Pathfinder: Kingmaker

[Firechanter]

You don't really need a Rogue.
1, in PF "Trapfinding" is just a bonus, not a class-gated feature. Your Bard can at least handle the traps in the Prologue.
2, ofc I don't know what the Devs did in the computer game, but in the AP, traps are an extremely rare sight, and those that are there aren't terribly dangerous.

However,
3, if you have set levelup to manual, you have full control over everyone in your party, and can multiclass freely. Not sure if it would make sense for any of those gimps, though. Your best option is probably to switch them out against à la carte buddies even if it sets you back a few thousand gold.

IIRC you can have up to 6 characters in the party, and every slot you leave empty means more XP for everyone.

[Renegade Paladin]

IIRC you can have up to 6 characters in the party, and every slot you leave empty means more XP for everyone.

I'm not sure that second part's true. I have seven people currently following me (though I need to ditch Regongar sooner or later) and the one that gets left at Oleg's gains levels, so I assume he's leeching XP even while not along with the group.

[Firechanter]

Oh, that is a game setting you can adjust. "Only currently active characters gain XP" or something.

[Renegade Paladin]

Has anyone been able to get past the Stag Lord's fort, and if so how?

Spoiler

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I've taken to spamming Daze from my casters to try to prevent people from running to the alarm bell, but it seems that the last archer in the group over by the owlbear will reach it regardless; the distance is short enough that there's not enough time once he decides to break for it. If there's a way to make the owlbear attack, I have yet to find it.

Also, pursuant to an earlier conversation, Akiros Insmort is indeed at Thorn Ford once I found the second bandit camp down in the corner (those are some really incompetent bandits to not notice and attack people walking down the road in broad daylight), but even though he isn't marked hostile there he won't talk to me, and he's at the Stag Lord fight no matter how fast I go for it after seeing him at Thorn Ford.

[Driderman]

if you have set levelup to manual, you have full control over everyone in your party, and can multiclass freely. Not sure if it would make sense for any of those gimps, though. Your best option is probably to switch them out against à la carte buddies even if it sets you back a few thousand gold.

I'm having a fine time with the pre-made NPCs but then again, I'm playing on a hybrid easy-mode. Tougher than easy, but not so hard as to cause me any undue stress. I'm here for the power fantasy and the story. Which is great, by the way.

At least 3 of the premade companions are good fits for multiclassing. Valerie is pretty much built for Stalwart Defender from the beginning, she basically just needs to hit BAB +7, Octavia is already sort-of specced into Arcane Trickster build, Regongar seems like a shoe-in for going Dragon Disciple. I also saw someone making a case for making Tristian a Mystic Theurge but I can barely be bothered to memorize spells for my own Paladin so that's is definitely not a path I'm going down. I like Harrim better anyway.

I gotta say, despite balancing issues, annoying load times and layers of load screens once you get kingdom management, this is a great game. I'm looking forward to doing an evil playthrough, seems like there's a plenty of options for that.

[Serafina]

You can get a Rogue/Wizard as a party member. One level of Rogue is plenty - just keep investing into Trickery, and you're good for disarming traps anyway.
If you want to optimize her, don't take more levels of Rogue, but instead take the Accomplished Sneak Attacker feat at 3rd level, and then take Wizard-levels and rank up Knowledge (Arcane) and Mobility, until you can take levels in Arcane Trickster (at 5th level). That way, you get almost-full Wizard casting, but still plenty of sneak attack which she can use with cantrips and the like if you manage to flat-foot enemies.

As for the Stag King fight:

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Get his second in command on your side, that really helps.
You don't have to fight the bandits near the gate, you can avoid those.
Take care of the owlbear one way or another, you can't get it on your side, but not having it in the fight is important.
I think you can also take care of his two lieutenants (who come from the east), but I didn't and managed the fight without them, being level 4 at the time.

