Character Build Questions

[SUP3RM4N]

So I hope I say this right, but my brother was helping me build my characters last time I played this. I had to swap between classes every few levels to make a descent character. Is there an option in the game to remove all the crazy mechanics so I can just build a say, sword and board tank, 2 hander ect without jumping through different classes just to make them viable?

[ptirodaktill]

Sure you can. Even on unfair all classes are viable as long as you know what you`re doing. It mostly come to fluff and flavor really.

[Immortal Reaver]

You can make decent fighter easily without any dips.
Only one thing board and shield Fighter does not do well, and that is big damage after midgame. And Twohanded fighter is less tanky, but does more damage.

But note what matters for Fighter tankiness comes mostly from items, and like 8-18% from feats (Armor Focus, Shield Focus, Greater Shield Focus, Dodge). His accuracy and damage comes from picking one weapon and sticking with it (for Greater Weapon Focus, Greater Weapon Specialization, Weapon Training+Gloves of Dueling). Longsword is probably best pick.

Fighter really benefits a lot from blacksmith and weaponsmith (+3 Heavy Shield in chapter 3 is great, you should ask for shield if you do not get it as first randomized item) and their masterpieces. So you idealy you should not set Kingdom managment to Auto.

Here is Fighter with no dips, it would be possible to get 78 AC on lvl 20 with this Fighter.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3093216493

[Radiac]

I didn't play on unfair difficulty, but both of my runs I did minimal dipping, and by that I mean I made my main a pure Cleric in the one and a Knifemaster Rogue in the other, and I don't even really recommend doing Knifemaster if you do go with Rogue. There are some good short swords in the late game, and not a ton of good daggers in the early game. For the cleric I went with Erastil and took the Community and Animal domains. Animal gives you an animal companion comparable to what a ranger would get (so you need to take Boon Companion to un-nerf it) and Community gives you the most OP class ability of all time at level 8, Guarded Hearth. Guarded Hearth creates a persistent AoE which is fairly big that gives allies within it a bonus to their to-hit rolls and saving throws equal to the cleric's Wisdom modifier. With gear etc that Wis mod is going to be at least 8 at some point, maybe 10 ultimately, which is just sick. Helps a LOT in boss fights, especially against the Spawn of Rovagug, The Lantern King, etc.

I didn't even dip Valerie into the usual monk etc stuff. I did build Octavia as an Arcane Trickster tho.

[Frostfeather]

As said, you don't have to multiclass. I rarely do even on Unfair. Though buffs, group composition and strategy will be even more important.

Otherwise, just play on a lower difficulty - customize it as needed. And/or use the Bag of Tricks mod to further adjust how difficult the game is, as it has tons of options.

[Orion Pax]

You can totally do solid single-class 2H builds. Good simple classes are: Two-Handed Fighter, Slayer, and Barbarian. A fancier one with spells and special class feats is Sword Saint if you want proficiency in an exotic weapon.

Crane feats do work with 2-handed weapons which make it plenty tanky, and you can still do those without the Monk dip by just taking Improved Unarmed Strike (IUS) as a feat, in addition to Dodge, to get to Crane Style. (If you’re Slayer Deliverer, you could also get IUS for free by picking Irori as your deity).

Many spells to enhance its melee capabilities can be done by others, including normally “personal” spells like Shield, False Life, or Echolocation, thanks to Alchemist’s Infusion ability.

By not multiclassing, you will benefit from accessing good class features earlier, which is cool.

[SUP3RM4N]

Well I'm not sure what happened, and I only got so far into the story, but my brother who is a DM told me the reason I never could hit anything or have spells etc was bc I didn't dip into other classes, so by the time they were like lvl 7 they were in 2 or 3 different classes, with a few passives and buffs on at start of battle. But it just seemed like a lot. and for me who do not understand the mechanics to that point of knowing what to get and what not to get (min maxing) was just hoping that there was a simpler way to just play as I want and still be viable.

[asame_akio]

Originally posted by Nobody:

Well I'm not sure what happened, and I only got so far into the story, but my brother who is a DM told me the reason I never could hit anything or have spells etc was bc I didn't dip into other classes, so by the time they were like lvl 7 they were in 2 or 3 different classes, with a few passives and buffs on at start of battle. But it just seemed like a lot. and for me who do not understand the mechanics to that point of knowing what to get and what not to get (min maxing) was just hoping that there was a simpler way to just play as I want and still be viable.

I don’t know your brother, but it seems like he’s given you some pretty bad advice. I’ve been playing Pathfinder 1e (the system this game is based on) and D&D 3.5 (the system PF1 is essentially a successor to) for… damn, creeping up on 15 years, now, and one of the worst things you can do as a new player is a lot of multiclassing. And I say this as somebody who does a lot of multiclassing.

Multiclassing is tricky to get right. It requires a lot of familiarity with the system to get a feel for how to balance what you’d sacrifice by switching away from your old class against what you’d gain in a new class, and how many levels, and at what levels, you should switch for/at. And the thing is, most high tier multiclass builds aren’t stronger than single classed ones—you mostly multiclass to enable you to do different things, or the same things under different circumstances, or just to make a character or build concept that no single class really fills effectively.

In general, the best thing to do when trying to get into PF1 is to avoid multiclassing. The system is complicated enough without throwing in even more complications in a new player’s build.

[ItachiDeltaForce]

pick fighter or paladin class then take armour, shield & hp feats and skills that raise those stats no need to multi-class for two hander you could take fighter 2h fighter sub class but i guess the sword and board build would suffer a little but not much but very viable

[Immortal Reaver]

Originally posted by Nobody:

Well I'm not sure what happened, and I only got so far into the story, but my brother who is a DM told me the reason I never could hit anything or have spells etc was bc I didn't dip into other classes, so by the time they were like lvl 7 they were in 2 or 3 different classes, with a few passives and buffs on at start of battle. But it just seemed like a lot. and for me who do not understand the mechanics to that point of knowing what to get and what not to get (min maxing) was just hoping that there was a simpler way to just play as I want and still be viable.

Early level you will rarely hit anything unless you CC enemies. They have AC(armor class, your protection againts being hit) around 20 while you have AB(Atttack Bonus, it is basicaly accuracy) around 4-7.
Calculations to hit are:
random number from 1-20(=d20) + attacker's AB - target's AC = if number is 0 or higher you will hit.
So AC-AB=X, X*5= miss chance in percetange.
That is average 15*5= 75% chance to miss early game.

As you level up, get better weapons, take some feats, increase STR/DEX your AB will raise by very much, while AC of enemies will be raised by very little. By level 7 you will hit way more often even on singleclass without need to multiclass.

Thing is that if your brother was DM for DnD 3E or 3.5E then in those editions multiclassing is way much stronger than singleclass. Especialy with high number of prestiges.
Also abilities for few seconds in tabletop from many multiclassing, will be stronger in tabletop that has few big fights, and passage of time spent in fights will be cca minute, while here you will be running around and fighting many fights for dozen of minutes, where your short lasting buffs will not last, and if you do not use them you will be weaker than singleclass.

Another thing different compared to tabletop is that in tabletop you get few magical items, while in videogame you get a lot of powerful magical items at lvl 10, you would only get at lvl 20 in tabletop. These items replace a lot of buffing as they give same buffs as buffs spells.

[Zzyl_tsw]

i did not change any class on any character on my normal run (save the prestige class for octavia : she is clearly designed for it, as you get her with both rogue and wizard level) and it was ok

So you do not need to do it.

But the game balance is not always very good, and the early game is mechanically "harder" as you have few buffs