Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous – Guide to Races, Classes

This guide helps you on races, classes for Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous.

Guide to Races, Classes

Races

Aasimar

Aasimar should always take whichever heritage benefits their primary ability scores most (👍👍). The most useful ones will usually be Angelkin for Strength and Charisma, Musetouched for Dexterity and Charisma, or Plumekith for Dexterity and Wisdom.

Dhampir

Dhampir should always take whichever heritage benefits their primary ability scores most (👍👍), unless the dhampir is already a Dexterity/Charisma character, in which case stick with the baseline (👍👍). All of the heritages are useful combinations, but keep in mind that they also all lose the baseline Perception bonus, and Perception is the most important skill in the game.

Dwarves

Dwarves should consider taking the Barrow Dwarf heritage (👍👎) to trade away the situational benefits against Giants, Orcs, and Goblinoids. However, this is 👍👎 and not 👍👍 because this also trades away your Perception bonus, and that’s the overall most important skill in the game. If you have multiple party members with high Perception, this immediately turns into 👍👍.

Elves

Elves should usually stick with the baseline heritage (👍), but if you’ve got party members with high Perception and your elf isn’t a spellcaster, take Loremaster (👍👎). (Only consider Blightborn if you’re a non-spellcaster and don’t mind losing the immunity to annoying sleep effects.)

Gnomes

For a gnome, if you’re not specifically taking the Pyromaniac Heritage already, you should always take the Traveler heritage (👍👍). All the most important enemies in this game are going to be of the Outsider type, not Reptilian Humanoids or Giants, so there’s no reason to keep those specific bonuses when you could get always-applicable speed and Lore bonuses instead.

Halflings

Halflings have an excellent package of baseline abilities and should usually stick with the baseline heritage (👍). However, a combat-build halfling that always wants to go first (such as a charger

or mounted charger) should look at Hasty (👍👎), because Initiative bonuses are delicious.

Half-elves

Half-elves should stick with the baseline heritage (👍👍), and should usually put the free Skill Focus in Perception (👍) because it’s the most important skill in the game. (Kindred-Raised and Dual Heritage are traps; if you want those benefits, take a different race pick that has them to start with.)

Kitsune

Kitsune should always take either the baseline heritage for Dexterity and Charisma (👍👍) or Keen Kitsune for Dexterity and Intelligence (👍👍). Unlike other pick-a-stat-bonus races, they’ve only got a limited set available here.

Oreads

Oreads should always take either the baseline heritage for Strength and Wisdom (👍👍) or Gemsoul for Strength and Charisma (👍👍). Unlike other pick-a-stat-bonus races, they’ve only got a limited set available here.

Orcs

Orcs should usually take the Human-Raised heritage (👍), because outside of specific builds, extra skill points are much more valuable than Orc Ferocity in the long run. The only major case you don’t want to take this pick is if you’re depending on the extra weapon proficiencies from Orc Weapon Familiarity, but you don’t really get anything amazing out of that anyway.

Right now, Orcs get Skilled by default for free. This is almost certainly a bug, since they don’t get that in the tabletop. If this gets fixed, the above strikethrough will apply, but until then you probably just want to stick with the baseline heritage.

Tieflings

Tieflings should always take whichever heritage benefits their primary ability scores most (👍👍). The most useful ones will usually be Beastblood or Spritespawn for Dexterity and Charisma, Faultspawn for Dexterity and Wisdom, Grimspawn for Dexterity and Intelligence, Hungerseed for Strength and Wisdom, or Pitborn for Strength and Charisma.

Classes

Alchemist

Instead of a baseline Alchemist, play one of these:

Alchemist with the Chirurgeon, Grenadier, or Preservation archetype (👍👍). All three of these grant you significant benefits over baseline Alchemist and lose only poison resistance/immunity that you can get back through magic (and for Preservation, Persistent Mutagen, which only kicks in when your mutagen duration is already huge, so it doesn’t matter).

Wizard with the Arcane Bomber archetype (👍). If you only care about bombs and casting (and not the melee/ranged combat capabilities of alchemist), this gets you a baseline alchemist’s bombs progression and full wizard casting progression, plus you can expend spells to buff your bombs. You only get one bomb type, but acid bombs are by far the best ones anyway.

Arcanist

The only reason to stick to baseline Arcanist itself is if you specifically want to use its unique spell preparation style, where you can pick a new set of spells each day that you then cast like a sorcerer. (In the long run, you can get access to a broad array of spells on any spellcasting class via scrolls and wands, so this is less useful than it sounds).

Otherwise, instead of a baseline Arcanist, play a Wizard with the Exploiter Wizard archetype (👍). This lets you cherry-pick all the best stuff from Arcanist, while still getting the Wizard’s faster spell progression and more spells per day.

Barbarian

Instead of a baseline Barbarian, play a Bloodrager with the Primalist archetype (👍👍). This selection performs as well as a Barbarian in combat, gets to cherry-pick the best Barbarian rage powers, and gets all the extra free stuff that Bloodrager has on top of that, including spellcasting (4/9). Don’t feel like actually casting spells? Just grab the Arcane bloodline, which automatically gives you powerful buff spell effects every time you rage without needing to cast them and gives you anti-caster bonus feats.

