Not exactly true. Most clerics will have spare low-level slots you can fill with inflict wounds(sure, it's more comfortable to convert situational spells into heals than heals into heals, but it's not that bad). And there are 1/day harm bracers from varn she can use for emergency heals in combat. It's only late-game her upkeep becomes a problem since mass heal scrolls are what you use for in-combat healing there. Another kinda big problem with jaethat is you can't enlarge her. She has to have frightful aspect and/or whatever that other divine personal enlarge is called.

Theurge is ok if
1) you take em for a ride in their mid-teen+ levels, when 3 levels won't cripple you.
2) you don't really care for magical damage, only for utility. As I said, picking an awesome god and doing ecc8/wiz3/the9 works very well.
Only problem is you don't get awesome gods from companions, except you can get abadar/nobility on ekun if you abandon ranger asap for sacred8/12(and being sacred he can help heal jae too, btw). But Ekun should worship torag by lore, so it's kinda messed up. And with such companions don't make amazing theurges no matter what.

Edit. Forgot to mention that companion interaction is pretty limited outside of their quests and what happens in the city, so you miss almost no content if you park em in the town and take them for quests they ask you to come and their personal ones.

Valid point I suppose harrim or tristan (clearly tristan though) could prepare inflict wounds instead of buffs and then convert those to heals when needed.

Also, what?!? you cannot cast enlarge person on her? why not? she's humanoid even if she's undead?

Also valbard is fighter5/bard6/dd4/ek5, but I'm wondering about that, because bard8 is a cool breakpoint. Although I guess tss5 and dd4 are both mandatory. EK5 is a bonus feat... hmm. A 7th level bard and an 8th level bard both get full BAB though even though the bard is not a full bab class...hmm. Bard then loses a bab at level 9.
I guess the question is, if dirge+startsingingasamove is worth 1 bonus combat feat. Because ek4 and ek5 aren't needed to qualify for any fighter feats. Although in order for the fighter5/ek3 to qualify for greater weapon focus at level 19, bard8 would have to be taken at level 20.... and at that point... dirge is probably useless, so this entire line of thinking was probably also pointless.

tl;dr is https://www.gog.com/forum/pathfinder_kingmaker/ineffects_guide_v2/post198 still the valbard build you would recommend in this case?

Yep. She's undead and as such is not a 'person'.

My newer builds for her are better. TSS5/11bard/4DD gets you decent spellcasting, gets 16BAB, which is good enough and +3 quick action song(once you get singing plate).

Don't try to make her hit stuff with tower shield. She has pretty pathetic damage ramp. All she kinda needs AB for is to discourage AI from moving past her. If you want to hit stuff as val you are better off using monk variant from the unfair guide.

Since you run a sole bard and unlikely to get frightful aspect on anyone fast enough I'd go for 11 bard variant from unfair guide. If you won't use MC as a tank things will complicate. I'm not sure who even can tank unfair from whoever is left, so I'd probably be forced to take another cleric or something to spam summons.

Yeah I saw the unfair guide has both a bard 8 and bard 11 valerie, you might wanna copy paste them into this thread, I think a lot of people would like them. (I actually started the game with harrim, just so I didn't have to decide on my exact valerie build right away).

All the talk about bab was mostly by way of me saying; there's no reason at all valerie shouldn't be either 8+ bard or 0 bard. Not that I actually planned to use her bab for anything. (It looks like you agree though, you say both your 8 and 11 bard valerie builds are newer and better than those in this thread).

ATM I'm planning to use a druid with an animal companion to help me get through the part of act1 where I only have 4 party members. I am debating throwing amiri into a sacred huntsman role, because, in theory, I'll never use her again once I get noknok, and I'd like animal companions to help me in act1. It seems lazy though, and it might not be able to do the job as well as your freebooter/barbarian offtank build?

I could of course make valerie a dedicated tank, and keep linzi, but, well, linzi seems like she's one of the weakest companions in the game (ignoring harrim and amiri who I'm definitely throwing away after act1), if I'm not mistaken... which I probably am.

Wondering what your take is on it, smilodon, or wolf? (And is anything else even in the running?)

edit: I am only on hard, but of course, I'm also a total n00b at this game. So some suboptimal ideas won't ruin my run entirely.

