Most Useful Player Companion?

[Palanan]

So, I did well at the yard sale today,* and I'm feeling like a little splurge.

Pathfinder seems to have a ton of Player Companions. What are some of the most fun and/or useful for characters around 7th-10th level?







*
Who knew those old Star Wars model kits would still be so popular?

[Extra Anchovies]

It depends on what you like to play, since they're all very topic-focused. If you always play Elves, you won't want or need Gnomes of Golarian, and if your DM loves tossing flying reptiles at you you'll want the Dragonslayer's Handbook. There's only about 60 of them out so far so it shouldn't take long to look through the list. (http://paizo.com/pathfinder/companion/pathfinderRPG)

[Psyren]

"7-10th level" is too broad a guideline. The "most useful" one even with a specific level range still depends on why you want it:

- So you can use some unique/focused options on your main in a PFS-legal game?
- Because your GM demands you have paper copies of X to use it at the table?
- Because you want the ones with the coolest art?
- Because you're interested in undead/robots/elves/gnomes/insert subject here?
- Because you're interested in Golarion lore and want the most fluffy one for plothooks/character concepts?
- Because you have X already and you're only missing Y and Z, and trying to decide between them?

What I'm getting at is we need a little more to go on to make a recommendation.

[Palanan]

Well, I'm going to be working up a character for Kingmaker, probably starting at tenth level, and I'm looking for something fun with interesting options to give me ideas. Something with a goodly amount of playable content, as opposed to detailed histories of regions in Golarion or whatnot.

Really, just useful and fun. :smalltongue:

[Ninjaxenomorph]

Personally I think the 'Blood of X' books (X being Night, Moon, Fiends, Angels, haven't read Elements yet) are a good investment. Skinwalkers from Blood of the Night are a pretty versatile race, and while Blood of the Night has less for players, the alternate dhampir heritages are awesome. Those only apply if you actually use them, though; most of the time that means playing the race it introduces, though there is other content in each book.

[Milo v3]

Personally I think the 'Blood of X' books (X being Night, Moon, Fiends, Angels, haven't read Elements yet) are a good investment

Apparently you shouldn't get elements. They try to cram info on each of the elemental planes into a book that was already trying to cover the fluff of five races and apparently it's nowhere near the quality of the other Blood of Books.

[Palanan]

Well, as an update, I can recommend one Player Companion not to get, which is Heroes of the Wild.

This just came out a few weeks ago, and since I'm building a druid/monk I thought it would be worth a shot. It just arrived today and I'm sadly disappointed. There's nothing in this book, and I mean nothing, which I would find useful for my character.

What does the book have? Discordant dribbles of this and that, with a few random archetypes (nothing for druids or rangers), some rather peculiar "survival equipment" (an anemometer?), and some remarkably unimpressive spells, including a third-level druid spell that lets you turn into a bird for one (1) whole round.

The feats are decidedly underwhelming; most of them seem to be intended for melee fighters crashing through the woods, including a short feat chain based on "Uncivilized Tactics." The one metamagic feat will only be useful if you absolutely, positively want plants and fungi to be susceptible to mind-affecting spells.

What I find especially unhelpful are the pages sketching out various wild-y organizations in Golarion, or the trite and predictable views of elves and halflings on nature, or the rather padded discussion of the "Green Faith"--a generic mishmash which mainly serves as background for a new cavalier order (inventively named "Order of the Green"). And there are four full pages dealing with new wilderness-themed rooms and buildings for use with Ultimate Campaign, which I'm not familiar with and certainly can't use for the character I'm building.

In fact, it's surprising how very little in this book is designed for the classes you'd think were most closely aligned with nature--druids and rangers most obviously, but also bards and oracles. No Forest mystery? No Greensinger archetype? Nothing to expand on favored terrains?

Apart from woodsy melee types, the one class which could benefit most from this material would be the rogue, since the new rogue talents are both thematic and useful, especially the ability to gain a favored terrain. All of the new talents together, plus the few poisons and traps, could make for a passable wilderness rogue. Most other classes, unfortunately, simply don't have much to work with.

It's hard not to compare this with Masters of the Wild, which was my absolute favorite supplement back in the day. Yes, Masters of the Wild is 3.0 material with some very hokey artwork, but it also gave us Natural Spell and the nagaika, the Blighter and the Eye of Gruumsh, the Shifter and of course the Oozemaster.

There's nothing like that degree of inventiveness in Heroes of the Wild; it seems rather tired and by the numbers, cranked out on deadline. There's no apparent organization to the book--just a salad toss of disparate options, none of which have any relevance to the character I want to build. More importantly, none of these options inspire me to build a character around them.

And maybe that's the problem: the book tries to include a little bit of everything, from all corners of Golarion and the Pathfinder system, but it doesn't have the space available to do justice to any one topic, much less all of them. I don't want warmed-over setting material or refried eco-pablum; I want inventive feats, daring spells, thematic archetypes and curiously compelling magic items. I want material which grabs me, which my wilderness character can't live without.

Sadly, the book doesn't devote the space or the creative effort to delivering any of this. I'll most likely be sending it back.