Cavalier

Cavalier is especially bad. It gets very, very few abilities compared to almost any other class (even the other ones I recommend to switch out in this very guide), and the abilities it does get are generally either weak or extremely limited use. The only thing it’s very good at is mounted charging in combat, but mounted charging is already good enough in general that the extra charge benefits from Cavalier specifically are usually overkill and not worth centering a build around.

Instead of a baseline Cavalier, play one of these:

Hunter, and pick an animal companion big enough to ride (👍👍). You don’t get Tactician, but you do get bonus Teamwork feats you automatically share with your companion, and the bonuses from Animal Focus are better than any of the Cavalier buff/debuff abilities. Plus, spellcasting (6/9).

Inquisitor with the Sacred Huntsmaster archetype, and pick an animal companion big enough to ride (👍👍). You don’t get Tactician, but you do get bonus Teamwork feats you automatically share with your companion, and the Bane and Favored Enemy abilities are much, much better than any of the Cavalier debuff abilities. Plus, spellcasting (6/9) and skill bonuses.

Fighter

Instead of a baseline Fighter, play… almost any other Strength-heavy combat class (👍). You see, Fighter is deceptively bad, because in Pathfinder just having more feats doesn’t actually make you much better at fighting. Sheer fighting power mostly comes from very careful feat selection (which you can cram in on almost any character) and stacking buff effects.

This advice becomes much less important if you know how to make the most of the advanced picks for Weapon Mastery, since those (which were added well after Fighter was initially created in the tabletop game) dramatically increase the power of the class, granting active and passive abilities that bring up the class’ baseline considerably (but that you still probably want to combine with an archetype or multiclassing). But if you know what you’re doing with that, why are you reading this?

Paladin

Instead of a baseline Paladin, play one of these:

Inquisitor with the Judge archetype (👍). You get a smite-like ability that doesn’t depend on the target’s alignment, on top of Inquisitor’s judgment bonuses (which you can share with allies as an aura!) and bane weapon ability. Plus, better Inquisitor casting (6/9). You lose some BAB, but the spell buffs more than make up for it. Keep in mind that Inquisitor spellcasting is Wis-based instead of Cha-based, but if you stick to buff/healing spells, you’ll only ever need the bare minimum (16 Wis).

Warpriest (👍). Instead of smite you have general-purpose weapon buffs that don’t depend on enemy alignments (no need to screw around when facing golems or whatever); Fervor is pretty much a straight better version of lay on hands; and you get bonus feats and miscellaneous powers, plus better spellcasting (6/9) with the ability to self-cast buff spells as swift actions via Fervor. The only thing you’re really missing is auras and the ability to get a companion via Divine Bond, but the spellcasting-related stuff is generally better than both. You lose some BAB, but the spell buffs more than make up for it. Keep in mind that Warpriest spellcasting is Wis-based instead of Cha-based, but if you stick to buff/healing spells, you’ll only ever need the bare minimum (16 Wis).

Ranger

Instead of a baseline Ranger, always pick the Demonslayer archtype (👍👍). Like, seriously, look at the game you’re playing. Do you have to even ask why?

Rogue

Instead of a baseline Rogue, play one of these:

Alchemist with the Vivisectionist archetype (👍). You don’t get free Weapon Finesse or automatic Dexterity to damage, but you do get sneak attack, sneak attack-related talent picks, mutagen (a self-buff with a long duration), and buff-heavy Alchemist spellcasting (6/9).

Bard with the Archeologist archetype (👍). You don’t get free Weapon Finesse, automatic Dexterity to damage, or sneak attack, but you get rogue talents and miscellaneous abilities and a self-buff version of bard song that stacks with normal bard song, plus all that tasty charm/illusion-heavy bard spellcasting (6/9).

Inquisitor with the Sanctified Slayer archetype (👍👍). You don’t get free Weapon Finesse or automatic Dexterity to damage, but you get sneak attack, rogue talents, the inquisitor’s bane weapon ability (which stacks with sneak attack!), inquisitor teamwork feats, and inquisitor skill bonuses and spellcasting (6/9) on top of all that.

For Rogue replacements, if you want to be Dexterity-focused, make sure to take the feat Weapon Finesse. If you don’t plan to use two-weapon fighting, also take either Fencing Grace or Slashing Grace to get Dex to damage (usually Slashing Grace with a high-critical-range light weapon like the kukri will be your best choice for raw damage).

One big disclaimer: If you’re planning to use two-weapon fighting or a two-handed weapon, Rogue is the only way to get Dex to damage… but outside of specific advanced builds, all the buffs and damage bonuses you can get from the other picks here will more than make up for it in the long run.

Slayer

Instead of a baseline Slayer, play an Inquisitor with the Sanctified Slayer archetype (👍). It’s pretty much a straight upgrade on everything Slayer has, with a heap of extra stuff plus spellcasting and all you really lose in the trade is a couple of slayer talents and access to advanced slayer talents. You lose some BAB, but the spell buffs more than make up for it.

By Roadie

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