In the early versions of the game it was possible to hit those bloody bones beasts in the western portion of the map. You shouldn't be able to hit run into them in chapter 1 anymore.
Also, on the leveling in the game, it's fairly evenly paced, but can vary a bit depending on the order you do stuff in. At least it feels meaningful when you gain a level. I do kind of dig it, since it has that old school pnp feel of having to work for a level, but it does make some of the builds a real pain to develop.
I started up a new character. This one's more for flavor, a chaotic-neutral human with 3 rogue levels and I'll be putting the rest into inquisitor of Calistria and using a rapier. Went with 9/18/10/7/16/16, so my character's kinda a dunce, but still as a human I'm kinda the skill monkey with the perception, persuasion, mobility and stealth. I'm starting to appreciate inquisitors a lot more, those bane weapons, judgements and divine buffs are pretty sweet. I almost was tempted to do a strength based build, pick Shelyn and rock a glaive with Cornugon Smash with stern gaze/skill focus persuasion to really mess with people. I just liked the idea of Calistria and being an inquisitor of revenge.
Inquisitors are a very strong class. The standard version combines meat shield with skill monkey and healer, and one of the subclasses is the best summoner in the game.
Hahaha, you might be right! You've been right about everything else so far
@DrHappyAngry, firstly, insightful about banter only happening when you camp on the maps on not in the world map. I guess that's why I got so much more banter on my first (short) playthrough compared to this one where I pretty much only camp on the worldmap. Thanks for that tidbit of info!
And about leveling, you are right ofc. It's hard to ignore the feeling of wanting to gain momentum sooner, but just as you say, whenever I do level, it feels really great. I've usually felt in 3/3.5 that levels for casters are kinda boring since they don't really get active abilities or feats, but now I look forward mostly for Tristian's levelups (which also happens first since he was level 3 when the rest of the team was level 2) since every time he levels, my party gain a lot of overall power. His heals and other buffs is what makes us work as a team.
On another sidenote, I'm not sure I can drop Amiri. So far she has probably done more than half of the total damage by the entire team. She's a beast! Even better now that she has a greatclub+2 instead of her giganormous sword (which she can't gain Weapon Focus in, it seems I need exotic prof first).
Anyone have any advice on what weapon category, twohanded, is the 'best' for her to focus in? I switched her to fighter/two-hander archetype from ~level 5, and I read that the game has a quite uneven distribution of good magic weapons and I'd hate to have her end up with a category that doesn't really get good items. My preference would be to give her a reach weapon so she can strike from behind Valerie and Charname, but are there any great spears, glaives or other reach weapons in the game that are fixed drops? I don't need to know where or when, just if they exist. If not, I guess I will give her either battleaxes or greatswords since I assume this game, same as ALL games ever made, will hand me at least a couple of good great swords (and perhaps axes).
Amiri's ginormous sword is a bastard sword. Weapon Focus: Bastard Sword applies to her weapon (she is already proficient).
Personally, I have trouble keeping Amiri alive, and favour sword-and-board when she is in the party, but YMMV. However, I don't think it is a major spoiler to hint that a certain weapon can be upgraded later in the game.
There are a smattering of mid powered glaives etc, and eventually there is a merchant who sells +4 everything.
The game is actually quite light on battleaxes, hand axes and dwarven war axes. There are plenty of two handed axes though.
I switched Amiri to 2 handed fighter after taking 2 barb levels. I'm taking weapon specialization great axe, since there's nearly always a good great axe. You can also change her to a Stalwart Defender later on, to help her survivability with more AC and damage reduction. Once you pick up Jubilost, and get the infusion discovery, he can also cast shield on Amiri. Sword and boarding her isn't a bad option, either. There are some nice glaives, too, just not as many as great axes.
Minorly spoilerish info about great axes
The game pretty much gives you situationally useful great axes with damage types useful for enemies you'll be fighting lots of.