They are available and I aint actively doing this anymore. I don't mind answering questions, but keeping house is not something I'm willing to do. Even unfair guide was made just cause I wanted to reduce my personal level of vitriol towards the game.

I usually just dump all her levels into sacred cause I don't care. Pets help her not to die in her missions and that's good enough for all I care. I hate her writing, I hate her and everyone who looks like her.

There are 2 options for a bard - val and jae that are head and shoulders better than linzy could ever be. Not to mention there are spoiler reasons to not make linzy your only bard.

Leopard. One and only reason being it's medium sized forever and as such doesn't constantly block every tunnel ever. Smilodon is ok... but if you are not playing on unfair and don't mind big things around you are better off with mastodon.

Is wolf also medium but better at tripping or does the wolf become large? Also I'm not sure how much I mind blocked tunnels. Since I'm lacking on tanks. A blocked tunnel sounds pretty nice. On top of that, once I recruit ekun... I'll probably decide that I like companion's flavor and lore. I'll have too many of them to have any excuses left. The mercenary will get fired. So. A wolf or smilodon that starts off medium.... might not be in the party long enough to become large. (note: I can't find what level animals become large on any of the incomplete wikis)

Hmm, jaethal as a bard? Now that's interesting. Although she won't be able to heal herself as a bard, because bards never learn inflict wounds do they (however since she'd rarely be hit, maybe tristan could heal her just fine as a 20ecc)? If jaethal is just as good as valerie at being a bard, I could make valerie more of a dedicated tank. Which might help the fact anyone else standing on the frontline with her will suck at it.

Silly question, but since you're answering. Reach weapons. Stuff like outflank, and seize the moment still count people who are melee'ing from reach range, to be in melee range, right? I've seen a lot of bardiche/fauchard/glaive builds around, that seem to rely on this being true.

Speaking of true things, that are probably true, is crane wing still busted OP? or since 2019 have they fixed/patched it?

There are only two medium sized trip animals. Lizard(which sucks) and leopard. Everything else is large. Mastodon is the best trip pet in the game... if you can stomach the noises, although I think they lowered the volume on those a bit.+

She won't be 'as good as valerie'. Obviously. She's saddled with an inquisitor level. But she can be made an ok bard. And you'd probably have to do a monk val if you do jae bard cause they'd compete for the same gear otherwise.

Yes everything works fine with range. As of recent patch you can even trip things from range instead of 5ft. One thing is seize the moment doesn't stack with outflank cause they do the same thing. It's nice to have if you have loads of summons and solo tactics, though.

Still works the same. Just don't go searching for it on the character sheet. It turns on in combat once you've made a melee attack. I wouldn't call it busted op, but it's a lot of tempo AC. If anything, it's the crutches armor tanks need to even roughly compare to monks, as monk builds would survive the nerf no problem.

I've used wolf and smilodon before, and, well, they're larger than the leopard, but... is the mastodon huge or something instead of large? The mastodon seems bigger than the wolf/smilodon. As in the mastodon seems big enough to get in the way, whereas I can't really imagine the wolf/smilodon getting in the way (even though they are definitely noticably larger than the leopard).
I guess it's not that important a choice if I throw this merc away. However, I wanna build them right. Because after I recruit ekun, fire the merc, I'll have party sharing exp on. So, if I get stuck later in the game and wanna ditch my companions out of desperation, I'll already have one discounted merc on the bench, so I might not need to buy 5 expensive high level ones all at once.


edit: I guess though the visual don't matter as much as the in-game hitboxes.... which are based on something I don't fully comprehend (clearly).

the 'right' way is mastodon if light on melee and leopard for everything else. Pet size gets really annoying if you have more than 1 melee in the party in tight places. And if you have 2 large pets+2-3 melee it quickly turns into a real clusterf*.

Okay so the sizes, it just says on the descriptions in game when you right click. My bad.
Interestingly leopard goes from small to medium at level 4, but wolf and mastodon go from medium to large at level 7. I fully expect to fire this mercenary at or by level 7.

Thing is though, it looks like mastodon learns trip at level 7.
The leopard is a bit weak at level 1 IMO compared to say a wolf, but, this character will probably be in the party at level 4 where leopard gets his big upgrade.

