Cavalier to Hellknight - How viable?

[Hroar the Red]

How viable is it to go to Hellknight from Cavalier?

[dwarfpcfan]

I mean it's easy to do straightforward with the requisites. But Hellknight is... well underwhelming at high difficulty to say the least.

[Hroar the Red]

Really? I'm playing on core difficulty, how much would a few levels into Hellknight for roleplay purposes hurt me in the long term? Also, do Hellknights have special armor in this game?

[info]

Cavalier is bad compared to other melee focused classes and slightly bugged (forgot, but stumbled over a few descriptions while browsing reddit or steam forums). no idea about hellknight.

[Silamon]

I wanted to like cavalier, the mounted combat is too buggy though. That and my character being too stupid to open a door.

[dwarfpcfan]

Originally posted by Hroar the Red:

Really? I'm playing on core difficulty, how much would a few levels into Hellknight for roleplay purposes hurt me in the long term? Also, do Hellknights have special armor in this game?

I haven't finished the game yet, right now just doing the siege of Drezen. Haven't found any cool Hellknight gear.

And well, Hellknight was clearly meant to be a tank dps. Except anyone who's paid attention in kingmaker and is playing in higher difficulties knows tanking only partially to do with AC (which ironically Hellknight can't do that well) true tanks to survive the absurd things that get thrown at you for your level absolutely need mirror image, blur, displacement and the like to not get hit at all. You cannot rely on your AC and HP when random enemies throw +17 to hit and sneak attack casually with an average damage of 20+ per hit.

You need to not get hit at all, Hellknight does this.... poorly.

Honestly if you really want to tank, one of the simplest options is.... bard

Go fighter 3-5/Bard13-11/Dragon Disciple 4 and you'll be much more tanky by leagues.

[Cruddy]

Cavilier is very buggy when mounted, I've had them disobey/ignore orders, when you dismount your chracter is walking in the air and sometimes they just act weird.

I use the Hellknight companion and while I like him as a chracter his usefullness is quite low, he's always the first to die and does piss damage compared to everyone else.

I would stay Cav. or pick another class to combine with Hellknight.

[Dekent]

The hellknight companion is as useful as whatever weapon you found for him, and there are some truly overpowered 'gnome hooked hammers' out there, but unless he's rocking a shiny new OP one he's just kind of...meh....

A real shame since he's my favorite companion. Wish they had a mount or something built in, maybe a hell hound.

[Hroar the Red]

Odd, I've been finding Cavalier to be almost overpowered; bugs aside. But thanks for the answers everyone! I think I might just put a single level into hell knight for roleplay purposes and then just keep leveling up Cavalier. You all helped put things into perspective for me!

[darksol92]

Hellknight is decent since it gets the Smite Chaos ability and all demons are chaotic... but it's also basically a Paladin with much less utility. Hellknights can buff the entire party against chaotic enemies but... while all the demons are chaotic the cultists are more often than not neutral evil which the Hellknight's abilities do nothing to.

I'm actually running a Cavalier that prestiged into Hellknight at lvl6 and can say that her cavalier abilities are probably more useful than the new ones she got unfortunately.
I do play exclusively in the turn-based mode so I don't have many problems with the bugs

[krwr12]

Hellknight is not underwhelming, it's one of the most viable melee prestiges for now. (in this particular video game) He's getting +6/+4/+2 saves against charm/compulsion/fear effects. I'd recommend to choose exactly in this order. Hellknights become almost invulnerable to disablers, especially against fey. Demons of the World Wound are mostly chaotic evil and Hellknights happen to have axiomatic attacks in order to overcome chaotic damage reduction and smite chaos which is very handy against tough demons and bosses. It also should have hellknight's order bonuses, but they are currently not implemented in the game. To fully utilize Hellknight's potential have charisma at least 14, take dazzling display, cornugon smash, dreadful carnage, shatter defenses, preferably some feats improving persuasion, one of the disciplines should be fearsomeness. I'm not telling you the exact build, you have to count how many feats you will get to take the most necessary first. I also would recommend to multiclass, take 1 lvl of rogue thug, for his frightening ability and sneak attack and also 1 lvl of alchemist vivisectionist for his +4 mutagen and another sneak attack. 2d6 sneak attack is a massive bonus in the early game, but for the rest of the game I'd recommend to focus on crits. Hellknight could be more tanky, wearing a shield or go full 2h. For the shield variation take the bastard sword proficiency, they are very good weapons overall but you want to go for the particular artifact "corpse piler", one of the best 1h weapons in the game. If you go 2h, take cleave feats and the glaive focus, the weapon you want is "demonic hunger".

Considering multiclassing with Cavalier, a big no. You see, animals lvl increase respectively to your lvl in a class that gives you that animal or be continued with another class that gives an animal companion. If you go 10 lvl cavalier, 10 lvl hellknight, your animal will be lvl 10, hugely underpowered and easily die in the late game.For real, armiger is THE BEST fighter archetype in this game and it also improves hellknight's strong points.

[urartu]

Currently playing a glaive Hellknight character and he is great on destroying people behind Seelah. And reach weapons work with Outflank feat, which is great.

[Rudel]

Originally posted by dwarfpcfan:

Originally posted by Hroar the Red:

Really? I'm playing on core difficulty, how much would a few levels into Hellknight for roleplay purposes hurt me in the long term? Also, do Hellknights have special armor in this game?

I haven't finished the game yet, right now just doing the siege of Drezen. Haven't found any cool Hellknight gear.

And well, Hellknight was clearly meant to be a tank dps. Except anyone who's paid attention in kingmaker and is playing in higher difficulties knows tanking only partially to do with AC (which ironically Hellknight can't do that well) true tanks to survive the absurd things that get thrown at you for your level absolutely need mirror image, blur, displacement and the like to not get hit at all. You cannot rely on your AC and HP when random enemies throw +17 to hit and sneak attack casually with an average damage of 20+ per hit.

You need to not get hit at all, Hellknight does this.... poorly.

Honestly if you really want to tank, one of the simplest options is.... bard

Go fighter 3-5/Bard13-11/Dragon Disciple 4 and you'll be much more tanky by leagues.

This is the best sum up of tanking in Pathfinder I have read in past weeks and it should be stickied somewhere. Don't use tank classes as tanks, but Bards, Spellswords or anything that can cast those spells, preferably with 1 Monk dip.

Unfortunately.

[Serchine]

Originally posted by krwr12:

they are very good weapons overall but you want to go for the particular artifact "corpse piler"

Excuse me, how to get this corpse piler? I checked it's stats, basically insane.