I agree. I've found that Octavia pretty much only sneak attacks since it's hard to get her spells landed decently and since she isn't optimized, her DCs are not high enough so enemies usually save. But I'm still only mid-game, so this can maybe change later on.
I played a ranger whose combat style was wielding two-handed weapons. This explains the use of animal growth (for my smilodon) and legendary proportions (for the ranger -- when you have all cleave feats and a two-handed weapon, your damage output can be quite phenomenal when you're under that spell, especially when adding two ranger spells to the mix, lead blades and sense vitals).
So, as I played a ranger, I basically skipped Ekundayo, which is a bit of a shame, since he appeared to be a good companion.
I agree. I've found that Octavia pretty much only sneak attacks since it's hard to get her spells landed decently and since she isn't optimized, her DCs are not high enough so enemies usually save. But I'm still only mid-game, so this can maybe change later on.
And sometimes line and dragon breath spell sometimes do strange things: You point north, they discharge Northwest-northeast, so you damage your summons or party members anyway and waste your turn putting yourself into position. Regongar combat spells in particular are a deadeye fest. At least firetongue is foe-only.
In this game to use ranged attacks or spells you really need to specialize, a dabbler does not cut it.
ED: About high AC, if you like casters duelist and sword saint both get canny defense, and it stacks,(it's not supposed to be that way apparently, I hope they fixed that) so you get double bonus AC from INT(that you use for spellcasting anyway).(but touch attacks go with str, unless you have weapon finesse I think ¿? ) Blur, mirrored image, etc are very good defensive buffs.
Also dodge bonuses pile with everything, so aasimars get an advantage due to wings and plumekith gives you the stats you need.
Of course do not hold a candle against aldori-monk-duelist warrior type builds, but you can cast spells on those pesky swarms.
I agree. I've found that Octavia pretty much only sneak attacks since it's hard to get her spells landed decently and since she isn't optimized, her DCs are not high enough so enemies usually save. But I'm still only mid-game, so this can maybe change later on.
And sometimes line and dragon breath spell sometimes do strange things: You point north, they discharge Northwest-northeast, so you damage your summons or party members anyway and waste your turn putting yourself into position. Regongar combat spells in particular are a deadeye fest. At least firetongue is foe-only.
In this game to use ranged attacks or spells you really need to specialize, a dabbler does not cut it.
ED: About high AC, if you like casters duelist and sword saint both get canny defense, and it stacks,(it's not supposed to be that way apparently, I hope they fixed that) so you get double bonus AC from INT(that you use for spellcasting anyway).(but touch attacks go with str, unless you have weapon finesse I think ¿? ) Blur, mirrored image, etc are very good defensive buffs.
Also dodge bonuses pile with everything, so aasimars get an advantage due to wings and plumekith gives you the stats you need.
Of course do not hold a candle against aldori-monk-duelist warrior type builds, but you can cast spells on those pesky swarms.
That's what I played around with and it was also my first real char ("real" in the sense that I played up until the about halfway to the troll king). I stacked INT and DEX and used aldori class with dueling sword for DEX to AB and Dmg. His AC was great with buffs and from the stats alone, but his ki pool was just too low to really be of any use and the feat chains were tough since both class are a bit feat starved. I tried many different versions of this until I finally decided to skip aldori defender at level 1 and go straight for Sword saint since it's weapon focus at level gives access to dueling sword feats. Anyhow, if I had progressed to level 10+ I think it would have got good, but those first few levels before slashing grace was.. not fun. At least a Vivi got sneak to add damage or until you find the first agile light pick at Old Sycamore (IIRC).
So overall it takes too much patience for me to play this build, but I still love the idea of it, the meta. My current level 1 monk/Vivi rest accomplishes pretty much the exact same thing (though arguably even better) and has been fun from level 1 and onwards (I took monk at like.. level 5? But I did re-level the char a few times trying out rogue3 for their slashing damage or not, but ended up deciding against it and went with FoB instead.) This build is super-reliant on weapons though and I will probably sooner or later end up having to switch to singleWeapon style if I only have one Kama with good enchantment levels or stick to my +2 agile short sword in the off-hand since FoB only care about the mainhand and still adds an attack without a monk weapon in the offhand.
The swarms are rather easy now compared to when the game was released. Now I took them as the first quest after Oleg's and had no problem really. Torches and fire flasks. The spiders around them seemed to have increased though instead? At least compared to memory, but it was doable at level 2.
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On a sidenote, is there a spell that makes you immune to stat drains?
Not inmunity per se, but delay/neutralize poison, resist disease, and death ward usually provides resistance against the usual stat-debuff-spells/habs in the game that causes stat/Level drain(you can even research a delay poison inmunity whenever you are in your kingdom, including the dungeon DLC). Paladin auras and mercy also help. When you are already stat-drained there is only restoration and cleric spells(cleanse, heal, stalwart resolve, ....), tho.
l do not know if they have rings of fortitude in the game, I´ve never found one.
...Or use Jaethal to take the hits, she is undead. Maybe undead bloodline/domain +8 Lvl too?
If you meant fatigue stat drains, you have an amulet and some spells for that too (lesser restoration is enough) or resting will be nice, don´t you think so too?- You read it with Linzi´s voice, dont´you? -
Ed: Ah, I forgot Fiery body, makes you immune to almost anything besides water.
Delay Poison protects from most stat drains (from poison, unsurprisingly) but not from Mandragora Swarm STR drain. Nothing protects against that
I think spider swarms are not scary anymore to anyone who knows what they are doing. But Mandragora swarms are still the stuff of nightmares. Anyone relying on weapons for damage, such as the build I outlined, just has no chance and no hope against them. You have to have caster ability to do massive elemental damage against them (and it needs to be massive because of their huge HP pool and their fast healing 10 or 15).
On the Sword Saint / Duelist build, it can definitely be great and capitalise on 2 x INT to AC bonuses for extra cheese factor. If you decide not to dilute with Rogue level, it's perfectly effective from level 1 (just choose Human and select Weapon Finesse and Fencing/Slashing Grace as your level 1 feats). If you want to bring in Rogue and/or Monk dips for maximum effectiveness and to ease the feat burden, then it takes until level 3 to start flying. Best balance would be something like Sword Saint 11/Rogue 1/Monk 1/Duelist 7. But personally if I'm going Sword Saint, I want to go all the way with Sword Saint (well, at least 16-18 levels) because of all the goodies you get at higher levels through Magus Arcana, the higher level Arcane Weapon Enchantments, as well as level 5 and 6 spells.
I think Duelist works better with (DEX) Fighter/other Warrior builds where you don't often need to go beyond level 7-11 in the core class and where sticking to the core class at higher levels just gets you a surfeit of feats. Then it makes more sense to trade those extra feats for higher weapon damage and AC through Duelist levels.
The dex fighters in NWN2 sucked a lot until the SoZ expansion (And they are not top-shelf right now anyway). It's amazing how in this game the highest ac builds are almost all unarmored dex-fighters, being Aldori, rogues, monks, sword saints, duelists, etc
And they pack a punch too.
