Monster Tactician advice

[Telmorial]

I'm really enjoying my playthrough with my Evocation Wizard but fancy trying another playthrough with a Monster Tactician.

Are they fun?

Do you have any advice re builds?

I can see the Animal Domain (have a pet to go along with the summon) and Healing Domains (better heals). Any better domains?

I think I'll go with a Dwarf for the Wis.

Any advice re stats? I can see Wis is recommended but what others? Or do I need to decide first what kind of Monster Tactician I want to be? EG. Sword/Shield melee or stay at the back with a bow?

So to sum up; Help a Pathfinder newbie build a uber fun Monster Tactician! :P

[[TGC] MadGod]

Take a Monster Tactician with Animal Domain (Gozreh, Erastil) and massacre most of the content in Act 1 solo. I ran a party with a Longspear wielding MT of Gozreh, an Erastil Animal/Community domain cleric and a druid. Full Animal Companions Elk/Bear (Elk for RP reasons. :) ), the cleric's AC was a wolf.

It was carnage. Due to the trivialized flanking, most "difficult" monsters were dead before I actually noticed. That includes the Stag Lord. Only exception were some wererats which gave me a tad bit of trouble.

Building a simple MT is rather trivial. The "usual" stats for an inquisitor, feats augment summoning, superior summoning a must. Teamwork feats are a laugh, take whatever you like (but precise strike is a must). Use the range of the summons to drop them to the enemies before the fight and they usually get aggroed first, massacre any stragglers, then the rest.

With reach weapons (long spear, glaive, fauchard), you basically let your ACs and summons get hurt and kill everything in sight.

[Telmorial]

Great, thanks for the info. I think I'll do with the animal domain then.

Still not decide re melee Monster Tactician vs ranged. Maybe I should stick to range, up the dex and along with Precise Shot, improve my range touch spells (although I'm not sure now many Cleric range touch spells there are).

[[TGC] MadGod]

Originally posted by Telmorial:

Great, thanks for the info. I think I'll do with the animal domain then.

Still not decide re melee Monster Tactician vs ranged. Maybe I should stick to range, up the dex and along with Precise Shot, improve my range touch spells (although I'm not sure now many Cleric range touch spells there are).

Someone posted a near-solo build of an inquisitor. I usually have a large list of my own builds, so I only scan the builds to see if I like the concept. Did not find it on my first search though...

[Taxxian]

All depends on difficulty settings:
Story => Challenging:
Animal Domain with Boon Companion and Smilodon is great, i addition to that you can be a Melee yourselfes.

Hard => Unfair
Your smilodon wont hit anything so taking animal domain is less useful (Hard) or even completely useless (Unfair) Rather take Rune Domain, for 8D6 + X free AOE damage right at the start of the battle. Beeing Melee also does you no good cause you die^^


Feats:
Boon Companion if Animal Domain, Focus Conjuraion, Augment Summoning, Improved Summoning (or something like that, gives you +1 summon per cast) and then you just collect Teamwork Feats for your summons.

Attributes:
Wisdom 20
Everything else exept for Charisma (7^^) at 10+ you can also dump strength if you dont want to melee (yes 7 is ok) I would put int to 12 or 14 because if you have all the skills, you dont need to care for them when assembling your party.


Problem:
Teamwork Feats for the summons (what this class is all about) do not work currently (1.09) they simply do not apply... bugs bugs bugs

[Telmorial]

Originally posted by Taxxian:

All depends on difficulty settings:
Story => Challenging:
Animal Domain with Boon Companion and Smilodon is great, i addition to that you can be a Melee yourselfes.

Hard => Unfair
Your smilodon wont hit anything so taking animal domain is less useful (Hard) or even completely useless (Unfair) Rather take Rune Domain, for 8D6 + X free AOE damage right at the start of the battle. Beeing Melee also does you no good cause you die^^


Feats:
Boon Companion if Animal Domain, Focus Conjuraion, Augment Summoning, Improved Summoning (or something like that, gives you +1 summon per cast) and then you just collect Teamwork Feats for your summons.

