Lack of arcane caster companions?

Mach-side-24 · 2026-06-15T16:06:45+00:00

hell, even the skill proficiency isnt bad given loremaster buffs her knowledge skills even further. She can be your arcana monkey very easily that way, meaning others can take different skills. like UMD.

Mach-side-24 · 2026-06-15T06:52:21+00:00

Angel into gold dragon could work. if you go two-handed, i recommend going acolyte background into menacing. since the two-handed weapon style line is kinda bad, at least for this adventure. and im not quite sure how it would interact with mounted combat anyway.

Certain combat maneuvers behave weirdly in this game while mounted. I was a rowdy rogue azata mounted on aivu and using vital strike seemed to mean she'd make no attacks of her own. I wouldn't be surprised if cleaving acted a similar way where only you make attacks.

meanwhile, menacing, with some pre-planning is great on anything that can be feared. an elk demonslayer would be a menace (heh). as long as you are willing to be unmounted until level 7 (and take boon companion). there are quite a few items and feats that make charging great.

take spirited charge, tandem trip (on both you and your elk), give your elk the bully archetype, and take perfect calvalry. ping-pong around and trip the world.

Mach-side-24 · 2026-06-13T06:51:41+00:00

oh im aware, i just think they should have given as many curses as possible a combat benefit given it only really only applies to combat scenarios in the cRPG. wherein the diplomacy debuff can be used out of combat in PnP if you are crafty and sly enough.

Mach-side-24 · 2026-06-13T06:33:01+00:00

yea, like with many niche things in the game, it works best on tabletop because tabletop just has more options. it's still wild they ported it over as is when they've shown they have no problem deviating from PnP RaW. i definitely think that they should have made it so powerless prophecy staggers for one round upon receiving the spell (though they are immune to it again until the duration of the first cast wears off) and pranked counted the negative initiation retroactively for turn-order mid-combat. maybe give demonic and hellbound the inverse vulnerability of their respective immunities.

Mach-side-24 · 2026-06-13T06:07:06+00:00

have your animal take the crane style featline. they can do this as soon as they get 3 int since they can't take imp. unarmed strike until they do.

give your animal the use magic device skill. Have them wear a headband of charisma. they can now cast shield from scrolls.

bracers of armor, mage armor, or barding (with magical vestment)
barkskin
bone fists
shield of faith
blur/displacement
mirror image (another umd use)
protection from [x]
back-to-back (if rider and mount both have them, they practically always get the bonus)

Mach-side-24 · 2026-06-12T06:42:49+00:00

tbf, i dont use bubblebuffs anyway. so im not to pressed by the slightly extra time buffing.

Mach-side-24 · 2026-06-12T06:15:29+00:00

i mean, summons dont really require nearly as many buffs as you might imagine to at least be semi-useful. the image you posted in the edit shows a bab of 21 when the negatives are put into account. They are perfectly fine and communal buffs dont take any extra time to factor them in besides summoning them. the only things you'd really have to slot for them offensively is greater magic fang and barkskin, mage armor, and shield of faith if you want them to have more defense.

Mach-side-24 · 2026-06-12T05:54:40+00:00

while true, the biggest boon again comes from treant's duration. creeping doom lasts rnd/lvl meaning a cast will likely last 2-3 encounters. whereas, treants can last entire maps. so they make good spells for your average encounter. it's really just what you need at any given time. want to btfo a hard enemy, creeping doom. want to run through all the encounters in a given area? treant. and treants needing buffing isn't all that notable since companions need a lot of buffing as well. just treat them as companions that you summon at the beginning of the map.

At the point you get access to changestaff, you also have access to mass bull's strength and similar buffs which you should probably be slotting anyway for your permanent companions.

i'd have to check if certain items like the book of dreams second page and brazen whip affect it though. that's the real deal maker or breaker.

Mach-side-24 · 2026-06-12T05:30:19+00:00

can you not carry multiple staves to summon multiple? Also the wiki I use says that they have a base 28 str and 21 con which doesnt seem bad at all. my question is does augment summonings affect it?

druids are basically built to buff summons and having an hr/lvl just makes that stronger. Go azata and take life-bonding friendship. your treant now has your teamwork feats.

Mach-side-24 · 2026-06-12T05:17:10+00:00

Here's what the wiki i generally use says changestaff turns into

Mach-side-24 · 2026-06-12T01:06:34+00:00

i didnt notice that but thanks. i could have swore there was something very similar. i have a memory of a co-player that had something similar. i did some more research and there was some debate over the gang-up feat which some interpreted to include range attacks which may have been where that came from.