On a side note, I am still playing the barbarian 2 (for UD, speed, reckless stance and skills) - Arcane archer and the spell selection does not improve much. Unsurprisingly you have the same selection as the usual Magi so you do not have much to choose. There are simply not many high-level spells that you can use with spellstrike and they are from different schools. https://pathfinderkingmaker.gamepedia.com/Eldritch_Archer
You also do not have the bloodlines like the Eldrich Scion. They have a lot of CQC spells that you will never use with spell strike and almost none in the CC department: Well, you have slow & illusionary web which is not that bad, at least is foe-only, but not much, and those cloud spells that are useless against elemental and undead(But no mind fog =( ). You have shout but not great shout.
At least you have a lot of the good stuff in protection spells and dimension door. But for whatever reason you do not have wind arrows, sense vitals and the like, it is up to your magus arcana. The good thing is that you always have a +3/+4 bow with added elemental damage. There are not much of those ingame.
I reached the point I can take fighter feats with Magus levels, but Ekundayo the ranger outpaced me in that category a long time ago.
I am thinking of mixing levels of Duelist in there. I am not using many spells outside spellstrike shots and most of the spells spellstrike-worthy I reached max dice (As I said before, not many high-level spells you can use with spellstrike) and canny defence is always nice. But I don't want to reduce my arcane pool too much.
So far, not impressed. Did anyone play this kit before? Thoughts?
The trouble is that once you start allowing stats to serve the function that another stat is meant to take, the logical place that anyone who wants to build efficiently will take it is to go all-in on the "double function" stat and neglect the stat that has been (effectively) emasculated. And that's how you end up with mega builds. And what's more, this game system is rife with it.
STR is (traditionally) meant to add melee chance to hit and damage, and DEX is meant to add AC. If that balance were respected, an effective melee warrior would need both. And in a point-buy system that creates balance.
But if you then allow class skills and/or feats to let DEX add melee chance to hit and damage as well as AC, then a truly effective melee warrior can say goodbye to STR and a very big hello to DEX. And that creates imbalance and powerspike.
It's made even worse by the terribly flawed AC system where one of the biggest sources of AC (armour) restricts one of the other biggest sources of AC (DEX). But since armour can be substituted with spells or equipment but DEX can never be substituted (only added to), you now have another logical inevitability that says "goodbye suit of armour, don't need you" and even more emphasis on DEX + non-physical armour substitute.
That's why in this game, DEX & WIS (in particular) and INT & CHA (in a more specialised way) can become god stats. While CON is nice and still mildly important and STR is utter crap stat (from efficiency point of view: you can still create a "good" STR build, it just will not be anywhere near as efficient as a DEX build).
I messed around a bit with Eldritch Archer when I first started playing. It's an interesting concept, but the best use I found for it was as a 2 level dip class rather than as a main class. If you take the 2 level dip you get Spellstrike that allows you to cast ranged touch spells (things like rays) through your bow (a bit like Sword Saint for melee touch spells). I think this works with all your ranged touch spells, not just your Magus spells. So best thing to do is then go Wizard, take 1 level dip into Rogue or Vivi, and then max Arcane Trickster. So you end up:
That gets you to 17th caster level for Wizard which gets you level 9 spells, as well as 7d6 sneak attack. So you can now cast sneak-attacking high-level rays (possibly metamagicked as well) with even more damage / crit chance through your bow, and all the additional modifiers that might get you. The flipside is you will be targeting ranged full AC rather than ranged touch AC, so chance of hitting might suffer a little. But if you can work around that or still have high enough chance to hit, you can add even more sickness to the already ridiculous damage an Arcane Trickster can do with ray spells.
Like I say I didn't find much mileage in progressing Eldritch Archer as main class: you'd also certainly be better off as melee (/Sword Saint) magus rather than ranged magus.
Yup, "One stat to rule them all"
I do not really focus on STR unless I am going for a total menacing build (Thug+Class that uses Intimidate prowess, Dazzling display, Cornugon smash, etc etc). Or Valerie. It fits. She really is a thug XD
Makes my athletics and acrobatics checks really lousy. Does not improve with the armor penalties but you usually could repeat until you suceed that type of skillchecks.
I messed around a bit with Eldritch Archer when I first started playing. It's an interesting concept, but the best use I found for it was as a 2 level dip class rather than as a main class. If you take the 2 level dip you get Spellstrike that allows you to cast ranged touch spells (things like rays) through your bow (a bit like Sword Saint for melee touch spells). I think this works with all your ranged touch spells, not just your Magus spells. So best thing to do is then go Wizard, take 1 level dip into Rogue or Vivi, and then max Arcane Trickster. So you end up:
That gets you to 17th caster level for Wizard which gets you level 9 spells, as well as 7d6 sneak attack. So you can now cast sneak-attacking high-level rays (possibly metamagicked as well) with even more damage / crit chance through your bow, and all the additional modifiers that might get you. The flipside is you will be targeting ranged full AC rather than ranged touch AC, so chance of hitting might suffer a little. But if you can work around that or still have high enough chance to hit, you can add even more sickness to the already ridiculous damage an Arcane Trickster can do with ray spells.
Like I say I didn't find much mileage in progressing Eldritch Archer as main class: you'd also certainly be better off as melee (/Sword Saint) magus rather than ranged magus.
I think it is for the best, the class is not meant to be ranged, the spell selection and abilities say so. And wizards have far better spell selection. A pity the DC penalty and terrible thaco.
Just wanted to try something different. It was different in a sense.
ED: It would be awesome if spellstrike worked with alchemist or grenadier mage bombs.
Good post about AC @Jaheiras_Witness. I agree and it's my own experience as well. I think it's a mechanic that could use with some tweaking and balance. It's a bit hard to RP the fact that any naked builds can easily start to outmatch the pure tanking builds like Valiere. And on the topic of armor, who would ever use a Halfplate? They are so worthless I can't understand why they exist. To my knowledge, which is meagre, they are the first armor I see that does not follow the basic principle that the higher the armor rating, the lower the DEX penalty. Fullplates offer more basic armor and allows more DEX to AC making them superior in every way. Sure, fullplates should be the best, but I've never even equipped a halfplate.
Thanks for the tips of delay poison. I must admit I've never thought about buffing that before the fight with spiders etc that do DEX or STR damage etc (it probably says so right in the description, hehe). I have the communal version so I will use that as part of my pre-buffing from now on.
Yeah, Delay Poison is actually total immunity to all poison! You don't need any higher spell like Neutralize Poison, Delay Poison does everything needed.
But if you then allow class skills and/or feats to let DEX add melee chance to hit and damage as well as AC, then a truly effective melee warrior can say goodbye to STR and a very big hello to DEX. And that creates imbalance and powerspike.
Yeah, I abuse the hell out of this with my tabletop character in D&D5e currently, she has 12 strength but 20 dex, using a katana as a finesse weapon, and has duelling for extra damage. And that's the simplified version of the character, she was way more broken in another game where she started with Barbarian and multiclassed into fighter, then taking the Samurai path. Strength wasn't needed to be high to make her absurd in damage output, but I did have her wisdom and charisma at a decent level because I feel she should come across as a Courtier.
I actually really wish Kingmaker had a Samurai like class and some Eastern style weapons, I feel its the one big thing missing because I really can't play this character in the game (I pretty much use her as a berserker in the BG games, with her proficiencies all in Katanas, so its a decent approximation)
Further on the topic of how some stats can supplant other stats to create overpowered builds, here’s a summary of how that can happen and the implications.
Firstly, these are the base functions of each stat, the bonuses you would normally get without any specific changes from classes or feats to alter the balance.
