[Pathfinder] Help with optimizing a three member party

[tsumechk]

Hooray for my first post! Anyway, a friend of mine is interesting in running a Pathfinder game, but there's a few problems that have me somewhat worried. The first is that there's only going to be three PCs in it. The second is that one of the players is moving away soon, so we're starting at level 12 for the sake of making it easier to reach level 20 without obscenely fast leveling. I'm mostly worried that since there's only three characters in the group there's a good chance that if one of us isn't pulling the entirety of our weight we'll die.

Normally I'd play a Rogue of some sort, but since we already have someone doing a class that can accomplish that I was thinking of playing an Anti-Paladin for a change of pace, also because (we're taking precautions to prevent him from killing the party in their sleep). The party has characters with flimsy moral standing anyway so they don't have a problem with it and neither does the DM. The other two characters are a pestilence bloodline sorc and an inquisitor.

My original design for him was to give him greater shadow mithral fullplate to take advantage of the anti-paladin's stealth class skill so if we needed to do anything sneaky he could handle it, along with having a Fiendish Servant for his Fiendish Boon to pick up a Succubus to help even further with that. But since one of the other player's decided to play an inquisitor I'm starting to think I should just leave that to him and place my focus elsewhere. Also I'm thinking it's just my Rogue-ish instincts telling me to stealth-kill everything....

Anyhoo! That's what I'm facing. Any help would be appreciated.

[Rickshaw]

if someone has high str/int, you can play a pretty mean alchemist tank/potion healer/trap taker on-er. Go with the Mr Hyde build found Here, (http://pathfinder.ogrehut.com/2010/07/alchemists-guide-mr-hyde/) for some help on how to be a tanky Alch. Toss on some nice feats like Improved natural attack and multi-attack, and you have a heavy hitter who is only mildly squishy. Then you can take the Churgeon ACF and can also fill the shoes of healer quite nicely, especially with healing touch discovery. Also, since Alchemist's get disable device as a class skill, max that and you can fill at least THAT part of a rogue's shoes. They also can cast some moderately good spells that will help (invisibility, enlarge person, etc) Top it all off with such gems as Master Alchemist and you can be pumping out alchemist's fire and other such lovelies for anyone with a spare action.

one of the other two must be a wizard, of course. might as well get that out there now.

Edit: I guess a High Constitution would also be good for tanking.

[CTrees]

How about a Summoner with maxed UMD and Leadership? Party suddenly won't seem so small.

[subject42]

If you're willing to deviate from your original plan, I'd suggest a class that gets you a virtual 4th party member. Druid, Ranger, and Summoner are all decent for that.

[tsumechk]

Alchemist did look like it'd be pretty fun. Unfortunately we won't be able to have a wizard in the party. Our DM has problems with Wizards and the other top tier character classes in 3.5 so he's forbidden them. In fact, our Sorc player normally plays a wizard.

[tsumechk]

I've heard bad things about the Ranger's Animal companion in 3.5. Did it get any better in pathfinder?

[McSmack]

I think Anti-Paladin is a good choice overall. Inquisitors aren't exactly tanks, and it's good, especially in a small party to have someone who can go toe-to-toe with the baddies. They also have some help lower saving throws which will help make the other two casters more effective.

However remember that a lot of the antipaladin abilities only work if they're facing good aligned creatures. If the campaign isn't focusing on taking out good creatures/NPC's then you might want to reconsider.

[subject42]

I've heard bad things about the Ranger's Animal companion in 3.5. Did it get any better in pathfinder?

It got a bit better overall, but less good if you try to tweak it out to high levels of optimization.

If you take the Beastmaster ACF (http://www.pathfindersrd.com/classes/core-classes/ranger#TOC-Beast-master), you'll have a Druid Level equal to your ranger level, and none of the normal animal companion restrictions. Additionally, you gain empathic link with the companion.

[tsumechk]

I can't say for certain whether or not we'll end up fighting good creatures very often, but in the past this DM has shown a fondness for throwing good beings who were either tricked into fighting us or were legitimately attempting to do the right thing and we just happened to be on the wrong side of those actions.

On the subject of a summoner, I'm personally a little weary of trying to play one. I've tried building one before but it just never seemed quite "right". This is probably due to a lack of experience with them though.

[Rejakor]

If the GM isn't pants-on-head-retarded, he'll be able to create encounters that won't murder the party. If he's using the CR system as written, hopefully he's running monsters as 'dumb', i.e. they don't use good tactics or prepare or have the right kind of magical equipment for their style of fighting, because there's some stuff there that will instamurder you even if you have like 6 dudes (That Damn Crab for one) due to being badly under-CR'd.

So, play what you want to play. That said, if the sorcerer player knows his stuff, an anti-paladin might be a bit overshadowed.

Are you using non-PF material, or just PF? Cause if so, there's a bunch more stuff you can do.

Summoner is apparently pretty insane with the blade eidolon, and alchemist isn't THAT bad. Druid is still one of the most powerful classes in the game.

