Rebalance Story Companions, Please. Especially Valerie.

[Darkfireslide]

*Spoiler warning for early story.*

I want to start by saying I haven't played the PnP Kingmaker AP. That being said, I wanted to say that given the difficulty of the module, the most debilitating part of the game currently from a balance perspective (notwithstanding some of the more outrageous fights that I've only heard about thus far) is that the story (Pre-generated) companions are by and large unoptimized for the kind of fighting that takes place in the campaign. I picked a Dwarf Fighter for my character, wanting to try the TWF Sword and Shield style fighter, which while unoptimized, I thought might be pretty fun. I won't delve into my stats too much because after the tutorial I grouped up with Linzi, Mirin, and Valerie. I love all of their characters, I think they're all well-written and likeable.
Linzi and Mirin have decent classes and don't suffer as much from imperfect class optimization, and too be honest I don't care so much about minmaxing, but Valerie in particular has atrocious statistics for her class, to the point where I'm not sure you could actually salvage her build in any way. If she weren't a Tower Shield Specialist she could at least safely multiclass to Sorcerer and then perhaps be a gish Eldritch Knight, but as it stands there is virtually nothing else she can multiclass to, which sucks because I understand the story reasons why she has a good Charisma but not as good physical stats. If her Strength were 16 at least she could wear heavy armor and use her Tower Shield without being heavily encumbered, and that way at least she have some combat function as a good meatshield. My only recourse at this point is trying the Shield Wall teamwork feat with her since my Dwarf is already using a sword and shield himself.
Please consider rebalancing her stats such that she has some functionality, since it can be a little immersion breaking to change story character builds, although a limited option to design pregens at 1st level wouldn't hurt.
I don't know much about the other companions but I'm sure it couldn't hurt to look at the rest of them too.
I love the game so far and want it to succeed and as a Pathfinder veteran will give as much feedback as I can. Thank you so much for making it. I hope my feedback is helpful.

[Meeky]

I would definitely have given Valerie a proper whirl if she wasn't a freaking Tower Shield Specialist with 19 CON and not much else going for her. She has high CHA but makes no use out of it, and she hits like a wet noodle.

My Sylvan Sorcerer can summon up a dog that fights better than she does and has more AC thanks to Mage Armor, at least at the low levels. Said dog also has a trip attack on his bite. He's a good boy. Yes, he is!

If you are dead set on using Valerie, you CAN switch her to being an Eldritch Scion Magus... but then she'll just look like a much weaker version of a certain other magus you can find in Act 1.

[dodger6118]

Here's what I did to make Val more useful until she gets past lvl 3. Pull the tower shield off of her and give her your best medium armor. Just doing that will remove the majority of the pnealties crippling her in the first couple levels. After lvl 3 she gains an ability that balances her out and you can put the tower back on her and begin considering the heavy armor again. After I did that, she was my prime tank. She'll hit harder than the barby and last much longer.

[Meeky]

Originally posted by dodger6118:

Here's what I did to make Val more useful until she gets past lvl 3. Pull the tower shield off of her and give her your best medium armor. Just doing that will remove the majority of the pnealties crippling her in the first couple levels. After lvl 3 she gains an ability that balances her out and you can put the tower back on her and begin considering the heavy armor again. After I did that, she was my prime tank. She'll hit harder than the barby and last much longer.

Yeah, but my dog still does her job just as well. And my dog is a class feature.

[dodger6118]

If your familiar hits harder and more accurately than a fighter wielding a shield and a bastard sword then I would think that maybe its the familiar that needs balancing.

[Caelinus]

Valerie is my strongest fighter. Obviously she was desinged to be a tank so I started giving her all the feats I could find related to her sheild.

She does not do a lot of damage, but she does not need to do a lot of damage as my main is an evocation sorcerer and Amiri just goes around gibbing the trash. What she does is survive for absurd amounts of time on the front lines use the threat of AoOs to keep enemies away from my ranged characters.

[Shadenuat]

First thing you do - remove tower shield. Her class removes -2 penalty to hit from it only on level 5. Give her medium shield without BAB penalty.
Give her some weapon focus & specialisation, Polish Armor during rest, throw Bull Strength on her and she's basically all set to tank and do reasonable damage too.

[Meeky]

Or the Fighter could have more than middling strength and NOT have 19 Constitution? Or maybe the Fighter could have a few of those Charisma points redistributed? Or not be a Tower Shield Specialist?

The dog + mage armor = just as durable. The dog hits hard enough and is far from the strongest option; I could have taken an animal companion with a lot more raw damage, but I wanted one with Trip, so other animal companions can definitely hit harder. The dog doesn't have a -2 penalty for using a tower shield (which, I know, that disappears eventually), and the dog has a better movespeed, which is a nice garnish on top of everything else. Oh, right, and the dog trips things when the dog hits.

Now, theoretically Valerie will outshine the dog at high levels. After all, the dog should only ever get 1 attack, and Valerie will have 4 attacks. But let it sink in that my sorcerer's class feature was performing just as well or in some cases better than the party fighter.

If Valerie's stats were a bit better distributed, she might be alright. As it stands, she's, uh... She's not a great choice.

[Shadenuat]

idk what is your dog made of but Val even on low levels with proper potions and stuff can reach ~30ish AC, and with 20 CON passes Fort checks like poison easily without suffering any permanent damage, which makes clearing places like spider caves a breeze. Only thing she is missing is dual into paladin to get +3 extra to all saving throws (and maybe pump her damage using smite going around low STR), which I wish would happen during story.