STR: Melee attack bonus, melee damage bonus, ranged damage bonus (composite), carrying capacity, skill modifier: Athletics
DEX: AC bonus, ranged attack bonus, initiative bonus, Reflex saving throw bonus, skill modifier: Mobility, Trickery, Stealth
CON: HP bonus, Fortitude saving throw bonus, caster stat (Kineticist)
INT: Skill point bonus, caster stat (Magus, Alchemist, Wizard), skill modifier: Knowledge Arcana, Knowledge World
WIS: Will saving throw bonus, caster stat (Cleric, Druid, Inquisitor), skill modifier: Perception, Lore Nature, Lore Religion
CHA: Caster stat (Sorcerer, Bard), skill modifier: Persuasion, Use Magic Device
Now here’s a rundown of how each stat can be modified to serve functions other stats usually deliver.
STR: Skill modifier: Persuasion (Intimidating Prowess)
DEX: Melee attack bonus (Weapon Finesse or Rogue), melee damage bonus (Fencing/Slashing Grace or Rogue)
CON: n/a
INT: AC bonus (Sword Saint and Duelist), initiative bonus (Sword Saint), caster stat (Dark Elementalist, Sage Sorcerer)
WIS: AC bonus (Monk), initiative bonus (Inquisitor), caster stat (Psychokineticist, Empyreal Sorcerer)
CHA: AC bonus (Scaled Fist), Fortitude, Reflex and Will saving throw bonus (Paladin), caster stat (Feyspeaker Druid, Eldritch Scion)
Key takeaways:
1. CON cannot displace the function of any other stat. But on the flip side, no other stat can replace the HP bonus and the Fortitude bonus (CHA for Paladins adds to the latter, it does not replace)
2. The only additional function STR can serve is to add to Persuasion (Intimidate) checks if you take a feat. This is also an additional bonus to CHA, it does not replace CHA bonus to this skill
3. DEX can replace the most important functions of STR, namely melee attack and damage bonuses. The only thing that DEX cannot replace from STR is the ranged damage bonus for composite bows, additonal carrying capacity, and modifier to Athletics.
4. All 3 mental stats can add to AC (but WIS & CHA are mututally exclusive here); but 2 out of 3 are possible, and they all stack with DEX.
5. Two archetypes (Psychokineticst & Empyreal Sorcerer) can use WIS as their casting stat rather than the usual CON & CHA respectively for their class. This allows strong synergy potential with other WIS functions.
6. The Paladin CHA saving throw bonus is huge, as it adds the bonus to all saving throws (which normally would be across 3 different stats!) and is cumulative with the bonuses those stats already give. And since CHA can also add AC and is a caster stat for one of the most powerful base classes (Sorcerer), you have the potential to add huge defensive power to a very powerful offensive class.
7. Going back to STR again: this is the only stat whose most important functions can be fully replaced by another stat (DEX). In all other cases where a stat adds a bonus normally provided by a different stat, the bonuses are cumulative rather than substitutional.
Ok, as @Jaheiras_Witness stated, Eldrich archers can use effectively wizard spells with spellstrike (It seems Eldrich scions and SwordSaints cannot do the same with touch spells like slay living or harm, for example, ) so you can safely use two levels of Eldrich archer to make your wizard/sage sorcerer imbue your arrows with elemental spells. Then you can go Vivi/Arcane trickster for SA or Eldrich knight for better hp and thaco (Eldrich archer gives you martial proficiency so you unlock the prestige class automatically. The prestige class also gives you access to fighter feats).
CON: you lose 3 Caster levels. You also lose the ability to cast spells in armor unless you take arcane armor but as a ranged combatant you probably pump up your dex and you have plenty of defensive spells so it is not a problem.
I think I will try that to add a little versatility to the spellbook( like sense vitals, wind arrows and more) and be able to surpass the lvl 6 spell limit of the magi. It is ok if you are a scion or a magus, fighting in melee, but from range the usual magus spellbook it is a bit lacking.
In that build I think you are better going Wizard rather than Sage Sorcerer as you can still get level 9 spells with Wizard by getting to caster level 17:
So I´ve got a strongheaded wizard that trained body and mind and mastered the shooting arts to be able to imbue his arrows with his spells and became one of the fabled Eldrich knights (an elf for sure. Possibly a Thranxxilian Wrath mage)
...Or a nerdy mage obsessed with the study of the body that uses both spells and trinkets to overcome their foes, as an arcane trickster (Maybe a gnome, altough are better races for it. And a Scroll mage or a bomber mage due to her background).
I already played an arcane trickster, I think I will respec to Eldrich knight.
In that build I think you are better going Wizard rather than Sage Sorcerer as you can still get level 9 spells with Wizard by getting to caster level 17:
Going back to STR again: this is the only stat whose most important functions can be fully replaced by another stat (DEX). In all other cases where a stat adds a bonus normally provided by a different stat, the bonuses are cumulative rather than substitutional.
In fairness, you still need both dex and str in your marksmen, one to hit, the other for damage; but as you said; you can safely swap str for dex in all other cases (you can even use touch spells and combat maneuvers with dex if you have weapon finesse and agile maneuvers ).
6. The Paladin CHA saving throw bonus is huge, as it adds the bonus to all saving throws (which normally would be across 3 different stats!) and is cumulative with the bonuses those stats already give. And since CHA can also add AC and is a caster stat for one of the most powerful base classes (Sorcerer), you have the potential to add huge defensive power to a very powerful offensive class.
They nerfed this in Pathfinder 2.e to make it a static bonus, not acumulative in the paladins(champions) makeover. People do not like it much, but to be fair the save bonuses you can pile with a paladin-dragon monk, sorcerer or feyspeaker or using imbue grace spell are crazy, because it stacks with everything
God rundown again @Jaheiras_Witness! This is what I've been lacking in the offical PKM Forums.
You missed one stat change though, one of the Monk archetypes (Sensei IIRC) have "insightful strike" I think it's called. It makes WIS go to AB as well as AC (the latter ofc same as regular Monk). I tried one when the game was new and haven't touched it since, but I think you still need unarmed DEX to Dmg feat to make the char depend on only two stats, and pump only one. So have a decent DEX and focus on maximizing WIS should give a good AC from two stats, damage from DEX and AB from WIS. I tried to create an old favorite of mine, the Monk/Druid, but ended up cancelling that run and restart.
Yesterday instead of sleeping I got a bit obsessed at the thought of finding odd combos to maximize APR. I don't really think it's needed in PKM because it feels it's too rare you actually use all APR since you almost always move once per round if you're a striker (things die too quickly).
But anyways, powergaming is still fun even if it's a waste, so my idea came from trying to find a combo of FoB, dual wielding and the divine level 4 spell that also adds another full BAB attack (forgot its name now).
Probably this means going DEX and WIS with a combo of Monk, Cleric and maybe rogue level 3. Or just go down the onehanded route, since unarmed is considered onehanded. I have Warpriest from a mod, IIRC, and it has a "monk" archetype called sacred fist. Could potentially be the perfect combo with regular monk. Should net you 3 attacks at full BAB + whatever else your BAB or dualwield allows. If you use all those juicy personal buffs from the cleric it could probably offset the fact you have fairly low BAB. I think warpriest (or perhaps Inquisitor?) is 2/3 BAB but an Ecclestheurge could perhaps be a cool RP choice considering they go naked (no armor). Like some kind of "martyr" class.