[tsumechk]

We're just using the Pathfinder books, no third party stuff. Though since the other two are capable of doing more than a fairly large number of things, and my anti-paladin would only be capable of deceiving, scaring, killing, and sneaking - and the sneaking takes an investment of approx 40k to achieve competently when a simple greater invisibility spell accomplishes basically the same thing - Summoner is sounding pretty enticing after rereading its class features.

[subject42]

Summoner is sounding pretty enticing after rereading its class features.

Take a look at the brood lord or synthesist ACFs from Ultimate Magic. You can either shatter the action economy or BE MADE OF HIT POINTS.

[Rejakor]

...MADE OF HIT POINTS.

If you're allowed non-PF stuff, Darkstalker + sneaking = insane.

Invisibility is countered and expected by all sorts of things. SUDDEN PALADIN much less so.

But melee types do get so boring.

[subject42]

...MADE OF HIT POINTS.

I'm not kidding. You get your Eidolon's hit points as temporary hit points. If you take the fast healing evolution, YOUR HIT POINTS HAVE HITPOINTS, THAT ARE IN TURN MADE OF HIT POINTS.

[tsumechk]

Synthesist just seems ridiculous, in a good way. Thanks for pointing it out.

[CTrees]

For reference on the Synthesist - last night I statted one up, because the idea occurred to me to have a summoner that's pretending to be a planetar. I'd work it out with the DM, but not tell the other PCs, and see how well it worked/how long it lasted (bluff on a Charisma-based class plus "well, I'm a young planetar - I don't have all my spells/SLAs yet (that'd be WAY too overpowered), and planetars prefer to run in for melee, anyway)" should make it pretty convincing).

At ninth level (the current for our party) my effective statline was 28/13/17/15/13/20 (4d6 drop lowest - I rolled somewhat average), I had 136HP, immunity to acid and cold, resistance 10 to fire and electricity, was large - with reach (and would take a holy greatsword to match), could fly permanently, had an AC of 24, and the summoner's nifty spell list. And that's all naked - equipment would be built to enhance that. For reference, a belt giving +2 Con would add sixteen hitpoints. Not quite optimal, but I was trying to pretend to be a planetar, and taking abilities to match that.

I now really, really want to play a campaign with one, starting at level one.

[balistafreak]

At ninth level... a belt giving +2 Con would add sixteen hitpoints.

I don't understand this. How are you getting 16 HD by 9th level? :smallconfused:

[CTrees]

I don't understand this. How are you getting 16 HD by 9th level? :smallconfused:

The belt would be worn by the eidolon (with which you are fused). You use the eidolon's physical statistics. At ninth level, it has seven hit dice, and you have nine. You have all its hit points as bonus "temporary" HP. It gets +7 HP and you get +9, and then you get its +7 as a temporary bonus to yours, hitting a lovely +16 total. Though you must be careful to specify that the eidolon is wearing the belt (the whole "you share slots" mechanic, while annoying normally, is actually useful here for showing you can do some of this trickery).

Also fun, from how it appears to be written - your eidolon cannot wear armor, but you can. As a synthesist, you gain the eidolon's AC and NA bonuses. Eidolon's let you choose for part of that bonus whether it's AC or NA. Put it all in NA. Wear a... let's say +2 chain shirt, and then summoner your eidolon. Specifically saying you gain the bonuses, without saying anything about losing your existing armor bonuses, certainly implies that you gain a seriously nice AC, with a proper build...

[balistafreak]

The belt would be worn by the eidolon (with which you are fused). You use the eidolon's physical statistics. At ninth level, it has seven hit dice, and you have nine. You have all its hit points as bonus "temporary" HP. Sixteen effective hit dice means +16HP. Though you must be careful to specify that the eidolon is wearing the belt (the whole "you share slots" mechanic, while annoying normally, is actually useful here for showing you can do some of this trickery).

Also fun, from how it appears to be written - your eidolon cannot wear armor, but you can. As a synthesist, you gain the eidolon's AC and NA bonuses. Eidolon's let you choose for part of that bonus whether it's AC or NA. Put it all in NA. Wear a... let's say +2 chain shirt, and then summoner your eidolon. Specifically saying you gain the bonuses, without saying anything about losing your existing armor bonuses, certainly implies that you gain a seriously nice AC, with a proper build...

Do remember that once you lose all your Eidolon HP, you revert back to your original Summoner's statline. You might have a lot of HP, but you'll lose 80% of your combat effectiveness once your Eidolon falls off.

However, getting armor + Eidolon natural armor... wow, I didn't see that. It almost feels too good to be true.

*rereads the section*

[CTrees]

Okay, so when you're sleeping, you lose the ridiculousness of the eidolon and all those (glorious) HP. Resilient eidolon helps prevent that in combat. The fused version of Lifelink means it should almost never drop off from damage. The spell Summon Eidolon covers pretty much every other contingency (Dismissal, for instance) - at most, it's probably full retreat action -> Summon Eidolon -> back in business.

[Rejakor]

I suddenly have an interest in playing pathfinder.

[Ardantis]

RICKSHAW~

You mentioned in another post the feat "Speak to the Masses." Where can I find it?