making this thread in the first place, however, is that my experiences with 2e is fairly opposite from what is described in the feedback. Yes, the way you build your character is less important, thankfully - though from researching champion builds in particular, I've seen people chastised for taking the "wrong feats". Party synergy, on the other hand, is way more important in my experience. The "teamwork"-part you mention.
Contrary to what it may seem like, this is a mindset we've gotten into since 2e. We've seen far more harrowing combat situations that not just relied upon performing your own role well, but performing it in a way that makes the others perform well too. I wasn't too thrilled about throwing up courageous anthem for the magus alone, or playing in a party where 3/4 members preferably stayed out of the fray, and would rather look for a solution where I could be more helpful. That would be more fun for me.
So if complete the party covering their weakpoints is more fun for you pretty good just do it! Play as champion without worry!
Yet remember that in PF2 basically all classes are able to help anyone in some way not only giving more damage to kill the enemies faster. Play around the teamwork with your allies is pretty easy for all classes. So don't need to think too much about it when you always can try to aid an ally in some way in this game.
Now returning to your question that I didn't answer before...
1) Is redeemer champion a sound choice to round out this party?
- (Witch, Redeemer champ, Iron Magus, C.Cleric)
Yes it's pretty good choice but notice that you will probably way more helpful to Iron Magus than for the casters because probably most of them tends to take some distance from frontline and this mean that they won't be protected by your reactions. Yet in some situations where you may get surrounded or without much space to run you will end protecting them too.
2) What do you think of this build? It's a bit hastily put together, all things considered. Might be open to try Liberator as well. We are allowed two bonus ancestry feats at lvl 1 & are playing with Free Archetype.
(the bold is mine to point)
Honestly I have a problem with Liberators. I love their lore and concept but I have personal problems with its reaction because it's too circumstantial. It could be pretty interesting specially it's Exalt effect but in many causes it will simply doesn't worth and your reaction will be just a damage reduction.For example, if you are flanking an opponent with your magus ally and this opponent tries to Strike your ally probably your ally won't want to use a Step to prevent new Strikes because this will hurtful to its or your action economy later.
For other side probably it will love when someone tries to grab it and your reaction will allow it to try a new save or a free check to Escape. Or when an enemy is attacking one of your spellcasters allies you can help them to flee easier when their turn comes.
But once again all this is situational and will be uncommon in most encounters that's why I have problems with Liberators because if I take the redeemer or paladin build I'm not locked to these circumstances.
Background: Amnesiac (three attribute boosts)Talk with you GM before get this background. Some GMs may consider it as a cheese and block your access to it other may try to be bad with you and choose Int for you (is up to your GM to choose the 3rd attribute boost for this background yet many will allow this choose to you). Just talk with your GM before take it to prevent bad surprises.
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Inexorable Steel Magus player here. I see that of the some people replying to this thread haven’t experienced optimization and party synergy to be all that important in PF2E. I’d like to add that this is *very* dependent on the GM in question.
Most of me and OP’s experience in PF2E have been with a GM that really, really gets into a tactical headspace, with plenty of Severe encounters, and they regularly run the NPCs in a pretty ruthless manner, with ability synergies and sound tactics. We’re used to every combat being potentially deadly, and we do have experienced multiple TPKs.
This campaign will be under a different GM, so it might not be as deadly as previous killer campaigns, but these experiences have certainly shaped the way we approach character building and party composition.
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Due to the lack of a personal gaming group, I mostly play PFS. As such, I have seen a lot of different party compositions.
My advice: you need two melee characters in any party of four or larger. It can even be four ranged PCs to two melee... but with any group larger than three you definitely need two characters to go into melee.
Maybe with your particular group/GM you won't need two. But from the way I read your post I would say yes you do.
I can't advise you as to a warrior/bard build as I have never tried it.