keep in mind it's gonna be a regular nuker sorc that will ahrly put a dent in enemy HP's for like 70% of the game. Maybe better served being replaced by a melee sorc or a melee bard.
This idk about at all. Does not compute. Claws from mutagen will stay at 2 attacks forever. It's good at like level 4. Real awful after.
I don't really like pure supports, but whatever. I'd probably just taken melee bard with a vanquisher instead.
yep.
yep. Although you already have a pet from a cleric. You might be able to get away going arcane bomber here. Will add some attack presence you kinda lack too.
I would probably think about putting kineticist here. Sure they are broken-op and all that, but it's perfect fit for the party.

Full bab is overhyped. What matters is if you can hit stuff. Stack enough buffs and it'll be totally fine. You just need one hit to start the shatter thing anyway.
As a general note, looks like the whole thing is very micro-intensive. way too many casters to my taste. Something simple-stupid like Ra15/EA2/V3 would do well here.
I'd probably trim it down to
MC Melee bard with vanquisher.
Arcane bomber/gren2. +divination -enchant/nercro/evo/abj
Trip vivi, except LN
Erastil ecc
ranger/kineticist/alchemist - whatever you fancy. I'd probably take jubi just cause in my personal (totally unbiased) opinion he's one the best written NPC in any cRPG(rivaled with pretty much any NPC in VTMB). And his camping ability is insane. 20% rest efficieny? yes, please.
whatever. everything vital is covered. Might take something meme-worthy here.

This is actually the character I had the most success with in all my games on Hard: ScaledFist 1/Vivi 1/Sorc 3/ DD 4/AT 10/something 1, kitted out as a melee fighter, not as a nuker. Takes loooong to actually get the form, but is a pretty decent tank without it, and elemental form was enough to get good mileage.
Oh. I assumed this would get additional attacks later. Thanks. So make potential traps in these builds.
So, I would need to dual wield to make it work or just go back to the Saint build.
I have no idea how I would build this yet. Probably not a full Bard, but I must say I have real trouble to build this up. Will study your suggestion a bit more.
Believe it or not, I actually arrived at this build by myself, started with Crusader once, changed to basic Cleric after and finally decided the guy always died first in the frontline anyway, might as well have him stand back. -_-
I'd say it depends on how many melees I end up with. I like to arrive at 4 melees so I can split them into two teams with two people for sneak attack purposes. If I end up putting Bard on the front or switch Raycaster for a frontliner, I could make do with one pet. But with only two meleers, I'd like to have two pets.
I thought about that, but the class kinda turns me off. Also, my concentration isn't the best atm, and I can't get my head to wrap around the mechanics.
The micro thing is another problem, yes. Almost made me drop the game last time, what with the minute-long buff orgy before every fight. Also, Lantern King area dispel wrecked me _hard_.

I avoided Arcane Bomber like the plague up to now because it seemed to me like the bombs were basically what the wizard could do anyway - dish out elemental damage. None of the fancy effects from an alchemist.

Regarding the Saint, I was running a Saint 9/Vivi 1/Duelist 10 build last time and was a bit annoyed of the dragon shifter being more effective. I see you have a Saint with much higher Saint levels done. Is picking up Duelist not worth it?

Also, thank you very much for taking the time. I saw that you added a note to the front of the thread that you "don't do this anymore" and assume this means no full builds, but was reluctant to ask nonetheless. Feel free to drop out anytime if it's too much.

https://www.gog.com/forum/pathfinder_kingmaker/ineffects_guide_v2/post102

you only have so many spells per day. getting some odd 20 free fireballs is not a bad deal and the guy can be your conjueror to boot. Due to how the medium works, wizards are a polar opposite of what they are in pnp. In pnp they are versatile and prepare for every occasion. In cRPG's it turns out the stack a few spells and end up like a super-condensed sorcerer with even less variety. so lets say you have yourself a conjueror loaded with mostly stinking clouds. He won't even bother taking evo spells anyways. He'd specialize even deeper in control. And illusions will cover whatever you need on defense as if focused he'll drop in a second anyway. With bomber you get a bit if damage for empty rounds. Pretty nice. Savant does the same better, but it costs money and inventory management.

