Anything that gives you Sneak Attack is good. Any class that has Animal Companions is good. Pre-planning and using most Teamwork skills is good. In fact you can go Frankenclass and make a pretty disgusting Dragon Disciple. Your real limiting factor is your feats, these should be considered your most valuable resource. This is why I don’t particularly think cleaving is all that great but YMMV.
A little tip for those who are just coming to the game. If you purchased the DLC’s there is a point where you inject another character into your main game (Spoiler: @ the beginning of Act 3). It is a good idea to stop sometime before that and make this character and play through it’s story beats as it relates to the main game. This is nice because you get to play a new character between 3-9 with 3 custom built companions that you make. There are 2 other NPC teammates however you should create a balanced party between the 4 as if they were not in the party.
The story is actually good and there are a number of fun fights and puzzle-ish activities. The main driving reward for this is having access to a vendor with a number of good items that you may want later in your main game. I would estimate 5-9 hours of additional game play are added with it depending on how you play.
I can’t believe I never thought of this - I have always bashed my face into the screen with her as a Barbarian, and they aren’t a super interesting class, even at high levels, it turns out. I’ll take this advice next time with her. One level of Barbarian for a little Rage is cool, but I’ll sink the rest into 2H Fighter.
You forgot a single level of Vivisectionist! Unique Strength bonus that stacks and some Sneak Attack. GO BIG OR GO HOME!
Yeah, I had started down the Slayer path with her and have liked it better than plain Barbarian. I might have to try her out as Fighter instead.
Oh, that sounds hot, I love it.
Might be chucking her for Regongar or conceivably Jaethal after this dungeon anyway though.
Both Regongar and Jaethal can be made into monsters. I would say Regonar in particular gets a lot from Turn-based mode and scything away with Jaethal is all good. :)
I discovered something I only knew subconsciously about myself yesterday when I was looking at builds for the NPC’s linked earlier - I think it’s super dumb to have more than two classes. I just don’t like it. It’s the kind of munchkin gaming that drives me crazy, and it’s easily the worst thing about Pathfinder Kingmaker and trying to play on Core or higher difficulties - if you don’t min/max the shit out of your party and you leave even a single +1 attack or a point of AC on the table you’re doomed. Drives me crazy.
I think that’s why I prefer Pillars of Eternity 2’s character system - you are one class or a blend of two classes that created a third, versatile class but you are never anything other than one of those two states.No “I’ll grab a level of this and 3 levels of that to get to this crazy bonus with my main 7 levels of X”. No thanks.
Not to diminish your excellent suggestion, it just reminded me I just don’t want to deal with that stuff. “Oh, you’re missing out on a unique bonus to STR by not taking a level in this obscure class you’ve never heard of!” is just about my kryptonite, I think.
Sounds more like you are applying your munchinism as critique on your own character building subconsciously. There are pros and cons to removing a level that can potentially cost you a feat or ability that really makes a class so much better than having +2 Att and +1d6 sneak (Like for example, 2H Fighter). So it’s all in how crunchy you want to get with the mechanics.
I personally learned to push that way because I would end up like Krazykrok with decision paralysis and never get far in the game because I was too afraid to make an optimal decision. Perhaps because I don’t play games for any professional reason I was able to drop that.
I will say that you can play the hardest difficulty with all characters straight class as they came with you whatever you want. Even moreso now that with Turn-based mode. So don’t apply what other gamers have said regarding “need”, as with most things, gamers and guide makers are full of shit.
Edit: I will say that it’s vastly easier to feel okay with your choices when there is an option to Respec. So there is always that.
NI1
1929
I reduce the number of build options I consider by always having casters as single class (unless the new class allows them to continue to improve their spellcasting, like e.g. arcane trickster). Getting access to new spells is often such a power increase that delaying it by taking a level in a different class isn’t worth it to me. And quite a few of the NPCs are spell casters, which simplifies things :)
A lot of this was due to information overload, as in “what in the living heck am I supposed to do with these eleventy billion options with zero guidance in-game”. I appreciate that’s “the system” but some hand-holding at this stage (by the game) would have helped. Fortunately I have you lot of super awesome peeps. :) If I were to replay I’d have a much better idea now, and probably experiment more.
Hit a nasty trap last night which I should have seen coming. Oh look, a free night’s camping! I’m sure all these dead bodies lying around are completely unrelated!
I’ve cheesed the game a lot with this. So many classes give you an animal companion option that I’m typically rolling with at least 3 in my party.
Anyone have a link to this uber slayer build? I found this one, any thoughts?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQZmCXOLmI4
Not anything I got from a guide, but it’s a pretty obvious one.
- Human. STR 20, DEX 16, CON 12, INT 8, WIS 10, CHA 8
- Base Slayer class
- Skills, I guess. Athletics/Mobility/Stealth for me seemed the obvious choices.
- Pick up dual wielding talents
- Murder everything
I don’t remember what order I picked talents in, but as displayed on my character sheet at level 4 (this may be the actual order):
Iron Will
Two-Weapon Fighting
Double Slice
Accomplished Sneak Attacker
Outflank (this doesn’t even do anything yet until I get it on the other melees)
Hah, the Chaotic Evil town square, complete with guards dressed as thugs.
Haha! I remember that fondly from my first attempt at the game, and was one of the turning points when I realized I wasn’t going to be able to handle continuing the way I was playing. I mean, it took me hours into the game before I realized that you could eat rations while camping. Doh.
Gendal
1936
Can someone explain to me why the royal gift has a critical range of 17 as expected on the sword and while wielded, but the arcane enforcer has 15 on my character? Is this just a bug? It actually crits on 15, I tested it out.
Royal Gift
Arcane Enforcer
ZeTh1
1937
It could be bugged because the 1d6 part of the damage rolles separately, unlike, say, flaming weapons. Which could mean 2x chance to crit, so 16-20 range. How it gets to 15, I don’t know. It has weird interactions with spells and sneak attack too.
ShivaX
1938
If you have Improved Critical it doesn’t stack with Keen, but for whatever reason Arcane Enforcer isn’t Keen, it just has a Crit Range of 18-20, so Improved Critical doubles that to 15-20.
(this is my best guess, if you don’t have Imp Crit, I have no idea)
It’s clearly the shield that is different from one picture to the other. It’s probably one of those +3 Crit Range shields.
Gendal
1940
Thanks all for the responses.
That kinda makes sense, and I do have improved critical for dueling swords. I can’t follow the math (2 x 2 != 5) but it’s the most plausible. It’s not the shields, I don’t have anything like that and nothing changes with or without them.