The important part is to avoid getting flanked by all the bandits, since that does a lot of damage. I suggest taking care of the cleric first, which is reasonably doable, and letting the bandits fight your allies. Then mop them up with your own flanking. Again, don't get swarmed yourself. Also, have potions because you'll take damage and they're only a move action to drink.

I really suggest turning off death for this fight, since that way you can go down and let your allies mop up the fight as long as you have one last member standing.

[Renegade Paladin]

Spoiler: Spoilers for the CRPG and the tabletop AP

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How does one get Akiros on one's side? I know it should be doable, since we did it in the tabletop AP (and wound up redeeming his paladinhood eventually), but I haven't been able to figure it out since he won't talk to me at Thorn Ford and is immediately hostile when the fight with the Stag Lord starts.

[Driderman]

Spoiler: Spoilers for the CRPG and the tabletop AP

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How does one get Akiros on one's side? I know it should be doable, since we did it in the tabletop AP (and wound up redeeming his paladinhood eventually), but I haven't been able to figure it out since he won't talk to me at Thorn Ford and is immediately hostile when the fight with the Stag Lord starts.

Spoiler

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You should be able to talk to him at Thorn Ford, and if you get into the Stag Lord's fort through the western part (there's a mobility or athletics check, might trigger the alarm if you get spotted) you'll meet him there and can convince him to join you. I'm guessing you need to succeed at interpersonal skills at both occasions, I know I did, but maybe the one at the fort is enough.
Also, with nature you CAN get the owlbear to join your side, just make it understand you're not the enemy and it'll rip through the enemies when the battle starts. In my game technically the Owlbear should be Baron

[The Glyphstone]

Are there story-related reasons to use the pre-generated companions? Side quests, voiced dialogue, that sort of thing?

[Firechanter]

Are there story-related reasons to use the pre-generated companions? Side quests, voiced dialogue, that sort of thing?

Exactly those, and pretty much only these reasons. They have a full voiceset, banter, the Bard will spin a Limerick about the Paladin-school dropout, et cetera. And I hear each of them has sidequests, however these may be doable without having them in the party.

So far, all of the premade companions have serious issues (in order of appearance):

- Linzi: Halfling Bard with Str 8. Will be encumbered by pretty much anything heavier than Leather so her AC will be rubbish. Useless even in Ranged combat, never mind Melee. However, of all the troupe she is the most likeable so I might in fact just keep her. AND she can't die - whenever she would croak, her ring teleports her back to base instead.

- Amiri: Actually might be salvageable. The oversized Bastard Sword is partially mitigated by it being a +1 weapon right off the bat, when most of your party won't even have Masterwork. She's pretty squishy but you can mitigate that with Guarded Stance a bit. (I wouldn't bother picking the other stances -- one won't stack with Inspire Courage, the other tanks her AC even further.) Her biggest downside is actually her low low Str score -- just 16, come on!

- Jaethal: yay, an Undead that can't be healed by the other companions and can't heal you. Well, I don't want Evils in my party anyway so I say on your bike!

- Harrim: actually not that terrible. At least he has Wis 18. Not very good on the offense but hey, he's a Cleric! His biggest weakness is the poor choice of domains. Shame!

- Valerie: the gimpest. As if Tower Shield Spec wasn't bad enough, she only has 14 Str. If you keep her, at least do yourself a favour and give her a Heavy Shield until level 5. Personally, when I realized how much she sucks in a fight I went back to the Prologue and made my Paladin give a Chaotic response so I could get the Cleric instead.

Those are the ones you can pick up in the prologue. Then later on there's the aforementioned Rogue/Wizard, which probably even works in the long run, but in the low levels it's just a toothache to suffer the delayed spell progression. I didn't have a look at any other companions yet.

--

OT re Akiros: in the AP, he pretty much immediately joins your side if only you speak to him, iirc no check necessary. However, we knew that we should talk to him from another bandit we had redeemed earlier. Akiros is another example of a terribly gimped build, by the way. ;) In our game, I had him retrain all his levels into Cavalier (and made him General).

