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[Stuebi]

So I've started the game as an half-Orc Fighter, with the intent to later on go for Eldritch Knight. Being mostly unfamiliar with DnD before this, I just sort of distributed stats on what "sounded" okay. Now people ahve told me that the game gets pretty nasty later on, and I'm not sure whether I should just reroll. SO a couple questions for those who are more famliar with the game, and maybe DnD:

- As far as stats go, I went with high Con and STR (16-18 for both, I'm at work I'd have to double check), somewhat high CHA since it's a story game and I wanted to pass those conversation checks (14 or some such I think), low Dex, and I think 12 in both WIS and INT. Will this work for an Eldritch Knight?

- How exactly does Multiclassing work here? It says for Eldritch Knight you need a specific proficiency (Which I got from Warrior, I assume), and then be able to cast 3rd Level spells. I looked at the unlocks some of the mage classes get, but could not see any specific unlocks reffering to spell-levels. Is this just tied to your actual level? Also, when are you supposed to actually swap over?

- Finally, how nasty does the game actually get? Some of the Companions are probably a little less decently statted than just buying a few custom ones in the trade post. I'm not sure whether I want to stick to the actual characters fory story purposes, or make my own party.

[Hanzoku]

Eldritch Knight is sort of a weird bird. It's a prestige class for making a wizard/sorcerer more tanky in melee. The problem is, you don't want to (ever) cast spells in melee. Doing so provokes attacks of opportunity. Further, without specific feats (Arcane Armor Training, I think its called), you can't wear armor without having a percentage chance (that goes up with the weight of the armor) that your spell fizzles.

What's your goal for the character? To dive into melee and hit people with swords while occasionally blasting them with magic? You might want to look at the Magus then. Its built a bit more around doing so.

To answer your question - the ability to cast 3rd level spells is based on the class's casting progression. The Sorcerer is a good one to look at since your Charisma is better then your int. In either case (Wizard or Sorcerer), you need to be level 5 in that class to meet the requirement. This means that at level 7, you can enter the Eldritch Knight prestige class. This is consistent for when you can enter most prestige classes.

I've finished through Act I, and I'm taking a break while they come out bug fixes before going further. My experience is that some of the custom companions are workable, others I'm not too fond of.

Valerie - Because the AI actually does lock onto someone and sticks, sending her in first is decent as a 'tank', something that doesn't happen on tabletop. That said, Pathfinder is still a game of rocket tag, and you're far better off killing things fast rather then tanking.

Amari - give her a Greatsword instead of that Large Bastard Sword and let her rage and go to town. I'm sort of wishing I gamed it a bit and took a level of Vivisectionist Alchemist so she could self buff, but pure Barbarian raging works well.

Linzi - I just go straight bard with her. She's a support character, but she's a decent backup healer and her singing makes everyone else do better. With a party of six, you have room for that.

Octavia - Rogue/Wizard, wants to go Arcane Trickster prestige class. I screwed up her build by going Rogue 3/Wizard 2, when I could have gone Rogue 1/Wizard 4 and used a feat to get her sneak attack prerequisite. I'm likely to reroll because I'm not enjoying my Paladin fully, and I'll be building her differently in the future. That said, she's a good skill monkey to have around.

Tristian - He's a cleric 'wizard' in that he stands in the back in his robes, prays nothing tries to hit him, and plinks away with his bow for piddling damage. That said, his spells can really turn around a battle if he lands a Hold Person at a strategic time, and after combat, his Channel Positive Energy to heal up the party is bonkers. Tristian is a better in combat healer because he has the charisma to take a feat 'Selective Channeling' that prevents Channel Postive Energy from also healing the enemy.

Harrim - Another out of combat healer. Heavily armored and can help hold the line. Take Harrim or Tristian, depending on how many bodies you need in melee.

Jaethal - Haven't used her. Not fond of how many fiddly bits Inquisitors get, it makes me feel like you have to focus on micromanaging her. She's also undead, which is a huge problem for healing. She's also Evil, and more towards the Stupid Evil side from what dialogue I've had with her.

Regongar - Chaotic Evil. Half-orc Magus, so he's trying to steal your role. I've read that he's also a micromanagement case, but can be really effective. Doesn't come across as Evil when I've talked to him so far, besides wanting to take bloody vengeance on the people who enslaved him.

