Pathfinder: Kingmaker

Octavia became a solid permanent fixture in my game. When equipped with a maximise spell rod item, and the feats built around enhancing damage dealing spells, like evocation spell specialisation,and ranged spell hit chance feats, she utterly kicks ass later in the game. Maximised fire ball spells and their variants make things much easier, just keep her equipped with a bow and out of range and she will be alright. I never used the half orc though. I am the same as you, I find it a real wrench to drop staring companions for other after a few hours. I never used jaethal myself though, I got Linzi, Amiri and Valerie as my staring group, and I eventually made a druid mercenary to add to the group, for another animal companion slot.
 
Well, maybe I need to give her more of a chance. I guess you do normally need a mage type in this type of game and my MC is a front-line debuffer/tank/DPS combination and so can't fill that role.

I like Amiri so far, good damage output and every party has to have a sterotpyically gruff and stroppy barbarian around or else it's not an RPG. Them's the rules. :) Also I made her a beastmaster so she now has a smilodon, which is cool.
Val is a good second tank so I guess she'll stay since Amiri goes down too easily for off-tanking duties.
Linzi gets a spot as the bard and general annoying munchkin.
I need a proper healer to replace Jaethal, and I think I know where that character comes in.
So I guess the last spot does need to be a nuker AoE backline slinger of some sort ideally. It sounds from the above like Octavia develops well into that role. I don't know if there are better alternatives or not so I will keep an open mind on that.

Can't wait to have time to fire it up again...
 
There is a Ranger to pick up at some point who has an animal companion. I always use him as a ranged option and his pet as front line with Valerie with her obscene AC. Harrim, Nok-Nok and Octavia make up the others in my party.
A friend of mine was playing as summoner and he made a couple of extras with animal companions. I think he said his party was between 9 and 15 characters for most of it so he had a ridiculous amount of damage dealers.
 
Hmm. Can pets actually tank okay? I haven't really tried with Amiri's pet yet, as I tend to send it in around the back of whoever I'm tanking or use it to tie down a mage or archer.

That would open up new options if it's viable.
 
Just remembered another very useful mod I used. Highlight learnable scrolls mod. This makes any scrolls your selected character does not know highligt in green, like in Baldurs Gate, which was pretty essential I found. Be aware it overrides the red shading for scrolls the char cannot use due to spell schools etc, but as long as you keep that in mind it is very useful.
 
Pets have different abilities, anything that can disrupt an attack is worth having imo. The flanking bonus alone is worth having and if the pet can trip the opponent, then its easier to hit in melee.
I guess its easier for those that have played the pen and paper version as they have a good idea of what works wells and how to take advantage of that.
 
strumpusplunket said:
Hmm. Can pets actually tank okay? I haven't really tried with Amiri's pet yet, as I tend to send it in around the back of whoever I'm tanking or use it to tie down a mage or archer.

That would open up new options if it's viable.
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My main character is a Ranger, and his pet is a beast at dealing damage and tanking. But ... I'm not multi-classing, and I have the animal bond feat which boosts the stats/level of the pet. If you multi-class then your pet will be weaker.
 
Frubeling said:
I think one of the things I'm struggling most with is how the HELL do you keep enemies on your tank.
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There is no taunt mechanism in the game, so your best bet is to rush your tank in well ahead of the rest of your party to gather aggro. But some monster types are still programmed to cause havoc by attacking your rear lines ie. casters.
 
xaldub said:
There is no taunt mechanism in the game, so your best bet is to rush your tank in well ahead of the rest of your party to gather aggro. But some monster types are still programmed to cause havoc by attacking your rear lines ie. casters.
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Which makes a lot of sense really, I mean realistically speaking, if I am in a fight and I can see that one guy is a healer, I'm not going to waste my time meleeing away at a heavily armed warrior, I'm going to go straight for that healer. Sort of like how in war, snipers tend to target officers and key personnel rather than just blasting away at grunts all the time

Never really been a fan of the taunt mechanic in games, makes no sense to me
 
So I hit lvl4 and picked up the cleric I was expecting to find last night, so now I have some proper healing - but boy is he squishy!