Maybe I'll try it out for fun when I get home. Probably some Assimar race that gets WIS and DEX, if there's one (musetouched, from memory?).
Another build my brain conjured up was to maximize DR by combining barbarian with stalwart defender. In my head, without checking for real, I think 20 DR is possible by combining the classes and using Adamantine armor (ie the Assassin chain shirt or whatever else might be found later in the game) since it's a light armor for the barbarian class. Also there's a Falcata that counts as +4 when you're raging, the decapitator, which could be cool for this class. There might be some shield that adds DR as well, haven't found anyone so far though, so perhaps go down that route either with or without dualwield and shield bash.
You might want to look at speed weapons for maximising APR as well. There's a Sai for instance that gives you 2 additional APR...and since it's a Sai, it stacks with Flurry of Blows.
So a Monk with FOB = 2 APR at max BAB. Level 11 adds another APR at max BAB. Sai adds 2 more, so that's 5 APR at max BAB off the bat, plus additional attacks at lower BAB.
Another build my brain conjured up was to maximize DR by combining barbarian with stalwart defender. In my head, without checking for real, I think 20 DR is possible by combining the classes and using Adamantine armor (ie the Assassin chain shirt or whatever else might be found later in the game) since it's a light armor for the barbarian class. Also there's a Falcata that counts as +4 when you're raging, the decapitator, which could be cool for this class. There might be some shield that adds DR as well, haven't found anyone so far though, so perhaps go down that route either with or without dual-wield and shield bash.
. I tried to create an old favorite of mine, the Monk/Druid, but ended up cancelling that run and restart.
Even though they could use the same fists amulets and the WIS ac of the monks works shapeshifted; animals´ weapons are considered natural weapons, dragon claws and bite weapons too; not unarmed. But the shapeshifting forms are also not that useful until you get the elemental and dragon. I like the spell and dragon breath of the latter.
Druids in general are not well-liked in this game partly because most of their spells are CC with a very large radious, and you have to wait a lot till auto-dispel before go on. There is a mod that allows you to dispel any area concentration spell you casted, as in PnP; so it makes it less time-consuming.
@PsicoVic OK, good to know about the weapons. I've tried to not cheat as much when it comes to knowing what's ahead of me even though I cheat a looooot about character building.
Regarding the Monk/druid it's for RP reasons and doesn't use shapeshifting (which I hate). The druid is primarly for buffing and I used it in NVN2 adding many, many D6's of damage from Druid without leveling the monk as much. But wiht Kaedrin's pack they had the sacred fist (monk/Dive prestige class) that was truly awesome.
Anywas, so I played around a little about APR and found that the game seem to limit you to 10 APR just as in BG. I tried a few different combos and realized it's probably better to go one handed for a build like this since so many APRs will otherwise be wasted. With greater dual wielding and Speed weapons + FoB2 + the level 4 priest spell etc you hit the roof rather soon. Already at level 11 the guy had like 8 APR and at 18 he has around 12 APR, but maxes out at 7 APR on main hand and 3 on off hand. The added damage is low since I didn't focus so much on that with this trial build. It's probably better to skip monk level 11 FoB2 and go for more levels in Warpriest Cult leader for sneak attacks and higher BAB or skip Monk FoB and use Sensai instead for WIS to BAB. I dunno, but it was fun to try and it was fun to see the game trying to squeeze in the number of attacks in the GUI, haha
Just for fun I added shield bash in this build so the char can switch to that if the need occurs. It's not optimized at all w/r to feat selection. I did skip out on Warpriest at first since it needs 10 levels to reach level 4 spells, but now that I know FoB2 from Monk11 is unnecessery, it's or probably the better option if a party friend cast haste. Also, with meta knowledge about Agile and Speed weapons, it would of course be better. I just chose Sai since I had one in the inventory and since @Jaheiras_Witness said there was one that added 2 APR. If that's true, you can skip improved and greater dual wield and just use that Sai in the offhand.
Btw, with this many APR at full attack I guess Piranha strike can be used to add damage. The guy has regular mid-game items, ie +4 stat belts and +2/3 weapons etc, so it's far from end-game quality. The offhand kama is a speed weapon though, so his base is 3 off hand attacks. The 4:th disappears when the 7:th appear in the main hand, which may not be optimal if the 3´third attack in off hand has less BAB penalty. But the game crashed while alt-tabbed, so cba to check it now
What spells do you think that is underrated by the community? IMO >
1 - Icy prison - Can literally trivialize fights and at high level, few creatures has high STR to succeed on breaking the ice. The combo Icy prison, mass + deadly earth can turn some of the hardest encounters into an cakewalk. I an not sure, but believe that is possible to make the STR check DC = 40(mine DC was just 35), meaning that even deities will mostly fail on the STR check...
2 - Finger of Death - Sure, is not amazing as on 3.5e/nwn, but FoD can deal ludicrous amount of damage, mainly considering how common feyfolk(low fort save) is in the game
3 - Form of The Dragon 3
12d8 damage is more than an cone of cold(10d6 max) and you can do it a lot( the text says that there are a d4 recharge time, but i never needed to wait an recharge)
Your HP becomes much bigger due +8 CON, is like getting 4*CL temp HP for a pure sorcerer
Your encumbrance limit raises a lot. Are you carrying too much? Just use this spell
The immunity. Are you fighting an enemy who deals fire damage? Assume gold dragon form
Lasts an eternity. 1 min / CL.
On PnP it gives also 120 feet (poor), on PF:KM only allows you to ignore difficulty terrain and not give this massive speed boost.
Frightful presence. An permanent AOE mind affecting spell effect. Combined with soul eaters to lower enemy WILL save, this spell can be extremely dangerous.
And the cool factor. Some screens
4 - Caustic Eruption
AOE high DAMAGE acid spell. Acid is one of the last resisted effects and the best part. It ignores Spell Resistance. With metamagic it can become much better
5 - Boneshaker 3d6 + d6 / 2CL is an amazing damage for a lv 2 spell. And not require an ranged touch attack.
6 - Boneshatter, another amazing low level spell that can deal a lot of damage(15d6 at CL = 15) and make the enemy exhausted/fatigued. With metamagic, it can deal consistent 130 damage / round
ED: I see, the druid shapeshifts are the same as the spells, the dragon one too... kind of a bummer.
I was going to say Greater shout, Weird, Sirocco, delay poison or Fiery body, but I do not think they are exactly underrated.
-Bestow grace: Instant paladin´s save bonus for a party member. And as I said before, paladin holy bonus stacks with almost everything (cloak/ring, heroism, prayer)
-Greater angelic aspect: and their counterparts. Now that you can examine the enemies´alignment, spells that give you DR vs alignment and protections vs alignment are very useful. But this one takes the cake with all the resistances it gives you with only one spell ( DR 10/cold, 10/acid, 5/evil. +2 AC (deflection), +2 saves (resistance) against attacks from evil. Wielded weapon is good-aligned) Also it last 1 min/level.
-Bestow curse, mind fog, cloudkill: because there are not many spells that reduce significantly the enemies saves. And you know how frustrating it is when your spell goes to waste. Most debuffs require several saving throws (I do not know why spells that allow several saves are so valued, like vinetrap or chain of light or most of the compulsions). Bestow curse also reduces skills so works well with pits.
