I think there is another mixup for the Jaethal bard build? At lvl 11 you only list outflank but she gets a bonus feat from the third lvl of inquisitor I think.

Found the issue. The version rolled back for whatever reason from dropping fighter.
That build is cursed I swear.

Wow that was a Quick Response. Thank you so much.


Also I know you said the Sorc/Val and Bard/Jaethal combo is weaker but I feel like it's so much more fun and Valerie is actually stronger.

Like she can actually hit something early-mid game and deal a little bit of damage for once with having similiar AC in mid game compared to her Bard build. (Which I also very like) I'm unsure if there are huge differences later but for now I enjoy this so much.

The only somewhat annoying thing is healing Jaethal but she gets hit surprisingly less often than I thought and has a good 5-9 AC on val at the moment.

I'm currently at the start of Season of Bloom and I'm lvl 11 on hard. I have a condensed Team.

Arcane Archer MC, Sorc Val, Jaethal Bard and your Gozreh Cleric merc build for CC and Healing. I'm actually surprised how well she can CC as a cleric.

Early game sucked hard till the cleric hit lvl 5. The archer build is so far the only MC build I played where I could feel the power increase on every lvl after 5. It's hard to describe but I can tell I actually hit harder or more one way or another.

Deleting strong enemies from the get go is also insanely fun.

Sorry for the long post but I just wanted to express my gratitude to you again for these fun builds. I'm not really good at character building so these are a life saver for me.

gozreh cleric is pretty OP early. Only issue is that he falls out a bit on undead stuff and either abdar or erastil ultimately have something nobody else has, so are more valuable as such. But then nothing prohibits you from hiring a new merc at 20 should you feel you need it.

This was actually my plan to "rehire" her as either Erastil Cleric or the Theurge one. (Theurge seems so fun with the amount of spell casts it gets. I wish there was a version you could start playing from the beginning instead of only hiring at 20)

Theurges are not about that. They are dead weight till 20. At 20 it's pretty decent, though. At that point you aint paying too much for what extra stuff you get.

What gozreh build? The word gozreh doesn't appear in the guide?

it's in the guide thread. It also exists as a merc for varn party. Generally, gozreh is amazing for low-level stuff, but does fall off bit past midgame. Although even then he's still well above the curve if we were to compare him to story companions.

Hi InEffect, your guide has been super helpful. Today I've been playing with your SS build (on hard cause I newb), and I noticed that spell combat and fighting defensively don't seem to work together anymore. I'm not sure if this is a recent change, but would you consider changing the monk dip because of this? If I look at the character screen it says my AC is 31 at lvl 3 which is correct, (I skipped the vivi dip) with fighting defensively on. But when I look in the combat log I see I get hit and it says my AC is 27. Just posting if this is known because as far as I can tell from googling a bit is that defensive fighting works (unintended or not) with the offhand occupied.

Ah, that makes sense actually ^^ I checked again and it was working though. I don't know what happened, it was during combat, not at the start, but perhaps I got re-engaged and lost initiative for that round or something.

Hi InEffect, your guides have been a great resource for me so thanks!

I have some questions about the Arcane Archer in this guide if you don't mind:

- Why lawful Evil? Evil for Castigator Cloak, I guess. But lawful just for kingdom management or is there another reason?

- Why elf?
With Tiefling (uncertain heritage) you can create these stats:
14
19
12
16
8
10

Or with Grimspawn tiefling you could even go:
14
19
12
16
6
12

or

14
19
14
16
5 (probably too low)
11

Also with Musetouched aasimar you can create the same stats as an elf.

You already have martial proficiency so you don't need the longbow proficiency from the elf. I am missing something or could these two races work just as well?


Edit: Third question: Spells from the Eldrich scoundrel are subject to arcane spell failure so with Shepherd’s Armor you'll have an ASF of 15%. Isn't that quite high or am I missing something here as well?

Curious of your take on a few aspects: Planning to do an unfair run with full party, and no mercs all the way through, with my MC not tanking. Is reggie's scion build unfair viable? Because otherwise I'm not sure if I want to take Jaethal. Also, is your AT sorc build in your guide thread a decent replacement for the merc listed in the unfair guide (as an MC)? Cheers.

Elf gets spell pen on top of relevant boosts. And gives perception bonus to make his a decent secondary spotter, so all those skill points don't go to waste. ASF is a thing. 15% is not much, but I just drop chest armor for the fights I'd need to go nova. You can grab the feat to reduce it to 5% at 15.

Reggie in general is not unfair-viable. He doesn't have good enough of an AC ramp and his racial is truly horrendous. For a full companion unfair run you'd want MC tank, val bard, tristian, ekun sacred, jubi and octavia. Not much of a wiggle room there. You could swap tristian for harrim and make jaethal a wizard necro, but that's a late bloomer.

Cool, Is there an unfair specific octavia build, or do you think the one in your OG guide thread would get the job done?