[scriver]

I would also recommend Magus. It's an armoured Wizard with middle level fighting abilities, specialising in channelling touch spells through his weapon. Pretty much the closest you can get to a "Fighter who buffs himself with magic before battle then goes into the fray with both steel and magic and also isn't afraid to throw a fireball if need be" guy.

[Biowraith]

Also note that the relevant spellcasting stat (Int for Wizards, Cha for Sorcerer (well, unless you subclass in which case it might be Int or Wis)) affects what level of spell you can cast.  I think the requirement is 10 + spell level, so e.g. 14 Cha would let you cast up to 4th level spells (once you reach the right level in the relevant class, of course).  You'll get a +1 stat every 4(?) levels though, so you can optionally build for that on the way rather than reroll, especially if you already have a decent base Cha.

Hanzoku covered everything else about Eldritch Knighting more succinctly than I would have.

As to difficulty, I've been playing with the Challenging preset except I dialed the enemy strength back down to 'Normal'.  With regards my experience, I'm not super familiar with Pathfinder but I've played plenty of D&D style CRPGs (and some pen & paper).  It was pretty rough in the early levels - random encounters for example were very challenging at times - but since then it's mostly evened out - I'm at either Act 3 or 4, I forget which.  It's still tough, but doable for the most part. 

That said there has been the odd story-encounter here and there that have been somewhat bullshit (a certain Troll + Kobold fight for example) along with some very over-leveled optional encounters (oh hi, trio of enraged owlbears), that leads me to think trial and error through reloading was very much the devs intent with this game - both for figuring out how to win a fight and for figuring out that there's a fight you shouldn't be attempting yet through that doorway/cave entrance/athletics-check-to-pass-bushes.  edit: I don't know to what extent having expertly built minmaxed builds will mitigate those types of encounters though.

[Stuebi]

My goal was a sort of Battlemage setup, where you can fight in melee and then maybe throw a cone of Frost or a Fireball sometimes.

The main shtick here, "Pure Melee" tends to be very boring in RPGs like these, Fighters are usually just clicked onto the enemy once and then you ignore them to micromanage the actual casters. On the opposite side, I don't really like the MC being Glass Canons since you tend to initiate conversations with them, and standing next to something that might then glass you the moment conversation is over can be very frustrating.

Honestly, if you have other recommendations for a fun class that isn't just "Tank'n'Spank" I'd be happy with that too.

[scriver]

Sounds like you want a Magus to me!

[Biowraith]

Yeah, I'm running an Eldritch Scion subclass of Magus and it's working pretty nicely - not quite as tanky as the pure melee companions, but not far off it; higher AC than Amiri, about the same as Valerie, about 25% lower hitpoints than either.  I mostly use the spellcasting to self-buff pre-fight and then to do touch attacks like Shocking Grasp or Vampiric Touch, but I did just unlock Fireball too.

I'm not entirely familiar with Eldritch Knight but my understanding is they'd probably be a bit less tanky than Magus since Magus gets the class features to eliminate arcane spellcasting failure when wearing armour, but I think Eldritch Knight can just take a feat to reduce (rather than eliminate) it?  If I understand the spell progression correctly, the Knight would get the higher level spells a bit faster and I think maybe caps out at higher level spellcasting overall.

You could also consider a Cleric or Inquisitor for classes that can be on the frontline but still have more tricks than just smacking things over the head (I hear the Monster Tactician version of Inquisitor is pretty good, at least early on).  Probably not as blasty as Magus or Eldritch Knight though.

[ndkid]

I have found that I don't want to take Regongar, not because he's cramping my style (he is, a little, but my spell-slinging prefers to not be on the battleline, whereas he wants to get up close and personal) but because given how the AI works in this game, the half-orc stay-up-an-extra-round feat is more of a curse than a blessing. He invariably ends up on death's door when he goes down, because whatever was hitting him hard enough to take him down is going to hit him again before he goes down, and since things only hit harder as you go through the game, that just ends up happening more and more frequently.

[ChairmanPoo]

Bloody hell today's update is taking ages to install

[Majestic7]

All the small bugs are annoying the heck out of me.