I'm still very early on, just on my way towards the trolls at class level 6, but my experience is different with Amiri. I find her to be quite sustainable since I keep her at the back to guard my squishies from invisble enemies (like those damn stealthy wolves), but if there are no enemies there, she charge in behing charname and valerie, who by that time, has drawn all aggro. With 2 dice of sneak attack (planned for 3 later on), flanking bonus to BAB and double damage from twohanders, she one/two shots many lesser enemies and fairly decently flail away at the tougher ones. Since she's a barb she has a good hit dice and since I keep her on light/medium armor with decent mobility and the rage power for increased speed, she can move away if targeted by too many enemies. This way she pretty much kills everything for me while Valerie hits nothing but thin air and my magus hit every now and then. Killing faster is a sort of defense as well. I understand this tactic might have to be tweaked in the future, but so far, so good. I tried her on sword and board a little, but couldn't get her AC up to decent levels to be worth it so I figured I'd make her the biggest glass cannon in the world and just roll with it 'til I hit a wall. In my party, though not meticulously planned out, I consider her the most likely to be changed later on. I think I want linzi to stay since her songs make my crappy charname at least sometimes, hehe.. and I like the ecclesitheurge for some reason. His heals are great and I am curious to see what happens with that class at later levels since he plays out just like a mage, just with divine instead (mostly at least). Valerie will be given since I can't foresee a good replacer for her. Charname can perhaps take her play in the future, but I doubt it. Perhaps a buffed up Harrim can as well, but I dunno. Other than that I use Octavia who will be main arcane caster.
Thanks for the tip about bastard swords @Fardragon, but the she can't get weapon focus in it anyways. it's not there in the feat selection even if she has that exotic wepon proficiency. I scrolled up and down several times just to make sure I wasn't stupid/blind, but all regular martial weapons where there, but not bastard swords. Dunno why, perhaps Barbs can't access it? I don't think it was available when I gave her fighter levels either, so for now I haven't picked any weapon for her to focus and then specialize in.
Thanks both for the tips on weapon choices. I'll keep her unfocused for now then and choose later on. I bit strange that they picked bastard swords, though Amiri's is very different, for two of the main NPCs. I am thinking Val should go for crushing damage instead in the future, but she's still just feating for AC.
Btw, what's up with the official forums? They feel so barren for a game of this magnitude. Everytime I google I end up on reddit or steam forums and never on the official site, and going there I always get bored due to the lack of activity.
The steam boards are more active than their forums, although a lot of the posts are threads like "This game sucks because it gave me a side quest" or "This game sucks because I can't be assed to read and learn the game, or come back at a higher level" or "This game sucks because of a feature you can completely disable or change the difficulty for", so take a lot of what's said there with a grain of salt.
I'll have to check Amiri next time I start up the game, but I don't think she has the exotic weapon proficiency for bastard swords. It's just that she has that ginormous sword hard locked to a weapon slot and already equipped.
BTW, as a magus, are you using the touch attack spells like shocking grasp and frost touch (I think that's what the 2nd level spell was called)? You deliver the touch attack through your weapon, so you do weapon damage at the same time. Use one of those and then use arcane accuracy to make sure you hit. Even if you miss, the spell stays on your weapon until you land a hit with it. Criticals double the spell damage when you attack with a touch spell, too. High crit threat weapons like scimitars and rapiers are good for Magi, but if you find a really nice one handed weapon, don't let that stop you from using it. The spell damage is always only doubled on a crit, so a weapon with a higher multiplier won't help. Mirror image also makes you a lot more tanky.
one thing that makes me nervous about the official forums is that if you aren't careful while signing up for an account there it'll display your email address as your account name. I see a lot of people there with their email address, some of which being a real name, and I wonder what kind of spam these people get
I'll have to check Amiri next time I start up the game, but I don't think she has the exotic weapon proficiency for bastard swords. It's just that she has that ginormous sword hard locked to a weapon slot and already equipped.
BTW, as a magus, are you using the touch attack spells like shocking grasp and frost touch (I think that's what the 2nd level spell was called)? You deliver the touch attack through your weapon, so you do weapon damage at the same time. Use one of those and then use arcane accuracy to make sure you hit. Even if you miss, the spell stays on your weapon until you land a hit with it. Criticals double the spell damage when you attack with a touch spell, too. High crit threat weapons like scimitars and rapiers are good for Magi, but if you find a really nice one handed weapon, don't let that stop you from using it. The spell damage is always only doubled on a crit, so a weapon with a higher multiplier won't help. Mirror image also makes you a lot more tanky.
Re. Amiri: She has proficiency already AFAIK, though I CBA to look now (off to bed soon). I'm pretty sure I also checked by choosing the feat exotic weapon prof and the bastard sword was not available, because she already have it I assume. EDIT: Nope, I was wrong, she apparently doesn't start with proficiency in bastard swords. At least she doesn't have it for me. Ok, so I guess it's very logical then that I can't pick weapon focus, hehe..