Duelist in general is pretty trashy. Yes, I dare say my saint is better. Pushes out 500+ damage per round, not counting AoO's and has all defenses capped out. Going melee magus and not getting bane weapon should be a punishable offense.


I just stopped supporting the game. I have nothing against answering a few questions here and there. Doesn't take hours of work.

Thank you. I've got a lot of info to mull over now.

I think I have stumbled upon something interesting: basic premise was that I want to try to get Inspire Courage at more than +1 while simultaneously get a decent not-useless tank out of it. So it was either get +AC on a bard or Mirror Image on a Sensei. And regarding the latter:

What about sprucing a Sensei up with Sword Saint 4 (apart from Vivi 1 and probably a few others)? Costs would be an investment of INT to 12 (while 13 would allow trip feats for Leg Sweep), a -2 to AB and loss of a bit of monk abilities. Net gain would be Shield and Mirror Image, +4 to AC from Canny Defense, bit better saves, automatic weapon focus and some arcane pool.

As of Hotfix 1.0.14, Sword Saint can pick unarmed as his chosen weapon, which'll probably be quite powerful with Legendary Proportions.

Alternative would be, of course, to AC up a Bard with DD 4, Scaled Fist 1, Vivi 1, and probably a bit more.

Problem with sensei is that you spend a whole lot of levels and just get a tanky guy in the end, not whatever else you might do with it.
As to the bard... bard6/DD4/M1/Booter4/EK5 is probably the tank/support bard you are looking for. Could go bard 7 for the move action songs and up that to quick actions with singing plate later on, but I don't think you would have enough AC that way and I am not a huge fan of lingering anyways.
PS. shield does not cancel monk AC(but does cancel flurry) in case you didn't know. Sensei with a shield could be an option too, except sensei doesn't provide enough.

4d8+19=37avg*5(best case)=185DPR best case. Real damage would be 100 if even that. That's pathetic and exactly what I meant when saying you get just a tanky guy in the end. Proper melee has both the AC and at least 300+ damage per round. Good melees are anywhere from 500 and up.

Bard doesn't have transform, so you have to have at least some BAB and there is spell progression and some feats thrown into the mix. Getting to 16 is good enough, but more is better. +1AB on a song is not worth 5 levels of investment. Good thing about bard is you don't really have to have level 6 spells. There is nothing crucial there.

Shatter is a must on any self-respecting melee. That's a single most damaging feat in the game. It single-handedly can increase your factual DPS by tenfold, and I'm not even exaggerating that much. As to who does the actual dazzling... mainly whoever has free time as you will end up with 2-3 dazzlers in the party naturally, but usually it's a resident sylvan sorc to fill empty rounds who does the job. Or a cleric.
You can somewhat emulate it by blinding/improved invis, but there are things you can shatter that can't be bothered by either of those.

Alright, thank you for clarifying.

A Bard as outlined by you would do much better damage than this? I can get good damage by using a decent weapon, but - like, significantly more than 4d8+19 by character sheet (thus not counting 2d6 sneak attack, 1d6 Alkali Gloves, 1d6 Firebrand, Alkali Gloves counted as separate attack with +2d6 sneak again but against DR)? Or is it just that a Bard is more versatile?

Also, I will most likely pick an Alchemist as my 6th man. An Alchemist would be able to put transform on the Bard. Would I be able to pick a non-EK Bard in that case (not necessarily putting the other levels into Bard)? Alchemist transform is 16th level at the earliest, so I'll probably be at a disadvantage level ca. 12-15 that way.

lets say you are a bard in question. 22base str+4DD+8belt=34+6legendary=40/+15
Vanquisher is 1d12+5+10. CBA to look up what 1d12 becomes with colossal size, but it'd be like 4d8 or something like that. Either way dice is not what we really care about. I am going to calculate flat. +5+10+22=37+whatever dice rolled . lets just say it's 17 average damage. Won't be too far off. 37+17=54 with 17-20/x3 treat. That's 17% chance to do x3 damage. for the simplicity of it lets assume you get an average of 1 crit per round. With 5 attacks we have 54*3+54*3=324 damage per round. And while AB of the last attack is unreliable, with enough buffs and shatter it still will hit on the threat range, which is what we care about. Now factual damage will always be lower as you are not hitting all the attacks no matter what, but it's a useful benchmark to calculate. Even if we assume 1 attack misses every round it's 243 avg DPR, which is not so bad for a support character that is not spear-headed into dealing damage. I also didn't calcualte bite damage that will come up sometimes and damage increases from feats/sense vitals and so on, which would add another 100 avg damage give or take.