P.S.: I've discovered another rules oversight. The game doesn't allow you to equip a bastard sword as two-handed martial weapon.

[The Glyphstone]

So you can customize/rebuild your companions to some degree? Or will that have to wait for mod/third-party addon support, if any?

[Aotrs Commander]

So you can customize/rebuild your companions to some degree? Or will that have to wait for mod/third-party addon support, if any?

Well, Firechanter said upthread you can switch it to full level control, so it sounds like it (heck, that's arguably more than we got in PoE 1 & 2)... Stat-tweaking sounds like it might be mod (or live with), though.

Doesn't sound like there is any kind of respec option, though.

[Driderman]

You can level your companions up yourself but the game has no respec. And yes, all companions have voice-acting, banter and quests, although I think some of it is bugged out or there is a looong time between some developments.

I disagree with a fair amount of Firechanter's points about the companions but as I've mentioned previously I don't play on masochistic difficulty levels and this game does have some issues with balancing, so maybe we're just using different rulesets.

- Linzi: Halfling Bard with Str 8. Will be encumbered by pretty much anything heavier than Leather so her AC will be rubbish. Useless even in Ranged combat, never mind Melee. However, of all the troupe she is the most likeable so I might in fact just keep her. AND she can't die - whenever she would croak, her ring teleports her back to base instead.

She's a bard, she's supposed to wear leather armor. Or a chainshirt I guess, but you don't really want armor check penalty on your skillmonkey. With her decent dex score she's a fairly competent backup archer(well, crossbower), along with support capabilities. Probably not something you'd want to multi-class though, seems that the Bard class benefits a lot more from a singular focus

- Amiri: Actually might be salvageable. The oversized Bastard Sword is partially mitigated by it being a +1 weapon right off the bat, when most of your party won't even have Masterwork. She's pretty squishy but you can mitigate that with Guarded Stance a bit. (I wouldn't bother picking the other stances -- one won't stack with Inspire Courage, the other tanks her AC even further.) Her biggest downside is actually her low low Str score -- just 16, come on!

She IS rather squishy, isn't she? Still, useful enough in the early game but I wasn't too impressed either. Not much of a fan of glass cannons unless it's my own character, can't be bothered to micromanage the entire party. She's fun though :)
I suspect much of her squishiness comes from imbalanced stats on enemies, once I tweaked my ruleset she was a lot more durable

- Jaethal: yay, an Undead that can't be healed by the other companions and can't heal you. Well, I don't want Evils in my party anyway so I say on your bike!

Maybe I'm misremembering but I'm pretty sure I saw Cure Light Wounds in her spell list, like any other divine caster. She can cure you plenty, but she doesn't START with it as an option. She can cure herself with Inflict Light Wounds, though. Also, Undead has plenty of good features as well, and teamwork feats from Inquisitor so she's definitely going in my evil party (but my Paladin kicked her out obviously)

- Valerie: the gimpest. As if Tower Shield Spec wasn't bad enough, she only has 14 Str. If you keep her, at least do yourself a favour and give her a Heavy Shield until level 5. Personally, when I realized how much she sucks in a fight I went back to the Prologue and made my Paladin give a Chaotic response so I could get the Cleric instead.

Excellent tank, with proper position she can contain a battle all by herself. Not much of a damage-dealer but she lasts forever on the battlefield. Guess her usefulness depends on party composition (duh), shes' a nice complement to my STR-based 2-hander Paladin, together they form a wall of steel to give even the mightiest of enemies pause!

- Harrim: actually not that terrible. At least he has Wis 18. Not very good on the offense but hey, he's a Cleric! His biggest weakness is the poor choice of domains. Shame!
I agree that he's not that terrible. He's pretty much the basic cleric concept: "Sword" & board + support, decent melee presence. Nothing new here since 1974. Funny character though.