Re. magus: Yes and no. I do enable spell combat/strike in a few fights, though normally i tend to only keep the modal for crit multiplier on all times since the arcane pool drains too quickly. using tough of fatigue cantrip to get another attach comes at the cost of -2 on both attacks which hurt more than I gained at lower levels, so I switched it off. At level 6 I have ~8 arcane pool IIRC, and that lasts just one fight if I add more than one modal. Also, the BAB on the magus is quite low and since I spliced in a level of alchemist, I lost another BAB. The next three levels with Magus will add a BAB each, so I should reach BAB 6 for Duelist at character level 8, I think. Though my math might be off since I am writing this from memory while a bit tired. The point of the build is to use spell combat, shocking grasp and other touch attacks, parry self and/or others, and then just let the sparks fly! But for now I reserve the few spell slots I have for the tougher foes (like the blood break bones, hehe).
I re-did the build just to avoid taking the level of fighter (for getting the free aldori dueling sword), but not in hindsight.. perhaps that BAB from a fighter level would have been better than the sneak attack damage. Anyways, doesn't matter. A few more levels and he will start to shine. In a pinch I can always turn on the modal for arcane pool turning INT to AB which adds +4 to attack rolls, which combined with flanking makes me hit pretty consinstently. Drains the pool quickly though.
Thanks for the comment on the forums as well. I agree with what you write. I lack the great discussions, as in forums like this one, regarding items, different builds, character optimization, number crunching etc. Rather odd that a small company like owlcat haven't realized that an active community means money nowadays.
Update on Amiri.. have I broke the game? :P Probably not, but this is kinda funny.
So.. I was test-leveling Amiri just for fun, though I should be asleep for 2 hours ago. Anyways, I tested to level her up a bit as a fighter and give her profiency in elven curved blade and specialization.
Elven curve blades are "light weapons" but twohanded. This means they are eligible for Duelist class skills. It also means they normally should be used by finesse based classes and Piranha strike, but they also can be used by strenght based char. And here's the funny thing, they can be used WITH BOTH, haha.. this is insane
So, Amiri have as level 20, not optimized feat selection though and I know noone reach level 20 in a normal game (but anyways), base damage of 1D10+39-48. With mutagen STR and a simple barb class level 2 Rage, she 1D10+42-51 damage. She also adds double STR bonus on all attacks in a round thanks to level 7 in fighter two-hander. She has all cleave skills so she can attack multiple times and parry from duelist. All I need to do is to keep her in light armor and all bonuses stack. This is pretty sick.. talk about a glass cannon deluxe! If I skip the (now unnecessary) levels for sneak attack, she will have BAB20 and an infinite supply of feats.
So her damage output is from four sources, multiple attacks per round: STR damage * 2 for all attacks in a round Piranha strike: +2 per 4 BAB, so +10 if going pure 'warrior' class Power strike: same as above Duelist class: I took her to level 7, but if I skip the levels in rogue/vivi, I think I can squeeze in 10 levels, so that's another 10 damage of precision damage. Total: +18 from strenght (9*2) + 10 + 10 + 10 + 2 (specializtion) + 2 Rage and on top of that, the elven curve blade have a good crit chance, so can also be specced for maximizing crits with a better feat selection.
Holy crappalicous Batman!
Just took her out for a spin and this happened in the first encounter. She ran up to a couple of kobolds and then they all just died.
Update: the next encounter was even funnier! Tartuk's crazed up kobolds all vanished in huge puffs of red mist.
Short update again.. just realized you don't really need light armor for the damage perks, so might as well use her Fighter training and put her in a full plate mail. Her armor training and high mobility still gives her 24 skill ranks in Mobility with a pair of elven boots +5 on. Her AC will never be great, but it will be decent.
Found a giant slug. Killed it in one hit with 93 damage. I know sneak attackers can do more with rays etc causing sneak attacks per hit, but this character is just pure fun. IIRC there's items with +6 STR and since powerattack on twohanders add one and half damage etc, I think we can squeeze this bad boi up a lot higher in damage as well. Anyways, nuf for tonight. Alarm goes of in 5 hours, so need my beauty sleep.
.. I wonder though, should I re-roll a new barb/twohander/duelist? XD
I just finished Pitax and charname is up to lvl18...19 seems feasible by endgame. All on vanilla 1.1.6d, six member party, no shared experience, exp for checks goes to the maker.
