Need advice for Aegis development

[Pyrophilios]

After a long time, I finally got the chance to play a bit of Pathfinder again.

We are in the first book of the Strange Aeons campaign. Our group consists of a Halfling Rogue (abysmal damage thanks to zero strength bonus), a Human Fighter (focused on not getting hit with combat expertise instead of doing damage), a Gnome Sorcerer (high Cha but low Dex, has trouble hitting with ranged touch attacks) and my character an Elan Aegis (Power Attack)

The adventure starts with our characters being amnesiacs in a sanatorium overrun by cultists and undead. The GM decided that it's pretty unrealistic for us to find all our gear in the next room, waiting for us, so we are very low on equipment (my character uses a longsword two handed as his main weapon, the rest of our weapons consists of improvised weaponry and knives/daggers as well as one other longsword, wielded by the fighter), including healing items and armor.

Without planing to do so, my Aegis is severely overshadowing the rest of the characters due to automatically having access to armor, ranged attack, turning your weapon into a psionic +1 weapon, Str enhancement and a pretty hefty damage bonus that combined with power attack gives my Aegis a 12+1d8 base damage.

We have just reached lvl 3 and I am seriously wondering how I should develop my character so as not to widen the power disparity. (It doesn't help that the Elan can use the PP to avoid damage and improve his saving throws)

All other players don't want to bother with using anything else than the core rule book to build their characters.

Ideally, I'd like to find some options from core that allow me to boost the performance of my fellow players in combat.

[Manyasone]

You won't. The aegis is inherently better than most of the other classes of your fellow players. Especially if they only use the core book (who does that?). Are you a vanilla aegis or a alternative? In either case you will quickly overshadow them. But also increasing their chances of survival, since they will suck

[Pyrophilios]

They prefer core to avoid having to read too many books...
I play a basic Aegis - without Path of War - and yes, so far my concept of doing a lot of damage very quickly paid off (but it's pretty uncomfortable to do double digit damage when the rogue plinks around with 1d3 dagger damage with the occasional 1d6 sneak attack)

[legomaster00156]

Alrighty, so the basic issue is that you have such a better foundation in your class than the rest of the PC's. You will need to do two things in order to balance that factor: hold yourself back, and raise others up.
Unfortunately, the Aegis is a very self-serving class. Everything it does is based on making you better, not on aiding allies. You can easily hold yourself back by selecting suboptimal customizations and the like, while keeping a few good ones in reserve for when it all goes down. However, as for helping allies, that is harder. There is the common wisdom of always being a flanking buddy for your rogue, but honestly, your party is just bad. Foundational changes need to be made if they are to close the gap (or, otherwise, you need to retire your aegis and select something worse/more party-aiding).
First, direct your rogue to Pathfinder Unchained. I think he will appreciate having a class that is basically the same, but better. Advise your fighter that as an aegis, you have all you need to serve as an effective meat shield. If he wants to aid in that role, though, a reach weapon and Combat Reflexes/Stand Still could help him protect the party more than Combat Expertise ever will. Alternatively, he can use that feat to spring into some nice combat maneuvers, like the Disarm tree. Finally, point your sorcerer towards AoE spells and the like that focus on saving throws over attack rolls.

[Geddy2112]

Unfortunately, there is not much you can do to NOT overshadow the rogue and the fighter. If the rogue went unchained, their damage output and debuff abilities would be pretty strong, but as is you will simply beat them out. The fighter can keep pace somewhat with bonus feats, but if they want to go defensive tank it simply wont happen.

Even in core, they can both be built better. Serve as a flanking buddy for your rogue, have them two weapon fight with short swords so at least they get extra attacks. The fighter can do a lot of similar things that you can, even sword and board they can power attack, and TWF/shield bash if they are setup for it.

The gnome will eventually outpace you, as sorcerer will get world altering spells that beat out your abilities. Until then, have them pick up some powerful AoE spells as suggested above. Aiming for touch will become easier at higher levels when monsters are large and their touch AC's are garbage.

One place you can let the other players shine is outside of combat with skill checks. The rogue and sorcerer should be pulling face duty, and even with your high INT and 4+ skills per level there are plenty of things they cover you cannot, so let them there. You can sandbag extra skill ranks into useless knowledge or climb/swim(bleh). Just keep ranks out of bluff/sense motive/diplomacy/intimidate. The gnome sorcerer and halfling rogue SHOULD be good at all of those combined, honestly the rogue can probably be the face outright.

[MilleniaAntares]

It would help if you focused on utility/defensive customizations rather than just solely offensive. Load up on darkvision, push (to help with positioning), adhesive feet, energy resistance.... Heck, you can leave points unused for quickish customization in an emergency.

Also pass on item upgrades to everyone else. You should stick with your longsword until after the rogue and fighter have gotten better stuff than you.

[Pyrophilios]

Good point about the items. I plan on using the craft wondrous item option at 5th level. But until then I really need to subtly help them along.
Out of combat the problem is not that pronounced thanks to some sensible allocated skills (that said, knowledge skills are far from useless - they are actually the second most used skills after perception in this game)

As for optimizing the others: I tried that already. The fighter player actually knows the rules pretty well and is an experienced character builder - he just has a play style that could best be described as talk, take punches really well, run away fast.
The gnome sorcerer likes to make her own mistakes (and actually learns from them) and has expressly forbidden me from advising her on her spell selection or build.
The rogue player I already told about the unchained class and why Paizo though it was necessary to invent them. Yet, he is still bitching about the raw power of my race+class selection (which isn't wholly unfounded, since the mundane base classes are so much lower powered).

I certainly am tempted to build a druid or wizard and just be done with it (although I really love the psionic Aegis concept)

[Elricaltovilla]

So you're playing with three other players that don't want to be good at the game. If they won't accept help, then unfortunately there's nothing you can do.

You could try pointing out how unfun the game is for you having to constantly go in and save them, or every time they complain about it being too hard you could mention that you offered to help them build characters that don't suck. But they'll probably take that poorly. I say just continue to play your character how you want, and if they continue to gripe or turn their ire on you, just politely state that you're trying to have fun playing the character you want to play, same as them. There's no helping people who won't have it.

[Andreaz]

Yeah, you're stuck.

Just be nice about it. It's all you can do.

[Geddy2112]

It sounds like two of the players are decent, or at least willing to learn. The sorcerer will learn as they level up and get better spells. Even with suboptimal choices, they will be getting high level spells and even bad high level spells are still strong. Eventually those will outshine your martial build entirely.

If the fighter wants to be the tank, and knows that is what they want to do, let them. Keep your AC lower and go in as the party striker-do the damage in combat, and let them soak attacks like no tomorrow.

Another good way is to sandbag in combat-make suboptimal moves, and make getting your rogue friend sneak attack a key priority. Do almost anything to facilitate this-you fighter friend can guard the sorcerer, and you and the rogue go on offense.

I also didn't mean to say knowledge skills were useless-certainly the big 4 are very important, but that you can put ranks in a lesser used knowledge, like geography, engineering, or nobility.

[Galacktic]

Also forever: no gaming is better than bad gaming.