This spell also piles with other debuffs like prayer, dazzling display, etc.
-All the new pit spells: Just remember that there is no fly in P:K, so nothing is immune to them.
And those spells target stats or skills. The most problematic caster enemies just go away for the rest of the fight and probably are also killed. Fighting Tartuccio? When? Why?
-Dragon shout: I only include this for classes that cannot change spells like the wizards can, because you have a one-stop-shop of a spell with all shapes and sizes and all elemental types of damage.
-Shield: Because it is the only way (besides a ring) that you can have a shield armor bonus besides a shield. Just use an alchemist with salve discovery to put shield in all your marksmen, monks and two-handers.
-Vampiric touch/vampiric shield: Damages enemies, extra hp for you. Touch spell. Magus must-have.
-Burst of Glory and greater False life: Extra hp points. There are enemies that simply are going to hit you and this helps to keep your low-dice squishies alive. An alchemist with infusion discovery can use Greater False life in the entire party.
-Reduce person: +1AC, +1hit, +2dex. -2 str and long duration. LVL 1 spell. Very good for casters and classes that do not rely in strength.
-See invisibility (communal) and glitterdust: Do you know why those enemies keep appearing beside you ninja-style and start a fight? Because you are not using this spell. Very long duration.
-Ray of enfeeblement: You lose strength, even if save. Spell level 1 so you can easily quicken it. Just put an icy prison after it and go make yourself a coffee until the enemy dies.
Only a footnote to declare my undying love for the alchemists and infusion. They can put buffs that are usually personal-use-only ( shield, expeditious retreat, greater false life, etc) in the entire party, drink a mutagen and then start throwing bombs non-stop because those do not use spell slots.
Fly - Climb - I know that is hard to implement, but at least flying creatures should be immune to ground spells and abilities like Sirroco and Deadly Earth
More enemies using dispel magic because buffs are too powerful. And enemies at end game should use disjunction/ to make the ridiculous OP gear that you find in the game useless, at least for few minutes.
Wouldn't a Sirroco be way more dangerous if you were in flight? You'd just get blown around, take falling/slam damage and have your flight ended in addition to it's normal affects. I mean, ya a dragon could probably handle it, but an aasimar or tiefling would just get tossed around.
Wouldn't a Sirroco be way more dangerous if you were in flight? You'd just get blown around, take falling/slam damage and have your flight ended in addition to it's normal affects. I mean, ya a dragon could probably handle it, but an aasimar or tiefling would just get tossed around.
Flying would also make you inmune to all the pit spells: Create Pit, Spiked Pit, Acid Pit, Hungry Pit and difficult terrain ones.
I am eager to see what the guys of Solasta are going to do. The demo was promising.
I would actually love to see a crafting system like NWN2 had. Maybe a few more effects, but overall it had a great crafting system that fit with the world/lore. It made literally any weapon viable, since you could always just make whatever you wanted. It might need to be toned down a bit in some spots, since it was really easy to be running around with +3 adamantine weapons with +1d6 acid damage pretty early in the game, though. That's more just setting the level requirements correctly.
The game is ridiculously easy to mod and I already have Witch, among many well-made classes and archetypes. I can't vouch for how true they stay to their pnp counter-parts, but I assume they are as faithful as possible considering their high remarks on Nexus. Wouldn't surpprise me if there's a Samurai too somehwere there. I can't even remember which are mods and which are from the base game, but some new ones are ie witch, oracle, hunter, warpriest, skald etc. Slayer I think was from a patch? The skald seem pretty cool, essentially a bard using barbarian rage to "sing" if I understand it correctly. Cool concept.
There's also an excellent crafting mod which I have used that unlocks feats you take. Once taken the drawback is you have to craft via the mod console rather than in-game, so it takes a little out of the immersion part. But the good part is that it takes time! I upgraded a kama I had to add the Speed mod just to try it and it took Linzi 21 in-game days to complete the transformation. IIRC it removed the Keen ability, maybe they were mutually exclusive or something I dunno. Point is, now that I've tried this Mod I can finally have the freedom to pick a weapon category at low level and be able to run with it without having the meta knowledge about all the unique's that are in the game. Very good for a person suffering from restartitis as I do. I particularly am keen on finding fun ways of ie using reach weapons with AoO's etc.
Comments
What class did you play @xzar_monty?
So, as I played a ranger, I basically skipped Ekundayo, which is a bit of a shame, since he appeared to be a good companion.
And sometimes line and dragon breath spell sometimes do strange things: You point north, they discharge Northwest-northeast, so you damage your summons or party members anyway and waste your turn putting yourself into position. Regongar combat spells in particular are a deadeye fest. At least firetongue is foe-only.
In this game to use ranged attacks or spells you really need to specialize, a dabbler does not cut it.
ED: About high AC, if you like casters duelist and sword saint both get canny defense, and it stacks,(it's not supposed to be that way apparently, I hope they fixed that) so you get double bonus AC from INT(that you use for spellcasting anyway).(but touch attacks go with str, unless you have weapon finesse I think ¿? ) Blur, mirrored image, etc are very good defensive buffs.
Also dodge bonuses pile with everything, so aasimars get an advantage due to wings and plumekith gives you the stats you need.
Of course do not hold a candle against aldori-monk-duelist warrior type builds, but you can cast spells on those pesky swarms.
That's what I played around with and it was also my first real char ("real" in the sense that I played up until the about halfway to the troll king). I stacked INT and DEX and used aldori class with dueling sword for DEX to AB and Dmg. His AC was great with buffs and from the stats alone, but his ki pool was just too low to really be of any use and the feat chains were tough since both class are a bit feat starved. I tried many different versions of this until I finally decided to skip aldori defender at level 1 and go straight for Sword saint since it's weapon focus at level gives access to dueling sword feats. Anyhow, if I had progressed to level 10+ I think it would have got good, but those first few levels before slashing grace was.. not fun. At least a Vivi got sneak to add damage or until you find the first agile light pick at Old Sycamore (IIRC).
So overall it takes too much patience for me to play this build, but I still love the idea of it, the meta. My current level 1 monk/Vivi rest accomplishes pretty much the exact same thing (though arguably even better) and has been fun from level 1 and onwards (I took monk at like.. level 5? But I did re-level the char a few times trying out rogue3 for their slashing damage or not, but ended up deciding against it and went with FoB instead.) This build is super-reliant on weapons though and I will probably sooner or later end up having to switch to singleWeapon style if I only have one Kama with good enchantment levels or stick to my +2 agile short sword in the off-hand since FoB only care about the mainhand and still adds an attack without a monk weapon in the offhand.
The swarms are rather easy now compared to when the game was released. Now I took them as the first quest after Oleg's and had no problem really. Torches and fire flasks. The spiders around them seemed to have increased though instead? At least compared to memory, but it was doable at level 2.
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On a sidenote, is there a spell that makes you immune to stat drains?
l do not know if they have rings of fortitude in the game, I´ve never found one.
...Or use Jaethal to take the hits, she is undead. Maybe undead bloodline/domain +8 Lvl too?
If you meant fatigue stat drains, you have an amulet and some spells for that too (lesser restoration is enough) or resting will be nice, don´t you think so too?- You read it with Linzi´s voice, dont´you?