Not sharing experience makes the unused NPCs’ quests very interesting since they are invariably vastly under-leveled. It’s been working out though.
The party members that never leave are Octavia, Valerie, Tristian and Ekun. Ekun’s special camping ability is very handy in dungeons. I’ve never had to buy rations, just got by with whatever I found during the adventure. Plus, his animal companion can tank pretty well. If I’m not doing an NPC quest, Amiri takes the last slot.
I’m just letting the game auto-level all of the NPCs because I’m not that familiar with Pathfinder/3.5. Some of the choices seem sub-optimal but it’s been fine and I’ve learned a lot. Watch out Last Azlanti mode on Hard difficulty for my next run! LoL
Funny, I fired up the game and went to check and Amiri has the exotic proficiency now. I'm running the 1.2 beta, so they must've changed things up.
Oh crap.. I must have releveled her from scratch on trial and forgot to give her the exotic prof and then by mistake overwritten that save. I really should sleep more.. I do a lot of mistakes. Speaking of which, I really should get to work.
I have Weapon Focus Bastard Sword on Amiri, so I know it works. It's pretty much needed to offset the -2 for an outsize weapon. I haven't really played with a tanky CHARNAME much, which is why I renamed her Leeroy.
I am considering picking up a couple of ranger levels on her (on another playthrough) and making her a shield basher. Pathfinder Rage seems to benefit from attacking more often rather than attacking with big weapons.
Invisibility gives +20 to stealth, greater invisibility makes you perma-stealthed. So yeah, most enemies can't attack invisible Nok-Nok. He's fallen victim to prismatic spray a few times though. Nok-Nok Woof-Woof.
Short update again.. just realized you don't really need light armor for the damage perks, so might as well use her Fighter training and put her in a full plate mail. Her armor training and high mobility still gives her 24 skill ranks in Mobility with a pair of elven boots +5 on. Her AC will never be great, but it will be decent.
Found a giant slug. Killed it in one hit with 93 damage. I know sneak attackers can do more with rays etc causing sneak attacks per hit, but this character is just pure fun.
Sneak attack in general will do more. You don't need to cheat Nok-Nok to level 20 and still the chunks will fly. The thing about the little green guy, however, is that he isn't a glass canon. I'm not sure how stealth combines with greater invisibility in this game, but when buffed with it, he'd rarely (if at all) get targeted by enemies despite being in close melee combat, and he has high ac thanks to his dexterity.
Yes, as I said I know that. But this build doesn't have to be cheated either, I just tried it for fun. Power attack and Piranha attacks can both be taken early, same with focus, specialization, rage, etc.
Yesterday when I should have gone to sleep I pondered on a build which used the Barbarians Bite ability to proc either a STR based damage build or a sneak attacker for as many attacks as possible per round. IIUIC, bite attacks are added to your total number of attacks in a Full attack round. The good thing about STR based damage is that no enemy is immune to it, but sneak attacks have higher highs but lower lows. I don't know if there are many enemies who are immune to sneak/crit though, so perhaps that's a non-issue in P:KM.
EDIT: as a side note, STR is up'ed by crit damage, but not sneak attack is not.
Damn, now I'm kind of wishing I had started up this game with xp sharing off and keeping xp to the character that makes the skill checks for this game. This rogue inquisitor's doing all the trickery and persuasion checks.
@Fardragon I was totally thinking of doing a Barb/Ranger shield basher build at some point, that could work really well for Amiri, too. With like 6 ranger levels you'd get improved 2 weapon fighting without needing the dex for it. I just haven't decided on what kits to take.
Damn, now I'm kind of wishing I had started up this game with xp sharing off and keeping xp to the character that makes the skill checks for this game. This rogue inquisitor's doing all the trickery and persuasion.
Right after finishing Pitax,
I went after the “Grimoire Guy” and all of those DC40 persuasion checks with the Pirate captain pushed charname up to lvl19.
@bleusteel Use [ and ] instead of { and } or you can click on the sixth icon from left above the message box and use "spoiler" from there while marking the text. If you already know this and just made a simple mistake, apologies if this sounded condescending.
@bleusteel Use [ and ] instead of { and } or you can click on the sixth icon from left above the message box and use "spoiler" from there while marking the text. If you already know this and just made a simple mistake, apologies if this sounded condescending.
