Please help with character builds for a roleplay idea

[crdvis16]

I was hoping to get some help with builds for a new playthrough.  I've done lots of playthroughs at this point so I find that I need some sort of angle to keep playthroughs interesting and I think maybe I found one that could be fun and bring me back to deadfire.  But it's been a while since I've played so my familiarity with items/abilities and mechanics isn't what it once was so I'm struggling to plan it out on my own.

 

The idea would be to play as a group of Wael fanatics who have blinded themselves in their devotion.  So every party member would have their perception minimized in order to roleplay.  This means my accuracy would be quite low and so I'm looking for ways to work around this usually very important stat.

 

I would have at least a few of my party spots for buff classes, since accuracy is not needed to be effective in that role anyway and the extra stats available to use elsewhere after minimizing perception would be helpful.  So probably a Druid and a Priest (of Wael because roleplay) focused on buffs rather than debuffing the enemy.  Most of their action economy would be spent not rolling their accuracy.

 

I'm also thinking that a Chanter focused on buffs and summoning could be effective with low perception.  My understanding is that a summon's accuracy isn't dependent on the summoner's accuracy so hopefully the summons could help with damage and still hit things?  If so, all of my characters would probably use summons if available to their class (priest and druid as available).

 

I think a Monk focused on Blade Turning could work too, because I'm fairly certain I remember that the accuracy of the redirected attacks are just based on the attacker rather than the monk.  This would probably be the tank dealing with the enemy melee.

 

I'm struggling with the last spot.  Maybe an assassinate Rogue because the subclass perk might help overcome low accuracy and still hit things?  I'm not confident that even with the extra accuracy that I'll end up critting very often, though, so the crit bonus might be a bit of a waste.  Is there a class with good miss -> graze or graze -> hit?  I think Fighters have a bit of that.  Fighters could also be built to have pretty good accuracy in their disengagement attacks and then find a way to force disengagement on enemies (I don't think I'd have the accuracy for the terrify -> disengagement strategy to work, though).  I think I'm not opposed to using perception buffs in this roleplay- having an 'Intuitive' buff on a blind character doesn't seem like a betrayal of the roleplay but more like some of the cool characters in other media that are great fighters despite being blind (a few examples come to mind) so maybe classes/subclasses that can stack lots of accuracy buffs to overcome their low base perception could be a way to go.

 

Or is there any other way of dealing damage I'm not thinking of without needing to use the character's accuracy in the roll aside from Monks with Blade Turning or Chanters with summons?  Maybe some class of attacks that might use base accuracy not dependent on the character or use some other stat when rolling for their hits.

 

And then after that, I'm not sure if there are some specific items/weapons that might fit this type of play.  There are lots of items with miss -> graze or graze -> hit that could be really useful (can a single roll chain from miss -> graze and then also go graze -> hit?  Do multiple sources of miss -> graze stack?).

 

Thanks ahead of time for any help/tips!

 

 

[Boeroer]

13 hours ago, crdvis16 said:

I think a Monk focused on Blade Turning could work too, because I'm fairly certain I remember that the accuracy of the redirected attacks are just based on the attacker rather than the monk.  This would probably be the tank dealing with the enemy melee.

That is correct. The enemies are attacking themselves. Blade Turning redirects the attack roll back towards the enemy. You Monk's accuracy isn't involved. 

So, good pick I'd say. 

13 hours ago, crdvis16 said:

I'm struggling with the last spot. 

Just shooting from the hip:

• Stalker/Shieldbearer with tanking capabilites and support + an offensive-minded animal companion (Wolf for more base dmg or Lion for faster attacks): the Ranger/Paladin buffs the animal companion's dmg output (and the one of the other allies, including summons). Use Brand Enemy (it's an auto-hit) to deal reliable damamge and unlock Predator's Sense for the animal companion all the time.
• SC Kind Wayfarer with dual pistols (no modal) with FoD+White Flames+Ring of Focused Flames for good accuracy despite low PER (you need to graze with FoD in order to trigger White Flames' healing) - for healing and the goal of utilizing PL9's Divine Retribution. This will give the Paladin unlimited Zeal with he help of all the summons you might use in the party (and who will get killed all the time -> +2 Zeal). Paladins with unlimited Zeal can spam Exhortations. Exhortations are good, but usually too expensive to really turn the tides in an encounter. Not if you can spam them... Also you can put Brand Enemy (auto hit) on everybody.
• Berserker/Priest of Wael: confuse yourself and use Withdraw to remove enemies from the battlefield for a long time. This is an auto-hit! Also enemies' Resolve doesn't shorten the duration because it's a benefial effect which you only use in a hostile way. I'm pretty sure Wael would approve.
• Tactician/Priest of Wael: same thing as above, but you need to trigger confusion otherwise - for example with a blunderbuss + Powder Burns. No immunity to flanked or PER-Afflictions, no resistane to PER afflictions either - the confusion only works if the Tactician can get flanked.
• Aura-guy:
  • Cap of the Laughingstock: this item lowers enemies' deflection by 10 automatically in an AoE (aura). No hit roll.
  • Ngati's Tusk: lowers all defenses except deflection by 5 points. With high Survival you can get it to -10. Aura, no hit roll either.
  • Blackened Plade: Death in Life does an AoE DoT which is an auto-hit aura, too. 
  • All three together could be used by a Helwalker/Whatever (+10 MIG for the Plate's dmg, +10 INT for max AoE) OR
  •  a SC Psion with Shared Nightmares. The AoE will become absurdly big the longer the Psion accumulates focus. 
• Assassin/Bloodmage: use Arkemyr's Brilliant Departure to stay invisible (+25 acc) while applying CC spells which won't break this invisibility.
• Wizard in general has:
  • self buffs
  • Thrust of Tattered Veils (auto-hit)
  • Minoletta's Minor Missiles (auto-hit)
  • Essential/Substantial Phantom which can use the Wizard's (summoned) weapons with its own accuracy (it's VERY good with Draining Touch - which doesn't go away on a Phantom).
    • good weapons/items for the Phantom:
      • Draining Touch with Helm of the White Void: automatic +10 accuracy because Draining Touch causes weaken on graze/hit/crit. Also drains life for the phantom, making it harder to kill.
      • Caedebald's Blackbow with the same helmet: same reason, but terrifies on attack, jumps to additional enemy (12m range in any direction). 
  • Arcane Cleanse (PL9) is an auto-hit
  • Arcane Reflection and similar: bascially the Blade Turning against directed spells
• Ancient Druid:
  • Sporelings (very long lasting, very well scaling summons)
  • Wild Growth (gives any beast or primordial summon the Robust inspiration for as long as the summon lasts) - awesome with Sporelings but also great with "Call to the Primordials" summoning spell
  • healing
  • could be paired with Psion (Pain Block for more Robust inspiration) or Chanter (has aura healing and Aefyllath as well as beast and primordial summons which can also profit from Wild Growth)