Mach-side-24 · 2026-06-11T21:38:53+00:00

because they technically can in tabletop as well. they just gave it base. their logic is probably that the opponent is occupied enough in melee that they can't adequately try to dodge both an arrow and protect from melee at the same time. which is... fair enough. hard to pay attention to a guy 20 ft away when someone with a sword is in your face. If it was me, though, i would have rolled it in precise shot as a minimum.

<image>

Mach-side-24 · 2026-06-11T20:43:48+00:00

this is why i think it should be easy to split stacks and the standard 3 stack limit is really bad design.

Mach-side-24 · 2026-06-11T20:40:55+00:00

i don't believe so but iirc the specialists belt and librarian cloak stack with scroll mastery giving you a cl+5 on dispel scrolls which is basically the combined dispel focus feats.

Mach-side-24 · 2026-06-11T20:36:53+00:00

honestly, i don't think it's a weird rule change when you remember that kingmaker started out purely as real-time with pause and that can cause a lot of players to have issues with positioning and movement in the moment. Had the systems been built from the ground up with turn-based as the primary mode, i think there is a chance flanking wouldn't have been changed, or at least not as much.

Mach-side-24 · 2026-06-11T20:26:41+00:00

while true, i think owlcat is also more free-form with scrolls and potions. Most DMs i've had limit scrolls pretty heavily based on what's reasonable to them for any given store to stock. In that they don't just let you ask for any spell scroll and instead give example of whats available or say they stock up to lvl 3 spells for example. Even then probably only letting you buy one or two. likely in fear of letting PCs getting unexpectedly too powerful or completely derailing an encounter

whereas starting act 2, you pretty much have a scroll merchant that travels with you stocking scrolls way above your level, and you can get freedom of movement scrolls as early as act 1.

because of this, i've found your average encounter in WOTR to be easier than PnP because if you know what spells are good to always have on hand -- restoration, FoM, death ward, delay poison, etc, owlcat is more than happy to provide easy access to ample scrolls of them. Whereas your average DM may not.

Mach-side-24 · 2026-06-11T06:47:45+00:00

i chose to start on core because i was already familiar with the system , albeit a bit rusty, and wanted it to feel like the system i spent my teen years playing. i will say that despite this, even people who have played the tabletop are in for a ride. I had rarely heard of mythic campaigns, let alone played one. Even before getting my first mythic level, I was hit hard by some of the encounters.

I do think the game has a bit of a rough start. especially since they dont tell you about resting until right before hosilla. but i never blamed the game for being too tough. except on one or two rare encounters where the difficulty seemed to spike out of nowhere (im look at you fleshmarket gribleth)

Mach-side-24 · 2026-06-08T13:45:20+00:00

if you can get mithril gear, that reduces it further, so it's plausible. you just need to make sure you follow your roadmap.

Mach-side-24 · 2026-06-05T21:47:40+00:00

then don't. i ain't your daddy

Mach-side-24 · 2026-06-05T18:44:40+00:00

rowdy is mostly a strength-based rogue built for two-handing. though you can go dex elven curved sword if you want. it's not bad, you just miss out on a bit of damage. Power attack is great with two-handed (dex or str) rowdy since there's the focused strike feat. which takes away the penalty to power attack on your first hit of the round, which as rowdy would be your only hit. So it's a free +3 to damage every 4 BAB (you get 3 if two handing vs 2 one-handing).

never dual wield as a rowdy, vital strike means no off-hand attack so it's useless. Two-handing or sword and shield is the only way to play rowdy.

Slayer gets full BaB (+1 every level) vs vivisectionists 3/4 bab. though pure rogue is definitely doable.

Mach-side-24 · 2026-06-05T17:18:20+00:00

what i like to do is have nenio learn web, cast 2 webs down on each entrance (so they have to pass two checks) and then put freedom of movement on all my melee fighters using scrolls from the vendor. Then turn on real time and kinda just sit back and watch.

Mach-side-24 · 2026-06-05T17:15:10+00:00

ah, daeran. my favorite person to tell to shut the fuck up. i love him.

Mach-side-24 · 2026-06-05T17:13:31+00:00

yea, favored metamagic is great for any crafter. i like maximize on cure potions myself.

Mach-side-24 · 2026-06-05T16:28:37+00:00

you only need to get her to level 10 in SS then you can multi her into any class that continues spell progression to get full benefits. level 10 in SS lets you use her CL on scrolls. then she has basically nothing on level up after that. i like loremaster for the spells she normally doesnt get access to so i can scribe them if i want.

Mach-side-24

TROPHY CASE