Building a better mom friend, or how to win over your allies hearts and stomachs

[Falcii]

TLDR: what are some ideas for a character themed around cooking for their allies during downtime for buffs. Needs to be at least passable in early game and last through 15 or so. I am allowed any 4 books from official dnd and pathfinder.

I'm starting a new campaign where I am besties with the dm and don't know a single other player. The other players all know at least one other person beside the dm. I have no doubt the other folks will be perfectly cool about including me, but I'd like to have a mechanical incentive to interact with my allies. Thus was born my current character concept of a mom friend. Specifically I'd like my character to really engage with cooking for and promoting my allies. (This has nothing to do with binging delicious in dungeon last week, i promise.... o.o). I would use native ingredients from the local area to create food which confers meaningful bonuses to my friends. Secondary objectives include being an excitable know-it-all/having a vested interest or skill in information gathering either through chatter or divination. I wanna give my dm a chance to gush about his world. Finally I should probs have something to do in combat but I'm fine with that being an afterthought.

Current restrictions include no more than 4 books at least at character Creation (lvl5) but any 4 books from 3.5 first party or pathfinder are legal. This is to hopefully make for less power gap between the optimizer veterans (3) and the 2 totally new players. Additionally we don't expressly disallow early entry cheese but hearing the phrase "sanctum spell" still makes my eye twitch.

I'd like to end around t3 but a Lil higher is never a bad thing.

Current thoughts have been around warweaver and wishing I could warweave or similar with a cleric list without having to get 10 deep into rainbow servant. I fear the answer may be artificer lmao.

All thoughts welcome! Thanks again!

[Morphic tide]

Ask about using PF1e's Trophy Component rules for potions, which I can't find a source as it's listed under Gamemastering, but the Harvest Parts feat for another version of the mechanic mechanic is in Pathfinder Player Companion: Monster Hunter's Handbook you can start with that if it isn't in the core rulebooks. Either is by RAW usable for potions, which is a very small fluff ask to have as a viable element of a meal as sauces or condiments. While more meant as a very slight Monster Hunter bit, Trophy Collector from Player's Handbook II is another process to extract GP-valued material from bodies that can serve as inputs to the GP cost of crafting food-like consumables, since there's pretty much never an explanation given for what that is.

[Prime32]

It's inefficient, but in PF the Geisha bard archetype uses bardic music by holding a tea ceremony for 10 minutes, which then lasts for 10 minutes. An Alchemist with the Infusion discovery is probably a better bet, able to create temporary potion-like items for their allies to consume.

In 3.5 there's also Ceremony Feats (printed in Player's Handbook II, Dragon Magic and Exemplars of Evil), which let you expend gp to grant your allies a bonus for 24 hours.

[Falcii]

Ask about using PF1e's Trophy Component rules for potions, which I can't find a source as it's listed under Gamemastering, but the Harvest Parts feat for another version of the mechanic mechanic is in Pathfinder Player Companion: Monster Hunter's Handbook you can start with that if it isn't in the core rulebooks. Either is by RAW usable for potions, which is a very small fluff ask to have as a viable element of a meal as sauces or condiments. While more meant as a very slight Monster Hunter bit, Trophy Collector from Player's Handbook II is another process to extract GP-valued material from bodies that can serve as inputs to the GP cost of crafting food-like consumables, since there's pretty much never an explanation given for what that is.

A functional 25% discount on any given expenditure feels honestly really solid for what I'm going for, this is great.

It's inefficient, but in PF the Geisha bard archetype uses bardic music by holding a tea ceremony for 10 minutes, which then lasts for 10 minutes. An Alchemist with the Infusion discovery is probably a better bet, able to create temporary potion-like items for their allies to consume.

In 3.5 there's also Ceremony Feats (printed in Player's Handbook II, Dragon Magic and Exemplars of Evil), which let you expend gp to grant your allies a bonus for 24 hours.

The ceremony feats look interesting but I feel like the only one that's really spicy is fell conspiracy. Geisha is definitely, as you said, a little too inefficient. Like it fits the theme but I wonder how the designers expect someone to fit a 10 minute tea ceremony into a dungeon for only 10 minutes of benefit. If it was even like 5 minutes per level, I think it'd be amazing.

I will have to read more of alchemist. I want to avoid slinging juice boxes midfight if possible.

[Dr_Dinosaur]

Spheres of Power has the blacksmith class (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/blacksmith) and Iron Chef archetype, which does exactly this while also being a useful martial

[Jay R]

Put some serious points into Craft (cooking), and impress them with your skill the same way you would with any other skill.