Comprehensive Pathfinder Adventures Guide Feeler

[snapcall]

Hey guys I'm interested in writing a guide for this wonderful game and decided to post a snippet of it for feedback. This is just the intro + my thoughts on Merisiel. Let me know if it's helpful and I'll finish it. Here goes.

 

 

 

Welcome to my attempt at a comprehensive guide to Pathfinder Adventures. I started playing this game because of TouchArcade, have never played the physical card game, and have just finished legend difficulty with all eleven characters in the game. After beating the game first on normal-heroic-legend with my 3 person party, I started the other two 4 party runs on legendary mode for max difficulty. I think this forced me to think a lot about the characters and hopefully that will make for a good guide.

 

A lot of the subjective parts of this guide are my opinion and I will change the guide to reflect any solid responses I get. Overall there's a real shortage of good material out there so I'm also writing this guide to get advice from experienced players since I'm sure my opinions can be wrong as well. Resources I've found helpful:

 

- Jolyonb's attempts at starting character guide for different classes. I will link to each one made, but he/she seems to have stopped after only a few

- This guide to roles . I do not know who the author is

- The character snapshot requests on the paizo forum where different players listed their ending builds for their characters.

- This review of character alts.  I generally agree with the author.

 

 Before we start, a note on suggested feats: This game is still quite buggy with extra feats but I'm working on the assumption that you get 3 feats prior to your role, four feats after your role, 6 skill feats (stat boosts), and 8 card feats (card count boosts). A * refers to the add-on alternate version. All of the suggestions are in order so you should get the first one first and so on.Without further ado, let's start the guide with the characters. 

 

1. Character One: Merisiel the Rogue

Add-On? Yes, you will want Shadow Merisiel at some point. It's a clear upgrade.

Primary Stats: Dexterity (D12), Strength (D8) or Wisdom (D8)*

Skill Feats: +4 Dex, +2 Str (vanilla) or +2 Wis*

Suggested Pre-Role Powers: Hand Size (6), Improved Sneak Attack (+1), Greater Sneak Attack (+2) 

Preferred Role: Acrobat

Post-Role Powers: Delay, Inspired Dexterity, Weapon Proficiency, Superior Sneak Attack (+3)

Suggested Card Feats: +1 Weapon, +2 Blessing, +1 Ally, +3 Item, +1 Spell

Key Items: Staff of Minor Healing, Emerald Codex, Scouting Items (Magic Spyglass and Revelation Quill), Snakeskin Tunic

Key Explores: Blessing of Erastil, Black Arrow Ranger

 

Merisiel might be the best overall character in the game and someone you will learn to love. If my life depended on finishing a Pathfinder mission, I would include her 100%. Her first important power is the ability to evade any encounter. This helps avoid bandits in the tower location, bosses she's not ready to fight, banes triggered from other traps, banes triggered from the legendary condition that forces you to fight a henchman, and so on. It's an incredible power exclusive to Merisiel that costs nothing.

 

Her second incredible power is delay. Delay is one of the few powers in the game that can win the game single-handedly. Delay + Evasion allows Merisiel to explore extremely aggressively to seek out the main villain. Once you find it, you just delay to the top and start scouting and closing every other location. Once you find the villain, it becomes very difficult to lose the mission even on legendary difficulty to time.

 

The third key to Merisiel is that she is one of the strongest finishes in the game. Many of the characters in Pathfinder have weaknesses when it comes to combat. I would say that Kyra, Seoni, Lem, Harsk, Ezren, Lini, Seelah, and Sajan (the latter two not as much) suffer from various difficulties when trying to end the game against the big baddie. That leaves Merisiel, Valeros, and Amiri as the best fight closers because of their very strong rolls. Of these closers, Merisiel is one of the best. She should always be alone and will usually get a discard boost, the weapon boost, the reveal boost from her Snakeskin armor, a recharge boost from an ally (Black Arrow Ranger is pretty much the best ally in the game and only for Ranged/Dex classes), some item boost, and a double Dex on d12 boost from Erastil. Most of this will be free too since her sneak attack is usually a recharge.

 

As for weaknesses, Merisiel is quite fragile prior to picking up the Inspired Dexterity power feat and a few healing items. Keep in mind Inspired Dexterity works for all Dex checks so it basically makes any blessing in her hand free when she's using it for combat or for barriers/locations that require Dex. Before getting this, It's definitely possible for her to die if you're not careful. She can also be frustrating if you can't draw a weapon which is why I buff her weapon slot first and hand size.

1. Character One: Merisiel the Rogue

Add-On? Yes, you will want Shadow Merisiel at some point. It's a clear upgrade. A * refers to the add-on version.

Primary Stats: Dexterity (D12), Strength (D8) or Wisdom (D8)*

Skill Feats: +4 Dex, +2 Str (vanilla) or +2 Wis*

Suggested Pre-Role Powers: Hand Size (6), Improved Sneak Attack (+1), Greater Sneak Attack (+2) 

Preferred Role: Acrobat

Post-Role Powers: Delay, Inspired Dexterity, Weapon Proficiency, Superior Sneak Attack (+3)

Suggested Card Feats: +1 Weapon, +2 Blessing, +1 Ally, +3 Item, +1 Spell

Key Items: Staff of Minor Healing, Emerald Codex, Scouting Items (Magic Spyglass and Revelation Quill), Snakeskin Tunic

Key Explores: Blessing of Erastil, Black Arrow Ranger