Now, if you'll excuse me I have a Barony to run

[Firechanter]

Currently pondering which custom companions I should shoot for. As of yet I don't have any ranged build in the party so that might be an option. BTW, apparently the game gives you x1,5 Str with a Composite Longbow. So there's a potential alternative to using Deadly Aim; will have to ponder that.
(Once I played a PF Slayer with Deadly Aim and the damage output at level 6 was pretty ludicrous. Well, I loved it but the GM didn't.)

A Wizard would also be good to have. And/or a Druid. Or a Monster Tactician. So many possibilities.

[Rynjin]

Yes but none of your party members get them, because they're a Barbarian, Bard, Cleric, Fighter, and Inquisitor. (There's also a Magus and a Wizard, but you get those later)
There's exactly one spell available to you from your party that does area damage: Fire Belly. A casting of which will give you two uses of a 1D4 15-foot cone, and you'll have three castings of it at most.

For this game I get that, but he was talking about the tabletop.

[Renegade Paladin]

Okay, I finally got the Stag Lord without dying to all his minions.

More accurately, I should say Akiros got the Stag Lord while I was desperately trying to stay alive in the courtyard. So I'm running a barony now, and the interface for it seems pretty good, though I'm vexed that apparently none of my companions are suitable treasurers, and that my choices for general are chaotic neutral, chaotic evil, and the envoy from Restov.

[Firechanter]

Oh, can you please elaborate a bit on Leader positions?
- Does your main's build / class / stat distribution make a difference?
- what qualifies an NPC for a certain position?
In the AP every post is tied to two abilities, e.g. General = STR or CHA; Treasurer = INT or WIS, etc. Same here?
- can you put a "mercenary" (i.e. self-made companion) into a leadership position?

[Driderman]

Oh, can you please elaborate a bit on Leader positions?

- Does your main's build / class / stat distribution make a difference?

Not as far as I know. Alignment dictates Barony alignment but I think that's it.

- what qualifies an NPC for a certain position?
In the AP every post is tied to two abilities, e.g. General = STR or CHA; Treasurer = INT or WIS, etc. Same here?

Hard to say for sure, it mostly seems logical but I was rather confused Valerie is not eligible for being General, for example.

- can you put a "mercenary" (i.e. self-made companion) into a leadership position?

I haven't tried but I've read that the answer is no

[Firechanter]

Thanks for the heads-up. ^^

Installed Patch 1.0.3 today. I play on Normal for the time being; originally I wanted to play tabletop rules but after all, you can't do everything you can do in the tabletop so I think I can cut myself some slack there. Anyway, the fix apparently worked because now Bokken warned me of the spider swarms and gave me a half-dozen Alcfires to deal with them.
I'm now exploring the countryside. Did a bit of talking and a bit of fighting. Had to RTB mostly to get rid of excess weight. En route I found a Man-Eating Troll, but the fight was surprisingly easy, even though my party was levels 3 - 2 - 2 - 2. After Harrim cast Bless, my Paladin Smote Evil and went toe to toe with the monster, while Amiri ran moved into Flanking position, and we both pummeled it with our two-handers. Linzi inspired and Harrim lent spiritual assistance. xD The Troll went down pretty quickly, and we finished it off with a flask of Alchemist Fire.

I can see how players without tabletop experience might be in over their heads here. Firstly they might not know about Flanking, and more importantly I don't recall seeing any ingame information that trolls keep regenerating until you finish them off with fire or acid. So of course without that knowledge you can keep pummeling the monster till the cows come home.

