Maybe the Hunter Class?
That could work. It seems like hunters are almost the same as rangers only they are spontaneous casters and can get up to 6 level spells rather than 4th limited to by rangers. So that is 4 of 6 party members with pets (main will be azata demon hunter (ranger subclass). I guess that is good enough. I want to keep woljif as he is mostly because he is my thief, sneak attacker, trap and locked chests guy. Nenio main nuker, MAYBE ill give her another go as an illusionist proper although Id rather turn her into an evoker, but she is locked in to her class choice, although I could replace her with something else, I am not sure who though. It might be interesting to do a mostly martial play through where as any magic is mostly healing or buffs.
Iāve somehow had success with no main intelligence caster. Myself as bloodrager, Wenduag as archer, Sosiel as tank, Woljiff has damage dealer and support caster, Greybor has pure damage dealer, and then there is Daeran as my primary healer and buffer. However, maybe starting at level 12 or so, Daeran started accumulating those specialty accessories that give spontaneous casters high level spells. Heās wearing ice ring, fire ring, and the lightning gauntlets you get in the Steampunk Dungeon. Then I started picking up his spell resistance feats and focused on electricity which helps him bypass the resistance for that - and heās turned into a fairly talented mage when he isnāt required to heal. Can throw out level 8 and 9 elemental spells and do decent damage through level 18 so far.
Daerun and Wenduag are my other people who hang back while the other 4 wail on the monsters with a load of cooperation feats. Wenduag, Woljiff and Greybor all have sneak attacks. Only 1 pet (Wenduag), because I donāt like managing a small army through tight corridors. The only member of my team who canāt lay out decent damage is Sosiel, but heās a walking boulder. I could probably toss him honestly at this point, because my main bloodrager can tank reasonably well with his demon abilities, and Woljiff/Greybor have some survivability while buffed out the wazoo.
What difficulty?
Honestly I started Wrath of the Righteous on normal due to my inexperience with Pathfinder, I stepped it up to Daring towards the middle/late Act 3 as I was getting more comfortable, and then pumped it up to Core during Act 4 when the battles were getting too easy. I still keep Deaths Door though, because I donāt want to bother save/loading if someone catching a bad critical hit and explodes.
Iām somewhere in Act 5 now and the only battles I havenāt been able to complete was the Demon/Summoner fight towards the very end of Drezen, and Playful Darkness in Act 4. Oh, I struggled quite a bit on a named succubus fight under Drezen as well. She used that āoverwhelming powerā ability that knocked most of my melee on their asses turn after turn. That did take quite a few reloads and it came down to a 1v1 battle with my main. I also havenāt had to play in turn based mode since halfway through Act 3 too. The damage output of my melee squad is that it tends to trivialize the need for strategic spell usage.
You need five. Six if you want Areelu to ascend with you.
Purple Dagger from intro
Baphomet
Deskari
Nocticula if Demon or Trickster
Areshkagal if not Demon or Trickster
Baphomet & Deskari again
In the case of Deskari and Nocticula you need to loot it before combat ends. This can be difficult as Deskari may be standing over the crystal. (Thatās a reload.)
This information is not particularly useful, though. The entire process is very long and convoluted and you pretty much need to follow a guide. My favorite part is the thing that tells you you need to go to Threshold at a certain time of year is currently bugged and is not revealed to the player. It was only gleaned through data mining.
Yeah I found a slightly more detailed guide after a fair amount of googling. Its totally not worth the effort.
I also looked at the DLC road map and its nothing to be excited about. Waiting for another playthrough for more DLC which doesnāt integrate directly with the main campaign isnāt exciting. There appears to be an endless dungeon mode (not exactly sure), but thatās the final DLC on the season pass and god knows how long it will be until that mode is out.
So I managed to kill Daeran. My latest build was having sexy time with him, we wake up the next morning, heās in the bed at the Drezen keep with just undies on, and there were some dialogue choices about last nightās dream. Me being a lawful neutral/good monk, clicked the lawful convo option that forced the convo down a dark path. Next thing I know Iām in some dream state fighting Daeranās other. I buff up, it hits me with greater dispel, and then covers itself in cloudkill spells. I re-buff, it debuffs. I say fuck it, engage in combat, two rounds and 16 attacks later I realize I canāt hit without a 20 and decide to exit the scene. I reappear in my bedroom to the sound of a splat and a still undressed Daeran lying face down next to the bed in a small pool of blood. Naturally I loot his body, and my version of the story is that I simply f(cked him into an early grave. At least thatās what the other companions are going to be told.
So while thereās still Sosiel to use as a party healer, Iām not 100% I donāt want to reload. Iām sitting here kind of torn on whether or not to proceed and let this play out organically.
