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No mercs. They are dull :)
Against the vast majority of enemies targering armour heavy armour users have a field day, but what the game also has is some dangerous enemies that target touch-AC, which means that anybody who relies on their worn armour (whether heavy, medium, or light) to defend them with few other sources of armour class are in trouble against those enemies (though magical protections will help, obviously).
Since the game also has many bracers of armour and items boosting dexterity, most characters that are not (due to class and stats) optimized for heavy armour use, are better off using robes, light, or medium armour, to get as much use out of dex as they can.
There are some clear exceptions to that rule - fighters get to contribute more dex the higher level they are despite using heavy armour, and the tower shield specialist fighter archetype gets to contribute an even higher one and in addition gets to contribute shield bonus to touch AC (level 9). Which is one of the reasons that of the companions Valerie makes such a good tank.
Short story? The super tankiest character in the game is somebody wearing the best unique armoured robes, unique bracers of armour, unique this-and-that, abusing class features that adds INT or CHA to AC, and is buffed to the gills with spells. But heavy armour is still good in both general and in the specific and I'd advise you to have at least one heavy armour user and possibly two in your go-to party to take advantage of the great heavy armour you get. Apart from what you'll find, you'll get a dwarf blacksmith artisan working for you who is really good at making heavy armour.
♥♥♥♥ mercenaries, I'm in it for the story.
The party has ONE superstar, my main character, the others just need to be good at what they do, and the companions are. The companions are all perfectly serviceable party members, who are good at their jobs. Sure, they don't have optimal ability distributions and mechanically some of them would be better off with more powerful archetypes, but that is not needed at all. What they do have is personality, and that's one of the things I'm looking for in role playing games.
I play with a full company of 6 party members at all times and to give it a sweet balance between moderate challenge and my desire to reach high levels in my first playthrough that is now near the end, I play on hard difficulty with the XP scaling mod (exponential, base 1, divisor 20, exponent 4)
Since I love playing sorcerers, in particular draconic sorcerer, and since I dislike how the base game doesn't include pathfinder's favoured classes and the Prestigious spellcaster feat (experienced pathfinders will know where I'm going with this :D), I also use the Call of the Wild mod with its companion Favoured Class mod.
To give you an idea about how absurd ability scores you can get at the endgame, and why perfect optimization by using mercenaries to be a few ability points better at start really is a fairly meaningless exercise except for the fun of optimizing, look at my sorcerer at level 20 before the end. He started as 15/14/14/12/7/18 and added 4 CHA up to L16 and 1 STR at 20. (And yes, somebody else would probably have gone 16/14/14/7/7/19, but I don't like roleplaying an idiot. :p)
The following is UNBUFFED, all bonuses are from class, inherent benefits gained throughout the game, and items.
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img921/1794/IosRCF.jpg
You read that right. UNBUFFED 32/26/30/24/17/34
Note that that's with 3 feats spent on 1xFavoured Prestige Class Dragon Disciple and 2xPrestigious Spellcaster, so as not to lose any spellcasting levels, so he casts at level 19.
Full buffed and in dragonkind III form he becomes an extremely high hitpoint nearly impossible to hit in melee dragon sorcerer that can't use rods or other items and in additional is pretty capable in melee with his 7 attacks per round.
If wanting to use him extensively in melee with transformation cast, he can swap in some monk robes and other gear for better armour and to-hit before the fight starts, and then he looks like this (character sheet doesn't show all 7 attacks):
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img923/1952/2Mv0oW.jpg
BUFFED 48/26/42/24/17/34
To the damage add 5d6 sneak attack whenever the target is flanked (practically always). To the AC, add 12 for fighting defensively (4) and Seamantle (8) for a total of 86.
Let's just say that while you can certainly make considerably more dangerous melee combatants in this game, it is still quite respectable for somebody who is primarily a full-progression spellcaster with 19 spellcasting levels who only goes melee as a hobby.
And frankly, this is overkill. Without casting transformation he's still a respectable +40 to hit with bite (weapon focus) and +39 with claws, wings, tail, and he can attack in melee while still casting quickened spells (though those have to be metamagic quickened without rods, so only up to 5th level) or take a brake from melee to cast Stormbolts or use dragon breath if swamped by enemies or whatever.
If making something like that in the unmodded game one would either exclude DD entirely (for a loss of 4 str, 2 int, 2 con, 3 AC, 2 dragon bloodline feats, and 8 levels with higher dice hit in return for not having to spend 3 feats to counter spellcasting level loss - they should then be used for more varied metamagic or spell penetration; or more likely go with DD4 and accept the loss of one level of spellcasting for a total of 2 with the monk level, meaning you'd only reach level 8 spells at level 18 and level 9 spells at level 20 in return for most of the dragon goodies. It wouldn't be quite as strong, but it would come close.
When I go on and on about this it is because it is common in this steam forum to see people writing that wizards and sorcerers aren't much useful in the game except as buffers and controllers, with the exception of a standard arcane trickster build for nuking, but nothing could be further from the truth.
I know and never even implied otherwise, all my comments are based on mechanical efficiency/power not the fluff. at all.