Although this mercenary will put me up to a party of 6 almost right away. Unless I were to fire harrim the instant I grab valerie. Which, well, I might just do.

So, I guess that begs the question, mastodon for low on melee, leopard for everything else. I'm low on melee, but I plan to fire the mastodon before it becomes large and before it learns trample (which IIRC causes trips). I think maybe I'll pick leopard because well, there's no scenario in which leopard is bad. It's either best or second best it sounds like in all scenarios and all cases.

edit: In case anyone is curious... I decided to go human, defender of the wild, animal leopard:
8/16/15/7/19/7 In large part because a) I think I saw you recommend it, and b) I want spell specialization summon nature's ally at level 1. And, because well, I've spent way too much time reloading this save and trying options.

edit2: So that's gonna leave me with MC-sorc/valerie/tristan/mercdruid/amiri/jaethalORlinzi which seems to mean that I'll need to keep linzi in the party as a skillmonkey until I can get jubilost. In your unfair guide bard8 valerie takes trickery (because meleesorcMC has no skillpoints), but then bard11 valerie doesn't take trickery (because swordsaint has tons of skillpoints). Since I'm only on hard, and I won't have to be playing perfect. I'm thinking maybe I should let linzi m00ch EXP throughout the start of the game so I don't have to waste skillpoints on valbard. Although jaethal probably has enough skillpoints to handle it instead.

edit3: This leaves me a bit worried for camp skills. I've planned to have MC do cooking, but actually that would mean he has to lose perception because for some reason I decided 2skillpoints was enough for MC (persuasion is a must for lore). Amiri and then later/also mercdruid for hunting. Leaving stealth/trickery both to linzi/jaethal? Hmm.

If you will fire him you don't need odd stats. I also don't really know why you want druid for earlygame, but that's besides the point, if it's not unfair you don't have to have sylvan merc. Also if you plan to fire him past A1 - pick smilodon. 5attacks>everything and the worst part won't ever come into play.

Jaethat is an inquisitor and as such has all skills classed for what it's worth. And she has good enough int. Also, don't have just 1 guy with trickery. Have 2 or 3. Same with perception. it gets annoying to click on a chest to learn it's locked and have no 2nd-3rd character to open it with. Also 3 attempts per reload are better than 1 just for time-efficiency. And don't bother too much about camp skills. Only really important one is stealth, so you are not ambushed often. Everything else is whatever. Cooking only matters somewhat when you try to make ice-cream for hard skill-checks. I play literally the whole game without cooking anything but basic meals cause keeping tabs on ingredients is hell and they weigh a ton. Hunting is ok to reduce supply usage and guarding pretty much doesn't matter at all.

Amiri, sacred huntsmaster. Which domain? Luck or Travel? or something else I haven't considered?
Her alignment prevents her from worshiping any of the gods with communal or nobility.

Also my MC is casting grease, so I figured I'd pickup a druid for the missing animal from the sylvan (although yeah that's two characters and giant EXP sink)... also... this game has 0 druid companions so I figured, what the heck, my only-companions run can have 1 merc that I'll probably never get to use as a class ever again.

It is only hard after all, I'm hoping to have some small amount of fun, haha.

edit: oh also, I see perception is recommended very popularly for all or almost all builds and party members. Is this to give you 6 good chances at uncovering hidden items and locations instead of just 1 or 2?

edit2: I've seen you write, that guidance can be used to prove that you've failed a perception check? How does this work? Sometimes you can fail a perception check without it appearing in the log? (probably surrounding traps?) How does guidance make this less annoying?

Destruction, war or travel. whatever you fancy.

The more the merrier. And yeah, it's exactly to stack the odds. There is no point to sell your soul for an extra character with perception, but you will inevitably have too many skill-points, so might as well put em to good use.

Harrim is ok-ish. For the 1st act before you get tristian. And very late he is probably the best cleric from all the companions just cause he's got at least one decent domain(destruction). If I was actually planning on ever using him for something more than advisor position I'd probably would've kept him just a cleric with a longspear. Theurge is kinda fun, and companion clerics are kinda useless, though, so I do it on him just for lulz.