With Amiri being a sword magnet and now two backline party members made of glass (one with only 18 HP still), it's taking a fair bit more party management. Still, having some damaging magic and decent healing is making them feel more well-rounded as group.

Having to make good use of map bottlenecks to manage some fights to keep my backline out of harm's way, and moved my MC and the smilodon in front of Amiri. Though that can leave her jogging aimlessly behind the front-line unable to get hits in at times. I may need to try turn-based mode for some fights to see if it helps to manage positioning.

Great game so far IMO.
 
chroniclard said:
Going to have to install some mods, the resting/fatigue is tedious/super annoying.
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It does seem to require an awful lot of resting!

It's been kind of bothering me too. I've ended up leaving it until every member is exhausted and can no longer move properly before resting, which makes it a bit more manageable, and the random encounters you get moving around the map are easy enough for the resultant debuff not to matter too much.

I can see what they were going for - after all, if you trek across tricky terrain for 10-12 hours or so with a full pack of gear you're going to need to rest. But it seems like one of those instances where applying this kind of realism has disproportionately negative gameplay drawbacks.

If I rested every time someone (ahem, Octavia) complained about fatigue I'd never get anything done!

I think the impact and speed of fatigue should really have been one of the settings options in the difficulty menu. They have a really good range of options in there, so it seems a bit odd that this one isn't there.
 
I hated the resting mechanic at first but I just started ignoring it until they were unable to move, then I rested.

The resting mechanic will screw you over when trying to do certain things within a time limit. What's that, you need to be on the other side of the map within this many hours and you just finished using all your spells? Too bad! lol, can be avoided if planned correctly though. I quick save an awful lot in this game.
 
I'm currently a bit stuck deciding on weapons to specialise in. As a dex built scion I've been using whatever I find so far, but I need to take a focus soon and get something that uses dex to hit. Rapier looks like it might be a good selection, but there are so many feats and no one in any of the discussions I've read seems able to agree on which is the best option.

Think I'm coming to the end of chapter one. Just about 200xp from lvl 5. Does that sound about the right level to go into what looks like it will be the big chapter showdown?
 
I've not played a Scion so not sure what is included. Looks to be an arcane fighter from what I can tell.
Do you have Weapon Finesse as feat? If not, take it as it will use your DEX to improve your hit and damage chances.

As you control a group of heroes, its always worth looking at teamwork based feats. these rely on 2 characters having the same teamwork feat so they both get the benefit in combat. Team 2 of them up to always attack the same enemy for max benefit, works best with frontline fighters.
 
Yeah, kind of a front-line buffer/debuffer type who can be made tanky or more spiky with different spells and abilities, I think. I always like this type of class unless it's a game where you can spec a really awesome pure magic user.

I know I took weapon finesse at one level up, but I am not clear on which weapons it applies to. I've had a look around, and some of the accounts of it are unclear too. I think it's working with my agile pick at the moment, but I don't know how it will work with different weapons.

I'm not sure I got any teamwork feats yet. Though I may just have not been paying attention. I just got back to the trading post with the respec guy so I may do some respeccing and reloading to experiment with different options this evening.
 
Any weapon that is Agile or Light can be used with Weapon Finesse. Check the descriptions.
Its a mainstay for Rogues as they tend to use Daggers (Knife Master archetype), Rapiers and Short Swords.

There is a really good mod for creating magic items but I can't remember the name (its on PC) . Its a little limited compared to the actual RPG but its a good way to make new armour, weapons and other stuff for your party but it follows the rules closely in regards to cost, time and difficulty checks (my main magic user creates most of mine).
 
Yeah, where I am unclear is whether it uses dex for to-hit or damage, or both? And then there's slashing grace - does that use dex for to-hit or just damage? I've seen both answers suggested.

Maybe I should just have gone str instead. It would have been simpler...
 
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