Help me pick my MC class for first playthrough.

[Durzo Gaelfire]

New to the game and about to jump in for the first time. I have played plenty of other CRPGs but I am new to the pathfinder games.

I plan on starting on daring difficulty with "additional enemy behaviors" turned on and changing it as I play through the game to match my comfort if needed.

I would like some suggestions on a fun but good class choice for my main character. I am okay with multiclassing but I don't want something super advanced or complicated (a little bit of complexity is okay). I also prefer classes that lean more towards martial stuff but I am okay with a little bit of spell casting mixed in. I do NOT want to play a pure caster for my MC.

I do plan on looking up a couple builds for whichever class I choose until I learn the game a bit better and start tweaking things to my own taste.

Classes I am mostly interested in are listed below.

1A. Sword Saint seems very fun and I really enjoy the idea of a hybrid melee spell caster.

1B. Arcane Rider I hear is a very strong class. I know nothing about mounted combat but the idea behind this class is interesting to me.

2. Demon Slayer I hear is incredibly strong. I do enjoy rangers and archery in a lot of games as well.

3. Mutation Warrior seems like a pure fighter on steroids which seems like it could add a little more fun to the base Fighter class.

EDIT: After doing some more research I now realize how important the mythic path is for my class choice.

MYTHIC PATH - I have decided to use Angel for my first play through.

cRPG bro has a couple really good Angel builds I am interested in

4. Crusader Angel with a heavy melee focus

5. Oracle Angel with a melee focus and also has a pet.

I originally did not want to play a pure caster but I may be a bit more open to that idea and now. I can get my martial fix using companions.

[PainkillerDCXVI]

Sword saint is fun, you're in for quite a bit of learning no matter what you pick actually xD

[Durzo Gaelfire]

Originally posted by PainkillerDCXVI:

Sword saint is fun, you're in for quite a bit of learning no matter what you pick actually xD

Yeah I am a little intimidated by the learning curve of this game. But I am comfortable with D&D systems and I have played a healthy amount of other CRPGs.

[Chan]

Mutagen warrior 100%. There's no situation where a mutagen warrior isn't consistently strong and they shine in melee and range. Arcane rider and demon slayer are close and fun seconds I enjoy both very much. Never tried sword saint, so I can't say much. I'm partial to martial, so I vote mutagen.

[Durzo Gaelfire]

Originally posted by Chan The Man:

Mutagen warrior 100%. There's no situation where a mutagen warrior isn't consistently strong and they shine in melee and range. Arcane rider and demon slayer are close and fun seconds I enjoy both very much. Never tried sword saint, so I can't say much. I'm partial to martial, so I vote mutagen.

Thanks for the feedback!

[Steffan]

Sword Saint or any magus class archetype. Dealing your melee attacks as touch is really strong at later levels, esp. on highr difficulties.

[ragvald88]

Well, if you`re familiar with DnD, there isn`t much we can say in a few lines. Yes, sword saints are considered one of the most op class, but don`t be fooled - their spells are 90% support and buffs, you won`t be flinging fireballs, or at least you shouldn`t. Very powerfull as melee, though. Others powerfull classes include vivisectionist (alchemist subclass that trades bombs for sneak attack like rogues, also have support magic a lot like sword saint), mutation fighter is exactly fighter on steroids (although two-handed fighters have nice things too, if you plan to never let go of a two-handed weapon), divine casters gone melee (priests, oracles, shamans are really good, they may lack a bit of attack but they have buffs for days to compensate, as well as the most customizable with mysteries / spirits - look at shadow shaman, 9 lvl spells, 6 sneak dies, some minor invisibility shenanigans, and can tank) and literally anything with a pet.
My advice is to, first, decide on a mythic path, since they impact your build very much. I won`t spoil much, but those paths are tied to your preferred aligment - so, lawfull good and evil neutral are the best casters, chaotic neutral have tons of extra crit talents, so very good for melee, lawfull neutral have extra synergy with inquisitors, and so on. Next, decide on fighting style - if you want a hybrid, then yeah, you won`t find better than saint or vivisectionist or shaman, not without heavy multiclassing. Keep it single calss for the first time. And finaly, go with whatever you like.
Just keep in mind it`s a difficult game either way.

[Steffan]

Originally posted by ragvald88:

Well, if you`re familiar with DnD, there isn`t much we can say in a few lines. Yes, sword saints are considered one of the most op class, but don`t be fooled - their spells are 90% support and buffs, you won`t be flinging fireballs, or at least you shouldn`t.

Without a further spoiler, there are situation where even a magus AoE spells are very useful. You might have 1 or two prepared, just in case.

Originally posted by ragvald88:

My advice is to, first, decide on a mythic path, since they impact your build very much. I won`t spoil much, but those paths are tied to your preferred aligment - so, lawfull good and evil neutral are the best casters, chaotic neutral have tons of extra crit talents, so very good for melee, lawfull neutral have extra synergy with inquisitors, and so on.

