How to build a party?

[Aleddra]

I don't mean what character or... skills or whatever. I mean, what roles are there. Maybe tank and spank? I don't know.

[Storm]

If you are new, try something like 1-2 tanks 1 ranged type 1 buffer(bard like) 1 divine caster(healing/summons/buff) 1 arcane caster (damage/buffs like haste if you need it)

[Invisible]

Classicaly: Figher, Cleric, Mage, Thief. Addtionally what ever you want. But for this game you really need: A lot of Healing power so two characters with healing, restoring and giving weapons blessings. The Last ist very important later on.

Not classic: you can do very weird party mixes or try to get all presitge classes.

[Aleddra]

What kind of damage mitigation would there be? Anything but good armor?

[Storm]

Originally posted by Aleddra:

What kind of damage mitigation would there be? Anything but good armor?

There are much better/more detailed posts about this but i'll try to keep it somewhat simple. I don't know how well you know the rules.

AC does not equal damage reduction which are two different things. Damage reduction reduces actual damage taken while ac (armor) just means you get hit less often or not at all depending on how high it is.

For reduction the basics would be protection from arrows/stoneskin/protection from energy.

Depending on your class AC basics would be armor/shield/deflection rings/natural armor amulets plus any buffs that add different stacking type bonuses on top of that like armor/shield vestment and haste/barkskin/legendary proportions. As well as anything that boosts corresponding character stats.

Same goes for mage types except they don't usually wear armor/use shields but have corresponding spells that do the same thing. There is a mythic mage armor boost that actually gives you a higher ac in the end than wearing armor/using shields. If you are using a fighter type with no magic it also works on the mage armor potion.

And I did not mention any class specific feats/abilities/features like dodge/smite/mutagens and the like or monk scaled fist stuff which can affect either ac/damage reduction.

[Khloros]

Generally speaking i go with the following

Initiator: This is your "Tank" or generally the guy who gets everyone attention first and takes all the big hits.

Divine caster: Generally your "Healer" in the group, they also do buffing and debuffing, and in some cases summoning to help as well

Controller: This is your bard, mage, basically something that can sling out control spells to stop the enemy, or debuff the crap outta them.

Magic damage dealer: Your general spell slinger

Martial damage dealer: IE this is going to be your melee hitter or your ranged hitter with bows so physical damage

<wild card>: 6th spot can really be anything you want at that point.

The important thing to also worry about/consider is to make sure you got all your skill checks covered, honeslty juggling skill checks, if you dont have a bard, is more challenging then figuring out the right party.

[Mork]

It's not a perfect science but in my opinion the very basic would be ->

A very tanky front line character
DPS 1
DPS 2
Divine
Arcane
Other (Buffs, skills, offtank, etc)

[Gregorovitch]

I think a lot of this depends on your choice of main character as really you have to figure out the best party composition around them.

But generally you must have a main tank that can focus the aggro at battle start, you must have a divine caster for the heals and buffs and you must have an arcane caster for crowd control and aggressive debuffing.

In the game you have two companions (developed as per original classes) who can main tank (Seelah, Camellia), a choice of two divine healer/buffer (Daeran and Solsiel) and one mage who is superbly good at CC and has some nasty offensive tricks as well (Nenio)

After that your main concern is dealing damage as reliably as possibl in as much quantity as possible as fast as possible. This can come from arcane spell, bow or blade it's up to your preference.

Then only thing I will say is that up to about L8-10 I would say you need two good tanks with sky high AC because a) you can't kill enemies fast enough yet and b) you haven't got enough casts available of the plethora of protection buffs that make the enemy miss or the kind of horrid aggressive debuffs that render them pretty much helpless lambs to the slaughter.

After about L8-10 you do and at that point you can contemplate benching one tank and replacing with a further DPS.

My main party up to nearly the end of Act 2 on Core was

Seelah: Main tank
Camellia: Main tank
MC (2H Bloodrager Primalist): DPS
Daeran: divine caster
Nenio: arcane caster
Lann: DPS

Soon as I rescued Arueshalae at L8 I benched Camellia to make room for her, so tanks -1, DPS +1. I thought I might have problems losing a tank, that I was being too greedy for damage. Turned out it was more than fine, you don't need to tank dead or totally incapacitated monsters, you just need to kill them.

[darkholyPL]

There aren't really any roles like you can find in say MMOs. This isn't an MMO. That said, you do want someone who has high AC, as 'bait' or 'tank' since enemy AI often focuses on the first target they see/nearest one. So it's a good idea to have someone with high AC up front.

