It would depend on what difficulty you are putting it at. At normal I think you can go with pretty much anything and stay in class and be reasonably powerful in a group.
There is only one class I’ve looked at that is just bad and that is the Wizard subclass Scroll Savant. They didn’t include the feats/scrolls necessary for you to feel like anything other than a gimped wizard.
If you are playing Evil, in alignment your companions are Inquisitor, Cleric, Rogue, Magus. You can, of course, use others and I’m not sure how many evil decisions/specifics that are required before the Good companions leave you. You might be able to navigate it so you can use any good companion you want.
I’ve had my eye on the druid (I think neutral or chaotic good rp would fit me well) but I vaguely remember reading upthread that they have some BAB issues? I’d likely go shapeshifter fwiw. And play on Normal because this game really doesn’t hold any punches.
Thanks everyone for ideas.
Also, are there any good references for quickly getting up to speed on PF combat mechanics? So far it feels like a middle ground between BG2 and PoE, improving on some aspects and lacking others. I’m missing quick disables like fighter’s knockdown from PoE in particular. And I wish the game displayed a little more information, especially for tougher enemy creatures.
Druids have to be some form of Neutral, so Neutral Good if you want to be Good.
BAB is an issue, but druids also pack a metric shitload of buffs they can cast on themselves when shifted, so it’s not that big a deal most of the time. Shifters do tend to fall off at higher levels compared to casters because of the BAB, but it’s not like you can’t still cast all those same spells. Your DCs might be a bit lower, but all your buffs and summons will work just as well as they do for the caster.
You know that you can turn on inspect mode (default keybinding Y) and the mouse over creatures?
This requires a skill check to get good info (which skill varies depending on creature).
If you mouse over entries in the combat log you get tons of info as well. Pretty neat.
Fighter types need certain feats in order to get combat maneuvers. Most of these are gated behind a BAB requirement so you won’t get access to them until the middle levels. But they don’t just include a knockdown (trip, which certain pets get access too) but also disarming and sundering armor.
Apparently they nerfed the endgame on Normal and lower difficulty so it may not even matter if your BAB drops off when taking a druid shapeshifter. This doesn’t matter for Arcane type shapeshifters as they get access to Transformation.
Thanks for the explanation. As for D&D 3.5, I’m not familiar with that either :). I’m already familiar with some combat mechanics like flanking or sneak attacks, but stuff like spells being able to sneak attack is completely foreign to me, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen such a mechanic in an rpg before.
Now I’m not sure if I used this feature or not. I do know that my Nature Lore checks often failed so I assumed that was the reason why I wasn’t seeing any stats on targets. I’ll give it a try, thanks.
That is good to know, but it’s a pretty long road to get to mid levels, at least during the first run when a player is not familiar with the game.
Yeah there are a lot of ins-and-outs in the system. The sneak attack on ranged touch spells is one of those odder things, but most of it is fairly clear cut if you know the mechanics. The upside is that Pathfinder as a system has millions of things online if you Google up anything you aren’t sure about and for the most part the game translates the system accurately (though there are exceptions where they do it differently, like for flanking).
Which, as a reminder, flanking only requires 2 people to be attacking the same target, so sneak attack is stupid powerful as is the Teamwork feat that adds to flanking bonuses (or anything else that does since most melee are permanently flanking).
Also get the Feat that lets you cast spells while shapeshifted as soon as you can (I think you can get it at level 4, but it might be 5). Once you have that you can basically be a wolf or bear or whatever all the time and still cast spells. You only really need to shift back to rest or equip new gear.
Thanks, I’ll try that as soon as I roll a druid, for now I’m sticking with paladin. I got a feeling that I’ll really miss high persuasion on druid though.
In situations where you have your party you use the highest value that your party has. So Knowledge: Nature/Arcane will be high enough to examine in a party situation. As far as persuasion there are a few instances where you are alone and can make checks, but the bulk of them are done with your party or a (Good) (Evil) option outweighs it.
So… it’s almost safe to swim in the Pathfinder pool? I am kind of waiting for that sweet spot moment to arrive as well. I just finished a complete run through of D:OS2, so I’m ready for a new RPG. I pray its not going to be 80 hours long though!
I wondered as well, and posted on the Discourse thread for the game this morning. It sounds like folks are much happier with things, but said to wait a bit anyway. Second DLC drops soon, and then it will probably break something so wait a bit after that even. But that same person said they wrapped up the game and the final chapter was still hard but not broken and unfun, so I have hope. I would like some details on how they changed chapter 6 and 7, for sure, but I haven’t yet taken the time to go looking.
Yeah, for now I’m waiting. I have PoE 2 to play, Divinity Original Sin 2, etc… I can wait until this game is in top shape, I suppose. But I bought it already (with “season pass”, too) to support the devs.
Pathfinder: Kingmaker is a long game. 80 hours in-game seems pretty conservative (baring any bugs causing you to go back on your save or have your kingdom mysteriously explode).
The next 2 expansions are also not a part of the main campaign so unless they decide to add some non-DLC content (like classes/traits/prestige) they won’t really change your experience outside of bugs. There is some hope they will smooth out the kingdom management since they have requested feedback on improving it.
I haven’t completed the game since patch 1.2 but it plays quite a bit smoother and the reduced load time/kingdom qol make that part of the game less annoying.
Ugh, See I was hoping not. DOS2 was about 10 hours too long IMHO, and I love the game. It just wore out its welcome. Think I will stick to POE2 for now anyways and play with the turn based there for another patch or so =)
Thanks lol, but I really should’ve known since I played BG2 in the past.
Another question - how do I maximize a spell? I’ve tried experimenting with the meta magic tab (I have the maximize feat) and tried to maximize some of my spells, but nothing really worked, or the stats at least didn’t change. I tried with Acid Splash which is level 0, and another random level 1 spell, but neither worked.