[crdvis16]

9 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

That is correct. The enemies are attacking themselves. Blade Turning redirects the attack roll back towards the enemy. You Monk's accuracy isn't involved. 

So, good pick I'd say. 

Just shooting from the hip:

• Stalker/Shieldbearer with tanking capabilites and support + an offensive-minded animal companion (Wolf for more base dmg or Lion for faster attacks): the Ranger/Paladin buffs the animal companion's dmg output (and the one of the other allies, including summons). Use Brand Enemy (it's an auto-hit) to deal reliable damamge and unlock Predator's Sense for the animal companion all the time.
• SC Kind Wayfarer with dual pistols (no modal) with FoD+White Flames+Ring of Focused Flames for good accuracy despite low PER (you need to graze with FoD in order to trigger White Flames' healing) - for healing and the goal of utilizing PL9's Divine Retribution. This will give the Paladin unlimited Zeal with he help of all the summons you might use in the party (and who will get killed all the time -> +2 Zeal). Paladins with unlimited Zeal can spam Exhortations. Exhortations are good, but usually too expensive to really turn the tides in an encounter. Not if you can spam them... Also you can put Brand Enemy (auto hit) on everybody.
• Berserker/Priest of Wael: confuse yourself and use Withdraw to remove enemies from the battlefield for a long time. This is an auto-hit! Also enemies' Resolve doesn't shorten the duration because it's a benefial effect which you only use in a hostile way. I'm pretty sure Wael would approve.
• Tactician/Priest of Wael: same thing as above, but you need to trigger confusion otherwise - for example with a blunderbuss + Powder Burns. No immunity to flanked or PER-Afflictions, no resistane to PER afflictions either - the confusion only works if the Tactician can get flanked.
• Aura-guy:
  • Cap of the Laughingstock: this item lowers enemies' deflection by 10 automatically in an AoE (aura). No hit roll.
  • Ngati's Tusk: lowers all defenses except deflection by 5 points. With high Survival you can get it to -10. Aura, no hit roll either.
  • Blackened Plade: Death in Life does an AoE DoT which is an auto-hit aura, too. 
  • All three together could be used by a Helwalker/Whatever (+10 MIG for the Plate's dmg, +10 INT for max AoE) OR
  •  a SC Psion with Shared Nightmares. The AoE will become absurdly big the longer the Psion accumulates focus. 
• Assassin/Bloodmage: use Arkemyr's Brilliant Departure to stay invisible (+25 acc) while applying CC spells which won't break this invisibility.
• Wizard in general has:
  • self buffs
  • Thrust of Tattered Veils (auto-hit)
  • Minoletta's Minor Missiles (auto-hit)
  • Essential/Substantial Phantom which can use the Wizard's (summoned) weapons with its own accuracy (it's VERY good with Draining Touch - which doesn't go away on a Phantom).
    • good weapons/items for the Phantom:
      • Draining Touch with Helm of the White Void: automatic +10 accuracy because Draining Touch causes weaken on graze/hit/crit. Also drains life for the phantom, making it harder to kill.
      • Caedebald's Blackbow with the same helmet: same reason, but terrifies on attack, jumps to additional enemy (12m range in any direction). 
  • Arcane Cleanse (PL9) is an auto-hit
  • Arcane Reflection and similar: bascially the Blade Turning against directed spells
• Ancient Druid:
  • Sporelings (very long lasting, very well scaling summons)
  • Wild Growth (gives any beast or primordial summon the Robust inspiration for as long as the summon lasts) - awesome with Sporelings but also great with "Call to the Primordials" summoning spell
  • healing
  • could be paired with Psion (Pain Block for more Robust inspiration) or Chanter (has aura healing and Aefyllath as well as beast and primordial summons which can also profit from Wild Growth)

These are all fantastic, thank you!