Kingmaker Character Suggestions / Throwing Barbarian Help

[pyrocide]

Hello there,

I tried looking for these topics by way of lurking, and while I found some useful information, I decided to register and ask these two questions specifically:

Firstly, I will be in a pathfinder game using the Kingmaker Adventure Path. I have a few ideas for what to play, but I wanted to ask any veterans of the adventure if there are any interesting backgrounds to play as? Do the noble houses (or woodland fey, or Numerian Barbarians, or anything else mentioned in the player's guide) have any importance, or will the backgrounds be mostly ignored by the printed adventure?

Secondly, I've been wanting to make a barbarian hurler, either for this game or just to have for whenever (strongly considering it for this kingmaker game). I've read what has been posted on the Barbarian handbook, which pretty much says that hurling is useless. However, I feel there is potential, and was wondering if I could get some help in making the best throwing build possible.

My Idea is a Human Barbarian, with 1st level feat being improved unarmed attack, and throw anything as the human starting feat. Get lesser hurling at lvl 2's rage power. Finally, at level 3, I can take Improved Grapple. This allows me to move up to an opponent, grapple, then next turn throw him so long as they are one size smaller. abuse cliffs, environment, and if nothing else other enemies. I can also use the lesser hurl to position small allies, such as our halfing rogue and the gnome witch (which I'd assume they'd need to make acrobatics rolls to negate possible damage, but why worry about that?) However, I somewhat worried that in our five man game, I may not be able to do enough to warrant this build, when compared to what the vanilla barbarian would normally do.

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

[molten_dragon]

I'm running Kingmaker at the moment and am most of the way through (halfway through War of the River Kings). There's really nothing in the books that utilizes the character backgrounds in the Player's Guide in any way. It's basically up to the DM to make that happen if he wants to.

I'm not real familiar with the hurling barbarian, from the way you described it, it sounds like the point of the build is to pick up your enemies and throw them around?

That sounds pretty crappy to be quite honest. Grappling is not a great tactic for PCs in most circumstances, and you'll waste a lot of time running to pick up someone you just threw so you can pick them up and throw them again.

If you're really dead set on trying it, my best advice would be to play something large (or at least with powerful build) so that you can get those nice size bonuses to grapple checks. Then get ahold of whatever magic you can that will up your size. And pick up some levels of hulking hurler, so that you can pick up enemy A, throw him at enemy B, and do some decent damage with him.

If you want something with a somewhat similar feel, but that might be more effective, try out a swordsage focusing on setting sun maneuvers. There are several in there that let you toss your enemies around like ragdolls.

Barbarian (straight or with some other useful cheese tacked on) would be relatively useful though. There is a TON of wilderness exploration in Kingmaker, and the barbarian's skills would come in handy.

[pyrocide]

I should probably have stated at the beginning that we will be using pathfinder only. No 3.5 WotC material.

I know the hurler rage powers are not great for damage. I'm actually using this throw build as a controller kind of build. Throw enemies where I want them, toss the rogue into a flank position, toss teammates out of the way of danger, across gaps, ect ect. Also, I'm going for more of the cool factor of throwing enemies around, and controlling the battlefield.

My major concern is whether this will work without taking too much away from the party's strength. I guess in order for anyone to really be able to say yes or no to such a question would require me to list the rest of the party.

There's my character,
There is the Half-Elf Shield and Sword (crit-focused scimitar) fighter as our tank
We also have a Halfling Rogue. Standard sneak and stab.
There's a Gnome Witch, based somewhat around Rumpelstiltskin
Finally, a Half-Elf Druid.

I figure I will make up for my lack of damage with my ability to control the field. Also, at around 7th level I can take Hurling Charge as a rage power, which allows the barbarian to throw something as part of a charge, then still attack at the end of the charge. This will be a good way to add damage in while I control the field.

But if this build does make the party suffer, I'd rather play something else. What would be a good replacement? The only thing I noticed as far as replacing the character was that none of our party is very high charisma-wise, so maybe a Sorcerer, or Sorcerer based gish character to claim the King position.

What do you think?

[Coidzor]

Throwing the enemy without really disabling them otherwise just sets them up to charge your party when it's their turn again.

Unless you're tossing 'em off cliffs, in which case that's always good clean fun, but not all that common.

edit: I don't know all that much about how Kingmaker set up the whole administrating a kingdom thing, but Bards were called out as one of the more leadery classes when leadership mechanics (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=3065.0) were getting picked over in 3.X. They're also always good if you ever have to lead a contingent of NPCs into battle as well as being capable combatants themselves.

[pyrocide]

I had actually figured that being picked up and thrown would usually leave a person prone. Obviously an Acrobatics check would make sense to attempt to land standing, as would for possibly even lowering the damage, but I figured normally someone will not just automatically be able to land on their feet when thrown 20-100 ft (normally it would be 10' increments but I was going to take the hurler alternate class features as well). If I'm not aiming at anything nearby, I could target a square and throw the max distance. base AC is 5, so I don't see a big problem there. Most creatures have 30' speed, which means I could throw them out of charge range. However, that is situational depending on the environment and other factors.

Of course, this is all outside the realm of written rules, so it could be just as possible your idea on thrown enemies is how my GM will go.

As far as other options for Kingmaker go, Bard is a good choice, and I will look into that more. My idea had been a red draconic bloodline sorcerer human from the disappeared noble house of Rogarvia (ala the Bastard trait in the player's guide). He'd take on the quest to found a new nation and try to use it to either find his lost Rogarvia family, or take the Brevoy throne back as the only remaining heir. No clue as to how this would actually work in the game, as it sounds the AP doesn't really deal with

As far as the class goes, I would like to go into Dragon Disciple. Hopping from one bad idea to another I suppose. My question about such a build would be is it better as a straight sorcerer PrC, or is it meant to be only for a Gish class, and if so is it better to focus on the natural weapons, or to still use a manufactured weapon?