No worries, I was posting with my mobile and I always forget which brackets to use.
Good to know @chimaera. Do you know about immunities for crit attacks, are they prevalent?
I think the same creatures that are immune to sneak attacks, such as elementals, ghosts, swarms and plants. All of these were quite rare in the game, though. Undead (of the non-ghost variety) and constructs were not immune, on the other hand.
Damn, now I'm kind of wishing I had started up this game with xp sharing off and keeping xp to the character that makes the skill checks for this game. This rogue inquisitor's doing all the trickery and persuasion checks.
@Fardragon I was totally thinking of doing a Barb/Ranger shield basher build at some point, that could work really well for Amiri, too. With like 6 ranger levels you'd get improved 2 weapon fighting without needing the dex for it. I just haven't decided on what kits to take.
There is no point in going vanilla, since you wouldn't want an animal companion (unless you are a Mad Dog barbarian), and the other Hunter's Bond option is too situational when you are only going to have two favoured enemies. You wouldn't want Stormwalker as it's tied to archery, so it's Freebooter or Flamewarden. I think Freebooter is boring and fiddly, but mechanically better than Flamewarden up to level 6, especially if Wisdom isn't high.
I have come across a couple of "bashing shields" late in the game.
You can switch xp sharing on and off at any point during the game.
I know I can change the xp sharing whenever I want, I just have to think about if I'm really going to need anyone else. I've also had a certain companion with me this game
so I'd have to drop Linzi so I can have somebody leveled up for the last dungeon. I was also trying to not take Octavia this game, just for a change, but probably would need her if I drop Linzi. I've finished Val's duel, so would probably be OK with her not leveling anymore at least.
Advisor wise it might also hamper some kingdom stats if the advisor isn't leveling and raising an attribute that affects their position, although I'm level 8, so that'd only cost me 1 point to a kingdom stat. I'd probably plan it from the beginning to mostly only take the non-party advisors and members you're keeping in your active party.
For my own shield basher build I was leaning towards flamewarden. I think freebooter loses the favored enemy. I can't decide on a barbarian archetype, either invulnerable rager or armored hulk.
Comments
If I had a criticism about the random encounters, they are usually easy to the point that I can't be bothered with them.
Also, on the leveling in the game, it's fairly evenly paced, but can vary a bit depending on the order you do stuff in. At least it feels meaningful when you gain a level. I do kind of dig it, since it has that old school pnp feel of having to work for a level, but it does make some of the builds a real pain to develop.
I started up a new character. This one's more for flavor, a chaotic-neutral human with 3 rogue levels and I'll be putting the rest into inquisitor of Calistria and using a rapier. Went with 9/18/10/7/16/16, so my character's kinda a dunce, but still as a human I'm kinda the skill monkey with the perception, persuasion, mobility and stealth. I'm starting to appreciate inquisitors a lot more, those bane weapons, judgements and divine buffs are pretty sweet. I almost was tempted to do a strength based build, pick Shelyn and rock a glaive with Cornugon Smash with stern gaze/skill focus persuasion to really mess with people. I just liked the idea of Calistria and being an inquisitor of revenge.
@DrHappyAngry, firstly, insightful about banter only happening when you camp on the maps on not in the world map. I guess that's why I got so much more banter on my first (short) playthrough compared to this one where I pretty much only camp on the worldmap. Thanks for that tidbit of info!
And about leveling, you are right ofc. It's hard to ignore the feeling of wanting to gain momentum sooner, but just as you say, whenever I do level, it feels really great. I've usually felt in 3/3.5 that levels for casters are kinda boring since they don't really get active abilities or feats, but now I look forward mostly for Tristian's levelups (which also happens first since he was level 3 when the rest of the team was level 2) since every time he levels, my party gain a lot of overall power. His heals and other buffs is what makes us work as a team.
On another sidenote, I'm not sure I can drop Amiri. So far she has probably done more than half of the total damage by the entire team. She's a beast! Even better now that she has a greatclub+2 instead of her giganormous sword (which she can't gain Weapon Focus in, it seems I need exotic prof first).