Anyway, now I'm in a bit of a catch-22. If I sell the magic longsword I found, I can just afford to hire a Mercenary. The question is, what do I want? ^^
Currently my shortlist is:
- Archer (probably Ranger) - since I don't have any useful Ranged capabilities so far (and the one Ranged companion doesn't become available before Chapter 2);
- Wizard (and if so, what Spec?) - to do everything Wizards do
- Druid - have fun with OP animal companions _and_ 9-level spellcasting. Also, a class that no premade companion offers.
- Monster Tactician - summoning monsters for minutes/level seems pretty stronk. :o

[Serafina]

Jaethal, the Inquisitor, can actually make a fairly good archer if you build her for it:
- she has good enough Dexterity to make it work, while having good Strength for Composite Longbows
- it negates her main weakness, needing extra healing resources
- Inquisitors get plenty of martial support both from spells and class features
So really you just need to give her the right feats - Point-Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Rapid Shot etc. - to turn her into a fairly good archer. And as a bonus, she'll remain a good switch-hitter thanks to her good strength, medium armor and shield proficiency.

[Driderman]

Anyway, now I'm in a bit of a catch-22. If I sell the magic longsword I found, I can just afford to hire a Mercenary. The question is, what do I want? ^^
Currently my shortlist is:
- Archer (probably Ranger) - since I don't have any useful Ranged capabilities so far (and the one Ranged companion doesn't become available before Chapter 2);
- Wizard (and if so, what Spec?) - to do everything Wizards do
- Druid - have fun with OP animal companions _and_ 9-level spellcasting. Also, a class that no premade companion offers.
- Monster Tactician - summoning monsters for minutes/level seems pretty stronk. :o

I'd probably go for an archer, and add some rogue levels to that since Sneak Attack is basically free with the way flanking works right now.
Summoners are also nice, for the reasons you mentioned.
Unless you don't want to bring along Octavia, or you REALLY want to optimize, no need for a wizard I'd say.

As a a complete aside, I just realised what that strange creature in my dream last night was: It was an Owlcat!

[Inarius]

Anyway, now I'm in a bit of a catch-22. If I sell the magic longsword I found, I can just afford to hire a Mercenary. The question is, what do I want? ^^
Currently my shortlist is:
- Archer (probably Ranger) - since I don't have any useful Ranged capabilities so far (and the one Ranged companion doesn't become available before Chapter 2);
- Wizard (and if so, what Spec?) - to do everything Wizards do
- Druid - have fun with OP animal companions _and_ 9-level spellcasting. Also, a class that no premade companion offers.
- Monster Tactician - summoning monsters for minutes/level seems pretty stronk. :o

I'd say skip the wizard since casters are pretty dang weak in the early game, if you want one wait until level 5 or 6 to recruit one. A rogue is a solid choice because right now sneak attack is way too good due to the the flanking rules being incredibly lax, and with the right setup you can make a rogue have 22 ac at level 2 which is more than enough to act as an offtank. If you want ranged damage to disrupt the enemy backline then go with an archer, maybe with a splash of rogue to get some bonus sneak attack damage. I haven't personally tried a summoner type, but I've heard druids animal companions are quite beastly in the early game at least.

[Renegade Paladin]

So apparently you can't pull advisors off of assignments to deal with urgent problems. I had a cult spring up that I had to address within three days of the warning, the only advisors it allowed me to send to deal with it were Jhod and Tristian, and they were both tied up doing other things. So now I apparently have a permanent decadent cult presence in the barony that I cannot in any way deal with.

[Sloanzilla]

I keep getting yelled at for doing one quest instead of the other (Temple of the Elk over the Mite stuff). Does postponing the mite/kobold thing really hurt you?

Also, I guess I know the answer, but why does a shift from pen and paper to a video game mean you have to kill 10 bears for 18 experience instead of 1 bear for 180 experience? I suppose because a fight that might take an hour at a table would be over in 20 seconds on a game, but the large numbers do seem strange at times.

[Rising Phoenix]

I've made into act 3...and gods the stat inflation is terrible in this game...also the bugs...they really needed to polish the game more before releasing. Other than that it has a lot of potential. Can't recommend it to others though atm.