Okay. Thank you.

Edit: I think I learned more from your posts and comments than everywhere else put together.

Just a FYI, the results of an experiment based on your Bard tipps: I wanted to see whether I can build a Sensei similar to your proposed Bard and optimize him for damage via Dragon Style. On level 19, with full buffs and Power Attack, but only mental headband/physical belt, I managed to get him to AB +47 damage 3d8+41 (10 from Power Attack, which doesn't seem to recognize Dragon Ferocity).

But on the other hand, your proposed bard (only 3 EK, but 1 Vivi, because Transformation alchemist) ended up AB +49 damage 4d6+60 (15 from Power Attack).

Result: the insurmountable problem seems to mainly be that there's no easy way to get bonus damage like the stronger weapons do. If I could get something like the +10 damage from Vanquisher, or the +2d6 sonic from Incorruptible Petal, the Sensei would be almost equal. Sensei would still need more feats, doesn't crit quite as hard or often, needs the amulet slot for unarmed enhancement bonus, but seems to get Flurry anyway, and can advice full attacks into the group for a dozen rounds.

Sensei also doesn't get mirror image and sense vitals like bard does. Also power attack is a big no-no. Even with crazy buffs it's not worth it, unless you hit on rolling 2. And don't get too hung up on getting vivi1. On non-transform builds it's not that good. you basically trade 1 BAB for mutagen and a bit of sneak dice. 10 minutes is about half the dungeon (if you don't loot). 'tis a nice bonus, but nothing "must have". If it was not for the unfair A1 I would skip it on my saint, for example, in favor of more saint levels.

Sensei was Saint 4 among other things, so I specifically tried to get one Sensei that would be able to cast Mirror Image.

I managed to even stuff out a bit more with a Sensei 12/Vivi 1/Eldritch Scion 1/DD 4/Fighter 1. Did a small mistake when buffing in the last test, and assuming equal conditions and same buffs, level 19, with just weapon/shield, amulet, head and belt, comparison is:

Bard/Sensei
AB: +52/+53
damage: 4d6+40/4d6+32
AC: 51/58
Crit: 17-20/x3 versus 20/x2 (but with Hammerblow and x2 Strength on first attack per round)

Contains a small cheat though, as the bard is a Freebooter 4 (whose buff boni aren't on the character sheet) and the Sensei isn't. Also the Bard's amulet slot is empty while the Sensei's isn't (I consider this a more fair comparison than otherwise since the Sensei is required to get his enchantment bonus from the amulet while the Bard doesn't need to). Could leave the shield off for -4 AC, would gain me a Flurry attack I shouldn't have.

Looks overall pretty decent, I think. Main problems are still the lack of a damage bonus (which makes up the gap in damage) and the _way_ worse crit damage, offset a bit by a lot better AC.
And the Sensei requires Dragon Style, so no Crane style. But for me at least, using Crane Riposte with a Greataxe looks like an oversight I wouldn't like to use.

Edit: just to be clear, this isn't about which one is stronger, I just want to see how far I can push the Sensei, and I am using the Bard idea as a baseline, since in my party they're competing for the same slot.

51AC is plain wrong.
Assuming MC hogs LG armor and not gyronna,
10base+5deflect+3LN Robes+6dex+8Cha+6legendary+4 shield from alchemist+4Nat boots or transform+3DD+5+(4+4)crane=61+3ring of circumstances if you can spare it(considering there are 2 in the game it shouldn't be a big deal)=64
+1dodge
+3wings
=68
Would be 70 if he had LG robes.
IIRC transform stacked with Nat boots and ammys, so you can even drop the ring and have LN robes or drop gyronna and still top out with 70melee AC/63ranged. Haven't played on the latest patch so idk what might be hotfixed there. Just don't get dispelled by a monarch xD.
PS. another thing monk doesn't likely have is echolocation and dreadful carnage, so will have to cough up a feat for blindfight and no automatic dazzles now and then. And you also didn't calculate sense vitals 4d6, which is another 14 damage against most things.