Attributes:
Wisdom 20
Everything else exept for Charisma (7^^) at 10+ you can also dump strength if you dont want to melee (yes 7 is ok) I would put int to 12 or 14 because if you have all the skills, you dont need to care for them when assembling your party.


Problem:
Teamwork Feats for the summons (what this class is all about) do not work currently (1.09) they simply do not apply... bugs bugs bugs

Great, thanks for the info! Yeah, I didn't know the Teamwork Feats for summons were broken, that's well....QUITE IMPORTANT! :P

I'm playing on Challenging right now but will increase to Hard soon, so I'll check out the Rune Domain, sounds fun :)

[AzureTheGamerKobold]

if you wants gobs of minions i'd actually suggest an abyssal sorcerer, the bloodline gets a +1 minion on summons, which stacks with supiror summoning... you can literally swarm enemies with gobs and gobs of monsters, and since you can cast a bajillion spells per day as a sorcerer it can be pretty hilarious!

My issue with the monster tactican is that you can only have 1 summon active at a time...

Edit: oh yea and 1/2 sorcerer level in DR/Good cant forget that!

[Iridescence]

Originally posted by AzureTheGamerKobold:

if you wants hobs of minions i'd actually suggest an abyssal sorcerer, the bloodline gets a +1 minion on summons, which stacks with supiror summoning... you can literally swarm enemies with gobs and gobs of monsters, and since you can cast a bajillion spells per day as a sorcerer it can be pretty hilarious!

My issue with the monster tactican is that you can only have 1 summon active at a time...

Why not both?:)

[[TGC] MadGod]

Even without working teamwork feats for summons, it is safe to say you can walk the content with confidence. Oddly, precise strike works fine for me. Hmm...maybe I recheck.

Since I am not bothering with the difficulties other than normal, knowing that Owlcat meddles with numbers that PF never intended to be meddled with in the higher levels, the ACs were more than adequate. All difficulties that go beyond a certain level touch mechanics that were balanced before and simply cause certain combinations to explode in your face. :)

I usually do not play a caster inquisitor, but use a reach weapon and hide behind summons/ACs and still attack quite effectively. To attack, I use summons and take elk/mastodon/boar/bear as ACs to tank and soak damage, since I have found no way to equip amulets of mighty fists to my companions, giving them magic attacks outside of casting magic fang on every animal in my party which sucks.

I never dump STR. Ok, we are lucky that the AI is dumb as bricks, because the enemies have LOTS of Necromancers and the first spell on someone looking like a caster in armor is Ray of Enfeeblement which will nearly 100% of the time hit you. And you do not want to have an Inquis in medium armor and a str of 1. That will ruin your day. Unless they up the game of the enemy caster AI, you are safe tho..:)

[Telmorial]

Does anyone know re the Animal Domain, does the animal change at certain levels? EG. A dog at level 4, Lizard level 8, dragon (Iol I wish!) at level 18.

[76561198249640122]

Best advice I can give for a Monster Tactician is : go for Evil Alignment.

Since you share your Teamwork Feats with your summons, you're going to want them in melee most of the time so they can profit from Outflank, Precise Strike and the such.

This works fine at the start of the game for everybody but once you start hitting the mid-game (levels 9 through 14), your best summons as a Good or Neutral Monster Tactician will be casters. Not only will those summons annoyingly hit your group with their friendly fire spells but they pretty much never close to melee and therefore waste most of the Teamwork Feats you're sharing with them.

Evil Monster Tacticians, however, will summons redcaps, soul eaters and bogeymen at these levels and all of those will fight in melee, using your teamwork feat to their full extent.

[Telmorial]

Originally posted by AzureTheGamerKobold:

if you wants gobs of minions i'd actually suggest an abyssal sorcerer, the bloodline gets a +1 minion on summons, which stacks with supiror summoning... you can literally swarm enemies with gobs and gobs of monsters, and since you can cast a bajillion spells per day as a sorcerer it can be pretty hilarious!