And as I said, he's fine as is because he has a solid class and solid stats for his class. He doesn't make the top 4 in my opinion but he is one of the better party member.
No, I want companions who have a personality and interact with my PC, pure mechanical power be damned. I can use the current companions and make them competent even at higher difficulties I don't need a group of silent murderbots following me around to finish the game.
Animal is very good because it nets you an animal companion, so you can add a panther companion which is the best late game animal companion in my opinion and really strong.
Good domain and Community have some useful buffs
That said, you don't need a mercenary cleric because the essential cleric spells are not domain exclusive but part of the spell list all clerics have access
Read the quote again.
PnP, 20 points is standard in Pathfinder Society, but for campaigns 15 is more usual in my experience. in PFS you are with random groups, so you need a pretty well-built, rounded character, and a higher point buy helps with that and giving new players some leeway, where in a campaign usually you want the characters to start out as more average people thrust in to danger.
25 is extremely generous, honestly. A party of 20 point characters that you can specialize and synergize with yourself is still awesome.
I did that mostly because I wanted someone with an animal companion. You can take the feyspeaker archetype so casting is based on charisma, and boon companion. It makes her a whole lot more versatile while she is still able to take a ton of hits- 19 con is pretty great, and you don't need much more than heavy armor and a tower shield to make a good tank.
An interesting point is that when you take druid, you can't equip metal armor but she won't remove her current armor. So like just put her in whatever the best armor you can find is before you take levels of druid, and then retrain later on if you find something better.
Then goes Jubi, then Ekun, then Jaethal.
Nok-Nok has too many levels and a wrong alignment when you get him to make him unfair-viable front-liner without stocking him with tank items to the brim. A pity. So many stats. Horny sisters are kineticists and as such shouldn't be used or considered.
The rest are strictly worse than a merc you can hire. Octavia would be fun to build if she didn't start with a rogue level.
Agreed but then again you can just go arcane trickster which is good enough , but stops you from multi classing her sadly .
Everybody gets 20%+ better is too hard to beat, and then she did not even start to cast spells. -
The Great, the Magnificient, the Illustrious, you get an idea. (Maybe: The Indecisive?)
With less people in the party, she obviously loses value, though.
Ekun, Nok-Nok and Jubilost are, besides that, hands down the most effective companions.
all S tier in their own right.
Very strong: Regongar, starting mid-game, when he becomes more beefy.
Jaethal is, as someone mentioned, also very good, but it is pretty hard to define a role for her.
Harrim is an ultra-solid Dwarf cleric, who did the right thing: He avoided MAD-ness, by dedicating himself to what really counts in his job: Front line support, heavy shield and armor.
- Charisma/ Channelling is a typical noob trap on a cleric; single target (touch range) heals are the ones that actually count.
Valerie depends on player skill, and how much support you actually give her, if you go the predestined route (she starts with Dodge and Toughness) of Stalwart Defender with her, and splash some Thug and Traditional Monk: Overall, decent.
I do not like Octavia. Trickster is fine in the game, as touch attacks rule.
Transmutation, her annoying personality, combined with an abysmal Constitution of 8 , meaning both insta-death when hit, and resting every three hours on the world map, however, spoil it for me.
Amiri has, with certainty, the most terrible stats in the game, and standard Barbarian is not the most impressive class, anyways. - Does not mean that you cannot work with her, though.
Tristian is a special case: Terrible Cleric kit, terribly high Charisma, instead of at least Dexterity, starts with two completely redundant feats:
Selective Channelling is what you pick when you use it to damage enemies, and buff summoned Undead, as an evil Cleric (that is also when you actually DO care about your Charisma :P) , although the important PnP feats to make it strong are (sadly) not implemented. And, - more useless Channelling is evidently more useless.
-Even for him, there is salvation, though: Turn him into a Pyromancer Mystic Theurge, forget about what he pretends to be, and show the wrath of Saranrae to the world.
From F tier, for pure liability to the party, he turns to B- , due to Cleric utility combined with self-protection spells and ( pun massively intended) sheer unlimited fire power, starting with level 9.
So that the Sun Goddess will be pleased! :P
And, even if you enjoy his healing prowess ( I evidently don`t :D ) , as a full-time Ecclesitheurge, the splashy alternative is way more fun, and even makes more sense from a RP -perspective.
Normal PnP is TALK TO YOUR DM.
I find Octavia's rogue level to be the most annoying thing when it comes to companions. I always spec out of it with no remorse. The game has decided, for no reason, to make you life harder in the beginning, where it is at it's toughest, and just waste a level if you want a pure caster.
As for Valerie, I like the simple things, keeping her as TSS and getting Uncanny Dodge one way or the other. Thus I find her Dex to be low on Unfair, because for the first 8 levels or so, there are encounters where she needs 2-3 more AC for the fight to be less painful. Later on of course it makes no difference.
But to be honest what bothers me more is the small thing of her having Weapon Proficiency with Bastard Swords. It doesn't make much difference really, but I want her to use other weapons and it annoys me knowing the feat is sitting there, wasted.