[Serafina]

So here's some thoughts on what to do with your companions, build-wise. I think each has some options that work and are reasonably interesting:

Amiri should just stick with her Barbarian levels, but how you use her can obviously vary. You can obviously build her for sheer damage, with rage powers such as Animal Fury and Reckless Stance - but you can also turn her into a pretty good tank. To do that, give her the Guarded Stance as well as it's upgrades, and you can always hand her a shield Since she gets immunity to flanking, and better Reflex saves, she'll actually be better than Valerie in many ways that way. Oh, and avoid giving her the Lethal Stance, it doesn't stack with the Bard Song.

Valerie is pretty good for just standing at the front and not getting hit, right? Well, her low Strength means she's not much of a threat in return. In my opinions, there's still several interesting ways to advance her:
- You can go and give her the Endurance feat, keep giving her Fighter-levels, and then give her levels in Stalward Defender.
- You can instead go for Dragon Disciple - all you really have to do is put skill ranks into Knowledge (Arcane) and give her one level of Sorcerer (or Eldritch Scion Magus), you can even finish out Fighter 5 - but this way, the extra Strength make her more dangerous, while the natural armor can help with her tanking, while she gains some spells and nice extra abilities.
- most unorthodox, go straight for Feyspeaker Druid. She has Charisma 15 - that's good enough as a casting stat to be workable. Yes, it'll cost her a lot of BAB - but you only want her to stand on the frontline and be threatening, right? She wasn't hitting things anyway, and yes Hide Armor costs her AC but she'll still be good. And the extra healing and defensive spells will be welcome in any party.
- for feats, Dazzling Display can work fine IME, it gives her something to do with her actions.

Octavia should just go for Arcane Trickster, it's just too good. Make her third-level feat Accomplished Sneak Attacker, don't take any more Rogue-levels, and take Arcane Trickster ASAP. Her damage output with cantrips is actually really dangerous, since you can currently profit from flanking when using them.

Regonar can either keep taking straight Magus levels, or go for Dragon Disciple. Both work fine.

Harrim should stick with Cleric levels, because obviously. A couple of builds can work feat-wise but mostly I'd support his casting.

Tristian should also stay a Cleric. You could go for a Mystic Theurge, but that'd put you four levels behind on casting.

Jaethal is a really great switch-hitter, but I prefer using her as an archer. That way, her needing her own healing-spells doesn't matter as much. Thus, give her feats like Point-Blank Range, Precise Shot, and Rapid Shot. The other question is what to do with her teamwork feats. Allied Spellcaster is great when she stands next to the parties spellcasters - that way, if you have her cast a spell, she gets a nice bonus. But you can also give her Precise Strike, Seize the Moment or Outflank (one of which sadly requires Combat Reflexes) to make her better as a switch-hitter who can go into melee when needed.

Linzi is in my opinion the perfect sixth party member. Lingering Performance, and some spellcasting feats, and she's golden. Spend her bardic talents on skill focus, and you'll have few if any troubles with knowledge and lore checks.

[Firechanter]

Also, I guess I know the answer, but why does a shift from pen and paper to a video game mean you have to kill 10 bears for 18 experience instead of 1 bear for 180 experience? I suppose because a fight that might take an hour at a table would be over in 20 seconds on a game, but the large numbers do seem strange at times.

There's a setting in the game options that will vastly change the XP distribution. It's called "only active party members gain XP" or something, and I think it's disabled by default. As long as it's disabled, all XP you gain is apparently split among all potential companions that exist in the game, even if you haven't even met them yet. That will be one reason why so many opponents yield laughably little XP.

However, enabling that switch will mean the converse -- the XP you gain is only split among your current party members. So your Main will level faster, and all is well and dandy if you have a fixed party setup that you never change anyway, but Companions waiting at the base may quickly become useless if you don't exercise them for a while. I'm a bit in two minds about the matter myself.

--

@Serafina:
thanks for the analysis and outlook. Some comments:

- Regongar (sp?) is quite the glass cannon, which just 13 Dex and quite a long way to go until he can wear stronger armour. I haven't figured out yet if you can also give him a two-handed weapon. I'd kinda like to take him along, because his voice and lines are pretty nice, but I probably just don't need another melee.