[*Primach*]

When i was doing the Kobo+Troll boss fight, i 100% relied on her...... spam healed her, and nuked troll, on my fail attempts, she died, my party died.

She was the only one who could somewhat handle his insane dmg output.

[Darkfireslide]

As a Pathfinder veteran, Valerie is a character I would not find fun or even entertaining to play. She can hit high ACs, but so can most Fighters without needing to be a Tower Shield Specialist and having a whopping 14 Strength. She's extremely underwhelming without dedicated support, and my standard Dwarf not tower shield specialist Fighter is only one point of AC behind her while wearing comparable armor, and even then, I'm doing a suboptimal build and I can outdamage her while having similar HP and AC. Her build is just trash; anything else about her is something pretty much anyone of her class can do. Again, if she weren't a Tower Shield Specialist she could multiclass into literally so many other things because of her Charisma, especially a Sorcerer into Eldritch Knight, but doing so as she is just ruins any hopes of her becoming remotely useful beyond eating damage, something all melee classes can usually do while also dealing respectable damage in return.
Even just giving her 16 Strength instead and lowering her Dex to 10 would be a welcome buff. 14 is a hilarious Strength score for a Fighter that is supposed to wear heavy armor and use a tower shield and not actually do damage.

[Blackdragon]

Valerie has trash stats that don't make any sense, BUT THERE'S A SOLUTION (SEE BELOW).

So Val's a fighter, but with only 14 STR? That's the prime attribute of a fighter, and it's so low, even her supposedly dump stat Charisma is higher.

She's a Tower Shield Specialist, but with only 13 DEX? So she cannot use any of the Dexterity bonus increases that TSS and Fighter armor training provide. And her low STR really makes you regret losing Fighter weapon training! Moreover, the stupid tower shield slaps a -2 penalty on her already low attack, so in fact she BLOWS as a Fighter.

She has 19 CON? WHY? Not only is that complete overkill, but it doesn't make any sense from a roleplaying perspective: Valerie may be tough, but she's not a half-orc or half-ogre to have such monstrous constitution.

INT 9, yeah right, so she's not that smart after all... wondering where all that Rose Order training went, if not to her head...

WIS 10, hmm trading a life of luxury for mercenary work doesn't seem that wise, so eh. Can't multiclass into cleric with such trash Wis.

CHA 15, this is the killer. A dump stat for all martials, this ability point hog actually makes her a better Sorceress than a fighter, especially counting the stupid TSS archetype. But Sorcerers have Arcane Spell Failure Syndrome from wearing armor, and her DEX is too low for defense without heavy armor... LOSE/LOSE once again, way to go Owlcats!

So yeah, Valerie is a total mess, which is completely inexcusable from both mechanic and roleplaying (crunch and fluff) perspective.

THANKFULLY THERE'S AN EASY WAY TO REMEDY THAT!

Use the table from here:

http://fearlessrevolution.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=7964&start=30

To give her nice reasonable stats!

Personally, I bumped up her STR and WIS, dumped INT, lowered CON and CH, and multiclassed her into a Cleric of Pharasma (she can do that, despite being an Atheist, thankfully).

I also threw away her ugly ass Tower shield in exchange for a sexy heavy shield and full plate armor.

Now she's a proper Jeanne d'Arc, blessing my band into battle and smiting infidels in the name of the Goddess of Death.

[Darkfireslide]

I mean I kind of figured cheating and/or mods might be the answer. *sigh*

[Kel'Ithra]

Actually most pathfinder characters don't hit 18's characters with 18's in stat are considered epic builds sort of. Most named lore characters have decent scores and 14 is a good score. Valerie in terms of pathfinder build is solid, the problem with her is she is shield focus and needs to level up to get the most out of her shield bearer abilities.

I don't like her views and so on, but she works on the battlefield. Put points in persuasion and use the skill that intimidates your oponent during fights etc. Also their not meant to be power min max characters and this isn't a ARPG.

Baldur's gate 1 and 2 the characters had mediocre stats majority of the time, even NWN 1 and 2 their stats where not impressive. It's based on an adventure modules frankly if your going to ♥♥♥♥♥ about character designs, a Pathfinder based CRPG will likely never be your thing because their not designed to break the mold.

They work as they are, and humans can spend 2 attribute points at 1st level when created and place it where they want.

[Roadie]

Valerie's stats are just weird. They don't make sense at all thematically, since nigh superhuman Con and high Cha is exactly the type of character theme that should err towards LESS shields and armor, not more. She'd make much more sense with something like the Seasoned Commander or Tactician archetypes in tabletop PF (both trade armor mastery for party buffs instead).

[Meeky]

dk what is your dog made of but Val even on low levels with proper potions and stuff can reach ~30ish AC, and with 20 CON passes Fort checks like poison easily without suffering any permanent damage, which makes clearing places like spider caves a breeze.

Let me post a link to the stats of my dog when my character is level 2. The dog is "level 3" because in Pathfinder animal companions level differently than player characters. (I.E., my dog has 3 Hit Die when I'm level 2.)

https://imgur.com/m1ziMuZ

There. Doggo stats. This is my dog with no buffs and with Power Attack on. But let's assume I wanted to buff my dog and prepare him for tanking.

Step 1) Mage Armor. 23 AC.
Step 2) Shield of Faith. 25 AC.
Step 3) Defensive Fighting. 27 AC.

With just two buffs and Defensive Fighting my class feature can now tank comparably to the fighter the game has given me. What's great is that because this is a class feature I have room for an actually useful 6th character, like a fighter with high strength or a spellcaster or something.

Valerie needs adjustment.