Physical damage is hard to mitigate in pathfinder, since enemies, especialy later on in this campaign hit like a truck. Stone skin helps, but will not let you just stand there and take hits.
You should take Last Stand on your 'tank' (or like I did, on 3 of my melee frontliners).
As for other party members, you should have one arcane caster and one divine caster at least. Mostly for the buffs that they offer.
This game is very buff centric, or in other words you will need buffs, the higher the difficulty you plan to play on the more you will need them.
Past 'normal' they are pretty much mandatory (unless you plan to cheese the game in some way), but even on normal you will still need them.

Other than that, you will need someone with 'trickery' for traps and locks, and a good distirbution of other skills among your party members: athletics, mobility, lore skills ect.
Those are used for checks throughout the game, and for stuff like cooking ect.
Having range 'dps' helps as well, and you should strongly consider someone who can abuse touch AC or 'nukes' that don't roll to hit at all. It will help vs those 80AC late game mobs you will face.

The traditional roles are: frontline/melee, range, controll, nuker, buffer, healer/rezzer, 'thief', and some other more specialized ones like summoner for example.
One character can fill multiple roles, depending on the class and build. Unlike MMOs, overlap is good.

[Immortal Reaver]

Originally posted by Knight of Rem:

There is a mythic mage armor boost that actually gives you a higher ac in the end than wearing armor/using shields. If you are using a fighter type with no magic it also works on the mage armor potion.

Archmage gives you exactly same AC as Heavy Armor at Mythic rank 10, for most of game it gives less, with Armor focus it will always gives less AC. If you have less than 22 DEX then Archamge Armor is just not worth the Mythic Feat.
To get to same AC as Fighter with shield (without counting Armor Training). You would need 14 points of stat modifier, 16 for Tower Shield. That would be 38/42 DEX for non-monk. For monk/instinct warfrior dip that would be 24 DEX + 24 WIS/CHA, which is doable. Other way to reach 38 DEX is with Mutagen. Oracle+Scaled fist (as long as it does not get fixed) is also good way and you only need to reach 24 CHA.

[Bloodartist]

Originally posted by Aleddra:

I don't mean what character or... skills or whatever. I mean, what roles are there. Maybe tank and spank? I don't know.

Ive always went for:
2 tanks
1 lockpicker/sneak attacker
1 cleric/oracle healer
1 wizard guy/arcane check
1 random damagedealer (preferably ranged)

Someone also needs to be able to do mobility and athletics checks. Usually either tanks or the rogue. Wizard usually handles knowledge checks, cleric religion checks.

I've found that in pathfinder games longbow characters make excellent dps. Rogue can be dps as well as the lockpicker, but must be careful putting them in front lines.

[gmwaddington]

Arueshalae is a great Companion because she brings strong:
Perception
Mobility
Stealth
Thievery
Ranged damage

[Storm]

Originally posted by Immortal Reaver:

Originally posted by Knight of Rem:

There is a mythic mage armor boost that actually gives you a higher ac in the end than wearing armor/using shields. If you are using a fighter type with no magic it also works on the mage armor potion.

Archmage gives you exactly same AC as Heavy Armor at Mythic rank 10, for most of game it gives less, with Armor focus it will always gives less AC. If you have less than 22 DEX then Archamge Armor is just not worth the Mythic Feat.
To get to same AC as Fighter with shield (without counting Armor Training). You would need 14 points of stat modifier, 16 for Tower Shield. That would be 38/42 DEX for non-monk. For monk/instinct warfrior dip that would be 24 DEX + 24 WIS/CHA, which is doable. Other way to reach 38 DEX is with Mutagen. Oracle+Scaled fist (as long as it does not get fixed) is also good way and you only need to reach 24 CHA.

Like I said, I didn't want to get into the oracle/scaled fist/witch/smite stuff. I tried to keep it simple. If you are using mage armor you are doing those dips as well. Just pointing the OP in that direction if he/she wants it. And again like I stated, there are more detailed posts out there.

[Edstyles]

Min 2 meele then 1 or 2 archers then 2 casters ezpz 1 caster can be cleric
Then you have the Choice of 1 or 2 archer 1 Archer means U can have 1
More meele or 1 more caster/support

[synnworld]

I usually look at it like this

Front line tank (
Ranged DPS usually some kind of archer.
Support usually a bard which can do a crap ton of things which leaves the rest of my party extremely flexible or cleric.
These tend to be the 3 characters that almost never leave my party .

Next comes the caster which is usually always me because 100% time I'm going to be a wizard, sorcerer, druid, or shaman or I'm just not playing .

This leaves the last two which I tend to switch out all willy nilly so party doesn't get boring or stale.

This can be anything from off tank to arcane damage or secondary support or even primary healer.

[Ghost]

You can't mess up too much sticking within this general framework:

Tank / Frontline 1

Divine / Frontline 2 with animal domain / companion and summons

Ranged Physical DPS

Touch AC DPS (Alchemist, Kineticist)

Arcane Caster

Bard / Other