In essence I've learned here that essentially bite is better than twf because bite is like a 3rd arm you don't have to pay for.

That makes wonder then.... okay. So I personally failed to think of any good twf builds. The saint was all about one big hit, and the vivisectionist had 3 arms and so couldn't waste any effort on twf. Can you think of a good twf build though? That's kinda what I wanted this whole time. I was trying to think of it myself. I just was doing a really bad job.

Something like a rogue+transformation to makeup for missing BAB is basically what I had in mind. Hence my attempt to get something going via vivisectionist (someone who can both sneak attack and cast transformation themselves). I guess maybe though, there's less of a need for transformation if you were just a class with better BAB?

Or is TWF just flat out bad in this game?

edit: sidenote, hmm, what about adding 1 level of stalwart defender to one of your tanky builds, then wearing heart of ira, then toggling defensive stance on/off every turn to get like 20-40 free temporary hp any round you want it refreshed?

If the question is if there is a d/w build to rival top melee builds of the game - the answer is no. Making a competent twf is pretty easy. There's also a question on what to count as twf, cause shield bash builds(see: slayer) are technically twf. For any twf guy we need to accept a few facts.
1) flat damage will kinda suck.
2) if we don't do flat damage - we need to stack dice.
3) easy way to stack dice is sneak.
4) you will have to survive in melee and will likely need mirror image from somewhere.
What you'll likely to learn fast is that is nigh impossible to do all of the above at the same time, so the choice is between dropping mirror or dropping some of the rogue aspects. what you can do is go elven arcane warrior, except with a human. That'd be exactly 4 feats to fit in TWF if you cut all the fluff. Not unfair material, though, as it has no early-game AC ramp. And if we already cutting unfair... Alternative is to just go Str d/w vivi16+whatever. Dex V16/KM3/M1 with tears of blood+steelwind is pretty decent so long as you actively avoid hasting him(cause haste nerfs steelwind. Use expeditious on yourself instead.).
Last option is to do a melee sorc with 2 longswords. It's gonna be worse than vanquisher, but one can find a few feats to spare there, especially if you go F1/M1/Sorc4/DD4/EK10. That one can be done on unfair even though it's a downgrade from a vanquisher.
Melee bard can obviously do the same, except there is a lot less reason to. Those can wear shields, so there is no compelling reason to be d/w for them.

I don't mind forgetting heavy armor. However, recommended defensive feats for such a character? Front lines without a shield, and medium armor might end up being painful

at the least you need to make room for IA/dodge/crane style/wing/riposte/WF/dazzle/shatter. Then you need TWF and preferably you'd also want geavy armor proficiency(cause medium armors kinda suck), and then you still need 4 feats for twf.
As to the AC you actively reject everything with AC ramp, so there is nothing that can be done there, really. should be ok for normal, maybe, if you buff properly. I'm no expert on casual difficulties. I have like half a challenging run and 1.5 hard run give or take and 2000h of unfair from there. Don't even remember what the game is like below, so it's mostly an educated guess by subtracting 8 from target numbers for unfair.

@ineffect so far, I'm feeling like, lore wise, and interaction wise, jaethal is the most interesting companion I have. So, I really wanna get her build down solid. I'm in act1 on hard with my gnome arcane sorc.

The builds I've seen suggested on various forums for jaethal are:
1inq/19vivi
10inq/6tss/4stalwart
4inq/1sorc/4dd/3theurge/8eldritchknight
16inq/3THF/1stalwart
3inq/17cleric(herald caller)

tss's best lvl imo is 7 and stalwart's best lvl is 3. 3lvls of theurge makes as far as I can tell literally no sense.

In other words all the builds I've seen that aren't yours kinda suck.
Your jaethal builds were written in 2018 though, so I'm wondering if you've changed your mind? or which of your own two builds you prefer most.

I've seen you say elsewhere that herald caller sucks because the best type of cleric is ecc. That's because domains are good and herald caller loses out in that regard? But jaethal's god is preset, so she won't really be able to get ideal domains anyways? is that why it makes sense to push her into being a herald caller?

Follow-up questions: Is jaethal still undead if she becomes a druid and shapeshifts? what about if she casts dragonform? The one thing I dislike about the herald caller build is that, well, it feels like it might just be weaker than a 20pointbuy mercenary herald caller? (which is still a darn good character) additionally it doesn't make much usage out of jaethal's undead immunities?


So in summation, which do you prefer of your own builds? tank jaethal? or herald caller jaethal? does shapeshifter jaethal work? or is it totally broken and does weird things like instantly killing her if she tries it? additionally do you have any new thoughts about jaethal since 2018? I can't help but read this "Herald Caller: Rank B-.
Summon-oriented cleric. Same deal as crusader. If you want to summon just bite the bullet and learn it through feats. Or better yet - go Druid or Monster Tactician. " And think to myself, why not make jaethal a summoning focused druid if it's according to you better than herald calling?