Ed: Ah, I forgot Fiery body, makes you immune to almost anything besides water.
I think spider swarms are not scary anymore to anyone who knows what they are doing. But Mandragora swarms are still the stuff of nightmares. Anyone relying on weapons for damage, such as the build I outlined, just has no chance and no hope against them. You have to have caster ability to do massive elemental damage against them (and it needs to be massive because of their huge HP pool and their fast healing 10 or 15).
On the Sword Saint / Duelist build, it can definitely be great and capitalise on 2 x INT to AC bonuses for extra cheese factor. If you decide not to dilute with Rogue level, it's perfectly effective from level 1 (just choose Human and select Weapon Finesse and Fencing/Slashing Grace as your level 1 feats). If you want to bring in Rogue and/or Monk dips for maximum effectiveness and to ease the feat burden, then it takes until level 3 to start flying. Best balance would be something like Sword Saint 11/Rogue 1/Monk 1/Duelist 7. But personally if I'm going Sword Saint, I want to go all the way with Sword Saint (well, at least 16-18 levels) because of all the goodies you get at higher levels through Magus Arcana, the higher level Arcane Weapon Enchantments, as well as level 5 and 6 spells.
I think Duelist works better with (DEX) Fighter/other Warrior builds where you don't often need to go beyond level 7-11 in the core class and where sticking to the core class at higher levels just gets you a surfeit of feats. Then it makes more sense to trade those extra feats for higher weapon damage and AC through Duelist levels.
And they pack a punch too.
On a side note, I am still playing the barbarian 2 (for UD, speed, reckless stance and skills) - Arcane archer and the spell selection does not improve much. Unsurprisingly you have the same selection as the usual Magi so you do not have much to choose. There are simply not many high-level spells that you can use with spellstrike and they are from different schools.
https://pathfinderkingmaker.gamepedia.com/Eldritch_Archer
https://pathfinderkingmaker.fandom.com/wiki/Magus_Spells
Ed: Maybe I should respec later and take EldrichArcher 19 for great spell access =P
You also do not have the bloodlines like the Eldrich Scion. They have a lot of CQC spells that you will never use with spell strike and almost none in the CC department: Well, you have slow & illusionary web which is not that bad, at least is foe-only, but not much, and those cloud spells that are useless against elemental and undead(But no mind fog =( ). You have shout but not great shout.
At least you have a lot of the good stuff in protection spells and dimension door. But for whatever reason you do not have wind arrows, sense vitals and the like, it is up to your magus arcana. The good thing is that you always have a +3/+4 bow with added elemental damage. There are not much of those ingame.
I reached the point I can take fighter feats with Magus levels, but Ekundayo the ranger outpaced me in that category a long time ago.
I am thinking of mixing levels of Duelist in there. I am not using many spells outside spellstrike shots and most of the spells spellstrike-worthy I reached max dice (As I said before, not many high-level spells you can use with spellstrike) and canny defence is always nice. But I don't want to reduce my arcane pool too much.
So far, not impressed. Did anyone play this kit before? Thoughts?
STR is (traditionally) meant to add melee chance to hit and damage, and DEX is meant to add AC. If that balance were respected, an effective melee warrior would need both. And in a point-buy system that creates balance.
But if you then allow class skills and/or feats to let DEX add melee chance to hit and damage as well as AC, then a truly effective melee warrior can say goodbye to STR and a very big hello to DEX. And that creates imbalance and powerspike.
It's made even worse by the terribly flawed AC system where one of the biggest sources of AC (armour) restricts one of the other biggest sources of AC (DEX). But since armour can be substituted with spells or equipment but DEX can never be substituted (only added to), you now have another logical inevitability that says "goodbye suit of armour, don't need you" and even more emphasis on DEX + non-physical armour substitute.
That's why in this game, DEX & WIS (in particular) and INT & CHA (in a more specialised way) can become god stats. While CON is nice and still mildly important and STR is utter crap stat (from efficiency point of view: you can still create a "good" STR build, it just will not be anywhere near as efficient as a DEX build).
I messed around a bit with Eldritch Archer when I first started playing. It's an interesting concept, but the best use I found for it was as a 2 level dip class rather than as a main class. If you take the 2 level dip you get Spellstrike that allows you to cast ranged touch spells (things like rays) through your bow (a bit like Sword Saint for melee touch spells). I think this works with all your ranged touch spells, not just your Magus spells. So best thing to do is then go Wizard, take 1 level dip into Rogue or Vivi, and then max Arcane Trickster. So you end up:
Eldritch Archer 2
Rogue / Vivi 1
Wizard 7
Arcane Trickster 10
That gets you to 17th caster level for Wizard which gets you level 9 spells, as well as 7d6 sneak attack. So you can now cast sneak-attacking high-level rays (possibly metamagicked as well) with even more damage / crit chance through your bow, and all the additional modifiers that might get you. The flipside is you will be targeting ranged full AC rather than ranged touch AC, so chance of hitting might suffer a little. But if you can work around that or still have high enough chance to hit, you can add even more sickness to the already ridiculous damage an Arcane Trickster can do with ray spells.
Like I say I didn't find much mileage in progressing Eldritch Archer as main class: you'd also certainly be better off as melee (/Sword Saint) magus rather than ranged magus.
I do not really focus on STR unless I am going for a total menacing build (Thug+Class that uses Intimidate prowess, Dazzling display, Cornugon smash, etc etc). Or Valerie. It fits. She really is a thug XD
Makes my athletics and acrobatics checks really lousy. Does not improve with the armor penalties but you usually could repeat until you suceed that type of skillchecks.
I think it is for the best, the class is not meant to be ranged, the spell selection and abilities say so. And wizards have far better spell selection. A pity the DC penalty and terrible thaco.
Just wanted to try something different. It was different in a sense.
ED: It would be awesome if spellstrike worked with alchemist or grenadier mage bombs.
Thanks for the tips of delay poison. I must admit I've never thought about buffing that before the fight with spiders etc that do DEX or STR damage etc (it probably says so right in the description, hehe). I have the communal version so I will use that as part of my pre-buffing from now on.
It's one of my core buffs for every map.
Yeah, I abuse the hell out of this with my tabletop character in D&D5e currently, she has 12 strength but 20 dex, using a katana as a finesse weapon, and has duelling for extra damage. And that's the simplified version of the character, she was way more broken in another game where she started with Barbarian and multiclassed into fighter, then taking the Samurai path. Strength wasn't needed to be high to make her absurd in damage output, but I did have her wisdom and charisma at a decent level because I feel she should come across as a Courtier.
I actually really wish Kingmaker had a Samurai like class and some Eastern style weapons, I feel its the one big thing missing because I really can't play this character in the game (I pretty much use her as a berserker in the BG games, with her proficiencies all in Katanas, so its a decent approximation)
Firstly, these are the base functions of each stat, the bonuses you would normally get without any specific changes from classes or feats to alter the balance.
STR: Melee attack bonus, melee damage bonus, ranged damage bonus (composite), carrying capacity, skill modifier: Athletics
DEX: AC bonus, ranged attack bonus, initiative bonus, Reflex saving throw bonus, skill modifier: Mobility, Trickery, Stealth
CON: HP bonus, Fortitude saving throw bonus, caster stat (Kineticist)
INT: Skill point bonus, caster stat (Magus, Alchemist, Wizard), skill modifier: Knowledge Arcana, Knowledge World
WIS: Will saving throw bonus, caster stat (Cleric, Druid, Inquisitor), skill modifier: Perception, Lore Nature, Lore Religion
CHA: Caster stat (Sorcerer, Bard), skill modifier: Persuasion, Use Magic Device
Now here’s a rundown of how each stat can be modified to serve functions other stats usually deliver.