I would advise for a more intuitive approach. Yes, you might cast a look at the alignment positioning of the various paths. But I would not go further than that. Unless I am wrong, none of the your favoured classes requires a certain alignment. That means you can actually decide ingame, on the spot what you want to become. The first choice for these mythics that matters happens at the third mythic level. The mythic powers above level 2 add to your power but they are not vital in any way. And if (or your character) you are not happy with your choice, your character can always leap for the Legend for the last 1/4th of the game , which a powerhouse of its own.

I also want to say that should you go Chaotic Evil/ Chaotic Neutral / Neutral you can get quite strong as both a caster or a melee fighter , or both as the Demon mythic path. From all the early paths, I like this one the most (I am halfway through this run). But that is me. That being said, I still need to decide whether I go full evil/demon or go Legend for a path of redemption. Because this is an option too, narrativewise.

A nice summary of alignments of the various paths (a table without spoilers)

https://pathfinderwrathoftherighteous.wiki.fextralife.com/file/Pathfinder-Wrath-of-the-Righteous/mythicpathalignments.png

The brackets mean the core alignment. Devil, Swarm, Legend and Gold Dragon are late game mythic paths. They are not available until you reach late game.

[thunda]

Originally posted by Durzo Gaelfire:

New to the game

I plan on starting on daring difficulty with "additional enemy behaviors" turned on

Good luck mate. Btw Ranger is not a bow user by default (except Nomad), its a martial with a pet. You can very well spec him into melee like I did on my latest playthrough (20 Demonslayer/20 Muta Warrior). There's no special bow stuff he gets, unlike for example Hunter - Wandering Marksman.

[Nito]

As you first run

Know This Touch is extremely strong in WOTR and making Dispel work as well the rest depends on your mythic path

[Raistlin]

Which mythic path are you going with?

[Trolleur_Durden]

As rubberpig said, knowing the mythic path you are planning to take somewhat matters when it comes to picking your class.

[RedwoodElf]

My favorite is still Wizard into Lich Mythic. Complicated but the single most overpowered class once you get going. Imagine being followed around by a half dozen re-animated enemies and steamrollering through fights.

[Durzo Gaelfire]

Originally posted by rubberpig:

Which mythic path are you going with?

Doing a little bit of research I now realize how important my mythic path choice matters. For a first playthrough I think I want to play as Angel which changes things a lot for me. I may decide to actually play as a more caster so I can better utilize the Angel and just get my martial fix using companions.

I found a couple really good builds from cRPG bro I might use to start. He has a good Crusader build as well as a melee Oracle build.

[Trolleur_Durden]

For a Core and below difficulty setting, Angel is pretty solid and is more than able to have the best of two worlds, caster and martial. The most broken thing to do as an Angel is to take a full divine caster class like Cleric, Druid or Oracle and use and abuse the merged spellbook with the Mythic ability Greater enduring spells.

First, the spellbook merging will boost your caster level, allowing you to have access to spells which are 1 to 2 levels above what you normally should have at your current level, and you will get that pretty soon, at the end of Act 2. This includes some excellent buffs from the Angel spell list, with things like immunity to some of the nastiest effects like stats damage and drain, negative levels and such, but also some very good offensive buffs like Sun marked which will make all your martial characters much stronger. And later on, you will even be able to reach a CL of 25, which will allow you to cast spells lasting 1 round/CL for 24h too.

From there, it's perfectly possible to have a very potent hybrid character, able to be both a very good melee combattant with all the powerful buffs like Eaglesong that you can only cast on yourself, and a good caster with some pretty good offensive spells. It's nowhere near the one-shot anything potential of some full caster builds, but remains more than enough on your difficulty level.

A pretty simple character build for an Angel playthrough is Oracle19/Monk (scaled fist) 1. The main idea is to stack as much Charisma as possible and benefit from it:

-Charisma is your Oracle spellcasting ability.
-The Scaled fist dip allows you to add you Charisma modifier to your AC.
-With the Nature Oracle mystery, you can use your Charisma modifier instead of your Dexterity modifier for your AC.

=>A half-elf can start with a racial modifier of +4. Aasimar is also a solid choice, but the access to wings is a bit wasted since you end up getting those as an Angel anyway.
=>You only need Str and Cha, and some Con. You can dump Dex, Int and Wis entirely, which should allow you to put 18/17 in Str/Cha during character creation.

I like to use a staff because it's both a monk weapon and a two-handed weapon, thus giving you one extra attack with flurry of blows and allowing you to use x1.5 your Str modifier for damage. It's not as powerful as some 18-20 critical threat weapons like the falchion, but peaks strong quite early and stays relevant through the whole game.

Despite not being the best at anything, this builds still excels at tanking, melee fighting and spellcasting, both offensively and defensively. And you get to have an animal companion too, because why not?

[Shahadem]

Angel mythic path imo has the best mythic path specific dialogue options.