That's exactly that. Only cleric gods that matter are abadar and erastil, so might as well get something.

That I didn't test. There are better options on her(or anyone, really) than shape-shifting

That's a reality about most companions. Val and jubi are pretty much the only ones that are better than you could do on a merc. The former cause her stats are insane(with valor path taken into account) and the latter just cause he's good enough stat spread to be usable and has the best camping ability in the game.

In case of jae druid is very sub-optimal. As an evil cleric she can stock up on healing spells for the party and convert em to heal herself as well. Doing it any other way will introduce the whole new world of pain healing her.
As to what else can be done... She can be an ok late-game bard. Worse than valerie, but good enough if you want val to be a melee sorc. Inq3/bard8/DD4/F1/Booter4 s/b. Healing her will suck, but there are bracers from varn DLC with harm for combat heals...
Another option is much the same as above, but is about making her a vivisectionist with ECB or s/b, so V16/Inq3/fighter1. Pretty decent if you don't want to take jubi for a change. Her stats would make her a decent melee sorc, but being saddled with an inquisitor level it's not much of an option.
Either way you'll likely need to fill quite some slots on your cleric with inflict spells to keep her online if she isn't a cleric/inquisitor and she always has 3+ dead levels in inquisitor to get at least something from it. The worst part is she will always be 1 level behind no matter what you do cause of that useless inquisitor base. Kinda shame that one of the best companions stat-wise had to be ruined by taking the worst class in the game and with a useless god on top of that.

Okay, so, I made jaethal a level 19 druid. Then shifted her into a smilodon, a huge water elemental, and a shambling mound, and in all three forms, having a party member use a cure light wounds potion on her, hurt her.

Meaning she remains undead when shifted, which, well, of course she does I guess.

I now realize though, thanks to your explaination, that this is bad. If she could've shifted to remove her undead nature it would've made healing her trivial, while still letting her keep her undead nature when it was beneficial. Oh well. I guess I'll have to pick one of the four builds in this thread from you (the two you actually wrote, and then the two you included in the previous reply).

But, man, that would've been cool if it worked! Oh well.

edit: Does the 3inquistor/17herald caller end up with a high enough bab to make 6 melee combat feats worthwhile? 2 of which are powered up by solo tactics. I guess with a reach weapon AC doesn't matter.

Kinda. It's not like there are a lot of options on the table. Might as well make her bit less garbage in melee. And she'll never have good enough AC anyways, so there is no point in trying.

I guess the way I'll decide between inq16/3fighter/1stalwart and inq3/caller17 will be, if I have another main cleric I'll let her focus on tripping and polearms as an inq16? If I want her to for some reason be the main cleric (probably backed up by something like a bard or druid?)... Then I'll pick the herald caller version.

edit: Hmm, does mithral plate count as heavy armor or medium armor? In regards to the feat armor focus:heavy? I saw you recommending them both together in some builds in this thread, and I was wondering if that was in fact how it worked?

edit2: Hmm, if I wanna use ekun and jubi and my sorcerer, that's 3 back row party members. I'd still need a cleric so maybe jaethal as a herald caller, supported by spot healing from jubi. Leaving me a need for two frontliners. Who I kind of want to be valerie and noknok, but if I go for a tank build on valerie, I'll have no bard, so maybe I should try frontline tanking with valerie as a bard multiclass. I am starting to see why all your favorite (most recomended) builds are frontline tanks. On the list of companions there are ample back line support characters and back line damage dealers, plenty of access to key spells, just very little access to tanks. Probably because they expected amiri to be able to do it?!?

Mithral plate is heavy, requires heavy proficiency and benefits from heavy foci. It is so by RAW.
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/EQUIPMENT/SPECIAL-MATERIALS/#Mithral
Heavy armors are treated as medium, and medium armors are treated as light, but light armors are still treated as light. This decrease does not apply to proficiency in wearing the armor. In this game it's also extended to foci, which is logical, since foci relate to proficiency. Only place where the weight reduction actually comes into play is armored casting. Like bards, for example, can use mithral medium armors and won't get ASF.

I'd say jaethal cleric is vastly superior no matter what cause inquisitor is a garbage class. Literally anything is better. Even taking cleric 12/inq1/2HF7 is better than going for inquisitor levels. And if you want her to trip you can go archae2/DD4/Barb2/Inq8/V4 bite/trip. There's just no way of making 16inq of garbage god good.

I never would've considered taking 16 levels of inquistor. I didn't think it sounded that good. In the first post of this thread though you link to it. And you rate it and A- whereas generically any herald caller is rated at most B- by your other post.

I guess the OP is out of date then. A bit. do you prefer all of these builds over the originals? I guess maybe all the default builds in the first post of this thread, are trying to be "lore-friendly" whereas the alternate builds are not? That would explain why it seems to me like some of the alternate builds are just flat out more interesting to me. And to me honestly a cleric who melee's with a reach weapon, is, well, imo, 100% onbrand for jaethal.