Anyone have any advice on what weapon category, twohanded, is the 'best' for her to focus in? I switched her to fighter/two-hander archetype from ~level 5, and I read that the game has a quite uneven distribution of good magic weapons and I'd hate to have her end up with a category that doesn't really get good items. My preference would be to give her a reach weapon so she can strike from behind Valerie and Charname, but are there any great spears, glaives or other reach weapons in the game that are fixed drops? I don't need to know where or when, just if they exist. If not, I guess I will give her either battleaxes or greatswords since I assume this game, same as ALL games ever made, will hand me at least a couple of good great swords (and perhaps axes).
Personally, I have trouble keeping Amiri alive, and favour sword-and-board when she is in the party, but YMMV. However, I don't think it is a major spoiler to hint that a certain weapon can be upgraded later in the game.
There are a smattering of mid powered glaives etc, and eventually there is a merchant who sells +4 everything.
The game is actually quite light on battleaxes, hand axes and dwarven war axes. There are plenty of two handed axes though.
Minorly spoilerish info about great axes
The game pretty much gives you situationally useful great axes with damage types useful for enemies you'll be fighting lots of.
Thanks for the tip about bastard swords @Fardragon, but the she can't get weapon focus in it anyways. it's not there in the feat selection even if she has that exotic wepon proficiency. I scrolled up and down several times just to make sure I wasn't stupid/blind, but all regular martial weapons where there, but not bastard swords. Dunno why, perhaps Barbs can't access it? I don't think it was available when I gave her fighter levels either, so for now I haven't picked any weapon for her to focus and then specialize in.
Thanks both for the tips on weapon choices. I'll keep her unfocused for now then and choose later on. I bit strange that they picked bastard swords, though Amiri's is very different, for two of the main NPCs. I am thinking Val should go for crushing damage instead in the future, but she's still just feating for AC.
I'll have to check Amiri next time I start up the game, but I don't think she has the exotic weapon proficiency for bastard swords. It's just that she has that ginormous sword hard locked to a weapon slot and already equipped.
BTW, as a magus, are you using the touch attack spells like shocking grasp and frost touch (I think that's what the 2nd level spell was called)? You deliver the touch attack through your weapon, so you do weapon damage at the same time. Use one of those and then use arcane accuracy to make sure you hit. Even if you miss, the spell stays on your weapon until you land a hit with it. Criticals double the spell damage when you attack with a touch spell, too. High crit threat weapons like scimitars and rapiers are good for Magi, but if you find a really nice one handed weapon, don't let that stop you from using it. The spell damage is always only doubled on a crit, so a weapon with a higher multiplier won't help. Mirror image also makes you a lot more tanky.
Re. Amiri: She has proficiency already AFAIK, though I CBA to look now (off to bed soon). I'm pretty sure I also checked by choosing the feat exotic weapon prof and the bastard sword was not available, because she already have it I assume.
EDIT: Nope, I was wrong, she apparently doesn't start with proficiency in bastard swords. At least she doesn't have it for me. Ok, so I guess it's very logical then that I can't pick weapon focus, hehe..
Re. magus: Yes and no. I do enable spell combat/strike in a few fights, though normally i tend to only keep the modal for crit multiplier on all times since the arcane pool drains too quickly. using tough of fatigue cantrip to get another attach comes at the cost of -2 on both attacks which hurt more than I gained at lower levels, so I switched it off. At level 6 I have ~8 arcane pool IIRC, and that lasts just one fight if I add more than one modal. Also, the BAB on the magus is quite low and since I spliced in a level of alchemist, I lost another BAB. The next three levels with Magus will add a BAB each, so I should reach BAB 6 for Duelist at character level 8, I think. Though my math might be off since I am writing this from memory while a bit tired.
The point of the build is to use spell combat, shocking grasp and other touch attacks, parry self and/or others, and then just let the sparks fly!
I re-did the build just to avoid taking the level of fighter (for getting the free aldori dueling sword), but not in hindsight.. perhaps that BAB from a fighter level would have been better than the sneak attack damage. Anyways, doesn't matter. A few more levels and he will start to shine. In a pinch I can always turn on the modal for arcane pool turning INT to AB which adds +4 to attack rolls, which combined with flanking makes me hit pretty consinstently. Drains the pool quickly though.
Thanks for the comment on the forums as well. I agree with what you write. I lack the great discussions, as in forums like this one, regarding items, different builds, character optimization, number crunching etc. Rather odd that a small company like owlcat haven't realized that an active community means money nowadays.
So.. I was test-leveling Amiri just for fun, though I should be asleep for 2 hours ago. Anyways, I tested to level her up a bit as a fighter and give her profiency in elven curved blade and specialization.