1) I upgraded a village to a town, project finished, but I couldn't upgrade any village. So it was wasted and I can't redo it. Fuck. There's only a limited amount of those available.

2) I helped the paladins of Worldwound to recruit, they sent an envoy to thank me eventually and to train my troops. I received no benefit whatsoever, the audience just ended suddenly when I asked him some small talk stuff.

3) Bokken died and disappeared, ending the elixir quest.

4) The dwarf armorsmith never seems to finish fixing his grandpa's armor.

5) Two of my companions are stuck in dialogue, meaning if I talk with them, I get loops of event dialogue.

[Sirian]

So, after multiple restarts to test various classes, I decided to go for a solo run with an Aasimar Eldritch Scion (Arcana bloodline).

At first I did not really understand how to properly play and got very frustrated, but I'm slowly getting the hang of it...my observations so far :

-You have to wait for a few seconds in between each attack/spell, but you can run around all the time. So with a speed buff (expeditious retreat) you can kite, stall and manoeuver around enemies quite a bit.
-Color spray is pretty good to incapacitate weak enemies (except when they resist it).
-The way Eldritch scion works, is that you get to do basically 2-3 attacks per round instead of 1, but with a -2 modifier to your attack rolls. First you need to be in melee range, use a touch spell on the enemy (which will charge the spell on your weapon), and then your character will attack with his weapon. If it connects, both the spell and the weapon will deal damage (though you can use a non-damaging touch spell too). Then you do an extra attack with your weapon. So potentially 3 damage actions in a single turn.
-If you select the touch spell before being in melee range, it seems that you lose the extra attack.
-If you miss the first attack, it seems that the spell effect can still trigger on the extra attack.
-The spell will crit for x2 damage if the triggering attack crits, so it's good to have a weapon with high crit chance (rapier or scimitar).
-The most important stats are Strength (for attack and damage rolls) and Charisma (for magical ammunition and various spell-related bonuses).

At level 2 I was able to solo the spider cave with this character, although I had to reroll several times, use all my buffs, lots of consumables and kite a lot.

Speaking of the spider cave, it seems pretty awesome to farm XP, since I get an encounter 3 times out of 4 when attempting to camp inside.

Right now I'm only lvl 4 but I still consider that an achievement, considering how low combat XP is in comparison to lvl up requirements.

I'm still nowhere near the kingdom management part but I like to take it slow.

Although I had to reload saves quite often, I still managed to mop up pretty big groups of enemies (random encounters) all by myself, so I really enjoy playing this way. Also I just can't stand the NPCs and I don't like spreading the XP to the whole party.

[ChairmanPoo]

It's not just the bugs it's the lack of info on the mechanics. You can bork characters quite easily... which is not fun, TBH.

I'm strongly considering restarting as a sorcerer after I realized that I borked my magus. Not in an unfixable manner, but in one that will take many levels to fix.

Edit: I agree with this article https://venturebeat.com/2018/10/01/the-infuriating-design-of-pathfinder-kingmaker-shows-the-value-of-a-dungeon-master/

Edit: and the alch has taught me that there is not much point into a dex build for magus... even a non mon maxed str build will do better. My alch with 14str (because of mut) was a far better hitter than a 16 dex finesse magus

[scriver]

I'm thinking if there's a good way to do an Magus/Rogue mix. I want to add Sneak Attack dice to my Touch Attack attacks.

[ChairmanPoo]

Testing a new 15str/14dex/10con/14imt/12wis/16cha
Idea is to add my firat stat pt to str. Dex and con should matter less long term because of undead bloodline providimg quite a bit of dr. I want int at a decent level because main char needs skills.

[Kanil]

I'm thinking if there's a good way to do an Magus/Rogue mix. I want to add Sneak Attack dice to my Touch Attack attacks.

Arcane trickster perhaps? You can unlock it with just one level of rogue and the sneak attack feat. Gets sneak attack and spell levels.

I'm annoyed that Fencing Grace only works on light/piercing weapons, but Finesse Training works on anything compatible with weapon finesse -- so if I want to add my dex bonus to damage, I'll have to go rogue for 3 levels. My character probably would have been better off with a rapier, but the elven curved blade looks cool, and looking cool is more important than stats, right?