Hit level 10 and not sure how to proceed with this build to continue maximizing his claw/bite attack approach. His 9 levels currently consist of:
1 scaled fist monk
1 disfigured witch
2 vivisectionist
1 oracle
4 dragon disciple
Another level in vivisectionist is tempting for the next rank in stealth attack dmg, but other than that Iām not sure how to continue building this guy.
Eldritch Knight.
I wish there was a good source of info on the game. Between an incomplete wiki that I donāt trust and random changes from the base rules (whether bugs or intentional changes) I come up with ideas.
How much natural armor can you get?
Witch with lizard plus iceplant and the ring +5
Primalist with Serpentine and mythically a Dragon bloodlines +4/+5 (Iāve forgotten but it is either +4 or +5 for each bloodline)
Barkskin +5
If you add in Beast Totem you can get +4 or +5 more (depending on if you dip a couple of levels).
Do all of these stack? I might have to check when I get home.
Most of them do.
Barkskin is enhancement, but the rest are just flat Natural Armor, so they should all stack.
The Bloodlines are the only ones that I could see not doing it, but Iām betting they do.
I think Iāll go with the Slayer subclass of Deliverer for 10 levels. Took another level in scaled fist for dodge and evasion at 10th over the vivisectionist.
That is what I thought.
Iām not sure that Rowdy 2 / Stigmatized Witch 1 / Primalist 17 is an actually good build but it looks like it might be fun. Decent AC without any monk levels plus mythic vital strike with a little bonus from Rowdy. Or perhaps drop the Rowdy levels and go with Pummelling Bully instead to cause trips (feat intensive though). Of bow to the meta, drop Rowdy and take a Scaled Fist level and go the Mage Armor route. Itās more effective but sort of like the idea of a character without a Monk splash.
Has anyone played the Swarm That Walks? Any advice while playing it? I got to swarm rank 1, but decided to respec and apparently it erased my swarm rank. The battles are super tough, luckily my main was a wizard and it was just summon a bunch of shit and hope to not be targeted. It seems like invisibility is somewhat pointless because monsters tend to ignore it.
Also for the infest power which does a lot of damage to a single target, can multiple things be infested at once?
Hmmm, now leaning back to Primalist for those last 10 levels. Beast Totem, Rage bonuses to combat and AC, the pounce feat, etc, plus good BAB. And since itās a sorcerer-hybrid class, it benefits from the already high CHA of my current build.
Well, thatās a 2nd companion dead. Ended up going with Deliverer, Bloodragerās rage only works with melee weapons. Almost 12th level, decided to tackle the dragon. Got lots of Greater Heroism spells ready this time.
What? Are you doing Ironman or something?
I have ended my Swarm That Walks playthrough. I decided that The Swarm that walks is both crappy and boring.
Some basic complaints:
You loose the ability to town portal. For some reason, all your teleportation circles disappear as well as all the forts. You canāt teleport back to Drezen or any other fort like you used to be able to.
While you do not need to rest and can travel indefinitely, when you do, for some reason that even if you make your wards roll on camping, you still get almost a full tier of corruption. With my party before, you could camp 3, maybe 4 times before hitting tier 1 corruption. Now its 1 rest only per tier IF you make your roll.
The army battles were super dull. All your normal generals go away and you get 1, level 15 swarm general who totally sucks. No offensive magic, no healing. They also are locked to level 15 and never gain xp. The battles themselves are also just dull as hell.
I am not sure what character archetype is meant to play the swarm that walks, but I am pretty sure you will need a caster who can cast a large amount of buffs and/or uses scrolls to make up for things like healing or restoration of stats. I played a wizard type which was fine.
The swarm powers while nice on paper, are not all that effective. I got to swarm rank 2 and with that I had an AOE that did like 6d6 around in a 50 foot radius for free, or one that did 10d6 around to a single target, or a buff to my armor that pushed my AC to 54. The first two are far too slow to kill a group of mobs other than trash mobs. The latter, well AC 54 might sound good, but its worthless against the bigger mobs that have like 6 attacks around but hit like a truck when they do hit. It does take several rounds for them to wear you down, but they will eventually and usually there is more than one of them.
I found the blacksmith area impossible, and gave up after like 6 tries. I had put the crusade on automatic and the only adventuring area for me was the city of Iz. The other areas were blocked by forts and I didnāt know what to do to unlock them. I presumed I needed to finish story stuff to do that. I had no access to crusade stuff so I couldnāt just skip days anymore.
With my wizard I could burn down groups of mobs and survive OK, but then I would be out of spells after a few encounters and then the killer corruption would set in. It wasnāt fun and I just gave up.
The whole swarm thing just wasnāt fun and I do not think very well thought out. It was also bugged a bit, because some npcs showed up at certain points in the castle and I had choices that supposedly gave me some extra powers, like to summon creeping doom or spit poison. After making such choices, I never got those powers or spells added to my spell book.