STR: Skill modifier: Persuasion (Intimidating Prowess)
DEX: Melee attack bonus (Weapon Finesse or Rogue), melee damage bonus (Fencing/Slashing Grace or Rogue)
CON: n/a
INT: AC bonus (Sword Saint and Duelist), initiative bonus (Sword Saint), caster stat (Dark Elementalist, Sage Sorcerer)
WIS: AC bonus (Monk), initiative bonus (Inquisitor), caster stat (Psychokineticist, Empyreal Sorcerer)
CHA: AC bonus (Scaled Fist), Fortitude, Reflex and Will saving throw bonus (Paladin), caster stat (Feyspeaker Druid, Eldritch Scion)
Key takeaways:
1. CON cannot displace the function of any other stat. But on the flip side, no other stat can replace the HP bonus and the Fortitude bonus (CHA for Paladins adds to the latter, it does not replace)
2. The only additional function STR can serve is to add to Persuasion (Intimidate) checks if you take a feat. This is also an additional bonus to CHA, it does not replace CHA bonus to this skill
3. DEX can replace the most important functions of STR, namely melee attack and damage bonuses. The only thing that DEX cannot replace from STR is the ranged damage bonus for composite bows, additonal carrying capacity, and modifier to Athletics.
4. All 3 mental stats can add to AC (but WIS & CHA are mututally exclusive here); but 2 out of 3 are possible, and they all stack with DEX.
5. Two archetypes (Psychokineticst & Empyreal Sorcerer) can use WIS as their casting stat rather than the usual CON & CHA respectively for their class. This allows strong synergy potential with other WIS functions.
6. The Paladin CHA saving throw bonus is huge, as it adds the bonus to all saving throws (which normally would be across 3 different stats!) and is cumulative with the bonuses those stats already give. And since CHA can also add AC and is a caster stat for one of the most powerful base classes (Sorcerer), you have the potential to add huge defensive power to a very powerful offensive class.
7. Going back to STR again: this is the only stat whose most important functions can be fully replaced by another stat (DEX). In all other cases where a stat adds a bonus normally provided by a different stat, the bonuses are cumulative rather than substitutional.
CON: you lose 3 Caster levels. You also lose the ability to cast spells in armor unless you take arcane armor but as a ranged combatant you probably pump up your dex and you have plenty of defensive spells so it is not a problem.
I think I will try that to add a little versatility to the spellbook( like sense vitals, wind arrows and more) and be able to surpass the lvl 6 spell limit of the magi. It is ok if you are a scion or a magus, fighting in melee, but from range the usual magus spellbook it is a bit lacking.
Eldritch Archer 2
Eldritch Knight 10 (9 caster levels)
Wizard: 8
You've also found a build that can make good use of Eldritch Knight!
So I´ve got a strongheaded wizard that trained body and mind and mastered the shooting arts to be able to imbue his arrows with his spells and became one of the fabled Eldrich knights (an elf for sure. Possibly a Thranxxilian Wrath mage)
...Or a nerdy mage obsessed with the study of the body that uses both spells and trinkets to overcome their foes, as an arcane trickster (Maybe a gnome, altough are better races for it. And a Scroll mage or a bomber mage due to her background).
I already played an arcane trickster, I think I will respec to Eldrich knight.
Yes! Fiery body and greater shout for the endgame
In fairness, you still need both dex and str in your marksmen, one to hit, the other for damage; but as you said; you can safely swap str for dex in all other cases (you can even use touch spells and combat maneuvers with dex if you have weapon finesse and agile maneuvers ).
ED: They nerfed this in Pathfinder 2.e to make it a static bonus, not acumulative in the paladins(champions) makeover. People do not like it much, but to be fair the save bonuses you can pile with a paladin-dragon monk, sorcerer or feyspeaker or using imbue grace spell are crazy, because it stacks with everything
You missed one stat change though, one of the Monk archetypes (Sensei IIRC) have "insightful strike" I think it's called. It makes WIS go to AB as well as AC (the latter ofc same as regular Monk). I tried one when the game was new and haven't touched it since, but I think you still need unarmed DEX to Dmg feat to make the char depend on only two stats, and pump only one. So have a decent DEX and focus on maximizing WIS should give a good AC from two stats, damage from DEX and AB from WIS. I tried to create an old favorite of mine, the Monk/Druid, but ended up cancelling that run and restart.
But anyways, powergaming is still fun even if it's a waste, so my idea came from trying to find a combo of FoB, dual wielding and the divine level 4 spell that also adds another full BAB attack (forgot its name now).
Probably this means going DEX and WIS with a combo of Monk, Cleric and maybe rogue level 3. Or just go down the onehanded route, since unarmed is considered onehanded. I have Warpriest from a mod, IIRC, and it has a "monk" archetype called sacred fist. Could potentially be the perfect combo with regular monk. Should net you 3 attacks at full BAB + whatever else your BAB or dualwield allows. If you use all those juicy personal buffs from the cleric it could probably offset the fact you have fairly low BAB. I think warpriest (or perhaps Inquisitor?) is 2/3 BAB but an Ecclestheurge could perhaps be a cool RP choice considering they go naked (no armor). Like some kind of "martyr" class.
Maybe I'll try it out for fun when I get home. Probably some Assimar race that gets WIS and DEX, if there's one (musetouched, from memory?).
Another build my brain conjured up was to maximize DR by combining barbarian with stalwart defender. In my head, without checking for real, I think 20 DR is possible by combining the classes and using Adamantine armor (ie the Assassin chain shirt or whatever else might be found later in the game) since it's a light armor for the barbarian class. Also there's a Falcata that counts as +4 when you're raging, the decapitator, which could be cool for this class. There might be some shield that adds DR as well, haven't found anyone so far though, so perhaps go down that route either with or without dualwield and shield bash.
So a Monk with FOB = 2 APR at max BAB. Level 11 adds another APR at max BAB. Sai adds 2 more, so that's 5 APR at max BAB off the bat, plus additional attacks at lower BAB.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vSUpOZwVpOeNUjcUEWSPrXKyx-j6A4o1BHQD2c5THLenTet7141EOlFxbFH65C2TjBOXmXd7IcbXsk1/pubhtml#
The "graveyard of giants" bastard sword that Amiri can use is also furious.
Later on, in Pitax you can get +4/+5 weapons(no circumstance bonus), making those obsolete.
ÈD: Even though they could use the same fists amulets and the WIS ac of the monks works shapeshifted; animals´ weapons are considered natural weapons, dragon claws and bite weapons too; not unarmed. But the shapeshifting forms are also not that useful until you get the elemental and dragon. I like the spell and dragon breath of the latter.
Druids in general are not well-liked in this game partly because most of their spells are CC with a very large radious, and you have to wait a lot till auto-dispel before go on. There is a mod that allows you to dispel any area concentration spell you casted, as in PnP; so it makes it less time-consuming.