Elven curve blades are "light weapons" but twohanded. This means they are eligible for Duelist class skills. It also means they normally should be used by finesse based classes and Piranha strike, but they also can be used by strenght based char. And here's the funny thing, they can be used WITH BOTH, haha.. this is insane
So, Amiri have as level 20, not optimized feat selection though and I know noone reach level 20 in a normal game (but anyways), base damage of 1D10+39-48. With mutagen STR and a simple barb class level 2 Rage, she 1D10+42-51 damage. She also adds double STR bonus on all attacks in a round thanks to level 7 in fighter two-hander. She has all cleave skills so she can attack multiple times and parry from duelist. All I need to do is to keep her in light armor and all bonuses stack. This is pretty sick.. talk about a glass cannon deluxe! If I skip the (now unnecessary) levels for sneak attack, she will have BAB20 and an infinite supply of feats.
So her damage output is from four sources, multiple attacks per round:
STR damage * 2 for all attacks in a round
Piranha strike: +2 per 4 BAB, so +10 if going pure 'warrior' class
Power strike: same as above
Duelist class: I took her to level 7, but if I skip the levels in rogue/vivi, I think I can squeeze in 10 levels, so that's another 10 damage of precision damage.
Total: +18 from strenght (9*2) + 10 + 10 + 10 + 2 (specializtion) + 2 Rage and on top of that, the elven curve blade have a good crit chance, so can also be specced for maximizing crits with a better feat selection.
Holy crappalicous Batman!
Just took her out for a spin and this happened in the first encounter. She ran up to a couple of kobolds and then they all just died.
Update: the next encounter was even funnier! Tartuk's crazed up kobolds all vanished in huge puffs of red mist.
Found a giant slug. Killed it in one hit with 93 damage. I know sneak attackers can do more with rays etc causing sneak attacks per hit, but this character is just pure fun. IIRC there's items with +6 STR and since powerattack on twohanders add one and half damage etc, I think we can squeeze this bad boi up a lot higher in damage as well. Anyways, nuf for tonight. Alarm goes of in 5 hours, so need my beauty sleep.
.. I wonder though, should I re-roll a new barb/twohander/duelist? XD
Not sharing experience makes the unused NPCs’ quests very interesting since they are invariably vastly under-leveled. It’s been working out though.
The party members that never leave are Octavia, Valerie, Tristian and Ekun. Ekun’s special camping ability is very handy in dungeons. I’ve never had to buy rations, just got by with whatever I found during the adventure. Plus, his animal companion can tank pretty well. If I’m not doing an NPC quest, Amiri takes the last slot.
I’m just letting the game auto-level all of the NPCs because I’m not that familiar with Pathfinder/3.5. Some of the choices seem sub-optimal but it’s been fine and I’ve learned a lot. Watch out Last Azlanti mode on Hard difficulty for my next run! LoL
I am considering picking up a couple of ranger levels on her (on another playthrough) and making her a shield basher. Pathfinder Rage seems to benefit from attacking more often rather than attacking with big weapons.
Yesterday when I should have gone to sleep I pondered on a build which used the Barbarians Bite ability to proc either a STR based damage build or a sneak attacker for as many attacks as possible per round. IIUIC, bite attacks are added to your total number of attacks in a Full attack round. The good thing about STR based damage is that no enemy is immune to it, but sneak attacks have higher highs but lower lows. I don't know if there are many enemies who are immune to sneak/crit though, so perhaps that's a non-issue in P:KM.
EDIT: as a side note, STR is up'ed by crit damage, but not sneak attack is not.
@Fardragon I was totally thinking of doing a Barb/Ranger shield basher build at some point, that could work really well for Amiri, too. With like 6 ranger levels you'd get improved 2 weapon fighting without needing the dex for it. I just haven't decided on what kits to take.
20 could be doable.
I have come across a couple of "bashing shields" late in the game.
You can switch xp sharing on and off at any point during the game.
Advisor wise it might also hamper some kingdom stats if the advisor isn't leveling and raising an attribute that affects their position, although I'm level 8, so that'd only cost me 1 point to a kingdom stat. I'd probably plan it from the beginning to mostly only take the non-party advisors and members you're keeping in your active party.
For my own shield basher build I was leaning towards flamewarden. I think freebooter loses the favored enemy. I can't decide on a barbarian archetype, either invulnerable rager or armored hulk.