- Octavia actually isnt as bad as I feared; she has a useful Spec and her stats are not bad either, with the exception of her terrible CON. What's nice is that you loot a +2 Int item at the same time you get her, so if your main isn't Int-based, Octavia is off for a good start.

- I only just unlocked Tristian so I can't tell yet what to make of him, or if I should switch Harrim out for him. Will see.

Some other notes on magic use:
- there are rather few spells even implemented in the game. This is basically a relative advantage for spontaneous casters and a drawback for prepared casters. Especially Wizards are a bit handicapped because there will often be just 1 or maybe 2 spells of your Specialized school per level.
- Summon Monster does not allow you to pick which monster type you get. Which is rather a bummer. There goes my plan of having a Fire Elemental deal with the nasty swarms. ;) Basically in most cases your summons will just be bags of meat (HP) that you throw at the enemies.
- Animal Companions start out ridiculously stronk, but may lose Oomph over the levels, because apparently they can't carry gear, and may have trouble getting through DR later on.

All in all, I'm less inclined to buy Caster Mercenaries now. So a dedicated Archer moves to the top of my list, but I suppose I should first pick up Jaethal and see how well she actually performs in that role.

Otherwise, suggestions how to build a great archer companion with the resources at hand would be welcome. ^^

[Serafina]

Regonar needs to have his off-hand free, because he's a Magus. No dual-wielding, no two-handed weapons, no shield.
He'll get medium armor at 7th level, and of course you can also use spells like Mirror Image to make him a lot more durable.
The trick to using him effectively is to give him a touch-range cantrip to auto-cast, and to make use of Shocking Grasp frequently. For the cantrip, I recommend Touch of Fatigue - sure most enemies will make their save, but you might as well try.


As for an Archer - well, as I said, IMO Jaethal works perfectly. Good stats for it, good class for it, all she needs is the feats and you'll get those in time.
But if you want to go with a mercenary, you could go with an Eldritch Archer Magus, or a Divine Hunter Paladin.

[lord_khaine]

So.. whats the current stance on this game?
Is it playable now?
Does it need a few additional months of polish before its playable?

[Platinius]

It is very playable, though there is a definite learning curve. Still worth it!
(Do not be afraid to turn the difficulty down when it gets too difficult at first. There is no shame in trying to figure it out step by step^^)

In the 2nd chapter, you can get an archer ranger named Ekun, but he is a bit difficult to find.
He is in the watchtower map. On the map, go south and keep east until you see a wolf named Dog. Follow Dog up the hill. Enjoy your new at machinegun rate with sniper precision shooting archer^^

Seriously though, when I got him (I think he was lvl 5, but I may be wrong) he had 20 DEX and 16 STR and he is optimized for shooting with the (composite) longbow, making him ideal for his job which is dealing unmitigated raw weapons damage.


Octavia's build is a classic cheesy build from the tabletop game made even easier by the generous rules for backstabbing. (You need to get your target into melee with 2 people)
She uses her (infinite 0-level) spells to do these attacks (and they can crit and do double damage^^) which are touch attacks that hit incredibly easily (Touch AC doesn't really climb with CR), especially the further you come in the game. (Your attack bonus grows as you level; good times^^)
It is a bit tricky until you get it, but once you do, it rocks so hard.^^


I turned my Valerie into a sorceress based Eldritch Knight. She will still get 9th level spells if you do. Make that starting 15 CHA work for her! :)
If you take a draconic bloodline, you can also turn her into a Dragon Disciple if you like the fighting a bit more. (I took Celestial Bloodline, cause I thought to be cool having her like an angel descended from the heavens^^)


I turned my Tristian into a Mystic Theurge. (There is a sorcerer archtype that uses WIS instead of CHA) I don't know how "good" that really is, but I thought it to be cool and I had never played with a Mystic Theurge before.^^