Regarding the Monk/druid it's for RP reasons and doesn't use shapeshifting (which I hate). The druid is primarly for buffing and I used it in NVN2 adding many, many D6's of damage from Druid without leveling the monk as much. But wiht Kaedrin's pack they had the sacred fist (monk/Dive prestige class) that was truly awesome.
Anywas, so I played around a little about APR and found that the game seem to limit you to 10 APR just as in BG. I tried a few different combos and realized it's probably better to go one handed for a build like this since so many APRs will otherwise be wasted. With greater dual wielding and Speed weapons + FoB2 + the level 4 priest spell etc you hit the roof rather soon. Already at level 11 the guy had like 8 APR and at 18 he has around 12 APR, but maxes out at 7 APR on main hand and 3 on off hand. The added damage is low since I didn't focus so much on that with this trial build. It's probably better to skip monk level 11 FoB2 and go for more levels in Warpriest Cult leader for sneak attacks and higher BAB or skip Monk FoB and use Sensai instead for WIS to BAB. I dunno, but it was fun to try and it was fun to see the game trying to squeeze in the number of attacks in the GUI, haha
Just for fun I added shield bash in this build so the char can switch to that if the need occurs. It's not optimized at all w/r to feat selection. I did skip out on Warpriest at first since it needs 10 levels to reach level 4 spells, but now that I know FoB2 from Monk11 is unnecessery, it's or probably the better option if a party friend cast haste. Also, with meta knowledge about Agile and Speed weapons, it would of course be better. I just chose Sai since I had one in the inventory and since @Jaheiras_Witness said there was one that added 2 APR. If that's true, you can skip improved and greater dual wield and just use that Sai in the offhand.
Btw, with this many APR at full attack I guess Piranha strike can be used to add damage. The guy has regular mid-game items, ie +4 stat belts and +2/3 weapons etc, so it's far from end-game quality. The offhand kama is a speed weapon though, so his base is 3 off hand attacks. The 4:th disappears when the 7:th appear in the main hand, which may not be optimal if the 3´third attack in off hand has less BAB penalty. But the game crashed while alt-tabbed, so cba to check it now
1 - Icy prison - Can literally trivialize fights and at high level, few creatures has high STR to succeed on breaking the ice. The combo Icy prison, mass + deadly earth can turn some of the hardest encounters into an cakewalk. I an not sure, but believe that is possible to make the STR check DC = 40(mine DC was just 35), meaning that even deities will mostly fail on the STR check...
2 - Finger of Death - Sure, is not amazing as on 3.5e/nwn, but FoD can deal ludicrous amount of damage, mainly considering how common feyfolk(low fort save) is in the game
3 - Form of The Dragon 3
- 12d8 damage is more than an cone of cold(10d6 max) and you can do it a lot( the text says that there are a d4 recharge time, but i never needed to wait an recharge)
- Your HP becomes much bigger due +8 CON, is like getting 4*CL temp HP for a pure sorcerer
- Your encumbrance limit raises a lot. Are you carrying too much? Just use this spell
- The immunity. Are you fighting an enemy who deals fire damage? Assume gold dragon form
- Lasts an eternity. 1 min / CL.
- On PnP it gives also 120 feet (poor), on PF:KM only allows you to ignore difficulty terrain and not give this massive speed boost.
- Frightful presence. An permanent AOE mind affecting spell effect. Combined with soul eaters to lower enemy WILL save, this spell can be extremely dangerous.
And the cool factor. Some screens4 - Caustic Eruption
AOE high DAMAGE acid spell. Acid is one of the last resisted effects and the best part. It ignores Spell Resistance. With metamagic it can become much better
5 - Boneshaker 3d6 + d6 / 2CL is an amazing damage for a lv 2 spell. And not require an ranged touch attack.
6 - Boneshatter, another amazing low level spell that can deal a lot of damage(15d6 at CL = 15) and make the enemy exhausted/fatigued. With metamagic, it can deal consistent 130 damage / round
I was going to say Greater shout, Weird, Sirocco, delay poison or Fiery body, but I do not think they are exactly underrated.
-Bestow grace: Instant paladin´s save bonus for a party member. And as I said before, paladin holy bonus stacks with almost everything (cloak/ring, heroism, prayer)
-Greater angelic aspect: and their counterparts. Now that you can examine the enemies´alignment, spells that give you DR vs alignment and protections vs alignment are very useful. But this one takes the cake with all the resistances it gives you with only one spell ( DR 10/cold, 10/acid, 5/evil. +2 AC (deflection), +2 saves (resistance) against attacks from evil. Wielded weapon is good-aligned) Also it last 1 min/level.
-Bestow curse, mind fog, cloudkill: because there are not many spells that reduce significantly the enemies saves. And you know how frustrating it is when your spell goes to waste. Most debuffs require several saving throws (I do not know why spells that allow several saves are so valued, like vinetrap or chain of light or most of the compulsions). Bestow curse also reduces skills so works well with pits.
This spell also piles with other debuffs like prayer, dazzling display, etc.
-All the new pit spells: Just remember that there is no fly in P:K, so nothing is immune to them.
And those spells target stats or skills. The most problematic caster enemies just go away for the rest of the fight and probably are also killed. Fighting Tartuccio? When? Why?
-Dragon shout: I only include this for classes that cannot change spells like the wizards can, because you have a one-stop-shop of a spell with all shapes and sizes and all elemental types of damage.
-Shield: Because it is the only way (besides a ring) that you can have a shield armor bonus besides a shield. Just use an alchemist with salve discovery to put shield in all your marksmen, monks and two-handers.
-Vampiric touch/vampiric shield: Damages enemies, extra hp for you. Touch spell. Magus must-have.
-Burst of Glory and greater False life: Extra hp points. There are enemies that simply are going to hit you and this helps to keep your low-dice squishies alive. An alchemist with infusion discovery can use Greater False life in the entire party.
-Reduce person: +1AC, +1hit, +2dex. -2 str and long duration. LVL 1 spell. Very good for casters and classes that do not rely in strength.
-See invisibility (communal) and glitterdust: Do you know why those enemies keep appearing beside you ninja-style and start a fight? Because you are not using this spell. Very long duration.
-Ray of enfeeblement: You lose strength, even if save. Spell level 1 so you can easily quicken it. Just put an icy prison after it and go make yourself a coffee until the enemy dies.
Only a footnote to declare my undying love for the alchemists and infusion. They can put buffs that are usually personal-use-only ( shield, expeditious retreat, greater false life, etc) in the entire party, drink a mutagen and then start throwing bombs non-stop because those do not use spell slots.
Yep, i confunded sirroco with another spell...
I am eager to see what the guys of Solasta are going to do. The demo was promising.
There's also an excellent crafting mod which I have used that unlocks feats you take. Once taken the drawback is you have to craft via the mod console rather than in-game, so it takes a little out of the immersion part. But the good part is that it takes time! I upgraded a kama I had to add the Speed mod just to try it and it took Linzi 21 in-game days to complete the transformation. IIRC it removed the Keen ability, maybe they were mutually exclusive or something I dunno. Point is, now that I've tried this Mod I can finally have the freedom to pick a weapon category at low level and be able to run with it without having the meta knowledge about all the unique's that are in the game. Very good for a person suffering from restartitis as I do. I particularly am keen on finding fun ways of ie using reach weapons with AoO's etc.
Also small quality of life mods such as SkipIntro really do make a difference for me.