The TL;DR on this whole discussion for me, is, i'm now 100% sold on cleric jaethal, I just need to cut linzi entirely out of my party to make room. Although I guess by the time I gain access to jubi, I'll probably already be sick of hearing "applause please".

Jaethat is A- as a companion, with using other companions and mercs of the same class/god/school etc as a base-line. With that Jaethal is not bad. Herald caller is a B- as a cleric for MC, which is slightly below average. Seems reasonable.

Yes, the main builds were intentionally kept close to what's intended. Alternative builds don't give much of a damn about lore. And yeah it's a bit out of date. As I said, I don't keep house anymore. Unfair guide does have more up-to-date builds which I did play on my few last unfair runs. Reality is, most of companions are gimped in one way or another. IDK who the hell decided to make better half of companions 20PB and saddle half of what's left with questionable choices. Jathal is not even that bad compared to most of them. I played her as a bard in one of my recent runs. 'twas ok once I got my hands on bracers, so she could self-heal in combat. Better than linzy anyways.

I've never beaten the game so I want to use as few mercenaries as possible, just so, I can get as much lore and dialogue and flavor as possible. I'm only on hard, so I think it's okay of sometimes some of my party members are gimped.

I don't think that the fact that some companions in pathfinder kingmaker have insanely awful builds is bad. The problem is that 75% of the companions have bad builds and like 25% of the companions have good builds (comparing say the 20point buy characters to the 28 point buy characters or some such). The result of this is that everyone just wants to use the same companion over and over. The rest literally serve no purpose, yet have cool stories surrounding them!

The badly made character would have improved roleplaying IMO. It would've encouraged people to use fun suboptimal builds and still I dunno, manage through.... But harrim and amiri seem just downright cruel. octavia having only 8 constitution is a bit odd too.

The worst part, really for me, is that a lot of characters have just the worst archtype possible. archtype not only cannot be changed but you cannot multiclass into the other archtypes. Like amiri doesn't have the chance to multiclass from barbarian into mad dog, and jaethal doesn't have the option to multiclass into say a monster tactician, etc.

edit: Yeah your unfair guide lists using MC+valerie+sylvan sorc+jubilost+tristan+ekundyo... then scrapping the last three there to swap to mc+valerie+jubilost+at-sorc-nuker+erastil cleric+vivitripperbuild


I guess I'm wondering between jaethal harrim and tristan which makes the best cleric replacement, my mc can probably replace the sorc, i can just straight up use valerie and jubilost and ekunydo. Leaving me with one slot to replace your guide's main character main tank with some sort of companion that can tank, which I guess would be nok-nok or regogard or amiri.

edit2: oh also, didn't I read you praising mystic theurge build for tristan so he can become a ray damage machine with endless nuking supplies? Or is that outdated thinking from an ancient post?

If I were to make a full companion party I'd do
MC melee something beefy with damage. Whatever you fancy, really, the team already covers all the bases anyways.
Val bard
Octavia. You can go to varn early and grab her heart of ira and she'll be ok. And since she'll be in the back you won't abuse the item. Just use slow on everything instead of stinking cloud and leave choking stuff to jubi. It'll be fine.
Jubi
Any cleric. Really. They are all pretty equal in their sadness. I guess tristian has slightly better spell selection and jae is marginally more useful in combat.
Ekun sacred8/RA10/EA2 Abadar/nobility

edit. mythic theurge... Well Roahin is/was much more of a fan than I'll ever be. It's ok-ish, although it's better done on merc. Like a lot better. You can get ecclesi8/wiz3/Theurge9 and be able to cast level 9 cleric spells AND have access to nobility/community goodies and have mirror image and heightened stinking cloud and stuff on top of that with cleric levels while tossing most of utility to wiz.
build you are talking about is probably asmodeus ecc3/wiz7/theurge10. It's fun in concept, but grim reality is you will never have enough damage like that. It's the same reason why elemental druid sucks. Just not enough dice to stack. Sorc/AT will do about twice the damage of elemental druid(or cleric or what have you).

One thing I was thinking was that empeyral sorcerer would let tristan or harrim spontaneously convert any sorcerer spell into an inflict wounds to heal jaethal tank.

I think that's extremely low level thinking though. I'm trying to compensate though because I'm basically using my MC to replace octavia and trying to find a 2nd front row unit in noknok or jaethal to stand next to valbard.

Essentially jaethal cannot tank unless someone in the party can spontaneously convert spells into inflict wounds, and the only party member with an evil god and wisdom>10 is jaethal herself, and she can't both tank AND heal at the same time. So only a mystic theurge could possibly allow jaethal to tank. I think though I'll be much better off with noknok tanking. Perhaps amiri tanking until noknok joins the party.