My issue with the monster tactican is that you can only have 1 summon active at a time...

Edit: oh yea and 1/2 sorcerer level in DR/Good cant forget that!

Sorry, I missed your reply before.

That build sounds interesting!

What race would you recommend for this build?
And sorry but I don't understand the "1/2 sorcerer level in DR/Good" part.
EDIT: Oh, I get it, 1/2 your level as DR (damage reduction for anyone know doesn't know). But that's only vs good enemies right? Are there a lot of good enemies?
The only good enemy is a dead enemy! :P
EDIT2: Oh dear, I really should look things up before I post! So DR/Good means only good characters can get through the DR?

[wulfster42]

Yep, DR/Good means only good aligned enemies can hit thorugh it, and 1/2 your level means if you go pure sorc, you get 10 dr/good (stopping the first 10 physical damage you would take).

That is fairly significantly as say a fighter (or barbarians) only get 5/- DR eventually (which you can basically equal by level 10 as a sorc!).

That being said, you can STILL get that and take 2 scaled fist monk levels which means you only get 9 dr/good...but you also get:

2 bonus feats
Cha as an additional AC boost along with dex
Evasion.

So you lose out on some sorc levels etc, but end up MUCH harder to hit, have more feats and get evasion as well (with pretty high saves).

Taking 2 pally as well drops everything down a bit more, but adds cha to saving throws, gives you martial weapons and precise shot for free (so if you wanted to use composite bows for instance as backup damage...it makes that much easier) etc.

But we are getting off topic. Still just 2 monk levels does add alot.

[Babbles]

I've made an Amiri MT and an Amiri Sacred Huntsmaster - Currently I'm doing a Amiri MT with Animal Kingdom, seems to be a good blend of the two possiblities.

[JODEGAFUN]

Originally posted by TGC MadGod:

Take a Monster Tactician with Animal Domain (Gozreh, Erastil) and massacre most of the content in Act 1 solo. I ran a party with a Longspear wielding MT of Gozreh, an Erastil Animal/Community domain cleric and a druid. Full Animal Companions Elk/Bear (Elk for RP reasons. :) ), the cleric's AC was a wolf.

It was carnage. Due to the trivialized flanking, most "difficult" monsters were dead before I actually noticed. That includes the Stag Lord. Only exception were some wererats which gave me a tad bit of trouble.

Building a simple MT is rather trivial. The "usual" stats for an inquisitor, feats augment summoning, superior summoning a must. Teamwork feats are a laugh, take whatever you like (but precise strike is a must). Use the range of the summons to drop them to the enemies before the fight and they usually get aggroed first, massacre any stragglers, then the rest.

With reach weapons (long spear, glaive, fauchard), you basically let your ACs and summons get hurt and kill everything in sight.

The wererats are aktually more dangerous as the Staglord fight if you take all advantages you can get to fight the Staglord, like killing all other bandits and his officers before the combat aigans him.

[JODEGAFUN]

Originally posted by wulfster42:

Yep, DR/Good means only good aligned enemies can hit thorugh it, and 1/2 your level means if you go pure sorc, you get 10 dr/good (stopping the first 10 physical damage you would take).

That is fairly significantly as say a fighter (or barbarians) only get 5/- DR eventually (which you can basically equal by level 10 as a sorc!).

That being said, you can STILL get that and take 2 scaled fist monk levels which means you only get 9 dr/good...but you also get:

2 bonus feats
Cha as an additional AC boost along with dex
Evasion.

So you lose out on some sorc levels etc, but end up MUCH harder to hit, have more feats and get evasion as well (with pretty high saves).

Taking 2 pally as well drops everything down a bit more, but adds cha to saving throws, gives you martial weapons and precise shot for free (so if you wanted to use composite bows for instance as backup damage...it makes that much easier) etc.

But we are getting off topic. Still just 2 monk levels does add alot.

5+ wapons break this DR too, ore devine dmg.